| Fear |
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It's pretty funny, really how scared a girl can get when you mention the fact that you live less than 5 minutes walking distance from a graveyard. Just that thought of tombstones, and moonlight, wild demonic hockey mask clad hell-raisers carrying machetes makes them jump with fright. Then you point down the road, at the dimly lit path where the shadows of the trees and vines bock out the electric sanctuaries. She jumps, her eyes become alert, maybe she screams, maybe she just starts walking back to the house, whatever happens, she becomes tense, and vulnerable. I guess it was a guy thing, really, that feeling of superiority, of knowledge, of control. I knew what lay up that road; I had been there so many times. I would just laugh, maybe push her towards the graveyard, maybe pick her up and start walking. She would scream again, kick me, tell me that she really didn't want to go. I would turn around, and walk back to my house, where it was safe. Then if I was feeling really like a macho asshole, I would tell her a story or two. Just to let in sink in. When I was younger, I used to listen to the rain falling down the gutter as sort of a drum beat. I would imagine this amorphous blob in the shape of a snowman, trudging down the road from the graveyard down to my house, where it would crawl through the cracks in the floor, slither into my bed and kill me. Its mouth gaped open with razor sharp moldy teeth, beady eyes fixed in a homicidal stare. It knew where I was sleeping, it could see me underneath my blankets, it was coming for me. There I lay, all alone, afraid to call for help, afraid to call out to my parents in the room next door. All alone. At night, strange things come out. If you watch carefully, you can see them. The only true light was sunlight. During the day, they hid. But at night, under the artificial lights, you could see them. Look carefully at the shadows that a street lamp, or a gas lantern cast. Normally there is a steady flickering, or a steady hum to the shadows. But if you notice something different, something not right, you know that something is there. If the wind is blowing, and all the branches in a tree are swaying except for one, something is there. She came that night, a knightess on a shiny horse-bike, her blond hair flowing in the lamplight. Her page followed, riding a rusty 1 speed, eyes questioning. She did little loops and tricks on her bike, but I didn't notice her. I pointed down the darkened path, and she took off on her journey of bravery and chivalry. I looked at her quiet friend with curiosity. Boy scout I am. Overstuffed with more than enough silly campfire stories and superstitions to last 7 lifetimes. Marchers, Fireballs, Obake, crazed madmen's spirits. Dead navy men, phantom dogs, sharks, mountain spirits. When you're 11 years old, at camp without your parents, your imagination tends to get the best of you. Of course that's what they all say, but when the girl scouts pitch camp next door to us, everything changes. Suddenly no one is afraid to brave the unknown, the supernatural, suddenly we are all rough and tough, ready to rumble boys. The #6 bus stopped at the bridge past the intersection of Kalawao and East Manoa. After a 15 minute smoke break the bus driver would start up the engine, and move on. She's sitting across from me gazing out the scratched window, her schoolbag lying next to her. I keep looking at the way the sun comes in, how it makes her hair brown. The Bus strains and clatters, weaving down the road, a blur of steel, glass, air conditioning, and her. She's sitting across from me but only sees the world around her, the world she knows. The red panel in front lights up with a bell as The Bus slowly winds to a halt. I stand up, stare at the yellow and black striped ground, as I descend the yellow streaked steps, onto the black asphalt. As the doors close, I turn to see her face through the window. She smiles, and she is gone. I stand there at the shaded bus stop by the mock orange hedges and look behind me at the rows of gray tombstones. Walking home from the bus stop one day, I took a shortcut through the graveyard like I always did coming home from school. It was getting dark, but I wasn't scared. I looked around at the tombstones, and the gray gravel on the road. I wasn't scared. I paused for a moment to look at the inscriptions: 1991-1992…so young. Some had pictures, some had Kanji. Then I turned toward the path in the hedges that connected to my street. I could hear the crunching gravel beneath my shoes, as I trotted along noisily, but at a calm pace. Then someone shoved me from behind. I turn around to see nothing but tombstones and gravel. Half a J, and I was hearing voices, I swear. Maybe it was stupid, crazy maybe to walk to a graveyard at 2AM after we'd had a couple good hits of some crip. But we weren't scared you know? The rocks by the graveyard was like a hangout, a secret place for us, where else would we go? He's telling me about his two baby girls, and his restaurant in chinatown. He never saw them grow up. Don't you understand? He was a bad father. He didn't provide for his family. He left his beloved wife alone in a cruel world. Strange. I closed my eyes, and opened them again, but no one was there. I could've sworn I heard a man's voice. A basketball came rolling and hit the rock I was sitting on. I had been kissing A for about 15 minutes, and I could taste the smoke on her tongue. I had jus convinced her that just because I wasn't ready for a relationship, it didn't mean I didn't have feelings for her. She wasn't a bad kisser, Trumpet players make good kissers. I looked up and saw J running towards me with a terrified look on his face. "lets get out of here.." We sat on the road by A's house while she talked to some guy in a car who had a crush on her. J was shaking as he lit a cigarette. "I just saw some scary shit." He said. He had seen the lady in an unearthly blue dress levitate toward him from the clear night sky, wearing the face of death. She had spoke to him in his mind. Of what, he wouldn't say. I will always remember his face that night: wide-eyed, lips trembling, white. The valley gets cold at night. Some say it is the spirits that haunt the forest, vengeful spirits that blow their cold intentions on deserving mortals. I am trying to dance with her to a slow song, trying to distract her from the icy stare coming from the corner. A lone figure sits there silent, motionless, and is gone. Her hands are trembling on my shoulder. I give her the jacket she gave me for Christmas. It doesn't help. We went up to Manoa Tantalus 3AM and still buzzing. She had a quiet look on her face as I racked my brain trying to remember her name. When it came, I racked again trying to think of somehting interesting to say. I ended up telling her another story. She smiled, trembled as she looked down the steps at the rows of gravestones. I wondered what I had gotten myself into, as I started walking donw the stairs she followed. "Things would've been different." I wanted to say. "This is not who I am." Too late, for the rest of time, what had been said and done. And so it ends, I start to tell her a ghost story, and she cuts me off. "No, you can tell me later, I have a long drive home." Hmmm that's funny. It was strange how she had a car, and she would give me rides around town. Strange how I went after her in spite, in anger against the female entity, and she embraced me. Funny how she paid attention to the movie we rented and watched at her house with no one home. "There's this really creepy road on the way to my house, so I don't want to hear any scary stories." She's different. There is something about her that I can't quite pin down, something that lingers in her song. If I were a poetic fool, I'd say that she is the blade of grass that stays steadfast in the flowing breeze at night, or that she is the patch of calm water in the storm, but none of this matters. She is gone now, a specter in my mind, just another story. But for some reason this one sticks out. I mean this one is real. Don't get me wrong of course, the other ones were real to, but this one is different. Gone in a faraway place, out of sight, out of mind, out of touch. I walk out into the night, glance down the road, and try to hide a shudder as the cold wind blows across the valley. A deep breath, a long look, and I return home alone. |