Don't Let Them Get You

            

Don't Let Them Get You

By

Phil Vas

        The brothers climbed out of the second story window and sat on the edge of the roof. They listened to the cicadas rattling in the trees and stared down at the lush, jungle-like madness of the back yard. Tall, dense clusters of weeds, leaning every so often with the breeze, dominated nearly every inch of earth. Then there was the fig tree sweeping over the rotten wooden fence into the next yard, and surrounding it like a thorny moat the unchecked entaglement of the rose bush. A narrow path led to a small clearing far back in the rear where two short rows of tomato plants were being grown. Here was the only semblance of order in the entire yard; the boys were forbidden to go anywhere near this area.

            “Sure,” said the older brother, who had just turned eleven, “there are frogs in there, and lizards and snakes too. Big nasty snakes. Boa constrictors. They mostly come out at night and climb up into the trees and wait, and when a cat walks by they drop on it and wrap themselves around it and squeeze and squeeze until it can’t breathe no more. Then when it’s dead they swallow it up in one big bite.”

            “No!” said the younger brother, who was seven years old. He held a small stick in his hand which he’d sharpened by rubbing it at different angles along the pavement. Now he used the stick to dig away at the tar-covered roof. “My teacher said there was no snakes here. Only in the jungle.”

            “Your teacher don’t know. I know because I saw. I came out one night when you were just a baby. I walked out to where the tomatoes are, and I heard a sound. It was like, ssss! I looked up and there it was, hanging out of the neighbor’s tree over there. I tried to run, but before I could move it dropped on me.”

            The younger brother, his name was Anthony, was incredulous. “Then why didn’t you yell for mommy?”

            “Because it wrapped around me before I could say anything. It started to squeeze and I was all out of air and I couldn’t talk.”

            Anthony dug a pebble out of the tar and threw it off the roof as he contemplated. The story seemed to be sinking in.  “How’d you get away?”

            “That snake was a big one, like ten feet long. Had me all wrapped up with my arms down at my sides. I could hardly breathe! Then I saw his face. He came right up to the tip of my nose and went ssss! like he was laughing and opened his mouth up real wide and got ready to swallow me. But then I remembered –”

            “What? Remembered what?!” The kid was wide-eyed now as he listened anxiously to his brother’s latest adventure. He continued to dig pebbles out of the tar, tossing them absently off the roof.

            “I remembered that I had a knife in my pocket. It wasn’t big, but it was sharp. A Swiss Army knife. So I opened it with one hand and then I jammed it hard as I could into the snake’s belly. He made a noise like sss-uhh! and then unwrapped himself and slinked away.”

            A crow cawed. The younger brother gazed out into the back yard, mouth agape, fear and wonderment playing over his face. He tossed another pebble off the roof and the brothers heard a loud “Ouch!” They peered below and saw their Aunt Carlotta rubbing the top of her head. There was a pained, aggravated expression on her face.

            “Who threw that? Are you being bad? You better get down. It’s dangerous up there.”

            “Aw, come on!” whined the older one.

            “Sal, you get down here or I’m gonna tell your mother when she gets back.”

            Sal smirked mischievously at his aunt. She was plump, white-haired, simple, forever shuffling about in a pale blue house dress and worn-out slippers. He did not take the woman all that seriously. Still, he did not wish to hear it from his mother when she returned.

            “Let’s go,” he said, “its boring up here anyway.”

            They climbed back inside through their cousin’s bedroom window. Their cousin’s name was Vito. He was a Vietnam War veteran. The brothers knew little about him besides the fact that he had not been well ever since returning from the war. Their mother had once said that Vito hadn’t been all that well before the war, either. Recently, while riding the bus, he’d attempted to strangle an elderly woman with her own scarf. Before that he’d smashed the living room mirror, claiming that it was two-way. Aunt Carlotta said he only got that way when he didn’t take his medicine. The boys had been given strict orders by their mother to stay far away from cousin Vito.

            The bedroom was dark save for what little sunlight slipped in through the two windows facing the yard. On the floor beside a bare mattress the boys saw a yellowed newspaper and a souvenir ashtray from Florida. Scooter’s unchanged litter box gave the place an ammonia-like stench. The walls were bare. Cousin Vito had become something of a drifter as of late, hadn’t been seen in weeks, so the brothers felt no immediate sense of danger; still, as a precautionary measure the light remained off, and they tip-toed around as stealthily as possible. On the mattress lay Vito’s acoustic guitar. Seeing it made Sal think of the time in Prospect Park with his father, when he’d run off to explore and spotted his cousin on the far side of a brook. He was sitting on the grass, strumming a song. Vito had waved him over, but the boy could not find a way across. When he ran back to tell his father, Sal was told not to worry about Cousin Vito, to leave him be. He remembered now the vague sense of guilt he felt at not returning to that brook....

            His thoughts were interrupted by Anthony, who came creeping up behind him giggling wickedly. In his hand was a copy of the adult magazine High Society.

            “Where’d you find that?”

            “In the closet.”

            “Let’s have a look.”

            Pushing the guitar aside, the brothers sat down on the mattress and began thumbing through the magazine.

            “Damn, most of these pages are stuck together!” went Sal.  “Stupid cat must’ve pissed on them.”

            They settled upon a spread entitled “Office Antics.” It opens with a shot of the impossibly sexy female business executive: raven hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, big dark-framed eyeglasses, moist red lips, long red fingernails, a smartly conservative business suit of navy blue with white pinstripes. She is seated behind a wooden desk, pencil in hand, the eraser end gently touching her teeth as she contemplates the document on her otherwise empty desktop.

            Enter lackey. A strapping suntanned surfer type, only made up to appear awkward and nerdy in ill-fitting middle management attire, pocket-protector and thick-lensed, old-fashioned eyeglasses. His expression is fearful, apologetic, as he brings his boss her morning coffee.

            The exec is now spread-eagle on the edge of her desk (no panties) and with a stern authoritative face pointing to her raven crotch. Lackey knows the drill. He drops to his knees and gets to work. With each ensuing shot the couple wear less clothes, until both are completely naked. Eyes closed, moist lips forming the oohs and aahs of fiery passion, they run the gamut of positions upon the desktop. With one catch. There is no penetration of any kind. Not once do tongue and genital meet. Bone-dry poses, all. The exec and her lackey have engaged in the safest of sex.

            The brothers, however, enthralled as they were by the brunette’s exceptional anatomy, did not notice that little detail.

            “Ever see one of those before?” Sal asked slyly.

            Anthony shook his head. “Looks like roast beef,” he said dreamily.

            That was when Aunt Carlotta called from downstairs. Lunch was ready. Anthony jumped up from the bed, sprinted over to the closet and flung the magazine inside as if it were on fire. Laughing at his panic, Sal smacked his little brother on the back of the head as they exited the bedroom. Anthony halted and turned around slowly. His face was grim. The sharpened stick was in his hand. That settled matters for the time being. The brothers proceeded down the creaking stairs in silence.

            The first thing they saw was the blasted mirror. No one had yet figured out how to loosen its cement grip and so there it remained on the living room wall, partially masked by black electrical tape, a testament to Vito’s increasingly frequent paranoid rages. A few feet below ground level, the room was cool and dim. There was an old cat-scratched couch, a black-and-white television on a stand, some busted armchairs. The shades were drawn. A thick gray pipe ran along the ceiling for the entire length of the house. Leaping from the stairs, Sal gripped the pipe, hung there a few seconds, and began to swing.

            “Hey! Get offa there! I’m gonna tell your mother when she gets back!” yelled Aunt Carlotta.

            The snickering boys headed to the kitchen, a big room of poor light, peeling walls and cracked linoleum. Bologna and American cheese sandwiches, onion and garlic flavored potato chips, and plastic cups of orange soda were waiting on the table. Anthony placed some chips inside his sandwich and dipped it into his cup before taking a bite. Sal cleared his plate in under five minutes. He let loose a monstrous burp.

            “Anything new in the junk drawer?” he asked.

            Carlotta was busy peeling potatoes for tonight’s dinner. “Nothing new,” she muttered.

            He walked over to the kitchen counter, beside where his aunt was standing in her faded blue house dress, and slid open one of the drawers. Inside was a burial ground for discarded household gadgets, the things people have no use for but are afraid to throw away for fear they may someday come in handy. There were spools of thread and lengths of thin white string tangled about corkscrews and keyrings and locks with combinations long forgotten; there were little toy soldiers and cowboys and Indians mingling with empty lighters, dried-out pens and broken pencils; there was a Saint Christopher magnet for the dashboard, guitar picks, a Mickey Mouse Pez dispenser. Various nails and nuts and bolts clang together as Sal rummaged through the mess. After ten or fifteen minutes something finally caught his eye. 

            “What’s this?” He held up Cousin Vito’s shining tuning fork.

            “Eh...for music,” said his aunt. “You tap it against things and then you listen to the sound it makes.”

            He rapped the counter a few times, expecting beautiful music to resound throughout the rundown kitchen. “Don’t work,” he grumbled.

            “Do it once, soft, then put it up against your ear.”

            Sal followed his aunt’s instructions. “Oohh, I hear it!” he yelled, and proceeded to dash around the house, tapping the fork against as many different objects as he could find - including his little brother’s skull.

            “I hear music,” said Anthony suddenly.

            “That’s this,” went Sal holding up his new toy, “it made music in your head!”

            “No, I hear guitars,” the boy said in full seriousness, sitting upright in his chair, his head craned toward the stairs.

            Aunt Carlotta stopped peeling potatoes and turned around with a slightly alarmed expression on her round, wrinkled face. All three remained silent for a full minute, listening. Presently the bells and tinkling repetitive melodies of an ice-cream truck could be heard outside the house. There was a collective sigh of relief.

            “It’s only Mr. Softee,” smiled Carlotta.

            “LOOK!” Anthony yelled.

            Creeping stealthily through the back door (which Carlotta kept open on pleasant days) was a huge gray and black alley cat. It rushed over to Scooter’s food bowl and greedily gobbled down a few kernels. The old woman snatched her broom from behind a white closet and quickly shuffled over, swinging it wildly and yelling “Get! Get!” The cat was brave until it received a hard swat in the rump, which prompted a angry hiss as the animal retreated into the back yard.

            “That was a giant,” said Sal. “You know he don’t have to worry about getting gobbled up by snakes back there. He’ll just bite them in half with his fangs.”

            “There are no snakes,” the boys’ aunt smiled, sliding her broom behind the closet.

            “See!” went Anthony. “I told you!”

            “There are too snakes! Big ones! I saw!”

            Carlotta just laughed quietly to herself and continued peeling her potatoes.

            Sal grew frustrated. He knew that the only snakes were in his head. Still, he did not like getting caught in a lie, and resented his aunt for exposing him. The boy was determined not to lose face.

            “I’ll show you,” he yelled. “I’ll catch one and then you’ll both feel stupid!” He stormed out of the kitchen and into the back yard.

            The June sun was near its peak. An airplane soared through the vast blue overhead, a light breeze gently rustled the fig tree leaves. The scents of basil and mint grew stronger as Sal walked slowly down the narrow dirt path, flies buzzing around him, sparrows chirping. The boy kicked a stone. He’d already forgotten his impossible vow to capture a serpent, yet his rotten mood remained. Once at the back of the yard he crouched down by the tomato vines and held a heavy green unripe tomato in his hand. He considered ripping them all from their vines -

            “Find anything yet?” It was Anthony. He was enjoying a Fudgsicle. He caught the jealousy in his big brother’s eyes. “There’s one for you in the freezer,” he said.

            “I don’t want nothing,” Sal grumbled, looking away. Then, after a pause, “I saw one - an anaconda, biggest of them all - but it was on the other side of the fence. I’m gonna set a trap for it.”

            Anthony was wise to his brother’s tales by now, but without really thinking about it, decided to play along. “Need any help? I got this.” He pulled the sharpened stick from his pocket.

            “We gotta dig a hole and put pointy sticks like that one all sticking up on the bottom.” Sal’s mood was improving. “Then we gotta camouflage the top so the snake don’t see, and when he crawls by he’ll fall right in.”

            “Cool!”

            The mission began. First they needed the necessary tools. A rusty old shovel leaned against the outer wall by the back door - that part was easy. The challenge came with sharpening the sticks. They couldn’t rub them against the pavement as Anthony had done earlier that morning - that would take forever. They needed knives. But Aunt Carlotta was still in the kitchen peeling her potatoes. The boys devised a plan.

            Anthony ran into the house - directly into the bathroom - screaming that there was a giant splinter in his pinky. With incredible speed for her bulk, Carlotta flew into the bathroom to attend to the crying child. That’s when Sal slipped into the kitchen, lifted two large steak knives from the utensil drawer, and then slipped back out into the yard, unseen. Anthony came strutting out a few minutes later, a bandage wrapped around his little finger, a grin stretched across his tear-streaked face. Mission accomplished.

            In silence they toiled as the afternoon wore on - digging, gathering sticks, sharpening. Before long they had a rectangular pit of approximately two feet in length, one in width, one in depth. At the bottom of this pit were planted two rows of finely sharpened sticks, each about six inches long, spaced two inches apart. The brothers now were working diligently on the third and final row, when Sal decided to speak.

            “Think Mom’ll bring us back any toys?”

            “I hope so,” said Anthony.

            “Whatta you want?”

            “An action figure.”

            “Star Wars or G.I. Joe?”

            “Star Wars.”

            “G.I. Joe is better,” said Sal. “They move better, and they come with more weapons.”

            He waited some time for a retort, but none was offered. Convinced that he was receiving the dreaded Silent Treatment, Sal glanced over at Anthony, prepared to give him a poke in the leg. That was when he noticed that his little brother had stopped what he was doing and was now staring fixedly at the wooden fence before him. His face was pale and his lips parted as if to speak, but he appeared unable to utter a word.

            At first Sal could see nothing but some vines, a spider’s web, a line of ants trooping over the rotten wood. But soon the boy’s vision adjusted to the shadowy darkness that existed between the slats, on the other side of the fence. What he saw there made him gasp as he tumbled back over the moist mound of earth piled behind him.

            Eyes. Not serpent’s eyes, but brown, deep-set, intelligent.

            Man’s eyes.

            The boys remained frozen, mesmerized, as the body rose and with effortless grace vaulted the fence to land before them.

            “Well, aren’t you gonna say hello?”

            Cousin Vito stood about six feet tall, but to the boys now he appeared a giant, towering high above the fig tree with a head of disheveled brown hair that seemed to scrape against the big blue sky. He was lanky in torn jeans, red white and blue Pro-Keds, and a pink button-down shirt that was tied into a knot just above his navel. The brothers were too dumbfounded to speak. After a moment Vito crouched down before them. A bitter, ironical smile crossed his bearded face.

            “Sal...Anthony.” He held out his hand, but the boys did not move.

            “Come on, shake,” he said with a hint of agitation.  

            Sal went first; his little brother followed reluctantly.

            “Good. Just like little gentlemen. Not that I would know....” He stared into the distance. Meanwhile, Sal stealthily concealed the two steak knives in the mound of soil by his feet. Then he considered making a run for it. He glanced at Anthony to see if he was up to it, but the kid was sitting there motionless, lost in his cousin’s faraway eyes. 

            “So what are you guys constructing here?” Vito suddenly wanted to know.

            “A trap,” went Sal.

            “A trap for what?”

            “Snakes.”

            Their cousin grinned as he pressed his palm down upon the spikes lining the bottom of the pit. Pulling one of the sticks up and holding it before the boys’ faces he asked, “Do you know what these are called?”

            Silence.

            “Well, what are they?” he demanded. “If you use them you should know what they are, shouldn’t you?”

            “Darts?” guessed Sal.

            “They’re called punji sticks,” said Vito, his voice now small and sad. “The Vietnamese used to make traps just like this one, only a lot bigger, when we were in their country to save them from communism.” He snorted derisively. “They used to smear shit - excuse me, excrement - they used to smear excrement on those punji sticks so the American soldiers would get infections after they were stuck.... That’s why little boys shouldn’t set traps! Someone could get hurt!” He threw the stick over the fence. “I’m sorry. I get a little...sensitive sometimes. He chuckled. “That’s what your mom called it when she told my mom not to let you guys see me anymore. She didn’t know I heard her. She didn’t know that my powers are very far-reaching. That I’m everywhere. Maybe you don’t believe me?”

            The boys were still, silent.

            “Well,” he smiled, “I happen to know that you were in my room today looking at dirty pictures.” He paused, letting the revelation sink in. Anthony was just about ready to cry. “It’s OK,” went Vito warmly, scratching his bearded cheek, “We gotta have a little fun sometimes, right? After all, I’m the crazy one, not you. Oh, that’s no big secret. Actually, it’s a common fallacy that crazy people don’t realize they’re crazy, when in fact, most nuts are well aware that their minds aren’t right long before anyone else has the slightest suspicion. Of course I’m talking about people who go insane over a period of time, not those who are born picking their noses and babbling into a plastic cup. Me, I knew a long time ago. That’s why I went off to the war. Do you think I planned on coming back? Ha! No way, man. I figured I’d get my guts blown out and everyone would remember me as a kindhearted fellow who died in service to his country. A romantic ending, right? Boy, did that plan go wrong....” He inspected his fingernails for a minute or so.

            “Don’t misunderstand me,” he sighed finally. “I am very much dead now. My heart may be pumping, my muscles still function, I still burp and fart and breathe. But inside I’m lifeless, my soul is all dried-up. You know, it’s funny, but I can remember the exact day, the exact minute even, that it bit the dust. Would you like to hear? What a question. Why would two young boys want to hear their crazy cousin talk about the death of his soul? Well, sorry, but I’m not giving you much of a choice in the matter. Stop fidgeting Anthony. Stop fidgeting! Good. Now - ” Vito settled down cross-legged on the dirt. “Now Sal, do you know where Da Nang Province is? Didn’t think so. Da Nang is in Vietnam. It’s very green and pretty and when you walk along the roads little lizards run across your feet. It really is a very nice place. Well, we - that is myself and a truckload of other soldiers - we were sent to a quiet little village in Da Nang to make sure there were no bad guys, no communists, hiding there, or storing weapons, or doing any of the other sneaky things that communists are known to do. The only problem was that in Vietnam it was always hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. The bad guys could be wrinkled old ladies, or housewives, or even little girls and boys like you. I guess the same goes for life....” Vito reflected for a moment as the brothers sat nervously, yet eagerly, listening. “Life is war, really. You never know who the enemy is until it’s too late. Until they’ve ripped you off, or locked you up, or made you into a fool.” He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, massaged his temples. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to continue.

            Cousin Vito opened his bloodshot eyes. “I had a friend. A very good friend. His name was Ketchum. John Ketchum from Oak Park, Illinois. We kept each other sane (well, I kept him sane) and when we weren’t doing that we were keeping each other from getting killed. (You wouldn’t believe how many ways there are to die in the jungle.) John was the most kind-hearted person I’ve ever known. All you had to do was look into his eyes - they were very light, a bluish-gray color - to know that he was a saint through and through. Why, on the day...on the day he....” Vito ran a dirty pink sleeve across his nose. “One day, after I’d thrown my rations into the river (the gooks had somehow poisoned them), after I’d done that he was kind enough to split his own rations with me. That was the man John Ketchum was. That was the heart he had. Well, we were in our quiet little village in Da Nang looking for “Communist Activity” as they called it, but everything was...mellow. I even stopped to play with some children, two little boys and a little girl, crouching in the sand. At first I couldn’t tell what they were playing, but when I got closer I saw that there was a scorpion in the sand. It was half-crushed, dying, and they were taking turns poking it with a stick. The scorpion would sometimes grab the stick with one of its pincers, and it would hold on so tight that its whole body would be raised right off the ground. I remember thinking how strong that scorpion was, to be holding on so tightly, even as it was so close to death. Then it began to rain, and I looked up to feel the water on my face. For some reason at that moment I wondered where John was. And then I heard the first shots. They hit a black guy from Tennessee, blew the back of his head right off. It was an ambush. Bullets just came pouring out of the jungle, couldn’t really tell from where. For a few seconds I just stood there. The children were gone and I was wondering if they’d run away after the first rounds were fired or just before that, when it began to rain. That was when I realized that it isn’t all the gunshots and explosions that are so terrible in war. Those things are real, you know what they are, what they bring. There’s comfort in that. It’s the silence, the great terrible silence of the jungle, that’s where the horror is. Before the war I used to like to just lie on my bed and stare up at the ceiling and think. I enjoyed quiet, I relished it. Now I can’t stand it.... What was I talking about?”

            “The village,” Anthony whispered.

            “Yes, the village. Well, I was standing there thinking those things when suddenly I was thrown to the ground. It was John. He said, ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ I just smiled. I believe he knew what it meant. Now all we had to do was get back to the truck, about a quarter mile up the road. It was pretty hairy, but we made it. Just in time too, as it was beginning to pull away. Some soldiers held out their hands and were pulling us up, and just then I heard John groan as if he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him, and he fell off the truck. He’d been shot...in the back. They wouldn’t stop for him, said it was too dangerous. I watched him crawling in the sand, getting smaller and smaller as we retreated. He died that day, John Ketchum from Oak Park, Illinois. He died, and I died too. Bit the dust. The end.”

            Vito hung his head in mournful silence as a car horn blared impatiently out front. Sal glanced over at his little brother. He still sat wide-eyed, only fidgeting more now that the story was over. He seemed eager to stand and stretch his muscles, but fearful of enraging his volatile cousin.

            Neither boy thought of running.

            When he raised his head again there was an expression of amused self-mockery on Vito’s weathered face, as if he had just realized that he’d confessed his innermost feelings to two children. His expression changed, however, upon glancing at Anthony and noticing what the young boy clutched in his left hand.

            “What are you doing with that punji stick?”

            “No...nothing.” 

            “Were you going to kill me? Put me out of my misery?”       

             Anthony shook his head; his lower lip began to quiver.

            “Give me it,” demanded Vito, snatching the stick from Anthony’s hand. “Now come here.” He moved into a shadowy spot behind the rose bush, alongside the rotten old fence.

            “Both of you!”

            Anthony shot a glance at his older brother, as if to seek guidance, but Sal only raised his eyebrows helplessly before rising and moving reluctantly towards the darkened recess. Soon all three were crouching together in the cool damp shade.

            “See this?” whispered Vito, his eyes gleaming as he held the punji stick in front of the frightened boys’ faces.  

            “Watch.”

            There was a large spider web stretched across one of the corners of the wooden fence. Using the stick, Vito gently prodded the outer edge of the web. As the three watched, a hungry wood spider, alerted by the vibrations, came darting out of its lair.

            “You see,” said Vito, “even the spider, deadliest of all the insects, even he can be fooled. Remember that.”

            Just then the brothers heard their names being called. In one swift motion Cousin Vito scaled the fence, and in a bound was gone.

                       

            Their mother was sitting at the kitchen table. They ran over and bombarded her with hugs and kisses.

            “These two give you any trouble?” she asked.

            “No,” went Carlotta, “no trouble at all.”

            And so the boys received their gifts: two brand new G.I. Joe action figures complete with gas masks, flame throwers, and the latest automatic weapons.

            “Well,” said their mother, “just what you wanted, right?”

            The brothers grinned, said thank you five or six times, and then proceeded to savagely tear open their presents.

* This story was originally published in Rumble Magazine