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
