“I don’t care what new huge rock it is. Would you please slow down Oz?”
“C’mon, Dad, you know that don’t work. Just move faster.”
Me and this old man had no conflict like our difference in tempo. I mean, I get it for sure. This dad was a heavyweight wrestler in high school, so not really used to cardio. The other one, though, a real track star born and bred. Not that it mattered anymore. I knew just as much as Ricky did. We wouldn’t be running any trails again. My real dad (by title and biology) stuck with me through the move to New Jersey as expected, and Ricky well… he’d take the beatings dealt out by the sun back down in Florida before coming with us.
I suppose it hadn’t bothered me as much as dad. He felt like his care wasn’t enough for him to stay. But I saw some of what Rick saw, those gorgeous trails with the winding hills. Of course, I also happened to see the gang of bigot sandwiches that gave ’em more bruises than Rocky did Apollo. But that hadn’t mattered for him like his home trails did.
“Just saying, looking over the hills would be much more beautiful than up at em!”.
“Oh yeah kiddo? Well look at this,” he says shoving my sweat stained shirt over my eyes.
“Wha- ah- you D head!” I struggle getting the odor and moisture filled shirt off my head.
I heard his steps kick into this sort of overdrive. He really was going for it. Trying to beat me like Ricky does (did). Dad could beat me on any mat, but he hadn’t beat me on trails since I was four. Though he’s never lost merit through the years, and for the short span he tried running with Rick, I thought he just might. Dad was a honorable man, quite sensitive, but the kindest man I’ll likely ever know. If it wasn’t for me, maybe he’d kept on facing the slurs head on with Ricky in Florida. But with the direction of obscenities switching from him to me as I grew past the age of “Oh two dads? That’s cool!” into saying my dads are this or that and will judged by the great boogieman upstairs, I understood.
I shared dad’s resentment for Rick, but not as much as I felt for the cult he faced day to day. Rick simply stood his ground, and dad receded for the sake of his son. I manage to pull the white shirt off my thin body, as its quicker than unsticking it from my forehead and sprinting off. Within 15 seconds I overtook his lead with ease and even found some time to boast. I continue on in a backpedal.
“Oh c’mon old man, you really gonna take this view?” I lift up one foot while hopping backwards on my other and carelessly wave it in his face.
“How is it? The smell I me-AH!” With my partial balance, I hit a rock while going uphill backwards. I begin to tumble backwards with my equilibrium on the point of no return.
“Goodness kid!” Dad caught me by the ankle I shoved in his face. He had a way of saving me through my indiscressions.
“There won’t be no view for you today with all this. The sun is setting anyway. C’mon, Ozzie!”
I didn’t get much sleep in Jersey, no matter how much I ran throughout the day. I haven’t been very excited for school, actually more anxious than not. Me and Dad had made friends, but they were all mostly grown and over in Ocean Grove, not other 14 year olds going to school. And, to be honest, I don’t really know whatever puberty actually means, but I think I feel it now.
Anywhere that wasn’t on the trails or with Dad was terribly anxiety inducing for me. Tonight was the night I needed as much as rest as physically possible, but now it’s pushing 2AM, and I am wide awake. My body felt tense, and I hadn’t felt the need to get wink at all. I also hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning or had water since before the run. My body now lay almost entirely still in contrast to my mind, which was in every place at one but fixated on the creak in between my closet doors.
My white shirt blurred in the dim shadows. It almost appeared to be swaying back and forth and simultaneously swaying vertically as well. It looked as if it was warping to the top and bottom of the closet gradually. But as I watched only a few
minutes later, the movement ceased entirely, and it stayed at the top. As it sat still, I could almost see something else, an outline around the shirt. Like a ball? No, it had small crevices on the sides. Now that I looked closer, the white had shortened and was now quite small and presented itself as two crescents inside another darker outline.
Almost as if the crevices were temples of an upside distorted head. Of course, I was being delusional, so I lay to my side and channeled it out trying to feel a bit more tired. But the sight lingered farther in my mind and reached into my gut. A more sinister
feeling accompanied by a sickly realization. That white shirt, my only white shirt I kept in the move, was in the hamper. I would like to think maybe I forgot I washed it already, or maybe Dad had but it was already nine when we arrived home, and he went straight to bed.
I’ll take a peek once more to reassure myself, I thought. But as I turned around, the closet was now wide open without a hint of a figure or a white shirt to be seen. My heart began to race, as I heard a rustling. From the edge of my bed I saw it: two crescents for eyes beaming back at me. As I looked at them, they grew larger, and I witnessed this figure grow to the roof and back down again and then protrude its leering eyes back into me out its sockets.
As it began to reach further to me, I felt an inability to thrust myself away or wrestle my way onto the floor. Its eyes reached me, they blinked, then rushed into me, as I closed my eyes. Just as they did, I could move once more and I felt a hand grip me closer, a
firm endearing grip. I opened my eyes to a two familiar faces.
“Thank goodness you’re awake, kiddo. That was a hell of a tumble you took up there.”
