Cleaver Read online

  My teller comes back with twelve bricks of a thousand each and shoves them in this bag. I feel like I’m robbing the place. Maybe I should’ve.

  “You need anything else, Mr. Cleaver?”

  Paula looks like she’s going to faint and elbows the teller,

  “Ruth! It’s, Mrs. Cleaver,” she openly corrects her. Holy shit, she actually thought I was transitioning into a woman, or perhaps the other way around because her eyes pop even wider as she corrects herself, “Oh wait, I’m sorry, or is it Mr. Cleaver?”

  “Just call me Cleaver. And actually, yeah there is one more thing,” I say as I throw my car keys onto the counter. “I’m leaving my car here. I’m not paying for it anymore.” And I walk off. I hear her trying to say things with words like “paperwork” and “wait a second” but I’m already going out the door with Jeff right behind me.

  As I pull my bike out, I take one last look at that car and think maybe I should’ve set it on fire like the rest of the bullshit, but I just wasn’t quite that cruel, after all, it technically wasn’t mine. But was anything? I mean think about it, are there many high-dollar items you truly own? The car was an example. Let’s say I did have it paid off, it still wasn’t mine. In a way, it sort of belonged to the insurance company and the license bureau. If you didn’t pay them, you weren’t legally allowed to drive it. I guess you still owned it, but it was a three-thousand pound paperweight without those magic documents. And think about your home. When you finally get that son of a bitch paid, it’s definitely not yours. How so, you ask? Try not paying your property taxes for a few years. We’ll see who it belongs to then. Not you.

  So I ride my bike all the way back home ( and in doing so realize how goddamn out of shape I am ) I got a dog running beside me and a lumpy bag draped over my shoulder. I looked like one of the downtown kooks taking his daily catch into the local scrapyard. It could’ve been worse, I could still be driving that car pretending I was someone I wasn’t. But the best part of that bike ride home was taking my time. I slowed down. I enjoyed it, recalling how I used to rely on a bike all through my childhood to get me to the creek to hunt crawdads or down to the store to steal comics. I mean, buy comics. It reminded me of simpler days and ultimately how adulthood was overrated. We were all in a mad rush to get to the next “best thing”. “Can’t wait till I can drive! Can’t wait till I get out of school! Can’t wait till I find that special someone! Can’t wait to marry that special someone! Can’t wait to a have a kid, or two, or sixteen! Can’t wait to get divorced! ( you then go back and rinse and repeat number 3 and 4 as many times as needed, every time you find “the one” ) then it’s, can’t wait to get grandkids! Can’t wait to retire! Can’t wait to die!” And then we do, and life seemed like a flicker. It all went so fast. Probably didn’t help that we were always looking ahead instead of around us. Does anyone really live in the moment though? Or is that just some bullshit saying we made up?

  So the car was history, along with all the electronics inside of it’s commercialized belly. Was this what I was becoming now? Was I trying to rid myself of not just the internet and the news, but every damn thing that was modern? Where was I going to draw this line? Electricity? Was inside plumbing too evil now? Hmmm, well I had taken a shit in the yard a few days ago. I felt like that was partially Jeff’s idea though. Still, maybe I was going down a dark and slippery slope…No, for god’s sake I still had a car. Well, a truck, or an SUV to be even more precise. It was grandad’s. A 1979 Ford Bronco. I’d barely driven it since he passed on. When I got back home that day it took me an hour to get the dust off the thing where it sat in the back of the pole barn. It was actually pretty rad. I learned how to drive in that thing. You could remove the entire back top of it and cruise down the road almost like a convertible. So I went ahead and did that and I took the doors off of it while I was at it. Why? Because doors are overrated. After all it was May and if I was planning on flipping the middle finger at air conditioning, that was the way to do it.

  I quickly remembered just how damn annoying carbureted engines were when I turned the key. Probably spent another half-hour trying to get the thing started. Jeff didn’t seem to mind though. He just sat there in the passenger seat, panting. No judgements, no side eyed glances. I could’ve only imagined the shit I’d be getting from a girlfriend or wife. Them sitting there like “Are we gonna go or not?” “Let’s just take my car.” “Did you check the oil?” Shut the hell up. If it wasn’t obvious why I was single before, then maybe it is now. But anyway, she finally started up.

  Jeff and I went for the second drive that day. Cruised to the gas station, paid cash ( can’t remember the last time I did that ) and then just randomly turned down roads till the sun got heavy on the horizon. I gotta tell you, there wasn’t much going on in my head on that entire drive. I certainly figured there would be, but for once in my life I was driving simply for the joy of driving, and that alone was zen-like. It cleared my head instead of filling it with nonsense. I wasn’t doing what most folks did, driving as fast as you could from point A to point B every-damn-where you went. I felt like the whole of humanity was in one giant race to shave off three seconds of travel time just so they could get home and bury their heads in a TV or a Twitter feed. And they were putting their lives, not to mention, others’ lives in harms way to do it. Was it just me or was nearly everyone on the road an asshole nowadays? It’s like we all forget that a living, breathing person was behind the wheel of the car we honked at and flipped off for not pressing the gas 0.045 seconds after that light changed green. I’m telling you, if the speed limit was raised to 100 everyone would go 120. Where was everyone going in such a rush? The answer was NOWHERE. It all reminds me of that old Disney cartoon Motor Mania. Remember that one? Probably not. It starred Goofy as Mr. Walker, a mild-mannered citizen who wouldn’t hurt a fly. But as soon as he got behind the wheel he became Mr. Wheeler! Motorist! Basically as soon as he turned the key over, he, along with everyone else in any car, became the biggest asshole to run on four wheels. That cartoon was made in the 50’s. So my question from earlier, is it just me or is everyone on the road an asshole nowadays?, was probably the same question I would’ve asked back then. Apparently people had always been that way. It’s interesting to me that all you have to do is pass a written test, drive around the block, through some cones, and you get handed a piece of plastic that allows you to pilot a one ton piece of metal down the highway at 70+, but I digress. So yeah, I drove that truck till dark, and ended up sleeping in it. Why? Because apparently that was the new game I was playing. Sleep in a different spot every night. It’s okay though, it made me feel closer to my grandfather, wherever he was. I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure if I believed in god, but when I thought of that man, I made myself believe. The thought of someone that selfless just expiring and being no more, on any plain of existence, was something that didn’t sit well with me.

  That whole week goes by and I find myself doing things that people only talked about doing on Facebook posts but never actually take the time to do. Hanging my clothes to dry outside, reading ( an actual, physical book ) literally taking time to smell the roses, fishing, and all manner of things outdoors that took a backseat back when I had my eyeballs crammed into the guts of the glass monster in my hand. Things were fading…my urges to get back on social media were fading. My need for a phone or email, fading. My fears of not going back to work, fading. It was all fading into the recesses of my mind. And you know what? I was genuinely happy. Probably for the first time in ages, I donned a smile that came with its own certificate of authenticity. Life was good. It was simple. But I was lying to myself. It was a good lie though, I was actually buying it. Buying the yarn I spun that I was going to stay in this house and on this property and live to see my ninetieth birthday on the twelve thousand dollars in cash I had crammed into the couch cushions. So a dark cloud hovered despite all my mind tricks and reverse psychology…it hovered there, waiting to open up into a downpour that would drown me to dea
th and wash me down river with all the other shattered dreams. But I would come to find out, there was a far larger and much darker cloud looming on the horizon. I just couldn’t see it yet.

  Two weeks had now passed since the cleansing. I am quite sure my place of work has cleaned out my desk and placed a chimpanzee in my chair or maybe even a well-trained parrot to keep up with the monotonous demands of customer service. I was still chuckling to myself every time I thought about leaving the way I had. And it was still the same old reasons that humored me. There was literally no way to get a hold of me. I wasn’t seeing the texts or the messages or the emails that got progressively more passive aggressive with each passing day. And the phone calls were going straight to voicemail. I’m sure by now the voicemail box was full, so not only were the calls being cut short, so was the ability to even leave a message telling me how fired I was. None of it even existed to me because I had no way of hearing it or seeing it. It was like the old adage, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If an employee never comes back to work and they never hear the words ‘you’re fired’, are they fired?…I was probably fired.

  So two weeks to the day of not going back to work, I hear Jeff raising a ruckus out in the drive. I don’t really pay it much mind because I’ve seen him bark at his own farts, but, to his defense, I do hear something. It’s a car. Still, my ass is planted in my seat, still reading. I only pry my head from the pages when I hear my door being pounded upon. I have to be honest, I figured it was Ted. Maybe two weeks was the lead time for forgetting an awkward conversation. I throw open the door, it ain’t Ted.

  “William Cleaver?” The police officer standing on my front porch asks. To be more precise, he was a sheriff, but let’s not split hairs. What is it about the law that makes you want to involuntarily make a run for it when you know you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong? In the nanosecond my mind spent processing his question, my ass had already devised six escape scenarios and one of them involved me stripping down naked. The hope is he’s not gonna want to tackle me and risk getting my dirty, bare dick anywhere near him. It’s above his paygrade ( or was it below his paygrade? ) Instead I opt for a new scenario, the craziest one of all, I answer his question.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, good, so you ARE alive then?”

  I look around. I look at my feet and hands. I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass, but it happened just the same.

  “Looks like it.”

  He sighs. Like the sigh to beat all sighs. The kind of sigh that would punch you in the face if it could manifest physical form. You know the one, you’ve done it.

  “Your work called us. They haven’t seen or heard from you in weeks. Might wanna give them a ring, huh? Let em’ know you’re still standing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay…so you ain’t hurt, being held against your will, or need any medical attention whatsoever?”

  “No.”

  “Alright then. You have a nice day, Mr. Cleaver.”

  And then he got in his car and drove off, leaving me standing there a bit dazed, if I’m being honest. You know, it was kind of touching that my fellow employees took enough concern to report me missing to the police…but on the other hand, it had taken them two solid weeks to do so. I would’ve felt a bit more touched had it been like four days. If I had been dead, Jeff would’ve had me picked to the bones by now. Four days would’ve at least allowed for something to show in the casket, sans feet and hands maybe. I just feel like Jeff would go for the hands and feet first, after all, he was always licking them.

  More days pass. The usual things happen. Reading, taking walks with Jeff, staying up late on some nights, just to watch the stars. What I didn’t do, however, was contact my place of employment. I didn’t call, message, text, or as much as send a smoke signal in their general direction. I was hoping the sheriff took care of all of that.

  The Sick and the Dead

  And then there came that morning. THE morning. The one that started it all…or at least I think it did. I’m lying there round about 7 a.m., drifting in and out of some sort of dazed dream state and then I hear it. The droning. Like an angry swarm of hornets surrounding my windows and doors, slowly creeping in until I jump in a cold sweat, wide awake and eyes popped open in terror. What the hell was that? Jeff is over by the back door, sort of on-point, staring out the glass. He’s whining, but it begins to lead into a low growl that hauntingly mixes into the sound of the ever-growing death-hum that is now shaking everything that isn’t bolted down in my house. I jump up and run to the door amidst the tinking symphony of dishes dancing in my cupboards. Jeff blasts into a barking fit as he and I run into the backyard and point our attentions towards the south. And there, through the trees, I see it. A line of black, blotting out the entire horizon as far as I can see from east to west. Helicopters, huge ones. Dual prop, military types as jet-black as the spots on Jeff’s back. He’s trembling now…and so am I. Together we watch as the menacing flock of metal beast make a bee-line towards us. I can feel the hum of the rotors in my brain now; it’s deafening. The choppers are so close to one another there’s barely an arms reach between the ghost of their blades as they fly in perfect unison right over us and on towards the north. I struggle to find the courage to even spin round and watch them as they disappear into the arms of the opposite horizon. The sound slowly fades, giving way to a humming sting in my ears that I am sure will be there for a few hours. I had never seen anything like that. Sure, I had seen the occasional large chopper go by, maybe two together. And even then the conspiracy theories began whispering inside my head. “Wonder where they’re going? Is some real shit going down?” And I knew deep down it wasn’t, but to see this many at once, in a straight line sweeping the countryside…well, those questions didn’t even need to arise, they were quite redundant.

  As I listen to the sound of the wind and leaves mix with Jeff’s whining, I have an immediate knee-jerk reaction to run to Facebook. Surely everyone is on there freaking out. Maybe someone knows what’s going on. But then I remember, I don’t even have a landline, let alone my smartphone…or a computer. I try calming myself. I take a breath, but I don’t get a clean breath of morning air, no, something else sucks into my lungs. I start coughing like mad, so hard it’s almost giving me cramps in my sides. And then I see it…I even feel it. A light colored dust, peppering down from the skies. It’s raining down everywhere, putting me in mind of the tree blossoms dropping their pollen, covering the cars on the square downtown. I feel like I’m gonna break a rib at this point. I rip my shirt up across my mouth and look down to see Jeff coughing and sneezing, his head covered in the dust from the heavens…or was it hell? The choppers, they had just flown over and now this mystery powder was pelting the landscape. I didn’t believe in coincidences and I wasn’t about to start right then. I jump down and scoop up Jeff and carry him into the house. Doors slam and windows shut as I make the best effort I can to shut out the source of my unending coughing. That task finished, I rip off all my clothes and throw them out the back door and then run to the bathroom. And there I am, in the shower, butt-naked and coughing with a dog down between my legs doing the same. The hot water pours down, washing the powder down the drain and away from our lungs. It takes awhile, maybe ten, fifteen minutes, but we both stop our coughing fits…it all slowly dies down to us taking in wheezing breaths as we both try to make sense of what just happened. I turn off the water and look down to Jeff and say the only thing I can “What the hell was that?” What the hell, indeed.

  I sat there on the edge of the tub and drip-dried over the course of the next hour as Jeff laid down on the rug. I was The Thinker come to life. Naked, elbows on thighs, hand under chin. And thinking, I was. Pondering. Fearing was probably a better word for it. A thousand scenarios were going through my head, none of them good. But at the forefront there was the obvious concern, what the hell had we just breathed in? I didn’t feel sick, well, at least not yet. Were they crop
dusting? Maybe spraying for mosquitos? I knew those things happened around here but this didn’t seem to fit that mold. This was strategic and frightening. And I was pretty sure you didn’t need hundreds of choppers to get tasks like that done. Seemed a tad bit cost ineffective. In the end, I don’t know how long I sat there. It was long enough for Jeff to fall asleep, but that wasn’t saying much. He could fall asleep in forty-five seconds. So it was somewhere between forty-five seconds and two hours, for sake of argument. I finally decide to rise up and walk, fearing for two seconds that maybe I can’t. That the stuff I breathed in is a nerve agent and my legs will go out first. They didn’t. I walk out into the living room and look out the windows, I can still see light remnants of the dust sitting on the leaves in the flower beds and on the sidewalk. It put me in mind of when grandad used to coat the plants with poisoned dust to keep the bugs from chewing them into swiss cheese.

  I spend the next half hour just going around from window to window, observing the powder and then looking to the skies like the paranoid crackhead I was slowly becoming. I keep waiting for the humming and droning to start again. Expecting the choppers to make another pass to make goddamn good and sure every living thing down here got what was coming to it. Whatever that was. At some point Jeff comes out of his after-shower coma. He’s right at my ankles everywhere I go. He obviously knows something is up, because I don’t make a daily habit of looking out every window of my house on rotation. He starts looking out the windows with me, confused as hell like he’s missing something. I would have paid good money right then and there to have the ignorant bliss of a dog. To not be the naked guy standing there, unblinkingly looking at the mystery powder that had to be now coursing through my veins. And from there it just kept building. The paranoia. The anxiety. I remember holding my own piss for hours because I was convinced it would be red when I finally went. I was just going to piss my insides right out and die of some renal failure in the middle of the bathroom floor. I just kept thinking about all the horrifying ways I was going to die. Or how Jeff was going to die. I prayed I would go first, because I wasn’t mentally prepared to witness that.