The Becoming

When he crossed the street he’d forgotten which house he’d seen the light coming from. There was a flash of panic until he saw the light again to his right. The house was a simple ranch affixed with a small wooden patio. He had to bend over and put his hands on his thighs to stop his heart from pushing it’s way out of his throat and ears. He sought comfort in the unchanging appearance of Grandma’s house and this quieted his heart down. He stood straight up and a bubble of dizziness floated into his head. Fireflies twinkled on the nearby lawns like Christmas lights. Crickets chirped. An unseen car sped by on some near street, it’s tires squealing before fading into the distance. He tried to remember who this house belonged to. Was it the Davis family with the crazy Pitbull that yapped at him when he walked by? Or were they next to this house? He could see hairline cracks of gold seeping through the edges of the window. They must have covered it with a sheet or a blanket. He had heard of people doing this. Grandma said it was dope smokers blinds, but he didn’t know anything about that.

A man shouted and a few other voices came afterwards. It didn’t sound like a fight, yet there was energy behind their unintelligible words. The boy walked up the steps and felt guilty, as if he were looking in on someone changing. People were moving about behind the door, frantic shuffling. Someone laughed, it sounded like a girl. Then someone else said, “Blue is blue and yellow is mellow.”

When he knocked, all went silent.

He knocked again. He could feel the people waiting like beetles when you lift a rock from the earth. He said, “hello, I need help. My grandma can’t breathe and I can’t call 911.”

He put his ear to the door and heard multiple people talking in low tones. “One second, I’m getting dressed,” a woman said. Her voice made the boy’s stomach feel heavy.

Someone came close. The doorknob jiggled. Yellow light blinded the boy. A shadow stood before him. They were his height and now that his vision was coming back he saw it was a girl not much older than him. She was very pretty. “You said your grandma is sick?” she said.

“I-yeah, I can’t get anyone-”

“Hey, don’t I know you?”

“I live across the street, I-”

“Run,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Our phones aren’t working either.” She mouthed the word run.

“Darling, honey, sweetheart, who is that?”

“Nobody, they are leaving.” Blackness rolled over the light. His visibility into the house was narrowly becoming less as the door creaked shut.

“Hold it. Let them in. We were expecting guests. Go ahead.”

The boy could see completely inside. The walls were stained nicotine yellow. There was a large, dusty looking oriental rug dominating the hardwood floor. A television set was sandwiched between two dilapidated non matching couches. The one window he could see was covered by a Detroit Tigers blanket tacked to the walls. Behind the girl the boy could see a man standing in the hallway, half hidden by the partition between the two rooms. He made absolutely no movements. Even when he spoke, “What’s he want. What do you want?” he did not move, it was off putting in the same way he feared the silent calculation of the praying mantis.

“I need help. My grandma can’t breathe.”

“Come in, come in,” the man said, still half hidden. The one hand that was showing flexed rhythmically at the man’s side.

The boy hesitated.

“It’s all right, isn’t it, Anne? Come in and I’ll give your grandma a drive to the hospital. How about you come in and we can talk it over? Huh? Yeah?”

“I don’t know.”

“She will live for another few sixty seconds. Come here and I’ll give you something to food. You must be hungry.”

“No thanks.” The boy backed away, anticipating the first step with his heel. “I better go check on my grandma.”

“Grab him by his tiny arms, Anne!” the man shouted, stepping into full view. He was tall with shiny blonde hair. Behind him a pinkish-gray cord ran from behind his head to the ground and behind the wall where he had been half hiding.

The girl, Anne, slammed the door shut and said, “fuck you.”

A muffled screech erupted from inside followed by a lot of shuffling. The girl was grunting, resisting. The boy spun around so quickly he lost his balance and fell down the three steps onto pebble flecked concrete. His palms took most of the damage, they felt dry and stung like he’d been burned. The boy sighed loudly then pushed himself up. More screaming came from inside. Light flooded his feet, his shadow stood ahead of him. “You can’t go away,” the man said. “That’s very mean.” Footsteps descending. The boy’s legs wobbled underneath him. His breath drew in hot and sat in his stomach the way whisky had the time he’d snuck some from the cupboard above Grandma’s fridge. All his muscles ached. The man was gaining. At one point, the boy felt his shirt stretch tight against his chest. He broke from the minor resistance and stumbled. One leg went backwards and caught something hard. He couldn’t pull away this time. He was forced to stop and stand, one legged in the middle of the street like some psychotic flamingo dance. The boy looked back and saw the man properly for the first time. He knew him. Mr. Dodson, father and husband to a very reclusive family. He knew he’d seen the girl before. He’d passed by her on many of his early afternoon walks while she lay on their front lawn with a book covering her face. Grandma didn’t know much about the Dodsons and because of that she treated them with disdain. “It’s not right to shun your neighbors the way they do. There’s a reason people choose to live in this neighborhood: for the community.”

He couldn’t break free, couldn’t even slip his tennis shoe off in a last ditch effort. His mind told him this wasn’t real. People don’t do this to kids. “No,” the boy shouted. “Stop.”

“Why are you being so loud? Don’t you know people are going to hear you?” Mr. Dodson grabbed the boy by his calf and tanked away what little balance he’d had. Grandma’s house was dark but inviting in its familiarity. The yellow flowers that hung from the porch railing were a milky blue. His window was still open and he saw a rope leading up to it from the grass. He thought of the story of Rapunzel. Blackness came without him knowing it.