That Would Be Me (dot net)

(I have written short stories for as long as I can remember. They run from the personal to the surreal, from fantasy to horror, from satire to silliness. This is the first of many that I intend to post here. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think.)

(©2008 - do not reproduce in any form without express permission from the author.)

STEALING TIME
by Geoff Hoff

The box was big, and she made me help her carry it into the kitchen. George didn’t have to help because of his thing, so he just watched, lucky guy. He always gets out of stuff. I wanted to see what it was, but she told us to get out. “Go, go, go,” she said when I balked. I left and George clumped out behind me. I heard her tear the box open and grunt when she took it out of the box. I smiled, then, because she didn’t ask me to help and it was hard for her, too.

In the living room I was trying to decide where to go and turned to see George peeking into the kitchen. “George, she’s gonna holler at me if you don’t get away from there!” He waved me over and I guess I got like that cat mom always talks about and tiptoed over to him and bent around to see. She was plugging it in. It was just a big metal box, black, with a switch on the front and two lights over that.

“I know you guys are peeking,” she said as she brushed that funny piece of hair that always falls down in her face back up. We both stood up straight and were about to run, well, I would have run, George would have clumped. “I just want you to know that when this light is on…” she said, but we weren’t looking in, we were about to run. “You can look.” We both slowly poked our faces around the doorway and looked in. “When this light is on,” she said, pointing to the machine. One of the lights was shining blue, but she was pointing to the other light, the one that was off, “you have to stay out of the room.”

George and I looked at each other. I know we were both thinking the same thing. “I mean it,” she said, and our smiles got bigger. “Now, shoo.” We backed away from the door. We both really wanted to see what would happen when she turned the other light on. We could just see her lean over and turn the switch on, then the light in the living room went dark and hummed for a minute. We both looked back to the kitchen, but the doorway was all wavy. George screamed and clumped out down the hall to our bedroom. I just stood there and stared at the wavy air in the door way. When I walked closer, it started to feel like it was tickling my nose and hair, and I don’t like to be tickled at all, so I went back, but I still just stayed there. After about a minute, the light in the living room got really bright for a minute, then the wavy stuff disappeared, and I could smell the most wonderful food I ever smelled in our house.

Mom usually just throws stuff into the microwave and makes us eat while she’s getting ready for her night-time job. George’s thing costs us a lot of money, and she has to work two jobs, I guess. “George,” I said. I could hear him snuffling in the bedroom. “George, come here.” “No,” he said. “George, she made dinner.”

I heard our bedroom door open just as mom came out of the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready, guys,” she said. She had on an apron. I didn’t even know she had one of those. I slowly went up to the kitchen door, but my nose and hair didn’t tickle, so I went through it. The table was set. With dishes, and glasses, and everything. There were pots and bowls in the dish drainer all washed and cleaned, and a pot roast on the table all steamy and beautiful. George must have gotten over his scardey-cats because he was already clumping over to his chair. “It’s a magic cooker,” he said. “No, dear,” mom said to him. “It just helps me find the time to cook. I always loved to cook, you know.”

While we ate, there was string beans and even a salad and potatoes, I kept looking up at mom and she was staring at us and smiling. It made me feel weird, but the food was good. “Do you have to go to work tonight?” I asked her. She nodded and smiled again. “There’s time,” she said. “You guys clean up.” “Oh, mom.” “I cooked, you clean up.” She smiled again, and got up to put the food away, then went over to the black box. It was on the counter, now. It had a handle on the top, and she unplugged it, and picked it up by the handle. It was really heavy, but she didn’t ask me for help, so I just watched as she lugged it out the room. “Come on, George. I’ll wash.”

While I was getting the sink all hot and soapy, the lights got dark and hummed for a minute, and George got scared, but they went back and we started washing. I was still doing glasses and hadn’t even gotten to the silverware when the lights got bright for a little and then back to normal. Then I heard mom come out of the bathroom and down the hall. “I’m going. Be good,” she said, and when we turned around, George screamed a little. Mom was beautiful. Her hair was all neat and she had make-up on and she smelled like roses. “You’re beautiful,” George said. “I thought you were going to work.” “I am, honey.” And she came over and kissed and hugged us both, then turned and left.

I looked at George and we both ran to her bathroom. Well, George clumped. Her bathroom was in the back of her bedroom, and as soon as we got into the bedroom, we could smell sweet steamy like she had taken a bubble bath. Her room was all neat and tidy, which it never was. The bathroom door was locked. I didn’t even know it had a lock. I guess the black thing was in there and she really didn’t want us to touch it.

That night, we watched television and didn’t even argue or throw pillows around. I know I was trying to figure out what the box was, and I guess George was, too. Once George got up to go to the bathroom, and I heard him stop to look into Mom’s room. With his thing, you can always tell where he is. It makes it easy to take care of him, sometimes. He didn’t go in, just clumped on down to the bathroom.

We were already in bed when she got home that night. We usually are. Mostly I wouldn’t wake up, but sometimes I can hear her coming in, and then would just turn over and go back to sleep. I think sometimes she opens our door and watches us for a little while, because sometimes I wake up when the door closes. That night, I heard her come in, and then the night light on the wall near George’s bed, it’s shaped like a duck, he needs it or he’ll cry at night, got really dim for a moment. I knew George was asleep, because he would have whimpered if he was awake and he didn’t. I stayed awake staring at the duck light waiting for it to get bright. It was orangy and made the wall behind it glow a little. I was staring at it so hard, I couldn’t see anything else. After a long time, it got bright again. I was staring at it so long, I almost fell asleep, so when it got bright, I think I yelped a little. George moved and said “Huh?” and I told him to go back to sleep. He said, “No,” but I heard him turn over and snore a little. He doesn’t really snore, just breathes a little loudly when he’s asleep.

I must have fallen asleep, too, because the vacuum running in the living room woke me up. I listened to it for a while, then got up and went out there. “Hi, sweety,” mom said. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.” She was vacuuming the living room which she only did when we were going to have company, which we almost never did because she was always too tired. The table was all neat. Everything was shiny like she had dusted. Even our toys were put away.

“What are you doing, Mom?” She turned the vacuum off and wrapped the cord around the handle. “Cleaning. I never seemed to find the time to do that.” She smiled at me. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s put you back to bed.” I don’t think she went to bed all night because when we got up, all the laundry was washed and ironed and folded, and while we were eating breakfast, she put all our stuff in our dressers.

Our house changed after that. We always had clean clothes and when we got home from school, our room was always neat. We had good food every night and Mom always ate with us. She brought the box with her to the kitchen as soon as she got home from her daytime job and George would hide in the bedroom and I would watch the doorway get all wavy. She always wore makeup now, which she almost never did before. I kept waiting for her to slip and forget to lock her bathroom so I could sneak in and look at the box, but she never did. She gave a couple of parties that month. One for us, and she baked all sorts of cakes and brownies and cookies, and invited all of our friends with home made invitations. She made all that at night, after she came home from her night time job, and the duck light got dim and got bright. For a couple of nights before the party, I would always go to sleep smelling something sweet baking. I had a lot of fun, at the party, but George kept looking at the kitchen doorway. I think he was afraid she would turn on the box when everyone was there.

The other party was for her, and we spent the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa.

That was fun, too, even though the bedroom was upstairs and it took forever for George to clump up to bed and down to breakfast. I laughed at him the first day, but Grandma told me that was cruel. I guess it was, but it was also funny. When Grandma and Grandpa took us home Sunday afternoon, the house was really clean, but the garbage cans were all full of bottles and food and paper plates and stuff. Grandpa said “You really look good these days, what are you doing?” And Mom said, “Finding time for myself for once. It feels nice.” Grandma looked at her and touched her face and said “You look tired.” “Mom, I’m getting a full eight hours of sleep a night for the first time in my life since John left.” Then she got real quiet for a minute. She didn’t like to talk about our daddy. He never called or anything and I remember one time when George was in the hospital for his thing, she started crying and said “He’s his child, too,” then look at me and try to smile.

Grandma shook her head, then said “Okay,” and they started talking about something else until supper. Mom didn’t turn on the thing to cook that time, and George and I sat in the living room listening to her cook.

A little before summer started one morning, we were eating cereal before school, and Mom came in all pretty and made up and neat hair and I noticed that there was a lot of grey in it. She touched it when I said that and the next morning, she came in and it was dark brown.

That summer George had to go back into the hospital. Mom changed her hours at her night job to later and every day she would come home from her day time job and turn the thing on for a few minutes, then come out all rested looking and we would go to the hospital and visit with George and then go home and she would turn it on again, then go to her night time job, then come home and I would wake up when she turned it on again, then she would come out and give me breakfast and go to her daytime job. At the hospital, I would play with all the baby stuff they had in the playroom, but George wouldn’t play much because it hurt so bad. I didn’t even make fun of him for being a scardey-cat.

When he got home Mom kept her late hours so she could spend more time with us, which I didn’t like because now we couldn’t have pillow fights and stuff. We probably couldn’t anyway, because George had a harder time clumping around. When school started again, I came home one day and Mom was sitting on the couch looking at the backs of her hands. They had little spots on them, but when we came in, she rubbed them a little, then got up to make dinner.

That Christmas was the best ever. We bought a tree and George and I put tinsel and Christmas balls and stuff all over it, but when we woke up the next morning, the whole house was decorated with lights and fake snow and there were presents everywhere all wrapped and beautiful. On Christmas day we couldn’t wait to get up and tear into all those presents. When I handed Mom the perfume I bought for her, I noticed her hand shaking a little when she unwrapped it. George gave her socks and I told him that was a stupid present, but Mom laughed and put them on. There were blue lines in her legs that I never noticed before.

After New Year’s George deid. He woke up in the middle of the night and screamed. It was when Mom had the box on, so I had to go over to his bed and try to make him be quiet. In a minute, the duck light got bright, and he was still screaming, and Mom ran down the hall. “How long has he been screaming,” she shouted at me. “Only a minute,” I said, and she picked him up and ran him to the car. “Call Grandma and tell her I’m going to the hospital.”

I called Grandma and she came over to stay with me. The phone rang and woke me up, and it was dark blue outside the window. I heard Grandma talking on the phone and cry, then she came in and told me. After that Mom would stay in her room with the box on for maybe twenty minutes which she never did before. At first when she would come out her eyes were all puffy, but after a few days, she would come out and just look sad. She stopped putting brown in her hair and it was all grey and thin. Her dresses looked funny on her, all baggy.

The morning after George’s service, when I woke up I couldn’t hear Mom cleaning or anything, so I tiptoed to her door and knocked on it. I opened it a little, but the crack was all wavy so I got scared and started to cry like a little cry baby. I just stood there, but then the light in the hallway got bright, and she came out. “You look like Grandma,” I said.

The next week I got up and went to her bedroom and opened the door a little, but stopped again when the crack was all wavy and it tickled my hair. I waited for the lights to get bright, but they never did. After about a half an hour, I went into the kitchen and waited for her, but she never came. I knew it was almost time for school, and I didn’t know what to do. I called Grandma and Grandpa and told them Mom wouldn’t get out of bed. “Stay put,” Grandpa said, and a little while later he came over. He went to her room and tried to open the door, but jumped back when the wavies tickled him. He said a bad word, and asked me what the heck was going on, so I told him about how mom would turn the black box on and then come out and clean and then turn it on and then come out all dressed and turn it on and then we would eat.

“I can’t even go in there,” he said. “If that’s what’s doing it, we’ve got to turn it off.” I looked at him and said “How?” “Where is the fuse box?” I didn’t know, so he started to look. It was in the back of the broom closet in the kitchen, which he found after a long time. I tried to help him look, but didn’t even know what a fuse box was. He opened it and started turning off these big black switches and all the lights went off when he did. Then he went into her bedroom. He said another bad word, and I ran in. “Don’t come in here,” he said, but I was already there. There was dust all over everything, and there was a mummy in the bed. It had little wispy hair and a scull face and skin like paper.

“That’s Mom,” I said. Grandpa unplugged the black box really hard and threw it on the floor. It bounced and a little puff of dust came up. He went into the kitchen to find a hammer and came back and smashed it up into a million little pieces and kept smashing it, then he sat on the edge of the bed and started crying like a cry baby, which I’ve never seen a grown up do. The bed creaked when he sat down. “She’s only thirty-six,” he said and he reached out to touch her hand and it fell apart.

I live with Grandma and Grandpa, now.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend