Chapter 2: Geary

Geary shoves it into the bag. The birds are out, flying short distances between trees and eventually leaving this area of the forest into the sky. Geary’s hand goes deep into a pocket and extracts a thick thread. He wraps the thread around the bag, intuitively securing the top flap and the contents inside. With his foot he gently rolls the bag into a hole he dug yesterday morning. He picks his beer up from the ground, holds it level with his chest for a moment, and then lifts it to his mouth, emptying the bottle. The sun comes through the bottle at the peak of the drink, and then in one fluid motion Geary continues raising the bottle over his head and flicks it at the tree ahead of him. With a pop, the bottle disappears and small pieces of glass settle on the leaves on the dirt. He uses his foot to shift dirt around the bag and on top of the bag. The small hole fills and he pats it level with a few quick stomps. Walking slowly, he leaves it behind and doesn’t look around at all, lighting a cigarette. His eyes focus on the tip of the cigarette, it catches and he closes his eyes, inhaling. All over the Semicity are these small forest-sewer-creeks. These small stretches of small amounts of water moving through sparse foliage to the concrete tube to the reservoir are the highpoints of backyard scenery.

In the mud by Geary’s feet is the wallet of a gym teacher from his old elementary school. He picks up the wallet and recognizes the eyes and the nose and the mouth and the name, Mrs. Novak. He holds his sleeve over his fingers. Some dirt fills the small lines in the leather. Fling. The wallet hits the creek and sinks like a rock. Geary’s shoe slips a bit in the mud, leaving a deep imprint. Some contents of the wallet float up and are barely taken by the current. He squats down over the footprint, grabs a nearby rock and flattens out the indentation into a small rotund crater. He steps onto the firm ground and walks up towards the concrete ducts. The tube underground has its shadow on the inside. Geary steps on rocks across the water and, with small exertion, he jumps into the tube. He leans on the tube taking its shape with his torso. The cigarette hits the water and becomes a discard. Geary turns his head to the shadow of the tube and screams from his chest, the sound echoes and perpetuates through the sewer. Geary jumps, grabs the concrete at the top of the structure and pulls himself out of the tube onto the dirt. He walks to the sidewalk, long stepping twig to twig. He walks out of the forest and into a yard that hasn’t been clipped for a couple months.

The grass and leaves make a little noise when he walks on them to get to the sidewalk. A car approaches and passes. He walks along the sidewalk toward the house. There isn’t much of a front yard on Geary’s house. Really it is dirt and under the dirt is animals that have died in the forest. On top of the dirt are some vague headstones, an old toy car, a shopping cart, a marble table, and various tiles pushed in a bit. One of his cats is missing. Geary remembers this when he sees the food he left on the porch the previous night. Geary grabs the old doorknob and shoulder thrusts, opening the door and stumbling the step up into the hall. He walks through the house to the kitchen and paces trying to remember what he was compelled, so briefly, to do when he walked on the porch. He flicks the pull-string hanging from the light in the center of the ceiling. He looks at the rubbing alcohol on the counter and thinks to take a sip, but he shakes his head and says out-loud, “No.” The curtain hanging in front of the kitchen closet isn’t moving, until Geary pushes it aside and sticks his head in the dark closet where the kitty litter stays. Geary grabs the litter and walks back through the house. As he passes through the living room he grabs the top of an old food carrier from a local restaurant. He opens the door and steps back onto the porch. The sun slowly disappears and the brief sunset becomes steady dark. There’s no one walking down the block. The top makes a high-pitched sound when it hits the porch, and the litter makes various tics when it hits the top. He looks at the food dish on the right of the porch steps, then looks back at the litter. He thinks about grabbing a toy of some sort to leave near the door. Geary shakes his head again. He looks down at the litter and shakes his head, smiling. He laughs a little. Alone on the block he laughs once or twice and walks back into the house, emptying the block.

The porch is silent. The streetlight vibrates a constant bulb hum. This place is easily mistaken as silent. The hum becomes the silence. A cat runs through the backyard of Geary’s house, then back into the woods. Geary has six cats. The tops of the trees sway in unison, leaning slightly in the direction of the wind. A light goes off in a house across the street. Geary steps back onto the porch with a bowl of water and places it next to the food. His head turns in each direction, inspecting the scene. No cats, no people, nothing. Geary reaches for his cigarettes and takes his time getting across the porch to the tiger-barrel-couch. He runs his hand across the orange and black striped pleather. The lighter sparks once without lighting, twice. Geary shakes the lighter, he watches his hand move unplanned and violent. He tries again, it lights, and he begins to smoke. He tries to get his eyes out of focus so his hearing will get better. As his eyes go out of focus he begins to identify the various sounds and fails to anticipate their rhythm. There is the streetlight bulb hum, there is an animal in a tree, there is a little near by traffic, there is not much. He looks up at the streetlight as he drags his cigarette and listens again. His heartbeat is vibrating his body like a light bulb in a streetlight. A bug makes a few noises then moves on, a car drives by on the highway across the field behind the houses across the street. Geary closes his eyes. He leans his head against the house behind the couch. Earlier today he and a friend took machetes and trimmed the bamboo overtaking the side of the house. He imagines the sound of that and the look of the blade that’s too dirty to glisten in any light.

He begins to listen again. There is the streetlight, there is something small moving next to the house, there is an airplane motor. His eyes open aimed at the sky, it is clouded, and the plane is covered. He catches a satellite father up, coming into the open then behind cloud, back into the open and gone again. He looks into the road, opening his vision to its max periphery. Geary sees a figure moving from around the side of the house. He looks over as the figure turns from the side around up onto the porch. Geary briefly looks down at the food and looks up directly into the eyes of the figure. There are no legs; it is slightly blue and transparent. Geary looks away, back into the road. The figure takes a step and stands silently on the porch. The streetlight goes out. Geary takes a drag of his cigarette and it tastes like filter. He throws it to the opposite side of the figure, trying to pretend he didn’t see the figure. But they have already seen each other into the face. The figure didn’t make a sound in its approach. Geary hears it in his head like a thought.

“Let me in. Can I come in?” The figure does not move. Geary tries not to think anything.

“Can I come in?” Geary feels cold and pulls his arms tightly around his abdomen. “Let me in.”

“Let me in. Can I come in? Can I come in? Let me in. Can I come in? Let me in. Let me in.”

Geary tries to focus his eyes, but the street is blurry, he looks over at the figure, standing silently on the porch. It is staring into him. He can feel this, but he looks where it disappears, where its feet would be. He doesn’t speak out loud but he articulates a thought, looking briefly up towards the figures face and behind it.

“Look, this is the first time you have ever come around here. I don’t know you very well. Maybe if you come back and we get to know each other, then we can talk. But right now I have to say no. I can’t do that.” Geary looks back into the road. The figure takes a step closer to the couch and Geary.

“Can I come in? Let me in.”

“No.”

Out of the corner of his eye Geary watches the figure retreat down the steps, silently, around the porch, back to wherever it came from beside or behind the house. Geary takes a deep breath. He wants to run down the street and find the traffic and jump onto it and stand on the hood of the car screaming about the ghost. Instead, he goes back into the house. Geary turns on all the lights in each room, periodically peeking out of a window to see if the figure is standing there watching him run around trying to take in the light from outside. He kneels on the bed and pulls the blanket up to his waist. A cat runs across the bedroom onto the bed and up to him, rubbing on the blanket covering his leg.

“Where is it, Corn?” Geary takes his finger down to the small cat’s face. Cornballflake thrusts his face on Geary’s hand, passing his scent along.
“Where is it?”

A truck drives past. Geary stays on the bed waiting for someone to return home. Every now and then a car drives past and Geary imagines it stopping as it moves on. The sun comes up around six twelve. Geary passes out sitting up. The cat falls asleep in Geary’s lap with Geary’s hand as a blanket. The blanket falls to the side. Eventually, Geary falls onto the bed and the cat adjusts onto the bed near Geary. A car pulls into the driveway and someone uses the exterior steps to go in on the second floor. There is a thud as they fall into their bed. Geary wakes up for a second, pulls the blanket over himself and the cat, groans, and goes back to sleep.