Agent M79
09-07-2007, 06:35 AM
We had found a spot a little out of the way to watch the annual July 4th fireworks display hosted by the small town we lived in. The main viewing area was always a press of people and a tangle of cars. It would take longer to park and get situated than the fireworks display itself. Don’t be in a hurry to leave either.
The spot we found had fewer people and more agreeable traffic patterns. While a little out of the way, the fireworks were quite visible.
It was a small parking lot for the Social Security Administration and they were not there past 4:30pm so no one was there to mind that we and a dozen or so other people turned their parking lot into a short term tailgate party.
The opposite side of the road was wooded. Combine that with the unlit parking lot and we had a dark perch with an unimpeded view of the fireworks.
But the dark also brought… noises. Noises that my wife and young son were not accustomed to hearing.
My son, maybe 9 at the time, looked a little shaken each time on odd alternating screeching and wailing cry would rise above the other woodland din.
After I saw this reaction a couple of times, I asked “What?”
“What’s that!?” he said with a touch of concern in his voice.
“Crickets” I said with a shrug.
I could see the wheels turning in his head for a moment.
“No! Not the cricket noises…. Wait…”
We again heard the screechy wail.
“That! That right there!” he said wide eyed.
I grimaced and said, “That’s crickets.”
He gave me an incredulous look. Perhaps annoyance, but certainly laced with frustration that my response was not satisfactory.
I sighed.
“They are crickets…” I said in mock reluctance.
“…from Canada.”
Then I stopped talking and returned to fumbling around with the hot dog buns and condiments while my wife fiddled with the grill.
“Um… why don’t they sound like American crickets?” he said, fully reeled into my ruse.
“Well… they are from Canada so they are a different breed of crickets. You really don’t want to mess with them either.”
“Why!?”
“They are… um… a little bit bigger than American crickets.”
He pondered that for a moment while I watched him from the corner of my eye still busy with the food prep.
“How much bigger?”
“Look. I didn’t really want to scare you because I am pretty sure there are too many of us here for them to come out of the woods.” I said mocking extreme concern.
“WHAT!? WHY? What do you mean ‘come out of the woods’ ?”
He was unconsciously shifting from foot to foot now.
“The are called ‘Giant Canadian Man-Eating Crickets’” I said, sighing and putting doing the wiener tongs resolutely.
His mouth went as wide as his eyes and I stopped waiting for the questions.
“During the 1700’s and 1800’s fur trappers shipped pelts to the United States from Canada. They would send them down in great big carts and they would caravan dozens of these carts at a time.”
He was nodding. It all made perfect logical sense so far.
“The Americans started noticing that they would find the caravans abandoned. The carts would be there. The horses would be there. The pelts would be there. But the people… missing.”
He gulped.
“After this happened 3 or 4 times they started hearing that noise…” and as if on preplanned, the screech/wail issued from the woods once again.
“…and when they went to go find out what it was… they saw them. Giant crickets with big glowing red eyes with bits of leather coat and blue jeans caked with blood encrusting their mouths and mandibles.”
His brow furrowed a bit but he allowed me to continue.
“Just before they lunged at the men, they made that screechy wail. So if you hear that noise you better run or they’ll get you.”
His furrow deepened more and he readied to say something but I interrupted him.
“Of course it was a few years before they figured out the if you offered them some mints or hard candy they wouldn’t eat you and if they really liked the candy they would do a little dance for you. Some people would even make them wear hats and dresses and stuff.”
“If you didn’t know you coulda just said so!” he said in a huff.
The fireworks went off without a hitch. Good show. I got catsup on my shirt, as usual.
On the way back home, my son absent mindedly was playing his Gameboy and I heard him laugh quietly. And then again. He muttered ‘…crickets’ and snorted, shaking his head.
A young man, in his mid or late twenties came to see me today. As happens to me so much lately, his face seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite get the name or exactly where I saw him last. I’d get stuck in that mental moment just before that information would populate my consciousness but it frequently does not come.
He told me some mundane details of his not very extraordinary day and I felt like he was a friendly stranger that is compelled to share parts of their life unsolicited and with a personal familiarity that was a bit premature given the lack of an established personal relationship.
Being patient and polite I nodded and interjected the occasion ‘uh uh’ and ‘yeah…’ at the appropriate places.
As he spoke and I watched his movements and mannerisms and they became like cues to my subconscious to feed me snippets of my past that would place this young man. My frustration mounted and his words were drowned by my mental efforts that turned into a treadmill that yielded no results yet I was locked into the process and couldn’t escape from it.
When it stopped I was entirely relieved but noticed that while I was looking so intently inward that the young man had left and my wife was there fussing about in a drawer.
When she saw me look at her she smiled.
“You were worried that he would have a hard time handling this.”
She paused and I tilted my head forward a bit and arched my eyebrow wanting her to continue so I could put her statement in context.
“I don’t think it is easy for him but you made him reliant and not dependent and that made him strong.”
A moment of confusion mixed with a rush of odd, but meaningless images rushed through my head and I struggled to stay engaged with her in the conversation. Shaking my head slowly from side to side trying to sort the moment I paused and smiled wryly. What a strange remnant the cloudy confusion left for me.
“Honey. What do you know about Giant Canadian Man-Eating Crickets?”
---
Some days I can hold on. Others I lose a little. There are some days, even stretches of days where so much slips away I can only feel the gap that the escaping experiences left. Sometime I lose aspects of things. The smell of a favorite food, the texture of a familiar sweater, or the person who said something I found humorous.
The anger fueled confusion, where I rant and stomp about wildly, I always know where it starts. It starts with losing more of him.
Yesterday I was proud that he went to school for the first time and he was not scared. My wife tells me he has graduated college.
Today I asked if we had arranged for a sitter for the baby so we could go out with friends tonight. My wife says ‘our baby’ needs a sitter for his son so he can go out with his wife and friends.
Tomorrow I’ll wonder who that is in the pictures throughout the house. I am pretty sure it’s me but the hair color is wrong. But the eyes… they feel right.
The spot we found had fewer people and more agreeable traffic patterns. While a little out of the way, the fireworks were quite visible.
It was a small parking lot for the Social Security Administration and they were not there past 4:30pm so no one was there to mind that we and a dozen or so other people turned their parking lot into a short term tailgate party.
The opposite side of the road was wooded. Combine that with the unlit parking lot and we had a dark perch with an unimpeded view of the fireworks.
But the dark also brought… noises. Noises that my wife and young son were not accustomed to hearing.
My son, maybe 9 at the time, looked a little shaken each time on odd alternating screeching and wailing cry would rise above the other woodland din.
After I saw this reaction a couple of times, I asked “What?”
“What’s that!?” he said with a touch of concern in his voice.
“Crickets” I said with a shrug.
I could see the wheels turning in his head for a moment.
“No! Not the cricket noises…. Wait…”
We again heard the screechy wail.
“That! That right there!” he said wide eyed.
I grimaced and said, “That’s crickets.”
He gave me an incredulous look. Perhaps annoyance, but certainly laced with frustration that my response was not satisfactory.
I sighed.
“They are crickets…” I said in mock reluctance.
“…from Canada.”
Then I stopped talking and returned to fumbling around with the hot dog buns and condiments while my wife fiddled with the grill.
“Um… why don’t they sound like American crickets?” he said, fully reeled into my ruse.
“Well… they are from Canada so they are a different breed of crickets. You really don’t want to mess with them either.”
“Why!?”
“They are… um… a little bit bigger than American crickets.”
He pondered that for a moment while I watched him from the corner of my eye still busy with the food prep.
“How much bigger?”
“Look. I didn’t really want to scare you because I am pretty sure there are too many of us here for them to come out of the woods.” I said mocking extreme concern.
“WHAT!? WHY? What do you mean ‘come out of the woods’ ?”
He was unconsciously shifting from foot to foot now.
“The are called ‘Giant Canadian Man-Eating Crickets’” I said, sighing and putting doing the wiener tongs resolutely.
His mouth went as wide as his eyes and I stopped waiting for the questions.
“During the 1700’s and 1800’s fur trappers shipped pelts to the United States from Canada. They would send them down in great big carts and they would caravan dozens of these carts at a time.”
He was nodding. It all made perfect logical sense so far.
“The Americans started noticing that they would find the caravans abandoned. The carts would be there. The horses would be there. The pelts would be there. But the people… missing.”
He gulped.
“After this happened 3 or 4 times they started hearing that noise…” and as if on preplanned, the screech/wail issued from the woods once again.
“…and when they went to go find out what it was… they saw them. Giant crickets with big glowing red eyes with bits of leather coat and blue jeans caked with blood encrusting their mouths and mandibles.”
His brow furrowed a bit but he allowed me to continue.
“Just before they lunged at the men, they made that screechy wail. So if you hear that noise you better run or they’ll get you.”
His furrow deepened more and he readied to say something but I interrupted him.
“Of course it was a few years before they figured out the if you offered them some mints or hard candy they wouldn’t eat you and if they really liked the candy they would do a little dance for you. Some people would even make them wear hats and dresses and stuff.”
“If you didn’t know you coulda just said so!” he said in a huff.
The fireworks went off without a hitch. Good show. I got catsup on my shirt, as usual.
On the way back home, my son absent mindedly was playing his Gameboy and I heard him laugh quietly. And then again. He muttered ‘…crickets’ and snorted, shaking his head.
A young man, in his mid or late twenties came to see me today. As happens to me so much lately, his face seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite get the name or exactly where I saw him last. I’d get stuck in that mental moment just before that information would populate my consciousness but it frequently does not come.
He told me some mundane details of his not very extraordinary day and I felt like he was a friendly stranger that is compelled to share parts of their life unsolicited and with a personal familiarity that was a bit premature given the lack of an established personal relationship.
Being patient and polite I nodded and interjected the occasion ‘uh uh’ and ‘yeah…’ at the appropriate places.
As he spoke and I watched his movements and mannerisms and they became like cues to my subconscious to feed me snippets of my past that would place this young man. My frustration mounted and his words were drowned by my mental efforts that turned into a treadmill that yielded no results yet I was locked into the process and couldn’t escape from it.
When it stopped I was entirely relieved but noticed that while I was looking so intently inward that the young man had left and my wife was there fussing about in a drawer.
When she saw me look at her she smiled.
“You were worried that he would have a hard time handling this.”
She paused and I tilted my head forward a bit and arched my eyebrow wanting her to continue so I could put her statement in context.
“I don’t think it is easy for him but you made him reliant and not dependent and that made him strong.”
A moment of confusion mixed with a rush of odd, but meaningless images rushed through my head and I struggled to stay engaged with her in the conversation. Shaking my head slowly from side to side trying to sort the moment I paused and smiled wryly. What a strange remnant the cloudy confusion left for me.
“Honey. What do you know about Giant Canadian Man-Eating Crickets?”
---
Some days I can hold on. Others I lose a little. There are some days, even stretches of days where so much slips away I can only feel the gap that the escaping experiences left. Sometime I lose aspects of things. The smell of a favorite food, the texture of a familiar sweater, or the person who said something I found humorous.
The anger fueled confusion, where I rant and stomp about wildly, I always know where it starts. It starts with losing more of him.
Yesterday I was proud that he went to school for the first time and he was not scared. My wife tells me he has graduated college.
Today I asked if we had arranged for a sitter for the baby so we could go out with friends tonight. My wife says ‘our baby’ needs a sitter for his son so he can go out with his wife and friends.
Tomorrow I’ll wonder who that is in the pictures throughout the house. I am pretty sure it’s me but the hair color is wrong. But the eyes… they feel right.