scrytch: iowa (I)

by Darren Bauler

Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 17:02:23 -0500 (CDT)

it was the night my cousin jimmy got married, and we were all at the Fraternal Order of the Moose Lodge drainin' the third keg and talking about old times and shit like family always does when they all get drunk, me and lil' dougie went out by the cornflield and got stoned, and i started thinkin' about how much different things are now, how stuff is moving, and it was like i almost got hold of something in my head but i just couldn't reach it so i let it go and went back in. it was gettin' late and the moose people were askin' us to pack up so they could close the place (a big steel machine shed with a couple tables and a rigged-up bar in back) so they all headed over to jimmy's brother bob's place to keep on drinking and i said forget it, i'm going home, and got in my car and did just that.

night was clear enough that i could see across the fields to a train comin' up past the house, had to tell myself not to watch it too much so i didn't drive off into a ditch or something, but it wasn't long before i got to where i was going, watch the train go off into the city and sat in the car for a minute before i realized this wasn't my house anymore. this is where i used to live when i was a kid, my parent's old house, they sold it a few years back and i haven't been by here since. i get ready to back out and go on, drive to where i live now, but something told me to stay for a minute or two, walk around, see if anything's changed. i walk out back and see the big elm i used to climb up and sit in all the time, the one with those three branches that make a perfect seat, and i had to climb up there and sit again. looked out over the streetlights, there's amy and eric's house, theres the house my cousins used to live in, there's the house tony used to live in...tony was at jimmy's graduation. he's living up in lansing now, rides bulls on teh weekend, got a girlfriend, he's changed some but he's still tony, you know, can't put your finger on it but it's there. i hop on down and look around the house, new people planted a flowerbed on the south side, that's cool. you can still smell the lilacs in the air from the bushes out by the shed, the night's so soft.

i'm pretty sure i heard the door slam shut before i heard a guy yelling something at me. i ask him what's wrong and he comes up and grabs me by my shirt and starts telling me i'm peeping in on his family, and i push him back because you don't just go up and grab somebody like that unless you're damn sure you know what you're doing, which he didn't. i try and tell him that i used to live here and i was just looking around and i'm taking off but he pushes me down and says he's gonna call the cops and runs into the house.

now i coulda just gone then, and there was a part of me that wanted to, but there was this other part that was telling me that ain't right, to treat somebody like that at their own house, even if they don't live there any more. so i ran in after him and tell him to knoch that shit off and that i'm leaving just as soon as he promises not to call the cops. but he's still dialing and i see his wife and a coupla kids back in the hallway and i don't wanna do anything to this guy in front of his family because it looks to me like they're good people and he's just scared or something, never had to be scared when we lived here, and maybe things are different now but still there ain't no reason to call the cops so i reach back and pull on one of the drawers and it comes clattering out and i expect to see the kinfe drawer which my brother would always get a knife out from when i was chasing him around and doing onder brother things and then he'd hold it up and go "AHHHHH!!!" and i'd turn back and lock myself in the bathroom and if i can get this guy to lock himself in the bathroom my brpblems are solved but there's no knives in here it's all spoons and shit and for some reason that makes me really mad. so i grab a big thick metal spoon and thwack him in the head. and he just looks at me like, i don't know, like i was crazy. so i thwack him a few more times and the kids start screaming and the mom runs up and tries to grab my arm and i ain't hitting no women so i just try to push her back some and i drop the spoon and now i got him grabbing onto my shirt again and her grabbin' at my hair and this is all wrong and i just wanted to look at my house so i push 'em all down and i scream real loud at 'em and they just lay there and are scared.

"THIS IS MY HOUSE! FUCK YOU!" is pretty much about all the explaining i'm in the mood to do anymore. and i just stand there for a while, it felt like a really long time but i don't think it really was now, and then i look around at the kitchen for the first time, this is the first time i really got to look at it, and everything's the same. i mean they didn't change a thing. and i start thinking about how maybe i really didn't have any right to come in and start pushing people around and what a fucked-up thing i just did, and i step back and take another step back and then i turn around and run out the door right past my car across the street into the field, the fuzzy wet tops of the leaves against my face, when we were kids we came out here and knocked down a bunch of corn and made forts until the farmer found out and called up our parents and told them we caused all this damage and our folks wouldn't let us play in the fields anymore, but that was a long time ago. i keep running until i get to a spot where there's no corn, and i look around and see that some of the kids from the neighborhood knocked down some corn and built a new fort, and i sit down and start thinking that maybe that's just something kids always did, before we ever did and now and after these kids get married and move away they'll come back and their kids will do the same thing, and thinking that makes me really happy and really sad all at the same time. there's sirens out there somewhere, i can't see the lights from here in the field but the sound carries so far when it's quiet like this, when you can hear the powerlines hum and the stars blink out, and i just look up and fall asleep because i got myself hid good, there's no way they'll find me out here, because i know this place and they don't. it's my home.