Boomer

“It was an accident, honest.” I said.

My wife was dubious, of course, her arms across her bosom, tapping one itchy finger on her muscular forearm.

“Honest!” I reiterated.

“So you killed it?”

“Uh—I don’t know. It fell from its perch and then crawled or dragged itself under the shop. Probably,” I added.

She harrumphed and went somewhere else. This short exchange tells you more about women than it does about my character or marksmanship. The damned thing was threatening me, as much as it could from thirty feet away, so I leveled the gun in its’ general direction and fired. Boom, hit it right in the chest. It dropped to the ground like a sack of dried shit. “Jesus,” I muttered. I didn’t mean to do that. It was meant to be a warning shot. I was amazed when it seemed to revive, and crawled under the floor of my workshop. Honest to God, that’s how it really happened.

I forgot about it.

“A year went past, then two. That’s when this other stuff started.”

“And did you report the event to the authorities?”

“What? No. It never occurred to me.”

“I see,” the guy said, and scribbled something in his notebook.

I hate when he does that, because you never get to see what they write, what he’s written. Never. But I digress. “Life went on,” I said, with a touch too much intensity.

“Uh-huh.”

I spent a lot of time in the shop, back then. I was always making something, a bench, a cabinet, a door, a door handle—and I started hearing noises. Tiny little, creepy noises. Like the rustling of paper, or leaves, a scratching sound. It varied.

And you might say, “So what? Why would that bother anyone?”

Well, it didn’t, at first. It’s a small shop, 12x12 feet, or 3 and-a-half meters on a side. Unfinished walls and a high peaked roof. Simple, spartan, and overflowing with stuff. ‘Cluttered’ some might say. There’s barely enough room for two people and a ghost, I used to say, but realistically, there’s only room for one person.

And when that one person is alone, late at night, absorbed in the minute details of assembling a wooden doohickey with multiple whatchamadiggers, the sudden snapping of a twig, the rattle of a loose nut, can send shivers down the back of even a decent, grounded, natural humanitarian like me.

I told my wife, ‘Genghis’ about it. “You’re nuts,” she opined.

“Yeah but…”

“Where’s my doohickey?” She’d say, and back out to the shop I’d go. There’s nothing like sawing up some logs to drive the troublesome spirits away.

But the scritching and scratching, the rustling and snapping, even the wind whistling through the trees could arrest my attention. Someone or something was watching me. I could feel it, in my bones, in my chest, in my backside. Beady, black eyes, watching my every move, creeping around behind me, moving in the shadows outside, slamming the door suddenly on a windless night, flickering the light, shifting on the shingles, it was enough to drive me batty.

It came to a head one night. A constant tapping, a rapping on the wooden wall. I thought it was inside, up in the rafters. I swore. “I’ll get you, whatever you are,” and shone the flashlight up in the wood loft.

No effect. Rap, rap, rap, rap. “If you don’t stop, I swear to God, I’m coming up there.”

Rap, rap, rap, tap.

I grabbed the loft ladder, swung it into place. “I’m comin’ up there.”

Rap, rap, rap, scritch.

I grabbed the spotlight, creeped up the ladder until my head and shoulders were completely in the loft.

Rap, tap, scritch, scratch. (You get the idea.)

“What the…?" I shone the light in every nook and cubby hole, the rapping came from everywhere. “You’re outside!” I exclaimed. Nearly hitting myself with the flashlight, bathed, as it were, in my own brilliance.

I scrambled down the ladder with the flashlight, glanced at the gun hanging on the wall, (a Crossman bb and pellet gun.) I spurned it. I could handle this with my bare fists. It was still knocking on the wall, oblivious to my machinations. Mocking me, almost. I could imagine its thoughts: “You shot me dead once, what will you do now?

I nearly tripped going down the stairs in my haste, slipped in some oil around the side where I work on the mower, and paused…

Rap, rap, rap, rap…

I would catch it by surprise and lunged around the corner, raising the spotlight as I stumbled up the small berm, into the Hawthorne tree with its two-inch thorns. “Ow, Jesus Christ, ow. God damn.” And there he was, the squirrel I’d shot two years ago, scampering around the other side of the shop, out of sight. But I caught a glimpse of his furry tail before he disappeared around the corner.

“How did I know it was him? Oh please, Doctor. Please.”

Never mind. I realized he would beat me to the shop door. That was his intention, to draw me away from the door so he could slip inside. With me.

Dammit to hell.

I entered the shop tentatively, with trepidation. My own shop! I had enough tools and paraphernalia to kill a mastodon, hoist his carcass to the ceiling and carve him into small cubes, and here I was ballyhooed by a squirrel. ‘Shameful,' I told myself. I was a grown man. I’d faced far bigger foes and obstacles than this scurrilous squirrel.

But his persistence was proving apocalyptic.

I finished the doohickey, and put some chimes on its dollywoggle and left it on the workbench until morning. The wife, ‘my little Kahn’ as I like to call her, will be pleased, and probably dispense extra soup from the larder for a few days.

I locked the shop up tighter than a rich man’s pocket. Windows closed with hooks and latches, a massive 4x3 hunk of hickory holding the large double-doors closed. The only thing I couldn’t lock was the front door, except from the outside. I threw the gudgeon over the pinion and called it a night.

My mistake? I bragged to the wife about the fabulous doohickey, (but I kept mum about its appurtenances, I’ll have you know. I’m not a complete sap.)

She was pretty excited, anticipatory as we say around here, about it the next morning and went out to the shop to see it for herself, and came back in the house looking baffled.

“What?” I inquired.

“Your shop. It’s locked.”

“Of course,” I said. I lock it every night. “Just lift the latch, woman.”

“I did. It’s stuck.”

“The latch?”

“No, the door.”

I grunted noncommittally and finished my allotment of soup. 'Women,' I thought, but kept my tongue busy with soup until it was all gone. I licked my lips. “Did you pull it?”

“Of course I pulled it.”

“Hard?”

“As hard as I could.”

I smirked, as most men would, and went straight-away to the door of my shop and pulled. It didn’t budge. I pulled harder. Still no go. I set my feet against the top stair and yanked with all my might. Nothing. My wife, ‘Genghis’ was standing behind me, unsmirkingly.

“Whatsamatter, it stuck?”

I pretended not to hear her.

“Did you lock it from the inside?” She asked.

I gave her a long, sobering look, then gave the door another, some would say fanatical pull, and that door would not budge.

“Whats the matter?” She said again. “Did you lock it from the inside?”

I shook my head, ran my fingers through my hair and swore. “No. It’s not possible to lock it from the inside.”

“What d’you mean? Why not?” She said.

“What do I mean? I mean, you can’t lock something from the inside and then leave. If this were a murder scene, the detectives wouldn’t believe it.”

“Why?” She said, with uncustomary, and, I must say, endearing innocence.

“Because the hook would have had to fall through the eyehook, after I closed the door.”

“Yeah?” She said, surely without comprehension.

“No.” I replied.

“But you just said…”

“Because it’s impossible.” I practically whined, like a turbine. I built up steam like a cranky locomotive. “It’s just not possible. You understand? I closed the door twice last night. I closed it, forgot my whatchamacallit, opened the door again, went in, got my thing, and closed it again. Plus, the hook would have had to stay in the upright position, without falling, since the day before yesterday. That’s the last time I locked it from the inside.” The ghost, you know?

“Well what’re you gonna do? I want my doohickey.”

“Well, I want my shop, sweet Kahn.”

“Did you just call me Kahn?”

“Fawn. I called you fawn.”

“You need some help with that, Mr. Malarkey?”

“I do. I will. I can’t believe this.”

“Maybe it was the squirrel,” she said.

“That was uncalled for,” I replied, somewhat fervently.

“But maybe it was.” (She said this doggedly, but I didn’t want to use that phrase.)

“I’m thinking (and speaking) I had the tractor on blocks, and winched, and stanchioned, but something must have fallen, blocking the door.”

“But the door opens outward,” my sweet fawn observed.

She lifted while I took the hinges off of the double-doors with a bent and rusty crescent wrench. Stupid idea. Damned things still wouldn’t budge, I forgot about the brace and the wedge. And that other thing with the hole in the floor. Crapaciousness. Those doors would need dynamite to open. It’s the only thing I don’t have, and every other tool I owned, except a bent crescent wrench, was in the goddamned shop!

I took the hinges off the front door, manhandled it to allow access to the hook, which was totally and neatly through the eyehook. I could see it with my own eyes and still couldn’t believe it; that fate, gravity, luck, chance or physics could have put that hook, through that hole, without some external force of will and purpose? It’s simply not possible.

“Probably that darn squirrel…”

“Stop it Fawn, stop. It makes no sense. Besides, the squirrel is dead,” I lied. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t like being outwitted by a squirrel. Maybe I respected it. “Maybe I’m nuts.”

“You’re not nuts,” the shrink assured me. “You’re just suffering from issues of inadequacy. A lot of older men do. There’s medication for that, and therapy.”

I left, after threatening to shoot him in the chest. “I’m a phenomenal shot,” I told him, especially when I’m aiming for something else. (I left that qualifier out.)

It’s all behind me now. I’m quite content to tinker with the delicate gears of this miniature calliope. ‘Squirrel-sized,’ my wife noted.

That night, the rapping returned, and everything seemed, I don’t know, adequate?