Say Uncle

This must be a test. Half-expect someone to come crashing through that door or jump out of our closet. Smile! You’re on Candid Camera. I need someone—anyone—to tell me I’ve been punked. I’m beginning to think I share a house with a lunatic.

Friday night, me and the missus are running the bases when the little squirt raps on our door. Bottom of the ninth, he saunters in with a teddy under one arm, rubbing the sleep out of his eye with the other. He tells us the same old sob story.

“Mommy, there’s a man in my room,” the kid says.

We just about fall off the bed and onto the floor as I flub my home run. The two of us stumble to our feet, a mess of tangled white linen, all arms and legs. Dana and I stagger towards him like two mummies in a three-legged race as she wags a beckoning finger.

Dana wraps her arms around him, stroking his shoulders before she parts the mop of blond bangs over his eyes. Shushing her poor baby with sweet nothings.

Their problems are as big as your problems, Dana always tells me. We worry about rent. Check engine lights. Case plans. Parole. They worry about broken toys, saying mean things, ghosts haunting their rooms. When your world’s smaller, everything’s so much scarier.

I tell him Uncle Ray is the only monster that lives in this house. All the other monsters are too scared of me to come in. I got him first.

“Can I sleep with you?” he asks, all wide-eyed.

We mouth yes and no at the same time. No way this tyke is getting more action than me tonight.

I tell it to him straight. He’s a big boy now. We’re all better off if he catches some Zs in his comfy $300 IKEA bed. All he has to do is tell good ‘ole Uncle Ray about this man. Uncle Ray will jujitsu the motherfucker.

The punch in the arm tells me I was just a bit off on that last part.

This little goober nods his head and tells me about the big, bad man. He wears shadows on his hands and face. And swoosh-ey sneakers. Nikes. Kid says The Shadow Man calls him by name.

Dana eyeballs me. Her eyes as big as saucers.

Fine. I’m sending this dirtbag to the cleaners, I say. Whoever he is.I can’t be spooning with this brat whenever he has a bad dream. I don’t say that last part out loud.

Dana and I tug the white linen to ourselves like togas as we off the floor. I pull a pair of pants out of the hamper and Dana throws on a bathrobe before she wanders downstairs to check on things out front.

“This is exactly how ghost movies start,” she says, crossing the air. And I’m Patrick Swayze. Jesus Junkies, I swear.

I follow what’s his name down the hall. Billy? Mikey? He says it every time I’m over here signing Dana’s release papers.

In his room, a dying nightlight flickers the Big Dipper onto the ceiling. The rocking chair beside it weaves ribbons of midnight against the walls. A blood moon washes the windowsill crimson. Creepy ass shit to sleep through. Not gonna lie.

A Plymouth Fury shines its headlights above the bed, its gaping mouth of a grill swallowing the wall. And the colors? Sad beige room for sad beige kids. Wonder which of his Dads did the decorating.

Every week it’s something different with this rascal. First he has a phase where a dragon was coming into his room after he bought The Hobbit on his Mom’s Amazon account. So I draw him a No Dragons Allowed sign. Hang it on his door. Tell him as long as it’s up, the door closed at night, the dragon can’t BBQ him. Etched a Baby Yoda on his door for brownie points. Still hanging there a year later. No dragons since.

Then it was zombies after he downloads World War Z. Had to string together a bunch of bells around the room that would darn near wake up the neighborhood every time that dumb dog tripped it.

Who am I kidding? I remember this America’s Most Wanted episode when I was his age. Some guy goes and shotguns a whole family just because the door was unlocked. Couldn’t sleep a wink for months. Thought some guy playing eenie meenie miney mo on my block, picking out which house to slaughter.

Maybe the kid’s room has a Feng Shui thing going on. His headboard should be against the wall. Best if you can see who comes through the door. Then again, if some creep show’s galavanting into his room, they’d climb up the old oak outside and through the window, right?

I went all in to show the small fry I got his back. Sewed together a monster net. Built a blanket fort and stayed in it for a night or two. Even made him Monster Spray—lavender oil and some glittery shit in a relabeled Febreze bottle—complete with some mumbo jumbo phrases to say. “This is battery acid fucknuts.”

The family Schnauzer would always trot into his room and dutifully sniff the closet. Under the bed. Tonight, the old guy’s sitting in the hallway, barking at the armoire. Crazy mutt.

One night, Dana would coach me on what to say. Stuff along the lines of, “Why are you here Mister, did you lose your way home? It’s time to sleep.” I’d leave open the door, get the man out, close the door so he can't come back.

Figures it took her this long to make parole with theater skills like that. What happens when you have kids raising kids.

I tell the kid to stand back and wait in the hall. Closing the door, I grab a tee ball bat. From out there, you’d think Jason Statham and The Rock were going at it. Inside, it’s just me beating the bejesus out of the Goodwill goodies in the closet. Knocking over his nightstand. Wailing on his Pikachus. Doing my best back and forth of two dudes kicking the living daylights out of each other. Guess the guy came over across the pond to scare him because this cockney voice comes out of nowhere.

A minute-ish later, I meet the little spud in the hallway, the bat slung over my shoulder like Babe Ruth. A panting, sweaty mess. I tell him I beat up the monster. Bitch left crying. The Man won’t be back again. This kid is practically beaming. Giggling. I carry him back to bed and tuck him in just as I hear a voice from the doorway.

Dana snorts and her eyes roll in the back of her head. See if I put in a good word for her this time. One of these days, some jerk from the state is gonna cart her fine ass off to jail.

In the hall, the armoire’s doors are flung open. The mutt is just milling around, his nose to the ground, like whatever was in there grew legs and walked away. Dana tsk-tsks at the trail of muddy tracks streaking the carpet brown and wags a finger in his face as we walk back to the bedroom. Tracks look big for a Schnauzer's.

Dana steps into the bathroom when I plop on the bed and see these things beneath it peeking out in the shadows. Something moves the mattress under me. I holler to her from across the room.

“Did you lock the door?” I ask.