Tin Can

“Tin Can”

If a ray of sun hadn’t popped out from the clouds at that precise moment John might never have seen the object. Two days of steady rain had kept him from inspecting the grading and seeding work he’d ordered on his half acre plot. The contractor had finished the work just before the rain had started and now, with the storm over, John walked through his yard to the fence that surrounded the newly finished plot. That brief ray of sun that appeared while he was standing at the bottom of the slope made it visible. All it appeared to be at first was the gleam of something shiny and silver, something that didn’t belong there.

When he’d stepped closer to run his shoe over the object he’d uncovered more shiny metal. A few minutes of scooping away the moist dirt with his hands revealed what looked to be part of some kind of machine or device. There’d be no way to determine what it was without digging away a portion of the slope and pulling it out of the ground completely. As he walked back to his utility shed to get a shovel he glanced around his large backyard. He was glad he’d taken the day away from his office and that his neighbors were mostly at work. A few years earlier, despite complaints from the people who lived adjacent to him, he’d erected a six foot high cedar privacy fence around the entire yard including the half acre plot that he’d just seeded. The neighbors had interpreted his action as unfriendly but he’d done it strictly to give himself privacy. Privacy was in short supply in his neighborhood. Any attempt to find some was met with suspicion.

An hour and a half of digging ruined the smooth grading of the slope but brought the mysterious object out into the daylight. From what John could tell it was built entirely of titanium or some other metal that didn’t rust or corrode. He hadn’t yet reached the bottom of it but he’d estimated it was about four feet tall and about three feet across. The main portion was cylindrical with a dome shaped cap and small holes around the entire bottom edge. Three short sections of shiny, corrugated tubing, mounted in vertical rows projected from each side of the cylinder. John thought how much they resembled exhaust pipes on a car. He walked around the hole he’d dug and then stepped back. The object appeared to have a front and back. The back of the cylinder had no markings or attachments but the front had a large, aluminum dish projecting about a foot from the face of the cylinder. Even with his years of schooling and experience as an engineer he had no clue as to what he’d found.

Another hour of digging helped him find the bottom of the object. The ground was soft from the rain and made the excavation easier but he knew it would also make it harder to move the thing into his utility shed. He’d brought a two-wheeled dolly from the garage and even empty, its wheels were sinking into the lawn. He pushed on the object to see if he could get the tongue of the dolly under the edge and when he had it in place he was surprised how light it was. From what he could tell it mostly hollow except for some kind of bracing and a few electrical wires. It was awkward but he managed to get the dolly under it, and then he tilted it back. The long, slow trip back to the utility shed left deep tracks in the lawn and when he made it through the door he tilted the object back up to its standing position and pulled the dolly away.

So there it was, this strange, almost otherworldly object. It had taken a good portion of the day to get it out of the ground and he had no clue if it would turn out to be worth the effort. One thing was certain, there was no way he’d tell anyone about his find until he knew exactly what it was. He wondered about giving it a name or calling it something besides “the object”. After a few minutes of staring at it he decided to call it the Tin Can. He went into the garage and grabbed a couple of tarps then came back and carefully covered it. No sense in raising any eyebrows among the neighbors.

As he sat at the kitchen counter eating an early dinner he scanned the array of family photos on the refrigerator. They surrounded a center patch of a dozen photos of Maggie, from their wedding their many vacations and a very special one taken shortly before she passed away. He couldn’t help but think how much she would have loved sharing the Tin Can project in the backyard. If she were still with him the privacy fence would never have been built. That was just not who she was.

He was only five minutes into watching the evening news when the doorbell rang. “Oh, shit,” he muttered. He didn’t like interruptions to his routine. He opened the door and saw his next door neighbor to the north. “Oh, hi Jimmy,” he said through a fake smile.

“John, sorry to bother you but I just had to come over and ask you something.”

“Uh, okay, come on in.” He stepped back enough for Jimmy to enter but not enough to make him feel welcome. He was the head of the neighborhood HOA and thought he had to know everything that was going on with every neighbor.

“I came close to stopping by earlier but I couldn’t wait any longer. I was up on a ladder today cleaning my gutters and I looked over and saw you digging way in the back of your yard.”

John thought to himself, “Wonderful, my secret lasted for two whole hours.” He just looked at his grinning neighbor without saying anything.

“I don’t mean to pry but it isn’t every day when a guy digs some big, shiny thing out of the dirt and stashes it away.” John still wasn’t holding up his end of the conversation and Jimmy asked, “So what in the heck is that thing?”

John had figured someone would eventually ask him that question but not so soon and not by Jimmy. “Well, I’m not sure what it is. I need to do some planting on the slope and it was in my way so I dug it up.”

“I never saw anything like that, it’s really strange looking. What do you think it might be?”

John tried to show some hint of friendliness. “At this point I have no clue what it is or how it got there. I’ll worry about it later, after I get my planting work done.” He’d hoped it was a big enough side-step to quell Jimmy’s questioning. It wasn’t.

“Maybe I can help you. Do you mind if I look at it up close and take a few photos?”

John’s patience was almost gone. He sighed and answered, “Okay, but it’s gotta be fast. I have some stuff to do.”

He led Jimmy through the dining room and kitchen, out the patio door and across the lawn to the shed. The man’s chatter about the rain and his gutters never stopped for a second. John unlocked the door and said, “Okay, here it is.” He pulled off the tarps and stepped back to give Jimmy a clear view.

“Wow, it’s even stranger up close.” Without asking permission he ran his hands over the domed top and over the disc. “It looks like it could be an old moonshiner’s still. The tubes were probably part of a steamer that heated the mash.”

John thought, “Okay, that’s the first guess. I wonder if I’ll hear any more“. He watched while Jimmy moved around and took phone photos from every angle. When John decided he’d been patient enough he said, “Okay, Jimmy, I think that’ll do.” He pulled the tarps back over it and motioned toward the door.

“Thanks, John. I’ll give this some study and get back to you.”

“Yeah, sure, Jimmy. Thanks a lot.”

Before he’d left for the office the next morning John had gone into the shed and checked on the Tin Can. He didn’t know exactly why but that shiny something had captured his imagination and he knew he had to learn more about it. During the workday he’d gone on to Google to search for something that might lead to answers but he couldn’t even come up with the right search words. He’d even tried the words moonshine still but had found nothing useful. Before he headed home he scrolled through his phone and looked at the photos of the Tin Can he’d taken after Jimmy had left. There was still no feature, no part of the object that offered any hint of its origin.

Turning on to his street with his driveway in sight, John had a picture in his mind on a glass of wine and a quiet evening on the patio. That image was interrupted when his neighbor, Holly, was standing at the mailboxes waving at him. He pulled over and lowered his window. “Hey there, neighbor, haven’t seen you in a while.”

She smiled. “Well between the office and being a single mom, I have a few things on my plate.” She tucked her stack of mail under her arm. “I just wanted to ask you about your backyard find.”

“You mean you know about that?”

“Yeah, I got a text and a bunch of photos from Jimmy. From the address chain it looks like he sent it to half of the neighborhood. Every member of the HOA board is on it. You didn’t get it?”

“No, I never felt a need to give any of them my phone number.”

“Well then it’s everybody but you.”

John did a face palm and said, “Oh shit, that means I’ll be getting all kinds of visits just like when I put up my fence.” He paused a moment. “Remember when you helped me with that? I might need to hire you again.”

She smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry, speaking both as a lawyer and your friend I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You don’t need their okay to dig a hole in your own backyard.”

“Yeah, I know that but I didn’t think I needed it for my fence either and I still got a dozen comments and complaints.”

“And you’ll probably get just as many about your backyard treasure hunt.” She stood there smiling, waiting for John to say something.

“Hey, in case I need your legal help later would you like to come over and see it for yourself?  It’ll look even better over a glass of wine.”

Her smile returned. “Let me put away my mail and check on Jacob. See you in half an hour.”

Changing into jeans and a tee shirt and then pouring a glass of wine had become a daily routine for him, almost like something he could do in his sleep. But this time it had felt different, oddly familiar but far in the past. When Holly arrived he tried not to look nervous or overly eager to please. They spent a half hour on the patio talking and sharing work stories but John knew he could keep the topic of Tin Can out of the conversation for only so long. “So, are you ready to see what’s on everyone’s lips?”

“Sure, lead the way.”

On the way to the shed Holly forwarded to John all of the text messages she’d received from the neighbors, with all of the wild guesses they’d made about the object. When he opened the door and she stepped inside there was no talk, just a curious silence as he stood aside and let her look and touch and wonder on her own. Finally, she said, “Well, I can see what all of the buzz is about. This is pretty strange and the fact it was buried is even stranger.”

John was scrolling through the neighbor’s comments that Holly had sent him. “Oh look, Marnie thinks it looks like a piece of farm equipment.” A few seconds later he said, “And Brad thinks it looks like something from the military. This is all just bullshit. It’ll blow over and be forgotten tomorrow.”

Holly was standing in the doorway. :Don’t count on it.” She gestured to the view outside. There were two other neighbors, Mike and Todd, standing on Jimmy’s ladder and looking over at the shed.

“This is really getting out of hand,” he growled. He looked at Holly. “So much for my privacy fence. What’s next, drones over my house?”

“I think you should give it a few days. You may be right about their losing interest. Just keep this door closed and try not to lose your temper. I’ll let you know if I get any more texts.”

A weekend of staying in the house, making sure the shed door was closed and keeping to himself seemed to have helped quiet things down. Holly had texted him that she hadn’t gotten any more neighbor messages. It was a sign that one, the show was over or two, the neighbors didn’t want her in on the discussion anymore. On Monday on his drive home, as he was pulling on to his street John found out that it was number two. In front of his house sat a car and a van from Channel 4 TV. “Oh shit, that’s all I need,” he muttered.

He pulled into his driveway and was immediately surrounded by a man holding a camera, a video camera man and a young woman with a microphone. There was no way he could ignore them, especially when the woman pushed the microphone within inches of his face. “Mr. Haywood, can we talk to you about the mysterious object you dug up in your backyard?”

John took a deep breath, reaching deep for some patience. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about something when I don’t know what it is.”

“Would you at least let us see it for ourselves?”

He knew that meant the photos that Jimmy had taken weren’t enough for them and the only way he’d be able to end this would be to let them see Tin Can, shoot some video and then get the hell out. “Alright, I’ll let you see it, but I don’t want my name, address or my face to be any part of your report. Deal?”

“Deal.” She turned to her crew. “Did you get that? Mr. Haywood himself will not be a part of this story.”

It took half an hour for them to get what they needed. John stood out of camera view and looked at the rows of neighbors lined along his fence standing on stepladders. A small camera drone hovered over the excavation area. When the reporter tried again to get some answers John said, “Okay, we’re done here. Goodbye.”

The report of the “Mysterious Object” aired that night and again the next morning. The newspaper carried the story with photos of Tin Can, the excavation and the lines of neighbors on stepladders. There was no mention of John or his address. On his drive to the office the story had already begun to fade into thoughts of his workload.

It was two weeks later, two weeks of normalcy, when a man from Channel 4 News knocked on John’s door. He was accompanied by a gray haired man with wire-framed glasses carrying a large, tan pouch, John opened the door but before he could speak the first man said, “Mr. Haywood, I’m Dan Meeder from Channel 4. This is Walter Franz. He’s a media historian. We’re sorry to bother you this way but you never gave us your phone or email.”

John was totally taken aback. “Uh, okay,” he stammered. “I assume it’s about my object.”

“Yes it is. If you can give us a few minutes we think you’ll be interested in what we’ve found. Mr Franz here knows what your object is.”

Franz held up the pouch. “It’s all in here.”

John couldn’t decide if he was excited or just pissed off at another intrusion of his privacy. “Sure, come on in.”

They sat around the dining table and Meeder said, “This is Walter’s project so I’ll let him fill you in.”

Franz stood up and spread a variety of paperwork and black and white photos across the table. “Mr. Haywood, may I call you John? When I saw the report on Channel 4 I got the chills. I saw your object and had a hunch about its origin. As Dan said, I’m a media historian. I study old newspapers, television and in this case, movies.”

John scanned the paperwork spread in front of him. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

“You probably know we’re just a couple of hours from two movie studios. Back in the 1940s and 1950s this area, long before your neighborhood was built, was used to film exterior scenes. The forests and marshlands were popular settings, especially for some pretty cheesy science fiction films. It took some digging but I finally found this.” He unfolded a large, full color poster and held it up.

John’s eyes widened as he stared at the image. There was Tin Can, the head of a very large metal robot that was attacking a group of rifle-carrying soldiers in Jeeps. What appeared to be lightning was shooting from the dish on the robot’s head.

“When the movie was finished it was easier to just leave some things behind Some were buried on site.” He handed the poster to John. “The “Menace from Mars” is sitting out there in your shed.”