The Happy Skipper

Marci was only fifty-two. Her dark hair was still sexy with curls in a ponytail. She knew her daughter’s boyfriends still looked at her when she walked away, because she was in shape and had a booty; plus she watched porn sometimes and knew that there was a market for her. Still, Marci noticed changes in her face recently. Her skin was still amazing for a woman her age, so that wasn’t the thing. You could not break your mother’s back walking blind-folded across her smooth, yet classically tough face, but her reflection had been bothering her. Her expression was becoming blank and vacant, and the smile and faces she would make to mask it fully disappeared too quickly when she was done making them. The effort to hold the mask in place was becoming strenuous.

Marci was fairly health conscious. She knew she didn’t have early onset Alzheimer’s, for example. Her brother had received the diagnosis at fifty-six that took her father’s soul at a young sixty. She was in good shape. She was Pretty healthy; Healthy and pretty. Nothing to worry about. Marci worried about the things she was supposed to like a good middle aged little girl; her separation from her husband; her two pretty and ditsy teenage daughters that reminded her of herself at that age; and she worried dutifully about her job that probably anybody could do with a week’s training but paid well enough for everybody to pretend otherwise. Everything was fine and terrible just the way it was supposed to be for the new American dream.

Marci dreaded her weekly meeting with the neighbors who met in her (or their) driveway to discuss who they would “destroy,” and what teachers they didn’t want their children to have, and which neighbors that weren’t standing right there they decided to hate for whatever reason. It was probably better to participate, however, because she didn’t want to be the one to hate. Her fake fake smile she made super fake to let the other fakes know she could be trusted to be fake seemed to fool these neighbors in their loose-fitting clothes and failed effort hairdo’s. Nodding along to something she would never remember when the meeting concluded, her future was interrupted:

“So I told that bitch teacher, ‘If you give my kid a hard time, I’ll destroy you,’” said busy-body unfortunate neighbor #1.

“Oh I know you would; I would do the same thing. If my Alex gets that teacher I’m going straight to the principal and turning the whole PTO against him if he doesn’t change his class. I don’t even care,” agreed helicopter-parent.

Marci’s mind was wandering when she first saw him. Wearing clothes too nondescript to describe well, a man appeared on the sidewalk a few houses down. Marci was not a hardcore stare-er-er type, but she felt like she had to look at this fella; not because he was hot, because he wasn’t, but he wasn’t ugly either; he was just the bland that people would have hated in the 80's and 90's. He wasn't tall, or short, and he had short uncombed brownish hair. The thing that made Marci risk it all ignoring the banter of the neighbors was the thing the man was doing. He was skipping. Just skipping towards the group. He also had a feint air of being happy, which also seemed unusual. He was expressively smiling. Marci had never seen a man skipping for exercise like this, although she fashioned herself an intermediate fitness aficionado and could surmise from experience that this would be pretty good exercise. Eyes locked on him, Marci broke character around her non-friends for a moment and gave a chuckle that indicated there may be something that could interrupt this drive-way devil-worship witch-craft or whatever it was. For a split second she thought that if she could get the attention of the group, and focus on this ridiculous happy skipper, that they may share a moment that could turn a whole new page in their weekly conversations. Maybe they could laugh for real for once. Marci, eyes still locked, realized that with her fake smile gone and her nodding in agreement with pathetic speeches halted, that she better say something before the dummies played the simpleton eye-contact game with each-other indicating that Marci might be "different."

In a hushed tone, “Ladies. Oh my God I’m sorry. Look at this dude. Hey I’m a skippy skipper!" Marci chortled.

The man was just passing the driveway 10 yards away from where the gang was gathered. All the ladies looked for a second, but like the cagey veterans they were none showed any emotion regarding the person. Marci had a look of poorly hidden incredulity at the sight. The back of the skipping man was now in full view. “What was that?” Marci wondered aloud. “What is it honey?” One of the women wondered about Marci’s wondering. “That guy. My God. I’ve never seen anybody doing that, ever.” The other women looked at each other not to silently hate Marci for no reason or anything, but just in sincere puzzlement. “It was just a guy Marci. Nothing to worry about, unless you think he’s hot,” said one woman speaking for the small group. “No. No I don’t think he’s hot. Did you see what he was doing? So weird. Anybody know him?” The other women looked at each other with fairly vacant and neutral expressions, and just shrugged a little and started shaking their heads “nope.” “So yeah that trash teacher that’s giving my baby a hard time…” Marci furrowed her eye-brows a little, pondering why nobody had found it odd, or at least funny that some man, not a child, had just skipped by with a smile on his face. She failed at trying to reenter the banter zone but gave it real effort. The gaggle began to disperse, and Marci made the long walk home two doors down; she wasn’t thinking about neighbor banter, however. Before she waked in her garage she gazed down the suburban street and into the infinite row of houses; things look infinite to people when they can’t see just past the bend to the end. She wanted to catch another glimpse of somebody.

Marci’s eyes opened two minutes before her alarm went off. She wondered whether she had been actually sleeping and felt stupid for not knowing. After zombie-ing to the bathroom to begin the ritual not-to-be-named Marci caught a glimpse of the same vacant expression that had been bothering her. She was missing a piece of life in her reflection. She gave a chimp grin just to see what it would look like to other people, but the vacancy was still present right underneath the primate maneuver of exposing the only part of the skull that generally stuck out. She actually thought she looked a bit like a primate hiding her fear bearing her teeth.

The morning suffering ritual complete, Marci started her moderately used, fashionably late model BMW 325i in the garage. In true blue American fashion, she started the car with the garage still closed, letting herself and the world know both that she could kill herself, and also that she fashioned herself somewhat indestructible. Of course, it was an idiotic thing to do. Backing out same as always Marci noticed what looked like a bouncing ball in her rear view. “What the hell…” Marci put her above average per age level flexibility to use and rotated around to get a look at the bouncing ball, but instead she saw a man skipping away. “Holy crap. It’s the skipper!” Marci backed out quickly to get a look at the back of the happy skipper. He was skipping along away from her in the same damn outfit he was wearing yesterday—at least she thought it was the same outfit. As quickly as Marci drove down the driveway, she drove that much slower than usual down the street in the direction of the skipper. She wanted a peek. She got that peek when he turned his head on a swivel and stared right at Marci with a masky smile. She looked away quickly and drove towards her destination.

All day Marci thought about the man that skipped past her house that morning. The guy that had skipped past her twice in the last 24 hours—or was it two days before? She couldn’t remember. His smile was like hers in the morning mirror, and she felt annoyed by that. It was her vacant soul, dammit, not his. If others had the same fake smile to cover an empty face, well people might start to notice it on her. That’s the most important thing in this world now, that people don’t see what’s really there. Marci didn’t like the way this was, but it was this way. The weird existence of this guy started to persist in her brain on a constant basis. Her own masky smile was now hiding him being there right behind her eyes.

Marci was agitated on the ride home. There were at least two “Move asshole(s)!” at times where the asshole could not have moved. She got on the street where she lived and had a quick thought of “Hey, this isn’t my street. I didn’t grow up here.” But those thoughts were vanquished by the sight of a smiling man skipping just a few houses down from her not to humble abode. Marci decided to park in the street and not her driveway or garage. This maneuver was based on instinct. She got out quickly and decided to meet the skipper. She walked towards her driveway as he approached it and she spoke, “Hey there. Another nice day for skipping!” Marci gave a nervous, but real laugh.

The man turned his head completely towards her with his body still skipping forward, slowed down just a tad, and smiled broad, “Sure is. Exercise is veeery important.”

“Oh I know!” Marci said this as his back became his front to her perspective. He skipped away.

“Have a good day!” Marci said without getting what she was looking for. “I’m going to find out about that guy,” Marci mumbled with determination.

Marci fed one of her lovely, ditsy teenage daughters a healthy dinner, and waited afterwards for signs of a certain kind of life to start stirring at one of a number of certain homes on the street. She needed a busy body, pronto. The “winner” was Denise three doors down. Marci wore her famous smile over as she walked over having seen the sixty-year-old semi-large Greek woman fiddling in her driveway.

“Denise! Hey lady!”

“Oh, hi Marci. How are you?” Denise’s voice indicated she didn’t hate Marci, but was indifferent enough to wonder why Marci would visit.

“I’m great. Great.” She wasn’t great.

 “So, what’s up girl?” Denise said as Marci made it to her driveway, seeming more exasperated than would be normal for a short walk.

“Have you seen that weirdo going back and forth—that guy skipping?”

“*chuckles* Yeah Marci, I guess I’ve noticed him once or twice. Pretty funny way to keep in shape.”

“You ain’t kidding Denise! So who is he? Do you know him?”

“Not personally, no. Why what’s going on?”

“Oh nothing. I’ve just seen him a few days in a row now and he kind of creeps me out.” At that moment Denise’s smile grew wider as she gritted her teeth. Denise was looking over Marci’s shoulder, and she ventriloquisted out through her smile, “He’sh coming right now. He’sh coming right behind you.” Marci’s heart started beating harder. She really couldn’t tell if it was fear, anger, or annoyance, or a sampler platter. The footsteps of skipping cadence did still sound kind of funny, but Marci wasn’t feeling it. Marci turned around as nonchalantly as possible, and attempted to speak the same way –

“Oh it’s you again. Hi,” Marci attempted. “Hellooo.” Denise added, for some reason forgetting to fully un-clench her teeth. The skipper turned his head in borderline creepy fashion, again, and gave a solid “Hello there.”

“Hey hold up sir, I want to ask you something!” Marci yelled. Denise shot her a surprised, and mildly disapproving look. “No Marshi. We don’t want him to shtop here,” said Denise through re-clenched teeth. Marci ignored her acquaintances wishes, “Sir! Excuse me! Hey, Sir!” But the skipper skipped away skipping the opportunity to answer any query Marci might have for him.

“Marci what the hell? Guy obviously doesn’t want to talk to us. Did you see him do something, or something?”

“That creep has been outside every time I have for two-three days. I’m starting to get annoyed,” Marci complained.

“It ain’t illegal to skip, Marci. Guy seems weird but harmless. Maybe he’s autistic or something. Who knows?” Denise tried to change the conversation after to normal neighbor talk, and Marci pretended to be present for the conversation, but she wasn’t. The neighbors said bye and Marci walked home, looking down the sidewalk.

The head turned, the smile was friendly as ever, but the face became one that you might see after staring at it too long. The rest of the world got blurry and in fade—Marci from her undefined position loudly asked, “What do you want!? Why are you here!? Answer me you creepy weirdo!” The smiling face slowly let out, “You’re not supposed to see me like this…” The mouth the smile was on began to open and black anti-flashes filled Marci’s view until consuming it like her soul had vanished. “Noooo!!” Marci was wide awake in a millisecond. She was breathing heavy and wasn’t sure if she was safe yet. She heard one of her beautiful somewhat ditsy (yet lovable) teenage daughters getting some food in the kitchen, and she had never even been close to feeling happy to hear that at 2:30 am, until now.

“Hey Jenny. What are you doing up sweetie? Said Marci, attempting to sound groggy like she hadn’t been brought fully 100% awake.

“I’m eating,” said Jenny the brunette with a mouth full of brownie. Marci was 90% sure Jenny was probably stoned, but the eyes were kind of in the middle and hard to judge conclusively. “What are you doing up, Mommy?” Marci paused to think of how much she should say; easily she could say nothing, and just as easily she could cry a book to her daughter. “I had a bad dream. I’ve been feeling weird lately Jen. I’ve been seeing this weird guy as well.” Jenny stopped chewing, “The skipper guy?” Marci gave a fake laugh, “yeah, the skipper guy. He really creeps me out.” Jenny gave a stoned sounding laugh. “Oh I knowww. Me and my friend laughed at that guy for 20 minutes the other day. He was skipping down the street smiling like a freak, and we were like ‘oh, em, gee.’” They both laughed, but Jenny was obviously less worried about this than Marci, even if you couldn’t tell. Marci looked around the kitchen real quick and or a moment felt like she didn’t recognize it, and that’s when she felt it. Her heart started beating irrationally just like it had when she was confronted with skipper being close behind her. She could feel him again like you would feel a bug on you while half sleeping, knowing you needed to get up but still unable to. Jenny took a break from being (probably) stoned, eating, and laughing, to stare at her mom who obviously was thinking about something that exposed the vacancy in her face. Marci turned and walked out of the kitchen without a word and headed out the front door.

The night was one of those nights you experienced as an older child when you went outside late at night in the summer, and you were surprised at the water on the grass and the cold in the air. Marci stood and heard the light breeze, and she looked back and forth down the sidewalk. She didn’t see him. Shaking lightly from (perhaps) the cold, Marci was otherwise still as the night itself. She knew she would see him, and then a moment later she knew she wouldn’t. She felt like a stupid child standing out there. It was dreamlike. Just when she was about to laugh at herself, she caught a spider on the wall out of her right peripheral vision. Across the street fifteen houses away there was something coming down the sidewalk. “Son of a bitch.” Marci was frozen for a few moments, but as her nightmare moved closer and came into clear view she broke for the door. It was locked. She was focked. Every second was an eternity. She mustered the courage to run back around to the garage to type in the code. Against her instinct, she looked back across the street and saw the happy skipper skip into the street and head straight towards her driveway. “Ahhhh God!!!” Marci screamed. She got her garage door to open before the happy skipper reached the bottom of her driveway, and she ran inside. She tried to close the garage but hit the button too many times and it locked open. Jenny opened the door to the garage with a confused look on her face, a face Marci had trouble recognizing in that moment. Jenny saw the happy skipper skipping up the driveway at 3am, but she was too young to care, even though she was right in his path just behind her mother. Marci looked at him in horror and closed her eyes and screamed a scream of something worse than death as she waited for him to make his last couple skips.

Happy skipper is the inevitable fate coming to us all. Hopefully you’re too young to care. If not, don’t look at him. Don't acknowledge him at all.