THE INTRUDER

THE INTRUDER

I’m not sure exactly when he started coming around but, literally, it was like, one minute he wasn’t there and, the next, he was constantly in our lives; and I mean constantly.

We, Billy and I, were told to call him “Uncle” Fred but he was no uncle of mine. I knew all my uncles and aunts and cousins; had done forever. I’d grown up knowing them. Even the ones we only saw every couple of years, we still knew about them, talked about them. So I knew this guy was no relative. Billy was too young and just did as he was told. Maybe that’s why he and this imposter got along so well. But me, I couldn’t stand him.

I remember that first morning. It was a Saturday and I came downstairs early to watch cartoons, same as I had done every Saturday. I wondered what the lumpy shape reclining on our sofa was. Then the smell hit me. His smell. Pungent! A mixture of sweat and alcohol interlaced with that sweet, sickly after shave that he favoured; a smell I would come to know and loathe. That was when my ma’s hand grabbed me from behind and dragged me from the room.

“No cartoons, today, Jake”.

I couldn’t believe it.

“Who is that?” I demanded to know.

“That...that is Fred. Your Uncle Fred”.

“I ain’t got no Uncle Fred”.

“You do now. Okay?”

Later, at the breakfast table, as this stranger joined us, I couldn’t help but show my resentment towards him and no amount of coercion from my parents could persuade me otherwise. He sensed it immediately and made no effort to get along with me, which, if I’m honest, just made me madder. Instead, he focused his efforts on Billy; an easy conquest. Even when Ma told me that I could leave the table and go and watch cartoons, having tidied up the living room, I could still smell his odour and refused point blank to do so.

From that day, he just started hanging around more and more. Always at weekends and my Saturday morning ritual of the Simpsons became a thing of the past. I started playing Little League in earnest just glad to be out of the house as much as possible. Him being around was the reason I joined the Nippers, too. It really helped with my swimming but it was more to have a genuine reason to stay away from the house on Saturdays and Sundays. But it was when he started showing up in the middle of the week for dinner that my dislike and resentment turned into feelings of pure hatred.

Ma would make such a fuss of him and it turned my stomach. Turned out that he worked with Pa on the docks and it had been Pa who had first invited him home. I learnt all this by listening in to their conversations via the air duct that lay above the skirting in our bedroom, Billy’s and mine, that adjoined my parents’ room. Billy would be asleep but I would sit there, my ear to the grill, listening to them both speak glowingly about Uncle Fred.

I could see his intentions, right off the bat. It amazed me that neither of my parents could see it, too. Whenever he came for the weekend, he made sure to bring Ma something pretty as a gift. Oftentimes, it was just flowers but, sometimes, it would be perfume or an item of clothing and Ma would make such a fuss; be so grateful that I would want to vomit at the sight of her hugging him. How could she get so close to this man? His aftershave was repugnant. Wasn’t she, too, offended by it?

Even when he joined us for dinner during the week, he was sure to bring along a bottle of wine or two. Not just any wine either. It was always a sparkling variety; her favourite, of course. The three of them would consume the bottles over dinner and Billy and I would be excused from the table but I would keep an eye from afar as they became more intoxicated and hands would touch and whispers were exchanged between them. I just wanted to grab the carving knife and erase this man from our lives. I had never felt such venom towards any person before. Was my father unaware of this growing intimacy between his wife and his friend? It seemed to me as though he actually encouraged it, content to see Ma become ever more accepting and appreciative of Fred.

When I heard them discussing our summer vacation, I knew that I had to make a stand. I listened as Fred extolled the virtues of the Rockies and how we could all take a camper and make a road trip of the entire summer, camping out under the stars, cooking over an open fire, going wherever we wanted. It sounded ideal but, when he proposed coming along with us, claiming to know all the best sites, I broke into a cold sweat.

From time to time, both Ma and Pa had tried to talk to me about my behaviour around Fred but they had quickly realised that my feelings were deeply entrenched and no amount of cajoling was going to change my view of this man.

That night, after Pa had driven Fred home, I marched into my mother’s bedroom and furiously announced that I had no intention of accompanying them on any road trip to the Rockies. Period!

“You go. I’ll stay with grandma. I mean it”.

“Still up to your little tricks of listening in to grown up’s private conversations, I see, Jake”.

“Can’t you see what that man is up to, buying you presents all the time? Why does Pa allow it”.

“You have no idea of what you speak, Jake Horowitz. You should go and wash your mouth out with soap and water immediately, you hear? You’re only eleven years old and you don’t make the rules around here. It’s about time you learnt that”.

I had skulked off to bed but, when Pa returned home later, I could hear them whispering frantically as I pressed my ear to the air duct grill though I couldn’t make out every word clearly. But, the following morning, Pa made a point of telling me and Billy that we, the four of us, would be heading to the Rockies for our family vacation. Ma nodded on, smiling. I suspected some trick so I made sure to clarify this.

“You said, four. So it’s just us four, right?"

“Like I said, Jake. This is a family vacation. Just us four”.

I felt as if I had just won a great battle; Hawkeye defeating the Iroquois, and, for the first time in several weeks, my parents saw me smile and tuck into my pancakes with glee. They seemed to be pleased by the effect of their news. Billy was ecstatic and we were a real family, once again.

In the days that followed, Fred stayed away and it was as if he had never existed. That first Saturday morning, I ventured downstairs apprehensively only to find the living room empty, no odour of Fred. I felt a feeling of joy and contentment coursing through me as I switched on the remote and settled down for a couple of hours of cartoons.

When Pa brought home the hire camper, Billy, Ma and me clambered all over it excitedly. This was really happening. We were setting off on our first ever road trip; a real family.

The weather was glorious as we drove through places we had never before seen, stopping whenever we felt like it, taking in the views, chatting happily to other boys, just like us, embarking on a great American road trip and it seemed to me that both my parents were equally as thrilled as Billy and I as we made our way north, the Heart of the Rockies campsite our destination.

We could smell the cleanness of the mountain air, the fragrant, aromatic scent of the pines as we entered the camp grounds. Ma wanted to call in at the camp store so we could stock up on food and provisions. Billy and I took the opportunity to stretch our legs and check out the fishing rods that were on display for Pa had promised us both that he would spring for some rods and teach us the intricacies of fly fishing on this trip.

You can only imagine how I felt when I saw the red pickup truck parked in the store’s parking bays. I recognised the plate and the rear window stickers from when Fred would come to stay at weekends and my heart plummeted like a lead weight in a rain barrel. I felt sick to my stomach and pulled back on Billy who was trying to drag me into the store. A sense of deep betrayal had overcome me and I broke away from my brother and ran off wildly along a trail. I had no idea where it led, I just had to get away from those I loved the most who had played me false.

They had to organise a search party to find me. I could hear people calling my name in the darkness as I lay deep inside a thicket, scrunched up like a ball. It was the hunger gnawing at me that brought me out, finally, resigned to the fact that, for some strange reason, beyond my youthful comprehension, this man meant more to my parents than their own son. Of course, they protested their innocence: it had been just as much a surprise to them as it had been to me, they had had no idea that Fred was planning to be here, in this campsite, on this week. All lies, I knew, but what could I, an eleven year old boy, do, so far from home?

I can’t remember too much about the rest of that vacation; just bits and bobs, blurred memories. How Fred taught Billy how to fish properly, light a fire. How Pa and Fred would go off together to the local tavern at night. How, slowly, Ma began to, finally, see the light and come to feel as I did but it was all too late by then; the seeds had been well and truly sown.

Pa left home immediately we returned to our house. Ma didn’t protest. Like me, I think she was just too disappointed that the wool had been pulled over her eyes for so long. She was probably disgusted also at the thought of what had been going on between Pa and Fred night after night, right under her eyes. I never again failed to trust my instincts for I may have got it wrong about Fred’s real target but I sure in hell got it right about that man.