I was happy to finally be home. My son had been waiting for me half wondering where I had been and half excited to tell me what his day had been like. I was sure that I did not think it would compare to mine, but I learned quickly that it would at least relate to mine. “That guy was just lurking around the school for an hour or so,” my son had started explaining to me, “He was creepy too. I mean he was at least 7 feet tall, but he was huge! His arms were bigger than my head, and he did not look like he even had a neck,” he continued, and I started already understanding who he was describing but wanted him to continue, so I just sat there looking interested. “After they locked down the school, we all had to go and look out the windows, cuz you know how it is. What did they expect? He was not ugly, but he just looked scary, and nobody could figure out what he was doing out there. Miss Kantner said that the police never showed up, so they were really bugging bad around the hallways,” and I found that weird considering that our police love to roust anyone for anything.
I was fading out of what he was saying simply because I remember the fear that I had when I saw the man to which he was talking about. I knew him in a way that I was too afraid to remember. He had paralyzed me with fear and sent me to another place. I also was able to sense what might have brought that freak away from the school. This of course is how I knew him since the time that he was out front of my diner was a good hour and a half after school had let out. My own skin was crawling as I remembered the implosion of all the windows, and then the maternal instincts really came out when I thought of that having happened at the school when all the kids were crowding the windows to see what was going on. I had gone way past the phase of thinking that any of this sounds normal, I just accepted what I knew and what my own eyes and ears had shown me.
This is the opposite of jaded I realize but it factors into a lot of what carries out in the coming days. I envy those people that just slip quietly into insanity especially considering that I was clinging far too emotionally to what could only be an insane situation. Now I found myself thinking about Lou and how he had said I was not enchanted, and it worried me a bit to think that it has something to do with all of this and I was angry that my son and his classmates were involved. In what were they involved the small, yet sane part of my brain asked the growingly jaded part of my brain. “Did you see anyone else during the strange guy’s walk around the school?”
My son thought about it for a moment and then started explaining to me, “I didn’t, but some of the girls in one of the other classes said that there was another guy out there walking around the school too,” which made a lot of sense considering that guys look at the powerful one and girls look at the cute one. Of course, the need to start explaining to Jake how cute he was as if I was fourteen years old myself was drowned out by the need to claw the eyes out of the other girls. How petty can a mother get in this scenario? I continued to listen instead as Jake went on, “Yeah they said that the cutest guy ever walked around the corner and stared down the scary guy,” and as I continued to think about clawing their eyes out, I did start thinking that sounded familiar.
I looked at him as the interesting parts in his mind were done so that he would continue. Thank God I was still able to use that ploy on my son even if Lou had ruined that whole ability for me, “They thought someone was filming a movie, the guy that stopped the ugly one was so cute, he couldn’t really scare the big guy, but somehow he did,” he took a moment again and then after my look beckoned him onwards he said, “That was pretty much the end of it. The big guy backed out of the schoolyard and went towards town,” and you could see that the story stopped being interesting at this point to him. He did ask casually, “Did you see them mom? They were going towards the diner, the way the girls made it sound?”
I decided to answer Jake but leave out my gory details. I was a bit relieved to hear that the other man was not just in my imagination and fueled on by my panic attack. “Actually, Jake, I did see them. One was very intimidating, tall with larger arms then I have ever seen on a man that was not in some sort of body building poster or something and come to think of it they were a lot bigger still” Jake immediately signaled his agreement on that one. This was a good sign, so I continued, “The other was a lot smaller but still large. He had long wavy hair and looked younger but appeared much older for some reason,” Jake nodded but not really in agreement since he had not seen Lou himself, he was just giving me the sign that he heard what I had said.
Now it was time for me to use a skill that all intelligent mothers use on their children. A century of childhood psychology and the books that are related to it are completely wrong I assure you because I have learned, and I know I am completely correct. I lied to him for his own good because there is no reason for a boy to grow up knowing his mother is crazy either. “I don't really know much more than that because I really only saw them for a minute or so, but I can see what you mean about the bigger guy being really scary looking,” and I took a moment to get the words straight. This does not look dishonest because I was smart enough to raise Jake on this method. I continued now that I had it all set up in my head, “because I was just happy when he went away.”
It was amazing how Jake had such fear of this man and could not contain it. Jake is a man, as he is already taller than me and quite rugged from all his years of playing football. He also happens to be hardened with the pure sacrifice of a young man whose father is worthless, well was worthless anyway, and he has had to be the man of the house for as long as he knew. I happen to be a very hard person to scare or shock, and that guy gave me the creeps something fierce, so I am not considering it strange, but Jake also has that air of invulnerability that scares a mother every time he gets tackled by some bruiser on the other team. My mind at this time was still wandering off as the thoughts of all those kids standing by the windows, and having THOSE windows implode would not leave my mind at all. It was getting to the point where I could start crying if the wrong thing were said right now so I try to stay strong as a single mother should do. “Did anyone in the school go outside while this was going on?” I timidly asked.
“Hell no!” he then looked at me like he was ashamed of saying hell. He really is a good kid, so I pointed out that it was ok, and he continued, “Everyone was scared, and I mean really scared. The school was in a crazy panic, and it was making everyone else panic, I guess,” after looking down he added, “Mom, seriously I was terrified the moment I saw him, and I was just glued to the window, it was like when I used to wake up with nightmares and had to just lay there for a while until I could force myself to move, unable to speak or anything but completely terrified” nodding my head was more than just a mother comforting her son here, because I knew too well what he was talking about. The man was like concentrated fear, and it was not until I listened to Jake's recap, and his honesty about it all that it hit me. I really did have the experience that disappeared and more than ever I need to know why it did. I started thinking differently about a few things instantly, so much so that it prompted Jake to ask me, “Are you ok mom?”
This is one of those moments in a young mother's life when you must decide what the best thing is for your child, of course. I had already been here, but it happens so often in your day that it was upon me again and so soon after I had lied to him before. To be honest with you I cannot stand those parents that think a child has to be burdened with every adult issue that comes down the highway and I think the single mothers I see doing it on television are particularly disgusting. I am sure they would say the same thing about us mothers that try to keep our children young long enough to adjust to being not so young too. I could give him the truth or I could give him a story which in the minds of some would equate to a lie, but in the mind of a mother ranks right up there with such wonderful moments as “the sex talk” and the “nuclear war talk” and of course the “no your father does actually love you talk” in the fact that it just doesn't do him any good to deal with adult problems or have adult fears.
I know that I am already a little upset myself at this point that I am losing my own level of “blissfully ignorant” quickly. My mind is churning with everything from, what the hell are BOTH of them, and why do they both plague a person's emotions? I mean seriously plague the emotional stability of those that they meet. It is not fair that I must deal with these types of things, but like everyone else, I fall in love with Lou every time I see him and that other guy totally cripples me, as apparently, he does everyone else with panic and fear. It has nothing to do with their actions either, as it is merely their presence that creates the emotional chaos, and were I just like everyone else, I would be ignorant to it all, but I am not. I remember quite clearly simply wanting to scream out “Why Me?” and then put my head down crying. I can’t even rationally explain to any of you now, why I simply fought through everything the way I did at that time, but instead I did what I should have done and said, “No bubba, just worried about you is all, I'm sure that it was just some weirdo from the state hospital like happened a couple of years ago,” after rationing that he was buying it I added, “that other guy probably rounded him up and took him back.”
I was quite sure that he bought my explanation, but I sure did not. Again, it made a lot of sense and was a testament to my ability to think on my toes. I had read once that the average person does not want to believe things that are so fantastic that they defy reality. It makes it so that the average person does not want to believe anything that even strays off the reservation all that much either. In the interest of making their lives as easy as possible they fall for anything that is sensible, even if it is an outright lie. This comes in handy I imagine, for those that did not have a restaurant implode on them and then get put back together again in the span of a panic attack. I wish someone had had the common decency to come along and give me an explanation to it all that would have worked in my mind. I would have been happy if someone had just pulled the evidence out of my palms before I woke up.
While Jake was in his room finishing his homework, I was scouring the Internet looking for fugitives within one thousand miles of here and found nobody that came even close to either of them. I should have asked Lou about that other guy, but despite my lack of “enchantment” I still have a much-lowered sense of “being” when he is around. I would go out looking for him if I were not terrified to leave Jake alone, suddenly. It is amazing though how I manage to not maintain the same level of fear for my own safety but again it must be one of those “maternal instincts” benefits that come with the job. That guy does petrify me when I think about him but for some reason, I can manage to not think about him, or something along those lines. The confusion that filled me and my own self-doubt, not to mention “lying eyes” syndrome, made it all that much more confusing. As I sat there, I felt myself consciously wishing that Lou would simply show up so I could get some answers out of him since, even though he speaks a bit in riddles, at least answers the questions you ask. That was when the knock came at the back door, scaring the crap out of me in the process ... to be continued.
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