My son Jake first showed his awareness of the natural world when he was only two- he pointed at a something I couldn’t see in a tree and said “cheep cheep” before 3 birds took flight. Our adopted dog Toby had run-away fever, but Jake was always able to find him in an afternoon of driving around. The fatherly sense within told me that Jake was tapping into something greater than intuition, and I wanted to test it.
Jake’s first hunting lesson was killing the barn rats out back. Jake didn’t take to his .22 and despised the act of killing, even for fair vermin like the 5 pound rats that ate our stores. But he did it, and he was good at it…really good. I couldn’t understand it. Jake was tagging leaping, zig-zagging rats with single shots while I was lucky just to graze one- if I were able to do that at his age of ten, I would have thought I were one of the world’s most deadly men, but apparently my son had more constraint and tact than I did. He bagged 32 rats in 2 and a half hours. I had 4. Jake confirmed that only 3 male rats remained, and that they would scatter to find mates. Jake was right.
Jake acted as my guide when we hunted and fished together; my son led me right to the biggest buck or fish without hesitation or delay, every time. I didn’t consider having Jake as a hunting guide as cheating- I considered it how God intended for us to have our little edge out here on this hard world at winning father/son hunting competitions. The hunting purses went to entry fees to bigger events, and more time with my son. Truth be told, his mother hated the weeks of away in the wilderness until I set down our biggest purse to date for dragging in a 603 pound black marlin. I had to set the entire cash prize down in front of her, just so that she could see what 1.3 million dollars really looks like before it went to the bank- a towering 7’ monolith made of $100 bills on a wood palate. Jake had located the black-striped marlin won it for us on his 16th birthday.
After the winnings, my wife now saw Jake’s talent for what it was- a gift honed by years of field training, a gift that reached beyond the sporting world- like the girl.
We were all driving back from the grocery store when Jake made us stop the car- he knew there someone not far from the highway who needed our help. We stopped and followed Jake to what looked like an old dry well, where we found a girl had fallen through the rotted boards sealing the opening. Jake got his photo taken with the first responders; it made the cover of two local newspapers under the headline BOY FINDS, SAVES LOCAL GIRL FROM DERELICT WATER TANK.
But my wife still disliked all the time away from home, that couldn’t be changed…but our address could. So we took the rest of the big prize and purchased a house out of state, somewhere wooded, closer to nation’s largest competitions. 127 McKean Street’s 144 photos and videos all showed a very nice, modern two story home for a fifty grand under similar places- “divorce distress sale”. The chief of police of the town owned it and vouched for it’s condition personally. Based on photos alone, and we packed up our things and drove for two solid days, 1,600 miles “home”.
144 pictures and 19 phone conversations aside, to buy a property sight unseen seemed dumber to my wife and I the longer we drove. Our anxiety stayed with us until was saw the home’s welcoming neighborhood, immaculate exterior and fresh, open partially furnished rooms inside. My wife loved the gardens and the views, I loved the garage and the fact that all the foundation and guts of the house were new. My son reserved immediate judgment. He was even a little hesitant walking into the house. As we unpacked, my son kept nervously looking around, as if he were waiting for something to come out and bite him. His paranoia came to a peak when he hung off the 2nd story guardrail to rip out a lightbulb at the center of the wall below. Jake took the bulb outside and smashed it in the street. I went to go have a talk with him- I told him I trusted him, even with my life- and I never ONCE questioned him, but now I needed to know why he smashed that bulb. Jake looked back at the house for a very long time and said:
“Dad…I don’t track those animals by the little hints in the ground or by what the waters are doing. It’s a sense, from an organ that’s probably in my brain, like your nose. But only I have this kind of nose, the kind that sniffs out where animals -even people- are. And I can’t describe smell to someone who never had a nose. But I can smell in a different way, even in the dark, even if you cast my head in plaster. And that light-bulb was alive, dad. I sensed it like a living bird, a dog- you or me, like that girl down in the water tank. That bulb was at least piece of something living…like an eye.” I asked my son if the lightbulb still was living. He looked down at the bulb’s shards in the street and muttered “no. Not like before. But…” he didn’t finish the sentence as he stared up at our new, pastel-colored cooker-cutter townhouse. He seemed to be consumed with grim concern.
At the time, my wife and I were exhausted from driving 800 miles while being on our last few hundred dollars, and the idea of blowing that at a dirty motel for an indefinite period of time was not an option I was willing to take. I will admit that I dismissed my son’s concerns into puberty-induced paranoia. I also dismissed the realization of how silly that reasoning was. This house was nice. It was cheap, next to some big prize tournaments- plain and simple. I’ll live with sentient light-bulbs. What are they going to do? Turn off and on? Turn my house into a rave?
We appreciated the fact the house came with nice dressers, bureaus and beds with factory plastic still on them, a fantastic sight for burnt-out travelers with a leaking air mattress. We had just enough energy to unpack the sheets to make the bed, crashing immediately.
I don’t remember how long I slept, but I woke in the dark not being able to move, like the bed was holding me like it was the world’s most powerful magnet and I was made of pure iron. I saw wife struggle meekly under the blankets- she made little sounds as if she were in pain- the worst part was, I couldn’t even lift an arm to knock off the blanket to see what was wrong.
I would have been dead if it weren’t for Jake pulling- ripping me off of the bed. I fell limp in my sons arms- I didn’t lack the energy, I wasn’t winded, I simply didn’t have the bodily strength to stand. Worse yet, when I fell, my bare feet and hands that touched the hardwood floor, and I could feel that magnetic suction again.
My son, 165 pounds, carried me, formally 230 pounds, down the stairs and out of the house as if I were his petite bride and set me on the front lawn.
“My bed was alive too, dad…” Jake said as he helped me stand on wobbly legs, “…I never got in it. I went to your guys room to wake you up but you were already in…” I collapsed again. I told Jake to dial 911.
I was surprised to see the police chief that owned the home before us show up with the fire department. They went up to the bedroom and found my wife’s underwear in our bed but no woman. The chief had a steadfast believe that my wife was simply “confused and lost” and that she’ll turn up any time now, and laughed when I told what happened, with being stuck to the bed. He even laughed when I told him that I was 230 pounds and 6’5” a few hours ago- now, I was about the same height and weighed less as my son. He asked “what, do you want me to believe this house was somehow eating you? That it ate your wife? Are you insane?” That’s exactly what I wanted him to believe, and if I were not as big as I were, it would have totally absorbed me like it did to my wife…until they found her.
The chief came back with my wife wrapped in one of those heavy white trauma blankets. Both of them were beaming unflinching smiles. My wife said “silly me, I got turned around in a closet and didn’t know where I was! Much better now!” and the chief nodded with satisfaction. I never heard my wife talk like that, and the woman I know would never be “turned around in a closet”.
Jake then pulled me away from the crowd and whispered “I don’t know what the chief or that lady claiming to be mom are, but they are not alive.”