Yellow, late-afternoon daylight slices lazily through the gaps between rotted boards. Steady, continuous flecks of floating dust dance through the rays. The dirt floor around me is strewn with ancient, browning hay, stale and brittle, stinking with the dried horse-piss of a century and a half.
It’s a spacious, musty room that I stand in—hell, the thing’s probably sixty yards long from front door to back, and probably just as wide. The ceiling is high and vaulted, as you’d expect from a place like this—the apotheosis of eerie, long-forsaken, off-the-highway barns.
This one sits at the top of a gentle hill at the end of a yawning, breezy field. You can see it from the highway—and I have, haven’t I? I can’t remember exactly when. It sits like a decomposing specter, three hundred yards from the road, a deceptively-large husk of a building. A pointed tower extends off the roof, sagging drunkenly to one side, curling slightly back on itself, like a giant, spindly index finger. Like it’s coaxing you to pull your car to the shoulder, and take a leisurely jaunt across the swaying grass. Like it has something to show you.
I don’t remember accepting its offer—yet here I am, and that’s all there is to it: the only foundation this dream’s logic has given me to stand on. I’m here. Alone, with my thoughts and the dust and the dancing shadows.
But how alone am I really? Less so, now.
Suddenly the shadows around me are doing a different dance than before. The creaks and groans are a bit less passive, a bit more aggressive. The massive room around me is not so empty and spacious. I force my head up slowly, inch by inch examining the barn around me. There are the leaning horse stalls, stacked one next to the other, running the length of the sidewalls. The rusted feeding troughs in the back corner. There’s the precarious-looking wooden ladder to the left of the opposite door, that leads up to what was once a hayloft. Nothing changed, nothing out of place. Nothing new.
There’s a louder creak from above, loud enough to sound as though it’s calling my attention, and I raise my head toward the ceiling. And I see them.
Bodies, dozens of them, hanging from the withered, crisscrossing rafters. They’re strung up and down the beams like haphazard tree ornaments—some tight against the ceiling, some with enough slack in their fraying ropes to hang down within ten feet of my head. They’re in various stages of decay—I see one that’s especially wilted, with shrunken, black, lifeless skin. It swings inconsequentially, almost weightless. The face looks like it’s sewn together from dried leaves. But there’s another to its right, hanging fifteen feet below it. And it’s much, much newer. Bloated, purple, and slick, ready to burst like a balloon and fill the air with noxious gas.
They sway lazily back and forth—ghoulish pendulums that should have long gone still. I stand there, staring, eyes flickering from one gruesome horror to the next. A dull, muted dread fills my chest. The sane thing would be to turn tail and run, screaming, hands over my head, out the big wooden door and back to where I came from. But again—dream logic is steering this ship now, and I didn’t actually come from anywhere. So I hold my breath, tensing my muscles, squeezing my eyes shut, waiting for this whole, grisly place to fade to morning sunlight. But it doesn’t. It won’t. It isn’t through with me yet. And just that instant, I know why.
Another sound suddenly joins the symphony of woody creaks and groans. Dull footfalls, one after the other—I can picture the worn-down boot heels from the sound alone. I force my eyes open slowly, ignoring every fiber of my being that screams and begs to keep them closed. Nightmares don’t allow for the blissful ignorance routine*.*
The figure emerges slowly from the farthest stall on the left, sauntering more than walking, and at first, I have to squint my eyes to make out any sharp lines, any defining features. But there aren’t any. It’s only a shadow, and an impossible one at that—there’s no light coming at the right angle to create one—but it’s there, all the same. It’s tall, stretching what must be seven feet up the wall, and skinny. If I were looking at a real, living person, I would think he must be malnourished—but then again, I doubt that traditional food is the kind that nourishes him.
The shadow’s right arm swings casually at his side; his left is raised up, loosely gripping some protrusion that juts off his left shoulder. An unmistakable shape sits atop his head—a wide-brimmed hat, the front brim bent skyward. A thin, spindly shadow extends from his mouth—a piece of straw, maybe. He walks slowly, paying me no mind, until he reaches the middle of the far wall. Then, he stops, leans forward slightly, spits. A shadowy streak of phantom tobacco juice splats to the ground.
The shadow stands still, perfectly still, too still, until I’m almost sure that it won’t move again. And it doesn’t move—not really, anyway. What it does next feels less like moving, and more like … morphing. Developing, really, like a polaroid picture, from blank darkness into full, vivid reality. Suddenly the shadow is a full, three dimensional figure, and the transformation was so understated and ephemeral that I can’t begin to comprehend how or when it happened. It’s horrible. It looks like a man—just as tall and gaunt as his shadow had suggested, and dressed from head to toe in dusty, tattered clothes that have no discernable color. His forearms and face are the only exposed skin—if you could call whatever revolting membrane something like that wears skin—and they’re caked in grime and soot.
A large droopy mustache sits above his lip, which is pulled curled upward and backward to reveal something between a sneer and a snarl. What shards of teeth exist are rotting, brown, and shrunken, like cockroach soldiers standing at attention. His left eye is covered by a leather patch; his right gleams electric yellow through the dim barn. His left hand is still raised, loosely gripping what I can now see is a rope, coiled around his left shoulder like a scaly, undead snake.
I’m not afraid now—afraid is too simple a word for it. I’m frozen. Paralyzed by a cocktail of terror and revulsion that fills me from my feet to my scalp. He’s almost fifty feet from me, but I can smell him anyway—sour, dank, alive in the most nauseating way, because he absolutely shouldn’t be. We stand there, facing each other, immobile as marble statues, for what has to be a full minute. Neither of us make a sound. Then, voices do come—but not from either of us. They come instead from those figures swinging slowly above us, synchronized like a hellish choir, raspy and dry, not generated by moving lips or breathing lungs, but emanating from them as a collective, and transmitted directly into my skull.
“He’s the lanky, leerin’ Lasso-Man, got a twirlin’ rope and a steady hand
His rope’s his brush, his barn’s his easel, and he’s pegged you, boy, for a yellow weasel …”
The phantom across from me—the Lasso-Man, apparently*—*remains perfectly still. But his yellow eye glimmers with satisfaction. His collection of puppets are speaking on his behalf. And it pleases him.
“He don’t like a man with a jelly spine, he’d like to kill ya, he’d like it fine
Around your neck, then around the oak, he’ll yank you up, you’ll squeal, you’ll choke
You’re meek, you’re soft, your manhood’s soured, you’re pathetic, boy, you’re a shrimp-dick coward
Can’t make the cut, can’t get it done, you’re a lost cause boy, and your time is done… ”
Now, after what feels like a minor eternity, he moves. His left hand left arm drops from his side, bringing the coiled rope with it. With the practiced nonchalance of many years, he draws out an end, which has been knotted into a loose loop.
“His time is vast, his rope swings long, and he’s waitin’ for you to prove him wrong
It’ll never happen, you won’t never show, you ain’t a man who’ll stand toe-to-toe…”
The lasso’s loop, now hanging patiently, begins to sway back and forth, almost imperceptibly slow at first. Then it swings faster, longer. After a few swings, he cracks his wrist, sending it up and around in a full loop. It fires up above his head, then comes back around, scraping the floor with a meaty thwack that reports violently through the barn. His eye gleams brighter. He’s taking great pleasure in all of this.
He brings the loop around again.
THWACK
Crusty straw scatters at the impact. A puff of dust swirls with it.
“He sees you well, he sees you whole, he sees the depths of your timid soul
Try to stand your ground, rebuke the shame, but you’ll swing with us, boy, all the same…”
He swings his rope steadily, and the thwacks accompany the chants like a metronome.
“He’s the Lanky, Leerin, Lasso-man, Face him down, if you think you can
Got just one leerin’, jeerin’ eye, and he’ll use it, boy, to watch you die…”
With that, the choir goes silent. And horrible though their voices were, I have a sudden, insane wish that they’d continue. Without them, the creaks and groans of their ropes are almost deafening. The thwacks of the lasso have become like gunshots.
The phantom across from continues to watch through his singular burning eye, no visible movement but the lazy crack of his wrist.
What happens now? Renewed fright pours through me like a wave of cold water, and I decide I don’t want to stick around to find out. I close my eyes again, flexing every muscle I can, trying to will myself out of this dark corner of my subconscious. Back to the waking world, and to an undoubtedly sweaty set of bedsheets.
But the barn refuses to fade, stubbornly continuing to exist around me. I pinch the soft skin on the underside of my forearm, wrenching it around until a whimper of pain escapes my lips. No dice. I smack myself with an open hand—my right cheek, then the left. Then I try the same thing with closed fists. Stars dance through my vision after the punches, but once they’re gone, I still see nothing but the barn.
The bodies above me swing in violent, erratic arcs through the rafters, their movements as random and senseless as molecules of evaporating gas. They crash wildly into each other. The fresher ones impact with wet slaps; the older ones with dusty thuds and the clacking of bones. Now, their impossible mouthless voices are back again—not reciting chants this time, but making insane, guttural noise. Screams, or laughter? I can’t tell.
Screaming, creaking, slapping, groaning, and …thudding.
Dull bootheels, thudding louder as they move toward me. He’s done waiting. He’s coming.
I spin around, my feet finally free of their fear-induced concrete anchors, and run for the door behind me. I skid on hay as I reach it, and start yanking on the iron handle. At first it doesn’t budge—a hundred years of grime and rust have settled it stubbornly into place. The footsteps are louder now. Closer. The rope hits the ground again, and I feel a gust of air from the swing.
I give the handle one last, desperate yank…and the door relents. It whines angrily open, and afternoon sun streaks in through a gap that can’t be more than a foot wide. It’s wide enough. I squeeze through sideways, feeling splinters tear through my shirt from both sides, lodging into my chest and back.
I try to run, but my foot catches on the edge of the door, throwing me to the ground in a heap. I’m up instantly, and running harder than I have since my Little League days. The three hundred yards to the road may as well be three-hundred miles. I make my arms and legs pump together.
Within seconds, the barnyard dirt beneath my feet becomes grass. Now that I’ve reached the field, I feel a jolt of elated relief. It’s short lived.
A sudden whoosh joins the sound of my breathless panting, and something falls neatly around my head, settling on my shoulders. Then, the loop yanks tight around my neck, and I’m stopped cold. My feet kick helplessly into the air in front of me as I’m whiplashed backward. My panting is stifled by a choke, and I feel my neck crack as it’s yanked from its proper place.
I’m on my back. He’s dragging me back toward the barn. Dark curtains close inward on my vision. Rocks and stickers tear hungrily through my clothes as I grind across the stiff prairie grass, but I begin to slide more easily once I’m back on the dirt.
I claw desperately at my neck, trying and failing to get even a finger between the rope and my throat. No use. I’m not seeing real images anymore—just cloudy, fading shapes. The glow of sunlight disappears immediately as I’m yanked back into the darkness of the barn. I’m dragged for a few more seconds until suddenly, the pulling stops, and I’m left to lay still for a moment. As some of the pressure is released, I manage a couple raspy breaths of stale air.
There are the thudding bootheels again. They stop a couple feet from my head, and I can feel him standing over me. I can smell him, like rotting citrus soaked with old dip-spit. Things are still for a moment. I manage a few more unsatisfying lungfuls of oxygen—likely my last. He yanks me upward. My neck cracks again as more ligaments are torn out of place, and I scramble to my knees in an effort to keep him from ripping my head clear from my shoulders. He holds me there, and after my eyes get another few seconds to readjust to the darkness, he crouches down so we’re face to face. I use the last of my strength to clench my eyes shut. I don’t want his grimy skin and glowing eye to be the last things I ever see.
He’s close now, his nose only inches from mine, and he breathes heavily. I’ve never known a smell could be so horrible. When he speaks, his voice is a humming growl, a legion of locusts, buzzing in unison to create words.
“Don’t you know this rope was made for the runners, boy?”
There’s another whoosh as he casts the free end of the rope up into the rafters, looping it easily over one of the higher beams, and now I’m being lifted, a few feet at a time. He’s hoisting me up to join the others. My feet are barely kicking, and my arms hang uselessly at my sides—I have no strength left to claw at the noose. My vision fades completely now, as all the oxygen leaves my brain, and the world around me grows dim. I lose all feeling in my legs. Now my hands. Now my chest. My hearing is the last thing to go, but just before it does, I hear his ghoulish choir begin their chant again.
“He’s the Lanky, Leerin’ Lasso-Man…”
I’m gone.
—
Now, and only now, do I finally wake up, choking and shivering, tangled in a set of bedsheets which are completely soaked. Apparently, the only escape hatch to this particular nightmare was to lose all hope of finding one.
The barn and all its horrors are gone in a split second, but their effects sit with me, like an afterimage on my soul. I sit upright, trying and failing to slow my heart. My face is slick with tears and snot, and as I catch my breath, I realize with some embarrassment that sweat isn’t the only reason my sheets are damp. Not that there’s anyone else to feel embarrassed for me. I feel out at the other side of the bed to confirm that it’s empty. And, of course, it is. Even my bunny-rabbit upstairs neighbors are quiet as church-mice tonight. God, I’m so damn alone. And God, my place is so damn quiet.
Since there’s no other person I can grab onto, I settle for my old baseball bat that I always keep leaning against my nightstand. I grip its rubber handle and hold it to my chest, enjoying the cold feel of the aluminum on my skin. It’s relatively small—the one I swung during my twelve-year old season. Over the next five and final years of my baseball career, I owned a variety of bigger ones, heavier ones, better ones. Still, there’s something about this one that’s maintained its special appeal to me. Because I miss that season sometimes. I miss being twelve. The year I batted .486, pulled straight A’s, convinced Maddy Taylor to be my date for the eight-grade dinner dance. I miss being that kid. He had an iron grip on his life, simple though it was. A future with the shine of polished chrome. What the hell would he think of the pathetic bastard he’d turn into, sixteen years down the line?
I can’t sit here like this anymore.
I throw my bedsheets in the washer and head for the living room with my bat still in my hand. I take a few, fiery gulps from the amber bottle on the counter, then slam the cork in and flop on the couch.
It’s suede, this thing. Can you believe it? A guy like me, with a salary like mine, buying a brand-new suede couch he absolutely can’t afford, to stick in his apartment that he just barely can.
Of course, at the time, she’d insisted it was the only one to get—serious adult furniture, for a serious adult couple. So I’d grinned and swiped the credit card like the dumb, lovesick puppy I was. Now, one serious adult breakup later, she’s gone. And I’m sitting here alone—the soft, luscious feel of a month’s pay under my ass.
The shadow of a leafy branch dances on a patch of moonlit carpet, and I watch it. Time passes—just how long, I’ve got no idea—and my adrenaline cools. My eyelids are heavy again, and the cushion is cloud-like. I feel myself sinking, melting peacefully awayTHWACKand I’m on my feet, bat raised high, my brain jackhammering against the back of my eyes, all but sure but I’m back there. Back in the barn …
But I’m not. I’m still in my living room, standing next to the couch I can’t afford.
—
Nightmares are supposed to fade. To strike terror at two AM, leave you chuckling at your own stupid imagination by seven, vanish like a puff of smoke by noon. Their fleeting nature is their only redeeming feature. So why is this one refusing to leave?
Since that night, I’ve started to lose track of the passage of time. It’s slipping away from me, bit by bit. My routine continues—showers, toothbrush, coffee, drive to work, spreadsheets, numbers, graphs, driving home. But more and more, it all seems to be happening on a sort of mental cruise control—no real, active participation on my end. I’m foggy. Distant. I’m interacting with the world through a thick, full-body rubber suit which keeps me sleepy, out of touch, dulling my senses until an occasional THWACKyanks me back to reality. My days are drenched in sickly yellow—like my whole world is lit only by his eye.
And I’m lonely. I pull my phone from my pocket often, hovering over her contact info. The press of a button, and I could hear her voice—if nothing else. Afterall, what the hell are my pride and self-respect worth when I’m losing my damn mind? Sun goes up. Sun goes down. How long has it been since I’ve eaten a genuine meal? My cheeks are rough, like sandpaper. She always hated when I let them get that way—preferred the smooth as a baby’s butt feel. I’ll let the stubble grow.
I hate this room. I hate this apartment. Every corner, every crevice is decorated with knik-knaks, filled with trinkets that I never liked. Never wanted. Never felt a need for. I scan the whole place—is there anything in here that was actually my choice?
—
I hear my name. Someone’s calling me through a wall of water. I’m gonna go right ahead and ignore it, keep scrolling through this spreadsheet. What do these numbers mean? And really, whoTHWACKcares?
The voice is closer now—coming from above me, and just to my right. It’s Cindy, from the next cubicle over. She’s leaning over the divider with a nervous, apologetic look on her face. Apparently, the ‘big guy’ wants to see me. Shitty news, no doubt. I hoist myself to my feet and start my trudge down the fluorescent-bulbed hallway to his office. On my way, I pass by a framed poster of a dangling rock climber; its caption informs me that Today is the best day to be my Best Self!
—
The ‘big guy’ is pissed at me—that much is obvious as soon as I settle into the swiveling chair on the receiving end of his desk. Red, sweaty face. Dark stains beneath his armpits. He wants to know what I’ve been doing these last two weeks—if there are any figures I can show him, any concrete evidence that I’ve been doing something resembling work. I answer honestly—I really don’t know. The red of his face deepens, and his voice is louder now … but I’m gone again. Back behind the curtain of yellow fog. Two weeks? Was that what he said? Is that how long it’s been since the nightmare started? His hand comes down on the deskTHWACKagain. He grits his jaw, verging on a full tantrum—but he takes a deep breath, stops himself. Why? All this time I’ve spent working for the old stomach-ulcer, and I’ve never seen him deny one of his trusty minions a solid verbal spanking.
He composes himself, tells me to listen. He’s got a brother too, he says—an older one. And if something were to happen to his older brother—something like what happened to mine—well. Anyway. He guesses he’d be a little off-kilter, too. But time is money, and this is a results-based business, and if I just can’t find a way to snap out of this funk, well. He’d expect me, as a team player, to do the stand-up thing and take some unpaid time off. There—he’s said his piece. And he wants to know what I think. What do I think? Good question. Truthfully, there’s plenty that I think about the ‘big guy’—but being the sane, self-preserving person that I once was, it had never crossed my mind to tell him. Maybe it’s time I did.
I tell him that a good tailor will know how to let the collar out of his shirts a bit—because right now, his looks to be choking him. He looks like a cherry pushpop squeezing out of its cardboard tube.
He’s upright in his chair now, stiff and straight as a two-by-four. There’s spittle forming at the corner of his mouth, but no words. Not yet. This feels good. I decide to keep telling him what I think. Where was I? Right.
What’s the deal with him and Janice, from accounting? I don’t think there’s anything cool about infidelity—not if you’re just gonna sneak around with some woman who’s fatter and older than the one you’ve already got at home.
What else do I think? Last month at that big client meeting —I think it was total bullshit to pass my concept off as his own. It was a big pitch—the kind that really could’ve changed my portfolio, helped me establish a genuine reputation. But he had to go and snatch it, with those big, sweaty, sausage rolls he calls hands. Which was a mistake on his part, because everyone knows he’s too damn stupid to create a pitch like that for himself. That’s what I think.
Naturally, he’s unimpressed with what I have to say. He invites me to leave, with a voice that rattles the walls. He tells me to grab a cardboard box from the printer room, and throw my things in it. I tell him there’s nothing important enough to take—just a stapler, a bobblehead, and a cup full of pens. If he wants, he can try to fit them all in his ass at the same time.
—
I really hate this apartment. It’s grown beyond a laid-back, complacent distaste—it’s an active, seething disdain for the carpet, the walls, the ceiling, and everything in between. And now that I’m unemployed, I’ve got nothing to do but sit here, mocked by every little detail.
Like that thing on the bookshelf across from me—that stupid, ugly, elephant sculpture. It’s tacky as hell, and I despised it from the moment I first saw it in that snooty antique store she’d dragged me to on what had been a perfectly good Saturday morning. I’d asked her how something so gaudy could be so expensive. She’d rolled her eyes, told me I had no taste. Maybe she was right—maybe I didn’t have any taste. Maybe I still don’t. But I do have thisTHWACK little League bat. And I gotta say—that damn sculpture looks much better in a thousand little shards than it ever did in one piece. What else could use some redecorating around here?
How about that battalion of expensive candles, lined up on the mantle? Shit—how many different seasons does this place need to smell like, anyway? I wonder if I can get ‘em all in one swing. Turns out, I can.
Espresso machine. Bedside lamp. That record player that had replaced my stereo. That full-length mirror that had replaced my dartboard. They all go to oblivion. A gratifying symphony of splinters, shatters, crashes. Twenty swings later, once I’ve run out of smash-worthy trinkets, I turn my attention to that fucking suede couch. Nothing too satisfying I can do to it with my bat. Should I set it on fire? Nah—I’d probably bring the whole place down.
Hell—I’ll just move the damn thing. It’s a total bitch to get through the front door—but with a little creative geometry and some fervor-induced strength, I’ve got it out and onto the sidewalk. I step back inside, breathing heavily, surveying the new decor of my place. It’s a catastrophe. A warzone. At least it belongs to me again—me alone.
—
Two rings. Three knocks. When I swing the door open, she looks bewildered. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder, wants to know why our couch is leaning up against the parking lot dumpster. Well… because I put it there. She shakes her head, starts to look angry. Then, she puts her palms up in surrender, asking for a fresh start. I clear my throat and shrug.
She asks me to listen. Tells me she’s been doing a lot of thinking. Soul-searching, really. I ask her if she’s been doing this soul-searching over at Kevin’s house. She recoils at the question, looking hurt, but she seems to know it was a fair jab. She starts crying. And for a brief second, I’m almost taken by a swell of pity. All the complications of the last few weeks can’t overcome three years worth of genuine goodness, can they?
She says she messed up. Says she made a mistake, and a huge one at that. And yea, the whole Kevin thing was unforgivable, but… but… I have to acknowledge that things weren’t one-hundred percent one-sided, right? She means, we weren’t exactly in a storybook situation. She says I had gotten complacent with my life. With our lives. Gotten comfortable in the status quo. She’d started to feel like she was drowning with me. And after so long, after so many many months of drowning, she’d just had a stupid moment of weakness. I can understand that, right? I don’t have to forgive it, but I at least have to understand it, right? She’s missed me. She wants to try and make things work. She can’t make it all make sense right now. But can she at least come in? Talk about it? So we can just … she doesn’t know. Be together?
I stand there in my doorway, trying to absorb the tear-laden speech, using my body to block her from seeing the chaos that my living room has become. And God help me, I do want to let her in. I think about the endless, yawning stretch of the future, and the miserable prospect of spending the whole thing alone. The thought of her body pressed against mine is almost too tempting to pass up. And how much is my pride really worth, in light of all I’ve been going through? How much am I worth?
She looks up at me with vulnerable eyes, then buries her face in my chest, dampening my t-shirt. I hold her. And we stand there. And it feels good, and warm, and familiar, andTHWACKhorrible. That’s how it feels. I’ve never felt smaller, more pathetic, less like a man in my entire life. Even while swinging there in the barn, whimpering, spittling, begging the Lasso Man for mercy with my bulging eyes.
I grab her shoulders. Press her away. She’s confused, so I answer her question before she can ask. No. She can’t come in. We can’t just be together. Is she kidding? Does she even fathom damage she did with that selfish, impulsive bullshit? How it felt to be torn in two, at a point in my life when I was already hanging by threads? No. She can’t come in. Ever again. And in fact, the thought of her showing up at my doorstep, thinking we might still be an option? It makes me sick.
I turn then, heading back to face the shattered remains of my living room. She calls after me, tears flowing freely now. She tells me, in a throaty sob, that Kevin threw her out. Where is she supposed to stay?
I tell her she can sleep on that suede couch she loves so much. And I close the door.
—
Time passes. I barely notice. The Big guy is gone. The girl is gone. My brother’s gone. But the Lasso-Man is very much here. I canTHWACKhear his rope, I can smell his breath. Sometimes, I can see the glow of his eye in the corner of my own. He’s not through with me yet. He wants to finish his work. And I’m inclined to let him.
—
My bat lays there on the carpet, its twenty-eight inches of aluminum giving off a friendly gleam in the moonlight. I pick it up, careful not to cut myself on any of the shattered glass and porcelain scattered around it. I grip it with both hands, cock my knees into a slight batter’s crouch. I stand there in my living room, eyes squeezed tight. I think back to a better time. To a better me. The days when I could still stand the sight of myself.
I want to hit something. Smash something. To take all this nauseating pain, this paralyzing apathy, and chase it off—if even for just one brief moment. But what is there left to hit? All of her knickknacks and decorations are obliterated. All her mirrors and picture frames are in shards. My work laptop is a devastated mess of splintered wires and circuitry, all evidence of my servitude to the Big Guy wiped clean. I’m the only one left. THWACK. It’s just me.
I need a drink. I step over toward the kitchen, where a half-empty bottle of Jack sits invitingly on the counter. I don’t remember buying it, but I’m not surprised to see it—I’m usually working my way through a bottle of some hooch or another. I pick it up by the stem, about to twist the top off when something stops me. Maybe it was just a reflection from outside, or just a simple trick of my eyes… but it happened. The bottle of amber liquid glowed yellow, if only for a brief second.
I think back to my first drink. I was seventeen years old, flumped on a beat-up basement couch at some house party with my brother. We were celebrating a victory. We’d played in our high school’s annual band battle earlier that evening, and handily secured the trophy with a pretty decent rendition of Layla by Derek and the Dominos. I used to love jamming with him. We’d spend full weekends in the garage together, the two of us and our guitars, melting the hours like ice cubes in the sun. I used to live for that time we spent together. So why had we never gotten back to it? What could’ve possibly eaten all that time? Well … this bottle in my hand, for starters.
And suddenly, things make more sense. Because it takes two to tango, right? And a village to raise a child, and three strikes to make an out, and at least a pair of mice to screw in a lightbulb. And now, it’s past time I got completely honest with myself. Being steamrolled by the ‘big guy?’ Getting ripped apart by the girl? Losing my brother, and my absolute best friend? It’s all been, well … suffocating.
Still, my life belongs to me. And since I hate what it’s become? How it’s stagnated, slowed to a crawl, been poisoned to the point of un-livability? Chances are, I’ve had something to do with it.
I carry the bottle into my newly spacious living room. I flip it around and catch it by the stem, so I’m holding it like a club. Then, I toss it in the air, take a quick loading step, and swing. The aluminum barrel catches the bottle dead center in its boxy body. Crashing glass. Shards clatter against the walls and window; fiery liquid showers everything. I survey the results, feeling somehow lighter and stronger at the same time. It’s a sensation I wanna chase. What else can go? What else has been purchasing my days on Earth at bargain-bin prices?
I spy my monstrous, self-built PC setup. It stands in the corner of the room, like a high-tech command center for missions leading nowhere. Glowing LED’s on the unit, ergonomic keyboard, and a blazing processor, fast enough to take me … where, exactly? All the hours burned, all the money spent, all the life I’ve lived through that fifteen-inch monitor… and what do I have to show for it? The sheer immensity of the frittered time rolls over me, weakening my knees. Suddenly, the glowing LED’s fade from green to sickly yellow.
A few swings and some sizzling, splintering plastic later, and my knees are strong beneath me again. In fact, I’m feeling better than I have in weeks. I step back into the kitchen and whip open the freezer door, scanning over the frozen goodies that have made me soft around the middle, short on excess breath, sapped of all the energy I had when I was younger. I bat them all like lazily-hung curveballs. Frozen fries and burritos scatter across the room. A pint of cake-batter ice cream takes a chunk out of the drywall. My cellphone, my beer stock, my mason jar of weed—dingers, every one of ‘em.
Ridiculous? Wasteful? Self-performative nonsense? Probably. But lately, I need all the catharsis I can get. Soon, I’m standing in the center of my living room again, surrounded by the crushed and shattered remains of my former life. It’s leveled. Swept away. What’s gonna take its place? Anything I want. My new life belongs to me. But of course, I need to put first things first. Have I grown six inches? Or is this just how freedom feels? I smack the barrel of my bat against my palm as I take one last look around. Then, I step out the front door.
—
No GPS necessary. Some deep part of my subconscious steers the car for me. Twilight fades to pure dark while the white lines of paint on the highway tick off the miles in ten-foot intervals. I’m through the city, then through the suburbs. Finally, signs of population have been reduced to the occasional, scattered farmhouse. I wind up through the mountains, then back down again. The edge of the highway is lined with a dense army of towering trees. Finally, those fall away too. Now, there’s nothing but rolling fields and hills on either side.
—
My car finally coughs itself to death a few hours later, and I steer it to the shoulder where it won’t block anyone’s way. I climb out, and hesitate just long enough to lean back in and grab my aluminum bat from the backseat. The rest of this trip is happening on foot. I get started.
—
This gentle asphalt hill I’m climbing is the final one—I can feel it in the soles of my feet, and the crackling at the tips of my fingers. A yellow fingernail of burning sunlight is peeking over the horizon line as I reach the top of the slope. And there it is. Three-hundred yards off the road, it sits like a decomposing specter, as it always has. A pointed tower extends off the roof, sagging drunkenly to one side, curling slightly back on itself like a giant, spindly index finger. Coaxing me to stroll across the swaying grass. Like it has something to show me. I accept its offer.
—
Ten minutes later, the grass turns to barnyard dirt under my feet, and the building looms before me. I see it clearly: every knot in the wood, every rusty, protruding nail. There isn’t an ouch of fuzzy dreaminess to cloud my brain—I’m fully, completely here.
I take a tight grip on the handle of the sliding door, fully expecting the same rusty resistance as before. But it coasts open easily, only offering a minor squeaky complaint. I step inside. Scattered hay crunches under my feet, stinking like ancient horse-piss. Bright, morning sunlight sharply through the gaps between rotted boards. Continuous flecks of floating dust dance through the rays. It’s a spacious, musty room I stand in, and save for the occasional wooden groan, it’s completely silent. So I stand here, bat in hand, waiting. Alone. But how alone, really? Less so, now.
The atmosphere of the barn changes. Suddenly the shadows are doing a different dance than before. The creaks and groans a bit less passive, a bit more aggressive. The massive room around me suddenly not so spacious. There’s a louder creak from above. I don’t look. I’ve seen his gruesome, swinging choir once before—and once was more than plenty. The creaks and groans get faster, more intense. I can hear their lifeless bodies, careening around, thumping into each other like the dead weights they are. They begin their chant.
“He’s the lanky, leerin’ Lasso-Man, got a twirlin’ rope and a steady hand…”
His rope’s his brush, his barn’s his easel, and he’s pegged you, boy, for a —”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
And immediately, they do. Maybe that shouldn’t surprise me—they are dead, afterall. Forgotten, fading, turning to dust. As for me? I’m alive—maybe more so than I ever have been. That those swinging ghouls should be able to intimidate me at all is almost laughable. Their creaking slows to a near stop. I stand. And wait. Finally, the shadow comes. He saunters slowly out from the same horse stall as before, gliding slowly across the wall—this time, without the theatrical aid of his choir. I watch. My knees are still. He reaches his spot in the center of the closed, wooden door. This time, I’m not surprised by his ephemeral transformation. Now, he’s here—in his full, sooty, three dimensional form. Same toothy, cockroach sneer below the same, droopy mustache. Same leather patch over his left eye, same crackling yellow glow from his left. His clothes remain colorless, his snake-like lasso hangs over his shoulder in the same casual way. It’s funny, though—for all the little ways he appears so identical to the Lasso Man of my nightmares, there is one notable difference: this one is a lot shorter.
We stare each other down, as the choir swings above us. I shift my bat to my left hand, then back to my right. He brings his lasso down from his shoulder, lets the knotted loop drop to the ground with a thump. After what could be minutes, he speaks; his voice buzzes like synchronized locusts.
“Stupid to come here, you jelly-spined weasel.”
My response is clear and even. “You shoulda left me alone.”
His taunting smile disappears. His lips tighten over his cockroach teeth. He begins to swing the rope, slowly at first, back and forth. After a few swings, he gives his wrist a hard crack, sending the loop around in a complete arc—over his head, then back down again. At the bottom, it slaps the groundTHWACKwith a sound I now know well. He sneers again, and his voice buzzes with new vitriol.
“I’d get steppin’, I was you. Ain’t too late to run.”
“Yea,” I nod, feeling a sudden, improbable sneer of my own. “It is.” Now, something amazing happens—that glowing, yellow light in his leering left eye, the glare that has stuck in my mind like a splinter since I first saw it—flickers. Goes dim. And I can see the dark, impotent blackness behind it. He brings his lassoTHWACKaround again, angrily this time. My sneer grows bigger. And in a force of lingering, twelve-year-old habit, I tap the aluminum barrel of my bat against the inside of my shoe. This bastard was pretty good with that rope when I was running scared. Let’s see how good he is when I’m coming right at him.
“You’ll swing, boy,” the Lasso-Man growls. “You’re a weasel, and you’ll swing like the rest of ‘em.”
“Yea? Guess we’ll see about that, you gangly son of a bitch.” I lift my bat to my waist, and grip it with both hands. Now, I take a strong step forward. “Guess we’ll fuckin’ see.”