Into the Badlands
Jeffrey pressed his left index finger three times against the cracked and crusty button in the wall before he accepted that the doorbell was broken. Jeffrey then spied a brass door knocker, about 8 inches above the top of his head. Spider webs connected the knocker to the door, so Jeffrey used the tips of his fingers and thumb to quickly slam the hunk of brass against the door three times before any black widow could have a chance to sink its filthy fangs into him.
A phlegmy cough pierced the air as the front door whipped open, causing a gust of wind and dead leaves to rush from the porch into the old house. Jeffrey fixed his eyes squarely upon an old, disheveled gentleman, well past his prime. White hair aggressively sprouted this way and that, as if tiny magical elves had planted “old man seeds” onto the man’s scalp and earlobes in the middle of the night.
“Well, howdy do, kiddo. You sure are punctual, I’ll give you that. It’s 10 AM, right on the dot. I bet your ma and pa taught you the importance of being on time, now didn’t they? I appreciate your resourcefulness, young fella. Not many kids these days have the get up and go to staple flyers around the neighborhood advertising yard work and handyman services. Anywho, come on in and get yourself situated. I’ve got plenty of work to keep you busy, if you’ve got the nerve, that is. Follow me upstairs.”
An intense brightness assaulted Jeffrey as he made his way up the staircase, tailing the old man. A row of chandeliers with obnoxiously white light bulbs hung from the ceiling, and countless florescent lamps lined the walls. Jeffrey brought his right hand up to his eyebrow to shield his delicate eyes from it all.
“I like it nice and bright in here. Keeps the spooks away. Don’t be shy kiddo, follow me,” said the old man.
The old man’s bony ass shifted from side to side with each step up the staircase, as his dirt-encrusted, brown leather work boots cautiously maneuvered up up up, one step at a time. Brown wool trousers were held together by tight red suspenders that looped up and over the old man’s rotting shoulders. A beaten, short-sleeved, white-collared, office work shirt covered what was left of the old man’s back and torso — the kind of shirt that engineers wear with a cheap polyester tie and a pocket protector. Black spots and freckles adorned the old man’s wrinkled elbows, forearms, and hands.
Once at the top of the staircase, the old man stopped and stood rigid for a moment, as he appeared to be contemplating something incredibly important. He then came out of his trance and took short but deliberate steps to the right.
“Right this way, kiddo.”
The hallway was covered with dirty brown shag carpet. A narrow strip down the middle of the hallway was beaten and worn, while the edges of the carpet were thick and plush. The old man stopped in the hallway after five paces, placing both feet next to each other, as if he were standing at attention during Marine cadet training. The old man’s head creaked up toward the ceiling, and Jeffrey’s eyes followed. The ceiling was covered with popcorn acoustic insulation from the 1970s. A 4 foot x 2 foot hatch with a hanging rope handle caught Jeffrey’s eye.
“Up there, kiddo. That’s where you’re going to earn your keep this afternoon. I call it The Badlands.”
Jeffrey looked at the old man, then at the hatch that had been cut through the popcorn acoustic ceiling by construction workers singing along to Ted Nugent on the radio in 1977. Jeffrey had heard stories about sinister serial killers who lured unsuspecting teenagers into their homes. But this nutty old coot looked pretty harmless. Perhaps the old man wanted Jeffrey to rummage through storage trunks full of photo albums and unsalvageable camping gear.
“What kind of work do you need me to do up there in the attic — I mean, in The Badlands?”
The old man took a long and troubling stare at the hatch in the ceiling. He placed his thumb and index finger onto his eyeballs and rubbed with concerning vigor. If he rubbed any harder, Jeffrey was afraid the old man’s eyeballs would burst and eyeball gel would squirt out of the old man’s face.
“That’s a bit hard to explain, kiddo. I’ve had a few other fellas come out here and try to handle The Badlands, but they all ended up running out of this house of mine with their tails tucked between their legs. I’ll tell you what, if you can get the job done, this here is yours.”
The old man retrieved a crisp $100 bill from his back pocket and held it up to the light in front of Jeffrey’s face, as if the two of them were admiring a fancy work of art at the Louvre. Jeffrey nearly chuckled, but he stopped himself just in time once he realized that the old man was dead serious.
“I can’t tell you no more than that, kiddo. Either you’ve got the stomach for this kind of work, or you don’t. I would climb up there and tame The Badlands myself if I didn’t have a bum ticker,” said the old man, taking his right index finger and tapping it twice over his left pectoral.
“I just can’t handle that type of stress no more. But you’re young and full of piss and vinegar. So, you climb up there and clean up The Badlands for me, then you can slip old Benjamin Franklin here right into your back pocket and have yourself a grand night on the town with the young gal of your choosing. Hell, it shouldn’t take no more than 20 minutes tops to finish the job.”
Jeffrey gazed at the crisp hundred dollar bill floating in front of his nose. With that greenback in his pocket, Jeffrey could spend an entire weekend at the Retroplex movie theater by himself, watching one 70s flick after another while gorging on Junior Mints and buttered popcorn sprinkled with M&Ms. The Retroplex would be having a Martin Scorsese film festival this weekend, which was sure to delight. Hell, Jeffrey would even have enough dough left over to buy himself a fistful of Abba Zabbas and a triple scoop of mint and chip at Cecile’s Ice Cream Metropolis on the corner of 5th and Main Street for at least three days in a row.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, old-timer. Hand me that there flashlight so I can get to work,” said Jeffrey.
Jeffrey took a deep breath and placed his foot onto the ladder leading up to the attic, while gripping the side rails with his hands and holding the rubber flashlight with his teeth. An intense bright light emanated from the top of the stairwell leading into the attic, with obnoxious beams shooting themselves onto the top of Jeffrey’s head. He noticed that his slow moving body parts were creating cartoonish but serious shadows along the ladder and the walls in the hallway. Jeffrey looked back and saw the old man peering up at him with curious and scared eyes and a crinkled brow that attempted to assure Jeffrey that he had made the right decision.
A low level hum surrounded Jeffrey’s head as he entered the attic and stood upright. His eyes partially adjusted to the intense whiteness that possessed the room. The humming grew louder, until Jeffrey felt his cranium and eardrums vibrating uncomfortably.
“Look out for the boogies. They’ll break you down if you don’t keep your guard up,” said the old man.
“What in the hell is a boogie?” shouted Jeffrey.
“Don’t you worry sonny boy, you’ll know one when you see it. Those boogie bastards have been keeping me awake for months and I can’t take it no more. I’m starting to lose my damn marbles. So you catch those boogie bastards and kill them dead so I can get some shut eye,” hollered the old man.
Looking toward the air vent at the far end of the attic, Jeffrey noticed a brief flickering. A tiny speck of intense, white light grew into a massive orb that filled the attic with painful heat. The orb slowly opened in the middle, creating a hollow center before breaking into pieces and forming hundreds of tiny white skulls. The skulls poured from the air vent and shot in straight formation toward Jeffrey’s face. He was unable to duck in time, and the skulls moved right through him. The deep humming became louder and more intense with each passing skull. Jeffrey felt his head vibrating, as if someone had jammed tiny back massagers into his ear canals. He swatted the flashlight toward the approaching skulls a few times, but it was no use. The skulls kept coming faster, the white light became brighter, and the deep humming became louder.
“Hey old-timer, why don’t you come up here and give me a hand. I almost have these boogies under control, but I need you to hold the flashlight for me so I can get them corralled into one spot.”
“No way, sonny boy. Like I told you, my bum ticker can’t handle that kind of excitement no more. You’ve got to handle this job yourself if you want to get old Benjamin Franklin here into your pocket.”
“Sir, if you don’t get up here and help me, I’m outta here.”
The old man paced the hallway with his arms folded and his lips puckered. He hadn’t slept in fourteen days and that’s more than enough time for a man’s mind to become his worst enemy. The old man scurried up the ladder and poked his head into the attic, scanning the room with terrified and exhausted eyes.
Jeffrey spotted the old man and motioned with his right hand for him to come closer, while he used his left hand to point the flashlight at the boogies.
“Here, you hold the flashlight on them, and I’ll try to gather them into this one corner,” said Jeffrey.
The old man took the flashlight from Jeffrey with a shaky hand and pointed it the best he could toward the cluster of white skulls. The white skulls had been floating about lazily, in no particular order, but when the old man approached and pointed the flashlight at them, each white skull became still and stared with great purpose at the old man. The old man’s hand shook even worse, causing the light to bounce sporadically all over the wall.
“Hold the light steady, dammit. I need to see where to send the rest of them,” shouted Jeffrey.
Jeffrey heard a thump, and whipped around to see that the wall had been overcome by blackness. The old man was lying stiff as a board on his back, as the flashlight gracefully floated out of his hand and rolled across the attic floor. Jeffrey tried to pull at the old man’s leg, but the old man felt frozen to the touch, even through his trousers. His body was as stiff as a tongue depressor and Jeffrey saw that his mouth was open in an O shape, with his jaw hanging down and back toward his Adam’s apple. The sight reminded Jeffrey of the barbershop quartet on Main Street at Disneyland on hot summer days, and how their mouths would take a similar form when they would hold a baritone note longer than necessary.
The white skulls lined up in formation and hovered over the old man’s body, close to his chest. For a long brief moment, the skulls sat there, calmly keeping vigil above the old man, getting one last look at him. Then one at a time the white skulls entered the old man’s chest, causing his body to jerk violently with each encounter. The last skull wiggled its way through the old man’s chest and his entire body lit up like a 1,000 watt light bulb. Jeffrey slapped his hand over his eyes and peeked through a narrow slit between his index finger and middle finger, and saw the old man’s body rise from the attic floor and rotate like a slow moving ceiling fan, all the while glowing like a dirty chunk of nuclear waste.
The old man’s body then dropped to the floor, and the crash was so loud that Jeffrey involuntarily slapped his hands over his ears and shrieked like a cranky infant. The lights had gone off and the old man’s body was dark now, with rotten smoke rising from his face. Jeffrey knelt down on one knee and placed his fingers onto the old man’s neck to check for a pulse. So this is what death feels like.
Jeffrey spied a gray and white knitted wool blanket in the corner of the attic. He affectionately set the blanket over the old man’s uninhabited body, and retrieved the $100 bill from the old man’s back pocket. This mission may or may not have been a technical success, but Jeffrey knew that he had earned his keep. More importantly, he knew that the old man would have wanted him to have the $100 bill.
The summer day was hot and merciless, and the air conditioning at the Retroplex Theater would cool Jeffrey’s body and calm his mind. The Martin Scorsese Film Festival was starting at noon, and Jeffrey would finally have a chance to enjoy Taxi Driver in all its existential glory on the big screen.
