Imagine My Surprise! (10, 11)

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10. At Twenty Months

Drew lost his job at the funeral home. That was a memorable and colorful fight. I think there was a thrown table lamp. Afterward, he moped around, surfed job sites, vaped pot. His resume was filled with disparate jobs, most of which he’d gotten fired or laid off from. He just wasn’t very employable.

The parents revisited the fighting about two weeks in, after lunch when Drew had given up the job hunt for the day and Lou was getting around to chores. A couple of hours of toiling away while Mr. Couch Potato thumbed his way through all the channels was enough to set her off. In the end, what saved us — or who saved us — were the neighbors — the Malkmuses. I would later befriend their son, Ralphy. The Malkmuses had a friend whose family owned a music store in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. They needed a bookkeeper, and Lou’s time in junior college had netted her an associate degree in accounting. Thus, the Harris family paradigm soon became reversed: Drew got up early and fixed us breakfast; Drew did the laundry; Drew took me for walks (something Lou never did).

It was hilarious to watch a fuck-up like Drew get a crash-course in domesticity. With little or no forethought, he’d take a stab at something as benign as doing the laundry or fixing a casserole, and the results were often sad, always funny. What household had released this guy into the world? It was only recently that I finally understood why those early years were hard for us — my parents are fucking millennials. It explains everything now. And like all millennials, the real culprit for their social and domestic inadequacies is their parents — baby boomers who wanted to be a different kind of parent, opposite of the way they were raised — you know, with silly things like rules, responsibilities, and consequences and the word No. Some people say this resulted in a generation of precious, entitled snowflakes who lack basic adult skills. Drew wasn’t precious but he had domestic incompetency in spades. By-and-by, though, through a painful process of trial and error, he finally figured things out. Like everyone does. And as someone who was mentally old enough to be his father, it took all my willpower to not help him. Even then, I often did. I had to.

Also, with Drew becoming Mr. Mom, I had to adjust my cover. Lou was so wrapped up in her own plight that she ignored me a great deal. As long as I wasn’t bothering her, she didn’t really care what I did. She had been preoccupied in her affair with Deputy Wade, gossiping with a friend and having afternoon drinks in front of the tube. On the other hand, Drew was actually interested in his little man in a way that he hadn’t been before his job loss. He had a daddy awakening. Much to my chagrin.

He marveled at his little adult. Every once in a while, he’d ask me a serious adult question, and every once in a while, I’d slip up and give him an adult answer. I don’t think he was trying to catch me; I think he got so used to me that he forgot I should not be able to answer adult questions. I mean, at twenty months, I shouldn’t have known what a Philip’s screwdriver was or how to search for a movie on cable or, for that matter, surf the web on my little tablet. Drew, like Lou, accepted my behavior, and they were only reminded I wasn’t normal when the neighbors were stunned by my actions.

Then, our piece-of-junk car broke down, which meant Lou had to take the light-rail all the way into Willow Glen. She had to get up early, and she was not a morning person. I was already awake in my room when I heard them get into it.

“Goddamn it, Drew! I can’t do this alone — I’m going to be late.”

He grumbled and said in a gravelly voice, “Why are you up so early?”

“The car’s busted, remember? I have to take the fucking train. You have to take the car in!”

“Oh, yeah. Shit.”

“Get the hell up and fix us some breakfast, I have to get ready.”

He groaned. “I have to control the alcohol content on my beer.”

“It’s not the alcohol content you have to control.”

I stood at my door wearing a fluffy red Star Wars robe. Drew stumbled into the hallway in his boxers. “Hey, Monkey…up and at ’em already, I see. Breakfast will be ready in twenty.”

“Okay,” I replied.

As I walked past my parents’ room, I heard Lou’s hushed voice. “Hey, are you on duty?” she said into her mobile. “Oh, good. Can you do me a favor and pick me up at the train station. The car’s broke. I need a ride to work — I am not taking the fucking train.”

Oh, my God! You cheating whore!

She added, “I’ll make it worth your while….”

Scowling, I crept past the room before she hung up. I had to do something about this affair. But how? If Drew found out it would crush him, and he would surely separate from Lou; he would take it personally. Lou didn’t hate Drew, she hated where her decisions had led her, only to make more bad decisions.

I was silent during breakfast, seated in my silly cartoon-covered vinyl booster seat, shooting dark glances at Lou. She didn’t notice as she hurried through breakfast.

At the door, she checked her lipstick in the mirror, telling Drew, “If you happen to get the car fixed, please come pick me up, Drew. I can’t stand the fucking train. It’s filled with creeps.”

“Yes, dear,” he said without a hint of irony.

“If not, I’ll be home late for dinner. Just leave it and I can microwave it when I get home.” She managed to give him a little peck on the cheek before exiting. “Thanks,” she said as the door slammed.

Drew looked at me and sighed.

“She’s not a morning person is she, Keenan?”

“No,” I replied.

He smiled. “That said, I’ve got a little surprise for you later.”

At about eleven in the morning, there was a knock on the door. I looked up from the magazine I was reading, and Drew bolted up from the couch, jerking open the door. A broad grin stretched across his stubbly face. He exchanged words with the delivery man outside, then he shot back through the house to the garage; I heard the grind of the garage door opening. Out the front door, I saw a plain white box-truck backing into our driveway.

Oh, dear lord what have you done, Drew?

I watched the men efficiently unload the boxes into the garage, slide the truck door down and leave.

I looked at Drew in disbelief while the garage door screeched closed. In the brightly lit garage, littered with his mad-scientist confusion of brewing equipment, Drew gleefully sliced open two large boxes stenciled with This End Up. When he was done, we were looking at two expensive-looking stainless steel barrels with conical bottoms: Drew’s new brewing equipment.

“These, my dear Keenan, are two fourteen-and-a-half gallon conical fermenters. Stainless steel, no welds. The next step on my way to becoming a master brewer.”

“Mom’s going to kill you.” He ignored the comment, as well as the fact that his twenty-month-old made a complete sentence.

“I got a great deal on them. Pay later. And now I can do away with all those stupid plastic buckets and giant bottles.”

He picked me up, smiled and planted a kiss on my cheek.

“What do you think?”

“I think that you should hide them for a while.”

His smile faltered, and he puffed out his cheeks, exhaling. “You’re probably right.” He put me down. “Now go inside, I have a garage to rearrange.”

At the door I looked back at him and thought, You crazy bastard, I really like you.

11. The Long Good Nightwalk

It’d been a long time since I had a nightwalk. I’d put it off, and I felt bad because I told Stoli I’d be back. We were on a mission, after all. But to tell you the truth, I started to realize how risky these adventures were. They were exciting and fun at first, and I got away with them. The getting-caught part wasn’t my fear; but getting attacked by a racoon or coyote or pervert was a real possibility, against which I had little defense. Still, I got itchy for busting out, so about a week or so shy of my second birthday, I got up in the middle of the night and skulked through our neighborhood to the 7-Eleven.

I’d barely scrambled up my olive tree before he addressed me.

“Finally! The phantom elf-child returns!”

I hadn’t even settled in yet. I was about to reply when I heard, “Who are you talking to, man?”

Stoli was smoking a joint with the long-haired graveyard shift manager, Stan. They both looked in my direction.

“Nothin’,” Stoli said, passing the pot to Stan.

“You’re such a trip, dude,” Stan said, pinching the joint out with his fingers. “I’m going to head back inside and front the shelves. You have enough beer?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Cool.”

Once Stan was gone, Stoli did a quick look around. The parking lot was empty and the faint crunch of heavy metal issued from within the store. It was chilly and misty on this mid-January night; a low fog from a midnight rain crept up from the creek. Stoli stepped forward.

“Kurt!” he whispered loudly. “That you?” He walked toward the fence. It made me a little nervous, but I was well tucked into my shadowy tree and there was still a seven-foot cinder block wall between us.

I said, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m back. What are you doing?”

He walked up to the fence, then abruptly turned his back to it, I guess to appear as though he was just standing in the lot, beer in hand, smoking a cigarette.

“I believe you are real now,” he stage-whispered.

A beat. “That’s good. I need you to believe that.”

“Look — ”

“Stoli, stop stage whispering.”

He paused. “What?”

“Whispering loud is still loud. You can talk normal. Everybody thinks you’re crazy anyway.”

He thought about this. “Fair enough. This is good because…would a hallucination be so reasonable?”

Oh, Jesus. I have to be careful.

He said, “I missed you, little buddy. I’ve come to a place where I don’t care if you are a hallucination.”

“I’m not a fucking hallucination.” He still didn’t believe it.

“Agh…your little voice makes cursing sound so wrong.”

“Goddamn it, I don’t have a lot of time.”

“You turned my world around and I want to talk to you about it.”

A white minivan pulled into the lot and a security guard stepped out and waved at Stoli, who half-heartedly waved back. Almost into the store, the guard, an aging, overfed white guy, changed his mind and waddled toward us.

“I’ll handle this,” Stoli said, starting off. He met the guy half way. “How ya doin’, Mike?”

“Pretty good, Stoli. Cold. Gotta juice up on the caffeinateds,” the man said.

“Good. Good.”

“You seem in a cheerful mood.”

Mumble. “G.A. check today.”

“How was the hospital?”

Stoli coughed again. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

Moment of leaden silence.

“Okay then. Well…take it easy, Stole.”

The man walked off to the store.

Stoli returned and said nothing. He knew I heard what was said.

“Yeah, so what? I got admitted for a little bit, so what?”

“Hey, man,” I said, “Three hots and a cot with a therapist thrown in. It’s paradise.” Then I got it. “Tell me you didn’t check yourself in because you thought you were crazy — because you met a 7-Eleven elf.”

“I feel better now.”

He turned around, facing me, the fence, the black tree branch dark, searching. Then he turned his back to me again, sipping his beer, chuckling. “Whatever you are, you sound like you know your way through the system. But that could be my head talking.”

“You want proof.” I thought about it. “I could tell you stuff you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… stupid minutiae.” I paused. What stupid minutiae? “The main chord progression for ‘Mother’ by Pink Floyd is G-D7-C … um, the famous gunfighter Bat Masterson died sitting at a desk as a New York City sports reporter.”

He thought about this. “Alright. Pretty good.” He paused. “You’re kind of a hard ass. I bet you were a real dick back in the day.”

“The dickiest.”

“Karma’s a bitch, huh?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Another moment plodded by.

Finally, I said, “So I have a plan. A master plan. You could say it’s our mission.”

“Wow. Okay. Uh…our mission?”

“Look, Stoli.”

“John.”

“John? John, then. Look, John, I was born on January 26th, 1967, as Kurt Sebastian Houston. I was reincarnated on January 26th, 2022, as Keenan Solomon Harris. Tell me that’s not a fucked up coincidence.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

“Also, it would make you a little older than me.”

I had a great view of the back of his raggedy brown and gray head. There was a pop of another beer. The seriousness of my voice was diminished by the…well, its diminutive nature, but I continued.

“Listen up, John. I was an atheist, and with a blink of an eye I was proven wrong. It made me realize there is no coincidence. I died and was reborn fully conscious with my same initials, on the same day of my previous birth. Meeting you is part of this whole thing — we gotta do this. I need your help…and I think you need mine.”

“Keenan Solomon Harris. Kurt Sebastian Houston. This is really actually happening, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, this is actually happening. Don’t worry, I was fucked up by it, too.” We watched an Uber in the shape of a Toyota Camry drop off a couple of drunk girls who giggled their way inside the store. Finally, I said, “Everything has meaning now. Nihilism was so much easier.”

“I hate this. I thought everything would be over after I died.”

“We are going to solve my murder.”

“Your murder?”

“I was murdered. That’s how I got here.” I paused a second to have a drink from my sippy cup. “Obviously, I was reincarnated to solve my murder, and I found you so you could help.”

“Whoa there, little fella. How are we going to bring someone to justice with this cockamamie story? How do you know it was murder?”

“I know. There had been something of a coup d’état just before the guy killed me.”

“Hold it — were you the president of a third world country or something?”

“No, but I had something of a, um, criminal operation going and my lieutenant offed me. He gave me a hotshot.”

“Hotshot? Like…drugs?”

“A lethal overdose of heroin and fentanyl.”

“Ah, shit, man.”

He crooked his head to peer over the fence into the blackness, trying to see me, to behold this mad-person, the crazy elf, who now proposed some ridiculous pact with a former junkie.

“Maybe dying on junk was just your destiny.”

“Well, that’s dark.” Shit. “If being murdered was my destiny, then being reincarnated was, too.” Stoli turned his back to me again and lit another cigarette. I continued, “Look, the guy who did this was an evil, fucked-up person and he deserves payback. I’m too little to do it on my own.”

Stoli grumbled incoherently, then said, “If I didn’t think I was crazy already, making a pact with a reincarnated junkie elf might definitely push me over the edge.”

That’s when I hit him with it.

“There’s money.”

He turned around, peering into my darkness.

“Money?”

“You can verify that everything I say is true when you dig up the ninety-two thousand dollars buried in my old backyard in San Francisco.”

“Oh, Jesus. I’m supposed to go to San Francisco, break into somebody’s backyard, and dig up buried treasure?”

“Ninety-two thousand dollars, Stoli.”

“John. How do you know it’s still there?”

“It’s well hidden, and not in a place likely to be dug up randomly. I was the only one who knew about it.”

“And where exactly is this?”

“1836 20th Street on Potrero Hill. It’s buried under a bench under a tree at the top of the property.”

More grumbling. “This is so crazy.” I watched the back of his head sink and shake. “I gotta think about this.” He turned around and rattled the fence. “But … I gotta see you.”

I considered this. What did I really have to lose?

“Okay.”

The moment of truth. I climbed up to the next branch, then edged out along it until my tiny baby face was illuminated by the yellow glow of the security light above the dumpster. We both froze as Stoli — John — saw me. From this angle he was huge.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. He sank to his knees, sobbing.

“I told you.”

He reached a hand out toward me, shaking. I sank back and lowered myself out of the light.

“I gotta go. Remember everything I said. 1386 20th Street. It’s in the backyard on the hill under the bench. It’s under my parents’ ashes. I’ll meet you back here in five days, if I can, and we can start to hatch a plan. If for some reason I don’t show up, don’t forget about me.”

“Oh, my God,” he repeated.

“This is really happening, Stoli.”

With that, I lowered myself from the tree and scurried away, disappearing into the shadows. It was done. I was counting on a clinically insane bum to rescue me.

I raced back home, slinking through the ivy, lawns, and gardens to home, trying to figure out my next move. But as I cut through the neighbor’s hedges, I was met with a shocking surprise: two patrol cars, their cherries flashing, parked out in front of my house.

Holy shit! Fuck me! The jig was up! Damn! What to do? It was at that point that I realized this moment was inevitable. How long could my actions really go unnoticed?

I crossed the neighbor’s lawn and decided to just walk through the front door. How much trouble could I get in? I’m just an innocent little baby, right? As I trod up the front walk, I could see two officers, male and female, talking to my grief-stricken parents in the living room. Lou saw me immediately.

“Keenan!” she screamed, pushing through the surprised cops. She ran to me and fell to her knees, whisking me up into her arms, crying. “Oh, Keenan! Where have you been?!” She hugged me tight, her face a wet smear. One of the cops mumbled into the radio attached to her chest.

“I just went for a walk,” was my lame excuse. This statement seemed to perplex the officers, but it angered my mother.

“You stupid, stupid child!” Lou said, inspecting me for damage.

“Told you,” Drew said, but his face was grim weariness, sleepy in his scruffy plaid robe.

One officer clucked his tongue as the other filled out a form. “Folks, we’ll still have to file an incident report.”

Lou brought me into the light where she could have a better look at me. Tears spilled down her face as she planted kisses all over my head.

Lou was right — I was stupid. Because this little mistake cost me my freedom and my plan. I was soon under lock-down, under kiddie house arrest for the next two years.