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Last week, in chapter 13, Christo met with Arthur in the depths of the PDCO

Chapter 14: Tan pants

After leaving Takeda, Holly sprinted up the apartment building steps like something was chasing her. She hadn’t been afraid of anything for a long time. Tonight was different. The buzz she had wasn’t calming her either; it made it worse.

She’d spent so much time working around all kinds of trees that the memory of having seen one alive was, well, there were no words. Her mind forced her to imagine that all the trees she’d been around her whole life were alive. Alive in the way that the alley tree was. She said, “aw fuck that and fuck you!” to the air and sat down at her computer. She logged into the Center’s website and searched for something fun and inexpensive to send Takeda. After a minute of scrolling, she settled on a signed rainbow.

She liked him a lot and felt terrible about not hanging out tonight. But one of the lessons that Holly learned from her mother was, ‘Be sure to take care of yourself first.’ It was something they shared that might have sounded cold without context. Her mother didn’t mean, ‘To the exclusion of all other people.’ She got the saying from flight attendants, ‘When the oxygen masks drop down, put yours on first, and then assist others.’ Tonight, Holly had to put her mask on first, get her footing, and get grounded.

She had a sense of self that most people noticed about her, steely, practical, and wouldn’t suffer an ounce of bullshit. To some, that made her seem hard and off-putting. Others like Takeda knew there was a tender, caring, and gentle soul there, too. The kind that nursed squirrels back to health and loved campy music from the 1980s.

She decided to do a little research and concluded that there was no way she was the first to have seen something like this. And, assuming that was true, there was also no way someone hadn’t written about it on the web. Maybe even the dark web, which seemed like the perfect place to write about trees that could scream.

A thought arrived that seemed obvious but hadn’t occurred to her yet. Were the birds related somehow to the tree? She was sure she could find a reasonable explanation for the birds. Didn’t they do weird things like that? She was almost certain they did. For that matter, didn’t animals do unexplained things frequently?

An itch in her mind wouldn’t let itself be scratched. Isn’t it something? It IS something, her mind whispered to her.

That thought didn’t seem to be from her mind at all. She stood up as if stuck with a pin, her desk chair falling over.

“Nope, fuck that,” she said, grabbing her keys and cigarettes.

She left the apartment and walked across the creaky hallway to Takeda’s. When she unlocked the door, Triscuit bounded her way over to her, snuffling with joy.

“Sorry, Tris, you must need to go out by now,” she said, giving the dog pats that were paid back with wet face licks. They made their way down the cement front steps, where she lit up and watched Triscuit set about her business.

“It’s like deja vu all over again, Tris,” Holly said with a smile realizing Takeda had said something about deja vu today. She leaned back on an elbow, stared at the heavens, and took a long drag from the cigarette.

It was night and dark, but city dark - cast in the hazy light from street lamps and flickering signs of life from apartment windows. People strolled by engaged in conversation, some staring at their phones. A few looked at Triscuit as they passed and gave a dog lovers, “Aw, how cute!”

“What was that quote by R.R. Martin? Something about the night and terrors?” she mumbled.

A partially balding man, stocky, average height, and wearing tan pants and a blue blazer, stopped and asked, “Can I pat your dog?”

“Sure,” she said after a beat.

Holly sized him up in a moment, the way people do without thinking. A stereotypical businessman, single, in sales, not all that successful, and didn’t make his quota this month. I bet he’s ending a long day with a stroll home but taking an extra block or so for no reason. As he bent down to pat Triscuit, his glasses fell off.

“Oops,” he said and put them back on. “Nice dog. What’s her name?”

“Triscuit.”

“That’s an interesting name. Where’d it come from?”

Smoke escaped Holly’s nostrils like a forcefield.” It was the name of an old-timey snack cracker.”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” The man pulled out a handkerchief to clean his glasses.

“It suits her,” he said. Triscuit gave a slobbery grunt. “Or maybe not, I can’t tell!” he said with a laugh.

Holly laughed, not a real one, one that said, ‘I recognize that you’re making small talk, have at it.’

“Looks like you’re relaxing at the end of a tough day too, or am I projecting too much on a stranger?” the man said.

“Something like that,” she said, exhaling another cloud.

Undeterred or oblivious, the man continued, “Me too. I’ve found a walk helps me manage the stress. Patting a dog is exponentially better, of course.” He gave Triscuit another tussle. With a tilted head, she smelled his pant leg and carefully licked his hand.

“These work for me,” she said, presenting her cigarette, “But killing myself is the tradeoff, so there’s that.”

“Heh, yeah, I smoked for a very long time. I used to roll my own, and it drove my wife crazy! She’d say, ‘it’s a disgusting enough habit. Why do you have to make it worse?’”

“Married? How long?”

“We were married for twenty-two years before we got divorced.”

“The cigarettes?” Holly said dryly.

“No. The plumber. She literally had an affair with our plumber. The kicker is how long it took me to notice. How often does a plumber come to your house? Sharp in business, dumb as a doorknob in relationships,” he said, pointing to his head.

“Twenty-two years is a long time. There must be some good memories in there.” She felt a bit sorry for the man.

“Yes, of course. I tend to make things sound their worst. I guess I’m still kind of hurt. We have a beautiful daughter that I thank god for every day.”

“That’s really nice. You want one?” Holly motioned to the pack on the steps.

“Well, normally no, but… what the hell?” He shook one out like a pro, and Holly offered him a light. The man took a long and satisfying pull with his eyes half closed. “Oh yeah, that’s the stuff,” he said, and Holly chuckled.

“You lay off these for a while and forget how great they make you feel, at least for a little while.” He held it up to look at the ember. “You mind if I sit for a minute?”

“Go right ahead,” she said, sliding over on the steps. Time passed, and they were quiet, smoking and listening to the city.

“You live here? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound creepy; I’m a talker, and silence makes me uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay. Yeah, I do.”

“My names Oliver, Oliver Dean. Mild-mannered Sales Rep for NeoGeo Turbines,” he held out his hand, the cigarette pressed between his lips.

“That the wind energy company?”

“The very same. It’s been around for close to seventy-five years now. I’ve only been there about six.”

She shook his hand. “Holly, good to meet you.”

“Likewise, thank you,” he said, looking down at Triscuit, who was staring at him. Holly noticed.

“She has a sense about people, seems to like you, or she may still be working it out.”

“Smart dog, you can’t be too careful, can you?” Oliver said. “Okay, that’s the second weird thing I’ve said. I apologize if I’m making you feel uncomfortable.”

“Relax, believe me, I’d let you know.” She stubbed the remains of her cigarette into the concrete steps and lit a fresh one.

“All right,” he said with a sheepish grin. “So, how was your day?”

“Okay, I guess,” she sighed.

“Looks like it might not have been all that okay. Anything you want to dump on a stranger?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, taking a drag and looking toward the alley.

“No worries then,” Oliver said.

Nearly a minute passed. A group of young women on their way to a party stumbled by in animated conversation. The last paused to pat Triscuit, then tottered in high heels to catch up to the group.

“Have you ever seen something so weird that you simply cannot believe your eyes, but you actually do believe them because you’re not a crazy person?” Holly blurted out as if she’d been holding it in for as long as possible.

“Yes, I think so. A few weeks ago, I saw this street performer pitch a playing card ten feet that stuck into a piece of wood like a knife.”

“Not like that. Not a magician. I mean something unexplainable, something that would make a nutjob call into a talk radio show. Like one where the host would keep them on the air for the sheer entertainment value. Something that a homeless and disturbed person would be raving about or muttering under their breath as you pass them on the corner. Something that could have been fodder for the old Twilight Zone TV show.”

“Hmmm, well, I’m not sure, thinking…”

“Never mind. You’d remember it straight away. Forget it; I feel stupid for mentioning it,” Holly said; her neck began to turn pink.

“You know what, there is, or was something.”

“You don’t need to make me feel better.”

“No, I’m not trying to. I mean, I don’t want you to feel bad, but something that happened in my childhood remains unexplainable. Something I witnessed with my mother, brother, and sister.”

“Yeah?”

He shifted slightly to face her.

“My grandmother had just died, about a week before what I’m about to tell you. I think I was about ten years old at the time. We’d just returned from the funeral and were walking into the house, as heartbroken a group as you’ve ever seen. As we came up the stairs, a bell started ringing. Now according to my mother, that bell rang thirteen times. The thing of it is, the bell that was ringing was the timer in our old kitchen oven. That bell hadn’t worked since my parents bought it, and they never had it fixed.

And it never rang again.”

“Creepy,” Holly said.

“My mother swears that was my grandmother telling us that she was okay. I still remember the look on her face, and I could tell she believed it. I was skeptical, but I wanted to believe. I missed my grandmother dearly. I went over to the stove and tried to make the bell ring. I twisted the knobs and banged on the side of it—nothing, not a peep. My mother patted me on the shoulder - told me it would be okay. I cried harder than I had at the funeral. It all came out. At the time, they were not only tears for my grandmother but for my innocence and my youth. It was the first major loss I’d experienced; I could feel that something changed inside of me. I think we all get that feeling at some point.”

“I’m going on and on now, but is that similar?” Oliver finished and shifted his gaze from the sidewalk back to Holly. There were tears in her eyes.

“Yes, that’s similar in a way. Thanks for sharing that.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Both of them were quiet for another long minute.

“Oliver, can I ask you a favor.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly.

“See that alley right there?” she said, pointing with a slightly shaking hand.

“Sure.”

“Would you walk with me down to the end of it and back?”

“Um, okay. You’re not going to rob me or anything, are you? I get the sense that you could kick my ass if you wanted to,” he said half-jokingly.

“Of course not. It’s the thing that happened to me. It happened today, and it was in that alley. I don’t want to say what it was yet out loud, to anyone. But I don’t want to be afraid every damn time I pass the alley next to my home, and right now, I am. What happened didn’t hurt me physically; I say that because I want you to know that I don’t think I’m putting you in any danger. I would just like some help conquering my fear.” Holly covered her mouth as she spoke and eyed the ground.

Oliver crushed out his cigarette and stood up. He offered his hand and said, “It would be my honor. Let’s do this.”

Next week in Chapter 15, “Terms and conditions,” The staff at The Center offer Takeda a coupon and discuss time-bleed

Bill Bradbury's fiction

Song of the Red-Legged Birds: Chapter 14: Tan…