As kids when a grown up said that there may or may not have been enough interest/care to try and figure out...reasons and reality did and did not seem to match up all the time.
Our parents and people their age were beginning careers and families in the 1970's. They were also strangers to each other except through organizations and events. For my Dad those two factors and the responsibility of having hearth and family locked him into keeping it simple and his wife, our mom, brought the "sweet". As the world got whacky they used God and each other as fortress. In many ways it was a fortress for two. And they had Church to be the blueprint of how to use God.
Jimmy Carter and the kids were a challenge to the formulas.
Halloween was proving ground.
'The Lesser of Two Evils"
Way before the "holiday" and after nights of the living dead, the surroundings would be checked for horizon.
A pack of tweens which was a range-of-ages people just under legal ages to:
not at the beach
at the beach
planning
plotting
not only costumes
but
always a but with you people
a script
a pack of them, with a script
The sliding rectangle cut into the fence,
shut.
"Back to the WOODS!"
What was left of them. We wove through islands of bare trees and clumps of dirt piles. STOP PUSHING ON FOUR, we may be able to adopt that method on these bicycles! Hands dropped, knees brushed off, sweat wiped from foreheads and armpits on hankies and bandanas. The men stood around the tank.
If you're close enough to smell me, you're too close. They were arguing about sponsoring and partners and gender. "Is that what this is about?" A middle sister asked as the littlest girlfriend was taken out of the carseat strapped and bikelocked onto mama's bicycle. "Doesn't she look like a doll?"
"'Bout time you got here girlfriends!!" Woooohooo.
People were in an all natural phase of tribal meetings. My mom hated the no deodorant part which made some of us want to smell armpits all the more.
Down and dirty.
"Wow Mike. Are you a colonel already?"
Mike was pulling hoses out of the tank that at first looked like
Two pieces of plywood
Two pieces of fucking plywood
Two pieces of fucking plywood?
Two
Pieces
A lugnut teenage boyman had promptly gone to a pile of discard but SAVE IT and dribbled beer all over roofing tar paper, then started flinging stuff to: dig out mangey "pieces". "So?"
"So go with the flow Sherry."
My mother humphed, "Don't call me that."
"Okay ma."
"Don't call me that either."
People milled about, walking up to stuff and getting ideas. Some just picked shit up and stared at it. Others went around checking in.
"What time? What time do you think they'll be back?"
"We didn't bring lunch this time."
"Our family will get lunch today," a man poked his head around the tank.
....
A middle sister had wandered into the forbidden zone --going near the boys' stuff with no boys around. By the end of the day her day of "running away" was running by walking very, very slowly home. Interrogation proved she might be an asset. Our mother said, "We'll see about that."
The tensions and frustrations had been mounting nationwide--tentatively, statewide--well, probably, and locally--good v evil, tribal style.
Mama's closet door opened just a crack and the middle girl said, "Pretty far along." In response to the asked-out-loud question: (Daddy) "How's the equipment coming?" AND the note under the door: (Mike) How's the tank? The middle girl gulped. Sherry said, "Don't worry Carrie, God's gonna win, shut the door and help me with this.
We'd been a whole neighborhood of reporting crime anonymously and in person at the station so when stuff started to go mysteriously missing, the mom and dad foxes ventured from dens.
In a few years from then it was vague but stern issue
Leaving Town
Once we were, we'd saved for that part of the cycle, to get away. Everyone but our mother was in the car. We had to recount getting ready before a brother belted out as he smacked his forehead, "AW, I LEFT HER IN A DIRT PILE."
Everyone looked at him. Dad turned almost all the way around in the driver's seat, "What did you just say son?"
Way before it was "eight balls", santaria, and piles of dead bodies--some not quite dead, groups had been "messaging" each other and there was crossfire and "collateral damage". That was why, when the riff raff reassembled from contested stomping grounds at a blood/oil stain in the road as zombies and the walking dead and families with any sharp objects left on their properties just spontaneously faced them in the creeping moonlight with no referee(s) in sight mom and dad held back superheroes and creatures.
Even when teenie tweens yelled "WE'RE UP AGAINST AN ARMY OF EVIL" and a great whooping and screaming exploded.
THERE'S backstory, a man was explaining to some people costumed in business suits and not quite formal wear.
The police cars started to pull closer on side streets. They needed back up. Watch, and wait, the re-creationists counseled. Mom had her own walkie talkie stuffed into Daddy's trenchcoat. Hers was a pink trenchcoat that night. The plastic pumpkins at the draw line were filled with mixed money.
"We HAVE to see what the message IS," mama said loud and clear to Dad's pocket. Flashlights were put on the street, foot-level, for their jig.
Years before a piece of mail had been very curious. Daddy had chosen his words very carefully when he put his hand on her lower back, she was bent over her desk a lot those days, she sat up straight and without shaking her head much, shook off really into this drawing. "It looks like our Sherry Lynn has a following."
"A following?" Sherry looked for a clue on the return address. "What could it be?" She covered her not "good eye" and used the magnifying glass to scrutinize the seal on the envelope. She used a letter opener to neatly re-open the post. Showed it to everyone gathering around. Got the slow eyelid fluttering again. Kissed the envelope with the lipstick she put on perfectly, complete pile of fan mail. "Eew, creepy," a little boy deemed it.
"Why is that creepy?" Mom asked everyone of the index card-sized cut-out letters from newspapers and magazines it's like an invite Sher so be careful a man explained INVITATION mom asked.
She always wanted the children's input too. "I don't know," the child said. He smelled it. "Does it smell funny?"
"Like old people."
"Old people?" She took the object back and put it in an oversized pickle jar using tweezers. "Did it get on me?" The child started frantically wiping hands on the sides of his pants. A real nurse said, "Hands.". The child held out palms and had them wiped with rubbing alcohol. "Other side too," the child told the nurse who tapped on a palm, flip.
Almost all of us had already been exposed, but we didn't yet have permission to use the language with words like kidnapping, abused, ransom, extortion, caravan, crime spree, caught, lost, found, otherwise survived, etc. The lists were taking longer and longer to read as decrees, daily, nightly, random checkly-wise of telegrams and memos and, the permissions couldn't always be patched-through over oceans, especially "not fast enough" to beat a newspaper.
"Not your worry," a Broadway-Star-To-Be picked up a "magic wand" and whacked the top of a piano. Who are addressing? A recorder asked. Yeah, a scriptwriter asked whatever you are. A little squeal and mid-costume and "the kids". My mother said, "But of course." Children searched every face and all the grownups said, Not your worry.
The children let it go. And my mother did too until another couple pieces of mail came. One was a letter of encouragement/congratulations on her little talks on "the good news" at our church, St. Patrick's. The other was, "This is the back of a greeting card," she told Dad who was fixing a ham and Swiss sandwich. Like something had been decided for her. Something with Dad didn't sit right with that. It was like a Welcome to the competition. "But I didn't join anything," Mom said and shoved the annoyance into the back of a magazine. Daddy waited, then put the mail inside in the pocket of his sportcoat.
With the spooky clock ticking time running out to get candy, the order to wait was hard. Circus started to happen from behind the army of riff raff. It spilled out on the sides of the facing off halloweensters. Comic strip characters made way to the front and a ring-leader-type went on and on about fresh meat and next generation. Then he snapped fingers and the army of evil danced as one, together, as one, posing and twisting like puppets on strings. A midgety costumed relayed the message--"We don't always play nice." As they turned and started to storm off a megaphone called back, "This time we did. We did it for the kiddies."
It was like a wind came and drained everyone left standing there. People just went home. No one, after that spectacular display, was thinking about the other side not having homes to go home to. Or what happens to "abandoned buildings". And that was how the "living dead" manifested the "house of horrors". All unnoticed, even as tunnels connecting "basements" were facilitating a whole lot of "underground" traffic, and forming dirt piles all through the neighborhoods.
Sinkholes and Silos
My dad was torn between hurrying to find our mom and the engrossing amount of dirtpiles. He drove wider and wider circles and the middle brother was crying about losing mom and they'd just found our stolen tools and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph my Dad started saying as the amount of dirt piles multiplied like the crucifixions of the Romans. We used all of both hands each to keep track and then got so turned around in subdivision we'll never find her. People in the car yelled in shock and terror, just yelled, then started yelling at each other. Then people cried. And Dad said, "Let's say a prayer." So we did.
By the time we got to a corner that looked recognizable Daddy thought and said, "It must be near here."
"MIKE, that's the house that was on fire and then blew up
"I remember that
"Near the golfcourse
"But ALL THE HOUSES LOOK THE SAME
We took turns asking questions each in our way with him. He went to chase after an abandoned dog, so Mommy went too?"
"Yeah. And we couldn't find it so, we took a nature walk to calm down."
"Did you stay there?"
"No. We," suddenly his whole head dropped, passed out, pitch white face, but came to saying, "Mom got hit in the head with a shovel," then went woozy again. "HOLD HIS HEAD UP!!!!" Dad screamed and peeled out to get home to a phone. "DAD!!!! HIS NOSE IS BLEEDING!"
We had to drive straight to the hospital. All "civil service" people were "out on patrol".
"They're NOT DOING A VERY GOOD JOB!" My father blubbercriedyelled. And slammed down the glow-in-the-dark-Number-One keychain with house and car keys only on it. "It's not a job," an ambulance worker said, "Sir". My slumping-shoulder Dad looked up and down from the guys shoes. "Lanky guy, you, you're a lanky guy."
"I guess I've been working a LOT."
My Dad lost his focus and just looked at the big checkerboard floor. Then at the guys shoes again. He seemed to be remembering too much at once and nothing at all. Then he said, "You're wearing golf shoes."
"I am." The lanky guy in golf shoes grabbed Dad's wrist. Dad's reflex was to punch the guy in the stomach. Then both asked, "Whadya do that for?"
"You first."
"No you."
"No, really, you, you're
"Was gonna take your pulse," he looked at a huge fancy watch on his arm. "Time's up!" The lanky guy said as a nurse was squish-shoeing back behind the desk.
Guy just leaving Dad was saying as the nurse pulled the rolling chair closer and pulled herself up to see. The guy almost at the door leapt in the air and clicked his heels. The nurse blew out her breath, "Well, he's gone now. Was he bothering you Mr. ". But Dad didn't fill in the blank. "NONE OF THIS IS RIGHT. PROPER. NOT PROPER."
He swiped the keys from where it turns out "incapacitated" "people" could turn them in and rest up a bit, how's about a cup of coffee?! He whirled and all if us magneted to him. "There's an egg on Mike's head." The middle sister said. Daddy put his hand on the back of his head to protect the bad bruise bump and picked him up and carried him half awake back to the car.
A real Town police car, we thought, caught up to us as we were about to turn back into the neighborhood, but there'd been fake and juniors who wouldn't make it through training but made off with the equipment and scary quasi-events through the PAL, some characters, a chief had said of some of them, so Daddy swerved and didn't turn. Went around the block and we started looking in dirt piles.
With some orange juice and soda we revived. Grabbed the bread and stuffed it into Daddy's back pocket. One brother was so excited he was still alive and we're together he ran up and down dirt piles in a different direction from where mom would be "logically". Another brother ran fast and faster and tackled him and started beating thr crap out of him, so Dad ran up and pulled him off. He stayed rigid. Dad stood him up facing the other direction. Took out his white hankie and handed it to the middle brother to:
Wipe OFF the blood AND the snots and let's go find your mother.
A sister picked up the mangled bread thrown because Dad couldn't get the hankie out AND don't squish our only food. Another sister grabbed it and started to run with it and then stopped short, opened it, shoved a piece in her mouth, then flung it. "WHERE IS IT?" The middle sister had grabbed her by the back of the hair and flung her on the ground. "THAT'S FOR EVERYONE!!!!!" She stood over her and screamyelled in her face. One brother said, "CATFIGHT!" Another ran over, "Where'd she throw it?!" He pointed at the tackling brother, "YOU'RE FORGIVEN," he whirled his arm and pointed at the on-the-ground sister, stepped on her leg, "YOU ARE NOT
The tense-stiffed brother came over, "Where?" The sister standing over the sister headshoved in the direction of thr bread. The brother walked maybe twenty feet and said, "Oh MY God, Dad, come see this."
The brother removed foot, pinched the sister's thigh. "You're not getting up until you, YOU assure me, ME that you can feel that and," she had tears streaming out the sides of her eyes and was nodding and shaking her head, "that you are okay." The two of the middle children took a step back. The trembling came and went. The sister extended an arm and taken it was a pull up. Dad put his arms around her from behind and carried her forward. We stood at the edge of a
"What do you call that bro?
"Don't call me bro. I'd say bigger than a ditch, more of a gully."
My father turned and stumbled to the nearest dirtpile. Fell to his knees and started scooping dirt and throwing it into the air. The policeman in uniform that we knew found us all like that.
And stayed in place until another came with people tied by wrists with clothesline.
"We CAN'T capture them," the officers were forced to say over the one walkie duct-taped to wrist and blinking. Everyone walked to the police station parking lot.
"We've got a plan," the living-dead-looking, chief, trembly handed took the cup of coffee. With also duct-taped wrists. An astronaut in olive green instead of white, suited being, came towards us with a crackling radar machine.
Meanwhile....
Which was why our mother was walking down the road, alone, hair matted, and bloody, dirt-covered but holding a clean white tissue on her booboo when Daddy just slowed to a roll and she hopped in. "Heard you got called a bitch?" Dad said real loud. "Is THAT what THIS is about?" Sherry steadied her voice. And thought for a good long minute. Then said, "That bitch to be exact."
"Did we miss the flight?"
A walkie talkie strapped to the dashboard said, Don't answer that Ed. We need you all back down at the station.
Some of the buses there were not yet painted over from yellow to drabs. "I'll give ya guys a tour. It's like a factory up in herah."
Inside the chainlink fences were rolls of barbed wire. People had all kinds of accents. The world seems sideways, someone said as we walked past a person rolling black paint onto the top of an otherwise yellow bus.
"Tell him to say Hotel California," the walkie talkie crackled and said. To "What hotel?" $)+--_#@@':;+!;
Stomachs had been slit open with machete. The "succession" issue. Other women gave birth wherever they were. Forced labor.
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