Storymania - The Short Stories Of Mila Strictzer by Mike Strozier

The Short Stories Of Mila Strictzer (2)
Mike Strozier

The other two girls who were sisters just looked amazed but the one kept on, "What is It?"

I remember not being sure just how to answer that question but I had answered anyway, "It lives in this field, can’t you feel It?"

The three girls were silent and none of them said anything.

"I will show you, since you made it this far."

So I laid down on the tree that had fallen over and pulled the concertina wire fence across my chest, so that the three wire strands covered over my whole body, and then I pulled down on the wooden stake that was once part of the fence and it hurt my whole body to have the jagged wire edges push against me, into my skin. I felt the pain and I screamed out. I could see the girls out of the corner of my eye jump back, startled.

Then I yelled out to the blue sky above me, "This is It!"

The three girls screamed out but they did not say anything. Then one of them turned and ran back and the other two quickly followed. It was always better when I would show one of my male friends what It was. They would always understand. That is why I had ran away on that day, away from the girls, who had said they wanted to see It.

Now, nighttime had arrived again, and besides a few hours of rest, I was to be put back into the room and shackled. My wrists and ankles were bloody from fighting the shackles. Someone would come into the room every few hours or so and check on me, but they did not do anything. They would just look at me and then leave and lock the heavy, wooden door behind them. And I would struggle and strain away the night, shackled by the constraints.

The attic was a truly terrifying place to me, like I said. The reason was because there was nothing up there except an old wooden chair, far away in the corner, just sitting there. If I went to the attic for some reason it was never alone. In the attic, I would usually go over to the small, dusty windows and look out of them because it seemed like I was looking back through time. My friend ditched me one time as I was looking out the windows but I didn’t notice him leave. I said something to him but there was no answer and when I saw he was gone I was so scared that I could not even speak or move. Whenever I pushed up the platform door entrance to the attic and raise my head above, I would always first turn to my left, no matter what, and see if that chair was still there and, sure as hell, it would always still be sitting there. I wished that whoever had put it there would come back and take it away so that I did not have to deal with it anymore. The chair is probably still there to this day. I will probably go to my grave and that chair will still be sitting there.

Anyways, my room was one of the rooms not too far from the entrance to the attic. It was not the biggest room in the house, by any means. But this other girl, not one of the three, whose father knew my father, she would come over sometimes. There were two big storm windows that were in my room where I slept. That girlfriend, she really was a girlfriend of mine, we had painted the walls together one summer but we did not get to finish so the walls were covered with this weird orange painting scheme, like something a couple of medicine men might paint. The design had very strange patterns and at night we would look at those patterns when we slept together. I mean, we did not sleep together, but you know, in the same room, when she would spend the night sometimes. I made her study those patterns before we would go to sleep and she did not seem to mind studying them. And the strange patterns would fade in and out, especially when one of the fierce Illinois storms would blow across the flat landscape and push against the big storm windows of my room on the farm. The small radio that was on the bookshelf that I always kept on would sometimes warn of flash floods and play out the long beeps but my girlfriend would always say to not worry about it because we were on a hill and there was no way a flash flood would get to us. When she said to not worry, I always did not worry about it. And together, we would just study those strange patterns on the walls in the dark, at my request.

So here I am again, insane. I mean, common now, can I really be crazy? How’s that for rhetorical? I mean, sure, its possible; after all, I am treated like an insane person. You know who is truly insane? Those fucking anorexic women who are forced to eat three full meals every single day. Now, that is insane. I couldn’t even eat all the food on those trays. They always ate so fast; I guess they wanted to get over with it. The damn nurses would actually force food down their throats, so that they could get three balanced meals a day and so that they would not get fired. The anorexic girls, one of them played guitar so well and I used to love sitting in her room just listening to her play songs on her guitar and sing about whatever…they always fought a little but not too much for some reason, and then they would swallow their food, so that at the end of it all, their tray would be empty. So why bother to fight is about all that I can take from that.

The second to last thing I want to tell you about the farm is when my dog died. My father, he had grabbed me real quick when we both came home, even though we had both driven in the same car for the last two hours in order to get home to the farm and he quickly got out of the car and he told me to follow him so, of course, I followed. And as I walked next to him, he spit just a little bit from time to time, because I guess he was nervous, but I still followed him all the same. We walked to the woods, the very same woods that made a line across the field our horses lived in and to the secret place. And when we had not gotten too far back into those woods my dad suddenly stopped and said, "Michael, unfortunately, I have to tell that the German Sheppard had died."

I was suddenly very scared. But I answ1ered bravely, "Do you mean Jim?

"Yes, Jim."
"’What do you mean? Jim is dead?"

"Son, I mean Jim, your dog, is dead."

Jim, among all the other dogs that I watched over, was my favorite dog. He was a German Shepard and he would do just about anything that I would say.

So I did not say anything. And we both just kept walking, over to his grave. My father had made a grave, too. Thank God for that. It was just a wooden cross, made from two pieces of wood, over the ground. My father had told me once that Jesus was a man who actually lived in history. I have always thought about the possibility of Jesus being both a man and God at the same time and I do not have any answers.

"So, this is Jim?" I asked my father.

"Yes, son, this is Jim, I buried him this afternoon."

"Okay, well, I can live with that then."

And my father breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps from being a little confused at his son’s being able to take it all.

"Son, I am sorry."

"Dad, it’s just that you spent the time to make the cross. What does it mean, the cross?""

"It means that you care."

"Dad, really, please, what does it mean, the cross?"

"Son, I swear to God, it means that you care."

"Really, Dad?"

"Yes, really, son. I put that cross up because I care and because I care about you and because I care about Jim."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Okay, then"

"Son, I am sorry about Jim, but I just want you to know that I love you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

And I did not worry too much about my dog after that. Because my father had cared enough to make the cross and now I understood what that meant.

But guess what? I was still forever stuck in the hospital, insane as they labeled me. Even when I got to leave, I was still insane. And about all that happened was my grandmother came to bring me some Chicago style pizza, maybe you don’t know, the kind with the thick edges and the thick sauce and I ate it, I almost ate the whole pizza whole, because it was different food and I was starving, I was so glad my grandmother had brought it to me. And then, you know, I was satisfied like the lion. But eventually, I did get to leave to hospital. And I was damn glad that I did get to leave, too.

I was going to tell you the last thing about the farm but I guess I am not quite done yet. Almost, but not quite. I want to tell you about the time my dad electrified our dog. See, our dog, a German Shepard named Jim, well, I already told you about him, used to chase our neighbor’s cows. Our neighbor, whose named Daryl, I already told you about him too, he was a nice guy, one time he helped me when my mom passed out in the kitchen from being too drunk. He was a Korean War veteran and just from judging it, I would say that he probably killed a lot of Koreans why back when.

So anyway, my dad and Daryl sat on our front porch and Daryl had hooked up this electric collar around Jim’s neck. It was a heavy contraption and Jim was wagging his tail as Daryl put it on. My dad was laughing, too. Then, my dad said, laughing, "Alright, Jim, now go get the cows."

I was just watching.

And Jim ran off down our driveway and then he turned right down the road to Daryl’s field where all the cows were. He slid his body under the fence like he always did, see, I used to watch him do it a lot, and then, sure enough, he started to chase the cows all over the field.

Then my dad looked over at Daryl and said, "Well, are we ready?"

And Daryl said, "All systems are go."

And they both laughed again. Then my dad held the box up, it was long and rectangular, about five inches thick. My dad, he was always big on exaggerating things. Then my dad pressed the big, red button as he was still laughing and I was just looking at Jim. I saw Jim curl over on his left side. Jim must have felt the pain pretty bad because he just kept reeling over on his side and his head was touching his tail. But he did not yelp out loud or anything. Then Jim ran, real fast, back to our porch. Then my dad and Daryl laughed very loudly for several minutes. I had never seen my dad laugh like he did before that day.

I got out of the hospital in the springtime, when the air was fresh and clean. I was in New York City so I took the subway to Central Park. I don’t know why I went there, I just wanted to go there. So I went to the park and I got off the subway and I walked up the steps. Outside, the trees were green and the grass was deep. There was this guy and this girl filming some kind of movie or film on a big rock not too far away from me but I kept walking into the park. I went to this kind of pond, it was a pond, but just how can you call it a pond? I mean, here, look, its only about three feet deep so does that make it a true pond? Well, so anyway, I went there and they had these boats that you could rent so I paid five dollars and rented one. I got into the boat and paddled my oars out to the middle of the lake. There were no other boats because it was Tuesday or something and right in the middle of the day. When I got to the middle of the lake I just looked around at the trees and the water. The water was calm and it was very peaceful. So I laid back on the seat of the boat and looked up at the Manhattan skyline. It was very peaceful.

This is the last thing I am going to tell you about the farm. Once, I ran into the cornfield right next to the farm, I was alone, and I destroyed some of our neighbor’s corn. Its not like I really destroyed a lot of it, or anything that would really cost him, I mean Daryl, any real money, but I did stomple some of his corn stalks. I was just playing around. And my dad caught me. He said to go tell Daryl that I had destroyed his cornfield.

I was very scared. I was scared of my dad and I was scared of Daryl, too. But I went anyway. That had to have been the longest walk in my entire life. I walked down our driveway, the same driveway that Jim had went down, and turned right and walked to Daryl’s house. He had a big shed with a lot of farm tractors and corn harvesters, almost sounds like Demeter or something if you think about it, but I was very scared walking down the road. There was this big corral right as you walked into his yard and he had two bulls in it. It was obvious which bull was the real man, so to speak. So I went up to the door and knocked. After a couple of minutes, Daryl came to the door and pushed the screen door open. The warm, afternoon, Central Illinois haze permeated everything. Daryl said, "Yes, son, what do you want?"

I replied, very nervous, "Sir, I trampled on some of your corn and destroyed it. My dad told me to come tell you."

"Really? What did you do, run a truck over it?"

"Sir, I don’t even know how to drive."

"Well, I guess that’s true," Daryl had said even though I had rode with him in his harvesters when he harvested the corn in the fall a couple of times. I just stood there, waiting.

"Don’t worry about it."

"I won’t worry about it," I said, just like my dad and my girlfriend had said.

Two Soldiers

By Mila Strictzer

"I don’t like the captain. He pisses me off."

"Everything pisses you off."

"To hell with you. Why, do you like him?"

"No, not really, he’s an asshole, sure."

"See?"

"Yea, yea."

"When are you going to realize that I am always right?"

"Never."

"How long before this battle starts?"

"Like I know."

"Well, why not? You always seem to know."

"Probably when the light comes, so the tanks can see."

"Yea. Are you worried?"

"Why do you ask me that, to torture me?"

"Because I don’t know how you feel."

"What does it matter how I feel."

"I guess your right, it doesn’t matter."

The light was just starting to illuminate the dark trees of the forest. The two soldiers did not take notice until after ten minutes or so that the darkness was fading. They were lying in the grass, each one next to a tree, their rifles pointed in front of them as they whispered at each other.

"I don’t want to do this anymore. I am tired of waking up to a day of fighting every day."

"Quit bitching. Now we must be silent until we are relieved."

The two soldiers did not say anything for a long while. They each scanned the woods in front of them for anything, any sign of activity, a tank’s low rumbling, a twig snapping from an enemy patrol, anything. But for now, it was silent. And for that they were grateful. Finally, they were relieved at their posts by two other soldiers. They crawled back on their bellies several yards and then stood up and walked with their backs crouched over for several yards and then walked normal for the rest of the ½ mile back to their squad’s system of trenches and bunkers.

When they got to the squad camp, they saw the rest of the squad was not there, the sergeant must have wanted to go out on an early morning patrol, just to be sure, which made sense. He was not a bad leader, just very careful and cautious and there was nothing the matter with that. He could be feisty at times, though.

So both soldiers sat down under the leafy camouflage canopy over the trenches that they had helped dig two days ago. It was quiet in the woods, still no sign of an almost certain upcoming battle that morning. They sat down on the ground, in the soft mud, below the line of the Earth and continued their conversation in silent whispers.

"Do you think dying is hard?"

"I am not sure."

"If you think, it’s only going to take about ten seconds, maybe a lot less."

"You can live through that much pain, right?"

"Well, I think so. But that is not the only part about it."

"What else, then?"

"The wait. And the know. That is what we are doing, every day in this shit. We are just waiting for death. Is there a day that goes by without thinking about death? To try to understand how it will come?"

"No."

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