The Closet was first published in the Clackamas Literary Review in Volume 24 in the Spring of 2020.
The boy lays in his bed in the dark and listens to the animals in the closet. He can hear them talking to one another in low voices, the words inaudible, but the feeling permeating the darkened room. It is lonely in the closet. It is frightening to be alone. They don’t understand why they have to be there. Why they must coldly roost on dusty shelves while others lay warm, encased under warm blankets pulled tight up to their chins. They are trapped, and they are unhappy. It is unfair, but there is nothing to be done.
Moonlight, etched by the shadowy branches of the locust trees, floats in through the windows, illuminating a world of indistinct gray shadows. Toy shelf, dresser, bunk bed, and bean bag chairs. All there, but not quite all the way. The boy sits silent and listens. He rolls towards the wall. Away from the view of the slightly ajar accordion of the closet door. Towards the lumps of Pound Puppy and Puppet who lay beside him.
Pound Puppy is the older of the two. Tan hide and stubby ears, sad plastic eyes glinting in the darkness, the sewn threads of a repaired blowout on his right hindquarters, and a neck wrung by the crook of an elbow until no more stuffing remains. They had all received Pound Puppies, once upon a time, but only this one still enjoyed the light of day, resting on his place next to the pillow. Puppet is the younger. An orange crochet body with a hole to allow in a hand, brown floppy ears, big bright red mouth, and two blue jewels for eyes. A gift from an old nurse to a little boy, then eight, who had lain in a hospital bed, saying nothing, watching the world, understanding too much, but feeling too worn out to care.
The boy clutches the pair to his chest. The ten dollar bill hidden inside Puppet crinkles beneath the pressure of his skinny arm. The boy is eleven. He is too old for such things. He knows this, but he can’t seem to put them away. He is unable to banish them to the closet with the rest. They would be unhappy in the closet. It would not be right for them to be all alone. They are friends, confidantes, and companions. They stay quiet and they are always there. They never question and they never judge. From them he has nothing to hide. No thoughts are bad. No thoughts are good. They are just thoughts. Floating in an emptiness, bounced by echoes across the vastness of his mind. Free of the whispers of parents unaware that anyone is listening, not knowing how far one’s name can carry in the dark.
When he was ten they had taken Blankie, soft white fabric which had been there from the start. The fringe ripped away and a small hole near one corner. Once held close against a frightened body, suddenly cleaved away and gone, taken while he was away at school. The parents had sat him down. They had explained how he was getting older. How it was time to give up such things. To them it had all seemed so reasonable. No question it was the right thing to do. The boy had thrown a fit. A tantrum that seemed to have no end. His brothers had watched from the periphery as his screams had shook the windows. He yelled until he could yell no more, took a rest, and then got back up to yell again. His parents did not break. The worst of the storm passed and the boy went to bed, his eyes full of tears. For a time he searched whenever he had a chance. All the closets, under his parents’ bed, the brown chest in the living room, the attic, the crawlspace, the cellar amongst the Christmas lights. Nothing. The parents were too good at hiding. Blankie was gone, and that was that. Pound Puppy and Puppet took his place. A fight for another day.
On the lower bunk the boy’s little brother farts in his sleep, rolls over, and farts again. The little brother is always farting in his sleep. A few times he has farted so bad that he has woken himself up, bursting into the world with a startled yelp of indignation that someone would dare to break his slumber. The little brother never hears the voices. The little brother is a good sleeper. He passes out the moment he’s in bed, and he rises with the morning sun. He doesn’t know about the world of the night, because he is never there to observe it. Not the rustle of the locust trees, the howl of the coyote, or the gurgle of the toilet. Not the mice skittering in the walls, the settling creak of the joists, or the shift of the logs in the wood stove. The sounds in the deep of night that nobody hears. The sounds that come out after even the whispered worries of the parents fall silent into guttural snores.
The boy does not sleep. His brain will not let him. It whirls in unending thoughts, stories, ideas, and worries. A mechanism of perpetual motion, never stopping until without warning it does, dropping him dead until jostling hands wake him to face the morning sun. He lays in his bed and waits for the sudden shift to the next day. He lays in his bed, quiet, listening to the world of the darkest part of night. They all have voices.
The toys argue amongst each other on the shelves, debating who will be the ones to be next played with. Sometimes the verbal turns to physical, and a favorite toy is shoved somewhere out of sight by other jealous playthings. In the drawers the clothing rustles. The shirts on top, looking forward to soon being worn, the shirts on the bottom, bemoaning the weight of their comfortable brethren, knowing they will never see the light of day. The boy is finicky about his clothing, and many shirts lie near the bottom, never worn. It is worst for those who were once near the top. Those who now have unsightly holes or stretched out necks. They remember what it had once been like. They remember a better world. But it is the animals in the closet that tug at his heartstrings. It is the animals for whom he feels. They do not want to be played with. They do not ask to be worn. They just want to feel close to something. To feel connected. To feel loved.
In the morning the bus will come and the boy will be taken to school. He will ride the forty-five minutes with his nose buried in his book. He will sit in class and listen. He will go out to recess to play. Sometimes with others, but more often than not alone. Each month he can feel the divide growing. Each year the chasm widens more. When he was younger he had just been one of many. Another set of bright eyes amongst the crowd. Now he doesn’t belong. An outsider looking in. A voyeur on the world. When he was eight he was woken in the middle of the night and taken to the hospital. He stayed there for a week. When he returned he did so with a body made of sticks. Perhaps that was the reason why. In his head, the boy always imagines his body was once more like all the rest, less thin, less weak. No, it is probably just in his head. Things have always been this way. Even when he was small he had known it would just be a matter of time. There was something about him different. He was not like all the rest. He did not belong.
The boy shifts in his bed again. The ten dollar bill crinkles in Puppet’s head. All the voices go silent for a moment, then start up once again. The boy's voice is still hoarse with screamed denials. An unending litany of refused acknowledgment. Life is not fair, but why should he be the one who must always take notice? The parents once said that they did not want to spoil him. They had spoiled him when he was little, and it had led to bad things. The boy has no memory of such a world. No thoughts to remind him of such a paradise. Did the parents say it often, or did they only say it once? Either way it is lodged deeply in his head. The idea that he is being punished for a world he can’t remember. A world where he did not want. A world where things were fair. A world of which he was a part. A world where he was doing more than just looking in. A world where someone understood. Where others heard the voices. Where there were no worried whispers. Where nothing was alone. Gone. All gone without even a memory. Just a feeling that something is wrong. The sense that things will never get better, that they will only get worse. Why shouldn’t he reach out and take whatever he needed? Who has the right to judge someone doomed to isolation?
The sad plastic eyes of Pound Puppy stare up at the boy. The blue jewel eyes of Puppet do not twinkle. With them the boy has no secrets. No defenses. They can see into his soul. He knows what they are thinking. Even the wanderer must have morals. Just because the chasm is widening, it doesn’t mean he should try to escalate its speed. No wrong can ever make the world feel right.
The boy rises up and the voices cease. The boy pulls the ten dollar bill from Puppet’s head and holds it tightly in his hand. He slips down the bunk bed ladder, doing his best to not make a sound. Little brother farts again, smacks his lips, and rolls over. Across the carpet. The bedroom door sticks, it must be yanked to be opened. Sit silent and wait to see if anyone heard. Even in the muted light, the boy can see the scars on the door’s finish. Evidence of past battles with the world slipping by. The hallway is dark. No windows. Just the tiny orange flicker from the gap between the wood stove’s gate in the distant living room. The dark shadow of the bathroom. The closed door of the room of older brother, and the slightly ajar door of the parents.
The boy creeps next to the ajar door and stops to listen. Heavy breathing. A high nasal snore. Familiar sounds. The constant background hum of the deep night. The boy pushes open the door. Moonlight splashes across the hall. Rustling in the bed. Freeze. Nothing. Stay low. Creep forward below their view. Stick up one bony hand. Feel the leather sitting on the cold lacquered wood. Bring it back down. Open it. Put in the ten dollar bill. Return the wallet to its place. Creep back out. Slowly. Put the door back into its original position. Sit and listen. Almost done. Crawl back into his room. Shut the door. Push it past where it sticks. Sit and listen.
The voices are going once again. The boy can hear the muffled sounds of the animals in the closet. Sad sounds. Quiet sounds. Hopeless sounds. The shadows of the locust trees shift with the rustle of the wind. The boy thinks about going back. He thinks about retrieving the ten dollar bill. He stays put. He listens. Poor bastards. Poor lonely bastards. Stuck. Alone. The boy stands and opens the metal folding closet door. The hinges squeal. The voices stop. The boy takes them in armloads and puts them up on the top bunk. Bee and pink elephant from the claw machine, big koala bear, little brother’s pound puppy and stuffed cat, the clown puppet, sleepy alligator, older brother’s ragged teddy bear, pink panther stiff with his wire bones, little velvet mouse, and all the rest. The boy climbs up and lays amongst them. Everything is quiet. Everything is good. He can feel their happiness. He can feel the joy coming off of them. Pound Puppy’s plastic eyes don’t seem so sad.
A Note:
I don’t usually believe in explaining stories, but I think this one is worth saying some things because stories of a personal nature involve people one loves and cares about. I had a good childhood overall. I got to grow up in the middle of nowhere in a setting relatively few people get to truly experience. I’ve never wanted to trade it for anything. I was a lucky kid. I had parents who loved me and cared so deeply that even when I was angry with them I never questioned it. If anything, I wish I could go back to my childhood and be better to them. I was not an easy child. I was a different child, or at least that’s the way I felt, though others must have seen it somewhat too for I got picked on a lot as a kid. It’s hard to explain, but I always felt like an outsider no matter where I went or who I met. I sometimes imagined a spaceship dropping out of the sky to take me to the world where I belonged.
Growing up is a confusing time, not just for yourself, but for your parents as well, especially when you feel different. I was not an easy kid. I was extremely finicky, picky, and had a violent temper. I was angry at being stuck on this world, and so I acted out against it. I latched onto odd things and ideas with an amazing amount of force for somebody my age, defending them against encroachment with a righteous fury that often came out in unhealthy ways. I know I worried my parents, and scared them a lot too. I don’t think they knew what to do with me, though they did everything in their power to help and understand me. As a kid, so many actions by your parents don’t make sense at the time they’re happening, only later revealing themselves as proof of how much somebody loves you. I don’t know how my parents could’ve done any better with me. How could they be expected to understand something that I certainly didn’t understand then, and even after 37 years of living with myself still can’t satisfactorily explain now.
I was a lucky kid. My parents loved me and cared for me. There are so many kids who don’t get such things, and who knows what I might be if I didn’t have such a foundation. I am who I am today because of them, and there’s no way for me to repay such a gift. As for the rest, I guess eventually I learned to go native, accepting as best I can that I am where I’m supposed to be. Though I will admit that I often still look up at the stars wondering if a spaceship might be on its way.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Babbletrish.