Uncle Albert

No. It wasn’t.

OK.

I was five years old. I had nightmares all the time.

But this one...

I don’t know how to tell it to you.

You won’t understand.

Fine.

I-was-five-years-old-and-I-was-playing-by-the-garage.

It had been rainy all summer. And the ground was mud.

There were clouds gathering now.

In the distance.

In the direction that clouds come from.

West, I guess. I didn’t know.

The ditch that ran alongside the garage was deep with muddy, running water. It was moving fast. I kept my back against the garage and watched the water disappear into the gaping concrete culvert that carried it under the street to the other side.

I liked the water. Because the water meant nothing could come from the darkness of the culvert.

The culvert scared me.

The water pushed the bad stuff away.

But if I slipped. If I fell into the water. I knew that it would carry me down into the darkness.

Kicking and screaming.

Gulping mud.

But not drowning.

I’d never dared cross the street to see what happened to the water on the other side, but I knew. I knew it the way five-year-olds know things. The dark water went down, down, down to a place with no light.

And for the things that lived down there, five-year-olds were a treat.

I kept my back against the garage.

I was playing trucks.

I had the one with the big, bendy arm with the claw at the end. A backhoe? Maybe? It said Caterpillar on the side. It belonged to my brother. Caterpillars scared me too, but not as much.

And it’s not like it actually looked like a caterpillar.

It was helping me dig my own ditch. And we were both pretty much covered in mud.

I was making rumbling noises, and the caterpillar clanked as I pushed it back and forth. But when I stopped, I noticed that the rumbling kept going.

I looked up. The clouds were getting darker. There were flashes of lightning. But it didn’t sound like thunder. And it was coming from the other direction.

Toward the railroad tracks.

Toward the mouth of the culvert.

I could tell it wasn’t a train, though.

There were splashing noises along with the rumbling. And clanking, like from the caterpillar, but ten times louder. Like a real truck. And far back, as I bent my head sideways, I could see that there was a light. Two lights. Two lights moving closer. From deep inside the culvert.

A deep, bone-breaking rumbling.

It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to move. I tried to slide backwards, but the wall of the garage stopped me.

There was a squeal of brakes. A hiss of steam. The lights burst out of the culvert. I had to close my eyes against the brightness.

And then just the rumbling of an engine. A big one. Right beside me. The ground shook with it.

I heard a door squeak, and my eyes popped open.

It was a garbage truck.

Just.

A garbage truck.

It didn’t occur to me at the time that it was much too big to have come from the culvert, because there it was. The water in the ditch rushing around it. Its wheels nearly buried in the mud.

I liked garbage trucks. I liked to watch the big smasher crush all the garbage in the back.

There was a man standing casually on the step by the passenger side, leaning on the hinges of the door. He smiled at me.

I smiled back.

I couldn’t see a driver. It was too dark inside. But the man kept smiling. He was tall. His hair was the color of my hair, and it was long enough that it flopped down to cover one eye. And just below that flop of hair was a small scar on his cheek.

He nodded toward the trash cans lined up alongside the driveway in front of the garage. I nodded back. He hopped easily over the water and trudged through the mud. He took the trash cans one by one. Tipped them into the truck. Until they were all empty. Then he turned toward me, still smiling, and bowed deeply as if he’d just done something magic. I giggled.

He looked down at the caterpillar. Smiled more deeply. Pointed at it. A quizzical tilt to his eyebrow. I nodded, as if to claim it. To impress him with it. Even though it wasn’t really mine.

He reached for it. Somehow picking it up without taking his eyes from mine. Without bending over. Despite the distance between us. He held it up toward the sky to get a better look. It seemed ten times brighter against the darkening clouds. He winked at me. And gently tossed it over his shoulder. Into the back of the truck.

He bowed again.

I was too shocked to do anything but stare. My mouth hung open. I started to cry.

His mouth formed an “O”, and he knelt down to look me in the eyes. Tilted his head to watch as a tear ran down my cheek. He flicked a finger at it, and my face burned where he had touched me

And he laughed. And his laugh was a low roll of thunder.

Lightning flashed behind his head and then from one eye to the next as if his head and the clouds were the same. He was flesh, and cloud, and electricity.

But he was just a man.

And he smiled. He raised a finger to his lips.

“Shhhhhhhhhh…”

And the sound was like wind in the forest.

He hopped back onto the running board. He turned back into the cab as the engine revved.

And I took the deepest breath my lungs could hold.

“NOOOOO!” I shouted.

“DAD!”

“HE’S TAKING IT!”

And the air was sucked from the world. And sound went with it.

And dad was there. Beside me. His hand on my head where he always put it when we walked.

The man’s head turned. His eyes were black.

“It’s alright,” my dad said silently. He stepped forward. “Give it back.” No sound.

The man raised his hand, palm up. His elbow bent the wrong way. His sleeve melted away, and his arm was metal. His hand the mechanical claw of the caterpillar.

My father stepped in front of me. The claw shot forward. And disappeared in my father’s chest. He stiffened. Fell forward into the ditch. The water carried him away into darkness.

And the man. His now-human hand holding my father’s heart. Winked and smiled at me through the passenger window as the truck flowed backward and down, down, down into the abyss.

———

I woke. I was in my bed. My radio playing softly by my head. Paul McCartney. The song that always scared the hell out of me.

(sings softly) ...Uncle Albert...

My hand shot to the off button, but there were other sounds. They stopped me. I listened.

A pounding up and down the stairs.

My sisters crying.

My mother calling my father’s name.

I went to the door and opened it. My mother rushed to me. Knelt down.

“It’s going to be alright,” she said, brushing my hair from over my eye like she always did. “Your grandmother’s downstairs. I’m going with dad. What did you do to your face?” She seemed concerned, but my grandmother called her name and she disappeared down the stairs.

“It’s his heart,” I heard someone say. And a door slammed. And it was silent except for the siren of the ambulance and the distant thunder and the hushed sounds of my grandmother comforting my sisters.

There was a mirror across the hall from my room. I could feel it next to me as I stood there alone. I didn’t want to look.

But I did.

My hair had flopped back down over my eye.

Below it was a bright red scar where the man had touched my face.

There was a flash of lightning in my eyes. First one eye, then the next. I could hear Paul McCartney.

And I knew. The way five-year-olds know things.

The man in the truck was me.

And I could tell that he hadn’t really gone away.