The House
3:47 pm, June 17th, 1998
A red Ford F-150 with Indiana plates, towing a U-Haul trailer, turned left onto Birch Tree Road and passed a large community pool and a stone sign that read “Shady Hollow”. It passed two American Craftsman-style houses with manicured lawns and inviting front doors neatly lined up on each side of the road. The occupants of the truck looked out at each house carefully, eager to catch a glimpse at their new neighbors, but it was a hot June day in 1998. Everyone was inside enjoying the air conditioning or in the backyard grilling burgers and dogs or throwing baseballs, footballs, and frisbees.
The truck passed Maple Glenn Drive and Tall Oak Road then made a left on Dogwood Court. More houses, no neighbors. Above the truck, storm clouds rolled in. Thunder grumbled low in the distance as the truck followed Dogwood Court down a slight hill and rolled to a halt in front of 556 Dogwood Court. As Jackson Puller put the truck in park, he looked in the review mirror with a smile and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re home!”
Fourteen-year-old Carrie Puller, the older of the Puller children, was the first to get out. Little eight-year-old Jason was the second, but only because he had taken the time to shove his Game Boy Color into the seatback in front of him.
Neither Jackson nor his wife, Ana, followed their children, but took a moment of pleasure to watch as their daughter and son raced to the front door of their new home. Jackson could hear them arguing already over who would get the biggest room when he finally opened the door of the cab and stepped out onto Dogwood Court. As he did, thunder grumbled overhead again. He looked up at the sky and surveyed the low-hanging grey clouds.
“Ana, we better get a move on before the rain hits us.”
“Let’s at least let the kids inside first to run around and pick their rooms. They’ll be more motivated to unpack if they can put their stuff in their rooms,” answered Ana as she hefted a suitcase out of the back of the truck.
“Sure,” said Jackson as he dug the keys to the house out of his front pocket. Together, he and his wife walked up the front walk to their new home. It was a two-story American Craftsman-style house like most of the houses in the Shady Hollow subdivision, but it was one of the few original houses that had been built in the late 80s.
556 Dogwood Court was distinct in the subdivision in two ways. Not only was it fifty grand cheaper than the “Low 200s” that the developers advertised, but its features were more rustic. A hip-high wrought iron fence ran the length of the generously sized front and backyard and was only broken by a small gate leading to the front walk. Two large oaks stood on each side of the front yard. Its roof was aggressively angled to the sky and lined with cross gables.
Jackson followed his wife to the front door where Jason was impatiently tugging on the doorknob. “It’s locked, you dork,” Carrie said.
“You’re just mad because I’m gonna get the biggest room!”
“Carrie don’t call your brother a dork,” Anna scolded as she hefted her suitcase up the step to the front porch. “Jason, your sister gets first pick of the rooms. She’s oldest.”
“That’s not fair!” whined Jason still tugging on the door knob.
“Life’s not fair, buddy.” Jackson peeled him off the door knob and turned the key in the lock.
“You can say that again,” muttered Carrie. Her parents ignored the jab. Carrie had been very vocal in her opposition to the move, and her parents were used to her attitude by now. The door clicked open and Jason squirmed inside before the door was even open all the way.
“Welcome to Castle Puller!” Jackson said with a flourish. Carrie rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and stomped inside. “After you, madam.” Jackson bowed low still holding the door for his wife.
“Why thank you, good sir!” Ana said as she stepped inside.
“I call this one! I call this one!” Jason shouted from upstairs.
“It better not be the biggest or he’ll be disappointed.” To the right of the foyer, Carrie was surveying the living room and eyeing a discolored spot in the carpet.
“Well, maybe we’ll let him have it since you didn’t get there first,” Ana said smiling slightly.
With the loudest sigh she could give Carrie stomped towards the stairs. “I get the biggest one, dork!”
“Don’t call your brother a dork!” Ana shouted after her daughter who was already halfway up the stairs. Jackson slipped a hand around his wife’s waist as they listened to their children arguing about rooms. “God, I hope this wasn’t a mistake.”
“We didn’t have a choice.” Ana melted into her husband as he pulled her in close. “We’ll make this work. We always have, haven’t we?”
“This is different,” Ana said.
“We’ll be fine, babe. Don’t worry.” Jackson kissed his wife on the cheek. “As long as Carrie doesn’t kill her brother.” Right on cue a door slammed upstairs.
“Mom! Carrie took my room!” Jason shouted from the second floor. “I called dibs!”
Ana sighed and pulled herself away from her husband. “Pick a different one sweetie. She gets first pick because she’s the oldest.”
“Yeah, but I’m the oldest boy. If this was ancient times I’d get first pick of rooms.” He was leaning over the railing looking down at his mother through the tangled mop of brown hair which had fallen in front of his face.
“If this was ancient times you’d be living in a tent! Now let's go pick you another room.” Jackson watched his wife trudge up the stairs to settle another in the long line of sibling spats. A loud boom of thunder rumbled through the house. Jackson looked out the living room window and could see the first drops of rain already collecting on the glass. Just a few, but he knew they were bringing their friends. “Babe, I’m gonna move the truck and start unpacking.”
“Got it! I’ll order some pizza,” Ana called downstairs as Jackson walked out the front door.
As he walked to the truck, Jackson felt the smallest drop of rain hit his arm. He cursed, contemplating trying to move the entire contents of the U-Haul into the house in the middle of the coming downpour. He would have to move only the bare necessities into their new house or everything would be soaked. Luckily, the mattresses, the couch, the TV, and some kitchenware would be fine for now. The plan for tonight was to dial Papa John’s, order a bunch of greasy pizza, and hang out in the living room watching TV and playing the Nintendo 64. The Pullers needed a family night. That was for damn sure.
Jackson was halfway to the truck when he heard someone cursing on his left. An older man was trying to take down the American flag hung from the front porch of 554 Dogwood Court. He was just a little overweight and what hair he had left was going grey. “Can I help you?” Jackson called.
The man stopped and looked for the source of the voice. When he spotted Jackson, his face lit up. “Oh no thanks! I’m OK.” With a forceful yank, the man hefted the flag out of its mounting. “There we go!” The man rolled up the flag respectfully, leaned it against the frame of his front door, and walked from his front porch to Jackson. “So you’re the new neighbors, huh? It’ll be good to finally see someone in that old house.” Jackson was beginning to feel a sense of urgency about moving the truck and getting unpacked before the rain started in earnest, but he did want to meet their neighbors.
“Yep, that’s us,” he said as he shoved his keys in his pocket. “I’m Jackson Puller.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Bob Duchesne.” The two men shook hands over the hip-high wrought iron fence dividing their property. “If you ever need anything, just give me a call.” Bob fished his wallet out of one of the many pockets of his cargo shorts, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Jackson. The card had Bob’s name and phone number flanked by some sort of military insignia and a Marine Corps Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, and the word “retiree” emblazed on the bottom of the card. “I thought I heard a couple of little rascals over here too?” Bob asked as Jackson examined the card.
“Yeah, it’s me, my wife Ana, and our two kids.”
“Well, that’s great. Really great. Me and Barb, we’re empty nesters now. Your kids are welcome to run around our backyard if yours ever gets too small for them.”
“For sure. I appreciate it.” Another raindrop hit Jackson’s head. He pulled his keys from his pocket. “Well, hey, it’s been great to meet you, Mr. Puller.”
“Bob. Just call me Bob.”
“Bob,” Jackson corrected himself. “But the rain is coming in and I gotta unpack before everything gets soaked.”
“Well let me give you some help,” Bob offered cheerily.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“Nonsense,” Bob said with a wave of his hand. “It’s either help a neighbor out or watch reruns. Why don’t you pull that big beast into the driveway and I’ll help you pack in a few things before the rain gets bad.”
“Well,” another raindrop plopped onto Jackson’s head. “Sure. I appreciate it. Let me back the U-Haul into the driveway.”
“Sounds good, Jack!” Bob gingerly hopped the wrought iron fence and began walking towards the driveway. Jackson realized the old man was spryer than he looked. Once Jackson had backed the massive U-Haul up to the open garage door, he hopped out and opened the back of the trailer. Bob Duchesne helped him unload well-worn boxes of dishes and kitchen goods, suitcases, and a box marked “Jason’s Toys”.
“So, Jack, where y’all coming from?” Bob asked as he and Jackson pulled the Puller’s battered old couch from the back of the U-Haul.
“Indiana,” Jackson said with a grunt as he hefted his end of the couch and the two men walked it down the narrow ramp from the big trailer.
“What brought you out this way?” Bob said, looking over his shoulder as he walked backward towards the door linking the garage to the Puller’s new kitchen.
“Oh, you know, just work stuff,” Jackson said. That question had an answer he wasn’t willing to share with his neighbor just yet. Bob sensed that Jackson was hedging and didn’t push.
“Yeah? What kind of work you do?”
“I’m in marketing, and Ana’s a high school teacher.”
“She going to teach at August Busch High?”
“Not sure yet,” Jackson said with a grunt as he shifted the weight of the couch. “We kind of moved out here suddenly, so if you have any good leads…” Jackson trailed off not wanting to elaborate.
“I’ll keep an ear to the ground,” Bob said as he gingerly stepped up the single step from the garage and through the door to the kitchen. Ana watched as Bob walked through the door and her husband followed shortly after. “Ana, this is Bob, our next-door neighbor,” he said as he awkwardly pivoted the couch around the sharp corner of the door.
“Nice to meet you,” Ana said, cradling a phone between her shoulder and her head. “We’re ordering pizza, do you want to stay?”
“No thank you, Ana,” Bob said politely as he and Jackson set the couch down in the middle of the living room. “I best be getting back to Barb when we’re done here.”
“Honestly, we got the bulk of it. You’ve been so helpful. I can get the kids to help me finish up,” Jackson said.
“Alrighty then.” Bob shook Jackson’s hand and opened the front door. Before he left, Bob turned back and said “By the way, me and Barb are having a neighborhood get-together on the 4th. Y’all are welcome to come by! We do it up pretty crazy with the fireworks around here so there’s no need to go out and deal with the crowds downtown.”
“That sounds great. Can we bring anything?” Another rumble of thunder rolled over the end of Jackson’s sentence.
“Just yourselves. Y’all just moved in. Bring something next year. I’ll see you later!” Bob said warmly as he walked out the front door.
“Kids! Come help finish unpacking!” Jackson called upstairs once the old man had left.
While her father and Bob Duchesne were unpacking downstairs, Carrie had been surveying her room behind a locked door. It was the biggest, certainly, but it sucked. To make a point, she walked from one side of the room to the other and then repeated the process lengthwise measuring it with her steps and estimating that she would barely have room for her bed, desk, dresser, and vanity.
She yanked back the doors of her closet and found that one of the doors didn’t slide properly in the track. The closet was tiny. She would have to shove her clothes into it to get them all to fit and they’d probably all wrinkle. A lone wire hanger swung listlessly back and forth. She swatted at it and knocked the hanger to the floor. She also noticed there was no light in the closet and the recessed lighting high in her aggressively angled ceiling did a poor job of illuminating the closet. And what was that musty stench? Mold? Mildew? She scrunched up her nose and crossed her arms again.
“Shit,” she muttered, risking a swear word now that she was alone. For a moment, she let her façade of anger fall. There was sadness on her face. No tears though, she left them all in Indiana and was all cried out. Carrie had begun to accept her fate in the week leading up to the move but hadn’t yet fully come to terms with the fact that all her friends and everything familiar was still back in Indiana.
She gave the room another look around and tried to find something good about her new room. Small yes, but she noticed that in addition to the recessed lighting, there were skylights. They just weren’t giving off enough light in the gloom of the approaching storm. Maybe it would look less awful when the sun came out.
“Carrie!” she could hear her mother calling from downstairs. “What do you want on your pizza?”
“I don’t care, I’m not hungry,” she called back.
“What did you say? Mushrooms and anchovies?”
“Mom!” she yelled as she stamped her foot.
“Pepperoni it is then.”
“That bitch,” Carrie grumbled. This whole move had been her fault, but no matter how angry and sad she had been about the move, she had never said anything about her true feelings to her parents. Even she knew that would have been a bridge too far. So, she tamped down how she felt and resigned herself to quietly complaining behind her parent’s back.
“Kids!” Carried heard her father calling from downstairs. “Come help finish unpacking!”
Meanwhile, Jason was exploring his new house and was elated to find that they had a backyard. When he first came into his new house, he had been a whirlwind. He quickly ran around the entire upstairs, choosing and then being kicked out of his preferred room, picking another room based solely on the size and not realizing that was the only other room available, running down the stairs, through the dining room and kitchen, peeking into the garage, then back to the kitchen and out the sliding glass door that led into the back yard. In Indiana, the family had lived in a small townhouse that had almost no room in the back, but the new backyard was gloriously large.
The hip-high wrought iron fence from the front of the yard continued into the back and ringed the entirety of the Pullers’ property. Beyond the left and right boundaries of the fence, the well-kept neighbors’ yards provided a clear boundary for his exploration, but beyond the backyard, there was a thick deep forest that went on for who knew how far. There was a slope in the yard from the right side of the house to the left which Jason noted would be great sledding in the winter. A massive tree with low-hanging branches sat in the middle of the yard and Jason decided immediately he would need to build a tree house or fort for him and his friends to play in.
Except he had no friends.
And just like that the magic of the backyard faded. Everything he envisioned, all of the awesome opportunities for play required some buddies to enjoy, and all of his were back in Indiana. His mother and father had tried to tell him that he would make plenty of new friends in Missouri, but it was summer. He couldn’t force an introduction at school as the new kid, and the gangs of kids that would roam the streets in the summer would be traveling in well-established packs. He would have to force his way in, but it would be awkward. By the time he had built enough rapport with the other preteen boys of the neighborhood, enough at least to ring their doorbell and ask them to play outside, summer would already be half over.
He felt a little lump in his throat and he walked down the stairs from the deck to the landing below. He slowly walked around the backyard trying to think positively, but it was hard for a young boy who had had a big day. The hours-long drive from Indiana, the early morning packing, and his sister’s constant bickering with Mom had left him burnt out. He could feel tears beginning to form and decided he would start climbing the tree just to get his mind off his lack of friends. If Mom and Dad saw him crying, they would immediately treat him like a china doll, trying to make him feel better, and his sister did her best to make him even more miserable.
At the base of the tree, he checked for poison ivy, poison oak, and anything else that would make him miserable later on. Content that the tree was safe, he jumped to the first branch. It was just barely in reach. He found a knot in the tree trunk, and, using it as a foothold, monkeyed his way up above the branch where he found another handhold. Carefully, he reached up and took hold of the branch, planted both of his feet on the first branch, and stood up. He looked up for another branch and to his delight, found that there were easy branches to grasp onto all of which would support his weight, the entire way up the tree. He climbed up the third branch and looked back out to the yard. Holy crap! I’m way up! he thought, having completely forgotten his troubles of a minute ago.
He looked back over his shoulder into the woods. It was deep and dark and green. Huge oaks, and small birches tangled together with bramble bushes. A small creek cut its way along the forest floor and sank away down a hill that led away from the backyard. “Jason!” The voice caught him off guard and he grasped the branch as hard as he could when his feet slipped a little. “What type of pizza do you want?”
“Mom!” Jason called with a big smile on his face. “Look how high up I am!” Jason could see his mother standing on the back deck, the phone in her hand, the cord stretched over her shoulder. She looked around for a second to find the source of his voice then spotted him deep inside the belly of the huge oak about 10 feet above ground.
“Wow! I see you! That’s pretty high up. Be careful you don’t fall!”
“I won’t, Mom,” he called back. “Pepperoni please, extra pepperoni!”
“Sounds good, bud. Now climb down from there and come inside. I’m going to order pizza and we need to get unpacked.”
“Just a few more minutes?” He called not quite pleading. “I want to go higher!”
“It’s going to rain soon, and I don’t want you climbing when the branches are slick. Besides, I think Dad wants to unpack so you guys can play some Nintendo tonight.”
“I’ll be right in,” Jackson said already starting to climb down. There would be time to explore later. And you know what? He felt pretty sure that even if he didn’t make a bunch of friends right away, he would have plenty to explore in the meantime. And maybe, if he and his dad built a tree house, he could use that to bring kids in. Hey guys, wanna come see my treehouse? Yeah, it is super cool! My dad and I just finished it.
He lowered himself down to the first branch and let go, landing on his feet at the foot of the tree. As the first few raindrops landed on his mop of uncombed hair, he ran through his great big brand-new backyard to the house, his little heart full of hope for the future.
8:49 pm, June 17th, 1998
Bob Duchesne sat on his back deck, two fingers of peaty scotch in a rock glass on the end table next to him. He was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair angled toward the giant oak tree in the Puller’s backyard. It was raining hard now. Occasionally, lightning cracked the sky followed by a peal of thunder. The pat-pat-pat of the rain on the vinyl roll-out awning above him was soothing and Bob loved to sit outside and enjoy the summer storms.
Tonight though, he felt uneasy. Smoke from his big cigar rolled out of the corners of his lips. When it was gone, he lifted the glass to his lips and took a long luxurious sip. There was no wind and the smoke lingered, stinging his eyes. He exhaled and blew it away.
The lights were on in the Puller house, and not just one, but all of them. It had to be pandemonium over there. New house, two kids, and Bob had a feeling that things weren’t quite right next door. Weren’t quite right Bob thought as he took another puff of his cigar. That about summed it up.
Bob, an aging Vietnam Veteran, had handled the horrors of jungle warfare pretty well all things considered. He’d seen men blown to bits, seen men shit themselves in fear, seen murders and rapes and all levels of human depravity, and somehow came back relatively unscathed. He’d had the occasional nightmares and he had a nasty scar on his calf where shrapnel from an enemy grenade had bitten him, but when the war had ended, he had returned home, worked as a plumber for 15 years, and then owned his own plumbing supply company for another 15. During that whole time, he had been married to one wife, had three children, all successful, and now he was comfortably retired. Yeah, there had been setbacks, dips in the stock market, and bad vehicle accidents, but for every low valley, there was a high hill. Bob would say he had been blessed. His old buddies from the war would say he had been lucky, and a damn sight more lucky than they had been.
All of his buddies left the jungle with their minds, bodies, or sometimes both ripped to shreds. They had turned to alcohol, drugs, or just not re-adjusted from the jungle. It had been seven years since the last of his squad had died in a nasty suicide followed by a closed-casket funeral. Bob had been the only one in attendance. He had cried, gone home to his wife, and cried again. Later, he heard his wife praying aloud, thanking God that her husband had left the jungle unscathed.
Mostly. Mostly unscathed. Bob sipped his whisky and puffed his cigar, his eyes on the big tree in the Puller’s yard. In Vietnam, he had been the point man. Through every patrol, he had been in front with his M-16, eyes wide, scanning left to right, up and down through the canopy and foliage for booby traps, trip wires, and the ever-present threat of the NVA. During those patrols, the feeling would creep up on him like a cold hand on his shoulder. He would feel when something wasn’t right. That’s how he felt now. Something just wasn’t right.
He sipped his whiskey and tried to recall how many people had lived in the house at 556 Dogwood Court since he’d lived in his own house at 554. Six families? Seven? He couldn’t remember them all, but it was a lot of turnover. The last to live there, an older couple, had left four months ago. They were there one day and gone the next. The main story going around was that they had moved to Florida to retire. They hadn’t been a neighborly sort and Bob hadn’t even gone over to say goodbye when he woke up to a moving truck in front of the house. He’d just watched from the window as they got in their sedan and followed the truck out of the subdivision.
Dammit, he thought. Bob couldn’t put his finger on just what was making him feel uneasy and when he felt this way it was maddening. He puffed his cigar again. It was nearly 9 pm. Barb would be finishing the last chapter of her book and rolling over to get comfortable for sleep. He looked at his cigar. There was another 30 minutes left before he would put it out. Uneasy feeling or not, he wouldn’t waste a good cigar. Another flash of lightning illuminated the great big oak in the Puller’s backyard as he puffed his cigar, a luxurious Cohiba. The pat-pat-pat of the rain was quieter now and somewhere in the distance, he could hear a cicada chirp. It was a cozy, stormy, summer night, but he just couldn’t get over his uneasy feeling.
Bob took another sip of his whiskey and puffed his cigar. He rocked back and forth on his rocking chair. The rain continued to drizzle out from the dark sky in big fat apathetic drops, and the cicadas called and answered. Bob’s eyes narrowed and fixed on the lowest hanging branch in the big oak tree as he finished his whiskey.
