SEAFOAM GREEN

        That’s the color I’m thinking of.

        I can still see the crayon in her hand — a furiously dancing green nub. She filled in the page so hard, it ripped through and streaked the carpet underneath. Even then, I found it odd that she color after what just happened. And we were 14, after all.

*  *  *  *

        At the start of summer, Gail and I went to stay with her sister at their family beach house on Tobey Island. Cathy was a decade older than us, and acted more like an aunt while we were growing up. It was 1978, and Cathy had thus far protected us from the perils of marijuana, boys with motorcycles, and pregnancy (which, according to her, was a three-step process).

        Gail had just gotten her braces off. She’d had them since we met. I felt I needed to make an equally drastic change, so I dyed my hair and cut it to a short bob. I instantly regretted it; watching a foot of my light-brown hair hit the bathroom tile. But Gail was thorough with the box of “Cherry Crystal” Clairol, and POOF! I’m red. When we stepped off the water taxi and started up the gravel path to the house, I could still smell it on us both.

        Gail’s family had made their money in the early 60s, patenting battery-heated gloves and boots for winter sports. The two-floor cottage we approached struck me as a prize of that fortune, likely built in the 1800s and worth 10 times my house, for sure. The place was freshly shingled and being repainted. The base coat was a creamy mint, and slinging the brush was a hard-faced man I’d met just one time: Gail’s father Martin. The last time I saw him, we were twelve or so — when Gail’s parents were soon to split. Martin spoke only once that night, when Gail’s mom apologized for dinner being a little spicy. “You just have no common sense,” he told her.

        And here he was now, sweating from his work and staring at our approach with a forced smile. “Sorry. I didn’t know he was gonna be here,” Gail said. “That’s okay,” I told her, “It’s cool,” not feeling I had the right to express discomfort. Gail avoided eye contact with her father as Cathy ushered us in:

        “Hey! You made it! My, my. Someone has a new do,” she said to me. “How was the ride here? I heard there were crazy winds stirring up.”

        “It was fine,” Gail said sourly.

        “... Okay. Alright… Just stay clear of him. I know it’s hard.”

        “Oh, you do? Even though he’s giving you your very own beach house, you still know how shitty he is?”

        “Honey, yes I do. She’s my mother too. I get it.”

        “What’s he doing here? You didn’t say he was ‘joining us for all the fun.’”

        “His schedule’s crazy. There’s no other week he can do the house.”

        “Ugh. Why doesn’t he just hire someone?”

        “You know how he is. He wants to do it himself to make sure it’s perfect. But I asked him not to approach you unless you approach him.”

        “What is he? A stray dog?”

        “You don’t want anything to do with him right now. But I’ve known him a little longer. I think you’ll come to a place where you guys can at least talk.”

        “Whatever.”

        “Listen, Gail. I know he’s an asshole. I’m just saying he’s not The Devil.”

        “Well, he might not be The Devil, but he is from Hell.”

        Cathy took a deep breath, then asked how I was. And I was awful. I’m not good watching other people’s families argue. It makes me want to run far away, and that’s what I was feeling then.

        Gail was still seething as she took us up to our room. Lifting my mood a bit was the bunk bed at the center. This was definitely a playroom where the kids had total freedom with it over the years. The bunk was on a circular rainbow rug, quite fitting the Romper Room decor. Looking out to the sea was a circular picture window. A heap of coloring books and Golden Books rested beneath it. Puppets and planes and paper maché dinosaurs hung from strings at the corners of the ceiling, and the play kitchen brought back memories of my own: making plastic cheeseburgers for my brother, while my dad (who I suddenly appreciated) spat out invisible pieces of plastic broccoli. “Don’t tell your mother I don’t eat my greens…”

        Gail threw her bag down, slumped beneath the picture window, and asked me if I wanted to take the next ferry back. “This is bullshit,” she said. But I lied again, telling her it was fine with me if she could stand it. She sifted through the coloring books, grabbing a Casper the Friendly Ghost one. Gail flipped its pages and found a half-colored haunted house — hers from years ago, marked with a kindergarten signature. She studied it for a long moment, stone-faced, then said, “Let’s go fucking swimming.”

        We did. The water was just 200 feet from the deck and surprisingly warm. The sun drank our energy, but in the good way that it does. Cathy made ribs on the grill, corn, and french fries, which we devoured while wrapped in our towels. They laughed at the dripping streaks of Cherry Crystal running down my neck. After dinner, I spilled the beans about Hank Marshal, who Gail and I called “Hankenstein” on account of his gigantic forehead — but she clearly dug Hank and his oversized cranium. Cathy advised on how best to snare the monster.

        At night, Gail and I listened to some albums in the playroom; mostly Dreamboat Annie and Songs in the Key of Life. We gave each other customary head massages (I would later learn this was a bit unusual, but it was just something we did). Gail was an expert, and I zonked out in the top bunk.

        Around 11 p.m., she woke me up giggling. “What’s your problem?” I asked, and she produced two dusty bottles. “Betcha didn’t know there was a wine cellar here, did ya?” I knew this act was in retaliation to her father’s presence, but I was terrified Cathy would check in to find us each with a personal bottle of the “62” chablis. To put it naively, before this moment, we were “good girls.” But we ineptly popped the corks and swigged away in the faint glow of a pegasus night light. I was along for this ride with my best friend, because that’s what best friends did and do. Though, I’d like to make it clear that in 1978 I weighed 94 pounds.

        Within the hour, I was sucked into a black hole. I swirled into it like water down a drain. I don’t remember when Gail lost consciousness, but I couldn’t stand up without feeling my whole body was shrinking. I opened the picture window, reached out, and wiggled my fingers at the moon. My arm was cooled in the stirring air of the blue dark, and I needed more of it.

        Finding my way to the beach, I thought my cheeks would steam in the open air. When I felt them, fresh-baked banana bread came to mind. “Ha ha… b-banana bread…” I managed aloud. Very faintly did the waves sound off before me, but the air smelled of coming rain. I thought I might be imagining things, as to my left (on an inlet I paid no mind to in the day) a warm light shimmered within a cluster of sand pines. As if on a conveyer belt, I was pulled toward the light, easily entranced in such a state.

        I found a small brick hut, and inside, something burned. Sudden rain started falling alongside a muted thunderclap, and I found myself sprinting in to escape a downpour. In front of me was some sort of hooded forge. It was glowing orange, jetting up embers, throwing heat my way. On shelves everywhere were crystal figurines and sculptures of assorted shapes. The rest of the hut had tools hanging from the walls, a set of thermal overalls on a hook, and out of place in the corner — a small black-and-white TV airing a Bela Lugosi Dracula marathon (or so the commercial said).

        “Warming up?” said a voice behind me. Subdued by the wine, I wasn’t startled. Martin stood at the doorway. He had a midnight snack in his hand, having apparently raided the cottage fridge. “Wasn’t expecting a storm. Now my sandwich is all soggy,” he said through an uncharacteristic belly laugh. My brain was telling me I should feel something, but the message was drowned by that bottle of chablis. “Let me show you my process,” said Martin, as he donned the thermal overalls.

        With graceful and deliberate movement, he took a short pole with an unformed lump at its end, put it inside the forge, and turned it around until the tip became a scintillating, yellow-hot egg. My mouth gaped open; I found the light and color surreal and relaxing. Satisfied with the temperature, he brought the egg to a stone bench and rolled it around like dough. He began to blow in the other end of the pole, and the glowing egg began changing shape. There was something poetic about blowing glass — a silent music to it. “Well, I won’t bore you with the minutia, but after this I usually choose a shape and let it cool. I can even add a different color at this stage. When I first started, I made a piggy bank for Gail. Not my best work, but, you know... ”

        He looked out the doorway into the rain, studying sheets of it as they ribboned by. His sudden quiet stretched the moment out; the only sound then, an eerie viola from Mark of the Vampire on the tiny TV. Martin said, “I understand they don’t love me anymore. I’m okay with that, I guess. Maybe Cathy still does, but not the same. I just can’t pretend to be happy anymore.”

        UNCOMFORTABLE: My brain finally got its transmission through.

        “Your art is nice,” I said, “but I have to go back to bed now.”

        “It’s pouring out,” he petitioned. “Wait until it dies down.”

        “I don’t mind getting wet.” And I said so with an innocence of just 14 years on this Earth.

        “Well… I’m happy you mentioned that. I do like redheads,” he told me, as if I’d been wondering aloud and he finally answered. With his left hand on my shoulder, his right hand reached down and touched me where no man — no one — had touched me before.   

        … I don’t remember the sand under my feet, although running through it must have been like staggering through fresh cement in this storm — a storm that was increasing in its ire. I made it to the playroom and threw myself into my bunk, sobbing. On another day, I maybe could have contained myself, but the wine allowed me no control. Gail shot up, and for a minute or two she stared at me, and for another minute or two she asked me what happened. When Cathy ran in to ask the same, wondering why I was soaking wet and in such a bad way, the truth exploded from me.

        Cathy turned white and simply couldn’t speak. In a trance, Gail went over to the pile of coloring books, and with a frenzied hand, she filled the roof of the haunted house in seafoam green. Thunder erupted over the sea then, and those winds that Cathy told us about finally came our way, carrying electricity and sky fire. In the picture window above Gail, blue-violet lighting blinked in the clouds, making them look like massive, far-off jellyfish.

*  *  *  *

        Now, when I see lightning like that, I think of Gail in the playroom.

        If I ever hold shaped glass, I try my hardest not to remember Martin.

        And whenever I hear thunder, seafoam green is the color I’m thinking of.

PACK IT AWAY

Royal Hoffman called me at 6:20 a.m.

Historically, we’re both early risers, so the call wasn’t too extraordinary. What was out of the ordinary is I haven’t talked to Royal in about eight years now.

I knew that after he retired from the Bureau, he’d gone into plastic grinding, picking up his dad’s plant after the old man had passed. I thought of Royal from time to time; old pictures, reunions, old cases popping up all brought him to mind. I’m retiring myself this year, but we were close back in the day. Nothing pushed us apart or anything, it’s just that after the age of 55, eight years goes by like a night in with the Misses. Royal wasn’t a field agent. He’d been too blind for that. He was a brainiac-savant case coordinator, though; staring at the stale beige walls of our office through coke-bottle glasses until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He and I had a saying when cases drove us to the brink. Whether it be canyons of paperwork or just working with zombie files — the ones that never died — we just said, “Pack it up, put it away, PACK IT AWAY.” This became our personalized response to everything eventually. Even the small stuff.

“Shit. We’re out of cream in the office fridge. PACK IT AWAY.”

“I’m gonna be late today. Beth needs a quick oil change. PACK IT AWAY.”

“Looks like Shilling is on the fucking warpath again. PACK IT AWAY.”

“Carol’s been talking about a divorce. PACK IT AWAY.”

When I’d answered the phone, his voice sounded strained; either an attempt to appear in control, or plain exhaustion. I wasn’t sure. But he said he needed me to come by A.S.A.P. “I trust you, Paul.” And when he said it — how he said it — I knew I had to come alone.

It took me over two hours to get to Carrington. The great green middle of Pennsylvania is all rolling hills and silos; all fresh air and sparse livestock. Royal’s farmhouse was the family home, conveniently nearby the plastic plant. Royal had 120 acres and a private road to work. Not too shabby. I rolled up just before nine o’clock, and as I slowed down on the gravel drive, Royal waved me in past his house, and far to the back by a barn. I turned off the ignition and slid out, and he greeted me with an oily paper bag full of gratitude (warm maple cider donuts) and a bearhug. Royal was barrel-chested, a bit shorter than me, seemed to have the same head of hair (unlike myself), and was otherwise as I recalled him. He held me by the shoulders, stared at me hard through his thick lenses, and said, “Paul, goddamnit, it’s good to see you.” Then he led me to the barn, where he had coffees sitting on an outside workbench for us.

        “We cutting wood today, Roy?”

        “Heh… Nothing like that.”

        “How’s Beth? She home? I’d love to see her.”

        “Not here,” he said curtly. That strain came back to his voice. And as though he was making some concession, he gave me news on the wife.

        “She’s with the grandkids. Went for the weekend. Emily’s ninth birthday, if you can believe that.”

        “Oh, yeah. I can believe it. My Daryl is twelve now.”

        “We lost Beth’s mother last year. Leukemia. It wasn’t pretty, and it was hard on all of us. She was a good woman…”

        “Please tell Beth how sorry I am.”

I took a swig of the lukewarm coffee from the bench, while Royal fidgeted.

        “There’s something… something I want to get right to.”

        “It seems that way,” I said. “I didn’t come up here for cider donuts, I imagine.”

        “No. You certainly did not,” he assured me as he opened the barn’s side door.

I took a step in but he stopped me, handing over a pair of ear protectors; the kind we used at the shooting range. “You’re gonna want to put these on,” he asserted, adjusting his own set. I started to ask what this was about, but he’d gone inside already.

The barn was cold and noticeably damp; so much, that I half expected fog on the ground beneath me. It smelled a bit of hay and wood, but moreso of wet stone and moss — like a fish tank that needed cleaning. Roy was already beyond the partition that split the barn in two. He waved me on, but wasn’t looking at me. He had his eyes on something else.

Beyond the partition lied a living pile; a mound of wet green and black; a puffing, blinking mass of what had to be a thousand frogs and toads, large and small. Royal let me take in the sight. That many creatures, concentrated so close to me — it made the hair on my arms prick up. Before I knew it, he was blasting them with a fire extinguisher. The mass barely moved, but where Royal hit them they froze up and fell off like slate shingles. I looked at my old friend and invented an answer for this circumstance: mental illness. It had to be. He’d gone senile early and was trying to take me with him. Because what the fuck was going on? Royal had read my mind, though, because he held up pleading hands that said, Just give it a moment.

Underneath the toads lied something else. Something stone, maybe? The overall shape beneath gave the impression of a large casket; something like a sarcophagus. Clearly having done this a few times before, Royal used an orange snow shovel to clear away the petrified toads. The stone was wrapped in 100-year-old chains, and at the top center of it, where one might imagine a face would be… a face was there. It was not, however, a carving. The eyes were teary, likely from the extinguisher. But they were kind in a way; a soft earth, chocolate brown. Kind, soft, but not so human.

To my eyes, the room began to waver a bit. No — that isn’t right — the room began to waver behind my eyes, because a buzz was in the air, traveling through my skull, resonating in my sinuses. Something close to a powerline humming with deadly voltage. I voiced this: “Roy. What is that? A sound? What’s happening in my head?” He came over to me, and for just one mississippi lifted the cup of my ear protector. It was then I realized that the amphibious mass was the source of the hum (HMMHMMMUHM). It was a mixed frequency of low croaking (almost chanting) that smoothed out in a primal, Gregorian needle dragged across vinyl. And it carried information, this toad song; delivered straight to the cradle of my mind:

white magma and black flame

a red Earth, oozing from its pores and geysers

an uncertain Earth, forming under nearby fattened stars

in the sky, terrible things on terrible wings, searching for the meat of smaller things

… And all from so long ago, the vision staggered me, in the truest sense of the word. That face and its time-old eyes awed me deeply, somehow injecting me with the mixed fear and love you can have for a parent; but also something postcoital; a nearly religious power.

So, I knew it had to be destroyed.

Royal led me by the arm, and we came out of the barn to a mistier morning. Yes, the morning was unclear, alright. Without saying anything, I demanded an explanation. “There’s been massive construction at the plant,” he told me, saddling his ear protectors around his neck. “They’ve been digging for weeks, prepping a new foundation. Yesterday, I heard it. I heard the hum coming from a pile of earth… the thing is incredibly light, you know. I don’t think it’s rock. More like eggshell. Judging by the chains, looks like someone else came upon it quite some time ago. I was able to drag it to my truck on my own with just a tarp underneath. Yesterday, there were just a few frogs. But after I put it here last night, it was like every goddamned one in a five-mile radius showed up. Slippery little sons a’ bitches. I don’t even wanna touch them.”

Even though we both quit smoking in the early 90s, he offered me a Marlboro. I took his last one from the red and white pack. We lit it and shared it.

        “I imagine you saw what I saw, Paul? A molten world? Primordial Earth, I think.”

        “... Yeah. That’s what I saw. Other things too. In the air.”

        “So. What do you think it is?”

        “Doesn’t really matter, does it, Roy?”

        “Guess it doesn’t. How are we gonna do this? I have a few rifles and my revolver still.”

And as always, my issued Sig P226 was holstered under my arm, but something stirred in me; I didn’t want to merely shoot it for some reason. A bullet seemed unfitting. A bullet seemed too “new” in the now widened scheme of things. A pitchfork by the workbench called to me instead. Royal saw me pick it up, and he soon found his own tool for the task — a weathered firewood hatchet. “Let’s get this done,” he said. And inexplicably, we shook hands then, not as though we’d just met, of course, but as we sealed a pact, one both strong and quiet within us.

The frogs had thawed out, and squirmed up top to cover that fleshy face. “Goddamned things,” Royal hissed, and again he treated them to the extinguisher and shovel. “I never knew you were so scared of froggies,” I told him. After a moment of reading my lips, he gave a nervous chuckle, and then he got a good grip on his hatchet. The thing knew what we were up to, and while inanimate, its choir of toads amped up their song. The two of us were suddenly arrested by the sound, and fought hard to move as yet more images flooded into our minds through the foam of the earmuffs: the carnage of soft flesh being pulled apart by fangs and beaks, and we began to each feel it, feel as if our own skin was being peeled off the muscle. This was its warning cry.

Royal took the first swing. He was right; the outer layer was more like eggshell than stone. His hatchet blade cracked through, and an awful kind of gas spewed out that made me keel over and puke instantly. He screamed my name. I spat out undigested maple donut, and jumped close to him as he pointed at the face. “Look!” Its mouth was opening wide, revealing mouths within mouths, like a cephalopod or an industrial grinder, and I knew that mouth would suck my guts out. Given that, this thing became a whole lot bigger and hotly alive to us. I took an even stance, and ran the pitchfork into its face hard as I could. Every toad flew away from it in a sudden burst — from the tremor of it trying to stand up. But my weapon was stuck.

With wit and speed that denied his age, Royal hacked at the lower portion of the eggshell a dozen times — the feet and legs of it. The bands of ancient chains was worthless now, the links coming detached. As it struggled, I noticed veins running through its outer layer and realized fully that it was not wrapped in shell or stone, but cocooned in its own macerated, vascular wings. I grabbed hold of the pitchfork and twisted. And pushed. And twisted and stabbed and pushed and repeated… until it was over. And those kind eyes, now grotesquely split open, looked into me and my friend no more. The whole frog choir, all dead on their backs.

The seconds quietly passed. “I’m gonna have a fucking heart attack, I think,” Royal told me. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he was being serious. My own heart was unevenly clanging. I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him over. Had we truly, really just lived the last 10 minutes? We decided it best to burn the remains. It might go without saying that we were thorough.

*  *  *  *

Royal died at the end of that year. I myself am in failing health these days, and doctors can’t seem to figure why. I’m not surprised, really. I don’t think we were meant to see what we saw. We never told anyone about it, anyway. When the body went up (its wings popping and roasting in the liquory kerosene), Royal and I were arm in arm like third-graders. We sang out our own primal refrain then:

        “Pack it away, Paul.”

        “Pack it away, Roy.”

When I see a frog now, I crush it under my heel without question. The slippery little sons a’ bitches.