Writing In Public - The Big Tall Man Chapter 1

1.

Wherein Things Known Become Unknown And Things Unknown Become Known

Thirteen year old Tommy Wheeler was pushing his bike through the underbrush, taking the shortcut home this time, when he saw the Big Tall Man. The Big Tall Man didn’t see him though which was a good thing for now because, as Tommy would find out later, once he looked at you he took you down the Rabbit Hole, in the Away From The Light, somewhere deep in the Halfway, and once he took you there no one knew what happened next except for the fact that you never came back.

But Tommy wasn’t currently thinking about any of that. Right then he was thinking about finding his way home.

Because this shortcut wasn’t as easy as he remembered, especially with the long gnarly fingers of darkness reaching through the branches of the trees overhead, clinging there with a death grip. He’d come back home in the dark probably hundreds of times before but something about this was different.  The darkness itself felt different.  The darkness here led him to odd undiscovered nooks and crannies in the trees that seemed now to be more and more unfamiliar, until even the dirt rippled path ahead of him seemed to disappear and be replaced by something inky black and almost entirely invisible.

He was wishing now he still had his dog.  They used to make these trips together back from Mark’s house, Tommy pedaling as hard as he could with the wind in his hair, Little Demon, the baby pit that never quit, never failing to keep the pace beside him, throwing Tommy a sidewise glance from time to time with his tongue lolling out.

But Little Demon was gone now and had been for three weeks.  Tommy had made it a habit to get home before sunset ever since.  But Mark had begged him.

Come on, dude, it’s not that scary.  You don’t have to be such a pussy about this.

So Tommy had stayed and now he was trying the shortcut through the woods that sloped around the Red Desert, a quarter mile of hills and red clay where the older kids ran their dirt bikes, the fast way home because he didn’t have to ride his bike down Tacoma to the intersection, only to follow Meadowbrook then cut back again down Tyke Street where he lived.

And he was pretty sure now that he was getting lost.

He was also thinking about what had happened to his dog.

People liked to say that pits were mean but Little Demon was never mean.  Little Demon just wanted to be loved and he wasn’t afraid to let you know about it.

That was before five guys from that row of run down houses by the flats decided to break into Tommy’s house one night about two hours after midnight probably looking for the cash that Tommy’s stepdad had squirreled away in a lockbox somewhere because - and everyone who knew Tommy’s stepdad knew about it because his stepdad never stopped going on and on and on about it - Tommy’s stepdad didn’t trust banks and never had.

Those guys had had guns too.  Not that made any difference.  They’d been punks, not much older than Tommy really, just trying to show the world that when it came to shit they were givers not takers.

They took a lot of shit that night.

Because the day they got robbed was the day they saw what Little Demon was made of.  Because that sweet, sweet dog, the one that would bury you in kisses, took his job that day as front line defender dead serious.  And when he almost severed the first dude’s calf muscle the rest of them pretty much called it quits.  Oh they still could have shot the dog but they had bigger problems on their hands.  Like how they were going to explain the unexpected hospital visit that waited for them in the very near future, because that dude was bleeding hard, like squirting in the air hard and painting the sad dusty white drapes that Tommy’s mom refused to throw away because money was tight and always had been ever since Tommy’s real dad ran off, all because Tommy Wheeler’s dog had managed to sever a main artery.

The next day Tommy’s stepdad pressed charges against the assailants once the dust had settled because it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out who they were.  The charges were subsequently dropped.  Tommy’s dad never found out why.

Then the animal control people had shown up at their door saying it didn’t matter that he was protecting them now that he’d bitten somebody they were going to have to put him down.  Tommy still remembered the look on Little Demon’s face, the sadness in the deep folds around his eyes, as they muzzled him and took him away in that creepy white van and no one ever saw Little Demon again after that, not even Tommy Wheeler who was his favorite person.

Thing is when they took him away Little Demon never even put up a fight.  He was a good dog to the end.  Always had been.  Always would be.

Yeah, Tommy Wheeler was really missing that dog right now, especially with the darkness closing in like it was

(Away From The Light…)

The darkness here felt like a voice in his head.

(So little time Tommy Wheeler and so much of it left)

Like an insistent hammer deep inside his skull.

(why ain’t you runnin’ boyee…)

Like garbled radio static that somehow managed to form a few recognizable words in between bursts of noise, words that formed the perimeter of a deep and raspy baritone.

(Come to the darkness, Tommy Wheeler, come murder sleep with me)

Tommy stopped for a moment, holding his bike by the handlebars, to look behind him, trying to decide if it was too late to turn back, but as he gazed into the inky blackness that marked the way he had come he knew that it was pointless now.  He was lost either way so he decided to press forward.

And that’s when he saw him.