CHAPTER NINE
Alex woke up for a second time and this time he could see properly. He still felt queasy and his mouth was real dry. He kept peeling his tongue off the roof of his mouth, but it was like trying to peel an old sticker off glass. He thought he was going to tear off parts of his tongue and it sounded like that’s what was happening, but it wasn’t.
His teeth were really sore as well. He must have been grinding them again the whole time he was asleep. He wasn’t in the boot of a car, though. But still, there wasn’t much space. And his hands weren’t tied together like they were before and they weren’t tied to his feet either.
But he was almost naked.
Nothing on.
Except for his underwear.
Alex wiped his eyes and moved his head around. He was inside a box; a small box. There was a lot less space than before. He tried to wriggle his body, but his feet kept hitting against something hard, probably the end of the box. He couldn’t stretch them out properly. When he tried, he got poked by the pointy end of a nail that was sticking through. So he didn’t try again.
He had to keep his knees bent just to fit inside and they were on a kind of angle because the box was so small that he couldn’t roll onto his side.
He could see, though. There was a little bit of light that was coming in through some holes near the end where his feet were scrunched and a couple above his head and some under his body.
He pulled his hands up to his face to wipe some snot from his nose. It might have been from a cold or probably because he had been crying so much. His wrists were red and they were sore too. They had been tied up with something when he was in the boot of the car, but he didn’t see what.
He pulled his hands over his face. He covered his eyes and he covered his mouth and he covered his nose and he pushed his two thumbs into each ear and he pushed hard on the little flap of skin that stuck out and he couldn’t see the nails that kept him trapped inside this wooden box and he couldn’t smell the newly coated lacquer on the treated wood that still hadn’t properly dried and he couldn’t hear the sound of his toes scratching against the ends of the box and his own breath, echoing as it bounced off all four sides.
He clasped his hands over his face and everything was black. He tried to think of a game he used to play with his father; one where his father would county to fifty and he would hide somewhere dark and somewhere out of sight and it might have even been a box just like this and in the game, he held his hands over his face and held his breath and tried not to make a sound and he listened to his father finishing his count and then to the sound of his footprints as he came out of the kitchen and towards the room where he was hiding. And even though he wanted to hide and play forever, he still couldn’t wait to get caught.
His father would come and he would circle the room and he would pretend he didn’t know where Alex was and he would pretend to be looking on one side of the room while he was creeping up on the box and he would be holding back his laughter while listening to Alex trying to hold back on his breath and he would rip open the lid and he would shout “I got you” and “you’re it” and Alex would jump and scream in fright and delight and though he never liked to get caught, he could never wait to get out of the shadows.
With his hands held tight over his face, Alex imagined that the footsteps he heard out in the hallway where his father’s and that his brother and his sisters, they were hiding somewhere really good as well and that his father hadn’t found them yet.
But he wanted to get found first. It was always fun to play the hunted for a bit and then hunter for a longer while still. It was exciting to hide and be hunted but it was always pretty scary and Alex didn’t like that feeling when it went on for too long, even if he knew it was just a game.
The footsteps got louder and they went clump, clump, clump, all the way down the hall and then they stopped. He wondered if his father had caught his brother yet. He hoped not. He liked to try and find him. He was so good at playing this game. He would hide in the best spots; places that Alex would never think of. And he was always the last to be caught.
Alex could hear the sound of a key turning and a lock going click two times and then the jingling of keys, on a chain probably, and then another lock clicking but this one was a lot bigger and it didn’t go click, it went clunk. And it went clunk two times as well and then the keys jingled some more while they were taken from the door and put somewhere else.
They didn’t have locks on the doors at home.
He knew it wasn’t, but he hoped like hell that it was, that it was his brother coming into the room to spook him or his father coming in to save him. It could have been either one, as long as it wasn’t The Man again.
The door’s handle creaked as it turned. It sounded like the scratching that the tree made on his window every night. The sound made him think of that tree and that tree always made him feel like something was about to eat him and it was scarier now that he could hear the sound but he couldn’t see what type of monster it was and whether it was salivating and ravished or like a cat, if it just wanted to play with its food.
Then the footsteps started again but they only walked once or twice before they stopped. And Alex held his breath. He wished it was his father. His wished it were anyone other than The Man. But it wasn’t. It was him. And he was probably planning to do something.
Alex tried not to move inside the box. He wanted to pretend he was still sleeping or something and hopefully The Man would go away. That always worked with ghosts and ghouls in the past. He’d just close his eyes and hold on tight inside his mind and then eventually he could open them again and it would be daylight and his mother would be shouting at him to get up or he’d be late for school.
The footsteps turned to shuffling. It sounded like The Man, the monster or whatever he was, was dragging something along the floor. It must have been heavy too because Alex could hear him grunting really loud just before his feet started shuffling again and the thing started sliding along the floor. It only slid a bit each time so it must have been heavy.
Maybe it was another box.
Alex stayed perfectly still. He thought that very same thought. That maybe he wasn’t alone. Maybe there was another little boy or a little girl and even if they couldn’t get out of their boxes, maybe they could still talk to each other. Maybe they could be friends.
It didn’t feel so bad, thinking that he mightn’t be alone.
The Man or the monster or whatever whispered something into the other box. Alex couldn’t hear what he said. It just sounded like someone calling a cat or something. It was really low. Then again if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a whisper.
He tried to stay still but thinking about that made him feel an itch in his foot and he tried to pretend that it wasn’t there because he was trying to pretend that he was asleep or already dead. So he shut his eyes really tight, squeezing them so hard that his they felt sore and funny and he totally forgot about the itch in his foot. But the second he let go, the itch came back.
And it was small at first but then it got bigger and it felt like there were a hundred thousand ants all dancing on his feet and the itch was travelling up his leg and he could feel it behind his ears now and under his nose and in the corners of his eyes. He held his breath. He tried to pretend he was under water and that nothing could make him itch while he was in the water.
But the ocean had jellyfish. And the ocean had sharks. And you could never see the bottom and you could never touch it. And you never knew what was swimming just below. And you always swore you could feel something brushing past your feet. It would feel like a fin, or a tooth or an eye or a tentacle and there were probably hundreds of them and they were going to eat you, the second you stopped kicking.
Alex gasped as if he had burst from the ocean floor into the morning sun. He took a mammoth gulp of air and he banged his head on the lid above him.
“Ow!” he yelled.
Someone laughed.
It wasn’t him.
Alex lay back down in his box. He rubbed the part of his head that he hit. There was a lump and it was really sore. He was worried that The Man or the monster or whatever was in the room and had heard him and realized he that was awake and for that reason, was going to kill him or eat him or something worse.
That someone was still laughing.
Mocking him.
“It’s not funny,” said Alex.
He spoke low. It didn’t really matter anymore, keeping a secret of being awake. It was scarier thinking about what could happen than dealing with what was actually happening so he gave up or he got stronger, one or the two.
“It is kind of. You hit your head. Don’t be a pansy” the voice said, before trailing off into laughter again.
It didn’t sound like a little boy, not at all. But he spoke like a little boy. The other person, his voice was deep, like there was something caught in his throat. He kind of gurgled as he spoke.
“Shut up,” Alex said, trying to roll on his right side.
“Oh don’t be a sook. You’re not gonna cry are you?”
“No,” he said.
But he had already started. It was as if the question was a command or an invite or something. He wished he could stop, but he couldn’t. His eyes welled up and his nose got all sniffly and the muscles in his face scrunched up and if his eyes were open, it would like he was smiling. But his eyes were closed and it didn’t at all sound like he was happy.
“Don’t cry?” said the voice. “I hate crying. Stop it. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You’re not crying, you’re singing a song. You’re just singing a song. An annoying song but it’s just a song. It’s just a song. It’s just a song. It’s just a sad song and…. Stop crying please!” shouted the voice.
It too started to sniffle.
“Stop it!” it shouted.
But Alex couldn’t stop.
“If you don’t stop I will go over there and make you stop. Trust me.”
Still, Alex couldn’t stop.
“Ok, on the count of three then. And if you do not stop, I will come over there, I’ll get in your box and I’ll stick my fingers up your nose and I’ll… Well, I don’t know what I’ll do yet but believe me, you don’t wanna know.”
“One.”
Still, crying.
“Two.”
Crying still.
“Three. Alright, that’s it.”
Thump.
“Ow!” shouted the voice. “My bloody head.”
Alex laughed.
He was still crying.
But he laughed.
He snorted.
And he laughed some more.
“It’s not funny,” said the voice sulking.
Alex pulled his hand up to the bruise on his head and rubbed it gently. It wasn’t funny. It hurt like hell when he did it. But it was always funny when someone else got hurt. Especially when they were mean to you about the very same thing.
“At least you stopped crying but fuck me, that hurt. Ow, god!”
Alex said nothing.
He got nervous when people swore. This obviously wasn’t a boy. Boys didn’t speak like that. His brother was heaps older than him and he didn’t even speak like that. He didn’t like it, though. Rough people had rough tongues and he felt like something bad might happen, like whoever it was in that other box might break something or start a fight and then The Man or the monster or whatever, he might come marching back to the room and he’d probably have a knife or a gun or something and he’d kill them both.
“Hey” shouted the other voice. “We’re alone, I think. You can talk you know. He aint coming back. Not for a while anyway. He’s out doin stuff. You don’t have to worry. Well, not now anyway” he said laughing.
Alex sniffed.
“Sorry. Bad humor. That wasn’t even funny, was it? I do that sometimes. My doctor says it’s my way of dealing with fear, making jokes and such and you didn’t laugh so uh, maybe I’m the joke. Hey, hey, I’ve gotta joke for ya. You like jokes?”
Alex said nothing.
“Of course you do. You’re alive aren’t ya? Well, for now. A good joke will lighten the mood. Let me see… What do you call…. Nope. Can’t remember the punch line on that one. I hate it when that happens. Ok, ok. Alright. I got one.”
Alex said nothing.
“What’s this?” said the voice, stretching his arms out.
Alex said nothing.
“Oh, you can’t see. Crap. Alright well, it was a shitty way to spend Easter. That was the punch line. I had my arms out like this” he said, stretching his arms out again. “And you didn’t see which means the joke loses all friggin context. God Damnit!”
Thump.
He hit his head again.
“Fuck!” he screamed.
Alex laughed.
“That’s not the friggin joke. Look I have one. Just give me a second to remember.”
Alex lay there on his side, turned away from the other box. He didn’t feel as scared as he had only minutes before. The person beside him shouted a lot and his voice was really rough and he got angry really quickly. But he was kind of funny. The angrier he got, the funnier he seemed.
“I got it” he shouted. “Wait… god damnit, it’s gone. Wait… I got it, ok, ok. Ok, so, so there’s three hookers and they’re sitting at a bar and the first hooker says…Shit!”
He cursed some more; a lot more. And he kicked and he punched at the sides and at the top of his box. He was pretty angry. He obviously didn’t like forgetting stuff. And he wasn’t any good at telling jokes.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” said Alex.
The other person was still fussing and cussing.
Alex cleared his throat.
“Why did the chicken cross the road,” he said again.
“What? Chicken? Cross the road? What?” yelled the voice.
He sounded disappointed.
As if he was expecting pizza.
But he got a salad.
“Fuck it,” he said, giving up on his own joke. “Why did the chicken cross the road then?”
Alex smiled.
He took a breath.
And he held it.
And he suspended the silence.
And he liked it.
And he said.
“Because it had no legs.”
“What? That makes no sense. What do you mean? That’s stupid. That’s a stupid joke. Where did you hear that?”
“I made it up.”
“Yeah well. That was stupid. So that makes you stupid.”
“No you’re stupid,” said Alex chuckling between syllables.
“Well if I’m so stupid then explain it to me.”
“Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it had no legs.”
Alex laughed.
The voice grumbled.
“I don’t get it. If it’s got no legs then how does it cross the friggin road?”
Alex was still laughing.
And that got the voice even madder.
“It’s not funny. It makes no sense. A joke is supposed to make sense, that’s why it’s funny. It should be ironic. That’s not ironic. It’s not even offensive. It just sucks. You suck,” he shouted.
“It is funny. You just have to think it in your head. Why did he cross the road? Cause he had no legs. He had no legs,” Alex said in hysterics. “The chicken had no legs.”
The other person stopped and pictured a small chicken on the other side of the road looking back at where it had come from. It was sitting in the sand and there were no cars but there; on the other side of the road, were its legs, standing up in the air.
He started laughing.
It made no sense.
But it was funny,
The voice laughed and he forgot that he was angry and Alex laughed and he forgot that he was scared and they were both laughing so loud that they forgot that they were trapped inside small wooden boxes.