“Hey,” I whispered. “He’s going to see you.”
“We’re still on your property,” Matt said. “Who cares?”
I ducked behind the garage. Matt kept going across the lawn until the got to the gate. Once he was in the alley, he took a right and it looked like he was going to head out towards the street. At the clump of bushes that I was planning to use for cover, Matt stopped.
We met there at the bushes and maneuvered ourselves until we could see through the branches to the windows of his house. The glass might as well have been spray painted black. We couldn’t see anything through it.
“Wait, what is that?” I asked. It sounded almost like something tearing very slowly. I couldn’t place where it was coming from until I backed up half a step.
“I’m peeing,” Matt said.
“Well, stop it!” I said out loud.
The stream broke into staccato bursts as he wheezed out quiet laughter.
I could smell it. I really don’t like the smell of urine—it has always bothered me. Before it could make me sick, I hunched over and darted to the next set of bushes. This wasn’t the alley anymore. The place where I crouched was legitimately on the neighbor’s property. I was trespassing.
Matt joined me a second later.
He made a series of gestures in the starlight and I understood. The bush covered us over to the picnic table and we crawled under that to get closer to the back porch. From there, we just had to dart across three yards of open space and we had our backs pressed against the side of the house. The trashcans were only six feet away.
Matt leaned close. “What’s that smell?”
For a moment, I thought that the smell was still coming from him. It was ammonia. The night breeze brought it to my nose in full strength. It was definitely ammonia, but it was strong like smelling salts. I got my “bell rung” in a soccer game one time when I collided with one of my teammates. They used smelling salts to snap me back to reality. The odor was almost that strong.
“Cat litter,” Matt said, answering his own question.
I didn’t buy it.
I scooted down the wall. The smell got stronger and stronger until I could barely breathe. Matt was still a few feet away. He had his nose buried in his hands.
Applying steady pressure on the lip of the lid, I popped it off and the metal clanked. We held our breath as we waited for the sound of someone stirring inside the house.
My heart pounded in my chest, sure that the light would come on and we would have to sprint. I should have talked to Matt about an escape plan. If we ran towards the house, we would be caught for sure. The only smart thing to do would be to run for the alley and then take a left, working our way back around to the front of my house before we hid inside. That would give us an opportunity to lose any pursuit. It was too late to convey that plan to Matt now. I hoped he would think of it on his own.
But the lights didn’t come on.
I had to summon enough courage to get up and look into the can.
We didn’t even have a flashlight.
(We should have been heroes.)
We should have been heroes.
“Mom! Mom!” I said, shaking her. Her hair flopped around as her head rolled back and forth. I clicked on the lights and shouted again.
“Mom!”
I shook her so hard that her teeth banged against each other. Her eyes opened one at a time. The right one locked onto me and the left one wandered aimlessly across the ceiling.
“Whuh?”
She squinted and blinked hard and then tried to push up to her elbow. On the third try, she got it.
“Mom, we went across the alley because we saw a raccoon trying to get into those trashcans and we wanted to scare it away.”
This was the best story we could come up with. The truth would have been easier.
“The raccoon opened up the lid and we found body parts in there, Mom. I told you that the guy was up to no good. He must be killing people and maybe eating them or something. Who knows how many people he has stuffed into…”
She cut me off by turning off the light.
“Go to bed,” she said into her pillow.
If I ever forget what it was like to be a kid, this memory brings it right back. Kids have exactly zero power and zero credibility. The most momentous, life-changing event can happen to a kid and a parent will just tell them to shut up or maybe try to mollify them with some platitude. What we found was legitimately the most horrifying thing either of us had ever seen in our lives. I don’t know what kind of life Matt has led recently, but I would be willing to bet that he still thinks about what we found. I know I still do. And I still remember exactly how frustrated and helpless I felt when my mother wouldn’t even listen to me that night.
I turned on the light again.
With her eyes still shut, she reached to turn it off.
Matt pushed the plastic bag into my shoulder. I took it and shoved it into the path of her hand. Before, I hadn’t even wanted to touch the bag. What was inside, mashed against the clear plastic, was too horrific to contemplate. My mom’s hand hit the bag and she gave the thing a squeeze.
Behind me, Matt gagged.
Mom opened her eyes and jerked back.
I imagine that she cursed something, but her words were unintelligible. She jerked back, pushing her blankets and pillows into a tangled jumble as she retreated across the bed. I looked down at what I was holding and I dropped it. The seal on
