It's (Still) In the Basement

You come into the house after school and you pause to listen. You try to hear whether you're home alone, or if you can detect the quiet sound of your mother in the kitchen. You gently sniff the air for the aroma of fresh cookies or bars, or a pie or cake still cooling in the kitchen. You strain to hear the voice of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams or Jim Reeves emanating from the old Bakelite AM radio perched on the shelf above the washer in the basement. Your ears hope for the rhythmic swish-choog of the washer and your mother's alto harmonies to the country songs on the radio as she plugs away at the never-ending mountain of laundry. Nothing. You are home alone, alone with IT.

You are alone in a century-old house with a basement that smells of wet dirt, decaying potatoes, mildew and fuel oil. It’s a basement that surely harbors the graves of people who lived in this house right after the Civil War and probably died of wounds suffered in that war or at the hands of disgruntled Indians seeking to reclaim their land. You are alone in a house with a basement that contains a dirty, dark room once used to store coal. Who knows what gangster from the 1920s or 30s is hidden just behind the plastered walls of that room, the flesh long gone from bones still standing erect, hands and feet still bound from the day they walled him in alive for some breach of gangster etiquette.

Worst of all, as you realize just how alone you are in this house, is the thought which bursts unbidden into your brain: you are just inches above a creature that thrives on basement environments such as yours. All that separates you from IT are a few flimsy floorboards. You know, and IT knows. "IT" is the most unnerving of house monsters, because this one can actually be seen, heard, even touched (!), day or night. IT is the Furnace Monster.

How could your mother not be home when you got there? You count on her to be here doing mom things, because somehow, she keeps the monsters of the house at bay. Perhaps they fear discovery and banishment by a grown up, or maybe they simply can't fathom the full extent of her power, since monsters don't have mothers. Or maybe they DO have mothers, and it's out of respect or fear that they remain dormant in her presence. You know your mother couldn't beat anything more scary than an egg, but the monsters always stay away when she's home. Today, though, she is not. It's just you and IT.

Growing up during the 60s in Redwood Falls, Minnesota (pop. 4774), we really did live in an old house with an ancient basement, a fruit/root cellar, an old coal bin and an even more ancient furnace. Once a coal-burning unit, it had been converted by some mad scientist into a fuel-oil burning furnace, probably just after the discovery of oil. I would not be surprised to discover that this furnace was designed when man still lived in caves and dinosaurs had not yet decomposed into rich pools of petroleum under Texas and Kuwait.

Unlike today’s compact, ninety-nine percent efficient gas furnaces with whisper-quiet motors and plastic PVC-pipe exhaust chimneys, ours was a room-size behemoth with asbestos octopus tentacles for ductwork. There were spaces around the door on the front through which a small boy could catch glimpses of the fires of Hell. Surely this was a gateway to the Underworld, and I knew if I ever opened the door I would have been sucked inside and carried down the River Styx by a skeletal boatman. You could almost hear the howling hounds of Hell guarding the gates each time the furnace kicked on. Plus, IT was sentient. This was not just a piece of equipment, IT was alive.

Whenever I was home alone, the furnace knew. No matter where I was in the house, IT would cause the ductwork nearest to me to go "clunk," so I would know that IT knew I was alone. Sometimes IT would make a series of clunks around the house, causing my head to snap from side to side as I tried to keep IT from sneaking up on me from behind. That's the nature of house monsters, you know. They torment you like a cat with no appetite that has caught a mouse. It plays with its terrified prey, allowing it to almost escape, but always hooking it back at the last moment with a razor-sharp claw.

House monsters will drive you crazy by being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You feel its malicious presence as you try to go through your normal routine, but are unable to because of the feeling of eyes boring through your back. IT knows you are alone. IT knows you are small, and IT knows you fear its awesome size and power.

IT inhabits that dark, hidden-away part of your house where sunlight never gains the upper hand. Disgusting, many-legged insects scurry when the lights are turned on, insects with so many legs they look as though they must have once been many insects all running in single file until a sudden stop compressed them together into a single organism. IT lives where people are loath to go, hidden in the dark corners where spiders set their traps, and flashlights can never fully illuminate.

Grown-ups usually deny the existence of the Furnace Monster, but if you could wipe clear the windowpane to their memories, and sift through the images inside, you'd find a dark corner where flames dance red and yellow, and tiny streaks of light escape through the gaps around the heavy metal door. It is there, forced back into a small, gloomy corner, perhaps, but still there: The Furnace Monster.

If you don't believe me, just ask a friend some time if he or she remembers the Furnace Monster. Watch their eyes. They remember. They know.

© 1996/2006 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved

A Fairy Tale Life

To hear her tell it, she's had a pretty rough life. Saddled with the disadvantage of having a brother four years older than her, she would not be allowed the "luxuries" an only child is given, or the privileges the firstborn receives, especially a male heir. No, she would have to fight for everything she wanted. While everyone doted on "golden-boy", she would be Cinderella, forced by cruel fate to sleep in the ashes of the hearth with rags for clothes and kitchen vermin her only friends.

But that would be her story, though, not mine. She started out as a normal little girl, loving dolls, stuffed animals and all things pink. She had a short bout with colic as a baby, but by the time she was two, it was obvious that she was all girl. Which was a great relief to me, by the way.

When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, I had two main fears. One was that when she was born she would look like me, or worse, look like me in drag! When she was born, she did look like me, but my fears were unfounded. If she looks like I would look in drag, I'd look pretty good (minus the beard, of course).

My second greatest fear while my wife was pregnant with child number two was passing along my temperament. I am a less than jovial person on average. My Grandpa Zimmy was much the same way, a rather gruff old poop most of the time. After his funeral, Grandma Zimmy asked me if I thought he had been a good Grandpa. She had forgotten all the times he had chased us around when we were just little kids, trying to pinch us with his thick, workingman fingers. I guess he just enjoyed hearing us squeal. He could be very caring and soft, but that side was usually hidden away from public view. When he laughed, he laughed wholeheartedly. But usually he was just a gruff old poop. I told her he had been a terrific Grandpa.

On the drive home from his funeral, my wife began having contractions. This was early January, and our daughter was not due until March 17thApparently she felt left out over not getting to see her great-grandpa before he died, or maybe she felt the need to fill the Zimmerli-shaped void Grandpa had just created. Luckily, modern medical science, pharmacology and bed rest prevailed and she was denied early admittance. We should have been paying attention, because that was perhaps the first glimpse of her independent nature. The next came when she was due to be born. After trying to join us six-weeks early, she decided she wasn't coming out without a special invitation. When she was two weeks overdue, the doctor induced my wife and convinced our daughter to come out to play. My mother-in-law took one look at her first granddaughter, our new little bundle of joy, and said, “This is the one. This is the one who will pay you back.” Nice.

When our daughter first became mobile, I remember her crawling over to where her older brother was quietly watching television. “How cute,” I thought. “She's going to lie on the floor next to her brother and watch cartoons.” Not this child. She crawled over to his head, grabbed a handful of hair on either side and pulled upward. He howled in pain, but could do nothing about this sudden new threat to his safety. He had spent four years as master of his own domain, and suddenly there was this “thing” that crawled around the floor and ate lint and cat food, and it was attacking him. She had yanked on his hair just to hear him squeal. I immediately had flashbacks to Grandpa Zimmy, chasing us around the house, trying to pinch us, just to hear us squeal.

The knowledge that boys can't hit girls was very frustrating for her brother, as well as one of the things she exploited. This was brought home early one Saturday morning when she was about three. I had to be at work by six o'clock each morning, and played in a band on weekends. Sleeping in on Saturday morning was pretty special to me. On this particular Saturday morning I was roused from a deep slumber by the indignant cries of my daughter downstairs. I went to the top of the stairs and hollered down for an immediate cessation and explanation. She came to the bottom of the stairs in her pink bathrobe, her long, blonde hair framing her head like a halo, and, like a princess who has just been treated rudely by a vassal, announced, "He hit me back!"

I do believe she fancies herself a princess. Perhaps the King had to send her away for safekeeping from an evil stepmother and had his trusted servants (that would be us) raise her until he could safely bring her back home. I know someday in the not-too-distant future Prince Charming will come along and take her away. As the new Mr. and Mrs. Prince Charming depart for a long and happy life together, we’ll shed a tear or three. Then, when the happy couple is out of sight, we'll do a happy dance head and over to the King's castle to collect our bonus for raising the Princess!


© 1996-2006 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved

Free Refills

Here's another of my favorites from ten years ago. -- MKZ

My son still has nightmares about it. Even though it happened years ago, the details of that day remain vivid in his memory. They lurk just below the surface of consciousness, waiting to be released by sleep or a well-turned phrase.

We were at a Bakers Square restaurant in Minneapolis, having a nice, normal meal during a weekend getaway to the Twin Cities. We had been to a Minnesota Twins baseball game, and had spent a day at the Minnesota Science Museum and the Omni Theater. I don't recall what was showing at the Omni, whether the Twins won or not or what hotel we stayed at. We had made this pilgrimage several times before, all good family outings, just like this one. We were at Bakers Square, filling the voids in our stomachs in anticipation of the trip home when it happened.

“The boy” (our affectionate term for him to this day) had been going through a growth spurt, meaning always hungry and always thirsty. The Bakers Square – “come for the food, stay for the pie” - offered free, bottomless refills on soft drinks.

It’s important to understand that restaurants did not always offer free soft drink refills. I think this was the first time we had encountered this marketing strategy.

“The boy” had his usual half-pound hamburger and a large Mountain Dew, his poison of choice because it’s chock full of caffeine chased with plenty of sugar. It’ll get you wired pretty quickly. He drank the first Dew before the food came and his second one during the ritual inhalation of his meal. He drank his third glass while we were finishing our meals. His eyes had begun to take on the golden hue of Mountain Dew when the waitress came back with yet another refill. We were having after-dinner conversation and coffee by then. This fourth large glass went down more slowly than the first several. He had just finished the last, slow drink of the sweet, stimulant-laden beverage when the waitress appeared again and asked if he'd like another.

His eyes began to dart back and forth, like the eyes of a chipmunk cornered by a cat. There was no exit. He was sitting in the inside part of the booth, nothing but wall and window to his right, his "stupid sister" to the left and a crazy woman standing there asking him if he wanted a fifth Mountain Dew. His parents were just sitting there, looking at him with no measure of reproach, no looks filled with subtle messages, no glares, no hidden clues, just sitting there, waiting for his answer. It wasn't costing us anything extra. It was his decision, an opportunity to drink as much as he wanted.

By now, though, the half-pound burger and the four previous glasses of Mountain Dew were getting friendly in his stomach, and the message had finally begun to get through to his brain that he had, in fact, just ingested a large meal. Fluorescent yellow-green letters the color of Mountain Dew began igniting in his brain. Messages were coming in fast and furious from various portions of his anatomy. A signpost up ahead told him he had just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

He mumbled something about being full, and the waitress hesitated, and then asked if he was sure. It was free, she said. Bottomless. We told her to go ahead, bring him one more, and with a perky "OK" and a quick about-face, she was gone, returning in record-time with another large Mountain Dew. Total liquid volume if he drank all five: about a hundred ounces, nearly a gallon. He looked at the Dew for a moment, and then excused himself to go to the bathroom. He was gone for a long time. When he came back, he said he was ready to leave. The Dew went untouched. To this day, when we go to The Cities and ask where the kids want to eat, Bakers Square is, sadly, not on the list.

Jump ahead several years. Back in our hometown, “the boy” is now fifteen. It’s a Saturday night at a local pizza establishment. Partway through our meal, our waitress stops to check on things. Seeing his empty glass, she asks if he wants more Mountain Dew. Beads of sweat break out on his forehead, his breathing quickens, and his eyes start zipping from side to side, searching for exits. Struggling to regain control, he looks to me for a sign. I smile slowly, seeing the terror behind his eyes as the scene from several years earlier at Bakers Square replays itself on the movie screen in his brain. Finally I say, “I think he's probably had enough. We’re about ready to go.” Yes, I let him off the hook. Flashbacks can be a terrible thing to behold.

© 1996-2006 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved

Once More Into the Breach

Author's note: I wrote this ten years ago, but stumbled across it again the other day. It still made me chuckle, and shudder a bit, as I remembered some of the trials of raising children. -- MKZ

Into The Breach

I tried to warn her, but she wouldn't listen. I told her it was too dangerous. No one could go into that place and come away unscathed. There were things too terrible to comprehend in there; this sort of thing was better left to trained professionals hardened to the type of atrocities those four walls contained. I tried, but my words fell on deaf ears. I insisted she tie a stout rope around her waist in case things got too rough and we needed to haul her out, and, reluctantly, she agreed. Giving my hand a quick squeeze, and my lips a brief, soft brush with hers, she turned away. Her face became a mask of determination as she edged closer to the threshold where mortals normally dare not go. A few steps more, and she was gone. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was to be our final parting. My wife had bravely gone into our daughter's bedroom, vowing not to emerge until it had been thoroughly cleaned. Our daughter, you see, is a pig.

No parent likes to admit a child of theirs is a slob, but our daughter is a bona fide pig. We have even toyed with giving her the nickname TOD, which stands for Trail Of Destruction. If we call her TOD, though, she simply rolls her eleven-year-old eyes back in her head and stomps off, something she is quite good at. Some may say she is best at whining or biting sarcasm, but her forte is definitely stomping. She's no slouch at door slamming and her hands have jammed down on her hips so many times she has permanent divots, but for pure perfection, that girl is a stomper. And, unfortunately, she is a pig.

It’s as though she thinks the whole house is her personal trashcan. Things are dropped wherever she happens to be. Her grandmother, after a weeklong visit with us told me, "She just doesn't look behind her." I had turned to my mother-in-law for advice, or, at the very least, support and empathy. I knew she had raised at least one daughter (NOT my wife, to be clear) who had kept a, shall we say, “less than perfectly-ordered” bedroom.

"Less than perfect?" MIL hooted. "We didn't see her carpet for two years! One time we got out the garden rake to drag things out from under her bed. We found Jimmy Hoffa!"

Okay, I made up the part about Jimmy Hoffa, but she did concede that one of their two youngest girls had been a bit slovenly in the room upkeep department. In her defense, though, she turned out all right, once she was on her own and Mom was not there to pick up after her. In truth, she came up against roommates who were her slobbish equals. One day, the light came on for her, and she suddenly began to keep things picked up better. Not perfect, but better.

There was a plaque in my parents’ house when I was growing up which read: “Our House Is Clean Enough To Be Healthy, And Dirty Enough To Be Happy.” I point to this as way of explaining that I do not go around with a white glove and petri dishes to check for pathogens. I just knew my daughter's room couldn't pass an inspection by even a blind health department official. If dirty was synonymous with happy, she must have been the happiest person in the world. Her happiness was not shared by my wife, though, who had reached her breaking point. So when our daughter was away for the weekend on a church youth retreat, my wife grabbed an extra large garbage bag, gritted her teeth and said, "I'm going in." My son and I looked at each other and were sore afraid.

Five hours later, my wife emerged from Becca's room, and announced, "It is finished."

During her ordeal, we kept track of everything removed, discarded, uncovered or retrieved from the abyss. Here is the accounting: My wife filled two extra-large garbage bags, found sixteen pencils, eighteen cassette tapes, nineteen pens, thirty-five socks, two dirty bowls and several spoons. She found a book the library had called about six months earlier, and unearthed over a hundred Q-tips that had been pressed into service as paintbrushes. Two giant bottles of glue were discovered, two unused rolls of masking tape, a used, empty tape dispenser, and a partially used roll of electrical tape. She located my fishing light, the one that clips to the bill of a cap, and a spool of fishing line. Also in the tally were untold numbers of Halloween candy wrappers, five pair of scissors, two unopened bags of fruit snacks and a can of soda in her nightstand, a cookie on her dresser, several wrappers from individual cheese slices and a couple snack cracker wrappers.

My wife told me she thought she heard a strange, mechanical whimper as she was bringing the vacuum cleaner to finish cleaning the room, and said that whenever she would stop vacuuming for a moment the vacuum cleaner would try to make a break for the door. Who could blame it?

When our daughter came home the next afternoon, she screeched at the sight of all that cleanliness and order where disarray and filth had once been her happy bunkmates. To her credit, though, she did not accuse us of violating her privacy. Personally, I think she was glad she had not been forced to do it herself, because she knew it would have taken her days to get it this clean. She did, however, inform us that she was never leaving again. Ever.

Through it all, my son kept a silent vigil outside his sister's room. He watched wordlessly, eyes open wide, as his mother waded through the piles of trash threatening to escape the confines of the bedroom and spill out and take over the entire house. He watched quietly, holding onto that rope tied to his mother's waist, and prayed. Prayed that she wouldn't finish and move on to HIS room.

© 1996-2006 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved