Alonzo's Farm

Alonzo's Farm

Every night - the night with the hard bright stars that made scars on the sky - it went on. Throughout the evil dark hours, Alonzo heard his monsters groaning, outside the house, at times creating banshee wails that blended with the pernicious wind buffeting his farm the year around. He scarcely allowed himself to sleep, until at times he collapsed in his recliner, for a few unwilled hours. The noises subsided with the light of morning. For the first hour, on waking, he poked around, along the fence lines about the hog pen, inside the barn, in every remaining cranny, until convinced his tormenters had done no lasting damage to the property. Only then could he tend to the needs of the animals and, lastly, himself.

He remained thin and underweight. Bags under his eyes made him seem prematurely old. It was after one particularly violent night he thought he might go into town and treat himself to a tension-free few hours. Perhaps he would have a root beer float at Cardi's and take in a movie. He walked, out of consideration for the mule, which worked hard enough, on plow days, to deserve a vacation of his own.

He was the only customer in Cardi's when he bought the root beer float and the girl behind the counter, whom he knew only as Bill Frogger's daughter, could not be bothered to take her attention off the small screen she held in her hand. He downed the float as rapidly as he could, leaped down from the stool and meandered out to stroll the two blocks to the movie theater. As he was passing Ma Lander's Boarding Home for Women, he came on Issey Prune, stacking all of her belongings on the sidewalk, where Ma Landers likely had strewn them. "Hello, Alonzo," she said, choking back tears, her mind in an apparent fog, from the stress of being jobless and getting evicted.

Alonzo felt sympathetic to her plight. He paused, looking over her meager possessions, and wished he could help. "Hello there, Issey. What are you going to do, now?"

"I don't know. My Mom died last year and my Dad's in jail. I may go to a bar and ask to get picked up by some drunk for a few days. I won't be able to take any of this with me. Would you like to have any of it?"

"Don't do that," he implored. "If you wait here, I will get my wagon and let you and it crash at my place."

Issey looked gratefully upon her benefactor. She thanked him, with tears brimming from her crooked little face.

After practically running the whole way, Alonzo hitched up the mule and in less than an hour drove up before the boarding home. She greeted his return with a great big smile. "I was so afraid you would forget about me."

Together they pitched Issey's stuff in the wagon. Before he allowed her onto the seat, he had to confess there were monsters frequenting his home and he would understand if she had rather not go there.

She presented Alonzo with a sincere and trusting face. "Maybe," she suggested, "we can protect each other."

So, misery and company rode the wagon to the farm and the extra bedroom became Issey's home.

On their first afternoon together, she asked Alonzo if he had ever loved a woman. "Yep. But the monsters killed Jeannie and the pigs ate her. She was just my girlfriend."

That night, the monsters sounded extra ferocious.

In the morning, he warmed the kitchen by lighting the oven and had just made the coffee, when she came in, still in a robe. With a worried, I told you so, look, he said, "Did you hear those monsters last night? I thought they was gonna tear down the walls and take us outta here."

"You heard the monsters?" she said, seeming puzzled. "I thought it was the wind is all."

He was slightly wounded by her dismissal of a night so fearful, compounded by worry for her safety, and he told her so.

Issey said, "Sorry," reaching for the steaming cup he handed to her.

After that, Alonzo perceived his houseguest from an altered perspective. He watched her eye movements, her body language, as his suspicions began to fester and grow. For one thing, she was entirely too relaxed in an atmosphere of danger. Too apt to soothe when he voiced his anxiety. The phrase, Trojan horse, entered his mind, but he fought against applying it to her. "Too soon," he muttered time and again.

That afternoon, as she sat back to digest dinner, after washing the dishes, Issey fell asleep. Alonzo sat close by in his recliner and watched her face, as her nose funneled in air and expelled it. Presently, she appeared to groan, ever so slightly. The groan shocked him into alertness for a probable imminent attack. He began testing all windows and doors. Sure enough, and as he expected, Issey had neglected to turn the lock on the kitchen door to the outside. The more he contemplated this state of affairs, the more convinced he became, she harbored a monster inside, or was herself a monster.

Throughout the day, he treated her most solicitously, until her eyes closed, or her back was turned. He had begun formulating plans, culminating in a feast for the pigs, perhaps.

When finally night crept over the farm and Issey needed her rest, Alonzo gave her plenty of time to get to sleep, before he barricaded her door, in order to keep her from letting the other monsters come in. That act produced an immediate result, as the wind suddenly ceased its blowing and the monsters quieted down. Likely they were gathering forces, for a final showdown. "This is it," he said, adding more heavy items to re-enforce the barricade.

Alonzo had often wondered which weapons would be most effective when the final battle arrived. To that end, he had gathered in the hall closet, a rake, tire iron, shotgun, sword and cans of twenty-foot shot insect spray. He doubted now that anything in his possession would protect him, once the attack got underway. He nevertheless set out for easy access shotgun and sword.

The eerie silence continued a long time. Time enough for Alonzo to nervously chew and spit tobacco, something he had months ago quit doing. He wondered if walling in Issey had been a mistake. Then he heard it begin.

A sound like marching, stomping, romping, feet - thousands of them - descending on the house, bodies crashing against the one time pretty little farmhouse until walls began to be stove-in and the roof went flying off. The total structure ripped away from the earth and scattered to the ferocious sudden high winds. And the rain. Inches per hour of rain.

#

No trace of Alonzo was ever found. The fire department, along with the police, searched the wreckage in vain, with one fireman remarking to the lieutenant, "I ain't never seen a tornado do so much damage."

At the same moment, to their utter surprise, they heard a woman, moaning from up a tree. They had not known there was a woman in there when the house blew. Issey, deposited in a tree, along with her mattress, sported no real injuries. They thought it strange how her moaning stayed in synch with the ever-persistent wind that plagued the country about Alonzo's farm.