Shadows

(a note: This was written for a class I'm taking this summer. It is dedicated to Joe, for reasons that are clear to us)
[On which I earned a B+]


Robert Larsen was well known in the community for his shotgun and his wooden chair on the front porch. Sometime ago he had made it very clear that his land on the lip of town was just that: his.
***
“Do you know who George Nadies is, kid?” The ash and smoke from the campfire rising to the sky set the mood, as trees sculpted the images of bears and ghosts in the flickering dark long after the adults had gone to bed.
The snot-nosed brats shook their heads stupidly, awed that an older boy would talk to them.
The bravest asked, “Who is he then?”
“George Nadies was a kid just like you, just like me. After dinner one night, he took a dare, a double dog dare- so he wouldn’t be called a sissy- to walk into Ol’ Robert Larsen’s house. He went as far as the porch, when a hand came out of the door and pulled him inside. His friends could hear him squealing. It sounded just like the scream rabbits give just before they die. They say Old Man Rob has George’s skeleton in a trunk at the foot of his bed.”
The brats stared, cow-eyed.
“That’s right. Don’t go near there. He’ll eat the meat off your bones.” He bared his teeth grotesquely. “Raw.”
The particular glow of the embers against his face held all the persuasion needed.
***
The first Saturday of every month, Marshall’s Grocers stayed closed until ten instead of its usual eight o’clock. Rob Larsen would clunk into a parking space, rap on the glass and Frank Marshall would open the door and let him buy his rations for the month. The store always was the most crowded those afternoons. Frank Marshall had no problem keeping his mouth shut about Rob as the people gathered to speculate about his eccentricities.
“I can’t believe that man eats at all.”
“Do you think he cooks?”
“Where does he get the money to spend? Its not like he’s worked a lick in the past twenty years.”
“Probably has some savings shoved into his mattress.”
“Maybe- personally I’ve never seen him inside his house at all. It’s always dark.”
“I’ve seen him out on the porch after it was dark. He was just staring off like he was waiting for something to happen.”
“Sometimes he’s not there at all.”
“What a queer old man.”
Frank Marshall shelved beans listening to the chatter. An iron fist gripped at his chest as he realized no one else remembered a time when Robert hadn’t been a recluse in his own town. He remembered long summers between school days terrorizing the town with Robert and long nights on his front porch enjoying the fireflies, good conversation and cold beer, while their wives occupied the house. It had been a good several decades of camaraderie; a respect still remained, but the friendship had disintegrated at Rob’s will all those years ago.
***
Robert felt the door catch and he locked it. He walked toward the sun which hadn’t quite come over the hill yet. The path had disappeared into the grassy weeds, but it didn’t matter; he knew the way. The weight of the gun was comforting under his arm.
The sun was still low in the sky, but morning always was the brightest time of day. Periodically, he would look up from the path to the smudge of a grove against the horizon. It was almost as if he were being tugged in that direction by invisible strings. Still he trudged on methodically.
The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of hissing geese as a pond neared. Noting the disturbance, Robert closed his eyes and breathed deeply; the air smelled of hay from the drying grass. His shadow was cast long behind him and his pace slowed. Just past the pond he stopped at a smooth flat rock at the edge of an orchard. The same tall grass and yellow weeds that had grown into the path covered it. He sat on the rock with unfocused eyes as he often did, sitting in the ladder-backed chair on his porch. His shadow curled inward until it was unnoticeable beneath him. With an agility that belied his true age, Robert stood and stretched toward the too blue sky. Crouching once more, Robert used his hands to tear away the weeds and the grass from the rock. When the offending plants had been tossed away, a name, sans epitaph, that had been etched deeply into the unnaturally smooth rock became visible. He smoothed his hand over the name and settled down beside it. Robert Larsen dozed, his gnarled hand still caressing the rock.
***
At sunset, Robert stopped at the pond, eating one of the apples he had filched from the orchard and looked out over the vast flatness of the land, only disturbed by the grove and the occasional hill from the way he had come. The wind flattened the grass in ripples and the geese bobbed their heads as they clipped at the vast expanse. Out of his pocket came a chunk of crusty bread. Piece by piece it made its way into the stomachs of the greedier geese.
***
So many years ago, he had been doing the exact same thing: feeding the geese. And as most sixteen-year-old boys did, he thought about throwing rocks at them. Just as his fist rose to deliver the first blow, a girl belted out of the orchard, her skirts pulled up around her knees. He waited for someone, anyone, to follow her out, but no one came. As she came closer to the geese, he realized she wasn’t being chased, she was dancing in whirls and skips, cackling to herself. The sun had dipped low enough that Bobby had to strain to see her face.
Who was this girl that could swing her arms wide and swallow the world without pain? She landed herself next to him, stomach down, head on a fist, though it did nothing to keep the tall grass from tickling her face.
A few moments later, she acknowledged him. “You know, I really should have looked before I lied down; geese do their thing everywhere.”
Bobby was speechless. She had mentioned exactly what he had been thinking and had dabbled her toes into a crass subject. The girls from town would have shied away completely- rather, they wouldn’t even be out here at the pond.
“Quiet one aren’t ya? Are you from the town?”
“Yeah. You live there?”
“Mmm-hmm. Apples all year round for me. Between you and me, in the next year, I’m going to leave a heart breaking note for my parents and run off to a city, a big one.”
She looked up at him and laughed at his raised eyebrow. “I’m just joking you know. It’s not like I really would. I love this place too much. Apple?” She pulled the fruit from some place underneath her skirt. “I sewed a pocket, so I won’t go hungry. Momma says I eat too much. Why is it that girls are expected to keep figures while boys are told to get fat and merry? I bet your momma tells you to eat as much as you can.”
“I live with my grandmother.”
“Oh. Same thing though.” She paused awkwardly. “I’m sorry if…”
“Don’t mention it.” Just as he looked down, she smiled and stood up. Raising her arms, she looked down and watched her own shadow copy her antics. She curled into a ball and watched as it did the same. The girl leaped. Her shadow leaped. She giggled. Bobby wondered how a girl her age could be amused with such a simple thing as a shadow.
“What’s your name?” she asked him suddenly. She had stopped.
“Bobby.”
“Shadows have a sad existence, don’t you think Bobby? They’re followers and copiers, and shouldn’t there be at least one that wants out?”
“Shadows don’t have thoughts,” he answered.
“That’s a cock and bull answer, no offense meant. I think there comes a time in everyone’s life when they need to let their shadows go and do whatever shadows need to do.”
“What do they need to do?”
“I like to think the ones in the trees and the eerie darknesses are the ones that are let free and left to their own devices.”
He didn’t follow, but he nodded his head anyway.
***
Robert grimaced at that bold memory that had surfaced for air for the first time in a long time. He remembered that in the weeks that followed their first acquaintance, he had made whatever time he could to return to the pond in hopes to meet her again. After learning her name, though he did not dare scribble it in his books, he whispered it under his breath at school and while working at Marshall’s Grocers. He didn’t mind the teasing he received, especially from Frank Marshall, for running off all the time; sometimes she would come into the store with her mother and they would pretend not to know each other, though the twinkles in their eyes said otherwise to those who searched for it.
It had been twenty years since she had fluttered away to the sound of rushing wings. He had exhausted the greed the world had allowed him through her beauty. Even while the bloody handkerchiefs were secretly washed and she denied, to his face, the importance of the rattle in her chest, she made him beautiful. There was nothing gorgeous about him now. It had passed in her fever-flushed cheeks as he clutched her frail hand and sobbed apologies, knowing it was too late as the last, weak, bloody cough heaved her thin shoulders. She had been his cornerstone for so long, he didn’t want to believe she was crumbling; she didn’t let him believe until the end. He raised the gun in the falling dusk to shoot the geese that had taken to the sky.
Behind him, he heard a child shrieking her laughter. He put the gun down and turned to see his company. Her large bounds barely cleared the darker grass. The chub on her face was still visible in the fading light. Behind her a couple walked more slowly, though always keeping their girl in sight. For a split second during her strides, her feet detached from the dark shadow bounding behind her. Much to her dismay, at the sight of him, her parents called her close. A wry smile crossed his face.

He did have a way of burning bridges. Sitting in front of the empty fire grate as his cold, blistered hands tingled, still red from the hours of digging, Robert made a decision. He decided to fall back into the woodwork; a legend of the man who did nothing but love a ghost of a woman. He never was comfortable letting others see him cry. He threatened those close enough to try to comfort him, and the others saw this and backed off on their own. Old Mister Marshall was the last to hold out. Frank tried to talk his old man out of going up to Robert’s house on the edge of town every single day to no avail.
“Bobby please, just come up to the house. Ella said she’d cook you something hot.”
“I don’t need her to Mr. Marshall. Don’t bother Frank’s wife.”
“She wants to cook you dinner; she said so herself. You didn’t come up last Saturday, you kids always came up on Saturday evenings.”
“Always becomes sometimes, and sometimes becomes never.” Robert said.
“It doesn’t have to be that way. I know. When Violet died…”
“It isn’t the same. Leave.” He banged the screen door shut walking somewhere deep into the house.
“Bobby. You think that I didn’t hurt when she died? It’s easier when you’re with friends. Come up for dinner tonight. Bobby!” he called into the house.
“Get off my yard.” Bobby had come back to the door with his old shot gun.
“No need to get feisty son.”
“Get off of my property, old man. I don’t want you here.” He aimed the gun at Mr. Marshall’s feet.
“Okay, Okay. I’m leaving, son. Calm down.”
After that day, Robert wouldn’t let him past the fence, so old Mr. Marshall tried from beyond the yard; at that point, he faked ignorance.

The couple crowded their daughter back toward the town much to her complaints, but within seconds, she was once again mesmerized by the large sky that hugged the land and the silhouette beneath her feet. She was running- bounding away, and he stared, watching for those brief moments when the small girl pulled herself from the dark that threatened around her. In a few scant minutes, the threesome had disappeared. He turned once more to the ducks. Raising the gun, he aimed, finger to the trigger.

Robert went to set his shadow free.