What I Will Not Become by Harrison Kim

I’m talking with Mrs. Everton, the anorexic faced one-lung Grandmother puffing cigs by the wood stove as snow falls outside. She tells me more blizzards fell in years past, we’re not snowed in yet. She coughs, continues again in that smoky voice; my best friend Keith’s over by the fridge laughing with Lori Baker. Lori’s Mrs. Everton’s niece, black haired, pale faced, arms thin as branches stuck from a frost covered sapling, and fifteen years old. 

Keith and I walked up here in the snow, whiteness coming down silent all around from a dark, speck-starred sky. How could this be? Another light kept moving, a yellow beam under the bulk of the mountain edge. Could it be a U. F. O? Light just doesn’t hover over the bush like that, without an engine noise. It floated back and forth silently as we hiked all the way up the unplowed road to the Everton’s place.

We’d taken the bus up from Vernon. It dropped us off about four miles down, on the road near Keith’s house.  

“Jackson, my friend, I want to see Lori,” said Keith, so we headed for Everton’s. 

We walked full of energy, pushing through the snow, feet trudging over the cold ground, a chill rising through toes and past knees to the chest and out the mouth, frost on the breath, freezing upward. Keith said he fell for Lori. He’d met her just the day before, building a snowman by the pool hall.  …. “18, and I don’t know what I want” most of us kids said, but Keith knew.

“I don’t know for how long I’ll be at my aunt’s place,” Lori told us. “But you should visit.”

I have the idea she’s got nowhere else to go.

As we moved towards Everton’s, we tried to figure out the reason for the mysterious light pulsing around the mountain. It couldn’t be a car, no roads up there. It rose up and down at random intervals. “maybe it’s a skidoo,” but there was no sound, and the light hovered above the trees. “At least it’s not coming for us,” said Keith.  

We turned the corner, and there in the winter night stood Everton’s old log and fiber board shack. We smelled wood smoke and headed for the warmth.

*********

Mrs. Everton is infamous around the area. She pokes around dressed all in black, picking up people’s cans and bottles, smoking cigarettes and coughing her lung out. Some say she bore twins who died a few days after birth, and she and Art Everton buried them out back under the pine trees. As I stand in the kitchen, she’s pulling cigarette smoke and wheezing badly.

Keith and Lori flirt, laughing and wrestling on the couch. Ethan and Roy, the two teenage Everton brothers, drop down the attic ladder. All the kids sleep up there on mats. The two boys stop as they see Keith with his arms around Lori.

“What’s your business, Keith?” Roy demands.

Lori answers for him. “We met in the snow yesterday. He says he knows you.” 

“Yeah, we know Keith all right,” Roy says. “From the chicken farm and elsewhere.”

“Roy’s right, we moved chickens together after school,” says Keith.

“You’ve got a bad rep,” says Roy

Keith’s run off with girls before. He does have great confidence and I don’t know how he manages his popularity.

I don’t like the way Roy stares at Keith. He thrusts his elbows forward in a lift that makes his chest jerk up. He’s gawking at Lori, too. Roy’s about 18, tallish with big shoulders and glasses. He keeps pushing the rims back towards his curly uncombed hair. He’s had some run-ins with the law, mostly for shoplifting and fights.  

Ethan, the other brother, is three years younger. We know him from school. He’s giggling and poking a tiny screwdriver around some kind of model airplane engine. He formed the “Ethan On His Own Club,” and took it real seriously, put together a uniform out of different clothes from Thrift Stores and crept around at night looking in people’s windows just to see what was going on. He convinced Keith and I to do it once or twice, but frankly it’s boring watching people cook dinner, feed their dog, or reach their hands towards the channel changer.  

“Why don’t you guys find yourselves a uniform?” Ethan asked. “We could have a lot of fun.”

“Boy Scouts was enough for me,” I told him.

Mrs. Everton relates about how in the old days her friends used to drive up on a horse and sleigh to her house to visit, all the bells sounding, “no one does that any more around here, we don’t get the snow like we used to” and I turn and there’s Lori laughing and Keith making more jokes, and Roy standing and leaning on the wall, glowering and pulling on a couple of stray sideburn hairs, “I want you guys to leave,” he says. “You guys need to leave now. We got to go to bed here.” 

“Yeah, sure,” I agree. The wood heat washes over me, the stove glows red on the sides, and I know I smell like Mrs. Everton’s cigarettes. “You know, we maybe saw a U. F. O. on the way up here, and I want to check that out.” I say. “Weird lights on the mountain.”

“Hey, why don’t you come with us, Lori?” says Keith. “We could track the aliens.”

“Wow, you guys saw a U. F. O?” Lori raises her small chin, touches Keith’s shoulder.

Ethan lifts his head from where he’s taking apart his toy engine. “Did it look like a giant headlight?” He pauses, then continues. “Any kind of giant headlight that’s not on the road could be an alien ship!”

He’s already up and putting on his snow boots. 

Mrs. Everton keeps smoking and totters over to put another log in the stove. Some sparks fly out as she opens the door. I jump to help her, ask if she needs more wood for the fire and she says “yeah, always need more wood,” and laughs, a few teeth gone. 

“You gotta stay away from those mushrooms, boys,” Roy laughs, and mimics popping a fungus into his mouth.

“Yeah. The psychedelic aliens could just rise up out of the swamp,” says Keith. “Like this!”

He jumps. Lori squeals and grabs his arm.  

“Let’s go, maybe we’ll be abducted!” She giggles. She’s already at the window peeping out at the bare white branches of the birch trees. She presses her nose to the glass.

Roy laughs again. “What do you see in that guy? He’s a total goof.” He sweeps his arm over the table. A few empty cans and a glass tumble to the ash strewn carpet.

“OK,” I say. “We’re leaving. Right, Keith?” 

Keith’s got his arm around Lori. He doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry, but Keith always has a plan. He stands up; he winks at me.

I’m over at the door, pulling on my boots. Mrs. Everton rocks in her chair in front of the stove, puffs on one cigarette, and reaches for another.

Keith and I rush out to the Everton’s yard, Lori and Ethan right behind. I wave the old smoky lady goodbye. Her pale lined face stares out the window, her tiny hands fluttering. Roy stands on the porch, arms folded.

Keith plows a trail through the whiteness ahead, heading for the barn.
Lori catches up to him and he reaches over and throws a snowball. She jumps back, laughing. Ethan’s out by his dad’s old car. He has the hood up, doing something with the inside. I jog up to him, lean over. He says he’s planning to hook up a big floodlight so we can track the U F O…he grins….and Roy’s disappeared from the porch.

If a space creature looked down from above, from the window of the alien ship, they’d see our heads moving among the trees, our positions crisscrossing over the snow… When Lori and Keith enter the barn, the ship wouldn’t find them anymore as they make their way up into the hay.

I imagine myself observed from above too, regard my movements from that alien perspective. I’m alone and in the wilderness at this retro cabin cut off from everyone. I stepped off a bus and into an alternative world. Whatever we think of could perhaps happen… I am wondering where in this yard Mrs. Everton buried those twins, if there’s skeletons hidden beneath the frozen earth, or if it’s some other-worldly rumour created out of gossip and imagination.

*******************

There’s a bang, and Roy bursts out of the house holding a .22 rifle, not a powerful gun when it’s loaded with 22 short bullets, and that’s exactly what Roy says as he runs by me “I’ve got a round of 22 shorts in here,” and he fires the weapon into the air. Now, a 22 short bullet is not that loud when it goes off, but in the quiet of the bush it’s unmistakable, and Keith pops his head out of the hayloft opening at the top of the barn, “What’s going on?” 

“I told you to get the hell out of here,” Roy says. “She’s my cousin, not yours.” He’s swinging the gun around and then firing once again at random, in Keith’s direction. My friend leaps from the hayloft and into a pile of snow fallen off the roof. He rolls out of that and dodges through the trees. Lori’s still inside, hiding somewhere in the hay, I guess. Roy stands under the pines, laughing, holding the gun loosely in one arm.

“That got your attention, eh?”

Ethan dashes up to Roy from where he’s been working on the car and grabs the weapon. “That’s mine. I didn’t give permission.” He backs away, holding the gun. There’s silence for a moment… they both pause, and then Ethan unlocks the bolt and unloads the .22, turns and disappears through a snowy gap between the birches, into the deep woods. Roy stays frozen for a moment, then grabs his own face with both hands, screams “You little bastard!” and races after his brother.

There’s a banging from the house. I see Mrs. Everton’s hand slapping the window, and her aged face pressing on the glass. 

I turn and run, catch up with Keith. He’s loped a fair way along the dark road that leads out of this wilderness.

“Wow, Roy’s super jealous!” he says, “But I sure would like to go back to Lori tonight!”   

He’s laughing and shivering, looks like he forgot his coat.  

“You just got shot at!” I say. “If you stay here, you’re as crazy as they are.”

We jog along under the starlight, our footsteps leaving behind perfect white prints. Snow’s falling under that clear sky, but it could be frost powder from the branches of the trees. 

“Lucky Roy’s got a bad aim,” Keith says, more serious now. “I don’t wanna get killed.”

We run between the narrowing avenue of trees on either side of the road, and because the road’s not plowed, we look down to avoid tripping or falling off the edge. We don’t hear the car approaching from behind because its lights are off. They don’t switch on until they’re almost upon us…. then there’s a giant flood of white. 

Keith reacts right away, leaping over the bank and heading for the biggest trees. His shadow form moves here and there, zig zagging. 

I look inside the car, under the floodlight, behind the whirling wipers.

Ethan’s driving, Mrs. Everton sitting on the passenger side, Lori in the back. They pull up. Mrs. Everton opens the car window and hands over Keith’s coat. 

“You guys forgot this, you’ll be cold without it” She’s still smoking a cigarette. The lit end glows and the smoke comes out the window into the clear air.

“Thanks. What happened with Roy? He was shooting at us!” 

“He’s okay,” says Ethan. “He contracted a bit of cabin fever. Sitting in his room all weekend. Brother needs a regular job. He jumped off in the bush somewhere, looking for you guys.” He leans forward and grins. “Say, have you seen the U. F. O. yet?  

I wave Keith over, and he appears out of the trees, grins at Lori in the back seat. I hand him his coat and keep my attention on Ethan. “Roy’s hunting for us?” I ask.  

Mrs. Everton coughs: “Ethan took the gun away.” She hands Keith his cap. “You forgot your hat, too.” 

“When will I see you again, Lori?” Keith says, as he puts his coat back on.

Lori moves forward then backward, rocking in Mrs. Everton’s smoke, her hair pulled all up around the top of her head, pale ears showing bare in the car shadows. “Maybe we can talk on the phone,” Keith continues, because Lori’s not saying anything, just rhythmically rocking, there in the back of the car.

“If you see those UFOs, let me know!” Ethan says, and nods at me, then backs the vehicle up. He snaps the headlights off again. Perhaps he’s a guy who sees better without them. The car disappears, reversing along the road through the white forest. Then, for a second, the headlights flash once more, before the vehicle vanishes, as if it were never there.

The two of us walk on, move down towards the valley, as all above us tower the snow heavy trees, and the stars above them silver clear. We walk under the night, Keith trudging, kicking up flurries of snow.

“I wonder if we’ll ever meet the aliens,” Keith says.

“I hope they’ll take us to a better place,” I tell him.

“Beam me into deep space,” Keith sings. “The deep space of love.”

He turns around every few steps, then shrugs and stays with me.

I keep my feet straight ahead, moving as quickly as possible down the mountain, watching for the alien light pulse, picturing Lori in the back seat of the Everton’s car and how she turned her head and stared at us from behind the rear window. I think of that last long look under the falling snow, her black hair all bunched up in shadow as Ethan drove her away.

Harrison Kim

Image: Cabin in the mountains in a snow storm. from Pixabay.com