There’s a ping inside the wall. In the hallway, right outside my bedroom that’s my fortress, there’s a ping that keeps going off when you least expect it. It sounds like if you took one of those little plastic toy wands with the little plastic balltip on the end, like that kids use to go DING DING on their little toy xylophone, only it doesn’t go ding, it makes more of a metallic ping sound, or a TING, once every few hours or so, I don’t know. SOMEthing’s going on in there, sure, but it’s just kind of muffled through the wallboard in there. I don’t frickin' know. I don’t build houses. Sometimes if you’re just sitting here, or else if you’re walking by, then sometimes it goes off, it does the little ping thing and that’s all. Dad says there’s no air duct or heater duct in there, they wouldn’t be in that wall, nothing in there, so yeah, it’s just a little creepy, I don’t know. Who cares? Old houses do that kind of stuff. 

But just don’t let it happen if Mom’s right there. Don’t be caught dead out there if it happens then, not if she’s standing right there or else walking back in from the garage; no, don’t do it. It puts her into instant checking mode if she has an audience. 

There’s demons in there, demons are in that wall. She SWEARS it.

I know I always made a mistake if I leave my door open, and if Mom’s doing laundry, the garage door is next to my bedroom door, so if she goes in and out, she's looking, listening, waiting. For the PING. And if she gets her way and that thing goes off and does its little ping thing, then it’s a gateway to the paranormal. And I left my bedroom door open, what have I done??--and the demons she always hears in the wall that’re in her head can get right in here, they can come right into my bedroom, and shit! Shit! SHIT! I forgot again, I forgot to close my doo, with her just standing there with the plastic white laundry basket wedged to her hip at her side, and she wants a response--she's just ITCHING for it--she wants me to say something, to talk about demons, and the only thing missing is how come she hasn’t said that THAT's where the socks disappear sometimes. The one missing sock that just always happens, even in normal houses with normal moms. Even they have it happen. The one missing sock, always. This demon thing is THAT widespread, if only people would LISTEN.

I’m still waiting for that one. It’ll happen about the socks. Please, God, don’t let her think of it.

. . .

There it went and I just left it OPEN. The PING. I just wanted to rest, and I forgot.

And where did she come from? She wasn’t even there, but now she is.

"Oh, this curs-ed house. This curs-ed house." This curs-ed this or that. Whatever. There’s always a curs-ed something, and she’s just the person to find it, she can find the source.

I'm lying here on my waterbed. Can't I just rest?

I should’ve closed the door. Why do I do that? What’s wrong with me??

A voice says, “All you ever do is complain.” And that's MY voice. It just happened.

It came out, and I did it again. I took the bait, and here we go, I left the gate open and here they all come, here they come with her.

“There’s a demon in this house. Right in that wall there. Didn’t you HEAR that?”

“No,” I say. I’m playing right into her hands, but who cares? “Only crazy people hear things.”

“Dave, what’re you talking about?” She always says my name when it's time for more emotion, when she wants a fill-up from me. Next up is the Look of Shock and Concern. She advances a few steps when it’s Look of Shock and Concern time. Two or three concerned steps forward, just to see if you're okay. Always.

“Dave, are you crazy?? What’s the matter with you?”

“Why do you have to know everything, Mom? Why do you have to see and hear shit?” I’m falling for it. She’s got me right where she wants, my emotions are just sitting there, because I left the gate open.

“I never said that!" And it's the Look of Shock. It's all me; she never did anything. She's innocence drifting. "When did I ever say THAT?!?” she says.

Sucked in and throwing gas on the fire, just the way she likes. I'm her stupid kid today, I'm her source, because I left the gate open.

“I’m talking about you being NostraMOMus all the time!!" Finally I let it out, I let out, I let it all out. "How come you can see through frigging walls?! How come you’re the ONLY ONE that knows what does that SOUND, and how come it’s gotta be FRIGGING DEMONS all the time?!? Why DEMONS?!?--of all things?!?!”

Sitting up and seething, breathing harder, chest pulsing. “Get out!!”

You asshole. You just gave it to her. You even made her laugh that time. She loves her new title you gave her. You meant to cut her down, but you gave a badge of honor. Now she can go fold the laundry. She can do it in peace and happiness now.

Her life is full of wonderfulness and bliss all of a sudden; and you’re left sitting here pissed. Way to go, Dave. Way to go. She’s five thousand emotions ahead of you, and those are the ones she got from you last time.

I’d close my door, but what’s the point?

I already did it. I left the gate open.

All I wanted was some rest, but I went and did it again.

The last time Dad talked to Aunt Bonnie over the telephone, she said this isn’t normal for Indiana. It’s a BLIZZARD we’re having. This is our first winter here and it’s crazy. It’s coming off the Great Lakes and it’s crazy, everybody keeps saying. The radio keeps saying it. Aunt Bonnie says it. Everybody. This snow storm is nuts.

Plus, we’re all alone from them. We had to move out of Bonnie and Curt’s because their landlord kicked us out. He didn’t like us living there in their upstairs. Now we live in Fort Wayne, like a hour away, in a place called Waynedale. This is how our 1978 starts out. Crazy amounts of snow getting up past the window. We’re gonna get snowed in, and then how can we get out? School got canceled, and I lost track of how many days of school that got canceled so far. Since we can’t go outside, we have to make up games for ourselves in here. Our main place is the hallway. It’s long and skinny. We play masking tape touchdowns. I get on my knees at one end, Doug gets on his knees at the other, and we got a roll of Dad’s masking tape out of his work stuff. We open both bedroom doors on one end of the hallway, the other end of it opens up to the living room so it’s perfect, kinda. I try to roll the tape down the hallway and try to make it go into one of the bedrooms. Doug, meanwhile, tries to roll it into the living room when it’s his turn, depending on what side you’re on. Sometimes I’m over there and he’s over here. We keep score to see who wins. The trick is, you’ve got to roll it at a crazy angle to get it to go in there, kind of like a curveball if it’s a wiffleball, but you’re rolling it.

The other hallway game we do is paper football. For that one, we’re in the middle of the hallway. Me and Doug, we both got paper footballs we folded up like triangles. You have have to make a field goal from the line. The line is the bathroom door. You can’t go over the line or it doesn’t count. You get way down on your stomach and you flick it. Use your finger. The paper football has to go through the goal posts. The goal post is at the end of the hallway. It has to make it between the outline of that door down there. It’s the water heater in there. Also, it has to go over the bottom line of the door, that’s the bottom of the goal posts. We keep score. A field goal is three points. I won 42 to 27 last time.

I have two ways that I flick it. I’m not sure which way’s better. If I flick it longways, it makes it go in a spin, but if you don’t flick it exactly right then it just goes off-to-the-side crazy. That way’s better for long distance. But for up-close or medium, soccer style flick’s better. It looks ugly in the air because it doesn’t spin, it just flips all over the place, and it doesn’t go as far. But you don’t have to kick it just exactly right each time. It forgives you more if you do it that way.

Dad has to go to work still. We don’t know how he got there. He had to dig our porch out first, then dig out the snow behind the car. It's like mountains out there. It’s everywhere snow, every time we look.

Mom listens to the weather on the radio. But mostly it’s just music. She has to face it just right, or all you get is static. All day long it’s the Bee Gees. “Stayin’ Alive.” Over and over and over. Or else the Dolly Parton “Here You Come Again” song, or else the “You Light Up my Life” song that’s Debbie Boone. That’s Pat Boone’s daughter, Aunt Bonnie always says. I don’t know who Pat Boone is. He’s on TV sometimes. But I still don't know. How come people don’t get sick of hearing the same songs over and over? It drives me crazy. Then it’s the news, then it’s the weather. That’s when Mom says, “Hush! You guys shut up. I have to hear the weather!”

The weatherman says it’s a great big bomb of snow that’s coming. A bomb that’s coming this way. So now it’s kind of scary, because it’s already too much snow. He said it’s zero degrees, but the wind chill is minus 40. I don’t know what wind chill means. I just know super-duper cold is what it is out there already.

Sometimes me and Doug play Stratego. I always win ’cause I’m older. He never remembers where my 1 is. He also forgets where I put my 2s and 3s. And he doesn’t use his 9s to find out if it’s a bomb or not. And if he does find out I have a bomb there, he’s super obvious about moving his 8 over there. 8s are miners. They kill bombs. But they can’t do anything else, everything else beats them except for a 9, so they’re easy to get rid of. I get rid of lots of his guys, then I get his flag and win all the time.

Bryan does his inchworm all over the house or else bangs on his xylophone and goes running running running, or else he goes swinging his kerbangers all over the place and you have to watch out, till Mom says knock it off and sit down and quit spazzing. Bryan can’t play with his Stretch Armstrong anymore after today. We found it in the bedroom that we never go into. We keep it closed because of the heat, but we were playing hide and seek in there. We were hiding in the boxes. Then we found Stretch Armstrong. Right there on the floor. He was rock hard. He got frozen. When we thawed him out he got cracks everywhere and his glue was coming out so Mom threw him in the trash.

Puck is in his crib, climbing up and down. Or else he’s climbing up on Mom’s bed. Or he’s playing with his car-cars. Or he’s pulling on the string of his Farmer Says and dragging it all over the house, ’cause that one you can hear.

We have to wear our thermals under our pajamas. We just wear our pajamas on all day, since we can’t go out.

...

Quick! It's an emergency!

Mom says, “Go! Go! Go!”--"You have to get the trash cans."--“Hurry up, quick!” The wind just blew them, all the way down the street. “Hurry up! Hurry up, before they’re gone!”  

I have to hurry and get bundled. "Hurry! Go get them before they get away!" she says. I can keep my thermals on. Hurry, take my PJs off. Hurry, throw my clothes on. Clothes after clothes. I'm taking too long time. Snow boots that go clomp. They have felt inside that’s thick. My poofy pants over my regular pants. My thermals underneath. Big green flannel shirt. My dark green heavy jacket. It has lots of duck feathers on the inside. It fits me like a balloon. Even the hood has duck feathers. It has a strap that goes over my mouth and it snaps. It only goes over my mouth and the bottom part of my nose, my face above is open. My big blue mittens. The top part of my nose and all over my eyes are the only thing not covered. Dad and Mom went crazy on our clothes. We still have our California skin and we have to get used to the snow still.

Mom opens the door and sends me, pushes me out a little. "Hurry up! They went that way!"

I don't want to be out here. It's dark and it's daytime. I can get out of the porch where Dad dug, and through the path in our front yard 'cause that's what he did this morning.  Snow is everywhere Dad didn’t dig. It’s all huge piles that are growing, everywhere you look. There's no sidewalk, it's all snow. The street I have to walk on is ice. My snow boots need better gription so they slip. They just have straight gripper lines, not waffle grips. My eyes sting and my eyelids sting and the top of my nose stings, too. The wind is like a ghost to me in both ears. To get to the street I have to do clunky robot steps. 

Mom said they went that way. I can’t see anything. They must be way, way down. But on the street down, my robot steps get dangerous with the wind. I have to do a new walk now. I have to walk like Frankenstein, leaning way far back when I walk, 'cause the wind is blowing on my back and it will push me right on my face if I don't. Right on my face in the street and the street is made of ice.

My nose hurts. My eyes hurt. My eyelids won't blink. I have to use all my eye muscles to do it. I have to force them.

Finally, I can see them. Both. They’re all the way down there, three or so more houses. All tipped over and skidding, but kind of slow right now. Hurry before the wind picks up. You can’t hear the metal skids because of the wind even though it's metal on ice. They’re ready to go at any moment if the wind gets them again, ready to get blown down, farther and farther down the street. I have to speed up my Frankensteps. I’m doing my robot Frankenstein steps as quick as I can in this bulky suit with these bulky shoes in this bulky snow on this slippery ice. I lean back more, more, more, more, and now I spread my arms out wide and it's a genius thing I thought of. The wind makes me like a sailboat. I'm a sailboat on the ice in the middle of the street. Take me faster, wind. Take me faster. Faster than those cans are moving. There they go. They’re skidding out some more, and now it’s a race, go faster. I go faster in this wind, faster, faster, let’s go, wind. I’m gaining on them, gaining on them, gaining...gaining, here we go. Got them. Grab them with my mittens. Thank God there's only two. Then I blow it when I turn around. I tried to stand up regular, and I almost got blown down. But now I figured it out again. I have to shift my weight far forward, have to lean way down, when I’m pulling them back to our house. Leaning, leaning, way far down into this wind. I can’t feel my face where my skin is uncovered. There might as well be no strap. I can only feel my eyeballs, and my eyeballs feel like a firehose is in front, hitting me with millions of tiny snowflakes. Then I remember the weather guy. He said 40 below windchill. Now I will remember. I will never forget windchill. Never ever never. It makes the wetness in my eyes freeze. I can't blink at all, even when I force it. I think my blinkingness is broken. Whoever made this jacket, they didn't do it right. They should’ve made this face strap bigger, should’ve put more duck hairs in there. It doesn't cover anything, just  my lips. The rest of my face is open to the air and it kills. I’m ducking way, way forward. Every clomping step, I have to walk on tiptoes. My boots go clomp and they don't bend very good, but that’s the only part that can touch the ground when you walk way, way over like this. Way over like this on tiptoes. So bend, boots, bend. I got one trash can each in each mitten. My arms are getting tired and my hands hurt inside my mittens. There better not be lids for these, or else they're gone now. The cans clang and scrape behind me at every step, close enough behind, I can hear them over the howly wind, the whistley wind, and every now and then the wind goes right inside one of the cans and tries to make it a sail and rip it out of my hands. My knuckles hurt inside my mittens. I have to stop a few times to pull the cans back straight again, then I go clodhop tiptoeing some more, these cans keep wanting to bang together and pull me to the one side or the other. Tippy toes, tippy toes, bend, boots, bend, lean way, way forward, we’re getting there. We're doing it. Closer. Closer. Just keep going, keep on going. Come on.

Just one more house and it's like forever.

My tears are icicles, but it's not me crying. It's just my eyes going crazy on me.

Finally, I get there. Have to climb up over the snow pile at the the side, have to put them in there or they’ll just blow away again. I have to do it while pulling on both trash cans. I can’t let one go. The wind wants to grab them again. I slip at it, and slip at it, and then my boots get good grips into the snow mountain finally. Snow can only get in from the front, so there's enough less snow in there at the side. I wiggle up and try to keep my gription and I lift it up and reach it up there with as much as I can stretch out my arm. I have to push on it more to make it go. Then I stretch the rest of me too, stretching out my back, stretching at my shoulders, hoping my grippers on my boots hold out. Please, God, don't let them come out. These cans will go flying. 

Got it and it worked. It’s in there. Now the other one. I do the same stretching thing, stretching and pushing to the max I can do. It’s a little less hard because I have both hands now. Stretching out and push like crazy till I got it. There. I did both. Climb down and lean way over into the wind when at this angle to get to the path that Dad dug that goes to the front door. It feels like nothing without the trash cans, but take away this wind and I'd be falling right on my face. 

Dad did a great path. It's perfect.

Never was so happy to get to our door. I knock and knock and Mom lets me in finally. She locks the doors in case of robbers. It's just like nothing when she lets me in, but my face can't feel normal, and my nose is just a rubber tip that's there.

The warmness of the house hits my face where the stupid strap didn't cover. It's all frozen skin there. My cheeks and my eyelids are super tingly, needles and tingles going everywhere down into my neck. But my nose is still just rubber. I don’t have a nose there. I can see it when I look down, I look down and cross my eyes and it's right there. But when I touch it with my mittens, there's nothing. It's just dead there. I can't wake up my nose.

Mom says, "Go take your clothes off."

Then she goes back to the radio. 

AH Ah Ah Ah

Stayin’ alive

Stayin’ alive