When I was a boy, my father built a shed for me in the backyard. When my mom asked what it was for, he told her the garage was overflowing with junk. Sticking the mower and toolboxes out back would clear things up enough to fit the car. Keep her from burning her fingers on the seatbelt clip in the summertime. I knew it was a lie; he built it for me. Once he’d finished, the mower and the tools stayed in the garage and mom kept cursing the devil when the clip scalded her. But I had somewhere to retreat when they came home reeking of poison. I was grateful for it, but didn’t know I’d have to share.
The headlights of the old Pontiac through my bedroom window were my cue. They spent most nights at Barry’s Billiards, a pool hall downtown. They drank cheap gin and hustled out-of-towers until they got kicked out or won enough money to think tomorrow might fulfill tonight’s promises. Returning home, there were screams and moans of different types depending on how the balls rolled. It was then I went out to the shed.
My Hot Wheels cars and racetracks kept me company. The shed was empty but for the unused lumber. I used the planks to build beams that held up the tracks. I spent hours constructing loop-dee-loops and curly-whirls and other elaborate routes. I imagined myself as the driver, sometimes reaching the finish line to an eruption of cheers, sometimes falling from the edge to my fiery death. Either way, I would smile. Either way, it was better than here.
The first time I knew I wasn’t alone was because of the racetrack. After spending the previous night on a new construction, I dropped a car down to see where it needed refinement. To my surprise, it sped through the curves and loops and rolled safely onto the floorboards. I examined the track but couldn’t pinpoint what had changed. I looked around. There was a small note affixed to the wall. It had a smiley face and said, killer track.
From then on, we worked together. The Pontiac’s old headlights and the vicious screams and hurled bottles belonged to another world. Not only would we work together on the tracks, but he started to leave gifts—little toy cars and supplies to improve the runs. He left notes thanking me for sharing my shed and asking me not to tell my parents. I didn’t even mind the loose floorboards underfoot.
The only problem was the smell. At first, it was mild. A creeping rot that made me, upon entrance, hold my nose until it adjusted to the musty fragrance. But it got worse. One night, I was leaning my head near the floor to straighten the connection point of a track. A whiff hit me and I tasted a cocktail of stomach acid and the beans and rice I’d had for dinner. I checked the floorboard. It was loose. I lifted it and there was a leaking duffel back underneath. It was warm and wet and sticky. I felt the pulse in my temple and heard noises outside that insisted they were only in my head. It was him, but he spoke from somewhere inside me.
I don’t know why I took the bag inside. I didn’t say anything but left it there, seeping into the rug. Maybe I was relieved I’d found something that finally got their attention. I remember them in the middle of the night, white as ghosts, still half-drunk, the smell waking them. There was blood on my hands from the straps.
It was in all the papers when they put him away. I remember because my parents took me for ice cream to distract me. It tasted like ash.
Some decades have passed and my parents are dead and I live in the place alone. The old shed’s still out back. I keep the mower and tools out there. Not much else.
