Comics, Part 2

I was 9 years old when my family moved back to Illinois from Georgia. At that time my comic collection consisted of random comics my grandmother bought both new and second hand and put in my Christmas stocking. The titles were so random that for a while I wasn’t even aware that comics were serialized. My attention span and conditioning from my father’s collection preferred sci-fi and horror anthologies so it was just as well. We moved into a cold farmhouse on a horse farm owned by my father’s business partner. I’m sure the house was smaller than I remember it. I remember all of the houses I lived in as a child as mansions, yet when I revisit them they are always smaller. I do remember the room I slept in was small. There was just enough room for my furniture which consisted of a bed, dresser, rocking chair, and a plastic Incredible Hulk toy box. I would not keep my toys in the toy box. Instead I would hide them under the bed and the toy box was big enough for me to close myself into and was a favorite hiding place. It was also at that time that I learned not to tie my dog, a big black lab named Beamer, to the bed by his leash before bed, because I woke up a few mornings with my bed wedged in the doorway to the den and Beamer sleeping comfortably on the den carpet in preference over my cold hardwood floor.

There were not two-hundred and fifty-seven channels on television back then and there didn’t seem to be this complete obsession with music back then. The music in the house ranged from 80’s pop Come On Eileen, Little Red Corvette, and Our House from my sisters radio to The Oakridge Boys, The Ventures and Charlie Daniels from my father’s records. Most of my entertainment came from exercising the horses, “helping” around the farm, exploration, and pranks. I would get up and lose myself wandering around the farm. I found a huge bird skeleton in the woods; I found an old kennel that for some reason I was sure was haunted, I would hide in haystacks and watch people work and whenever they put something down I would sneak like a gremlin and move it somewhere else so that they would have to look for it. One thing I had to beware of was this one old lady that worked on the farm. She would yell at me to not wander around the farm without an adult and she always walked around escorted by one of the other farmhands. She seemed to want me to stay away from the barn in particular so I had to explore it.

One day I walked around the farm until I found that lady and her escort, when I found them busy I beat it back to the big barn. I crept up the stairs to the second floor. I saw a door in the wall just above the stairs across the stairwell from the floor of the loft with no apparent way to get to it. So I found a plank and slid it across the top of the stairwell into the door. I balanced my way across and felt around in the dark for a light switch. A chain brushed my face and I pulled it. This room was full of hay bales and in the corner behind a few bales I spotted a milk crate. I went to the opposite wall and cracked open a large door that overlooked the horse field for more light and then turned the light off and retracted the plank so no one would know I was there. Then I perused the contents of the crate. It was a treasure trove! It was full of horror movie magazines and comics! I suppose some slacker ranch hand used this forgotten spot as his hideout. The magazines covered the movie Alien and the Swamp Thing movie and the comics even had a few bog monster stories within them! Before I left I made sure to move things around in a way that I would know if anyone else came up there after me. I left the comics there so I wouldn’t have to answer for it if I got stopped on the way back to the house, plus I didn’t know if who they belonged to was still around. I left hoping that this would be my new hideout, a private place that no one else could get to, that overlooked the farm and my house...perfect!

Perfect, except for one thing…I would have to be extremely careful not to get caught going into the barn or even seen going into the barn from afar. So this meant coming up with a list of excuses for being in the barn (I was chasing a mouse, I was looking for Beamer, I thought I heard someone call me inside) if I was caught. It also meant roaming the entire ranch first to find out where everyone was before entering the main barn.
The second time I visited the hideout I received a visitor. To my delight none of the little traps I set to catch signs of entry had been disturbed, but as I reclined against a hay bale I heard a muffled “mew”. I looked back and two white gloved cat paws stretched out from behind the bale. Lazily a black kitten strolled out towards me taking stretching breaks along the way. The kitten made a nest on the floor in my plump heavy coat and I wondered if I had somehow left it stranded here the last time I visited. When I heard cars leaving the front of the barn I got up, put my coat back on, and slid the kitten inside one of the pockets and set it free downstairs.

I visited the hideout regularly. Depending on how bold I was feeling I would open the loft door and take in some sun as I poured my mind into the comic book pages. Every now and then I would find the kitten had found its way back and it would bask in the sun next to me. It was one of these days that I heard voices approaching the other side of the barn coming from the direction of the stables. I closed the loft door and scrambled over to the other side of the barn and peered through a crack that I had I cut with my knife as a lookout. It was that horrible woman and one the farm hands. I heard her saying that she had seen me go in the barn and that she had told me to stay out. I couldn’t be found in my hideout that would blow everything! I hid the comics behind a bale and ran across the plank above the stairs and retracted it. I heard her saying that I was upstairs. As they ascended the stairs I hid behind one of the walls they hung saddles from. They started through the maze of saddles just as I saw a hole in the wall that I hadn’t noticed before. I crawled over to the hole; I looked back and saw the tops of their heads as they picked through the saddle racks.

The hole in the wall was from a few boards that were missing. I stuck my head through and could see the rafters of another small building attached to the barn. I climbed through the hole and onto the rafters. The rafters were stacked with old box springs, random pieces of lumber, and an old sign, and even a painting. It was dark in this room. I lay flat and crawled across the various things from rafter to rafter until I reached the end of the building. It dead ended at a cement block wall. I hung from the last rafter and jumped down. I was surrounded by junk. I climbed over the junk and pushed on the door but it was locked from the outside. Looking closer at the curved cement block wall I realized I was in the shed next to the silo.

I followed the curve and found a small hole busted into the side that I could see light coming through. I peaked in and saw the floor was covered with birds still searching for grains left from before use of the silo was abandoned. Squeezing through the hole the birds took flight for escape. They left behind a cloud of dirt, dander, and feathers, floating in a small column of light pouring down from the dome above. The silence inside the elevator was so great that I could seemingly hear my pulse, my heart pounding, and blood being pushed through my brain. I had enough light to find the chute to make my exit. I hung around behind the silo until I heard cars leaving. Then I made my way back home. Not finding me in the barn damaged the hag’s credibility and I never had to dodge being found again until we moved. I left the stash of comics where I found them, for the next kid.