Green Kool-aid
by Justin Holley

            Looking back now, especially after a twenty-six year hiatus from such thoughts, there were several things that didn’t make sense.  They didn’t make sense in much the same way that many things no longer make sense once you come to the understanding that your parents weren’t omnipotent.  They were all powerful perhaps, but for their part not all knowing.  Parents and their secrets or parents and their ambivalence, always so wrapped up in their lives so as not to fully understand as when the fruit of their own loins acted out of the ordinary.  Not comprehending when their progeny sensed that the world had played by a set of rules they didn’t understand… or didn’t want to.  By example, spirituality is one of those paradoxes that parents love to tout.  As long as it remains in its tame little cage where it is predictable and controlled, it is regarded as something of the nature of circumcision - somewhat painful for the child, but helpful in the end.  After all, once saved always saved, however, if that spirituality were to take the form of something more voracious, then look out.  A whole decade of ex-hippie parents liking to an army of storks with their heads in the sand.  My parents were no exception.

            More specifically, the things that still - to this very day - haunt me can be boiled down to one story.  Perhaps, during the course of this story, you may ask yourself some questions.  If you can find the answers please let me know – by all means.  Now, without further interruption, I shall tell you a story:

As we often did, when watched for the day by great aunt Gertrude, we were just finishing up a game of baseball when Gertrude backed the car from her shabby, single stall garage.  The car, like most things Gertrude owned, needed repair and updating.  We (meaning my two cousins; Beth and Kelly) knew better than to keep the impatient woman waiting.  Kelly (the younger) whined, “Eli… do we have to go with to town?”

I knew that whining wouldn’t change the facts.  I answered, “Of course we do.  There’s no way she would let us stay here alone.”

“Our dad would let us stay!”

“And my mom would too, but neither is here so we’re stuck.  Let’s go before she has a stinking stroke!”

Beth agreed, “Yeah sis, let’s just go.  The sooner we go, the sooner we get back.  Then let’s walk to the crab apple tree!”

So it was agreed and we all walked for the car.  Into the car we went with Beth and Kelly in back as usual.  I, being the oldest, got the front passenger seat.  We chattered wildly, alive with the knowledge that we would soon return and make our quest for the crab apples.  In one sentence that knowledge was crushed beneath the weight of four words, “We’re going to Matilda’s.”

“Why”, I asked, but we all knew why.  Matilda’s husband had died two weeks ago and no one really seemed to know under what circumstances – or more likely – they weren’t saying.  On top of that, as if that were not bad enough, Matilda had somehow managed to be mugged while in the Twin Cities last week.  In stealing Matilda’s purse, the intruder had apparently stabbed her in the thigh and ripped downward so as to leave a cut that started deep and grew shallower as it ended just above the knee.  Another “why” that I really wanted an answer to was: Where the heck does an eighty-two year old woman go that she gets mugged?  Was she mugged in the parking ramp of the Mayo clinic for heaven’s sake?  I knew better than to voice these concerns with anyone save Beth and Kelly – Gertrude would have given birth to a cow.  Another random question (yes, I’m full of them) that nagged at me was: Why was it that Gertrude felt comfortable explaining the graphic nature of Matilda’s injury, but not be willing to speak of any of the other details that my cousins and I were dieing to know about?  I realized, even then, that these were questions that may never have an answer – not a concrete one anyway.

Gertrude answered, “You three know why we need to go there!  I have to help Matilda change her bandages.  I was once a candy striper you know!”  Oh yes – we knew.  We were reminded of it any time someone needed “doctoring”.  That was precisely why the three of us carried band aides from home in our pockets.  None of us had a response to such a statement – that we cared to share with Gertrude anyway.  Gertrude put the car in reverse and we started the long “backing up” process out of her driveway.  She could have just turned around in the grass, but Gertrude was funny that way.

Ironically, Matilda only lived across the highway from Gertrude’s.  We kids could have already been there by now just having torn across the front lawn and crossing the black top – but that was the last thing we would want.  As proof of this disposition, was the response we gave as Gertrude rambled down Matilda’s driveway.  She asked, “Do you kids want to come in?”

I answered for all of us, “Couldn’t we just wait in the car?”

Gertrude looked perplexed and then quipped, “Why do you always wait in the car?  Matilda likes you kids.  She would enjoy the company.”

Of course this made us feel guilty.  After all, we were just kids and still believed that as kids we had some redeeming healing quality about us.  I glanced back at the girls – Kelly was shaking her head wildly.  There were two reasons, for the most part anyway, that we chose to stay in the car.  Besides the fact that Matilda’s house smelled like cat pee, was the issue of green Kool-aid.  Whenever we went there, Matilda offered us green Kool-aid – which we hated more than any beverage ever made.  We hated it enough to endure the guilt that would certainly plague us when Gertrude told our parents that we chose to wait in the car.  I answered, “Just tell her we don’t feel good.”

Gertrude grimaced and said primly, “Now Eli, we don’t lie.”

      “Yes Mam”

She didn’t say anything more though, obviously satisfied with her tirade.  Rather spryly for an eighty year old woman, Gertrude exited the car and darted off towards the rear door and entered.

To completely understand what followed (the main event of this story) you must know something of the layout of the house that we could see from the car.  The drive way in which we were parked, looked towards the southwest corner of the house so that we could see both the back door on the west side and the large picture window on the south.  The view of both was remarkable and I can remember to this day the details behind the plate glass picture window: a pink floral antique lamp, a wood grain grandfather clock, and a picture of the “Last Supper” – the one that looked like there was a woman sitting next to Jesus.  To this day I still can’t remember which happened first – perhaps it was simultaneous enough to overlap.  I was reading a Donald Duck comic book in which Donald Duck had just become sheriff of an old west town and his nephews were being naughty and of course he had to reprimand them.  Beth and Kelly were playing with Holly Hobby trading cards in the back.  Suddenly I had a funny feeling.  The best that I can describe it is a tingly feeling – like my hair was standing straight up.  At almost the same instant I heard Beth remark, “Who is that?”

I saw that she was looking at the picture window and so I glanced there also.  Standing in the window was a man.  He was of average build with dark hair that parted on the side and was wearing a green sweater over brown slacks.  The man looked towards us (or rather through us I thought at the time) and then checked his watch.  Apparently it was time to do something else because he backed away from the window.  The tingling in my body immediately subsided.  None of us said anything for a moment.  I’m not sure why the man struck us as strange – it could have been Matilda’s son or any number of people, but for some reason the whole event seemed surreal and bizarre.  I asked to neither girl in particular, “Who do you suppose that was?”

Beth replied, “I don’t know, but wasn’t he strange?  I got a tingly feel all over.”

I was just about to say that I had experienced the same sensation when Kelly blurted, “I hate it here… I hate Gertrude.  I want to leave!”  Kelly kept at it to the point in which I was about to go in and drag Gertrude out just to shut Kelly up.  It wasn’t like Kelly at all to use such strong language.  The language, however, was nothing compared to what she would do later. 

Luckily, Gertrude came out the back door soon enough and got in the car.  I asked almost immediately, “Who was the guy in there with you two?”

I was expecting to be told to mind my own business, but surprisingly Gertrude answered, “What guy?  There was no one else in that house but Matilda and I!”

I glanced back at Beth who glanced at me with a terrified look on her face.  The look must have been perplexing enough because Gertrude went back in to have a look.  When she came back out she explained, “There is no one else in that house… I even looked for myself.  What did this guy look like?”

I described him, expecting Gertrude to immediately pooh pooh it, but she didn’t – she grew solemn and terse.  She said, “Don’t be cruel!”

I stammered, “What do you mean?  We’re just being honest!”

She replied, “You know full well that you just described Matilda’s dead husband.”

I glanced again at Beth who now looked really scared.  I said tentatively, “I… I’m sorry if you think we made it up, but we didn’t.”

I’m not sure if she believed us, but something happened because we never did go to town. 

When we got back to Gertrude’s house, us three kids just sat in the front yard staring over at Matilda’s.  The crab apple tree had been forgotten; there were more pressing issues to consider.  Beth was truly frightened and didn’t really want to discuss the matter.  I didn’t know what to think, but felt drawn to Matilda’s picture window like a moth to a flame.  Kelly just sat there silently glaring like a ghoul.  I didn’t know it then, but Kelly would never be the same after that.  It started out as small, naughty things: stealing, lying, and destroying others’ personal property.  Later, when she was older, things escalated and she moved to Arizona where she studied alternative spiritual maladies.  I guess that perhaps she was effected most of all, but then the whole episode did prompt me to write horror novels for a living – so who knows?  As for Beth, she would sooner forget about it.  Oh we have discussed the incident on a few occasions, but never to either of our satisfactions.

Later that day, when Beth and Kelly’s dad came to get them, we mentioned the incident to him.  Like Gertrude had, we expected that he also would laugh it off.  Not that Gertrude had laughed about anything – irritation is a better emotional descriptor.  Jim had shocked us by using this statement, “Well, if it was her old man, he must have some good reason for being there.”  We were shocked – an adult who didn’t immediately tell us we were imbeciles.  After that, to then have neglected Kelly’s behavior or to not have seen the connection was almost unforgivable in my opinion.  As for my parents – well, for all I know their heads are still in the sand.  Soon after, Matilda and Gertrude passed away.  Along with them passed away any real chance of getting to the bottom of a mystery that poses so many questions for me to this day.           

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