Deddy was a man. Doodle was a Cheever, a little up-and-coming man, and man was something made so much of so often, but scarcely ever understood. Momma was an Unfulfilled Modern Woman Longing For Her Next Adventure: not Doodle's words, but how Momma described herself on social media. Uncle Robert said Momma just needed to get a tattoo.
He was looking up a movie, was doodle, on his tablet, on the miraculous internet; it was a movie made in just a few days, and on a dare. Someone with means had dared another friend with means to make a movie, as if to say, "bet you can't", or "if you don't you have no hair on your balls." It was hosted on something French or something, "Teatro Del Absurd".
Anyway, the lady was sitting there pawing at her hair or something that movie women of the late 60's did, and suddenly, the soundtrack kind of scratches and there is a guy with a french farmer hat, a guy looking like a late night disc jockey, standing there looking in the window.
Sex Offender Handyman. Maybe.
And sudden-like, the footage quit on a dime-quit spooling-up, pre-caching or whatever it did on the backend, in all the binary ones and zeroes, and it kinda stopped.
"Well, darnit to fudgesticks" said Doodle, closing the tablet app, and gently laying the tablet on its plastic back.
"You want a fudgestick?" said Momma coming from the Open Kitchen.
You are a fudgestick, m'lady thought Doodle.
"Internet's down, gonna call the company" said Momma, regarding Doodle with a kind of blank appraisal.
---
You didn't go outside unless the internet was down, and now it was, for Doodle hadn't marked the little exclamation mark on his wifi indicator; no, you didn't go outside when there was internet. It was like the Boomers said, they usedta hang out outside, stealing cars and rummaging in dumpsters, selling their crummy childhood like it was really something.
Doodle wanted no part of that, and indeed, marked their results, where such a grandiose childhood got them in the end, scratching their way along in adulthood and Constantly Complaining to their piers about things.
So it wasn't like they made that look like a better way.
So Doodle was outside, listening to his own breath, road noise from streets over, and so forth. He caught sight of raccoon darting through the back fence, and he was suddenly sure he wanted no part of nature, and that starting from a lack of impetus to begin with: he wanted to go back inside and cover himself in hand sanitizer and forget things like raccoons existed, things that rummaged in the garbage for food, at roadkill and things like that, nastiness.
He was in the sideyard where the air conditioner sounded like helicopter in flight. He had a stray thought that he didn't know before what color the neighbors' houses were, and he wanted to smile, thinking he didn't know, and it didn't matter anyway, but it was right there, like something on a dinner plate that they always put there, like the lettuce leaf on tuna salad or something, something they put there and he would just leave it sitting, like extra knives and forks, or something, or maybe when the lady at the window hands you too many ketchup packets.
But there was something, a movement caught out the corner of his eye--
a man.
He had been warned so much about strangers, lawless perverts roaming, hunting, and it seemed like there were always what they clinically referred to as Soft Targets, and Doodle was, at his tender age, a Soft Target, and he was well aware. Do Not Talk To Them. Do Not Go With Them. Accept No Items Offered By Them.
So he absconded to the rear of the house, to the cellar door and went inside, into the darkness, where eventually, after bumping his knees and toes a few times on the storage shelves, he found the chain for the one 60-Watt bulb and yanked on it, then let go, in the trick way that those old lights worked.
The light came on as the chain went back in place.
He looked around, hoping for somewhere to hide, but nothing seemed obvious. There were shelves and things, the oval body of a charcoal grill that he couldn't fit in, and the washer and dryer, and he went past all that towards the dark corner of the thing where there was just random crapped piled up, dusty old stuff no one ever used, touched or otherwise gave any regard to.
There was a bumping at the outside door, and Doodle was sure it was The Sex Offender.
He turned, and his vision immediately went to the washing machine.
He clamored on top, then realized he couldn't open the door, so he climbed-off, opened the door and climbed over and into the thing, where the big agitator pole, a giant plastic thing with something like motorboat fins on it was right smack-dab in the middle of the thing, and all he could do was curl on his side, and kind of hug between the outside wall and the agitator pole.
It sounded like a seashell in there, and it was reasonably dark, stuffy. He could hear footsteps and shuffling sand on the concrete floor of the basement: someone had come inside.
He heard it clearly, from outside: "God that sounds awful. What's he doing in there?"
The door opened and there was Momma, looking disappointed at her wayward child.
"Back to the real world, Sluggo" said Momma, relieved. She shook her and smiled, at the hijinks of her child, whatever it was that passed for dangers and pleasures in the mind of a child. "The man's here fixing the internet."
"Oh", said Doodle, and took her outstretched hand, climbing from the infernal laundry drum.
