Alabama Woo
What The Delivery Man Saw
So, I’m finally living in the new apartment, on account of the furniture deliverymen showed up today. They just left. I bought them lunch and tipped them well — it’s hot as hell out there. Good ol’ boys, very polite. We sat at the table and ate Subway sandwiches together. One of them, heavily tattooed, without all his teeth, asked me what I did for a living.
“I’m a writer.”
“Bout what?”
I told him a little bit about my last book, mentioning that it has material about exorcism and things.
“Maybe I need to find me one of them exorcists,” he said. “I tell you, there’s some weird stuff in this world. I’ll be out in the woods, and I see things all the time, flying through the air. Ever seen the movie ‘Predator’?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s hard to explain if you haven’t seen the movie. They like somethin’ out of that. It’s like they fuzzy, but you can see through them, but you can also see the outline, plain as day.”
He chewed a bite of his meatball sandwich.
“Last week, I was on my four-wheeler out in the woods, and I seen several ’em, just flyin’ overhead. I don’t mess with them, and don’t want them messin’ with me.”
“What do you think they are?” I said.
“Hell if I know. But I’ve been seein’ ’em the past few years. I’m not just seein’ them things out the corner of my eye. I’m lookin’ straight on. Sometimes they flyin’, sometimes they ain’t. They just pass all around.”
“Let me ask you, have you ever used a Ouija board?”
His eyes got big. He set his sandwich down.
“No way, but my ex, that’s all she ever did, her and her family. They was always foolin’ with that stuff. I didn’t want no part of it.”
I was thinking: something, or some things, have attached themselves to you, through her. But I didn’t say it. I had just met the man.
We finished up lunch, and they needed to get on the road for their next delivery. Last thing I said to him as the men left: “Listen, next time you see those things, pray to Jesus. They’ll go away.”
“I reckon they will. Thanks!”
I have a way of collecting these kinds of people, and these kinds of stories. I found a very short clip of that 1987 film Predator, with the monster cloaking itself, and I now see what the moving guy was talking about:
If any of you readers have any experience with the kind of thing the moving guy says he sees, speak up.
I guess one of the reasons you needed to leave Europe and come back here, Rod, was to talk with that man.
Brother Rod, you haven't seen Predator? This is practically canon for Gen X. I worked in a video store in high school and college (the film school of the '90s as Tarantino put it) and so I've seen a lot of movies, but this one cannot be missed. "Get to da choppa!"