Who the hell let this kid wander around alone and so damn clueless?
“That’s right,” I grabbed onto her belief hard. If she already was a big believer in the bogeyman, that was easier to go with than explaining a child molester. “He is the boogety-man from under your bed, but he got loose and now he’s out in the world. He wants to steal little girls and boys, eat them up, and he could be anywhere.”
That was harsh putting on a kid, although it was no harsher than the reality of my own “boogety-men.” I didn’t feel guilty about it. No one knew quite like I did that some mental scarring was worth it to stay alive. Mels, unbelievably na?ve, needed all she could get to stay safe. The invisible man wasn’t the only human monster out there. “You should tell your mom and dad about him being in the park, giving you the pony.”
“My mee-maw,” she corrected, several tears running down her face to drip onto the pony and snot gathering on her upper lip. She was scared. She was petrified and I knew I should feel bad about that, but I didn’t. She could be scared or she could be snatched up by the next human monster. We learned in class that the ends didn’t justify the means. Bullshit. We learned wrong.
With the pony back against her chest, her arms wrapped more tightly around it. She either forgot the bogeyman gave it to her or thought she’d saved it from him. “She’s the only one I can tell.” In a quick, jerky movement, she wiped her running nose with her arm before moving it back to cuddle the toy. “My daddy died and mommy is in that place for people who stick needles in their arms.”
Daddy dead and mommy in rehab or prison. The rusty machinery of the world at work. I shouldn’t blame normal people who can’t see. Blood and rust sometimes were too close to know which was which.
Before I could warn her to tell her grandma, an Oldsmobile, old and big enough that I thought they’d all disappeared to make some sort of car Stonehenge far away, screeched up to the curb about thirty feet away. “Mels, honey,” called a voice coarse with cigarettes, alcohol, any sin money could buy, but it was a cheerful voice and that was something. “Come on, kid! Supper’s cooking and it’s dance night at the VFW. Got to feed your scrawny little butt, pick out a dress, and get you to the sitter. Hurry, hurry! Run, little Miss Chickadee.”
Melanie ran quicker than the wind, leaving the sharp scent of the salt of her tears in the air. I yelled after her, “Tell her, Melanie. Tell her about the boogety-man.” But the car door had already slammed after her and the Oldsmobile was pulling away. I hoped she’d heard me. I hoped she’d remember what I told her. Picking a strand of yellow ragweed, the same color as Melanie’s sandals, I tossed it into the wind after her. “Good luck, Mels,” I said under my breath. “Stay away from the ‘boogety-man.’”
I thought she would. I’d scared her. I’d made her cry and I wasn’t sorry. I was…proud. Someone needed help and I’d given it to them. It wasn’t how a normal person would do it, but I wasn’t normal. Right now, that didn’t matter, because I’d pulled it off. I’d done it with a fake monster over the real one, but as long as it kept her away from strangers, she’d be okay. And she had listened to me, her eyes huge on finding out the bogeyman was loose. She believed me. I’d saved her. Me, the half-monster. I’d saved a little girl.
She would run like I’d told her if the invisible man showed up again. There’d been fear in her brown eyes, fear and belief. The monster, the “boogety-man,” had been close enough to touch her. He had talked to her. He could’ve eaten her up. She had more than believed it. She knew it. Yeah, I had faith she’d keep away from him.
And she had.
Too bad for Mels that the boogety-man didn’t do the same for her.
The Boogety-man