Something Purple This Way Comes

Chapter 1: Teddy Rockenmoff-2

A friend that you’d better not be sleeping with, Teddy thought. “Who is he, Nick? What’s his name?”

So Nick told Teddy all about Chancellor “Chance” Dexton from Chicago, a new hire at OWI, fresh out of college and wet behind his ears, learning the hoops of eye surgery and lasers and traveling and sales and the big world of eyewear. Some twenty-one-year-old smart-mouthed kid who enjoyed penny boarding and had big blond hair, blue eyes, and a jockish frame, not that Nick seemed interested in the little b***h. Hells to the no…again this morning.

Had it been any other man, Teddy would have screamed at Nick, “You’re screwing around with him behind my back, aren’t you?” But Teddy trusted his husband with other men. He was the man of his dreams. A faithful saint. His yin to Teddy’s yang. His balance and soul mate. His opposite for all the right reasons.

“I don’t even give him three weeks with our company. Chance likes to party too much. He’s very immature. And he’s all mouth, which you have learned. He’s a punk, if you want to know the truth.”

Teddy ignored Nick and became nervous, fidgeting with the landline’s looping cord. He rambled on and on about the purple sky and the new crop circle in the wheat field and how he thought there was going to be an alien invasion and how he believed Killy knew something odd was going down and…

“Stop. Don’t make a fool of yourself. You’re imagining things.”

“It’s true, Nick. Everything I’ve told you. This circle is like the others, but different in shape. This is the beginning to something. You have to believe me. I can feel it. The cat can too.”

Nick calmly said, “Teddy, pace yourself. Stop for a second. Be rational. Some farming kids created the circles. All four of them. We’ve been through this before. The kids sneak into the field after dark and they stamp the wheat down with flat tools. The same tool that a construction worker uses to flatten out a filled pothole. As for the purple sky, it’s normal. We both know this. So calm down.”

“But—”

“There’s no but, Teddy.” Nick could always talk Teddy down from a high. Detonating explosions in their relationship fell under his marital job description. Teddy tended to overact to just about everything. Nick had known this ever since the day the two men met six years before at a book sale in downtown Marlboroville, but he didn’t mind it, Teddy knew.

“I’ll make you a deal, busy man.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I’ll stop panicking when you get your ass on a plane and come home. Something’s happening here at the farm and it doesn’t feel right.” Teddy leaned against the kitchen wall, wanting to bang his forehead against its Martha Stewart wallpaper, a cranberry and gold color that most of his female friends loved and wanted when they entered the kitchen.

“You’re making this awkward, Teddy. Please…stop. I can’t come home. You know this. We’ve talked about this when you saw the last crop circle. I have to finish things here. It’s my job. It helps pay our bills. I’m simply making a living by traveling.”

“Diddle you, Nick!”

“Teddy, that’s not fair. Please, don’t say that.”

“You’re making me say it. I’ll handle this on my own,” Teddy hissed, and slammed the C-shaped phone into its metal hanger. He sighed.

Diddle! Is Nick being faithful? Teddy thought. Nick seemed unattached these days, distant. Nick could have been unfaithful in their marriage numerous times. Teddy knew that his husband worked with a slew of young and handsome men: dark-skinned Carlos in Miami; a chiseled cowboy in Dallas named Rain; Christopher in San Francisco; and two or three other men in New York City when Nick visited the Big Apple for work. And God only knew how many other coworkers were scattered across the globe: James the ginger in Dublin; Roberto in Madrid who spoke six languages; Wayne in Perth who looked like Bradley Cooper; blond and blue-eyed Frederick in Berlin; and Sasha in Moscow who resembled a bad guy from a 007 Hollywood movie. There had to be at least a dozen or more of Nick’s coworkers that Teddy knew about because Nick talked and talked and talked about the men: their full names, cities where they lived, ages, hobbies, likes, dislikes, children’s names, hair colors, skin tones, their boyfriends or husbands, some of their wives, and what the men drove and what their houses, flats, or condos looked like. Nick liked to know details about his coworkers. And he talked and talked and talked.

“Diddle again!” Teddy swore, and banged his fist against the wall, shaking the phone in its green cradle. “Come home, Nick! Just come home! Something big is happening here! Something huge! I need you now more than ever!” Pain rushed through his knuckles but the rage remained inside. Hot energy surged through his mind and heart. No surprise that his knuckles started to swell, one by one. Then he decided to swear again, releasing more of his hostility that Nick wasn’t at the farm and always away. “Stupid situation! How can this be? Leaving me here alone with purple light and f*****g crop circles.”

Teddy had to call Nick back. He knew this, even if he really didn’t want to. Nick couldn’t blow him off again. Teddy wouldn’t tolerate such maddening behavior, at least not in their marriage. The matter of the fourth crop circle and deep purple sky needed to be discussed. Plus, he would feel safer if Nick were at home. Maybe he could beg his husband to come home. If the beginning of end-times or an apocalyptical s**t storm started to rain down, Nick Basto didn’t need to be in Chicago or China or Sydney or Berlin or Nice. Hell no. Teddy wanted him home, in Conclave. Here and now. Teddy wanted a protector from the worst situation imaginable; someone to take care of him; this was just one of the reasons why he had married Nick.

He used the landline again and quickly dialed Nick’s cell phone number.

Nick picked up on the first ring and barked, “What?” It sounded curt and to the point, almost ruthless. Certainly not the nice Nick Teddy was used to hearing.

“Come home,” Teddy begged, direct and to the point. “There’s another crop circle in the field, Nick. I’m not kidding when I say this. Don’t f*****g think I am. And the sky is purple. I’m telling you that I think s**t is going to hit the fan. Big time. I just know it is. I can feel it. So come home. And get here as fast as you can. I need you. Do you hear me? I. Need. You.”

Silence followed, and not just a brief instant; not at all. A long silence filled the line with the proverbial crickets. Deadness. Nothingness. A void. A break in the world. Definitely the beginning to the end of the world. Something critical.

Then Nick used a serious tone, something real and honest, and that told Teddy that he meant business, “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll get the first flight home. I don’t know when this will be, but I will.”

* * * *

Teddy paced as the sun came out and the purple clouds vanished for the time being.

He’d tried to sleep, but couldn’t. Maybe it was safer if he didn’t sleep.

Instead, he stayed awake and made a list of Nick’s coworkers of the last four years. All men. All from around the world. Over fifty on the list. Bertram. Eren. Stanley. Kell. Rolf. Mike. Yates. Sawyer. Bill. Theo. Nelson. Gregory. Filip. Others. So many others. The list ended up being endless.

“No. He isn’t having an affair on me. He wouldn’t. He loves me too much. We’re too close. He’d do anything in the world for me. Anything.”

Then he thought about slipping into a pair of green rubber boots, the ones he gardened in, to protect his feet. Teddy wanted to walk every inch of the crop circle, feeling his way around its curves and flattened wheat, stomping over the earth and smelling its herbal warmth inside his nostrils. Teddy couldn’t find the courage to execute such a plan, though. No way. Staying away from the circle and wheat seemed safer, less dangerous, and a means of his survival. Amen to that move on his part.

So he tried to nap, but couldn’t.

So he tried to read, but couldn’t.

So he tried to eat something, but couldn’t.

And then he sat around in the living room and waited for Nick’s arrival. Waited. Waited. Waited. Looked around the room and at nothing important: wide-eyed, open-mouthed, on edge, staring from left to right, perhaps needing a valium, or some type of drug to soothe his anxiety.

Teddy became thirsty and wanted a vodka shot; his favorite drink. The single shot turned into two shots. Then three shots. Before he realized it, he became a little tipsy. No, not true. He became a lot tipsy, overdoing it with the shots so he could relax and calm down.

On the front porch, standing near the few steps that led to the grassy lawn and the wheat field in the distance, he stared at the sunny sky and watched the day pass him by, hours and hours and hours tumbling over each other. Jesus, he had a lot of work to accomplish. What farmer didn’t? But he was too drunk to work. Too drunk to think clearly. Too caught up in the purpleness. Nervousness twitched under his skin, crawling as he drank. His heart raced and his mind couldn’t stop thinking of two words: alien invasion. Then two more world: human inhalation.

At eight thirty-nine, with sunset on the horizon, the blue-red-purple clouds layered the creepy evening. The ball of golden sun fell sleepily in the distant west, closing out another May day, welcoming the darkness. Night had come. Danger. Something unrecognizable and ominous.

Ray Bradbury is right, he thought. Something wicked this way comes. Triple diddle.

* * * *

Later that evening. Nine-forty. Maybe nine-fifty. Teddy yawned. He felt exhausted. Every muscle and bone in his body felt spent and overused. Fatigue had enveloped his arms, legs, and mind. He yawned a number of times and realized that it was time to go to bed for some heavy-duty rest. Sometimes sleep felt overrated to him, though. Sleep didn’t get things accomplished in his life. Sleep wasn’t productive. Sleep couldn’t protect him from the old and new crop circles in the field, and their mysteries. Going to bed surely couldn’t be a good idea. So he had to force himself to stay up, even though he felt drained of energy, useless, and unable to keep his eyes open. Even if he felt lanky and weak, he wouldn’t fall asleep. He couldn’t. At least not until Nick made it home from his travels. Then maybe he could, safely.

Teddy needed caffeine instead of sleep. And lots of it. Two Diet Pepsis stared at him from a middle shelf in the opened Kenmore’s door. He grabbed one can, pulled it out, popped its aluminum tongue open, and drank all of it down in three long swigs. Afterward, he grabbed the second can and did the same thing. Once he was Diet Pepsi-filled, he walked into the living room and rifted numerous times. He sounded like the foghorn on Lake Erie, near Penosco Point and the sky-reaching lighthouse. The rifts were long, boisterous, echoing, and disgusting. Each were phlegm-filled, but the immediate release from his chest and throat was comforting and somewhat cleansing; such a comforting outcome.

The night grew hot and sticky with a thick cloud of humidity. Maybe this was how a swamp felt to frogs. In the living room he shared with Nick, watching movies on Netflix or Hulu, he stripped down to his birthday suit, dropping his jeans, shirt, and socks into a pile on the floor. He felt suffocated by the material against his body. Once naked, he felt purple slip gingerly over his bare skin. He sat in his favorite recliner and stared at a hardback copy of an Anne McCaffrey bestseller. The book had a light blue flying dragon with a long wingspan and claws on its cover. Teddy thought about picking up the three hundred pages of fiction, but decided against it, needing to stay on task, keep awake, and be on guard. Prepared for what could possibly happen next; in case something fell out of the sky like a meteor or spaceship or aliens or a toxin or a virus that melted flesh away from human bones and poisoned things. Maybe another crop circle would be designed on his property right before his own eyes, somewhere in the wheat field. If it happened, he wanted to witness it and show Nick as soon as the man returned home.