Chester's Bones

Complete Short Story

It is just past dusk with an autumn moon hanging over the barn, bigger and fuller than it had ever really been. My clothes are new, stiff dark blue bib overalls, and a fresh white T-shirt. My old briar pipe, age darkened and comfortably heavy, back with me in my left hand, even though it had been tossed away, broken and forgotten, over thirty years ago. And Chester trotting up the steps of the porch, ratty gray tennis ball in mouth, dropping it at my feet for another throw. His sharp eyes see past a long collie nose, looking at me with warm expectation, forever loving and long since dead. I push his death from my mind. It's a dream, but so far, it's a good dream, and questions chase dreams away.

I grab up the ball, stand, and tease Chester in the usual way; “Do you want it? Do you want it, boy?” Out goes the ball, dream heavy and dream slow and as far as my old shoulder can take it into the silvery darkness. The moment it leaves my fingertips, Chester goes with, bounding down the wooden steps, crossing night green too-long grass, his head churning up and down pushing old bones to full speed. This is the best part, the happiest, but before he reaches the ball, it is the nightmarish worst, because this is the part where I know what comes next, and in dreams knowing makes it happen.

I feel them behind me, inside my home, inside my kitchen. There should be nothing frightening about them yet they are terrifying. I can't help that I am turning, like a slow merry-go-round. My old wooden porch washes over in newly painted white. The steps disappear and the railing gets renewed, inches higher than before. Hanging plants and hand-painted crafts appear, populating the porch, and I am still turning; turning to look through my old window at that perfectly normal family of strangers in my home. Who will it be this time? The boy? The woman? It's often the boy. Never the father.

The father sits at the end of the table waiting for his dinner and praising something the boy has brought him, over-adulation for hasty blue scribbles on construction paper. The woman stands at the table, putting down plates for their late dinner; blonde curls bouncing as she quick-steps back to the stove. She returns with a copper-bottomed saucepan, and I know it will be her. I don't want it to happen. The scene is ordinary, yet dream horrifying to me. I can still take it as long as they don't see me, but she stops mid-stride and turns to the window. Our eyes connect, and that terrible and familiar wave of paralyzing horror runs through me. The pan falls in slow motion, positioned so I can't see what's inside, yet because this is a dream, I know it's mashed potatoes, still lumpy but with a melting pat of butter. Before it hits the floor, I wake up in my bed, tense and gasping, as though I'd been held underwater.I gain control, sitting up, letting the nightmare fade and shrink down to nothing. My senses return, and I realize I have wetted and soiled my nightclothes. This is the third time. The doctor said it would happen as the condition got worse, particularly for my age. He instructed me to buy a box of diapers to wear at night. I blame the nightmare, but the third time is the last time I am going to let it happen.

As I clean myself and the bed, I try to recall the Chester part of the dream, but it has crawled back into my mind where dreams and nightmares go to rest and wait, so I instead remember back to when he was a pup and the day he got his name. Bonnie was still alive and his name was because of her:

“Long nose for a little pup, and look at all that white chest hair!”

“Maybe that's what we should call him,” I told her.

“What is?”

“Chester,” I say, then realizing the whole thing works, “Chester White.”

It's the first time I hear her put the word 'old' in front of 'fool'. 

I feel my smile go away as I loose the sheets from the bed, the stain has come through to the vertical striped mattress. I pull it all off and push the shameful bedding to a corner where I will deal with it in the morning.

“I'm a disgusting old fool,” I tell the memory of her, “An embarrassing, disgusting old fool.”

#

My great-niece Caroline drops me off out front of the Walmart, agreeing to wait in the car only after threatening to come find me if I'm not out in fifteen minutes.

The store is big and bright and as fake as everyone makes it out to be, and I have come to love it. There is everything here from applesauce to shotguns. A man could live out his entire life in a store like this.

At the shopping carts, I break one of the metal push-monsters free from the pack, deciding to live with the subtle protesting squeak one of the wheels is giving me. It will be my protest too. And we protest together, wheel and I, slowly squeaking down the highly polished floor.

Just past the pharmacy, I find a dizzying amount of products for incontinence, all hinting at some vague notion of independence and freedom. I decide on something generic in a dark purple box. The act of putting it in my cart fills me with despair.

I am leaning on the handle of the cart when I see her. The woman is coming toward me with a dark-haired boy ambling along beside. Her cart is packed full of food and two long curtain rods on top sticking out like twin jousting lances. I have a hazy familiarity of her existing somewhere outside my circle of family and friends, but I also feel I know her well. Bouncing blonde curls. Her eyes catch mine, and we interlock in new yet familiar horror. I remember the dinner table and the falling potatoes and I don’t understand how she can be here, how she can be real. I am a frozen statue watching her attempt a frantic turn with her cart, lodging it against a shelf, spilling a half dozen hairspray cans on the floor. The metal cans bounce and roll along; pink caps separate from some and go spinning across the tile. She pulls at the cart to free it. Her hands, locked to cart as she struggles, are only broken free when the boy walks toward me. She picks him up and runs away, abandoning the cart. Other customers watch her, then turn back to me, searching for the source of her frantic fleeing.

I don’t understand how she can be here; the store is sharp and loud and quick, unlike any dream. It’s real. Here and now is real. A light sweat forms on my forehead. My heart pounds the sound of rushing water into my ears, and I feel hot and heavy. In a tired and surreal grayness, a falsetto mosquito buzzes louder and louder. 

#

Because of the way I hit my head when I went down, I am kept at the hospital for two days of observation. While in the hospital, the woman from the store, and dreams, came to visit. Her name is Julie. After much discussion, we found that she and her family live in the old farmhouse I used to own. We can find no other common ground and no reason for the situation in which we find ourselves, so we decide on help.

#

Julie stops the car next to a lime green two-story house with two absurdly oversized pine trees in front.

“Is this it?” I say.

“302 North Street,” she says.

We get out of the car and go to the house where a sizable woman pushes open a rickety storm door and greets us, saying her name is Karen. She has dark blue sweat pants with spattered stains of white paint, and a logoed T-shirt visible under her unbuttoned untucked flannel shirt. Her hair is short and brown with a loose natural curl, surrounding a dirty, worn unattractive face save for her eyes and smile. After small awkward greetings, we shuffle into her home where we are immediately affronted by pet smells. Cat and dog and an exotic tang are in the air; snake maybe. There is a dog cage in the corner for something about the size of a poodle or terrier. Bits of spilled dog food surround the empty bowl. She seats us at a beat-up oak kitchen table, one leaf down and one leaf up, and starts right in.

“So Jack, I understand that Julie’s family has been seeing ghostly images of you on their porch, which used to be your porch since you lived there many years ago, and that you have memories of these events as well.”

She is a fast talker, direct and to the point, but with a comfort about her that takes the edge off, like a cross between a used car salesman and a shrink.

“I guess that’s about right,” I say.

“According to Julie, they see these images of you when they are all awake, typically around dinner time, like six or seven o’clock at night. And that is about the time you go to bed?”

“Yes, around then.”

“And your experience is that you see Julie and her family as well, but only when you are sleeping and dreaming. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me about the dreams you are having when you see them?”

I recount the porch, my pipe, Chester, the tennis ball and the terrible turning, as she nods at me.

“Is that the only dream you have?”

“It’s always about like that, only who sees me at the end is sometimes different.”

“But the dog – what’s his name?”

“Chester.”

“Chester is always in this dream?”

“Yes, he’s the best part.”

“And is Chester doing anything significant?”

“I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“What does he do in the dream?”

“Just chase the ball when I throw it. Then he disappears in the shadow of the barn, and I start turning to the window.”

“Okay, I am going to go into the other room and meditate for a few minutes about this. I ask that you stay quiet – no talking – and keep thoughts of this situation in your mind. I will be out in a minute.”

Karen walks out of the kitchen through a living room into what I believe to be the den. Julie and I look at each other. None of this seems like anything a psychic would do. I shrug. Julie closes her eyes, I suppose she is imagining the situation, so I do the same and think about when Chester was young.

I am coming in from the barn for supper when I see him trotting along, silvery metal food bowl in mouth. Just past being a puppy, he is full of energy and mischief. He drops the bowl at my feet and I pick it up and throw it on the doorstep of the house. He barks and runs after the bowl.

“Now, don’t you dare,” I say to him in mock disappointment. But Chester, of course, brings the bowl back to me. We spend a few minutes playing fetch with the food bowl. I throw it flat, so it spins out like a Frisbee, but at the end of the throw, it always takes a sharp turn and clangs to the ground, where it rolls in an ever smaller spiral. When I finally come in for supper, I see a yellow tennis ball on my dinner plate.

“What’s this?” I ask Bonnie.

“I thought it might be a bit easier on both of you.”

“Just what are you implying, my dear?”

“I am sure that food bowl isn’t the best on his teeth, and, well, you can throw this farther, so you’ll get a longer break in between throws.”

“I am going to accept your tennis ball, but only because of my concern for his teeth.”

And soon my after-dinner pipe smoking ritual moves from the lazy-boy in the living room to the porch, where a tennis ball and a collie go out and back a hundred times a night.

I am awakened by squeaking floor boards from Karen coming back into the room. She plops into her chair.

“Jack, when Chester died, where did you bury him?”

“Out by the old light pole.”

“On the farm?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, I see. To solve this problem and prevent the dreams, and to keep from scaring Julie and her family half to death, you will need to relocate Chester’s remains.”

“His remains?” Julie asks.

“You need to relocate what is left of him so he can be near Jack.”

“Dig him up?” The suggestion seems cold.

“But why? Why now after all these years.” I ask.

“These things can be mysterious. It is hard to know what kind of motivations there are in the other world. Although, time is different there, so two decades isn’t really that long of a time.”

“And that’s it? I mean, that will fix this?” Julie asked.

“I never make any promises when dealing with the spirit world, but I have no reason to believe otherwise, do you?”

She seemed to be more bullshitter than psychic. On the way home, Julie was kind enough to ask me if I was okay with moving Chester and if I had a place for him. I told her I was, and I did, even though I could feel a cold patch forming in the bottom of my stomach at the thought of disturbing him.

#

From the porch, I point to the slight depression in the yard where a thirty-foot pole light used to be, then move my finger to the place where I laid Chester to rest many years ago, out about ten feet from the pole.

Ben, Julie’s Husband, has borrowed a shovel from the neighbor. He has the tip of it pointing into the lawn.

“About here?” He asks.

“That’s right,” I say. He carefully sections out the manicured sod, setting it aside for later. After a few shovelfuls he asks.

“How deep did you go?”

“Four or five feet – enough to get him below the frost line.”

Ben gives an exasperated sigh.

There are no longer steps down the porch, so I walk back through the house and go out to watch his progress close up. Julie and the boy tag along. She wants the boy to stay inside, but I tell her it’s okay. There won’t be anything but bones left now, and it’s probably good for a boy his age to see a few bones. It’ll get his mind to understanding that there’s an end to all things, just as there’s a beginning.

When I get down by the digging, I can tell it’s not the kind of work Ben’s used to doing. He is already sweaty and winded. He has let himself get soft and womany from sitting around doing his Manager job. I offer to shovel for a while to give him a break, but he laughs and tells me there’s no need. It’s such a jackass man thing to do, too proud to let someone else help.

He’s about three feet down when he starts in with the “Are you sure this is the right place?” talk. He’s afraid of digging up more of his yard than he needs to, but I tell him I’m sure Chester’s right down there, so keep on digging. I also tell him he should be more afraid of the blisters he is going to have since he’s not wearing any gloves.

He steps down on the shovel for another bite of earth, pulls it back, then taps the end of the shovel around the same area, and I know he has found Chester’s bones. He maneuvers the shovel side to side, clearing away the soil then brings the bones up one at a time. I drop to the ground, clearing the earth from the bones as I get them. A few ribs then leg bones, then back to rib bones. Michael sits down with me using his hands to pick the black earth away from the bones. I can see his mother is horrified, but I nod to her that it’s okay and ask if she has a box or something we can put the bones in. She comes back with a small red plaid blanket and lays it out on the grass as though we were having a picnic. The boy is curious, and we talk about the different bones as we clean and place them in the correct order on the blanket. He is without tension or worry and cleans and places bones as though it were as normal and regular as brushing his teeth.

Ben brings up the shovel and holds it out to me. There is a small gray something, like a chunk of an old sock at the end of his shovel.

“Oh, my God. What is that?” Julie asks. I can tell she thinks it’s an organ or remnant of a body part. There won’t be any of that left now. Only bones.

“It’s his old tennis ball. He loved to fetch,” I say.

“Oh,” She says with visible relief.

#

The very same night we rebury Chester’s bones next to my garden. I am on the farm house porch again, partially aware of a guilt and disappointment creeping and hiding like a spider in a corner of my mind.I shouldn’t be here. They don’t want me here, in this comfortable, but exhaustingly familiar place. The events unfold and take precedence, pushing emotion further and further away.

I dream I am on the porch twice more that week. I invite the family to come visit, so we can again discuss the situation. We talk for a half an hour, no one is quite sure what is going on or how to stop it. Ben, large and full of tension and impatience, Julie balancing out his negativity with her kindness and understanding.

The boy, who until that time had been listening quietly, steps forward.

“He's your dog, isn't he?”

“Michael, what are you talking about?” Ben asks.

“The lassie dog.”

“You can see old Chester?” I ask.

“We play a lot, but I see him with you on the porch sometimes, too.”

“I’m sorry. He’s confused,” Julie says. “Michael has wanted a dog for a long time and since Ben and I have been dragging our feet on it, he has come up with an imaginary one.”

“I don’t think he’s confused at all,” I say winking at Michael.

“You don’t think -,” Julie says. Both hands cover her mouth with the realization.

“I don’t understand,” Ben says.

“The Dog, Michael’s ‘Lassie dog,' it’s his.” She holds and arm out toward me.

“What?” Ben says.

“We thought he got the dog name from all of Ben’s old Lassie books. We thought it was funny Michael couldn’t just imagine the dog he wanted. He had to imagine Lassie.”

“But the dog isn’t imaginary,” I said. Julie nodded slowly and looked at Michael.

Ben got down on Michael’s level.

“You know the difference between imaginary and real, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And the dog – your dog. Which is he, imaginary or real.”

“I don’t know. It’s like he’s real.”

“But if you want him to do something, you can think and make him do it, right?”

“No, he’s just kind of there. He walks with me and sits on the rug in my room. And I try to pet him but I can’t.”

“So is he imaginary or not?” Ben said, shaking the boy by the shoulders. Michael’s face soured as he fought against tears. 

“Ben, please!” Julie said.

Then realizing what he had done, “I’m sorry. You’re not in trouble. We – We just need to know, Michael. Is your doggie an imaginary friend?”

“I don’t know!” He said, turning away to cry into his mother’s side.

I motion to the drawer on the stand next to my chair.

“My wallet’s in there; could you get it for me?”

Julie gives the wallet to me, and I pull out a photo Caroline’s older sister had taken of Bonnie, Chester and me in front of the house. I hand it to Julie, waving a finger, indicating she should show it to the boy.

“Is this the dog?” She asks.

He studies the photo for a second and then nods his head.

I see the way he holds the photo of Chester, how he peers into and appreciates it, and I know what to do. It’s not about Chester’s bones being in the wrong place. It never has been.

#

The porch. Chester up the steps. Chester’s warm face. Cleaning my briar pipe.

And there is something missing. And there is something changed. And I am once again turning, but it’s without the usual paralyzing fear. The turning is from pulling; someone tugging at the leg of my bib overalls. I look down and see that it’s Chester pulling, turning me around. And I realize it always has been Chester, showing what was incomplete and now showing me the family’s completeness.

I come full way around and see what he wants me to see. Inside, the kitchen table is pushed to the side giving them room to tease the new puppy with a towel, letting him bite into it and shake his head in artificial seriousness. There is joy and warmth and no reason for them to see me, so they don’t. I reach down to Chester, ruffling the thick fur on his neck. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” and I think that maybe this time, he is ruffling me and asking the same.

I try to hold the joy, but I know this is a moment with a bittersweet taste. Much in the way of many dreams, there is a thing I know, and I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Now that we are done, Chester is saying goodbye, and I won’t see him again. With that knowledge, paws trot down porch steps, not chasing a tennis ball, but walking away. He is slow and old and lingers across the darkness with some regret. Before he disappears into the shadow of the barn, he pauses and turns one last time. And there is something more I know. Something more we both know.

It won’t be here, in this old place of ours, but it won’t be long before we see each other again.