The Creature

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XII

It was the last day of the year when I went out to the cabin about noon. I had planned to check on things and affix signs to the cabin saying that the place had been set with booby traps. This was to scare away burglars since another raid had been made on my place and the rain barrel mentioned previously had been taken. It was a large wooden barrel with steel bands, the kind used to make wine. I now had to be content with a steel drum.

To my surprise I found Kong huddled near the porch. As I approached he slowly extended an arm with the hand clenched in a fist. I touched his extended hand and held it awhile with my left hand. He drew it closer to him, worked his fist loose and tucked both arms up together under his chest. He closed his eyes, he was obviously ill.

I felt his forehead and it was hotter than hell. I didn't know what to do. I entered the cabin and withdrew a blanket and brought it too him and covered him. This was the first time I had attempted to put a manmade object upon him. He did not resist, he just crouched further, almost under the cabin.

I really was at a loss as to what to do. Sally was expecting me home. Since our bitter arguments of a few months ago I felt that I should toe the line and it was best that I return home and take her to dinner or somewhere.

I returned to the cabin and took three aspirins out of the bottle and withdrew a glass of water and went to Kong. I held the tablets and said "Kong — eat" but he didn't move. I then took his head, turned it toward me and said "OPEN" which was the cue for him to open his mouth when we played at this. To my surprise he feebly opened his mouth and I threw in the three aspirins. He closed his mouth and refused the water. It started to rain and we were half under the roof eave and half out with both of us getting wet. I bent him over and forced him under the cabin which was about two and a half feet off the ground at this point. He fell forward stretching out to his full length and with reflex action slowly curled into the fetus position. I crawled in beside him and covered him with the blanket.

I must have stayed another half hour before I decided to get on to home. When I arrived Sally quizzed me about the worried look on my face and what was I thinking about anyway.

Supper was a routine matter and I worried about Kong. The rain had started down in earnest and the loud splashing outside made me more apprehensive. Penn State was playing Oklahoma in a televised bowl game that night, New Years Eve, and we were to watch it.

Finally eight o'clock rolled round and I announced to Sally that I was going out to the cabin to spend New Years Eve and that I was troubled and she should not take it personally. She accused me of going to meet "some whore," and she worried that I would have the only vehicle available since her car was being repaired. I agreed to leave the car with her and I would walk to the cabin, a distance of eight miles.

So I bid her farewell, dressed in raingear, took the flashlight and with an umbrella I took off for the cabin. I arrived there sometime around ten o'clock and sought out Kong. He had left the place under the cabin and I could see drag marks near where I had left him. About twenty feet away I found the blanket, it was soggy and wet. Kong was nowhere in sight.

For the rest of the evening I searched for him. I must have walked twenty miles at least, this on top of the eight miles I walked to the cabin. I was drenched to the bone, sneezing, coughing, and calling "Kong." It was of no use so I returned to the cabin.

The porch light of the cabin was on and when I went up on the porch I could see that the window in the door was broken. I had locked the cabin when I left. Could Kong have broken in? The door was still locked.

When I got into the cabin there was a note on the chair in front of the fireplace. It was obviously not from Kong. It started off "you bastard, you led me to believe you were coming out to the cabin and when came to check on you, you were gone. I never should have trusted you in the first place." It went on from there with a list of past crimes and charges. Sally had acquired several new charges to be held against me.

I cut up a cardboard box in which I had some hardware stored and made a cover for the broken window. I taped it into place with masking tape and put small tacks into each corner. With the excess cardboard I built a fire in the fireplace and got a fine blaze going. With that I took off my wet clothes, dried myself with the sofa cover and went in the bedroom to lie down. The rain still beat down and thoughts of Kong out there sick somewhere and my wife home in a bad state of mind kept me off balance. I finally did fall asleep.

The agreement I made with Sally was that she would pick me up at eleven on New Years Day and we would have lunch together at home. This she did but with an extremely pained expression. The ride back home was not pleasant.

This was the day of the bowl games and she usually made stuffed cabbage rolls and pork. Often we would have large crowds of people watching television with us and we would drink beer and gorge ourselves. This year it was just the two of us. Our personal troubles and my involvement with Kong had made us shun friends.

The games were the usual and if you have seen one bowl game you have seen them all. Variations of pass, plunge, and punt were paraded for a total of about nine hours. We had the cabbage rolls, sauerkraut, pork, and beer but hardy spoke.

Before the first game was over there were references to the death of Roberto Clemente, our local baseball hero. I had told my wife that I watched the Penn State game last evening in a bar three miles from the cabin and that is why I was not at the cabin when she arrived. She didn't believe this but may have accepted it had I not made comment on the news of the death of Clemente. She stated that it was continually broadcast the night before and if I had spent the night in a bar watching the Penn State game as I had claimed it would not be news to me. The lying bastard character within me had once again emerged victorious.

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