CLOSET PRANKSTER

There was a strange cat used to hang around my home town; kept snakes in portable terrariums which he used to carry in to the Foodland with him when he went in to cash his disability checks. Would hold it up to intimidate the cashiers. Folks called him snake man. He had a nasty odor about him, as if he not only did not bathe, but also liked to roll around in mouldy bread. He had snarled at me once in the soup aisle, and I feigned a lunge which I guess scared his pet boa.

After that, he didn't like me very much. He never confronted me. On the contrary, he'd cross the street to avoid me. But whenever I passed him, then looked back, he'd just be standing there scowling at me. I think he even stuck his tongue out at me with a quick snakey flick, but a truck passed between us and I may have imagined it. From then on, when I saw him, I ignored him.

Then I started getting phone calls where whoever was calling wouldn't speak. "Hello?" Nothing. Hang up. At first they were random, then they became alarmingly precise. The phone would ring just as I was opening the door to leave for work. It would ring again when I returned home, whenever I returned -- and my schedule wasn't consistent -- as soon as I bolted the door behind me.

I had a pretty good idea who it was. I always picked up and said, "H'lo." Nothing.

Then, there began to be background noise. The static of a television or radio channel with no reception. The clatter of a bicycle wheel turning with a playing card in the spokes. A few times, there was a faint sound as of something slithering over grass. Finally, some silly horror movie playing at top volume. Music like daggers striking piano strings, a woman screaming. I couldn't help myself. I laughed out loud.

One night I lay in bed awake after turning out the lamp. There was probably a full moon. I didn't feel at all sleepy. As I watched the lights from passing cars play over the windowsill, the top of a shaved head skimmed past, like stubby pink dorsal fin.

I quietly got up and slipped out the back door. There was a crackle of twigs and movement at the edge of the woods behind the house. In the air was a distinct effluvium of mouldy bread.

"Hello, snake man," I said. I could feel him watching me. I was standing there in my boxer shorts and open cotton robe. For all I knew, he was armed with more than a serpent.

"The cops on on their way," I laughed, and went back to bed.

The next morning, there was no call. I went to work as usual, but decided on a whim to leave my back door unlocked.

After work, I stayed out for a while. I went to a movie. I Love You To Death, I think it was. I liked almost everybody in the cast. Hated the movie. Then I stopped for dinner at The Palace restaurant, a diner in which my aunt used to waitress. I called home several times, just to hear my phone ring, imagining what it might be like to call and try to frighten myself.

When I got home, it was about eleven-thirty. I went straight to the fridge, got out a half a cantaloupe, took a knife from the silver drawer, and cut a few slices. Cantaloupe is musky, but it couldn't compete with the odor of mouldy bread.

My phone rang. I picked it up. There was strained breathing on the line. It seemed to find an echo in the room behind me. I only had two closets. One in my bedroom, very small. One in the kitchen behind me. Much larger. I used it as a food pantry.

"Hello, copperhead," I said.

"Guess who's in the closet behind you?"

"Oh, I dunno. Dinty Moore?"

I heard the dull scrape of the closet door know trying to turn.

"Guess whose closet," I said, "only opens from the outside?"

I slowly turned. The closet door knob was turning frantically left and right in tiny increments. I wiped melon juice from the corner of my mouth with a napkin, then wiped the knife blade, not wanting to drip on the tile kitchen floor.

I never saw snake man after that night. Fortunately, there are rumored sightings of him now and again.

But for all that, I'm much less dark and feral than I used to be.