The Brickles of Bigfoot
Miles sprinted down the block right after his morning shift to pick up a package from the mail locker at the record store. He was so excited to get it that he didn’t stop to ask Oscar if he had any new releases. He had a powerful craving, and he finally had the means to satiate it.
Miles cut through the packing tape on the outer box with his Leatherman and dropped the cardboard under his foot, quickly stomping it flat and windmilling it into the recycle bin with one hand while sliding the striped ribbon off the underbox with his other hand. He jammed the ribbon into the pocket of his raincoat and stood still, holding the open box of pistachio brickles to his face. He breathed in the buttery, burnt-sugar cyanide smell and didn’t move or think at all.
The steady drizzle he’d been ignoring intensified, so he reluctantly replaced the lid of the box and carefully tucked the whole thing into his inner pocket. He unsheathed his umbrella and, taking long strides, tiptoed down the block to his apartment, casting his umbrella onto the screen porch and folding himself inside. He hung up his jacket and carried the box to his room. He sat on the sagging mattress and opened the box. He lay back on the bed, allowing the pistachio smell to fill the room. His feet were sore and his back hurt from standing up at work. He closed his eyes and soon dozed off.
It was a little after 5 p.m. when Miles’ phone insisted on ringing for so long that he had to wake up. He had the shaggy feeling of having slept for the incorrect amount of time and felt disproportionate despair at the length of his nap, but Dave was telling him something so he saved the despair for later.
“Happy equinox, dude!” said Dave.
“Uh, happy spring?” Miles replied. He tried to remember if something important was happening on this vernal occasion.
“We’re going for a walk, dude,” said Dave, “remember?”
“No, actually, I don’t,” said Miles.
“We’re meeting by the waterfall for the equinox,” said Dave. “I’ll see you there,” and he hung up.
Miles was dozing again when the smell of pistachio brickles snagged his consciousness and dragged it back into the room. The light was waning and it was impossible to deny how thick the fug of the room was, how grimy the whole surface of the place. Miles needed to get some air. He put the lid on the brickles box and cradled it under his arm, pulling his raincoat on and taking his roommate’s Suburu keys from the hang-on-me by the door. He’d go see Dave and the other guys at the waterfall, a trickle that would barely fill a bathtub at the park outside town. It was fine, it wouldn’t take long.
When he got there, he got turned around a bit, he didn’t remember where the trailhead was. By the time he found the path to the waterfall his stomach was gurgling. He hadn’t eaten all day and his body would no longer allow him to blithely carry on. He remembered the brickles and cracked off a piece of one from inside his coat and let it settle on his tongue for a moment before he savagely crunched it to bits and reached for another. By the time he had ambled to the waterfall he’d eaten a little too much brickle, truth be told, and he felt a bit sick.
“Dude! You came!” yelled Dave, who was down to his boxer briefs. His favorite way to observe cosmic holidays was to smoke weed and go skinny dipping. That the waterfall didn’t put out enough volume to cover his voluptuous torso did not diminish his commitment to the celebration.
“Man, you got something in your beard,” Dave said as he came closer to Miles. With concentration he plucked a bit of pistachio candy from Miles’ beard and flicked it to the ground. Miles regretted the loss but said nothing. He stood around with Dave and the guys til sunset, talking about music and their jobs and t.v. shows and nothing in particular. He was hungry again by the time they left and he finished another chunk of brickle, having overcome the initial queasiness of his first round. He went home and forgot about the bit Dave had flicked out of his beard.
The pistachio brickle sat on the forest floor, just touching the edge of the waterfall collecting pool. Rain fell and melted it flat. One of Miles’ beard hairs was stuck inside, but it gradually subsided as the brickle melted, eventually lying flat upon the earth. A squirrel passed by and nibbled the piece of pistachio that remained. After a month, only a sticky sugar film remained of the brickle.
Moss grew on it.
Mold spores fell into it and sprouted.
They joined with Miles’ beard hair. They twined together. Their cells divided. The spring passed, the summer, the fall. The winter and then spring again. The pistachio brickle was now a tall pile of scraggly moss and leaves.
Miles met someone and they started living together. Three years later they had a baby. The scraggly pile had by then attracted ants, salamanders, mice. It had grown into a waist-high home for animals.
The baby was in preschool now. One damp spring day, the wind whooshed the animals in the pile together. It blew a pile of fir needles on top. The waterfall overflowed, lifting the hairy pile off the ground and settling it down a few inches away. The wind blew again, and the pile moved, again.
A hiker was passing by the waterfall early that summer. He was adjusting the focus on his camera lens when he saw it: an enormous human figure, dark and furry, just beyond where he could easily focus the lens. He looked up and it darted into the forest. He urged himself to follow it but he couldn’t, his legs shook a bit, and he sat on a log. He looked through his camera viewfinder again but only saw the trees.