Spring cleaning is just one of those things my mother looked forward too, that and mother’s day.
She told me to go up in the attic and begin to clean it out while she did the rest of the house.
My mother had lived in this house all her life, and I grew up here and I had never been up the attic before so it felt like an early birthday present and an adventure of a lifetime.
The only problem was getting the small ladder down because for some reason the small cord that would hang from it so you can pull it down was gone.
I carried the kitchen step stool up to the second floor but it wasn’t high enough to reach the small eye I needed to pull to get the ladder down.
Just a little higher and I would be able to reach it, I got off the stool and went into my room and found a solid book I would be able to stand on.
I stepped on top of the book and extended my body as far as it would go, standing on my tippy toes and with my finger tips stretched out to their limits, they were losing blood and were turning white, but I finally managed to get a hold of the small eye where the cord was once attached too and slowly pulled down the ladder.
I stared into the black hole that was our attic and I flipped the light switch on the wall.
The lights came on and I carefully walked up the ladder holding a broom, I imagine that it might be completely empty and the only thing I would see were some dust bunnies rolled by like tumbleweed in a old western.
My head rose up through the scuttle hole and I saw that the attic was packed with boxes, suitcases and many things hidden underneath bed sheets.
I walked around a bit and thought up a plan of attack.
Mother asked me to divide everything into separate sections so she could see what to keep or throw out later.
Everything was pretty much in the back of the attic so I moved the boxes together near the front, the suitcases next to that.
I pulled away some of the sheets that revealed things that belonged to my grandparents.
A desk with a typewriter and a stack of blank and aged pages, my grandmother’s sewing machine and an old radio.
I turn the dial on the old radio and it begins to make loud static noises, I adjust it until I hear music, a woman is singing like they do at a opera and a high pitched guitar like instrument is playing a tune.
I leave the music on and remove another sheet that is hiding something way taller than I am.
The sheet slides down and reveals a big clock, the sheet that fell on the floor contained enough dust to create a small dust storm and I got some dust in my throat and I face the other way until I’m finished coughing when I saw a big trunk hidden in the dark corner of the attic.
My heart was racing, it went faster with each step I took.
When I finally got to it my heart felt like it was in my neck and wanted to take a look too through my mouth.
I grab a hold of the top and open the trunk.
All I saw then were more old papers and my heart went back down where it belonged, disappointed.
But these papers had writing on them, and the letters were clearly from the typewriter on the desk.
I picked up some of the papers and they all had the same sentence on them over and over again.
‘If you can’t love, you can’t hurt.’, over and over again.
The papers filled the entire trunk, which was odd, why keep them in a trunk?
I began to clean out the trunk, I stacked the papers next to it, and after a while I saw a white sheet.
My fingers grabbed onto the sheet and pulled it away.
A naked, filthy and half decomposed body was looking up at me.
It’s eyes looked like glass and the skin that was left looked shiny, like it had been mummified with floor wax or something.
The smell of mold, sweat and decay was hard to handle and my nose didn’t want to be close to it anymore so I stepped back.
I wondered who this person was, and if my grandfather had killed him.
For a moment I studied the man in the trunk, he had black hair, thick glasses and kinda chubby and a gap between his front teeth like Elmer Fudd.
I walk back to the ladder and hear my mom singing along to a song on the radio.
“Mom! Do you know a chubby man from a long time ago, he has thick glasses and a gap between his front teeth.”, I yelled down and waited for her to reply.
The volume of the music went down, “That must be Richard, we used to go out until I broke up with him and he began to stalk me. Why are you asking?”
“I just saw some photos and wondered who it was.”, I tell her and I sigh of relief when she tells me to get back to cleaning.
I got back to the body I now called by his name, Richard had to go.
My mother promised me I would get an game console if I did a good job cleaning out the attic, I would say her finding a dead body even though it’s not me who killed him would ruin that deal.
I could just throw back all the papers but my mom would surely find him that way.
The lock was broken so I couldn’t lock the trunk, then I had an idea to put him in the big clock and locking it, my mother never liked old clocks because of the ticking sound so she would never want to bring it downstairs.
I walked up to the clock and turned the key that locked the inner parts of the clock, the little door opened and another body was staring at me.
This time it was a skinny man with a baseball cap and pierced earlobes and a tattoo of a anchor on his upper left arm.
I closed the clock again and didn’t see any place to hide Richard.
Maybe next year I can do a good enough job to get a console.
I threw back all the papers and closed the trunk again, and continued cleaning up the attic.
It took a while to broom all the dust together and when I was done I went downstairs and followed the smell of pancakes.
Mother was making pancakes, I sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat some.
She sat next to me and asked, “So how did it go up in the attic?”
I took a sip of my orange juice before I told her all about what I found, except for the dead bodies part.
“And where did you see Richard’s photo?” She asked while she stroked her finger through my hair.
I didn’t want to seem suspicious so I made up a lie, “I looked at some photos that were in a box.”
“I also saw a photo of a guy with a baseball cap and earrings, oh and a anchor on his arm.”, I added.
My mom took a bite of a pancake she had covered in syrup before she told me who it was, “Tommy, we went out when I was in high school, turned out he went out with more girls than just me.”
“My father, your grandfather hated both of them. And he was right, they treated me like I was nothing.”,
She said and she kissed me on the forehead leaving a syrup print of her lips.
She got up and flipped some more pancakes, “I have no idea what came of them.”
I wasn’t sure if I could tell her, “Would you want to know?”
She pauses holding the spatula in the air, smoke was coming from the pan from the pancakes turning into charcoal, “Knowing my daddy, their probably long gone.”
I almost choked on a bite of pancake, and she tossed the black pancake onto the plate in front of me and she covered it in syrup.
“Just kidding.”, She said as she kissed my forehead again.
She told me to go up in the attic and begin to clean it out while she did the rest of the house.
My mother had lived in this house all her life, and I grew up here and I had never been up the attic before so it felt like an early birthday present and an adventure of a lifetime.
The only problem was getting the small ladder down because for some reason the small cord that would hang from it so you can pull it down was gone.
I carried the kitchen step stool up to the second floor but it wasn’t high enough to reach the small eye I needed to pull to get the ladder down.
Just a little higher and I would be able to reach it, I got off the stool and went into my room and found a solid book I would be able to stand on.
I stepped on top of the book and extended my body as far as it would go, standing on my tippy toes and with my finger tips stretched out to their limits, they were losing blood and were turning white, but I finally managed to get a hold of the small eye where the cord was once attached too and slowly pulled down the ladder.
I stared into the black hole that was our attic and I flipped the light switch on the wall.
The lights came on and I carefully walked up the ladder holding a broom, I imagine that it might be completely empty and the only thing I would see were some dust bunnies rolled by like tumbleweed in a old western.
My head rose up through the scuttle hole and I saw that the attic was packed with boxes, suitcases and many things hidden underneath bed sheets.
I walked around a bit and thought up a plan of attack.
Mother asked me to divide everything into separate sections so she could see what to keep or throw out later.
Everything was pretty much in the back of the attic so I moved the boxes together near the front, the suitcases next to that.
I pulled away some of the sheets that revealed things that belonged to my grandparents.
A desk with a typewriter and a stack of blank and aged pages, my grandmother’s sewing machine and an old radio.
I turn the dial on the old radio and it begins to make loud static noises, I adjust it until I hear music, a woman is singing like they do at a opera and a high pitched guitar like instrument is playing a tune.
I leave the music on and remove another sheet that is hiding something way taller than I am.
The sheet slides down and reveals a big clock, the sheet that fell on the floor contained enough dust to create a small dust storm and I got some dust in my throat and I face the other way until I’m finished coughing when I saw a big trunk hidden in the dark corner of the attic.
My heart was racing, it went faster with each step I took.
When I finally got to it my heart felt like it was in my neck and wanted to take a look too through my mouth.
I grab a hold of the top and open the trunk.
All I saw then were more old papers and my heart went back down where it belonged, disappointed.
But these papers had writing on them, and the letters were clearly from the typewriter on the desk.
I picked up some of the papers and they all had the same sentence on them over and over again.
‘If you can’t love, you can’t hurt.’, over and over again.
The papers filled the entire trunk, which was odd, why keep them in a trunk?
I began to clean out the trunk, I stacked the papers next to it, and after a while I saw a white sheet.
My fingers grabbed onto the sheet and pulled it away.
A naked, filthy and half decomposed body was looking up at me.
It’s eyes looked like glass and the skin that was left looked shiny, like it had been mummified with floor wax or something.
The smell of mold, sweat and decay was hard to handle and my nose didn’t want to be close to it anymore so I stepped back.
I wondered who this person was, and if my grandfather had killed him.
For a moment I studied the man in the trunk, he had black hair, thick glasses and kinda chubby and a gap between his front teeth like Elmer Fudd.
I walk back to the ladder and hear my mom singing along to a song on the radio.
“Mom! Do you know a chubby man from a long time ago, he has thick glasses and a gap between his front teeth.”, I yelled down and waited for her to reply.
The volume of the music went down, “That must be Richard, we used to go out until I broke up with him and he began to stalk me. Why are you asking?”
“I just saw some photos and wondered who it was.”, I tell her and I sigh of relief when she tells me to get back to cleaning.
I got back to the body I now called by his name, Richard had to go.
My mother promised me I would get an game console if I did a good job cleaning out the attic, I would say her finding a dead body even though it’s not me who killed him would ruin that deal.
I could just throw back all the papers but my mom would surely find him that way.
The lock was broken so I couldn’t lock the trunk, then I had an idea to put him in the big clock and locking it, my mother never liked old clocks because of the ticking sound so she would never want to bring it downstairs.
I walked up to the clock and turned the key that locked the inner parts of the clock, the little door opened and another body was staring at me.
This time it was a skinny man with a baseball cap and pierced earlobes and a tattoo of a anchor on his upper left arm.
I closed the clock again and didn’t see any place to hide Richard.
Maybe next year I can do a good enough job to get a console.
I threw back all the papers and closed the trunk again, and continued cleaning up the attic.
It took a while to broom all the dust together and when I was done I went downstairs and followed the smell of pancakes.
Mother was making pancakes, I sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat some.
She sat next to me and asked, “So how did it go up in the attic?”
I took a sip of my orange juice before I told her all about what I found, except for the dead bodies part.
“And where did you see Richard’s photo?” She asked while she stroked her finger through my hair.
I didn’t want to seem suspicious so I made up a lie, “I looked at some photos that were in a box.”
“I also saw a photo of a guy with a baseball cap and earrings, oh and a anchor on his arm.”, I added.
My mom took a bite of a pancake she had covered in syrup before she told me who it was, “Tommy, we went out when I was in high school, turned out he went out with more girls than just me.”
“My father, your grandfather hated both of them. And he was right, they treated me like I was nothing.”,
She said and she kissed me on the forehead leaving a syrup print of her lips.
She got up and flipped some more pancakes, “I have no idea what came of them.”
I wasn’t sure if I could tell her, “Would you want to know?”
She pauses holding the spatula in the air, smoke was coming from the pan from the pancakes turning into charcoal, “Knowing my daddy, their probably long gone.”
I almost choked on a bite of pancake, and she tossed the black pancake onto the plate in front of me and she covered it in syrup.
“Just kidding.”, She said as she kissed my forehead again.
