That Dusty Old Can of Stroh's
They say the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. But what about the one hiding just around the corner from the home you've believed was safe your whole life?
This is Chapter 11 of The Stories We Tell, a nostalgic lookback on friendship, growing up, and the hopes we have of becoming heroes. It’s The Wonder Years meets The Sandlot with sprinklings of Friday Night Lights.
New stories are published (almost) weekly.
For a list of all chapters, please visit: Chapter List - The Stories We Tell.
The clock said 12:00 PM, and the thermometer read 98 degrees when we set down empty cups of purple Kool-Aid, left my kitchen, and started on the five-block walk to see if evil lurked around the corner in the small neighborhood we’d lived in our whole lives.
I carried an aluminum baseball bat in hands I couldn’t stop from shaking since Grandpa opened his mouth, poured a half dozen pints of Stroh’s down it, and started talking haunted storefronts.
Mike carried a shovel over his shoulder and a plastic bag full of extra poppers in his back pocket leftover from when we tried to see Sharon Stone up close and personal.
B, his face paler than the horse in the bible’s last book, had us wondering if he might get sick.
All of us walked together with eyes down and hearts full of fears imagining what we might see. All of us except for Ryan.
Ryan moved a few steps ahead, sweating and smiling, setting a quick pace. This adventure had been his idea, and I couldn’t help but notice something different in him. He wasn’t nervous, or afraid, like the rest of us. If anything, he seemed almost excited, even a little bouncy. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why.
The yard looked ten years past due for a fresh cut. Green weeds clawed from under the short sidewalk leading up to the old store, twisting around each other like they were trying to strangle something. Vines crawled and curled up the rotted-wood siding, climbing boards like a stepladder out from their dungeon. Old, wood panels chipped and breaking covered most of the windows. On one side, the front porch had caved, and the whole two-story store leaned to its right.
Death, it felt, was all that could survive here.
Tall trees with thick leaves stood in the little surrounding yard. They beat back the sun, so walking near the house meant we moved now in the shadows on this sunny day. On one side of the building below two large windows someone had spray painted a strange symbol, a row of what looked like upside-down commas overlapping each other.
"Here!" Ryan shouted from the other side and caught my attention. "I found something."
A board covering one of the windows had fallen loose. The window was too tall for us to see inside the store standing on the ground. Ryan stacked several old cinder blocks under it so we could look inside if we dared. I wondered if they were the same blocks - and this was the same window - that had claimed part of Grandpa’s forearm.
For a long time, we stood and stared. Stared at each other, nobody wanting to look first. Stared at the store, wondering what secrets the vines and dirt hid. Stared at the ground, all too scared to move or speak.
A squirrel flew off the tree overhead and landed in the middle of us before dashing away.
"Holy s**t," we jumped backwards. My heart leapt into my throat.
"Since you’re all a bunch of wimps, I’ll do it. I’ll go first.” Mike pounded his chest, kicked up dirt, and popped up on the cinder blocks.
“Noooooo!” Mike shouted a second later and jerked away from the window.
He tumbled backwards and thumped hard onto a patch of dirt and pebbles. He shook up dust as he scooted on his butt away from the house, 4th of July poppers bursting into his behind with each scoot.
B made the next move and stepped to the window.
“It’s reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllll,” B shouted and sprinted away from the house, the last we saw or heard from him for two days,
Ryan and I looked at each other. Neither of us wanted to go next. Neither of us would budge. So, we settled our stalemate like men. Ryan threw scissors. I threw paper. And next thing I was climbing the cinder blocks to confront my fate. Grime and dust covered the window, and I saw the streaks where the sweat off the foreheads of Mike and B had smudged the window.
I sucked in a deep breath and took in as much of the room as I could. Tables and chairs had been flipped over and tossed everywhere. Old paintings clung loose to old walls dangling on their old nails. Part of a cabinet had shattered, and pieces lay spread across the ground. Cracked plates and glasses, some tall and some short, decorated the floor.
Then, like a scene from a movie I’d never want to see again, the wind stopped blowing and all the little rustles an old property makes hushed. The trees seemed to squeeze in on me, their heavy leaves becoming a weight on my shoulders
The shadows closed in. Sweat dripped off my forehead and slight streaks of mud ran down the window. My heart rattled into my chest trying to break free from the cage of terror I’d trapped us in.
Inside me felt like every second the old man in Pet Sematary was on screen. Something bad was about to happen. I just didn’t know what. Or when.
I looked closer, scanning the mess until, just off the center of the room, I saw it. I saw what sent Mike into hiding behind an overgrown bush and why B fled for home.
I saw it and wondered how it had taken me so long to see something I would never, ever, forget.
The dark, hardwood floor was covered in dust. And drawn into it was the same symbol spray painted on the outside walls. What looked like upside-down commas were all connected to form a large circle. Inside the circle was one thing, and one thing only. The thing was filthy, old, and emptied long ago. But its label, though faded and dressed in dust, was unmistakable.
The label read: Stroh’s.
That dusty old can of Stroh’s was Grandpa’s from all those years ago. Everything he and Grandma said was true.
I turned and faced Ryan, tears spilling down my cheeks spotted by dirt and desperation.
"It's true," I said. "It's all true."
*** As a special bonus clip, I’ve also shared a real story about the first time I watched Pet Semetary. This one is 100% true. **