sheep man

The doorbell rang. I rushed to put away the stuffed animals I had been playing with. At 11, I was afraid my cousin Patty would think me too old for dolls. I wasn't. Arranging them around me in bed, I would talk to each of them, making sure no one felt neglected. At night, they encircled me, keeping me safe from the closet monster.

"Noreen, come see your cousin Patty," my mom called.

I rushed out of my bedroom and into the hall. Uncle Charlie and Patty were standing in the open door with my parents. I felt suddenly shy.

"Hiya kid," Uncle Charlie shucked me roughly on the back.

"Hi Uncle Charlie."

"Say hi to your cousin Patty." my mom pushed me forward.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"You two haven't seen each other in a few years, huh?" Uncle Charlie said, bending down to me.

"Guess not," I shrugged.

"Wanna beer, brother?" my dad asked.

"Lead the way."

"Take your cousin outside Noreen. See if anyone's around to play," my mom instructed.

My parents and Uncle Charlie walked towards the kitchen, leaving us alone. I smiled at Patty, who looked bored. She was only a year older than me, but acted like she was stuck babysitting me or something. I led her out of the apartment and into the hot summer sun.

We stood on the stoop and surveyed the street. The neighborhood was empty. Most of my friends were gone for the weekend, down the shore or at grandparents' houses with pools. I looked up and down the block and shrugged at Patty.

"Guess nobody's around." I looked apologetically at Patty. She rolled her eyes at me. We sat on the stoop, chins in hands.

"Looks boring here," she said staring at the empty street.

"Sometimes," I agreed.

Patty balanced on the edge of the top step, walking back and forth with her arms stretched out.

"So what's to do?"

"We could go to the little league field." I suggested.

"Nah." Patty slid down the railing.

"Play catch?"

"Uh uh."

"Ride bikes?"

"Nope."

I was out of ideas. We again sat on the stoop with our chins in our hands, looking up and down the block for excitement. Patty began jumping on the stairs.

"Got a roller rink?" she asked hopefully.

"Uh uh."

"Bowling?"

"No."

"Arcade?"

"Yeah! Mr. Bigs," I said, relieved that we had something in town.

"Excellent! Let's go." Patty ran down the stoop and opened the gate. I sat unmoving, looking down at her.

"Can't." Patty trudged back up the steps towards me.

"Whaddya mean we can't?" She was now exasperated with me.

"My mom won't let me. She says people do drugs there."

"Big woop!" Patty hooted. I shrugged sorrowfully. Patty plopped back down next to me, defeated.

"You know, my brother does drugs," Patty offered proudly.

"I know."

"How do you know?" Patty stood over me angrily.

"Heard my parents talking."

"Oh." Patty answered, deflated.

We killed some time jumping up and down the stairs. Patty would jump up the steps, while I would jump down the steps. Then we would switch directions. I scanned the city in my head, looking for something impressive to do.

"I know! We can go see Sheep Man!"
Patty looked down her nose at me, mildly interested. "It's this guy...." I began.

My friends and I had discovered Sheep Man while walking home from school one day. We heard him before we saw him. There was a high-pitched noise that could best be described as a bleat. We stopped talking and tilted our heads, straining to make out the noise. Walking slowly down the sidewalk, we followed the repetitive sound, looking at each other, puzzled.

As we approached a beautiful brownstone, the noise ceased. A dirty farm smell hit us. We pinched our noses and stared inside the gate of the house. There were flower pots in the windows and a decorative wreath on the front door. The inside of the gate, however, was littered with garbage. A filthy mattress was in the corner, piled high with crumpled newspapers. The acrid smell emanating from the pile was sharp and sour.

"Dare you to go in and sit on that," Dom shoved Henry near the gate.

"Eat my fart." Henry responded, shoving Dom back.

"Do my math and I'll do it," Joey offered Dom.

"Deal!"

Dom approached the gate and stared inside. The rest of us backed away, holding our breath out of disgust, and fear. Dom inched forward, his hand on the gate. As he began to push it open, a high-pitched screech squeaked out of the gate. We all took another step backward as Dom took a tentative step inside the gate. With both feet inside the property, he let go of the gate, which swung shut and clanged loudly behind him. At that instant, there was a sudden flurry of activity on the mattress. The newspapers exploded off of the mattress as something shot forward towards Dom.

"Bahh! Bahh!" It bleated as it charged Dom. The group of us screamed as our sneakers smacked the pavement, running away from Dom and the house. I looked back once, relieved to see that Dom had escaped and was a little bit behind our pack.

"Whatssa matter wit you kids? Got ants in the pants?" Sister Marie asked the next afternoon. We were fidgety and anxious. At lunch, it was agreed that we would take another walk to the brownstone and find out what "It" was. A mixture of curiosity and terror kept us wiggling around in our desks, watching and waiting for the clock to strike three.

There had been brave talk at lunch, but now as we approached the block, our steps dragged and our pace slowed. We talked strategy.

"The girls will cross the street and hide behind a car, observing." Tina explained. "The boys will stand in front of the house and call it out."

"Why do the boys have to call it?" Dom demanded, still shaking from his near-death experiencethe day before.

"Cause boys are faster and stronger," Tina batted her eyes at Dom, though everyone knew she was both faster and stronger than any boy in our class.

"Well how do we call it out?" Henry asked.

"Use its language. Bahh! Bahh!" I offered.

It was settled. The girls crossed the street and crouched down behind a van, in perfect view of the house. The lump was on the mattress, buried under newspaper. There was no noise, but even across the street, we had to pinch our noses against the odor. We waved the boys on, signaling that it was safe to proceed. They tried to look tough, walking on the balls of their feet with their scrawny chests puffed out, but their faces were drawn with fear.

They stood in a line in front of the gate, not daring to open it. Dom looked nervously back at us, and we urged him on. The boys opened their mouths but balked at producing any sound. Tina nudged me, and we began for the boys.

"Bahh! Bahh! Bahh!" we shouted loudly.

The boys shot us angry looks and shushed us from across the street. None of them saw the eruption from the mattress. We tried to warn them, but it was too late. The newspapers flew up into the air as a blurred figure raced towards the gate. The boys turned in time to see it staring them down. They screamed and shoved each other away from the house, running down the street. I had to force myself not to cover my eyes in order to get a good look at it.

It was not an "it", it was a "he". His clothing was raggedy and hung loosely about him. His wild curls shot forth from his head like corkscrews. A narrow, devilish goatee hung from his chin. His thin sloping nose pointed towards buck teeth, which showed from under his raised upper lip. Although he looked like a grown man, he was small and thin, with rounded shoulders and a slumbering gait. In one fluid movement he bounded over the gate towards the boys. He did not run flat out like the boys. He galloped and bleated after them, like an animal. Like a sheep!

The girls and I hid behind the van as Sheep Man chased the boys down the block. After a few moments, he came galloping back down the block, alone. He jumped the gate to the house once again, and rested on the mattress. We watched as he scratched his head and behind his ears and sniffed the air. His head shot back and forth with quick jerks. He bleated sadly a few times, then burrowed back under the mound of newspapers on the mattress.

At school the next day, the boys and girls compared notes. The boys reported that Sheep Man was not fast, but he was persistent and had chased them for two blocks. The girls had decided that he was half-man, half-sheep, and everyone agreed that Sheep Man was the most appropriate name for our new discovery. We made it part of our daily routine to walk past his house, bleating out to him. Most days, he would pounce off the mattress bahhing and galloping after us, while we ran screaming away. Some days, he would bahh meekly from his mattress and we would walk on, disappointed.

"Yeah? Then what?" Patty asked in anticipation.

"That's it. He chases us. We get away."

"That's stupid!"

I shrugged, sorry to disappoint my cousin. We continued looking up and down the empty street, looking for any signs of life.

"We have elephant boy," Patty offered quietly.

"Huh?"

"Where I live. Elephant boy."

"What's he look like? Does he have a trunk or something?" I pictured an elephant head sitting atop a boy's body. My eyes widened in disbelief as Patty again rolled her eyes at me.

"No stupid! He's this kid with this disease and his head is all weird and wrong. Like one eye's up and one's down. And he's lumpy."

"Eww!"

"Yeah. It's cool. We go over and throw peanuts at him and stuff." Patty prattled on.

"O-kay," I said, really disturbed by Patty's excitement.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Nothin. It's just....kinda mean." I said, looking down at my shoes.

"Oh. Okay. Bahh!"

I shrugged. It didn't seem like we were being mean to Sheep Man. I kinda felt like he was our friend or something. Who else went over to his house every day and hung out with him? Okay, so maybe we didn't hang out so much as take him for a walk. Either way, I didn't see that what we did was the same as throwing peanuts at a poor deformed kid.

We sat on the stoop for a while, avoiding each other's eyes. I wondered how long Uncle Charlie planned on staying, and wondered if it would be rude to leave Patty alone on the stoop.

"So?" she finally asked.

"So, what?" I responded, still not looking at her.

"Are we gonna go see Sheep Man or what?"

We stared blankly at each other for a moment. Finally, I shrugged my shoulders and we bounded down the steps and out of the gate, walking towards Sheep Man's house.

"Bahh!" Patty shouted and shoved me into a parked car.

"Bahh!" I replied, shoving her into a garbage can.

I wondered when we would visit her house. I wouldn't throw any peanuts, but I was curious to see Elephant Boy for myself.