Weevils

Corbett | July 24, 2009 4:50 AM

You don't become a weevil, you are born into it. Some people never find out, others relish in it. There are weevils all over the world, but most are in the US, emigrating from Europe where they were nearly wiped out. If you don't marry another weevil and have children, the lineage stops. Most people never know.

There are several types of weevil, the standard kind where you can swing three times from the pole, and let yourself go. There's also the backwards kind, where you have to release yourself backwards into the wall. There're other variations as well, such as my favorite, where you just hang upside down from your knees, and the turtle one, where you thump three times on a river bed, and a big rock turns into a turtle, and you jump onto the back of the river turtle. There're probably hundred's of others ways of doing it out there, but these are the ones I know about.

I saw the swinging pole in front of the house near the wall, and knew immediately the family were weevils. First, the pole was made of cedar, and was thicker, not like a pull up bar, but more like a tree branch. This was the giveaway. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. A little girl answered the door and gave me a sly know-it-all look. "Who you looking for?" she asked. "Just passing by," I said. "Anyone else home?"
"Only my sisters," she replied, and bounced off to wherever it is that little weevil girls go to. "So which kind are you?" I asked into the empty room. "I don't know what you're talking about," came the reply from another room. "Out front. You have a swinger. Don't you ever use it?"
"Oh, that. That was there when we moved in. It just sits there." I knew this was a lie. Any sign of weevils are destroyed before they move on. "Well, you won't mind then if I use it will you?" I asked. I stood out on the front lawn facing the house, and jumped up to grab the pole like I was going to do a pull up, then started swinging. I hope this really works, I thought to myself, as I let go on the third compulsory swing, feet first into the side of the house.

The side of the house opened up, and I tumbled in, half pleased with myself for being right, half terrified since I had no idea where I was. Sometimes you end up in someplace you've been to before, sometimes not. This time I was in a room which looked like an elevator shaft. The opening in the side of the house was still there, but covered with a curtain. I knew the little girl would soon poke her head in looking for me. She'd been in this room before. I knew it. Around me were a scattering a small New Mexico style coffins in different colors, and bunches of pillows on the floor. There was some light coming from somewhere. I waited in the corner until the girl poked her head in and when she did, I grabbed her arm, pulling her in.
"So you don't know what the swinger's for, huh?"
"Hey, jerk. What are doing in my room? How'd you do that?"
"I'm a front swinger," I said. "Your pole is a dead giveaway."
"Wait until my sisters come home. Your dead." She paused and decided to treat me as a friend. "Have you seen my guitar?" and started to open each of the little caskets like rifling through boxes. This was a bit unsettling. "What's with all the caskets?" I asked her, ready for some morbid answer. "Oh, they're for the guitars." she said, and pulled out a small white plastic one. "I found it," she smiled. "So how long are you going to stay?"
"I don't know. Probably just for the night. Will you tell your sister's when they get home? I'd like to meet them." She nodded but didn't leave the little elevator shaft/casket room. "So are you gonna just stand there and watch me or what?" She nodded again. Oh what the hell, I thought, and closed my eyes. I was immediately transported to a place I'd been to a many times before. It was a nice small Spanish village, rough rock streets, maybe mid-17th century. I hadn't been on this street for a long time, and walked for a while, breathing in the always startling contrast. I turned the corner into the little alcove I knew where the guitar maker lived. The first floor was a shop, and students lived upstairs. Actually apprentices. He only taught young people who wanted to make guitars, not play them. His name was Antonio Benitez. "Hey Benitez, are you there? I called up to an open window. "I'm looking for a guitar."
"Well you came to the right place," he said, walking out the shop door, wiping his hands on his apron. "Been a while, my friend." Benitez spoke decent English which was a huge help since I spoke only enough Spanish to get something to eat and find a place to sleep. "Where have you been. It's been a long time."
"How long?"
"At least three years." he said.
"I had no idea."
"Where do you go on these trips of yours?" he asked slyly, making me wonder if he knew what I was.
"Around. Looking for work mostly. Trying to figure out what I want to do."
"Whatever," he said. "Come, let's get you something to drink and find you that guitar."

Just then a voice brought me back. I opened my eyes, and I was back in the elevator shaft/casket room, and another head was looking at me from the outside. Her older sister obviously from the resemblance. "Who are you?" She looked at the little sister, who was sitting on a pillow playing with her plastic guitar. "He just showed up," she shrugged. "Then swung into my room. I found it." She held the toy guitar high for her sister to see. "Thank god," said the older one. She looked at me. We knew each other. It had been 25 years, but now I knew where I was. "Get on out of there," she told us. "Before people start wondering what's going on."
Back in the house, I asked her what had happened since school, and why we didn't know each other were weevils. "I had a suspicion," she said, "But it's not something you just ask someone, y'know? How come you never brought it up?"
"I didn't find out until years later. I was in a park somewhere, and saw this tree, and it just felt right to jump up and swing from it. Then I fell, and landed somewhere else. That was pretty freaky."
"So how'd you figure out how to get back?"
"The first time it was really scary. I just wandered around until I did something to pop back here."
"You're lucky. I hear there are people who never figure it out, and they get stuck. People think they are crazy." She quickly changed the subject. "We never told our little sister. But she knows. She's a backie. She can only do it swinging backwards into the wall, but who in their right mind would do that?"
So your parents never came back did they? She looked at me. "No. Just mom. Dad went nutty, died a few years back. Mom's still out there somewhere, we can feel her."
"That's terrible," was all I could mutter.

I touched her face with both hands, and caught up on the last 25 years in a quick flash. This was one trait shared by all weevils. You could understand a person's history by touching their face. This was how many begun to realize they were different. Her history was simple and sad. She worked hard, raised her sisters and herself, and protected them from whatever it was they were afraid of.
She touched mine. "Wow, you've really travelled." she said. "Yeah, there's not much else for me to do."

We talked this way into the night, waiting for the second sister to come home from work. I knew second sister well. We had actually dated once, years ago. I'd always felt they were a different family. It was funny to think that I would find out 25 years later, like this. I asked her about the guitar, once little sister was asleep.
"She found out one day, that she had this, you know, ability. We never told her. She was about four, and would disappear into the woods. One day she came back and told us about a friend she met, and brought back this toy guitar. I knew then that she couldn't separate the two worlds. We never tried to explain, and let her believe it was just a fairy tale. But she always kept the guitar. One day she started making little colorful coffins for the guitar, which sort of freaked us out. Here's a four year old making little box coffins. We stuffed them all into that room you found today and put her guitar in there with them. I think we'll have to tell her the truth now. She still thinks about that friend.
"I'll get her a real guitar," I said. "Next time I go back."

Category: Dreams

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