Old Bones

Old Bones

By Ed Staskus

   Even though he didn’t have much of a voice, Tommy Rawhead liked to sing. He liked to sing the one song everybody sang about him. “Rawhead and Bloody Bones, steals naughty children from their homes, takes them to his dirty den, and they are never seen again.” He loved that song. No child loved that song. Oliver didn’t like the song, especially since he was hearing it in a bad dream.

   He had gone to bed after dinner, after finishing his homework, working on a new ray gun, wrestling with his sister Emma, washing his face and brushing his teeth, and getting under the covers. It was early March. It was cold and windy. The electric wires attached to their house hummed in the air vortexes like the trilling of hummingbird wings.

   He had never heard of Tommy Rawhead, at least not until the middle of the night when the wind died down. The full moon drifted out from behind a cloud. He felt hot in his sleep and poked a leg out from under the bed cover to cool off. He started to dream. The song went round and round in his head.

   Tommy Rawhead and Bloody Bones came to fame in 1548 when he wrote the Last Will and Testament of the Devil. Tommy was the Devil’s secretary then. It was him to whom the devil dictated his will. “Written by my faithful secretary Rawhead and Bloody Bones in the spiteful audience of all the Court of Hell” is what the Devil said. He didn’t explain why Tommy had two names. 

   After he was downsized during one of Hell’s economic downturns  Tommy went on to become second-in-command to Thomas Lunford, a British Army Officer “of a very small and decayed fortune, with no good education, of a lawless disposition and a violent temper” in his Bishop’s Wars against the Scots.

   When the wars were over he began to haunt wells. After that he hooked up with Jenny Greenteeth and became the phantom of stagnant ponds. “Stay away from gravel pits or Rawhead and Bloody Bones will have you.” He was called Rawhead because all the skin from his skull had long ago been stripped away. He was called Bloody Bones because his favorite place to sit down was on a pile of bones.

   Oliver tossed and turned watching a bone man taking his ease on a seat of bones. He felt more hot than before. He pushed his bed cover aside. It fell to the floor. The wind rattled his window.

   Tommy Rawhead sailed across the Atlantic Ocean disguised as a deckhand and settled in Missouri. He went to live with Old Betty after he brought her beloved razorback, who had been gunned down by Old Dan, back to life. When the hog came to back to life it was a walking skeleton with a skinless head. Old Betty loved the beast, no matter what.

   Tommy Rawhead became a bogeyman in the 19th century. His No. 1 job was scaring children into obedience. That was how he made a living. His business card said “I awe children and keep them in subjection.” It was said he “lived in a dark cupboard, usually under the stairs. If you were heroic enough to peep through a crack you would get a glimpse of the dreadful, crouching creature, with blood running down his face, seated waiting on a pile of raw bones that had belonged to children who told lies or said bad words. If you peeped through the keyhole he got you anyway.”

   Oliver saw himself peeping through a keyhole. He saw Tommy Rawhead clicking and clacking down S. Ridge Rd. past Carst Monuments. Tommy stopped at Mr. Lee’s Bar and Grill and got a pint of ale to slake his thirst, but the ale poured out of him as fast as he poured it down his throat. Oliver watched him trudge past the Heritage Bible Church, spitting into the roadside channel as he passed.

   He woke up with a start. He knew in a flash where Tommy Rawhead was going. He was coming to their neighborhood. He was going to the house up the street and around the corner where the Lawson’s lived. Mrs. Lawson went to work somewhere every morning and didn’t come back until after six o’clock. Mr. Lawson worked at home, although nobody knew what he did. Whenever anybody asked he told them to mind their own business.

   The Lawson’s had twin boys. Oliver thought they were around six years old. They didn’t go to school. Mr. Lawson was home schooling them. He didn’t seem to like being a teacher, since he was always complaining about his boys acting up. “They’re always misbehaving,” he said. He was a strict master. Oliver often heard him yelling at his sons, reprimanding them, and telling them if they didn’t shape up the bogeyman would get them.

   They hadn’t gotten any vaccinations because Mr. Lawson didn’t believe in them. Oliver’s father told him and Emma, his sister, to be careful and not spend too much time around the boys.

   “We have all our vaccines, don’t we?” Oliver asked.

   “Yes, but that’s no reason to ask for trouble.”

   “Why does Mr. Lawson not believe in vaccines?”

   “He’s a vaccine skeptic.”

   “What’s that.”

   “That’s somebody who doesn’t believe in vaccines, maybe because he thinks there are bad ingredients and side effects or they have religious objections because they believe the body is sacred and shouldn’t be violated by foreign substances. They have faith in divine healing. Sometimes they don’t want anybody, like the government, telling them what to do.”

   “I hope he stops at red lights, even though the government is telling him to do that.”

   “I’m sure he doesn’t want to get a ticket every time he’s out driving somewhere.”

   “What if his kids get sick because they’re not vaccinated? Isn’t that the same as going through a red light and getting a ticket? Is somebody going to give him a ticket if they do?”

   “Shouldn’t you be working on your ray gun?”

   “OK, dad.”

   Oliver jumped out of bed and crept into his sister’s room. He poked her until Emma woke up.

   “What’s up?’ she asked.

   “Tommy Rawhead is coming to get the Lawson boys. We have to stop him.”

   “What should we do?”

   “We have to make him fall down.”

   “Wait a minute, who is Tommy Rawhead and why do we want to make him fall down?”

   “I’ll explain later. Do you still have that bag of marbles from Christmas?”

   “They’re downstairs.”

   “Good, let’s get our coats, the marbles, and go outside.”

   It was dark as pitch on S. Ridge Rd. Where they lived in Lake County didn’t believe in too many streetlights.

   “Where is this Rawhead, anyway?” Emma asked.

   “He’s coming from over there,” Oliver said, pointing to his left. “Let’s hide behind this tree until he gets here. When he turns the corner is when we’ll trip him up.”

   It wasn’t long before Tommy Rawhead came down S. Ridge Rd. clicking and clacking in the wind. He turned into their neighborhood.  Oliver told Emma to wait.

   “I’m going to jump out when he gets near us. When he starts chasing me I’m going to run. When we’re running past you throw all the marbles at his feet. Make sure at his feet and not my feet.”

   “All right.”

   “Hey Mr. Bogeyman, come and get me, you old bag of bones.”

   Tommy Rawhead didn’t like that. He whirled, fixed his empty eye sockets on Oliver, and ran straight at him. Oliver tossed him a chin flick and ran the other way. As they ran past Emma she threw the marbles at Tommy Rawhead’s feet. He saw the danger right away, but it was too late. His arms windmilled wildly. He kicked a leg out looking for firm ground but there wasn’t any. His legs splayed. He yelped as he hit the ground hard landing flat on his back. When he did he fell apart, his bones scattering every which way. When they did, Mrs. Lawson, who was  going to work early, ran over them and splintered them into little pieces.

   “Did you know that was going to happen?” Emma asked.

    “I didn’t know Mrs.  Lawson was going to run over him, but I thought if we could make him take a hard fall he might fall apart. Skeletons are just a  collection of bones held together by ligaments, which eventually decay. He was plenty old enough. I didn’t think through what we would have done with the bones, but Mrs. Lawson took care of that.”

   “All’s well that ends well,” Emma said.

   They went home, snuck up to their bedrooms, got under their covers, and fell into dreamless sleep. A tree branch in the wind clapped itself against the side of the house. It might as well have been one hand clapping.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the rough and tumble of the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of plugged in street level short stories blended with the historical times, set in Cleveland, Ohio.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Production