Nest Arpoog lived in the woods.  His dad, a self-ordained minister and Jesus freak, was weird to say the least.  I never saw him but his house spoke quite well for him.  In the basement existed a dusty collection of knives and old cloth-style paintings of the crucifixion. The paintings, fuzzy murals of saturated colors, were oddly distasteful.  The basement itself was cold, damp and unfriendly.  It reminded me of a torture room I once saw in a 70’s low budget horror film.

            From the best I knew, the Arpoog family relocated from some place in New Jersey to this isolated cabin after Nest’s mom passed away from cancer. According to Katie Arpoog, her dad became convinced that cities were evil.   Once they settled into the cabin, he banned her from T.V., and at first, he refused to let her get a job.  He made Nest give up extracurricular activities, she said, and start studying the bible.

            In truth, I only knew the Arpoogs because I had a thing for Katie, 10 years my junior but pretty as any girl my age.  I’m not usually into younger girls—immaturity issues, of course—but she was worth an undertaking.  I couldn’t categorize her either: she was interesting and clever, yet innocent all the same.   Whatever she was, I liked it.

            “I’m cursed sometimes,” she told me in the grocery store stock room.  We were unloading a pallet of canned goods.

            “Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ll undue this so-called curse.” I scuttled over and waved my hand over her head.

            “Shut up.  You are done with school.  You can do whatever you want.  Me, I’m truly cursed.” 

            “You’re beautiful.  You’re smart.  What else do you want?”

            “A life not weird.”

            “Everybody’s weird,” I said.

            “I thought dad would ground Nest for dropping out of school, but he didn’t.  As soon as Nest got into the church stuff, Dad said it was his plan.”

            “Holiness has its privileges.”  I laughed and she half-smiled, her mouth as smooth as a slice of melon.  But then she frowned as if what I had said, though funny, had simply worn off leaving her worse feeling than before.

            I dashed to the side of the room where chips, pretzels, and cheese balls were stacked higher than they should have been, and grabbed a bag of potato chips.

            “Invite me over,” I said.

            “What?”

            “Have me over for dinner.  I’d like to meet your dad and brother.” 

            “They might get mad you know and think I was bringing over a boyfriend.  And why would you want to come over anyway?”

            “We’re friends. ”  As I said this, I could hear my untruth wobble out like a loose flat tire. Luckily for me, however, she didn’t hear it.   She didn’t know my true intention.  She didn’t know that for the last couple days I had been wishing that she was more than just a friend and that I had wanted so bad to ask her out that I was thinking about it at night while fidgeting my fingers like a little boy. 

            After work on Friday, I followed her home.   She planned to have dinner about 6 and she didn’t want me to arrive till then, but because I’d probably never find her house, she let me follow her home. 

            It took about 30 minutes to get there.  The house was in the middle of nowhere.  As I pulled up, I saw a young man standing outside.  The man, wearing a black robe and hood, stared at me.  As I got out of the car, he kept his eyes locked on me and I almost laughed, but didn’t because that would have been mean.  I didn’t ask Katie if that was Nest because I knew with certainty it had to be.        

            Once inside, she told me her dad was downstairs and that he was always down there, sometimes for days, she confided.  She never told me this before, but I didn’t think much of it at this point.  When I asked to meet him, she reluctantly took me to the basement.  That’s when I saw the knives and pictures.  But her father had apparently gone outside to do some type of worship.

            “You know Nest is crazy.  He does things he shouldn’t.  Things unholy.”

            “Let’s fix dinner,” I said.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her, but the basement was starting to creep me out.

            Not acknowledging what I said, she walked to the wall and looked at a painting.  “He watches me take showers. He washes my body.  He says the only way to be clean is to be god clean.  I used to believe him when I was younger but now I know the truth.”

            “But,” she said, “he’s my brother and I love him.”  She turned and walked toward me

            “You’ve got to tell the police,” I said.

 “I’ve got to fix dinner.”  Her voice, now self-detached and emotionless, scared the hell out of me.  It was like she didn’t care anymore about what she told me.  She didn’t care being a victim.

            Then I heard footsteps behind me.  I turned and there was Nest as I had seen him outside, clad in a robe and hood.  I realized he had just heard all she had said.  He didn’t have any weapons, but he was standing back ready to attack.

            I quickly grabbed a painting and hit him with the side of it.  He stumbled to the ground and I wondered if I should hit him again.

            There I was in the Arpoog basement, standing in front of Nest Arpoog who I just knocked over next to a bunch of Jesus paintings.  

            It felt like it was me who I had knocked over.  Was it I on the floor? I wondered. Was I Nest Arpoog?” 

            If I was, I wasn’t now.