Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [100]
The weekend prior to the collection, Milo and his troop had canvassed the same area, passing out leaflets that informed residents of their bottle and can drive and inviting them to leave the empties by their front doors to be picked up. Though many residents had done just that, others had not. Milo’s scoutmaster, Mr. Daniels, a meticulous man who folded and reused the aluminum foil in which the troop’s burgers and hot dogs were wrapped, had asked the boys to knock on every one of these doors in the event that the resident had simply forgotten the day of the collection. And this request had paid off. More than half of the doors that Milo and Scotty had knocked on that afternoon had residents behind them who were more than willing to donate bottles and cans to the drive. When Milo knocked at 324 Skinner Road, Scotty was a quarter-mile away, canvassing a cul-de-sac off his side of the main road, though Milo didn’t know it at the time.
The woman who answered the door did not look well. There were many aspects of her appearance that were askew: oily hair, fuzzy pink headband (the kind a little girl might wear), and her outfit, which seemed to amount to a man’s white tank top, a teal bra (clearly visible through the larger-than-necessary holes for her arms), an apron wrapped around her waist, a pair of checkered boxer shorts, and pink slippers. But it had been her hands, one trembling as it cracked open the door and the other stuffed into an apron pocket, pressed up against her body as if she were in danger of having it taken away, that told Milo that something was not right. His eyes made contact with the woman’s, and for a moment, he nearly turned and walked away, the silent warning in those gray irises nearly enough to convince him to go. Instead, he spoke.
“Hi. My name is Milo. I’m with Boy Scout Troop Twelve and we’re collecting bottles and cans for recycling. We use the money to help us go to camp. Do you have any empties that we could have?”
The woman remained silent for a moment, maintaining her gaze on Milo as if offering a last chance at escape, before finally looking back into the house and calling out, “Louis?” A moment later, without any response that Milo could hear, the woman invited Milo to enter.
The door opened up onto a dimly lit living room carpeted in a thinning olive green shag. Though Milo hadn’t noticed from the outside, the shades were drawn and the only illumination was coming from a lamp that was positioned on an end table adjacent to a patchwork couch, and from a large console television to the far right.
Both sources of illumination startled Milo.
The lamp, a three foot tall replica of a woman’s leg, adorned in a stiletto and garter belt and topped with a lampshade tasseled with purple and red fringe. The lamp looked remarkably similar to the one featured in the classic movie A Christmas Story, a film that had failed miserably in theaters only to gain popularity once it was syndicated for television. At the time, the movie was just becoming a holiday staple on network television, but Milo hadn’t seen it yet. If he had, it might have reduced his shock on noticing this highly suggestive lighting fixture.
Of course, this lamp paled in comparison to what was showing on the television: four naked muscular men having sex with a petite blond female modeling an outfit surprisingly similar to the lamp’s. The performers, writhing on a bed large enough to fill the living room in which Milo was now standing, were moaning, whimpering, and panting in ways that Milo had never heard before.
Reclining in front of the television, in a La-Z-Boy that was comically large in comparison to his size, was a rail-thin man in dark horn-rimmed glasses, a white tank top, camouflage pants, and black combat boots. His receding hairline exposed a wrinkled, pale forehead, and a bald patch had formed in the back as well, making it seem as though his scalp were waging a two-front war on baldness, without