By Ed Staskus

   Oliver’s grandmother, who was 18 years younger than his grandfather, had a younger brother living in Kaunas. The city is in south-central Lithuania where the Neris and Nemunas rivers meet. Kaunas Castle is a still-standing medieval fortress. Kaunas Cathedral Basilica is in the old town. Laisvės Aleja crosses the city from east to west. It is a pedestrian-style street lined with cafes shady under a canopy of trees.

   The younger brother was a middle-aged man with a family. They lived in a small house with not enough bedrooms. It was on the outskirts of the city, in Uzliedziai near the main roadway. Oliver and his father visited him on Sunday, a day after arriving from the United States.

   Oliver was the Monster Hunter of Lake County, where he and his family lived not far from Cleveland, Ohio. His father was an electrical engineer. He was in Lithuania with a three-man team working on an improvement project at the Heat and Power Plant of Kaunas. Since it was his summer vacation, Oliver had tagged along with his father.

   Sigitas was the younger brother’s name. He was a construction foreman, short and stocky, had forearms like a blacksmith, and wore his hair like a military man, which he had once been. His wife was short and stocky like him. Her name was Ona. She wore her hair in a bun. They had four children. Three of them were teenagers. One of them was a child.

   Oliver and his father got lost going to Uzliedziai and were late for lunch. The family was already at the dining room table when they got there. Sigitas was sitting at the head of the table, Ona opposite him, the oldest son to his father’s right, and the rest of the brood catch-as-catch-can. Lunch was cold beetroot soup and curd pancakes. The soup had pickled cucumbers and chopped hard-boiled eggs in it. The curd pancakes were eggs, dry crumbled cottage cheese, and sour cream, along with flour, sugar, and salt. Bilberry and raspberry jam were on the side. 

   After lunch Sigtas, Ona, Oliver, and Oliver’s father sat on the front porch. Sigitas had a bottle of Svyturys Ekstra beer. Ona had a glass of Vyritas, a honey liqueur, while Oliver and his father had cold cans of Kvass, a non-alcoholic beer made from barley malt. Oliver’s father thought it tasted like a cross between beer and kombucha. Oliver thought it tasted sparkly tart. Ona didn’t speak a word of English, but Sigitas made up for her. He spoke English well enough and translated what was said to his wife.

   When he told her what Oliver had said about hunting monsters at home in Ohio her ears pricked up. She said something to Sigitas who then said it to Oliver.

   “Do you think you could help us with a problem we are having?”

   “I could try,” Oliver said. “What is the problem?” 

   “Baubas is the problem.”

   “What is Baubas?” Oliver asked.

   “Baubas is an evil spirit,”  Sigitas said. “He is a black and dark creature. He has long arms, claw fingers, and red eyes. He lives on mold and fungus. He hides in basements, under carpets, and hidden spots of the house. He harasses the young and tears their hair out. He is like your boogeyman. Parents tell their misbehaving children, ‘Behave, or Baubas will come and get you.’ It’s been said he steals bad children and takes them away, never to be seen again.”

   In Germany Baubas is the butzemann. In Poland he is the bida. In Spain he is El Bolo. He is here there and everywhere. He is the black sheep of the family.

   “Has Baubas been bothering your family?” Oliver asked.

   “Only our youngest girl. The others don’t believe in bogeymen.”

   “Has the girl been bad?”

   “No, not at all, unless she’s been bad in her thoughts.”

   “Maybe Baubas picked the wrong little girl to bother.”

   “We think Baubas is trying to make her be bad,” Sigitas said. “He hasn’t been harassing our Daiva or tearing her hair out. Instead, he’s been hiding under her bed and sneaking into her dreams.”

   “Oh, that’s bad,” Oliver said. “He’s getting into her brain. Has he been leaving a book for her to read in bed before she goes to sleep.”

   “She has a new book she found somewhere. It’s a pop-up storybook. She reads it every night.”

   “That’s how he’s getting into her dreams,” Oliver said.

   “We don’t like the book. Some of the pop-ups are of Baubas saying ‘Let me in!’ Whenever we find it we throw it away but every day it’s under Daiva’s bed again. Every night in the  middle of the night she wakes up screaming.”

   “Since the book seems like it is problem No. 1, we can do what they do where I come from, which is either ban it or burn it.”

   “I thought America believed in free speech,” Sigitas said.

   Oliver’s father snorted. “It depends on what America you are talking about. If it’s Vermont or California, book banning is banned. If it’s Texas or Florida, ‘the children’s book ‘Charlotte’s Web’ is banned. If it’s the book ‘1984’ it’s banned everywhere in the South. It’s the most banned book in America. ‘Mein Kampf’ isn’t banned anywhere, believe it or not. Some school boards in Virginia want to burn books and never mind the banning.”

    “That is what the Nazi’s used to do,” Sigitas said.

   “I’m afraid we are going to have to burn Baubas’s pop-up book if we can find it. Do you know where it is?” Oliver asked.

   “I threw it in the trash this morning.”

   When they looked in the trash it wasn’t there. When they looked under Daiva’s bed it was there again. Oliver belly crawled under her bed and retrieved it. He turned the pages. They were soiled and greasy. 

   “Baubas has got himself all puffed up,” he said, showing them a page that said, “You cannot get rid of me!” Oliver knew it was bravado, but a Russian roulette kind of bravado. “We are going to have to burn this book and bury the ashes in twelve different spots in a forest. When we bury the ashes we are going to have to burn a sprig of sage over every one of the spots.”

   They drove to a secluded spot in the Babtu-Varluvos forest. They first stood in a circle in a parking lot while Ona burned the book. A curious park ranger watched from a distance. Sigitas had brought a pail and shovel. Oliver’s father had brought a bag of sage. They carried the ashes in the pail and buried them in twelve scattered spots. They waved burning sprigs of sage over every spot. When they were done a hot wind blew through the trees. They returned to Udliedziai in silence.

   When they got back, pulling up to the house, they saw Baubas walking away with a bindle over his shoulder. The stick was hazel wood with a sack at the end of it.  The sack was made out of rags. They could see bones sticking out of it. Baubas gave them a sour look. He didn’t say goodbye.

   “There goes the pop-up nightmare,” Oliver said.

   “Sudievo, velnio ishpera,” Sigitas said. “Nesiartink.”

   “Amen to that,” Oliver’s father said.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. 

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

Atlantic Canada, 1989. A small town on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A satchel of counterfeit money. Two contract killers from Montreal. One RCMP gravel road cop stands in their way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication