JUSTIN FELLOW

Mr. Snallygaster

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2024: VOL. 39.

Sundays were days of worship for some families, football for others. For me, it meant a visit to my grandparents where I would watch cartoons on the shag carpet with a cereal-filled stomach.

After his morning paper, toast and smoke, my grandfather would join me. Preposterously broad shoulders squeezed into a recliner that was for him and him alone. His barrel chest rose and fell with audible breaths as he would stare at the clouds through the sunroom’s bay windows.

We didn’t talk much, an occasional grunt in approval or disapproval, but nothing meaningful. I didn’t mind. My mother said that men from his era were like that and that men who fought in war often became like that.

Our relationship changed when Grandad asked, “Have you heard of the snallygaster?”

“What’s that?” I asked, half listening to him while watching my cartoon about anthropomorphic reptiles who studied the art of karate. 

“A monster. And not a make-believe monster like the ones in your TV programs.”

“Tell me, tell me.” I scooted to the leg of his recliner. “What does he look like?”

“The mean old Mr. Snallygaster has feathered wings, big as kites. His scaly skin is covered in awful boils. Human bones snap with a single bite from his beak. He swoops from the sky and captures any boy or girl misbehaving, so you best be behaving. And never look into his curdled milk-colored eyes. One glance is enough to scare a man dead. I would know.”

“What?” My mouth hung open. “You’ve seen him?”

“Once. Only once. And I’ve never been more scared.”

Anything that could scare Grandad must be frightening. From then on, I watched the Maryland skies, fearful and hoping to catch a glimpse of that mean old Mr. Snallygaster. On Sundays Grandad made me omelets and bacon which replaced my sugary cereal. Afterwards, we gazed out the window and saw monsters in the folds of cumulus clouds.

Years passed at the foot of his recliner. During our Sunday ritual, he would often interrupt my video game time with his stories.

“Morning dew glimmered on the Gettysburg grass and ‘Taps’ sounded particularly mournful. Then, there he was. President Eisenhower was a foot away from me. As long as I live, I will never forget when the president told me, ‘Thank you for your service.’” Grandad was practically beaming, recalling the handshake. “It was a hundred years to the day of Lincoln’s Address, five score years.” He looked at me as if he expected me to laugh.

I didn’t know who that was, where that was or who fought who. It seemed so long ago and unimportant. “Keep going Grandad. I’m listening,” I said while maneuvering my pixelated plumber over winged turtles on the TV screen.

Defeated, my grandfather retold the story of that mean old Mr. Snallygaster. I put down the game controller and listened to the tales of children disappearing, mothers crying and summers lost because of the snallygaster.

One day, I asked, “Where did you learn about the snallygaster?”

“When I was your age, we lived next to a nursing home. Dozens of old Union and Confederate soldiers were brought to the creek where I would skip rocks. Almost all of them were missing limbs from the war. You see, there was no saving an arm or leg when it was injured back then. Only way was to cut it off. I would often linger by the creek so I could sneakily gawk at their disfigured bodies to scare myself.” 

His story meandered and my focus moved to the pause screen on the TV.

“But there was one man who befriended me,” Grandad continued. “He would tell me war stories. I was young so I didn’t pay him much mind. That is, until he told me how he lost his arms.”

I had sprung to attention. “Was it the snallygaster, Grandad?”

“Bingo,” Grandad said. “But I figured he was telling tall tales because his story always ended with a warning to listen to my parents, wash behind my ears and make my bed like a good boy or the snallygaster will get me like it got him.” Grandad swiveled his chair to face the window. The sun-faded leather squeaked under his weight. “Soon after, I was attacked by that mean old Mr. Snallygaster. Once, only once. And that was enough for me.”

“How did you survive?”

“I was lucky or maybe the snallygaster sensed some good in me because the beast let me go. When my wounds healed, I waited by the creek for the elderly veteran to show him the feather that fell from the beast. I wanted to tell him that the snallygaster was real and that I believe him now. He didn’t come outside that day. I figured the nurses kept him in bed. Another day went with no appearance from the old man. Then another and another. I regret not taking advantage of his knowledge when I had the chance.”

He leaned towards me at the foot of his recliner. Cataracts had turned his pupils white. Truthfully, being so close to his icy gaze startled me. “But you’re a good boy. You listen to me. You’re scared of the mean old Mr. Snallygaster.”

“Yes sir. Yes sir.”

I became a burly teenager. The acne came first; the muscles developed later. I played football just like my old man and his old man. I grew out of the stories told to scare children.

“Come on, Gramps. I don’t want to hear that dumb snallygaster story. I’m not a kid anymore,” I said.

My grandfather snapped at me. “You don’t believe I was attacked by that mean old Mr. Snallygaster. You callin’ me a liar?”

“If the story’s real, where’s the feather?”

He struggled to stand from his recliner. His beet red face would have scared me when I was young or when he was young, but he looked feeble. His hands shook as he undid the top button of his shirt. He slowly unbuttoned another button, then another, until he flayed open his shirt and revealed a jagged scar running from his armpit to his pelvic bone.

“I saw the snallygaster once, only once.”

“That’s from the war,” I said. “Grandma has shown me your Purple Heart.”

“No human would do this to another human. Only that mean old Mr. Snallygaster.”

I went to college. My grandfather retired. There were no more Sundays together. After graduating and working for a few years, I yearned for simpler times. My grandfather, bored with retirement, missed when life was complicated.

During trips home, I asked my grandfather to tell me anything and everything. What was it like in the 1920s and 1930s? Did he remember the flappers, the bootleggers or the depression? What did Eisenhower’s hands feel like?

Sadly, he lost interest in those stories. He only talked about that mean old Mr. Snallygaster and how he saw the creature once, only once. I stopped asking and eventually stopped visiting.

I didn’t think about my grandfather until he broke his hip and moved in with my mother. The injury confined him to his peeling leather recliner where he would stare out the window. I didn’t recognize the man. His emaciated arms were attached to his body like strings on a kite. His spine unnaturally arched and his nose curved to a sharp point. Spots marked his wrinkled skin that felt scaly. Looking at his body scared me as it did when I was a boy. 

I fell in love, married and had a son. The happiest phase of my life was followed by heart ache. Both my aunts died. My grandmother passed. And then my mom went from a heart attack. At their funerals, my grandfather mumbled to whoever would listen that they were safe from that mean old Mr. Snallygaster.

My grandfather was left with no living children or relatives, except me. I put him in a home for veterans. It was nice enough. The nurses had trustworthy smiles. The winding corridors smelled of lemon-scented sterility. The labyrinth of rooms contained the last remnants of a certain era plugged into dialysis machines, buried under scratchy linen and swallowing capsules filled with pharmaceuticals to prolong this existence.

“This is for the best,” I said to myself.

The only thing I requested was that my grandfather’s bed be positioned to look out the window with a view of the Maryland sky.

When my son learned of his great-grandfather, he wanted to meet him. My grandfather was happy to have visitors and took a liking to my son. He told my son the story about the mean old Mr. Snallygaster. Just like me, my son marveled at Grandad’s scar.

After the visit, my son began looking up at the sky, hopeful and scared of what he might find. He begged to see his great-grandfather again. So, I took him every Sunday. During the weekly ritual, Grandad would call my son by my name, but neither of us minded.

“Tell the snallygaster story,” my son would say.

A sly smile would creep across Grandad’s face. “The mean old Mr. Snallygaster was the foulest creature I ever laid eyes upon.”

Almost a century apart and connected by blood, my son would sit crossed-legged near the bed pan and listen to Grandad croak through his story. Both their tongues would be stained red from strawberry hard candies that they shared. Occasionally, I needed to hold Grandad to steady him when he sat up for the part of the story when the snallygaster grabbed him.

One Sunday my grandfather looked perplexed by my son's request. “The what?”

“The snallygaster. The great-big monster from the sky,” my son said. “Tell the story.”

“There’s no monsters.”

“But you told me about him.”

“I did no such thing.”

My son looked at me for an answer. I had none. His confused and disappointed face twisted in such a way that only a loved one can bring about. “Y-you have the scar Great-Grandpapa,” my son said weakly.

My grandfather rolled to his side, facing away from the window, without saying anything.

I told my son, “We can come back next week. Great-Grandpapa is tired.”

Leaving the old folk’s home, my son asked, “Why doesn’t he remember?”

“Sometimes, older people forget.” I looked above and saw nothing in the wisps of cirrus clouds that normally revealed a hidden monster sutured on the blue canvas.

That week at the age of 101, my grandfather passed. While sorting through his life possessions that fit in a trunk, part of me wanted to find a feather. There were mostly black and white photos of people I didn’t recognize. Anyone who could identify them waswere long gone.

A shirtless picture of my grandfather standing by a lake caught my attention. By the looks of it, he was a teenager, years before his military service and Purple Heart. A scar ran from his pelvic bone to his armpit.

At the funeral, I told my family that Grandad was finally safe from that mean old Mr. Snallygaster.

That night, I tucked my son into his alligator bed sheets, snug in his dinosaur pajamas. Yet, he couldn’t sleep. To ease his mind, I retold the story of how my grandfather was taken by that mean old Mr. Snallygaster.

It didn’t have the same impact as when Grandad told it. My son tossed and turned under the covers. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he asked, “Have you seen the Snallygaster?”

I sat on the edge of the bed in pensive silence. “You’re the first person to ask me.”

My son’s eyes widened. “Did you see him?”

“Once. Only once.”

Justin Fellows is a Texas writer living in Bethesda, Maryland. His work can be found in Daikaijuzine, Mobius Blvd and has received honorable mention for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.