Big Palmer & Little Palmer

by Zach Low

The babysitter's backyard shared a fence line with theirs. In the Polaroid from the birthday party, you can just make them out on the other side of the chain-link:

Big Palmer and Little Palmer.

That was all anyone ever called them; nobody was sure if it was their first name or last. Information about the family was gathered piecemeal and lacked corroboration. We'd heard L.P. was a breech baby, resulting in an emergency C-section that almost killed his mother, Sherri.

We never saw too much of her.

Father and son shared certain defining features: sandy blonde hair, cowlicked in the same spot; large ears; small dark eyes, too close together under thick-lensed glasses; disproportionately large hands for their short frames.

And the same body odor: sickly sweet, as if their pores leaked maple syrup. They were always sweating.

From their side of the fence, the pair grinned with the ignorant menace of starving predators. Coupled with their big ears, it made them resemble wild sub-Saharan dogs, mad from the heat and dust and feeding on the dead. No one ever said they'd seen bite marks on Sherri, but we wouldn't have been surprised if they were there.

When we heard their garage door moan open, that meant it was time to go back inside. Their presence shifted the atmosphere of an afternoon. Vibrations went violent. We knew we were never to be alone with Big Palmer or Little Palmer, and especially not alone with both of them at once.

The ambulance came sometimes. The babysitter's son told us one night, he saw B.P. and L.P. in the backyard, running naked in circles and howling at the moon. We gathered clues about what went on inside their house on garbage days: a broken nightstand; stained couch cushions; dozens of green and brown bottles. Flies rejoiced in the slick cellophane of red meat packaging.

L.P. often paced in front of the gate to the babysitter's yard, growling to be let in. He was only invited to play when she was outside with us, and one time, she sent him home for pissing on the slide and forcing the younger kids to go down it.

We never told her what he asked us about the Devil.

They disappeared one Friday afternoon, didn’t even close the garage door behind them.

In the background of the photo, behind our smiling faces and the streamers and cake, Big Palmer and Little Palmer are loading something long into the bed of their truck, and whatever it was, it was the only thing they took with them, and they never came back for anything else.

Zach Low is a Chicago-based, Ohio-bred writer. A graduate of the Ohio State University Film Studies Program, he has written several short films, and a feature he co-wrote is currently in post-production. Zach lives with his wife and cat in Hyde Park, where he can usually be found watching, reading, or writing something upsetting. Find out more and get in touch here: https://linktr.ee/zach_g_low