The Man In Black Checkered Pants

“Who was The Man in Black Checkered Pants?” my parents have asked from time to time. They recall with curiosity about my childish and surely exaggerated fear of this figure in my mind. I feared the backyard at the farm abutting the woods from whence he might again see me. I screamed after my nightmares in which he hid in my closet and beckoned to meet me. They reckon it’s a product of TV or something, and they might be right. The Head Start teacher told them maybe it was simply a childish fright Of an elderly man at a nursing home we visited who may have worn plaid pants ‘Cause such a threatening man is certainly not part of any stories we had in class. When they ask from time to time who The Man in Black Checkered Pants is, I have yet to say to even my family and kin, I didn’t know the word for thermal underwear, and I only recall the way the black undergarment stretched as he kneeled down to me, and on his knee I saw black squares stretched over the skin. Since then, I have developed quite a vocabulary, and I can explain many things I tried to communicate as a young child – now. But for all the words in the world that I have in my mouth, I still can’t spit that one out. Because maybe it was just my imagination, after all, and there’s really no proof. And if I say it aloud, this memory that might be imaginary might still gain truth. So when they ask from time to time about this figure in my mind, still amused by this little riddle to put together I just shrug, look away, and in most honesty say, “I don’t know. How are you liking the weather?”