Hairy Man Road
I heard the legend of the Hairy Man as often as any kid who grew up in the Texas Hill Country. He was our own local Sasquatch, and I believed in him about as much as I believed in the tooth fairy.
Then last September, Aunt Vera came to visit. She’s so much cooler than my mom. It’s sometimes hard to believe they are sisters. My aunt thinks of herself as a free spirit — my mom has other words for it, but they really love each other and Aunt Vera usually stays with us for a few weeks at a time when she visits our neck of the woods, as she calls it.
Our neck of the woods happens to be a suburban area just north of Austin, Texas, the city I was named after and where I was born. Being named Austin might be cool if I ever move away from here, but I get teased about it a lot. I guess it could be worse. I used to ask my mom if she would have named me Volvo, after her car, if I’d been a girl. Of course I drive that Volvo now, so I don’t make that joke anymore.
My aunt loves to find unusual things to do when she visits. We’ve toured all the local caves, watched the bats from Town Lake, tried to find dinosaur tracks on the San Gabriel River, and shopped on every small town Main Street in a hundred mile radius. Being a teenager, I was able to skip the winery tour on her last visit. She had a “girl’s day” with my mom, while my dad and I watched college football with Peter, my aunt’s seventh husband. (I’d stopped calling them my uncles at number four.)
This time, Aunt Vera had her heart set on attending the Hairy Man Festival and learning everything she could about our local legend. I was mortified. I mean, what sixteen year old boy actually wants to go to an event where they give prizes to men for having the most body hair? I’d just gotten comfortable with the fact that I had body hair a few years ago. I was hoping to be able to grow an actual beard of my own one day, but the best I could do then was a sort of goatee that my mother insisted I shave off as soon as she noticed it. Body hair issues be damned, my aunt was determined we should all go. I tried to make the best of it so I invited my friend Emily to come with us.
Emily grew up in the house next door and had been my friend for as long as I could remember. Her parents divorced a few years ago and she and her brother Zachary moved with their mom into a duplex closer to town, where their mother worked. Emily went to a different school now, and last summer she stayed with her dad in California, so it had been almost a year since I’d seen her in person. She had always loved telling the story of the Hairy Man, so I thought she might think the festival was fun; and if she was coming, I’d probably have fun too. My mom liked to call Emily my girlfriend since we were always texting, but it wasn’t really like that. We just had a lot in common, and she made me laugh.
We picked up Emily on our way to the festival. I was surprised when I saw her. She looked different. She seemed taller, or at least her legs looked longer, and the white shorts she was wearing made them look really tan. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, still brown, but it looked like she had added blond and red streaks. She wore a blue t-shirt that seemed a bit too small for her. I’d never really noticed that she had boobs before. Not wanting to be caught checking her out, I made eye contact and smiled. She smiled back, and all I could think was, Wow. Were her eyes always that blue?
I was relieved when Zach came outside and asked to go with us. Zach seemed exactly the same. Two years younger than Emily, Zach was fourteen but still acted like he was ten. The conversation in the backseat was dominated by details of his new favorite video game, and I joined in to avoid thinking about the odd feeling of heat down my leg where Emily’s rested against it.
The festival was outside in a park, a few miles from Hairy Man Road. It was fall, but in this part of Texas, it was still almost 90 degrees. The grass had withered in a record drought that summer, so the ground was bone dry and dusty. There were large oak trees near the main stage so we headed for the shade. A story-teller, who was just finishing an embellished version of the Hairy Man legend, added Native American and Pioneer tales to the story of the lost boy who grew up in the woods. When he finished, a woman I recognized as a local news anchor began introducing contestants for the Hairy Man prize.
I wanted to go explore the vendor booths or walk along the creek, but Emily and Zach insisted on staying for the whole show. They soon had me in stitches with running commentary about the contestants. They debated pros and cons of gold chains when paired with large amounts of chest hair. I was relieved that Emily chose the con position. She wondered how one got his back hair so soft and tangle free and then Zach estimated the potential drag of each man’s body hair on swimming lap times. I doubted any of these men were going for Olympic trials, but admired his math skills nonetheless. I found myself having fun the way we used to when they lived next door.
Once the Hairiest Man had been crowned, we left my mom and Aunt Vera by the artists’ booths and wandered toward the food stands declaring we could only eat things that had been deep-fried. It was Texas, so we had plenty of options to choose from. We were busy discussing whether a fried moon pie was weird, but delicious, or just gross when Emily heard someone calling her name. She turned and waved to a group of kids and invited them to join us.
I disliked Brandon on sight. His clothes all came from A&F. (You know, that store in the mall where they use pictures of shirtless models to sell their clothes.) He was taller than me by five or six inches making him at least 6’3” since I am 5’9 and 3/4”. He had blond hair cut short in the back, but the hair in front was long enough that he kept pushing it up off his forehead. Emily seemed not to notice his obvious flaws, and I stood there awkwardly for a few minutes while they talked, before she thought to introduce us. He shook my hand like a politician asking for my vote, and then introduced me to his friends Kyle and Nicole.
Kyle had brown hair cut really close to his head. He was almost as tall as Brandon, and even broader in the shoulders. Kyle played football with Brandon. Of course they both played football, this was Texas. I felt like an atheist at a church social when I admitted I didn’t play any sports.
Nicole was short. The top of her head barely reached Kyle’s shoulder. She had black hair with pink streaks and I wondered if she dyed her hair to match her sundress but I didn’t want to ask her. She was starting to sunburn, and I wondered how she’d stayed so pale through a Texas summer. I did ask her that; and she admitted she had just moved here from Canada and was not prepared for the heat. She was friendly and talked to Zach and me the same way she talked to Brandon and Kyle and it made me like her more. She seemed really interested in the Hairy Man and asked if we thought he was real. I told her that Emily had the best stories about him, and I was happy when she interrupted Brandon and Emily’s conversation. Emily was excited to tell someone new the legend of the Hairy Man.
***
Brandon, Kyle and Nicole all leaned in to listen to Emily as she began the story I’d heard so many times. She smiled conspiratorially at me and Zach, and continued.
“A long time ago when Texas was still considered part of Indian Territory, settlers followed a trail right along the creek over there.” She pointed to her right to indicate Brushy Creek, which also runs alongside the part of the road named for the Hairy Man. “These travelers often stopped for the night near what we know as Round Rock.
“The legend says that a little boy got separated from a group of travelers and was stuck on the other side of the creek during a flash flood. A few days later, when the water was low enough to cross, the boy’s parents searched all day, combing the woods for him, but they never found him. They assumed he drowned in the flood, and they continued traveling west. People in the area sometimes saw a little boy running along the creek and said it was him, but anytime someone approached him, he climbed up into the trees, which grew so close together that he could walk from tree to tree without ever coming down. No one ever caught him, and the legend of the wild boy was born.”
Emily took a drink from her root beer, and Nicole started nodding as if that would make the story come back faster.
“Several years later, the rumors about a wild boy in the woods changed. Travelers said they saw a hairy man swinging from tree to tree. Some folks said they would hear his feet brushing the top of the stagecoach as it passed underneath him. He’d never had a bath, never clipped his fingernails or toenails. Some of the travelers swore that the scratches on their luggage were from his long twisted toenails.” I smiled, that part of Emily’s story never changed, her way of setting up the sounds associated with modern sightings.
“But no one ever spoke to him, and sightings of the Hairy Man continued for years, until one day a stagecoach driver claimed to have run him over. That story started as it always did, with the Hairy Man swinging from tree to tree. But this time he slipped and the horses were spooked by his smell and ran him over. The stagecoach driver got down and found him trampled to death. He didn’t want to disturb his passengers, so the driver moved the body to the side of the road. He planned to come back for it later when his coach was empty.
“When the driver got to the small settlement around Round Rock and told his tale, there were a lot of people who were real interested in seeing the Hairy Man up close and personal. A whole mess of them went back out that night, with the driver, to get the body. They never found it.” Nicole started to interrupt, but Emily just held up her hand and when Nicole fell silent she continued.
“Now, some people say that part isn’t true — that the Hairy Man was found and buried and that he was just a man after all. But no one has ever found his grave, and you know they would have marked it with a legend like that. New travelers, who had never heard the legend, reported seeing the Hairy Man swinging in the trees as they passed by the creek. The trail became a dirt road and then a paved one and still the sightings continued. My grandmother told me that he was like a cat, had at least nine lives, and was still out there. Some folks say his spirit haunts the place where he died. Whether he is a ghost, or something else, the stories continue to this day.”
Most storytellers would end their version of the tale there; a few would add a personal sighting that a friend of theirs told them about. Emily would no doubt talk about a recent sighting, but I could tell she was going to give what Zach and I called the Dangers of Development speech.
“Even though there are lots of highways around here now, people still use the road as a short cut to Round Rock from all the new suburbs. A few years ago, the county started to work on Hairy Man Road. They widened it, and eliminated the low water crossings that were impassible when the creek flooded. The workers said they didn’t like to be on the road at night. They said they heard strange noises from the trees. The project took longer than planned to finish, because road workers kept leaving the job site. Even after the construction, it’s still really creepy where the trees come together over the road; especially at night.
“Since they finished, the sightings have changed. People still see the Hairy Man swinging from tree to tree, but now instead of just scratches on a car roof from his long, long toenails — people say their windshields were broken by rocks he threw at them. I think maybe he’s angry with us. After all the construction around here, the creek is probably undrinkable. He used to have a whole forest to swing around in, but now there’s only a few acres undeveloped right by the creek.” Brandon and Kyle looked skeptical, but Emily drove on for the kill.
“Last year, two boys from my old school, Austin’s school, died on Hairy Man Road.” She paused while I nodded for emphasis. “No one knows what happened for sure but one of the guys was talking to his girlfriend on the phone. She told me she heard the driver say ‘Dude, look - it’s the Hairy Man’ and that her boyfriend said ‘I’ll call you back, I’ve gotta get a picture of this.’ They found their car by the side of the road. Their bodies were a few feet from the car. The official story is that they ran off the road and were thrown from the car.” Emily raised her eyebrows to show that she thought the official story was a bunch of bunk.
“Sure,” she admitted “maybe they were distracted trying to get a picture and ran off the road. The driver had a little brother, and he told Zach that there were scratches all over the car — especially on the doors.” Zach nodded too. We had become the backup dancers for Emily’s show.
She finished the story with a series of questions. “How did that happen? Did the Hairy Man lure them to their death? Were the scratches from him trying to get them out of the car? I’m not so sure I want to know the truth about the Hairy Man. But you asked and so I told you.”
Nicole looked a little scared now. She grabbed Kyle’s arm as she asked him if he had ever seen the Hairy Man. Kyle said he had heard him on the roof of his car driving down Hairy Man road one night. He said he drove away fast, and by the time he got to the stop sign at Sam Bass Road, he didn’t hear him anymore.
“Why don’t we drive down there tonight?” Kyle said. “You can see for yourself.”
“I don’t know.” Nicole hesitated. Clearly she wanted to go, but she seemed a little nervous. Or maybe she was suspicious of Kyle’s motives. Maybe she should have been. There was a rumor at my school last year about a guy who took his dates to Hairy Man Road. He would get out of the car with them at the same place where the other boys crashed and then threaten to drive away and leave them there if they didn’t put out. Kyle didn’t seem that ruthless, but maybe Nicole had known boys like that.
“You have to come with me,” she said to Emily. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“You won’t be alone.” Kyle said, before Emily could answer. “You’ll be with me.” He smiled, but Nicole didn’t look convinced.
“We’ll both go with you,” Brandon said, breaking the tension. “Won’t we, Emily. She can’t be scared if there are four of us.”
Nicole nodded enthusiastically and Kyle relaxed. Emily shrugged and said “Sure, why not?”
I wanted to give her a reason why not. But at the moment I couldn’t think of any and just stood there looking at the dirt.
“Come on dude, I want a corn dog.” Zach slapped me on the back and headed back down the row of food vendors. I followed, glad for a reason to walk away. Zach really was a cool kid.
***
“So who’s Mister Boy Band?” I asked, trying to be casual, but sounding a little petulant even to my own ears.
“Some douche bag that keeps calling Emily” he answered.
“Oh yeah? Are they dating or something?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know. I wasn’t sure why I cared but suddenly I really did.
“Nah, mostly she avoids his calls. You know she hates to talk on the phone, she’d rather text but he doesn’t seem to know that.” I was relieved to hear it until he added, “But Brandon is really popular and Mom keeps telling Emily she might enjoy having a boyfriend who goes to the same school.”
“As opposed to who?” I asked, wondering if Emily had a boyfriend I didn’t know about.
“Duh. You.” He said.
“Oh. Yeah, my mom thinks Emily is my girlfriend too.” I replied, laughing as if it was a big joke.
“Isn’t she?” he asked.
“Is she?” I wondered if Emily had said something to Zach about us.
“I don’t care, dude. Whatever.” Zach moved to the front of the line and paid for his food.
“We should go tonight.” I said.
“Go where?” Zach asked.
“Hairy Man Road.”
“Um, won’t that be a little awkward? Besides they didn’t invite us.”
“No, not with them -- to scare them. We could throw things on the top of the car. That way they’ll be too scared to make out.” I thought this was the most brilliant plan I had ever come up with, but Zach was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Dude, I don’t want to follow my sister on some date.”
“We’re just going to make sure she gets the full Hairy Man experience. And I want to see if what’s his face can keep his cool if he really hears something out there.”
“Seriously?”
“Come on, what else are you doing tonight?”
Zach finally agreed, deciding it would be fun to try to get video of Brandon and Kyle screaming.
We dropped Emily off at home and told her mom that Zach was going to stay the night with me. The plan was fairly simple. Zach and Emily’s mom had installed a GPS app on each of their phones so she could track them. Zach knew the password for their account, so he could use the app to watch for Emily and get into place before she got to Hairy Man Road. We tied some large nails onto a net that we could string up in the tree branches. I would lower the net onto Kyle’s car when it passed to make the sound of toenails on the roof. Then Zach would come out from behind a tree on the side of the road dressed like the Hairy Man.
We parked my car down a dirt road a mile past the area where the trees grew together so it couldn’t be seen from the road in case Emily recognized it. Zach watched for cars as I strung the net up. I’d always been good at climbing trees, but getting out to the branches that hung over the road made me a little nervous. I used knots I barely remembered making with my grandfather, who used to be a sailor. We tested to make sure the net would lower correctly, and then I climbed back down to help Zach get into the Chewbacca costume I’d worn a few years ago for Halloween. We’d taken off the metal belt thing and added a fake beard I wore once when dressed as Abraham Lincoln for a school play. We used velcro to attach his phone into the beard so he’d be able to get video without anyone seeing the phone. We thought we were geniuses.
We were idiots.
He checked the app. It looked like they’d stopped for pizza, so we sat down beside the tree to wait.
It was pretty spooky out there. There aren’t any houses or businesses near that part of Hairy Man Road so it was really dark. The moon was just a tiny sliver, and it was already going down, so it added no light. We had a flashlight but I didn’t want to run the batteries down since we’d need it for the walk back to the car. I tried to think of something to talk about but couldn’t, so we sat there in silence. I heard rustling in the branches above us, but Zach seemed not to notice. I heard something hoot softly but assumed it was just an owl. Then I heard something move in the bushes. Zach got really still, so I knew he heard it too. I took a deep breath and I turned on the flashlight. The light bounced off the eyes of a raccoon before it scurried back into the underbrush. We laughed and I turned off the flashlight.
He checked the app again. “Looks like they are on the move. You should probably get in place.”
“Wait, what does Kyle drive? How will I know when to lower it?”
“I think he has an SUV, but there hasn’t been a car down here for almost an hour so we should be able to spot him. I’ll do a ‘Caw Caw’ when Emily’s phone gets close. ”
I climbed up into the tree and wrapped my legs around a branch so I could reach out to grab the rope. I wondered if Emily was having fun with Brandon. She was probably sitting next to him in the back seat. I remembered the feeling of her leg next to mine and I hoped she wasn’t sitting that close to him. Did she think he was cute? Did she want him to kiss her? And why did I care?
I saw lights on the road, and got ready to lower the net. As I leaned out, I saw the lights flash off of eyes in the tree across from me. Was that another raccoon? No, it looked too big for that. I knew possum’s climbed trees, but I didn’t know how big they got. I thought maybe Zach had climbed up in the other tree?
“Caw Caw” I heard Zach call from below me as if in answer to my thoughts and I realized the car was about to drive underneath me. I released the rope and as the net descended, so did the shape from the other tree. It was definitely not a possum. It looked like a monkey, but bigger. Like an ape. Like a Hairy Man. The nails scraped the top of the car below me, and the Hairy Man swung right over the net. He looked right at me and started to laugh. I’ll never forget that sound, louder than the sound of the nails and just as screeching — it made all the hair on my body stand on end and seemed to go on for minutes while I just sat there and stared at him.
He grabbed the net with his foot and pulled. I was falling before I realized I was still holding onto the other end of the rope.
***
I woke up in the hospital.
Mom was asleep in a big blue recliner across the room. Aunt Vera was sitting cross-legged on the ledge that ran under the window. She was reading a book and took the time to mark her page before she said, “Welcome back.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked and my voice cracked.
“I’ll get you some water,” Aunt Vera said as she unfolded from the window seat and tiptoed out of the room.
There was really no need; my aunt should know my mom could sleep through anything. She was snoring so loud, I wondered if that was what woke me up.
I tried to sit up. Mistake.
I woke up in the hospital again.
Mom was by my bedside. She smiled at me. “Easy honey, don’t move too fast, you’re pretty banged up.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“You tell me.” She raised her eyebrows and I figured I must be hurt pretty bad if she wasn’t yelling.
“I don’t know. I woke up before and you were asleep.”
“Oh, that was a few hours ago. Vera told me she went to get you water and when she got back you were asleep again. The nurse said you probably passed out from the pain. She called the doctor to get more morphine for you.”
I looked at the tube running from my hand up to something that looked like a metal coat-rack with several bags of liquid hanging on it.
“If it hurts, just push that little white button.” She reached to the table next to me, and lifted up a small plastic device attached to the tube.
“Ok.”
My mom looked tired. There were circles under her eyes and her hair was sticking up weirdly from her head. I’d never seen her look like that. Usually she never left the house without doing her hair and ‘putting her face on.’
“How long have I been here?” I asked.
She looked at her watch, and answered. “Almost three days now. It’s Tuesday.”
“What happened to Sunday and Monday?”
“You slept through them.”
“Was I in a coma?”
“Not really honey, the doctor told us that you’d probably sleep a lot after surgery. You are on a lot of pain killers.”
“SURGERY?” my voice cracked again. I didn’t think it was because my throat was dry but Mom insisted on feeding me ice chips anyway.
“Mom, what surgery?” I asked. Why can’t I sit up? What is this thing around my neck?
A few hours later, I’d talked to the doctor on call, the nurse, and two specialists. They all told me I was lucky to be alive, but my back was broken and I had a nasty gash in my leg from a nail. I had pins in my back and the neck brace was there to make sure I didn’t injure my spine any more. I couldn’t see my leg but it was throbbing. The surgeon told me the nail had just missed my femoral artery or I probably would have bled out on the scene.
The scene. I remembered now, we were on Hairy Man Road.
“Mom, where’s Zach?”
“Zach is fine honey. He and Emily have been here every day. There were some other kids here the first night. I don’t know them, but they went home once they knew you were ok. I think they might be in the waiting room with Aunt Vera. The nurse didn’t want too many people in here with you while you slept. Do you want me to check?”
“Sure.”
Emily walked in with a large vase full of flowers and a blue balloon with writing on it.
“It’s a Boy? Did you troll the maternity ward and steal someone else’s flowers?” I asked.
“No, I bought them this morning. ‘Get Well Soon’ just seemed so boring.” She replied.
“Well. Thanks.”
“No problem. How do you feel?” She walked to the chair by the bed and I could see she had been crying. Oddly, that made me feel a little better.
“Sleepy, I guess. I had the weirdest dream about seeing the Hairy Man when I was falling.”
She looked at Zach. Zach looked at me. After what felt like an hour, Zach said “There’s something you need to see.” He pulled out his phone and after a moment handed it to me.
“What is it?”
“Just push play.”
Emily looked like she might be sick. “Are you ok?” I asked her.
“Just watch it.”
I pushed play and at first all I saw was darkness, then I saw car lights approaching. I heard Zach say “Caw Caw” really loudly and saw the net start to lower into the frame. Then I heard it. The laugh I thought I had dreamed. It was muffled, but I’m sure it was the same laugh. I paused the video.
“Did you hear that laugh?” I asked them.
They looked at each other again and nodded.
“Did you guys see him?” I asked.
“See who?” Zach said.
“The Hairy Man.”
“You mean Zach?” Emily said. “We figured it out pretty quickly since he took off the mask when you fell.”
“No, I mean the real Hairy Man.”
“How hard did you hit your head, dude.”
“I saw him before I fell.”
Emily and Zach looked at each other and Zach shrugged. “What did you see?” asked Emily.
“He was in the tree.”
“No, dude. I was on the ground under the tree, remember? You lowered the nails and then I stepped out from behind the tree. Lucky I did, because Kyle stopped the car and it broke your fall. It would have been a lot worse if you’d hit the ground instead of his roof.”
“Not you — the Hairy Man. He’s real. I saw him. That was him laughing.”
“That’s not funny.” Emily said. “You can stop it. Zach already told me it was a hoax. Your trick failed and you almost got yourself killed. What if you had fallen out of the tree before we stopped? Kyle could have run over you. What were you thinking?”
Emily glared me, then at Zach, and then looked back at me.
“Don’t be mad at him, Em. It was all my idea. Obviously it was a stupid idea. But I’m not kidding about the Hairy Man. I really saw him. He was in the trees. He grabbed the net - that’s why I fell.”
“Keep watching the video, dude,” said Zach.
I pressed play and saw the nails making contact with the top of the car. I saw the car stop suddenly and could see Kyle’s face as the car got closer to Zach. Then I saw myself fall into the net and onto the top of the car. Nicole started screaming and then the video got pretty shaky as Zach ran for the car. I saw one more shot of the road and then it cut off.
“That’s when I dialed 911,” said Zach.
“And you didn’t see him? He was hanging above the net, and he started laughing.” Even here in the bright light of the hospital room, the memory of that laugh made my hair stand on end.
“Laughing? I did hear someone laugh, but I thought it was you. I figured you were imagining what Nicole and Emily were thinking. I forgot about that until I heard it on the video. I was so worried about you. That was a really creepy laugh. It really wasn’t you?”
“No. It was him.” Emily and Zach got quiet.
“Keep watching the video, the part where you fall.” Zach said and Emily glared at him. I could tell she didn’t want to watch it anymore.
“I’ll watch it later, send it to me.” I said. “What about you, Em? What did you see?”
Emily said. “I couldn’t really see anything. I was in the back seat.” I must have winced because she asked if I was all right.
“I’m fine,” I said, and asked her to continue.
“I heard something brush the top of the roof and Nicole screamed. Then Kyle saw Zach - well he thought it was the Hairy Man - and he slammed on the brakes and then we heard a loud crunching sound on the top of the roof and Nicole screamed again. Zach took off the top of his costume and ran to the car screaming your name. We all got out and saw you on the roof…” Emily seemed choked up and she started to cry.
Zach continued. “It was pretty gory dude. There was a lot of blood and you were twisted up, it wasn’t right. Every fire truck, ambulance, and police car in the area showed up. It was pretty crazy. They used this crane thing to lift you off the roof and then took you to the hospital. The police asked us a bunch of questions, but let us go when Emily insisted we had to get to the hospital.”
I took Emily’s hand in mine. It was warm and soft and dry and she didn’t pull away. It felt natural to hold her hand and she must have agreed because she just sat with me and watched TV until my mom and Aunt Vera came back from lunch. Before she left, she kissed me on the forehead and told me she’d see me tomorrow. Years later, she still counts that day in the hospital as our first date. (I count a few weeks later when I was well enough to ride in her car and go to a movie with her.)
After she left, I watched the video again. I watched it about a hundred times before they let me out of the hospital a week later. The section where I fall is such a blur, but I swear just before I fall, you can see a foot above the net. A foot that isn’t mine. A foot with long, long toenails.