Ask the Dark (12 page)

I just stood there looking at the floor, the floor of worn planks Daddy never shellacked or repainted ’cause he was always working on other people’s houses. I sort of let out a breath, and then I went out the hall to the living room where I dropped on the sofa, that sofa I’d found in an alley thrown out a few years ago and that Richie Harrigan and me’d brung in the house, ’cause we never had th’money to buy a new one.

I looked at Daddy.

Leezie’s livin’ with Bad-Ass? I said, like I ain’t heard.

Yes, he said.

You know he got brothers? I asked.

She didn’t say, he said.

I knew a boy who drowned once. He was my age, and he jumped in the water down Robert E. Lee Park, jumped off that railroad bridge. Banged his head going in. Didn’t knock him out, but it did make him breathe when he was underwater, and his lungs filled. We dragged him out, and thank the Lord there was a doctor having a picnic ’bout twenty yards away, and he run up. First he looked real doubtful, ’cause he saw the blood on the boy’s face and figured he was dead, but he gave him mouth-to-mouth anyway, and it saved him. Boy was Sam Tate. And you know what he said? He said it weren’t bad, drowning. He’d gone faint right off the bat, and weren’t bothered. What hurt like hell was the water coming out, he said. And me, I’m bringing this up ’cause for a second there, after hearing Leezie had really gone and done it, I was gonna say some such thing like I felt I was drowning, but that ain’t so. Because with drowning, you dead in a minute and don’t give a shit no more. But with the shit I was hearing, death would never come and it was all just gonna go on forever.

She can’t live there! I yelled. His brothers are worse than him! One’s a goddamn Marine Corps ranger! She talks big like she can handle it, but what if she can’t! What if they beat her and call her names and make her do all the work, and all have their nasty way with’r when Ricky gets sick of’r! How the hell you let’r go!?

Everything I yelled seemed to hit him hard, so I shut up.

She can take care of herself, he says, his voice so weak I hardly hear’m. Then he looks straight at me, his face full of pain, and says, She’s strong, Billy. Strong like your mother was.

Right then I didn’t care how strong she was. My head felt on fire. Yeah! How do you know?! All you done for the last year is sit around doin’ nothing! You hardly even talked with’r!

I couldn’t stop her, son. And she’s right. We
all
have to go.

Where we gonna live?! I say.

I don’t know, he says.

Then he looked up. I—I know about a place downtown. Sober men’s housing.

Daddy, that’s ridiculous! Living with them drunks, you’ll start up again, I
know
it.

He acted like he didn’t hear what I said, and just said, I heard about it at my AA. It’s only a hundred a week.

Yeah?!
My brain felt hot, my face, too. What about the goddamn house and the fruit stand! Ain’t you even gonna
try!
What
about
it!

I don’t know, son. I—I—

He looked like he was falling apart, gray and small and weak and old, and his clothes all wrinkled, wrinkled as his skin, and it looking gray and dead too.

AND WHAT ABOUT
ME!
I yelled.

And that’s when he started crying, just an old gray man shaking and crying, not making a sound but his body rumplin’ like he wanted to die.

I don’t
know,
son! I don’t—

No, you
don’t!
I hollered. So I’ll
tell
you! Put away the boxes! You don’t need’m, hear me? We still got three weeks left! This ain’t the time for acting crazy!

He just looked at me.

I got up. Put’m away! Keep’m if you want to. But don’t tape’m yet. You give me three weeks, hear me? I want’m. After that, do whatever the hell you like!

Saying that, I went out and ran crazy down the stairs to the street.

I walked up the street and beside me was trees and plots of ivy and raggy-looking weeds knee-high in vacant lots and sometimes flowers in plots in front of houses and also flowers wild and just growing up from where seeds had lit. And I was thinking, batting this reed I took out the ground at trees I passed, of how my daddy was the boy now, sitting there all tightlipped and saying nothing, just wanting to tape his boxes, like he was afraid I’d be mad if he asked, like I was the daddy now and he was the boy, needing my permission to do something he wanted to do but didn’t really know hisself if it was right or wrong. And this the same man who before my mother died and he hurt his back was the strongest man I ever known and nobody ever pushed around, he wouldn’t stand for it, but was all broken now and letting me talk to him in a way he’d’f once whipped my ass for so good I wouldn’t’f sat down for a week.

That’s the kind of shit I was thinking about, and it weren’t no fun, neither. But I kept on walking, walking through alleys all day, sometimes hidin’ in garages so’s not to get seen by no cop, ’cause I sure as hell didn’t want to get sent home. Around sundown I saw Marvin drivin’ by but I ducked down so’s he wouldn’t see me, ’cause I just felt too damn riled.

After it got dark I walked some more, until I was standing in the alley outside Simon Hooper’s, where inside the fence that dog, Bear, was scruffin’ around the yard with Hooper yelling out,
Sit!
and
Stand!
and
Go!

It was just a joke being there, I thought, because with Daddy taping them boxes everything seemed dumb-fuckin’-stupid. I mean, why work all summer in the first place? Why do any fuckin’ thing? But after Hooper took Bear in I went up a tree anyway and looked over the board fence. There was nothing. House was dark. Car weren’t parked in the yard. I was just wasting my time.

But I figured,
Fuck it.
So I dropped and ran, and in no time I was outside Miss Gurpy’s down on Church Lane.

It was dark in there, too, I mean no window lights. She hits the hay early I bet. So real quick I went through the side yard, ran out back, and went up them old rotty stairs. I come out through a bramble bush, and there it is. The car, I mean.

The sideviews and wipers was already fixed. Course I knew he’d do that, elseways he’d get stopped for sure, and what with selling drugs to kids he couldn’t have that, so he’d took a little trip to the parts store.

I stood there about five minutes ’cause just looking at it had me feeling better, like I was doing something worthwhile. My face was all scrunched up. I was thinking about Daddy, Leezie, the house, and couldn’t damn well hide it. But right then I felt my face go blank, and all the bad feelings went right out’f my mind.

I’d come up to the car. I mean I’d come out the bushes where I was hiding where no one could see me. And real slow I got down on my hands and knees, right there at the rear bumper. What I seen I could hardly believe, felt like cold air blowing through my ears. ’Cause this old car got license plates from Florida.

Florida, where Tuckie Brenner was found.

I was still crouched low when the hands grabbed my shoulders. He never said a word. He was too smart for that. All he did was try to tug me up, but like a flash I tossed back and must’f bumped him hard, smacked his nuts, maybe, ’cause he fell with a
oof!

I never saw him. I jumped up and tore through the bushes. I tore down the hill, and I could hear him coming, smashing through the brush. But he never called out, never said a fuckin’ word. I ran zigzag, and when I got to the woods I still heard him, but farther back, and he’s breathing heavy. I can’t yell for nobody, he’d get me faster than they could come. I gotta
hide.
So I go around a high bush right at the lip of the stream, ’bout a ten-foot drop. I jump down, hold on to the vines, and stop breathing. I’m on the wall, and it’s pitch-dark. But he comes on. I hear him stop above me, and I know he’s looking out. If the vine pulls free I’m fucked, I know it. I hear him breathing, and another sound, like a growl.

I don’t even move my eyes. And in a minute I hear him running on, until he’s far away.

I stayed there an hour. Heard the stream running under me. Never felt safe, but after a time I let go the vine and slid down until my shoes dunked in the cold water. Daddy, the house, Leezie. Never come in my mind. Took the longest, darkest way home. My head was empty ’cept one idea.

That man wanted to kill me.

Chapter Nineteen

So now I was sitting in the dark.

Weren’t moving at all.

Neither was Richie.

Just sitting.

Earlier what we done was cover the windows. We covered’m with cardboard and then blankets and then over the blankets we put black tarp, plastic tarp, three-ply. Then tape around the edges, taping it all down. Same sort’f tape plumbers use, duct tape.

Richie’s foot’s over my foot. I mean his boot’s over my shoe.

But he ain’t moved yet.

And we wait.

We done the windows not just for light, but for sound, too. Light, there ain’t none. None. I mean, usually in a dark room—and I’ve snuck around plenty of dark rooms—you wait a minute and your eyes get used to it and you can see the outlines of everything around you. But not now, because with no light there’s nothing for your eye to get used to.

So you just sit.

Then you hear it.

First something off to the side, where stacks of magazines is, sounds like a flutter of pages. Then a light sort of sound, like drumming your fingers on a piece of cloth, all pitter-patter, can’t hardly hear it. Then it skitters crost the floor. Then another sound, which scrapes a little. That’s the dish on the floor we put out with the cream pie. But I don’t hear it long, ’cause I feel Richie’s boot press down and I flick the switch on that extension cord I’m holding.

Light flashes on like lightning.

That goddamn rat’s surprised as we are. What it done was lurch up, its face all covered with the cream pie, and sort of look bewildered, its eyes wide. I can just barely see ’cause my eyes is blinded. But Richie, he got on them dark shades. And just then, right beside my head, I see the black line of that rifle barrel swing short and stop.

Then,
THWAT!

And that goddamn rat is hit!

It flips so high in the air you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe it, and then come down all squat, splatting on the floor spreadeagle, and meantime Richie’s on his feet like some goddamn commando and he’s taking a step and aiming and shooting and then,
clump!
He takes another step and he aims/shoots, his eye with the sunglass over it pressed tight to the stock, whole face scrunched against the stock, elbow out sharp like some SWAT team motherfucker.

I got’m, Monkey Boy! he yells. I got’m!

You got’m, I say.

And there the damn thing is, squirming like its ass is nailed to the floor and trying to get away and sort of turning around on itself but it can’t get a grip with its pink dirty hands and then—
THWAT!
—comes another shot from Richie’s gun, and I’m afraid to say that’s it, the poor little thing’s dead as a brick, just sprawled out after a sort of twitch that made me shudder.

Hot damn, Monkey Boy! Go get’m!

Hell no! I say. I ain’t picking that damn thing up!

He laughed. Shit, I’ll get it, he told me.

He stepped over and bent down and got it by the tail and picked it up, and just held it there hanging dead, sort of grinning at it, pleased with what he done, and me not looking at all for but a second, when I put my hand up to block my eyes and said, Dang, Richie! I don’t think it’s right doing this. Ain’t there a law or something?

What, law ’bout how to kill a rat? You kill’m any way you please, Monkey Boy. Ain’t no law protecting rats, he said.

He’s looking at it through them sunglasses he got on. He ain’t wearing nothing but shorts, and with them sunglasses and his muscles and his hair bright yellow the way it is, he looks like one of them lifeguards, ’cept he got brown teeth and ain’t shaved a few days. I’m keeping my eye on’m, and I can tell by how he holds it he gonna wave it in my face, so I put my arms up and say, Keep it away! Will ya chuck it?

And he did, tossing it in one’f them flip-top trash cans that got a little pedal to open the lid.

You best take that out today, I said. S’gonna stink real bad in no time.

I’ll get it out, he said, and then he sat back on the chair behind me, and using a nickel, he unscrewed the screw on the back stock and pulled out the loading tube.

You know this place we was in was Miss Gurpy’s attic. Had a slanted roof, and all around was boxes to the ceiling and stacks of magazines, old newspapers, too. Along the walls was old dresses hanging on nails, dust on the dresses, and hats on hooks, and other things I ain’t never seen before, like skis made of wood that looked real grainy and prob’ly needed lacquer, and all sort’f other stuff ’cause Miss Gurpy, she’s a lady who never throws nothing out.

The boxes I’d seen was there with the lids bust open and I got up and looked in, just sort’f wandered over like to have something to do. I picked around, seeing the sort of gloves women wear that go all the way to the elbow, made of soft leather, and stuff like eyeglasses not with frames that go behind your ears but on a sort of decorated stick, like you just hold’m over your eyes when you need’m. And there was pictures in frames, old ones, of Miss Gurpy when she was young, standing round with friends in parks and on beaches, and at school, too, it looked like, ’cause of the sorts of buildings in the background.

For a second there Richie stopped loading the gun.

Looking for something? he said.

I shook my head. Just seeing what’s here, I said. I ain’t taking nothing, if that’s what you mean.

He gave a little laugh.

Miss Gurpy was a rich lady, he said. See that there? He nodded at a open box. That’s a diamond tiara. She used to wear that to parties.

I saw what he meant and I picked it up in my hands. It was what I’d seen that night, a sort of crown piece that don’t go all the way around, made of twisty strips of metal and with little jewels everywhere, big one in the front, like what you hear a genie’d wear. Some of the jewels was missing, though, just pits in the metal where they’d been.