Scarecrow Gods (28 page)

With the glass of iced tea in one hand and the record jacket in the other, Danny turned to sit. The couch, however, was occupied by an unconscious Maxom, who’d passed out again. Drool laced the side of the man’s face. The nubs of his legs twitched slightly as if he were a dog in the midst of a rabbit dream.

Daniel’s gaze slipped down to where the prosthetics were cast off on the worn shag carpeting. He’d always wanted to check them out, but his fear of Maxom had kept him away. He’d also felt kind of queasy every time he looked at them lying bodiless upon the floor. These were the man’s legs. Sure, they were made of metal and rubber and polymer, but they were legs. And legs shouldn’t be separable.

His overriding curiosity made him set the glass of tea on the coffee table alongside the record jacket. Danny crept forward, reached over and plucked the right leg from the pile. The first thing he noticed was the weight. The prosthetic was both heavier and lighter than he’d expected. The cavity where the nub rested was hard on the outside and cushioned on the inside. The foot, encased in a sock and shoe, seemed to weigh at least five pounds. So much weight for so small a space. Connecting the two was a sleek black rod. He couldn’t discern this man-made tibia’s actual weight because of the foot and the cup, but he knew it was extremely light and strong enough to hold up a large man.

Using his fist as a nub, and holding it with his other hand, Danny tested it upon the floor. The heel sprung back as he
stepped
as if to help propel the wearer along.
Maybe that was why Maxom looked so much like a stork sometimes
, thought Danny.

He checked to make sure the man was still asleep. The last thing he needed was for Maxom to wake and get mad. Danny was getting used to the man being in a better mood and didn’t want to spoil it. A
squawk
overrode the Motown rhythms coming from the speakers and filled the room.

Danny lurched backwards, the back of his thigh bumping the table. The glass of iced tea tipped and fell to the floor, the liquid creating an even darker blue in the already dark blue carpet. Jerking around, Danny saw an immense crow standing upon the windowsill of the open living room window.

The crow
squawked
again, menacing. Danny dropped the prosthetic leg on the carpet. The bird glared at him.

The crows in Tennessee seemed to be bigger than the eagles. The nearest species Danny could compare it to, hadn’t been seen in the skies since certain members of Sinbad’s crew had been carried away for midnight snacks.

The crow stretched its wings until they brushed the sides of the window frame. Cocking its head, staring directly at Danny as if it knew exactly what he had been doing and how wrong it was, the crow let out another
squawk.
Then, as if the great black bird had had enough, it pulled its wings back in and hopped down out of view. Danny heard flapping then nothing else.

Ten seconds passed before Danny crept to the window ledge and peeked over. The ground outside was empty, likewise the sky. He quickly lowered and locked the window. He spun, ready for Maxom to be awake and angry, but he was still unconscious, oblivious to what had just taken place.

Quickly, Danny picked up the overturned glass and got a dish towel to clean up the tea. Then, treating it as if it were a piece of fine porcelain, he placed the prosthetic back in its exact position. He checked his work and after several small adjustments, was satisfied.

After turning off the music and placing the album back in the dust jacket, he gladly went back out into the heat. Taking up the swing blade, he couldn’t help but smile. It’s been a close call, but that’s all it was. Now, safe from discovery, he wondered why he’d been so nervous.

CHAPTER 12

Friday—June 22nd

Paradise Valley, Arizona

“Sometimes I think my mother knew about it,” said a young girl in her twenties.

The other girls sitting around the circle nodded their heads. John stared fondly and nodded as well.

“I was mad at her,” continued the girl.

“Did you blame her for not doing anything?” asked John.

“Yes,” she nodded. Tears slid down her freckled cheeks.

No one dared shatter the silence. The other girls alternately stared at her and at themselves as they remembered their own histories. John sat patiently. He’d heard all their stories in private. He knew what the girl was going to say. What she needed, though, was to talk about it in a more public setting—a place where others could relate.

“I got pregnant. I was so afraid, I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Didn’t your mom and dad notice?” asked one of the girls, her wide eyes evidence of Persian ancestry.

“Why would they? Both my parents worked. They barely had time for each other, much less me.” She laughed. “I’ve never been especially pretty, anyway. No reason to look at me.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’re very pretty.”

Others spoke up, complimenting the speaker until she blushed. She even managed to smile for a while, until her eyes turned inward and she remembered.

“I remember when it happened. It was a Saturday evening. My parents were watching television. I closed my door and turned up the music. It was Nirvana. I listened to them because Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I was hoping to find some of his courage.”

She paused to wipe away tears with the edge of her robe. She peered at John who smiled in return.

“You’re doing fine. You’re doing just fine.”

“Even with the music turned up, I stuffed a sock in my mouth. It hurt so bad. I tried not to scream, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt so bad.” She placed her hands over her stomach. “It was a boy. I left him at the hospital the next morning on my way out of town.” Her gaze rose. “Somewhere out there I have a son. He should be six years old by now.”

One of the newer girls filled the silence that followed. “I want to go home,” she said, voice cracking.

John stared at her from across the circle. She was very young. Her head was freshly shaved, smooth like the others. Her face was porcelain. He waited for a moment, but she refused to meet his gaze.

“This is your home,” he said.
Vishiddi,
he whispered, invoking the power.

“I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have run away. My mom…”

“What about your mom?” he asked.

“I don’t blame her. It’s just I felt ashamed.”

“You felt unclean.”

“Yes,” she said finally looking up. “I felt dirty. Like it was something I had done.”

“And you think she would have understood?”

“Understood?”

“When you tell her about what he did, about the sex,” he allowed his energies to build, “do you think she would have thought it was your fault?”

“No.”

“I think you did. Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice very small.

“We’d never think that. We know what you’ve been through. We’re your new family.”

“But—”

“You ran away.”

“Yes. I ran away,” she repeated.

He could feel the magic in his words. He could see how her face was softening, mind succumbing.

“You ran away from them because they would have condemned you. People don’t run away from acceptance.” She shook her head slowly—the negative motion, an acceptance of his words. “We accept you here. Whatever you’ve done, we accept you. That’s what a real family does.”

“Yes,” she said, entranced. “A real family.”

All the girls had fallen under his spell. They nodded in unison to his logic. As they should. He knew of their circumstances, all versions of each other. All runaways.

There was one particular thing that the rest of society couldn’t seem to grasp: happy girls don’t run away from home. When a flower is neglected, it wilts and dies.

Girls are a lot like flowers.

* * *

Ooltewah, Tennessee

The first thing Maxom said to Danny after his mother dropped him off was, “These are not toys, son. You play with my legs again, you’re gonna find yourself needing some of your own. Understand?”

The glare creasing the old man’s face was more than enough to make Danny cringe. He knew immediately what Maxom was talking about. What he didn’t understand was how the man had found out. So, Danny had stood on the porch, his lunch sack gripped tightly in his right hand, staring up at the tall black man, utterly dumbfounded.

Maxom finally broke the silence. “Now, if you’re done staring at me like I grew another head, get your scrawny butt inside. You got the breakfast dishes to clean and I was especially hungry this morning.”

Elbow deep in the soapy water, all Danny could think about was
How did he know?
He’d replayed the events of yesterday afternoon over and over in his mind, and there was no way in a million years the old man could have discovered him, unless he had a video camera set up somewhere in the room, or maybe if the crow had told him. Danny knew from cleaning every nook and cranny of that disaster zone called a living room there were no video cameras, and it was doubly doubtful that the crow would be that cooperative. After all, it spoke crow and old Maxom Phinxs spoke bastard.

Danny attacked the frying pan with open frustration, using the working end of the metal spatula as a jackhammer in an attempt to pry off the burnt-on egg. If water hadn’t been involved in the cleaning process, the sink would’ve certainly caught fire. Scraping and chiseling, Danny found himself both grimacing and mumbling under his breath.

Suddenly, he stopped. Dropping the pan and spatula into the greasy water, he stepped slowly away from the sink. He wiped his hands on his pants, the water staining his pants. He was acting just like his mom acted when she was mad and in the kitchen. Danny cursed softly, then smiled at the irony.

Standing in the kitchen of the house of the man he had committed a hate crime against, Danny felt closer to his mother than he’d ever felt before. For the first time, he understood her—and it was scary. He understood her constant frustration and consternation. He understood why she hit him when he talked back to her and could almost feel the pain she felt, his words a slap that could be never equaled. He understood the nagging and the constant concern she showed for everything he was involved in and everyone he was involved with.

For one brief moment, Danny understood what it meant to be an adult. What it took to be a parent. Then the tenuous thread was broken, leaving him only with a ghostly remembrance.

“You gonna stand there all day or are you gonna finish cleaning. Looks like it might rain this afternoon, so if you’re gonna work on the back yard some more, you better get to it.”

Sighing, Danny snatched up the frying pan and a rag, then began to scrub with renewed vigor. Somewhere kids were having fun. Maybe playing Marco Polo. Maybe jumping off the end of a dock. Maybe even swinging high arcs upon rope swings over the water, releasing themselves into the air at the apex of their upward journey. Somewhere his friends were having the times of their lives. Danny descended into the murkiness of self-pity, wishing desperately that he were with them.

CHAPTER 13

Saturday—June 23rd

Cherokee National Forest

His father woke him at four, the smell of coffee already coating his words as he whispered, “Up and at ‘em, son.”

“Even roosters get to sleep until dawn,” Danny mumbled into his pillow. He could feel the drool of deep sleep on his cheek, but didn’t dare wipe it away. Any sign of movement would cause his father to redouble his attack. The best thing to do at times like this, when sleep was fleeting and his dreams were desperate, was to play possum.

“Come on, son. We got fish waiting to be caught.”

Danny felt his father sit heavily on the side of his small bed. Julie Newmarr and Boris Karloff beckoned to him from behind the gossamer curtain of his dreams. He didn’t remember what he’d been doing, but his blood was still racing and a phantom smile still graced his face. A slender female hand slid through the veil and grasped his wrist. He felt the heat from the touch and parts of his body stirred that made him feel both uncomfortable and thrilled.

“Daniel! Come on. Get your ass in gear.”

He shot to a sitting position, the blanket falling to his lap. He glimpsed his father’s retreating back as he ascended the stairs. “He’s awake, now. I’ll give him five minutes,” he heard is father say to his mom.

Daniel felt his heart racing and tried to grab the dissolving remnants of his dreams. What had it been? He felt strange. His eyes dropped to the blanket bunched in his lap. His eyes widened as he noticed the small tent that had formed.
Christ on a crutch!
Had his father seen it? He closed his eyes and groaned. He could think of maybe two things that were more embarrassing.