Untouchable (38 page)

In the earlier pictures, the L.A. pictures, Greene was tall and well-built, athletic, but he grew thinner as the photos became more recent. There was a hollowness to his eyes, the deep-socketed haunt of an addict, a young man wasting away.

Darby opened the drawers of the dresser. T-shirts, socks, bras, underwear. He opened the drawer of the bedside table. More photographs, and underneath those a square of cardboard, a divider of some kind, and underneath that a gun, a thick, blunt thing, black plastic and metal.

There were newspaper clippings tacked to the wall along the other side of the TV, the paper dry and brittle from the heat. Team photos, game recaps.
Greene Goes the Distance
was there, the familiar photo, the familiar blur. It was a shock to see it. Something Darby had carried with him, something he’d looked at countless times. He’d thought of it as something that had existed only in his pocket, in his hand. Something that had been destroyed in the bar, torn into wet shreds. Seeing it tacked to the wall felt like a betrayal. It existed apart from him, without him. Here it signified something unknown to him. Here it had a meaning that he didn’t recognize.

He pulled the thumbtack, the clipping from the wall. He thought of Lucy cutting the same photo from the newspaper, losing it between the boards of the porch. He thought of Lucy falling in her classroom, the sudden noise of desk chairs pushed back, commotion of students rising. He thought of Greene coming forward, kneeling beside her. It was hard to picture him, now that Darby had seen his face. It no longer fit. The story no longer came readily.

He thought of Bob opening a closet door in the back room of a dark house. He thought of all the doors he’d stood beside while Bob opened them. He thought of two cops opening the orange door of a motel room. Thought of two cops on his porch in the late morning, hats in hands, showing him something, a driver’s license, holding the picture up for him to identify, to confirm. Darby squinting in the sunlight, the cops looking at their caps, their hands, the floor of the porch, anywhere but at him.

The speck pressed at his lips, but he kept his mouth closed, bit his tongue until he tasted salt.

He pictured opening the front door and the cops on the porch telling him something about a motel room, something about Lucy. He didn’t want to think about this but he couldn’t stop it now. Now that he was in this man’s room, now that he had seen Greene and the girl and the baby he couldn’t stop this thought. He had opened the front door of the house and the cops on the porch held her license up for him to confirm and he looked at the picture on the license and it broke his heart, the name on the license, his name, the name she had taken, the name they had shared. He thought of standing on the porch long after the cops had gone, standing in the living room, standing in the kitchen, that endless afternoon, waiting for The Kid to get home from school, not knowing what he was going to tell The Kid, what he’d be able to tell The Kid, what he’d be able to say at all. Knowing he couldn’t say it, that it couldn’t be spoken. Fighting with it, tearing at it with his hands, the day progressing, the truth shrinking as the day ground on, receding slowly inside his body until something else appeared. A picture in his head of Lucy at the front of her class, falling, a student rushing to her side. Lucy carried down the school hallway. Not alone but comforted by her students. Not alone but held in someone’s arms.

He didn’t want to think about this but he couldn’t stop it now.

The sound of a key in the lock and Darby turned to see the front door of the apartment open, a figure in the doorway and blinding white sunlight beyond.

There was no time for an alternate route. It was the wormhole alleyway or nothing. There was no telling when they’d tear the house down, if they’d torn it down already. He had to get there, stop them, give the angel time to escape. He ran as fast as he could, backpack bouncing painfully, textbooks kicking against his spine.

Here he comes, Whitley Earl Darby, commonly known as The Kid, running as fast and as hard as he’s ever run.

Halfway there, three-quarters there, legs burning, lungs screaming, daylight at the other end closer with each stride, and then he was hit hard from the back, the wind flying from him, his feet leaving the ground and his body landing and then they were on top of him, their hands on The Kid’s face, on his neck, Razz’s weight pinning The Kid while Brian dug for something in the pocket of his jeans.

“We told you, pig,” Brian said.

Brian was gathering all the spit in his mouth and so The Kid clenched his own mouth tight, but Brian turned his head and spat on The Kid’s forearm, spat again, pressed something into the wet spot on The Kid’s arm, gripping The Kid’s arm hard.

“We told you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

He was afraid they were going to pee on him. All at once this thought came to him. He was afraid they were going to pee on him like they’d peed on the clothes in his gym locker, and then what would his dad do? His dad would throw him away like they’d thrown away the wet clothes. The Kid started to shake. He moved the parts of his body that he could still feel. He started to flop and shake. He had to keep them away. He had to get to the burned house. He lifted his hands toward them. He shook and lifted his hands.

This was called the aura phase. Also called the prodrome phase.

He stiffened his arms and legs. He made gagging noises in his throat. He snapped his jaw, his teeth cracking together. He stuck out his tongue, made his tongue as big as he could make it, flopped and shook and gagged until the weight lifted, Brian and Razz off of him, backing away, running away, and The Kid rolled onto his side and looked at his arm and saw his skin shiny with Brian’s spit and smeared ink, the tattoo he’d left there, the dark blue star.

Greene was upon him, suddenly, tearing at Darby’s face, his eyes, his mouth. He was even thinner than in the pictures on the wall, all sinew and bone, but brutally strong, his hands at Darby’s throat, long fingers pressing into Darby’s windpipe, ragged nails tearing at his skin.

Darby couldn’t breathe. He stumbled and fell and Greene was on top of him, swinging and connecting solidly, shouting as he swung, punches to the face releasing bright white explosions in the dark room, breaking Darby’s nose, the pain flattening his whole head numb. Darby fell flat on his back, a rainbow-colored plastic ball next to his head, a baby’s toy. He tried to speak, to explain himself, but then Greene’s boots were on him, kicking him in the stomach, the ribs. Darby tried to roll out of the way but there was no room, the bed was in one direction and the crib was in the other. He grabbed the leg of the crib and pulled himself to his knees and there was another blow to the back of his head, felt like the heel of a boot, and he slammed into the crib, breaking the railing, hanging over the jagged wood. Greene still shouting, Darby spitting fluid into the crib, and then Greene was off him and Darby knew where he was going, what he was after, but Darby was between Greene and the bedside table and he lunged for it, falling to his knees again but grabbing hold of the drawer, his hand inside the drawer and then the gun was in his hand and he was turning, he was wheeling on Greene and then he had the muzzle of the gun pressed hard to Greene’s chest.

The Kid ran, expecting to find a crowd around the burned house, the street full of police cars, news vans, a bulldozer pushing in the walls, the house folding in on itself, burying the mural, the angel, trapping her before she’d had a chance to escape. The call that was going out to his mom cut off, leaving her out there alone. He didn’t know what he’d do when he got there, if he’d try to run in front of the bulldozer, waving his arms, the bulldozer plowing right through him, knocking him aside as its shovel burst through the house’s charred walls.

The blue star burned on his arm. The Kid tried to ignore it, hoped his sweat would wash it away before it infected him with whatever it was made of.

The burned house’s street looked normal. He was shocked to see this. The street looked and sounded like the street. Cars parked at the curbs, dogs barking in backyards. No police cars, no sign of a bulldozer. But there was something new, The Kid could see it as he ran down the sidewalk. A plywood wall had been put up around the burned house, six or seven feet tall. There were new paper signs on the wall,
No Trespassing! No Traspasar!
He could see the jagged roof of the house sticking up over the wall, but that was it. He couldn’t see if anything else had been done to the house, if the walls had been torn out, if the porch had been ripped off.

He looked along the wall for a way in, a hole or a door. There was nothing. The wall was impenetrable. He reached up and jumped, thinking that maybe if he could get a hold of the top he could pull himself up and over. But he couldn’t reach, and he doubted he was strong enough to pull himself up even if he could.

He went back around to the front of the house, unstrapped his backpack, dropped it to the ground. Stood on the backpack. He still couldn’t reach the top of the wall. He looked around for something else. Saw the half-melted garbage bin still sitting by the curb, filled with burned junk from the house. He pulled it up across the yard to the plywood wall. Strapped his backpack on and climbed on top of the bin. He could see the house. The house looked the same, the house looked intact. They hadn’t torn anything down yet, they’d just built the wall to keep people out. He lifted a leg over the wall, then the other, sat on the top. It was a long drop to the ground. The Kid wondered if he would break a leg or a foot if he jumped. If he’d be stuck there, lying on the ground between the wall and the porch steps, unknown to everyone until the bulldozers came and plowed through the wall and buried him forever under plywood and dirt.

He couldn’t take too long to decide what to do. Anyone could see him sitting up there and call the cops again. Brian and Razz could have followed him. He decided to attempt a maneuver. He’d scoot around on the top of the wall so he was facing the other way, out toward the street, and then he’d hold onto the top of the wall and lower himself down, hanging by his arms, dropping the last few feet to the ground. It seemed like a good plan. The Kid twisted himself so he was facing away from the house, then he grabbed the wall, took a deep breath and pushed himself backwards, off into the air, but his pants caught on the wood and he lost his grip and fell all the way down into a heap on the ground a foot or so from the front porch.

He got up, dusted himself off. His wrist ached and his legs hurt where he’d landed. There was a rip in his pants where they’d gotten caught on the wall, but nothing seemed broken. He turned to the house. The window holes were boarded up. The boards looked like wooden eye-patches on the house. He climbed up onto the porch and saw that the pictures were gone from the security door. The Kid looked all over the porch, but he couldn’t find them. He pulled at the door, but it wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even open an inch. He saw that a couple of two-by-fours had been screwed across the top of the doorjamb, sealing it shut. He walked around the side of the house, squeezed through the narrow space between the plywood wall and the house, looking for some way in, an unboarded window, something. He found it at the back of the house, the slim kitchen window, still unsealed. The Kid grabbed onto the bottom of the window, pulled as hard as he could, lifted a bruised leg up and over, shifted his weight until he rolled over the sill, through the window onto the blasted countertop, one sneaker landing in the glass-filled sink.

He lay there for a second, breathing hard, watching the dust swirl in the afternoon light, listening to his breath, the creaking sounds of the house, distant dogs and sirens.

His sneakers crunched through the kitchen, out into the hallway, back into the living room. The angel was there, the mural was there. The whole thing was intact, the drawing was untouched. He walked over to the angel, looked closely. She seemed higher on the wall. She was moving closer to the hole in the roof. How much longer would it take her to get there? The Kid would have to stay and wait. It might take the rest of the afternoon; it might take all night. His dad would get worried, but The Kid had no choice. He would stay and wait until the angel was up and out of the roof, until she was off telling his mom that she was needed, that she needed to come home.

He emptied his backpack, sat in a corner across from the angel. Put the cassette into the tape recorder, rewound, pressed
Play
. He listened to the sound of his own voice, his mom’s voice, watched the angel. The light drained from the hole in the roof and the cuts in the walls until it was dark in the house, the only light in the room the glowing blue star on The Kid’s arm.

He pushed the gun into Greene’s chest, backing him away, moving them both through the room. Fluid leaking from Darby’s nose, soaking the front of his lucky shirt. Greene lifted his arms, eyes wide. Darby pushed the gun into his chest. Darby wanting to pull the trigger once, twice, because neither of them had been there when she fell.

The Kid woke to a familiar voice. It took him a few seconds to realize who it belonged to. It was Smooshie Smith, Talk Show Host of the Future. Smooshie was conducting an interview somewhere in the room. The Kid kept his eyes closed, listened.

“Where are you?” Smooshie said. “Can you tell our audience where you are right now?”

There was the sound of cassette-tape hiss and crackle, and then his mom’s voice was there in the room.

“I’m close. I’m nearby,” she said.

“Where have you been all this time?” Smooshie said. “What have you been up to?”

“I’ve been all over the map. I’ve been visiting people. My mother. Old friends, people I used to know.”

“And now what?” Smooshie said. “What do you have lined up next?”

The Kid opened his eyes. The room was dark except for the glow of the blue star. He couldn’t quite tell where they were, Smooshie and his mom. He thought he saw shapes, moving shadows and shapes, but it was hard to tell for sure. His head felt like a beach ball, big and floaty. He heard the hiss and crackle of the cassette, and then he heard nothing.