Wait Until Twilight (17 page)

BOOK: Wait Until Twilight
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M
ELODY DOESN’T CALL ME BACK
that day or for the next few days. It’s not like her at all, so I drive to her house after school in the middle of the week. Her dad comes to the door. He’s got a close-cropped Afro and thick mustache. He’s looking quite angry.

“Is Melody in?” I ask.

“Who are you?”

“Samuel. I’m a friend of Melody.”

His stern appearance softens somewhat. “The kid with the black-and-white television.”

“I really appreciated your fixing that for me. Sorry it took me so long to pick it up.”

“Don’t worry about that. It was easy. I just can’t believe you watch that thing. I can say you’re the only person who’s ever brought in a tiny black-and-white television.”

“My mom gave it to me when I was a kid, so it has some good memories to it.”

“Aha, well then, now it makes a little more sense. You wanna come in?”

“Is Melody inside?” I ask.

“She’s not here.” He takes a breath and I think he might regain that stern look, but he becomes sad. “She’s been spending a lot of time with some guy named Eric. Do you know Eric?”

I have to think about it for a second, but then I remember the tall black guy with the basketball jersey we ran into on our bike ride from the lost highway. “I met him one time.”

“Do you think you’re gonna see her soon?” he asks me.

“To be honest with you, sir, I don’t know. But I’d like to.”

“If you see her, could you tell her to stop by home? I’ve got something to give her,” he says.

“Yes, sir.”

I get in my car and head for the east side of town. My car starts making that grinding sound again, but luckily it goes away. I take it real slow when I reach the other side of the railroad tracks. I get a lot of stares by the passersby.

“You gonna get yaself killed driving around like that,” someone yells.

“You know where Eric lives?” I yell back.

“Redmond or Tate?” says a well-built black guy wearing a black tank top.

“The young skinny one with the braces.”

“Ah, he live up the street.” He points. “Hang a right on Burnside, look for the house with the bed on the porch.”

“Thanks.”

Burnside’s just up a couple blocks, past that building where I watched the fake animal documentary with the old man that time I
was with Melody. I turn right and slow because I see the large queen-size bed. And it’s on the porch, just like he said. There’re some people lying on it while on one edge two people sit playing cards. I stop for a minute in front of the house to have a closer look. It’s Eric and Melody lying there napping. They’re fully clothed lying side by side, but he’s much lower on the bed, with his feet curled up under him, and his head at Melody’s stomach. It makes her seem maternal to me somehow. The two black girls playing cards don’t seem to care about the day sleepers. Then a large muscular white man with no shirt comes out of the house with a haggard-looking black lady. They’re greeting an old black guy with a big Afro coming from next door. They turn to toward me and start pointing, so I get out of there. I drive to Underwood with no idea what I want to do, but I need to do something. I just drive by and back around again before going home. After a hot shower I turn on my black-and-white television and get an idea. I sit down and write a letter:

Daryl plans on killing your babies. He’s been hurting them. If you don’t believe me, check their bodies for small bruises and marks. Maybe you’ve seen them already. It is him. He’s a sadistic, evil man. He calls the babies monsters, freaks. He hates them. Save them
.

Then I practice saying it: “Daryl plans on killing your babies…” I whisper. No, “Daryl plans on killing your babies…” I say with a deep voice. No matter what, it sounds ridiculous. To hell with it, I resign myself to sounding stupid and drive out to the 7-Eleven. I’ve never used the pay phone there, but I’ve seen people on that thing. On the plastic shelf beneath the phone box I take out the chained phone book and look up Greenan at Underwood and find Doris Greenan, 770–834-6921. I call the number but hang up a couple times before I
can muster up the courage actually to wait for an answer. But no one answers. I go in the 7-Eleven and buy a cherry slushy that I drink in my Tempo while watching the traffic and the self car wash across the street. After I finish my slushy I call again, and Daryl picks up. I hang up before he even finishes saying, “Hell…”

That night after dinner I tell Dad I’m going out to meet friends, but I go back to the 7-Eleven and call again. Mrs. Greenan finally says, “Hello.”

I speak with the lowest voice I can, “Doris?” I try to sound like a big black man.

“That’s me.”

“Daryl plans on killing your babies. He’s been—”

“What?”

“He’s been hurting them. If you don’t believe me, check their bodies for small bruises and marks…”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Maybe you’ve seen them already. It is him. He is a sadistic, evil man,” I read in a deep monotone voice.

“Is this some kind of prank?”

“Listen! Shut up and listen to me!”

I wait for her to interrupt or say something, but she doesn’t say anything so I continue, “Daryl plans on killing your babies. He’s been hurting them. If you don’t believe me, check their bodies for small bruises and marks. Maybe you’ve seen them already. It is him. He is a sadistic, evil man. He calls the babies monsters, demons. He hates them. Save them. Okay? Do you understand?”

“Go to hell. He wouldn’t do that. He’s their brother.” I can hear her swallow down a sigh. I think she might be crying.

“You know,” I say.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You lie. You’re a goddamn liar.”

“If you don’t believe me, check their bodies.”

“Who is this? Goddamnit!” she says hysterically.

I can’t get myself to hang up, though I should have. “God,” I say, and I hang up. I’m not trying to be funny or anything. It just came out. I get back in my car and sit there for a while watching traffic go by, my duty fulfilled. “I’ve done something about it. I’ve done my part,” I say out loud to no one. “Now leave me the hell alone…”

A
S THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR APPROACHES
a nauseous feeling comes over me, and my guts feel cold all the damn time. I wake up from nightmares I can’t remember. And the light, the light feels dim. Even if it’s sunny without a cloud in the sky, the light feels dimmed out. It’s like twilight all the time, twenty-four hours a day. I know it’s got to be in my mind, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m tired all the time and constantly in a bad mood. I don’t feel like riding my bike anymore. Not to mention my car is making that grinding noise again, so Dad has to give me a ride and pick me back up from school every day. I don’t want to be a complete jerk to everyone, so I just keep to myself most of the time. When I do have to interact with people, I’m my old self but it’s like I’m acting. Even my favorite television show depresses me. It’s the one about the guys trapped in the desert town,
Devil in the Desert
, that comes on during
the week but it has gotten so popular they stick it on Saturday night. I try to focus on studying for the final exams. When I keep my mind on only one thing like that, I feel kind of normal. And I do that up to the last day of school.

 

MY LAST TWO FINAL EXAMS
finish early in the afternoon on Friday. Jamie, a guy I know from biology, knows about me going off school grounds to eat all the time and is trying to convince me to go out with him. I just want him to go away. I’m hardly even friends with the guy. “Let’s check and see what we’re having first,” I say.

We go over to the cafeteria and peek at the food on the trays. It’s some kind of turkey club sandwich with these big fish-eyed-looking black olives in there. “Look, the line is short, and I don’t feel like walkin’,” I say. He doesn’t want to go alone so he gets in line with me. If Jamie hadn’t been with me, I would have gone to the storage area behind the kitchen. I’d been going there for the past few days. The coaches and janitors didn’t seem to mind as long as I stayed quiet. It made me feel calm eating lunch in there between those tall shelves instead of in the noisy cafeteria. I go ahead and eat with Jamie in the cafeteria like everyone else. His pasty white skin bugs me. Afterward I ditch him and go to the library to get some last-minute cramming in.

I thought I was ready for my algebra exam. In fact, I am, until I get to the last two questions. The anxiety of my next final exam, which is a presentation, begins slowly to invade my mind and melt into my thoughts. I start to sweat. I can’t think straight. I keep reading the question over and over, but it doesn’t make sense. It reads like this to me:

If one person is some fraction 100/245 and spends time with another person, what is the fraction of the third person?

No, I can’t be reading that right. Impossible. No matter how many times I read it, it doesn’t make sense. I end up just plugging the numbers into a formula Mrs. Easton gave. I get an answer and move on to the next question, but I’m still distracted by the thought of the presentation. If I finish this exam early, I might have more time to get ready. On to the last question, which is about the trajectory of a basketball in relation to tangential hand motions, requiring the actual cutting out of the basketball from the test paper.
Bullshit
, I think to myself. I’m losing my mind. I turn in my exam and sit back down. Even if I blew the last two questions I would still be all right as long as I had gotten the rest of the questions. I want to work on my next final but can’t think straight, so I just sit there until time runs out.

The twenty-minute presentation I have to give for my final exam in world history is about the code of the Japanese samurai and its relation to contemporary Japan. I’ve done quite a bit of research and preparation. The problem is, when I get up in front of the teacher, I get dizzy and my mind goes blank. I rely completely on my note cards to get me through the next twenty minutes. I don’t even know what I’m doing or saying. After I finish I can’t remember a thing except having wiped sweat off my forehead and Mr. Bennett asking me if I was all right. I believe I responded by saying, “I was a little nervous.” It was all like a blur.

When it’s all over, I ask Mr. Bennett if I failed. He sits there a minute tabulating some numbers on his notepad. Mr. Bennett’s a short, balding guy with a permanent five o’clock shadow. His pants seem to be too big all the time, and he walks around like a knocked-kneed butterball. But he’s okay. He treats students fairly and seems to know his stuff.

“I’m going to give you a B minus, Samuel,” he says, as if he wants to give me a higher grade but can’t do it. “Your research was fine but the presentation killed you. You didn’t look up from your note
cards, not once.” I don’t care, but he goes on to give me some pointers on giving a speech, namely making eye contact and being engaging. Then I leave. My sophomore year is over. I go to my locker and clear out the few books that are left in there. I place the lock and the form with my picture on the top shelf. I’m finished, and the halls are still empty. It’s only two-thirty in the afternoon, still a half hour before the chaos of the end of the school year officially ensues.

 

ALL I HAVE LEFT TO
do is clean out my art class shelf. Actually, I really don’t have to do that, because I take art every year and use the same shelf. But there’s some stuff I want to get. When I exit the main building to go to the auditorium, I’m met with a steady drizzle of rain. The auditorium is almost always empty, except when the art or drama class is using it, so its main purpose is as a shortcut for students going to the art room. I go in expecting empty seats and find myself in the middle of a standing-room-only class being taught by Mrs. Busby. I can’t just walk through while she’s lecturing, so I sit down beside some students whose faces I kind of know. That’s when I realize it’s the school band. They’re going to New York to compete in some band contest. It had been announced over the daily intercom, and I’ve seen flyers around school for the past month. They must be shipping off that day. All along the walls and the back are backpacks and traveling gear. It seems like some big pep rally before the send-off.

Mrs. Busby, with her gray beehive hair, asks the color guard to come out, and they do, dressed in their glittery tights. They file out in two lines on the right and left of the stage. Mrs. Busby asks the audience if any of them saw the famous University of Southern California marching band performance that was on television a couple of weeks ago, and some of the students raise their hands. “I want you to perform like that. Just like that!” she says. I’m busy looking at the color
guard. There’s one in particular, the prettiest one, who looks like she has silver eyes from where I sit. I want to get a closer look, so I move to a seat closer to the front. Her eyes are, in fact, blue. It must have been the silver-and-blue sequins on her tights messing with my eyes.

They start passing around these yellow flyers. The band people sitting in front of me deliberately pass it around me, knowing that I’m not one of them. Mrs. Busby announces the fliers are a list of other schools performing at the competition. Then she asks the audience if they’re ready to perform. “Are you ready?” Mrs. Busby yells. “Are you ready to go up there and perform? Julie?”

“Yes, ma’am,” a voice from up front says.

“Are you sure you’re ready to perform?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the voice says louder, and then Julie comes up on stage.

It’s all some rehearsed bit to pump up the band.

“Tammy? Tammy, are YOU…READY?!”

“Yes, ma’am,” yells someone else before getting up on stage.

“Are you ready to ride that horse at the head of the team?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She calls some more girls up there in the same fashion, and they start packing their pretend bags. It seems like some kind of bizarre musical without any music or singing. I’m hoping one of them will burst into song. The whole time Mrs. Busby keeps talking to them. “You better be careful on this trip, June,” she says.

“Don’t worry about me, ma’am,” June says with the utmost confidence. “I know my role!”

“Tammy, are you sure about your horse?”

“Giddyap!” says Tammy and rides a make-believe horse.

The audience laughs and cheers all this stuff. I actually get a laugh, too, when in one part of the bit the girls are tossing the packed bags from girl to girl up to the front girl, but it gets too fast and the
front girl ends up getting hit on the head with a bag. She squeals and rubs her head but continues piling the bags up. I’m impressed with her poise.

“We’re about to go on a trip, aren’t we?” asks Mrs. Busby.

“Yes, ma’am!” say the girls.

“We’re about to get on those buses and go to the airport, and where are we going?” Mrs. Busby asks the entire audience.

“New York!” everyone yells. The pep rally’s ending by then, and all the students are getting up and getting their gear. I follow the group out into the rain. Most have umbrellas, but some use these red textbooks they all seem to have to cover their heads. I put my backpack over my head as I walk out to the curb where these big black buses have lined up. The band kids are packing their gear into the compartments at the bottom of the buses, where some of the drivers are trying to stuff some white camel suits. They look alive the way their big white hairy heads keep flopping out and those bus drivers are trying to shove them back in. I know they’re just suits, but the way those drivers are doing it looks brutal. I mean, if those white camels were really alive, it would be horrible, wouldn’t it? Those babies were definitely alive when Daryl shoved them in that bag like potatoes. My hand starts shaking, and I bring down the backpack I’ve been using to cover myself from the rain, but I’m getting all wet and cold. In the midst of the rain the sun comes out, and for a minute it’s raining and sunny at the same time. A superstitious old-timer would have proclaimed the devil must be beating his wife, as the old tale goes. Then the rain stops and the sun keeps shining, but it’s all the same to me, constant twilight. I put on my backpack and shove my hands in my pockets. But they won’t quit shaking. It feels like my whole body’s going to start shaking. Like I’m losing control of myself, and I get scared. I could go to Jim. I can get away just like these band guys going to New York. Escape. When I visited him, I felt a hell of a lot
better. Besides, if I took Jim up on his offer, I could spend some time with him, like old times. Yeah. I’d have something to study and girls to look at. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll get around to telling me if Mom said anything just before she lost it. I take a deep breath and imagine the devil beating his wife, and the devil looks like Daryl. It’s an easy decision. I call Jim and tell him that I’ll sit in on his classes but he has to come pick me up right now. He agrees. While I’m waiting I call Dad to tell him I’ll be visiting Jim for a few days. He’s surprised but glad to hear we’ll be spending some time together. I’m glad, too.

BOOK: Wait Until Twilight
2.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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