We All Fall Down (13 page)

Now the anger was gone and so was the sorrow as the bus left downtown Wickburg and made its way to the outskirts where Burnside awaited him. He had nothing but a vast emptiness inside of him. Like hunger, although it had nothing to do with eating food. Hunger for—what? Action. To do something. The old woman had gotten off the bus—he had not noticed her departure—and now a young lady sat in the seat in front of him. She had a small baby in her arms. The baby began to fuss a bit and the young lady hoisted the baby up to her shoulder and the baby looked at him. The baby started to cry, face all scrunched up in its bonnet. Was the baby a boy or a girl? He couldn’t tell. But he wished the baby would stop crying and stop staring at him.

He looked away, out the window, at the houses with their lawns and cars parked in driveways and the baby stopped crying. But when he looked again, the baby was looking at him. Did babies have some kind of special power when they looked at people? Ridiculous, of course. But who could tell what babies were thinking? This baby had dark eyes like the security guard at the Mall. The baby looked at him with those dark eyes, face all wrinkled like a paper bag that had been crushed in somebody’s hand. He did not like the way the baby was staring at him and looked out the window again. He also began to get angry again. Angry at the Mall which he had always hated and hated even more now because the trashers had not gone there. Angry, too, at this baby staring at him. And the baby’s mother paying no attention at all. He wondered if the mother would pay attention if he did something to the baby.

The bus lurched again, hitting a bump in the road and came to a stop. The doors hissed open and closed and the young lady got up. She did not get off the bus but took another seat in the front of the bus near the door. The Avenger told himself to take it easy, not to get angry again. But why did she change her seat? Did the baby’s mother have powers of her own? Did she read The Avenger’s mind as he sat behind her? He looked out the window again, hitting the glass with his knuckles, not caring whether he was making noise or not. He told himself to get rid of these thoughts. How could that lady read his mind anyway? And what special powers could a little baby have? Ridiculous. And yet …

He was relieved when the bus arrived at downtown Burnside. He got off the bus without looking at the young lady and the baby. He should focus on the trashers and not strangers. He shivered as he considered what he might have done to that baby. He was in a hurry now to get to the shed and map out new plans. What kind of new plans? He wasn’t sure. He glanced in the window of a hardware store and looked at the tools. Hammers and saws—like weapons waiting for his use. Maybe he should start a collection while waiting for the trashers. Round up all the weapons he could find. Excitement rose in him and he almost bumped into a man who was standing in front of a drugstore reading a newspaper. The newspaper fluttered in the air like a soiled flag.

“Excuse me,” The Avenger said in his polite way, excitement making his blood race now. Knives and guns and axes and pliers in his thoughts.

Because The Avenger seldom read a newspaper he would never know that the newspaper the man had been holding carried a story with the headline

ARCHITECT’S SON

ADMITS VANDALISM

“Harry’s glad you’re here,” Harry Flowers said as they sat in his car two streets away from Buddy’s house. Buddy preferred this spot rather than some public place. He did not want to be seen by anyone, particularly the police, in the company of Harry Flowers.

“Harry thought you might have better things to do.” That same phony voice. Buddy hated people, like ball players and politicians, who referred to themselves in the third person. He shrugged, did not feel particularly like talking. Let Harry Flowers carry the ball. This meeting was his idea, anyway.

Silence gathered in the car as dusk deepened into the first stages of night, the streetlights brightening in the gathering darkness.

“Have a drink,” Harry said, offering a half pint of gin he had pulled out of the glove compartment.

Buddy wanted to refuse, wished desperately that he could refuse, but he needed all the defenses possible when talking to Harry Flowers and he accepted the bottle, took a tentative gulp, then a good healthy swallow, grimacing as usual at the taste, the burning in his throat.

He handed the bottle back to Harry and noticed dimly that Harry did not take a drink.

“Tell me something, Buddy, why don’t you trust Harry?”

The question surprised Buddy. But Harry always was capable of the surprise, the verbal ambush.

“What makes you think I don’t trust you?” Buddy asked, hoping the gin would do its work quickly, relaxing
him so that he would be able to hold his own with Harry Flowers in what promised to be a delicate conversation.

Harry handed him the bottle again. Buddy hesitated still wanting to refuse it but giving in. Christ, he always gave in. As he raised the bottle to his lips, he stalled before drinking, studying Harry’s face.

Buddy could not deny the fact that Harry had kept his word, had shouldered the blame for the trashing without naming anyone else. His father had paid for the damages. Sat down and wrote a big check without quibbling, according to Marty. Throughout the week, Buddy had waited for the phone to ring, a knock on the door, a summons to police headquarters. None of that had happened. A three-paragraph story on the inside page of the newspaper ran under a modest headline in small type:

ARCHITECT’S SON

ADMITS VANDALISM

The brief story gave no details, only the names of Harry and his father, and reported that restitution had been made, Harry placed on probation. Did not mention the name of the family whose home was vandalized and omitted any reference to the girl who had been pushed down the stairs.

“Admit it, Buddy. You thought Harry would blow the whistle on you and Marty and Randy,” Harry said.

Swallowing the booze, eyes watering a bit, Buddy knew he could not deny the truth of Harry’s statement.

“Of course, I don’t blame you for that,” Harry continued. He had dropped the third-person Harry: “The kind of world we’re living in nobody expects you to do the right thing.…”

“Okay, Harry,” Buddy heard himself saying. “I appreciate
what you did. I really do. I think it’s great ….” Buddy groped for more words and could not find them.

“Big statement,” Harry said. “But you ran out of steam there, Buddy. Know why? Because you were about to add
but Hell, I think it’s a great thing you did, Harry, but
… What the
but
means, Buddy, is you’re looking for the angle. You’re figuring that I must have an ulterior motive for what I did. Right?”

“But
why
did you do it, Harry?” Buddy asked, giving in to his curiosity. “Why did you take all the blame? How did you get your father to pay the entire bill? We did as much damage as you did. Maybe more.” The booze was beginning to work and he thought of the girl’s room, the exhilaration of ripping her posters from the wall, sweeping her knickknacks from the shelf, tearing her bed apart.

“Is it so hard to understand?” Harry asked. “Am I supposed to be a bad guy or something? Sure, I like to raise a little hell, have a good time, smoke a little pot, drink a little booze. Does that make me a prize heel? Hey, Buddy, I’m good to my mother and don’t hassle my father. I make the honor roll. My folks appreciate all that. And when I got into trouble, my father helped out. My father loves me. He wrote the check and asked no questions.”

Buddy glanced again at Harry. Harry Flowers, good student, good son, good guy.
What’s wrong with this picture? Or was there anything wrong?

“I’m sorry,” he said, the booze making it easy to say the words again.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Just accept what I did for what it was. I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just did what I thought was best for all of us. Why drag my friends into a mess when it wasn’t necessary?”

But I’m not your friend
. Didn’t that make Harry’s gesture even more noble then? Buddy had always thought in
terms of good and evil, that you were either good or bad. And he automatically placed himself in the category of good guys. Which made Harry a bad guy, automatically. Now he wasn’t certain, not certain about anything about himself. A good guy didn’t do rotten things. And he, Buddy Walker, good guy, had helped wreck a family’s house. He also drank in secret, went to school drunk sometimes. Missed the honor roll. Harry made the honor roll. Buddy’s father had left home, abandoned his family while Harry’s father loved him.
My father loves me,
and was willing to pay the damages for Harry’s vandalism.

“What’s the matter?” Harry asked.

“Nothing,” Buddy answered. But, yes, there was something.

“I know what’s bothering you,” Harry said.

Buddy turned to him, alarmed. Could Harry read his thoughts? Harry had always been capable of surprises—was this another one?

“You’re wondering how I got away with it, right? Why the judge gave me probation, why there was so little publicity, why the charge against me was so minor? Is that what’s bothering you?”

The gin spoke for Buddy: “Right, yes, that’s exactly what I was wondering.” But thinking: no, I wasn’t wondering about that at all, relieved that Harry, after all, was not a mind reader.

“You see, Buddy, they
had
to believe me and go along with what I said.” Harry’s customary coolness had vanished and he actually seemed excited as he talked. “They had no choice.”

“Why did they have no choice?” Buddy asked, sensing that he was playing into Harry’s hands like a straight man in a comedy act.

“Well, actually, they
thought
they had a choice.
Thought they could throw the book at me. Breaking and entering. Malicious damage to property. Assaulting the girl. But as it turned out, they tad to forget most of the charges. No breaking and entering, no assaulting the girl. That left them only with damage to property. Also, I’m only eighteen, from a respectable family, no previous arrests.”

“But the girl is in the hospital, Harry. In a coma. How could they overlook that?”

“They didn’t overlook it. They just didn’t blame me. I told them that she fell down the stairs. Came rushing in the house in the dark and opened the wrong door. When she comes cut of the coma—
if
she comes out of the coma”—a distinction that gave Buddy the shivers—“it’s her word against mine. Besides, there were mitigating circumstances. Know what mitigating circumstances are, Buddy?” Harry handed him the bottle again.

Buddy sipped, floating with the booze now, but somehow his mind sharp and dear. “Tell me, Harry.” Fascinated, despite the revulsion he felt.

“Mitigating circumstances means that I came up with the clincher. And the clincher made all the difference in the world. You must always have a clincher, Buddy, and I had the clincher even before we went into that house.”

Buddy knew that Harry was waiting for the next question and Buddy supplied it, speaking slowly and carefully: “What was the clincher, Harry?”

“The key, Buddy,” Harry proclaimed, triumph in his voice. “I had a key to the house. The key opened the front door. As a result, no charge of breaking and entering. Remember the order I gave: Don’t break any windows. That’s why, Buddy. So that they couldn’t say we broke into the place.…”

Buddy flashed back to that night, remembering how
Harry had parked the car on a quiet neighborhood street, whispered “Wait here” and disappeared around the corner. Reappearing a few minutes later, he beckoned Buddy, Marty, and Randy from the corner, maybe a hundred feet away. Befuddled by the booze. Buddy had been only mildly curious about the ease with which Harry ushered them to the Jerome house, the front door open, lights on inside. He had quickly forgotten his curiosity as the vandalism began.

“That’s why it went so easy in court, Buddy. That’s why, when my father agreed to restitution, everybody went along, the judge and the cops. I pleaded nolo contendere. Knew what nolo means? It means I admitted to the facts of the case without admitting guilt. Neat, right? A bit of legal sleight of hand, my father’s lawyer said. The judge placed me on probation and my father paid up….”

Something was wrong here, something was missing. “How about the other family, Harry? Why did they go along? Didn’t they want to see justice done? Their house wrecked? Their daughter in the hospital?”

“Her father was there all the time, Buddy. And he was ready to blow his top. Or bust a gut. I thought at one point that he was going to jump over the guardrail and attack me. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He had no choice….”

“Because you had a key to the house,” Buddy said, still a bit puzzled. Suddenly, he knew what had been missing. “How did you get the key, Harry?”

Harry smiled expansively, leaning back. “I told them the girl gave it to me. The man’s daughter.” A chortle of triumph in his voice.

Buddy recoiled as if Harry had struck him. “That girl, the one who …”

“Not the girl in the hospital,” Harry said. “Two girls live in that house. The other one. Her name is Jane. Jane Jerome …”