We All Fall Down (6 page)

“Hey, Amos,” Jane called on an impulse. “What’re you reading?”

Amos looked up with a pained expression as if it hurt him to encounter someone face-to-face. “What do you want to know for?” he asked.

“Just curious.”

Mickey said: “I don’t read so much since we got television.”

Weird, Jane thought. Television began thirty, forty years ago.

“Television is for morons,” Amos said, a middle-aged scowl on his face.

Mickey recoiled, stepping backward.
“Jeopardy!’s
my favorite program,” he said, not looking at Jane. Or Amos.

“Hey, Amos,” Jane said, “I watch television. Millions of people watch it. We’re not all morons. I like
Jeopardy!
too.”

Amos hugged his books closer to his chest. Turned away, then turned back, grimacing. “I hope your sister’s getting better,” he said, his voice rusty, as if it hurt him to speak.

Still clutching his books, Amos marched away, a lonesome parade of one, while Mickey began to fuss with his tools at the back of the truck.

“Time to go to work,” he said, tugging at his baseball cap.

Jane resumed jogging, not really jogging but a quickstep kind of walking. Going down the street and turning the corner, she felt somehow cheered up by the meeting with these odd people. Maybe because the man and the boy, both so very different, had mentioned Karen. Everyone else avoided speaking about her, as if she had ceased to exist, had passed out of people’s lives.

She herself had passed out of people’s lives. She seldom
saw Patti or Leslie anymore. They nodded when they met in the corridors at school and sometimes endured awkward lunch hours at the same table, the conversation stilted and superficial, broken by prolonged silences. Jane did not blame them for not continuing the friendship they had enjoyed, if indeed it had been friendship. She was the one who had first withdrawn, avoiding them, sensing that she had become an embarrassment, a feeling that began that morning on the porch. Her separation from Patti and Leslie meant that she did not have to playact anymore, did not have to pretend that everything was fine, did not have to be on the defensive about her house and family and Karen. Yet, sometimes, when she saw the two girls walking down the corridor, easy with each other, laughing, casual, she was filled with a longing, a yearning for—she was not sure what—perhaps simply a friend to talk to.

But all of this was minor, of course, compared with what had happened to Karen, although sometimes she almost envied Karen as she slept on that high hospital bed.

The death of Vaughn Masterson was reported as an accident in the newspaper. The story noted that the weapon had been stolen from the apartment of retired police sergeant Louis Kendrick a month earlier. Allowing the victim the benefit of the doubt, police deduced that the boy probably found the weapon after it had been either lost or discarded by the thief. Vaughn Masterson evidently took the weapon home, hid it away somewhere in his house or in his father’s garage, and had taken it out to play with on that fatal day, not realizing it was loaded. The boy died instantly when the weapon was discharged. The newspaper did not sensationalize the story, ran the boy’s picture—one taken by a school photographer the year before—but did not go into great detail about the fatal shooting.

The Avenger read the story avidly, his heart pumping joyously, his eyes bright and his head warm as if he had a fever. But a nice fever. He studied Vaughn’s face in the picture, his neatly combed hair, the big smile that revealed small sharp teeth.

Although he felt an immense satisfaction as he read the story, he did not make the mistake of cutting it out of the newspaper, to save as a souvenir. He had seen a movie in which the killer was apprehended when a yellowed newspaper clipping about the murder was found years later in his attic.

The entire fifth grade attended the funeral at the First Congregational church. The Avenger was amazed at the hypocrisy of his classmates, especially the girls who cried and sniffled and blew their noses. Even the guys—and Danny Davis in particular—looked sad. The Avenger arranged his face in what he considered a mournful expression. Although he hated doing this, he knew that he could not afford to stand out in the crowd, could not draw attention to himself.

Vaughn’s parents walked down the aisle a moment before the coffin was wheeled in. The Avenger felt a tug of sympathy, picturing has own mother in church if he should die. In a way, The Avenger felt sorry for Vaughn’s parents as they sat down in the pew. Mr. Masterson’s hand trembled as he placed his arm around Mrs. Masterson’s shoulder. Chances were they did not know what a terrible person their son had been. No wonder they were sad. The Avenger realized he had done them a favor by killing him before he grew up to disgrace them. The Avenger was convinced that Vaughn Masterson would have grown up to be a terrible person.

The minister began to speak like a teacher in school, speaking softly and slowly as if he was going to pass out a
test at the end of the sermon. He spoke about eternity and goodness and living one’s life in the glow of the Lord. He spoke of the tragedy of an early death but the glory of going to the Lord without a tarnished soul.

The Avenger barely listened as he kept his eye on the gleaming wood of Vaughn’s coffin. The minister said we should be thankful for Vaughn’s time with us on earth. The Avenger was also thankful for Vaughn Masterson. He had shown The Avenger how easy it was to get rid of someone who did not deserve to live. Easier than on television, where the murderers always got caught before the final commercial was shown.
Why had it been easy?
The Avenger frowned, seeking an answer as the minister droned on. Why hadn’t the police caught him? Two policemen had visited the school and talked to everyone. Asking questions. Had Vaughn been acting strange recently? Had anyone seen him with the gun?

When his turn came, The Avenger had looked them straight in the eye and lied. No, he had not seen Vaughn Masterson after school on the day he died. He learned that it was easy to lie, easier than reciting lessons in class. In movies and TV, the guilty party always looked guilty, sweating, not looking anyone in the eye. But The Avenger answered their questions in his best helpful voice, like when he asked his mother if she wanted him to run an errand even when he did not feel like running an errand.

As he yawned with boredom, trying to tune out the minister, The Avenger made a startling discovery. The discovery came when the minister said: “No one knows why Vaughn had to die that afternoon.” The words banged around in The Avenger’s head.
No one knows why. Why.
In other words, neither the police nor anyone else knew the reason for the killing, the motive. He seized on that word
motive.
He had heard that word a million times in movies
and television—
once we know the motive, we will find the killer—
but never realized its deep meaning until this moment. The motive is what links the killer with the victim. The motive is the arrow that points toward the killer. If the motive can’t be found, then the killer can’t be found. Simple. Terrific. That’s why they couldn’t connect anyone with Vaughn Masterson’s murder and why they did not even know that it
was
a murder.

Remember that the next time, he told himself as the minister finally shut up and the organ boomed forth, the pews trembling with the vibrations.

The Avenger found it hard not to smile and had to cover his mouth with his hands as everyone stood up to watch Vaughn Masterson’s coffin roll by.

Buddy dreaded dinnertimes. That’s because his mother insisted that he and Addy show up at the table at six-fifteen on the dot: “The least we can do is get together once a day.”

She was sleek and stylish, every hair in place, slim and elegant. When preparing meals in the kitchen or baking a cake, she never appeared disheveled, never a dab of flour on her face. Even her aprons were stylish, not merely to protect her from spills or splashes. They matched whatever she was wearing.

The dinners were excruciating. The food was not exactly a thing of inspiration either. Because she worked five days a week in downtown Wickburg as an executive secretary, his mother prepared casseroles ahead of time and heated them in the microwave oven. Casseroles or frozen dinners, low-cholesterol, low-calorie meals. She made up for this on weekends when she prepared special dishes following exotic recipes from her collection of cookbooks. She was experimenting with ginger these days. All these
crazy dishes, Japanese especially, laced with ginger, which Buddy ate without enthusiasm or dislike, going through the motions like everything else in his life. Addy chewed away listlessly; food was never an exciting thing for her. “I live the life of the spirit,” she was fond of saying, although Buddy found about a thousand candy bar wrappers when he went into her room one day looking for a dictionary for his homework.

Food aside, the dinners consisted of chitchat between his mother and Addy, nonstop, as if fines would be handed out if a silence fell. Chatter. About school and work and the weather and traffic conditions, for crissakes. Buddy tuned them out. Which was easy to do when you were in the glow of the gin.

He wondered what would happen if he disturbed the dinnertime routine. Like showing them the story Randy Pierce clipped from the newspaper.

HOUSE VANDALIZED

GIRL, 14, INJURED

See what your son has been doing, Mom, dear ol’ Mom? Keeping busy, but not keeping out of mischief. Randy had made Xerox copies of the news story and spread them around the school, even thumbtacking them up on bulletin boards and on lockers until Harry, his voice withering in its fury, ordered him to take them down. “We don’t call attention to ourselves.” No more trashing, Buddy had finally said to Harry. Your wish is my command, Harry had replied, bowing low, like an actor on a stage. Harry, the actor, only pretending to give in, as Buddy learned later.

At the dinner table, Buddy was the actor and maybe his mother and Addy were also acting. Pretending that the chair across from their mother was occupied. The empty chair and the lack of plates and utensils. One afternoon,
Buddy looked into the dining room as Addy was setting the table, saw her burst into tears and realized what she had done. Out of an old habit, she had laid out a plate, a knife, fork, and spoon at her father’s place. Her face hideous with grief, she swiveled away from him.

“Stop it,” Buddy said, voice harsher than he intended. “He isn’t worth crying over.”

Buddy hated the dining room because it was the place where his father announced that he was moving out of their lives. The announcement, while surprising as well as shocking, made something click inside Buddy and suddenly solved a lot of puzzling things going on in their lives. For weeks, his father had been abstracted, quiet at the table, not participating in the usual dinnertime talk. He was often late for meals, rushing in at the last minute, suddenly talking too loudly, making too many excuses. All of which had been only mildly puzzling to Buddy. Until his father made his big announcement. Apologetic, frowning, clearing his throat, hands moving everywhere, touching his plate, knife, fork, wineglass so that the chardonnay swirled inside and almost overflowed the rim.

“Your mother and I have decided that I should move out of the house for a while,” he said in a strangled voice. Which Buddy learned later contained some untruths. First of all, it was his father’s own decision: his mother had nothing to do with it. And it wasn’t “for a while.” He was not planning to come back.

“Are you going to move in with that woman?” Addy asked.

This was the real shock to Buddy, realizing that Addy had known about the woman all along. So shocking that he could not remember later what his father had replied or whether his father, too, had been shocked by Addy’s words. Those words later hung in his mind, like washing on
a clothesline, whipped by the wind, the words lashing around, echoing:
that woman.
What woman?

“Look, I’m sorry, kids. I didn’t want to tell you this way. But there was no good way to tell you.” Looking down at his plate, avoiding their eyes. “Yes, there’s a woman involved. But I’m not moving in with her. And this is not something I planned. It just happened.”

Buddy shot a careful secret glance at his mother. How was she taking this? She was holding herself rigid as if posing for a picture. Her hands folded on the table in front of her, food untouched. Not looking at his father or at Addy or him. Staring off into space, trancelike, as if she were lending her body to the scene but she, herself, her essence, whatever she was, not there at all, absent, gone off somewhere because the words were too terrible to bear.

“Buddy, Addy—I love the two of you,” his father continued. “You both know that, I shouldn’t have to say it. But I’m saying it anyway. What has happened between your mother and me has nothing to do with you or my love for you.”

Later, of course, Addy answered his arguments, refuted them all.

“Did you hear what he said? And how he said it?” Mimicking him: “‘
Your mother and I have decided.’”
Snorting: “
He
decided. Mom decided nothing. He wants this woman and he’s moved out to be with her, no matter what Mom thinks, no matter what we think.” Mimicking him again:
“‘What has happened between your mother and me has nothing to do with you.’”
Flinging herself on the bed. “Bullshit. Who does he think it has to do with? Other people? It took the two of them to bring us into the world, didn’t it? And now, all of a sudden, what happens to them has nothing to do with
us
? It has everything to do with us.

“What happens to them, happens to us. Affects us. Changes our lives.”

Buddy was still unprepared, felt stupid, didn’t know what to say. “Who’s this other woman, Addy?”

“First of all, she’s not a woman. She’s almost a girl. I mean, Mom is a woman. This … this person is maybe in her twenties. I don’t knew her name.” She sat up in the bed, grimacing, face getting red. “Okay, I hate to admit this but I knew about this woman, girl, whatever, because I listened in, eavesdropped on Mom and Dad arguing one night. Felt like a creep standing outside their bedroom, my ear practically glued to the door. Her name is Fay. She’s a secretary at his office. Know all those late nights he worked? That’s when it started.” Again, cruelly mimicking their father, “‘
We didn’t mean to fall in love.’”
Imagine, telling that to Mom. Telling Mom he fell in love with someone else. The bastard …” She pulled a blanket around her as if for protection.