by Jack Ketchum
But Meg just frowned. “I don’t steal,” she said.
Well jeez, I thought, meet Miss Priss.
I felt a little contempt for her. Everybody stole. It was part of being a kid.
“Just loan me the money, will you?” she said. “I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
I couldn’t stay mad at her.
“Okay. Sure,” I said. I dumped it into her hand. “But what do you want a sandwich for? Make one at Ruth’s.”
“I can’t.”
“How come?”
“I’m not supposed to.”
“Why?”
“I’m not supposed to eat yet.”
We crossed the street. I looked left and right and then I looked at her. She had that masked look. Like there was something she wasn’t telling. Plus she was blushing.
“I don’t get it.”
Kenny and Eddie and Lou Marino were already on the diamond tossing a ball around. Denise was standing behind the backstop watching them. But nobody saw us yet. I could tell Meg wanted to go but I just stared at her.
“Ruth says I’m fat,” she said finally.
I laughed.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“Am I?”
“What? Fat?” I knew she was serious but I still had to laugh. “’Course not. She’s kidding you.”
She turned abruptly. “Some joke,” she said. “You just try going without dinner and breakfast and lunch for a day.”
Then she stopped and turned back to me. “Thanks,” she said.
And then she walked away.
Chapter Nineteen
The ball game dissolved about an hour after it started. By that time most of the kids on the block were there, not just Kenny and Eddie and Denise and Lou Morino but Willie, Donny, Tony Morino and even Glen Knott and Harry Gray, who showed up because Lou was playing. With the older kids there it was a good fast game—until Eddie hit his hard line drive down the third-base line and started running.
Everybody but Eddie knew it was foul. But there was no telling Eddie that. He rounded the bases while Kenny went to chase the ball. And then there was the usual argument. Fuck you and fuck you and no, fuck you.
The only difference was that this time Eddie picked up his bat and went after Lou Morino.
Lou was bigger and older than Eddie but Eddie had the bat, and the upshot was that rather than risk a broken nose or a concussion, he stalked off the field in one direction taking Harry and Glen along with him while Eddie stalked off the other way.
The rest of us played catch.
That was what we were doing when Meg came by again.
She dropped some change into my hand and I put it in my pocket.
“I owe you eighty-five cents,” she said.
“Okay.”
I noticed that her hair was just a little oily, like she hadn’t washed it that morning. She still looked nice though.
“Want to do something?” she said.
“What?”
I looked around. I guess I was afraid the others would hear.
“I don’t know. Go down by the brook?”
Donny threw me the ball. I pegged it at Willie. As usual he slumped after it too slowly and missed.
“Never mind,” said Meg. “You’re too busy.”
She was irritated or hurt or something. She started to walk away.
“No. Hey. Wait.”
I couldn’t ask her to play. It was hardball and she had no glove.
“Okay, sure. We’ll go down to the brook. Hang on a minute.”
There was only one way to do this gracefully. I had to ask the others.
“Hey guys! Want to go down to the brook? Catch some crayfish or something? It’s hot here.”
Actually the brook didn’t sound bad to me. It was hot.
“Sure. I’ll go,” said Donny. Willie shrugged and nodded.
“Me too,” said Denise.
Great, I thought. Denise. Now all we need is Woofer.
“I’m gonna go get some lunch,” said Kenny. “Maybe I’ll meet you down there.”
“Okay.”
Tony vacillated and then decided he was hungry too. So that left just us five.
“Let’s stop at the house,” said Donny. “Get some jars for the crayfish and a Thermos of Kool-Aid.”
We went in through the back door and you could hear the washing machine going in the basement.
“Donny? That you?”
“Yeah, Ma.”
He turned to Meg. “Get the Kool-Aid, will ya? I’ll go down after the jars and see what she wants.”
I sat with Willie and Denise at the kitchen table. There were toast crumbs on it and I brushed them onto the floor. There was also an ashtray crammed with cigarette butts. I looked through the butts but there was nothing big enough to crib for later.
Meg had the Thermos out and was carefully pouring lime Kool-Aid into it from Ruth’s big pitcher when they came upstairs.
Willie had two peanut butter jars and a stack of tin cans with him. Ruth was wiping her hands on her faded apron. She smiled at us and then looked over at Meg in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Just pouring out some Kool-Aid.”
She dug into the pocket of her apron and took out a pack of Tareytons and lit one.
“Thought I said stay out of the kitchen.”
“Donny wanted some Kool-Aid. It was Donny’s idea.”
“I don’t care whose idea it was.”
She blew out some smoke and started coughing. It was a bad cough, right up from the lungs, and she couldn’t even talk for a moment.
“It’s only Kool-Aid,” said Meg. “I’m not eating.” Ruth nodded. “Question is,” she said, taking another drag of the cigarette, “question is, what did you sneak before I got here?”
Meg finished pouring and put down the pitcher. “Nothing,” she sighed. “I didn’t sneak anything.”
Ruth nodded again. “Come here,” she said.
Meg just stood there.
“I said come over here.”
She walked over.
“Open your mouth and let me smell your breath.”
“What?”
Beside me Denise began to giggle.
“Don’t sass me. Open your mouth.”
“Ruth…”
“Open it.”
“No!”
“What’s that? What’d you say?”
“You don’t have any right to …”
“I got all the right in the world. Open it.”
“No!”
“I said open it, liar.”
“I’m not a liar.”
“Well I know you’re a slut so I guess you’re a liar too. Open it!”
“No.”
“Open your mouth!”
“No!”
“I’m telling you to.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh yes you will. If I have to get these boys to pry it open you will.”
Willie snorted, laughing. Donny was still standing in the doorway holding the cans and jars. He looked embarrassed.
“Open your mouth, slut.”
That made Denise giggle again.
Meg looked Ruth straight in the eye. She took a breath.
And for a moment she suddenly managed an adult, almost stunning dignity.
“I told you, Ruth,” she said. “I said no.”
Even Denise shut up then.
We were astonished.
We’d never seen anything like it before.
Kids were powerless. Almost by definition. Kids were supposed to endure humiliation, or run away from it. If you protested, it had to be oblique. You ran into your room and slammed the door. You screamed and yelled. You brooded through dinner. You acted out—or broke things accidentally on purpose. You were sullen, silent. You screwed up in school. And that was about it. All the guns in your arsenal. But what you did not do was you did not stand up to an adult and say go fuck yourself in so
many words. You did not simply stand there and calmly say no. We were still too young for that. So that now it was pretty amazing.
Ruth smiled and stubbed out her cigarette in the cluttered ashtray.
“I guess I’ll go get Susan,” she said. “I expect she’s in her room.”
And then it was her turn to stare Meg down.
It lasted a moment, the two of them facing off like gunfighters.
Then Meg’s composure shattered.
“You leave my sister out of this! You leave her alone!”
Her hands were balled up into fists, white at the knuckles. And I knew that she knew, then, about the beating the other day.
I wondered if there had been other times, other beatings.
But in a way we were relieved. This was more like it. More like what we were used to.
Ruth just shrugged. “No need for you to get all upset about it, Meggy. I just want to ask her what she knows about you raiding the icebox in between meals. If you won’t do what I ask, then I guess she’d be the one to know.”
“She wasn’t even with us!”
“I’m sure she’s heard you, honey. I’m sure the neighbors have heard you. Anyhow, sisters know, don’t they? Sorta instinctive, really.”
She turned toward the bedroom. “Susan?”
Meg reached out and grabbed her arm. And it was like she was a whole other girl now, scared, helpless, desperate.
“God damn you!” she said.
You knew right away it was a mistake.
Ruth whirled and smacked her.
“You touch me? You touch me, dammit? You bold with me?”
She slapped her again as Meg backed away, and again as she stumbled against the refrigerator, off balance, and fell to her knees. Ruth leaned over and gripped her jaw, pulling on it hard.
“Now you open your goddamn mouth, you hear me? Or I’ll kick the living shit out of you and your precious little sister! You hear me? Willie? Donny?”
Willie got up and went to her. Donny looked confused.
“Hold her.”
I felt frozen. Everything was happening so fast. I was aware of Denise sitting next to me, goggle-eyed.
“I said hold her.”
Willie got out of his seat and took her right arm and I guess Ruth was hurting her where she held tight to her jaw because she didn’t resist. Donny put his jars and cans on the table and took hold of her left. Two of the cans rolled off the table and clattered to the floor.
“Now open, tramp.”
And then Meg did fight, trying to get to her feet, bucking and rolling against them, but they had her tight. Willie was enjoying himself, that was obvious. But Donny looked grim. Ruth had both hands on her now, trying to pry her jaws apart.
Meg bit her.
Ruth yelled and stumbled back. Meg squirmed to her feet. Willie twisted her arm behind her back and yanked it up. She yelled and doubled over and tried to pull away, shaking her left arm hard to get it away from Donny in a kind of simultaneous panic and she almost made it, Donny’s grip was uncertain enough, she almost got it free.
Then Ruth stepped forward again.
For an instant she just stood there, studying her, looking I guess for an opening. Then she balled up a fist and hit her in the stomach exactly the way a man would hit a man, and nearly as hard. What you heard was like somebody punching a basketball.
Meg fell, choking, and gasped for breath.
Donny let her go.
“Jesus!” whispered Denise beside me.
Ruth stepped back.
“You want to fight?” she said. “Okay. Fight.”
Meg shook her head.
“You don’t want to fight? No?”
She shook her head.
Willie looked at his mother.
“Too bad,” he said quietly.
He still had her arm. And now he started twisting. She doubled over.
“Willie’s right,” said Ruth. “It is too bad. Come on, Meg honey, fight. Fight him.”
Willie twisted. She jumped with the pain and gasped and shook her head a third time.
“Well I guess she just won’t do it,” said Ruth. “This girl don’t want to do anything I say today.”
She shook the hand Meg had bitten and examined it. From where I sat it was just a red spot. Meg hadn’t broken the skin or anything.
“Let her go,” said Ruth.
He dropped her arm. Meg slumped forward. She was crying.
I didn’t like to watch. I glanced away.
I saw Susan standing in the hall, holding on to the wall, looking frightened, staring around the corner. Eyes riveted on her sister.
“I gotta go,” I said in a voice that sounded strangely thick to me.
“What about the brook?” said Willie. Sounding disappointed, the big ass. Like nothing had happened at all.
“Later,” I said. “I gotta go now”
I was aware of Ruth watching me.
I got up. I didn’t want to go by Meg for some reason. Instead I walked past Susan to the front door. She didn’t seem to notice me.
“David,” said Ruth. Her voice was very calm.
“Yes?”
“This is what you’d call a domestic dispute,” she said.
“Just between us here. You saw what you saw. But it’s nobody’s business but ours. You know? You understand?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“Good boy,” she said. “I knew you were. I knew you’d understand.”
I walked outside. It was a hot, muggy day. Inside it had been cooler.
I walked back to the woods, cutting away from the path to the brook and into the deeper woods behind the Morino house.
It was cooler there. It smelled of pine and earth.
I kept seeing Meg slumped over, crying. And then I’d see her standing in front of Ruth looking her coolly in the eye saying I told you I said no. For some reason these alternated with remembering an argument with my mother earlier that week. You’re just like your father, she’d said. I’d responded furiously. Not nearly as well as Meg had. I’d lost it. I’d raged. I’d hated her. I thought about that now in a detached kind of way and then I thought about all this other stuff today.
It had been an amazing morning.
But it was as though everything canceled everything.
I walked through the woods.
I didn’t feel a thing.
Chapter Twenty
You could get from my house to Cozy Snacks through the woods by crossing the brook at the Big Rock and then walking along the far bank past two old houses and a construction site, and I was coming home that way the next day with a Three Musketeers, some red licorice and some Fleer’s Double Bubble—which, thinking of Meg, I’d actually paid for—in a paper bag when I heard Meg scream.
I knew it was her. It was just a scream. It could have been anybody’s. But I knew.
I got quiet. I moved along the bank.
She was standing on the Big Rock. Willie and Woofer must have surprised her there with her hand in the water because her sleeve was rolled up and the brook water beaded her forearm and you could see the long livid scar like a worm pulsing up through her skin.
They were pelting her with the cans from the cellar, and Woofer’s aim, at least, was good.
But then Willie was aiming for the head.
A harder target. He always went wide.
While Woofer hit her first on her bare knee and then, when she turned, in the center of the back.
She turned again and saw them pick up the glass peanut butter jars. Woofer fired.
Glass shattered at her feet, sprayed her legs.
It would have hurt her bad to get hit with one of those.
There was nowhere for her to go except into the brook. She couldn’t have scaled the high bank beside me, at least not in time. So that was what she did.
She went into the water.
The brook was running fast that day and the bottom was covered with mossy stones. I saw her trip and fall almos
t immediately while another jar smashed on a rock nearby. She hauled herself up, gasping and wet to the shoulders, and tried to run. She got four steps and fell again.
Willie and Woofer were howling, laughing so hard they forgot to throw their jars any more.
She got up and this time kept her footing and splashed downstream.
When she turned the corner there was good heavy thicket to cover her.
It was over.
Amazingly nobody had seen me. They still didn’t. I felt like a ghost.
I watched them gather up their few remaining cans and jars. Then they walked off laughing down the path to their house. I could hear them all the way, voices gradually fading.
Assholes, I thought. There’s glass all over now. We can’t go wading. Not at least until it floods again.
I crossed carefully across the Rock to the other
Chapter Twenty-One
Meg fought back on the Fourth of July.
It was dusk, a warm night gracefully fading to dark, and there were hundreds of us out there on blankets in Memorial Field in front of the high school waiting for the fireworks to start.
Donny and I sat with my parents—I’d invited him over for dinner that night—and they sat with their friends the Hendersons, who lived two blocks away.
The Hendersons were Catholic and childless, which right away meant that something was wrong, though nobody seemed to know what it was exactly. Mr. Henderson was big and outdoorsy and given to plaid and corduroy, what you’d call a man’s man, kind of fun. He raised beagles in his backyard and let us shoot his BB guns sometimes when we went over. Mrs. Henderson was thin, blond, pug-nosed, and pretty.
Donny once said he couldn’t see the problem. He’d have fucked her in a minute.
From where we sat we could see Willie, Woofer, Meg, Susan and Ruth across the field sitting next to the Morino family.
The entire town was there.
If you could walk or drive or crawl, on the Fourth of July you came to the fireworks. Apart from the Memorial Day Parade it was our one big spectacle of the year.
And pro forma the cops were there. Nobody really expected any trouble. The town was still at that stage where everybody knew everybody, or knew somebody else who did. You went out and left your door open all day in case somebody came by and you weren’t there.