His teeth were in remarkably good shape because his uncle was the only dentist in Centerville. Anyone who didn’t want to use him had to travel to South Fallsburg or Woodbourne. Gerry was always in need of a shave, and even when he did shave, he skipped over large portions of his face—especially right under his chin.
He wasn’t particularly intimidating in size, although his upper arms and shoulders were thick and strong from his part-time work at the K and W Food Market where he stocked groceries and carried in one hundred pound bags of sugar and heavy, glass quart bottle cases of soda and beer.
Tony couldn’t resist calling to him. Gerry liked talking to the younger boys in town, despite the way they teased and ridiculed him. The fact that he was the object of such attention apparently pleased him. He crossed over from the movie theater, and Tony commented about his dirty white basketball sneakers. He wore no socks, and there was a clear rim of dirt around his ankles.
“You didn’t like the picture, Gerry?” Tony asked him when he arrived.
“Saw it, saw it,” he said quickly. He looked from Rube to David and then scratched his head. “Posners went on vacation,” he said. “Going to be back Tuesday. The fish store’s closed,” he added.
David smiled. Despite Gerry’s mental handicap, nothing much took place in the village without his knowing about it. He loved delivering tidbits of information in headline style and then wait to see the reactions of his listeners.
“Yeah?” Rube said. No one was really interested in the Posners taking a vacation. “Hey Gerry, you ever have a girlfriend?” Rube asked. He shook his head quickly.
“You know what a girlfriend is, don’tcha?” Tony asked, but Gerry didn’t respond. He ran his hand over his mouth and wiped it on the side.
“You wanna see a naked girl?” Rube asked.
“Hey,” David said. “Don’t…”
“Don’t worry,” Rube said. “Do you, Gerry?”
Gerry stared at him for a moment and then reached into his pants pocket and came out with an uncovered stick of gum. He stuck it in his mouth and looked down the street.
“You scared of girls?” Tony asked him.
“I ain’t scared of girls,” he said, but he didn’t look at Tony when he answered. David sensed a real uneasiness in him. But more than that; for the first time in talking to Gerry he sensed a danger.
“Let’s get going,” David said. “We’ll miss it all.”
Rube looked at his watch and stood up. Tony did the same, and they started away from the stoop.
“Too bad,” Tony called back to Gerry. “You could have had something to wack off to.” He laughed, and they left the retarded man chewing his gum emphatically and staring after them. David looked back once before they turned the corner and saw Gerry was already gone. He directed his attention ahead.
“I hope we don’t get caught,” he said.
“If Buzzy didn’t get caught, we sure as hell won’t,” Tony said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rube said. “Let’s cut in behind Doc Furnoff’s. It’s shorter.”
“Good idea,” Tony said, and the three of them moved through the street and into the shadows. David felt as though they were entering another world. He looked back longingly at the lit streets and then hurried to catch up.
Doc Furnoff’s house was a big, two story white stucco building. Part of the bottom floor was devoted to his medical offices and examination rooms. There was a wide, cement patio right behind it and a small, fenced-in, in-ground pool. As far as David knew, Sammy Weisner and Lucy Datchwell were the only kids who had ever gone swimming in it. Being invited was equivalent to knighthood in the small village.
Light from the upstairs windows drew distinct silhouettes of the lawn furniture and fence and fruit trees recently planted. The reach of illumination ended before the small wooded area directly behind the residence. On the other side of the woods was a short dirt road that ran along the perimeter of the Jones’s property and emerged on Turtle Avenue. They could have gone through the village and then up Turtle, but Rube was right: This was a good shortcut. Besides, it was better not to be seen on Turtle Avenue, considering what they were about to do, David thought.
They moved quickly, but they were remarkably silent as they made their way through the woods. The earth was dark and soft within, carpeted with pine needles and maple, birch and hickory leaves. When they reached the middle of the wooded area, David looked back and saw that Doc Furnoff’s house was no longer clearly visible. The trees had cut it off, slamming a door of shadows and darkness behind him. Rube picked up speed, and they emerged from the woods a few minutes later, all three breathing heavily from the effort, the excitement, and the need to move undetected.
Rube stopped, and they all listened for a moment.
“Her bedroom’s on the left side,” Tony said. “The last two windows. Buzzy told me,” he added.
They were about to continue when David felt something cold move over his body. It was as if he had stepped into the Catskill winter for a moment. Without speaking, he reached out for Tony’s arm and seized him firmly at the elbow. His friend spun around quickly.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” David looked back into the shadows, but there was nothing discernible, no new shapes, no new sounds, nothing but the same darkness. Still, the ominous feeling lingered.
“So what the fuck—”
“You didn’t hear anything, did you?” he asked to cover up his unexplainable reaction.
“Bullshit,” Rube said after listening a moment. “Your overworked imagination’s at it again. Let’s go.”
They moved forward stealthily, crouching emphatically like movie Indians on the attack, keeping to the shadows cast by the moonlight over the row of hedges that served as a borderline between the house of Johnny Wilson, the postmaster, and Frank Jones. Diane’s father was an administrator in the Community General Hospital located in Monticello. He had an important, high-paying job. Her mother didn’t work, but she volunteered her time regularly at the hospital as one of the “pink ladies,” women who assisted in every nonmedical function possible. There was one other child in the family, a daughter Pamela, who was in the sixth grade.
David looked expectantly at the tree beside which he had initially stood to see Diane Jones topless that first night. It was still the best position. They would be safely hidden behind it, and their view was clear. But Tony had other ideas. He shocked David with his suggestion that they go right to the window.
“We’ll climb over the picket fence, crawl on the lawn, keep to the shadows, and stand up when we get to the house. This is too far away,” he said. David recalled that Tony wore glasses from time to time. He was supposed to be wearing them constantly, but he was too self-conscious.
“That’s really taking a chance,” David said. “If she sees us, she’ll know who we are.”
“She ain’t gonna see us,” Tony insisted. Rube agreed and he was outvoted.
“She’s not even in her room though,” David said. The light was on, and the shades were up enough to see completely into the room.
“If the light’s on, she’ll be there any minute, won’t she?” Tony said. “It’s about the time Buzzy said he saw her getting undressed.”
David recalled that it was about the time he had seen her, too. She was a creature of habit. Before there could be any more discussion, she appeared. She was in a bra and panties, and she moved to her bed. Tony moved quickly to the fence, crawled over it and hit the ground, immediately beginning a fast crawl over the lawn toward the house. Rube followed, and David, after some hesitation, started behind them.
“Rube and me will go to the left window. You go to the right,” Tony whispered. They could see her sitting on the bed, filing her fingernails. “Ready?”
David started to nod and then stopped, seizing Tony’s arm again. When Tony turned around, David didn’t see his face; he saw Buzzy’s. He didn’t know if it was because he was thinking of Buzzy, since it was
he who had caused all this, or something else. Before he could react to the illusion, they heard a muffled scream come from the short, dirt road behind them. It pressed the three of them against a wall of ice.
Diane Jones heard it, too. She got off her bed and came to her window. The three of them went belly down, pressing their face against the grass, hoping the shadows draped them enough to remain undiscovered. Diane peered between the shades and the window and then stepped back to close the shades. They waited a moment before rising.
“What the hell was that?” Rube asked.
“Shit,” Tony said.
“Let’s get out of here,” David said. No one opposed him and they started back. When they got to the dirt road, the three of them stopped abruptly as though they had walked into an invisible wall. With their eyes used to the darkness, it was possible to make out the shape of a body faced down before them about a dozen or so feet down the road.
“Who the hell’s that?” Rube asked. No one spoke. They were clumped together, linked by their mutual fear.
Then David found his attention drawn to the shadows in the woods just to the right of the crumpled body. On the edge of the darkness was the silhouetted figure of what was obviously a man. It was most certainly not Carl or Merle.
David didn’t speak. He touched both his friends and drew their attention into the direction.
“Who is it?” Tony whispered.
David closed his eyes. He couldn’t see a face, but a deathly chill came over him. He couldn’t speak. Invisible fingers tightened around his neck. He began to gag and brought his hands to his throat.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Rube asked, his voice thin from the tension.
David sank to his knees. Neither Rube nor Tony moved to help him. Finally, David caught his breath and opened his eyes. When he looked up, he saw that the silhouetted figure was gone from the shadows.
“It’s okay,” he said getting to his feet.
“What was it?” Tony asked.
“I couldn’t breathe for a moment.”
“Choked on his own spit,” Rube said.
David didn’t disagree. He looked at the figure on the road. “Let’s see who that is. Whoever was standing in the shadows is gone,” he added. Rube and Tony looked, but didn’t move.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Tony said, taking a step backward. “We can go home over Turtle.”
“We gotta see who that is,” David insisted. He started ahead. Rube and Tony followed reluctantly. Just before he reached the body, David heard a groan. “It’s Buzzy,” he said. “It’s Buzzy.”
They all moved quickly to him. Buzzy turned over on his side when David knelt beside him.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Shit,” Buzzy said. He spit and then brought his hand to the back of his head. “I’m bleeding. Shit, my head’s spinning.”
“What happened?” Rube asked. He and Tony knelt beside David. Buzzy struggled to get into a sitting position.
“I was coming to join you guys. I snuck out of the house. Shit.”
“So, what happened?” Tony asked.
“Someone attacked him,” David replied.
“Came right out of the woods. I must’ve walked right into him,” Buzzy said. “Like he was just waiting there for me. Never saw him, never heard him.”
“He grabbed you around the neck,” David said.
“Yeah. I couldn’t breathe and then, when I broke free, he hit me behind the head with something. Felt like a tree trunk. I’m still dizzy as hell.”
“Didn’t you see who it was?” Tony asked.
“Naw. Didn’t have a chance. Whoever it was, he had strong hands, that’s for sure,” he added rubbing his neck.
“Help him up,” David said, and Tony and Rube stood Buzzy on his feet.
“We gotta get out of here,” Rube said, looking at the house. Diane Jones’s lights had been turned off. Buzzy groaned, and they started toward the woods.
“Not that way,” Buzzy said. “Shit, he might still be there.”
Tony and Rube contemplated the possibility. Then they turned to David. His calm, clear voice had promoted him to the position of leader.
“He’s right,” David said. “We’ll have to go back down Turtle.”
“Let’s move it either way,” Tony said. They started down the dirt road and came out on Turtle, but when they reached the front of the Jones’s house, Frank Jones was there.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked. He stepped out of the shadows to confront them.
Diane’s father was not a big man. He stood only five foot ten and weighed about one hundred and sixty-five pounds, but after what they had done, he might as well have been six foot ten and weighed two hundred and sixty-five pounds. They jumped back, speechless and afraid.
David was the one who came up with the story. He mixed truth and fiction well enough to sell Frank Jones on the fabrication.
“We were playing Ring-a-levio,” he said, “chasing after Buzzy here when someone attacked him in the woods.”
“What?” Frank Jones moved out quickly and saw that Buzzy was, indeed, hurt. When he took him into the illumination of his sidewalk porch light, they all saw how bad his head wound was. The blood was still trickling down the left side of his head. “Holy crap,” Frank Jones said. “What the hell hit him?”
“We don’t know, Mr. Jones. We were just taking him home.”
“We’d better bring him in the house,” Frank Jones said, “and call the police. We’ll try to stop this bleeding and get him over to the hospital. I’d better call his parents,” he added.
“No, that’s all right,” Buzzy said. “I wanna go home.” David realized he was still holding onto the slight hope he could sneak back into his house and cover up the wound.
“You’re not going anywhere like this, young man. You could very well have a concussion.” He took Buzzy under his left arm and started him toward the house. Rube and Tony hesitated behind David.
“I’m not going in there,” Rube whispered.
“Shit no,” Tony said.
“We gotta,” David said.
“Maybe she saw us,” Rube whispered.
“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have bought my story so fast. Come on. We have to go through with it.” He couldn’t help being intrigued with the idea of going into Diane Jones’s house.
“Who the fuck hit Buzzy?” Tony asked the night sky. “Why didn’t the asshole stay home like he was supposed to?”
“What difference would that have made?” David said. “Whoever it was would have still been there, maybe to get one of us.”
Tony became pensive for a moment and looked back. The darkness looked thicker and more ominous than ever.
Reluctantly, he and Rube followed David into Diane Jones’s house.
After Mr. Jones took Buzzy into the bathroom to wash his head wound, he called the police and then Buzzy’s parents. David, Tony, and Rube could hear him talking to Buzzy’s mother. She couldn’t believe he was talking about the right boy, insisting Buzzy was in his room. Finally, Mr. Jones told her to go look. He smiled and shook his head when she did so. After she returned she said she would be right over. Mr. Jones went back into the bathroom to put a bandage on Buzzy’s head.
Diane’s mother and sister, Pamela, greeted the three of them in the living room where Mr. Jones had left them waiting. Even under these circumstances, David felt a romantic excitement about being in Diane’s house. What he saw gave him an intimate knowledge of her. He looked at everything with an intense curiosity: at the family pictures on the mantle above the white stone fireplace, the oil paintings on the walls, the glass ashtray and vase on the center table, all the knickknacks and accouterments that made up the personality of her home and her family. Everything that was here was part of her. Even the scent of the flowers and the house deodorants suggested her to him.
Diane’s mother was an attractive woman. It was easy to see from where Diane had
inherited much of her beauty. They both had the same rich, dark-blond hair. Both had fair complexions, tiny freckles on their cheeks, dark-blue eyes, and soft, feminine mouths. From her father she had inherited the lean, high cheek-boned facial structure. Although David had observed Frank Jones only a few times, he felt Diane carried herself like him: confident, head up, good posture with firm shoulders.
Analyzing her in this manner, through her parents, made him wonder what exactly he had inherited from his father. Perhaps the differences that existed between his mother and him were directly related to those aspects of his father he had inherited. Did that mean his father was as moody and as lonely at times? Was this why his mother didn’t get along with him?
He vowed to pursue it until his mother or his grandmother told him the truth about the man who had left when David was only three years old. The only contact they had with him came from the checks he sent from Las Vegas. At times his mother seemed pleased by the fact that his father had lost any interest in the only child he had. It proved her right and validated her decision to rid them of such a self-centered person. She never failed to take advantage of every opportunity to say so.
But David felt uncomfortable with this evaluation of his father. It wasn’t possible to negate all the genetic influence with a divorce. If his father was so bad, then some of what made him bad was in David as well. Of course, his mother used his father as a kind of whip, often saying things like, “That’s just what your father would do,” or “That’s just what your father would say.”
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