“Max,” I said, the reality of the situation descending on my head like a wet blanket. I had wanted to be so cool, so laid back and funny, but instead I had come off like some type of stalker/maniac. “Max, I’m . . .”
“A knucklehead?” he said, and the warm smile that followed made it okay. “I really do like your dress. It’s old school, but not hipster-fake old school. It’s real.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Like you,” he said matter-of-factly. “You just seem like . . . you. You don’t try to be anyone else.”
“You mean the look-alikes.”
“The who?” he said.
I explained the term and Max nodded. He understood that I didn’t hate those girls but just wasn’t anything like them—I wasn’t embedded in the type of social circle (or any social circle, for that matter) that dictated how I dressed or who I did or didn’t speak to. Finally I said, “What about the dance?”
“I told my mom I’d be home by ten. I did my servitude and now I get my motorcycle.” He looked at his phone and said, “It’s nine thirty. Why are you so late?”
The day’s drama between my dad and uncle, combined with the anticipation of meeting Max at the dance, had worn me down. I was suddenly exhausted, and said, “It’s a long story. I’m going home, too.”
“Red or brown line?” he said.
“Brown to red.”
“You want to ride together?”
Max talked excitedly about his motorcycle as we walked, and then apologized for talking so much. I didn’t care what he talked about, I was just happy to be together, and then we were at the El stop, swiping our cards and climbing the stairs to the platform.
The train pulled to a silent, breezy halt, sending litter bits cartwheeling in the air.
The doors separated with a zwoosh.
The recorded announcement said, “This is Diversey. Exit on the right at Diversey.”
Max and I climbed aboard the mostly empty car and sat shoulder to shoulder. As the train pulled away, he cleared his throat and said, “Hey, you want to see a movie? I don’t mean a classic one. I mean a go-to-the-theater movie.”
“Which one?” I said, thrilled at the prospect of what sounded like a date.
“See if you can figure it out,” he said. “I’m talking about exploding helicopters, 3-D natural disasters, guys doing the super slo-mo spinning-in-the-air thing while spraying Uzis at each other. Oh, and also a gigantic bomb that could destroy earth.”
“Let me guess . . . Ten Seconds to Zero?”
“What gave it away? The gigantic bomb?”
“You like Ashton Willis?”
“He’s not a great actor,” Max said, “but he gets blown up well.”
“Doug would disapprove,” I said. “He’d call it ‘culturally insignificant.’”
“Actually, I think he’d call it ‘cotton candy for little brains.’”
“Doug hates action movies,” I said.
“I know. That’s why I’m asking you instead of him,” Max said, and nodded his head at the Belmont platform that was rumbling into view. “What do you say? Ten Seconds to Zero . . . nine, eight, seven . . .”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You can buy me some birthday popcorn.”
Max’s grin made my heart flutter like a baby bird. “No kidding. When’s your birthday?”
“Today,” I said, blushing for some reason. “Which means my family will probably have a cake tomorrow.”
“Which means the world will explode Sunday instead of Saturday,” he said. “Sunday at the Davis, noon?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said as the train eased to a stop. I rose and went to the exit, then looked back. “See you then.”
“Get ready for an action-packed birthday weekend,” Max said with a wink.
I stepped onto the platform and was enveloped by the mild night air that blankets Chicago in springtime.
The doors sealed, and Max turned in his seat to wave as the train rolled away.
I watched him go, blissfully unaware of how soon his words would come true.
10
IT'S ONLY LATER, after the fact, that you remember the mental and physical warning signs that twitch and quiver throughout your body and brain, trying to alert you that something is about to happen. It’s like when the flu is coming on and you remember the small, intense headache that you ignored, or the bout of shivers you ascribed to a chilly breeze, even though it’s eighty-five degrees outside.
Walking up Balmoral Avenue to my house, seeing all of the windows pitch black, a telltale quake ran up my spine. But I was thinking about Max, and didn’t pay it the attention it deserved.
I climbed the steps and saw that the screen door was swinging crookedly on one hinge. Behind it, the front door was wide open.
The interior of the house was dark brown with shadows.
Stepping forward, my foot crushed glass, the grind-crunch making me jump. I entered the house cautiously, calling out to my mom first and then my dad.
The answer was nearby.
It was chatter-laughter, high-pitched and looping.
It shrieked, stopped, and shrieked again, punctuating the silent house.
I had been taught in self-defense class that when something feels dangerous or threatening to stop thinking and flee. But this was my house. My notion of it as a secure place had not yet been violated. Each time I took a step forward, the laugh would start again, and I’d freeze, unable to move, holding tight to the empty space around me.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
It didn’t sound human, yet I heard human sounds in it, perverted by speed.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
It should have been repelling, but instead drew me forward.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
I turned the corner into the living room and the first thing I saw were piles of feathery guts that had been pulled out in chunks from the belly of the leather couch. Bookshelves were overturned, the books’ spines stomped flat, and chairs torn apart with legs missing or at odd angles. Our family portrait hung sideways over the mantle, slashed in half, with Lou sitting on my dad’s lap on one side and me standing with a hand on my mom’s shoulder on the other. Every drawer had been pulled and dumped, and the big Persian rug was yanked back and rolled over on itself, like a huge abandoned crepe. Anything with an interior or that covered something else—pillows, pictures, cabinets—had been flipped over or kicked in or slashed apart. Seeing the room like that was so unreal that all I could do was gape.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
It was next to me, and I toed at the debris until a pair of piercing blue eyes stared up from a face that was cold and stone white.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
I picked up the unbroken bust and looked into its face, watching the cornea of the left eye dilate—wide, narrow, wide, narrow.
Shree-hee-hee! Shree-hee-hee!
I noticed for the first time a whisper-thin seam around its hairline and, holding the statue tightly, I unscrewed the head of Frank Sinatra.
Inside, a mini video camera focused and refocused its lens behind the left eye.
The tape was stuck, winding forward and backward, shrieking loudly.
I removed the camera, pressed the Stop button, and the chatter-laughter stopped.
I understood suddenly why my parents had kept the tacky gift from a long-dead nanny. It was Elzy’s parting gesture of protection, a nanny cam, hidden inside the head of the only man she had ever loved. The mini camera was charged, with a tape inside, so of course my parents knew about it and had used it. My hands were so clumsy with fear that I almost dropped the camera as I slid it back inside the skull and screwed it shut. And then I was standing in my borrowed disco-queen dress holding Frank Sinatra’s head, sweating and trembling at what might lie beyond the living room. If my mom and dad and Lou were in the house, surely they would’ve appeared by now. They would’ve heard me calling out to them, would’ve heard the chatter-lau
ghter of the stuck tape, would’ve rushed into the room, turned on the lights, and explained it all as a freak occurrence, some kind of bizarre burglary. Or they had done the intelligent thing that I had not—walked in on the scene, followed their primal instincts, and fled.
Or they were still in the house.
They were here, somewhere, unable to come to me.
All of the possibilities contained in that word, unable, flooded my brain and guts and got my feet moving.
I thought of the layout of our house—front door to hallway, living room on the right, twisting staircase on the left that climbed to a second and third floor. The oak-paneled dining room lay straight ahead, the white-tiled kitchen behind it, and a hundred-year-old basement beneath it all. I would go room to room if I had to, despite who or what could be waiting behind a door, and I remembered Lou’s baseball bat in the closet. The idea of a weapon was reassuring but it meant that I’d have to put down Frank Sinatra. For some reason I felt safer holding him than a club.
I entered the dark hallway, trying a light switch that responded with no light. Our house was built in 1911 and sat among others just as old or older, all guarded by ancient oaks and giant elms. It was a “stained-glass and turrets” neighborhood, as my dad said, which was beautiful with brick, copper, and slate, but which could also be really creepy. In the daytime, when the sun shone through thick green branches and lawn mowers snored reassuringly, it was as idyllic as a movie set. But late at night, when the train did not rumble as often and shadows fell oddly from oversized trees, it became very real that many lives had passed through those old homes. Standing in the hallway, I recalled times when I had been in the house alone, overcome by the feeling of being watched or that someone had passed close by. I longed for that feeling now, hoping that if I turned around my family would be standing there.
When I did, I saw blood.
It was smeared on the wall.
On the floor were fat spattered droplets the size of fifty-cent pieces.
I followed them through the swinging door of the kitchen, where the drawers had been tossed, cabinets cleared, cutlery scattered, dishes and glassware busted and crushed. The refrigerator was tipped on its side, open and leaking, the oven door yawned, and the pantry door was splintered off its hinges. Through the middle of it all, the white tile floor was fouled by a long scarlet line, as if someone had been dragged or had drug himself.
The blood stopped abruptly at the basement door.
Something far below the floorboards rustled and moaned.
Unbidden, one of Doug’s many “rules of the movies” came to mind—never, ever, ever go into the basement.
Another moan sounded that was an expression of pure suffering. I hesitated, and then pulled open the basement door and stepped into blackness, the old steps creaking below my feet. I called out to my parents and Lou as I descended, but all I could hear was someone breathing heavily, lungs in crisis, and a sort of scratch-shuffling as if pulling himself across the gritty floor.
“Dad?” I said. “Mom?”
“Rooooo . . .”
The nearness of it made me jump, and I squinted into a dark corner where Harry lay curled in a ball, the bloody trail ending beneath his panting mouth. There was something odd about his position; he seemed to be protecting his side and belly. I knelt down and lightly touched him.
“Roooo-ooo!”
It was a scream instead of a moan. He worked his jaws weakly at my hand, mustering up whatever energy he had to try and bite me, trying to protect himself. And then he saw it was me, and the old hatred in his eyes was replaced by something that was, if not happiness, at least relief. Lifting his head, I saw blood streaming from his nose and muzzle, covering his neck and darkening his normally white chest. I looked closely at shadows covering his side, thinking it was dirt until I realized it was boot prints.
Someone had tried to stomp Harry to death.
I felt his ribs and, thankfully, nothing was broken on the inside.
The blood was superficial, from kicks and cuts on his mouth and face, and maybe from whoever had tried to kill him, too.
I never petted Harry before, but now I gently stroked his neck until he lowered his head. When he did, his body shifted and I noticed that he was lying on Lou’s old Etch A Sketch. When my brother was seven, he taught himself to make wavy lines, then circles, and then, twisting the knobs in perfect harmony, tiny, gracefully crafted cursive letters. One afternoon he left it on the couch and I picked it up. Lou was obviously studying the Constitution in school at the time, because it read, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense . . .” I hadn’t seen the toy in years; my mom must’ve stored it in the basement. Carefully, I eased it from under Harry and he nosed my hand, letting me take it. The basement was so dark that I had to hold it inches from my face. When I did, I saw Lou’s writing, which was not graceful or crafted but scrawled and mostly illegible. Trying to make it out, I realized that Lou had been here, in the basement, and that he had written it in a hurry.
Squinting, I made out, “. . . we are not . . . beware . . . the house . . .”
I read, “. . . ski mask . . . tried to kill . . . high-pitched . . .”
The air moved with a whiff of foul meat, followed by a noise so faint it could have been my own breath, like a mouse moving inside the wall, or a footstep trying not to be heard.
I glanced at the Etch A Sketch and my skin froze, seeing the words, “If you hear . . . then run, Sara Jane . . . Run!”
And then Harry was on his feet, growling low in his belly with blood dripping between his bared teeth, and lunged past me into the blackness. I heard a muffled curse, Harry’s jaw snapping at his target, and then something fell and a shelf went over, smashing to the ground. There was a violent, kicking struggle with Harry grunting and his opponent making no noise at all. I squeezed the bust under one arm like a football and was about to sprint up the stairs when everything stopped, all sound and motion sucked out of the basement as a pair of large, rough hands locked around my neck. Two powerful thumbs dug into my larynx—I could feel my throat being crushed—and all I could do was struggle like a rag doll. Within seconds, flashbulbs of orange and purple popped in the darkness as oxygen left my brain. And then there was a jarring impact, a split second where the hands loosened followed by a growling-ripping noise. I was free, on my knees, gasping and hacking up blood.
Harry had done something in the dark and was now being punished for it.
I got to my feet and swung Frank Sinatra’s head at the head of the person who was kicking Harry.
There was a crack of plaster against skull, the bust fell to pieces, and Harry’s attacker fell to the floor.
I scrambled for the mini camera, cutting my hands on sharp shards until I found it. Overhead, thunder boomed like a Fourth of July finale followed by a flash of lightning against glass-block windows. The unmoving lump of body lay between me and the stairs, and I turned from it, groping toward the cellar doors instead. They had been locked from the outside since forever, but I was running on adrenaline and threw a shoulder like a linebacker, cracking apart the old wood. Cold bursts of rain hit my face, taking my breath away, and I was about to run across the yard when I remembered Harry. He’d saved my life and had taken a deadly beating to protect the Etch A Sketch because Lou commanded him to—because he loved my brother as much as I did. I listened, hearing only my labored breath, and then heard it—a faint whimpering and scratching at the floor.
Out of nowhere, I remembered Max counting backward on the train.
Ten seconds to zero . . . nine, eight, seven . . .
I scrambled back into blackness.
Harry’s whimper was my guide and I felt through the air like I was blindfolded until my foot bumped a body. My hands were shaking as I touched tight smooth fur over bruised bones. I lifted the small dog and took a step toward the door when the impact of a fist on my fa
ce put me on my back, with Harry rolling like a bloody wheel right out the cellar door.
There’s nothing worse than a sucker punch—the gasping explosion of red pain that rearranges reality and your face.
You get lost in its violation of decent human behavior, and then, if you’re a boxer, you get pissed. One of Willy’s rules is that a fighter who’s knocked down should always get right up and right back into the fight—give the other pug what he just gave you, times two. Trying to stand, I was assaulted by a hammering of double fists on my shoulders. I hit the floor again, this time face-first, feeling like my back was broken, but I ignored the pain and rolled as a boot crushed the empty place where I had been. I hooked an arm around an ankle and yanked as hard as I could. There was a bleat of surprise, legs in the air, and I leaped to my feet as the body hit the floor.
Then it was time to give him back what he had given to Harry.
He was trying to lift himself on a shoulder when I teed off on his face.
I couldn’t see quite who I was aiming at, but it didn’t matter, I drop-kicked his chin like I was going for an extra point.
He grunted and rolled over, and I saw the ski mask clinging to his lumpish head—nightmarish black with red eyeholes—which gave me a chilly pause before I went to work on him, using my foot like a jackhammer. I was bristling with the same sensation that I’d felt when I saw Max dancing with Mandi, a cold, calm fury that burned deep in my gut. Each blow was accounted for—that one for Harry, that for Lou, for my mom, my dad—and it seemed righteous, like a debt being paid. The best way to define it is that, as I kicked Ski Mask Guy into unconsciousness, I felt more like myself than I ever had in my life. Even as I came back to the moment—panting and sweating, my leg aching and the body not moving—it wasn’t fear that spiked my gut but caution. My chances of escape were lessening by the second, I knew instinctively, and I sprinted into the rain, scooped up Harry, and ran for the garage. My dad kept an extra set of keys to the Lincoln in an old coffee can. I fished them out and gingerly laid Harry on the backseat. He blinked up at me with something like gratitude, even comradeship—two furious souls who had saved each other’s lives, bound by love for my brother. He licked my hand, and it was covered in his own blood.
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