December Park

by Ronald Malfi

  “If it wasn’t so far out of the way, I’d love to hit the Keener farm tonight,” Michael said as he chucked an egg over the hedgerow that lined the property in front of the McGee house on Prosper Street. The McGee girls were pudgy and freckle-faced with piercing green cat’s eyes and mouths crowded and gleaming with braces. All three had turned down Michael’s invitation to the homecoming dance, thus making the list.

  “Old man Keener catches you on his property, he’ll blow you off it with a shotgun,” Scott said.

  “And his son’s even crazier,” added Peter.

  Nathan Keener was the youngest of three boys and undoubtedly the craziest. His family lived along the Cape on a tract of farmland that overlooked the Magothy River. It was a shitty-looking house with rusted cars up on blocks on the weedy front lawn. There were scarecrows posted along the long driveway, their clothing and potato-sack faces riddled with buckshot.

  There was nothing in particular Nathan Keener had done to Michael this year, aside from simply making all our lives miserable every time we had the misfortune to run into him. And it wasn’t just us—the son of a bitch tormented every kid he came into contact with. Every town has its bully, and Nathan Keener was ours. And while he had no goodwill for any of my friends, I knew he hated me a little bit more than the rest because my father was a cop. People like the Keeners grow up with an ingrained distrust of law enforcement, the way some breeds of dogs, after generations of abuse, will distrust people.

  “Besides,” Peter continued, “you don’t have the balls to go after Keener.”

  Michael scowled, then chucked another egg at the McGee house; it shattered against the aluminum siding. “I’ve got balls like cantaloupes, asshole.”

  Both Peter and Scott laughed just as the porch lights came on. We all dropped down behind the hedgerow. Through the branches, I saw someone peering out of a lighted doorway, examining the detritus on the porch.

  A man called out, “I see you kids.”

  But we knew this was a lie. It was what all the adults said, presuming they could fool us into revealing ourselves. We never fell for it.

  After a moment, the door shut again.

  We remained secreted behind the hedgerow, none of us making a sound. It was cold enough that our respiration fogged the air. Somewhere off in the distance, a lone dog howled despondently.

  “Okay,” Michael whispered after enough time had passed. He dug around in the knapsack on Scott’s back, produced some more eggs, then handed them out to the rest of us. “Let’s do the egg cream,” he said, fishing one of the cans of shaving cream out from the knapsack.

  We covered our eggs with shaving cream, and on Michael’s three-count, we all sprung up simultaneously and launched our projectiles at the McGee house. Four distinct explosions—flump! flump! flump! flump!—resounded through the night as great foamy clouds appeared on the siding of the house.

  This time, less than two seconds passed before Mr. McGee, massive and black and silhouetted, bolted out the door and down the porch steps.

  None of us said a word; we all took off, laughing.

  “You little bastards!” Mr. McGee shouted after us. “I know where you live! I know your parents!”

  We didn’t slow down until Scott, who’d chanced a glance over his shoulder, informed us that we were no longer being pursued. Still giggling, we continued down the street while attempting to catch our breath. Michael held his pith helmet as he tipped his head back and howled into the night.

  At the end of the block, another group of kids returned the howl, followed by some derogatory catcalls. They chucked small twists of white paper at our feet, which popped with little explosions as they struck the pavement.

  Scott, who still had an egg in his hand, skidded to a stop. He wound his arm back and tossed the egg, which exploded on the shirt of the nearest boy.

  “Bull’s-eye,” Peter crowed, and we sprinted into the trees before the other kids could give chase.

  We burst onto McKinsey Street, our hearts racing. With our laughter dying off in shuddery increments, we staggered over to the curb and sat down. A small A-frame house, nestled among heavy black spruce and about as dark as the interior of a coffin, stood at our backs. The name on the mailbox caught my attention.

  “Shit,” I said. “It’s Nozzle Neck’s house.”

  Still somewhat out of breath, Michael spread his map across his lap and examined it. “You know, I forgot to put old Nozzle Neck on the map.”

  “Why?” asked Scott. “What’d he do to you?”

  “Not to me,” Michael said, jerking a thumb in my direction. “To Angie.”

  “Oh,” Scott said and looked at me.

  I waved a hand at them. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter.”

  “No way, man.” Michael motioned for Scott to slide the knapsack over to him. “He got you in trouble with your pops. He got you grounded. He has to pay, just like everyone else.”

  “No one has to pay for anything,” I said.

  Ignoring me, Michael peered into the knapsack. “We got four eggs left.”

  “It’s kismet,” Scott said, his eyes brightening in the mask of black shoe polish he wore.

  Michael removed the eggs from the knapsack and handed them out to each of us. Then he stood, anxiously rolling his egg back and forth between his palms as he surveyed Mr. Naczalnik’s house.

  “Shit,” Scott said. “I think I saw someone in that window.”

  Peter looked at the house. “Which one?”

  Scott pointed to one of the first-floor windows. The whole house was dark, and it was impossible to see anything. “Right there. Someone was looking out from the curtains.”

  “You’re imagining things,” Michael said. “No one’s home. There’s not even a car in the driveway.”

  In my hand, the egg felt cold and heavy, somehow more substantial than the others I’d chucked all evening. On the next block over, the disembodied whoops and hollers of children could be heard.

  “Bombs away,” Michael said, and pitched his egg at Naczalnik’s house. It smashed against the siding of the front porch, a sound like a small firecracker.

  Scott threw his egg next, and his aim was more precise than Michael’s: it hit the front door dead center and shattered, the stringy goop seeming to glisten in the moonlight. Then Peter threw his egg in a high, lazy arc; the egg exploded against one of the porch balusters with a sound like a frog’s croak.

  A light winked on in one of the downstairs windows.

  “I told you I saw someone,” Scott said.

  “Let’s beat it.” Michael backed away from the edge of the property.

  I didn’t move. I felt Peter whoosh by me and snag a fistful of my sweatshirt, but I jerked myself free. Just as Naczalnik’s front door opened, spilling a sliver of yellowish light onto the porch, I hurled my egg. But not just at the house—at him.

  My aim was poor: the egg detonated against one of the front windows, causing the pinch-faced silhouette of Mr. Naczalnik to swing in that direction. A set of carriage lights on either side of the door blinked on. Then his voice boomed out, a sonorous bassoon, but I was already fleeing down the street with my friends, my heart thudding loudly in my ears, and I made out none of what Mr. Naczalnik said.

  Gradually, we made our way back across town toward the evening’s final destination—what Michael promised would be the pièce de résistance. The air was crisp and smoky with the distant scent of fireplaces. Cigarettes jouncing from our lips as we slunk through the shadows, we catcalled after some of the girls we recognized from school.

  When one of the girls separated herself from the crowd and came over to us, I was surprised at her brazenness. But as she passed beneath the glow of a streetlamp, I recognized her.

  Rachel Lowrey was the first girl I’d ever kissed. We’d been eleven or twelve, so it wasn’t like a real openmouthed, fencing-tongues scenario, though it had been pretty intense at the time. The kiss came not because she liked me but because of the Kiss War.

&
nbsp; The Kiss War started when a group of neighborhood girls ambushed Michael one summer and peppered him with kisses. Before the summer was over, all of us were casualties of the war. Rachel Lowrey had been my attacker. She had tackled me to the ground as I’d crested the dunes of the Shallows where I’d spent the afternoon swimming with my friends. Startled, the wind knocked out of me, I attempted to roll over and push myself to my feet but wound up only breading myself in the sand like a cutlet. Immediately, she dropped on top of me, straddling my waist, her knees driving divots into the sand on either side of my hips. Then her face was against mine, her lips on me. To my surprise, I didn’t shove her off, and maybe that’s why she stopped.

  When she pulled away, there was a questioning look on her face. Before it could get too awkward, I bucked my hips and knocked her to the sand. Laughing, she scrambled to her feet, but by that time I was already tearing across the dunes, my bare feet punching boomerang shapes in the sand.

  “I should have known it was you guys.” Rachel materialized out of the darkness like a ghost taking form. She was dressed minimally in a red cloak, her face powdered white. Her dark curls were fashioned into pigtails. Fake blood on the left side of her neck gave the appearance of a gaping wound. She looked at each one of us, her gaze finally resting on me. “Why do you hang out with these creepazoids?”

  Michael tittered. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

  “I’m Little Red Riding Hood. Only I wasn’t lucky enough to get away from the Big Bad Wolf. See?” She tilted her head to show off her glistening neck wound.

  “Awesome,” Scott said.

  “You guys think you’re so cool, standing around smoking,” Rachel said. “Those things cause cancer, you know, in case you haven’t read a newspaper or anything.”

  “She’s like a goddamn public service announcement,” Peter said.

  Scott and I laughed.

  Rachel reached into her cloak and pulled out a Krackel bar. She smiled sideways at me, then extended the candy bar to Michael, the only one of us without a cigarette. “Here. For not smoking.”

  “Sweet!” Michael snatched up the candy bar and unwrapped it. “Thanks.”

  “So, anyway, it looks like you guys are up to no good. I thought I’d warn you that there’s a ton of cops out tonight. It’s because of that girl they found. And the other kids, too, I guess. The missing kids. They’re not messing around. We’ve already been stopped twice.”

  “We’re not up to nothing,” Peter said. “But thanks.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks, Rachel.”

  Across the street, Rachel’s friends shouted after her.

  “Listen, I gotta go. Sasha Tamblin’s having some people over. You guys want to come?”

  I shrugged. So did my friends. Michael grunted something unintelligible around his candy bar. We had heard about the party but had more important plans for the evening. Yet I suddenly found myself wondering what it would be like to attend a party with Rachel . . .

  “You guys.” She looked like she wanted to shake her head at our hopelessness. “It must be exhausting having to look so tough all the time.”

  “Quit flirting,” Michael said.

  She smiled. “So what are you guys supposed to be?”

  “We’re ghosts. We’re the disappeared.” Michael waved a hand in front of her face, Jedi-style. “You never even saw us.”

  “I wish,” she said, and laughed. Then she spun on her heels and hurried across the street to join her friends. A few of them shouted nonsense at us and made kissing noises before disappearing around the darkening bend in the road.

  The streets were suspiciously silent. Aside from the occasional police cruiser tucked into a darkened alley, we were utterly alone. Even the older kids who usually meandered around town, laughing too loudly and talking in raised voices, or perched on the hoods of their cars, passing around bottles of beer—my grandmother referred to these troublemakers as neighborhoodlums—were noticeably absent. I didn’t know if it was the presence of police patrolling the neighborhood or the whispers about the Piper that kept people inside.

  “What did the elephant say to the naked man?” Peter said as we crossed Tarmouth Road. A blackened hillside of farmland rose to our right, studded with a few ramshackle farmhouses with tallow lights on in the windows. We were on the outskirts of Harting Farms.

  “Oh, please,” Michael groaned.

  “How do you breathe with that thing?” Peter said, springing the punch line on us.

  The rest of us lowed like pained cattle.

  Then Scott shouted, “Car!”

  We all rushed onto the shoulder of the road and ducked behind the overgrown grass of the embankment.

  A station wagon with a headlamp out rolled past, its muffler rattling like a party favor.

  After it had gone, we stood and swatted the dirt off our clothes. I glanced back and saw all the lights gathered in the distance. It looked like I could scoop up the whole town in my hands and carry it with me.

  “Come on,” Michael urged, climbing back up the embankment.

  This part of town was nearly desolate. The premature winter had stripped the trees naked, and the wind, strong and unforgiving, came in off the bay. The sky was clear and unending, speckled with a thousand stars of varying brilliance, and the air was thin enough to make our footfalls on the pavement echo down the well of streets at every intersection. There was sustained electricity in the air, too, which usually preceded a summer thunderstorm, building all around us an awareness of impending calamity. As we walked I was alerted to the instinctual way each of my friends glanced skyward at different times, as if expecting to witness some rare celestial event.

  Peter began singing a John Mellencamp song, his voice hollow and off-key. One by one, we all chimed in—even Scott, who had no interest in the down-home rockabilly anthems of Mellencamp.

  A black Cadillac eased past us, its headlamps cleaving through the darkness. It seemed to slow as it went by, but then it kept going and turned at the next stop sign.

  We crossed the street and continued north, the streetlights dotting Point Lane up ahead like Chinese lanterns. In this part of town the houses were spaced farther apart. We took Point to Counterpoint and headed for the edge of town.

  To our right, the dark screen of woods rose over the embankment like a black shroud that separated us from the sloping moonlit field of December Park. It was a large swath of land flanked by Satan’s Forest, which was nearly as expansive as an actual forest, and the imposing, medieval remains of the Patapsco School for Girls.

  Back in the 1890s, L. John Stanton, an illustrious entrepreneur, erected two schools—the Patapsco School for Girls, named for the river it overlooked from its perch atop a wooded bluff, and the Stanton School for Boys, named after Stanton himself—at opposite ends of the town. This was an act of sheer immodesty on Stanton’s part, as the then unincorporated wilds of Harting Farms did not boast enough of a head count to validate two monstrous, castle-like high schools, let alone segregate its population by gender. Moreover, half the city’s adolescent population did not advance beyond ninth grade back then.

  So the Stanton School for Boys became Stanton School, and it eventually incorporated the remaining student body from Patapsco. The girls’ school was shut down and not reopened until after World War II when it became a convalescent home for soldiers returning from overseas with severe mental and physical handicaps. Despite the burgeoning city’s displeasure at having mentally unstable war veterans housed adjacent to a neighborhood park, the school turned hospital remained open and functional for a number of years until faulty wiring caused a devastating fire in 1958. The inferno left nothing behind but the hollow stone shell that remained to this day, a miniature version of the Colosseum.

  Several people had been killed in that fire, the story went, and their ghosts not only haunted the remnants of the former girls’ school but the park and surrounding woods, too. There were many other ghosts that were said to haunt the park
, those of children who had accidentally died when falling out of trees or drowned in one of the many rivers and tributaries that veined the land on the outskirts of the city. (The stories sounded mostly fake to me.)

  I had never witnessed anything unusual in the park or the neighboring woods firsthand, though on occasion, after the day had grown old and the sky had begun to darken, there was an undeniable sense of apprehension that would overtake me. It seemed to emanate straight up out of the land itself. This feeling may have been only in my head, fueled by the power of suggestion from all the stories I had heard, but when it grabbed me, its grip was indeed strong and its fingers dug in deep.

  Also, the fact that they had found Courtney Cole’s body down there didn’t help settle my nerves any. I supposed she would become yet another bit of the folklore surrounding December Park and the nearby woods, another ghost story to tell on chilly autumn nights as the wind moaned through the trees and dead leaves scraped along the asphalt.

  “Christ,” Peter huffed beside me. I had slowed my walk to accommodate his pace. “We should have taken our bikes.”

  “There is no bike riding on Mischief Night,” Michael chided from the front of the line. “How many times do I gotta say it?”

  “Where’d that stupid rule come from?” Peter said.

  “Not sure,” said Michael. “It’s in the Bible, I think.”

  “And what if we need to make a quick getaway?”

  “From what?”

  “From . . . whatever,” Peter said, though he no doubt got us all thinking now.

  “I’ve got my butterfly knife,” Scott suggested.

  Peter seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, “Okay.”

  While Scott’s butterfly knife had always impressed me with how deadly it looked, it suddenly seemed inconsequential now in light of all that had been going on in our hometown. But I said nothing.

  At the top of the hill we crossed the intersection and continued north. Here, only a few clapboard houses dotted the landscape, which was pretty much farmland straight out to the main highway that led out of town.