“Let’s go out.”
Even though it was cold, they sat on the concrete wall around the raised flower bed. The flowers were long gone, replaced by windblown garbage and lipstick-smudged cigarette butts.
Nixxie peeled back the paper wrapper. “Live around here?”
“Over in the condos,” he replied, pointing vaguely in the direction of New Haven. “You?”
“Down the other side of the school, a couple of blocks.”
They each took a few bites, using their ice cream to avoid looking at each other.
“Did you say you were from Saskatoon?” she asked.
“Uh…yeah,” he replied, quickly recalling Phil’s advice. “Where’re you from?”
“I was born here in Winnipeg,” she replied. She licked her sticky finger tips. “Hey, do you know Frank?” she asked. “He’s having a Hallowe’en party at his place on Saturday night. Wanna go? Some people dress up, some don’t. He won’t mind if you show up. Just bring your own drinks.”
“Okay,” he said uncertainly, not at all sure Frank wouldn’t mind.
She slid off the wall. “Thank you for the ice cream.” She smiled. “See you at school tomorrow.”
“See ya,” he said. Then he added, “Nixxie.”
Chapter 15
Danny had always loved Hallowe’en. Over the years, his mom’s needle and thread had transformed him into a cave man, a vampire, a robot, a ghost, and a head-hunting cannibal. When his sister was little, his mom would have Hallowe’en parties for them at home, but once Jennifer started school, they concentrated on going out door to door.
He poked around his room, wondering what he should do this year. He had no idea what to expect, really. How many would be dressed up? Fancy costumes or simple ones? How many kids were going to be there? Nixxie said he didn’t have to dress up at all, and maybe that was the safest route.
On Saturday morning Julia was awash in a sea of construction paper, scissors, tape, and felt markers. She’d already cut out wavy-bottomed ghosts, full moons, and gap-toothed jack-o-lanterns and pasted them to the front window. She looked up from tracing the outline of a hissing cat on black paper.
“What’ll you be for Hallowe’en?” she asked.
“Nuthin’,” he replied.
“Then it’s your own fault,” she said. “I’m going to be a pirate.”
He shrugged and moved toward the kitchen. His mom was washing up breakfast dishes. He leaned against the door jamb and mentioned he was invited out to a party that night.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“One of the kids from school – Frank.”
“Far from here?”
“Close enough to walk.”
“It sounds good. Are you dressing up?”
“Nah, they said we’d mainly sit around and listen to music and stuff.”
“Any girls going?”
“Nah,” he said. He looked down. The lie came easily, and he wasn’t sure why he had said it at all.
“Just some boys from the school?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
“Okay. What time?”
“Seven thirty.”
“And you’ll be home by…?”
“I dunno.”
She pursed her lips and thought a moment. “Ten thirty?” she suggested.
“Sure. Whatever.”
That afternoon, he went to the mall. Hallowe’en merchandise spilled from shelves. Impulsively, he decided to look for something for himself. He settled on a tube of white face paint and a six-pack of Coke. Then he went down to the hardware section of the dollar store and stole a lock for his bedroom door.
He thought face paint was the safest. He didn’t want to go without anything, and if he felt like an idiot he could just wash it off – say it itched, or something.
He went to the bathroom mirror.
His father’s features stared back.
He started smearing on the face paint.
Even though the sun had been down for over an hour, Danny glanced about to see if anyone was looking at him. He turned up his collar, but there wasn’t any way to hide his skull bones outlined in white. He’d memorized Nixxie’s address, but just to be sure, he’d written it in pen on his wrist where his watch would hide it from view. He carried the Coke cans in a plastic bag, which he switched from hand to hand as he made his way toward Nixxie’s house. He was careful not to smudge the paint outlining the bones on the back of his hands.
The front curtains of Nixxie’s boxy house were drawn but the outside light was on. He hesitated before striding up the sidewalk at a pace he hoped looked confident.
He tried to hide his surprise when the doorbell was answered by a white woman, who looked a bit like an older version of his own mother.
He swallowed and asked, “Is Nixxie home?”
She smiled. “Yes, of course,” she said. “You must be David.”
He stepped into the narrow entranceway.
“Nixxie! There’s a skeleton here to see you!”
“Okay, Mom,” came Nixxie’s voice.
Mom? Danny looked around the modest living room. A thick quilt hung diagonally across the couch. He could see half of the hand-stitched eight-point star. It was indigo at its center, then radiated into royal purple followed by a ring of white. Its points were tipped in blue. A woven basket stored newspapers and magazines. A framed mosaic of drawings – feathers, buffalos, tipis, a drum, a rattle – hung over the loveseat. He looked at it curiously.
Nixxie swept into the room. An ebony leather strap cinched a calf-length black dress. Blood-red nail polish matched her lipstick. She reached up to finger a black studded dog collar buckled at her throat. She’d smudged what looked like soot under her eyes. A streak ran down each cheek. She’d used mascara to blacken her eyebrows into thick mats and angle them down toward her nose.
Her eyes twinkled. “See, I told you I love shopping at Value Mart!”
“Great costume,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. He pulled them out quickly when he remembered the paint. “I didn’t know you liked Goth.”
“Actually I don’t, but it’s cheap and easy. So – you’re a skeleton?”
“Yeah,” Danny mumbled, now feeling underdressed.
“And you’ll be at Frank’s?” Nixxie’s mom interrupted.
“Uh-huh,” Nixxie replied.
“Well, don’t stay out past ten thirty, and if you need a ride home, just call and Dad’ll pick you up.”
“Okay Mom,” Nixxie said as she shrugged into a man’s large, black overcoat.
“See you later.”
He turned to the door. A dinner plate-sized hoop strung with a spiderweb-like mesh hung from the back of the door. Clear glass beads scattered along the mesh caught and reflected the light. A bundle of feathers dangled from one side and a braided leather thong hung from the other. It was pretty, but why would people bring spider-web things into their house? He was careful not to touch it when he opened the door.
“Good-bye, David. Bye, Nixxie. Have fun.”
Nixxie led the way down the walk. “This way,” she directed, pointing to the left.
“Are you sure Frank won’t mind me coming?” Danny asked, his voice rising.
“Nah, he’ll be good with it. So what’d you bring to drink?” she asked, pointing at the bag.
“Coke.”
“Share?”
“Sure.”
Frank had taped a note to his front door. The shaky handwriting was meant to look spooky: Use Back Door. A bone white plastic skull replaced the back porch light cover. Nixxie rang the doorbell. Danny heard a wolf howl. Captain Hook’s hat and eye patch appeared in the window. The pirate opened the door with his hook.
“Hi Nixxie,” he said and then looked down the steps at Danny.
“This is David. He’s in my art class. I said you wouldn’t mind if he came.”
“OK, yeah, I think I seen ya around the school.” He held open the door. “Come in. We’re in the basement, same
as last year.”
Danny knew a few names and recognized some faces, but he’d kept to himself so much he’d never talked to any of them. He dropped his drinks on the table and slipped off his jacket. A boy without a costume scanned him head to foot. Danny stuck out his chin and looked him in the eye. He knew he must look weird. He was wearing his first-day-of-school clothes – the stone-washed jeans and black T-shirt that had sat untouched in the bottom drawer ever since his mom bought them.
The boy squinted. “So what’re you supposed to be?”
Danny flared his nostrils. “I’m Danny McMillan.”
The boy’s brows knitted. “Who’s Danny McMillan?” he asked.
“Some dead guy,” he replied, turning his back.
They had chips and pop and listened to some heavy metal. Half the kids were in costume: the Statue of Liberty, a hockey player, a tramp, a black cat. Part way through the evening, a kid named Ian put a movie in the DVD player.
“Doppelganger,” Ian said. “It’s great. It’s about a teenager who has a shadow-double of himself who follows him everywhere and the shadow-double kills people, but he’s the only one who can see it, and everyone else thinks he’s the murderer.”
“Eeeeewww,” said one of the girls, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t like horror movies.”
“Don’t watch,” Ian said, carting his popcorn bowl to the couch.
“Do you like horror movies?” Nixxie asked Danny.
“They’re okay…sometimes,” he added, not sure what the best answer would be, wanting to please her.
“I hate them,” she replied. “I like action movies – fast cars and things that blow up. And westerns.”
“Me too,” he said quickly. They chatted about movies, actors, music. A few kids danced. He watched them and his palms began to sweat. Before he could ask Nixxie, the Statue of Liberty jumped up.
“Nixxie, let’s dance!”
Nixxie kicked off her black boots and twirled in her bare feet. Her hips swiveled to the music. The flared sleeves of her dress momentarily revealed her long, brown fingers. Her hair fell across her face. When she threw her head back, the smooth, clean lines of her jaw and neck drew his eyes down across the soft swell of her breasts to her tight belt.
He wanted to be the one dancing with Nixxie.
The song ended, and Nixxie pulled on her boots. “I’ve gotta go or I’ll be late,” she said.
Danny jumped up. They said their good-byes and walked through the frosty October night. The stars twinkled – suns too far away to give heat, but close enough to light up the sky, the constellations timeless and unchanging. They always made him think about his grandparents.
Nixxie hugged the sides of her oversized coat close to her body. “What time do you have to be home?”
“Eleven o’clock,” he lied.
“My parents don’t want me out late. They worry. Sometimes I get mad at them, but I guess I can understand why they feel that way.” She paused. “What about your parents?”
The answer wasn’t something he’d thought out. “Sort of strict,” he replied. “My mom worries, but she mostly treats me like an adult.”
“What about your dad?”
“I don’t have a dad.”
“Hey, neither do I. I mean I don’t have a biological dad – well I must’ve had one, or I wouldn’t be here – but my real mom and dad are my grandma and grandpa. They adopted me. And they adopted my mom.”
“Oh.”
“It’s complicated. My grandma’s my A-mom, because she adopted me. Denise is my B-mom, my birth mom. But my A-mom is the same person as Denise’s A-mom. Sometimes I think I should call Denise ‘Mom,’ too. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
He looked past the Goth makeup and glimpsed someone who was perhaps not what she seemed to be.
Chapter 16
It snowed all Sunday morning. Then the sun appeared and spread its light as if it had never hidden its smile. Buddy clamped his Frisbee in his mouth and pawed at Danny’s hand until the boy went for the leash.
Danny saw Papa Joe taking short careful steps along the unshovelled walk. The sight of the old man reminded Danny that he had a lock, but he didn’t have the tools to install it. He asked Papa Joe if he had some he could borrow.
“Sure, I’ve got a tool box, what’d ya need?”
“I’m…not sure. A screwdriver. Maybe a hammer.”
“What’re ya doin’?”
“Putting a lock on a door.”
“What kinda lock? One with a key?”
“No, just a sort of latch type,” he replied, making a back and forth motion with his hand.
“As long as it ain’t too big,” Papa Joe replied. “The management don’t like tenants changing things like locks.”
It had never occurred to Danny he’d need anyone’s permission to secure some privacy.
Papa Joe bent to scratch Buddy’s ears. “They’re in the basement, in a red box, beside the furnace.”
Danny carted up the toolbox and set it on the towel Papa Joe had spread on the table. Papa Joe started sorting through his tools.
Danny looked around. Although the fixtures matched theirs – the same appliances, cupboards, counters – it looked homey. Enough keepsakes to fill a gift shop lined the walls. Gold-framed mountain scenes and seascapes elbowed for room with porcelain collector’s plates, fancy mirrors, a barometer, and pictures of black labs cut from a calendar. But mostly there were photos that looked like they’d been taken a hundred years ago. Christmas, wedding, and school photos in cardboard frames, candid shots of summer holidays, family dinners and chubby babies: all sticky-tacked to the cupboards.
“I don’t see your momma ’round in the days no more. She get a job?”
“Yeah. At my sister’s school.”
He nodded. “Working in schools. Pays good.”
“Yep,” said Danny. Lie.
“And yuh can’t get home from school at lunch now, can yuh?”
“No.”
He picked up the tools one by one, inspecting each as if he were worried it had changed since the last time he’d seen it. He sorted them either onto the towel beside his half-full ash tray, or back into the tool box.
“Must be hard on Buddy, bein’ in all day.”
“Yeah,” Danny said, glancing at the dog. At the sound of his name, Buddy swished his tail back and forth across the floor. It had been two weeks since Mom started volunteering, and two weeks since the dog had been out at noon.
Papa Joe handed the boy a screwdriver and a hammer.
Danny took the tools. “Thanks.”
Papa Joe scratched Buddy’s ears. “So, I been thinkin’,” he said. “Buddy here needs a walk during the day. And the doc says I need to have a walk every day so’s the new hips keep workin’. But with the ice ’n’ snow, sometimes it’s hard for me ta get out, ’cause I worry ’bout fallin’. But if I had me a fine dog like Buddy, he could kinda watch out for me, and bark a lot if I fell down or somethin’.”
Danny looked at Papa Joe, then at the dog. It actually sounded like a good idea. “I’ll – I’ll ask my mom,” he said.
“That’d be right nice,” Papa Joe replied.
His mom drummed her fingertips across her lips. “I’d have to give him a key. I don’t really want to do that,” she said.
Danny rolled his eyes. “Like, he might steal something? Like, we’ve got something to steal?”
She pursed her lips. “It’s not a question of stealing. It’s a question of privacy.”
He crossed his arms. “It’d be good for Buddy.”
She gazed back at him. “I’ll think about it,” she finally said.
The portable’s steam radiators hissed and ticked but couldn’t put out enough heat to keep the room warm. Ms. Nguyen was reading announcements when Chad swiveled to face Danny.
“How come you an’ your mom always walk to the mall?” he asked, leaning forward. “Too poor to have a car? Your mom a drunk and lose her license?”
Dan
ny’s face flushed. Chad kept eyeing Danny’s clothes. “So where’d a poor boy like you get such a pretty watch?” he sneered, pointing at Danny’s wrist.
Danny’s hands sweated and his heart thumped. For a moment he was lost for words. Then he remembered Andy telling him that Chad liked to push people around, get them into trouble, and even to steal for him. He’s not going to push me around. “I stole it.”
“Yeah? So, how’d ya like to steal me one?” he dared, narrowing his eyes.
Danny clenched his jaw and held his face taut. “No problem, Chad,” he said.
They met behind the mall. Most of the boys Chad hung with were older. They seemed to have easy access to cigarettes. Chad was smoking, perched on the top rail of a metal fence, his feet propped up on the bottom rail and his shoulders hunched forward. His head was tilted downward so the smoke drifted up across his face and in front of his eyes.
Chad didn’t say a word. He just stared at Danny, not moving, except to bring a cigarette lazily to his mouth. Danny didn’t say anything either. He was still wearing his shapeless anorak, much too thin for the zero-degree weather and brisk prairie wind. He clenched his bare hands, refusing to shiver.
The mood was as tense as a drawn bow, and neither of them wanted to loose the string. It was an older boy who spoke first.
“So this is Dav-id,” he said, pronouncing the name as if it were exotic. He fingered the silver studs along the bottom of his black leather jacket and spit into the snow. “So, ya wanna piss with the big dogs?” he asked, his upper lip curling.
Danny said nothing. Stay focused on Chad, he thought. Don’t shiver.
“I guess we’ll see if he’s a rottweiler or a poodle-boy, hey?” Chad said in an oily voice. The boys snorted and laughed.
Danny struggled to breathe naturally, sure they could hear his racing heartbeat. He had started to sweat and his palms were slick with moisture, chilling them to ice. His head told him to run, but fear of humiliation clamped his gut and sucked up the adrenaline rushing through his body.
“David is a poodle-boy! David is a poodle-boy! Loser!” a pimply-faced youth sang in a falsetto voice.
“Shut up,” said Chad. He took another drag on his cigarette and stared Danny down. “So, what’s it gonna be?”
The Second Trial Page 18