Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist

by Chris Whitaker

  “I remember.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “You said that never again would you date a man that wasn’t proud to have you on his arm. You said that living in the closet was for teenage boys in Bible-belt towns or 1920s gays.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something that I’d say.”

  “You said that he flinched when you tried to hold his hand on an empty street so imagine what he’d do if you put a hand on his ass or, and I quote, ‘put a hand on his cock.’ ”

  “Ah yes, I remember now. He was nice looking, and he had his own building company. Shame. How was the movie by the way?”

  “He held my hand,” she said, smiling.

  “Wow, he held your hand. Does that mean that the two of you are going steady?”

  “Stop it,” she laughed. “I think it’s sweet.”

  “I wonder what will happen on your next date. If it all goes well then I think you should seriously consider letting him kiss you on the cheek.”

  She threw a glacé cherry at him, one which he expertly caught in his mouth.

  “Very impressive. Quite skilled with your mouth, aren’t you.”

  “So will you see him again, this hand-holding dreamboat?”

  “He’s already asked me to go out for dinner again.”

  “You still don’t sound too convinced.”

  He carefully removed the last of the flowers and the cake was bare again, ready for a redress, if only he could think of a way to give Louise McDermott more; a way that didn’t involve a handgun and a lengthy spell in prison.

  She set down the tray she was holding. “I don’t know what it is really. He’s perfectly nice, more than nice. He’s funny and charming and good-looking.”

  “But?”

  “But I always feel like he’s holding something back. Like he’s so worried about dropping his guard that he can’t relax, and that makes me feel tense. And there’s no reason that he should have his guard up. He’s never been married, so no cruel ex-wife to worry about, and no children to ask him who Daddy’s new friend is.”

  “Maybe he’s been hurt before.”

  She waved him off. “I like my men tough. I don’t want some sissy crying on my shoulder and making me promise to be gentle with him.”

  “Maybe he’s gay.”

  “Maybe he is. Then why bother going after me?”

  “Because you look like a man?”

  This time the cherry hit him square in the forehead.

  Jerry was nervous. He had ironed his best pants, the pair with the pleat down the front and the American eagle badge on the back pocket. The man in the store had said that, for his size, they were the closest he could get to fashionable. Jerry liked the eagle. It looked proud and noble, not like the birds on his bed covers. They were back again, the scary birds. This time, when he got into bed, he could smell something funny on his sheets, and then his legs were burning and his skin bright red. His mother had said that she’d been trying to clean them. He’d found the empty bottle of bleach in the linen closet. She was getting worse. But it wasn’t his mother that was making Jerry nervous. It was the evening ahead.

  Jerry had never been to a bachelor party before. And he felt sick too, as well as nervous. His mother had made lasagna, lasagna with crunchy layers. She’d sat opposite him, watching him eat every mouthful and asking him how it was. She’d asked him twenty-six times. And he’d replied, “nice,” twenty-six times, even though it wasn’t. He’d needed to eat though—he didn’t know if Max would be providing food.

  He’d been to a party once before. For Donald’s tenth birthday. Donald had been in his special class. He was small, remained so even as everyone else got bigger. Donald hadn’t even invited him to the party, his mom had. When Jerry had arrived, with a cake that his mother had baked, iced with the words TO DONALD, LOVE FROM JERRY, some of the other kids had laughed at him. They’d laughed even harder as Donald threw the cake onto the floor. Jerry had cried; cried because he felt bad for his mother, because she had spent so long baking it. And once he started crying, he found that he hadn’t been able to stop. So Donald’s mom had phoned his mother, and just as they were laying out the sausage rolls and the sandwiches, the kind that were cut into small triangles that stuck to the roof of your mouth, his mother had come to collect him. But then she’d seen her cake splattered on the floor, and that made her cry too. And she’d cried so much that Jerry’s dad had to come and collect both of them.

  “What’s that in the oven, Mom?” he called out.

  His mother didn’t answer. He’d learned that silence was rarely a good thing where she was concerned.

  Jerry ran down the stairs, the wood groaning under the strain, and into the kitchen where he saw his mother, bent over and peering into the oven.

  She was naked again.

  The linoleum floor felt spongy beneath his bare feet, which reminded him, he’d have to iron his new socks too. His mother used to iron for him. He wasn’t very good at it. Max had told him that he needed to smarten up, because his shirt was so creased.

  “It’s a cake. I’m baking it for Max.”

  Jerry gently draped her housecoat around her.

  “I don’t think they have cakes at bachelor parties.”

  “Sure they do. It’s not a party without a cake.”

  Mom turned to look at him. “You’re not going like that are you?”

  “Why?”

  “You look so big in that shirt.”

  She poked his stomach with her finger. He took a step back.

  “I’ll change,” he said.

  “No point really. All your shirts make you look big. What time will you be in? I’ll wait out front.”

  “No, don’t do that, Mom.”

  “You’ll need to run my bath. Tonight is Sicilian lime and avocado. It helps. The doctor said relaxation helps. He also said that you should be doing more for me. Looking after me.”

  “I’m not sure what time I’ll be back. Max said that there might not be enough room for me in the limo, and if that happens then I might have to come home early.”

  “Because you’re so fat.”

  She had that look in her eye again, the vacancy. He shouldn’t leave her, he knew that. But he’d told Max he’d go, and Max was someone he found it very difficult to say no to. Though younger than him by six years, Max had a quality that Jerry had always been without. He wasn’t sure what the quality was called, but Max had it in abundance; the ability to get people to do what he said. It wasn’t just that he was physically imposing, which he was, it was the way he talked down to people. He did it to Jerry, which Jerry was more than used to, but Jerry had seen him do it to others too, people he shouldn’t talk down to. Like Lisa. Treat them mean, keep them keen, that’s what Max had told him; told him that right after he’d reduced Lisa to tears over a supposed slight so trivial that Jerry had trouble recalling it. Jerry guessed that was why he saw all the other girls, because that was a mean thing to do to Lisa. Max always made Lisa smile again, usually by buying her a nice gift. Max had lots of money. Jerry couldn’t imagine being mean to Lisa, to anyone really. Lisa once told him that good things happened to good people. Though Jerry had yet to see any concrete evidence of this, he liked to believe it. He liked to believe that the world was a good place, that people were innately good, which was why he struggled so much with what he had done, and with what he needed to do to make things right. There was no easy fix, no resolution without far-reaching consequences for him, and for his mother. It was an accident. He hadn’t meant to do it. He hadn’t meant for any of it to happen. He wondered if that were a valid argument. He doubted it.

  “Will there be women at this party?”

  Jerry shook his head, though he wasn’t certain.

  “You wear a condom if you fuck someone.”

  He looked down. He guessed it was the tumor making her this way. He’d done more research online. It was in a part of the brain called the frontal lobe.

  “You pr
obably won’t. You’ll cum too quick,” she laughed. Her stomach shook, the skin that hung from her arms rippled.

  “She’ll get pregnant. I need you here, Jerry. I need you here.”

  She began to cry.

  He stared down at his feet; puddles of flesh that spread out so wide he had trouble finding shoes that fit.

  “What have you got in your hair?” she said, between sobs.

  “It’s wax. Dad’s old wax. I found it in the bathroom.”

  “It looks all greasy. Like sweat. Big and fat and sweaty. You won’t get laid.”

  He wriggled his toes.

  “Look at me, CUNT,” she said, spit flying.

  She brought a hand to her mouth when she saw the man standing in the doorway. She tried to fix her hair, then pulled her coat tight around her waist.

  Jerry turned, his face red.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. I knocked, the front door was open.”

  “Jerry never remembers to lock it.”

  Jerry met Jim’s eyes, then looked back down at his feet.

  Jim had known Jerry since school. He stopped by the PhotoMax sometimes, always tried saying hello but rarely got past that. He knew his mother. She called them often, when Jerry was at work. For all kinds of shit—from thinking someone was in the house, to telling them that Jerry hadn’t come home in weeks. He knew she was sick, just not exactly what was wrong with her. She’d always been sick. Jerry used to come to school wearing the same clothes for weeks at a time, used to smell bad. He’d eat his lunch alone, not wanting anyone to see the junk his mother packed in his lunchbox. Mountains of it. He was an easy target; the other kids had been ruthless.

  “You okay, Jerry?”

  Jerry nodded.

  Jim glanced at Jerry’s mother. She was staring at him.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?” Jim said.

  Jerry led him out of the kitchen and into the living room.

  Jim looked around, tried not to wrinkle his nose at the smell. Damp, maybe. Could’ve been shit too. He saw stains on the carpet. The pile was deep in places, bare in others. The couches were mismatched: greens and grays, a yellow one too.

  Jerry sat down on the yellow chair. He sank deep.

  He’d been big in school. Jim wondered what he weighed now.

  “I saw Jessica Monroe earlier. She said she stopped by the PhotoMax.”

  Jerry nodded.

  “I just wanted to say thank you, for helping her out with the posters.”

  “Max did most of it.”

  Jim looked past Jerry, at the television in the corner of the room. It was wood-paneled, a vase balanced on top. The flowers were dead.

  “You sure you’re okay, Jerry?”

  Jerry nodded.

  “I know it’s tough, with your mother. If you need anything . . .”

  “Thank you,” Jerry said, quietly.

  Jim sat for a while longer, listening to the tick of the grandfather clock.

  He stood.

  “Have you found him yet?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “But you’re still looking?”

  Jim nodded slowly.

  Jerry rubbed his eyes.

  “You okay? You look like you want to tell me something?”

  Jerry looked at the door, saw his mother staring back at him.

  “Jerry?”

  “I hope you find him soon.”

  17

  First Kiss

  With little money to spare, Jerry walked the two miles to Max’s house. He’d left his mother sleeping on the couch. She had taken a pill, one that calmed her down and allowed her to float away. He’d already decided that he wouldn’t stay long at the party. He’d try and make it back before she woke, as there was no telling which of his mothers she’d be when she did. He tried to think back to a time when things had been easier, not just for him, but for them as a family. He kept a photograph on his nightstand, taken at SeaWorld when he was eleven. They’d been on every ride. They’d sat on the blue seats during one of the shows and got soaked to the bone. His father had brought his mother’s wheelchair so they didn’t have to queue. People had stared, because they knew she was only in it because she was fat, but it had still been one of the best days of his life.

  By the time he got to Max’s house he was breathing hard. Carrying the cake had started to make his arms ache too. He was reluctant to take it in. He’d stopped by three trash cans on the way, each time wanting to drop the cake in, but found he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  He heard music. A heavy bass line that thumped and vibrated straight through his stomach. He swallowed hard, trying to force his nerves back down. There was an inflatable woman on the doorstep. He tried not to stare because she didn’t have any clothes on.

  With a shaking hand he knocked on the door.

  He waited and waited, looking around nervously as he did. He’d put his T-shirt on after he’d left home, because he didn’t want his mother to see it.

  I FUCK ON THE FIRST DATE

  Max said that everyone had to wear the T-shirt. He’d kept his jacket done up as he’d walked. The sweat was pooling at the base of his spine.

  He took a few steps backward. He could see people inside, but they didn’t look up.

  He glanced at his Death Watch. His mother had made him update his weight. He’d lost three months.

  He knocked again, this time a little harder. And then, finally, someone came to the door.

  “Holy shit.” The man had long hair and pierced ears. “What the fuck have we got here?”

  Jerry tried to smile, didn’t know what else to do.

  He noticed that the man wasn’t wearing a T-shirt like his. He was wearing a T-shirt, though his had a picture of Max on it. He wished that the man would invite him inside, or say something else, anything else, just stop staring at him.

  “I’m Jerry, from the PhotoMax.”

  The man laughed, tilted his head to the side and laughed again.

  “Max,” the man shouted, and then walked back inside, leaving Jerry and the inflatable woman alone again.

  Jerry had never felt so pleased to see Max when he appeared at the door.

  “What’s up, Jerry? Glad you could make it. Come inside.”

  Jerry smiled and tried to give Max the cake, but he had already disappeared into the house.

  There were lots of people inside, and they all laughed when Jerry came in and slipped off his jacket. But they were laughing at his T-shirt so that was okay. And when he caught Max’s eye, Max winked at him and that made him feel a little better.

  The music was even louder inside. The smoke in the air made Jerry cough.

  The man with long hair handed Jerry a drink, and though he didn’t particularly like the taste, he didn’t want to appear rude so he drank it anyway.

  He followed Max into the kitchen and took the cake out of the box.

  “My mom made this. For the party.”

  Max nodded and looked embarrassed, but before Jerry could hand the cake to him the long-haired man grabbed it and took a big bite.

  Then he spat it into the sink.

  “What the fuck, man. It tastes like chemicals or some shit.”

  Max laughed, and then the long-haired man laughed too.

  Jerry looked down at floor. “I’m sorry. She’s not well.”

  Max and the long-haired man were laughing so much that they weren’t even listening to him.

  “What the fuck is up with your voice? It’s like you’ve been sucking down helium.”

  Jerry looked at Max, but Max avoided his eye.

  Jerry saw another man walk into the kitchen, and then Max handed him the cake. He took a bite, then spat it out too.

  They all laughed again. So Jerry laughed too, but then he thought of his mother, and felt the tears start to weigh on his eyes, so he turned away from them and looked out of the kitchen window.

  As the first tear fell he felt a hand on his shoulder, and it was the long-haired man, and h
e said that he was only fucking with him, and to have another drink.

  So Jerry did, and then he started to feel better. And the more he drank, the better he felt.

  Manny sat back, watching the sun begin to set, turning the sky a deep shade of purple. His mother was out with the squint-eyed bastard again so he was stuck home on a Saturday night. Not that he minded. He was with Furat.

  “Where’s Thalia?” Furat asked.

  “In the kitchen. She said she wanted to play with the stove.”

  He stretched and yawned, finding the long summer days quite exhausting.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “She knows what she’s doing. She’s sick of playing with that toy shit that doesn’t even heat up, just makes noises like it’s sizzling or something, but ten seconds later it cuts off. How the fuck are you supposed to prepare a meal like that?”

  “But she’s three.”

  He nodded, interlinking his fingers behind his head and praying that his deodorant was winning its battle for control under his armpits, a battle that was hard enough without the addition of a three-piece working for the opposition.

  “Three, right. And my mother acts like she’s a baby. Would a baby be in there now trying to get the stove hot enough to make popcorn? No, it fucking wouldn’t. But that’s the beauty of children: the shit that adults forget once they get past thirty. Children are thirsty for knowledge, you know, and the only way to quench that thirst is to let them explore the world around them. And how can they do that if they’re always being told no? That’s why I never say no to her, even when she asked to use the nail gun.”

  Furat stared at him.

  Manny laughed. “It’s too easy to fuck with you. Should’ve seen your face. Brilliant.”

  She punched his arm.

  “She’s watching that show she loves, the one with that girl that used to be cute and then turned into a whore bag piece of shit after she found the key to unlock her Disney handcuffs.”

  She laughed.

  “You looking forward to prom?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re lucky you get to go. They pushed it back twice because of Harry Monroe.”

  “What do you think happened to him?”