by Andrew Lanh
“Judd, you remember Liz from last year.” Hazel didn’t sound happy.
A roustabout playboy, I thought, dressed more for an outing at an Episcopalian dinner dance at the Farmington Country Club. A blue dress shirt, gray necktie, prep school trousers.
Judd walked toward us and reached out his hand to Liz. He gripped her fingers too tightly, held on too long, and Liz twisted her body away.
Judd preened. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Liz sucked in her cheeks. “You almost got your wish.”
Hazel opened the car door and motioned to Judd. She caught my eye. Her voice became low and sad. “Judd used to think Liz was the most fascinating woman in the world.” Color rose in her neck.
“She is.”
Judd laughed. “Hey, man, we agree on something.” He made a clicking sound and wagged a finger at me.
Hazel slammed the door. “Sometimes Liz could be too charming.” Now she eyed Liz, speaking through clenched teeth, “She has a way of making foolish schoolboys forget who their real girlfriends are.” Her words sliced the air, but she looked as if she could cry at any moment.
“Hazel is my girlfriend.” A flat-out statement, said loud enough for Hazel to hear. “For two years now.” Unhappy words, thrown out at us. The look he gave her was angry, fiery. “What did I tell you about talking such shit, Hazel?” His words were snarled as he nodded toward her. “It’s nice to have a pretty girlfriend, right?” She looked away.
“You’re a lucky guy,” I told him.
Judd was staring at me, his look none too friendly. “No, mister, you are.” He winked at Liz.
Hazel, furious, leaned on the horn.
Chapter Nine
When Hank and I pulled up in front of Mike Tran’s house, I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not only were all the lights on in the downstairs rooms, but in the upstairs rooms as well. The front porch light. A spotlight on a garage illuminated the small fenced yard with the battered cars. Eerie and unnerving. I turned to Hank, “What do you think?”
Hank said nothing at first, then slowly pressed his face against the car window. “Mike Tran is telling us this is a safe haven.”
“He’s telling us that his house needs protection from the bogeyman.”
Hank shivered. “Simon Tran will not be home.”
“Even though he promised his father he’d be there. The Saigon Kid has fled once again.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Hank banged the dashboard. “Christ, Rick, what’s wrong with that boy?”
“I suppose we have to find that out.”
I was right. Inside, we faced a nervous Mike Tran who kept shifting his body from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry,” he began, not looking at us. “I know I told you that you could, you know, finally talk to my son.” He shrugged helplessly. “But when I told him you were coming, he bolted.” He glanced toward the front window. “He runs the streets. He’s like a pet that breaks free and runs.” At that moment his wife approached from behind and rested a hand on his elbow.
Lucy looked as if she’d been crying, her face puffy and pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She attempted a smile, but stopped.
Quietly she looked into my face. “We are going to lose our son.”
Mike faced her. “No.”
“No,” I said to her. “There has to be a solution.”
Lucy’s eyes were wet. A soft “thank you.”
Lucy had none of Mike’s thick, blunt toughness. She looked fragile, a slender woman given to some girlish plumpness in her arms and face. Wearing a housedress covered with purple irises, she looked uncomfortable, as though she’d dressed for our visit in her Sunday best. She ran her hands down the dress, smoothing wrinkles that weren’t there. A woman who fretted her day away. I knew that she worked as a cafeteria helper at the local middle school, but I imagined her long days were the stuff of worry and pain.
Mike nodded, uncomfortable. “Sit, sit.” He motioned to the living room. A tiny room dominated by a huge flat-screen TV, turned on, the sound muted. A plaid sofa, covered in plastic. A coffee table with a huge arrangement of paper flowers. A photograph on an end table: a wedding shot of Mike and Lucy, young, smiling, almost giddy in the way she threw her head back, Mike glancing at her profile with an expression that was both delighted and surprised. It made my heart leap, that photo, the heartfelt affection there, deep, real.
It gave me pause as I remembered Liz and me, newly married, having our photo snapped by my best friend at Columbia. He caught me looking to the side, Liz watching my face as if she couldn’t understand the strange man she’d somehow said yes to. She always found that photo amusing—in fact, she’d framed it, kept it on her desk. “You are looking for a way to escape,” she used to say, a ripple of laughter coming from her. Then, unfortunately, it became true.
That photo—I wondered if Liz still had it. I didn’t.
Mike sighed. “Simon tells me you went to Russell Street. The VietBoyz. That JD and those…those…” Helpless, his hand floated in the air, then dropped back into his lap.
I smiled. “He wasn’t happy about that. He ran away.”
Mike glanced at his wife. “All his life he runs away.”
The moment froze. No one said anything. Mike stared over our shoulders, his focus on the plate-glass window that looked out onto the street. I waited. Hank fidgeted.
Finally, clearing her throat, Lucy announced supper. She walked to the foot of the staircase and yelled upstairs. “Wilson, honey, now.”
The young boy scampered down the stairs, two at a time, jumping the last three, and stood staring at Hank and me as though surprised there were visitors.
“Did you wash up?” his mother asked, and he nodded.
At the dining table he looked out of place among the adults, a skinny boy slouching in the chair, picking at his food, watching us.
I found myself comparing him to his sister. It was difficult believing they were the same age, let alone twins, because Wilson looked the little boy with his tiny bone structure, his thin shoulders, his broken fingernails, that shock of deep black hair in need of a trim. And those huge Coke-bottle eyeglasses with the wide black frames. It was, I supposed, the contrast with the slick young woman who could casually toss a designer handbag onto a luncheonette seat with the insouciance of a runway model.
And Simon. Saigon. Street runner. Wise guy.
Lucy served us a white asparagus-and-crab soup, a delicacy for special occasions. Sup mang tay cuc. Wilson kept sipping the soup, mumbling “Hot, hot, hot.” Then Lucy served steamed white rice with thin slices of pork pounded into an inch of their lives, marinated with a caramel lemongrass sauce. Wilson took a second helping while his mother sat back and watched the men around her, checking every so often with Mike, who beamed at her, proud, satisfied. Lucy barely picked at her own food, though she fiddled with chopsticks, picking them up, grasping a piece of meat, then dropping it back onto her plate.
Mike kept checking out Hank and me, running his tongue over his lips. Every so often he looked to the front door. He’d promised us Simon, and that bothered him. But then, with a sidelong glance at Lucy, he’d nodded toward his son. It was clear what he wanted to discuss, but he chose to wait. Wilson nibbled on a piece of pork, oblivious. Instead, we discussed the brisk spring weather, Mike’s job at the garage. Did we notice one of the cars on the front lawn? He was rebuilding a Ford Mustang from 1966, vintage, he said, tan with a cloth roof, a classic—and Lucy said that the tulips she’d planted last fall in the front yard were starting to peek through the old leaves and spring mud. Pleasant, surely, all of this, but killing time.
Hank got Wilson’s attention. “How’s school?”
The boy beamed. “Good.” Then he looked back down.
Lucy smiled at her son. “Wilson studies all the time.”
Wilson twisted his head. “If I don’t, Pop’ll get mad.” He avoided looking at his father.
The remark bothered Mike, who struggled with a stiff smile. “I do let you out of the house to play basketball in the yard. And those goddamned video games you love.”
Now Wilson seemed repentant. “I only mean…”
“It’s all right.” His mother tapped the back of his wrist.
“What’s your favorite subject?” Hank asked.
Wilson brightened. “English. I’m gonna be a writer.” A pause. “Yeah, a writer, I think.”
“Cool.” From Hank.
“A science fiction writer,” the boy went on. He looked eagerly at Hank. “You ever read the Robotech series?”
Hank nodded. “Yeah, what kid doesn’t?”
Wilson’s face lit up. “I got all the books lined up on a shelf.”
Mike interrupted. “If you’re finished, Wilson, you can go upstairs.”
But Wilson had found a sympathetic audience in Hank. “Sci-fi movies. Books.” His eyes popped.
I spoke up. “Good for you, Wilson.”
“Call me Will.”
“Will.”
“When I’m twenty-five, maybe I’ll be famous. Maybe even rich.” He blinked wildly.
Mike was frowning. “For God’s sake, Wilson.”
The boy spoke loudly, energetic. “No, no, I mean it. I’m the smartest kid in my class. The teachers tell me so.”
Mike wasn’t happy. “Wilson is in love with himself.”
That stopped the boy. He got quiet, but he looked annoyed.
Lucy, fretting, said in a squeaky voice, “Hank is gonna be a state trooper, Wilson.”
“I know. I heard.” He narrowed his eyes at Hank. “But why? Isn’t that dangerous? I mean—like guns?” Suddenly he looked uncomfortable, his head dipping into his chest.
Hank didn’t answer him.
“What are you reading in school, Will?” He looked back up, relieved. I looked over at Hank. “What do kids read in school these days? I’m so out of touch.”
Hank grimaced. “They read graphic novels about ghouls and vampires and…”
Wilson broke in. “Sci-fi at home. Even—like the Transformer series. I do. In school we’re reading Moby Dick. You ever read it? I love it. We read The Scarlet Letter, which I didn’t love. Hey, single mom with a baby. Deadbeat dad. Big deal. That’s like turning on, you know, Dr. Phil.” He grinned. “And I thought Moby Dick would be, you know, boring. A whale. I mean, a whale. But it’s not. It’s my favorite book.” He pointed to the upstairs. “It’s a great book. No one in my class likes it, but me.” He stopped, out of breath.
Mike made a grunting sound. “Okay, Wilson, you can go to your room, okay?”
Flummoxed, Wilson left the room, though he grinned at Hank.
Mike whispered, “We gotta talk now.”
We sat in the living room, silent at first, facing one another, while Lucy poured tea into small cups. Her hand shook as she placed the cups on the table.
Finally Lucy broke the silence. “Hazel phoned today. She said you—even Liz, her old mentor—met with her in Farmington.” Question in her tone, a glance at her husband.
I exchanged a glance with Hank. “Liz hadn’t seen Hazel for a year,” I explained as a puzzled look came into her eyes. “Liz is my ex-wife, Lucy. I thought it a good idea—to get her perspective on Simon’s problem. How a sister sees his problem. You know…” I faltered.
“It made her nervous.” She bit a nail. “She told me that.”
“It wasn’t meant to,” I told her.
“Did she help you?”
Before I could answer, Mike interrupted. “She’s got so high and mighty. Hazel has an attitude nowadays—holier-than-thou crap. A rich girl’s school.”
Lucy looked perplexed. “I still don’t get…”
Mike’s look told her to be quiet. “Ardolino called here again.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“I think he just wants me to know that this ain’t going away. That’s the message. Like—I know your boy is dirty, mister. A matter of time before I haul his ass in.”
Lucy was watching me closely. “I still don’t see how meeting Hazel at school can help.”
Mike was impatient with her. “Christ, Lucy, he must know what he’s doing.”
“I don’t understand. I guess…well, afterwards, she had a fight with her boyfriend. That—that Judd Snow.”
Mike let out a nasty growl, then slumped back, looked sheepish.
“You don’t like him?” From Hank.
Husband looked at wife, a glance that ran through chapter and verse of an unpleasant book.
Mike hissed, “Too goddamned possessive, that boy. Hazel is a girl who tells you what’s what, but she always obeys that boy. Jumps when he snaps his fingers. He got too much control. He makes her—afraid somehow. She…you know…I can see it in her eyes.”
“Charming,” Lucy added, but it wasn’t a compliment. “He’s charming. Smart as a whip, they tell me, but”—she shook her head back and forth—“not good for our Hazel.”
Mike’s voice was biting. “He can get her to follow him into fire.”
“What does that mean?” Hank asked.
Lucy shook her head sadly. “Sometimes she’s up in her room crying.”
Mike sneered. “Judd Snow. Dumb-ass name, no? Rich boy—buys her shit, then takes it back. He comes from over the mountain in Avon. He scoots around in a fancy car, blows the horn in the driveway instead of ringing the doorbell like a boy should. This boy don’t like to be crossed. He sits in front, leaning on the horn, louder and louder. When I tell him to stop, his face gets blood red. Scary. Mouth got all tight. Nobody never says no to the boy. Respect for the family, I say. What boy does that?”
Lucy leaned in. “Hazel whispered to me that he flirts with other girls, wants their attention. Right in front of her—to make her mad. A cruel boy.” She stopped, bothered. Then, looking at Mike, “We’re worried about her.”
I debated my words, but said, “I met him when he picked up Hazel. Johnny Cool. Last year he was taken with Liz, hovered around her, a pest. Liz is a gorgeous woman.”
Lucy smiled thinly. “I know about that. It really boiled Hazel. For a while all Judd talked about was…”
“Liz,” I finished.
“Her looks, her humor, her sophistication, even the perfume she used.”
“Well, that ended.”
Mike had been listening to Lucy and me. Suddenly he thundered, “Did it?”
I clicked my tongue. “Yesterday he was a little obnoxious, I thought.”
“He’s always obnoxious,” Mike stormed. “I don’t like him.” Again the helpless shrug. “But Hazel—another child of mine who doesn’t listen. She nods, obeys, afraid to lose the asshole.”
Lucy admonished, “Mike, please. Your tongue.”
“I don’t care. My Hazel…”
“Then there was another girl,” Lucy interrupted. “A young librarian at Kingswood-Oxford.”
“He goes there?”
Mike’s eyes darkened. “Yeah, that’s how he met Hazel. Dumb luck. He’s head of the chess club, a whiz kid. A jerk. In the same class as Wilson. So he teaches our Wilson to play chess, and Wilson beats him. That made him crazy. Wilson was in a chess tournament, so we all went, and this Judd was the star of the event. While we’re watching Wilson win, Judd’s eyes found Hazel as she sat with us.”
Lucy spoke quickly. “I think her eyes found him, too.”
Mike lowered his voice, peering toward the staircase. “He hounded Wilson about Hazel, but Wilson kept his distance. ‘He makes me nervous,’ he told us. ‘He’s bossy, orders me—everyone—around. Even the teachers.’ That’s what Wilson told us. Judd drove Wilson crazy. ‘Where does she han
g out? Who are her friends? Tell me, tell me.’ Wilson made an enemy by telling him to leave Hazel alone. But that seemed to make Judd even more determined.”
“And here we are today, a couple years later.” Lucy sat back, folded her hands into her lap. “He’s the big man on campus, headed to Princeton.”
“What bothers me,” Mike spoke over her, “is this boy’s father. I mean, Judd treats us like—like old suitcases Hazel has to drag around. He walks right by Wilson in classes, but his father calls here. His father. ‘Judd isn’t answering his cell phone. I texted him all day. Is he there?’ When I say no, he says, ‘Are you sure?’ Like we’re hiding the boy in the attic. One time the flashy red car is in the driveway, horn honking, Hazel getting ready to leave, and I look out and it’s not Judd, but the father. ‘Hazel, it’s his father.’ ‘Oh Christ,’ she says, but she runs out anyway. Watching from the window, I see him leaning in, laughing. Creepy.”
Hank and I sat quietly.
“What’s going on?” Lucy whispered to Mike as though Hank and I weren’t in the room. An awkward moment, a husband-and-wife late-night talk about the children. Intrusive, my sitting there. A violation. I stared at my hands.
“We lost control of our kids.” Mike’s rough voice was a whisper.
Lucy shook herself out of it, addressing me. “Simon told us there was a real bad incident at the mall.”
“With Judd?” I asked.
She nodded. “I guess Simon was walking with that…that rotten kid, Frankie…they’re like mall rats, them two, in the arcade, loitering, and Hazel walks by with Judd. West Farms Mall. I guess Frankie opened his mouth, said something real fresh to Hazel, so Judd flipped out. He accused Frankie of flirting with his girl, and Frankie mouthed off something. It got bad real quick, and Judd slugged Frankie. Frankie dove into his chest, the two boys at each other. Security pulled them apart, but they tried to keep going—shoved the guard into a window. They arrested them both—took them to the station. Judd had to call his father—it wasn’t pretty, Hazel told me. He was humiliated. But Hazel defended him. ‘Frankie started it.’ Simon said Judd yelled, ‘I’ll get you. Watch your back.’ Something like that.”