The insult hadn’t really bothered him—he was accustomed to hearing far worse from kids at school—but the whole scene didn’t sit well.
And now, twenty minutes later, the epic novel having rendered its faithful service, subduing the worst of his anxiety, bringing him to some repose, he finds that he still has not achieved full equilibrium. Which is weird, since here he is in his sanctum, enjoying his favorite pastime at his favorite time of the evening.
He can’t focus; that’s the problem. The images from his brother’s twin computer monitors, coupled with the teenagers’ wild, jeering responses to the action, keep interposing themselves on his mind, robbing him of his preternatural capacity for singular concentration on an object of study. In short, he is distracted, and it bothers the hell out of him.
What would have happened to Arun’dh’aile if he had suffered this kind of distraction during the advanced stages of his trials? He surely wouldn’t have attained the status of Red-Banner Adept. Shane must restore his equilibrium and regain his precious focus, and as much as it pains him to admit it, he might not be able to do so on his own, without help. He’s out of his depth and needs some advice. And though it pains him even more, the only person available to help at the moment is his father, his mother being out of town this weekend with her boyfriend, Craig, and therefore reachable only by text message, which doesn’t really seem like a suitable medium for the kind of advice he requires.
Shane finds his father, as is the man’s custom on Sundays (and most other evenings), drinking Scotch and tending his collection of vintage men’s magazines and vinyl records in his study. The room is outfitted with decor from the mid-twentieth century, every detail of it fastidiously maintained. Given their shared curatorial disposition, Shane finds it a bit ironic that his father gives him so much flack about holing up in his room; not to mention his father’s own emotional distance, which had been item number one on the long list of beefs that led his mother first to cheat on him and then to divorce him. Perhaps his father is battling something in himself when he chastises Shane. Mom has never been shy about her opinion that Dad hates himself.
Shane slides his frame into the doorway and stands there silently until his father notices him.
“If you’re going to come in,” the man says, “come in. Don’t just stand there like you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
Shane steps into the room. His father retreats from a shelf, where he had been scanning the sleeves of some record albums, checking for signs of wear. He picks up his tumbler from the desk. He takes a sip of scotch, his eyebrows raised in an expression that means he wishes Shane to speak.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Shane.”
“I have something I want to ask you.”
“Best to ask right out of the gate. By offering a preface like that, you give the other person the opportunity to refuse or evade your question before you’ve had the chance to ask it. What if I told you that I don’t have the time or the inclination to answer your question—then where would you be?”
“Okay,” Shane says, “I’ll do that next time.”
“Do you understand what I just told you, son?”
“Yes.” He does understand. Intentions are not a mystery to him. Shane once overheard old bug-eyes mutter the phrase ‘autism spectrum’ and the awkwardly adjectival ‘Aspergian’ to his father after one of his early consultations with Shane. The man had backed off, however, after a lengthy session in which he ran through the diagnostic criteria and discovered, to probably everyone’s surprise, that Shane doesn’t fit the description. Not even broad spectrum. The problem—or what everyone but Shane himself seems to regard as a problem—lies in the near-total lack of interaction with his peers that has characterized Shane’s youth, resulting in a corresponding lack of interpersonal savvy, a deficiency that Shane privately considers a badge of honor. All his favorite heroes are outsiders. They’re too busy saving worlds to waste time socializing.
“Are you going to ask me your question?”
“Yes.” He thinks for a moment. “Let’s say someone you know—like a friend—is doing something bad, and you know about it. And you might be able to stop it if you tell someone, but then your friend might get in trouble. Should you tell someone?”
“Well, I think you have to ask yourself what kind of person you want to be.” He takes another sip of scotch, almost draining the glass. “Do you want to be the kind of person who people think they can’t tell secrets to? Or do you want to be the kind of person who people know they can trust with anything? Because it seems to me the second kind of person is the kind of person who gets ahead in this world, while the first kind of person never really has anyone on his side because they can’t ever trust that he’s on their side.”
“Okay. Okay.” Shane thinks for another moment. “But what if it’s just this one time, and it’s to keep someone from getting hurt? Could you be the kind of person you were talking about, but still make an exception? In this one case?”
His father makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “That’s tricky, Shane. Because it’s a slippery slope. You might think ‘oh, it’s just this one time,’ but then before you know it, it’s become a habit. That can happen with all sorts of things. Like smoking cigarettes. You tell yourself it’s just one… and then just one more after that… and then BAM! You’re hooked.”
“Is that what it was like for you with Scotch?”
Shane’s father stares at him—not at Shane’s eyes but somewhere down around his collarbone—and lets out a sound like a leaky tire through his clenched teeth, followed by a short, bitter chuckle.
“If you ever want to have any friends, Shane, then my advice would be you learn to keep your damn mouth shut.”
Shane feels like asking the obvious question—and what if he doesn’t want any friends?—but he decides, this time at least, to heed his father’s advice and keep his damn mouth shut. He goes out of the room and hears, through the doorway, the clacking of fresh ice cubes falling into his father’s tumbler.
The garage is the only spot in the house other than his room where Shane finds any solace. In some ways, it’s better than his room when he wants to be alone with his thoughts because it’s mostly free of distractions, a bunch of landscaping supplies on one end, his father’s mostly neglected exercise equipment on the other. In a corner beside the treadmill is an old Ping-Pong table. Shane is the only one who ever uses it, so it remains permanently in the solo-play configuration, one half of the table sticking straight up just behind the net. Shane can get into a rhythm here, endlessly setting the ball to himself, lulling his jangling mind into easy, untroubled contemplation.
He’s been playing this way for about ten minutes when a potential solution to his predicament comes to him. He’s been thinking about Arun’dh’aile during the third phase of his trials, when he is left on the rough, lawless planet of Beghuin and told that he will not be able to leave until he has committed a truly heroic act. Within a couple of months, Arun’dh’aile has become something of a legend in the region where he was dropped, having vanquished several foes and freed the seat of the region from the tyranny of a local crime lord. In doing so, he has risked his life repeatedly, putting forth what we on earth might call a Herculean effort. But still he remains on the remote planet with no correspondence from his mentors and no sign that anyone is coming to get him.
He has begun to despair of his chances of ever leaving the place—thinking they’ve forgotten him or that some cataclysmic event on the other end of the galaxy has rendered contact impossible—when he encounters a pair of Cox-quagy herders who, on their way home from a long journey, have fallen into peril. Arriving at a bridge they’ve crossed many times in the past, they had been tricked into a crooked game of Panthrogun (something like a hybrid of backgammon, poker, and knife-throwing) by the bridge’s new keeper. The herders are on the brink of a catastrophic loss, which will mean hunger and ruination for their families, when Arun’dh’aile joins the gam
e, devising a stratagem whereby he might allow them to win back what they’ve lost and secure safe passage over the bridge. The plan involves luring the bridge keeper into wagering on Arun’dh’aile in a challenge that he will then deliberately lose to the herders, giving them an insurmountable advantage in the game.
The thing is, his plan depends on his never telling anyone that it was a ruse, lest it get back to the malevolent bridge keeper, inviting retribution on the herders. He can never take credit for his deed, nor resist the mockery he faces for having been bested by a couple of Cox-quagy (who, though venerable and steadfast in their morals, are not esteemed for their cleverness). It is only after Arun’dh’aile has done this deed, for which he will receive no glory, that a pod arrives to take him away from the planet and on to his next trial.
That’s the ticket. As with Arun’dh’aile, Shane must not let anyone know that it was him; he must not claim credit for helping the people on the video feed. He’ll report what he knows anonymously. Then no one will think him disloyal or untrustworthy or call him a narc or look for occasions to knock him on the back of the head while no one is looking. More of a loophole in this case, really, but the important thing is that he can get the result he wants without exposing himself to the fallout that his father described. He can also enjoy the private satisfaction of having done a good deed and asked nothing in return.
He catches the Ping-Pong ball and sets it down on the table, resting the paddle on top of it. He goes into the house and listens at the door to his father’s study. Then he goes upstairs and does the same at the door to his brother’s bedroom. Satisfied that neither of them is likely to emerge from his respective cave anytime soon, he goes to the kitchen, takes the wireless receiver from its carriage, and sneaks into the coat closet at the end of the hallway.
OPERATOR: Great Falls Police Department.
CALLER: Hi, uh…
OPERATOR: Hello?
(pause)
CALLER: There’s, uh, hang on… [inaudible]
OPERATOR: Hello? Are you there? (short pause) Can you hear me?
CALLER: (whispering) Yes.
OPERATOR: Can you speak? Is it safe for you to speak?
CALLER: Yes, I just need to be quiet.
OPERATOR: Are you in danger?
CALLER: No, I’m…
OPERATOR: If this is an emergency, you should hang up and dial 911. This is a non-emergency line.
CALLER: It’s not an emergency. I don’t think. It’s just… I think something’s happening at… it’s this house on Moon Drive.
OPERATOR: Your house?
CALLER: No.
OPERATOR: Are you in the house?
CALLER: No, it’s another house. There’s something going on there.
OPERATOR: Is this a noise complaint?
CALLER: It’s not the noise, it’s [inaudible] danger. Something bad is happening. You need to send someone.
OPERATOR: What’s happening?
CALLER: I can’t…
OPERATOR: Can you see something? Or hear something? (pause) Ma’am?
CALLER: This isn’t a woman.
OPERATOR: I’m sorry. Sir, can you tell me your address?
CALLER: It’s not at my house… [inaudible] Moon Drive.
OPERATOR: Can you tell me what you see? Or hear?
CALLER: Just send somebody. I’ve got to go.
OPERATOR: Can you give me a number where we can reach you?
CALLER: I’ve got to go. Send somebody out there.
OPERATOR: Sir? Hello? (pause) Sir?
CHAPTER NINE: Dispatch
10:28 p.m.
Officer Edwards stands up from where he’s just taken a shit, a few paces into the woods off the shoulder of Route 126. He breathes in the crisp September air, accented by the tang of his evacuation.
Gotta love your own brand, he thinks, tucking his athletic-fit shirt into his baggy trousers. These goddamn uniform pants, they sure ain’t built for guys with lean shanks like his. He brushes some dried-up leaves from his half-roll of toilet paper and starts the twenty or so paces back to his cruiser, taking the kind of wide, weight-shifting steps bigger guys use to make their presence in the world even larger and harder to ignore.
Guys built like him, compact—or what you might call ‘puny’ if you were one of the shit-tards he went to high school with—they’re more likely to have a walk that accentuates their slightness, like they’re folding up and disappearing, a bunch of little pussies just expecting to be ignored. Well, Officer Damien Edwards of the Great Falls Police Department, he’s not having any of that shit. He’s a guy who likes to make his presence known. And if that means a little extra to-and-fro of the shoulders, a loud, barking voice, and the occasional shit in the woods… then so be it.
It’s a slow night—like every fucking Sunday night in Great Falls—and he’s on patrol alone. If you can really call this ‘on patrol,’ setting up a speed trap on an embankment two hundred yards from the town-line with Topsham. More like a 5-star recipe for a bullshit sandwich. The trick is to place yourself just past where the speed limit makes an unexpected downshift from 50 to 40 mph. Every tenth driver or so misses the sign, which is partially obscured by a low-hanging branch, making this stretch of rural highway fertile ground most any time of day or night for meeting revenue demands. Even if all the locals were to catch wise, there’s enough out-of-town traffic to keep them in good earnings. Not that there’s ever a shortage of local idiots to fill the quota. Hell, back in high school, when he was known as “Dame Edwards” to the snickering jocks who found endless amusement at both his small frame and his eagerness to ingratiate himself to them, Damien himself used to pull upwards of ninety or even hundred-mile-an-hour drags on the same bit of two-lane highway he’s now patrolling.
As he mounts the embankment, roll of TP dangling from one hand, his other hand contending with that goddamn zipper that doesn’t ever want to rise up to its full and proper position, a late-model Honda Civic burns by him on the road, knocking him a half-step back in its draft.
Holy shit!, he thinks, Those fuckahs must been doin’ eighty!
He runs to the driver’s side door of the cruiser, hops in, and takes off in pursuit, gunning it to catch up with these wackos, to whom he’s grateful for being such dumb shits. If he’s lucky, they might be drunk or stoned. On top of making things interesting, a solid, clean arrest might get Sergeant Shithead, who put him on this lame detail in the first place, off his case for a couple of weeks.
By the time he has the Civic in view, backing up his flashers with a quick wail of the siren, the car has slowed to 55 or so. He might not be able to go for criminal speeding, seeing as how they almost literally caught him with his pants down, but he can still issue a citation and snoop around to see what other fuckery these fuckheads are up to. Should be a good stop one way or another.
The Civic pulls over to the shoulder just past the turn-off to Cherryford Lane. Damien gets out of the cruiser and starts toward the Civic with those incongruously lumbering steps of his. He sees what looks like two passengers in the car, along with the driver. The driver’s window and the front passenger’s window are both open a crack. Smoke streams out of them. Ah, hell… These fuckers are getting high on his highway. This is gonna be fun.
Sidling up to the driver’s side window, Damien taps the glass twice with the rim of his flashlight. The driver rolls down the window, squinting against the 80 watts of illumination that Damien has turned on him.
“Good evening, officer,” says the driver, a pimply kid with hair and skin the color of butternut squash.
“License, registration, and proof of insurance,” Damien says.
“Sure.” The kid hands over the requested items. Damien studies them.
“Jeremiah Chamberlain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is that you’re smoking, son?”
“Cigars, sir,” the driver says nervously.
Damien shines the light on the center consul, where a couple of half-smoked b
lunts are snubbed out on the inside of an open pack of Swishers. He sniffs the air for a hint of anything illicit. Nope. Just the odor of cheap, pungent tobacco. Goddamn it. Well, he can still stick it to the kid for his driving.
“What kind of game you think you’re playing on my highway, Jeremiah?”
A disdainful mutter comes from the back of the car. Damien shines the flashlight on the passenger in the back, a surly looking kid with a greasy brown mop top.
“You say something, son?”
The kid shakes his head, muttering something else as he looks out the window opposite Damien.
“Shut up, Tommy!” says the boy in the front passenger’s seat.
“I didn’t catch that, Tommy,” Damien says.
The boy, Tommy, turns and looks at him.
“I said it’s not your highway,” Tommy says. “It’s the taxpayers’ highway.”
Damien’s nostrils flare. “You pay taxes, son?”
“Sure. Five and a half percent sales tax on everything I buy. Plus my parents pay the property taxes that pay your salary, man.”
“You’ll call me sir or Officer Edwards, son.”
The two boys in the front have gone still and silent. Damien can sense their fear, almost hear them praying that their friend will just shut up. But he doesn’t look at them. He keeps the light and his unblinking eyes trained on the kid in the back.
“Now,” he continues, “I’m gonna go run your friend’s information, and I expect you’ll have your attitude sorted out by the time I come back. ‘Cause I’m sure you don’t want any trouble, do you?” The kid doesn’t answer. He looks at the two boys in the front. “You two want any trouble?”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir.”
“Let’s hope your friend doesn’t either,” Damien says. “‘Cause all it takes is one troublemaker for… for everyone. And everyone can be in trouble in that case. All at the same time.” He clears his throat and spits on the road, tugging on his belt as he rises to his full five and a half feet. He’s about to start back to the cruiser when he hears the words, barely audible, from the back seat of the car: “Whatever, man.”
Reclamation Page 13