by Ray Garton
She pounds the pillow again, then tosses it aside and stands. “You weren’t supposed to know, you were never supposed to know!” She paces between Renee and myself.
“But we do know,” Renee says. “And even if we never found out, how could you live with yourself, Melinda? Why would you do such a thing?”
Melinda shrugged and spread her arms. “Why is it such a big deal? It’s not a big deal! Nobody was hurt, and it’s not like I was some, y’know, innocent virgin he, like, corrupted, or anything.”
“But on the Internet !” Renee’s anger breaks through and she stands, and steps in front of Melinda. “My God, why didn’t you just do it in the street? Or on television? Don’t you have any shame?”
“Look, he pays good, and Cherine knew I was saving for a car,” Melinda explains, calmly, rationally, as if her words would solve everything.
“He pays you?” I ask. “Don’t you have a problem with that? Don’t you know what that’s called? ”
Renee’s voice trembles as she says, “It’s called prostitution, Melinda, and it makes you a prostitute.”
“He doesn’t pay for the sex!” She rolled her eyes. “He just pays for the right to use my image on his website. I would’ve had sex with him whether he was videotaping it or not.”
Covering her eyes with a hand, Renee says, “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
Someone shouts out in the street. Sounds like an angry teenager. I ignore it. My attention is already overtaxed as I try to keep up with the conversation, and at the same time, I’m preoccupied with how angry I am at Renee for telling her mother. My anger seems misdirected, though, because it’s unlikely that Enid would be able to—No! a tiny voice in the back of my mind cries. No, it is likely, it is! And I know the voice is right, but I’m not sure why. It’s just beyond my memory’s reach.
Melinda takes a deep breath, rubs her hands over her face. Speaks softly in a monotone, never meeting Renee’s eyes. “Look, Mom, sex is . . . well, it’s just not like it was when you were my age.”
Outside, a couple more voices shout at one another angrily. I glance in the direction of the front window, but stay in the chair.
“Don’t give me that,” Renee says. “You think your generation has reinvented sex because you’re doing it on computer screens? You’ve just found a better way to degrade it, that’s all. Sex is still sex, Melinda. And it still spreads diseases and gets you pregnant! We had this talk when you were nine, Melinda, remember?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No, I don’t think you do! We’ve had a lot of talks about boys, too, haven’t we? About how some will try to take advantage of you and—”
“I don’t like boys, Mom. I like men.”
Renee drops back onto the sofa, leans forward and puts her face in her hands.
Something clangs in the street outside, more voices shout. Frowning, I stand and go to the front window, pull the drapes apart.
The Morgan boy is walking down the street. The Elliott boy hurries to catch up with him. There are others, too, all walking toward the end of the street. My first thought is, It’s happened already? His house has already gone up in flames? But I know that’s not right. The voices would be different if that were the case; they would sound distressed, not angry. And they wouldn’t be carrying torches. The Morgan boy and the Elliott boy are carrying burning torches. Tiki torches. And a hammer, the Morgan boy has a hammer. And behind him, Garry Elliott is jogging along, beer gut bouncing, a torch held in one hand, a large gun in another.
“Oh, shit,” I say as it comes to me, the thing that’s been bugging me about Renee telling her mother about Teklenburg.
“What?” Renee says, and I hear her and Melinda hurry toward me, feel Renee’s hand on my back as she pulls the drape back farther. “What’s happening? Where’s everybody—”
“Your mother,” I say as I back away from the window, and turn to her. “When did you talk to her?”
“This morning.”
“Was she on her way to a hair appointment, by any chance?”
She turns to me, eyes round. “Yes! How did you—oh, God.”
Enid Plummer, Renee’s mother, has her hair done at the Golden Orchid, always by the same woman, one Janet Smidden, who lives with her husband and triplet toddlers just up the street and around the corner on Madison Way.
I step forward, jerk the drapes apart and look out the window again. Some are carrying golf clubs, others tire irons. Teenage boys, grown men. And women, too—there’s Rita Bartlett, whose daughter recently turned seventeen, and she’s carrying what looks like a .22 rifle, and behind her, Kate Murchison, who has two adolescent girls, carries a machete.
I shake my head and say, “Dammit, Renee, you had to tell your mother?”
“She can’t be responsible for this,” she says. She’s emphatic, but I can hear the doubt in her voice.
“Are you kidding? She told Janet Smidden all about it, then Janet came home and made a few phone calls, word got around”—I point at the people going up the street—“and now they all know.”
“Oh, my God, what’re they gonna do?” Melinda asks. There is real concern in her voice, her eyes.
“They’re going to kill him, that’s what,” I say, heading out of the living room.
Melinda moves close to the window, palms flat on the pane. “He hasn’t done anything wrong!” she cries.
“You have no idea how idiotic you sound,” Renee says as she follows me out of the living room. In the entryway, as I reach out to open the front door, she asks, “What exactly are you planning to do out there, Clark?”
I freeze. I have no idea what I will do out there. Try to hold them off? Shout at them, Hey, you people can’t kill this guy—we’re killing him! My hand drops from the doorknob and I go to the phone in the kitchen, call Wylie. Nadine answers.
“Wylie said you might call,” she says. “I’m supposed to tell you not to worry, he’s got everything under control.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“What’s going on out there, anyway? He told me and the girls to stay inside.”
“That’s probably a good idea, Nadine. Thanks.” I turn the phone off, return it to its base at the end of the counter.
“What did she say?” Renee asks. “Where’s Wylie?”
“Both of you stay in the house.” I go back to the front door, but this time step outside and close it behind me.
Most of them have passed by now, but I can still hear them, voices and footsteps fading to my left. I cross the down-sloping lawn to the sidewalk and watch them. I can’t tell how many there are, but six . . . no, eight of them are carrying torches.
What do they intend to do, anyway? Drag Teklenburg out of the house and lynch him in the front yard? Thanks to them, maybe he will be out of the house when it goes up in flames.
Across the street, Nadine stands at the window, trying to see down the street from an impossible angle. She turns and hurries away, probably to go to another window.
Up and down the street, dogs are barking. The air is still and warm, and still carries the aromas of cut grass and outdoor cooking. It is a perfectly normal late-summer evening. Except for the angry voices and the jewels of fire bobbing through the night, all the way to the end of the street.
Wylie’s voice rises above the others just before they reach Teklenburg’s house. I cannot understand his words, but the neighborhood mob has come to a stop. Whatever he is saying, they are listening to it.
But they do not listen long. Another male voice shouts in protest. Then another. Some of the torches move forward, then the whole crowd. More shouting. A gun fires and my feet leave the sidewalk for an instant.
“What’s happening?” Renee calls from the porch.
“Stay inside,” I say.
“Who’s shooting?”
Someone is running up the street, away from the mob.
“I don’t know. Go inside!”
I recognize the shadowy shape and step off the sidewalk, hurry down the road to
meet him. “What the hell is going on?”
“Cat’s outta the bag,” Wylie says, winded. “Who’d you tell?”
“Renee. And she told her damned mother.”
“Yeah, you gotta love women. If their mouths worked as much in bed as they do the rest of the time, we’d be happy men, huh?”
Glass shatters at the end of the road, followed by pounding, pounding. The shouting crescendos as more glass breaks.
“What should we do?” I ask. My voice wavers in time with my heart, which is beating in my throat.
“Well, I did all I could. I couldn’t stop ’em.”
“Who fired the gun?”
“Oh, that pompous ass Garry Elliott. Fired it in the air. I was hopin’ it’d come back down and land right in his brain.”
I can only see three . . . no, four torches now. Where are the other four? I turn to Wylie. “What do we do, dammit? They’re going to kill him!”
Wylie laughs. “You’re funny. Well, I’ll go inside and call the station, tell ’em I did what I could. Have ’em send a couple cars down. An ambulance and a fire truck.”
“A fire truck?”
“Yeah, I really oughtta make that call right away, but I’d hate to miss it. It should be any—”
A heavy whump—not quite an explosion—sounded from Teklenburg’s house. Windowpanes blew out with a sudden clapping sound and flames belched from a few of the windows. It’s impossible to tell where the fire started because suddenly it is everywhere, glowing in all the windows. But I can’t hear it burning. Not above the screaming. Men and women screaming as they run from the fire, taking the flames with them, staggering, falling. Burning figures—I don’t know how many—scatter and fall and scream.
Wylie chuckles, slaps me on the back. I turn to him, and he’s grinning, watching the fire. “Yeah, that was something. Well, I gotta go make that call. You better run inside like you’re in a hurry, too. ’Case somebody’s watching us.” He took off at a jog, disappearing up his driveway.
I realize I’m standing in the middle of the street. Wylie was right—if somebody’s watching, they’re going to remember me. I turn and hurry back up the lawn, into the house.
As I go inside, the screams fade to nothing behind me. But I can still hear them in my head. I rush to the bathroom and vomit.
6
Three people were killed in the fire—Garry Elliott, his seventeen-year-old son, David, and Chick Teklenburg—and nine were injured, five of them seriously. Fire trucks arrived, but by the time they were done, the house was nothing more than a black skeleton.
Although there was nothing left in the remains of the house to incriminate Teklenburg, police were told about the website. Wylie told his buddies on the force that he knew nothing about Teklenburg’s activities until that evening, when people started talking. He helped question everyone on the street, including myself and Renee, which was a lot less stressful than being questioned by an unfamiliar officer in uniform.
The website remained on the Internet, and police confirmed the story. Somehow, Janet Smidden’s name never came up, so police never questioned her to learn that she heard about what Chick Teklenburg was doing from Enid Plummer, which would have led them to contact Enid and learn that she’d heard about it from her daughter.
As Wylie predicted, everything went smoothly. No evidence of arson was found—Ricky was as good as Wylie said he was—and it was assumed the fire was started by the torches carried by those who had burst into the house.
But you’ve probably heard about it all by now. It was in the news for weeks.
Renee handled it all very well. Melinda, on the other hand, became silent and brooding for weeks afterward. We have decided to send her to a private school, and are looking around to find the one that’s strictest with its students. We have been talking about taking her to a psychologist as well, maybe a psychiatrist. Her behavior has only gotten worse since the fire. We discovered she’s been crawling out her bedroom window at night, going out with friends and getting drunk, stoned. She becomes more unfamiliar every day. I have little hope that counseling will help, but I’ve put up an optimistic front for Renee.
I don’t talk about what happened, not with Renee or Wylie. As far as they know, I’m fine. But it eats at me inside. Probably always will.
Betty Elliott and her two remaining children—both girls, one eleven, one fifteen—moved out of their house on Gyldcrest almost immediately and went to live near Betty’s mother in Mt. Shasta City. The FOR SALE sign stood in front of the house for more than three months. Just a few days ago, two men began moving in. I met them the first day, Sidney and Leo . . . I don’t remember their last names. Nice guys, both of them in their late fifties. Sidney is an artist, and Leo is a retired florist. They moved up here from San Francisco, tired of city life, looking for a place to relax with their four cats.
The remains of Teklenburg’s house were leveled, the lot put up for sale, although I don’t know by whom, and do not care to find out. A new house will be built there eventually, and someone else will move in. I have no intention of getting to know the new residents. But even then, with a new house standing at the end of the street, the black and broken bones of the previous one long gone, the fire’s scars will remain on the street. In the pink and twisted faces of those burned by it.
“What the hell you doin’ out here in this cold, tryin’ to catch pneumonia?” Wylie asks as he comes up the back steps to the porch.
I am sitting on one of the two chairs on the porch, beside a small table. The lamp on the table casts its glow on the John Irving novel I’m reading. “It’s not that cold,” I say. “And this is a warm sweater.”
Renee and I have turned down the last few invitations to cross the street to eat or drink. Renee would have gone, but I didn’t want to. It would be just like Wylie to joke about what happened. A lot. I knew I couldn’t take that. I thought Wylie would get the hint, but no, I doubt it ever occurred to him I didn’t want to see him.
“What you been up to, Clark? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Busy with classes.”
He’s wearing a fat down jacket and removes a Heineken from each pocket, grinning. Hands me one, sits in the other chair as he twists the cap off.
“Are you sure?” He takes a sip. “Look, Clark, if I’ve done something to offend you, I want you to let me know, okay? I’d do the same for you. I don’t believe in holding things in, y’know?”
I’m surprised, but keep it to myself. I’m not sure what to say for a moment. Then: “No, Clark, you haven’t done anything to offend me.”
“Anything wrong?”
I slip my bookmark into the book, close it. “It’s just . . . well, I don’t want to talk about . . . about what happened.”
“What happened when?”
“You know what I mean.”
He leans forward in the chair. “Clark, I’ve already forgotten it. It’s over with, a done deal. You oughtta do the same.”
I am tremendously relieved to hear Wylie say that. But it’s not something I could ever forget.
“You meet the new neighbors yet?” he asks.
“Yes. Have you?”
“Yeah, I met ’em. Didn’t think I’d ever see it. This town’s gone right down the shitter.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve lived in this town all my life, and it’s always been a good family town, a good place to raise kids. But in the last ten or fifteen years, with all them people moving up from the Gay Bay, I just can’t say that about Redding anymore.”
I sipped my beer and closed my eyes so Wylie would not see them roll.
“It’s one thing to see ’em swishin’ around in the mall, or in restaurants,” he went on. “But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit by and watch ’em move in on Gyldcrest. Hell, first our girls were being preyed on, now it’s our boys who’re at risk.”
The beer did not sit well in my stomach because suddenly I had a sense of where Wylie was going.
“We’re just gonna have to do somethin’ about it, Clark. And the sooner, the better. You don’t wanna let them fags get too settled.”
Suddenly, I am very cold. But from the inside out.
“I’m not sure how we’ll handle it yet,” he says, “but I’m gonna think hard about it. I wish you’d do the same, Clark.” He chuckled. “You’re a college professor, you’re probably a hell of a lot better at thinkin’ than I am. I think it’s way too soon for another fire, so Ricky’s useless. Maybe we could—”
“Wylie, I-I’m hoping you’re joking. You . . . you are joking, right?”
“Joking? Shit, no, Clark, I’m as serious as a heart attack. Just because we don’t have any boys doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be worried about the rest of the neighborhood.”
I squint at him as if he’s far away, shake my head. “What . . . what the hell are you talking about?”
“Boys! Little boys!” He stands, a little angry all of a sudden. Sips his beer as he walks the length of the porch, then comes back, saying, “You know how them fags are. The older they get, the younger they hunt. Those two’ll be goin’ after the tender meat we got here on Gyldcrest. And we’re not gonna let that happen.”
My mouth hangs open as if I’ve had a stroke. I can’t remember ever being this afraid in my own home. On the back porch, anyway. He means everything he’s saying, and that angry edge to his voice said he was willing to prove it.
“Wylie . . . Wylie . . .” My tongue feels thick. “I . . . I can’t, Wylie. I can’t.”
Towering over me, he looks down at me the way he might look at a cockroach before he stomps on it with the heel of his boot. “Can’t? You can’t what?”
“I can’t do it again. I just can’t. Look, we’re friends, right, Wylie?”
He nods slowly, still glaring. “That’s what I’ve always thought, yeah.”
“Well, if you’re really my friend . . . I know you won’t ask me to do something that I . . . that I just can’t do.”