by Amy Reed
It could be so much worse. There is no end to how much worse it can get.
The lady detective puts away her phone. I’m frozen solid on the sidewalk outside school. The guy waves with a fake friendly smile on his face. That’s how they get you. I’ve watched enough shows to know how they pretend to be your friend, then they throw you in a van and waterboard you.
“Billy Sloat?” he calls from the sidewalk across the street. “I’m Detective Runyon. I’m one of the detectives on the case to find your uncle. Can I ask you a couple questions?”
I shake my head. I’m not moving. If I stay on this sidewalk, I think I’m safe. There must be some rule about weird people in suits not being allowed on school grounds.
“You’re not in trouble, buddy,” the woman says. They both start walking across the street toward me. An audience is growing, the whole student body of Fog Harbor High, hoping for a show. “We want to find him as much as you do.”
Where is Lydia when I need her? She’d know what to do. She’d know how to be strong for this.
“I bet Caleb’s dead,” someone says. “I bet they’re here to break the news.”
They’re here to arrest me. They’re going to take me away in handcuffs. They’re going to put me in a jail cell and never let me out.
“Why don’t we go somewhere a little more private?” the lady detective says. “Come on. We’ll give you a ride home.”
That’s what they say when they want to handcuff you to a metal table in a tiny room with a one-way mirror. I know I am no match for the interrogation. All they have to do is give me one mean look, and I know I’ll start talking.
They are just an arm’s length away. I smell cologne and stale coffee. They could reach out and grab me right now if they wanted to. No one would care.
“Billy,” the woman says, “we understand how stressed and scared you must be.” You have no idea, lady.
“Come on, Billy Goat,” someone says.
“What a loser,” someone else says, and then all of a sudden I’m running, and then I’m half a block away, the sounds of taunting and laughing and crows squawking fading away behind me, and I expect sirens to start any minute, the car to screech up beside me, strong hands pulling me by the shoulders into a dark backseat, but no one comes, like I’m not even worth the trouble. But I keep running, even though my lungs are burning, even though I think I twisted my ankle, even though I have never run this far in my life, even though I keep looking behind me and no one is chasing me, not even the crows.
The possum under the porch jumps at me as I enter the house. The house is shaking so bad I barely make it up the stairs. Chunks of plaster fall from the walls and ceiling as I stumble into my room, as I crawl into bed and throw my sleeping bag over my head and tell myself it’s only a dream, the way I used to when I was little after Grandma or Caleb did something that made me cry and then made fun of me for crying. I pretend that any minute I’ll wake up in my real life, where Lynn A. is my grandma and she’s rubbing my back and singing some lullaby a little out of tune, and I have a whole collection of ugly scarves she knitted me buried in my closet, and I have a mom and dad downstairs somewhere, and they borrow the faces of people from shows, whatever family I’m in love with at the time, the shows that always have an episode where the kid has a hard day at school, but instead of keeping it inside he comes home to tell someone about it, and then his mom or dad or grandma makes him something homemade and warm to eat, and they eat it slowly while he talks, the grown-up just listening and looking at him with their loving eyes, and then he gets to lie in bed getting his back rubbed like this, and that is the life I pretend is mine.
No one ever makes shows about poor, sleep-deprived kids being stalked by crows and detectives, about kids whose houses are trying to kill them, about kids who have to keep so many secrets their heads are about to burst, about kids who keep losing everyone they love. No one ever makes shows about kids like me.
The house shakes hard, over and over again, but it’s almost rhythmic, like rocking, and I close my eyes tight and pretend the house is Lynn A. rocking me to sleep, and I imagine my breath going in and out like waves, and I hide myself under the sleeping bag and curl into the smallest ball I can until I disappear.
I think I actually sleep for, like, two hours because when I wake up it’s dark, and I can hear the TV downstairs, which means Grandma’s home. I think about telling her about the detectives but decide against it because I’m sure she’d find some way to turn their existence into my fault, and I just can’t add that to all the guilt I’m dealing with right now. And the more she freaks out, the more I have to freak out by default, because her feelings always inevitably become my feelings, and quite frankly I’m running out of room for feelings.
So I go downstairs to watch TV with her like old times. Maybe that will make things feel normal again. I sit in my spot on the couch and she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence, and I feel better already.
The TV news is about to show one of the King’s signature fireside press conferences, which was recorded a couple hours earlier. Grandma’s on the edge of her seat. She says part of the fun is the surprise of finding out where he’s vacationing.
“Grandma, have you noticed the house is kind of falling apart?” I say. The entire first floor is covered in white dust and chunks of plaster.
“The house has always been falling apart,” she says. “Shut your trap.”
I’m not a saint or anything, but really? The house has Grandma and Caleb to choose from, and I’m the one it’s decided to pick on?
The King is sitting on a plush leather couch in front of a large stone fireplace, in what appears to be a ski cabin, white snow slopes visible in the window behind him. A mug of something steaming sits on the table next to him. He is wearing a fuzzy, sky blue bathrobe as the small press corps seated at his feet attempt to ask him about the tanking economy and the refugees from Florida and the giant bomb he’s threatening to drop on some island in East Asia.
“That’s boring,” the King says, taking a sip of his drink. “I thought I told you guys to stop asking me boring questions. Better be careful or I’ll kick you out like I did those other guys.”
“It’s true,” Grandma says, nodding her head. “Those are boring questions.”
“He looks warm,” I say. “I wish I were warm.” The house is always freezing these days. I can see my breath. It’s like the walls have stopped working. Grandma doesn’t seem to be having this problem.
“Oh, I know!” the King says. “I have exciting news. I’m excited. So excited. You should be excited too. I mean, really. This is huge. Let me tell you, I have the smartest scientists in the world. They make things happen. This new technology is the best thing you’ve ever seen. It’s going to revolutionize logging. I love wood!”
“Ooh!” Grandma says, clapping excitedly. “I love wood too!”
“Firstly, you know how I opened up all those forests over there in Washington to logging? In that big park or whatever? Well, Royal Industries is going to have exclusive rights to them. Having just one company in there will streamline production instead of having a bunch of little local companies doing stuff. Plus, it’s federal land, so that means I own it. Because I’m the King.”
I watch one side of Grandma’s face spasm as her mouth turns downward and her chin flexes. Is she having a stroke?
“And we won’t have to bother with local labor because—wait for it—we have robots to do all the work! Isn’t that exciting? Robots! Human labor can be so messy.”
The handful of reporters the King still allows to talk to him all raise their hands in tandem and start asking questions, but the King stands up and says, “Well, gotta go now. I have a date—I mean, a meeting. Special envoy from Slovenia. They make ’em nice over there. Real quality.”
There’s a war happening on Grandma’s face, and, as unpleasant as it is, I can’t look away. The TV reflects in her wet eyes as her worldview crumbles. Her beloved King just betrayed he
r and all of Fog Harbor County. He’s betrayed her plenty of times already, but I don’t know how she’s going to rationalize this one to herself, because this time it’s personal.
The screen cuts to Ronda Rash on location at the tornado pit. “I’m standing here live at the Rome/Carthage tornado pit, which just a few days ago was surrounded by people from the rival towns celebrating the opening of the formerly protected local forests to logging after more than two decades of economic free fall due to deforestation that led to the closing of almost all local logging-related businesses.”
Behind her, a shirtless man throws a burning tire into the pit.
“But now,” she continues, “the same people have returned to protest the King’s recent announcement of a decision that will presumably exclude local businesses and workers from benefiting from the expanded logging territory.”
No one got it together enough to make any signs yet, so mostly people are wandering around aimlessly, shouting at each other. One man pushes another, who falls into another man behind him, and then all hell breaks loose, the crowd a flurry of pushing, punching, shouting, glass breaking, and random things on fire. Ronda Rash looks behind herself, a faint glimmer of fear cracking her confident reporter facade, then back at the camera. “Things are volatile here in Fog Harbor, to say the least.”
A woman smashes a beer bottle on a man’s head, then the bloody-faced man throws her into the pit, and the crowd erupts in feral cries. “Back to you, Jill,” Ronda Rash says. The screen cuts back to the newsroom, but the sound is still on Ronda as she says, “Get me back to Seattle, Brian. The rednecks are rioting.”
Grandma presses the mute button. Her face twitches.
“Grandma, are you okay?” I say.
Her face twitches again.
“It’s going to be all right,” I say. “Nothing’s really changed from before.” But I know that’s not true. People who aren’t used to hope got a taste of it and went on a bender, and now they’re going through withdrawal.
“Do you need anything?” I ask. “I picked up a box of day-old donuts on sale.”
Grandma nods slowly. I retrieve the box from the kitchen, open it, and set it on the couch next to her. Without even looking, she reaches over and picks one up. With the other hand, she changes the channel to the first thing that is not news.
“I’m going to my room, okay?” I say.
She doesn’t respond. She has half a donut in her mouth and is being soothed by a detective show. I trust she’s in good hands. TV and donuts are the best babysitters.
I climb the stairs to my room, stand outside the door, but don’t go in. I hung the painting Lydia gave me on the wall across from my bed and have been staring at it every night as I try to fall asleep, and I think it’s the only thing keeping me sane besides Lynn A. The blue spiral swirls and swirls, giving me something to focus on that’s not inside my head, while the yellow center throbs, sucking in the infinite supply of blue, sucking in everything and burning it up and making it new on the other side, and I can almost feel the gravity, like it wants to suck me in too, and I want it to take me, to pull me out of this place and into that one and turn me into something new, but this world is too strong, it holds on too tight, and the gravity of the painting is no match for the gravity out here.
No matter how much looking at the painting relaxes me, there is still everything outside it, and that stuff usually wins. The hole in the wall next to my bed keeps growing, and the room is extra freezing, and I keep hearing the wind howling inside the walls like it’s screaming at me, and the creatures scurrying around in there seem to be getting bigger.
So I just stand here now staring at the door, thinking about how my buying-Caleb-a-surprise-guitar plan backfired because now he hates me, and how my buying-Lydia-dance-classes plan backfired because now she’s busy all the time and I’m more lonely than ever, and how depressing it is that I keep finding new ways to be depressed, and how if I were smart I might think there was some kind of metaphor involved in staring at a closed door not wanting to open it because you’re pretty sure there’s nothing good on the other side.
So I walk down the hall, move the dresser hiding the door to the stairs, and start the ascent to the attic. I’ve never done this before—gone up there when Grandma’s home and awake—but something is making me feel reckless, some tiny desire to see what would happen if everything fell apart.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I stop. I can hear, just barely, the sound of music coming from inside. An acoustic guitar softly strumming a melody I’ve never heard before.
I open the door quietly and sit out of sight, in the shadows. I watch my uncle play guitar, and it’s nothing like all the videos I’ve seen, nothing like the angry snarling rock star with greasy hair in his eyes. It’s a side of Caleb I only vaguely remember from when I was a kid, one I’d occasionally get glimpses of when no one else was looking. The Caleb I see now is someone without his usual wall of rage, someone exposed, someone vulnerable. He is not performing. His only audience is his dolls, all turned toward him, leaning forward, their button eyes glistening. I swear I see one of them blink.
He starts singing, his voice soft, some weird, dark story about a mad scientist experimenting on dead bodies, dissecting them, lining up their organs on a chrome table in a basement lab, creating order out of their blood and chaos. Even though the words are so morbid, the melody is beautiful. The combination of those opposites is haunting, and somehow perfect.
Caleb closes his eyes as he sings the last verse:
The dead bodies,
so willing to do what they’re told.
You know them so well.
Your skin’s as cold as theirs.
And they sing to you.
They are perfect lovers.
They say thank you
As you tear them apart.
They sing, “Please don’t put me back in the freezer.
I’m not nearly through.
There’s still pieces of me that resemble something alive.
And I’m not gone yet.
I’m not gone yet.
And you’re not gone yet too.”
The dolls perk up, as if cued, as if Caleb’s voice has given them life, as if he has conjured them to serve him. They start to dance, their bodies swaying back and forth in time to the music, like puppets being controlled with invisible strings. Then they join in with a startlingly cheerful chorus of “do-do-do”s with the pure, innocent voices of a prepubescent children’s choir. They bob their heads in rhythm, as if this is any old pop song, as if it can be reduced to the hook of a chorus. Somewhere inside, I know this is shocking, that there’s no good reason Caleb’s creations should be dancing and singing, but there’s no good reason for a lot of things that have been happening lately, and I think maybe I’m getting used to it, and quite frankly the dolls’ singing is not the singing that surprises me the most.
The timid glow of an outdoor streetlight seeps through the single window and washes over Caleb like the softest of spotlights. I can’t tell if it’s the mad scientist or the dead bodies Caleb identifies with. Or maybe he is both.
When the song is over, Caleb looks up, right at me, like he already knew I was here. The dolls turn in my direction and cock their heads curiously.
“I came to get your bucket,” I say. Caleb nods.
The dolls watch me as I walk across the room and into the shadowed corner. I remind myself that all these visits to the attic are just business transactions now. I am getting paid for this. I am Caleb’s employee. He’s paying me to keep his secret, and that’s the only reason I’m doing it. I don’t care one way or another if he leaves or gets taken away.
I made the mistake of thinking this relationship was something more. I forgot what the therapy talk shows taught me about unrealistic expectations, about those foolish hopes that will only ever lead to disappointment.
Better to not expect anything. That’s my new motto.
I’ve perfected the art of
picking the bucket up by the handle and carrying it down to the bathroom with my head turned, so I never have to look at the contents, and the smells that reach my nose are kept to a minimum. After I dump it, I come back upstairs and place it back in its spot. As I walk toward the stairs, I hear Caleb’s voice: “Thank you.”
For what? Emptying the bucket? For the guitar? For the food and weed and running his errands? It’s certainly not an apology, but it’s something. Some tiny drop to fill the hole of hurt inside me. I feel a lightening of my heart, a momentary bliss, a relief of pain, but then, as quickly as it came, the nice feeling is gone, and I am left empty again.
Thank you. Sorry. Such simple, nothing words. They come out of most people’s mouths like air. But for me, never from anyone who’s mattered. I can’t remember Grandma ever apologizing or telling me thank you for anything.
What kind of life is one built on chasing thank-yous? They don’t fill the hole inside my chest. It seems ridiculous, but I think I’ve always sort of believed that I could collect people’s needs and store them inside me like some kind of permanent collection, like a museum, and I could fill the hole bit by bit, good deed by good deed, until I filled myself all the way up. I thought I could do that with Lydia. I thought I could do that with Caleb, and Grandma, too. But no one ever needs me as much as I need them.