Bad Man_A Novel

by Dathan Auerbach

  “You huh-hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then wuh-why you cruh-cryin?”

  “He tried to get me,” Eric sobbed. “Where were you?”

  “You wuh-want him to guh-get mmme too?”

  “It was uh accident. I didn’t mean to hurt him. He falled. What if he didn’t?”

  “Then I guh-guess he’d have you,” the boy said casually, nudging Ben with the tip of his shoe.

  “Where’s Momma at?” Eric asked after a while.

  “Nowhere.”

  “I heard screamin.”

  “Yup.”

  Eric held his own elbows. His face scrunched, squeezing water from his eyes. The quiet boy smacked the back of Eric’s head with his palm. Ben tried to talk, to say something to his brother, but his jaw would only chatter silently.

  “Yuh-you oughta cry. This is all be-cuh-cause of yooou. You nuh-know who he is?”

  “The bad man,” Eric whispered like a boy telling a secret.

  The golden boy smiled and shrugged. “So what’re you suh-sad for? You want to guh-get him medicine?”

  Eric looked at Ben’s face for a long time, studied it, and then slowly shook his head. “No.”

  Ben used his fingers to walk his hand through the dirt and toward his body. He wanted to show Eric the photograph, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t to help him remember. It wasn’t for any useful reason at all, really. Ben stopped moving his hand before he remembered that he didn’t have the photo.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Eric asked, still sniffling through hitching and shuddering breaths. “Without Momma?”

  “We? Thu-there ain’t no we.”

  “I can’t go with you?”

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it to him.

  The boy sighed as he squatted next to Ben, running his eyes from Ben’s feet to just above his scalp. The red pacifier ring slid and bounced under the boy’s thin shirt. His fingers rested against Ben’s chest, then they pushed down. Ben wheezed and grimaced in pain while the boy watched in fascination. “Wow,” he whispered to himself.

  Behind the boy, Eric bawled hysterically, trying to talk but making only noises while he hugged Stampie tight to his chest.

  “I guess it wuh-was a trap,” the boy whispered to Ben. “I been tuh-tellin him stories. Nuh-never said it was you, though. He decided that all on huh-his own.” His breath was warm against Ben’s ear, fighting the chill that seemed to be coming from his own bones. The boy poked Ben’s arm and asked, “Can’t yuh-you talk?” He smiled and sat, resting his forearms on his bent knees. He glanced at Eric. “Wuh-we can go to the outssside all the time now. Yuh-you and me.”

  “Can’t we go home?” Eric whined.

  “That ain’t huh-home. We ain’t going buh-back there,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  “What about our stuff? Momma’s pictures.”

  The boy chewed his cheek and seemed to consider the question. “I’ll tuh-take caaare of it. Your stuff. Ah-I’ll get it, if you quit yer whinin. Ah-I’ll do a cleanup day all by muh-myself.”

  “I can do it,” Eric said.

  “No. Buh-but you can help muh-me with him. Now suh-sing somethin.”

  At first the melody seemed strangled by his unhappy throat, but gradually the notes escaped, weaving themselves over and around the courting of songbirds in the morning sky.

  “Hey,” the boy said excitedly, leaning toward Ben again, “you ever guh-get that present I left for yuh-you? With all them other sssshiny ones? The nuh-newspaper one in the clean room?”

  The boy’s eyes flashed gold in the creeping sun. He tapped his knuckles against Ben’s chest.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Leaves shuffled. Eric’s small fingers wrapped around Ben’s wrist, and Ben curled his own like a plant moving to welcome the sunlight. But even that small exertion was too much for him. His fingers uncoiled as Eric hummed above him. Ben’s heart broke with its last beat.

  He felt Eric tugging on his arm. Then he felt nothing at all.

  Epilogue: A Flyer on the Wall

  “C’mon, man,” Marty said, sighing. Walter squealed and writhed in his chair, his mouth open but deftly dodging the spoon. “Fine. If you don’t want it, then I’m gonna eat every last bit.” He slipped the spoon into his own mouth and regretted it immediately.

  It wasn’t the taste—something about the texture of chicken and gravy puree didn’t work. Marty gagged and Walter groaned a laugh until the spoon found its way into his mouth. He chewed, smacked, and swallowed. “There we go,” Marty said softly, cleaning the edges of his brother’s mouth with the spoon.

  “Marty!” his mother called from somewhere in the house. He shut the door behind him and walked into the living room. Scratching the dry and cracked scar on his neck, Marty looked impatiently at his mother. She pointed at the front door, then walked back into the kitchen.

  Sunlight poured through the door as Marty opened it, and he squinted. He’d been in Walter’s room for a while, longer than he’d realized, it seemed. It took a beat or two before Marty recognized the man on his porch, but the man introduced himself all the same.

  “Marty? I’m Ben’s dad. Clint.” The man put his hand out, and Marty snaked his arm through the door and shook it. “Jacob told me where you lived. I hope I ain’t intrudin.”

  Marty looked across the dirt road. Jacob waved lazily from his porch and Marty waved back as he stepped outside. The sun felt good against his bare chest. He fished his cigarettes out of his jeans, then felt for his lighter until he remembered that he was still groping for the wrong shape. Marty dug the BIC lighter out of his pocket. “You ain’t,” Marty said with a puff of smoke.

  Clint pulled at his beard lightly. “I don’t know if you heard, but Ben’s gone missing.”

  A squeal tore through the house. Marty brushed ash off his chest with the side of his hand. “What do you mean exactly?”

  “He ain’t been home a week now. Ain’t nobody at work seen him. I know you two is real close, so I was wonderin if you heard from him or know where he went to.” Clint put his palm up. “Now if he just took off and wants to be by himself, that’s fine. I’ll leave him be. I just want to know that he’s alright.”

  “I ain’t heard nothin.” Marty ran his tongue over his sore tooth. “I didn’t even know he was gone.”

  “Not many people really…took to Ben. He never brought anyone around. Never much talked about anybody with me, ’cept for you. You were the only friend he had.”

  “I know,” Marty said after a while. Beyond the walls, Walter’s cries seemed to move unimpeded through the home. Marty wished that his mom would just go in there and feed him for once. He hoped that Clint wouldn’t care enough to ask.

  “He talked about you all the time,” Clint said. “Working at that store was hard for him. I’m not sure how much he told you about his baby brother, but I think you made working at that place easier for him.” Marty lowered his eyes. “Him having a friend was…You meant a lot to him, and I could really use your help, son.” The man’s voice wavered a little. Marty looked at his swollen eyes.

  “Did he ever say anything about leaving?” Clint asked. “Do you think he might have just taken off?”

  Marty looked at the father of someone who used to be his friend, someone who he’d tried to help, only to be accused of something horrible. He knew that he could end this right here, that all he had to say was yes. That Ben had talked about leaving. That he’d burned down his own life and might have decided to just take off and leave it behind. All he had to do was say yes.

  Marty pulled on his cigarette, then flicked the ashes over the railing of the porch. “No. Lemme get my shoes.”

  * * *

  —

  “That’s quite a hole there,” James Duchaine said, gesturing through the large window to the circular br
each in the store’s glass door. Even up here, he could see the back wheel of his cruiser parked just out front. He knew Bill Palmer could too and that he wouldn’t like it. Duchaine’s radio chirped in his ear. He leaned away, then turned a knob near his waist. “Oughta get that fixed.”

  Bill Palmer stood from his chair and scowled at the sight. “Someone threw a rock. Probably those same little shits that smashed up my car. ‘Ain’t no way a rock did that.’ That’s what the sales rep said. Said that somebody must have pounded on it. I said, ‘What the hell difference does that make? It fuckin broke!’ He tells me that I gotta resubmit the claim if I want the warranty to honor the replacement.”

  “It’s always somethin,” Duchaine muttered. “Alright then, Bill. You know what I come by for. You mind if I close this door?”

  “You can try.” Palmer sighed as he eased himself back into his chair. He lowered his head as if he might avoid the sound of the broken door scraping the tile. “I’ll tell you the same as I told his daddy. I don’t know where Ben is or how come he left.”

  “No idea at all?”

  “None. All I know is that I get here and the front door’s wide open. Now I got bag boys and little ol’ cashiers that are having to throw my trucks.”

  “So you figure what, exactly? That he just decided to call it quits like that?” Duchaine ran his fingers over the rippled burn on his arm. It couldn’t itch, but sometimes it felt like it did.

  Palmer shrugged. “Happens more often than you think.”

  Duchaine laced his fingers together in his lap and studied the man, whom he’d never found to be all that interesting. He was the living counterpart to the desk that sat between them: sloppy and disorganized, unkempt and unraveled.

  “Between you and me,” Duchaine said, “if Ben’s gone…” The man shrugged. “That boy had a lot of problems.”

  “You ain’t gotta tell me,” Palmer replied. “You know he broke into my office. At least once that I know of. Real pain in the ass.”

  Duchaine smiled and nodded. “So why’d you let him keep workin here?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean, I know how Ben could be. Strong as all hell, so he could do the job. But a little hysterical sometimes. He thought you had a big-time hard-on for him, and I reckon that’s something he wouldn’t’ve hid too well. And I know you know who he was—what happened with his brother, I mean—so I’m just wonderin why you kept him working here.”

  “Well, I felt bad about what had happened with his brother. Thought maybe I owed it to him.” Palmer squared some of his papers, despite the fact that his desk was covered with them, forcing order and neatness now where he could.

  The officer nodded, then furrowed his brow. “But—and set me straight if I’m wrong—I was told that you fired Ben after you found out who he was.”

  Duchaine’s eyes lingered, waiting to see what else the man might say. Then he let them wander over the endless forms, piled and scattered. Duchaine wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but he wanted Palmer to see him looking all the same. This desk was like a man caught nude in the middle of a room: no hope to conceal anything.

  His radio crackled again, and Duchaine’s eyes snagged for just a moment on some deep scratches that peeked out from beneath the paper blanket. Just a few lines carved into the wood.

  “See, the thing is,” Duchaine started, “Ben had an awful lot to say about you, Bill. I ain’t gonna repeat what he said or what it is he thought you did, but I’ve known Ben for a long, long time. Hell, I know him better than some people I’ve known for longer. Some people in my own damn family.

  “I seen all sortsa people mess with that boy. He gets confused about a lot of stuff, but he’s not a capricious type. And however wrong he mighta been about God knows what, there ain’t nothin about Ben that would let him walk away—not from this town, not from this store. And not from you.”

  Bill Palmer pushed himself back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I don’t give a good goddamn why Ben left or where he might have gone. You said the same thing yourself.”

  “No, Bill. I might not be all that upset that he’s gone, but I’m real interested in the why. I confronted him, you understand? Two weeks ago, I brought the world down on him, and then for a week straight he kept comin on back here. Every night. Stockin shelves in your little store. And then all of a sudden…” Duchaine snapped his fingers.

  “You listen to me, Jimmy. I don’t mind tellin you what I know, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna let you sit here and accuse me of anything.”

  “I ain’t accusing you of nothin, Bill. We’re just talkin.”

  * * *

  —

  Their drive was a long and quiet one. Three grocery stores and a handful of shopping centers. Clint had made about a hundred or so flyers, and Marty helped the man hang them and read the map for places they might want to visit. They didn’t really talk. Marty didn’t have anything he wanted to say.

  For the whole ride, Marty tried to build something in his head that made sense. They’d talked about wanting to leave town, or at least Marty had. Had Ben? Marty tried to remember. When he’d told Ben that they had no more to say to each other, he’d meant it. And if he never heard from his former friend again, that would be just fine. But this didn’t feel fine.

  Clint seemed less certain. He said only that things were tough at home for Ben, tough all around. Then he just shook his head and stared at the road. Marty didn’t want to tell the man anything—not about Beverly, not about the Blackwater symbol. He truly didn’t know what any of it amounted to anyway. Whatever path Ben had been on had flown so far off course that he wasn’t sure he wanted to travel it with Clint.

  By the time they stopped the truck in the parking lot of the store, they had fewer sheets of paper but still far too many.

  “I know this don’t really look like him,” Clint finally said, looking at the stack of flyers in his lap. “We ain’t taken any pictures in a long time, I guess…I found this picture in his room. Had a hole cut out of it, and it took me a whole day to realize that that hole…that hole was from when we made Eric’s flyer. Same goddamn picture.” Clint slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “I told Ben to quit this job. I found him another one, and I shoulda pushed him harder…I thought maybe he needed this.” Clint slapped his hand against the wheel three more times, then pushed his way out of the truck.

  Marty got out and lit a cigarette. He looked at Ben’s flyer as he took a drag. It really didn’t look much like Ben at all. The face was way too round, the eyes too happy.

  “Shit!” Marty said, slapping his hand against the hood. “I got a picture of Ben. Well, I don’t got it got it, but it’s at the photo place up the street.”

  “Alright then,” Clint said. “We can go and get it when we’re done here.”

  Marty realized then that he didn’t have the ticket, but he didn’t say anything. He’d talk about that problem when it introduced itself.

  Blowing hot air into his cold hands, Marty walked toward the store, passing a Crown Victoria with sleeping strobes. A cop car parked right in front of where he, Frank, and Ben used to sit every night. Marty hesitated, then slid the acrylic glass of the bulletin board to the side and thumbed off a sheet of paper from his stack. He took the time to square the edges, leveling the paper under the arched bubbly letters of the HAVE YOU SEEN ME? banner.

  Pressing his fingers against the tack, Marty read the flyer text one more time. And again tried to understand why he had to read it at all.

  “My name is BEN.”

  It was only when Marty thought that he should move Ben’s flyer so that it would be next to his brother’s that he realized Eric’s was gone. Marty sighed and considered what he ought to do. He could see Clint leaning against the idling truck, his listless, voided stare washing over the store. Marty tried to imagine what the man migh
t be thinking, but he knew that he could not. He didn’t have the referent.

  Turning toward the sound of the whining doors, Marty looked without interest at the passing customers, then at a boy with a bloated backpack and a stack of binders in his arms. Marty smiled and nodded out of politeness, but as he did he thought he experienced a moment of recognition. Was it one of Aaron’s friends? No. The young boy looked through Marty and into the parking lot, paying him no regard at all. And suddenly Marty knew him again.

  “Hey,” Marty said, approaching the boy. “Hey, you’re that kid.”

  He made sure not to touch him but instead raised his palm to him, as if a gesture might hold him in place. And it did.

  “That’s where I know you from.” The boy shrugged. “I wanna say I’m sorry about that day. I shouldn’ta grabbed you like that. There was a missin kid, and I seen you leavin…”

  Whether the boy understood or cared was a mystery to Marty.

  “Anyways,” Marty continued, thumbing off a small stack of papers, “if you see this guy, that’s the number you call right there. Give some to your friends or your teachers even.”

  Marty wedged the flyers between two of the binders.

  “Hey,” Marty said, gently touching the kid’s arm, “you understand? What I’m telling you, I mean. It’d be a big-time help to me and that man there.”

  The kid stared at Marty’s hand until Marty withdrew it. He searched for understanding in the boy’s golden eyes but found what felt like annoyance or even contempt.

  “Fuh-fine,” he finally said. The boy chewed the inside of his cheek and turned, walking slowly into the parking lot.

  “Sorry again!” Marty hollered, but the boy made no response. He shifted his cargo in his arms, then passed close enough by Clint’s truck that he had to dodge the side mirror. But he didn’t pay the vehicle any mind. As Marty made his own way to the truck, he couldn’t help but notice that the boy didn’t seem to pay any mind to anything.

  Marty leaned against the driver’s side of the truck, next to Clint, then bent sideways to grab the map off the console. He didn’t look at it. His eyes kept returning to the boy, who walked until there were no more vehicles left to pass, right to the edge of the lot. His hair drank in the sun like a sponge: soft gold blowing in the wind.