by Bruce Jones
Scroogie finally shook his head. “Naw…I don’t think so, Rich, not that I can recall really.”
“But you’re not sure?”
Scroogie shrugged. “Maybe. It was a long time ago though, Rich.”
And he glanced over when his friend didn’t answer. “What--?”
Richard made a rueful face. “Seems that way to you, does it? Like a long time ago? Huh. Seems like only yesterday to me.”
Scroogie heaved a sigh, making room for a kid on a skateboard squeezing past them on the narrow sidewalk like he owned it. “Well, of course, I stayed here. You moved away for all those years. Maybe that has something to do with it.” He was still craning back at the skateboarder. “Look at that kid. Like he owns the fruggin’ sidewalk.”
Richard snorted. “Maybe he does. We did.”
To which Scroogie conceded with a nod and snort of his own. Richard caught the smell of alcohol again, this time stronger.
He looked around them, suddenly lost. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?” Scroogie nodded ahead at a traffic signal. “Short cut.”
Richard felt his heart skip a heavy beat for no good reason.
Now why was that? The cancer? Somehow he didn’t think so. “Isn’t this Old Man Janson’s land? I thought Janson’s north forty was a strip mall now, Scrooge.”
John Scruge nodded. “There’s still a fair piece of woods behind it, we’re not quite where Janson’s land began. I use this path now and then on my walks to save time. Which sorta defeats the purpose, I know, but I hate this forced-walk shit.” He sighed again. “But Maser insists I gotta drop some weight to help get rid of the acid reflux. Jesus. Imagine if we had shit like acid freaking reflux to worry about back when we were--Jesus, Richo! What’s the matter?”
Richard genuflected. “--the matter?”
“You’re white as a freakin’ sheet!”
Scoogie’s eyes narrowed with both suspicion and concern. He glanced back quickly behind them at Maser’s medical building. “You sure you’re okay? Everything’s all right with the old plumbing and everything? Not holdin’ back on the old Scrooge, are ya?”
Richard was trying to remember the last time he’d lied to Scroogie--or any member of the gang—if ever.
He shook his head. “I’m fine, Johnny.”
…bullshit—you’re scared. And it ain’t about the cancer. It’s those woods you’re coming up on. Something about those woods. Why don’t you admit it? An Ender never lies, remember?…
And he could tell just glancing at Scroogie that his friend was thinking the same thing: you’re lying. Why are you lying, Rich? Deadenders don’t lie to each other.
But Richard didn’t articulate it. Didn’t say a word. Just kept walking along the Topeka Boulevard sidewalk toward the traffic light with his childhood pal, the light and the traffic (where did all the fins and chrome go on this street—why do all these new vehicles look punched from the same mold?) and the strip mall across the street and the parking lot behind the strip mall.
And the woods beyond that.
* * *
Two minutes past the first skein of trees, Richard noticed the difference. Felt it.
Five minutes into the tangled brush, he was thinking how loud their thrashing shoes sounded against the whipping grass and crunching pebbles, how quiet, by contrast, the open street they just left had seemed.
Ten minutes in and he felt a growing pressure of dread pressing against his chest, urging him to turn around, retrace his steps. Get out of there.
But he could think of no way to explain that to his friend without sounding like an idiot.
And Scroogie seemed fine.
Scroogie seemed just great, more like his old self than ever, so much so that as they stepped over the uneven ground, Richard half-expected him to bend low and lumpy, start a little half-hitch trot and go into his Charles Laughton impression of The Hunchback, calling “Sanctuary, sanctuary!” to the closing canopy of trees above.
Scroogie was loping along and jabbering away like the old days, like he was a kid again, like he didn’t even realize the lattice of leaves above was closing off more and more of the already fading afternoon light, that it might actually be too dark to see clearly before they reached the other side of woods, that they might even get lost. Out here in the dark. Alone. Helpless.
That’s when Richard first heard the sound behind them.
It was a distant, foreign sound, but at once a familiar, half-remembered one, bringing back a hazy thought to the edge of Richard’s memory that he couldn’t quite grab onto, make cohesive. Couldn’t quite bring into focus. Which only made his uneasiness increase, his desire to turn back double, his--oh say the word!–fear threaten to overtake him.
Let’s go back, Scroogie. Please.
But he couldn’t get himself to say it.
He wanted to, wanted to so much he could taste it. But his adult sensibilities were warring with his childhood dread. For that was the root of it, he was sure now; it lurked somewhere in his childhood. Cloying and alive as the thing in the closet or the hand under the bed.
Please, Scroogie, let’s go back!
He wasn’t even aware now that he was craning continuously around, looking behind them at the curtain of branches closing off the last slanting shards of sunlight and sealing them in. Was aware only of the swift rattle of leaves caught in the early evening breeze above them, a sound that seemed to call urgently to him: go back, go back…
Until the rattle soughing was broken by that other sound behind them.
Closing on them.
Reaching out for them--
“What’s the matter, Rich?”
Scroogie’s voice was so thunderously unexpected it set Richard’s heart jolting. Annoying him, angering him. He had to force his face into an innocent expression that felt so put-on phony it almost hurt. “What? Nothing.”
Scroogie kept glancing over at him as they walked.
“A little tired, maybe,” finally Richard tossed his head dismissively, annoyed now by the other man’s glances, annoyed now by everything about his childhood pal. Who the hell’s idea was it to walk home through these goddamn woods anyway? And he grinned weakly and shrugged, “Doctor and dentist in one day--you know,” and scratched without thinking at his itchy crown.
“You saw a dentist, too?”
For reasons he couldn’t understand, Richard didn’t want to go into it. But there it was now, out there in the air with the dank hummus and the reek of pine and the walls of trees crowding in on all sides, squeezing his breath away. “Yeah, I got a minor tooth problem. No big deal.”
From the corner of his eye he could tell Scroogie was still watching him with a odd, almost ironic look on his face. It became irritating. Everything was beginning to irritate him now. He felt strung tighter than an Arkansas fiddle. Richard turned impatiently, shocked at how suddenly old his friend looked here in the shadows of the overhead branches. Old and used up.
“You look good, Rich,” Scroogie told him, still not averting his gaze, still with that odd expression. It was beginning to creep Richard out.
“Thanks.” But I’m not. Got cancer. The Big C. My time on Earth is nearly done.
Even so, he still could not accept it, not really. And if he couldn’t, how could he expect someone like Allie or Scroogie to?
“How’s the cancer?”
Richard stopped too quickly. The movement twisted his ankle and he stumbled on a hummock. Scroogie had to reach out and steady him from toppling.
“Goddamn Maser!” Richard exclaimed. But deep inside he was surprised to find how relieved he was that Scroogie knew. That it was finally out.
For his part, Scroogie didn’t offer explanations or apologies for either himself or Maser. If anything, he might have looked just a touch hurt.
Richard picked up on it and looked away. “I wish Maze had waited, damnit. I was going to tell you myself. Going to tell Shivers too.”
Then he looked quickly back at Scroogie and saw t
he rest of it in his eyes. Shit. Richard sighed. “The Shiv already knows, doesn’t he, John?”
Scroogie finally looked away now, maybe in embarrassment. He stared at the dimming path--
--it’ll be dark before you reach home—
--winding ahead of them.
“Of course,” the chubby chin nodded. “What did you expect, Rich? Did you expect The Maze to lie?”
“Lie? No! I expected him to keep his big fruggin’ mouth shut!”
“It’s the same thing,” Scroogie told him simply. And Richard knew this to be the truth. And suddenly a long overdue warmth rushed up from the pit of him and brought the stinging beginning of tears to his eyes.
“We’re your best friends, asshole.” Scroogie murmured. “We just want what’s best for you…”
Richard had to swallow first to be able to speak. “I know. I know you do, Scroogie.” He felt foolish and weak and happy and strangely at peace all at the same time. And, for the first time in weeks, truly close to something like peace. “I’m sorry,” he swallowed finally.
Scroogie shrugged. “S’okay. You always were an asshole.”
Richard nodded smiling. “Yeah.”
And before he could tell Scroogie that he really was okay, that he really did feel fine, that in fact he felt healthy as a horse and about as far away from something like cancer as he could imagine, Scroogie spoke first.
“I’m broke, you know, Rich...”
So certain it was a joke, Richard barely had time to push down the chuckle. But Scroogie wasn’t laughing. Just staring straight ahead of them, face looking older and more tired than ever in the quickly gathering gloom. And Richard finally remembered what Maser had told him about Scroogie going through a hard time.
“Scrooge…you’re —hey man, are you serious?”
Scroogie didn’t need to nod.
Still, Richard couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Not Scroogie. Not the Duck Man diving around like a porpoise in his comic book money bin, throwing up coins like they were spray. A heart attack, maybe. A stroke. The West Nile Virus--his house burning down even. But broke? Cashed-out? Not liquid? Scroogie? No way.
Not the kid who still had his first dollar from his first paper route, his first nickel from his first lemonade stand, his first bottle cap when they ran out of pennies at poker! John Stanley Scruge, son of a successful banker who thought his son would never make anything of himself, good old Scroogie, who did everything he could from the time he was ten to impress his chilly father, always believing without hesitation that he would be not just rich someday, but likely one of the wealthiest men in America? Whose father admitted reluctantly that his son was out-earning him when Scrooge was barely twenty? Whose current worth was generally guessed at just a tad short of Donald Trump’s and Bill Gates’ combined? No. No way. It had to be a joke, some elaborate jest by all of them—all the other Deadenders--to get even with Richard about keeping tight with the cancer thing. “Scroogie, I can’t—believe—“
“Yeah, well I couldn’t either. Vegas was supposed to be a family vacation.”
Richard was floored. “You lost it in Vegas?”
Scroogie made a laughing sound that was no laugh at all. “Just the tail end of it, just the last half million or so. And you want to know the weird thing, Rich? I’m not actually sure how. The roulette wheel or the craps table, I honestly can’t remember. I know it wasn’t the one-arm bandits cause that would have taken a week with the size of the butt pack I took out there to the desert.”
Richard couldn’t seem to stop shaking his head. “Why on earth would you take the last of your savings to Vegas and gamble it away, Scrooge? I mean—you of all people!”
Scroogie nodded, almost smiling now with his own sense of disbelief. “I haven’t—I don’t know…it’s not the same since Dad died last year…no one to impress anymore.”
“But didn’t Sally try to stop you--?”
“She was asleep in the hotel.”
Richard could not absorb this. Simply could not. “But…what about all the rest of it? Your savings, mutual funds, money markets, IRA’s, CD’s, the stuff you had salted away before you went to Vegas?”
Scroogie threw up his hands. “Gone. About every way you can imagine, and probably a few you can’t. Stock market mostly. Some really terrible calls, or really awful luck, I’m still not sure which. It seemed—I mean, I know it can’t be true—but it seemed to happen overnight.”
“But the house--?”
“Refinanced to Mars and back. With luck I’ll finally figure a painless way of doing away with myself before they get wise.”
There was no humor on Scroogie’s face now and it frightened Richard so much he touched his friend’s arm. “For the insurance? Come on, Scrooge, don’t even joke about that.”
Scroogie returned a blank look. “What insurance? Life? Hah! Long gone, my friend, my old amigo. There is not dime one in the coffers, sir! Not a penny. Not a farthing. I’m beyond financial hemorrhaging…I’m bled white. And in deep debt. If they ever catch up to me they will, believe me—what is the expression?—lock me up and throw away the key.”
They had come to a gradually deepening dip in the thin trail without realizing it.
A small clearing appeared before them. With stumps. And large rocks.
A good thing, because Richard had to sit down all of a sudden.
He found a length of fallen elm and settled slowly onto its moss-slimed trunk, still shaking his head in wonder. Scroogie remained standing, hands in his pockets, big frame loose, even relaxed, as though he were beyond the sitting down and pondering stage. Way beyond.
There was silence for a time. As though there was nothing much else for either of them to say. The final hand had been played. That was it: the Big Empty. It was Scroogie who finally spoke. “I was pretty mad at you for awhile there,” he grinned at the trees.
Richard—staring dazedly at a big, white rock--looked up quickly, still half-expecting a punch line. “At me? Why?”
Scroogie snorted. “During one of my few lucid moments during this rampage of reckless spending and self-immolation I actually sat down and tried to figure when it all began. I traced it backwards with a calendar and pen, like a man obsessed, a man drowning, seeking any lifeline or loophole no matter how illogical. Know what I came up with finally?”
“What?”
The self-deprecating little snort again. “That first week you moved back into town. The first day, actually. I tried to calculate it—my disaster of vanished riches--to the exact hour and minute, but I was a little too far gone upstairs,” tapping his temple, “by then.”
Richard’s jaw hung open. “You don’t really think that I—“
Scroogie made a dismissing hiss and waved his hand at him. “Of course not. I was just grasping at any available straw, any tangible scapegoat to pin my self-destructive orgy to.” He sighed. A long, exhausted sigh that threatened to have no end. “No, it was me, all little me. Dad was right about me all along. Thank God he didn’t live to see this. I did it all to myself. Did it with my own little hatchet…I cannot tell a lie.”
“Does Sally know?”
Hands almost leisurely pocketed, the big man turned now to look at Richard there sitting on the mossy trunk. “Does Allie know?”
Richard shook his head, looked away. He’d been thinking just that morning of finally telling his wife about the cancer. “The other guys?”
Scroogie shook his head. “I waited to tell you first, just to rub it in for not telling me about the cancer.”
Richard nodded. “I deserved that.”
“Hey. It’s not your fault you’re an asshole. Why do you keep doing that?”
Richard looked up and realized he’d been digging at his crown again with his nails, and brought his hand away. “I don’t know. Getting balder, I guess.”
“Try Rogaine.”
Richard shook his head. “That can take up to six months.”
Scroogie didn’t get it for a second, then
he did--Richard didn’t have six months--and he looked a little embarrassed but also tickled, and that got Richard going too, so that within the course of half a minute they were both laughing, then roaring with tears of relief.
When they were done, Scroogie leaned against a big sycamore and shook his head with a sad smile and said, “Life is just fruggin’ weird, huh, buddy?”
“Fruggin’ weird,” Richard nodded wistfully.
The woods were still for a time again.
The sun slid behind a cloud above the canopy of overhead branches and it became preternaturally dark in the dense woods.
“Hey, Rich?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you as scared as I am?”
Richard looked up to find his friend staring off somewhere into the clearing. “Of dying, you mean?”
Scroogie didn’t reply for a moment. “Maybe,” he said finally, “or maybe living…living in the dark…”
And a deep chill that was not of the shadowed forest settled over Richard like a black cape. “Yeah…” and he had to clear his throat, “yeah, I am. I am scared. You too?”
Scroogie nodded, staring silently at the clearing, which ran downhill gradually to an open area of small stones and that big white one that jutted up from the ground like a marker flag. Then he said something that Richard didn’t wholly understand but which sent his heart hammering anyway and a carpet of gooseflesh spreading greedily over both arms. “It’s like something’s with us, Rich.”
Richard craned around so fast it sent a spike of pain up his neck.
The woods were empty behind them.
“Not back there,” Scroogie said, chuckling softly, and he tapped Richard on his itchy scalp. “In here!”
But Richard looked out at the clearing and got the same sensation he’d had moments before, the sensation that they were being followed, and he wanted to be gone from this place, he wanted, funnily enough, to be back in California walking on the beach in Del Mar or arguing with some idiot producer over the dialogue on page seven or wondering how he was going to pay the inflated LA mortgage that month. He wanted to be anywhere but in Topeka, Kansas all of a sudden.