Bystanders

by Tara Laskowski

  Copyright ©2016 by Tara Laskowski

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission of the publisher or author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Laskowski, Tara.

  [Short stories. Selections]

  Bystanders : a collection of stories / by Tara Laskowski.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-939650-40-5 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS3612.A857A6 2015

  813’.6—dc23

  2015016690

  Published by SFWP

  369 Montezuma Ave. #350

  Santa Fe, NM 87501

  (505) 428-9045

  www.sfwp.com

  Find the author at www.taralaskowski.com

  Praise for Bystanders

  “‘Short story’ and ‘thriller’ tend to be incompatible genres, but not in the hands of Tara Laskowski. Bystanders is a bold, riveting mash-up of Hitchcockian suspense and campfire-tale chills.”

  —Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of

  A Visit from the Goon Squad

  “There’s still plenty left,” one of the characters in ‘The Witness’ says, referencing a cake, but the reader has been taken deep enough into the story to know that there’s no way that can be true, because there’s not enough of anything left for the main character. And in one story after another in this excellent collection, characters are tested when their expectations are strained and even shattered, not by the extraordinary, but more devastatingly, by the ordinary. Tara Laskowski’s collection will be welcomed by readers who care about witnessing the significant rather than the spectacular.”

  —Gary Fincke, author and winner of the

  Flannery O’Connor Prize for Sorry I Worried You

  “Tara Laskowski’s stories show off a wonderful fusion of freshness and experience. She produces time after time the energetic steps and missteps of youth and the keenly measured estimate of what it all means, that ability which for most of us comes later in life rather than earlier. Match this with her talent for employing the colloquial American tongue to bring to life time-tried and tested flaws in the human species, and you have a new writer you need to conjure with.”

  — Alan Cheuse, NPR All Things Considered

  “Tara Laskowski’s stories are deceptively cozy: soft suburban street lights out front, but a too-deep swimming pool out back. With a deft touch, she ravels and unravels her characters’ lives seamlessly; they never know what’s coming until they’re in too deep, and what’s scarier, the reader doesn’t, either.”

  —Jen Michalski, author, The Tide King and

  The Summer She Was Under Water

  “In this debut that resonates, Tara Laskowski’s women and men drift through an imperfect suburbia, much like the disembodied souls who haunt her characters day and night. Laskowski has a natural ability to pen the banal, juxtaposed with the horror that often lurks just outside the light that spills from our windows. She digs into the crevices and corners of everyday lives to find the grit, the dirt, the ghosts—our deepest secrets—then finds a way to turn it all into crystal clear story moments that will enlighten her readers.”

  —Tara L. Masih, series editor, The Best Small Fictions

  For Mom and Dad

  Table of Contents

  The Witness

  There’s Someone Behind You

  The Monitor

  Happy and Humpy

  The Cat-Sitter

  Half the Distance to the Goal Line

  The Oregon Trail

  Other People’s Houses

  Entrapment

  Support

  Scabs

  Every Now and Then

  Death Wish

  The Witness

  The boy’s body hit the hood of the Toyota, slammed off the windshield, and then slid out of sight from where Marie stood. It might have been a performance, it happened so quickly, but there was no mistaking the terrible, high-whistle screeching of hot rubber on asphalt, the dull thud as the kid’s body hit the street. His bike crumpled under the front wheels as though fake, made of foil. People flooded the street, retail workers, good Samaritans pulling over in their cars to help, but Marie was frozen, waiting for someone to tell her it was just a joke.

  The kid hadn’t even had time to scream, but a woman parked nearby wailed through her open window. At first Marie thought the woman knew the kid, her cry had been so heartbreaking. But then she began to think of it as a transfer of sound, as if the screams that the boy himself was unable to release had been conveyed through the air and into the woman, who let them out. Marie whispered, “Dear God,” and pinched the inside of her wrist, something she’d done since she was a child.

  The crowd went to the boy, hovering over him in a circle, everyone afraid to touch him. He was obviously dead. It was the man behind the wheel of the car Marie noticed. He couldn’t have seen the boy coming with all the cars parked along the side of the street. The kid hadn’t even looked, had darted out into traffic just before the light turned, and the driver, probably trying to beat the yellow light, could not have stopped in time.

  When Marie walked over, the man was still sitting in his car, staring straight ahead at the mass of people. She thought he was hurt, but when she tapped on the glass with her knuckle, he looked over at her, blinked a few times, and then fumbled for the door. He must’ve been Marie’s dad’s age, in his sixties, his brown hair thinning on top, and Marie felt a stab through her heart when she met his eyes. Clear blue, the color of a glassy sky. She saw the shine of panic in them.

  “Are you okay, Sir?”

  He didn’t answer, just struggled to get out of the car. He was tall, his legs long and thin. He placed his hands against his hips to stop them from shaking, making a deep sound in his throat. He bent over at the waist, his head resting against the trunk of his car. Then he retched, his body convulsing, and he vomited on his back tire and the street.

  Marie turned away, embarrassed to witness something so private, intimate, raw. When he stood up again, wiping his mouth, she had the urge to pull him from the scene before anyone came. He turned to her, met her eyes, and said, “Thank you,” his bottom lip trembling. “Thank you.”

  The first police car arrived, its siren wailing loudly in the cold street. The noise drowned out any words Marie might have said, and then people pushed between them, jostling her to the sidewalk, and she lost sight of him in the crowd of bystanders.

  ***

  Bud was in the kitchen when she got home, whistling while he made a salami sandwich. She stood in the doorway watching him slap pieces of salami on the bread. She knew before he did it that he would squeeze the mustard out in a perfect spiral on the bread.

  “Take a load off,” Bud said without turning around.

  Marie walked behind him and rested her head on his back, smelling his shampoo. This was her kitchen—the hum of the refrigerator, the broken clock above the sink, the plants that needed watering. She brushed her finger over a crack in the counter. Bud moved away from her, putting the mustard back in the refrigerator, and she almost lost her balance.

  “I saw an accident,” she said. “It was really bad.”

  He looked at her then and raised his eyebrows. “Where?” His eyes flicked over her and then at the counter, where he gestured with his hand before she could answer.

  “Can you hand me those pickles?”

  “Someone died. A little b
oy.” She shuddered, still in her coat. Her voice sounded too loud and shaky.

  “That’s terrible.” He looked concerned now, her silence making him stop. “Are you okay?”

  Instead of answering, she walked into the living room. Bud followed, watching as she removed her shoes, tucked her feet into the cushions of the couch, and switched on the television. “We have to watch the news.”

  It was the lead story. On the television, the reporter’s face took up most of the screen, ambulances and fire trucks over his shoulder. They didn’t show the man Marie had helped, but the reporter said his name was Raymond Balcham.

  “Raymond Balcham,” Marie repeated softly, thrilled that she’d learned something more about him. He was from Old Forge, the town where she’d grown up.

  “I feel bad for that man,” she said, pulling her coat around her. “He looked so sad. It was awful. To hit a child. I can’t imagine.”

  “He was probably drunk or something. I don’t know how you can miss a kid on a bike, for Christ’s sake,” Bud said, chewing on his sandwich. He sat back on the couch, tugging on his jeans.

  “He wasn’t drunk, Bud. I was there with him. Why do you have to be so negative all the time?”

  She switched off the television. He looked at her. “Hey, I was watching that. Don’t be mean.”

  Marie took his crumpled napkin into the kitchen and tossed it in the trash. She brushed bread crumbs off the counter and put away the dishes on the drying rack. How many years now had she been cleaning up for Bud? Over and over again, the same routine. Make the bed in the morning, clean up after his food trail, bring his shoes upstairs to the closet. She opened the refrigerator and slammed it.

  Outside, the wind whistled. It had started to snow. It was funny how her house, which minutes before had seemed quiet and safe, now seemed like a prison.

  ***

  Marie gripped the steering wheel, afraid she was going to slide. The highway was crowded with cars going home for the day, made more complicated by the light freezing rain. After leaning on her brakes for the tenth time, Marie pulled off the highway on a stretch just before the expressway, behind a series of restaurants downtown where, as a teenager, she’d smoked cigarettes with friends.

  She picked up the newspaper she’d bought at the convenience store near her office. She wanted to read about the accident alone, before she went home. In the past few days, there had been several stories on the little boy—full-page spreads in which they interviewed his family, his teachers. But what interested Marie were the reports on Balcham. It looked as though they were going to charge him for manslaughter, but his lawyers argued it was an accident. That morning Marie had looked up his name online. There were only three Balchams listed for Old Forge—Raymond F. was between Julie C. and Thomas P, and his address on Lawrence Street was only a few blocks from her parents’ house.

  That day there was no mention of the accident in the newspaper. Disappointed and restless, Marie got out of her car, walked to the edge of the highway. The rain had let up a little and cars passed in a blur, shaking the ground. Alongside the road, trash collected, pressed flat from the tires or caked in slush. Marie could make out a bottle of Budweiser, plastic cups, a piece of a garbage bag. She wandered slowly up the road. The mist hit her in the face, coated her hair in a fine film. Above her, a sign for the interstate, New York City, pointed towards an exit half a mile down the road.

  Heart pounding, Marie turned and faced the road. She extended her arm and thumb in the cold, watching as several cars passed, the drivers not even glancing at her. This is absurd, she thought. She felt very thin, almost transparent, could feel her breath like cold, cold peppermint running down her throat and into her belly.

  A large, gray pick-up truck slowed as it approached and the driver waved at her, a man around her age, his baseball cap pressed tightly atop his mop of curly hair. He grinned as he passed her, the right side of his mouth turned upward in a way that reminded her of someone, although she couldn’t think who. The truck was rusting on the sides, like paint splashes around the door, and Marie could smell burning oil. The driver tapped his horn and slowed, his tires kicking up gravel as he pulled to the side of the road.

  She thought about it for a moment, staring at the stopped truck, its right blinker flashing, windshield wipers flipping back and forth. The man was watching her in his rear view mirror. She could almost feel the cold vinyl passenger seat of his truck through her thin dress pants, hear an AM radio broadcasting a game. Just like that.

  Then she pulled her coat around her and ran, back where she’d come from, back to her car. She was laughing, her hair curling up around her neck. She’d never tried to hitchhike before. By the time she got back inside her car, rubbing her hands in front of the vents, she was out of breath, gasping for air, her cheeks red and raw.

  ***

  One week after the accident, her mother turned 57 and Marie and Bud drove to Old Forge after church to celebrate. Marie had made a red velvet cake, her mother’s favorite, which she balanced on her lap as Bud drove. The volume of the radio was so loud they couldn’t talk.

  Her mother greeted her with a kiss. She smelled of roses, her makeup thick. “Happy Birthday, Rhonda,” Bud said awkwardly, standing in the doorway as Marie’s mother fawned over the cake.

  They sat down at the table, passed around spaghetti and meatballs, salad, bread, making polite comments about the food. Marie kept looking out the window to see if it had started snowing.

  “So what’s new?” Marie’s mom asked her, breaking the silence.

  Marie wiped her mouth with her napkin. “You know that accident with the little boy last week? The one on Wyoming Avenue? I was there when it happened. The man who hit him, he lives on South Franklin Street near the bakery.”

  Bud looked up from his plate. “She’s been talking about this all week. It really upset her.”

  “That’s awful,” her mother said. “How old was he?”

  “He was around Dad’s age, maybe sixty?” Marie said.

  Her mother frowned. “Not that guy, the little boy!”

  Her father looked up from his plate, picking up the last bits of pasta with his fingers and placing them on his fork to eat. “This is great uplifting conversation to be having on your mother’s birthday.”

  “Well, anyway, I was questioned by the police. As a witness. It was scary.” Marie pulled her hair away from her face, her cheeks hot. “I felt really awful for the man who hit that kid. He was so shaken.”

  No one answered. Bud took another plateful of spaghetti. Marie put her fork down and stared at the top of her husband’s head.

  “I saw him throw up, all over the road and his car. I was the only one who saw it.”

  “Marie! Not when we’re eating.” Her mother took a drink of her iced tea, fanned her face.

  “This is how it’s been all week, Rhonda,” Bud said. “I told her it was unhealthy.”

  “Could you not talk about me like I’m not sitting right here in front of you?”

  “Marie…”

  “No. I don’t understand why everyone is treating me like I need therapy. It was something that happened and it’s been on my mind, okay? That’s all.” She stood up. Her mother put her hand on her arm.

  “Finish dinner, Marie.”

  “I am finished. It’s warm in here. I need to go for a walk.” She got up from the table, tucking her napkin beside her plate.

  “But it’s freezing outside. And we’re about to have cake,” her mother said.

  “You’ll catch pneumonia,” her father added, but he trailed off as she pulled her coat on.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  For a Sunday, the streets were nearly deserted. The cold had driven people inside. Marie had forgotten to bring gloves and thrust her hands deep in her pockets. She knew the neighborhood well, knew exactly where to go. Lawrence Street was
on a hill, and the houses looked like they were baked into the side of it, tilted like steps. Raymond Balcham’s house was halfway down, an ordinary looking white two-story with black shutters. She had half expected it to be dark, rundown, covered in gloom—a dark cloud hanging over it, she realized with a smile, but it looked like every other house on the street.

  There were no signs of life except a child’s red plastic snow shovel lying on the ground in the neighbor’s yard. After Marie got to the end of the street, she turned back, walking up the hill, and that’s when she saw the car parked in front of Raymond Balcham’s house with its headlights on. It was like a sign.

  She examined the car as she approached, but no one was inside. It wasn’t the same car he’d been driving when he killed the little boy, but perhaps that one was still impounded for evidence. Perhaps this was a rental car, and he’d left the lights on by accident, distracted. She went to his porch, rang his doorbell, and waited. She would say what it was she hadn’t been able to tell him that day on the street. She would tell him that she understood what he was going through, that she didn’t think he was a bad person. That people made mistakes, had to live with the consequences of them every day.

  Her head nearly touched the low, overhanging roof of his porch. The damp outdoor carpet smelled like mold, and only a small plastic table topped with a pot of dying flowers decorated the space. Something shifted inside the house, she heard a noise like someone coming, and she wanted to run.

  The heavy door opened with a creak and then, as his face appeared, he let out a peal of laughter so loud that she jumped back, her hand flying to her chest. The face that had been in such shock when she first met him now grinned and his eyes sparkled. He looked at her, puzzled. “Could you hold a minute, Gracie?” he said into his phone, turning the receiver from his mouth. “Can I help you?”

  Marie opened her mouth, then closed it. Balcham peered at her through the screen, his eyes dark and unreadable. They had been so clear, so blue, out on the street that day. She shifted her handbag and opened her mouth to try again.