Twisted Ones

by Packer, Vin

  “You have a good roof,” she said, touching the top of the convertible with her fingers. “It doesn’t leak in the rain.”

  “I watched Cash-Answer just last week,” he said. “It doesn’t seem a week.”

  “My mother’s crazy about that little eight-year-old.”

  “Time fugits,” he said, sighing. He leaned back. “Tempus flys.”

  “Brock?”

  “What?”

  “Speaking of time … I have some packing to do before dinner. We ought to start back.”

  “Where are you and your folks going, anyway?”

  “Just to Rochester. My uncle lives there.”

  “Clara and my father went to the Adirondacks.”

  “Hadn’t we ought to start back?”

  “Well … Well, it’s a long way back.”

  She laughed. “I guess we’ll make it.”

  “I always have.”

  “Is anything—bothering you, Brock?”

  “I’m all shook up,” he said.

  Again she laughed, but for the first time, she was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something wrong with him. What had he brought her way out here for anyway? Just to mope around?

  “Everything makes you laugh, doesn’t it, Carrie?” he said.

  “Not everything. I just can’t figure you out.”

  “I had a little talk with the head-shrinker a couple of days back. He couldn’t either.”

  “Who?”

  “Mannerheim. Ye old head-shrinker.”

  “He’s not a real head-shrinker. He just teaches it.”

  “He’d like to get me into trouble, I think.”

  “Brock, do you know that it’s after six?”

  “It isn’t my fault that it’s raining, Carrie. You can blame a lot of things on me, but not the weather, for Pete’s sake.”

  “I’m not blaming anything on you. But I have to get back. We eat at seven, and I have to pack before dinner.”

  “Go ahead then. Go ahead.”

  “I’m suppose to walk back, I suppose!”

  “I’ll walk with you, when the rain stops,” said he. “There’s no sense getting soaked.”

  “Walk! Oh, come on, Brock. I’m not joking.”

  “I’m not either.”

  “Are we out of gas or something?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s after six.”

  “So what?”

  “Im not supposed to drive after six, Carrie. That’s the law. I’m only a Junior Operator.”

  “Brock, are you out of your mind?”

  “Do you think I’m going to break the law?”

  “Do you think I’m going to walk home?”

  “We’ll try to get a ride. When it stops raining, I’ll help you.”

  “Brock Brown, you take me home! Right now!”

  “I’m not going to get soaked to the skin! Are you kidding?” said the boy. “Look at that road! Mud!”

  “You’re crazy! You’re crazy!”

  “Shook up! All shook up, Carrie.”

  “I will get out of here! I’ll get out of here right now!” She slammed her hand down on the handle of the Chevy’s door, opening it. “You’ll hear from my father, Brock Brown!”

  “You’re behaving like a child, Carrie.”

  “You—nut!” she said.

  She left the door of the car open and disappeared behind the car. Brock Brown reached out quickly, catching the handle and pulling the door closed before any more rain dribbled onto the slip covers.

  For a moment, he saw Carrie in his rear-view mirror, going along in the rain, carrying her books under her arm. Then she veered sharply to the right, out of the mirror’s range. Brock sat back, shaking. It was all right now. It was going to be all right. She was gone.

  The rain had been like a miracle. It had come to clean the dirty thoughts out of his mind. If it hadn’t rained, he might be right out there now, in the fields with her, walking right into Mannerheim’s trap. He had known on the drive out that he was not that kind of guy. The moment she had gotten inside of his car, he had known that, but he would have tried, if it had not been for the rain. One thing disappointed him terribly. It was the way she had reacted when he told her that he was not going to break the law. She had said: Do you think I’m going to walk home? What if it hadn’t rained? Would she have still said that, still not cared one damn that he was not the kind of guy who broke laws? If so, she was worse than he had ever imagined.

  What if it hadn’t rained? That was one thing he hadn‘t counted on.

  He had planned to say, “Well, Carrie, it’s after six o’clock. You know what that means. I can’t drive the car any more.”

  “I know,” she might have said. “Something told me you’d be the kind of fellow that would respect the law.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Well,” she might have said, “my mother knew your mother. You’re a Brock, after all.”

  “That’s all right, Carrie. Don’t worry about it. I’ll hike a ride out here tomorrow and pick up the car.”

  “You don’t mind, Brock?” she might have said.

  “Come on, Carrie. I’ll take the books. We’ll get a ride on the highway.”

  “You’re a wonderful guy, Brock. A wonderful guy!”

  And then? Even then, even if everything had worked out according to plan, Brock wondered if he could have gone through with it.

  “It’s a beautiful day, Brock.”

  “It’s almost night, Carrie.”

  “But it isn’t dark.”

  “No, it isn’t. Do you think I would have brought you out here in the dark? You’ve got the wrong fellow, Carrie.”

  “I know that. I know you wouldn’t have. Let’s sit down here in the fields, for a minute, Brock.”

  “It’s clean out here, Garrie. Good clean air, and not even dark.”

  “I knew you weren’t like the others.”

  “I’m not perverse, Carrie. But I’m not Derby Wylie’s kind either.”

  Still, there would have been the dirty pictures in his mind. What was wrong with a girl like Carrie Bates, anyway? You just had to walk up to her in Murray’s and wham-o! What if her mother knew about her? That would be something, if Mrs. Bates knew. In the car on the drive out, the first thing Carrie had tried to do was to get some of that rock ‘n’ roll on the radio. At least he had taught her that much.

  “I don’t like bad music,” he had said.

  She said, “Brock Brown, you went roaring out of the parking lot just the other afternoon, with that kind of music playing loud as a band!”

  “I realized my mistake. I turned it off. Don’t worry about me.”

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  “Anyone can make a mistake,” he told her.

  It was all right now. When the rain stopped, Brock would walk to the highway and get a ride back home. He had the whole weekend to himself—three days!

  His hand was in the pocket of his navy blue jacket. His fingers felt the key there. He remembered something Clara said to him that noon, before she and his father left. It was vile!

  “Well, keep your nose clean, Brock!” she had said.

  It was one of the dirtiest things anyone had ever said to him.

  What kind of a world was it anyway? There was Mannerheim telling him to do dirty things to girls or he would be a pervert, and there was Clara talking that way about snot (she might just as well have said the word right out!), and then Carrie, not caring if he broke the law, not respecting him because he would not drive after six.

  Why didn’t he throw the key away? What did he want with the Rubins’ key? He wasn’t a goddam Nazi or something. He even liked Mrs. Rubin, even though her flower pots did leak. Throw the key away, then. Throw the key away, he thought.

  Brock Brown sat there like that in his car, in the rain.

  When the door on his side opened suddenly, he was startled.

  “I am not going to walk home! You take me home!”
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  Carrie Bates looked odd with her hair wet and stringy, with rain dripping off her nose.

  He said, “If you want to wait until the rain stops, I have some tarpaulin in the back seat.”

  It would still be all right. Even if the rain stopped, everything was too wet now. But he wished she hadn’t come back like this. He was tired of her now. He didn’t want Carrie Bates for anything.

  She said, “You put your car keys in and take me home, right now.”

  “Go around to the other door and get in the back,” he said. “When the rain stops, we’ll get a ride.”

  “You’re not crazy! You’re just plain stupid! You’re a stupid nut! Now, come on, Brock!”

  “Carrie, I’m not going to break the law for you or anyone else. Now, get in back. Look what you’re doing to the seat. Shut that door, and go around and get in back!”

  He didn’t even realize what was happening then. Carrie Bates bent over and scooped up mud from the road. She brought her hand up to his face, and pushed the mud down it, across his nose and his chin, down to the powder blue short-sleeve shirt he wore under his jacket. There was wet mud all over him. For a moment he simply sat there, realizing this. Then suddenly, he leapt from the car and caught ahold of her. Her books slipped from her arm. He pushed her backward, and she fell screaming to the dirt road. Brock fell on top of her.

  “Don’t!” she said, “Please!” she said.

  But it was too late. There was no headache this time. There was something far more immediate and demanding. He struggled with her there in the mud, with the rain pouring down on them. His thumbs finally found her neck, pressing against it until she was still … Later, he took his jackknife from his trousers pocket.

  • • •

  After, when Brock Brown tried to run, he kept slipping and sliding and falling to his knees. “Like a little pig!” he said aloud, “God, like a little pig!”

  He sat down in the mud, holding the jackknife in his hand. He looked ahead of him at his car, parked there with the door open and the rain getting the slipcovers wet. He looked at himself; light against dark, navy and light blue, but he was filthy now, and wet, and there was another color—blood red. Very carefully, he reached in his pocket for two things—the handkerchief and the Rubins’ key. With a smile, he threw the key away. Then he wrapped the knife in the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. The police would want the knife. It was evidence, and it was against the law to withhold evidence. His smile broke to laughter, and his laughter gave away to deep, shaking sobs … Boy cat, all shook up … Boy cat, all shook up.

  Chapter Eleven

  REGINALD WHITTIER

  “I’ll be right with you,” said Laura Lee Whittier. “I just have to serve a ham and eggs at Number 3.”

  In the diner, the television set was on. There were half-a-dozen people at the counter, lingering over coffee and hamburgers, waiting for Cash-Answer to begin.

  Reginald Whittier walked to a booth in the rear. Laura had gotten the job here two days ago, the same day the doctor had verified her pregnancy. Yesterday morning, there had been further verification. Seeing his wife sick like that had made Reggie ill himself. Laura had borrowed some Alka-Seltzer from the landlady and fixed it for him before she went off to work.

  “Just take it easy,” she told him. “You’ll feel better. Just rest awhile—and honey, rest in the bed. Not on the floor. After all, I can’t bite you or anything. I’ll be at work.”

  “I’m going to find work too,” he said. “I’ll have a job by the time I pick you up tonight.”

  Reggie sat down in the booth and lit a cigarette. He inhaled the smoke, thinking of the way she had taught him to do that, thinking of all the patience she had, only vaguely interested in the face of the eight-year-old on the television screen, or the voice of the quizmaster.

  “Back tonight for his fourth appearance on CASH-ANSWER is young, eight-year-old Charles Berrey, from Reddton, New Jersey!”

  Laura appeared with a cup of coffee, setting it in front of him, sitting down beside him.

  “I can’t stay along,” she said, “but you can watch the television. I’ll only be another half-hour.”

  “Has it been busy?”

  “Murder! Jeez!”

  “I’m sorry about flaring up earlier, Laur. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Aw, honey, you’re just nervous. It made me nervous to job-hunt too.”

  “I really tried today, Laur. I just can’t seem to get anywhere.”

  “It’s hard without experience.”

  “I start stuttering. I know that’s it. I can’t get a word out.”

  “If you’d only let me teach you how to carry a tray, Reg. Honestly, it’s the simplest thing in the world. You just get the palm of your right hand smack under the middle of the tray, see, and—“

  “I can’t be a waiter, Laura! It isn’t carrying the trays that bothers me. I just can’t do that work. Sales or something. I could do what I did at Whittier’s Wheel.”

  “Which was what, exactly?” “You know!”

  “Reggie, I’m not hopping on you or anything, but there just aren’t jobs like that. Now if you could wait table or something, you could make up experience. And you could start right away.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “You just can’t think of something. You have to do something.”

  “I know it! I know that!”

  “Oh gosh, there’s Number 3 looking for me … Don’t worry, honey,” she said standing up, “it’ll work out.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Hey, here’s the letter from my mom.” She reached in her pocket and handed it to him. “Read it. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  Reggie took another drag from his cigarette and removed the letter from the envelope. He sipped the coffee and began reading:

  Dear, Laura,

  Well that was some surprise running off that way but I guess you know what your doing by now, your pa is not to mad but I guess it gave him a jolt so he has not much to say on the subjick, and anyway we are very busy with the colledge getting ready for the parants day and graduashun coming on its way, bye bye and let us know more about this boy as I guess he’s in the family when you come right down to it, love and kisses, ma.

  Reggie squashed out the cigarette in the ashtray and shoved the letter in his pocket. Still no word from his mother. It was too early. He had only mailed the postcard yesterday, but it was strange she had done nothing to find him. She would only have to report the car’s theft, if she had really wanted to locate him. Could there be anything wrong? Could she be ill or anything? He thought of the letter Laura’s mother had sent her, and of what his own mother would have said about it. Tobacco Road. Itinerant workers. Showed up, all right…. He didn’t mean that. He didn’t want to think things like that. It was just that everything was so different now. Here he was married, with a pregnant wife who wanted him to be a waiter, and the two of them living in a tourist home. He had to come to a diner to watch television. He wondered vaguely if his mother were watching Cash-Answer now, if she were seeing the same thing he saw on the big television set up front—the kid going into the Contemplation Chamber, the camera moving in for a close-up of him with the earphones over his head. He looked like a little bug.

  Laura was back. She squeezed in beside him. “Did you like mom’s letter, Reggie?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “She’s awful nice about everything, isn’t she?”

  “Sure, I suppose so.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Wait until she finds out you’re pregnant.”

  “I’m not going to tell her. At least not yet. I’ll just wait awhile, and then tell her. She won’t even know the difference.”

  “She can count, can’t she, Laur?”

  “Lots of people have premature babies.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Sure, honey. The period of gestation differs with women.”

  “Gestati
on, ovulation—you know all those big words.”

  “A girl has to. I read up in medical books.”

  “Okay! Okay!”

  “Why do you get so touchy when I talk about it?”

  “Laur, you don’t have to talk about it all the time. That’s all.”

  “I hardly ever talk about it.”

  “You’ve been talking about it for months. All about taking your temperature, and ovulation—that’s all you’ve been talking about.”

  “Oh, come on, Reggie! Gee, that just isn’t true—”

  “Listen!” he said, “The quiz kid’s on.”

  “I hardly ever talk about it,” she said.

  They sat there side by side in Mac’s Diner, staring up at the television screen. Reggie lit another cigarette and sat back with a sigh.

  “… have only one chance to identify these American butterflies, Chuck, so be careful not to blurt out your answers too quickly. Take your time. Study the pictures in front of you. And for $52,000, tell me the answers to this question. Can you hear me all right, Chuck?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, Jackie.”

  “About sixty species make up the nymphs and satyrs. About two thousand species make up the coppers and blues. The largest species—the swallowtails—have over twenty species native to America. Using the pictures you are holding in your hands, name the butterfly family, the species, and the locale where this species is most commonly found in the United States. Do you understand the question, Chuck?”