by Brian Hodge
Later on that night, Chester had beaten Bobby with his fists. Bobby was filled with shame and rage.
He held on to that rage.
Held on to the only thing that kept him from fading away. Even then, he had felt the hollowness inside eating at him.
Watching the heat lightning out of his window had given him the idea. He saw the pale smudges of anger behind the clouds, flickering yellow, as though someone had set the night sky on fire, and he knew what he had to do. Knew with perfect clarity.
He had entered his dad's room and stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at the man who lay there. In Bobby's hands was a box of matches. He struck one, and then another, match after match, holding them until they burned down to his fingers, and he watched the flames with bright, shiny eyes, feeling the pain. Savoring it. He smiled when the skin curled and peeled away from his fingers and the scent of his burning flesh filled his nostrils. When his flesh turned black, his smile turned to laughter. He struck every match and held them over the bed until the box was empty.
Dropping a match on the bed would have been easy, so easy. Everyone knew Chester smoked in bed. It would have been a perfect murder.
The next morning, over breakfast, Chester kept staring at Bobby's blistered hands, as though he were seeing his son for the first time, and Bobby knew his dad had found the curled, burned matches at the foot of the bed.
Neither of them ever said a word about it, but from that day on, his dad never touched him again.
Now they lived in the big house together, existing in an uneasy truce, just the three of them, the unholy trinity as Bobby called it: the father, son, and the holy ghost. The ghost was Bobby's mom.
Bobby cruised up to the oil slick that marked his parking spot and turned off the motor. Punching the lighter in his Caddy, he jammed a cigarette in his mouth. The lighter popped out of the dash with an audible click. Bobby guided the cherry red metal to the cigarette, took a deep breath, dragging the smoke down into his lungs while he tried to get up enough courage to go into the house.
Over the cigarette smoke, the odor of burning flesh filled the car. He looked down and saw he had ground the lighter into the palm of his hand.
It stayed there until the metal went cool.
There were two cars in the driveway and that was the reason Bobby didn't want to go into the house. His dad had returned from that stock-buying trip down in Dallas. One car was a late-model Caddy with a broken R on the door; the other was a silver BMW with Texas plates on it. Old Chester must have found more than just a good breeding bull this time out. Bobby was glad his bedroom was at the other end of the house so he wouldn't have to listen to his dad's drunken rutting.
Bobby thought about all the nights that his dad had come home drunk, of all the times his dad had beaten his mom. After the beatings came the creaking of the bedsprings, followed by the crying. Elizabeth Roberts had been gone a little over eight years now. Nobody knew where. The last Bobby had heard from her was a letter postmarked Cedar City, Utah, on his sixteenth birthday. It said she was sorry he'd had to grow up on his own, and that she hoped he'd forgive her.
Bobby loved his mom.
And hated her.
She had been the only one to escape this place. Sometimes Bobby wondered if he would ever get away from here, but he didn't like to think about that too much, because if he did, his head might start hurting again. And if that happened, there was only one thing that could stop the pain—a box of matches.
Bobby said a prayer that his old man was passed out drunk or upstairs with his latest bimbo.
Things had gotten out of hand back at Jake's, and Bobby hadn't meant for that to happen. Jesse and Amy were his friends, always had been. They had been drawn together by the fact they had grown up with only one parent.
As the years had gone by, he and Jesse had become friendly rivals for Amy's affections.
Friendly, until Amy chose Jesse.
Bobby knew she would never pick him over Jesse. He had seen the hatred in her face tonight.
Then, if things weren't bad enough, those hustlers from Texas had made him look bad in front of his friends.
Tonight had been the worst night he could remember.
Still drunk, Bobby pushed through the front door of the house and almost fell over a chair feeling for the light switch. He froze in place when he heard the faint sound of a TV.
His dad was awake.
Bobby eased through the darkness, trying to get to his room without being heard. On the way he stopped by the refrigerator and grabbed a cold beer. The way his head felt, he would need it before morning.
The sound of TV lured Bobby toward the family room and he felt a ball of ice form in the pit of his stomach when he peeked in and saw the shapeless bulk of his dad stretched out on the recliner. The big rancher stirred, causing the chair to creak.
This was just great, Chester was awake. The perfect end to a perfect day.
"Son of a bitch," Bobby whispered with feeling, "I can't believe it. What else can go wrong tonight?"
But Chester didn't move again.
Bobby felt a ray of hope.
He tiptoed a little farther into the family room, avoiding a loose floorboard by long habit, trying to see if his old man was really passed out or just faking it. Chester Roberts was out, his hat was tipped forward over his face as he lay stretched out on the recliner.
Bobby turned to head for his room, when quite suddenly, for no good reason, he felt something was wrong.
It wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but he felt uneasy just the same. The only real light came from the stone fireplace at the far end of the room and it was beginning to burn low, so he really couldn't see much of anything. Bobby looked over at the TV; saw it held flickering black-and-white images of long-dead cowboys riding their long-vanished celluloid range. It was one of those fifties Westerns, the kind where the good guy could pull a guitar faster than a six shooter, the kind where the good guy never kissed a girl. Bobby could identify with that.
And then it came to him what was wrong; his old man hated those kind of Westerns almost as much as he did.
Bobby moved closer to the recliner. Slowly, carefully, reached for Chester's hat.
"Morning, Bobby. You're up kind of late."
Bobby jumped and then started laughing with relief when he recognized the voice of the man in the chair. "Jesus Christ, Mr. Strickland, you scared the crap out of me. I thought you were my dad." He wiggled the light switch in the family room and discovered that someone had removed the bulb. "You seen the old fart tonight?"
"He's upstairs taking a little rest with his lady friend."
"Good. What're you doing sitting here in the dark all by yourself?"
"Nothing much, just watching a little TV, waiting for you to get home." Martin stared at the screen for a moment, watching the cowboys ride into the black-and-white sunset, and his voice grew wistful. "You like old Westerns, Bobby?"
"You mean that Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy crap?"
"Yeah, that kind of crap."
"No, I hate the things."
"I guess most young people today feel the same way as you. Me, I love 'em. They take me back to when I was a kid, back to Saturday matinees… before the world changed and everything got complicated." He sighed. "Before Doralee left. Back in the old days you went to the movies and you watched the good guys kick the shit out of the bad guys. You got a happy ending every time. Guaranteed." Martin laughed, then caught himself, as though he was embarrassed by his little confession. "Sometimes I think it's too bad real life's not like that."
Bobby was becoming uncomfortable at Martin's rambling and more than a little uneasy. "Mr. Strickland, it's getting kind of late. Did you want something?"
"I'm sorry; I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes before you hit the sack."
"Yeah, about what?
"About this knife I've been looking for."
"What kind of knife?"
"It's from the
Navajo graveyard, got a handle carved into a red snake. I thought you might have seen it. I can't seem to find it anywhere."
"That's an Indian relic. Stealing Indian relics is illegal." Bobby took a drink from his beer while he rummaged around in a cabinet for a light bulb. He found one, inserted it, flipped the switch. This time the light popped on, filling the corner of the room with eye-stinging glare. Bobby closed his eyes against it. "Can't this wait; I had kind of a tough night."
"I know what you mean; I had kind of a tough night myself." Something was wrong with the foreman's voice. "But I really need that knife."
Bobby opened his eyes.
Martin Strickland was sitting in the recliner, dressed in the same clothes he had worn earlier today, only now they were crusted up with dried blood. Covered with it. There were long gashes all over his body, but he wasn't bleeding anywhere that Bobby could see. Flaps of skin hung from Martin's face like paint peeling away from a gray, weathered barn, revealing a surprisingly bright, shiny coat of red beneath.
"Mr. Strickland, for God's sake, what happened?" The words sounded inadequate. "You look…."
"Dead. It's okay, Bobby, you can say it. I look dead. I am dead." Rising from the recliner, Martin moved toward the back of the family room, swaying as though he'd had too much to drink. He was headed to where the light barely reached, but he stopped and looked back over his shoulder, his face crinkling up as though he had thought of something funny. "You wouldn't believe what happened to me tonight, son."
Crackling noises came from the foreman's stiff clothes when he started moving again.
"Mr. Strickland, you need a doctor."
"Son, I need an undertaker. Do you want to hear what happened or not?" His voice grew suddenly querulous.
"Yeah, I want to hear."
"All right, then. You see this?" The foreman's fingerless hand reached up and touched a thin line of red that wound around his head. His hair rested on it, like a badly fitted toupee. It began sliding off and he reached up, pushed it back. "That's where I got scalped by Billy Two Hats. Son of a bitch tied me to a cross and I bled to death." He flashed a grin, showing broken stumps where his teeth used to be. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I got buried, too."
"What do you say we go for a little ride, Mr. Strickland. I've got my car out front. Maybe we can get someone to take a look at you." Bobby tried to keep his voice steady, low, like you were supposed to with someone in this condition.
Martin swept his arm out, indicating the far side of the room. "I can't run off and leave my family, Bobby, not after they've come all the way from Dallas to see me. It wouldn't be right."
Following Martin's gesture, Bobby peered into the darkness, at the couch along the wall, at the two people sitting there. Neither one acknowledged his presence.
"Say hello to Doralee and Nicky."
Bobby saw something strike Martin's head from above, run down his ravaged face. In the dark it looked like a raindrop.
Martin sat down on the couch between Doralee and Nicky and pulled them close. "You'll have to forgive these two. They've forgotten their manners, so I guess I'll have to speak for them. It'll be the first time I ever got in the last word, if you know what I mean." He winked.
Everyone on the couch wore smiles, as though they were posing for a family portrait. In the dark, Doralee and Nicky were the perfect wife and son, except that every time Martin moved, their heads lolled to the side like as if they had no bones in their necks. Nicky's eyes were milky, exposed film.
Doralee had no eyes.
Martin followed Bobby's gaze. "She was always looking at other men, so I had to tear 'em out."
"Mr. Strickland, are Doralee and Nicky… are they..."
"Dead?" Martin considered the question. "In a manner of speaking, I guess they are. It just depends on how you look at it. Watch this, Bobby, this is better than that card trick I do at Christmas."
This was madness and the soft caress of fear touched Bobby's neck. "I don't think I want to see any more."
"Come on now, son; don't spoil an old man's fun. You'll love this." Martin's face shifted and somehow became younger as it took on the look of a sullen teenager who is being forced to be polite against his will. His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Hey, Bobby, you getting in Amy Warrick's pants yet, or does she still have the hots for Jesse?" The voice belonged to Nicky. There was no mistaking it. "I'll bet they're doing it right now in Jesse's pickup."
The foreman's ravaged face reassembled itself into more familiar lines. "You have to overlook kids nowadays," Martin said in his own voice. "You try to teach them manners, but they don't listen."
Then the face shifted again, became softer, somehow feminine. "That's because their fathers are always out whoring and gambling. I wouldn't call that setting a good example for a child, would you?"
Bobby recognized this voice, too.
Doralee was speaking now, using Martin's throat, forcing it several octaves higher. The words were spoken softly. "I guess you already know all about that, don't you, Bobby?"
Bobby bit back the absurd urge to say, "Yes, ma'am."
Another drop from above hit Bobby, on the arm this time.
Martin put his arms around his son and ex-wife, gave them a hug. "It's good to spend some quality time with the family unit, but it's hard to find any time, what with everyone doing their own thing these .days. This was really fortunate that Doralee stopped by with Nicky. She found him hitchhiking just the other side of Crown Point. She wanted me to give him a good talking to." Martin tousled the boy's hair. "I did. You won't give us any more trouble now, will you, son?"
"No, Dad," Martin answered himself, again doing his uncanny impression of Nicky.
Bobby picked up the phone and stabbed at the buttons. "Mr. Strickland, you just sit right there. I'm going to get you some help."
"Too late to help me," Martin said. "The phone's dead. I cut the wires myself."
Bobby kept punching the numbers as though he could make the phone work if he just kept hitting them.
"Too late to help my family," Martin said. "I killed them myself."
Another drop from above splattered on Bobby. The drops were falling faster now and he knew what they were.
Blood.
A shower of it.
All the time he and Martin had been talking, blood had been dripping from the ceiling, Nicky and Doralee's blood. Now there was a wide, glistening pool of it in front of the fireplace.
"I'd like to stay and chat some more, Bobby, but it's getting late, and I've got to find that knife." Martin climbed to his feet and, quick as a cat, grabbed Bobby by the arm and backhanded him, bent him back over the couch. "You always thought you could take me, you little prick. Well, here's your chance."
Bobby swung at the old foreman, but he never connected.
Something was coming from Martin's mouth. Spilling out.
At first Bobby thought it was blood, but whatever was coming from Martin seemed to have a life of its own. It struck out, like a snake. The liquid was black, cold like winter rain, when it struck Bobby in the face, numbing him. It forced open his mouth and began pouring down his throat.
Bobby felt the coldness undulate deeper inside of him, and it was no longer cold, it was liquid fire as it crawled along his veins and arteries, spreading out in every direction, pushing his blood ahead of it. He tried to shove the old foreman off him but they were connected now. The heat reached Bobby's brain. A sudden peace descended over him. For the first time since he was eleven, he wasn't angry.
Voices whispered to him and one of them belonged to his mom. She was just as pretty and nice as he remembered. Bobby saw that he was eleven and that he was standing in front of a movie theater. His best friend, Martin Strickland, who was in the same grade, was right beside him.
Martin nudged Bobby. "Ask your mom for a quarter so we can see the new Hopalong Cassidy."
Elizabeth Roberts heard Martin and smiled. "Didn't you two already see this one?"
"No, Mom, this i
s a brand new one."
She made a big production of digging in her purse. "All right, here's a quarter. Don't tell your dad."
They were about to start for the ticket booth when Bobby felt another quarter drop into his pocket.
"That's for popcorn and you'd better eat it, not throw it."
"We promise, don't we, Martin?"
"Yes we do, Mrs. Roberts." Martin crossed his eyes. Elizabeth laughed. "Go on, you two."
The first thing they did, once they reached the balcony of the huge, ornate theater, was to throw popcorn on those below.
"You've got a neat mom." Martin threw up some popcorn, tried to catch it in his mouth.
"She's okay."
They took turns trading punches on the shoulder until the curtain finally parted.
They looked over the audience… at the black-and-white Western spewing from the projector. The opening credits were rolling and the music began to swell as Bobby watched Hoppy ride onto the silver screen. Martin was ecstatic. Bobby should have been happy, and yet he felt uneasy.
He locked onto the movie. Felt the doubts recede a little.
There was a young cowboy standing in a saloon, there was music, bright lights, a crowd milling around. The young cowboy was kicking the shit out of some guy in black while everyone cheered him on. There was a pretty girl in the background who had been singing just a minute ago.
Bobby knew by the way she looked at the young cowboy that she was crazy about him. She just hadn't said it yet.
Something was wrong.
Somebody wasn't saying their lines right, they were saying the young cowboy had done his sidekick wrong, that he had stolen all his sidekick's money.
The young cowboy turned to the audience and yelled for the director. "This isn't in the script. Who's been messing with the script?"
Bobby leaned over to Martin. "What kind of movie is this?"
The man in black laid a gloved hand on the cowboy's arm and pulled him closer. Until their black-and-white faces were only inches apart. "You'd better play the scene as written, if you know what's good for you."
"Screw you." The cowboy hit him.
Technicolor blood spilled from the guy in black's mouth, ran back up his nose.