Doorbells at Dusk

by Josh Malerman

  Now, I think he may have been rightfully sticking it to the man. Kind of like how I used to think he was a mingy freak, and now I’d say he’s always been responsible with his money.

  Monkey doesn’t look like a freak. We used to say he did though. When we were teenagers. We used to say he looked like a monkey. We were a bunch of assholes who thought we were funny.

  But I don’t think Monkey thought it was funny.

  I know he didn’t.

  No one calls him Monkey anymore. We haven’t in years. But I still did, back then, when we went to Mr. Impossible’s place for the Halloween block party. We called him Monkey, and since we were adults, we even sometimes called him Steve.

  I didn’t call him Steve all that much, though. And I know he was Monkey that night, for sure.

  He was even dressed like a monkey. Furry body suit with a tail. Floppy shoes that looked like monkey feet.

  He didn’t wear a mask.

  That was the joke.

  But I knew he didn’t think this was funny, either. He’d worn the monkey suit before, and he mocked anyone who even mentioned his costume.

  “Oh, yeah. Ha, ha, ha. Yep. I’m dressed as a monkey,” he’d say with a condescending disdain. That costume became his litmus test.

  I never said Steve wasn’t a weird fucker.

  I mean Monkey.

  Monkey dressed as a monkey that night, and I wore a wrestling singlet. I was not in good shape and looked like an idiot. But I didn’t care. At least I didn’t care when Steve picked me up—I’d started drinking an hour before—but once we were higher than shit, I felt self-conscious about it.

  My mouth dried out, and I had difficulty swallowing. We had nothing to drink in the car, aside from beer and bourbon, and we weren’t going to break the seals. We were, after all, on the border of becoming responsible grown-ups.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “What?” Monkey said.

  “I need something to drink.”

  “Cottonmouth?”

  “Bad.”

  “Me, too.”

  I never said Monkey and I were brilliant conversationalists.

  “I hope he’s got something to drink,” I said.

  “We’ve got shit,” Monkey said.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I’m sure he’s got water.”

  “I mean, like pop.”

  “Pop?”

  “Soda.”

  “Ask him.”

  “I will.”

  “He’ll probably have some cougar piss.”

  “He might.”

  “He is Mr. Impossible.”

  And he was. Back in the day, Mr. Impossible loved to drop acid and run for miles. He’d drop acid and go rock climbing. He’d drop acid before attending Sunday mass with his grandparents. He loved to drop acid and solve chemistry problems for fun. Mr. Impossible just loved to drop acid.

  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do that anymore. And I doubt he did the night of the Halloween block party. I don’t think he’d do it around his kids. But with Mr. Impossible . . .

  ***

  The Impossible One graduated high school with Monkey and me. His son, Chapman, born in the summer between our freshman and sophomore years, was seventeen the night of the Halloween party. Everyone called him Chap. Chap’s mom was a girl Mr. Impossible hooked up with at a Christian youth retreat. I don’t even know who she is or if she’s even still alive. No one talks about her. And it’s none of my business.

  Sandy, that’s Mrs. Impossible, has been Chap’s step-mom since he was maybe eight or nine years old. He calls her Mom, not Sandy. And he doesn’t say ‘my step-mom’ when he talks about her when she’s not around.

  Chapman is a shitload of trouble, and most everything that happened that night was Chapman’s fault.

  No, everything was.

  But back to his dad, Mr. Impossible. After graduating high school, he went to college, did drugs, jumped off bridges, did more drugs, ran triathlons, and cooked up illegal experimental pharmaceuticals in his garage, the whole time earning his master’s in chemistry.

  He accomplished all this as a single dad.

  He became a pharmacist and got married to another pharmacist (that’s Sandy). When they returned from their honeymoon, they became researchers for GorKor, the world’s largest pharmaceutical multinational corporation. All the while, Mr. Impossible was smoking weed, tripping balls, and throwing together insane chemical cocktails in his free time.

  And I forgot to mention that somewhere in there he’d also become a world-class snowboarder.

  We called him Mr. Impossible for a reason.

  “What’s he dressing as, do you know?” Monkey asked.

  “I never talked to him.”

  Monkey saw Mr. Impossible more often than I did. They both lived in the same metropolitan area. I still lived in Medium, Ohio. Our home town. With my parents. In their basement.

  I know what you’re thinking, and you’re probably right.

  Lazy.

  But this story isn’t about me. It’s about Halloween with Mr. Impossible.

  And Monkey.

  When Monkey pulled into the subdivision, it was dark, and we could see a halo of light over Mr. Impossible’s block.

  I’d never been to this Halloween thing before. Monkey had. A couple of times. He claimed it was great.

  I don’t like crowds, but I liked the idea of getting fucked up and looking at people in costumes.

  “Do a lot of people dress up for this thing?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Lots of people. But mostly the kids.”

  “And there’s a fireworks show?”

  “Yeah. Neighborhood backs up to Maedall Park.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone ever shooting off fireworks at a Halloween thing.”

  “That’s where they set off the Fourth of July fireworks.”

  “Where?”

  “Maedall Park. But this is nothing compared to that.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Not even half the size. Mr. Impossible pays for it.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Well, he puts in on it, I think.”

  “Either way.”

  “You think his kids will be there?”

  “Billy and Betsy will be trick or treating, I’m sure.”

  When we were in school together, we didn’t want to be around our friends’ parents when we were high, as grown-ups, we didn’t want to be high around their kids.

  “What about Chap? You think he’ll be there?” Monkey asked.

  “I hope not.”

  “I guess he’s all right.”

  “He’s always asking me to spot him some weed. It’s like some dumb way of trying to cover up for the fact that his dad’s growing.”

  “That’s what I think, too. I don’t mind that as much as the throwing up.”

  “Yeah, he can’t drink. And when he does, he wants to fuck with me. Especially when he thinks I’m high.”

  “Don’t you have eye drops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, use them.”

  “I do. I’m just telling you what he does.”

  “I know what he does.”

  “I hope he’s not there.”

  “Me, too.”

  “He will be.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, why would you go get high with your friends if your dad was Mr. Impossible and you could get high with him?”

  “Exactly. He’ll be there.”

  “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Chap.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  The neighborhood, a circuit of cul-de-sacs, had a single entrance, and two sawhorses and a cop car blocked it off.

  We rolled past. Monkey didn’t turn his head to look at the cops standing outside their cruiser holding big plastic pumpkins filled with candy. If he looked at them, they’d notice him. They’d know he was high and take up pursuit. It was much safer to pretend t
hey weren’t there.

  “Fuck the police,” Monkey said—after we were more than a block away—with the windows rolled up.

  Monkey parked, and we made sure we had everything we needed. Cigarettes. Rolling papers and weed tucked in the bottoms of our socks. Lighters (we both carried more than one). Beer and bourbon.

  “Wait,” Monkey said.

  “Wait for what?”

  “We don’t have a bag for this stuff.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you have to carry alcoholic beverages in a bag?”

  “No.”

  “I think it’s a law.”

  “We don’t have open containers.”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  “It’s a block party. Didn’t you say there were kegs and shit?”

  “Yeah, but still. We’ll be carrying this outside the fences.”

  “Fences? What fences?”

  “The barriers.”

  “Barriers?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. We’ll be outside the zone.”

  “The zone?”

  “The zone in which alcohol’s allowed out on the streets.”

  “I don’t think they call it a zone.”

  “You know what I mean, man. And you can’t carry bottles of beer around either. Nothing with a label. It’s got to be in an opaque plastic cup, too, I’m pretty sure.”

  “You’re high.” I said.

  Monkey agreed. He checked to make sure the windows were rolled up. He rooted around in his fanny pack, zipped it up, patted it a couple times and said, “What’s that smell?”

  I sniffed. “Something’s burning.”

  “Shit,” Monkey said. “You’re on fire.”

  I jumped. “What?”

  “Your dick’s on fire!”

  Smoke curled up from my crotch into my face. I made a series of embarrassing noises and jumped out of the car. I danced in the grass, beating myself in the groin, whimpering and dancing like an idiot, less than a hundred yards from where the police cruiser was parked.

  “Stop,” Monkey said. “I’m sure you’re all right now.” He looked at the police car, then back at me, and frowned.

  “Can you see a hole?” I said, rubbing both hands over my crotch.

  “Stop that,” Monkey said. “Let me see.” He crouched down in front of me and had a look. “Fuck,” he said, laughing.

  “What?”

  “That’s where that cherry went. You burnt a big-ass hole in your leotard.”

  “Singlet.”

  “Whatever.”

  I felt around again, and it took me a moment to find it: an almost perfectly round hole about the size of a quarter. I could feel the cotton of my red jock strap underneath. “I’m all right,” I said and rapped my knuckles twice on the cup I’d worn out of self-consciousness.

  I looked up and saw the cop. Just one officer hung around the cruiser then. He was staring at us.

  “Monkey,” I said. “You better get up. That cop thinks you’re giving me a blow job.”

  Monkey shot up, turned, looked around on the ground, crouched down again, ran his fingers through the grass. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled in a circle.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  Monkey stood and waved his car keys high over his head and shook them in my face.

  “What the fuck?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want that cop to think I was blowing you, man,” Monkey explained. “So I made it look like I was searching for my car keys.”

  “I think you overdid it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You just made it look like you dropped your keys while you were blowing me.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “All right. But I’ll need about an hour or so refractory period after that sweet BJ.”

  Monkey started off toward the cop car. He seemed to be walking way too slow. I figured he was trying to give the impression that we were in no hurry to get past the police. But he was overcompensating. I kept pace with him, and I felt like the cop was thinking we both might have some developmental challenges. Monkey kept his eyes on the sidewalk, and I kept my head turned toward the flashing lights coming from the Halloween block party.

  When we approached the entrance, the police officer was leaning against his car, arms folded, looking down at his feet, bored. He didn’t give two shits about us. His plastic jack-o’-lantern was on the roof of the car.

  “You think we smell?” Monkey whispered.

  “Dude, shut up,” I said. I don’t think we were close enough for the cop to hear us, but we were trying to be inconspicuous.

  When we arrived at Mr. Impossible’s subdivision, we stayed as far away from the cop car as we could and looked down the street. It was mostly empty. The next cross street was where the action started. The place was packed with people in costumes. Parents held plastic cups and the hands of kids clutching trick or treat buckets and bags.

  A teenage couple walked toward the party on the side of the street opposite Monkey and me. They weren’t wearing costumes. Too cool, I guess.

  We were about to turn the corner and head down into the crowd when a kid ripped free from his mother’s grasp and sprinted up the street toward us. The kid wore a black jumpsuit, black sneakers with bright white lightning bolts on the sides, and a gas mask. He waved a crowbar over his head.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “Wow,” Monkey said. “That’s a great Kid Crowbar costume.”

  “Who’s Kid Crowbar?” I asked, but before Monkey could answer, the kid climbed up the back of the police cruiser and screamed at the cop. I’d assumed it was a boy in the costume, but after hearing the kid’s voice, I wasn’t so sure.

  The kid raised his crowbar and said, “Stop, police!”

  The police officer laughed, took a step back from his vehicle, held up his hands and said, “Funny, kid. But that’s enough. Get down from the vehicle now, please.”

  “You have the right to remain silent!” Kid Crowbar said.

  The cop waved to the kid’s mom, who was running toward him in high heels. She looked like an accountant type who dressed up in a skirt and heels once a year.

  She wasn’t good in heels.

  The cop shouldn’t have looked away because Kid Crowbar wasn’t messing around. He reared back and whacked his crowbar against the side of that police officer’s head.

  The officer’s hat flew off. And the crowbar snapped in two.

  The officer staggered and felt all over his scalp.

  The crowbar had been a plastic toy. If it had been the real deal that cop would have been dead.

  The kid’s mother left her shoes behind and ran to her child.

  “Holy shit,” Monkey said.

  The kid jumped from the trunk of the car and kicked the police officer in the neck.

  The cop stumbled again, but didn’t fall. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said.

  Kid Crowbar fell to the pavement and wailed, his arm trapped beneath him. It had to be broken, the way the kid was screaming.

  Then the kid’s mother was there. “Ryan,” she cried. “Ryan, what the hell has gotten into you?”

  Ryan? I still didn’t know if Kid Crowbar was a boy or a girl. I guess it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to mess with that kid.

  The mom scooped her kid up, but despite his injured arm—it was obviously broken, bent at a wrong angle—the kid fought to get free, so he could resume his attack on the officer.

  “We enforce the law now!” the kid screamed. “We’ll liquidate you. We’ll liquidate all of BizCorp’s assets!”

  “Jesus, lady.” The cop dabbed at a cut on his forehead. His fingers came away bloody. “Maybe you shouldn’t use the boob tube as a babysitter.”

  “Don’t you tell me how to raise my child! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  The cop raised his hands in surrender. “Take it easy. I was just joking.”

  “No, you weren’t.”<
br />
  “Hey, your kid just clocked me. Give me a break.”

  “Your law is crime,” the kid said through clenched teeth. “Your justice is tyranny.”

  “Ma’am, do you have meds this kid can take?”

  “He’s not on any medication.”

  Ryan was a boy! I kind of figured that all along.

  “Then, ma’am,” the officer said, “no offense, but maybe you should—”

  “Maybe you should shut the fuck up,” the kid’s mom said. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

  The cop stepped closer, leaned in, not too close. He had his hand on his holster. “Shit, that arm looks bad. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “No,” the woman said. “You’ve done enough.” She stomped off with her boy hugged close to her chest, and Kid Crowbar wouldn’t stop screaming, “We’re coming for you! Every last one of you. We see you in your uniforms. Easy targets. Every last one!”

  “Ma’am,” the cop called after her. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “Fuck off,” she said. “Fuck right the fuck off!”

  The cop shrugged, squatted, snatched his hat off the ground and dusted if off. When he stood and donned the hat again, he noticed us standing there like spooked rabbits, and said, “What are you two stoners staring at?”

  We didn’t move. We didn’t answer. We were petrified little bunny rabbits.

  He shook his head and waved us on. “Go on. Get the fuck out of my face.”

  We didn’t need to be told twice.

  I don’t like crowds, especially when I’m high, but disappearing into the throng of bodies after that scene felt great, like a return to the warren and the reassuring safety of a hundred warm bunny bodies huddled all around us.

  “What just happened?” Monkey asked.

  “Who is Kid Crowbar?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, who is Kid Crowbar? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a TV.”

  “Well?”

  “He’s a cartoon character. Pretty popular.”

  “What the hell’s it about?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t watch it. It’s for kids.”

  “You watch Belly Ape.”

  “Belly Ape’s different.”

  He was right. Belly Ape was different.

  ***

  We pressed through the crowd, checking out the costumes. I’ve got a thing for ladies in sexy cat outfits, but I didn’t see any. I saw plenty of people dressed like vampires and zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.