The Devil's Demeanor

by Hart, Jerry

  “Take your seat, damn it!” he shouted in a thick Southern accent, and Don sat next to a boy in the third row. He already hated the driver and didn’t like sitting that close to him, but it couldn’t be helped—all the other seats were taken.

  Gazing out the window as they left the school parking lot calmed Don a bit; the scenery was beautiful. The bus turned left onto Windsor Meadow Road and chugged up a very steep hill. A small grassy mountain separated the main road, and Don caught the oncoming traffic on the other side just before the grassy landmark cut off his view.

  The school he attended may not have been all that nice to look at—it was no Woodcrest—but the area in which it was located was pleasing. It was hard for Don to believe he had always lived right down the street from this valley and never knew it.

  After the bus dropped him and Nick off at the end of the street, they said goodbye to one another and headed to their respective houses. Since Don lived at the very end of the street, it took him longer and he was out of breath again.

  Maybe he would skip that soda after all.

  He unlocked the door with the key he prayed he would never lose, and walked into the living room on his right. Before settling down on the couch, he turned on the window-mounted air conditioner and basked in its icy goodness.

  He thought about calling Grandpa but could think of nothing to tell him about Mom and Ethan. They hadn’t really done anything strange in a while. Don still wanted to talk to him, to talk to someone.

  He never got the chance to talk to Grandpa again, however.

  In November of ’89, William Scott passed away in his sleep. The funeral had been held in Destin, and Don cried. He hadn’t been that close with his grandfather, but still felt an incredible loss. He no longer had anyone to confide in about his mother and brother, about the curse that may have been afflicting them.

  He was alone.

  * * *

  The Nineties, Don’s favorite decade, was full of change, some good and some bad. Dad came to Georgia to pick up Don and Ethan for the summer, then drove them all the way back to New Haven, Connecticut, where he now lived.

  The sixteen-hour trip had been grand for Don. He lay on the cushy couch-bed in the van most of the trip and looked out through the blinds at the road, the trees, the tunnels. The air conditioner blew cold air all the way to the back of the van, and music played softly from the speakers above him, making him drowsy. “For the Longest Time” played twice during the trip.

  They passed through New York and Dad promised they would officially visit the city during the summer. This was the first time Don had visited northern U.S.A. that he could actually remember.

  After what had been the longest road trip of his life, his dad finally approached a large apartment complex located on a hill. Dad drove to the building on the opposite side of the entrance and parked right in front of a small rock wall.

  He helped get the suitcases out of the back of the van, then escorted his children to the building. The apartment had a certain smell Don would never forget, and whenever he would smell it again in the future, would automatically think of this place. It was an old, electrical smell, not completely unpleasant. Just sterile.

  A laundry room was on the right, elevators on the left. Don didn’t know how many floors the place had, but he had seen the building from the outside well enough to know it had many. Once they got to the end of the hall, they turned left and went down another hall. At the very end, on the left, was Dad’s apartment. It was only one bedroom, and Dad had told Don and Ethan they would have to sleep on the couch, which unfolded into a bed.

  When Dad opened the door, the TV and lights were already on. The TV was a big, wood-paneled thing that sat on the floor by the patio. He walked past the small kitchen directly to the left, still carrying the suitcases in his arms. “Honey, I’m home,” he called.

  “About time,” a voice snapped back.

  Don slowly made his way to the living room—the kitchen wall had been blocking his view—and saw a woman sitting on the couch across from the TV. She was wearing a long, plain nightgown and glasses. Her hair was done in black-and-copper curls. When she smiled, her lips, covered in dark red lipstick, parted to reveal startling white teeth.

  She stood up and approached the kids. “I’m Yvonne. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Don automatically didn’t like her.

  He didn’t know her.

  He stared at Dad, waiting for an explanation.

  “She’s my girlfriend,” Dad finally said.

  Don stood there, next to Ethan, wondering why his dad hadn’t brought Agatha with him to Connecticut. Don then did the dumbest thing: He asked.

  Dad, who had been smiling proudly, frowned. He looked at Yvonne, then back to his kids. “Well, son, Agatha died last year.”

  Don asked no more questions.

  * * *

  As summer wore on, Connecticut lost its exotic appeal. During the week, his dad worked—where he worked, Don didn’t know—and Yvonne took summer classes at a community college. Don guessed she was in her mid twenties, whereas Dad was in his forties. She also worked in a department store, where she took the kids a few times to get a jumpstart on school supplies, including clothes.

  Don didn’t like the store; it was so depressingly empty, and he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to work there.

  Luckily, the family headed back down to Florida in late June to spend time with Dad’s sister, Aunt Lydia. She and her family lived out in a rural area in Cocoa, and they promised lots of fireworks for Independence Day.

  Everyone stood out on the back porch, watching the sun go down. The huge field that was Aunt Lydia’s backyard went from orange to gray as more relatives arrived. Grandma came with uncles Nate and Billy.

  It was another family reunion, though there was no beach house. The adults grilled hamburgers and hot dogs while the children played. Jabari and Quinton joined Don, Ethan, Nina and Candice in Candice’s bedroom (Candice and Nina had separate rooms) as they played with her toys. A little pink cash register seemed very popular.

  Don wanted to play with it but Candice snapped at him, saying it was Ethan’s turn. Don stormed out and walked into the guest room across the hall. Almost all of the adults were outside, preparing the fireworks and food, but some were inside, watching TV and having loud conversations Don didn’t care to hear. He covered his ears as he sat against the wall by the door. The lights in the room were off, and he felt grateful to be alone and invisible.

  He hated Candice so much for letting the little monster play with her toys. After all, Ethan was just pretending to be normal—something he started doing after meeting Dad’s new girlfriend—and he had everyone wrapped around his three-year-old finger. Don was the good one. He was the normal one. How dare Candice favor Ethan over him.

  There was a notebook next to him on the floor, along with a pencil. He grabbed them both and wrote something angrily on the paper. Moments later, he strolled back into Candice’s room and left the paper at the end of her bed, where the other kids were playing on the floor.

  Then Don busied himself with another toy, away from the group. Soon somebody would find the note.

  Don was suddenly struck by a pillow to the back of the head. He spun around and saw Candice standing there with the paper clutched in her right hand.

  “I’m telling!” she roared at him, then raced out into the living room.

  Panic overcame him. He’d never thought for one second she would tell on him. How could he be so stupid?

  A few seconds later, Dad and Aunt Lydia came into the bedroom. “Did you write this?” Dad asked loudly, flashing the note, which read: Candice is a hore!

  “I didn’t write it,” Don wept. The tears had come so fast, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. “I swear I didn’t!”

  “Candice says you did,” Aunt Lydia added.

  “I swear I didn’t!” Don repeated as he cried. He was so embarrassed by his actions, denial seemed his only outlet.
He howled as tears rolled down his chubby cheeks. The other kids left him there, on the side of Candice’s bed, left the crybaby to cry his little heart out.

  All except Ethan.

  Yvonne, who appeared behind Dad, looked at the note in his hand and said, “He didn’t even spell it right.”

  Don only barely heard it over his howling. He hid his face in shame, realizing perhaps he wasn’t that good of a person. Not that good at all.

  * * *

  An hour later, the fireworks began. Blue ones, purple ones, orange ones; big and loud, tiny and shrill. Don got some pleasure out of them, though the incident with the note was still fresh in his mind.

  The way Candice had looked at him after finding the note, her eyes wide and her mouth round in shock; the anger and disappointment in his father’s face upon learning his son had written a hateful note to his cousin; the humiliation of crying like a baby and denying full-out he, Don, had written the note, knowing no one believed him, but not being able to help himself. He just could not admit he did it after seeing the reaction to it.

  His dad had given him a good talking to after Don finally stopped crying and walked into the living room.

  “Do you know why I’m upset with you?” Dad had asked.

  Don nodded.

  “Where did you learn this word?”

  “I don’t know,” Don replied, though he thought of the fight between Mom and Agatha in the parking lot.

  “It’s a very bad word and I don’t ever want to hear you say it or write it down. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  Don knew what that meant. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good boy.” Patrick Scott patted his son on the back. “Go play. And don’t ever say anything bad about your cousins again. We’re guests in someone else’s house; it’s very rude to insult them in their own home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Don never forgot his father’s words.

  * * *

  Instead of taking the kids back to Connecticut, Dad dropped them off in Augusta. Yvonne stayed in the van while he took the suitcases into the house. Don saw his mom stare out at the van from the front door and he knew she could see Dad’s new girlfriend in the front seat.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” Dad said to Mom. “It’s about the kids.”

  Mom stood there, listening.

  Dad ran his hands through his thick black hair. “I’ve been thinking about maybe having the kids come and live with me for a while.”

  Mom was already shaking her head. “That is absolutely out of the question.”

  “Don’t fight me on this, Hilda. Can we at least discuss it?”

  “Why would I want to discuss it?”

  “You know why.”

  Don walked to the playroom in the back of the house, but he could still hear his parents arguing. The white-tile floor and big windows letting in the sun did little to brighten his mood at the moment.

  He walked over to the big toy box in the far left corner and climbed into it, losing himself to his childhood.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me!” his mother screamed from the foyer. “I’m not letting you take my children!”

  “They’re my kids, too, goddamn it!” Dad replied. “And we both know something is wrong with you. Don’t play dumb!”

  “What’s wrong with me, Patrick? What the fuck is wrong?”

  “You’re a monster!” he screamed, which froze Don’s blood. Did his dad know, too? “After Ethan was born, you changed. You were a mess, crying and screaming. It’s like you weren’t even human anymore.”

  “It was postpartum depression!”

  “No it wasn’t!”

  There was silence for a time. Don was deep in the box, and couldn’t see through the sliding-glass door into the dining room, but he knew he was being watched at that moment. Even as the action figures dug into his legs and back, he knew Ethan was standing at the door, waiting for him to emerge.

  “What was it, then?” Mom asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” Dad admitted, defeated. But Don had a feeling his father knew exactly what it was.

  It was the curse.

  “I’m worried about our kids, that’s all,” Dad finally said. “And I’m worried about you.”

  “If you’re so worried, then why did you leave?”

  Dad sighed. “Because I was weak and scared. I couldn’t imagine staying here with you like...like that.”

  “And now?”

  “Now,” Dad said, “I realize my kids are more important than myself.”

  Don finally stood up and, sure enough, there was Ethan, standing there and staring at him in tiny blue jeans and a red-and-black plaid shirt tucked into his pants. His curly brown hair was filling his tiny scalp. He would have been cute had he not been so spooky.

  “I’m fine,” Mom said, “and the kids are fine. In fact, I’ve been seeing a wonderful man for quite some time. His name is Adrian and he keeps me centered.”

  That was news to Don. Even Ethan looked in her direction with a creepy turn of the neck. His body remained facing forward. Don wondered if Ethan’s head would spin all the way around like that girl in The Exorcist.

  Don, at that moment, wanted very much to live with his dad in Connecticut. But not if Ethan came along. Don wanted to be away from him and their mom, despite what she told Dad about being “centered.”

  He didn’t know how soon things would spiral out of control, but he hoped he would be prepared when they did.

  Chapter 6

  1991 had been an interesting year for Don. Mom had signed him up for karate at the YMCA on Fort Gordon, which he didn’t enjoy as much as he thought he would. Karate was not easy to do with his girth.

  Speaking of Mom, she had finally introduced her kids to her secret boyfriend, Adrian. He was a few years younger than Dad, maybe even younger than Mom. Adrian also drove a motorcycle, something Dad used to do before trading up for the van.

  Don turned nine in March, and he felt like a big boy. Things had been going well for the Scotts, with Mom showering her children with love and gifts. Besides the argument with Dad, she had truly seemed calmer.

  One day, when Nick was sick with strep, Don decided to play in his backyard. Of course, he had to take Ethan with him. When they reached the end of the yard, passing all the neighbors’ backyards in the process, Don climbed the jungle gym set up there. Monica Harris was on her back porch, playing with something Don couldn’t see because a big trampoline was in the way. She looked up.

  “I hate caterpillars,” she said. She wore a light-blue shirt with yellow shorts. She had pink ties in her hair.

  “Then why are you playing with one?” Don asked, noticing the caterpillar crawling beside the arm she used to prop herself up.

  “Because there’s nothing else to do.”

  Monica was a year younger than Don, and though they’d never spoken in class before, she seemed really nice now. He opened her gate and walked into her backyard. He and Ethan sat down on the wooden porch, next to Monica. Ethan had busied himself with a little hand shovel, though he was looking at the caterpillar.

  “So, little man,” she said to Ethan, “you talkin’ yet?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, as he had started talking a while ago. The problem was he never said much. Sometimes he would if a lot of adults were around, but if it were just kids, or just Don, he slipped into his old ways.

  And his old ways consisted of him staring, which he was still doing with the caterpillar. It made Don uncomfortable.

  “Do you like kindergarten?” Monica asked.

  “No,” Ethan replied. He looked up at her, and the look he gave her reminded Don of those adults give to people they don’t like.

  The look was too mature for a three-year-old.

  “Why not?” Monica was intent on keeping the conversation going.

  “Because, nosey, it’s childish and tedious.”

  Monica’s eyes grew wide jus
t as Don’s jaw dropped. He didn’t know what tedious meant, so therefore, Ethan shouldn’t have either. Also, the young Scott child had spoken much too surely and fluidly for someone his age.

  Don looked at Monica, and she looked back, but neither said a word.

  “I think this caterpillar is pregnant,” Ethan added, focusing on the bug again. He crawled toward it and, with shovel in hand, began cutting it in half.

  “Ethan, stop!” Don yelled, but his brother did not stop. He smiled as he dug the blade into the caterpillar. Dark green blood oozed thickly onto the porch.

  “I’m cutting the baby out,” the child said, again in that sure voice.

  Don wondered if the spirit of a grown man, or something, lurked within his brother.

  “No baby,” Ethan said as he dropped the shovel. “My mistake.”

  The caterpillar squirmed for a few seconds, then stopped. Don quickly buried it in the grass by the porch, then grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him back to their own yard.

  “I’m telling on you!” Don yelled as they walked across the large yard to the house. Don was so angry, he didn’t notice the German Shepard.

  When he did notice the dog, it was too late.

  It came barreling across the large yard and knocked Ethan down, tearing at his shirt. Ethan screamed. Don stood in shock at the spectacle, not knowing what to do. As he watched the dog tear into his brother’s clothes, shaking him around, a gruesome thought came to him: Maybe he should let it kill Ethan. That would end the constant worry about what his brother was or would turn into when he grew up.

  Ethan was evil. He killed a caterpillar just for the fun of it and almost killed Don himself when he pushed the mattress out of the way at Uncle Roland’s house. If he was that bad now, what would he be like in the future?

  Don didn’t know how long he stood there in indecision—it felt like minutes but was probably only seconds—but when he came out of his thoughts, he heard his mother screaming, “Ethan!” She then shot past Don and kicked the dog in the head.