“Why did you come in there?” Matthew said. The nurse had given him a square of gauze to hold under his nose if it started bleeding again. He had pushed it up into one nostril, really wedging it up there, making his voice pinched and reedy.
The Kid didn’t have an answer. The back of his head was pounding from where he’d gotten hit. His eyes were getting blurry, but he didn’t want to cry. He wanted to call his dad. He wanted to hear his dad’s voice on the other end of the phone.
“You didn’t think you were going to beat him up,” Matthew said.
The Kid couldn’t stop shaking. His hands, his knees. He could hear the vice-principal’s voice from behind the closed door, Brian’s voice saying something in response.
“Why did you come in there?” Matthew said.
The Kid didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t stop shaking. The room blurred and then he felt Matthew’s hand on his arm, Matthew’s hand holding his wrist, and they stood like that and waited for the office door to open.
Steve Rogers was lying in his corner of the porch when The Kid got home. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The house was empty. His dad must have already left for work. The Kid went through the house, turning on lights, his head and neck still throbbing from where he’d gotten hit.
He found his room torn apart. His room a disaster area. His clothes had been dumped out of his drawers, pulled from his closet. His notebooks had been pulled from the shelf. The cassette recorder and the tape he’d found were pulled out from under the bed. His calendars were out from under the bed. His dad must have found the calendars and gotten mad at what The Kid was keeping track of. His dad so mad that he destroyed The Kid’s room.
He took the recorder and the cassette and went back out onto the porch. Steve Rogers was still lying in his corner. The Kid wanted to tell the dog that he knew what was wrong with him, that he’d looked it up at the library. He knew it was stupid, but he wanted to tell the dog that there was a name for what was wrong, that there were books with pictures, and then maybe the dog wouldn’t look so wary all the time.
It was quiet on the street. No loud cars, no helicopters, no shouting. The Kid put the tape in the recorder, pressed Play. The gears took a second to start turning, gradually getting up to speed. He heard traffic noises and muffled voices speaking Spanish. He heard dogs barking and looked over to Steve Rogers and Steve’s ears perked up at the sound. Then a voice spoke, loud on the tape, the voice too close to the microphone.
“This is Whitley Darby,” the voice said. “Also known as The Kid.”
It sounded like a little kid on the tape. It sounded like a little kid trying to make his voice deeper. The Kid almost didn’t believe it was him on the tape, that he sounded like that. That this was his voice.
“Tonight I’m turning the show over to a very special guest host, a person who needs no introduction.”
The Kid switched off the recorder. He couldn’t do it fast enough. He knew what show this was. He remembered this show. It was from a year ago, last fall, right around the start of fifth grade.
He’d woken up in the middle of the night to find his mom sitting on the edge of his bed, gently shaking his shoulder. Wake up, she was whispering. I can’t sleep. Let’s go downstairs and sit, she said. Just for a little while. Not for long, just for a little while.
The Kid didn’t know what was going on. His mom acting nervous, afraid. They went down to the living room, the house quiet and dark. His dad away at work. Three-thirty in the morning, according to the clock on the VCR. Even the late-night talk shows were over; even the hosts were in bed.
His tape recorder was sitting on the coffee table. How about an episode of your show? his mom said. How about a special episode? He shook his head, told her that he was tired. He couldn’t think of any guests, any questions. He didn’t know why she’d woken him up in the middle of the night, why she was acting that way.
I can’t sleep, she said. I’m just having some trouble sleeping.
She took his hand and led him out onto the porch. They sat on the top step. She had the recorder in her lap.
What if I’m the host? she said. Just for tonight. What if I fill in for you?
She switched the tape recorder on, handed him the microphone. Her hands were shaking, and when The Kid looked at her hands she stuck them between her knees, clamped her knees tight. He was so tired, but his mom seemed so strange, so afraid. He held the microphone up and she nodded at him to start the show.
He made his introduction and held the microphone out to her. She gave him a weak smile, a forced smile. She pulled her hands from her knees, took the microphone. Cleared her throat.
This is Lucy Darby, she said. Honored to be filling in for Whitley on this installment of his popular and long-running show.
The Kid looked at the dog. Steve Rogers was still in his corner, legs stretched out, watching The Kid. Maybe The Kid didn’t want to hear the tape, but maybe the dog would like to hear it. Maybe the dog should hear her voice. Then he wouldn’t growl or bark when she came back. Then he’d know her. He wouldn’t snarl when she finally turned down the street, when she came up the driveway, scaring her away.
The Kid stood, carried the recorder over toward Steve’s corner. Slowly, carefully, no sudden moves, nothing to spook the dog, nothing to make him want to lunge and attack. The dog watched him approach. The Kid placed the recorder on the porch a couple of feet from the dog’s outstretched paws. He pressed the Play button and turned and sat back down on the steps, away from the dog, and there was her voice, just like he’d remembered it, his mom’s voice on the porch, the dog looking at the recorder, his head cocked to the sound.
He’d taken a pair of latex gloves out of his toolbox and drove wearing the gloves. The gloves would prevent the contamination from spreading any further. It took him longer to get home than it should have. He drove slowly, carefully. He was worried about the contamination and the rain and the alcohol in his system.
He found The Kid sitting on the porch steps, not far from the dog. The Kid didn’t ask him where he’d been. Probably figured Darby had been at work. Darby asked The Kid why he was out on the porch and The Kid wrote that he couldn’t sleep.
He wanted to ask The Kid about dinner, if he’d eaten, what he’d eaten. He wanted to fix dinner, but the speck was in his mouth and he couldn’t open his mouth to eat. He went up to the bathroom, peeled off his gloves, scrubbed his hands and face in the sink. The soap wasn’t enough. He could get in the shower, but water wasn’t the problem. Soap was the problem. He could go to Everclean, use the showers there, but then he remembered the flames on TV, the unanswered calls on his pager. He scrubbed his hands, he scrubbed his face, but the soap wasn’t enough.
He didn’t know what time it was. Late. The Kid should be in bed but Darby needed to get himself clean. He steered The Kid back outside to the truck. He wore another pair of gloves as he drove.
The supermarket shone brightly in the night. The electric signs, the floor to ceiling windows at the front of the store. They came through the sliding doors into the fluorescent glare. The store was busy, small lines at four or five checkouts, carts in nearly every aisle.
The Kid went to look at the magazines. That was fine. They wouldn’t be there long. Darby found the aisle with the detergents, the cleaning supplies. He moved down the aisle, scanning the packaging, finding nothing but perfumed hand soaps and body wash, no disinfectants, nothing like the industrial-strength powders and sprays at Everclean. He pulled a boxed bar of soap down from the shelf, opened the box, shook the bar out into his hand. This soap wouldn’t work. Too soft, too gentle. He shoved the bar back into the box, dropped the box on the floor. Pushed past a couple of carts to the household cleaners. Rows of aluminum cans with brightly colored plastic caps. He scanned the labels, sweating through his shirt. He found a can in the middle of the aisle, top shelf, something that looked industrial-grade. A no-nonsense black & white label, a block of small-type hazards and precautions. He took the can from th
e shelf, shook the can. He could feel the speck in his mouth, but he didn’t want to touch his mouth again. There was a list of viruses on the can, but he didn’t need to read the label to know the list. He knew the list. He shook the can, popped off the cap. Herpes Simplex Type 1, Herpes Simplex Type 2; Hepatitis A, B, C. He knew the list, he lived with the list.
He pulled off the gloves and sprayed his hands with the cleanser. The pain when the disinfectant hit the dog bites was a searing, white hot thing. A woman shopping a few feet down the aisle turned, watched. Darby sprayed again, coating his entire hand. He could still feel the contamination from the speck on his skin. He dropped the can to the floor. It rolled away, clattering down the aisle.
A woman called out, Someone get a manager, please.
He tried another can, spraying both hands, spraying up his forearms. More people gathering in the aisle, watching from behind their shopping carts. He dropped that can, picked another off the shelf. Tried that can. He could no longer feel his hands, had trouble working the nozzle.
The manager entered the aisle, a pear-shaped man in a striped dress shirt. He made his way toward Darby, squeezing between the onlookers, the parked shopping carts. He made a face when he smelled the disinfectant. He looked at Darby’s wet hands, the cans of cleanser scattered on the floor. He asked Darby if he could help with something, asked if Darby needed some assistance.
“Give me a second,” Darby said. “This will only take a second.”
The manager cleared his throat. Darby cleared his throat in response. Of course. He knew what to do. He could get rid of the speck once and for all.
A woman waiting with her cart said something to Darby. The manager made a shushing motion to her, and then he said something to Darby, something about blocking the aisle, about having to leave the store.
Darby shook his head. He wasn’t finished yet. He shook the can of cleanser, opened his mouth, coughed, spat. It was hard to shake the can when he couldn’t feel his hands.
Shoppers were watching from both ends of the aisle now, three and four carts deep. The manager signaled toward the far end of the aisle. A uniformed security guard made his way toward them, squeezing though the tangle of carts.
“Just give me a second,” Darby said, his mouth open, fumbling with the spray can, unable to get his numb fingers over the trigger tip.
Someone said, Get him out of here. Get him out of here before he does something.
The manager said, Please, please, everyone take it easy. Please.
“Just give me a second,” Darby said. He had his finger on the tip, his mouth open wide, aiming the can.
A woman screamed, Get him out, get him out, get him out.
A hand on Darby’s arm. Darby thought it was the manager, the manager had laid a hand on him, or maybe the security guard, attempting to drag him out of the store. Darby forced his hand into a fist, what he thought might be a fist, turned, ready to swing. But it was The Kid. The Kid’s hand on Darby’s wet forearm. The Kid standing between Darby and the manager and the crowd behind the manager. He’d got in through the crowd and the carts somehow, his eyes wide, scared.
The Kid wrote something in his notebook, big block letters across two facing pages. He turned and held it up for everyone to read.
EVERYTHING IS OK. THIS IS MY DAD.
Darby dropped the can. The Kid pulled Darby along with one hand, held his notebook up with the other, showing it to the crowd on each side of the aisle, keeping them at bay, moving forward slowly toward the front of the store. The crowd backed up as they approached, unclogging the aisle. They walked past the checkouts, The Kid showing his notebook to all sides, warding off the crowd, pulling Darby through the front doors and out of the store.
five
They drove home from the supermarket, his dad with no expression on his face, just staring straight through the windshield, not saying a thing. At the house, The Kid got out of the pickup, went on up to the porch. Steve Rogers watched from the corner, wagging his tail, happy to see them. The Kid opened the security door, the front door. His dad hadn’t locked either of them in his rush to get to the supermarket. The lights in the house were still on. The Kid turned back and saw his dad sitting in the truck, the engine still running, the dome light on. His dad’s head was down, looking at his lap. His dad was sitting on his hands. The Kid went back out and opened his dad’s door. Turned the car off, took the keys out of the ignition. His dad said nothing. He took his dad’s arm again, led him across the lawn, up onto the porch.
The Kid took him back to the old bedroom. He didn’t know where else to take him. The bedroom was cold and dark, smelled like dust and stale air. He sat his dad down on the bed, pulled off his boots, his socks. Tipped his dad back until his head touched the pillow. His dad’s eyes were still open, staring at the wall. He tucked the sheet all around his dad, over his feet, in at his sides, pulled it up to his chin. His dad wrapped like a mummy in the cold bed.
He had done this before. This was not a new thing. There had been times when he’d woken up in the middle of the night and heard noises down in the living room, in the kitchen. His dad away at work, the house dark except for the streetlights through the windows. Downstairs, his mom would be standing in the living room, in the kitchen, in front of the desk in her office, unsteady on her feet, swaying in place. Empty bottles and glasses in the sink, sometimes glasses broken in the sink, in sharp pieces on the kitchen floor. Her hands at her face sometimes, holding her face. Her hands up at her ears sometimes, pushing in, like there was something she didn’t want to hear.
He’d take his mom back to the bedroom, sit her on the bed. Take off her shoes, lay her back onto her pillow, cover her up. He’d pick up the glass pieces from the kitchen floor, from the sink, careful not to cut his fingers. Sometimes he was careful enough, sometimes he wasn’t. Red blood from his fingertips, from a slice across his palm. The soft whirring of the VCR in the living room, taping the last of the late-night talk shows. His mom back in the bedroom, not sleeping, just saying, oh god oh god oh god. The Kid picking up glass, looking at the clock on the microwave. How long until morning? How long until sunlight through the living room window? How long until his alarm clock, until breakfast, his mom sitting at the kitchen table, normal again, smiling as he came down the stairs? The night before forgotten, the night before a thing of the past. How long until sitting on the couch with the tape of the talk shows playing, that safest hour before school? The Kid making his mom laugh with his impressions of the hosts, of the guests. On those nights, The Kid picked up glass, looked at the clock, did the math trying to see how long.
He stood in the kitchen listening for sirens. He was sure that the people at the supermarket had called the police, that the police were coming and would take his dad off to jail. He listened for he didn’t know how long. He heard plenty of sirens, but the police never came.
He got his backpack and the cassette recorder, the tape he’d taken from the garage. In the kitchen, he packed some cookies and juice boxes. He didn’t want to leave his dad, but he had to bring Michelle some food. He was already very late. She was probably starving. He went out onto the front porch. Steve Rogers was lying in the far corner, watching The Kid, his eyes glinting in the streetlight. The Kid thought that maybe he should give Steve Rogers an order, maybe he should tell him to protect his dad, not to let anyone in the house, not to let the police near, but he thought it would be pretty stupid to write the orders in his notepad and show it to the dog. Instead, he stood on the porch and thought of the things he wanted Steve Rogers to do while he looked the dog in the eye. Finally Steve Rogers looked away and The Kid hoped that maybe this meant he had gotten the message.
He stood across the street from the burned house, slowing his breathing, listening for signs of trouble, looking for faces in the windows of the neighboring houses. After he was sure that no one was watching, he ran across the street, up onto the porch, eased open the security door, stepped inside.
He didn’t want to ge
t hit with a block of wood again, so he knocked his knuckles on the wall just inside the door, the secret-code knock from all sorts of old movies, the tune of an old-time song that his mom used to sing while his dad was cutting his hair on the front porch, Shave and a haircut, two bits. The Kid had no idea what that meant, but it was the well-known secret code knock, and he hoped Michelle would hear it and know it was him, put down her two-by-four.
He made his way through the front room, down the hallway. The living room was pitch black, no light from the candles. He knocked on the wall again. Shave and a haircut. No response. He listened for breathing. Maybe Michelle was asleep. He didn’t hear anything. He stepped into the room, shuffling his feet across the floor to make noise, to wake her up before he got too close and scared her into action. In the center of the room, he could see some comics and the candles in a ring on the floor. Only one candle was still lit, just barely, the wick burned down to a nub. He expected Michelle to jump out at any moment, knock him to the floor, but nothing happened. The room was empty. He walked back through the house. She wasn’t in the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom, looking at the burned bed, the charred walls. There was nobody in the house. The Kid couldn’t believe it. She had gone to Minneapolis. She’d been telling the truth. Her real dad had sent money and now she was sitting on a bus, riding across the night-world of the map, the empty highways from The Kid’s dream. Free, away from here.
The word search book was gone. She must have taken it with her, something to do on the bus. He looked across the floor. The rabbit was gone. His dad’s rabbit. He’d placed it there as some kind of protection, something to ward off trouble, but he didn’t think that she’d take it with her when she left. He didn’t really think that she was going to leave.
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