When was something bothering him?
“…it made me think he was just in a bad mood…”
When was something bothering him?
“I could tell something was bothering him, about a week before…”
Jack turned around as though a hand had snatched him by the shoulder. He would not have been in the least surprised if his jaw had dropped and he was gaping openmouthed like a dumbstruck clueless wonder. Except he was the opposite of clueless. He was abundant with clues, and they terrified him. His head was throbbing, the back of his neck felt as though a hot drill was biting into it. He felt nauseated, like falling in a dizzying and depthless dream; and then he felt nothing.
There’s a moment when the toothache stops hurting, the broken arm, the fractured jaw; when the amount of pain the body is capable of generating, capable of tolerating, reaches its limit and the body goes into shock, the brain simply refuses to send the message and the pain goes away, or the nerve endings wear down before regenerating and delivering the next jolt. It allows you time to believe the pain has actually stopped, that the synapses really have shut off and gone numb, leaving you in the not-at-all-unpleasant state of insentience. You might even run your tongue against the infected molar, or try to flex the arm, work the jaw, or you might simply wait for the pain to return. Jack waited.
He waited for the nerve endings to come alive and the synapses to start to fire and spark, and when they did, he was surprised to discover that his entire body felt as though it were no longer held together by muscle and sinew and bone, but by electric current. His flesh felt like it was pulling away from him, as though he were, quite literally, jumping out of his skin, and he experienced a clarity of thought that was both startling and formidable.
He parked in the shadow of the moon, a half block away from Ainsley’s house, cut the engine and waited for the morning to come, for Ainsley to step out and extract his portion of fresh air and sunshine; and should his eyes come to rest on the spot where Jack was parked, if he recognized the car, what would he think? If he were to walk over, finding Jack unwashed and red-eyed, and ask “What the hell are you doing out here like this, Owens?” what would Jack reply? What pretext had he prepared? Or would he answer, flatly, evenly: “Ask your son.”
They should all ask their sons. Carl and Mandy. Arthur and Celeste. Vicki and Hal. Jack should have asked Danny when he still had time. When they sat together at breakfast—Which is more important, Dad, honesty or loyalty? When they met for supper and Danny couldn’t eat, when Danny couldn’t sleep.
But Jack hadn’t known what to ask. He didn’t possess the clear thinking that only a sleepless night can grant. He didn’t possess the understanding that only the baseball glove of a murdered little boy can present, that only the suicide of his son allowed. He was waiting for the morning to come so that he might put his understanding to good use, because he now knew what to ask.
He knew what to ask because the day Danny and C.J. and Brian and Rick cut school they witnessed Lamar Coggin’s murder.
Jack had been looking at it all those mornings when Danny sat silently at the breakfast table, and during those quick-grab dinners at the drive-in when Danny no longer had an appetite. It was there, he just didn’t know what he was seeing. But now he knew, because he knew Danny.
They’d probably never seen Lamar before, they certainly didn’t know him, but they saw him die. They saw who murdered him. They had the baseball glove to prove it; but they didn’t tell anyone about it. They witnessed a murder, they had to tell someone. Their parents. The police. They had to do something about it.
You can’t talk about the other boys but you know your own son. Danny would have told someone. He would have told you. He would have come to the office the day it happened, he would have looked nervous and agitated, trying not to cry, looking pale. He might not have known the right words, he might not have said it straight out, but he would have told you. Unless he was frightened. Unless something, or someone, had frightened him. You should have seen it, Jack. You should have known what to ask.
He shivered in the cool breeze and closed the car window. He stared at the dark houses set back from the sidewalk, and past the houses where the horizon, the sky, were darker still; alone in the night, grinding his thoughts.
C.J. had his car accident. Rick won’t go back to school. Brian is acting out all over the place. But Danny was the only one who killed himself.
He hesitated a moment. He told himself he was too exhausted to think straight, to get anything right. But he didn’t believe it. He did not doubt the veracity of his thoughts or his certainty. Marty had it wrong. Hopewell was right, after all. There was a “cyberkiller” luring boys into the woods, who had lured Lamar Coggin out to Otter Creek. Danny saw him, and he was afraid. He was afraid not because he could now identify him, but because he already knew him. Maybe he taught at Danny’s school, or maybe he was the man who makes conversation with young boys at the convenience store, or while he’s out for a run in the park, or hangs around the mall. Or he goes online…and he knew Danny.
Jack understood it. It made sense to him. All that remained was to get it over with and the sky showed no signs of daylight.
He waited for the morning to come. He now knew what to ask.
The dappled sunlight crisscrossed Ainsley’s dark green lawn. There was muted tranquillity here, the respectable babble of squirrels and birds, the soft tones of morning voices in doorways; coffee cups in one hand, good-byes in the other. There was order in the way people left for work, the way children were strapped into cars for the ride to day care. It was humanity breathing the air of the new day, taking that first assessing look around and liking the prospects.
After a while, Ainsley stepped outside to add his presence to the scene. He smoothed the front of his pastel sweater, stopped to look around with a satisfied expression on his suntanned face. He peered down the street, in the same absent way in which he watched the girl walk down the hall the other day. He looked in Jack’s direction and held the spot. Jack slunk down in the seat. He felt ridiculous doing it, but he stayed there, peeking over the dashboard until Ainsley, staring a few seconds longer, finally turned, smiled at his reflection in the windshield of his car, opened the door and drove away.
A few minutes later, Mandy appeared, with her impeccable makeup, the scent of her perfume no doubt splendid and fresh on her skin. She was smoking a cigarette, took three quick puffs while she slid into the butter-cream seat of her convertible and backed out of the driveway. Jack watched the car turn the corner before he got out and walked across the street.
He knocked on Ainsley’s front door, waited and knocked again. It was another minute before C.J. appeared. He looked pale and thin, his gym shorts and T-shirt hung sadly on his skinny body. There were dark purple welts just below his cheekbones, dark circles around his eyes. His lips were puffy. His nose had been rebuilt and was too small, too perky for his face. His right arm was in a sling, his left hand was leaning on a cane. He frowned at the floor and said meekly, “It was an accident.”
Jack said, “Yes, I heard all about it. You’re really busted up, aren’t you.”
“It was an accident,” C.J. repeated grimly, and Jack felt all of his thoughts, all of his assumptions, dissolve to nothing.
“Tell me why my son killed himself.”
XXIII
It was Brian’s idea to cut school. He said they needed a day of “pure relaxation.” He said they deserved it, besides, it would help Danny get over losing “the Big Game.” Danny told him, “You know damn well there’s nothing to get over.” Brian knew that, he just didn’t want to cut school alone. Friday was the best day: they could intercept the school’s absentee card in Saturday’s mail. Brian said he was “covering all the angles.”
They were going to meet at Danny’s house—the only house where there wasn’t a parent or au pair or housekeeper to spy on them—but it was too far to walk for C.J. and Rick, so they chose a place equidistant from eve
ryone’s house, the coffee shop at the strip mall over on Hollis and Oak.
It made them feel very mature to sit in a booth and eat breakfast. When they finished, they were surprised to see that it wasn’t quite nine o’clock. They were used to more structured time and the way it moved according to schedule, from class to class, from morning to lunchtime, and they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
They stopped at Grandview Pharmacy, bought hip-hop sunglasses and had a good time posing and mugging for each other as they paraded past the store windows and over by the gas stations and supermarkets, until it occurred to them that they’d better not be so conspicuous.
“What if someone who knows our parents sees us?” C.J. warned.
Usually they could hang out at a McDonald’s or Burger King, but even that was risky. Rick wanted to go to the movies, but it was too early for the first show, and besides, it was a sparkling day, why waste it indoors? C.J. suggested the fairgrounds, but there wasn’t much to do there except run around under the bleachers, swallow a lot of dust on the dirt track and scavenge for junk. Brian said Otter Creek was the place, no one ever went out there except weekend hikers; they could swim when they got hot, “sunbathe and chill.” So, they walked out to Otter Creek, each boy plugged into his Walkman, carrying his backpack, sporting his new sunglasses.
It was a long walk. They were hot and tired when they got there, and by the time they found a clear and shaded spot on the embankment by the creek, they’d taken off their shirts and were quick to pull off their sneakers and lie down barefoot in the cool shade. They didn’t do much else but listen to their music, shoo the flies and bees away, and talk aimless talk about cars, sports, high-tech games, and more serious talk about girls and sex.
Brian said, “I got into this chat room with some girl and she thinks I’m about twenty and going to IU. She wants to meet me and everything, but I was like, ‘I don’t know. Are you really as cool as you say you are?’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah. I really am.’” No one believed him, but it was fun listening to him, and exciting, too. He said he’d get the girl online sometime when they all were at his house; and they talked about what they’d say to her and how cool they were, until they exhausted themselves and were quiet.
When they started talking again, it was about what they were going to do after high school. C.J. couldn’t wait to get away from Gilbert. He said he’d given it “a great deal of thought,” and decided that he was going to go to college at Yale or Stanford and then to Harvard Medical School, “and never come back to Gilbert or see my parents, except maybe for Christmas when they’re like really old and drooling on themselves.”
Rick would settle for Purdue. He leaned back on his elbows, looked beyond the treetops and said he was going to be an engineer and he didn’t really care where he lived.
Brian said Rick was wasting his time getting a job right after college. He was going to take “at least a year off to travel.” Work could wait. “But when I do get a job, I’m going to make a ton of money, live in a mansion and have a hot-looking wife, all kinds of games and CDs, at least three cars. A vintage Beemer, a Mercedes SUV and a Porsche Spyder.”
Rick wanted to know where Brian was going to get the money to travel. “Duh. You’d better get a job, first.” C.J. sided with Rick. Danny said it all depended on how much time Brian needed. “It’s really a great idea. Take off for a year or two before making up your mind about what you want to do with your life.”
One thing they all agreed on: they were looking forward to summer vacation. Danny couldn’t wait to go up to Maine and be with the Danver boys. “They have their own sailboat and it’s awesome.”
Brian was going to Maine, too. Outward Bound on Hurricane Island.
C.J. said Outward Bound was really tough. Tougher than anything in Gilbert.
Brian said of course it was tough, that’s why he was doing it. He was sure it was nothing he couldn’t handle. “It’s also a great way to show girls that you’re cool.” That brought them back to sex. But it didn’t take them past noon or past their boredom.
For a while they lobbed rocks at the trees, then at each other, ducking and dodging and running around until they’d built up a good sweat and headed down to the creek, where they stripped to their underwear and jumped in the cold water.
At first, they were content to slide around and stand knee-deep in the shallows. Then they rode the current to a bend where there was a deep pool and they could swim, dive for stones and pull each other under. They didn’t notice that Rick was missing until they saw him standing at the top of the embankment beneath an old oak tree. There was a thick rope tied to one of the limbs and it hung over the bank by the water.
“Check it out,” Rick yelled. “Check it out. A rope.”
The other boys raced up to him.
Rick was shouting, “Check it out. Check it out. We can swing over the water and cannonball. It’ll be awesome.”
The rope was old and worn, the end moldy and frayed and about three feet too short for the boys to reach, even when they jumped.
Brian shook his head. “We could if we were gorillas.” Danny and C.J. laughed and grunted like apes.
Rick told them, “No. It’ll be awesome.”
“Yeah,” C.J. said. “All we have to do is climb up, grab the rope, slide down…”
“We could make it longer. With some of our stuff,” Danny said. He was the one who shinnied up the tree and onto the limb and tried tying their belts around the rope. But the lead belt just slipped off when he pulled on it. He tried tying their shirts to it, but that didn’t work, either.
“There’s got to be something in all the junk around here,” Brian said, and organized the search, kicking and scattering dead leaves and fallen branches, pushing through the bushes and the litter around the undergrowth. C.J. found the piece of clothesline. It was at least six feet long and caked with mud.
Danny crawled out on the limb again, wrapped the clothesline around the branch, but with a good strong knot. The clothesline wasn’t much longer than the old rope had been, so he tied the clothesline to the rope, about six inches or so above the frayed end, and let it hang down. Now it was long enough to reach.
“All right. Now we have enough rope,” Brian shouted. He grabbed the clothesline, took a running start toward the edge of the embankment and swung high over the creek, letting out a tremendous “Tarzan” call. He sailed through the air and sang out, “I’m flying…” brought his knees close to his chest and prepared for his cannonball and splash-down. But just before he reached the height of his ascent and the center of the swimming hole, the clothesline slipped off the rope and Brian came falling down, his legs spread out in front of him, screaming, “Oh shiiiit,” as he landed in the water. When he came to the surface, sputtering and spitting, he was waving the clothesline over his head.
“It’s fucked up,” he shouted, spitting out more water and swimming to shore.
This time Danny double-knotted the clothesline to the rope and Rick tried it out. Again the clothesline slipped off, just as he reached his peak. Then Brian and C.J. worked together tying the clothesline to the rope using one of the knots they remembered from Scouts, and Danny gave it a try, and again the clothesline slipped off.
Danny tried his best boating knot and C.J. put it to the test, and he fell into the water.
“Stupid rope,” Rick whined. It was just too worn and slick and the boys couldn’t keep the line from sliding off.
But Danny said, “Big deal, so we have to keep tying it, it’s better than nothing.” And they took turns tying the clothesline for each other, Rick tying it for Brian, Danny tying it for Rick…swinging over the creek, yelling, doing animal noises, screaming as they splashed down, making sure not to lose the line, swimming to shore, retying the line and taking off again.
They swam and jumped until they were so worn out they could barely pull themselves out of the water. Brian tied the line for C.J.’s jump, found a spot in the sun and lay down. C.J. told Dann
y, “You can go,” and sat down near Brian. But Danny was too exhausted for another jump and so was Rick, and they all lay tired and silent under the warmth of the sun wearing nothing but their new sunglasses and their drenched underwear.
“Brian,” Rick said, “your idea of ‘pure relaxation’ was totally inspired.”
“Way cool,” Danny said.
“Way, way cool,” C.J. echoed.
Brian raised his fists wearily above his head, absorbing the compliment.
Around one-thirty, they got hungry, which made them restless and irritable. Brian said they should have brought sandwiches from the coffee shop. Rick somehow blamed C.J. for this oversight. Danny said, “How can it be C.J.’s fault?” and told Rick to stop picking on him. C.J. called Rick a moron. Brian said they were both morons and to shut up. It went on like that for about fifteen minutes more, until they heard the crunch of leaves. At first it was only in the distance, then it got louder and seemed to be coming toward them. The boys rose up on their elbows. The noise stopped, started again, and was soon followed by a painful cry and wail, like a wounded animal. The boys now sat up, held their breath and listened closely.
“What the fuck?” Rick whispered.
“Shh.”
“It’s an animal.”
“A rabid raccoon, probably,” C.J. said. “We’d better get the hell out of here.”
Rick said, “Raccoons don’t come out during the day, numb nuts.”
“They do when they’re rabid.”
“Shh,” Brian told them.
Another screech and a wail, like a baby crying, then the sound of human laughter.
Forgetting they were practically naked, the boys walked slowly, quietly, or as quietly as they could, through the leaves and sticks and rocks. That’s when they saw the boy.
He was kneeling on the ground near his bicycle. His hands were wrapped around a small paper bag and he appeared to be squeezing it, and every time he did, the crying followed, while the boy laughed and rolled around on the ground clutching the bag to his chest, squeezing it and laughing louder. He did this several times, then reached into the bag, pulled out an orange and white kitten and held it by its neck, making its legs dangle above the ground. The more the kitten struggled, the more the boy laughed. He poked at it with a twig, tugged on its ears and swung it back and forth by its front paws. The kitten let out weak, pitiful cries.
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