A Smudge of Gray: A Novel

by Jonathan Sturak

She tossed the cabby some money, and then stepped into the street. The night air was cooler than in the city; it even smelled different. As she looked at the pillars guarding the two-story house, she didn’t even hear the cab pull away; all of her senses were on the mansion.

  Anne Marie ran up the driveway and looked into the windows. The curtains on the first floor were all drawn, but the lights spilled out around them. She wondered whether Brian was inside, wreaking havoc. She paused at the doorway and listened. She heard the sound of silence, a sound that scared her. Anne Marie pressed the doorbell. She could hear it ring. She held her breath, waiting to hear footsteps or to see a shadow filter through the stained-glass windows. She rang the doorbell again. After ten seconds of stillness, she pounded on the door.

  “Jonathan! Are you in there!? It’s your mom!”

  The house absorbed her words and taunted her with its might. Anne Marie ran around the side and knocked on the windows, but no one answered. She had to get in, but this house in the suburbs seemed impenetrable, just as it did all of her life.

  Anne Marie pressed on a window and pushed the glass, but it was locked. She contemplated whether her family was inside, and whether she should continue, but she had to confirm her instincts. She grabbed a long flat rock on the ground and used it to pry open the window. As she considered smashing it, a light flickered in her eyes. At first, she thought it was from a room upstairs, but then she realized it was from the house next to her.

  “Hey! I see you,” a strong male voice said.

  She heard the sound of a gun cock. Anne Marie ran around the house and into the street. Fear flowed through her as she lost her drive to continue. She felt defeated, even more so than in her apartment. But gone now was her safe haven, replaced by an unknown road.

  Anne Marie saw the lifeless stretch of pavement as she looked in the direction of the lights in the sky, the direction of home. She began to walk. It was the only thing she could do. She had to go home now to wait, just as her husband said to do. But she knew that she couldn’t wait forever.

  As she neared the corner, a pair of headlights approached. Her stomach sank. She wondered whether she should hide, but then she recognized the lights—the cab that had brought her there.

  “You need a ride back?” the cabby asked through the window.

  She nodded, and then entered.

  “Everyone needs a ride back,” he said, driving toward the city. He had realized the category that this woman fit—the wife searching for the secrets of her husband.

  Chapter 22

  Brian’s SUV spun around a turn, its rear tires crying. Jonathan jostled around inside with a smile on his face. He watched a car yield to his dad’s raging SUV. The twirling red light on the roof reflected off the glass windows of the downtown buildings, mesmerizing the nine-year-old. As Jonathan watched the bodies stop and stare on the sidewalk, a sharp right turn sent him grabbing for the handle. He clutched the plastic bag in his hand, which held the can of shoe polish.

  “Hang on to that, tiger. It’s very important,” Brian said.

  It was better than a ride at the amusement park for Jonathan. He loved sitting next to his dad, watching him speed through the early morning streets. Jonathan had no idea where they were headed, but it didn’t matter; he felt protected next to his father.

  “Where are we going, Dad?”

  “I have to run this stuff back to the lab. We’re on a mission.”

  Just as Jonathan held the bag tighter, he saw a row of twenty police sedans in front of a building.

  “Cool. Is that where you work?”

  “It sure is, when I’m not looking for bad guys.”

  “Are there bad guys in there?”

  “Some, but there are more good guys,” Brian explained.

  Brian parked in front and jumped out. He ran around and helped his son out into the cold morning air. Jonathan handed him the bag.

  “Thanks for keeping this safe,” Brian said.

  “How many guns are in there?”

  “A lot of guns. But hey, I need you to stay safe, okay? You have to be very quiet and sit where I tell you. Kids don’t usually get to go inside a police station.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Jonathan swallowed.

  Brian saw his son’s throat clench. “Hey. Pretend this is a game, tiger. Like when we played that virtual reality simulator at GameWorks. But I’m playing this game. You’re watching me this time.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

  “Come on, stay close,” Brian said.

  Then like that, Jonathan let his dad hold his hand and take him into the building. The nine-year-old absorbed everything as if through an amplifier. Uniformed cops shuffled. A group of handcuffed women cackled. A janitor sloshed a mop. A cockroach scampered.

  “This isn’t a fuckin’ daycare, Boise,” a deep voice said.

  Jonathan looked up and saw the chubby, cake-eating policeman wearing a scowl.

  “Hey, watch the language. My kid’s here.”

  “Exactly… I think you’ve lost it.”

  “Listen. I got something here,” Brian replied showing his colleague the bag.

  “Fuckin’ shoe polish?” the officer said.

  “Fuck you,” Brian mouthed, but Jonathan still heard him.

  Jonathan felt his stomach ache. He heard the F-word before, but only by bullies at his school. Jonathan didn’t like this fat man, even though he wore a uniform.

  The officer wandered away. A slender, shorthaired patrolwoman approached. Her eyes were squinted.

  “Beth. Can I ask a favor?” Brian said.

  “I’m not organizing your desk,” she replied.

  “Keep an eye on my son.”

  “Uh…”

  “Just for a few minutes. I need to have the lab run this.”

  “I have paperwork to do,” she said.

  “Come on. You owe me for those accounting numbers.”

  She hesitated.

  “Please,” Brian pleaded.

  “The captain will have my badge,” she said.

  “No. He’ll have mine. He won’t be in for hours. Come on, just a few minutes.”

  “Okay. But just a few minutes.”

  Jonathan watched as his dad stooped down to his level.

  “Hey, tiger. Can you go over there and sit next to Beth? She can show you her desk plants.”

  “Okay,” Jonathan replied.

  “I’ll only be a little bit.”

  Jonathan broke free from his dad’s side and walked with the female officer. He noticed the smell of something foul. It reminded him of the boys’ bathroom at school after the toilet had overflowed.

  “So, your dad’s a hard worker. You should be proud,” she said.

  “I am.”

  “What do you guys like to do?” she asked.

  “We play video games together.”

  “That’s great. If I had a son, I’d play video games with him.”

  Jonathan sat at her desk.

  “Just wait here until your dad’s done.”

  Jonathan smiled. She opened up her computer and started clicking through spreadsheet windows. As he watched her type, his eyes moved to a brown bamboo plant on her desk. Its intertwined stems were all dead, except for a green one still hanging on to life.

  “Hey, I need a copy of that report,” the chubby patrolman yelled.

  Beth sat up and rummaged through a folder. She pulled out several sheets. “I have to make some copies. Just stay here, okay?” she said to Jonathan.

  He nodded, and then watched her hustle away. As he sat there, he breathed through his mouth, trying to hide from the smell. He counted the desks on the floor and noticed the one in the back had the most papers. He wondered where his father’s desk was. As Jonathan studied the room, a few officers walked past. They didn’t even notice him. Jonathan looked around and saw a man in a dress shirt talking on the phone. A fan swirled above the man. The blades hypnotized the nine-year-old. He wondered whether it would hurt if
someone had grabbed them. On a nearby wall, he noticed a small basketball net hanging. Jonathan stood up and shifted toward it, calculating the net to be at eye level of his dad. He searched for the ball as he craved trying to dunk it.

  As he investigated, Jonathan saw a man covered in tattoos sitting in a chair with his hands behind his back. The man locked eyes with him. Jonathan wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. The man gripped him with his eyes, the same man who had gripped Jonathan’s mother.

  Shhppp! the man formed with his voice.

  Jonathan stood still.

  “Over here,” the man continued.

  Jonathan broke free and looked back at the desk.

  “Hey, the ball’s over here,” the man said.

  Jonathan turned to the man and saw the spongy ball under his seat. The nine-year-old wanted the ball, but was terrified at the sight of the man. Jonathan wondered whether he should go.

  The man reached under his seat and picked up the ball with his handcuffed hands. “Here. Take it.”

  Jonathan tiptoed toward the tattooed man. There was nobody around. It was as if the people had forgotten about the man, just as they had forgotten about the nine-year-old boy.

  The man extended the ball.

  Jonathan stared at the skulls painted on the man’s forearm. Jonathan remembered seeing them before in a video game he had rented. Skulls were the last boss in that game, and Jonathan was not able to beat them. He reached for the ball slowly, steadily. He was afraid that the skulls were going to bite him.

  “Take it. Go on,” the man continued.

  Jonathan inched closer. His eyes were fixated on the skull near the man’s wrist. Jonathan held his breath. But then, the skull lunged at him and clutched him.

  “Okay! Let me out of these cuffs!” the man roared, jumping up from his seat.

  Jonathan tried to break free, but he couldn’t. Beth ran toward them as well as two other officers. Others in handcuffs hollered. The janitor gasped.

  “Let go of the boy!” Beth demanded.

  “No! Take these fuckin’ cuffs off! You guys got the wrong guy!”

  “It’ll be okay,” Beth said to Jonathan.

  The nine-year-old saw the guns pointed his way. He started to cry. He tried to push and pull, but he was trapped. The man gripped him tighter around the neck. Jonathan couldn’t breathe. His lungs screamed.

  “Let him go!” another officer yelled.

  As Jonathan felt the skulls trap him, he saw a flicker in his eye. It was something moving fast—it was his father.

  Brian leaped through the air and tackled the man. The skulls relinquished their grip. Jonathan rolled away. The man went down. Brian pinned the man’s head to the floor with one of his knees.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry,” the man pleaded.

  “No one lays a hand on my kid!” Brian yelled as he picked up the man and tossed him back on the chair. “Book this asshole!”

  Several officers grabbed the man and dragged him away. Jonathan filled his lungs with life and let his dad help him up and hold him.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Brian said.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “It’s okay. Let’s get out of here.”

  Jonathan stared at no one as he grabbed his father’s hand.

  Chapter 23

  The high-rise apartment building that Brian Boise called home, sat under the sun like a plant conducting photosynthesis. The inside of the building was like the plant’s cells harnessing energy. The many homes flurried with kids waking for school and parents preparing for work, and the first shift workers were riding the elevators down. The building released people ready to flourish for the day, people who were like fresh oxygen from the healthy plant. Suddenly, a buzz filled the air like an angry bee that wanted inside the plant’s flowers. It was Brian’s SUV. The truck accelerated toward the building’s loading zone, and then screeched to a halt. A woman on the sidewalk jumped back from the unknown insect invading her space.

  Inside the SUV, Brian commanded the machine as Jonathan sat in the passenger seat like a kid playing a video game.

  “Everything’s okay now. I need you to go in and straight home. Tell Mom to sit tight and I will fill her in soon,” Brian instructed as he watched his son’s animated expression.

  “What about school?”

  “No school today, tiger. You go up and take care of Mom. Stay put until you hear from me. Okay?”

  Jonathan listened to his father and opened the door. The nine-year-old felt like a cop, a partner to a real police detective, since he had run around the police station with his father. Jonathan hopped onto the sidewalk with a grin that his father had painted on him for simply being his dad.

  “Okay, Dad. I had fun.”

  “Fun? You had fun?” Brian chuckled.

  “Yeah. I learned something too.”

  “Oh, yeah. What’s that?”

  “I learned never to believe the bad guys.”

  “Ha! I wish all the guys at the station knew that. Go now, son. I need you to protect Mom, it’s very important,” Brian explained.

  Jonathan slung his backpack over his shoulder.

  “And Jonathan,” Brian continued as Jonathan turned with open eyes. “I love you, son.”

  “I love you too, Dad,” Jonathan replied in a tone that massaged Brian’s ears.

  Jonathan shut the door, and then hustled into the apartment as if he had just selected a mission in a new video game. He didn’t turn around as he moved, but if he had, he would have seen his father’s loving eyes watching him arrive at safety.

  The morning sun filled apartment 1009 with life. The television screen mirrored the sun’s rays and bounced them toward the kitchen. Tranquility surrounded the home as the double-paned windows muffled the sounds of the morning traffic. The place was inviting like the house of one’s grandmother, except for one grave difference, the stench of cigarettes replaced the aroma of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Anne Marie sat at the kitchen table puffing her fourth cigarette. Her eyes were blood shot. Her hair was a tangled mess. And her normal softness had vanished, replaced by a rough chain smoker. She gave up smoking years ago when Jonathan had been conceived, but her old habit quickly returned when chaos filled her night.

  The lock clicked as Anne Marie killed her cigarette and scurried inside the living room. She watched as the door burst open and life appeared in front of her.

  Jonathan dashed inside and locked the door. Anne Marie ran to him and put her hands on his back. She wanted to ensure her son was in fact real, and not the image running through her mind all morning, ever since Brian’s erratic phone call.

  “Baby, are you alright?” Anne Marie asked.

  “Yeah, I was just with Dad,” Jonathan replied with a smile as if he entered level two of his game.

  “Come in the kitchen in the better light.”

  Jonathan set his backpack on the couch and followed his mother into the kitchen. He didn’t suspect any danger. His nine-year-old mind still thought life was limitless, and no matter what had happened, his invincible mother and father would always provide a protective hand. But as he watched his mother sit on the chair and face him, he could see the anguish in her eyes, and at that moment, he realized his mother, his protector, was no longer invincible.

  Anne Marie parted his brown hair and studied his scalp like the school nurse searching for lice, but this particular examination was not to thwart the spread of a hair-jumping insect; it was to thwart the demons plaguing a distressed mother.

  “Dad and I were on a mission,” Jonathan explained still in a sprightly mood.

  He hoped his mother would give an exaggerated smile like she did whenever he told her what he had done. However, she didn’t. Her mouth quivered as she looked at him with her brown eyes glazed with a layer of tears, a look that he never had seen before.

  “What happened, baby? Did he pick you up from Kevin’s?”

  “Yeah. He came by and picked me up. I think he doesn
’t like Kevin’s parents. He knocked out his mom.”

  “He knocked her out?”

  “Yeah. But the ambulance came, so we left.”

  “Where did you go then?” Anne Marie continued.

  “We went to the police station. He dropped off the picture Kevin gave me and shoe polish from Kevin’s dad. Then this guy in handcuffs with skulls on his arms grabbed me. Some cops pointed their guns at us. And then Dad tackled him.”

  “What? Oh my God. Are you alright?” Anne Marie said as she tried to comprehend scenes that petrified her.

  “Yeah, Mom. I want to be a cop.”

  “Where is your father now?” Anne Marie asked as she furled her eyebrows.

  “I don’t know. He wants us to stay here until he calls, and he doesn’t want me to go to school. Yea!”

  Anne Marie replied by pulling him closer. Jonathan felt the warmth from his mother. He positioned his head against her soft cotton robe as silence filled the kitchen. A moment passed of nothingness, but then Jonathan heard something—something grimly familiar, yet something that he had never heard before. It was the sound of his mother’s beating heart, which pounded in her chest like the evil villain looming in his video game. As Jonathan listened, he felt his mother’s body vibrate. He heard a whimper. Jonathan realized why his mother did not speak and why she held him tightly; she was crying.

  “Is Dad alright?” Jonathan asked as he pulled away.

  He looked into his mother’s eyes and saw something that frightened him—his reflection contorted by her tears.

  Anne Marie looked at the counter as Jonathan followed her gaze. Her eyes rested on the open bottle of whiskey and half-empty glass. She left everything just the way she had found it as if she were preserving it like a crime scene.

  “I sure hope so,” Anne Marie said holding her son even tighter.

  * * *

  Several blocks away, the glass of a parked Subaru reflected the sun rising above the awakening city. The streets were alive. Cars flowed. Street vendors solicited. And business professionals in their fall gear filled the sidewalks. Some strolled as they savored the morning, while others hustled because they had eked out the minutes of sleep before their morning start times.