Kyle chewed and shook his head. Mouth full, he mumbled, “Who wanna play a man’s jack-in-the-box?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I said it anyway.
“I do.”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28
It was technically the next day, slightly past midnight.
All the Halloween decorations were now up in our neighborhood. Poster board skeletons in the windows, cotton cobwebs on the shrubs, plastic pumpkins at the doors. They were the same ones every year, and most were dirty or fading. They definitely weren’t scary. In the night fog they looked more desperate than anything.
There were three of us standing in knee-high weeds along the side of the road. Me and the Dwyer brothers. Kyle had driven us to the far corner of the neighborhood and had parked his van in a patch of dirt almost out of view. In the center of the road, under the weak glow of streetlights, he had placed a cardboard box, flipped over so its top was down and its flaps were spread like four rectangular wings. All eyes were on that box.
Kyle stood between us and pulled us in with his spindly arms. “And men and boys and mice and men and all that junk. Tonight we settle the question of who is brave and who wears maxi pads.”
“You’re bluffing,” Charlie said.
Kyle cocked his head. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Charlie replied. “You wanna convince us to get under that box and then you’ll get in the van and rev the engine and pretend like you’re gonna run us over so you can see us jump out all scared.”
Kyle turned to me. “Does that sound like something I’d do?”
I shrugged. It did sound like something he would do, but I was wary of any direction this could be headed. I wasn’t about to choose sides.
Kyle laughed, a cackle he reserved for his wildest moments. Or his drunkest moments. I was beginning to suspect they were one and the same. He squeezed our shoulders, then pushed us away. He stumbled toward the box.
“Pioneers. Pioneers. Grab the ladies and pour the beers!” he shouted.
“Should we stop him?” I asked.
Seething, Charlie shook his head.
When Kyle reached the box, he lifted it and wore it like a mascot’s costume. It covered his body down to the elbows, which he bent so he could stick out his forearms and hands. Tottering in place, he spoke like a robot. “I am Charlie. Beep beep. I play video games. Boop boop. I have no fingers. Blop blop.”
“He’s a child,” Charlie whispered to me. “I’m a man. And he’s a child.”
I couldn’t argue with that. There were times when I liked Kyle, but this wasn’t one of them. Especially as he pulled his arms all the way into the box and then crouched down until he was completely hidden. As far as any driver was concerned, it was now just a box. To swerve around. Or to squash.
I looked up the road and said, “This can’t be good.”
“It’s his stupid game,” Charlie shot back. “Let’s see if he wins.”
Betrayal. I wasn’t sure what qualified. He hates this life! He hates this place! Who knows what he might do to himself. We have to get him out of there! I could have said any of these things, but was it a betrayal to protect someone by revealing his secrets? I thought it might be. So I kept quiet. And we waited.
First there was a glow up the road at the crest of the hill. For a moment, that crest might have been the edge of the Earth, the bright and shapeless void where everything falls away. Then there were headlights and only headlights. Yellow and ripe and growing wider as a car moved closer. It was really happening. I had to say something.
“We’ve gotta—”
Gauze brushed my shoulder and two fingers jabbed my neck. “Down,” Charlie commanded.
When I didn’t heed, he made me heed by kicking me in the back of the knee and toppling me. Mud splattered the underside of my chin. The weeds revealed their husky browns as the first blush of headlights drenched them and us. I pulled my head up to see the car—a Jeep, actually, with a ripped fabric top—bearing down on the box.
Twenty yards. No brakes yet.
Ten. Blinding light now.
It wasn’t going to …
There wasn’t time.
Kyle was …
It hopped. That’s my best description for what the Jeep did. It didn’t swerve. It seemed to launch itself to the side at the last moment, wheels leaving the ground and landing inches from the box.
Blame it on adrenaline, but that’s how I remember it. I also remember the Jeep didn’t slow down. It whinnied away into the night, its taillights streaking the sky with wisps of red.
Finally, I remember the box flying in the air and Kyle, triumphant in the center of the road, raising a fist and shouting, “Pop goes the weasel!”
It should have been over at that point, but it wasn’t. Kyle did a victory lap around the box and then centered it in the road again. Grinning, he rejoined us. From the weedy mess he plucked a long blade. I could tell he wanted to put it in his mouth and chew it like a toothpick, but it came out with earth still on it. He chucked it to the side.
“That was so scary,” I said. Wonderful too, but I left that part out.
“It was stupid, is what it was,” Charlie said.
“Who’s next?” Kyle asked.
I turned to Charlie. “No chance,” he told me.
“So it’s established,” Kyle said. “Charlie is a woman. How ’bout you, Alistair? Pink undies under those jammies?”
Yes, I was wearing pajamas. There had been no opportunity to change into more suitable clothing, so I was standing there in checkered fleece and a down vest. Not exactly the attire of a daredevil, but perhaps I had the makings of one yet. My exhaustion had morphed into a numbness that enveloped my body. Aroused by the spectacle of Kyle cheating death, my heart fed the numbness and I felt damn near immortal.
“You’ve played this before?” I asked Kyle.
“About a billion times.”
“Gimme a break,” Charlie said. “Let’s go home.”
“And no one’s ever gotten hit?” I asked.
Kyle thumbed his chin, a thinker pose. “That’s a mystery now, ain’t it?”
“I guess it would have been all over the papers and TV if someone had ever been hit while playing this,” I said. The logic seemed flawless.
“Maybe,” Kyle replied. “Or maybe they don’t run those stories because adults don’t wanna fill your baby bwains with gore, gore, gore.” He reached over and scuffed Charlie’s hair, and Charlie ducked away.
“We can deal with stuff like that,” Charlie said. “We’ve seen R-rated movies.”
“And I’ve seen X-rated ones,” Kyle replied. He pointed to the box. “So who’s next?”
I stepped into the road.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Charlie said. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely concerned for my safety or if he was only competing for my loyalty.
I kept moving. I knew if I thought about it too much, I would change my mind. So I simply crouched down in the center of the road and pulled the box over me like I was a tortoise and this was my shell.
I had no idea what might happen next. My only clear feeling was that I didn’t want to be alone. It wasn’t my parents, or my sister, or Charlie, or Kyle that I needed. It was Fiona. I imagined her there with me, holding on to me, telling me that we would see things through together. It was a fresh and strange and terrifying and glorious feeling, and it spread through my entire body until I realized that Fiona was more than someone I wanted to help. She was someone I wanted to be with … all of the time.
As I cradled these thoughts, I pressed my nose against the pavement. It was just north of freezing and smelled earthier than I expected. I clawed it, like an animal starting a burrow. It was pavement, all right. I brought my fingers to my ears. I didn’t want to hear any car until it was right upon me. I didn’t want to think about what might happen if I was hit.
Would I be crushed? Would I fly? Pain doesn’t always arrive immediately, so would it maybe even feel tra
nscendent, if only for a second or two?
No. It would feel horrible.
My numbness was fluttering away, and I had only a vague idea about what it meant to be drunk, but I decided I wanted to be drunk like Kyle. Anything other than what I was. How nice, I thought, how very nice to be obliterated. Or to be asleep. To turn the dial of my mind down to its lowest setting.
And that’s when—in the moment of my thickest loneliness and doubt—the box moved. It brushed against my knee and rose up around me like I was a roast pig being presented to a king. For Fiona to be holding the box would have been miraculous, but this wasn’t that type of moment.
It was the type where Charlie was holding it.
“Get out of there,” he pleaded. “I hate this game. I hate it so much.”
I looked up at his gauzy hands, sandwiching the cardboard. He couldn’t reach down to help me up, so I stood under my own power. I took the box from him and placed it back in the road. And then I hugged him. I can’t remember ever hugging Charlie before, but I did it then, and I peered over his shoulder to Kyle, who was still standing in the grass with his chin up and his hands engaged in the politest of applause.
“Precious. So in love.”
“Scumbag,” Charlie growled.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“Let’s go,” Charlie said.
And we did. The two of us walked up the road together, away from Kyle’s cackles and his muddy jeers. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone, yet I wasn’t entirely sure this was how I wanted the night to end. Because when headlights appeared at the crest of the hill again, I began to regret my retreat. Surely this car was going to swerve. Minutes from now, in some alternate universe, Kyle and I would be the ones walking up that road together.
When the car screamed past us, I looked back over my shoulder. The car struck the empty box full-force, flattening it and sucking it under and kicking it out with a back tire. A gust of wind then opened the box and puffed it into a cylinder and spun it in place for a moment before depositing it next to a storm drain.
Kyle, arms to the heavens, voiced his approval. A rapturous howl marauded through our sleepy neighborhood.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29
The rest of Saturday was a lost day, spent bed- and couch-bound. I tried not to spend it thinking about the fact that Charlie had saved my life. Reminders would come early and often.
By Sunday morning, I was back to normal, at least physically. My eyes were open as soon as the dawn came in through the window, but I stayed under the covers and watched the rising sunlight sweep across my posters, including that one of Prudence and her Lamborghini.
The doorbell rang. I answered.
“Hey,” I said. “I was worr … wondering what happened to you.”
There was a different version of Fiona at my front door. This was one with stockings and pulled-back hair, with makeup and a skirt and a small leather handbag. Not the Fiona I was accustomed to, but I was so relieved to see her.
“Do you have nice shoes?” she asked.
“Like wedding ones?”
Her mouth was smiling. Her eyes were not. “Like funeral ones.”
“Oh no, it’s not—”
“My grandma. It was time. The wake is today. I’d like you to come.”
* * *
The funeral home did seem almost like a home, but the tiny details weren’t there. No framed photos on the bookshelves, no slippers poking out from under the chairs. The casket was set in a room with plaid couches and enormous windows. Our blacks and navy blues looked deep and rich in there. Vegetables and dip and pastries sat on a table as far from the casket as possible, and that’s where many lingered, whispering and nodding and hugging and shaking hands. Even cracking jokes. Not many, but a few, perhaps inspired by good memories of Fiona’s grandmother. I’d come to learn her name was Phyllis. Phyllis Loomis. Not the most unfortunate name, but certainly a mouthful.
Except for Fiona’s family, I didn’t recognize most of the people there. To be honest, I hardly even recognized Fiona’s brother and sister anymore. Derek and Maria were at least nine or ten years older than me. College students, maybe even out in the world working real jobs. Occasionally, during the holidays mostly, I’d see them driving down the street in their beat-up sedans. Otherwise, they weren’t part of the neighborhood anymore. Keri used to rave about how cool they were. She’d fawn over Derek’s frayed jeans and his weightless bangs or Maria’s frilly dresses and her steel-toed army boots. But that was when they were teenagers. Hair trimmed and thoroughly buttoned, Derek and Maria looked like regular people now. Regular adults mingling with other regular adults.
Standing next to Fiona’s dad at the snack table, I noticed that he had lost some of his hair in the last few years and had resorted to a comb-over. He was an angular man, with a large chin and sunken eyes, and when he spoke to people it was with a deep yet soft voice. It was because of that voice that I always thought of him as a sad person, but maybe that wasn’t fair because I was comparing him to my dad, who was so quick with boisterous jokes and tales.
When a ruddy-faced minister turned away from Mr. Loomis to carve a slice of cheese, I took the opportunity to offer my condolences. Since I was the only one Fiona invited to the wake, I had to speak for our family. “My parents and sister want you to know that you’re in their thoughts,” I told him. “All of you.”
“Very well, then,” Mr. Loomis said, offering no indication as to whether he recognized me or not, and he stepped away from the table to talk to an elderly woman who placed a hand on his cheek.
On the opposite end of the room, Fiona’s mom received a line of well-wishers. She was fair-skinned and dark-haired like Fiona, with sharp blue eyes and a mole on her forehead. I wasn’t sure if she was pretty or not. She could have been. Some of my early memories featured her walking through our yard barefoot, pointing out different birds and plants to Fiona and me. Out of everyone in Fiona’s family, she seemed the most at ease at the wake, clinking her wine glass with the glass of every passerby and saying, “To Phyllis, a hell of a gal.”
You could chart the similarities in their noses, their cheekbones, the curls in their ears. The Loomis family members were clearly related, but as they wandered around the room, I could also see how clearly divided they were. They didn’t talk to one another. They hardly looked at one another. I would have thought that this was a time for kids and parents to band together, but instead they were all on their own.
I remembered a comment that Fiona made when she first started telling me her story. She talked about a time when “we used to do stuff as a family.” Used to. I had thought nothing of that phrasing at first, but watching the Loomises now, it made me wonder if they even knew how to do stuff as a family anymore.
As for Dorian, he was sitting in a rocking chair. His hair was tied in a ponytail, and his beard was trimmed. He wore a blue blazer and khaki pants like someone who christens boats. I tried not to watch him, but the movement of the chair kept drawing my eyes back in his direction. When people came by to pay their respects, he didn’t stand. He would plant his feet for a moment and shake their hands and mumble a few words, then resume his rocking. His face was placid.
“Would you like to have a moment with Phyllis?” the funeral director asked when he saw my eyes turn to the casket.
“Yessir.”
It was the only answer that seemed appropriate. The director must have thought so too, because he guided me forward with an experienced hand. As soon as we were standing next to the casket, he backed away. Alone, I looked at Phyllis.
Ridged and pocked, her face wore all of its years. Her eyes were closed, and I wondered if they wore their years as well. They had seen depressions and world wars and silent movies and all these things I thought of as black-and-white things. What did that face and those eyes look like seventy years ago? In black-and-white, were they a version of Fiona?
And what about in their last moments? Did Phyllis die peacefully in her sleep, as
everyone at the wake was saying? Or did something more sinister happen? Did that face feel a pillow smothering out the world? Did those eyes see Dorian?
Surely a doctor had examined the body. Foul play was something doctors could detect. Or so I hoped. I didn’t really know for sure, and again, I wasn’t about to make accusations without more solid evidence.
“I’m so sorry … for whatever happened,” I whispered to Phyllis, and I gave the casket a little pat, like it was a good pet, and I turned away.
Fiona intercepted me on my way back to the snacks. “Will you go for a walk with me?” she asked.
“Always.”
* * *
She chose the cemetery. It was only a couple of blocks away, and she said she wanted to see the hole before they filled it. All four of my grandparents were alive. Aside from my goldfish Humbert’s funeral, I didn’t have any experience with this sort of situation. It seemed a reasonable thing to want to see.
An open grave is almost as you would imagine. Rectangular. Deep. But there are roots and stones and clay and remnants that make the walls seem marbled and pulsing with life. I thought about how strange it would be to put a shiny new coffin in there. It seemed more natural to bury a body as is and let it dissolve into the earth.
“You go into a movie and it’s a dark place,” Fiona said softly, looking at the hole. “The point is to be distracted. I have this fear, and I’ve had it since I can remember…”
She looked around, but it wasn’t like she was searching for witnesses. Maybe she was searching for a reason to stop talking, to shut the heck up and return to the wake, but I told her, “Go on.”
“I’m … I’m afraid that I’ll be sitting in the front of the theater, and I’ll get so wrapped up in the movie that I won’t notice until it’s too late that everyone around me is dead. The whole theater, murdered, still sitting in their seats. And me in front of them, oblivious, completely entranced by the movie.”
It was a puzzling thing to say, so my response leaned toward logic. “Then sit in the back row.”
The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) Page 10