Kiss of the Wolf

by Jim Shepard

  It was his friend Brendan. “You get it?” Brendan said.

  It took him a second: the lacrosse helmet. They’d figured Todd’s father would get it for his confirmation. Todd had mentioned it in a letter to his father with that in mind.

  It felt like if he was going to say something, he had to do it now, before he kept going with this other life.

  It took him too long to answer. Then he said, “The helmet?”

  “Du-uh,” Brendan said. “No. The Uzi. Whadja think?”

  Again, it took him too long. “What’s wrong with you?” Brendan said. “You get it or not? You didn’t get it?”

  “Yeah,” Todd said.

  “Yeah you got it or yeah you didn’t get it?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “What colors?” Brendan said, exasperated. “J’ou get any team?”

  “White,” he said. “It’s all white.” He pulled the phone cord over to the window. His mother was still sitting up, looking at the house.

  Brendan was doing something on the other end while he talked. “I thought you were gonna get Syracuse. You gonna be around?”

  “Now?” Todd said. He put his hand over his eyes.

  “No, Easter. What ‘now’? Acourse now.”

  “I was goin’ out,” Todd said. He looked around the kitchen, like a lie would be written there for him to say. “I was gonna go do something.”

  Brendan asked him what. Todd didn’t know.

  Brendan was getting fed up. Todd put his hand on his hair and rubbed it like he was shampooing, and said to come over now, then.

  Brendan made a big sarcastic point about how grateful he was and said he’d be over. Todd wanted to say, You can’t come over because my mother killed somebody last night. He hung up the phone.

  His mother was still looking toward the house. He went onto the back porch and cranked open the window.

  “Who was that?” she called. He could hear the shakiness in her voice, and he felt like a terrible son, suddenly.

  “It was Brendan,” he said. He wasn’t sure she could see him, with the morning sun on the screen. “He said he was coming over.”

  She kept looking a minute and then turned back to the garden. Audrey was in her sphinx pose in the dirt between two rows of tomatoes, watching.

  He wandered around the house doing nothing.

  He sat on the back porch with his hands together.

  Brendan took his time. When he finally got there, Todd let him in the back. Brendan walked in and sat at the kitchen table like someone going to a restaurant. He was wearing surfing jams and a white Portland Trailblazers tank top that had a picture of their front line standing there with their arms folded under the words JUDGMENT DAY. He found Todd’s dish of M&M’s from the night before and ate a few. Todd felt like the M&M’s had given him away, somehow. He stood there until Brendan finally said, “So where’s the helmet?”

  Todd looked at him a second longer and then realized the helmet was in with all the other presents in the car.

  “The helmet,” Brendan said.

  “It’s in the car,” Todd said.

  Brendan dropped an M&M back in the dish and stood up. He stretched. Todd realized he was supposed to be leading the way. When he didn’t move, Brendan gave him another look and headed out the door. Todd followed him.

  His mother turned around again and said hello. She waved a little three-pronged rake or scraper. She watched them head to the garage. She peered at Brendan’s tank top.

  “Where’re you going?” she asked Todd. Her voice was a little high.

  Todd said he was going to show Brendan his stuff.

  “In the car?” his mother said. Did Brendan have to see it now? She started to get up.

  But Brendan was already in the garage. He went right to the backseat and opened the door and pulled out the lacrosse helmet. On the floor next to it, he found the Viking helmet.

  Todd kept trying to lead him out of the garage. Brendan kept pulling free and going, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the Viking helmet. He put the lacrosse helmet on the hood and tried to pull the Viking helmet onto his head. Todd could see the dent on the bumper right below the lacrosse helmet.

  His mother put her hand on his shoulder. She asked if they didn’t want to get out into the sun instead of hanging around the damp, smelly garage. She gave his shoulder a squeeze.

  “Let’s get out and look at it in the sun,” he said.

  Brendan was having trouble getting the helmet over his ears, even though it was a large and it was the real thing. He sat up on the hood of the car and held the helmet in front of him by the earholes.

  Todd squeezed around to the front and stood by the dented bumper. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. His mother headed back outside.

  “Todd, are you coming out?” she asked.

  He reached for Brendan, who pulled his arm away. “Let’s sit in the grass,” Todd said.

  “In a minute,” Brendan said. The helmet was halfway on and was squeezing his head like a grape.

  “Todd,” Joanie said.

  “Ma—” Todd said. She left the doorway.

  “So can you give me a ride Wednesday night?” Brendan wanted to know. He pulled the helmet all the way on and snapped the chin strap. It made his face skinny. He looked around, enjoying the view through the facemask.

  “A ride to what?” Todd asked, distracted.

  “Ad Altare Dei,” Brendan said. He was playing with his wristbands. He and Todd always wore wristbands. They thought it was cool. Todd wasn’t wearing his. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Oh, God,” Joanie said, outside the garage. She was out of sight around the corner.

  Ad Altare Dei was the religious medal Todd had signed up to go for. All the old altar boys had. You were eligible right after confirmation. It meant “to the altar of God.” It was like six weeks of classroom work at night about the Scriptures and catechism, and then interviews with your priest and the bishop, and if you passed you got a medal. They gave it out at a ceremony in front of the whole diocese.

  “What’d you, forget?” Brendan said. “Wednesday night’s the first night.” He was whapping himself on the side of the helmet with his open palm.

  “You look sick,” Brendan said. “You gonna yack?”

  “I gotta get outside,” Todd said. “You can stay in here.”

  He left the garage and sat in the grass. The grass was warm, but the damp came through his pants immediately. He imagined Brendan in there alone, in his Minnesota Viking helmet, noticing something, looking closer at the front bumper.

  Nina’s car cruised up the driveway, popping gravel on the blacktop. Audrey stood up in the garden and trotted over, barking.

  Todd’s mother put her hand to the back of her neck. “Just what I need right now,” she said.

  Brendan came out of the garage.

  Nina rolled her window down. She drove with the windows up, even if it was 104 out. She worried about getting colds in places like her ears.

  “J’ou hear what happened?” she called to Joanie. She was leaning her head out the window and squinting. Audrey came over to the car and put her front paws up on the door, licking the air near Nina’s face.

  Todd’s mother returned her hand to her side. Her eyes reacted.

  “No, what happened?” she said. She turned back to the garden, like she expected to hear Nina say they called off the sale at Stop and Shop.

  Nina said it was terrible. Tommy Monteleone: they killed him out on Route 110. Somebody, hit-and-run.

  Todd stood there. His armpits sweated.

  Brendan sat in the grass next to him. He was trying to eat a KitKat bar through the facemask instead of under it.

  Todd’s mother turned around. When he saw her face, he thought it was all going to come apart right then.

  “Tommy Monteleone?” she said. “It wasn’t Tommy Monteleone.” Then she put a hand up to her mouth, as if realizing what she’d done. He looked away. It was like
even their mistakes seemed fake, now.

  “How do you know? Were you there?” Nina said. She sounded irritated. Todd recognized her tone: nobody ever listens to me.

  “Tommy Monteleone?” Joanie asked.

  “Not Tommy Tommy the father,” Nina said. “Tommy the son.”

  “Little Tommy?” Joanie said.

  “Little Tommy,” Nina said. “Tommy Monteleone. Lucia’s son.”

  Todd’s mother stood there, her mouth open a little bit. She braced herself with one leg.

  “I know. It’s a sin,” Nina said. “Terrible. Just terrible. Let’s go.”

  Tommy Monteleone: Todd was trying to picture him. He’d met him twice, maybe, at a wedding and a wake.

  She was leaving the car running. What’s the rush? Todd thought. Is he still on the road?

  It was another one of those times he imagined God peering down into his soul the way he might peer into an old garbage can.

  “I’m going over there now,” Nina said. She revved the car, like she was demonstrating. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Joanie asked. She shook her head like there was a fly around it. She was still holding the little three-pronged rake.

  “Lucia’s,” Nina said. “Are you all right? C’mon. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t think I should go,” Joanie said. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be bothered—”

  “Get in the car, you don’t think you should go,” Nina said. “The woman’s boy is run over on the street, you don’t want to pay your respects? What do I tell her, you’re working in the garden?”

  Joanie looked at the garden and then at Todd. “Isn’t it a little early? They just got the news.”

  “They heard last night. We’re not gonna stay long,” Nina said. “Just stop over. I got some soup and some lasagna. They can heat it up.”

  “I better change,” Joanie said.

  “Go like that,” Nina said.

  “I got dirt all over me,” Joanie said. She hurried for the back door. “I’ll be one minute.”

  Inside the house, she called, “Todd, get the dog off Nina’s car.”

  Todd took Audrey by the collar and pulled her down from the driver’s-side door.

  Nina settled back to wait. She put her head against the headrest.

  “Is he going to be able to get that helmet off?” she asked, nodding her head at Brendan. “Wait’ll Bruno sees everybody else wearing it but you.”

  “How did you hear about Tommy Monteleone?” Todd asked.

  “I called Lucia, I was trying to organize a bus trip,” Nina said. “You imagine? I’m calling about that, her son’s dead.”

  Todd let go of Audrey’s collar. She shook herself and stretched and drifted back to the grass. “They know who did it?” Todd asked.

  “They don’t know. What do they know? I didn’t hear a thing about it on the news,” Nina said. “Put the dog in the house. You gonna go like that?”

  “Me?” Todd said. “I’m going?”

  “Sure you should go,” Nina said. “It’s not gonna kill you. It’s a nice gesture. She’ll remember. We’re only gonna drop the food off.”

  “Brendan’s here, and stuff. Maybe I should stay with him,” Todd said. He felt a rush of air that seemed to start at the top of his head.

  Nina peered at him. “Did he just lose a son?” she asked. “What is it with you people today? Don’t start with me. We’re talking five minutes here.”

  “He just came over,” Todd said.

  “What’s he, live two houses down?” Nina said, exasperated. “Get in the car. Put the dog in the house and get in the car.”

  Todd grabbed Audrey by the collar without calling her and dragged her toward the house. She thought she’d been bad and went limp, so she was harder to pull. Brendan watched him struggle, with a little smirk.

  “Take the helmet off,” Todd said, frustrated. “I gotta go.”

  “Can I keep it on till you get back?” Brendan said.

  Todd’s mother came out of the house. She looked grim. “Let’s go, if we’re going,” she said.

  “Take it off,” Todd said. “I gotta go.”

  “You’re going?” Joanie said. “You don’t have to go.”

  “He should go,” Nina said. “Don’t you start with me now. I just went through all of this with him.”

  “Ma, what’s he have to go for?” Joanie said.

  Nina swore.

  “You got the other one,” Brendan said. “Why can’t I keep this one till you get back? You ain’t gonna use it.”

  “Ma, he can’t go,” Joanie said.

  “He can’t?” Nina said. “Why can’t he?”

  Brendan was hitting his facemask with his palm from different angles. Audrey sniffed the air around him to try and sort out what he was doing.

  “Get in the car,” Joanie said, angry. “Grandma’s decided you have to go.”

  “I’m going,” Todd said. “I’m going.”

  “So I can keep the helmet till then?” Brendan asked.

  “Take it off,” Todd said.

  Brendan yanked it off his head like someone pulling taffy. When he got it off, his ears looked like he’d been out three hours in the dead of winter.

  “I’ll see you later,” Brendan said disgustedly.

  “You can come back,” Todd said.

  “Yeah. I’ll get right over here,” Brendan said.

  Todd got in the car. Nina put it into gear. They backed down the driveway. They passed Brendan, who didn’t look up. “Now he’s mad at me,” Todd complained.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Nina said. “Worry about me.”

  They drove without anybody saying anything. Todd rolled his window down.

  The Monteleones lived in Lordship, ten minutes away.

  Todd’s mother was looking out her window. He was dizzy and a little sick. He had a fantasy that they had the body there and they were going to make him touch it.

  Nina adjusted her side mirror, and he could see his eyes. He thought, What you’re doing now: this has to be some kind of sacrilege.

  “You gotta move outta Milford,” Nina said. “You’re not near anybody. Milford. You know whose idea that was.”

  She meant it was Todd’s father’s idea.

  They went over the Devon bridge. The metal part in the middle made the noise under the tires he remembered from the Merritt Parkway bridge the night before.

  “Lucia said they said he was dead before he hit the ground,” Nina said. “He wasn’t dragged or anything. Least he didn’t suffer.”

  “Ma,” his mother said.

  Nina shrugged. Todd closed his eyes so tightly he saw lights behind them.

  “How old was he?” his mother asked. She was still looking out her window.

  “How old could he a been?” Nina said. “He was born five, six years after you. So what’s that make him? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

  They drove on. Bradlees’, Spada’s Blue Goose Restaurant, Avco-Lycoming Industries.

  “It’s a sin,” Nina said.

  “Have they told Perry?” Joanie asked. Perry was Tommy’s younger brother. He was in the Navy.

  Todd’s hands were in his pockets. He heard one pocket starting to rip.

  Tommy was coming back to him. He’d been an usher at the wedding. He’d been behind Todd in the line to use the men’s room. He’d said something to him. He’d had his jacket and bow tie off and his sleeves rolled up.

  “Try WICC,” Nina said. “See if they got anything about it.”

  Joanie fiddled with the stations. She got WICC. The local news opened with contractors and fraud on a municipal project near Seaside Park, a lot of money disappearing. It ended with a mention of the Bridgeport Rosary Society’s bake sale, still a week off.

  “I don’t believe it,” Nina said.

  They passed Sikorsky Airport and the decommissioned runway. Grass was growing through the cracks in the tarmac. At the light, they pulled up next to a terrier with one of its front legs in a spli
nt, apparently waiting to cross the street.

  “They’re probably waiting to make sure they notified the family,” Joanie said.

  “The family knows,” Nina said. Todd flashed on all the crying and misery. He imagined himself in the middle of it, responsible.

  The Monteleones lived on Spruce Street. There was only the one car there when they pulled in. “She’s all alone?” Joanie said.

  “Maybe Tommy Senior went out,” Nina said. She shut the engine off and opened her door. She waited for a minute, listening. Then she got out. She leaned into Todd’s open back window. “Stay here. I’ll see if she’s in any shape. Give me the box.”

  Todd handed up to her the carton with the Pyrex dishes of soup and lasagna. She crossed the lawn to the front steps and set it down to get a better grip on it.

  “I can’t believe this,” Joanie said. She put her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and Todd could see them shaking.

  “Are we gonna tell them?” he said. But he couldn’t imagine doing it. He couldn’t imagine anything that was about to happen.

  Nina climbed the steps, holding the box with both arms. She tapped the screen door lightly a few times with her foot.

  “You didn’t recognize him?” Todd said. “When you went over to him?”

  “I didn’t look that close,” his mother said. She was upset.

  He slid down in his seat, hiding from the house.

  “How often have I seen Tommy Monteleone?” his mother said. “Three times in my life?”

  The Monteleones’ screen door was open, and Nina was handing the box through.

  “He had a mustache,” his mother added. “The guy we hit didn’t have a mustache.”

  “I don’t wanna go in there,” Todd said.

  “Didn’t he have a mustache at the wedding?” she asked.

  Nina was talking to whoever was on the other side of the door, probably asking if this was a bad time.

  “Of course this is a bad time,” Joanie said.

  “She’s probably like you, after Dad left,” Todd said. He meant Mrs. Monteleone. “She probably doesn’t want to see anyone.”

  His mother didn’t say anything.

  The screen door swung closed, and Nina grabbed it. She turned to the car and waved them in.

  Todd scrunched down lower. “Ma, we can’t do this,” he said.

  His mother brought both hands together over her face and then moved them apart, rubbing her eyes. She opened her door. “C’mon,” she said.