The Tragic Age

by Stephen Metcalfe

  I turn back. Ephraim’s body is on the floor. He’s on his back. His glasses are broken. There is blood in his nose and mouth. His eyes are open and staring. Part of his skull is gone.

  It’s so easy.

  “Billy! Dude! Where are you? Billy?”

  I hear voices calling from somewhere else in the house. Maybe the people who own them will keep going. Maybe they’ll just leave. They don’t.

  The two of them enter the room, Twom raises his arm, as if trying to ward off the heat. The synthetic chemical smell of the burning couch stuffing suggests poison.

  “What the hell, man!” he says. “What the hell!”

  His eyes go from the burning walls to the floor. To Ephraim. To the gun on the floor.

  “Oh, Jesus…” Twom looks at me. “Billy…?” His look asks the question. Did you do this?

  “He did it himself,” I say. I wonder if I should tell him why. I don’t.

  Twom moves closer, bends down to view the ruin that is Ephraim’s head. He turns away, gagging. “Oh, Jesus, dude. Oh, shit.”

  “What a chingado douche bag,” says Deliza. She shakes her head, both furious and disgusted.

  I can’t believe it.

  “What?” I say.

  “He was an asshole!” Deliza spits the words at me. “He couldn’t do this at home?”

  I’m screaming at her before I even know I’m screaming.

  “Shut up! Just you shut up! You treated him like crap!” I should stop but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. Fists clenched, I start toward her. “Why don’t you get naked in front of his corpse, you bitch!”

  Twom quickly steps between us and pushes me back so hard, I stumble and fall. “Both of you just calm the fuck down!”

  “It’s all going to be just fine,” whispers Ephraim’s corpse.

  Twom picks the gun up off the floor. “We’re outta here,” he says. “Are you coming?”

  I don’t move.

  “Get out of here, Billy,” says Ephraim’s body.

  I don’t move.

  “Baby, we gotta go,” says Deliza.

  Twom hesitates. He shrugs. “Can’t wait for you, bro.” They turn and hurry from the burning room.

  I kneel beside Ephraim. I look down into his broken face. The world will keep turning. He was born too late, that’s all. Even his parents will find it easy to let him go. They can travel now.

  “Ephraim,” I say. “You were my friend.” Rising, I follow the only two that remain to me out of the house.

  64

  There are neighbors in the street but they back away when they see the gun in Twom’s hand. Turning to look back, I can see flames through the living room window. Somewhere in the distance I can hear the sound of a siren.

  Twom and Deliza leap into the car, Twom hesitating just long enough to aim the gun at a man behind the Mercedes.

  “Away from the car!”

  The man quickly steps back.

  “Billy! Let’s go!” I run down the walk and across the street. I clamber into the backseat. Twom puts the gas pedal to the floor, the tires squeal and we’re away. When I look back, I see the man is writing something down.

  “They have the license plate.”

  “Mierda!” says Deliza. “My father is so going to ground me.” I actually laugh. Being forced to stay home for the next three months or so without visitors sounds great just now.

  “Come on, Billy, you’re the brains, what do we do?” I can see Twom’s face in the rearview mirror. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in a panic.

  “I’ll tell you what we do,” says Deliza. “We’re going to Mexico. We can be across the border into TJ in forty-five minutes. My family has people there.”

  TJ. Tijuana. Mexico. As in come for our beaches, stay for our kidnappings and decapitations. Of course Deliza would have people there.

  “Billy? Come on, what do you think? Say something!”

  “Who cares what he thinks!” shouts Deliza.

  She’s right. I don’t even care what I think anymore “I need to stop first,” I say.

  They argue with me for a while but there’s no voting on this. It’s what we do.

  65

  I use the EZ pick to open the lock. It hardly takes a moment. I’m good at it now. I key in the security code. I had Ephraim get it for me months ago. I didn’t know why. I just wanted it. Maybe I was preparing for a night like this.

  I could sleep in this house. Even on the hardwood floor, I could curl up and sleep.

  Instead I stand and listen to the sound of Gretchen’s breath. Her hair is spread against the white of her pillow. She is on her side. I see the curve of her hip against the blanket. Her room smells faintly of the perfume she wore on Valentine’s Day. It makes me aware that my hair and clothes stink of smoke and sweat.

  The grandfather clock out in the hallway click-tocks, suddenly rumbles and then chimes once, twice, all the way to eleven times. It’s loud and yet I’ve never been aware of it when in the house before. The clicks and chimes of the clock rumble and then repeat and this time they feel like they’re proclaiming the hours of my life, passing, never to be reclaimed.

  The art of clock repair is dying. It, too, will never be reclaimed.

  The sound of Gretchen’s breath changes slightly. She stirs and then suddenly, as if sensing something, she sits up in bed. Holding the sheet and blanket to her chin, she peers into the darkness.

  I don’t want to scare her.

  “Hey. It’s just me,” I whisper.

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah. Surprise.” Trying to smile, trying to show her that nothing’s wrong, I step closer toward the bed. Gretchen doesn’t look alarmed as much as puzzled. “How did you get in?”

  “I broke in,” I say. I show her the EZ pick. It’s still in my hand.

  “I don’t understand,” Gretchen says.

  “All the break-ins,” I say. “The Night Visitors. It’s me.”

  If she’s shocked, she doesn’t show it. Maybe it’s not such a big deal, maybe if I can explain, she’ll understand.

  “We didn’t mean anything. Really. We were just hanging out. And then it got out of hand. It was stupid. I’m sorry we ever did it. I wanted you to know that. How sorry I am.”

  Outside, on the street, a car horn blares.

  “Who’s that?” asks Gretchen.

  “My ride,” I say, trying to make it a joke. The horn sounds again, then a second time, then the third time. How, the horn asks, can the soul create and influence anything if the soul is confused or even empty?

  “Listen, I’ve got to go,” I say. “I just wanted to say good-bye, that’s all.”

  “But—where are you going?”

  Gretchen throws back the covers and swings her feet to the floor, rising. Her thin nightgown is sleeveless and barely mid-thigh. It seems impossible that I could think of sex at this moment but I do. Maybe it’s impossible that I couldn’t.

  “You can’t just leave,” says Gretchen.

  “Yeah, I can. I want to,” I say. I back away. If I look at her another moment, I’ll turn to a pillar of salt.

  “You said you’d wait.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say. I have to swallow so my voice won’t break. “Ephraim’s dead.”

  “Who?” She looks confused, as if she doesn’t understand.

  “Ephraim,” I say, insisting. And then it hits me. “You don’t even know who he is.”

  Oh, Ephraim.

  The horn blares again.

  “I have to go.”

  We turn as the door swings abruptly open and the overhead lights come on. Dr. Quinn is wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Gretchen quickly moves between us. “It’s okay, Daddy, really, it’s okay.”

  But it’s not okay. We all know it’s not.

  “Gretchen, we asked you not to see this boy anymore. What is he doing here?” Dr. Quinn sounds quietly furious. Who can blame him?

 
; “I know,” Gretchen says. “Please, Daddy, we’re just talking.”

  “Talking? This is your bedroom, Gretchen. You’re in your nightgown!”

  I step forward, pulling Dr. Quinn’s attention to me. “Don’t blame her,” I say. “Blame me. I broke in and came up to her room.” I toss the EZ pick onto the bed. “And now I’m leaving.”

  As his eyes go to the EZ pick, I brush past him. As I go out the door, I hear Gretchen’s voice behind me.

  “Daddy, he’s running away.”

  The next thing I know, Dr. Quinn is in the upstairs hallway and following me. Gretchen is behind him. Up ahead, beyond the landing at the top of the stairs, Mrs. Quinn has come out of her bedroom and is pulling on a robe.

  “Go back to bed,” I say to her. “Please! Just go back to bed!” I’m pleading. I’m begging like Mom did with Gordon. Thinking you love people makes you out of your mind.

  “Billy,” says Dr. Quinn, on my heels now. “Billy, wait. I apologize. Let’s sit down, we’ll talk about it. We’ll call your folks if you’d like. This isn’t the answer to anything, son.” He doesn’t sound angry anymore, he sounds reasonable. Which makes him more dangerous than ever.

  “Jim, shall I call the police?” calls Mrs. Quinn. Her voice is flat and quiet. She is a hospital administrator, just as practical and calm in the face of calamity as her doctor husband.

  “No!” Gretchen screams back at her mother. “Go to bed!”

  “It’s all right, Kath,” says Dr. Quinn. And then he’s on my heels again. “Billy, I’m asking you to stop. Please, son, this is serious. You’re going to stop or I’ll have to make you stop.”

  We’re at the top of the stairs, on the landing, when he reaches for me.

  “Come on, son.”

  It happens so fast.

  His hand grabs my shoulder. I spin, hitting at it, wanting it off me, wanting to tell him I’m not his son, that I’m no one’s son or brother anymore, that there’s nothing but a monster in his house. Grendel, the personification of evil, a wild thing, is in his house.

  “Please!” I say again.

  It doesn’t work. Dr. Quinn grabs me with his other hand, holding me, trying to keep me still, and I’m twisting and struggling with him, trying to get away but not able to because he’s so much stronger than I am. I’m aware of the sound of frightened little-girl voices and I know it’s the twins. I want to tell them I’m sorry but there’s no time and I can’t talk. Grabbing the banister, I pull away. It’s then that my foot slips off the top stair and I start to stumble backward. Dr. Quinn grabs for me, doesn’t let me fall, but we’re both off balance. As I try to pull away again, his weight goes the wrong way and he staggers.

  It doesn’t happen like this. Just as with Ephraim, it could never really happen like this.

  Dr. Quinn and I, arms around each other, tumble down the stairs together. Dr. Quinn has turned into the fall so that I land on top of him. I can feel him trying to keep me there, using his body to protect me. I hear him grunt as his head strikes one of the hardwood balusters.

  Point of fact.

  A golf ball hitting a steel plate at 150 miles per hour is filmed at seventy thousand frames per second. In playback, it flattens, spreads like batter on a hot griddle, and then starts to rebound. A nose grows. The nose becomes a lopsided egg. Leaving the griddle, the egg inverts into a lozenge. The lozenge swells into a pear. The golf ball will never be more than a semblance of round again.

  Dr. Quinn and I slide to a halt at the bottom step. I’m still half on top of him. He doesn’t move.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I say to no one. “I didn’t.”

  Grendel, working evil in the world, did.

  “Daddy!”

  I look up to see Gretchen racing down the stairs. As I roll off Dr. Quinn, she gets to us and kneels. “Daddy!” she says again.

  On the landing, Mrs. Quinn is holding the girls tight to her body. The girls clutch at her robe and are crying.

  “Daddy, please,” says Gretchen, hands hovering over him.

  “Gretchen, don’t touch him,” yells Mrs. Quinn. She pushes the little girls aside and starts down to us. “Call 911!”

  Outside the car horn is keening nonstop. Or maybe it’s my brain. I get to my feet. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” No one is listening.

  I run.

  When I get outside, Twom shouts something hoarse, garbled, and unintelligible from the open window of the Mercedes. As I come across the front lawn and toward the driveway, I stumble and fall. Twom screams out the car window again. This time he repeats himself so I understand him.

  “Come on! Come on, come on, come on, come on!”

  It is not encouragement talking, it’s desperation.

  Or something along those lines.

  “You go ahead,” calls the oneirophrenia that’s filling my head with mad cow disease. “I’m gonna just lie here and beg for mercy.”

  Unfortunately I don’t say that.

  Getting to my feet, I hobble toward the car. Somehow I open the rear door and get in. The car is already moving. As Twom backs out of the driveway, I look back at the Quinn house. Lights are on inside. For a moment, I think I see Gretchen on the front porch.

  The car turns onto the street, and as it does, I lose sight of everything meaningful. I don’t have to look into the rearview mirror to know that the port-wine hemangioma, the badge of my emotions, is now a dark mask that covers my entire face.

  66

  It happens like this.

  Our cab comes east across Camino de la Plaza, passing the Las Americas Premium Outlet Center; over one hundred stores so popular they provide bus tours for shoppers on both sides of the border. The parking lots, sidewalks, and streets are still and deserted, and beyond the stores, looking south over the razor-wire fence that defines the border, you can see the light-dotted hills of nighttime Tijuana.

  It was so easy.

  Taking our time and never going faster than surrounding traffic, we proceeded south on Interstate 5. Traffic was light. We drove through downtown San Diego without incident. In National City we saw a patrol car pulled over to the side. The policeman was looking out for a motorist as he changed a tire. He didn’t glance up at us as we passed. Getting off the highway in Imperial Beach, we dumped the car in a hotel parking lot near the Naval Air Field. The cabs were waiting in front. In Spanish, Deliza told the driver where to go and how she wanted him to get there. The driver shrugged as if to say, it’s your money. We continued south avoiding the highway, Twom and I in the back, Deliza in the front, occasionally giving instructions, the driver shrugging and turning.

  Now, continuing east toward San Ysidro, we cross the interstate. Below us is the border crossing. On the east side of the bridge, our cab pulls to a stop at the corner of San Ysidro Boulevard. The street is empty. We get out. Deliza pays the driver. She has called her people. They are waiting for us. They are happy to welcome us to their country.

  The three of us turn and, hand in hand, begin the short but long walk toward the beginning of a new life.

  Never regret anything. At some point you wanted it.

  67

  The first police car picks us up just north of the San Diego City limits, possibly because the Mercedes has been reported, but more likely because we’re doing over a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It comes onto the Interstate 5 about a quarter of a mile behind us, its siren shrieking, the lights on the roof flashing.

  It’s amazing we’ve made it this far.

  In his mad dash to the freeway, Twom has been driving like a lunatic. We’ve come down out of the High School Highville on narrow, winding, residential streets going so fast that more than once I’ve thought we were going to end up in someone’s living room. On the flats, the boulevard widens and Twom goes faster still. He switches lanes, passes cars.

  “Are you trying to kill us or just get us caught?” I say. Twom ignores me. He runs stop signs and red lights. Horns bleat. Tires gag. Every other moment a collision
seems imminent.

  And now it is.

  Near the busy Saturday-night social epicenter of High School Highville South, we approach a four-way intersection. The light is yellow on its way to red, and passing two cars on the right, Twom runs it, yanking the steering wheel hard left. We take the turn in front of the oncoming cars and I’m thrown against the right door as the rear end of the Mercedes breaks out. It suddenly feels as if we’re going backward. Metal grinds against metal and the outside mirror explodes as we sideswipe a parked car. Twom counters the slide and I’m thrown back across the seat as we fishtail back across the center line and into the left lane. An oncoming car veers to get out of the way. With nowhere to go, it crashes into the cars that are parked along the curb. There are shrieks and shouts from pedestrians as they leap back out of the way. There are more blaring horns from angry, frightened drivers. Twom whoops with excitement. If he has any kind of future at all after this night’s over, it’s in either demolition derby or Nascar.

  The inside of the Mercedes is illuminated by streetlights and I can see that Deliza’s mouth is half open as if she’s panting with arousal. Her hand is in Twom’s lap.

  Fact.

  Five thousand American teenagers die in car crashes annually. There are no statistics as to how many of these crashes are caused by hand jobs.

  It seems like a good time to buckle my seat belt.

  Once on the interstate, Twom leans on the horn, going around slower cars when he can, blowing up on their rear fender when he can’t, riding them, screaming at the top of his lungs as if his yelling will force them out of the way. Deliza, in headache-inducing lioness yowls, urges him on, wild with excitement, ranting about all that’s in front of them, the places they’ll go, the things they’ll do, the babies they’ll have.

  I want to tell them both that they’re delusional, that no matter how fast we go, we’ll never escape what’s behind us now, not the cops and not the deeds done. But I don’t say a word. This is unreality TV and I’m just along for the ride.