The man at the front door forgotten for the moment, Garraty took the handle of the refrigerator and pulled the door open. A full 30-pack of Pabst rested on the bottom shelf, and on the one above it, an open carton with about ten cans left. Garraty sighed. Fuck. He opened the freezer and found three full bottles of Popov vodka. Sam Farber was probably able to close his package store early after this particular run. He must have spent close to two hundred bucks—two hundred bucks he didn’t have to spend. Christ, was there anything left in his checking account? He had, what, one more partial paycheck coming, and weeks to wait before he could start collecting the pittance that was unemployment money. Why had he ever stopped pouring the beer out, back when he had a thimbleful of resolve and the heady rush of good intentions? He looked over to the counter, where he’d left the carton of Pabst when he got home yesterday.
Dried vomit festooned the wall over the sink, and a vile pool filled the bottom of the basin. Chunks of what looked like egg and potato floated in the thick liquid, and ropes of bright red blood streaked through the mess. Crusted dribbles ran down the under-counter cabinets and formed a puddle on the worn linoleum below. More blood. Christ. He must have ruptured something when he was heaving, hopefully just a capillary and nothing major. Was he slowly bleeding out inside?
The knock came again, still polite, but with a little more force this time.
Luis couldn’t see this. No way, no how.
“One more minute!” he called. Garraty yanked open the utility room door and tugged a plastic garbage bag out of the box from the shelf. He shook it open and went into the living room, where he hurriedly gathered up the cans on the floor, trying to keep quiet. On the way to the bedroom for some clothes he tossed the bag into the kitchen, out of sight. What seemed like a lifetime later, he thumbed back the deadbolt and pulled the door open. The first thing he noticed was the light. It was all wrong. Where it had been pink when he awoke it had deepened to orange. It wasn’t morning at all, it was evening. Been out longer than I thought. Garraty found the thought worrisome. He stepped out onto the top step and pulled the door closed behind him.
Luis looked up at him from the little patch of grass that served as a yard, an apologetic expression on his olive face. His hands clasped one another at his waist. Behind him, near the passenger door of the pickup, the dead boy stood watching Garraty through half-lidded eyes the color of old pennies. He felt his scrotum pull tight.
“How you doing, Joe? You okay?” the smaller man asked.
“Been better,” Garraty said. He couldn’t look away from the boy. This close, he could see the dirt and blood on the kid’s clothes, the cobwebs in his hair. The ice scraper was gone now, and the split down the center of his head seemed smaller. His waist no longer had that screwy skew to it. Like he’s getting better. Healing. Garraty imagined the boy reaching up with one of those smashed arms and pulling the scraper out of the crevasse in his skull with a wet, sucking sound, and his sour stomach rolled over in a lazy flop.
Luis glanced over his shoulder. “What you lookin’ at, Joe?”
“Toomey,” the dead boy said in an ancient, creaking voice.
Garraty forced his gaze back to his friend. He tried to smile, but it died on his lips. “Sorry, man. Guess my mind was wandering. What can I do ya for?”
“Toomey,” the boy repeated, and took a shuffling step forward.
Garraty bit back a scream. He felt the cords in his neck straining.
“I need to give you something,” Luis said, and reached around to his back pocket. He pulled out a single sheet of paper, folded lengthwise, and handed it up to Garraty. “I’m sorry, Joe, I tried to talk her out of it.”
“Toomey,” the boy said, this time with force. He took another of those shaky steps, waving one shattered arm for balance. Something seemed to gleam in his eyes. Down deep, where his soul is, Garraty thought.
He unfolded the paper and saw the River Bend letterhead. “What is this, Luis?”
“They want you to move out at the end of the month, esse.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “She call the boss after what you did on Friday.”
Garraty looked over the letter. “What do you mean ‘after what I did’? What did she say?”
Luis stared at the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes. “That you was looking out the window at her and playing with yourself, and then you came out and she thought you was coming over to rape her. She say you wasn’t even dressed.”
“Jesus, Luis! And they believed her? Did anybody think to ask why she didn’t call the cops on me if I’m such a danger to civilized society?”
The boy swayed back and forth like he was trying to keep his balance in a strong breeze. His mouth was shut for once, thank God. Almost like he was listening to their conversation. Garraty thought he could smell the faint odor of shit.
Luis shrugged. “Don’t know what they did, Joe. I just know they sent me that letter to give you.”
“C’mon, man, you know me. You know I wouldn’t do something like that. When I woke up yesterday the trailer was as hot as a sauna, so I opened the bathroom window while I was taking a leak. There’s no way she could see anything, and I sure as hell wasn’t beating off.”
Even as the words were coming from his mouth Garraty realized how they sounded. Just like every other pervert that made the news. I wasn’t exposing myself to those schoolkids, officer, I just forgot to wear a belt and my pants fell down.
“I ain’t talking about yesterday, Joe,” Luis said. Wrinkles furrowed his tanned brow. “This was Friday.”
The dead boy took another wobbly step forward. He was close enough for Luis to reach out and touch now. A sprinkling of cigarette ashes dotted his dark hair, gray and white like dandruff. Deadruff.
Garraty squeezed his eyes shut, both to block the view of Toomey and to concentrate. With his good hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose to push back against the headache. “What day is this, Luis?”
“It’s Tuesday, Joe. Din you know that?”
Christ. He had a four day hole in his memory. How could he have lost so much time? He’d never done anything like that.
You’ve also never seen a dead person walking.
“You din know what day it was, Joe?”
Garraty heard the scuff of shoes on concrete and opened his eyes. The dead boy had moved closer, and now stood right next to Luis. Close enough to wrap Luis in those shattered arms and press his cold cheek against the man’s warm one. Close enough to whisper his name through stiff lips, tickling the hairs on Luis’s neck with his breath. But the boy wouldn’t do that, would he? No sir, he only had eyes for Garraty. Half-lidded ones, crusted with dried blood.
“Toomey,” the boy said. “Wadded!”
A new word. He’s learning to talk again, Garraty thought. This time tomorrow he’ll be asking me if I have any Grey Poupon. Or in his case, Poop-on.
Unable to stop himself, Garraty tittered.
“You sure you’re okay, Joe?” Luis cast his gaze to his left, toward the dead boy, then back at Garraty. “You’re acting a little weird. No, a lot weird.”
Acting like someone who’d peep out his bathroom window at a little old lady and beat his meat, that look said. Garraty giggled harder, and clapped one hand over his mouth.
“Wadded!” the boy insisted. His voice reminded Garraty of the low creak of old hinges he’d heard from the house when he was burying the boy, right before the thing had thumpscraped its way across the floor overhead. “WADDED!”
Christ, kid, would you shut up? I can’t hear myself think. I’m in some serious shit here, and I can’t concentrate.
“Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Of course I know what day it is. I was sleeping when you knocked, and I’m still fuzzy. Just confused for a second. This has been a real shitter of a week. I got laid off. Downsized.”
Oh, and I killed that boy standing next to you. The one that won’t shut up.
As if he could read Garraty’s thoughts, the dead boy muttered, “Toomey.”
He shuffled a step closer to the bottom step. The shit smell washed over Garraty, as strong as it had been the night he dragged the boy through the crawlspace to his grave. His stomach rolled. Another step and the boy would be able to lay hands on him. Would his fingers be icy, like they were in his nightmare? Garraty thought maybe they would. He wanted nothing less in the world than to feel them on his skin.
The expression on his friend’s face transformed from suspicion to concern. “Chit, man, why din you tell me? That’s fucked.”
“And now this.” He held up the letter.
“Wadded,” the boy groaned, and shuffled forward. Touching distance now. Garraty saw the glint in those old penny eyes once more. Inner fire.
Luis’s frown deepened.
“Hey, it’s not your fault she’s a cunt,” Garraty said, amiably. He tried to smile again and this time found that he was able. “I could go for a beer. You up for one?”
Because if he touches me, Luis, I might scream.
Luis nodded and smiled, revealing small square teeth that reminded Garraty of shoepeg corn. “Always ready for a cerveza, my man.”
Sorry kid, nothing for you. Stay out here and stew in your stink.
Not that Garraty expected the kid to stay out here. Not for long, anyway. That was the thing about hallucinations. They didn’t obey the rules. The boy would show up wherever his mind wanted him to, because that was how insanity worked.
Garraty turned and opened the door, and led Luis into the darkened trailer.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning at the couch. A beer would hit the motherfucking spot right about now. Make this latest shit sandwich a little easier to swallow, too. Maybe with the kid silenced for the moment he could think of some way to deal with the situation that didn’t end with him having to find a new place to live. Tina would have a field day in court if he got evicted, and if she managed to get her hands on a copy of that letter... well, he didn’t need to think about that right now. Luis could help resolve this. Get a few beers in him to grease the skids and see what the two of them could come up with. The darkness should keep the vomitorium that was the kitchen hidden.
Garraty got two beers out of the refrigerator. He considered a quick nip from one of the bottles of Popov to kick-start things but decided against it. Last time he did that he lost four days. Save it for later. For celebrating, when this trailer shit was worked out. He went back to the front room, where Luis had turned on a lamp and parked himself at one end of the overstuffed couch.
“Kind of stuffy in here, amigo,” Luis said when Garraty handed him the Pabst. “Smell like stale beer or something.”
Or something, the voice in Garraty’s head added.
“Planning to air it out tomorrow,” he said. “Need to do a little spring cleaning anyway.”
Inside and out.
Garraty popped the tab on his beer and took a sip, resisting the urge to tilt his head back and let the thing chugalug down his gullet.
“I won’t lie to you, buddy. I’ve been piled up in here for the last few days, drowning my sorrows.”
And I don’t remember a goddamn bit of it.
“I hear you,” Luis said, nodding. “I been through the mierda you have, I take some days to drink, too.”
You don’t know the half of it, Garraty thought, tipping his can toward his friend.
The doorknob jiggled, clickety clack, and Garraty’s hand spasmed. The beer slipped free and tumbled to the carpet. It landed base first, and the impact sent up a foaming gold geyser that splattered across Luis’s beige work pants. Like a cumshot in a bad porno, Garraty thought. Bring me a fluffer!
Giddy laughter boiled in his chest, threatening to bubble up into his throat, and Garraty clenched his left hand, pushing his fingernails into the gash across his palm. Don’t help the woman’s case, asshole. A bolt of pain set his hand afire, but it quelled the giggles.
“What the hell, man?” Luis said. “What are you doing?”
Through the door, a faint voice said, “Toomey.”
Garraty didn’t like the way the smaller man was looking at him. The rat-faced cunt at GE had looked at him that same way on Thursday, right before she fired him. Dial it back, buddy, or he’s going to want you to move out. Right now he’s on your side, but if you keep this shit up, you’re going to lose the one friend you still have.
“Shit, Luis,” he said. “I’m sorry. It slipped. Let me get you some—”
The knob rattled again, harder this time. Garraty could see it twitching beyond Luis, rocking back and forth as the dead fingers on the other side worked at opening the door.
“What you keep looking at?” Luis demanded, looking back over his shoulder. “You sure you’re okay? Making me paranoid.”
Garraty struggled to make eye contact. All he wanted to look at was that damnable doorknob, jiggling in the background. Knowing the movement had to be his imagination, just like the kid himself, because if it was real Luis would be able to hear it, too.
“Sorry, man, I thought I heard a sound over there. Moths tapping against the window or something. Let me get some paper towels for your pants.”
Something banged against the door as he stood and Garraty yelped, then grabbed at his lower back as if a twinge of pain had hurt him. He couldn’t tell by looking at Luis if the coverup worked. The man’s face was hard to read now. Masked.
A second bang came from the door, like the kid was hitting it with something other than his hand. An image rose in his head of the dead boy standing out there on the two-by-twelve step, rapping smartly on the door with the blood- and brain-crusted ice scraper. He found himself wanting to bray laughter again.
Before he made it to the kitchen a third bang rolled through the room and he leaped forward and yanked the door open even as the sound was still bouncing off the walls, ready to bowl the kid down the steps and pound his split skull against the concrete. Anything to stop the goddamn noise.
There was no one on the steps. He poked his head out and looked to either side. Nothing. Not even the faintest whiff of the shit drying in the dead boy’s jeans. He closed the door and studiously avoiding looking over at Luis. From the corner of his eye he could see that his friend had scooted forward on the couch and now sat on the edge, watching him. He didn’t think he’d like the look on the handyman’s face.
In the darkened kitchen, Garraty pulled the roll of paper towels off the holder mounted under the cabinet next to the sink and tried not to think about the bottles of Popov resting in the freezer. Waiting for him, ready to calm his nerves and make the boy go away with just a temporary burn of the throat. When he returned to the front room he found Luis standing by the door.
“Did you hear the sound too?” Garraty asked. Hoping. Maybe I’m not so crazy after all. Maybe the little fucker really is out there.
“Nah, man, I need to get going. Forgot I’m supposed to fix a leaking toilet for the Crenshaws.”
“It’s still early. Sit down, let’s have a couple of cold ones.”
And let me try to convince you to talk to the old bitch across the street. Tell her I’m no pervert, just taking a vacation from reality because I killed a little kid.
Garraty held out the roll of paper towels.
“Already running late, esse.”
His tone was apologetic, but his eyes said something else, Garraty thought. His eyes said listen, Joe, you’re starting to act muy loco and I don’t have time for that chit. We’re drinking buddies, not really friends. I’ve got enough of my own problems.
“You sure?” Garraty hated the plaintive, pleading sound in his voice but was powerless to stop it.
“Next time.” Luis opened the door.
The dead boy stood on the bottom step, swaying gently in the night.
“Toomey,” he said, looking up at Garraty through blood-crusted green eyes.
“WOULD YOU FUCKING SHUT UP?” Garraty bellowed, and took a step forward. His hands balled into fists.
Luis flinched away from him, dark eyes
going wide in sudden fear. He brought his hands up defensively, like he thought Garraty might attack him.
Just like the kid, right before the Prius slammed into him.
Garraty drew up short, and instead of charging through the door to fight the apparition he pressed the heel of his uninjured palm into his forehead. Push the crazy back in before it gets away from me.
“What the fuck, Joe?” Luis cried, only in his state his accent thickened and it came out what de fock, Yo? and Garraty had to nibble madly at the insides of his cheeks to keep from braying maniacal laughter in the short man’s face.
“Wadded!” the dead boy croaked.
Toomey, the little voice in Garraty’s head replied. We should try a game of Marco Polo sometime, kid.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Luis,” he said. “I’ve been under a lot of stress. You know about the home situation. Then the job last week, and now this thing with her—” he waved a dismissive hand toward the trailer across the street. “Pressure must be getting to me. Thought I heard the old bag teasing me. Calling me names like she did on Friday.”
Luis glanced out the door, then looked back at Garraty and cocked his head to the side. His eyes narrowed. “You drunk?”
“No!”
But I could sure use a drink right about now.
“What she call you?”
“Pervert. You know I’m not no pervert, Luis.”
The handyman considered this for a moment, then nodded.
“Sure you not seeing things, too? What they called? DTs? There a pink elephant out there?”
Garraty laughed weakly. Luis seemed to be calming down some. Buying the story. If he could still joke around, maybe everything wasn’t lost.
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