by Ken Douglas
The radio went silent, but Arty still held his charges in his protective grasp.
Seconds later they heard the sound of a car speeding away, laying rubber halfway down the block.
“ Arty, you’re crushing me,” she said, after it was quiet again. She relaxed her body and the ferret slid out from between them, sensing that the danger had passed.
He took a deep breath and pushed himself off of her and into a sitting position, by the side of the bed. “Are you all right?” He gasped for breath. “I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?”
“ I’m okay.” She sat up too. Sheila jumped into her lap and Carolina stroked her fur. “How about you, girl? You’re not hurt are you?”
“ I think I was shot.” Arty clenched his fists against the pain. His face had gone white.
“ What?” Carolina turned her attention from the ferret toward Arty.
“ I think I was shot,” he said. “In the back.”
“ Let me see.”
“ It stings.” He moved his shoulders slowly from side to side.
“ Can you get up?”
“ I think so.” He pushed himself up from the floor. “Are you okay?”
“ Yeah, I’m all right. I’m just worried about you.”
“ Ah, it hurts.” He stood. Then he sat on the bed, before he fell down. His back was on fire. He wanted to cry, but not in front of Carolina, so he grit his teeth instead.
“ Let me look.” She got off the floor and sat on the bed behind him. “Egads, your back’s all bloody,” she said, setting the ferret down.
“ It hurts bad.” He balled his fists against the pain, but he felt good, despite the fire on his back. He had saved her.
“ We should call the police,” she said.
“ No! Don’t do that. They’ll call my parents and I’ll get into a gang of trouble. My dad would go nuts.”
“ But what if you’re really hurt bad? He’d want you to go to the doctor.”
“ No, he wouldn’t. You don’t know him.”
“ Arty, I don’t know what to do.”
“ Let’s see what it looks like before we do anything. It really hurts, but it doesn’t feel like I got a bullet in me or anything.”
“ Okay, I know about getting in trouble. It seems like that’s my middle name, the way my mom is always yelling at me lately. It’s like I can’t do anything right.” She frowned, making the muscles on her neck stand out. “But I would never be afraid of my mother if I got shot.”
He bit his lip and didn’t answer her.
She sucked in her breath when she saw all the red. His sweatshirt was stuck to his back, held there by an oozing river of blood. “I don’t know if I can do it.” She shook slightly.
“ What?” he said, with a quiver in his voice.
“ I don’t think I can pull your sweatshirt up. I might hurt you.”
“ Go ahead,” he said, the tears welling up in his eyes, “it can’t hurt more than it does now,” but then he changed his mind. “Maybe we ought to just leave it the way it is. I’ll fix it when I get home.” He’d spent a good part of the last month worrying about junior high school next year and gym class, where he would have to undress in front of all the other boys. Nobody had seen him naked for years. He didn’t take his shirt off in front of anybody. He was too ashamed of his fat.
“ No,” she said, “I’ll look at it and maybe see how bad it is.” She forced the words out between tense lips, her voice as weak as his. “I’m going to wash my hands first.”
“ Why?”
“ So I don’t give you any germs. They do it on television all the time.” She eased off the bed and went into the bathroom.
He heard the running water splashing in the basin and realized that his mouth was dry. “Can you bring me a drink?” he called out.
“ Sure,” she called back.
He closed his eyes and tried to wish the pain away. It didn’t work.
“ It’s my rinsing glass.” She handed him the water.
“ Thanks.” He opened his eyes, took the plastic glass and drank it all.
“ You were thirsty,” she said. He noticed the real concern in her sweet green eyes and all off a sudden it didn’t hurt as much. “I’m gonna pull up your sweat shirt now.”
“ Okay.” He was glad it was her and not some doctor in a hospital.
“ Ready?” She moved into place behind him.
“ Easy.” His skin tingled with the electric shock of her hands on his back.
“ Just sit up straight. I’ll try not to hurt you,” she said as her small fingers grabbed both the sweatshirt and flannel pajama top. “Can you raise your hands?”
“ Sure.” He winced and raised his arms. She pulled the two shirts over his head, slowly and carefully.
“ There’s a lot of blood, maybe we should call the paramedics,” she said, getting off the bed.
“ I’ll get in a lot of trouble. Can’t you just put a bandage on it?” He didn’t think it hurt that much anymore and he wondered if she was looking at his fat and laughing.
“ I’m going to drop your bloody clothes in the bathtub. Then I’ll get a washcloth and some peroxide. My mother always puts peroxide on every cut and scrape to kill the infection. Don’t go away.”
“ Where would I go?”
“ I don’t know, just don’t.” She started to leave the room.
“ Wait,” he said, “could you turn the radio on. I really like the Beatles.”
“ You can’t be hurt that bad.” She moved around the other bed and turned on the radio.
The Beatles were singing about the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
“ This is great, they’re gonna play the whole album.”
“ I could’ve just played the CD if you wanted to hear Sgt. Pepper.”
“ It’s not the same as hearing it on the radio. Could you turn it up?”
“ Why not?” She turned it up a little, but not full blast like it was earlier.
“ Because when you hear it on the radio, you know you’re sharing the music with all the other people listening. It’s not like you’re alone in your room, with headphones, trying to block out the world.”
“ I never thought of it like that,” she said as she was leaving the room.
The medicines were in the hall bathroom. She went straight for the medicine cabinet, opened it, took out the peroxide and noticed two partially used inhalers on the bottom shelf. She took one out and gave herself two puffs, for safety’s sake, then put it back. She still had the one in her pocket. With the peroxide in her hand, she hurried into the kitchen, but stopped as soon as she entered the room.
She started to reach for the light switch, but stayed her hand. She heard a faint scratching sound, mingled with the music filtering from her room, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from, the living room, dining room or the hallway behind her. She had thought she was safe. They’d heard a car go screeching away. But cars can come back. She heard the sound again as it intermixed and twisted with the music and rippled stereo-like throughout the house
She wanted to go shooting back to her bedroom and the safe and familiar sound of one of her very most favorite songs, She’s Leaving Home, because that’s what she’d been wanting to do for a long time, but her feet were frozen in place. What if it was behind her? She had to know where it was coming from, before she could run away from it. She listened for the sound, but heard only the thump, thump, thump of her pulse beating between her ears, till it drowned out the soothing sounds of John, Paul, George and Ringo. She took small, silent breaths, not wanting to betray her position. She wondered how, whoever it was, had gotten in the house. The windows were all locked and the front and back doors were deadbolted shut.
It wasn’t possible for someone to be in here with her. She heard the sound again. There was no mistaking where it was coming from this time. It was in the kitchen with her. She wanted to scream, but her mouth was frozen shut and dry. She had never been so thirsty. She caught a quick vision of Arty gulping
down the water from her rinsing glass. She wasn’t as scared then as she was now.
Arty had been scared though, but he still protected her. He got shot pushing her out of the way. If it wasn’t for him she would probably be dead. She wished he was here with her now, instead of listening to the Beatles carry on about Lovely Rita the meter maid.
Silverware crashed on the floor on the other side of the kitchen and something came rushing along the kitchen counter toward her. She heard it as it thumped onto the floor and she jumped sideways, banging into the breakfast table, dropping the peroxide.
Sheila squealed when the jar landed on her back.
Carolina caught her breath and fought to keep from laughing. She’d been scared over nothing but Sheila. She turned on the light and chased away the dark.
“ You bad girl,” she said, in a soothing voice that conveyed the exact opposite of what she was saying to the ferret. “Did I hurt you?” She bent over and scooped her pet up and picked up the peroxide. “You know you’re not supposed to be in this part of the house. What if Mom catches you? I’d be having ferret stew for dinner. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
She continued talking to the animal as she crossed the kitchen and got a sauce pan from the cupboard next to the oven. She smiled, bent again, picking up the silverware Sheila had knocked out of the dish strainer and plopped them back in it. Then she filled the pan with warm water.
“ Now you, little girl, I have to go and check on Arty and I want you to be good. No getting jealous, okay?”
The ferret answered her by wiggling in her hand. Carolina set it on her shoulder. She needed both hands to carry the pan of water.
“ I didn’t go anywhere,” Arty said, trying to make a joke. She’d been gone for three and a half songs and he was starting to get worried.
She set the pan of water down on the nightstand and the ferret jumped from her shoulder to the bed as Carolina went over and shut off the radio. “I’m kind of tired of the Beatles, tonight,” she said.
“ Yeah, me too,” he said as she went in the bathroom.
She came out a second later with a wash cloth and towel. “I hope this doesn’t hurt too much.” She moved back up behind him on the bed. “I’m not supposed to be doing this, you know-I’m only a kid.” She soaked the towel in the water and dabbed at the blood.
“ That feels good,” he said, meaning it. The feel of her warm hands on his cold skin sent shivers of pleasure up his spine, drowning away the pain.
“ It’s only a little cut, right by your back bone, not even an inch. Don’t move again.” She slid off the bed. “Be right back.”
“ Where are you going?”
“ To get some bandages.”
He took a look around her room while she was gone and was surprised to find that it didn’t look like what he thought a girl’s room should look like at all.
On her bed was a plain, baby blue, chenille bedspread, worn and years old. She had a large, long haired Teddy bear sitting between her two pillows. The ferret was curled up in its lap, watching him. It seemed alert, aware and afraid.
He reached out a hand to her and Sheila scurried into his lap, eager for a calm reassuring petting. He complied and stroked her fur. She wasn’t afraid of him, so he reasoned it must be the red eyes he’d seen looking in the window that had the ferret on edge.
“ How you doing?” Carolina asked, coming back into the room for the second time. Her eyebrows were knitted close together and she was wearing a frown. “Even though it seems like only a scratch, maybe you should go to the doctor. I cut myself on a broken milk bottle once and my mom didn’t take me to the doctor, because she thought it was no big deal and now I have this big scar.”
“ Where?” he asked, wide eyed and interested.
“ On my right arm.” She showed him a two inch scar that started at her elbow and inched down toward the back of her hand. Her frown changed into a smile as she saw him looking at it.
He winced as she applied the peroxide and winced again as she applied three bandages, cross wise because he wouldn’t go to the doctor and get stitches. There was no way he wanted his dad to find out.
“ What am I gonna put on?” he said, again conscious that he was naked from the waist up, that he was roly poly fat, that he was China bone white, and that sweat was pouring like rain from under his arms.
“ I have one of my dad’s old Army shirts.” She went to her bottom dresser drawer and opened it. “Sheila sleeps on it.” She pulled out a faded military green fatigue shirt, shook it, and brought it over to him. “Here.”
He took the offered shirt, pulling an arm behind himself to put it on. Sliding in the other arm, he smiled-he liked the way the old cotton felt next to his skin, and he smiled even broader when he was surprised to see that it fit. It was a man’s shirt. For a second he felt a tinge of pride, then he remembered that the only reason it fit was because he was fat.
“ I was sure lucky you came over tonight,” she said. “You saved my life.” The gratitude in her perfect mint green eyes was real.
He was embarrassed and turned away.
“ No, really,” she said. “If you wouldn’t have come over, one of those bullets would have killed me, because I’d probably have been sitting right there playing with Sheila. And if you wouldn’t have jumped on me, the bullet that sliced your back would have gone right through me. So, no matter if you like it or not, you saved my life. I’m going to have to follow you around forever, until I can save yours. Then we’ll be even.” She smiled.
He looked over at the remains of the smashed Tiffany lamp and noticed a hole in the wall, by her dresser. That bullet would have smashed into her small body and tore up her insides, pulling out blood, guts and gore.
“ We should clean up that mess,” he said, nodding toward the broken glass on the floor.
“ Let’s look outside first.” She picked up her backpack and held it open. The ferret scurried in and she closed it up and slung it over her left shoulder.
He was impressed. She should be scared stiff as a petrified log. Most kids would be crying and shaking, but here she was, wanting to go outside and maybe see who fired the gun into her bedroom.
“ You think that’s smart?” he said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go out right now.
“ It’ll be okay. There isn’t going to be anybody there. We heard the car peel away.”
“ I was more worried about the police. If they come and find out someone shot into your house, they’re gonna stay till your mom gets home and they’re not gonna let me leave without calling my parents.”
“ The bullets would have to go through the tree first, silly. You won’t be able to see from outside.”
“ What about in here? What about when your mother comes home?”
“ She never comes in here, but I’ll clean up the mess and move my dresser in front of the holes in the wall.”
“ What if the bullets went out the other side?”
Carolina poked her head out the door. “Didn’t go through. My mom will never know.”
“ Maybe you should tell her. And maybe you should call the police. I could go home and you could say that someone drove by and shot off a gun.”
“ No way. I don’t want you to leave. We’ll keep it secret. It was probably some old cat burglar that thought nobody was home and when we turned on the lights, he just shot off his gun because he was pissed.”
“ I could stay. I’ve been in trouble with my dad before and I’ll be in trouble again. How bad could it be?”
“ No way, Arty, we’ll keep it secret.”
“ Okay.” He pushed off the bed. Then he walked to the curtains, pulled them up and put his fingers through the two holes. “We heard three shots,” he said.
“ Who knows where the other one went.”
“ What about the lamp?” he said, looking at the glass on the floor.
“ My mom never notices anything I have. She won’t even know it’s gone,” she said as she was walking out
her bedroom door. He followed, unable to think of anymore arguments or any other reason to keep her inside.
She hesitated for a second at the front door, turned to Arty, stuck out her lower lip, blew the hair out of her eyes, and said, “Well, here goes.” She opened the door just in time to see the neighbors from across the street close theirs.
“ I betcha everybody in the neighborhood opened their doors for just a second, then closed ’em right back up again,” Arty said.
“ Bet you’re right, but we’re not chickens like them. Are we?” She had that crooked smile and that twinkle in her eyes that Arty would follow anywhere.
“ No,” he said, puffing up his chest, “we’re not.” He moved past her, walking tall as an eleven-year-old boy can, across the front porch, down the steps and onto the front lawn.
“ Hey, wait for me.” She laughed and charged after him. “Only a few minutes ago I was scared shitless, and now it all feels like a game.”
“ Not to me,” he said, again remarking to himself how it was neat that she could swear without even thinking about it. To her, swear words were just words. And there wasn’t anything dirty about words. At least not to her.
Then he said, “Do you hear anything?” The hair on the back of his neck tingled and cooled, as a northern breeze moved down the block, blowing cold in from the sea not so far away.
“ No,” she said, but she was standing as still as he was. They stayed quiet for a few seconds, trying to hear through the fog that came in with the breeze. Then the fog was around them and it was dark.
“ Still think it’s a game?” he whispered.
“ No, let’s go back inside,” she said, but the fog came in strong, and it came in heavy. They couldn’t see the streetlights at the end of the street. Then they couldn’t see across the street. Then they couldn’t see across the lawn and before they realized it, they couldn’t see the front of the house and then it was hard to see each other.
“ Come over here and take my hand,” he said. She moved close to him without picking her feet up off the wet grass.
“ I’m starting to get scared,” she whispered, taking his hand.
“ Of what? It’s only a little fog. Happens all the time,” he said. This was something he was used to. He’d lived in Palma all his life and to him fog was an old friend, hiding everything it consumed, including him and his overweight, fat, roly poly, porky body.