Duck Boy

by Bill Bunn

  “I’m meeting a friend at the BUS TERMINAL,” Lindsay said, emphasizing the last two words. “I might be a bit late coming back from the BUS TERMINAL because I don’t know when he—I mean she—is going to arrive.”

  “That’s fine, dear. You go along and have a good time. Here’s twenty bucks. You can leave now, and don’t come back until, say, eight tonight, OK?”

  Lindsay nodded.

  “Thanks, my little Sweetums,” he replied.

  He thumbed through his wallet, chose a couple of bills, and extended them towards her. Lindsay crossed the room and pocketed the cash. “Here’s an extra five for the girl I love,” he added, poking out another bill. “I’m planning to have a few friends over for a party tonight, around ten of them. Just so you know. Please don’t make a scene like you did the last time.”

  Lindsay felt the blood rush from her face. “Yeah, I promise.” She shot an eye at the drapery.

  “See you,” her dad said, clearly hinting that he wanted her to leave. Lindsay gave no response, but hovered where she stood. Her father stood where he was and pointed to the door. “Get out,” he said firmly. “Go.”

  She sighed, swallowed around what looked like a big lump in her throat, descended the stairs, and walked out the door.

  Steve panicked silently as he heard the door shut behind Lindsay.

  Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

  He leaned over carefully and looked out the window. Lindsay was standing just below the window. When she saw him she waved frantically. She mouthed a couple of words at him. They looked like the words he had heard—“Bus Terminal.” He nodded, trying not to disturb the curtains. She jumped in the air a few times and pointed to the street. A look of terror crossed her eyes, and she ran out of Steve’s view—towards the bus stop, he supposed.

  He turned back towards the living room and retreated from his view of the window. Walter was chatting on the phone.

  “Hello, Alice. No, no, I’m fine. I just got home. Yes, I want to see you again, too. That’s why I’m calling. My kid’s away this afternoon, and she won’t be coming back until tonight. Yes, exactly, why don’t you come over? A few of the people you met yesterday will be over later tonight. Sure, I’ll see you then. I love you, too.”

  Walter made several more phone calls to arrange for his evening get-together. He wasn’t leaving the room any time soon. When he finally hung up, he stood silently for a moment, and Steve noticed a change in his friend’s father’s mood. Something had eclipsed Walter’s sunny demeanor all of a sudden. The older man sighed heavily and again picked up the phone.

  “Hello, honey, it’s Walter. Listen. I wanted to know if you could do me a favor.” He paused, listening to a tinny, hostile sounding jabber pouring from the phone’s earpiece. “I don’t really want to argue about that right now. Can we save that for another time? Could you help me out? I’m really busy here this Christmas with work and everything. Could you take Lindsay for the second week of Christmas break? No. I know we said I should have her for the entire holiday, but my work plans have changed. I’m absolutely stuck.” He paused again as the tone on the other end seemed to go ballistic and shrill. “You won’t, huh? Geez, I wish I knew what to do. No, I won’t call again. Bye.”

  Steve peeked out from behind the heavy drapery through a sheer fabric curtain. He could see the dim outline of the room and Walter. Walter stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes. Steve scanned the room for exit locations. From where he was hiding, the closest exit was the front door. No chance of sneaking past. He stood there for what seemed like hours. Sweat drizzled down his forehead, stinging his eyes. His underarms—well, enough said.

  After what seemed like hours, the doorbell rang.

  Walter rolled off the couch and headed to the doorway. “Hi! Come on in.” He led a woman into the living room by the hand. She shed her coat, dropping it on the floor. The two of them fell onto the couch in an embrace and began chatting.

  “Could we have something to eat? I’m absolutely famished,” said the woman.

  “Let’s check out the kitchen,” Walter suggested.

  He stood and pulled her off the couch towards the kitchen. Steve’s heart pounded as the two of them left the room.

  This might be my break.

  He stepped from behind the curtain and moved behind the couch towards the inner wall.

  “Did you see the paper?” the woman asked as she stepped back into the living room. Steve dropped flat on the floor between the couch and the wall. He felt his heart pound wildly in his throat as he lay face down on the carpet.

  “The police are looking for a kid who hurt some old people across the street from here. It was in the paper. A couple of people disappeared, and they think he’s involved.”

  “Really?” Walter responded from the kitchen.

  She walked over to the living room window and pulled aside the sheer curtain. “I think that’s it. That must be the place. It has all the police tape strung across the property.”

  Walter joined her at the window. “I didn’t notice that when I came home.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. A wacky old couple live there.”

  “Did you ever meet the nephew?”

  “No,” Walter replied, showing little interest in the story. “But did you find my cigarettes last night?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “They were in my coat.”

  “Let’s finish that sandwich then, shall we?”

  “I am under your control,” she quipped. They both returned to the kitchen to finish their meal. Steve let himself breathe again. He moved slowly to his knees and carefully peered over the couch. The living room was empty once again.

  He inhaled deeply and stood, moving quickly to the edge of the kitchen entrance. He’d have to cross the entrance to get to the front door. He carefully scanned the edge of the kitchen to see which direction the two were facing. They were wrapped around each other in a deep embrace. He pulled the hat out of his pocket and pulled it over his head. Then he made a run for it. He passed the door to the kitchen quickly and headed down the short set of stairs to the front door.

  “Is that you, Lindsay?” asked Walter. Steve froze on the steps.“I didn’t hear you come in. Did you forget something?”

  Steve forced his legs into motion again. He opened the back door, slammed it behind him and ran, crossing the lawn quickly to the alley.

  He was five houses away before he turned around to see what had happened behind him. Thankfully, the house seemed uninterested in his exit. Steve slowed his pace and waited near the bus stop, fishing his bus pass out of his backpack.

  As he waited, his hammering heart quieted enough that he detected the heavy silence that surrounded him. A lead-colored evening sky threatened to smother the earth. A few lonely snowflakes wafted to the ground. But the sky stewed and brewed, looking as though it might deliver a lot more than these few flakes.

  No time to waste.

  The bus squealed to a stop, the doors flopped open. A quick flash from his wallet to show his pass.

  “Just a minute there son, can I see that pass again?” The bus driver asked firmly.

  “Sure,” Steve squeaked.

  Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

  His hand shook as he tugged the bus pass out of its wallet sleeve and handed it to the driver.

  “Cold, are you?” the bus driver commented.

  “Yeah,” Steve replied. He glanced towards the closed bus doors.

  Would they open if I hit them hard enough?

  The driver looked over his glasses, holding Steve’s pass close to his forehead and passed it back.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to pay,” the bus driver declared.

  Steve blinked several times, surprised by the bus driver’s request.

  “Your pass is valid on school days only, not on weekends and holidays.”

  Steve nodded without speaking. He stirred his hand in his pocket, searching for change with his fingers. He d
idn’t have enough, but he had a lot of small change. He dropped it into the fare box, and it jingled impressively.

  “Thank you,” the bus driver said.

  “Transfer, please,” Steve requested, just in case he needed another bus ride.

  “Merry Christmas,” the man said again, holding a transfer up for Steve.

  “Yeah. Merry Christmas to you, too.” Steve turned to face a thin crowd of passengers, none of whom showed any interest in him. Most heads were idly contemplating the advertisements lining the inside of the bus, or staring blankly out the window.

  The bus jerked and rolled toward the terminal. In the middle of the journey, the winter sky tore open and began to hurl everything it held. Snow gathered quickly on the ground. Small drifts covered the street and sidewalk in a few short minutes.

  This is going to be a wicked storm, Steve thought, eyeing the wall of falling snow.

  He stepped out of the bus at the terminal and headed inside to meet Lindsay. He scanned the terminal’s waiting area for any sign of her. Nothing. He strode towards the coffee shop, thinking she might have purchased something to help her pass the time. She wasn’t there either. He took off his hat and gloves and shoved them into his pockets. As he crossed the main floor towards the army of waiting buses, he passed a rack of payphones. One of them began to ring. Steve ignored it as he scanned the buses through the glass doors. Someone beside him decided to answer the phone. Steve looked over towards the phones.

  The man who answered the phone had a funny look on his face. He nodded and looked around the bank of phones towards various people who stood around the building. When the man saw Steve, he motioned him to come over to the phone.

  “It sounds like the guy on the phone is describing you. Is your name Steve Best?” Steve nodded, confused. “I think the phone’s for you,” he said. He passed the phone to Steve and walked away. Steve held the phone up to his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “We have your girlfriend, too,” said a hoarse voice. It sounded like Mr. Gold’s voice. “She was going to meet you at the bus terminal, and we gave her a ride.”

  Steve felt his temper and terror rise. “What do you want?” he said angrily. “We haven’t done anything.”

  “We want you,” said the hoarse voice. “You know everything. You know how to make the stone; you know how to make things disappear.”

  “How would that help you?” Steve asked. “It hasn’t helped anyone yet.”

  “That’s our business, not yours.”

  Steve backed away from the phone and panned the terminal, looking for someone who stood out. He saw three men in sunglasses. Mr. Gold, talking on a cell phone, and two others. Mr. Gold stopped walking, and the two gray suits strolled casually towards him.

  Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

  Steve’s eyes met the eyes of the man talking on the cell phone.

  “Hello, Steve,” said Mr. Gold’s hoarse voice. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  Fight or flight? Flight.

  Steve dropped the receiver and headed for the glass doors and into a sea of buses. The two men ambling towards him broke into a run. Steve crossed a bus’s path as it shot out past the terminal’s doors. It locked its brakes and slid over the snow, swerving to avoid him. The bus slid sideways and lurched to a stop as an angry middle-aged bus driver cursed at Steve, struggling to bring the bus to a controlled halt.

  Snow licked Steve’s face as he dodged between people and vehicles. Spirals of snow slicked the pavement with a coat of white. Steve rounded the front of a bus and headed towards its back end on the far side. The two men weren’t far behind, except they were wearing shoes that didn’t hold well in the world of ice and snow, so they skated over the snow-covered road toward Steve. Steve rounded the back end of the bus and turned around and grabbed the bus’s bumper. By this time, the bus driver had opened her fresh-air window to shout expletives at the two bumbling henchmen and to sound her horn to make sure they understood how she felt.

  The blowing snow gave Steve a small advantage. The two men had difficulty spotting which direction he had gone. They finally noticed his footprints and set off towards the end of the bus. The angry bus driver hammered the gas pedal and sent a cloud of black diesel exhaust and the roar of the engine into the storm.

  Steve hung on to the bumper and skied behind the bus onto the street. Fortunately, the street was amply coated with snow. He slipped past his aggressors. The two men seemed bewildered. They inspected the bus as it passed them. They saw Steve hanging from the bus’s bumper. He gave them a small wave.

  “Hey!” one of them yelled. The other skated back toward the terminal.

  Steve surfed the snow-slick streets for several blocks, breathing fresh diesel fumes as they belched from the exhaust.

  Gold’s on his way by now.

  When the bus turned onto King Street, Steve released the bumper and jogged up the sidewalk. A narrow corridor between two old buildings offered discreet shelter, so he ducked into it.

  There was just enough space for him to stand.

  I need my Benu stone before I can help anyone do anything. If my stone is anywhere in this world, it’ll be at home.

  He hunkered between the two buildings in his oversized dad-style coat, enjoying the blowing snow and empty streets. The violence of the storm seemed somehow protective—almost inviting.

  Only a few moments passed before the charcoal Lincoln Continental slithered by. He knew they would catch up to the bus he had hitched a ride from very soon. They’d backtrack quickly once they discovered he wasn’t in tow. It was time to move.

  Steve crossed the street and headed up a few short blocks to Queen Street. The wind stiffened and whipped the snow into white sheets. He turned up the collar of the coat to help repel the cold. He found his school, and went to stand by the bus stop. The school seemed like a shell—dark and hollow. Steve shivered when he saw it.

  A few minutes later a bus slowly rolled up to the bus stop. Steve had already decided to take the bus so he could warm up on the way to his house. He climbed on the bus, showed the driver his transfer stub and took a seat near the back door. He was the only rider.

  His eyes scanned the advertising as he waited for motion. The bus roared away from the stop and hummed along the route. Steve looked towards the front of the bus and met the bus driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. The bus driver was staring at him carefully, but when their eyes met, turned away from the mirror immediately.

  Uh, oh. Duck Boy.

  He heard the driver mumble something into his radio. Instinctively, Steve stood and pulled the bell cord to let the driver know he wanted out at the next stop. He was less than halfway home but he didn’t want to chance getting caught.

  Steve stepped to the back doors of the bus and waited for them to open. He waited as the bus sat in the storm, but the doors wouldn’t open.

  “Open the doors, please,” he asked the driver.

  He looked up towards the front of the bus; the driver was again staring at him in the mirror and jabbering away quietly into the radio’s handset.

  “Can you open the doors, please?” Steve repeated. The bus driver shrank into his seat while looking over his shoulder.

  Steve’s mind scrambled for a few seconds. He slid into a seat next to a big window and lifted up on the handle at the bottom labeled “Emergency Release Lever.” The window popped open and Steve jumped from the bus window into a white blur of snow.

  Steve walked past the front of the bus. The driver fixed his eyes on Steve while he yammered into the radio microphone.

  “I’d better head in a direction I don’t plan to take,” Steve said, thinking out loud.

  He turned down a street close to where the bus had stopped and slowly rounded the corner, hoping that the bus driver had seen him move. He crossed the street and walked down the alleyway. At the end of the block, he crossed the street, checking for the bus.

  If I can’t see it, it can’t see me.

  The bus still sat
at the stop: he could see the headlights flicker weakly in the snow. Beside the bus there was a police car with its blue and red lights flashing. Heading into the alley on the opposite side of the street, Steve ran towards home.

  The storm will cover my tracks, too.

  Through the snow,he ran. Through the angry columns of snow. He knew where to go, more from his memory of how streets connected than by sight: the storm only let him see a step in front of his path.

  The rest of the world had taken refuge indoors. From time to time a warm yellow glow from a house teased him with the idea of home.

  Did I leave the bus and police behind?

  He wasn’t sure.

  After forty-five minutes of battling the storm, Steve finally entered the back alley that ran behind his house. He walked up to the back fence and peered through a missing fence board, to comb the yard for cops or robbers.

  No one seemed to be around, though it was difficult to tell for certain because of the snowfall. The house seemed empty, haunted by nothing. Steve opened the back gate, pulling it open with all his strength. The falling snow had piled around the bottom of the gate making it difficult to open. Steve carefully shut the gate behind him, making sure it latched.

  As he stepped closer to the house he noticed that the back door wasn’t closed properly. When he reached the back door, he saw that the frame was splintered near the lock. Snow had drifted in the kitchen through the partially open door. Steve studied the snow around the door for any recent footprints—there were none except for his own. Obviously the break-in had taken place some time ago.

  He stepped into the kitchen carefully and quietly. The house moaned as icy wind blew through the open door. The narrow snowdrift led the way into the kitchen, flattening into a light coat over most of the kitchen floor. Steve again noticed no footprints, so he figured no one had been in the house recently. He kicked some of the snowdrift out of the house and closed the back door. The wind blew it open again, so he closed it firmly and slid one of the chairs from the kitchen table against it to keep it closed.