by J. Warren
“’on we’,” I said.
“Class?” she said, arms still folded, and glanced around at them.
“’on we’” came the murmur. This time, though, everyone was staring at me.
“Again,” she said. Outside the door, we could hear the raised voices and scuffling feet of people rushing to get to busses or the bike rack.
“’on we’,” everyone said.
“Very good,” she replied, picking up the chalk, and next to the list of words, she wrote a number. “Everyone kindly write down this page number,” she said, and the room erupted in groans. “We will be talking about this page in your history book tomorrow. Please come to class having already read it.” I could tell that everyone in the room, except Veronica, decided to try to remember the number. We all stood up from our seats. “What an odd method of writing down a page number. Mr. Hicks,” she said, calling on Andy. He jumped, and for a moment his nervous shaking got worse. Secretly, I think she liked making him jump. “Mr. Hicks, can you tell me what page number it is I have assigned for you to have read by tomorrow?” she stood in front of the number, so that none of us could see it.
I could tell I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the number very loudly, trying to get it to him. “Umm—uh—thirty five?” he asked. I closed my eyes. I heard Veronica laugh.
“Veronica Ball, can you help Mr. Hicks?” Mrs. Granford asked.
“It’s page fifty three,” Veronica said, making a show of having written the number down on her still-open notebook.
“Very good. Now,” she said, and we all knew that there was a lecture coming, “Perhaps I am unaware of your powers of retention, or perhaps they merely slipped for a moment? In any case, if your obviously impressive eidetic memory can slip even just this once, then perhaps you should have some sort of back up plan, don’t you think? It seems to me that you have a notebook. I have seen it, I think, am I correct?” she asked.
He was already pulling it out of his backpack, and the rest of us did the same. “Yes, ma’m,” he said.
“Well, then, it seems to me that a more trustworthy way of keeping track of this information would be to write it down in that same notebook, don’t you think?”
The sounds outside the door were already growing quieter. We could hear the busses revving their engines; bus drivers are some of the most impatient creatures on the planet, everyone knew that. We were all just waiting for the inevitable sound of those doors screeching closed, and the huge lumbering yellow things pulling away. We all wrote as fast as we could, then shoved the notebooks back into our backpacks. Zippers buzzed, and for a moment the room sounded like a beehive.
“Very well, then. Have a wonderful evening, children. You are dismissed,” she said, and I thought, for a second, I saw her smirk. She thought this was funny. We all knew that the kids who had to ride the busses were going to get yelled at. I knew that I was already too late to catch Randy. Teachers walked the kids to the busses until they were in third grade. He was already on one. From there, I knew he’d be dropped off at a stop near our neighborhood, and have to ride the city bus which came along a few minutes later. I thought that, if I hurried, I could catch him before he had to get on.
I never did catch him at that bus stop. My bike was missing that afternoon when I got to the bike rack.
I heard my mother coming up the steps. The first creaking sound I heard came at the exact moment I was remembering how I looked up from the bike rack to see the tail end of a bus turning off Park Street and onto Niles Road. I don’t know why, but at the time, I was sure something horrible was about to happen. Turns out, I was right.
She turned the knob softly, and I almost didn’t realize she was coming in without knocking until she was already in the room. I decided to play sleep. Nothing new, of course; I’d been doing it my whole life. Somehow, though, in the back of my mind, I always felt like she suspected; that I never got away with it. I tried to slow my breathing and quiet my heart, which had been racing with the memory of seeing that bus turn away. I stopped thinking, and just listened to her movement.
“Oh,” she mumbled, as if she hadn’t expected to find me home. I heard her stand still for a moment, then move quietly about the room, straightening. She wanted me to wake up, I could tell. I heard her make small clicking noises under her tongue when she picked up the towel from this morning off the floor. Her breathing changed each time she bent to move something from the floor to what she felt was its “proper place.” She paused, again, then I heard her walk to the door. I felt the small gust of wind as she opened it, and closed it again. There was a pause between the two, though, as if she took a moment to look. In that pause, I felt something flare up in my stomach, like a spark: guilt. I didn’t even know specifically what for, but it was there.
I took my arm away from my eyes, and looked over at the phone. My mother and I had gone through a war about putting a phone in my bedroom, but Sarah had weighed in on my side. It was still that ancient, milk-gone-sour color phone that I had spent so many nights staring at. I reached down and grabbed the phone line from where it snaked along the floor. I snatched quickly, and put my other hand out as far as I could reach it. It was an old trick from lying on my bed, praying for someone to call. I half expected it to crash to the floor before I could reach it, but it flew onto my palm like always.
I listened to the dial tone for a moment, then put my finger over the interrupt button. The sudden quiet was loud. Before I could stop myself, I dialed.
“Hello?” Kevin said after three rings.
“Kevin,” I said.
“Mikey,” he replied with a flat voice.
“Umm—I just—I—,” I started.
“Don’t,” he said.
“But I—Kevin, I have to—,” I tried to continue.
“No, you don’t. Unless you’re calling to say that you want to come over, hang up,” he said.
I didn’t say anything for a moment. He hung up. The sudden ‘click’ made me jump. Something in my chest contracted, and pressure built behind my eyes. I set the phone down on my chest, my finger over the interrupt button again. I picked it up, and dialed again.
“Hello?” Susan said.
“Hi,” I said, after a moment.
“Hey,” she said. In the background, I heard the television going, and someone laughing. “Super busy right now,” she said, “can I call you back?”
“Yeah—” I started to say.
“Great,” she said, interrupting, and hung up. I put my finger over the button, again, and listened as the house creaked. A wind came through, and the windowpanes rattled a bit.
I dialed again, and when someone picked up, there was only silence.
“I want to come over,” I said, and hung up.
PART THREE
TWENTY-THREE
I slid into my shoes as quickly as I could. I didn’t bother to lace them. Something in me was moving. I kept wanting to say ‘finally’, but that seemed an understatement. I got down the stairs two at a time. I was almost to the door before my mother said, “Goodness!” and caught me from the side-room. I stopped. “I came up a moment ago,” she said, “you were asleep.”
“Just remembered something. I gotta’ go. Can I take the car?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know, honey. We’ll need to ask your father—” she said.
“Nevermind,” I said, “I’ll walk. I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said, and opened the door.
“But don’t you want to take the car?” she asked. Something in her voice said that she was hoping for a delay of any kind.
“No, that’s alright,” I called as the door closed behind me.
I was about halfway to Kevin’s trailer before I realized I was jogging. Something in me was moving. I wondered if this was how trees feel when spring comes on. I felt as if trying to slow down would kill me, and I’d been dead so long. The sidewalk gave way to the bare shoulder of the road. That soon turned into hard-packed dirt. The entire time I tried to ha
ve a coherent thought, but couldn’t. The only thing I could even begin to describe as thinking was a continual amazement at what I was doing.
I was there so quickly that I felt, for a moment, that I must’ve come to the wrong house. I walked up the two steps, and knocked. I waited, looking around the park. The last time I’d been here during daylight, I had been leaving; I hadn’t noticed much. I could see, though, that most of the trailers were in horrible shape. Down the street, children played stickball in the dying remains of what was, at some time, a small park. One boy slid from a full run while a girl and another smaller boy attempted to tag him. Behind me, the door opened.
I turned to find Kevin wearing nothing but a towel. His hair was damp, and scattered in all directions. Water beaded on his skin. My eyes flashed as I stepped in, forcing him to step back. I felt as if the momentum I’d built up on the way over was in control.
I closed the door with one hand, and put the other on against his face, cupping his jaw. I drew him closer and kissed him. He resisted somewhat, but didn’t actually try to pull away. His eyes opened wide in shock, then melted down to closed while I watched. His hand was flat against my chest, still trying to push me away, but the pressure grew weaker second by second. I don’t know how long he let me kiss him, but at some point, the pressure returned to his hand, and I stepped back.
“What—?” he started, but had to pause to catch his breath.
“I want you,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say that, but in the act of letting the words out, I realized it was true. I realized I’d wanted him all along, even as a kid. I remembered that, even after getting out of the boxing class, I’d still snuck to the windows and watched almost every one of the practice matches he’d been in. I remembered that, at the time, I’d told myself I was watching his stance, and the set of his shoulders. “I’ve always wanted you,” I said.
“Wait,” he said, the pressure against my chest increasing. He was actually pushing me away. “I—,” he stammered, and I smiled, “I don’t—this is—this is too fast,” he said. In his voice, there was surprise and also something else, something I couldn’t recognize.
I put my hand on his arm, “I want you,” I said.
“But you said—I mean—you left.”
“I shouldn’t have,” I said, running my fingers along his arm.
“I—,” he started again, “Mikey, this is—maybe I didn’t explain to you what—I mean what I do—,”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to move closer. At that moment, I wanted his mouth on mine more than anything else I could ever think of. Something in my chest was pressing toward him; I needed his mouth on mine.
“I’m—Mikey, I’m a—,” he started, again.
“Shut up,” I said, amazed at myself, “and kiss me.”
His eyes changed, and the pressure against my chest lessened. I moved closer to him, and he tilted his face toward me. Our lips met and, in my head, there was a dull thump, as if something in a box exploded. The sounds of the room were more vivid, and my body grew so hot, I was certain it was glowing. I’d heard Susan talk about things like this in her romance novels, which I’d always turned my nose up at, but I felt this. I knew this, now.
When I came back to something resembling my senses, the light in the room was dim. I burrowed my head further down into the pillow, and heard someone sigh next to me. I moved a bit so I could see, and Kevin was burrowed down into his own cocoon. In my body, a desire to wrap myself around him rose up. I wanted to put him in me, to protect him from something. I reached out, and put my arm over him, the flat of my palm against the flat of his chest. I pulled him back toward me, and he moved. His lower back was against my stomach. I smiled, and closed my eyes again. In my head, there was a quiet; not the breath-held quiet of a jungle, but the settled quiet of a house—of a home.
TWENTY-FOUR
In the dream, I was inside an airplane, and looking out the windows at a blazing sunset over the Grand Canyon. I thought I should go forward, to the cockpit, to see out the front windows. The plane was traveling directly at the sun. Everything seemed so warm, and glowed the way things do at that time of day.
From behind me, though, someone kept whispering my name. I tried to turn around, but could only do it inches at a time. Each time I turned, the seat became less comfortable, and things glowed less. Every turn, that whisper got louder. By the time I turned all the way around, I saw that Kevin was making love to my sister in the seat behind me, his eyes on me the entire time. He wasn’t moaning my name, though; he was yelling it.
I woke up to him standing over me, shaking my shoulders. “Wha—?” I started to ask, when he put his hand over my mouth. His eyes were the same huge, intense things as they had been in the dream.
“He’s here,” Kevin whispered. When my squirming didn’t calm, he said “the Sheriff is here.” I froze. He nodded and slowly let his hand off my mouth.
“Why?” I whispered back.
“He’s early,” he whispered, and his eyes went to the bedroom door. Someone knocked on the front door loudly three times, and we both jumped. “Under the bed, or in the closet,” he said, and turned. I jumped out of bed and went into the open closet, shutting it quickly behind me. The dark of the tiny space grew heavy fast. I tried to slow down my breathing.
The creak of a door, somewhere, and voices. The click of a door shutting, and the voices growing closer. The creaking floor got louder until I could tell they were in the bedroom. There was a giggle that stopped short, and the heavy thud of a mattress. The rustling sounds of skin and cloth, and the muffled moans of mouths closed on one another. That was when it struck me what Kevin must have meant by saying “he’s early”. A pressure started in my chest, and it built with terrifying speed. I couldn’t breathe, it seemed, and, even in the dark, my eyes were growing blurry.
Then there came a slap. I talk about things that I remember to this day, but that sound is one which comes of its own volition. I remember it, even when I don’t want to. There was a stifled gasp, and then another slap. Someone moaned, and then there was the unmistakable sound of knuckles against bone.
A tiny little sliver of light came in from a crack between the door and the carpet. The sound of another punch and then a slap came, along with someone whimpering “not the face, please,” before I got down on my knees, and put my face to that small opening. I saw a set of boots near the bed. No sooner did I start to wonder where the other set of feet were, when the sheriff said “Stand up, boy.” The mattress groaned, and two bare feet appeared on the carpet, facing the boots. Another slap, and another punch. The bare feet disappeared, and the mattress groaned again. The boots disappeared, and the mattress groaned louder.
What happened next, I don’t want to go into too much detail on. Even in my own memory, I like to leave it fuzzy. At the time, I remember doing my best to keep still, and thinking about things my sister had said to me. I tried to think about how to spell the huge words she was always throwing around. It was hard, though, to remember whether or not the ending of ‘Liminal’ was ‘a’ then ‘l’ or ‘l’ then ‘e’ with the mattress groaning in a sick rhythm, and the sound of pain coming from one voice, while another whispered a string of curses and hatred. It went on for what seemed like hours. Sometime during it, I managed to find a relatively comfortable spot to sit, and leaned back against the wall without too much noise.
When the sounds died down to rustling cloth and muffled sobs, I came back to what could loosely be termed “reality.” Things still felt thick, and there was very little light, but my eyes were glued on that tiny sliver between the door and the carpet.
The sound of someone getting up off the mattress, and boots thunking across the floor made me lean forward. “Now, don’t go spendin’ that all at once, y’hear?” someone said, jokingly. The sobs wound down to silence. “And, if that Kendall boy comes ‘round, you send him away, y’hear? I don’t want you talkin’ to him.” The boots thunked away until a door opened somewhere, then closed. I
reached for the door handle, and someone hissed “stay in there!” as loudly as a whisper can go. After a few minutes which stretched out into what I was sure over half-an-hour, the door opened. I looked up at what was left of Kevin.
TWENTY-FIVE
I finished putting the ice into the bag, and tried to put it against Kevin’s face. He stopped me, and took the bag himself. He put it against his cheek. I came from the sink and sat down at the small round kitchen table across from him. His face was drawn up in a grimace of pain, and his eyes were closed.
“Why did—?” I started to ask.
“Because sometimes he comes back in. Sometimes, he wants more,” Kevin said, without looking at me.
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” I whispered. His eyes opened, and locked on mine. “Why do you—? I mean—umm—uh—why do you let him hit you?” I asked. That wasn’t what I was going to ask, either, but I let him think it was.
“I—,” he started, “I let them do whatever they pay for,” he said, his eyes falling to the table with each word. I felt as if I was sinking, and my mind started to flash pictures, but I stopped it. I forced myself to focus on him.
“How—umm—how long, now?” I asked.
“For what?” he asked without looking.
“The—umm—the—uh—sheriff?” I stammered.
“Since always,” he mumbled, turning his head away. I was quiet for a while, and he looked back at me, “I guess I was maybe fifteen, the first time.” Those words felt like someone had punched me. “Funny thing about those boxing classes is that they don’t really teach you how to do anything other than box in a ring. I tried to fight him off, but—,” he whispered, and drifted off. “He left some money, though. At the time, I guess—I don’t know—I guess I figured that if I took that money, then that made me just as guilty,” he said, and paused. “The next time he came over, I—I asked for the money up front. That first time he—he didn’t hit me, he just forced me. After I asked for the money, though, he—,” again, the whisper trailed off.