by J. Warren
The only other person who wasn’t yelling and jeering was Mr. Roger, himself. He stood at the back of the room, smoking a cigarette. He was in shadow, and I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew, somehow, that there was something sad in them. Most of the other boy’s fathers and older brothers were there; none of them were anything even resembling adult, though. It scared me. I had to keep looking over at Mr. Roger to try to—to—what? Ground myself? Maybe.
Kevin’s match went on for longer than most of the others, but it wasn’t long before the other boy submitted. Kevin was focused; the noise and thick anger didn’t seem to faze him. There were a few times I thought I caught him smiling, but I was sure that couldn’t be. At the time, I was, anyway.
Watching him turn and walk down the corridor, though, I thought maybe he had been smiling that day. Mr. Roger hadn’t, though. I think maybe he wanted the contest to be one thing, but it turned into another. I think, maybe, it upset him to see the adults acting like animals. There weren’t any more boxing contests held at the Y as far as I know. I couldn’t say why, exactly, but I’m certain Mr. Roger was behind that.
I followed Kevin down the small corridor, but when it turned left, I stopped. Just ahead was a small nurse’s station, like the one in the lobby. Behind that desk was a dark man with a mustache. Kevin had just reached the desk, and was leaning over it. The man was smiling up at him, and they were whispering. I didn’t know what I should do, so I didn’t move. Kevin turned around, though, and motioned for me to come closer. As I walked, my knees were wobbling.
“Reggie, this is my friend Mikey. Say hi, Mikey,” Kevin said as I reached the counter. He turned his face toward me, and he was someone I didn’t recognize. There was a power there, a smug grin of something arrogant and dangerous. Reggie was dark, and his mustache was perfectly straight, which made me feel strange. None of the men back at the garage had ever trimmed their goatees and beards very well. My father, Mr. Roger, Sheriff Aiken; no one I’d ever seen other than people on television and guys at the garage had ever worn facial hair. Reggie was thick, and his shoulders stretched his smock until it seemed about to burst.
“What’s up?” he asked, not even looking at me. It all clicked, then. It made perfect sense how Kevin knew these back entrances, and why he was sure he could get me in to see Mrs. McPherson.
“Not much,” I said.
“Mikey here is studying to be a sick-oll—what do you call it? One of those guys like who looks into your brain and shit—,” he said, and I couldn’t help but stare. I wanted to ask him ‘what are you doing?’
“Psychologist,” Reggie said, and on his face, the same smug grin appeared.
“That’s right,” Kevin said, then looked at me, “didn’t I tell you how smart he is?” he looked back at Reggie, “So smart. So, anyway, do you think that maybe he could walk down and look at some stuff?”
Reggie stood up, and leaned on the counter. His arms were touching Kevin’s, and their faces were very close. I felt like I should look away, but something else was moving around inside me. They started whispering with their faces almost touching, and that’s when I figured out what I was feeling. I wanted to punch Reggie. I wanted to hurt him for ever having touched Kevin.
Reggie turned toward me, and looked me up and down. The smug grin never faded, then he turned back to Kevin and said, “Yeah. I guess while we do that, it won’t hurt if he wants to look at some charts and shit,” then he turned back to me, and his eyes roamed me again, “or you can come join us.”
Kevin put his hand on Reggie’s cheek, and turned his head back. “He don’t get down like that, baby. He’s strictly amateur.”
Reggie’s disgusting grin got wider, and he laughed in his throat, “Oh. He don’t do shit, huh?”
“Not like you like,” Kevin said, and his face matched Reggie’s. I wanted to scream and hit something. I wanted to walk out. Somehow, though, in the last five minutes, I’d begun to need to see Mrs. McPherson. It felt like some long and tedious process would all come together with that.
Kevin took Reggie’s hand, and pulled him out from behind the round counter. “Be good,” he said in a strange voice over his shoulder to me. They went into a small room right next to nurse’s station, Reggie’s grin never faded. The door closed, and I felt like crying. I wanted to go and bust down the door and scream ‘STOP!’
I needed this more, though. I needed to talk to her. That need had continued to grow, and now it was near emergency. The two feelings were so powerful that I needed to sit down; I was light headed, and my knees had yet to stop wobbling.
I sat down behind the counter. Just in front of me were six black and white televisions. Each one showed a hallway. I looked up; two hallways branched left and right from the nurse’s station. I could see that each one branched right and left after a while, too. I looked back at the screens; one camera for each hallway. It made sense. I started to look through the things on the desk.
I found a clipboard underneath a huge stack of papers. On it was a sheet of paper with a set of names, numbers, and other long words with measurements next to them. McPherson, Gwen was the seventh one down. I put my thumb under her name, and ran it along the line. It said 904, and then had a star. I looked at the bottom of the page; the star had “see doctor’s instructions” written after it. She was in room 904. I stood up, but my stomach stayed in the chair. My legs were wobbling. I could tell that if I sat still long enough and listened, I’d be able to hear what Kevin was doing. I didn’t stay still.
Each of the heavy wooden doors had a rectangular window at eye level. The glass was dull, and there was chicken wire just behind it. I stopped in the hallway between 902 and 903. I knew that the next door on my right would be hers. I stared at that door for a while, as if looking at it long enough would make it invisible.
I walked to the door, and put my fingers on the handle. The metal was cold. The lights were dim, inside. I couldn’t see anyone through the window. I turned the handle, but it didn’t budge. It clicked at me. I thought “key.” I looked back at the station. The key would have to be there, somewhere. As I walked back, I heard a muffled sound, and stopped. It was a rhythmic thumping, as if something were lightly hitting the wall again and again. I wondered what it was for a moment, before the certainty settled over me. My knees gave some. I caught myself halfway to the floor.
Just behind the desk there was a large steel cabinet. My eyes were drawn there. I walked to it, playing the song I’d heard earlier by Cash as loud as I could in my head. The cabinet had a place to insert a key. I hoped that it wasn’t locked. I reached up and tugged once, and the door came open with a small creak. The keys were on little rings with small white tags above them. Each tag had a number. I took the one marked 904. The music in my head got louder as I passed back by the doors until I got to hers.
I put the key in the slot, and turned it slowly. It clicked, and the handle gave.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hospitals have a certain smell. Anyone in the world can be blindfolded and dropped off on a hospital ward and know exactly where they are. The room was dim as I pushed the door open. The smell was different, though, than the hallway outside. Somehow, it was darker; more like something horrible than something strange.
I came in, and shut the door behind me. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. The nightstand was a jumble of sketch pads. Crayons littered the floor. Against the far wall, a counter and a small sink snugged up under a mirror. To the right of the sink was a wall partition. I couldn’t see what was back there, but I guessed a bathroom. As I stood there, I could hear the sound of water dripping. There was a sloshing sound, and then I heard a door open.
“Who is—?” I heard her say, before I saw her walk out from behind that partition wall. “—it,” she finished, stopping. The lights above her mirror made bright lights shoot through her hair. It looked like a halo, only tarnished like brass.
She was completely naked, and covered in water. Her hair was damp, and she was older, but it
still looked like her. She was almost the exact same as I’d seen her on that day she came to get Randy from the Y. My eyes traveled from her lips to her breast to her hips before I could stop them. Something in my head knew I shouldn’t be looking, but I was. Something else in me, deeper down, liked that I was looking when I shouldn’t.
I thought, from the blank expression on her face, she was going to scream. Everyone in movies screams when something like this happens. She didn’t, though. Her face relaxed into a smile.
“Randy,” she said, her shoulders relaxing.
She came forward, and put her hands under my arm I stumbled. I caught myself. She wasn’t strong enough to help, but her touch made it easier to get the strength to stand. I tried to look at her eyes, but mine kept drifting to her breasts, her neck. I smelled her wet skin, and felt its warmth against me.
“This is a surprise. Where have you been?” she asked.
“I—,” I started; her tone made me respond, “I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to stay here with your mama,” she said, her hands still under my arm. She led me to the bed, and sat us both down. I tried not to look at her thighs, at her ankles. “Always out wandering. Gonna’ get yourself in trouble, that’s what.” She reached for my shirt and started to pull it up.
“What are you—?” I asked.
“It’s bath time, Randolph McPherson. No back talk. It is late and I am not in any mood to fool with you,” she said, and pulled my shirt off. My heart was racing. Her eyes were clear! She wasn’t seeing me, but her eyes weren’t murky or cloudy or any of a million other things I’d thought about for so long. Her eyes were clear.
“Mrs. McPherson—,” I started.
“What?” she asked with a small laugh, pulling away from me a bit. “What did you just say?” she asked, her face quirking into a lopsided smile.
“Mrs. McPherson, you’ve got to listen to me for a second,” I said. Her face stayed quirked to the side, “I need to ask you something about Randy, and about the Sheriff.”
“You stay away from the Sheriff, you hear me?” she said, and reached for my belt. I put my hand in the way, and she smacked it. “Boy, what are you doing? It is bath time.”
“I—,” I said, beginning to protest, but I saw that she wasn’t going to listen. Parts of me had begun to respond to her nakedness, though. My shoulders and elbows felt cold, while every other part of me was burning. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Okay, I’ll take a bath,” I said, hearing Randy’s voice in my head as I did, “but I want to undress by myself,” I said.
“Well, I never—,” she started, but then stopped herself. The smile faded. She sighed. “Alright. I’ve never known you to be so shy, though. Go on. But you wash behind your ears, you hear? I could prolly grow potatoes back there.” I stood up and went behind the partition. I was running out of time; somehow, I knew that. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be able to stand being slobbered on for too long. Some part of me hoped that was how he’d feel, at any rate. Moving away from her made my body start to relax.
“Mom?” I said, and nearly choked. This was the only way, though.
I knew that.
“Yes, Randolph,” she said.
“Tell me about dad,” I said. My shirt was lying next to my shoe, so I bent to pick it up and held it for a moment.
“Your father,” she said, and sighed. “Your father was a police officer, Randolph. He wasn’t the nicest man, but he was a good man. You’ll understand that someday, honey. The difference, I mean. You’ll see it. I’m raising you to be a good man, baby. A good man. You’ll see.” Even though she was still sitting in almost the same position she had been on the bed, I could tell her mind was far away from here. Something in her voice said she was seeing something other than these four walls. Her tone was flat, and the words seemed to come at a steady rhythm. “Your father was a hard man, too. I don’t think you’ll take after him like that. He knew about Peter, though. He hated Peter. Thought he was a ‘weak little nanny boy’” she said, and her voice got deeper, as if she was attempting to imitate someone. “Said ‘that man over there gonna’ take a pretty philly like you to wife?’ He didn’t say it, but I know what he meant,” she said, imitating again. The clicking switch in my head was so loud, I thought someone might come running to find its source.
She was clearly imitating Sheriff Aiken.
“Said ‘that boy over yonder don’t know his pecker from a parkin’ meter, you can bet on that. He hated Peter, but had to keep up appearances. He said he couldn’t ‘do nothin’ unseemly’.” She said, and a chill ran across my shoulders. “I don’t hear no water movin’ around in there, boy,” she said. I leaned down and splashed my hand around a little. “So, one night I went out to meet him. Must’a been about midnight or so. God, I was just a girl, then. Just a girl. Just a girl,” she said, her voice getting softer each time, trailing off.
The room was quiet for a while, then I heard the sobbing start. I was frozen. For a second, I felt like I really was a little boy, again. I’d never heard my mother cry, and for some reason I’d never even thought that she had or would. This woman in the other room was not my mother, but there was something that connected us. I stood up, and walked around the partition wall. She was slumped over herself, bent at the waist. Her head rested on her knees. Her back and shoulders were shaking violently in long, racking sobs. I was frozen. I sat down on the bed next to her. Her sobs let out in tiny breaths from between her teeth, as if she were trying to clench them back.
“Oh, Johnny, what are we gonna’ do? What are we gonna’ do?” she whispered, her throat closed up by her crying. She lifted up just enough to turn her head toward me, and her face was a wreck. “Johnny, it’s your’n. It’s your’n, and he’s gonna’ know. What are we gonna’ do?”
Her eyes pleaded with me for some action, and I didn’t know what to say. Who was Johnny? I put my arm around her back, felt her bird-frail shoulder blades under my arm each time they rocked from her sobbing. She moved herself to fit into my side. Her head went onto my lap. She kept saying “It’s your’n” over and over again, but only bits of it would come out at a time. The rest was choked off by a sob or an inhale. After a while, though, the crying dyed down. She looked up at me, and sat up a bit straighter. For a while, we sat there, side by side. She would sob, then wipe at her eyes, then go quiet. I only looked at her out of the corner of my eye.
“You’re not Johnny, are you,” she said. “Don’t lie. I know I ain’t well. I know you ain’t Randolph, neither, so don’t try that.”
I didn’t move. “No,” I said.
“Don’t try to tell me who you are. I ain’t gonna’ believe nothin’ you say.” She wiped at her eyes again.
“Okay,” I said.
“I know Randolph ain’t comin’ home ever again. Somebody done took him. I know that.”
I nodded. After a while, when it seemed that she was stable again, I stood up to leave. I wanted to tell her everything I came here to say, about Randy, about the bones, about how I knew, but I couldn’t. I tried to the entire time we sat there.
“If you are who I think you are, then let me ask you somethin’,” she said. I turned toward her. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I nodded. She looked down at her own knees, then back up, “Where’d you take him?” When I didn’t answer, she asked “My boy. Where’d you take him off to? I know it was you took him, else you wouldn’t’a come here. I just want to know where he is. I just want to be able to put him in that little box out yonder.”
I turned for the door, and she whispered something else as I turned the handle, but I didn’t hear it. I closed the door behind me, and locked it. I stopped, and almost turned to look in the window, but didn’t. I had just managed to put the key back in the box, and close the door to it when Kevin emerged from the room I’d heard noises in. The nurse was adjusting his shirt. Kevin looked at me, and his eyes seemed empty. I nodded. He looked down at the floor.
The nurse glared at me. “Hey,
what are you doing?”
“Nothin’. Snooping around. Bored.” I couldn’t make my voice find a whole sentence.
“Well, get away from that. Shit, for all I know, you’re some perv come to fuck one of the ol’ ladies or somethin’.”
“Nah,” Kevin said, “he ain’t no perv, are you?” he asked, turning his gaze back to me. “Give us a sec?” he said, and his eyes moved quickly from my face to the elevator. I walked that way, but I already knew what was going to happen. As the door dinged open, and I stepped inside, I saw the nurse pull out his wallet, and the wad of cash he handed to Kevin.
TWENTY-NINE
The ride was silent for a bit. From time to time, I glanced over at Kevin while I drove. He’s staring out the window, or maybe at his own reflection in the glass. Just past his face, the stars twinkle. The streetlights do their best to block out everything else. The radio was off.
“Did she tell you?” he asked without turning.
“No,” I said, “but she—I don’t know—dreamed or something.”
He nodded, and kept staring. “Randolph,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time with her,” he said.
“What?”
He huddled himself up tighter, drawing his legs up onto the seat. “She wanted someone to mother. Someone to fill the empty back up.”
“So you—you—what?” I asked.
“I let her talk,” he said. Something in his voice meant more than that, though.
“Is that how you know all of this?” I asked.
He nodded, but said nothing for a long time. We were almost to the turn-off into his subdivision when he asked “what was he like?”
“Who?”
“Randy,” he said, and turned his head some.
“I dunno. He was a kid,” I said. A picture formed in my head of him, his head barely above the water, the first time I’d tried to teach him to swim. Another picture flipped over on top of that one, as if they were actual photos, of Randy on my bike. Then I thought of the coffin, and how narrow it was. “Just a kid,” I said.