by J. Warren
The hot water streamed over me. My shoulders felt bunched underneath my bones. I turned my back to the spray, and leaned against the shelf my father had installed for my mother’s things. I put my forehead against it, looking down at my toes. They looked strange. I wondered how long it had been since the last time I’d really looked at them. I stood up, and backed into the spray again, letting my head fall backward. I closed my eyes and leaned back until the water smacked against my forehead, flowing over my skull.
Kevin. I wanted to see Kevin. I wanted to go see him, and then leave this town. Did I want him to come with me? That was the question. What was I going to do about Susan? It had all seemed much clearer yesterday.
I shut off the water and reached for a towel. I remembered being so young that I was too short to reach the towel rack from the tub. I would climb out of the tub and grab the towel and then climb back in as fast as I could. While I was drying, my mind would always wander to the footprints I would leave on the tile. “Why is there water on the floor?” my mother would ask. I would shrug, and she would sigh.
I looked for those prints. I looked for those tiny feet. There was no trace. I could almost see them, though.
Downstairs, the television was on. The paper rustled as I came down the stairs. “Nearly eleven,” my father commented, without looking away from the headlines.
I didn’t say anything. My mother was at the counter, reading over a cookbook. A measuring cup and two eggs sat next to the book. “Whatcha’ makin’?” I asked.
She looked up, and her face split. Her lips and eyebrows were drawn into a smile, but her eyes were dull and lifeless. “What, dear?” she asked.
“What are you making?” I asked, again. I opened the refrigerator and took out the milk. I sat the jug on the counter, and opened the top. She watched me without moving anything but her eyes.
“I know, cup.”
Her smile twitched wider for a second, then re-settled. “I’m making some poundcake.”
“Oh?” I asked, “for who?” I got a cup and brought it back to the counter.
“I thought I might take it over to Mrs. McPherson at the hospital.”
I stopped twisting the cap, and didn’t move. “Oh?”
“Yes. It seems that she’s been very upset the last few days,” my mother said, reabsorbed in the cookbook.
“How—umm—how do you—uh—know?” I asked.
“About Gwenneth? Oh, I don’t know. Rumors floating around. I overheard someone talking about it,” she said, but her voice never changed it’s flat tone. “she was our neighbors, you know,” she said.
“What?” I asked. I still hadn’t moved, or even breathed.
“You don’t remember? It must’ve been—oh, I’d say a year or so before you started school.”
“Here? The McPherson’s lived here?”
“Oh, no, dear. She wasn’t Gwen McPherson, then. She was still Gwenneth Ladd. She hadn’t met Peter yet. She did that year, though. I introduced them.”
“She lived alone?” I asked.
“The milk, dear,” she said, looking at it with a flick of her eyes, then back to the book.
I twisted the cap closed once more. “Mrs. McPherson—umm—Gwen lived alone?”
“Of course, dear. You don’t think a young couple like that would have waited so long to have their first child, do you?” she asked. She had cracked the eggs, and was adding sugar.
“I don’t know. I didn’t—umm—I didn’t know.”
“You knew little Randolph, didn’t you?” she asked. Her hands only paused for a second, then she went back to mixing.
“I—yeah, I did,” I said.
“Tragedy,” she said and crossed herself.
“Have—did anyone say why they think that she’s been upset?” I asked.
My mother clicked her tongue, and shook her head a bit, “Well, it seems that people have gotten it into their heads that those little boys remains they’ve found, the ones from the ditch?” I nodded, though she wasn’t looking, “it seems that people are thinking that set of remains might be little Randolph.” I waited. She continued mixing. “People have been trying to talk to her. Reporters and the like.”
I nodded, again. “Ah,” was all I said.
“Imagine--” she shook her her head “--they have no shame. She’s resting, poor girl.”
“I—umm—I thought that I would maybe go see Pete today,” I said.
“That would be wonderful, Michael. My son, the good boy. I always told Doctor Gantner that you were my good child. The only one. The only one,” she repeated, and chills ran over me. She walked to me, wiping her hand on her apron. She put it on my forehead. “I don’t want to worry you, dear, but I think maybe you’re getting sick. You haven’t been yourself. Are you getting enough rest?”
I could see in her eyes that she was asking questions she was supposed to ask, but that her mind was far away. They were dull, and glazed over. I wanted to ask her about this morning, about the sheriff, about what Kevin had said. For that split second, with her hand on my forehead, I felt like I needed to confess to her. I closed my eyes, and her hand was the only thing in the world holding me up.
Then her hand went away. I opened my eyes. The room was cold, even with the oven. I looked away. I heard the squeal of the oven door as she put the cake in. I turned and walked away.
“Mikey,” my father said as I walked past. He said it low, so I knew automatically that whatever he was about to say I was not supposed to repeat to my mother. I stopped. He lowered a corner of the paper. “Your mother and I were wondering when you plan on leaving,” he said. I couldn’t stop my face from reacting. “We enjoy having you here, mind, but—well, we know you have things you have to do. I’m sure your girlfriend, Shannon, right?”
“Susan,” I said.
“Susan, right—I’m sure Susan must be missing you, by now,” he said. I didn’t say anything. He looked at me for a moment longer, and nodded to himself. The corner of the paper came back up. To this day, I still don’t know why, but I knew it’d be the last time we spoke.
The McPherson’s had always been so close that it seemed strange to have to use a bike or a car to get there at all. I’d spent so much time with Randy at the Y, and thinking about what his life must be like, that the house seemed only an extension of our own. The car hummed under me, and the radio played something in the background, but I wasn’t listening.
Instead, what I was hearing was that high pitched, near-squeal laughter that little boys have before they get teased for it, and start to laugh like their fathers. I was listening to the sound of a birthday party in my head.
When Randy turned seven, he’d asked to have his birthday party at the Y pool. His mother set it up with Mrs. Dryer. I knew she had to talk to Mr. Baxter, the Y director, too. I’d never seen him. The only thing I’d ever heard was Mr. Roger blast the man. “That damned pencil pusher,” he’d start off saying, then go into a rant about trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. ‘Still don’t know what that means,’ I thought, stopping at a 4-way. One of the signs had been riddled with tiny dents; they were BB holes.
So, ten kids from Randy’s class wound up running and yelling and laughing for a few hours. Mrs. Dryer told me that Mr. Baxter had asked me to be there. She said that they would pay me to lifeguard that Saturday evening. They closed down the Y, and opened up the pool to the kids. I was supposed to be there to remind the children to be safe around the water. What I wound up being was an extra springy diving board. “Throw me, throw me!” they kept asking. All except Randy. He was scared to be thrown like that. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to, but he was terrified.
The one time he did approach me, while most of the other kids were playing volleyball at the other end, he seemed so tiny. I always remember him being so small.
“Mikey, could—umm—,” he started, looking away.
“Yeah.” I put my hands up, linked together at the fingers. He put his tiny feet into my hands and I said, “remember, tuck forwa
rd as soon as you can.” He nodded. I lowered my hands some, then counted down from three. At ‘one’, I brought my hands up toward my chest as fast as I could. I felt him tense, and then he wasn’t in my hands anymore. I heard the splash behind me.
I looked up to see Randy’s mom staring our direction. She’d been watching the whole time. Something in me expected to see her face contort in horror. I expected that something had gone wrong, and there would be screaming any second. I knew he’d hit the side of the pool and was drowning.
Instead, what I heard was his laughter. It was this strange thing; he often grinned, but almost never laughed. I turned to see him smiling at me. His whole face was lit up.
Pulling up to the curb at the McPherson house, what I remembered was not only the laughter, but the empty. My hands felt the emptiness of that moment again; all of his weight had been resting in my hands, and then suddenly, it had gone.
THIRTY-TWO
I don’t know how long I sat in the car, just watching the house. I kept thinking ‘turn around’ over and over. I wanted to leave. Something like my father’s voice came up from inside me, though, and said ‘this has got to be done’. He’d always tried to instill that in me. I must have been about eight or so when I asked him “Daddy, when do I get to be a man?” It was one of those purely ridiculous things that kids ask that when you start to pick it apart isn’t so ridiculous.
This was back when he and I were still good. We’d been on our way back from the grocery store, or one of the other billion inane errands we were always on together. Back then he seemed to want me around more than he wanted mom, even. We’d just finished singing a song that was on the radio. I remember that he would stop and let me take the high-pitched parts.
He reached over and turned the radio down. Without looking at me, he sighed, then said “Mikey, a man is someone who does what he has to do, even when he doesn’t want to.” He was using that voice. The one he used reading bed time stories. I wanted that voice to go on forever. It seemed like he might stop there, so I started thinking of ways to get him to keep talking. I knew it had to be something that would get him to keep using that voice, though. If it was too silly, he’d switch into his regular voice with a laugh.
“Things like what?” I’d asked. It was the best I could come up with.
He laughed, and reached over to tug the bill of my baseball cap downward. I knew I’d failed, but that it was okay. “Just—things, Mikey. Just things,” he’d said.
It was that voice I was hearing in my head; my father before the change telling me that I must do this. ‘Before what?’ I asked myself, but there was no answer. I hadn’t really expected there to be one.
I got out of the car and walked to the door. The second I set foot on Pete’s lawn, though, I knew something was wrong. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I raised my hand to knock on the front door, and saw that it was already open a crack. It seemed like something you’d see in a murder mystery. I brought my knocked once, just a short little rap on it. The door swung open with a creak.
From where I was standing, I could see the destruction. The front room was filled with little nicknacks, things Mrs. McPherson had collected over the years, the last time I’d come, just a few days ago. It looked as if an explosion had happened in between now and then.
‘Don’t go in’ I thought, but stepped in, anyway. It felt powerful. It felt as if some wave was pushing me in the door, a wave that would be so hard to resist. I didn’t think I had the strength to stop myself. The moment I was in the house, the air around me seemed to grow solid. I can’t find any other way to describe that. It was as if some great decision, something effecting millions of lives, had just been made final. Some powerful step had been taken. I thought that any moment, the door would slam closed. For that brief second, I understood the word ‘fate’.
I was afraid. Every step I took, my shoes crunched on some broken glass. I got past the front room, into the living room. It was worse. The chair had been overturned, and holes had been punched in it with something big and sharp. The boxes that had been so neatly piled up were toppled, and papers were scattered everywhere. The room was dark, and the air felt heavy.
I moved back to the bedrooms. They were just as ransacked. I kept expecting to see blood, but there was none.
The house was empty. I moved back to the living room. I thought about picking up the phone and dialing the police; that would be the natural thing to do in any sane world. Something in me reminded me that this situation, this town, this world, had stopped being sane a few days ago. I stood near the telephone, wondering what I should do.
A low, rumbling sound went through the whole house, shaking it. I started, and turned. I jumped again, and nearly yelled. The first time had been because of the thunder; the second was because the Sheriff was standing in the doorway.
“Well, doggy. Looks like that storm is gonna’ set in a might sooner than we all thought,” the Sheriff said, tipping his hat a few millimeters back on his forehead. He put his hand on his hip, and gestured with the other one, “Just get here?” he asked. He grinned with one side of his mouth; the rest of his face didn’t move.
“Yes,” I said.
“I reckon you came lookin’ for ol’ Pete?” He looked down at the floor, as if he was waiting or my answer.
“Yes,” I said, “but he’s not here.”
“Nope, I reckon not,” he said, and moved toward me. He stopped at a box that was on the floor, staring down at the papers. He squinted as though one were particularly important, then ‘hmmphed’, and looked up at me “I reckon not,” he repeated.
“Do—umm—do you know where he went?” I asked.
“Well, I ain’t exactly sure, mind, but,” he said, and paused. He looked up at me, and when I saw his eyes, I went cold. Something in them was amused. It was the same sort of look you might see just before a snake strikes. It was a look that said ‘I know something you don’t know’ so clearly you could almost hear it. “but I reckon ol’ Pete had hisself a woman on the side-like.” I didn’t say anything, and the Sheriff moved to look down at the papers that had spilled out of another of the boxes. “Reckon he went to go be with her. Runnin’ outta here with a hardon, dumb bastard left the door wide open.” At the last part, he grinned that same way, again; it never touched more than his lips.
“Oh,” I said. I wanted to say more, but couldn’t. I was starting to shake.
“Thing that interests me, though, is why you come a’callin’ when I asked you specifically not to.”
“I—umm—I don’t understand,” I said.
“Well, now,” he said, grinning and barking one, small, dray laugh, “I don’t know as I believe that. See,” he said, putting his hand, curled into a fist, on his hip again, “I told you that all a’ this business with the bones and all, had really stirred ol’ Pete up. Yessir, I said that plain as day,” he said, then his voice dropped even further from icy to deadly, “and I distinctly remember someone dressed a lot like me, and bearin’ a striking resemblance saying something like ‘stay away from Mrs. McPherson, too’. Now, I could be wrong; memory ain’t so good these days. May be I need to get one a’ them tests, find out if I got that A.D.D. or not, huh?” he said, and chuckled at himself. Again, though, his eyes never changed.
“I wanted to say goodbye to Pete,” I said.
“Oh, I see. Leavin’ to go back to ta’ the city, are ya’? Well, that’s mighty fine. Glad you could come visit us; thing is, Pete’s gone. Up and left. As you can see, this town’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket. Vagrants and homosexuals,” he said, pronouncing each syllable of both words. If we’d been outside, I had the distinct impression he’s have spit on the ground. “Pete ain’t been gone but a few hours, maybe, and already someone done been in here and had a go at his wife’s things.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Well, I’s on my way back to the station to get some fingerprintin’ stuff. May be I could give you a lift back to your folk’s place. That’s where you
r stayin’, ain’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah. I brought the car, though, I could—”
“Well, then, good. Save me a’ extra trip,” he said, turning toward the door but not moving. I knew that he didn’t mean any of this as cordial as it sounded. I walked toward the door. I felt his eyes on me, even though they weren’t as I passed. I heard his boots clomp on the linoleum. He was just behind me. The hairs on my neck started to hurt because they hadn’t gone down, yet.
As we stepped out the door, I happened to look over at his police cruiser. I stopped, and heard him stop, too. In the backseat, was Kevin. Even though his head was down, I could see he had a cut on his forehead.
“Some problem?” the Sheriff asked.
“Umm—no,” I said.
“Oh. That. Just cleanin’ up some. Somethin’ I shoulda’ done years ago. Vagrants and homosexuals, son. Whole god-damned world is full of ‘em,” he said, and then spit. I felt his hand on my shoulder, and though he used no force, I knew it meant ‘keep walking’.
Kevin looked up at me: his lips were bloody, and there was a large cut on the side of his face. In his eyes I saw total fear. He was terrified. I knew why, too. Without anything said, I knew that the sheriff had not only found out we’d been together, but that he’d come here specifically to find me. He’d known where I’d be. I knew one other thing, too, just as surely: Pete McPherson hadn’t left Placerville.
Pete McPherson would never leave Placerville again.
THIRTY-THREE
“What are you going to do?” I asked. His force on my shoulder let me know that I couldn’t stop moving. Somehow, down inside me, I knew that as long as I kept moving, there was a chance. ‘A chance at what?’ I asked myself, but there was no answer.
“With him?” the Sheriff asked, and chuckled one single low laugh. “Well, I s’pose what I ought to do is run him out to the stop sign on Hitt road, and tell him to start walkin’. Thing is, I know exactly what he’d do; two, three weeks from now he’d set up shop in some other god-fearin’ town and begin to work his evil. Let me ask you somethin’, boy; did ol’ Albert ever teach you what to do if you got a snake in your backyard?”