The war is coming, Eddie. A man must protect his friends. Listen to Grandma.
Chapter 45
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Brady Collins sat huddled up with his back against the cold wooden wall. Something was bothering him. Like the itch on his arm. He kept scratching at the blisters Christopher left behind, but nothing would get rid of that itch. He just kept scratching and thinking about the day. His mother picked him up from the principal’s office and drove him home from school. She screamed at him about getting into a fight with new-money trash like Christopher and Special Ed. She screamed that he would never embarrass the family like that ever again. He was a Collins, God dammit. When they got home, she made him take off his coat and go into the doghouse in the backyard. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, but this was winter. He begged her not to make him go into the doghouse, but she told him that when he wanted to behave like a human being, he could sleep like one. He had been in the doghouse ever since. All because of Christopher and Special Ed. Those two losers made his mother hate him again. And he couldn’t have her hate him anymore. He couldn’t sleep in the doghouse anymore. He had to do something to make her love him. Shivering, he took his arms out of his sleeves and tucked them into the middle of his shirt. The heat of his chest started to warm up his arms, but it couldn’t get rid of that itch. He just kept scratching and scratching, and thinking and thinking. One thought. Over and over. That those two fucking kids would pay for making his mother hate him so much.
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Jenny Hertzog woke up in her bed. She thought maybe someone was in her room. She could hear breathing. Or was it the wind? She thought that her stepbrother Scott had snuck in, but a quick scan of the room showed that she was alone. She looked at the bedroom door, waiting for him to walk through it. Scott had picked her up from school that day since his mom was at work. Jenny begged him not to tell her dad that she got in another fight. Her dad might not let her go to camp that summer if he did. And camp was the only thing that got her away from Scott. So, when he told her that she would have to dance for him, or else he would tell, she had no choice. He made her take off her clothes. She was naked except for the bandage covering the burn on her left arm. It was so itchy. She kept scratching it and scratching it, but it wouldn’t stop. Like bugs on her skin. She got out of bed and walked to her door. She moved the chair from under the doorknob. Then, she walked down the stairs to the kitchen. She got a knife out of the drawer. She scratched the itch a little with it and walked past Scott’s room. For a moment, she thought about plunging the knife into Scott’s neck. That thought made the itching stop for a little while. She went back to her bedroom and put the knife under her pillow. In case Scott came into her room as he had the night before. He talked about her pajama bottoms being too short as he threw them in the corner. They were “floods, floods.”
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Matt sat up in bed and scratched his arm. He should have been happy about the news, but he wasn’t. After school, he had gone to the eye doctor with his mothers. They were angry that he and Mike got in a fight, but when Mike explained that they were only protecting Christopher, their moms laid off a little bit. He went to see the eye doctor about his lazy eye, and the doctor told him the good news. It should have taken his eye patch until the summer to make his eye stop being so lazy, but somehow, it was already fixed. “It’s a miracle,” the doctor said. Matt should have done cartwheels knowing that Jenny Hertzog couldn’t call him “Pirate Parrot” anymore. But something was wrong. Matt thought about Christopher grabbing his arm. How the heat soaked through his arm and tickled its way up to his eye. He would never tell the guys this out loud. They would think he was crazy. But as he scratched his arm, he couldn’t help but think that Christopher fixed his eye somehow. This thought scared him. Because he knew that if anyone found out, then someone might try to kill Christopher. So, he promised himself that he would keep wearing the eye patch at school, so no one would suspect. He would listen to Jenny Hertzog call him “Pirate Parrot” forever to keep his friend safe. He just had to keep Christopher alive. He felt like the whole world depended on it.
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Mike sat in his bed. The itching was driving him crazy. He got up and went into the bathroom looking for that pink lotion his mothers used on him when he and Matt both had chicken pox. But he couldn’t find any. All he saw were his one mother’s vitamins. The ones that made her happy. He left the bathroom and went to the basement where no one could hear him. He turned on the television and put on his favorite movie, The Avengers. Anything to take his mind off the itching. He was really enjoying the movie, and the itching almost went away, but then something happened. In the middle of the movie, Thor stopped and talked to Mike. They stayed up all night. Thor was so nice. Thor said Brady Collins was dangerous and that Jenny Hertzog was about to do something very scary. Thor told him to protect Special Ed and Matt. But especially Christopher. Because Mike was the strong one. And the war was coming. And the good guys had to win the war this time. Or the bad people would take over the world. Mike woke up on the couch. He didn’t know if it had been a dream.
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Ms. Lasko sat at the bar in Mt. Lebanon. The bar closed at 2:00 a.m., but Ms. Lasko knew the owner very well, and she begged him to let her stay. She just couldn’t go home. She scratched her arm, and for a moment, she reminded herself of her own mother back when they lived in the city. Her mother would scratch herself all the time until she got her medicine. Ms. Lasko thought of it as “Mommy’s itch medicine.” Because the minute she put it into her arm, she stopped itching. She hadn’t thought of that for years. Ms. Lasko looked at all the empty bottles and glasses in front of her. She counted seventeen, which would normally send her home in a taxi with a black out. But all night, it didn’t matter how much she drank. Bottle after bottle. Shot after shot. She could not get drunk. She just kept itching and itching. And thinking and thinking. What if she could never get drunk again? Oh, God. Why couldn’t she get drunk today? She recounted the day, and she thought about Christopher. She knew it was crazy. There was no way a little boy could touch her arm and make her unable to feel drunk. But the thought was there like the itch on her arm. And she needed to find her own version of “itch medicine.” She had to get her drunk back before sobriety drove her insane.
The clock read 2:17 a.m.
Mrs. Henderson sat in the kitchen. Her perfect kitchen. Her dream kitchen. She had spent years creating it. Finding every knickknack. Every antique. She was not a rich woman, but she had taste. And over the decades, every Sunday, she would go out into the world of yard sales and flea markets and find pieces for ten dollars that would have gone for thousands at Christie’s. Little by little, bit by bit, she created the perfect home for herself and her husband. It was her life’s work. She taught children to read and love books during the day. And she created the perfect home for her husband at night. But now her husband was never in it. It was 2:17 a.m., and her husband was still out somewhere. So, Mrs. Henderson sat in her kitchen, just staring at the front door. She stared at the little WELCOME HOME antique plaque and the perfect little curtains on the brass railing. She stared and scratched and thought about the day she got engaged on top of the Ferris wheel at Kennywood. Mr. Henderson couldn’t keep his hands off her back then. She would tell him “no” in the backseat of his car even though her body screamed “yes.” Because she was not that kind of girl. Men don’t marry those kinds of girls, her mother told her. But her skin itched whenever he kissed her. Her skin burned for him. Like it burned now. Like it burned in her first year teaching at Mill Grove Elementary School. She would never forget that little boy. That little frightened boy. How smart he was. How sad she felt when he went missing. Why was she thinking of him now? She had no idea. But it made her arm stop itching to think of him. It made her stop asking when her husband stopped touching her. It made her remember that this was going to be her last year of teaching.
She was going to retire and have a great life with him. Yes. Her husband would walk through that door eventually. Eventually, he would get hungry and need her warm kitchen again.
Chapter 46
The clock read 2:37 a.m.
Mary Katherine lay alone in her bedroom. She had been awake for twenty minutes now. She woke up because her arm was itchy. She tried to put on some lotion, but that didn’t work. She drank a glass of water because sometimes itchy skin means dehydration. But that didn’t work, either. The itch just stayed on her skin.
The strange thing was that she enjoyed it.
Her skin was warm. Soft and quiet like silk sheets. And the itch felt good against it. Nice and scratchy like the one time when Doug forgot to shave and kissed her cheek. The scratching kind of hurt, but she liked it, and kind of wished that Doug could grow out his beard. He tried once for their production of Fiddler on the Roof. All the boys in the cast did. The results were varying degrees of tragic. Why were boys boys? she wondered.
Why couldn’t they just hurry up and become men?
Mary Katherine lay on her bed in her cotton nightgown and looked around the room. The wind was blowing outside. A little more than usual. Mary Katherine pictured the wind sneaking into her bedroom and blowing the itch on her arm all over her body. She pictured it moving down her forearm to her wrist to her fingers.
Five little fingers on her right hand.
Mary Katherine took her fingers and started to move the itch around. Inch by inch. She started on her arm, then slowly moved her itchy fingers up her shoulder to her neck to her mouth. She stopped there. Just grazing her fingers back and forth across her lips. They were dry and cracked from her walk through the cold Mission Street Woods. Every time she grazed them, the itch became warmer and softer and scratchier all at the same time. Kind of like how she pictured a real beard feeling on her skin. A real beard belonging to a real man. A man like the sheriff who lied for her on the night she found Christopher. Mary Katherine stuck out her tongue and licked the tips of her fingers. Slowly, she moved one of her fingers into her mouth. Then, she moved the finger in deeper and added another and another. She pictured the sheriff kissing her. She pictured taking the sheriff into her—
STOP.
Mary Katherine sat up in bed. The itch on her skin turned to a burn. What the hell was she doing? This wasn’t right. It would have been a sin to think of Doug that way because they weren’t married. But the sheriff? That was disgusting. Mary Katherine had never had sex. She had never masturbated because she knew that would lead to shameful thinking. She knew the rules…To think it is to do it. That’s what she was taught by Mrs. Radcliffe in CCD for over ten years.
TO THINK IT IS TO DO IT.
Mary Katherine got on her knees at the foot of her bed and prayed to take these sinful thoughts out of her mind. She was kneeling in front of God. Using her mouth to speak His words. But the itching only got worse. She could feel it under the cotton of her nightgown. The skin of her breast could feel the itch on her fingers. Nothing but a little slice of cotton in between them. It wasn’t a sin to rub her nightgown. Right? It’s just cotton. It’s not like it’s her body. So, that would be okay. That wouldn’t be a sin. So, she got off her knees and rubbed the cotton of her nightgown. Her breast was only scratched by accident. By the coarse cotton. Like a beard. Like the sheriff’s stubble as he picked her up and put her on the bed and—
STOP.
THIS IS A TEST.
Mary Katherine stood up. Her chest was aching now. Her face flushed red. She told herself that it was okay. She was only touching her nightgown. Not her breasts. She didn’t do anything wrong. She had come close, but she hadn’t gone all the way. Not yet. But Mary Katherine was still terrified. She had to get out of her bedroom before she thought something that would send her straight to Hell. She had to go outside. That’s it. Yes. She would go outside in the cold air, and it would stop all of this heat.
Mary Katherine went to her closet and took off her nightgown. She stood in front of her closet in nothing but panties. The draft in her bedroom moved across her skin like little kisses. The wind blowing on her neck. Gooseflesh popped up wherever it touched her. She didn’t know why the wind was allowed to touch her, and she wasn’t. But she wasn’t. But she still wanted to touch herself. Over and over again. She wanted to put her itching fingers into her panties and—
“Stop it, Mary Katherine!” she hissed at herself. “To think it is to do it! Just stop thinking!”
She had to get out of there. Cover her body. Forget she had one. She threw on the thickest white sweater and pair of blue jean overalls she owned along with her thickest socks and boots. Mary Katherine left her room and tiptoed past her parents’ bedroom, then down the stairs. She walked outside, but it was too freezing to stay there. Luckily, her mother parked in the driveway. Mary Katherine wasn’t allowed to drive past midnight. But it wasn’t a sin to sit in a car, right? Right.
Mary Katherine got in the car.
The cold of the car seat ate its way through her thick clothes. The cold made her gooseflesh return and turned her nipples into pebbles under her overalls. She thought about warm hands on her breasts. Crawling into the backseat. Steaming up the windows.
THIS IS A TEST. STOP IT.
But she couldn’t. Mary Katherine was on fire. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She took out her cell phone and dialed.
“Hello?” Doug said, half asleep.
“Doug! Are you at home?” she asked, desperately.
“Of course. It’s almost three,” he said.
“Is the key under the mat?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m coming over.”
“But I have a final tomor—”
Mary Katherine hung up. She started the car. She knew she would get in the worst trouble if her parents found out, but she didn’t know what else to do. She had to get rid of these thoughts. She had to get the itch off her skin.
Mary Katherine drove to Doug’s house, checking for deer the whole way. She parked in front. Before she could get out of the car, he appeared on the porch. He walked over to the car in a robe and snow boots, the frost on the lawn crunching with each step.
“What the hell are you doing, Mary Katherine?”
“Let’s go inside.”
“Are you crazy? My parents would hear us. What’s going on?”
“I need your help, Doug. Pray with me.”
“About what?”
“Just pray with me. Please.”
“Okay,” he said.
Mary Katherine opened the door. Doug got in and shivered. The two clasped hands and closed their eyes in prayer. Mary Katherine wanted to speak. She wanted to tell him about the itch on her skin and all of her impure thoughts, but she couldn’t. She knew to speak it is to think it and to think it is to do it, and to do it is to hit a deer and spend eternity in Hell.
But Doug’s hands felt so warm.
And he smelled so good.
“What are you doing, Mary Katherine?” Doug asked.
Mary Katherine opened her eyes and realized she had reached under Doug’s seat and slid it all the way back to make room for herself in front of him. She got on her knees and parted his robe. Mary Katherine reached for his boxers and slid them down his body. She looked down and saw it. She had never seen one before. Not in person. Only drawings in health class.
But there it was.
“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t say a word because she had no words. Just the heat on her body and the itch and the shame that felt so terribly bad in the best kind of way. Mary Katherine slowly moved her hand to Doug. Stop. It’s a test. She touched it. To think it is to do it. She started moving her five itching fingers up and down. So you may as well do it. Up and down. Up and down. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She didn’t know what was possessing her. But she wanted it. She wanted him to grab her. And be a man already. Just be a God damn man already, Doug. He looked over at his house.
The lights turned on.
“Oh, God. My mother is awake,” he said.
But Mary Katherine didn’t stop. She put Doug into her mouth. He was hard as a diamond. The itching stopped. The voices stopped. The words stopped. She didn’t know what to do with it other than hold it in her mouth. But it didn’t seem to matter. Within three seconds, he pulled out, and he finished all over her sweater.
They were both silent.
She looked up at Doug, who was filled with desire and disgust, shame and confusion. The look on his face horrified her. She realized that in that moment, Doug had no idea who she was. Neither did she. He pulled up his underwear and closed his robe.
“I have to go,” he said.
He got out of the car and ran back to his house. Mary Katherine didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t believe what just happened. Her grandmother had given her that white sweater. For her sixteenth birthday. Her grandmother was dead now. Her grandmother could see what she had just done. So could Jesus. The sweater was dirty now. She was dirty. Like Debbie Dunham or any other girl at school. Her face was flush with shame. She looked back at the house as Doug walked through the front door without turning around to wave goodbye.
Mary Katherine drove away.
She turned on the radio to distract herself. The radio was set to her mother’s favorite religious station. The priest told Mary Katherine that Jesus loved her and would wash away her sins. The sins of sex. The sins of adultery. She changed the channel. Every station spoke of God. God was watching her. God could see everything.
A deer ran in front of her car.
Mary Katherine hit the brakes and skidded. The deer looked right into the headlights and froze. Mary Katherine screamed. The deer came closer and closer into the headlights.
“PLEASE, GOD! NO!” she screamed.
Imaginary Friend (ARC) Page 24