And it wouldn’t be long until he was free. The Swope had mentioned something like three years, though with Teddy’s tireless campaigning it would be way less. People would have to be impressed by the sight of one of Joel’s victims fighting so hard on his behalf. He’d be out in less time than it would have taken him to get some useless diploma. And when he finally walked he’d be smarter than Bucknell could have ever made him, his mind running in perfect sync with Teddy’s. They could get a place together up in Cambridge, where Teddy would finally be able to attend Harvard. Joel could enroll in some local school. BC. BU. The place was stinking with colleges. Like the Swope had said, nobody would hold a few years in the stir against a smart black kid. And they could be students together again. Freshmen. House jumpers.
All he had to do was let Joel know that it was cool. And he had to do it tonight. Otherwise he might not take the deal. Teddy knew that was the key to this whole thing. Because if Joel tried to fight the charge then he’d wind up getting twenty years and there’d be no saving him. The question was how to let him know. There was no way they’d put a call through to him in jail. And Teddy wasn’t about to go down to Cannon City. One brush with authority was sufficient unto the day. Then he remembered what his father had said about arranging for Joel to get bail. There had been some sort of hearing that afternoon—they’d probably already cut him loose. Which meant that Joel was no doubt sitting at home this very minute, just waiting for his friend to come by and sort things out. All he had to do was pay him a visit.
Teddy’s triumphant thinking was cut short by the most horrible noise he’d ever heard. It came roaring down the headphones, a bedlam of dying screeches and slow-motion moans, the din of a trillion souls being sucked into some fathomless abyss. He tore the headphones from his ears and looked for whatever howling chorus of demons had arrived to damn him to eternal torture. But his room was empty. It was just him and his Lennon posters. He checked his tape player. The wheel had slowed to a churning, erratic tumble. He punched stop and eject, then pulled the cassette from the slot, revealing a glistening, gutted tangle of ruined tape. He stuck his pinkie in the hole and began to rewind it. But it was no good. It had been shredded and twisted into an insoluble thread.
He chucked the busted cassette into his trash bin and looked at the clock: 10:01. Time to get over to the Wootens’. He downed another big swig of cough syrup and slid on his Keds. This was going to work. He was sure of it. Just before leaving the room he remembered something. Joel’s visor. The perfect ice breaker. He plucked it from the bedstead where it had rested this past week and headed out into the Newton night.
He vacated the premises the back way, just to make sure he didn’t run into his father, who’d categorically forbidden him from leaving the house until further notice. Though Teddy had heard him hurrying off an hour ago, there was no telling when he’d be back. His mother had no doubt already gone to bed. She wouldn’t be a problem.
He heard the siren the moment he stepped through the sliding-glass door onto the back porch. He froze in his tracks, one hand still gripping the handle. His heart began to pound in his thin chest; blood coursed through his already dizzy head. The siren was moving south along Newton Pike. Which meant it was heading his way. This was it. They were coming for him. His story had fallen to pieces. Some crucial flaw had been detected by those two SBI thugs. Which was why his father had to rush from the house—to try to forestall the inevitable. But not even the Swope could prevent the shitstorm now gathering on the horizon. Teddy was going down. His whole beautiful plan was about to be flushed down the crapper. He’d never be able to show Joel the sacrifices he was prepared to make, never have the chance to explain how things would be.
He leaned against the house’s cool wood shingles for support, wondering how long he would get. His dad had said just a few years. But that was for Joel. They wouldn’t go so easy on Teddy. There were lies involved. Trickery and deceit. And then there was the jealousy his father had spoken of last night. Those twelve spiteful gentlemen of the jury would be sure to throw the book at him. He just hoped they’d let him have his tunes. Lennon would help him get through. He’d write to him at this Dakota place he’d just moved to in Manhattan. They could get a correspondence going. The Swope-Lennon Prison Letters. That would be intense. There could even be a visit and then maybe a song on the next album. He’d written one for Angela, after all. John Sinclair. “Attica State.” Surely Teddy would rate. If not a song then at least a few lines.
He was snapped from his reverie by the realization that the siren had come to a halt down near the north shore of Lake Newton. Which meant he wasn’t going to be busted after all. Which meant there was still time to save Joel. Energized by his reprieve, Teddy bolted down the steps and headed around the side of the house, wondering if maybe he should drive. But that would be too risky. The Swopes would know he was gone for sure if he saw the Firebird missing. Better to walk.
Other sirens had begun to sound as he climbed to the top of Pros-pero’s Parade. There were a half dozen of them, zigzagging all over the place. Teddy wondered what it could possibly mean. Maybe the restless natives at Renaissance Heights had finally gone on the rampage. He turned onto Merlin’s Way, but only got a few steps before he was hit by a sucker-punching spell of dizziness that snipped the strings holding his body aloft and sent him crashing into the Bartelts’ carefully trimmed shrubbery. Twigs shattered beneath him and then the sweet smell of peat filled his nostrils. Bummer. He rolled onto his back and took a few deep breaths, his vision tunneling into a star-sized dot, his head so light it felt like a weather balloon. Perhaps he’d ingested a tad too much of that syrup. It took him a while to remember the exact procedure for standing. When finally on his feet he allowed himself a minute or two to get his gyroscope up and running, then attempted a few tentative steps. Left, right, left. That was better. He noticed something in his right hand. The visor. He settled it onto his head. It felt good to be wearing something of Joel’s. Even though he knew it must make him look like a complete nimrod.
He continued down Merlin’s Way, taking deep breaths in an effort to clear his mind before arriving at the Wooten house. He’d have to be at his most articulate to pull this one off. He wasn’t about to kid himself here. It would be hard to make Joel see past his undoubtedly grim short-term prospects. And then there was the thorny subject of a certain blond girl’s demise. There might be some bad scenes on that score. But it was cool. Teddy was ready for any eventuality. He’d hang with his friend as long as it took for him to see that there was only one future for him. Teddy’s future.
The fire appeared the moment he turned the last sharp bend before the Wooten house. At first he thought it was some sort of neo-biblical visitation, a burning bush or flaming angel come to cast light upon his crime. Or maybe it was simply a hallucination, fueled by stress, sleeplessness and his unwise consumption of that codeine. Whatever it was, it was spooky, the way the fire just hovered there in the darkness. Teddy was sorely tempted to turn around and bolt for the sanctuary of his room. That horrible music and the sirens and now this—it was looking like a bad night to be out and about. But he had a mission. He’d just have to brave it. Joel had to be told to take the plea.
He took a bracing breath and walked on. As he drew closer to the fire he relaxed, realizing that it wasn’t some disembodied spectral conflagration after all, but simply a ruptured gaslight. Urgent blue flame poured through the shattered iron assembly, hissing with a wicked and insinuating sibilance. The lamp belonged to Something-or-Other O’Brien, a lawyer who worked down in D.C. and regularly came by the house to borrow the Swope’s legal tomes. A crowd had gathered on the stretch of lawn between the lamp and the house. As he approached unseen Teddy realized that he knew these people. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien and their dickhead son Chris, there were the Parkers and the Bartelts, into whose shrubbery Teddy had just tumbled. O’Brien and Parker held something over their crotched arms; Chris, who’d captained Newton High’s 1–
11 football team, balanced a baseball bat on his shoulder. The women and kids stood behind them, up by the porch.
Just as Teddy reached the edge of the property the O’Briens’ Jack Russell bolted from among the knot of men. Teddy, who had tangled with this dog in the past, stood his ground, not wanting to add a bite to the day’s catalog of woe. Somebody whistled and the dog froze. There was another whistle and it retreated, casting resentful glares over its shoulder. Teddy pressed on, vectoring across the lawn toward the small assembly of citizens. Everyone was staring at him now. Light and shadow danced across their faces, making them look like they were grimacing. Bits of broken glass littered the sod beneath the burning lamp. He could now see that O’Brien and Parker held shotguns.
“Hola, citizens,” Teddy said, his voice sounding like it was coming from a point just beyond his right ear. “What gives?”
For a moment the only reply was the gaslight’s exaggerated hiss. It was O’Brien, a fat man whose flaxen hair looked like it should have surrounded a corncob, who finally spoke.
“Haven’t you heard? These damned things have been blowing up all over town.”
“Really?” Teddy said. “Golly.”
They all watched the flame for a moment.
“You gonna shoot it out or something?” he asked, nodding to the gun resting on O’Brien’s arm.
“Word is they’ve been taking advantage of the trouble to break into houses over in Fogwood,” Parker explained. “Guy over on Zeno’s Way said a bunch of them just walked right in and took his TV.”
“They being …” Teddy wondered.
“Them,” Parker said.
“Ah.”
“We’re just making sure they don’t try anything up here,” O’Brien added.
“I wish the fuckers’d come.”
That was Chris speaking. Teddy nodded a sober hello. Last fall, Chris had given him a mega-wedgie after gym class, hanging him like curing meat on the edge of a locker. It had been ten gonad-crushing minutes before Joel had found him and let him down. Teddy immediately told Ardelia, who suspended Chris for the next game, which turned out to be the team’s only win of the season. But all that seemed to be forgotten in the current emergency.
“Does your dad know about this?” O’Brien asked.
“He left home for Newton Plaza almost an hour ago.”
They waited, clearly in need of further reassurance. Teddy’s head suddenly began to swim. Out beyond the dome of light, the darkness was spinning cyclonically. He hoped he wasn’t about to fall again. That glass looked sharp.
“Contingencies are being hammered out as we speak,” he heard himself saying. “Stay close to your telephones and make sure you have plenty of fresh drinking water stored. Above all else, defend your property.”
Was he actually saying this? The words came without thought or intention. And yet the ad-hoc suburban posse accepted his counsel with sober, appreciative nods. Women were on the scene now, having migrated down from the porch. They stared at him with the blank expectancy of refugees. Even the fucking dog seemed to be mollified by Teddy’s presence.
“Moments like these test our mettle,” he continued. “They force us to decide what kind of community we’re going to become. Whether law and justice will prevail or its idiot sibling, anarchy, will rule the day.”
This sounded good, though Teddy wondered if it might not be wasted on this particular crowd. Chris seemed especially at sea, a quizzical look twisting his thick features. In the ensuing silence the men began shifting their weaponry from crook to crook; the women hiked their draped sweaters onto frail shoulders. Teddy, champion debater, Robespierre of the Newton High student council, knew when he was on the verge of losing an audience. He decided to get while the getting was good.
“Well, good night,” he said pleasantly. “I’ll make sure Dad knows what’s up.”
He didn’t wait for their response, heading without further comment back along Merlin’s Way. He could feel his body sway as the codeine washed sluggishly through him. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t taken so much. He walked on, step after step, yard after yard. He passed one last copse of trees and then the Wooten house came into view. The windows were dark. Teddy swore beneath his breath—he hadn’t counted on them being in bed for the night. But when he reached the bottom of the driveway he saw that both the Ranchero and the Le Sabre were gone. They must all still be down in Cannon City. Which was excellent news—he could wait in Joel’s room. This way, he would be free to explain the future to his friend without having to run the gauntlet of Ardelia and the Earl.
The only problem was getting inside. On those nights that Teddy and Joel had to sneak in after staying out too late they used the guest room window around back. Because it was ten feet off the ground, nobody bothered to lock it. But they needed each other to do that, Teddy standing on Joel’s broad shoulders and piling through, then creeping around to the kitchen’s sliding-glass door to let his friend in. It would never work on his own. He walked around the back of the house anyway, trying every door he passed, hoping to get lucky. Garage, basement. No soap. He stepped up onto the deck and jiggled the sliding door. Locked. The guest room window hovered tantalizingly beyond reach. And of course there was no ladder in sight. Teddy went back around to the front of the house, trying more windows and doors as he went. But the place was locked down tight. The Earl’s years in the badlands of St. Louis had made him ridiculously security conscious. As if anybody was going to bust into his house out here. Well, all right, Teddy was, but that was different. He was a friend of the family, whether anybody knew it or not. By the time he reached the front porch he’d reconciled himself to waiting in the shadows for their return and then resorting to the hoary convention of tossing pebbles against Joel’s window. For no good reason, he stepped up to the front door and gave the knob a hopeless little twist.
It opened. He couldn’t believe his luck. The lock was broken. The pigs must have done it when they busted Joel. Typical. He stepped into the house, making sure to pull the door shut behind him. It was completely dark. He hit a light to get his bearings and almost leapt out of his skin when he saw the deep and unreadable eyes of Joel’s slave ancestor on the wall. Teddy could never get used to that guy. After quickly charting a course up to Joel’s room, he turned off the lights and plunged into the welcoming darkness.
37
Dreams filled the night. They played across the back of Wooten’s house like the outsized projections of a drive-in movie. Bad dreams this time, disconnected fragments that were nothing like the peaceful apparitions of the long My Song nights. The first was the most complete, recalling the chaotic moments after a napalm drop during his last tour. Truax himself had called for the raid after his platoon had been pinned down by an ambush. F-4s had responded almost immediately, lighting up the jungle a few hundred yards ahead. The ensuing rumble and crackle was broken after thirty seconds by a screeching sound high in the triple canopy, a noise so unexpectedly bizarre that most of the men began to smile in bewilderment. But the smiles quickly faded as the source became apparent—a stampede of macaque monkeys fleeing the explosion through the thick liana. They were burning, every one of them, wreathed in haloes of blue flame that set small fires in their wake. The first of them began to drop just before they reached the hunkered-down patrol, screaming and writhing in the swampy earth like children playing in the rain. A new guy lowered his M-16 to put the closest out of its misery but Truax ordered him to shoulder his weapon. Mercy too often meant death out here. The monkey could die in his own time.
That dream was followed by a quick image of a ville that had been sacked by a platoon of renegade marines. Truax’s patrol arrived to find the place in ruins. Hooches had been burned, locals and animals slaughtered. Most of the bodies had been dumped in a well, though one girl—she couldn’t have been more than twelve, Susan’s age—was curled on the floor of a hooch, a plastic bag clinging amniotically to her face, the legs of a Barbie emerging from her bloodied vagina. In t
he dream the doll’s legs began to scissor and Truax found himself reaching to pull them out, only to find they were too slick to grasp. After that came a vision of the tax collector who’d been staked to the ground by VC in a paddy just off Route 4. He was a gnarled old Chinaman who stared at Truax with milky, beseeching eyes. At first he seemed to be miraculously unharmed. After checking him for booby traps they cut him loose. It was then that Truax discovered the writhing colony of maggots his captors had spread beneath him like spring seeds. The parasites had eaten through the flesh around his ribs and were nibbling at the edge of his liver. This time, Truax didn’t worry about alerting the enemy. They knew exactly where he was. He took his .45 from its holster and put a round through the man’s right eye, leaving him to the maggots who’d already claimed his flesh as their due.
Truax shook himself awake after that one, frightened that the dreams would suck his fevered mind into a pit from which he might never emerge. He couldn’t let the night get the better of him. He had to stay clear. Wooten was down in Cannon City, arranging his son’s freedom with lies and bribes. Truax could not let that happen. He would have to stay alert to be sure the boy was punished.
He began to perform the long-familiar series of stretches and twists that ushered blood into his tired muscles. The only resistance came when he tried to move the fingers of his right hand. They responded listlessly, wriggling just a few unpredictable centimeters. The hand was dying now. Some time in the late afternoon he had removed the glove and the bandages to look. The first whiff of unfettered rot drove him to the tree-house’s rear window, where he’d vomited out a stream of still-hot coffee. When he held the hand up to the last of the day’s sunlight he could see that the flesh was cracked and inflamed all the way to the veins of his wrist. Waves of fever pulsed from it toward every precinct of his exhausted body. And now, as he struck the flattened palm against a two-by-four, he felt only a faint telegraphic hum. Soon his hand would no longer be part of him. Once he was sure Joel had been punished he would go back to that old doctor at Bethesda and let him saw it off. Truax had known so many men who’d lost so much of themselves that forfeiting a hand seemed almost insignificant.
The New City Page 46
