"Hurry up now, and let your brother get his shower,” Maggie ordered as she door closed.
Lee stood outside gripping his towel with one hand and holding the eye in the other. He watched Maggie's silhouette head down the hallway toward the den, swinging that damn spatula like a gunslinger walking away from a fresh kill. Then he was all alone, feeling slightly ridiculous standing in the hall way wearing only a towel and staring at the empty spaces on the walls where the family pictures had hung until just recently. For some reason the empty outlines were as disconcerting as the unknown faces had been. It reminded him of that vacant house next door to Sticker's place. He preferred to look down at his toes. The hardwood floor felt smooth and slick under his feet after the tile of the bathroom. As an after thought he reached over and tried the doorknob. It was locked.
"Mamma!’ Patty yelled. “Lee won't let me pee!"
"Shut up,” he called through the door. “I was just checking the door knob. Geez, give me a break, Patty."
A couple of moments later, he heard a flush and then the door opened. Patty stuck her tongue out at him as she passed and quickly ran down the hall.
Back in the bathroom, Lee closed the door, and this time, double-checked the lock, as if it would do any good. Finally letting go his tight grip on the towel he tossed it up on the toilet tank.
"Whoo,” he exhaled out loud. “What was all that?” A quick stab of anger suddenly washed over him replacing his embarrassment. He checked the door again, even rattling the knob. It was locked. But he knew it was locked before. He knew it. Yet somehow Maggie had gotten in.
Still trying to think it all through, he put the eye safely in the soap dish and stepped up and into the tub drawing the shower curtain closed. It was a big tub, all white porcelain, the style called a claw tub, due to the stout iron feet that held it up. The shower curtain holder was a chrome metal tube suspended from the ceiling by little wire hangers and running around in an oval above the tub. The curtain always made a silvery skittering sound when he pulled it around. Turning on the water, something about that motion and the sound of it splashing out made him aware of himself, like a touch of deja vu. Inside, with the shower curtain closed, he was suddenly all so alone. He looked down and around. There were only his bare feet atop the fish shaped appliqués Maggie had put down, no moldering, old, dead body. No Aqua Velva.
Turning the handle for the shower, the water streamed down from the holes in the round, flat pan head, and he stepped right up letting if hit him straight in the face. He could feel it, the heat just washing out. For five minutes or more, Maggie be damned, he just let the water run, never having touched the hot water knob. When he was done, he toweled off, wrapped the towel around his waist, and retrieved the eye from the soap dish, then made the jump to the safety of his room. First thing, he put the eye in his special drawer in the roll top desk. Then he tossed the towel on the floor. Getting dressed, the strangest effect was he could still feel it, the eye, the weight, the hardness, the touch of it lingering where he'd last gripped it with his fingers.
Pulling on his cut-off shorts, he had a quick moment of misery. He might even have said the words out loud, but he certainly thought them: “Oh man, Maggie saw me naked.” Making him feel even more foolish, he couldn't believe he'd stood there so long, like some kind of stupid idiot. “It was the sun,” he thought. “Had to be."
Not really wanting to go out and watch T.V. with Patty he grabbed up his “John Carter of Mars” book and laid back on the bed. It only took a moment to find the creased page where he'd last marked his place, and a few seconds later he found himself back on Mars battling a barbarian horde while astride his trusty six-legged Thoat.
Dinner that night was fantastic: Maggie's fried chicken, with mashed potatoes and gravy, pinto beans, and rolls. Lee ate like a wolf. All three of them at the table, even Patty, were absorbed in the meal, and no said a thing for quite a while other than to occasionally ask someone to pass something. Lee could hear the tick of the wall clock and the occasional clink of a fork against the plate. Other than that, there was just the whirr of the ceiling fan and the heavy silence of the old house. His dad's chair was empty. Like so many evenings when they lived on Arbuckle Street, his dad wasn't home. Tonight though, Lee knew he was working late on some big catalog job that had to deliver on Monday. He'd had a choice between overtime tonight or working on Saturday. And Lee was glad his dad, for once, would be home all weekend.
"You working again tomorrow?” Maggie asked breaking the silence while carefully buttering one half of a steaming yeast roll.
"Nope,” Lee answered his mouth full of beans. He swallowed without hardly chewing. “Mrs. Ballard said she didn't want me around over the weekend. But she did say she thinks I should finish up and be able to clear out before the end of next week."
Maggie concentrated on the roll, getting the butter smooth and even. “How much will that be, hon?"
"If I work through Wednesday, that'd be eight days at five bucks a day.” Lee counted it off. “That'd be forty dollars!"
"Wow!” exclaimed Patty. “That's almost as much as Daddy makes!"
"How would you know, squirt,” he said, still a little mad about her, “I see London, I see France” and the whole bathroom affair.
He looked at Maggie and almost asked her how she'd gotten in, but decided he'd really rather not bring up the whole embarrassing episode.
"Maybe you could stretch it out a few more days?” Maggie suggested hopefully. “You know, make hay while the sun shines."
Patty looked hopeful, too, and nodded, as she knew that any money her big brother earned would eventually find its way to becoming a treat for her.
"I don't think so, Mom,” Lee came back quickly. “It's creepy over there. Mrs. Ballard sits in this little house they got out back, all day like she was dead or something.” Lee shuddered just for show. “You should see her. It must be a thousand degrees in there, and she just sits there. I'll be glad to take my money and go. Besides, forty bucks is a lot more than I thought I could make if I worked all summer."
He suddenly felt the eye in his pocket. Its presence was so hard and real against his thigh. For some reason he had fished it back out of the drawer before leaving the room. For a moment, he thought about taking it out and showing it around, but decided Maggie would probably confiscate it if she found it wasn't really a marble.
Maggie nodded. Throughout the whole dinner she had yet to make real eye contact with Lee. “Forty dollars is a whole lot of money."
Though she was talking and eating just like normal, Lee felt an undercurrent every time Maggie looked in his direction and just as quickly looked away. Again, he couldn't quite place it, but he knew he'd seen that look before. He'd try to catch and hold her eye, but he couldn't. Then he realized what it was. He could see it in there working in her mind, so self-satisfied; it was a notion all summed up in one word: “Gotcha.” And they both knew she'd got him good.
After dinner and dishes, they all took their places around the new T.V.. Lee missed his dad even though it meant he got to sit in the other big chair next to Maggie's, while Patty spread out on the couch. Though they were in a different house with different furniture some things hadn't changed.
Lee, being totally worn out, fell asleep in his chair long before his father ever got home.
He was way too big for Maggie to carry, so after the news was over she had to roust him up, tickling at his ribs.
He came awake startled. There was Maggie standing over him. He'd been dreaming something. A split second ago it had been so important, and now it was just gone. There was that look. It was all there behind her eyes, gloating: “Gotcha, didn't I?"
"Come on,” Maggie said. “Time for bed."
Lee got up and shuffled into his room, collapsing into bed, still in his cut offs and t-shirt. When he rolled over he felt the solid lump of the eye bury into his thigh. Blearily, he got up and walked over to the desk, and had to lean using one hand to support his weight as a
tremendous yawn came over him. Waiting until the last of the yawn was out he removed the thing, and carefully put it in his special desk drawer.
Lee took a moment to take a last look at the cool new prize. Surely it had to be blind luck, but he'd placed it so that it was looking right back at him. Suddenly, in seeing down into the blackness within, he got this kind of an odd shiver, one of those that just spring out from behind the shoulder blades and leave the small hairs on the back of the neck and arms standing on end. He'd seen people react like this when they heard fingernails screeching down a black board. Still though, he was so tired. He closed the drawer, and after that, he didn't even remember getting back into bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN: ART
Sticker's jaws snapped shut just a hair too late. With one hand, Lee had flung himself over the chain link fence, leaving the furious mongrel to growl and snap all by himself on the other side.
Lee couldn't resist growling back and kicking the fence. The effect was like hitting a yellow jacket nest with a rock, as Sticker exploded and swarmed up and down the length of the fence, his hackles bristling up like a razorback and barking like a machine gun.
"Who's that out there?” a voice called out.
Lee turned to see a lady standing on the steps of the back porch and brandishing a broom.
"It's me, Mrs. Barton,” Lee called back. “Lee."
The elderly woman squinted at him through her thick glasses and then let the broomstick drop. “Did that damn dog chase you over my fence again?"
Lee didn't really need to answer, Sticker was growling at him from the other side of the chain link. “Yes, Mrs. Barton. Sorry. I was careful to try not to stomp on your flowers when I jumped."
The woman came down the steps tilting back and forth side to side as she put one foot down and then the other taking each step one at a time. Once she was on level ground she made surprisingly quick time coming across the lawn. As soon as she arrived at the fence she began jamming the broom's bristles at the wire gauge, pushing it back and forth. “Damn, dog!” she hollered out. “Git! Do ya hear me? I said git!"
Mrs. Barton was the only elderly woman he could ever remember who used words like “damn."
Sticker backed off, but continued to bare his teeth and growl.
Mrs. Barton barely came up to Lee's shoulder, and she was almost as wide as she was tall. The calves of her stout legs appearing below the hem of her housecoat were mapped with blue lines from a lacing of varicose veins. She had flaming red dyed hair and the lenses of the glasses she wore were thick and round, like a pair of magnifying glasses, and caused her eyes to look abnormally large when she looked at you straight on. She reached down and tugged at Lee's blue jeans. “He didn't get ya, did he?"
"No ma'am,” Lee replied. “Almost though.” He pointed to a car parked on the other side of the street. “He was hiding under that car. I didn't see him ‘til he was almost on me."
Carefully stepping in between her hydrangeas and tulips, the resolute woman went right up to the fence, mashing her huge bosom against the top railing as she reached over and swatted out with the broom. Sticker was well out of reach, but he moved back a few more steps anyway. “Miserable cur!” she spat. “You're a coward dog, ain't ya? Pickin’ on kids. Why don't you come try to bite me?"
Sticker stood his ground where he was and just glared back at her with those yellow eyes.
"I ain't seen you around much lately.” Mrs. Barton briefly turned her attention back to Lee. “You and your folks been on vacation?"
"No ma'am. We moved."
Letting the broom down, Mrs. Barton took her free hand and adjusted her glasses. Keeping her hand on the frames while looking at Lee her fingers shook terribly. “Oh, that's right. I do remember. Your grandma died a while back, didn't she, poor dear? And y'all were all goin’ to move into her place?"
"Yes ma'am."
"So now, you're livin’ right over by Petunia Ballard's, ain't ya?” She let her hand down from her glasses and re-gripped the broomstick holding it out in front like a dancing partner.
"Yes ma'am,” Lee repeated respectfully. He was desperately hoping Mrs. Barton didn't want to “talk a spell,” as she would call it. But if she did, he was honor bound to be polite and stay as long as she'd like. Mrs. Barton was one of the best friends to all the kids in the neighborhood. Not only did she not mind if the kids used her back yard to escape Sticker, so long as they didn't trounce her flowers, but she gave out the big, supermarket bought, five-cent candy bars every Halloween. As well, when he was little, and had set up a lemonade stand, she'd always made it a point to stop by. She'd walk the block and a half to Lee's house and then over pay for a Dixie cup or two full of whatever it was he was selling. She even genuinely seemed to like it.
"I gotta tell ya, I feel sorry for you, Lee,” she said surprising him. “You couldn't get me to live anywhere near that place, not even for ten thousand dollars.” She fiddled with her glasses again, her little finger shaking like it might fall off. “Not even for twenty thousand,” she added, her eyes swimming behind those huge lenses. “If you want my advice, you'd do best to stay indoors at night. There's haunts ‘round there. Always have been. Even when I was a little girl folks knew ‘bout the things that had gone on all ‘round those parts. That damn swamp too. A friend of my uncle's went in there to bag himself a gator they said was livin’ back in there. He was a real country boy and knew his way around. He never came out, and they never found his body neither. You mind my words, Lee. You stay clear of Broaddus Marsh."
Lee shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his fingers hitched into the pockets of his blue jeans. He thought about his run through the dark. “Yes ma'am."
She kept her eyes fixed on him. “How's your dad and Patty?"
"They're fine."
"Your dad still workin’ all those crazy hours?"
Lee nodded. Mrs. Barton knew everything about everybody in Pickford Acres.
She shook her head. “It ain't right for a family man to work all the time. I spent thirty-two years workin’ in that damn yarn factory, damn near sixty hours a week, week in and week out. What'd it get me?"
Lee had heard this before. Still, he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head politely.
"Nuthin',” she answered for him. “Not a damn thing. Sure I got my pension, but my kids is grown and gone, and I'm a widow all alone in this here house. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have spent more time with my family when we was all young. That's what life's all about. Not money. You remember that, and you'll be better off for it."
"I will, Mrs. Barton,” Lee replied.
He couldn't help catching a glance over her shoulder at one of her yard decorations as it came to life with the appearance of a light breeze. In her backyard she had a tall, iron windmill, a horse with wings, various pinwheels, and a boy with an axe, all of which chopped, flew, spun, or pumped water with any passing wind. Her front yard had lawn decorations as well. She had a number of gnomes and elves, done in cast cement she'd bought at Timpkin's Nursery. There were toadstools, butterflies, and a big whicker looking basket for flowers sitting up on an ionic pedestal. She'd painted them all by hand, herself, with bright and colorful enamels. Most people in Pickford Acres didn't have anything in their front yards. It seemed decorations had a mysterious way of moving about and even ending up on people's roofs, or sometimes a couple of blocks down. But there wasn't a kid in Pickford Acres who would mess with Mrs. Barton's stuff; she was too well liked. Though pink, plastic flamingoes, wrought iron livery boys, and cement burrows pulling a cart, in all the other yards were fair game.
"What about that hoity-toity stepmom of yours? She treatin’ you alright?"
Lee shuffled his feet. One fall afternoon, not too long after Maggie and his dad had been tossed out of his grandma's house, Mrs. Barton had come calling, as she liked to call it. She liked to walk around the streets, and if she caught anyone outside, she'd strike up a conversation for an hour or an entire afternoon. Maggie, who w
as put out about Lee's making mud pies and flinging them at the fence was in a sour mood. Perhaps the fact that she was pregnant had something to do with her mood, but Maggie was royally pissed. She was shaking Lee and hollering at him about all the mess just as Mrs. Barton came strolling along.
"Here now, that's no way to treat that poor child,” she'd called out. “I'm sure he ain't done nothin’ all that criminal.” She bent down with her hands on her knees and smiled at Lee. “He doesn't look like a Dillinger to me."
Maggie came back curtly to Mrs. Barton. “It's not any of your business how I discipline my boy,” she fired off. “You'd do best to not go around poking your nose where it's not wanted.” She stopped while she reached down and pulled up Lee's saggy drawers. The pair of underwear he was wearing was falling down as she had him hoisted up by one arm. Bending over and looking up she added, “If you were so all-fired worried about the neighborhood children you wouldn't go around talking like white trash, using words like ain't. Ain't ain't a word. All you're doing is showing off your ignorance."
Mrs. Barton, who was really as sweet as the day as long, didn't back down an inch. She'd replied stiffly, “Maybe I don't talk as proper as some folks, since I spent my life workin’ and ain't got much education, but I'm smart enough to know that it ain't so much the words that's bad sometimes, as it is the people who uses ‘em.” She'd pointed a finger at Maggie and shook it reproachfully. “There's lots of ways of settin’ examples. It don't pay to go ‘round actin’ like you're better than other folks, Missy, ‘specially when you ain't. I know exactly who you are, Magnolia Bonham; don't think I don't. I know your mother, Kathleen. She and me we played together when we was just girls, and even now we're still in the same bible study group. You need to get off your high horse there, Missy. You ain't got much more than a ninth grade education yourself before you quit school. Or in your condition,” she'd obviously noticed Maggie's figure, “didn't they throw you out? Unwed girls in a family way aren't all too popular in public school, are they? Just goes to show you ain't nearly as smart as you think you are. If you was so smart you'd realize you ain't never gonna make any friends in this neighborhood neither, actin’ all uppity and such, young lady."
Evil Heights, Book I: The Midnight Flyer Page 14
