by Brian Hodge
Back inside the station, once Bill was gone, Parkman turned to Holden and said curtly, "I want to talk to you, Roy."
Holden looked at his boss.
"I don't know why the hell you get on Watson's back so much, but it's gotta stop. You understand?"
Holden stared back at him and shrugged. "I don't see what the big deal—"
"I'll tell you what the deal is," Parkman snapped. "You can't talk to anyone in this town like that. It's a disgrace, and if I ever hear you talking like that to him or anyone like that again, you'll be looking for a new job that afternoon. Understand?"
Holden nodded, but when he looked at Parkman, a smoldering fire lit his eyes. "I just can't stand that dirty, stinking Indian. That's all—sir," he said.
"Well, you're gonna have to learn to live with it, 'cause I mean it. Now, why don't you get that cell cleaned up? Oh, and have you heard anything? Did those kids who didn't come home last night show up? What were their names?"
"Albert LaBlanc and Jenny White," Holden said. "And—no, sir. They haven't come home yet."
"Well," Parkman said, "get to work cleaning up that cell, and I'll make a few calls."
Holden turned and regarded the rumpled mess of sheets and blankets on the jail cell cot. The stinging smell of urine and sour vomit was almost too much for him.
His stomach gurgled as he began to strip the bed.
"Couldn't we wait until Clark's shift?" he asked. "He's better qualified to clean up in there than I am."
"Cut the crap and get to work," Parkman said.
His scowl made it clear to Holden that no excuses were going to work, so he got busy. The worst part was cleaning out the toilet where Watson had woofed up his liquid lunch. That, Holden decided, he would leave for last, hoping Clark would be in before he got to it so he could make him clean it up.
3
"You're gonna catch some shit," Kip called out.
He was high on a branch in the oak tree at the foot of the driveway, where last summer he had spent many a day reading Tarzan books. It had helped him get into the spirit of the books.
The sun threw long shadows across the street as Marty walked toward the house, kicking up dust with the toe of his sneaker with every step. When he heard his brother's voice, he stopped in his tracks and looked around until he located Kip up in the foliage.
"What're you talkin' about?" Marty snarled.
Marty's hands clenched into fists, and Kip began to wonder how high up in the tree he could go if he had to climb to keep away from his brother. Marty would probably stay on the ground and maybe insult him until he finally gave up and left. Come to think of it, Kip could never remember ever seeing Marty climb a tree. Maybe he couldn't, or maybe he was afraid to. Maybe he was safe where he was.
"I said, you're gonna catch a load of shit." Kip said, louder and more taunting. "Dad got a call from school this afternoon."
"So?" Marty said, scowling as he glanced at the house. The front door was cast in shadow.
"He's not home now," Kip said. "But when he is, you're gonna get it but good."
"Eat shit and die, you dickless wonder," Marty said with a snarl. His friend Al hadn't shown up for school today, and Marty was concerned that they might not be able to go party out at the Indian Caves again today.
"Why don't you do the world a favor and die?" Kip said.
Marty's hands were still clenching and unclenching, and his eyes darted from side to side as he looked for something nearby to throw at his brother.
"He said the principal called—"
"Jennings—that faggot?" Marty's upper lip curled into a sneer.
"Uh-huh." Kip shifted from his sitting position to a crouch, hoping the branches would protect him when he saw that Marty was looking at a hefty, fist-sized rock. "You're gonna have do summer school."
"Over my dead body," Marty hissed.
"I could agree to those terms," Kip said, followed by a rattling chuckle.
Marty suddenly stooped down and snatched up the rock. Cocking his arm back, he made a soft grunting sound as he sent the rock sailing. It tore through the trees like a bullet, and Kip had just enough time to duck behind the tree trunk before the rock rebounded off the branch he was holding. It just missed his fingers and then dropped to the ground somewhere behind him with a melon-like thump. Kip let out a sigh of relief when he looked at where the stone had hit the branch. Clear liquid oozed from the wound, and he imagined that could be blood, seeping from a wound to his head.
"Missed me, missed me. Now you gotta kiss me," he said, singsong.
Marty was scowling as he glanced left and right for something else to throw, but then he snorted, pulled up a thick wad of mucus from his throat, and spat viciously up at Kip. The spit arced through the air and then landed on a swatch of leaves where it ran off the sides and hung there in long, silvery threads.
"Laugh all you want, monkey-boy," Marty said. "You can't stay up there forever."
"Suck it," Kip yelled, but his stomach did a little flip when he realized Marty was right. Past experience told him he'd get his later.
Marty let his shoulders droop and his hands unclench as he started up the walkway to the house. He didn't bother to look back at Kip, deciding it was better just to ignore him and let him sweat it out. He fished his house key from his pocket and let himself in through the front door. When the heavy oak door slammed shut behind him, Kip, still clinging to the branch, thought the sound echoed like the slamming door of a mausoleum in a horror movie.
He swung back onto the branch he'd been sitting on, crouching as he watched the sap oozing from the wound in the branch. Several ants, which Kip had been watching earlier as they scurried up and down the tree, stopped and started to drink the tree's juices.
"You're a real a-hole, you know that?" he said softly as he glanced at the house. "And I can't wait 'cause you'll get yours when Dad gets home."
He fished the paperback he'd been reading, a tattered copy of The Two Towers, from his back pocket where he'd shoved it when he heard Marty coming down the street. Shifting around into a comfortable sitting position, he leaned his back against the tree trunk, but it took him a while to get his concentration back into the story. Right now he felt closer to Cleveland than the Land of Mordor.
Shadows danced across the pages, making the paper look like it was almost alive. Then, just as he was getting back into the story—his third time through the book—the sap from the tree wound dripped down and landed with a splat on the page. He jumped with surprise and almost lost his balance, and he had one more thing to be mad about with Marty.
"You'll be sorry," he whispered, staring up at the house. "Tomorrow morning, you'll be so-o-o sorry."
4
"I could call the cops and have you arrested just for being here," Suzie LaBlanc said. Her voice hissed like a snake. She knew that she could and she knew that she should stay away from Woody, but when she looked into his dark brown eyes, she felt lost and defenseless.
"But you ain't gonna, are yah?" Woody said with a smirk.
They were sitting in Suzie's Mustang, parked outside Suzie's house. She had seen him downtown, hanging around the Big Apple, on her way home from work at Unum in Portland. He'd spied her car and flagged her down, and—fool that she was—she had stopped and picked him up.
Sure, they had plenty to talk about, and she figured nothing much could happen if they were parked out in front of her house. Every now and then, she would glance up and see her mother's silhouette shifting by the kitchen window. She knew she was keeping a good eye on them.
The side of her face where he had hit her last Thursday night was still swollen and sore. Her left eye was half-closed, and the skin around it was the color of an over-ripe plum. Her jaw had started making funny clicking sounds whenever she chewed food or gum.
But she wasn't as bad off as he was. His face looked like it had been through a meat grinder. She wanted to cry when she first saw him, and still, in spite of everything, she couldn't deny the ru
sh of affection or love or pity or whatever it was she felt for him.
The sun had set, and the houses up and down the street glowed with warm, yellow light. A peaceful silence had settled over the town. It was broken every now and then by the soft hissing of a passing car. Crickets whirred in the grass by the roadside. In the dimming light, Woody's face didn't look as harsh as it usually did. Beneath his swollen brows, his eyes had a warm glow that spoke to her of his sorrow and remorse he felt for what had happened. She released her tight grip on the steering wheel and let him take her hand into his.
"You ain't gonna make any more trouble for me now, are yah, babe?" Woody cooed. The pressure on her hand tightened, but not in a mean or threatening way; it was solid and secure, the way she wanted him to make her feel.
"I—" she started to say, but her voice caught in her throat. Her eyes began to burn, and everywhere she looked, the house lights swirled in her gathering tears.
"What is it, babe?" Woody said, shifting closer to her and bringing his arm up around her shoulder. With the heel of his thumb, he gently stroked the underside of her bruised jaw.
"I... I don't want to," she said. Her voice threatened to break but—somehow—it held steady. "It isn't my idea to press the charges."
"Whose idea is it, then?" Woody said as his arm drew her tighter, closer.
Suzie shook her head quickly from side to side. The motion made her tears overflow, and they ran in warm streams down her cheeks. She sniffed noisily and made a halfhearted effort to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand, but it was difficult to move with Woody so close.
"Whose idea was it?" Woody said again. His face loomed close, and in the gathering darkness, it seemed to lose some of its softness so it looked like it was carved from stone. Nothing but sharp, hard angles. His bruises darkened his face, giving his features a scary distortion.
"Well—" Suzie said, trying not to whimper. "I mean, at first—you know, when the cops took me to the hospital emergency room, I was pretty freaked out. I may have said things that I didn't mean."
"Like what?" Woody said. He stopped stroking her face and now clamped his hand down hard on her shoulder.
Suzie shrugged, and the idea that she had maybe made a serious mistake by even talking to him crept into her mind.
"There's nothing I can do about it now, anyway," she said. She glanced up at the house again, relieved to see her mother's form still in the window, leaning over the sink and looking out at them.
"I mean—the cops are the ones doing it. They're the ones telling me I gotta press charges." Suzie was finding it increasingly difficult not to whine. "And I'd hate to admit it, but they had me really convinced that night."
Her tears rolled unchecked, and the crying made her swollen cheek pulsate. The grip Woody had on her shoulder was getting painful now, but when she tried to twist away, he wouldn't let go.
"You know," Woody said. His voice was still smooth and moderated. "I ain't worried about them charges. I mean, I don't think I'm gonna be serving any time for what happened 'cause I think the judge'll see that it was just a—you know, a lovers' quarrel that got a little out of hand. 'Sides, my old man'll get a lawyer to get me off the hook."
"Probably," Suzie said, wiggling from the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. "Especially if I refuse to testify."
"That's not what's worrying me," Woody said. "No, what I want to know is, where the fuck is that bag of marijuana I had?" Woody's eyes blazed with anger as he looked at her. "That's the only thing really bugging the shit outta me."
Suzie shut her eyes as tightly as she could to fight back her tears. It was almost as if the goddamned pot meant more to him than any amount of pain he had inflicted on her. It was almost too painful to admit, but it seemed like the only time he was really nice to her was when he wanted something from her, and more often than not, that "something" was either sex or drugs.
Woody's left hand was still holding her shoulder, but now he reached out with his other hand and brought it to rest on her stomach. He started making ever-widening circles that brushed first her ribcage and then her breasts. "Come on, now, babe," he cooed as his hand moved up, taking her left breast in a steely grip. He brought his face so close to hers his breath washed over her in a hot, stinking wave. His hand released her shoulder and pulled her face around so she was looking straight at him.
"All you gotta do to make me real happy is tell me what you did with my goddamned fucking pot I left in your car." He squeezed her breast so hard she could almost feel his fingernails digging through her blouse and into her skin.
"I... told you," she said, her voice nearly breaking as she gasped in pain. "I didn't see it. I didn't even touch it."
"But it was in your car," Woody said, trying hard not to shout. "That's where I left it. Locked up safe and sound in your trunk. And if I didn't get it, and if you didn't get it, then who the fuck did?"
Biting her lower lip, Suzie shook her head from side to side, unable to speak. Woody's grip on her breast felt like a steel band, squeezing ever tighter, but then Woody suddenly released her and pushed her away. He sat back, leaning against the passenger's door. The angry gleam in his eyes still burned, and Suzie listened as he took several quick, hissing breaths through his nostrils. He reminded her of an angry bull. One of the cuts on his upper lip had started bleeding again.
"I'll tell you one thing," Woody said, jabbing her chest with his forefinger. "If I ever find out you did take it, if you're trying to burn me, I'll put you in the fuckin' ground. Do you believe me?"
Staring at him wide-eyed, Suzie nodded. It terrified her to see how quickly he could change from warm and loving to this.
"You'd better believe it, 'cause no cops—nobody's gonna burn my ass. Least of all you, you fucking useless bitch."
He snapped the car door open and dropped one foot onto the sidewalk. His boot heel hit so hard Suzie was convinced it had chipped a piece of granite off the curb. A cool breeze swirled into the car through the open door, sending a chill up her back. Gooseflesh raced across her arms.
"You just remember that. All right?" Woody slowly eased himself out of the car, all the while pointing at her like his forefinger was a loaded gun. "I don't know where the fuck that marijuana went, but I'll find out. And if I find out you've been fucking with me..."
He backed away from the car and closed the car door by giving it a swift kick that rocked the car. Suzie was sure his boot had left a dent in the door panel. She sat watching as Woody turned on his heel and started walking away, heading downtown. The click-click of his boot heels echoed hollowly in the still evening.
What finally brought her attention back was the sudden flood of light from the front door of her house. Her mother had snapped on the outside light and was standing in the entryway.
"Who was that you were talking to, dear?" her mother yelled, leaning one hand on the doorjamb.
Moving stiffly, Suzie rolled up her window, slipped the keys from the ignition, and got out of the car. She made sure to lock both doors. As she came around the side of the car, she stopped and inspected the passenger's door. Her fingertips lightly traced the crescent moon-shaped dent in the metal. Glancing briefly down the street, she saw Woody, a distant black shape, moving steadily away. All she could hear was the receding echo of his boot heels.
"Did you hear me?" her mother called. "I asked who you were talking to."
Suzie dropped her car keys into her purse and slung her purse over her shoulder. "No one," she said, hoping her voice didn't betray how nervous she still was. "Just an old friend."
"Well hurry on up here," her mother said. "I've been holding supper since I saw you drive up. You haven't seen your brother anywhere, have you?"
"No, Ma," Suzie said wearily as she started up the walkway. When she looked once more down the road, Woody was gone, but even after she had shut the front door on the night, she would have sworn she could still hear the steady click-click of his boots on the sidewalk.
5
> Supper was over. Like the rest of the afternoon, it had passed without incident. Marty hadn't bothered to exact his revenge on Kip. Not yet, anyway, but he knew it was coming. Kip had protected himself by making sure he was never out of earshot of his father ever since he got home from his visit to the police station.
The usual post-supper routine was underway: Bill was sitting in his easy chair, reading the new issue of Time. After clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, Marty was slouched on the couch, watching MTV And Kip was curled up on the floor, propped up by several pillows as he read Tolkien.
The magazine pages rustled as Bill turned page after page, looking for something to capture his interest. He couldn't concentrate, though, because he was wondering about how best to approach the subject of summer school with Marty. He knew what Marty's first reaction would be. No doubt of that. It was just a matter of getting beyond the initial outburst as fast as possible so they could deal with the issue.
Kip was pretty well entrenched on the living room floor, so when Marty got up and walked into the kitchen to get something to drink, Bill dropped his magazine to the floor and followed after him. He had glanced quickly at Kip, whose eyes were peering up over the edge of the book.
"Wait here" he said. "I want to have a word with Marty."
"Sure thing," Kip said, and he couldn't help but smile. He watched as his father went out into the kitchen. For long, dragging seconds, Kip sat there, staring at the closed kitchen door, waiting to hear the buzzing of their voices. His hands were slick with sweat as he slowly closed the book and placed it on the floor.
Now might be the time. Should I do it? he wondered.
Should he tiptoe upstairs while his father and Marty were talking? He had to get Marty's knife. There might not be a better opportunity than now if he really was going to take off tomorrow morning.
But was it safe?
"That's a load of crap!" Marty shouted, his voice carrying clearly from the kitchen. Someone—no doubt Marty—slammed one of the counter drawers. Then there came the sound of one of the kitchen chairs being dragged away from the table.
