THE LAST BOY

by ROBERT H. LIEBERMAN

  The crowd settled down, became so expectantly still that Molly could hear the distant rumble of the coal train leaving the power plant halfway up the lake. This was no good, she thought. Why can’t they just leave us alone? “Danny,” she said, trying to get his attention, but he didn’t seem to hear her. She squeezed his hand, so hard she must have been hurting him, but he continued to stare out at the crowd.

  “And we’re supposed to?” prompted Schuman.

  “Listen,” uttered Danny.“Just listen.”

  “Listen…Listen…” His word spread, sweeping back and forth.

  “But you have to hear, not just listen. That's what my friend taught me.”

  “Listen to what?” asked a serious young man with glasses.

  Danny looked surprised, as if mystified by the power of his own words.“We have to listen to the Earth.”A faint smile crossed his face as if he were remembering something.

  “And what do you hear when you listen?” called out an old, creaky voice.

  “I hear…” replied Danny, cocking an ear,“I hear the Earth crying.” He squinted in concentration.“And…and I hear a storm.” His eyes went wide.“A big, bad storm.”

  “Where?”

  “Here!” he cried and the crowd pushed in so tight that Molly had trouble breathing. She could smell and taste the mingled breath of the people, and it felt as though they wanted to consume Danny.

  Enough, thought Tripoli. Enough!

  Elbowing his way through the knot of people, he called for reinforcements.

  “Come on, let me through. Excuse me. Excuse me.” To Tripoli it was all beginning to pull together: the hut and its contents, the boy's uncanny gifts, his ability to see what others were blind to, hear what other mortals could not detect, his potential to affect people and the world. Someone had to realize it, understand its far-reaching implications; someone had to protect the boy, help him attain his potential—if it was not already too late. When he reached the nucleus of the crowd, he pulled Danny from Schuman's shoulders, grabbed Molly by her arm, and propelled them briskly through the crowd, the wail of sirens now filling the air.

  “It's that cop,” said someone, leveling a finger at Tripoli and nearly poking him in the eye.

  “They murdered the old man!”

  “Killer!” cried an anonymous voice. Someone grabbed the back of his shirt and he could hear it tear as he jerked loose.

  “Murderers!”

  There was hissing and booing, some in the crowd turning mean. As the first squad car was pulling into the park, Tripoli guided Molly and Danny through the last of the angry throng, rushing them back toward the trailer.

  “Thank God you’re here,” said Molly, as the heckling trailed off in the distance.

  “Hurry. Go inside,” he said, holding the door for them.

  Danny ignored him.

  “Go already!” he ordered.

  Tripoli pushed in behind them, then closed the door and locked it. A moment later they could hear the shouts of the cops dispersing the crowd.

  “Ooohhh,” sighed Molly. She pulled a series of long deep breaths, then her shoulders slumped forward.

  Danny stood with his arms folded, his back turned to Tripoli.

  “Geez,” said Tripoli, “what the hell were you doing going out into a mob?”

  “I wasn’t really thinking. Their singing sounded so.…And Danny.…You okay, Honey?” She bent down, stroked his head.

  Danny nodded, but refused to turn around to face Tripoli.

  “So, Daniel,” he said, trying to catch the boy's attention as another squad car screeched up in front of the trailer, its turret flashing red in the windows.“You’re mad at me, right?”

  Slowly, Danny turned his head, looked up at him, his eyes narrowed to wrathful slits. “You’re a liar,” he grumbled low, his voice laced with indignation, “and I’m never going to move to your horrible place!” Then he jerked his head away and marched back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  Tripoli could be moody at times—colleagues often reminded him— but depression was uncharacteristic of him. What he needed, he told himself, was some space, some unstructured time to sort things out. He had not had any significant leave in years, not since Kim had left him.

  Later that night, while the city was deep in sleep, he drove to the station and went through the procedures of taking an extended leave, cashing in all the accumulated sick days and vacation. Then he turned in his service revolver, shut off his radio, and went back home to Newfield.

  That night he slept erratically, repeatedly waking up and then lapsing back into a sleep punctuated by bursts of intense dreams. Once he found himself locked in a dark cabinet and couldn’t get out. Another time the billy goat was caught with its horns wedged in the mesh of the new fence. None of it made much sense.

  He was sitting at his kitchen table the next morning, watching the animals grazing, when the phone rang.

  “I tried calling you at the station, but they told me that you’re going to be out on leave.”

  “Yeah. I felt I needed a break. Needed some time to do some stuff.”

  “Like?”

  “Like thinking,” he said. His voice sounded odd to Molly, flat and lacking its usual edge.

  “Okay,” she said.“Thinking about what?”

  “I’m thinking about life and death.”

  This was not the Lou Tripoli she knew.“Danny’ll get over it. He didn’t really mean to sound that nasty. I told him afterward that you don’t call people liars.”

  “It's not just that.”

  “The old man, huh?”

  “Yeah, that, but a lot of other things, too,” he admitted.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “What can I tell you?”

  Molly tried to imagine him at the other end of the line, but couldn’t, not in his present state. It worried her hearing him like this. “It's us, right? I know our relationship hasn’t been exactly stellar. Not a lot of fireworks. But I’m just so exhausted these days. Try to—”

  “It's not just that, either.”

  “Okay, then what is it?” she urged.

  “I suppose I’m just thinking and evaluating everything.”

  “Like?”

  “Like my life,” he said with a grim laugh.“You know, I spend all my time chasing down people. Bad guys. Two days ago I was up in Collegetown busting some poor suckers who had some weed and mushrooms instead of being out at that hut. I was so focused on bullshit that I couldn’t even remember to.…The old man would still be alive today if…”

  “You’re being hard on yourself.”

  “No, I think I’m beginning, for the first time in my fucked-up life, to do what Daniel said last night. To listen.”

  “Oh…” said Molly. Oh, God, she thought, Not him, too. Was everyone in town losing it?

  “And I’m wondering. I’m hassling the bad guys, but how bad are the bad guys? They’re using drugs. But what are a lot of these drugs? They’re Prozac for the poor. Most of the people I hassle are impoverished and depressed. They’re self-medicating is what I think. And what am I doing in all this, dragging in potheads? I’m not doing anybody a favor. I’m not making the world a better place. I’ve got the feeling I’ve wasted precious time. You know, Molly…”

  “Yes?”

  “I became a cop because I really wanted to help people. Can you believe that?”

  “Of course,” she said softly.

  “Who am I helping, huh?”

  “Me,” she said.“Me and my boy.”

  chapter seventeen

  It was the sharp crack of thunder slicing through the early hours of morning that startled Molly out of her sleep. The wind-driven rain was flooding the windows and the trailer was rocking on its foundation like a ship pitching on a stormy sea. The howling wind kept gathering in intensity. By the time she was on her feet looking for Danny, the roar of wind had built to a deafening pitch. It sounded as if a huge freight train was running right through th
e middle of her home.

  She found Danny at the kitchen window and dragged him under the table as the sound of metal crashing against metal and wood snapping filled the air. She could make out people screaming as the sky flashed with a blinding brightness and a bolt of thunder exploded with an impact that hit her in the chest.

  “It's okay,” she said, clutching Danny.

  He seemed more curious than frightened. “I want to see,” he kept saying, trying to squirm loose.

  Then, but a minute later, the rain trailed off into a drizzle, the sky began to lighten, and the dawn was now filled with an eerie silence.

  Molly relaxed her grip. Danny slipped through her hands, opened the door, and stepped outside, the damp trailing wind blowing back his hair. “It's okay now,” he said, his eyes on the sky. “It's gone.” He stepped barefoot out into the squishy yard.

  Molly was right behind him.

  The trailer park was littered with debris; tree limbs and toys and garbage strewn all over the place. The other residents of the park, looking stunned, were staggering out of their homes. The shed behind the Dolphs’ trailer was nothing but a heap of rubble, two trailers lay on their side, and people were helping the families out of the windows. There was blood streaming down Charlotte Moody's forehead. Her daughter was cradling an arm and crying. A limb had been spiked right through the windshield of the Pakkala's new truck. A tree had toppled and crushed a new Grand Am. A dead dog lay in the road and the other animals in the park were still cowering in the corners.

  “It was a tornado!” exclaimed the man who lived in the big double wide near the entrance.

  “Tornado?” said Mrs. Dolph. Her hair was wet and stuck to her head as if it were a skullcap.

  Tornado? thought Molly. They had them in the Midwest. The South. But never, ever, in Ithaca.

  “I was going to work and I saw it,”continued the man. He looked almost as if he were going to cry.“A funnel. I couldn’t believe it!”

  “I think it touched down north of us,” cried a woman.“Did you hear it? It sounded like cars crashing.”

  Molly could make out the sound of fire and rescue trucks moving in all directions.

  “The boy,” said someone pointing at Molly's child.

  All eyes went immediately to Danny.

  “He knew there was a storm coming!”

  “He made it come!” cried Mrs. Dolph, leveling a finger at Danny.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Molly and hustled Danny back into the trailer.

  “You’re going to Rosie's today,” Molly announced as she put down the phone.“How does that sound?”

  “Much better than your office.” Danny had his hand deep in a box of Raisin Bran and was digging out single raisins. Other than that, he refused breakfast.

  “And nobody will know you’re there. We don’t have to worry about people bothering you.”

  “They’re not bothering me.”

  He still seemed subdued, a bit morose, and she wondered how long it would take before he forgot the old man.

  Molly called the office and got Ben on the line. Somebody had left a window ajar and there was a flood in the copy room, a section of roof shingles had been peeled off. Otherwise, things were operational.

  “You should see what happened in Lansing and up by the mall,” said Ben. “I’ve never seen the likes of it—and I’ve lived here almost forty years. A tornado?”

  Molly gathered up her briefcase and waited while Danny packed some of his books into his knapsack. Locking the trailer, she had just turned to go to her car when she bumped into an older couple with a young boy nestled between them. The boy was about Danny's age. He was wearing a wool hat and though it covered his head it was evident that he was hairless. His skin was deathly white except for splotchy blue bruises on his arms and legs, and his eyes had such a feverish look that Molly had to restrain herself from overtly pulling Danny away from the boy.

  “Excuse me,” said the man, politely, as he stepped over a fallen tree limb. Though it was hot and sticky outside he was wearing a jacket and tie.“If I could ask a favor…”

  The woman, dressed in a flowery tent of a dress that could hardly hide her obesity, had her tiny eyes riveted on Danny.

  “This is my wife Adelaide. And our boy, Tim.”

  “Hello,” said Adelaide. She had an arm around the boy and it looked as if she was supporting the child to keep him from toppling over.

  “Hi,” said Tim It hurt Molly just to look at him.

  “Tim's got leukemia,” the man blurted out.

  The trio now stood blocking her path. “He's gone through chemo twice,” began the woman and then suddenly her tiny eyes welled with tears. The man, though struggling to hide his emotions, was now dabbing at his eyes as well.“And it didn’t work. He still has got these fevers and his white count…”

  Danny silently watched the exchange, intrigued, his eyes shifting from the family to Molly and back again. Molly looked for a way around them to her car.

  “Look, I’m terribly sorry, really. But I don’t see what I can…” she tried to go on but couldn’t. She suspected what was coming.

  “If Danny could just…” said the mother, outstretched hands imploring Danny.

  “Just touch Tim,” added the father.

  “It's not going to do anything,” said Molly.“Believe me.”

  “What can it hurt?” asked the man.“He's not contagious.”

  “No. No. It's not that,” objected Molly.

  “Please,” said the woman, “I’m begging you as one mother to another. I’ll get down on my knees, if that will—” and she struggled to lower herself to the ground.

  “No! Don’t!” cried Molly mortified as she caught the woman by her elbows and held her up.

  “I can touch him,” said Danny, and before Molly could respond, Danny had already wrapped his arms around the frail frame of the other little boy. He stood there holding him as Molly looked on awkwardly, watching the two little boys locked in an embrace.

  Both parents stared down at Tim, anxiously waiting.

  The boy, looking Danny in the eye, began to slowly grin.

  “How do you feel?” inquired the mother.

  “Tim?” asked the father bending down to get a closer look.

  Then, suddenly, turning his face up to his parents, Tim broke into a big, beaming smile. “Better,” said the boy, shaking his head earnestly.“I feel much better. Really!”

  He did look better, thought Molly. At least happier. What the hell, she thought. “Look, I gotta run. This storm has messed things up and I’m late for work.”

  “Oh, thank you!” cried the mother as Molly took Danny and hurried to her car.

  “How can we ever repay you?” she heard the father calling after her. Molly could have sworn he was reaching for his wallet as she pushed Danny into the car and snapped on his seat belt. When the engine sprang to life on the first try, she was more than a little relieved.

  As they drove to Rosie's downtown house, Molly saw a clear swath of destruction. The tornado had touched down on the Eastern Heights near Molly's trailer park. Approaching the mall, she could see how it had sliced across the western edge of the shopping center, through Sears and Hoyt's Cinema, pulverizing the buildings and scattering their contents. Everywhere, the ground was littered with heavy timbers and big sheets of corrugated steel. Clothes and toys, linens and tires and tools, whole store counters were dispersed over the nearby backyards, parking lots, and fields. Bras and nightgowns hung from the trees like Christmas ornaments. The power of the storm must have been beyond anything that she had ever witnessed, she thought.

  Danny was fascinated by the intensity of the storm.“Look!” he said, pointing to a pair of seats from the movie theater which sat perched high in a tree as if waiting for occupants.

  Molly turned on the local news as they headed down into the valley paralleling the storm's path. There was talk of numerous injuries. A still uncounted number of deaths.

  “Oh, poo
r trees,” sighed Danny, sighting the twisted remains of the old, majestic willow trees that had once lined the shore at Stewart Park. They had been torn up by their roots and scattered as though they were flowers plucked by a cruel hand. In the marina, pleasure craft lay in sloppy heaps amidst chunks of concrete and shards of wooden dock.

  Shifting in her seat, Molly turned to Danny. “You didn’t really know this storm was going to happen, did you?”

  “Yes,” he said with his childish lisp. “But not this big. Just look at that!” he motioned towards the top of West Hill; and when Molly took her eyes from the road, she saw a huge yacht perched upright on top of the hill.

  “But how did you know?”

  “I could feel it. The warming,” he said, still staring in wonderment up at the big boat.

  “You mean the summer?”

  “No. No,” he shook his head.“The Earth.” It was almost as if he were blaming himself.

  “Okay,” she said.“What are we supposed to do about it?”

  He turned to her, shook his head worriedly.“I don’t know,” he said.“I just don’t know. He never told me.”

  “Did you see what the storm did?” asked Rosie when they got to her place.“There's this big ship sitting on top of West Hill!”

  “I saw it, too, Aunt Rosie!”

  “It's just like in the Bible, Honey. Noah's ark.”

  “Before or after the flood?” asked Molly with a touch of sarcasm. She hoped Rosie would not be filling his head with a lot of nonsense.

  Rosie laughed good-naturedly. “Well, looking on the bright side, there’ll be plenty of work for masons. Ed just got called out on a big repair job.” She turned to Danny, stroking his neck.“So it's just going to be you and me and the twins, Pudding.”

  “Okay,” said Danny.

  Molly stood there watching, reluctant to leave.

  “So go to work already,” said Rosie, finally.

  “You’ll be all right, Honey?” she asked Danny.

  “Of course we will!” Rosie rested her hands on Danny's shoulders.“Have you had breakfast yet?”