Her friend, the sad old fat one, was new to him. Not ugly exactly. In fact, what little he saw of her face made him think of some pretty waterlogged corpse. Sitting back to back with her, wooden benches at these outer tables, he could feel the bodyheat radiating off her curved buttocks, steamy fevered swamp of anal odor mixed with the breeder’s smell nearby. He could hear every word. The butt-one had bred once before, and he bet the other one had too, or did the world a favor and bagged its little fist-sized remains a few months along. But even so, she’d let cocks into her pooty puss, sucked seed inside, got eggs going with vermin aching to swell and drop and skitter across the planet.
He wasn’t watching them, but he had a good memory for faces. As they spoke, he could see their cheeks and jaws, like two wraps of flesh flapping at each other, eye-achers poked up and pointing at eye-achers across the way. Holes pitted their cheeks as they spoke. Spills of blood seeped down like warpaint, and where the spills angled, a new one appeared, like a cooperative dot-to-dot puzzle. Could he, he wondered, take on two? Two sets of restraints, twinned truss of two naked women, two Makitas crossed at his chest like flintlock pistols, and fleshed holes doubled as close to mirror exactness as he could drill them? The idea made bloodlust surge and pulse within him. Two of them drilled in tandem would surely broadcast his message where one had failed before. The antennae would join signals, reinforce one another, the blipped impulses of pain bubbling up into the air to exceed by far a simple doubling of the signal.
They’d be tough to subdue. Set him a challenge. But with enough clomping, he bet he could improvise. He heard the sheened red breeder mention City Park, buying bread on the way. So he could beat them there, be feeding the damn ducks some stray shit from his truck, get friendly; ah but the redhead would recognize him from the eatery, hey, this isn’t a coincidence, is it, she’d ask. Then he’d be stuck and there would be the sun blazing down in a highly public place and there’d be nothing to do but back off and not be sinking his drill into these two be-hind-handers after all.
He let them go. It galled him to do it, and for five or ten minutes afterward, he thought of pursuit, rummaging for a plausible line to use when he approached them at the lake. Then he crumpled his bag of chips. Felt disgusted. Past the information stand, the maps and brochures, stacks of student newspapers, and out the door, he headed for the library straight south, one building down.
But as he neared the corner of the Student Center, he heard raised voices, male, female, an argument. He paused and listened, pretending to prop up the building and check his textbook for some arcane fact. Hey, I did not, he was saying. Did too, you liar, she countered, cuz why was her earring sitting right there on your dresser. Yeah? Yeah? So what if I did, but I’m not saying I did, but so what if I did, it’s a free country, and we’re not fucking married, and I got the right. She was sobbing, poor thing, and had a plaintive whinny going about how he could take his right way-the-heck out of her life and stay there forever. Fine with me, he said, fuck-all fine with me! Tall scuzzy stud came bursting out of the corner, bright red T-shirt, jeans and buckle and boots, heading east, not seeing him leaning there with his book.
The sobbing kept up.
No one was in sight.
He waited a beat of six, then came ’round the corner. Short skirt, plaid. Flat blouse of almost a white blue, a long scraggly fall of mouse-brown hair down on either side where the faintest hint of eye-achers poofed out. She had a hand to her face, hiding her mouth.
“’Scuse me, but I heard the end of that.”
She registered him, made to stop, began to stumble on her way.
“I don’t usually butt in,” he said, “but that guy was way out of line. Nobody should treat a lady like that.”
“You,” she said and he thought she might say “You get lost,” but instead, she said, “You’re nice,” implying with a tearful look her ex-boyfriend’s way, and he’s not.
No makeup. That was good, she was open and honest in her dealings with the world. For all her slight build—or that’d maybe amplify the signals— she’d be an open channel back to her kind when he planted his first birth-hole deep in her face. His head and his whole body were spinning in a maelstrom of agitation, but on the surface all they ever saw was calm. “Let’s walk, okay? It’ll help. It doesn’t matter where. Back to your dorm, or wherever. You can be as free or as reserved with me as you want. Tell me about it or clam up. I’ll just be here for you, okay?”
A confused nod. “I guess.” She started off. Sturdy little bitch. She’d scream loud and clear, and the planet would abandon baby-making forever after.
“Or I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’m parked in the lot over there. We can sip some latte at Deja Vu or Paris on the Poudre. Maybe try some cheesecake.”
“That sounds good.” Already she was calming down.
“By the way, I’m Jim.” He offered his hand.
She shook it. “Amy.”
He loved the feel of her skin, the weakness, bones as fragile as a bird’s. She’d last a long time and her heady screams would pierce the woods like thin silver wires shot from her mouth at odd angles. The redhead and her sad old friend could go hang, he thought, as he and the bird-boned bitch moved toward the parking lot.
Today was Amy’s day.
6
A Small Constrained Life
JVatt should have gone back to work that week, even if all she managed was to sit in her cube, accept co-workers’ condolences, and stare blankly at her workstation. If she liked, she still could. But the house, as confining as it was, felt like the protective shell she needed.
Even their time at the lake on Sunday had passed like a dream, neither she nor Conner fully there. Sherry’d finally given up on them, at least for the day, and driven them home. She was a good heart, had shown them both much kindness.
But their grief required more incubation.
Marcus saturated the house, saturated her mind.
He’d be there at every turn of thought. She replayed her every attack, watching it at the sink, trying to imagine herself kneeling on the bed, that bed, driving bad energy into him as he lay helpless. It was monstrous. But it hadn’t felt monstrous, or even wicked, as she’d done it. Circumstance had molded the banks of the river, and she had flowed with its every twist and turn.
In the night, she’d wake, grab for him, find only the nullity she had created. And then she’d lie there hour on hour, replaying, replaying, the choices not taken and idle speculation about paths long closed off. Stop thinking so much about him, she’d mutter.
To no avail.
Since late Sunday, it had been overcast and drizzling without break. Sherry called late afternoons, giving Katt a chance to open her emotional baggage and unload what she could upon her, apologizing all the while. Then she’d put her son on and listen to his uh-huhs and soft brief feints at conversation. But she kept fending Sherry off when she tried to invite herself for dinner, or ask them out. “You are one stubborn woman, Katt Galloway,” Sherry’d say, “but I’ll keep at it until you’re ready to emerge. You’re sure Conner couldn’t do with some time off?”
Ask him, she would reply, knowing that Conner too was tied somehow to the house. The Marcus memories swirled in all corners, down the halls and in every room. It made no sense, given the short time he’d been here, but there they were anyway, Iowa in-dwellings easily transplanted to this new venue. And then she’d turn a corner, and come face to face with Marcus-in-Conner, the man sunk into the boy just as her mother (thought and gesture entwined) had sunk into and been reflected in Katt.
They’d reverted to passing by chance, not touching—a weird if mutual standoff. She cooked meals and called him to them, their conversation as laconic as his responses to Sherry on the phone. She wondered about his head, wanting to touch him again. He seemed all right, and she hoped he was— but the part of her that couldn’t endure the hints of Marcus in him hoped, monstrously, that he wasn’t.
Wednesday night, as he toye
d with the mix of peas and mashed potatoes and ground sirloin he’d made on his plate, his head down and propped up on his free hand, she decided to pull her fever ploy. She rose, came ’round behind him, rested a hand on his forehead. She felt divorced from her movements, a fist taut in her belly.
“You look a little feverish,” she said.
“Mom,” protesting, pulling away, a hint of annoyance.
“Now, now,” she said, and drew him back. The look he gave her had been pure Marcus. Her hand trembled. Again, his forehead. Katt knew the way now, and his head swiftly opened to her. There was the place, but it had changed in four days. Her hand felt its power. Cold and clinical, a detached knowing to it, it wanted to press forward the nub she’d found. But her heart protested, as she held her son even this tentatively. She’d wanted a girl, they both had in those early days of pregnancy; but he’d been .1 good boy with gentle winning ways. And he is now, she thought. He is right now and on into the future. Ah, but thirteen was such a crux, the start of the ugliness that was adulthood. Six to twelve, those were life’s rich ages. Intelligence, growth, delight, without much real responsibility. He had lived his best years already.
No! She beat back such thoughts. Her obsession with Marcus would pass. She could endure the accidental quirks Conner had gleaned from his father, appreciate him for his uniqueness, grow through this crisis with him. If she did to Conner what she’d done to Marcus, the guilt and remorse would rise up to engulf her, turn her as insane as Grandma Jasper had been when she killed her husband and son.
“Are you done yet, Mom?” Tight lips. A light finger tapped at the side of his plate, a Marcus gesture. Insane thought: What if Marcus were still about, what if he knew what she’d done, and what if, little by little, he were to take over Conner’s body, until, one day a year from now or sooner, he looked straight at her and grinned a completely Marcus-like grin, and said, “Honey, you and me’ve got some talking to do.”
And the impulse rose and her anxiety rose with it, an attempt to shout it down, to hold her fears back if not to reserve them and heal what she had set off. But the touch went forth, the raw troubled nub goaded onward, a lift-off as she unclamped his forehead.
Her hand trembled.
“Anything?” Softer. The disease had occurred to him and now he wondered.
Absurd.
A fever indicated nothing.
“I think you may be coming down with something.” She heard alienation in her voice. “Nothing serious. Maybe a slight cold, maybe nothing.” Her heart pounded. Her head flushed hot and cold, guilt warring with cool assurance.
“It’s the HD, isn’t it? You can feel it, can’t you?” She embraced him from behind, hunched over his chair. “Don’t be silly,” she said. The rich oak cabinets gleamed oddly in the nighttime kitchen. “Nobody could detect such a thing, even if it were there. Which it’s not.”
“Psychics can.”
“So-called psychics, the honest ones anyway, are full of good wishes and hot air.”
“I’ll bet your friend Lyra would know. Or one of the people she works with.”
“Conner.” She hunched down beside his chair and gave him her best stare of reassurance. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Period. End of story.” “But—”
“We’re grieving. We’re both grieving. Just like any wound, it’s a healing process and it takes time. But both of us are going to come out of this stronger. Trust me, I know.” She knew nothing, and that was the truth. But the pladtudes were in place, a steady stream of them babbling out, calm mom calming her son—while inside, her soul felt as if it would burst from all the agitation that welled up in her, heal him, stop the madness, reverse it, cure it, ,i partial atonement for what she’d done to Marcus. But her hands remained on his chair, and the
bromides flowed from her lips, and he nodded, nodded, trusting her, drawing assurance from her lies, painting the kitchen with all the unspeakably dark colors of hell.
The next day brought fresh sunshine, a break at last from days of unrelieved gloom. Conner saw it through his window slats as he lay in bed and felt like something had lifted inside him as well. Wanting more light, he raised the blinds, hopped back into bed, but then couldn’t stand to be there one second more. He hit the rug with a thud, heel-pound he’d probably catch hell for, and raced to the window again. The lake below and the bikepath beyond and the open fields beyond that thrilled him. Biking. Could use the fresh air. He’d throw on some clothes, grab some juice, maybe a granola bar, and be on his way.
No sound from Mom’s room. He hit the hall bathroom, standing there, holding his penis, watching endless urine stream out, c’mon, c’mon, damned stuff was taking forever to finish. He shook it, shoved it back into his jockeys, didn’t even stop to wash his hands. Heck, none of it had splashed on him.
In the kitchen, he ate half a breakfast bar, drank half the OJ he had poured, and put the glass in the fridge. He had to get out of here. Too confining, too much like a sickroom suddenly outgrown. Hall closet, a thin jacket he doubted he would need, then past the washing machine and dryer to the garage. He walked his bike out the side door, almost forgetting to shut it before swinging onto the saddle.
Down Wallenberg he raced, feeling great to be moving again. Nobody about, not a soul. The neighbors had been slow to get acquainted anyway; but you knew, when you saw one on the street, that they had no idea how to look at a kid whose dad had died. Conner understood that some were at work, and some were maybe dropping kids off at soccer, but he imagined them all inside their houses, tiny people averting their eyes. Inconsequential. He was beyond all that, beyond caring what they thought.
Left onto the concrete ramp across a dried-up creek, and he was on the bikepath, pedaling back along the rocky bed and up over a small bridge until he passed behind his own house. Mom’d be up there, maybe sleeping, maybe not. It was so wonderful, despite all that had happened, to be with her again after four months of separation. Took her longer, he guessed, to come out of grief, her being older and all. As he pedaled, he felt like he’d shaken free of it, his wiry body tossing it off like an illness.
Under College Avenue he swooped, narrowly missing an early morning jogger. Have to watch out for that. Along Spring Creek, another mile, beneath Timberline, and then, just a tad farther, a turn along the Poudre River, grand, gorgeous in the sunlight. He stopped, catching bike-fall with one foot, to take in the scene.
Not a soul in sight. A line of Canadian geese arced overhead, a slow purposeful procession heading ,< ist. Off behind him, a train, probably the one running parallel to Timberline, mourned its own passing. Between the honking and the sad whistle, something caught up with him, almost as if he’d
been fleeing it. He sat on the riverbank, his bike lying beside him, and felt the grief return, grander and more terrible than ever. Did it never end, never let go of you? The feelings wracked him, brought on weeping, and he found himself talking aloud to the river, but also to his dad. Anger, resentment, which surprised him. Why did you leave us? You were always so there for us. What kind of love did you feel for us, really feel, that could let you, do this? You didn’t love us; you never loved us. Pretended to, is all. Lying bastard, in it for yourself, all those years.
The words went on, sometimes stopped by sobbing, but then coming up again. Good thing he’d shoved some folded tissues into his back jeans pocket. A little fragile but unblown upon, they did the trick.
He heard a sound, real distant, like a deflated ball being bounced against a basketball court. When he looked up, she was there. White-haired old lady in a bright red jogging suit, marking time on the path. She wore a smile but it softened when she saw his face. Gesturing at him, she stopped jogging and joined him on the grass. “Hello, my friend,” she said.
“I want to be alone, please.”
“No, you don’t. You want to be with me.’’
Wacko lady. “Suit yourself,” he said, looking away, hoping she’d take the hint and buzz off. Her white Nikes showed upbrush
ings of grass stain along the sides.
“So what’s the problem?”
He ignored her.
“There’s always a problem. What’s yours?” “Being bugged by strangers.”
“Oh, I got me a live one! No, now seriously. We’ve got little enough time on this planet to be wasting it on sarcasm and putdowns.” Her voice, though small, was full and resonant. “I usta be shy. Can you believe it?”
“Not hardly.”
“I was. I’d see people I wanted to meet, and say hi or nothing at all. Just let them walk away forever. But all it takes is one major upset to teach you a big lesson fast, and I had three of them.” She shut up. He bit. “Yeah, so what were they?”
“I had a coronary, my nothing lunk of a husband died on me, and my dog got run over. Sure, you can smile like most folks do about Tavish, but I don’t hide my sentiment anymore. We were close and it was worse losing him than the cold fish I’d clung to for decades.”
“I wasn’t smiling.” Well, maybe a little inside for just a second. She was funny, all right, but not in that impossible way you just want to shut out; she seemed with that gleam in her eye to be amused by herself as well, in on the game.
“I don’t hide anything anymore. I don’t sugarcoat, I don’t whitewash. And I have no patience for those that do. So stop hiding the problem, young man. Out with it, and let your granny of the moment deal with it.”
He told her. He watched her face as he told her and saw not a ripple there. Almost like a wise Indian woman, unreadable wrinkles, except that this woman was all-white and her eyes shone a deep blue.
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