by Adam Rapp
“Trick or treat!” he calls from the other side of the window, his breath steaming the glass.
Cloris rises and crosses to her kitchen. Moments later, she returns with an apple. She motions to the boy to go and meet her at her front door. Then she crosses to it, opens the door, and hands him the apple.
Rather than drive under the influence, Cloris agrees to walk Corinthia halfway home. The soft, slow snowfall passes through the glow of the neighborhood streetlights like flour falling from a baker’s mill. They are bundled in winter coats and knit hats. Cloris has wrapped a long plum-colored scarf around her neck. Corinthia walks with her hands wedged in her armpits. Her size 22 old-school Pony sneakers aren’t fit for the snow, but they are so long and wide it’s as if she is maneuvering on snowshoes.
They talk about Lorna Nuttinger and her pen persona, which has spanned more than half a century, and their amazing Skype call. Though Cloris wishes the great Lorna would publish her new book under her real name, they both swear to each other to protect her alias.
After the boxed wine, which they finished, they are pretty drunk, and they enjoy some sliding. Though Corinthia has a long way to fall, she runs and slides down the middle of the street while the neighborhood trick-or-treaters stop and point.
A few blocks later, they happen upon a boy who is standing beside one of the neighborhood’s oldest and largest oak trees. He’s maybe seven and wears a khaki uniform with a hazard-orange winter vest, venom-yellow safety glasses, and a red felt Canadian Mountie hat. Slung over his shoulder is a toy rifle.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Cloris asks.
“Yeah, who are you supposed to be?” Corinthia echoes.
“I’m with Animal Rescue,” he tells them. “I’ve been dispatched here to deal with those gray wolves.”
“Ahhh,” Cloris says, playing along. “You’re protecting us.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the boy replies with his deepest, most adult voice. “In the past few weeks, there have been several neighborhood spottings. I think they’re getting low on their protein supply.”
“What kind of rifle is that?” Corinthia asks him.
“It’s not a rifle,” he says, adjusting his yellow safety goggles and using his natural, prepubescent voice now. “It’s my dad’s Red Ryder BB gun. He wouldn’t let me load it, but it’s still pretty crisp. See?”
The boy pumps the rifle and takes aim at a nearby mailbox. He pulls the trigger, which issues a faint click.
“Pretty fancy,” Cloris offers.
“Yeah, the last thing anyone wants to see is one of my fellow trick-or-treaters get taken down by one of those wolves.” Then, to Corinthia he says, “By the way, how tall are you?”
“Taller than your average gray wolf,” Corinthia jokes.
“She’s nine feet tall,” Cloris says. “And she knows jujitsu.”
“Wait a minute,” the boy says to Corinthia, lifting his yellow safety goggles. “You’re the giant monster witch! You’re the one who made the tornadoes and the geese come!”
“She’s not a monster witch!” Cloris retorts, poking him in the chest. “She’s a soothsayer!”
“What’s a ‘soothsayer’?” the boy asks.
“A prophet!” Cloris replies, and tugs on the brim of his Canadian Mountie hat.
“Prophetess,” Corinthia corrects Cloris. “I didn’t make anything come. I just saw they were coming.”
Corinthia almost slips and falls. Cloris has to grab her arm, and they wind up sliding around a bit, clutching each other until they find their balance.
“Do you see other stuff?” the boy asks Corinthia.
Corinthia stares at him playfully.
“I just saw who’s gonna give you your first French kiss.”
“I don’t wanna know that,” the boy says. “That’s gross!”
A group of kids shuffle by in boots and puffy coats, their heads hooded, their Halloween masks flecked with snow. They are all carrying plastic pumpkins and pillowcases filled to the brim with candy. The boy stops them, and from a plastic bag he hands them orange hazard whistles with lanyards.
“Wolf whistles,” the boy says. “See a wolf and blow it as loud as you can.”
The kids accept the whistles, loop them over their masked heads, and continue on.
To the boy, Cloris says, “Wolf whistles?”
“For the gray wolves. Twilight is one of their prime hunting times.”
He hands Cloris and Corinthia whistles.
“The sound alone should scare them off.”
“What’s your name?” Corinthia asks the boy.
“Crispin,” the boy says. “Ranger Crispin Kincade Doyle.”
Cloris says, “Nice to meet you, Crispin.”
Corinthia adds, “Keep up the good work, Ranger Doyle.”
They thank him for the whistles, and then Crispin tips his hat to them and they continue on.
Not even a block later, coming around the corner, they happen upon two boys stacked one on top of the other monster-style, with a white T-shirt that has been fitted over a puffy metallic-blue snow parka. There is another, much smaller boy behind them, perhaps eight or nine years old. He is wearing a red cape over a blue parka and wielding a plastic whip. He whips the stacked boys in front of him, shouting “TAME THE BEAST! TAME THE BEAST!”
Cloris stops them. The boy on top is wearing the hood of the metallic-blue parka and carries a Lugo Junior High School gym bag filled with candy. His cheeks are flushed from the cold.
FUM has been crudely written on the T-shirt worn over the parka of the top boy.
“Hey!” Cloris shouts up at him. “What are you supposed to be?”
The boy looks down at Cloris, then at Corinthia, who stands eye-to-eye with him. She has an urge to push him over, to topple the two stacked idiots and kick the young boy with the whip right in the chest.
“Well?” Cloris shouts again.
“We’re supposed to be her,” he mutters, pointing halfheartedly at Corinthia.
“Well, you’re not her!” Cloris almost screams at him. “You’re not even close!”
To the boy with the whip, Corinthia says simply, “You really want to whip me? I’m right here.”
But the boy is frozen.
“Do it!” Corinthia screams at him.
Some children across the street turn and watch.
“Whip me!” Corinthia shouts. “The genuine article is standing right in front of you! Here’s your chance!”
The boy with the whip is crying now. Corinthia knocks the gym bag out of the top boy’s hand, reaches inside it, and starts flinging candy in all directions.
“TAME THE BEAST!” she shouts at the entire neighborhood. “TAME THE BEAST!”
When the gym bag is empty, Corinthia just stands there. It feels like all the trick-or-treaters of Lugo are watching her. All three boys are crying now.
“I hope the wolves get you!” Corinthia screams at them bitterly. And then she turns to the rest of the neighborhood. “I hope they get all of you!” she shouts.
Cloris takes Corinthia by the arm and leads her away.
At home, Corinthia is in her basement bathroom, sitting on the toilet with the lid lowered. She has taken another Valium because, after dealing with those cruel boys, her nerves are absolutely shot and she really doesn’t feel like doing her homework. There are far more important things to think about, like the fact that on the way home, in an effort to get Corinthia’s mind on other things, Cloris handed Corinthia her iPhone and persuaded her to call Lavert Birdsong and invite him to go sledding in Bicentennial Park the next day, which she did. And even though he did say he hadn’t been feeling so great, he agreed, and went on to mention that the fresh air might do him some good. So now it’s a date.
Since she’s been home from the hospital, Corinthia has tried to call Lavert several times to thank him for the triangle, but he never answers, and she’s elected not to leave a voice mail. The two times that his grandmother answered, she promised to le
ave word for him, but Lavert hasn’t called back, so when he answered Cloris’s iPhone, it came as quite a surprise.
Bicentennial Park is home to Suicide Hill, a favorite sledding spot, and when Cloris drove past it on her way home from the grocery store, she could see that it was still blanketed with virgin snow.
Despite all of her recent troubles, the very idea of Lavert Birdsong thrills Corinthia to no end, and this is precisely why she’s decided to shave her bikini line. She steals one of her father’s Gillette Fusion razors because it offers a cleaner, more precise shave than those cheap pink ones she uses for her underarms and legs. She lathers up and carefully sculpts a shape to her liking. She’s especially sure to execute a clean flat top.
The second Valium has loosened her mood considerably, and she finds herself giggling and humming Ariel Pink’s “Put Your Number in My Phone.”
After she rinses and dries herself, she tweezes out a few hairs that are corrupting the perfect line she’s been trying to achieve at the top of her pubic area.
When she’s satisfied, she brushes away the stray hairs, fine as spider legs, and uses a Sharpie to write across the expanse of flesh between her navel and the newly pristine flat top of her pubic hair.
She stands and beholds herself in the mirror, continuing to hum the Ariel Pink song. She grazes her fingertips across the three letters.
FUM
Except on weekends, Bicentennial Park is usually empty, but today it’s even more desolate than usual, perhaps because of the unseasonably cold weather. It’s only November 1, after all, but it feels like it could be January, with temperatures starting to dip below freezing.
Before they picked up Lavert, Cloris and Corinthia had to excavate Cloris’s Beavertail Wild Sled from her jumbled basement and negotiate it into the back of her station wagon. The sled’s color is marsh brown, and it’s one of the best winter-fun investments Cloris has ever made.
After parking in the empty lot, Cloris, Corinthia, and Lavert cross the picnic area, which features several small barbecue units, all of which are heaped with snow. To get to Suicide Hill, they have to descend a small amphitheater and cross a cement stage, to the other side of a band shell, which leads to the top of the hill.
During the short walk, beyond a comment here and there about the weather, not much is said, and Corinthia notices that Lavert’s movements are slower than they were when she last saw him. He grimaced as they stepped onto the stage of the band shell.
“You okay?” she asked, carrying the sled.
“I’m straight,” he said, although it certainly didn’t seem that way.
Nevertheless, once they reached the top of the hill and peered down its slope to where it leveled off before a short stand of trees, Lavert perked up.
“Never been sleddin’ before,” he said.
During the walk over, Corinthia realized that there was no way she would fit in the sled. Although Cloris swore it was big enough for two people, the moment Corinthia hoisted it up on her shoulder, she knew it just wasn’t true.
“The hard part is walking back up the hill,” Cloris tells Corinthia and Lavert. “My jujitsu keeps me pretty fit, but even I’m probably only good for two or three trips.”
“Let’s do this,” Lavert says, eager-eyed, a boyish lift in his voice. “While we’re still young.”
Corinthia sets the sled down.
“You two go,” she says.
“No, you two,” Cloris protests.
Though it pains her to say it, Corinthia tells them that she just won’t fit in the thing and that she’s happy to watch.
So Cloris and Lavert man the sled — Lavert sits in the back and spreads his legs so Cloris can sit between them — and after a count of three, Corinthia pushes them down the hill, and off they go. Cloris shrieks with joy, and Lavert simply cries out, “You serious?” over and over.
“You serious? You can’t be serious. . . . You serious?”
Their descent lasts not even ten seconds, but it might as well be an eternity. Lavert’s arms fly up over his head like he’s riding a roller coaster. Cloris is a shrieking loaf of winter wear.
The sled comes to rest at the edge of the colorless, lifeless trees, the tops of which are silver with snow. An enormous blackbird, obviously immune to the unseasonably cold weather, springs from a branch and flies off.
Corinthia feels a barb of jealousy pricking at her heart, but she fights it. She knows that this happy moment shouldn’t be about her.
As Cloris and Lavert ascend Suicide Hill, the vapor from their breath plumes above them. Lavert carries the sled as they trudge their way back up toward the band shell. Cloris laughs, and Corinthia can hear her say something about getting snow in the crack of her butt, and Lavert laughs, too, and keeps saying, “That was madness, yo. Madness.”
Lavert moves slowly, like he is suddenly very old. He has to stop twice and set the sled down and put his hands on his knees before he can continue.
When they finally arrive at the back of the band shell, they are both winded. Cloris sits on one of the concrete steps, and Lavert is doubled over the sled with his hands on his knees again. Snowflakes encrust his thick dark eyelashes.
“That was ill,” he says, panting. “Ill, yo.”
“You guys should go again,” Corinthia offers.
Lavert is holding his side now.
“You okay?” Corinthia asks him.
“I’m cool,” he says. “I just need a minute.”
He removes a glove, unzips his puffy winter coat, and reaches inside it, grimacing.
“Thanks for the triangle,” Corinthia finally tells him. She’s been waiting for this moment, hoping it would be less fraught with cold and fatigue, perhaps more private.
“I called your house and your moms told me you fell down and hurt yourself. I was worried about you,” he says, still doubled over, his breath coming fast.
“It meant a lot,” Corinthia says.
Lavert’s hand emerges from his side and he puts his glove back on.
“Once more?” Lavert says to Cloris.
“You better believe it,” she replies, and they’re back in the sled.
Lavert has to stop and clutch his side once more.
“You sure this is okay?” Corinthia says.
“Positive,” he replies.
As she did before, Corinthia counts to three and pushes them down the hill.
That evening, the snow continues to fall, slow and steady. Brill Bledsoe is in the kitchen, boiling water for his nightly Sleepytime tea, when, through the living-room patio doors, he sees his wife, Marlene, building what appears to be an enormous snowman. It is much taller than she is, more of a rectangular creature than the classic three-part snowman with a spherical base, midsection, and head. In order to access the top of her creation, Marlene is using a dinette chair that had been retired to the garage. Her breath freezes above her in white gusts. Brill stands at the counter with a tea bag poised over his mug, waiting for the kettle to whistle.
His wife’s face looks chapped and glistens with perspiration. She shapes the top of the snow beast with her hands and reaches into the pocket of her puffy coat and produces what appears to be a plastic bag of light-blue candy. She places a piece where each of the snowman’s eyes would be, makes a nose, and then adds four or five more pieces to create a mouth. It’s more of a straight line than a smile, but it’s a mouth nonetheless.
Marlene then steps down from the dinette chair and adds buttons down the center, equidistant, carefully considered.
When she is finished, she stares up at it with what appears to be a wistful expression. Brill Bledsoe has never felt further away from his wife than he does in this moment.
Later, in the middle of the night, Brill sneaks out of bed and comes down to the kitchen to boil another kettle of water. He boils two kettles, in fact. And after putting on his shoes and a hooded sweatshirt, he quietly lets himself out through the sliding patio doors and goes into the backyard with the two kettles of water
. He sets the kettles down and simply looks up at the grotesque monstrosity that has taken over his backyard. He removes one of its buttons. It’s a piece of salt-water taffy. He removes all the buttons, places them in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, then climbs onto the dinette chair and removes the mouth, the nose, and the eyes. He puts all the taffy in the sweatshirt pocket and then steps down from the dinette chair, grabs the first kettle, steps back onto the chair, and begins pouring the boiling water over the creature’s head, which melts away with alarming velocity. He pours slowly. Thin ribbons of steam rise through the cold early-November night.
After he empties the first kettle, he grabs the second one and resumes pouring the boiling water over the now half-melted snow creature.
Is this supposed to be Corinthia? he wonders. How could Marlene be so insensitive? Has she completely lost her mind?
As the lower half of the snow creature melts down to nothing, a picture frame emerges. Brill recognizes it. It’s from the living room, where all the other family photos are arranged on the old credenza. It’s Channing’s junior class portrait, the one featured in the yearbook. He is handsome and confident, a slight smile lifting his face. His hair is parted on the side, the same way Brill wears his. Channing looks like the kind of kid who has the rest of his life in front of him.
Brill Bledsoe goes to his knees, clutching the framed photo, and begins to sob as quietly as he can while the even, silent snow continues to fall all around him.
In the little ranch house belonging to Florida Birdsong, her grandson, Lavert, has just adjusted his hospice bed to a more upright position when his nurse, a soft-spoken white man named Nick, returns with a clean bedpan, which he places on the lower shelf of the bedside table. This room, which used to be filled with the many sewing machines and yarn-spinning devices that Florida Birdsong has collected over the years, was cleared out some three weeks ago, and the good people from hospice came and transformed it into a room for Lavert. Prior to this, Lavert was sleeping on a small twin bed in the basement, but Mary and Chad and Roberta from the hospice organization really felt it would be best for Lavert to spend his remaining days in a room that not only could be easily accessed by their nurses and various medical professionals but was also filled with a good amount of sunlight during the day.
