In the kitchen, with a couple more windows and a little more light, he looked at her. “I know.”
“Where are we going?”
“Through here.” He led the way into the laundry room. “Wasn’t a particularly funny one, though.”
“What?”
“Your joke,” he said, hair once more falling into his face. He brushed it aside and then pulled out the rolling cart. “Perhaps ‘the interior designer was suffering from Prozac withdrawal’ would have been funnier.”
Justine shook her head, ponytail flying behind her. “Mine was better than that.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Probably not.”
Henry opened the door and picked up the flashlight he’d left on the cart, complete with fresh batteries. “The pull cord’s down here. Watch your step.”
“I have a basement too, you know,” she said, closing the door behind them and walking past him down the stairs.
The hanging bulb cast a weak light over the piles of boxes.
“Back here.” Henry led the way through the basement. “This box, it had pictures in it.” He flipped the flaps open and shone the flashlight into the empty corners. “The next day they were gone. I searched everywhere but couldn’t find them. Everything was cleaned up; even the spider webs had been swept away.”
“‘So, Justine, what did you do today?’” she said. “‘Well, Mom, I went into the creepy house next door and all the spiders were gone. It was just terrible.’”
“You only think you’re funny.”
“Nope, I have a certificate and everything. It’s official; I’m funny.” She stood there looking up at him. “I’m sorry. I can stop if you’d like.”
“Really?”
“Well,” she said, a smile teasing the edges of her lips, “I could try to stop. For you.”
He turned and worked his way to the opposite end of the room, picking a box at random to open. “I think you’re funny,” he said, not looking at her.
She popped her head up from the other side of the room. “I heard that!”
“Not deaf, but definitely funny.”
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” She opened a box, closed it, opened the next, working her way toward him. “Someone sick?”
“Why?”
She pulled out an unopened box of face masks. “There are lots of medical supplies in here.”
“My dad’s a doctor,” he said.
“See, that’s why you’re seeing a shrink.”
“Still not funny.”
“What kind of doctor?” She closed the box and moved on to the next one.
“Forensics.”
“Like, with dead people?”
“I guess so.”
“This really is the creepy house. Does your shrink have an opening for me?”
They worked their way from one end of the basement to the other, box to box, until they met in the middle.
“Why would he hide them?” she asked.
Henry rubbed his eyes. Sweat beaded his skin and his palms were moist; his scars itched in the heat. He closed the last box with a sigh.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he was just cleaning?” She walked back to the circuit box. “It obviously needed it.”
“Then where did he put them?”
“Threw them away? Maybe they weren’t his.” She opened the original box, still empty, and turned it upside down, shaking it.
“I remember them,” Henry said, his voice quiet as he sat down on the stairs at the other end of the basement.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” Justine said as she sat down next to him.
“Not your fault,” he said. “Thank you for helping.”
“Wasn’t much help.”
A door slammed upstairs, the sound loud in the close space. She jumped, just a little, scooting closer to Henry, her hand resting on his arm.
Footfalls were loud against the wood flooring as someone walked around the house. Henry stood up, pulling Justine with him. He reached up to pull the light cord, plunging them into darkness.
At the top of the stairs, the door stayed closed. Her hand was moist in his, her skin soft and warm.
“Henry?” she whispered, squeezing his fingers.
“Probably my dad.”
“Why are we hiding?” she asked.
The footsteps faded away before another door slammed and then there was silence, save for the constant hum of the air-conditioning.
“I don’t know,” he said, and started to reach for the light cord.
“Shh,” she said, tugging on his hand.
“What?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
In the darkness, she gripped tighter on to his hand. “That.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Something’s beeping,” she said.
Henry turned the light back on but didn’t let go of her hand. He blinked in the sudden brightness.
“There it was again.”
They stood in silence, still holding hands.
“That?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “it hasn’t been long enough. It’s every thirty seconds.”
“You’ve been counting?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Did you hear it that time?”
“No, you were talking.”
Justine reached her free hand up and covered Henry’s mouth with her palm. He turned to face her and slid the flashlight into his pocket, bringing his own hand up to cover her mouth. She smiled beneath his fingers as the beep sounded again.
His eyes widened and she took her hand down. “Heard it that time, didn’t you?”
Henry nodded and started walking away from the circuit box, into the far corner beneath the staircase. Thirty seconds later, they waited for another beep. After, they took a few more steps on tiptoe, trying to see behind boxes. Another beep.
Henry moved a pile of boxes out of the way until he could see underneath the stairs. An old fire alarm hung off the wall, a faint red light blinking as it beeped once again.
“Well,” Justine said, “that was anti-climactic.”
“What were you expecting?” He took the battery out of the alarm and tested it on his tongue.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Seeing how much power is left.”
“With your tongue?”
He held the 9-volt out to her. “Here, just touch the two metal things.”
“No thanks,” she said. “I trust you.”
“It tingles.”
“It’s electricity. We’re already alive—I’m not eating a battery.” She shook her head. “Though I could go for a donut.”
He pocketed the battery and started picking up the boxes he’d moved.
“Henry?” She was on her hands and knees when he turned to look at her, and all he saw was the way her shorts stretched across the back of very tan, very slim thighs, the shadows playing hide-and-seek with his vision as he watched her sit up. “It’s empty.”
She passed a small box over to him, the half-ripped-off label still showing part of an address.
“CME-U,” he read out loud. “I can’t make out the rest, it’s missing.”
“Does it mean anything to you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You?”
“Of course, it solves everything,” she said. “Do I look like Sherlock Holmes?”
Henry looked her up and down, at the dust stains on her knees, the long tendrils of hair sticking to her neck in the heat, the T-shirt glued to her skin. “I’d have enjoyed the books a lot more,” he said.
Justine grabbed his hand and walked back into the maze of boxes, then let go of him with a laugh in order to straighten out the mess.
On the way up the stairs, she turned the light out and reached for his hand again.
In the kitchen, a bag of fast-food burgers sat on the table nex
t to a pile of junk mail. Down the hall at the master bedroom a ray of light bled through the edges of the door, but his father was nowhere to be seen.
“Dinner?” Justine asked, pointing at the table.
“Burgers again,” he said with a shrug.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find anything.”
“I have that box now, not to mention my scrapbook,” Henry said. “And a burger.”
“And ketchup,” she said, picking up one of the packets next to the bag. “I’d still like to see your scrapbook one day.”
“I’m free Sunday,” he said.
She threw the packet of ketchup at him. “You have a date tomorrow?”
He flinched, his hand a second too slow to stop it from bouncing off his forehead. “Something with my dad. No date.”
“Your reflexes kinda suck, you know?”
“I know.”
“Sunday?” she asked.
“Anytime.”
“Sorry about the ketchup, figured you’d catch it,” she said. “Pun intended.”
“Still not funny.”
She smiled. “Puns are an unappreciated art form.”
“For good reason.”
“Seems like an awful lot of food for just the two of you,” Justine said.
“He’s always telling me to eat more.”
“My mom’s always telling me to eat less.”
“It’s not all for us. I think maybe he’s feeding the homeless or something.”
“The homeless?”
“The other night he brought home a lot of food. I think he’s leaving it outside for someone.”
“Why?”
“After dinner, I found the bag on the back stoop.”
“Maybe he’s feeding a stray cat?”
“A stray cat that cleans up after itself? The empty wrappers were inside the bag.”
“Does he do that every night?”
Henry shrugged, then shook his head. “I don’t know. Only saw him do it one time.”
“Why didn’t you ask him?”
“Honestly?” he asked. “I never see him. Plus, even when he’s here, he doesn’t actually seem to be here, if that makes sense. The other night, he was talking to someone, but there was no one else in the room.”
“See,” she said, “this is the creepy house.”
He threw the ketchup packet back at her. She caught it mid-flight.
“I can see your backyard from my house,” she said.
“So?”
“So, tonight, maybe I’ll keep watch on your stoop, check out the neat-freak cat.”
As they left the kitchen, Justine slipped her hand back into his but let go before they walked outside. A slight breeze had picked up, salty with the scent of the nearby ocean, but not strong enough to dispel the heavy air or the gnats. Somewhere in the distance a car honked, and a neighbor down the street was mowing. Their arms swung back and forth as they walked next door, their fingers brushing against each other on every swing.
Behind his fall of hair, Henry smiled and then looked at Justine. She smiled back. It was like nothing he could remember.
fourteen
His father sat at the dining room table when Henry returned to the house, warped plates and plastic silverware next to unwrapped burgers in need of a microwave. A bottle of water beaded in the heat, leaving a ring on the table when Henry picked it up and finished off half of it.
“Got your blood tests back,” his father said, laying the paperwork next to his plate and pushing the folder across the table. His skin was pale, tight around his eyes and seemed to sink into his cheeks. He kept licking his chapped lips after every bite of dinner.
Henry glanced at the numbers scrolling down the sheet then pushed them aside. “And?”
“Are you taking your meds?” his father asked. “Some levels are too low. You need to take them every day, Henry. We’ve been over this before. Do I need to sit with you every morning and night to make sure you take them?”
“No.” Henry took a large bite, staring at his plate as he shook his head. “No.”
“It’s important you take them. Every day.”
“I know.” He ripped open a packet of ketchup with his teeth and squeezed it onto the remaining half of the burger. “I’ll take them.”
“I’m serious, Henry.”
“I said, ‘I know.’”
They finished the rest of the burgers without talking, his father watching him eat, the scrutiny a heavy weight in the silence.
“Any problems?” his father asked when they were done.
“Problems?”
“Other than the itching? Odd pains?” His father shrugged, looking everywhere but at his son. “Anything?”
I think parts of me are dying, Henry thought, but he just shook his head. “No, nothing, I’m fine.”
“Sure?”
“I’m fine,” Henry said.
“We’ll be leaving after breakfast tomorrow for the hospital,” his father said.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You know I don’t have the right equipment here. Has to be at work. Won’t take too long. In and out, then back home. I promise.”
“Fine.” Henry pushed his chair back.
“There’s more if you want it,” his father said, pointing at the plate.
Henry shook his head and walked out of the room.
Henry poured the Friday PM pills out after adding CME-U to the paper beneath the box. Google had returned too many hits to bother with, from the Cebu Mistumi Employees Union to the Churches Micro Enterprise Unit. None of which remotely helped to explain Henry Franks to himself.
On the desk, each generic pill capsule looked exactly the same, but his father had drilled into him that they were all different, all vital. He had once let Henry help put them together, grinding different tablets into powder and mixing the doses by hand. Pouring precise measurements into each empty capsule. Henry hadn’t been able to keep his fingers steady enough to meet his father’s exacting expectations and, after that, his assistance was no longer required.
Henry flicked one capsule and watched it crash into the other pills before finally scooping them up and dry-swallowing them one after the other until they were gone.
With his hands on the edge of the keyboard tray beneath his desk, fingers spread out, he looked at the scar around his left wrist. The thin white bracelet was the dividing line between the light and dark hairs on his arm.
He yawned, then pulled a pushpin out of the corkboard over his desk, the sharp tip stained brown. In the dim light of the monitor, the shadows danced around him as he stabbed the tack into his discolored finger and watched the plastic body of the pin wobble back and forth where it stood. A small drop of bright red blood popped up around the fine metal shaft. With his finger, he pushed on the side of the plastic handle. A trail of blood dripped down to the desk.
He pulled the pushpin out and sucked on his finger long enough to stop the bleeding. Switching to his left hand, he pricked each finger in turn, then started on his palm. Small dots of blood spotted his skin. He reached an inch or so above the scar on his left wrist, up his forearm, before making a sound.
“Damn, that one hurt,” he said before pulling the final pin out of his arm.
He wiped the blood off with the last tissues in the box on his desk, crumpling them up in a ball and tossing them into the garbage. The place where the pain began on his arm was given a bandage, to mark the spot more than to stem the bleeding. It was higher than he put it the last time he played with the pushpins.
One after the other, he cleaned the tips and pushed the pins back into the wall. A branch skittered across the window, sounding like rats behind the wallboards, and he dropped the last one. Crawling beneath the desk, amid the computer cables and dust, he couldn’t find it.
When his phone rang, still in his backpack, Henry cracked his head against the bottom of the desk. He rubbed his scalp, and his fingers came away sticky with fresh blood. He pulled the phone out and flipped
it open before pulling the tissues back out of the garbage and holding them to the back of his head.
“Henry?” Justine’s voice was almost too soft to hear as she whispered into the phone.
“It’s late, isn’t it?” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “Sorry, that wasn’t what I meant to say.”
She laughed. “What did you mean to say?”
“Give me a moment, I’m sure I’ll come up with something clever to say eventually … it’s late, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Henry, it’s late. I was watching your father putting food out on the stoop and figured I’d call.”
“Has anyone eaten it?”
“No,” she said. “But the food’s still there. I’ll keep watching for a while.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“It’s not a problem.” She started to laugh but cut the sound short. “I’ve sort of been banished to my room.”
“Banished?”
“Exiled? Is that a better term?” she asked. “You know, I came home late today because I was at a friend’s house helping him with his homework.” She stressed the last word and then laughed again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Not the end of the world, not yet at least.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“I can sort of see your window from here,” she said.
“You’re spying on me?”
“I would be if the trees weren’t in the way—I can barely see your yard between leaves and Spanish moss. It’s like living in the jungle.”
Even over the phone, he could hear the knock on her door.
“Bye,” she said, softer than a whisper, and then she was gone.
When he looked out his window, the sharp angle blocked any possible view of the stoop where his father had left the food, and too many trees to count covered Justine’s house in shadows too dark to see through. Henry lay down, but when he closed his eyes, he saw the black-and-white pictures of Frank playing in a loop through his memories. He dug his palms into his eyes, trying to banish the photographs, but only managed to start a nosebleed from the movement.
Once more, he fished the tissues out of the garbage. He watched shadows cross the ceiling while squeezing his nose shut to stem the blood.
Henry Franks Page 7
