Metal creaked.
A chassis rocked slowly back and forth in place.
He bit at his lower lip; he was scaring himself.
A headlamp winked.
Tires crackled as if they were frozen to the blacktop.
Jesus, he thought, and wiped a palm over his mouth.
The engine died.
Metal stopped shifting.
There was only the faint hiss of late downtown traffic.
He pushed off again and barely made the far corner without swerving off the road, then headed rapidly back up the boulevard toward home. A bus grumbled past him, exhaust clouding his face. He coughed and slowed again, watched as the amber lights strung along its roofline vanished when the street shrank into the dark that hung below the lighted sky above the next town.
Jesus, he thought again, and made himself shudder. He knew it was only heat escaping from the engines, released from the metal frames, that someone had only been warming up a motor in a garage. That's all it was. Yet he made himself think of something else, like what it was like to live in a place where the cities and towns weren't slam bang against each other, like they were here, all the way to New York.
Spooky, he decided.
All that open space, or all those trees spooky as hell, and anyway, Ashford wasn't all that bad of a place.
He turned into his block again, saw the station wagon in the driveway, and pulled up behind it. After wiping his hands on his jeans, he walked the bike through the open garage door. There was no room inside for the car, too many garden tools and cartons and a thousand odds and ends that somehow always managed to be carted out here when there was no place immediate anyone could think of to put them. Like an attic with its house buried a mile below the ground.
He hesitated, and wiped his hands again as a sliver of tension worked its way across his back. Then he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen.
"I thought," his mother said, "you'd been kidnapped, for heaven's sake."
Chapter Two
The light was bright; he squinted to adjust.
She was standing at the sink with one hip cocked, rinsing out a cup while the percolator bubbled noisily on the counter beside her. Her hair was dark and long, reaching almost to the middle of her back, and when she pulled it together with a vivid satin ribbon the way it was now, she looked almost young enough to be one of her own students. Especially when she smiled and her large eyes grew wide. Which she did when he walked up and kissed her cheek, shucked his jacket, and draped it over the back of a chair.
He was going to tell her about the cars, changed his mind when she looked away, back to her cleaning.
"I was riding."
"Good for you," she declared, glowering at a stain that would not leave the cup. "Fresh air is very good for you. It flushes out the dead cells in the blood, but I guess you already know that from biology or something."
"Right."
A glance into the half-filled refrigerator and he pulled out a can of soda.
"But that gassy junk, dear, is bad for you," she said, setting the cup down and rinsing out another. There was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, soaking in hot soapy water. Maybe tomorrow she would get around to washing them all. "It's not good to drink that stuff before you go to bed. It lies there in your stomach not doing anything but making you burp and giving you nightmares."
"Am I going to bed?"
She tsked at him and pursed her lips. "Donald, it is now" she checked the sunflower-shaped clock over the stove "forty-seven minutes past ten o'clock. Exactly. You have school tomorrow. I have school tomorrow. And I'm tired."
The percolator buzzed at her and she pulled out the plug.
"You didn't have to wait up for me if you're that tired, you know, Mom."
She dried the cups and poured the coffee, everything perfectly timed. "I didn't. Your father's been on the phone since we walked in the door. By the way," she added as he headed for the living room, "I saw that Chris playing the piano tonight. She's really quite pretty, you know it? Are you going to take her to the do?"
"I don't know," he said, still walking away. "Maybe."
"What?"
"Maybe!" he called back, and under his breath: "On a cold day in hell, lady."
Chris Snowden was the new girl on the block, and in this case it was literal. She and her family had moved in three doors down in the middle of last August. Her hair was such a pale blonde it was nearly white, her skin looked so soft you could lose your fingers in it if you tried to touch it, and, Brian Pratt's crudeness aside, she had a figure he had seen only in the movies. She was, at first glance, a laughable stereotype—cheerleader, brainless, and the football team captain's personal choice for a consort. Which she had been for a while, while everyone nodded, then professed shock and puzzlement when she started dating the president of the student council. She didn't need the grades, so he wasn't doing her homework, and she didn't need the ride to school, because it was only five blocks away and she walked every morning, except when it rained and she drove her own car, a dark red convertible whose top was always up. Then just last week it was known she was on her own again, and those who decided such things decided she was only sleeping around.
Don puffed his cheeks, blew out, and sighed.
Chris's father was a doctor in some prestigious hospital in New York, and if Don's mother had her way, he would be taking her to every event of the town's century-plus birthday—the Ashford Day picnic, party, dance, concert, football game, whatever. A full week of celebration. But even if he wanted to, he knew he didn't have a chance.
Just as he reached the front hall and was about to turn right into the living room, he heard his father's voice and changed his mind.
"I don't give a sweet Jesus what you think, Harry. I am not going to take a position one way or another."
Great, Don thought gloomily; just great.
The position was which side of the dispute to be on; Harry was Mr. Harold Falcone, his biology instructor and president of the teachers' union.
"Look," his father said as Don poked his head around the doorway, "I've pushed damned hard for you and your people since the day I walked into that place, and you know it. I got money for the labs, the teams, for the goddamned maintenance, for god's sake, so don't you dare tell me I don't sympathize."
Norman Boyd was sitting in his favorite chair, a monstrous green thing with scarred wood trim and a sagging cushion. His back was to Don, and it was rigid.
"What? What? Harry, god dammit to hell, if my mother hadn't taught me better, I'd hang up on you right now for that kind of nonsense. What do you mean, I don't give a shit? I do give a shit! But can't you see past your wallet just this once and understand that I'm caught between a rock and a hard place here? My god, man, you're screaming crap in one ear and the board is screaming crap in the other, and I'm damned for doing this and damned for doing that, and double damned if I don't do a thing which is exactly what I feel like doing sometimes, believe me."
He tapped a long finger on the handset, looked up at the high plaster ceiling, and used his free hand to rake through his greying brown hair.
A deep breath swelled his chest beneath a white crewneck sweater; the tapping moved to the top of his thigh.
"I will be at the negotiations, yes. I've already told you that." He shifted. "I will not-" He glanced over his shoulder. "Yes, of course my contract is up for renewal at the end of this year. I know that, you know that, the board knows it for Jesus's sake, the whole damned world knows about it by now!" He saw his son and grimaced a smile. "What? Yes! Yes, dammit, I admit it, are you happy? I do not want to jeopardize my job and my future just because you assholes couldn't come to terms over the summer. No," he said with acid sweetness, "I do not expect your support either if I decide to run for office."
He grinned then and returned the handset to its cradle on the floor beside him. "The creep hung up on me. He ain't got no manners, and that's shocking in a teacher. Hi, Don, saw you talking to the
kids tonight. You change your mind about joining us and being a teacher, carrying on the new family tradition?"
"Dad," he said, suddenly cold. "Dad, there's a big test next week. Mr. Falcone is my teacher."
"I know that."
"But you were yelling at him!"
"Hey, he won't do anything, don't worry about it."
Don squeezed the soda can. "You always say that."
"And it always turns out, right?"
"No," he said softly. "No, not always." And before his father could respond, he said, "See you tomorrow. It's late. Mom wants me in bed."
He took the stairs slowly in case his father wanted to join him, but there was nothing but the sound of his mother bringing in the coffee, and the start of low voices. He heard his name once before he reached the top landing, but there was no temptation to eavesdrop. He knew what they were probably saying.
Dad was wondering if there was anything wrong, and Mom would tell him it was all part of growing up and Donny was really in a difficult position and perhaps Norm shouldn't lose his temper like that at the boy's teachers. Dad would bluster a bit, deny any problems, finally see the point, and reassure his wife that none of the faculty would dare do anything out of line, not if they wanted his support in the strike.
It was getting to be an old story.
Great, he thought as he pushed into his room. I'm not a son anymore, I'm a weapon. An ace up the old sleeve. If I fail, it isn't me, it's the teachers getting even; if I get an A, it isn't me; it's the teacher kissing ass. Great. Just ... great.
He slammed the door, turned on the light, and greeted his pets by kicking the bed.
"I don't understand it," said Joyce Boyd from her place on the sofa when she heard the door slam. "He's a perfectly normal boy, we know that, but he hardly ever goes anywhere anymore. If we hadn't insisted tonight, he would have stayed home, playing with those damned things he has upstairs."
"Sure he goes out," Norm said, lighting a cigarette, crossing his legs.
"But with all your zillion civic projects and that Art League thing—not to mention the Ashford Day business—you're just not home long enough to see it."
Her eyes narrowed. "That's a crack."
"Yeah, so?"
"I thought we agreed not to do that anymore."
He studied the cigarette's tip, the round of his knees, and brushed at an ash that settled on his chest. The coffee was on the table beside him, growing cold. "I guess we did at that."
"I guess we did at that," she mimicked sourly, and pulled her legs under her. A hand passed wearily over her eyes. "Damn you, Norman," she said wearily, "I do the best I can."
"Sure you do," he answered without conviction. "Whenever you're around."
"Well, look at him, will you?" Her lips, thin at best, vanished when her mouth tightened. "When was the last time you spent an evening with him, huh? I don't think that poor boy has seen you for more than a couple of hours in the last two weeks."
"I have a school year to run," he reminded her tonelessly, "and a possible strike on my hands. Besides, he sees me at the school every day."
"Not hardly the same thing, Norm, and you know it. You're not his father there, not the way it should be."
He pushed himself deeper into the chair and stretched out his legs.
"Knock it off, Joyce, okay? I'm tired, and the boy can take care of himself.''
"Well, so am I tired," she snapped, "but I have to defend myself and you don't, is that it?"
"What's to defend?"
Her eyes closed briefly. "Nothing," she said in mild disgust, and reached over a pile of manila folders for a magazine, flipped the pages without looking, and tossed it aside. She picked up a folder, schedules for Ashford Day. She was one of the women in charge of coordinating the entertainment from the two high schools. She dropped that as well and plucked at her blouse. "I worry about all that running he does too."
He was surprised, and he showed it.
"What I mean is," she said hastily, "it's not really like jogging, is it? He's not interested in keeping fit or joining the track team or cross-country. He just ... runs."
"Well, what's wrong with that? It's good for him."
"But he's always alone," she said, looking at him as if he ought to understand. "And he doesn't have a regular schedule either, nothing like that at all. He just runs when he gets in one of his moods. And he doesn't even do it here, around the block or something he does it at the school track."
"Joyce, you're not making sense. Why run on cracked pavement and take a chance on a broken leg or twisted ankle when you can run on a real track?"
"It just ... I don't know. It just doesn't feel right."
"Maybe it helps him think. Some guys lift weights, some guys use a punching bag, and Donald runs. So what?"
"If he has problems," she said primly, "he shouldn't ... he shouldn't try to run away from them. He should come to us."
"Why?" he said coldly. "The way you've been lately, why should he bother?"
"Me?"
Her stare was uncomfortable.
"All right. We." And he let his eyes close.
A few moments later: "Norman, do you think he's forgotten that animal hospital stuff?"
"I guess. He hasn't said anything since last month. At least not to me."
"Me either."
He opened his eyes again and looked at the empty fireplace, ran a finger absently down the crooked length of his nose. "I guess, when you think about it, we didn't handle it very well. We could have shown a little more enthusiasm."
"Agreed." She rubbed at her knees.
Norm allowed himself a sly look. "Maybe," he said with a glance to his wife, "we ought to do like that couple we read about in the Times, the one that claimed they solved their kid's mind-shit by taking him to a massage parlor." He chuckled quietly. "That's it. Maybe we ought to get him laid." He laughed aloud, shaking his head and trying to imagine his son—not a movie star, but not an ogre either—humping a woman. He couldn't do it. Donald, as far as he was concerned, was almost totally sexless.
"Jesus," she muttered.
"Christ, I was only kidding."
"Jesus." She reached again for the magazine, gave it up halfway through the motion, and stood. "I'm going to bed. I have to teach tomorrow."
He waited until she was in the foyer before he rose and followed.
"You don't have to come."
"I know," he said, "but I have to be principal tomorrow."
At the landing she turned and looked down at him. "We're going to get a divorce, aren't we?"
He gripped the banister hard and shook his head. "God, Joyce, do you have to end every disagreement with talk of divorce? Other people argue like cats and dogs and they don't go running for a lawyer."
He followed her down the hall, past Don's room, and into their own. She switched on the dresser lamp and opened their bathroom door. Her blouse was already unbuttoned by the time he had sagged onto the bed and had his shoes off. Standing in the doorway, the pale light pink behind her from the tile on the walls and floor, she dropped the blouse and kicked it away. She wasn't wearing a bra, and though he could not see her face, he knew it wasn't an invitation.
"I know why," she said, working at the snap on her slacks.
"Why what?"
"Why you don't love me anymore."
"Oh, for god's sake." His shirt was off, and he dug for his pajamas folded under the pillow.
"No, really, I know. You think Harry and I are having an affair. That's why you're so hard on him. That's why you make an ass of yourself when you talk to him like you did tonight."
"You're full of it," he said unconvincingly. He put on his top, stood, and unfastened his belt, zipper, and let his trousers fall. "I figure you have better taste than that."
She turned away to the basin, running hot water and steaming the light-ringed mirror. "You don't have to pretend, Norman. I know. I know."
Except for her panties she was naked. Her breasts were still s
mall and firm, her stomach reasonably flat for a woman who'd had two children and didn't exercise, and her legs were so long they seemed to go on forever.
He watched as she leaned forward to squeeze toothpaste onto her toothbrush; he watched while she examined herself in the mirror, turning slightly left and right. He watched, and he was saddened, because she didn't do a thing for him.
It's a bitch, he thought; god, life is a bitch.
He wriggled under the covers, rubbed his eyes to relieve them of an abrupt burning itch, and looked at her again. "Are you?" he asked at last. "With Harry, I mean."
"You bastard," she said, and slammed the door.
The overcoat wasn't going to be enough, but Tanker had nothing else to use as a blanket. The leaves covered most of him, and the brush kept away most of the wind, but it still wasn't enough.
What he needed to relax was one of them whores. Like the one up in Yonkers. Tits breaking out of her sweater, teenage ass as tight as her jeans. When he yanked her into the alley and clubbed her with a fist so she wouldn't scream, he had known once again he wouldn't be dying without getting a piece. Her eyes had crossed when he dropped her on the ground, and she'd spat blood at him when he slapped her again; but she was warm, no doubt about it. She was warm right up until the moment he had opened her throat with his knife, and had finished the job with his nails grown especially long.
She had been warm, and now he was cold, and he decided that the next one would have to be one of them whores.
He shivered, huddled deeper under the coat and the leaves, and closed his eyes, sighed, and waited for sleep.
Waiting an hour later, eyes wide and watching.
It was the park.
The moon was up there, still guarding him, still whispering him his orders, but there was something else, something in the park that was waiting just for him. He tried scoffing at it, but the feeling wouldn't go away; he tried banishing it with a determined shake of his head, but it wouldn't go away.
It was out there, somewhere, and if it hadn't been for the moon, he knew he'd be dead.
The Pet Page 3
