Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams

  Don’t think he was scared or anything like that. First, his instincts-he was a fuckin’ animal-had protected him, always would. Second, even if he fell, so what? Think he wouldn’t land on his feet, bounce right up? ’Course he would. He shut the light off immediately, just to show the kind of… started with p — predator! Yes! The kind of predator he was, like the wolf or the tiger.

  Freedy climbed out of a ventilation hood behind the hockey rink. The snow had stopped falling but lay all over the place, on every roof and tree branch, and piled high on the ground. He hated snow. He hated the cold. A cold wind was blowing from the west, right in his face as he left the campus, started down the Hill. The west, where California was: explain why California was warm while the wind that came from it was cold. There was a lot of shit they didn’t know.

  A million. A cool million. Freedy understood the expression now. A million made you cool, inside and out, simple as that. He pictured his corporate HQ, a blue tower, blue being the color of water, eight or nine stories high, with a gym on the roof, overlooking the ocean. And the name: he needed a name. Freedy’s Fine Pool Business. Freedy’s First-Rate Pools and Maintenance. What was that expression she used? First water. Freedy’s First Water Corporation. Nah. Then it hit him. Aqua — or was it agua? — meant water, didn’t it? The Aqua Group. The classiness of that Group part! Or maybe the Agua Group. Which sounded better? He tried them out loud, several times, as he passed the Glass Onion, crossed the tracks, entered the flats, turned onto the old street. Someone was having septic problems, often happened down by the river; he could smell their shit through all that snow.

  Freedy went into the kitchen. A fuckin’ mess. Every dish dirty, hardened yellow batter caked to this and that, fridge door hanging open. Why should he close it? Had a pig for a mother. He sniffed once or twice: a pot-smoking pig. And the ants were out, ants in winter, which was pretty unusual.

  He switched on the lights in his bedroom, tried to ignore the wall paintings-unicorns, toadstools, dopehead elves, the lion man, the poem with that planet spinning, out of fucking control. He was so busy ignoring things that at first he didn’t notice that the laptop, which he’d left on the bed, was gone.

  That laptop was worth three hundred bucks. More important, much more important now, he wanted to have another look at what was on the screen. So where was it? Not there. Crash. Or there. Splatter. So where the fuck was it? Was it possible that someone had ripped him off? Ripped him off? A good way to die. Oh, to get his hands on whoever it was: a killing desire swelled rapidly inside him, like he would burst, and what was this? He had: blood was seeping out of his hand. Or maybe it was just a cut, by-product of the laptop search. Still, a mystical moment: everything did have meaning.

  He went into the hall. Next door was the bathroom, next door to that her bedroom. He knocked. No answer. No light shone under the door, but he could hear music, tinny and faint, the way it sounded leaking from headphones, and he could smell pot, stronger than in the kitchen. He opened the door.

  Lights out. A good thing: darkness hid the paintings on her walls, paintings he hadn’t seen in years, and never wanted to again. One of them was the picture of his birth, based on that photo she had. A circle of women, all naked, although it couldn’t have been that way in real life, all naked like witches with their unshaved legs and armpits, and in the middle her with her legs spread, and one of the witches holding him up, bawling and red.

  His eyes adjusted to the weak light penetrating the shade from the street lamp. She lay in bed, eyes closed, singing along to the music in the headphones, singing that came and went, more like muttering, but he identified it: “Winterlude,” fucking Bob Dylan song he hated. Every winter, from the first flake till the last melting patch in the trees, “Winterlude.” He thought of ripping the headphone jack out of the machine, was seriously considering it, when he noticed the green light flashing under her bed. He bent down-so close he could smell her breath, but there was no chance of her hearing him, not with Bob Dylan in her ears-and retrieved the laptop.

  Freedy took the laptop to his room, opened it, pressed the on button. Words popped up on the screen, but nothing about Leo Uzig: snow falls like velvet down

  More of her poetry shit. Were all poets ignorant? Down, for example: everyone knew it was made from goose or duck feathers, not velvet. He hit various keys, combinations of keys, trying to make the poetry go away, trying to find out what the computer knew about Leo Uzig. For example, he typed Leo Uzig, spelling both names several ways since he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d glimpsed on the screen that first time, then hitting control; or hitting control first and then the names. But he couldn’t even make the poetry disappear. He closed the thing, not hard, but hard enough to send a message.

  Why should he be a computer expert? Soon, very soon, he’d be hiring them. On the other hand, he needed one now. What about Ronnie? It was possible.

  Freedy walked over to Ronnie’s, less than a mile away, its yard backing onto the river. The river showed through the gaps between the low shadows of the unlit houses, frozen whiteness under a black sky. Late, probably very late, but Freedy wasn’t the least bit tired; full of energy, in fact. The whole town sacked out except for him: showed how much stronger he was, stronger than the whole town. They’d all faded, collapsed, passed out, while he still patrolled the streets.

  Ronnie’s place was dark like the others. Not much of a place, but because of the slope down to the river it had that basement, with sliders around the back, unlike most of the places in the flats, the land being so goddamn wet. That was where Freedy went, around to the back: Ronnie wasn’t the type who’d remember to lock the sliders.

  But he had. That Ronnie. The thing with sliders, though, Freedy thought, as he got his hand on the frame and bent his knees a little, the thing with sliders was Pop. Scrape. In he went. That Ronnie. Would he even remember Ronnie in a year or two? He tried to imagine himself sitting in his blue HQ, Agua Group, and remembering Ronnie, a Portagee with that hairy thing growing under his lower lip. No way.

  Freedy avoided the bench press, a low shadow in the darkness, heard drip-dripping close by, went upstairs to the kitchen. The house was quiet, the only sound the fridge humming away. Hey! He was hungry. Freedy opened the fridge, found a tub of KFC, polished off a drumstick and a wing-bones and all when it came to the wing, just a small one.

  Fueled up, he walked down the hall to Ronnie’s bedroom, laptop in hand. Door closed: he opened it, real silent, first turning the knob all the way. In the darkness, he could make out Ronnie’s head, a dark circle on the less dark rectangle of the pillow. The surprise was the second dark circle on the pillow next to Ronnie’s.

  Freedy, gliding softly over to the side of the bed with that second sleeper, remembered the cigar smoker in the Santa Monica barnothing surprises me anymore- remembered that was supposed to be his attitude too. But still, he was only human. Careful, gentle, he got hold of a corner of the bedcovers, pulled them back, real slow.

  A girl. Asleep on her side, facing Ronnie, and: her hand wrapped around his limp dick. A girl with a big butt, light enough to see that, a big butt that reminded him of Cheryl Ann. In a flash he figured it out. This was the sophomore from Fitchville South, the one who hadn’t been ready to go beyond hand jobs. She looked ready now. But to make sure, Freedy flicked on the bedside light.

  Oh, yes, good and ready, and in the second or so before their eyes opened, Freedy saw how like Cheryl Ann she was, not just the fat butt, but other things too, especially her age. She was about the same age Cheryl Ann had been back in high school, back when Ronnie had made his little play for her, and he and Ronnie’d had their little rat-tat-tat.

  Because of those memories, Freedy’s mood was already changing a bit as their eyes opened, becoming less playful. Ronnie gets the girl: what sense did that make?

  Moment they saw him, they both jerked wide awake, made startled noises, Ronnie’s higher-pitched than the girl’s. Very next thing, the girl let go of Ronn
ie, yanking her hand back off Ronnie’s dick like it was on fire, which it most certainly was not. This was fun.

  “Well, well,” said Freedy. “Nothing surprises me anymore.” He laid his hand on that fat butt. Why not? He was a regular guy. Should he get rid of Ronnie for ten minutes or so? Was that what Bill Gates would do? Not when he was on a mission, and Freedy was.

  There was a funny sound in the air, electric and silent at the same time. It ended when he took his hand off the girl. At least she’d gotten to feel what a real man felt like, if only for a moment. “Done your homework?” he said to her, which was pretty good. No one laughed, but so what? Not everyone appreciated wit, which was why the entertainment industry always ended up appealing to the lowest common whatever it was. “See you in the kitchen, Ronnie,” he said, “if you’ve got a sec.”

  Freedy went to the kitchen, switched on the light, opened the laptop on the table. Gray screen with nothing on it. Ronnie appeared a minute or so later, shirt on backward.

  “This is kind of unexpected, Freedy.”

  “My bad.”

  Their eyes met. Ronnie licked his lips. “She’s older than she looks.”

  “Do I care?” said Freedy. “It’s your constitutional right. But this isn’t just a social visit.” He hit the on button. “I could use some tech support.”

  No answer. Normally, you say something normal like that and the other guy says something back. Freedy looked up from the screen-nothing had happened yet; wasn’t there supposed to be a warm-up routine? — and caught an expression he didn’t like on Ronnie’s face.

  “Something on your mind, Ronnie?”

  “Thought there was no laptop,” Ronnie said.

  He’d forgotten all about that. Made him look stupid, stupid in Ronnie’s eyes. Pissed him off. This whole computer business pissed him off. All he wanted was to find out what it knew about Leo Uzig: how hard could that be? He glanced down at the screen to see how it was getting along with the warm-up, saw a message:

  Total system failure. Computer will shut off in ten seconds. All files will be

  The screen went black. The green light stopped flashing.

  That swelling-up thing, like he was going to burst? He felt it again.

  “You want it, Ronnie?”

  Ronnie was fingering that hairy thing. “Depends on the terms,” he said.

  Ronnie, even Ronnie the pervert, was trying to cut a piece out of him. “These terms,” said Freedy, and flung it across the table. An awkward object for throwing, but Ronnie, so slow, managed not to get out of the way, managed not even to block it, managed to get hit in the head. He lay on the floor.

  That was when Freedy remembered something important. “Meant to ask you Ronnie-ever take Phil three twenty-two?”

  No answer.

  That Ronnie.

  Freedy found a phone book, looked through the Y ’s and then the U ’s. Uzig. Not one of the spellings he’d tried on the laptop, but there it was, a single listing. More than one way to skin a cat. Not that he’d ever actually skinned a cat. Had skinned a squirrel once, one he’d snared in the woods back of But no time for that now. A single listing, the address up on the Hill, high on the Hill, over on the sunny side.

  Dawn was just breaking as Freedy arrived. All that meant was the sky switching from black to dark gray. Still, there was enough light for Freedy to see what a big, solid house it was-nice brickwork, a tall black door with shiny brass fittings, expensive-looking extras all over the place. For a moment he felt a little funny, realized that the swelled-up feeling, like he was going to burst, hadn’t quite gone away. He went around to the back.

  23

  “Youth as such is something that falsifies and deceives.” Identify the quotation and discuss in five hundred words. No personal references, please.

  — In-class essay assignment, Philosophy 322

  Nat woke suddenly in the night. He checked the time, saw that he’d been asleep for less than three hours, rolled over, closed his eyes. Sleep had always come easily to Nat and, if interrupted, returned just as easily. But now he couldn’t get back. Couldn’t get back, although he was tired, and the night was still; even more than that, he could almost feel snow blanketing the roofs and window sills and pediments and cornices, sticking to the friezes and architraves and pilasters and capitals-and all those other architectural features of Inverness for which he now knew the names-surely a sleep-inducing image; but sleep wouldn’t come. Did it have to do with the Romanee-Conti 1917? There was a strange taste in his mouth, strange and unpleasant. Was this the taste of Romanee-Conti, too long bottled up? Nat got out of bed to brush his teeth.

  Brushing his teeth meant going through the outer room and into the hall bathroom. He opened the bedroom door, and in the darkness of the outer room saw someone crouching by his desk.

  Nat flicked on the overhead light. Not someone, not crouching, but a snowman, normal size for a snowman, a robust snowman with green buttonlike things for a smile. Right away, he felt a chill.

  He touched the snowman, making sure the snow was real. It was. A snowman in his room, with a red ballpoint for a nose, a baseball cap on backward for a hat, those green buttonlike things for a smile. First he thought: snow days, Izzie’s snow days, keep on snowing, snow days from now until forever. What sense did that make? Something wrong there. Too much to drink, too little sleep, too mixed up. Therefore, second thought: a prank, a college prank. No frats at Inverness. So who would do this? And why? A lot of work in the middle of the night, just for a prank. On the other hand, there had been frats, or something like them, long ago, and he could easily imagine Grace and Izzie putting in that kind of work, Grace especially. Or Izzie especially, given her snow days; snow days, when the forces relented and indoor snowmen became possible. So he was right back to thought one.

  Nat stood in his room, gazing at the snowman. Inverness was silent, a rare thing. No banging of the pipes behind Plessey’s walls, no scraps of talk from above, below, beside, no music drifting by from somewhere, no one quietly typing away, not even traffic sounds from beyond the campus. Nothing was happening, nothing but the snowman silently melting, leaving a growing puddle on Nat’s floor. He plucked one of those green buttonlike things from the snowman’s smile, read the single tiny word stamped on it: Pfizer.

  Nat turned to the other bedroom, Wags’s old bedroom. The door was closed. Wasn’t it always open these days? He opened it now.

  Wags lay on the bare mattress, reading by flashlight.

  “Nattie boy,” he said, sitting up, holding out his hand. “A sight for sore eyes, whatever that might mean.”

  Nat shook his hand; hot and moist.

  “Keeping busy?” Wags said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Still in there pitching?”

  “I guess.”

  “Grinding away?”

  Nat was silent. Wags wore a trench coat with a price tag hanging from the sleeve; underneath he had on flannel pajamas and mismatched boots, one an expensive-looking hiking boot-Nat spotted the Timberland logo-the other paint-spattered rubber.

  “I’m teaching myself Japanese,” Wags said. He showed Nat what he was reading: a comic book. Two Japanese men were about to torture a Japanese woman. The only word on the page was Eeeeee! “I may get a job in the Ginza district,” Wags said, “or possibly come back here and finish up.”

  Nat looked around for luggage, books, any of Wags’s possessions, saw nothing but a hospital bracelet on the floor. He remembered Wags’s mom: Are you really saying you had no idea of the mental state he’s been in?

  “Wags?”

  “Present and accounted for.”

  “You all right?”

  “Never better, Nattie boy. Better never, if you want the obverse, reverse, perverse. Free verse.” Wags laughed, a little hee-hee-hee that petered out. “Sometimes when my mind gets going…,” he began. There was a long pause. “They tested my IQ,” he said at last. “Off the charts. What’s yours?”

  “I don’t know.”<
br />
  “You forgot?” Wags laughed his new hee-hee laugh again. “That would say it all, wouldn’t it? An answering nonanswer of the truest sort.”

  Nat laughed too.

  “Did you know I spotted a mistake in a PSAT math section my year?” Wags said.

  “No.”

  “That must have been your year too, it occurs to me. In retrospect. There’s also introspect, disrespect, and plain old R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me. Remember that question with the hexagon and the isosceles triangle?”

  “You remember the question?”

  “Nothing wrong with my memory, Nattie boy. Nattie boy-o.”

  “Do you remember why you built the snowman?”

  Pause, even longer this time. “Right there,” said Wags, “that’s why I don’t like you.”

  Nat picked up the hospital bracelet. The name of the place was on it, and a phone number.

  Wags watched him. “You’re pissed about Sidney,” he said.

  “Sidney?”

  “Sidney Greenstreet. The snowman, if that’s how you want to think of him. He was supposed to be a sumo wrestler, but he ended up like Sidney Greenstreet.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Who’s Sidney Greenstreet? Is that what you’re asking? Who’s Sidney Greenstreet? I despair. I give up. I just give up, completely and utterly.” Tears welled up in Wags’s eyes, spilled over onto his cheeks, kept coming.

  Nat glanced down at the hospital bracelet in his hand.

  “I’m on leave,” Wags said; there were still tears but his voice sounded normal, a combination Nat had never witnessed before. “Paid leave, or maybe administrative leave. Semiauthorized. It’s the medication, Nat-they have all these studies, but they’re clueless about what it feels like inside your head.”