by Shawn Inmon
“I have a hunch that if your parents find that, they’ll throw it in the trash. According to the critics, that’s where it belongs.” He appeared unfazed by whatever critical drubbing he might have received. “Think you can read that?”
“Yep.”
“So be it. Let me know if you want to trade it for something better. I have a full library in the house. You might like some of my Robert Heinlein books, like Have Space Suit, Will Travel.”
Michael shook his head slightly.
Still not sure about you. I think I’ll stay out here where it’s safe.
“Okay. See ya.” Michael jumped through the open gate, slamming it closed behind him, and ran to his tree house. One minute later, he was lost in the macho world of The Magician.
Simeon Mantoni was the magician, and he was able to use sleight of hand and misdirection to get him out of every jam, to rescue every attractive woman, and to deal with every wrong, quickly and with no feelings of remorse.
Michael read Abracadaver! in a single afternoon. He finished it just as Tess called him in to supper. He was dismayed to find that this was to be a family dinner, a rarity in the Hollister household. His mother and father were already sitting at the table, waiting for him.
“Michael,” his mother said, “why don’t you say grace for us.”
Michael rolled his eyes slightly, but not enough to attract the attention of his father. He bowed his head, steepled his hands in front of him and said, “Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
“Amen,” his mother said, pleased that he had gotten through it without a stumble. She rewarded him with a tightly frozen smile, then began dishing roast beef and au gratin potatoes onto her plate. She passed the dishes on to Clayton Hollister, who had set the Wall Street Journal up in front of him.
“Must you?” she asked, through the same glacial smile.
Clayton read on until he had finished the article, sighed, folded the paper and set it off to the side. He gazed off into space somewhere above Michael’s head.
The rest of the meal was silent, aside from the clicking of forks and scraping of knives.
Finally, Michael said, “May I be excused?”
“Going back out to your tree house?” his mother asked. “It seems like you’d live out there if you could. I don’t see the attraction. I’m sure it’s dirty, and there must be spiders and God only knows what else out there.”
Michael just shrugged and said no more. Don’t argue. Don’t defend. Get out quick.
She sighed. “Fine, I don’t care.”
Michael retreated from the dining room. Just as he closed the kitchen door, he heard his father say, “Don’t worry, I’m about to take care of that problem.”
Chapter Fourteen
Carrie opened the training manual. It reminded her of her grandmother’s Bible, with a heavy leather cover and onionskin pages. The first page contained two sentences: It will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.
“Okay ...” Carrie mumbled to herself. She glanced up. All around her, other students were hunched over their own copies of the manual. One thin woman with long, jet-black hair was flipping through the pages as though she was at a speed-reading class.
“There’s one in every group,” Carrie muttered to herself.
She turned to the second page. Another few words: Life is not a race. Not a marathon, not a sprint. Life is. Nothing more.
“What the heck? Does this book respond to my questions?” She turned the page.
Yes. No. Maybe.
“Uhn,” Carrie said in frustration. “Does everyone and everything in this place talk in riddles?” She turned the page.
Yes. No. Maybe.
Carrie shut the manual with a dull thud, then took a deep breath. She looked around and saw that everyone else in the room was studying their manual industriously. I just have to ask the right questions. Okay. Will you teach me what I need to do my job here? She opened the book again, but did so more than halfway through.
Only two words on the page: Of course.
Holy crap, a straight answer. Now I’m getting someplace. What, exactly, is my job? She turned the page.
The longest answer yet: Every job, every undertaking, is what you make it. Your task is to follow the luminous path. When darkness is all around you, it is easy. When the light is intense, it becomes more difficult.
And, we’re back to the fortune cookies, Carrie thought. This is going to take some doing.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, Michael slipped out of his room quietly, a little before 7 a.m., when his father would typically still be in the shower or getting ready for work. When he walked into the kitchen looking for breakfast, though, he was surprised to find his father, dressed in one of the dark suits he wore to work, standing at the back door with a cup of coffee in his hands. A happy, satisfied look sat, unaccustomed, on his face.
Michael followed the direction of his stare. Two men were at the back of the yard, dismantling his tree house. A third was pulling up the power cord he had run so carefully along the edge of the garden, looping it over his arm as he went. A fourth man stood by, oiling a chainsaw.
“Unnnh,” was all Michael could say, a word that meant, “I can’t believe you’d actually do this,” and, “But of course you would,” and “Fuck you, too, Dad,” all in one single syllable of frustration.
Father and son created a frozen tableau, staring out the back door at the workmen industriously tearing the tree house apart, board by board. After a moment, Clayton turned his head and looked at Michael, with the eyes of an eagle closing in on a rabbit in the field below. He set his coffee cup down on the kitchen counter, nodded down, and said, “Michael,” then walked out the front door.
Michael slammed through the back door and stood on the porch steps. What chance have I got against him? He’s full-grown. I’m a kid again. If I tell people what he’s done, it’s just my word against his, and who is everyone going to believe? Michael balled his small hands into fists at his side. Shit! Oh, my God, I hate him so much!
Michael approached the workman with the chainsaw.
“Whatcha doin’?” Michael said, doing his best to appear as if he really were an eight-year-old boy.
“Gonna cut this tree down, kid.”
“Why?” Michael asked, although he was sure he already knew the answer.
“’Cuz that’s what the man is paying us to do.”
Michael knew the six quarters he had stashed would never be enough of a bribe to stop the dismantling and destruction of the tree house and tree. He walked among the scattered remains of the tree house—boards, the old carpet, his stash of books. He grabbed the copy of Abracadaver and left the rest behind.
They can burn Mom’s trash books if they want to. I don’t care.
He tucked the book under his arm and pushed through the gate to Jim Cranfield’s yard. It was empty, with no sign of the older man anywhere. He looked hopefully up at the deck, but it was empty. Michael’s shoulders sagged.
He tentatively walked up the steps to the deck and sat down at the small table and chairs. He set the book on the table, then drummed his fingers.
A minute later, Jim Cranfield came out, drying his hands on a dishrag.
“Young Master Hollister. Good morning.” He glanced at the activity across the fence and said, “It is a day filled with foreboding and bad tidings, especially if you are inclined to want to while away your hours in a tree house.”
“My father is a raging asshole in more ways than you can ever know.”
Cranfield nodded, pursed his lips, but remained silent.
“The only reason he’s taking it down is because he knows I like it. He’ll do anything he can to get rid of something I like.” To his dismay, Michael felt tears forming in his eyes. He angrily wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He took a deep, shuddering breath.
Shit.
What is it about being a kid that makes it so easy to cry?
Michael shrugged. “Well, there isn’t anything I can do about it, so I guess I might as well forget it. I’ll spend the rest of the summer locked in my bedroom.” He shoved the book across the table. “Thanks. I finished it. Can I have the next one?”
“Already?”
Michael nodded.
Cranfield stood, plucked the book off the table and disappeared into the house. A moment later, he reappeared, holding a small stack of trade paperbacks. On top was a slim volume called Hocus Corpus – The Magician, Volume Two. Michael riffled through the lurid covers and saw more titles like Prestidigitlesstation, Clairavoidance, and SpellBOUND, which featured a beautiful woman tied securely to a chair.
“That won’t make up for your lost tree house, but it might help you kill a few hours, not to mention a few brain cells.”
“Thanks,” Michael said, eyes downcast. “Well, guess I better go. Thanks for the books. I’ll take good care of them.”
“Excellent. We should strive to take care of all books, even ones with pedigrees as mongrel as those.”
“You’re so weird.”
“Duly noted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to attend to my kombucha.”
I have no idea what that is, and I don’t even think I want to ask. What a weird old dude. Still, nice guy. He takes time to talk to me, even though he thinks I’m just a little kid.
Michael scooched his butt forward so he could hop down from the patio chair and crossed back through the fence into his yard. He looked up just as the man with the chainsaw put a belt around the tree and began to climb. When he got to the top, he fired up the chainsaw, and the sound echoed around the neighborhood. He cut off several small branches at the top, worked his way down twenty feet or so, then cut through the main body of the tree, which fell harmlessly into the yard.
Makes sense, I guess. If they had just felled it where it was, it might have been tall enough to reach the house. And I would have stood here and laughed my ass off. The only thing better would have been when Father came home to survey the damage.
Michael stopped in his tracks. Wait a minute. I’m too small to knock a tree down on the house, but that doesn’t mean I am helpless.
Michael pushed through the back door, ignoring Tess as she said, “Hello, Michael,” with a worried expression on her face.
She knew how much I loved being out there. Good to know someone in this house cares about me.
He strolled through the dining room and into his father’s office. He rarely went into the office because it felt like his father was everywhere inside that room. It even smelled like him, or his cologne, at least. A large mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room, with a high-backed leather swivel chair behind it. Low-wattage bulbs burned in lamps set in the corners of the room. The walls were covered with pictures of Clayton Hollister, one of Middle Falls’ leading citizens, accepting awards from the Kiwanis, the Lions, and the Chamber of Commerce. There was a picture of him shaking hands with Governor Mark Hatfield, and one shot of him posing with a swordfish, taken somewhere in Mexico. The wall behind the desk was empty, except for one frame, perfectly centered. That frame was almost empty as well, with only a small rectangle in the middle. Michael didn’t have to look at it to know what it was—the Inverted Jenny stamp. It might not be the very rarest stamp in the world, but it was close. A small lamp hung over the frame, shining a subtle light down on the tiny red and blue stamp with the upside-down airplane on it.
Michael knew the story of the stamp only too well. How it had been handed down from his grandfather to his father and how, someday, it would be given to him. He knew that Clayton Hollister loved that stamp more than he loved anything, certainly including his family.
I wonder what it’s worth? Doesn’t matter, because I know what it’s worth to him. Every time some guy in a suit comes to the house, he drags him in and shows it to him, whether he wants to see it or not.
Michael peered closely at the stamp under the frame, which had been professionally mounted under museum-quality glass. The frame hung from a strong wire attached to closed-eye hooks, which were sunk into studs in the wall.
He sure doesn’t want anything to happen to it, does he?
Michael reached up and tugged on the frame, but it held firm. He pulled harder, with no result. Finally, he let all his weight dangle off it, but it clung stubbornly to the wall.
Shit!
He looked around to see if Tess had been alerted that he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, but he was still alone. He glanced at the desk and saw a paperweight designed to look like Mount Rushmore.
He picked it up, measured the heft. Michael was never going to be an athlete, even when he was fully grown, but at that moment, he made the pitch of his life. He wound up and threw the paperweight from three feet away, smashing it directly into the frame. The museum glass didn’t shatter into a million pieces, but rather, with a huge bang, broke in large shards and fell to the carpeted floor.
Michael glanced over his shoulder again. Only got a second now.
The frame still hung on the wall, swaying slightly at an angle. Michael picked a large piece of glass away from the middle of the frame, reached in and peeled the stamp away from the backing. He held it close for just a moment, savoring it.
Then, he tore it in half. And half again, and a third time. He tried to tear it in half a fourth time, but it resisted the strength of his small fingers. He shrugged, stacked the eight pieces of the stamp neatly in the middle of the blotter on the desk, then leaned over and carefully spit a loogie on the pile.
“Michael! Oh my stars, what have you done? What is Mr. Hollister going to do when he sees this?” Tess’s eyes were wide with shock and surprise.
Michael, still bent over the desk after spitting on the remains of the stamp, glanced up at her, a devilish grin playing on his lips.
“I. Don’t. Care.”
Tess’s hand flew to her mouth. She had never heard such blasphemy in the Hollister home. “Oh, Michael,” she said softly, “have you lost your mind?”
“No.” Michael held her gaze for a long moment. “Tess, do you know what my father has done to me?”
Tess took a step toward Michael. A shadow of concern, long buried, flitted across her eyes.
Michael saw her expression and seized on it. “Ah, so you do know. No, wait. That’s not right. You suspected, maybe, but you never had enough information. Of course not. He only came into my room in the middle of the night, when Mother was so drugged that an earthquake could have shaken the house off its foundations and she wouldn’t have woken up.”
“Michael! You sound ... so ... different. So much older.”
You don’t know the half of it.
”Where’s Mother?”
“She ... she’s upstairs.”
“Asleep again, slumbering in Morpheus’s arms, thanks to a few of her pills, no doubt. She must have taken a handful not to have heard that crash.” Michael glanced over his shoulder at the skewed frame and smiled again, with a contented look that chilled Tess. “You should probably call Father and let him know he needs to come home. He’s not allowed in my room any more, but I’ll wait for him in the television room.”
Tess, stunned into silence, started to ask what “not allowed in my room” meant, but changed her mind and hurried to the kitchen. She picked up the phone. Michael could hear the repeated twirling of the rotary dial. Then, in a panicked tone he’d never heard from her lips: “Mr. Hollister, please. This is his housekeeper.”
Michael walked into the next room and clicked the television on. A black and white movie was playing, but Michael couldn’t focus on it. He was too antsy—he knew there would be hell to pay. He walked over to the stereo cabinet and thumbed through the records inside. Sing Along With Mitch, Even More Sing Along with Mitch, Nighttime Sing Along with Mitch.
Come on, Dad. It’s 1966. No Nat King Cole or the Kingston Trio, even? Are they a little too black, or a
little too hippy for you?
Michael sat down on the couch and stared off into space.
Now what, Father?
At first, adrenaline coursed through his veins and he sat bolt upright.
I’ll bet it won’t take him long to get home once he finds out his precious stamp has been ruined. I want to see the look on his face when he actually sees it.
Michael’s expectation of a quick resolution came and went. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked away the seconds, the minutes, an hour. The pendulum swung back and forth in a stately motion, lulling Michael into sleep.
Michael awoke two hours later to the sound of muffled voices in the kitchen. He had fallen over against the arm of the sofa but sat up quickly, trying to clear the sleep cobwebs from his head. After destroying the stamp, he had felt elated at first about striking such a telling blow in retaliation. Now, several hours and an intervening nap later, his stomach was tossing and turning, and regrets were already beginning to form.
He listened intently, but could only pick up snippets of his father’s voice. “... had to pull a lot of strings ... not even open during the summer ... the last damn straw ... no son of mine ... if he even is my son ...”
Michael did his best to focus and regain his composure, but sleep clung to his brain. He took a deep breath, pulled his hand back and struck himself as hard as he could across the right side of his face. A red print rose immediately, and he heard a slight ringing in his ears, but his eyes focused again.
Steps echoed across the tile floor of the kitchen, then muffled into the deep carpeting of the dining room, and then entered the television room.
Michael expected to be confronted with anger, hatred, probably violence. He was unprepared for the calm and cool Clayton and Margaret Hollister who stood in front of him. His mother still looked as sleepy-drunk as Michael had been a few moments before.
