by Ray Garton
“Yeah. Does he have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Maybe we should introduce him to my friend Brett.”
“Is she nice?”
“Well...no, not really. But she’s pretty. We could introduce them, see what happens.”
Adam kissed her again, and this time they did not pull apart as easily.
“Whoa,” Alyssa said with a breathy laugh. “Is that a copy of Tropic of Cancer in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”
Adam laughed. “Very funny.”
“Well, I need to be serious for a second. I’ve got to tell you something. If I don’t, it’ll be the same as lying to you. I don’t want to do that.”
Adam tensed, moved back from her a little. He could not believe the other shoe was dropping already. They had barely let go of the first one.
“Is something wrong? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I just don’t want to lead you on. So I’m telling you right now that, uh...we won’t be having sex tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, confused. “Did I miss something? I feel like I walked in on the middle of a movie.”
“I just want you to know I’m not too casual about sex.”
“You only have it formally?”
She nodded, grinned. “R.S.V.P.”
“I look like a dork in a tux.”
Alyssa laughed as she pulled him close again. “I don’t mean I’m saving myself for marriage, or anything. I’m just saying I take things a little slowly. So if that’s going to be a problem for you, I’ll understand. I’d hate it, but I’d understand and wouldn’t hold it against you.”
“What you’re saying, really, is that, um, you don’t put out on the first date.”
“Is that bad? That’s what you’re going to say, right?”
Adam tried to process the sudden rush of feelings that went through him, all in the direction of Alyssa, but failed. Instead, he blurted, “Will you marry me?” It sounded jokey, and Alyssa laughed, but inside, Adam was serious, and knew if she said yes, he would drive them to Las Vegas that instant.
“I don’t marry on the first date, either,” she said.
“Neither do I. But it’s the thought that counts, right?”
“So, with the sex thing out of the way...” Alyssa stopped, took a deep breath. “Well, maybe we could do something radical, like...get to know each other.”
“Radical? It sounds downright subversive! I’ll start. How old are you?”
“I’ll be nineteen in seven weeks.”
Relief coursed through Adam’s veins like adrenalin.
They tossed the remaining bites of their chili dogs over the railing to the sand below and made their way slowly back up the boardwalk as the lights around them blinked out.
SEVEN
As he finished brushing his teeth and turned out the bathroom light, Adam could not remember the last time he had gone to bed feeling so good. Not just good, but happy. He walked naked to his bed, turned out the lamp. Got on the bed, tugged the sheet from the tangled bunch of covers beside him, pulled it over him. Closed his eyes and let a sigh slip out as his head found the right spot on the pillow. Alyssa’s face hovered in the darkness behind his eyelids.
His body shook the bed with a startled jump. He thought he felt something touch him. He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger in the dark. Something touched him again. His lungs stopped working. A hand came to rest on his flaccid penis. It squeezed.
In 1980, a slasher movie called Friday the 13th hit theaters. Produced, written, and directed by Sean S. Cunningham and starring a cast of young unknowns, it made a lot of money off throngs of teenagers who enjoyed seeing their peers slaughtered.
Adam laughed at the movie now—it was a sloppy mess in every way—but had found it terrifying when he first saw it as a boy. There was one scene Adam still could not watch if he planned to get any sleep in the near future.
Early in the movie, a young Kevin Bacon is lying in a bottom bunk in a cabin. Unknown to Kevin, a male corpse reclines in the bed above, blood still dripping from its gaping throat. Something drips on his forehead and he wipes it off with a hand, looks at it. Blood. A hand swings up from under the bed, slaps onto his forehead and holds his head down. Blood spurts as the deadly-sharp head of a hunting arrow plunges upward through his throat.
Adam hated the movie and its endless sequels, but was haunted by that particular scene, especially at night before he went to bed. Even now, when he knew better.
When the hand touched his penis, Adam flashed on the movie. The scene played out in his mind in vivid detail in a fraction of a second. His horror catapulted him from the bed. While airborne, he screamed. If asked about it later, he would insist he only shouted, but it was a high, piercing shriek, like Janet Leigh showering in Psycho. He hit the floor running for the door. As he pulled it open, he collided with it, and it slammed shut again. He turned and pressed his back to the door, heart about to explode, to face his assailant.
Gwen was sitting up in his bed, the bedspread and blankets wrapped around her. “Adam?” she said, groggy.
“Oh my God,” Adam said as he slid down the door to the floor. Adrenaline thrummed in his veins. He could not quite catch his breath and was afraid he might hyperventilate. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
“Adam, honey, are you okay?” she said.
He did not trust his legs, so he returned to the bed on hands and knees. “No, I’m not okay,” he said. He climbed back onto the bed and lay beside her. “And somewhere, Sean S. Cunningham is laughing his ass off.”
“Sean who?”
“Never mind.”
Gwen curled up beside him, draped an arm and leg over him. Whiskey rode her breath when she said, “Sometimes I don’t know what you’re talking about, Adam. It worries me.”
“Don’t worry.” His voice was still shaky from his scare. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m talking about either.” After a moment, he asked, “Don’t most people?”
“Don’t most people what?”
“Not know what they’re talking about sometimes?”
“Oh, sweetie, most people don’t know what they’re talking about most of the time.”
Adam’s frown deepened. “So how do we communicate? How do we accomplish anything?”
“I don’t know. But it explains talk radio.” She sounded sniffly.
“Do you have a cold?”
“No.”
“Have you been crying?”
She did not respond.
Adam stroked her upper arm and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, please, I don’t want to whine and blubber like some—”
“What did Dad do?”
“Well, it’s not so much what he did.”
“Something he said? That’s worse. I prefer the hitting. I got plenty of hitting growing up. But dad never shut up while he was doing it. The hitting alone I could handle. That pain went away and never left any scars.”
“I...I’m still not sure what happened,” she whispered. “One second, I was talking about going out on the yacht Saturday and...next thing I knew, he was furious. Like a fucking werewolf. Something about macaroni and cheese.”
“Oh, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?”
She nodded. “Yeah! I mentioned I might pick some up for the trip because it’s so easy to cook and everybody loves it. I thought everybody loved it.”
“Oh, God, did he give you the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese speech?” He laughed, sat up straight and deepened his voice when he spoke. A fair impression of his dad, inflections, tics and all: “I ate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese every Goddamned day of my life till I left home. We’d have a turkey for Thanksgiving, a roast for Christmas, an Easter ham, but even then, there it was. A vat of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Doesn’t matter what the entree was, if there was an entree. It was always there. Congealing.”
Gwen squealed laughter into her palms as she rocked back and forth on the bed.
“All I could ever t
aste was that Goddamned gooey Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I vowed that when I grew up, I’d never eat it again. I won’t have it in my house. To this day, I see one of those blue boxes, I can taste that shit in my mouth and I wanna puke.”
“Oh, God, Adam,” Gwen gasped, wiping tears from her eyes, “that’s so funny. You’re so good at that! Almost word for word!”
“There are variations,” Adam said. “Like the story about how he almost choked to death on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and his little sister saved him with the Heimlich maneuver. One Christmas, Aunt Renee said he was full of shit, it never happened. He hasn’t spoken to her since. And if he’s been drinking, he’ll try to find somebody who loves Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and pick a fight with him.”
Gwen kissed his cheek. Nibbled his earlobe. “You hate him, don’t you?”
“Like Bette Davis hated Joan Crawford. I keep meaning to put a dead parakeet in his lunch.”
“Sometimes I hate him, too.”
Adam turned and propped himself on his left elbow, facing her. “Do you love him?”
She frowned as she watched her fingers toy with Adam’s nipple. “I care about him.” Her words sounded hollow.
“I don’t think you can hate someone you’ve never loved.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I don’t know. Might have been Roger Ebert.”
“Well, there are times when I really hate him. Times when I could kill him.”
There was no tease in Gwen’s voice. She was not joking. Adam adjusted his pillows and sat up, nestled into them. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Mm-hm.” She closed a hand around his erection.
“How serious?”
“I’m only serious about it when he hits me and pulls my hair.”
“What’d he do, give up kicking? Is it Lent again already?”
“Yeah, he kicks, too.”
Adam fidgeted. His dad had started beating his mother toward the end. Just before he killed her. He wondered if Gwen’s relationship with Michael would take the same road.
His mind locked a tractor beam on that thought and pulled it in for closer inspection. If that was, indeed, his dad’s plan, Adam would have to prevent it. He could not let that happen again.
Why would he do it, though? he thought. They’re practically newlyweds. But Adam knew logic was the wrong approach. He would have to watch for it, and if he became certain of it, he would have to prevent it.
He had already decided to kill his dad. That would be a tasty bonus excuse.
Gwen said something. Said it again.
“What did you say?” he said.
“I asked if he was that way with your mother.”
“My dad? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he...he was.”
“The whole time they were married?”
“No, just toward the, um...the end.” An ache filled Adam’s chest, and he suddenly missed his mom deeply. If he told Gwen the rest—that his dad had started beating his mom shortly before he killed her—she would not rest until he gave her a complete explanation. But he had no solid proof, not even passable circumstantial evidence. Just that feeling in his gut. Suddenly, Adam wanted to be alone.
“What’s the matter,” Gwen said. “Something wrong? We can stop talking—”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just been a rough day, you know? I think I should get to sleep.”
“Are you trying to kick me out?”
“Speaking of kicking...Dad’s car was in the driveway when I got home earlier. Where’d he go?”
“Nowhere. He’s in bed asleep.”
Dragging on the cigarette, Adam coughed out a mouthful of smoke. “He’s home? In the house?”
“Don’t worry. He’s snoring out both ends. We ate Mexican tonight.”
Adam rested the cigarette on the ashtray’s edge and got out of bed. “Look, Gwen,” he said, “you can’t be here in my bed when Dad is home, he might wake up, wonder where you are, come looking for you, I mean, God, what is it with you women?”
“Women?” Gwen got off the bed and stood in front of him. “What women?”
“It’s just that...do you know what would happen if my dad found out we’ve—”
“Are you referring to my daughter?” Gwen said, suddenly sounding very much awake.
Adam froze. “I-I-I...what?”
“Have you met Rain?”
Adam nodded, fought to keep his voice steady. “Oh. Yeah. We met in the hall. Earlier. Didn’t have much time to talk, but she seems like a nice gir—”
“Be careful.” Her mouth turned down slightly at each corner. “She’s my daughter and I love her, but she’s nothing but trouble, Adam.”
He tried to change the subject. “What if I’d had somebody in here with me tonight?”
“Then I would’ve left you alone.” She sniffed. “Why? Do you have someone else?”
“Well, I...I think so.”
“That’s nice, I’m glad. I’m serious about Rain, though. She makes trouble. I doubt she’d try anything with you, though. You’re too close to home. In fact, she could use a friend like you. Somebody levelheaded and mature. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. You hanging out with her, I mean.”
“You don’t know me very well, do you?” Adam said with a Bela Lugosi lift of his eyebrow.
Gwen put her arms on his shoulders. “Oh, I know you better than you think I do.”
Adam kissed her, held her a moment. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” he said.
“Sweet dreams.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and left the room.
In bed, thoughts ricocheted around in his head like bullets in a western movie saloon. Was Gwen serious about killing his dad? Would Rain claim he had raped her if he told her to go screw herself? What was it about Alyssa that made her so different? Her eyes? Yes, maybe something about her eyes.
Adam drifted off to sleep, and sometime during the day’s first light, he dreamed of Alyssa.
EIGHT
Mrs. Yu had a big greasy breakfast waiting for Adam when he entered the kitchen yawning the next morning.
“You trying to kill me with all this cholesterol, Mrs. Yu?” he asked as he took a seat in the breakfast nook that overlooked the garden.
She laughed, patted the top of his head. “You sirry.”
While Adam was eating, Gwen entered the kitchen, joined him in the breakfast nook. She wore denim shorts, a white T-shirt with James Dean on the front. “Any later and you would have missed lunch,” she said, smiling. She had a cup of coffee with her and sipped it. “How are you?”
“Tired. I needed the sleep.” He sipped his coffee, passed a napkin over his mouth. “How about you? Feel any better today?”
She stared at her coffee, took a cigarette from a pocket and lit it. She looked sad. “Some, maybe. I don’t know.” She took a drag on the cigarette.
Mrs. Yu stepped into the breakfast nook, smiled. “’Scuse me, Missy Jurian, but Missa Jurian no rike cigalette smoke innadoors.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Yu, for pointing that out,” Gwen said pleasantly. “But from now on, there are some things Missa Jurian is just gonna have to get used to. I’m tired of being sent outside my own house to smoke, like a dog with fleas.”
Mrs. Yu bowed her head and hurried away.
“Hey, hey, go easy on Mrs. Yu, okay?” Adam whispered.
Gwen frowned and leaned toward him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Adam scrubbed his face with both hands, yawned. “Nothing. I’m sorry. Just lay off Mrs. Yu. You might even want to get to know her. She’s had a very rough life and somehow she’s managed to remain a good person in spite of it. That’s more than you can say for most people who’ve led easy lives.”
Mrs. Yu returned briefly to set a small crystal ashtray in front of Gwen, then disappeared.
“So, what did you do that kept you out so late?” She gave him a calm smile, as if to show the sudden outburst was forgotten.
“First, I was with Carter. He’s
making this severed head that is truly amazing.”
“I’m telling you, that boy is a serial killer in the making. What about last night?”
“I went...out.”
The left side of Gwen’s mouth curled upward. “Who is she? What’s she like?”
Adam cautiously searched her face.
She laughed and said, “You don’t have to worry, Adam. You should be dating, I want you to date.”
Adam put down his fork and smiled, pleased to hear her say that. “Her name is Alyssa. She’s...different. Not like anybody I’ve known, really. We just met, but when I’m around her, she makes me feel like...like we’ve known each other a long time but didn’t get around to actually meeting until this week.”
“Oh, such a romantic, Adam. It’s sweet.”
“I guess that’s better than being a boy.”
“Did you happen to see Rain anytime last night or this morning?”
He chuckled. “Thought you wanted me to stay away from her.”
“The more I think about it, the more I think you might be good for her.” She sighed, shook her head. “She just got back to L.A. and she stays out all night. She’s upstairs asleep now, but I don’t know where she’s been.”
“Did you ask her?”
“Not yet. You’ll be hearing that when it happens. We always end up shouting, she says horrible things—” A deep breath as she fidgeted, “—and I suppose I do, too.”
“Does she have friends around here?” Adam asked.
“A few. She did before she went off to live with her dad, anyway. A bunch of lowlifes.”
“Why did you let her hang out with them?”
“Let her?” She tipped her head back and laughed. “Same reason I let the earth revolve, honey. I don’t have much choice.”
Having spent some time with Rain, that made perfect sense to Adam.
“She’s...you just don’t know her. Her dad could talk to her. I never could.” She smiled at Adam again. “Maybe you’ll be a good influence on her.”
Adam laughed to cover his discomfort. “Yeah. I’ll let her borrow my Bible. I’ve already underlined all the holiest parts.
“Just be careful. Like I said.”
“You talk about her like she’s the Incredible Hulk, or something. What are you afraid she’ll do, break my neck with her bare hands and throw me down the Hitchcock steps?”
