by Ellen Datlow
The outburst broke a dam inside her; her face crumpled, and tears spilled over. She put a hand over her face and her body jerked silently. Jeremy looked toward the living room and saw one of the boys, his blonde hair buzzed down to his scalp, staring into the kitchen in shock.
“It’s okay, Tyler,” he said. “It’s okay, buddy.”
The boy appeared not to hear him. He watched his mother until she pulled her hand from her face and seemed to suck it all back into herself; without looking to the doorway she fluttered a hand in the boy’s direction. “It’s fine, Tyler,” she said. “Go help your brothers.”
The boy retreated.
Jeremy reached across the table and clasped her hands in his own. “Becca,” he said, “you and the boys are like family to me. If I could give you some money I would. I swear to God I would. And you’re right, I do owe it to you. Dennis didn’t get paid towards the end. Nobody did. So if you feel like you gotta sue me, then do it. Do what you have to do. I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”
She looked at him, tears beading in her eyes, and said nothing.
“Shit, if suing me might keep you in your house a little while longer—if it’ll keep the bank away, or something—then you should do it. I want you to do it.”
Rebecca shook her head. “It won’t. It’s too late for that now.” She rested her head on her arm, her hands still clasped in Jeremy’s. “I ain’t gonna sue you, Jer. It ain’t your fault.”
She pulled her hands free and got up. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and tore off a great handful, setting to work on the spill. “Look at this damn mess,” she said.
He watched her for a moment. “I have liens on those houses we built,” he said. “They can’t sell them until they pay us first. The minute they do, you’ll get your money.”
“They won’t ever finish those houses, Jer. Ain’t nobody gonna want to buy them. Not after what happened.”
He stayed quiet, because he knew she was right. He had privately given up on seeing that money long ago.
“A man from the bank come by last week and put that notice on the door. He had a sheriff with him. Can you believe that? A sheriff come to my house. Parked right in my driveway, for everybody to see.” She paused in her work. “He was so rude,” she said, her voice quiet and dismayed. “The both of them were. He told me I had to get out of my own house. My boys were standing right by me, and they just bust out crying. He didn’t give a damn. Treated me like I was dirt. Might as well of called me white trash to my face.”
“I’m so sorry, Becca.”
“And he was such a little man,” she said, still astonished at the memory of it. “I kept thinking how if Dennis was here that man would of never talked to me like that. He wouldn’t of dared!”
Jeremy stared at his hands. Large hands, built for hard work. Useless now. Rebecca sat on the floor, fighting back tears. She gave up on the orange soda, seeming to sense the futility of it.
It was a week before Christmas, and Tara was talking to him from inside the shower. The door was open and he could see her pale shape behind the curtain, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He sat on the bed in his underwear, his clothes for the evening laid out beside him. It was the same suit he’d worn to the funerals, and he dreaded putting it on again.
Outside the short wintertime afternoon was giving way to evening. The Christmas lights strung along the eaves and wound into the bushes still had to be turned on. The neighbors across the street had already lit theirs; the colored lights looked like glowing candy, turning their home into a gingerbread house from a fairy tale. The full moon was resplendent.
Jeremy supposed that a Christmas party full of elementary school professionals might be the worst place in the world. He would drift among them helplessly, like a grizzly bear in a roomful of children, expected not to eat anyone.
He heard the squeak of the shower faucet and suddenly his wife’s voice carried to him. “—time it takes to get there,” she said.
“What?”
She slid the curtain open and pulled a towel from the shelf. “Have you been listening to me?”
“I couldn’t hear you over the water.”
She went to work on her hair. “I’ve just had a very lively conversation with myself, then.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you going to get dressed?” she said.
He loved to watch her like this, when she was naked but not trying to be sexy, when she was just going about the minor business of being a human being. Unselfconscious and miraculous.
“Are you?” he said.
“Very funny. You were in that same position when I started my shower. What’s up?”
“I don’t want to go.”
She turned the towel into a blue turban and wrapped another around her body. She crossed the room and sat beside him, leaving wet footprints in the carpet, her shoulders and her face still glistening with beaded water.
“You’ll catch cold,” he said.
“What are you worried about?”
“I’m obese. I’m a fricking spectacle. I’m not fit to be seen in public.”
“You’re my handsome man.”
“Stop it.”
“Jeremy,” she said, “you can’t turn into a shut-in. You have to get out. It’s been six months, and you’ve totally disengaged from the world. These people are safe, okay? They’re not going to judge you. They’re my friends, and I want them to be your friends too.”
“They’re going to look at me and think, that’s the guy that left his friends on a mountain to die.”
“You’re alive,” Tara said, sharply, and turned his head so he had to look at her. “You’re alive because you left. I still have a husband because you left. So in the end I don’t give a shit what people think.” She paused, took a steady breath, and let him go. “And not everyone’s thinking bad things about you. Sometimes you have to take people at face value, Jeremy. Sometimes people really are what they say they are.”
He nodded, chastened. He knew she was right. He’d been hiding in this house for months. It had to stop.
She touched his cheek and smiled at him. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
She got up and headed back to the bathroom, and he fell back on the bed.
“Okay,” he said.
“Besides,” she called back happily, “don’t forget about Tim! Someone has to keep the beast at bay!”
A sudden, coursing heat pulsed through him. He had forgotten Tim. “Oh yeah,” he said, sitting up. He watched her dress, her body incandescent with water and light, and felt something like hope move inside him.
The house was bigger than Jeremy had been expecting. It was in an upscale subdivision, where all the houses had at least two stories and a basement. The front porch shed light like a fallen star, and colored Christmas bulbs festooned the neighborhood. “Jesus,” he said, turning into the parking lot already full of cars. “Donny lives here?”
Donny Winn was the vice-principal of the school: a rotund, pink-faced man who sweated a lot and always seemed on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Jeremy had only met him once or twice, but the man made an impression like a damp cloth.
“His wife’s a physical therapist,” Tara said. “She works with the Carolina Panthers or something. Trust me, she’s the money.”
The house was packed. Jeremy didn’t recognize anybody. A table in the dining room had been pushed against a wall and its wings extended, turning it into a buffet table loaded with an assortment of holiday dishes and confections. Bowls of spiked eggnog anchored each end of the table. Donny leaned against a wall nearby, alone but smiling. His wife worked the crowd like a politician, steering newly-arrived guests toward the table and bludgeoning them with good will.
Christmas lights were strung throughout the house, and mistletoe hung in every doorway. Andy Williams crooned from speakers hidden by the throng.
Jeremy wended his way through the mill of people behind Tara, who guided him to the ta
ble. Within moments they were armed with booze and ready for action. Jeremy spoke into Tara’s ear. “Where’s Tim?”
She craned her neck and looked around, then shook her head. “I can’t see him. Don’t worry. He’ll find us!”
“You mean he’ll find you,” he said.
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
He measured time in drinks, and then he lost track of it. The lights and the sounds were beginning to blur into a candy-hued miasma that threatened to drown him. He’d become stationary in the middle of the living room, people and conversations revolving around him like the spokes of some demented Ferris wheel. Tara was beside him, nearly doubled over in laughter, one hand gripping his upper arm in a vise as she talked to a gaunt, heavily made-up woman whose eyes seemed to reflect light like sheets of ice.
“He’s evil!” The woman had to shout to be heard. “His parents should have strangled him at birth!”
“Jesus,” Jeremy said, trying to remember what they were talking about.
“Oh my God, Jeremy, you don’t know this kid,” Tara said. “He’s got like—this look. I’m serious! Totally dead.”
The woman nodded eagerly. “And the other day? I was looking through their daily journals? I found a picture of a severed head.”
“What? No way!”
“The neck was even drawn with jagged red lines, to show it was definitely cut off. To make sure I knew it!”
“Somebody should do something,” Jeremy said. “We’re gonna be reading about this little monster someday.”
Tara shook her head. “Nobody wants to know anymore. ‘Boys will be boys,’ right?”
The woman arched an eyebrow. “People are just fooled by the packaging,” she said. “Kids shouldn’t be drawing severed heads!”
Tara laughed. “But it’s okay for grown-ups to?”
“Nobody should draw them,” the woman said gravely.
“Excuse me,” Jeremy said, and moved away from them both. He felt Tara’s hand on his arm but he kept going. The conversation had rattled him.
Severed heads. What the fuck!
He slid clumsily through the crowd, using his weight to help along the people who were slow in getting out of his way. He found himself edging past the hostess, who smiled at him and said “Merry Christmas,” her eyes sliding away from him before the words were even out of her mouth. He was briefly overwhelmed by a spike of outrage at her blithe manner—at the whole apparatus of entitlement and assumption this party suddenly represented to him, with its abundance and its unapologetic stink of money. “I’m Jewish,” he said, and felt a happy thrill when she whipped her head around as he pressed further into the crowd.
He stationed himself by the fireplace, which was, at the moment, free of people. He set his drink on the mantel and turned his back to the crowd, looking instead at the carefully arranged manger scene on display there. The ceramic pieces were old and chipped; it had clearly been in the family for a long time. He looked past the wise men and the shepherds crouched in reverent awe, and saw the baby Jesus at the focal point, his little face rosy pink, his mouth a gaping oval, one eye chipped away. Jeremy’s flesh rippled and he turned away.
And then he saw Tim approaching through the crowd. Tim was a slight man, with thinning hair and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. Jeremy decided he looked like a cartoonist’s impression of an intellectual. He stared at him as he approached.
This was what he had come for. He felt the blood start to move in his body, slowly, like a river breaking through ice floes. He felt some measure of himself again. It was just as intoxicating as the liquor.
Tim held out his hand, still closing the distance, and Jeremy took it.
“Hey. Jeremy, right? Tara’s husband?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, you are?”
“Oh I’m Tim Duckett, we met last year, at that teachers’ union thing?”
“Oh yeah. Tim, hey.”
“I just saw you over here by yourself and I thought, that guy is frickin lost. You know? Totally out of his element.”
Jeremy bristled. “I think you made a mistake.”
“Really? I mean, look at these people.” He shifted to stand beside Jeremy so they could look out over the crowd together. “Come on. Teachers? This is hell for me! I can only imagine how you must feel.”
“I feel just fine.”
Tim touched his glass to Jeremy’s. “Well here’s to you then. I feel like I’m about to fucking choke.” He took a deep drink. “I mean, look at that guy over there. The fat one?” Jeremy flushed but held his tongue. These people didn’t think. “That’s Shane Mueller,” Tim continued. “Laughing like he’s high or something. He can afford to laugh because he’s got the right friends, you know what I mean? Goddamn arrogant prick. Not like her.”
He gestured at the woman Jeremy had been talking to just a few moments ago. Where was Tara?
“Word is she’s not coming back next year. She won’t be the only one, either. Everybody here’s scared shitless. The fucking legislature’s throwing us to the wolves. Who cares about education, right? Not when there’s dollars at stake.” He took a drink. “English? Are you kidding me?”
Tim sidled up next to him, so that their arms brushed. Jeremy gave a small push with his elbow and Tim surrendered some ground, seeming not to notice.
“I always kind of envied you, you know?” he was saying.
“… what?”
“Oh yeah. Probably freaks you out, right? This guy you barely even know? But Tara talks about you in the lounge sometimes, and it got to where I felt like I kind of knew you a little bit.”
“So you like to talk to Tara, huh?”
“Oh yeah man, she’s a great girl. Great girl. But what you do is real work. You hang out with grown men and build things. With your hands.” He held out his own hands, as though to illustrate the concept. “I hang out with kids, man.” He gestured at the crowd. “A bunch of goddamn kids.”
Jeremy took a drink. He peered into his glass. The ice had almost completely melted, leaving a murky, diluted puddle at the bottom. “Things change,” he said.
Tim gave him a fierce, sympathetic look. “Yeah, you’ve been through some shit, haven’t you?”
Jeremy looked at him, dimly amazed, feeling suddenly defensive. This guy had no boundaries. “What?”
“Come on, man, we all know. It’s not like it’s a secret, right? That fucking wolf?”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Now that’s not fair. If you don’t want to talk about it, okay, I get that. But we were all here for Tara when it happened. She’s got a lot of friends here. It’s not like we’re totally uninvested.”
Jeremy turned on him, a sudden wild heat burning his skin from the inside. He pressed his body against Tim’s and backed him against the fireplace. Tim nearly tripped on the hearth and grabbed the mantel to keep his balance. “I said you don’t know shit.”
Tim’s face was stretched in surprise. “Holy shit, Jeremy, are you gonna hit me?”
Jeremy felt a hand on his shoulder, and he heard his wife’s voice. “What’s going on here?”
He backed off, letting her pull him away, and allowing Tim to regain his balance. Tim stared at the two of them, looking more bemused now than worried or affronted.
Tara laced her hand into her husband’s. “Do you boys need a time out?”
Tim made a placating gesture. “No, no, we’re just talking about—”
“Tim’s just running his mouth,” Jeremy said. “He needs to learn to shut it.”
Tara squeezed his hand and leaned against him. He could feel the tension in her body. “Why don’t we get some fresh air?” she said.
“What?”
“Come on. I want to see the lights outside.”
“Don’t you try to placate me. What’s the matter with you?”
Tim said, “Whoa, whoa, let’s all calm down a little bit.”
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up.”
The sound of the party con
tinued unabated, but Jeremy could sense a shift in the atmosphere around him. He didn’t have to turn around to know that he was beginning to draw attention.
“Jeremy!” Tara’s voice was sharp. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
Tim touched her arm. “It’s my fault. I brought up the wolf thing.”
Jeremy grabbed his wrist. “If you touch my wife one more time I’ll break your goddamn arm.” His mind flooded with images of operatic violence, of Tim’s guts garlanding all the expensive furniture like Christmas bunting. He rode the crest of this wave with radiant joy.
Astonishingly, Tim grinned at him. “What the fuck, man?”
Jeremy watched Tim’s lips pull back, saw the display of teeth, and surrendered himself to instinct. It was like dropping a chain; the freedom and the relief that coursed through his body was almost religious in its impact. Jeremy hit him in the mouth as hard as he could. Something sharp and jagged tore his knuckles. Tim flailed backwards, tripping on the hearth again but this time falling hard. His head knocked the mantel on the way down, leaving a bloody postage stamp on the white paint. Manger pieces toppled over the side and bounced off him.
Someone behind him shrieked. Voices rose in a chorus, but it was all just background noise. Jeremy leaned over and hit him again and again, until several hands grabbed him from behind and heaved him backward, momentarily lifting him off his feet. He was grappled by a cluster of men, his arms twisted behind him and immobilized. The whole mass of them lurched about like some demented monster, as Jeremy tried to break free.
The room had gone quiet. “Silver Bells” went on for another few seconds until someone rushed to the stereo and switched it off. All he could hear was his own heavy breathing.
He resumed a measure of control over himself, though his blood still galloped through his head and his muscles still jerked with energy. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
He found himself at the center of the crowd, most of them standing well back and staring agape. Someone was crouched beside Tim, who was sitting on the hearth, his face pale; his hands cupped beneath his bloody mouth. One eye was already swelling shut.
