Deadman's Castle

by Iain Lawrence

  “This is Jefferson Street,” he said, like none of us could read road signs. It was lined by stores and coffee shops, and groups of people—bundled up against the cold—strolled along in the sunshine. On the next corner was a little grocery store with bins of vegetables out on the sidewalk. Old women in shaggy coats grazed among them like a herd of wild ponies.

  Dad turned right again, onto Thirty-First Avenue. “This is going to be our neighborhood,” he said. “It’s called the Horseshoe because the river wraps around it in a big loop. You’ll see what I mean.”

  The numbered avenues ran north to south. The cross streets were all named after presidents. Dad drove along every one of them, back and forth, up and down, meeting the river again and again. Mom seemed really nervous at first, but on Van Buren Street she started relaxing. On Harding she nodded and smiled. “I think we’ll be okay,” she said.

  I loved the neighborhood. Towering trees lined the streets, reaching out with their bare winter branches to touch each other high above us. There were old-fashioned houses with little windows and big porches, painted every color you’d find in a box of crayons. We passed a public swimming pool, a baseball diamond, a playground with a sandbox, and a tiny pond. Mom kept saying, “Isn’t that lovely.”

  Then we found the school.

  It was a big square of red brick and white windows. We came at it from the back, around a football field where the wind whipped little clouds of snow into sparkling spirals. At the front entrance a sign said RUTHERFORD B. HAYES MIDDLE SCHOOL. Behind a row of flagpoles, wide stairs climbed to the front doors. At the bottom, one on each side, a pair of concrete lions crouched on tall pillars.

  Classes had just finished. Kids were pouring out from the school, spreading in every direction like gumballs spilled from a big dispenser. They rolled through the gates, over the sidewalk, out across the street in front of us. Dad stopped the car to let them cross.

  A group of kids my own age, or pretty close, were gathering around one of the lions. In the cold air they spouted tiny clouds of breath as they laughed and talked.

  Seeing them made me feel lonely. I hadn’t been inside a school since my time in kindergarten, and I could barely remember that. I wished I could be one of them, a normal kid who would sleep over at a friend’s house, or talk to a girl who wasn’t my mom, or play catch with a guy who wasn’t my dad.

  A girl in a black coat and black boots scrambled onto one of the pillars and sat astride the concrete lion at the top. She leaned on its neck and drummed her heels on its flanks, like she was riding that thing through the sky.

  The street cleared of kids, a couple of stragglers went by, and Dad starting driving. He passed the school, turned onto another street, and went around and around through the Horseshoe until I had no idea where we were. Poor Bumble went to sleep again, and as we neared Jefferson for the umpteenth time, Mom got impatient. “I think we should go back,” she said. “I’ve had enough.”

  Dad turned the car and headed home to Dead End Road.

  DAD’S RULES

  I lived inside an invisible fence. Dad built a new one around every house, setting down rules that told me how far I could go in any direction, and where I couldn’t go at all. On the night after our drive, when Bumble had gone to bed, he sat with Mom and me and drew out my boundaries.

  “I’m only going to make three rules,” he said, which made me hopeful for a moment. But my heart fell as he checked them off on his fingers. “Stay on this side of the river. Always be home before dark. Never cross Jefferson.”

  “But, Dad—”

  He held up his hand. “No arguments.”

  The three rules locked me into the smallest cage I’d ever had. I was stuck in the Horseshoe, in that bend of the river on the south side of Jefferson. It was a space I could cross in less than an hour.

  “I can see you’re disappointed,” said Dad. “But right now we have to be more careful than ever. You have to watch for anything suspicious.”

  He named those things I had to watch for, and his list seemed almost endless: old men in big cars, young men in black cars, any cars with tinted windows and shadowy figures inside. He told me to watch for men with long coats, for men with short hair, for men with thick necks and dark glasses and shiny black shoes. He told me to watch for anything unusual. It seemed the years that had passed had made him more afraid. Or afraid of more things.

  That was on Friday. I barely spoke to Dad that whole weekend. First thing on Monday morning, he went out—just like a normal person going off to a job. Bumble didn’t want him to go. After living so close together in different motels, she didn’t like to see us apart. She sat on his foot with her arms around his leg, laughing like it was just a game. “You have to stay home!” she shouted. “I’m not going to let you go.”

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” said Dad. “Don’t worry, Bumble.” Then he gave his usual orders to Mom. “Lock the door behind me. Throw the dead bolt and put the chain on the latch. Don’t let anyone in. And keep the curtains closed.”

  As soon as he was gone, Mom set up her spy phone in the kitchen. She connected the headset and arranged her pads of paper.

  Bumble climbed up on a chair to sit beside her. She would spend the morning with coloring books, believing she was working.

  “Mom?” I said. “Why is Dad such a loser?”

  Mom looked shocked. “What an awful thing to say. You used to worship your father.”

  Well, he wasn’t always a loser. In the years before the Lizard Man, Dad had been a university professor, teaching English literature. But I had no memory of that. For as long as I could remember, Dad had never had a job. He either hung around the house reading books or went out to do mysterious things that he never talked about.

  Mom plugged the spy phone into the wall jack. “You don’t know half of what goes on around here,” she said.

  “Well, no wonder. Nobody tells me anything.”

  “And that’s for your own good,” she said, and I laughed because she sounded exactly like Dad.

  Mom clamped her headset over her ears and made her first call. Through the tiny speakers I heard a phone ringing. Someone answered, said hello.

  “Ahoy there!” shouted Mom.

  I sailed up to my room and did schoolwork until two o’clock crawled around. Then I packed up my books, put them away, and went back down to the kitchen. I told Mom, “I’m going out.”

  She glanced up from the spy phone. “Where are you going?”

  “Just out.”

  She looked worried. “Do you think you could be happy playing in the yard?”

  “I’m not going out to play,” I told her. “I’m not a little kid, Mom.”

  I turned to leave. From behind me came Bumble’s quiet voice. “What if the bad man gets him?”

  She didn’t sound afraid. She was just curious, and I found that kind of creepy. When I looked back I saw her bent over her coloring book, holding her hair out of her eyes as she scribbled away with a red crayon.

  “The bad man’s not going to get him,” said Mom. “That bad man’s not going to get anybody.”

  “How do you know?” asked Bumble.

  “Because your father says so.”

  That didn’t make me feel any safer. Bumble switched to a yellow crayon and asked in that same calm way, “Do you think the bad man’s hiding somewhere?”

  “Bumble, please,” said Mom. “Your father made the rules, and we have to trust him. Everything will be all right if we do what he says.”

  A little spooked by the whole thing, I said, “Maybe I’ll just stay home.”

  “No,” said Mom. “You don’t have to do that.” She took off her headset and put it down on the table. “Come on. I’ll let you out.”

  She stood up to walk me to the door.

  “Goodbye, Igor,” said Bumble, like I might never come back.

  In the hall I put on my coat and my boots. I took the chain from the latch, turned the dead bolt, and opened the door. In
that moment, as I looked out, I saw the world as I imagined my dad must see it all the time, every shadow a lurking man.

  “Go ahead; it’s all right,” said Mom. “Just be careful.”

  I felt like a baby bird being pushed from the nest. If I didn’t start flying, I’d fall flat on my face.

  “Don’t get lost,” said Mom as I stepped through the door. “Stay away from the river and don’t cross Jefferson.”

  I couldn’t possibly stop and go back. So I strode out of the house and down the steps like I didn’t have a fear in the world. I heard my mom close the door behind me. I heard the dead bolt click.

  Bumble had scared me. At the end of the driveway I stopped and looked around for the Lizard Man. I peered into the bushes of the riverside park, then up at the apartments next door. Though I was alone on the street, I imagined that I was being watched by hundreds of people gazing from their windows. That made me feel safer, and I started walking in the only direction I could—north toward Jefferson Street.

  When I reached the corner I stood there and gawked at the cars going by. I didn’t understand Dad’s rule about crossing Jefferson. It wasn’t like a different world lay waiting on the other side. Dead End Road kept on going and it looked just the same over there. But to be told not to cross the street made me wonder where it went and, again, why Dad didn’t want me to find out. It was like getting a present and being told not to open it. So you shake it and poke it, and you start pulling at the wrapping paper, and then you can’t stop until you’ve finally seen inside.

  I knew that one day I would cross Jefferson and see where Dead End Road would take me. But I didn’t do it then. I was still just a kid afraid of the Lizard Man, a kid who did what he was told. I turned right on Jefferson instead, and right again one block later, following the route through the president streets that Dad had taken us on in the jelly bean car.

  I didn’t go looking for the school. I couldn’t have found it if I’d tried. But that was where I ended up. I turned a corner and the entrance was right in front of me. So I leaned on the fence and watched the windows like they were movie screens at a multiplex. Seeing the kids in the classrooms made me remember things: the smell of Elmer’s glue, the snicking of scissors, the rough-smooth feel of construction paper. I kind of traveled back in time as I stood there, and it made me jump when buzzers blasted inside the school. Every window was suddenly an action movie, with kids swarming everywhere. In a moment they came boiling through the doors like bats from a cave.

  The same kids I’d seen before gathered around the concrete lion. Soon a dozen were standing there, talking in loud voices. I watched for a while, then started back toward the yellow house, knowing what I wanted to do.

  FUN AND GAMES

  The minivan was parked in the driveway, so I knew Dad had come home. I tapped our secret knock on the door and the mail slot opened. Bumble’s tiny fingers appeared. Her voice squeaked through the gap. “Guess what? Dad got a job.”

  “Yeah, sure he did,” I said.

  “It’s true!”

  I heard Mom laughing, then the lock clicked and the door swung open, and she and Bumble were standing there with Hideous George squeezed in my sister’s arm.

  “What job did he get?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t told us yet,” said Mom. “He only just came home.”

  I followed her through the house. On the kitchen table, the spy phone and Mom’s papers had been pushed aside. Dad was sitting there, drinking coffee.

  “So what job did you get?” I asked.

  “Well, the job—per se—is not too exciting,” he said. “I’ll have to work some weekends, maybe a few holidays, but the hours are flexible. And the best thing is, it’s close to home. I’ll only be two blocks away.”

  “Isn’t that incredible?” said Mom, with a huge smile. “What do you think, kids? Who else could go out for a few hours and land a job two blocks away? You should tell your father you’re proud of him.”

  Dad said, “That’s not necessary.”

  But Bumble leaned her head against him. “I’m proud of you, Dad,” she said.

  He patted her awkwardly, looking embarrassed. Actually, I would have looked embarrassed too, because it turned out Dad had found the crummiest job in the world. He would be handing out brochures on Jefferson Street for a company called Fun and Games. It put on theme parties for children and sold balloons and games and things.

  Mom beamed at him. “You’ll need a new suit!”

  But Dad shook his head. “They give me something to wear.”

  “Like a uniform?” I asked.

  “Sort of.”

  He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. Bumble started showing him the pictures she’d drawn in her coloring book, and he acted like he was absolutely riveted. Soon she was laughing, and when Bumble laughed everybody laughed, because the sight of her was just so funny. For the first time in ages we were one happy family, and I saw my chance.

  I said, “I want to go to school.”

  An awful silence fell over the room. Nobody looked at anybody else. Then Mom hurried around the table and took Bumble by the hand. “Let’s play in the living room!” she said, whisking my sister away. Dad fiddled with his coffee cup, turning it in circles. He said, “I’ve been expecting this.”

  He had a theory, he said, that boys go a little crazy around the age of twelve. “For some it’s a year sooner, and for some it’s a year later, but it always happens,” he said. “I wanted to build a raft and float down the Mississippi like Huckleberry Finn. My father wanted to be a soldier and fight in a war. His father wanted to drive a wagon train, and the last one had gone west long before he was even born.”

  “I just want to go to school,” I said.

  “Not really,” said Dad. “You only think you do. Believe me, you wouldn’t be happy in school.”

  “I was happy in kindergarten.”

  “Things are different now.” Dad sat straighter in his chair. “Look, son.”

  He hardly ever called me son, and he had never talked so gently. He held out his hands like he wanted to touch me but drew them back again.

  “The children in that school will have known each other all their lives,” he said. “They’ll have memories and experiences you could never share. You’d be a pariah.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An outcast.” Dad picked up his empty cup and put it down again. “The truth is, you’re as different from them as night is from day. You’d have nothing in common to bring you together.”

  “You just don’t want me to have friends,” I said.

  “That’s not true.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll tell them things, and they’ll tell other people, and maybe the Lizard Man will hear about this kooky kid who’s lived in a million houses and—”

  “All right, yes,” said Dad. “That scares me to death. But it’s not that I don’t want you to have friends. I just can’t turn you loose into that sort of environment.”

  “I wouldn’t tell anybody anything, Dad.”

  He smiled but somehow still looked sad. “Do you really think that’s possible?”

  “Sure. I’ll tell them the Greenaway story.” Oh, it’s just a little town, you wouldn’t have heard of it. My dad had a hardware store.

  “And how far is that going to get you with people you see every day?” he asked. “You can’t build friendships out of lies.”

  “But, Dad—”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  I was sick of being told that things were for my own good. What did that even mean? If it was for my own good, why didn’t it make me happy?

  “Believe me, I would love to send you to school,” said Dad. “I’m a teacher, for heaven’s sake. Or I was. When our circumstances change, the first thing I’ll do is get you into a good school. I promise.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe next year,” he said. “If not, the one after. Almost certainly.”

  It seemed hopeless. I fel
t so sorry for myself that tears started leaking from my eyes. I squinted to stop them.

  “Look.” Dad sighed. “I know you hate me for this. But—”

  “Dad, I don’t hate you,” I said. “You want to keep us safe. I get it, but…” There was no use trying to stop the tears anymore. They rolled down my cheeks and over my lips, warm and salty. “It’s just so hard, Dad.”

  “It’s hard on all of us, son.”

  Yeah, right, I thought.

  “But it’s probably harder on you than on anyone else. I know that, and I’m sorry.” Dad held out his hands again, and this time he hugged me. I leaned against him, just like Bumble had done. Through his clothes and through his skin, I could feel my father’s heart beating very fast.

  FOLLOWED HOME

  I saw Dad at work the next afternoon when I walked up to Jefferson. I turned the corner and there he was, standing on the crowded sidewalk just a few yards away, trying to push his brochures onto people who mostly ignored him.

  I ducked into a doorway and peered at him around its edge. He was wearing a huge bow tie and a pair of patched-up pants ten sizes too big, held up by red suspenders. On his feet were enormous shoes, on his head a fuzzy wig of orange hair, on his face a bright red nose and a painted smile.

  My dad was a clown.

  It was awful to see him there, with that ghastly smile on his face. At first I felt embarrassed. But then it made me angry to think why he’d taken that lousy job. He had become a sentry in a clown suit, guarding the entrance to Dead End Road, making sure I couldn’t go anywhere without being seen.

  I hadn’t broken any of his rules, but I didn’t want him to see me just then. I didn’t want him to guess where I was going. So I went back down Dead End Road to look for another way around, and I found it at the very end, right across from the house. Between the big apartment buildings and the little town houses was a path worn through the snow. It led to a walkway lined with planters and lampposts, and at the end was an iron gate. I passed through it, into the maze of streets named after presidents.

  I was heading for Rutherford B. Hayes Middle School. But of course I couldn’t find it, and for nearly an hour I wandered through the neighborhood. When I finally blundered onto the front entrance, I didn’t loiter around the fence. I marched right up the path and past the lions, up the steps and into the school.