Twisted

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  “Sounds fair. Can I work with the janitors again?”

  “Don’t see why not.” He stood up.

  I did the same and reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine.”

  The day had unfolded precisely the way I’d planned.

  The bus showed up at the corner just as I left the courthouse. I got a seat that didn’t smell funny. An abandoned newspaper was on the seat next to me. When I read about a car crash, I did not imagine myself going through the windshield. When I read about a fire, I didn’t feel the flames.

  I was a boy on a bus going somewhere, for a change.

  The walk from the bus stop to Yoda’s house took ten minutes. His parents had just gone grocery shopping, and their pantry was packed with snacks and soda. We took a couple armloads to the basement, where I spent the afternoon kicking his butt in an empire far, far away.

  It was the perfect day right up until the hysterical phone call from my mother.

  74.

  It didn’t matter how many times I saw it, a police car in my driveway always gave me a jolt.

  Mom jumped off the living-room couch and threw herself at me, hugging hard enough to fracture my ribs. Her mascara was running in two black crayon streaks down her face. I patted her on the back, tried to breathe, and looked around for my sister. She wasn’t there. Officer Adams was. He studied the shine on his shoes and the cobwebs strung along the crown molding as we waited for her to finish.

  Mom pulled away with aloud gulp. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize how scared I was until just this moment.” She smoothed the mascara stains on my shirt.

  “Have a seat,” Adams suggested. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

  Mom sat on the couch.

  I stayed on my feet. “What’s going on?”

  Adams cleared his throat. “We arrested a student from Forestdale this morning for all the crimes associated with the photographs taken of Bethany Milbury.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I can’t tell you. He’s sixteen.”

  Mom puddled up again and snagged a Kleenex out of the box on the end table.

  “Why him?” I asked.

  “We received a couple tips about his behavior at the party. Our computer guys were able to trace the original upload of the pictures to an account paid for by the suspect’s grandmother. The grandmother is loaded and we’ve been fencing with her lawyers all week. But we have all the evidence we need now. He’s going to do time, no question about it.”

  The words rippled over me.

  “I apologize for any inconvenience,” Adams said, “but we had to perform a thorough investigation.”

  “Tyler?” Mom asked. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “You’re sure,” I repeated. “You’re not going to come back next week and say you changed your mind?”

  Adams explained the whole thing again. He added that he had e-mailed the school administrators, and he would follow up with a phone call to Mr. Hughes in the morning.

  “My deputy is putting your computer back in your room right now,” he said. “If you have any problems with it, don’t hesitate to give our office a call.” He stood up and straightened the creases on his pants. “I imagine you’re relieved. I’m just sorry we couldn’t clear this up any faster.”

  They looked at me. It was my turn to speak or burst into tears. Show some gratitude, at least. I didn’t feel grateful. I just felt tall.

  The deputy came down the stairs, Hannah close behind. Adams stood up. “You’ll need to call your P.O. this week.”

  “Already did,” I said. “I met with him this afternoon.”

  Adams nodded. “I’ll make sure his office gets the paperwork. Sorry again for the inconvenience.”

  “When will Dad be home?” I asked as the cop car pulled out of sight.

  “His plane landed an hour ago,” Mom said. “He had an emergency meeting with Brice. Do you want Chinese or pizza?”

  Something hit the house just as Mom, Hannah, and I were about to dig into a stress-free, MSG-enhanced meal in the family room with Alex Trebek. Mom had lit fat, white candles for atmosphere, the soda cans were popped open, and the soy sauce was poured.

  A car turned into the driveway going too fast. There was the squeal of brakes and a slight thud, which turned out to be Dad’s car hitting the back wall of the garage. The house shook again seconds later when he slammed the door. He made it to the family room in six quick strides. He stopped when he saw me at the end of the couch.

  “You sonuvabitch.”

  My heart lurched, but I forced myself to slurp up the strands of my lo mein. “Look who’s home.”

  His jacket and tie were missing, his top two buttons unbuttoned. There were sweat stains under his arms. His eyes were bloodshot and his comb-over looked like a squirrel had run through it.

  Mom shook her head. “Tyler, hush.”

  Dad swayed and put his hand on the wall to balance himself. “You little bastard.”

  I opened another packet of soy sauce and poured it on my noodles. “Those names insult Mom, not me. Want to try again?”

  Hannah gasped.

  “That’s it.” He started across the carpet for me.

  I wait until he’s in arm’s reach. I wait until he hits me, until he’s off balance and unprepared. I punch him square in the middle of his body. I collapse his lungs and stop his heart. He drops to the ground.

  I stood up.

  “No, Bill, no!” Mom shrieked as she stepped between us and grabbed Dad. “What are you doing?”

  “Proud of yourself?” he asked over Mom’s shoulder. “You finally stuck it to me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Milbury fired me. He’s blaming me for Nebraska. He wants to sacrifice me to the Feds. But we both know the real story, don’t we, Tyler John?”

  “You’ve been drinking, Bill,” Mom said. “Please calm down.”

  “Shut up, Linda.”

  As the words hit, Mom’s head snapped up and her chin jutted forward.

  I pick him up by the throat and lift him slowly until his feet dangle three inches from the floor. He can’t make a sound. His fingers claw desperately at my hands. His feet kick. I squeeze.

  Mom let go of Dad and walked over to stand next to Hannah, in arm’s reach of the fireplace pokers. “The police were here,” she said. “They arrested the boy who took those pictures. Tyler is completely innocent.”

  “What?” He cocked his head to one side.

  “It’s over,” Mom said. “The whole thing.” She filled him in on what the police told us, her voice like glass.

  Dad paused, his forehead wrinkled with effort. “You’re sure this isn’t a trick?”

  “Disappointed?” I asked.

  He smoothed his hairs over the top of his scalp, trying to line them up between his fingers. “That doesn’t change anything. Your shenanigans cost me my job. That means no money, no college, no house.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hannah said. “How did Tyler get you fired?”

  “He threatened to beat the crap out of Milbury’s son at school today. There are twenty witnesses. He’s obsessed with that family.”

  I scratched my chin. My beard was beginning to grow in faster. “Wrong,” I told him. “You were fired because you screwed up, or maybe you’re a scapegoat, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Enough!” Dad’s arm hit the closest TV tray. Three containers of food flew through the air and smacked the wall with a wet sound, the candlelight glittering like tracer fire before it was put out in the duck sauce. Mom’s cheeks were flecked with black drops of soy. Hannah whimpered.

  Dad spun on his heel and disappeared down the stairs to the basement.

  Alex Trebek told us to stay tuned.

  Hannah helped Mom sit down on the couch, then picked up the remote and turned off the television. “Why did you have to make it worse?” she asked me. “You could have
just let him calm down.”

  I picked a napkin off the floor, sat down next to Mom, and wiped the gunk off her face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “He’s under a lot of stress.” She took the napkin from me. “We all are.” She walked over to the mess on the floor. “Let’s pick this up. Oh, no, there’s wax on the carpet.”

  While Hannah and I picked up the remains of dinner, Mom twisted an ice-cube tray in the kitchen. The sound of the ice cracking echoed off the appliances and tile like a gunshot. It made me jump. She came in carrying the ice in one hand, and two twenty-dollar bills in the other.

  “I want you to go to the movies,” she said. “Tyler, you can drive the van. Your license is in the box on your father’s bureau.”

  “I know.”

  Hannah interrupted. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I have a headache,” Mom said. “I’m going to rest. That way your father will have a quiet house.”

  Hannah said something soothing about Tylenol and a cold compress.

  My hands itched. The open blisters were on fire. The heat spread up my arms, across my shoulders, and down my body like sheets of flame that welded all my bits and pieces together. I looked down at the carpet, half expecting to see it melt under my feet. The table lamps seemed to have new bulbs in them, clean bulbs that highlighted the grease spots on the wall, every line in my mother’s face, and the nervous glances that Hannah sent to the basement door. Their shadows were stark.

  Hannah pretended to smile as she buried Mom’s money deep in the pocket of her jeans. Mom crouched and put the ice on the wax stuck to the carpet.

  “This is bullshit,” I blurted out.

  “What?” Mom asked.

  “Why can’t we admit what’s going on here? Sending us to the movies, pretending you just need a nap—it’s all bullshit. Covering up for him makes it worse.”

  “Don’t, Ty,” Hannah said.

  “We’re all just trying to get through this,” Mom said.

  “That’s not good enough,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  I crossed the room and opened the basement door and walked down the first three steps.

  “No one is to come down here,” roared William T. Miller.

  I retreated up the stairs to the kitchen, reached in the front hall closet, and took out my baseball bat. Without looking at my mother, I adjusted my armor and headed back down.

  75.

  It was dark down there, but I could see him in the recliner, his shoes off, his headphones already on, and music flowing through them. He had not touched his computer.

  I flicked on the overhead lights.

  His eyes opened. “I need to be alone, Tyler.”

  I walked past the recliner to the bookcase that held his stereo equipment, crouched down, and unplugged the receiver.

  Dad rocked the recliner forward and threw his headphones to the ground. “Don’t push me.”

  I stood up. “I want to talk.”

  “Put the bat down.”

  “Forget it.”

  His eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’re not going to scream and intimidate me. Not today, Dad.”

  The hand holding the bat was sweating.

  Mom crept down the stairs, afraid of what she would find at the bottom. “Is everything okay?”

  “Leave us alone, Linda,” Dad said.

  I leaned against the door that led to the storage room, my left hand resting on the table covered with the dusty train set. Santa was still riding high. The mountaintop was dirty.

  “This’ll only take a minute,” I said. “She should stay.”

  Mom’s eyes ran back and forth between Dad and me, then she slowly sank down and sat on the third step from the bottom.

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You have two seconds.”

  “Give him a chance, Bill,” Mom said.

  “This is between him and me, Linda. Be quiet.”

  My heart pounded double-time, a hammer beating on the inside of my ribs. My mouth went dry. Adrenaline surged, screaming through my brain, begging me to take him down.

  A red haze filtered over everything, like a light rain.

  “I’m a part of this,” Mom insisted.

  “Go upstairs,” Dad told her.

  “Shut up.” I said it calmly, the way you might say “looks like rain” or “the mail’s here.”

  Mom drew in a little breath and hugged herself.

  “What did you just say?” Dad stepped towards me, wings unfolding.

  “I told you to shut up.”

  “How dare you?” Dad spat. “You ungrateful—”

  “Bill, can’t you see what’s going on?” Mom pleaded.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Dad yelled, his fists balled tight.

  There was a click, a faint click that I felt more than I heard.

  Something snapped.

  I picked up the bat. I brought it up in a perfect arc to achieve maximum velocity and force, then smashed it into the model train set, sending Santa plunging down the mountain and exploding the pretend world.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.

  One, two, three, four.

  Mom screamed.

  Dad grabbed at my arms.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.

  The temporary rivets holding me together loosened, glowing hot under the pressure that prevented me from turning the bat on my father and breaking it over his head until he was a pile of splintered bone and broken track, beating him until the wheels came off. I hit the train table harder so I wouldn’t hit him.

  Mom screamed again and Hannah was there, and Dad finally stepped back and I stopped.

  All I could hear was my breath coming fast, hard, and loud, like I was underwater and wearing an oxygen mask connected to a heavy tank strapped on my back, and the only sound that could fit in my head was the rasping air going in and out of my lungs.

  I set the bat down carefully at my feet, lifted my head, and pushed the hair out of my face. I was soaked, as if I had just walked through a storm.

  I took another deep breath. Other sounds filtered in: Mom patting Hannah’s back, Hannah trying not to cry, Dad saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay, Tyler, calm down, it’s okay.”

  The red haze lifted. I licked my lips. I wiped my hands on my jeans. The open blisters burned.

  “I’m going to talk now,” I said.

  My father nodded once.

  “Please sit down.”

  Dad sat on the edge of his recliner. His black socks drooped around his ankles. Mom and Hannah retreated to the foot of the stairs, their eyes darting between my father and me.

  “Thank you,” I said. I emptied my pockets and handed $480.00 in bills to him.

  “That’s your money,” I said. “I stole it from your closet on Saturday. I spent twenty bucks hitting balls.”

  Dad’s face was stone. “You were in my room?”

  “I needed money to go to Minnesota.”

  “What?” Mom whispered.

  “I hear it’s nice there. I figured it would be a good place to start out on my own.”

  The furnace kicked on.

  “Will you get me a garbage can?” I asked my sister. “The black one in the garage. And call Yoda. Tell him I’m coming back.”

  Hannah had a puzzled look on her face, but she went upstairs. I took a deep, slow breath, waiting for her to get out of earshot.

  “What made you stay?” Mom asked.

  “Dad’s gun.”

  “You touched my gun?” He gripped the chair. “Why—?”

  “I asked you to shut up.”

  Mom started to cry. I couldn’t look at her, because if I did I might fall apart, and Dad would take control again and it would be the same as before, only worse. I crouched next to the train wreck and picked up the broken engine. “I didn’t really want to run away. I wanted to die.”

  I turned the engine over and over in my hands. The smokestack and wheels had snapped off, but
the body was whole.

  “But you didn’t do it,” Dad said.

  I opened my mouth. I knew my voice was going to crack. I cleared my throat and waited.

  Dad didn’t know what to do with his hands. He rubbed them once on his thighs; he crossed his arms over his chest and immediately uncrossed them. He kept his eyes on a carpet stain six inches to the left of me.

  I tried again. “I had the gun in my mouth and my finger on the trigger.”

  Mom cried silently, rocking back and forth.

  Dad flinched but quickly recovered. “What stopped you?”

  “I looked in the mirror and realized that I was already dead. I let you kill me one piece at a time, starting when I was, what? Eight years old? Nine? You killed yourself and then you came after us.”

  My eyes were leaking again. Damn. I wiped them on my sleeve.

  “I never hit you.” Dad’s voice shook. “I sacrificed everything to give you a good life and a nice home, something better than I had.”

  “You’re a real success story, Mr. Miller. You got the big house, but nobody lives here. Not really. Anyway.” I tossed the engine on the trash heap. “So. I’m not dead. I’m not going to be dead for a long time, I hope.”

  “Are you blaming me for this?” Dad asked.

  I let the question hang there, spinning. Mom was crying raw sobs, gulping for air. Dad looked smaller than he had five minutes earlier, like the air was being let out through a small, hidden puncture.

  “Do I blame you?” The words came out slowly. “Absolutely. You loaded the gun and put it in my hand. I blame myself, too. I let you do it.” I stood up and brushed off my hands. “I am not going to military school. And I’m dropping most of my AP classes.”

  “What?” Dad sputtered.

  “If you don’t agree, I’ll drop out.”

  “If you drop out, you can’t live here.” His voice was higher, wobbly. More air was rushing out of him, his cheeks hollow, his skin beginning to collapse.

  “Fine. I figure you won’t pay for college, either. No problems. You did it, Dad. How hard can it be?”