Milwaukee Noir

by Tim Hennessy

  Vel had heard that the masked man was a former Clemens student who drowned at the school, but his ghost was reaping revenge on anyone who went down by the creek all alone on the first day of winter.

  “Jay, are you listening to me?”

  He stared at the TV, not really paying it any mind. He was a million miles away, thinking about Becky. Wondering if this assault gave her nightmares. Had she been able to sleep?

  “Well, what did I say?” Ruth asked.

  “You asked me if I finished my homework.”

  “Boy, that’s not what I said. Go in there and get ready so I can drop you off at school,” Ruth repeated.

  “Mom, I really don’t need a ride to school. My friends are coming this way, and we’re going to walk to school together.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, and I know you don’t want Vel and Lou in the car.”

  “Vel I don’t mind, but that Lou is always eating chocolates or has something sticky on his hands. I wish you would stop hanging out with him.”

  “But Mom, he’s my friend.”

  “A friend that stays in trouble.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “Well, call them and see when they’re going to get here.” She motioned toward the phone before grabbing her car keys and hurrying out the door.

  When Vel and Lou rang the doorbell, Ruth had barely made it down the block. Jay was ready to head out the door when both pushed past him into the house.

  “What the—” Jay exclaimed.

  “This man was chasing us!” Vel said.

  “Stop lying,” Jay said.

  “We’re not lying.” Lou braced his hands against his knees as he tried to catch his breath. “He had on a ski mask and overalls.”

  After a few minutes, the boys saw him running past the house. They peeked through the curtains at the man, who carried a lunchbox and thermos. When he got to the corner of the block, he flagged down a city bus.

  “Look at you two scaredy cats. He’s catching the bus for work. He’s probably going to A. O. Smith.”

  “Come on, man, we’re already late for school,” Jay said. “We gotta go.”

  “Look, the way we got it right now with this masked guy on the loose, the teachers don’t care about us being late for school. We can just say we took a different route because we were scared. Or we can say we saw the Ski Mask Rapist,” Lou said. “As far as I’m concerned, I plan on milking this all the way to the bank.”

  “I don’t think this is anything we need to be playing around with,” Jay said.

  “Who’s playing? Shouldn’t we try to benefit from this?” Lou replied. “It already got me out of detention. Maybe it can get me a double lunch at school too.”

  “All right, guys, let’s get out of here,” Jay said, forcing Lou to get up off the couch.

  “Before we leave . . .” Vel started.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t show him,” Lou said, as Vel took a hammer out of his backpack.

  “Man, what is that for?” Jay asked. “You know we can’t bring weapons to school.”

  “It’s for the Ski Mask Rapist,” Vel said. “I’m not letting anybody take my bootie.”

  Lou opened his backpack and showed them a blue-handled switchblade. Jay’s eyes widened. “I took this from my brother’s room. He doesn’t need it anyway.”

  “You know your brother is going to kick your butt when he finds out that you took it,” Jay said.

  “Jay, you need to bring something. Just in case.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “Don’t your daddy have a gun? I know he has a gun around here someplace,” Lou said, running to Jay’s parents’ room and dropping on his knees to look under the bed.

  “Man, get up,” Jay said, trailing him.

  “There’s a box right there. I can’t reach it,” Lou said. “Vel, you’re smaller.”

  Vel crawled all the way under the queen-sized bed and came out on the other side covered with dust bunnies.

  “Man, your parents need a maid,” Lou said.

  When the boys opened the shoebox and removed some old rags, they saw a gun.

  “What kind of pistol is it?” Vel said. “Is it a .38?”

  “Naw, don’t be stupid. It’s too small to be a .38. This is a Saturday Night Special,” Lou said, holding the gun in his hand. He acted like it was a toy and not a weapon capable of killing them all. “My Uncle Kenny had one just like it.”

  “Man, put it back,” Jay said.

  As he tried to get the gun from Lou, Vel stepped in the way. “Jay, stop it. We need to take this gun for our protection. Becky is going to be coming back to school this week. Maybe, just maybe, you can walk her home and be her knight in shining armor with this in your backpack.”

  “Where did you get that corny line from?” Lou teased, still holding onto the gun.

  After further pestering to get the gun back, Jay finally agreed to put it in his backpack so they could leave. Beads of sweat had formed on his brow. He didn’t like guns and knew his mom would bury them all if she knew one had been found in her house.

  On the walk to school, the boys passed several squad cars. Each time, Jay felt like he was about to get arrested.

  “Man, stop being so nervous,” Lou said. “We are the only ones who know you got it. Remember, we are The Clem, and we ain’t gonna let anyone mess with us.”

  “The Clem?” Vel said.

  “Yeah, The Clem.”

  “How did you come up with that?”

  “I don’t know. Every gang needs a name,” Lou said.

  “So now we’re a gang?” Jay said.

  “Well, kinda. We hang out together, and we watch each other’s back. That kinda makes us cool, and a gang. Now watch us get mad respect.”

  As the boys arrived at school, Rachell’s mother pulled up next to them in her maroon Cadillac and dropped off her daughter.

  “Hey Jay, hey Vel, hey Fat Albert,” Rachell said before heading inside to get out of the cold.

  “So much for respect,” Jay said under his breath.

  * * *

  After two weeks, the news of the Ski Mask Rapist intensified. There were more sightings and rumors of possible attacks, but nothing confirmed.

  Becky was back in school, though she still refused to talk about the incident. Meanwhile, Lou was back in detention, so things seemed to be returning to normal. More students resumed walking to school, and the heavy police presence tapered off.

  That didn’t stop the boys from carrying their weapons. Jay had become so comfortable with the gun in his G.I. Joe backpack that he almost forgot it was there. Being a member of The Clem even gave him a bit more confidence to talk to Becky.

  “Okay, class, your assignment this weekend is to write a report on your favorite holiday and what makes it special to you,” Ms. Reed said. “I will even let some of you team up to work on the project together, but together means together. That means I don’t want to hear about one person doing all the work and two people putting their names on it. Is that understood?”

  Lou raised his hand.

  “Yes, Lou?”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “What’s not fair?”

  “It’s not fair that one person can’t kick back and let the other person do all the work. My mama said that’s what the presidents of companies do all the time.”

  “That’s observant of you, Lou,” Ms. Reed said. “That’s why you will be doing your assignment by yourself.”

  Rachell started laughing.

  “Is there something funny, Rachell?”

  “No, Ms. Reed.”

  Over lunch break, Lou, Vel, and Jay sat at the end of their lunch table while Jay glanced down at Becky, who was at the cool table.

  “Man, don’t do it,” Vel said.

  “Do what?”

  “Remember when she called you bucktoothed?”

  “That was a long time ago, and I’ve grown into my teeth,” Jay said.
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  “But you haven’t grown into that gap,” Lou said.

  “I’m going to go over there and ask her if she wants to work on the project with me.”

  “Wait, I thought we were going to work on the project together,” Vel said.

  “If she says no, we will.” Jay got up from the table and walked toward Becky.

  After a few minutes of chatting and laughing, Jay came back to his friends with a frown on his face.

  “Man, I told you she thinks she’s better than everybody else because she has good hair and a nice body,” Lou said.

  “So when do you want to get together to work on this paper?” Vel asked.

  “She said yes.”

  “Wait, what?” Lou said.

  “She said we can work on the paper together,” Jay said, revealing the gap-toothed grin.

  “My boy! I knew you could do it,” Lou said. “She heard about The Clem.”

  “I’m going to walk her home from school today.”

  “No fair! She’s not part of The Clem,” Lou said.

  “Guys, I want to walk her alone.”

  His friends gave him five as the bell sounded, ending lunch.

  * * *

  Saturday morning, Jay walked over to Becky’s house to work on the project. The house was clean but mostly empty.

  When they sat down at the kitchen table, Becky told him they needed to keep their voices down because her mother was still sleeping.

  “But it’s eleven,” Jay said.

  “Since my father left, she doesn’t get up until noon, and sometimes it’s later than that.”

  The two worked on the paper and finished quickly.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about what happened, but—”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” Becky said.

  When her mother finally came downstairs in her half-opened housecoat, she looked in the fridge without acknowledging Jay. “Damn, there ain’t shit here to eat,” she said. “Becky, I need you to go to the Capitol Foods up the street and pick up a few things.”

  Jay cleared his throat, startling her.

  “Aren’t you Ruth’s son?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, I am. My name’s—”

  “Your mom has a big mouth,” Becky’s mother cut him off, lighting a cigarette. She poured herself some liquor. “Her and all those other cackling women on 42nd Street. Tell your mom to mind her own damn business.”

  “Okay,” Jay said, a bit scared.

  “Becky, get your ass up now. I need you to go to the store,” the woman said, handing Becky a twenty-dollar bill before heading back to bed.

  Becky started getting up to put on her shoes.

  “You want me to go with you?” Jay asked. “I mean, that guy is still out there.”

  “You can if you want,” Becky said while she put on her gloves and scarf.

  As the two headed toward the door, Jay grabbed his backpack.

  “You’re not coming back?” she asked.

  “I will, but I just like taking my bag.”

  As they walked the six blocks to the store, it started to snow. Becky didn’t say anything. There was an awkward silence and Jay broke first.

  “I hate gray days,” he said.

  “Yeah, I do too. Look, I’m sorry about what my mom said. She runs everyone away. Including my dad.”

  “Have you talked to him, you know, since he left?”

  “No. He just left without any explanation . . . Did I do something to upset him? How could he leave me? My mom? Does he even care? You’d think after what happened, he’d be rushing home.”

  Jay remained quiet but took Becky’s hand. She accepted.

  At the store, Becky stretched the twenty dollars and bought enough for both to have bags to carry back to the house.

  The two had just made it to the sidewalk in front of Becky’s place when they spotted a man in a black ski mask next to the house. The guy came up on the porch and twisted the lock. Jay handed Becky his bag of groceries and reached into his backpack.

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Becky said.

  They cut down an alley around the side of the house. Becky held onto Jay’s coat, while he kept his hand in his bag. The man was now beating on the door.

  Jay approached on the right side of the porch, and the masked man turned toward him.

  “Who are you?” the guy asked.

  “Stay back.”

  Suddenly, the door opened and Becky’s mother shrieked. The man moved forward. Jay pulled his hand from the bag and heard a loud pop.

  “Call the police!” Becky’s mother slurred, a small pistol shaking in her hand. The man fell off the porch.

  Everything went silent except for Jay’s heartbeat. He willed his feet to move, but everything felt like it was going in slow motion. He walked slowly up to the man, who wasn’t moving. Blood pooled out from under him.

  Jay reached for the man’s mask, and when he pulled it off, Becky screamed, “Daddy!” She pushed past Jay and lifted her father’s head.

  Becky’s mom stumbled slowly to her husband and put another bullet in his chest.

  THE NEIGHBOR

  by Nick Petrie

  West Allis

  For Gordon Myles, Easter Saturday is the first Saturday of the year for lawn care. The snow has almost certainly gone until next winter, although in Wisconsin you never know for sure. But the ground has drained enough not to sink underfoot, and the grass has just begun to turn from brown to green.

  Newly sixty, wearing faded khakis that bag in the knee but have not yet begun to fray at the cuff, Gordon opens the garage and removes his tools one by one from their designated hooks, their labeled shelves and racks and bins. He sharpens his edging shovel and shears with a file. He fills the mower with the proper mix of oil and gas, then pulls the cord until the welcome roar echoes down the street, trailing the sweet smell of two-stroke engine exhaust. He drinks his first two outdoor beers of the new year.

  While Gordon puffs and pants and otherwise embraces his agricultural heritage, Milner, his next door neighbor, slouches on his unpainted front porch in a ratty folding chair with his feet up on the railing, reading a magazine whose name Gordon can’t make out. Milner’s lawn lies lumpy and brown and full of thistles, dandelions, and creeping Charlie, but there he sits, reading while weeds grow. As with a car accident or any other man-made disaster, Gordon cannot look, but he must. Just the sight of it gives him chest pains.

  In May, Gordon rents an aerator for anyone on the block to use. He picks it up in his minivan and fills the barrel with water from his hose. It passes from neighbor to neighbor, and Gordon makes sure to do the older ladies’ yards as well. He rolls it across each green lawn in turn, the machine’s hollow spikes plucking neat cylinders of dirt and root mat from the compacted earth, leaving the tubular deposits to break apart and disperse into the rich grass. Milner just sits on his porch and reads.

  “Aeration,” Gordon calls out to Milner as he wheels the clunky machine across the driveway. “It gives the worms room to move,” he says. “Room to breathe, really. And healthy worms make a healthy lawn.”

  Milner does not respond.

  “I’d be happy to do yours too,” says Gordon. “I have to cross it anyway to get to Mrs. Hansen’s house.”

  Milner shrugs in his chair. Scrapes his hand across his stubble. “Fuck the worms,” he says. “They can wait until I’m in the ground.”

  Gordon pushes the aerator across Milner’s yard, just one row, then across his driveway to his own yard. At least Milner’s worms will have a little breathing room there amid the thick, hairy roots of weeds. Gordon finds himself feeling sorry for Milner’s worms. Maybe they’ve all died. It’s that or they’ve made the long stretch across the driveway to Gordon’s own well-watered and fully aerated lawn.

  Two weekends later, Gordon is out with the Weed & Feed, rolling the spreader back and forth, the wheel carefully kept in the track made on the previous pass, t
o ensure an even spread. An even spread is important to Gordon. He has extra in the machine, he tells Milner. He’d be happy to make a pass around his neighbor’s yard, just to use it up. It never goes back in the bag very well, always makes a mess.

  “It’s just Weed & Feed,” says Gordon. “I’d be happy to do it.”

  Milner refuses. “I don’t believe in pesticides,” he says.

  Doesn’t believe in them? Gordon shakes his head. Milner might as well say he doesn’t believe in the stock market, or gravity. Just look at Gordon’s lawn if you want to see the value of chemicals. A shining expanse of emerald perfection.

  * * *

  Late one Saturday night in July, Gordon can’t sleep. He gets like that after four or five gin and tonics. Restless. His hands and legs twitch on the couch. He paces in the living room, the old wooden floors squeaking underfoot.

  Until a few years ago, when wakeful after midnight, he’d walk across Greenfield Avenue to the county golf course. He’d stride the sculpted fairways and feel the glorious turf beneath his feet. But when budget cuts reduced the maintenance crew, the roughs grew tangled with knotweed and clover. The ponds became clotted with algae. Even the thought of it makes Gordon want to weep, and he is at loose ends again.

  Now he paces past the neat stack of mail that Rita has taken from their neighbor’s mailbox at Milner’s request. Milner has gone away for a week. An opportunity for charity has presented itself. With liquid clarity, Gordon steps outside, shirtless and stealthy in the warm midnight air, and unlocks the side door of the garage. He quietly takes out the spreader and the Weed & Feed. Turns the handle to maximum and makes a double pass across Milner’s wasteland tract.

  Gordon doubles up his hoses to get his sprinkler over to Milner’s lawn, using his own water to give the wasteland a good soaking. He sits on one of the expensive lawn chairs his wife had to have, watching the sprinkler sweep back and forth. Mesmerized by the steady motion. Ice from another gin and tonic rattling in the glass.

  He wakes in the chair at first light, back aching, his mouth like a pickle jar. Milner’s lawn is a mud pool. He scrambles to collect his hose, hide the evidence. Stays inside all day watching golf. He tells Rita he’s sick.