All the Things You Are (12 page)

‘Is there someone out there?' Donna said suddenly, snapping off the lamp. The window crash-faded to black and Danny and his sister vanished, to be replaced by the sight of a red Ford Mustang on the gravel drive. The interior light was on, and a slender, middle-aged man with a blond pony-tail could be seen playing with a Nintendo DS console.

‘Danny. Answer me. Christ, is that Jeff Torrance out there?'

‘It is.'

‘What is Jeff Torrance doing here? Why are you getting in a car with Jeff Torrance? Where is your car? Where is Claire? For the third time, what is going on?'

Donna had always had the ability to talk in a low voice but make herself perfectly audible, not to mention intimidating. Danny had had enough of intimidation, and felt he shouldn't have to put up with it from his own sister, however troubled their relationship.

‘Was it the nagging that finally did for your marriage? I can see how it might have driven a man to the point of no return.'

‘All right then, fuck off. Take the girls and put them in the … the car is filling up with smoke. Oh my God, the skank is smoking a joint. Jeff is smoking a joint.'

‘Of course he is. That's what Jeff is for. It would be weird if he wasn't.'

‘Those girls are not going in that car with Jeff driving.'

‘Which is exactly what I'm saying to you.'

Danny almost laughed at the way this has come out. Donna didn't.

‘Hey, dickhead, are you taking this seriously? You drive up here last week and ask me to mind your kids while you, what, “sort some stuff out”, Claire isn't around and you need to “get your head straight on a couple things”. Now you're back, you're telling me less, if that were possible, then last time, and you want me to keep them indefinitely, while you take off with Jeff Torrance to … where, Danny? Vegas, baby? If this is a midlife, good luck, but count me out. Where's your
wife
?'

Danny's eyes flashed quickly across to Barbara and Irene, but they couldn't hear, or weren't listening. He flicked his head towards the hall. Once Donna followed him out, he shut the glass door. There was a fountain and indoor foliage and a balcony above. Is that what they called an atrium? It felt more like a private healthcare facility than a home. He had to hand it to Donna, she had sure worked that ex-husband over good.

‘Where's your wife, Danny? Have you left her, is that what this is?'

Danny shook his head.

‘No. No, it's just … I'm in a bit of trouble, Donna.'

Donna looked at Danny with raised eyebrows, her pert mouth and pointed little nose flexing in what resembled contempt, but was actually what Danny recognized as Donna's own strained quality of concern.

‘That's the first time in my hearing that you've ever admitted a weakness, little brother,' Donna said, making it sound not altogether like a sneer.

‘You sure make a lot of those seventeen minutes, don't you?' Danny said.

They looked each other in the eye.

We haven't spoken this much in years
,
Danny thought.
Not since I told Dad to leave her alone, and when Dad said, ‘Or what?' I showed him. I showed the bastard what.

‘You look like you could do with a drink,' Donna said.

‘You have no idea. But I'm traveling with Jeff, so one of us needs to be sober.'

‘You're right, I have no idea. But before we get to that, just tell me: what are you doing with that dope-addled buffoon?'

‘I couldn't take either of my own vehicles, too easily identifiable. Jeff … well, simple as, I don't really know anyone else I can call out of the blue and say, “Hey, wanna take a trip?” and know the reply will be, “Sure,” no questions asked, destination unknown. What else was he going to be doing anyway?'

‘Waiting for his mom to die, so he can inherit the Torrance house.'

‘Hoping his mom
doesn't
die, otherwise who's going to run the cleaners and the cook and the rest of the crew who keep the Torrance house going? Jeff's all right. Don't worry about Jeff.'

‘Where's your wife?'

‘Claire is … I guess she'll be home by now.'

‘You guess. What, have you not spoken to her?'

‘I've … left her a sign.'

Donna waited for her twin brother to explain; when he didn't, she snorted and her small brown eyes flared.

‘You left her a
sign
?
What is this, the Olden Days? The Streets of Laredo? Why didn't you call her on, you know, the telephone?'

‘Donna, and I don't expect this to satisfy you, and I'm sorry, there's a lot I can't tell you, but someone is blackmailing me. Someone from my past.'

Donna laughed out loud, a mirthless, mocking affair.

‘You? And your sinister past? Give me a break.'

Danny's face was set, his own small eyes glinting, as close as he came to confrontational.

‘I know about the bikers and the rehab and the breakdown. Why don't you use that imagination of yours, which I know is still working overtime if the evidence of all those stories and comics you and the girls cook up together is anything to go by—'

‘That's all their own work. And I did not have a breakdown.'

‘Well, that's my point. There's loads of stuff I don't know about you, isn't there? We hardly know a thing about each other, haven't done for years, isn't that so? So just imagine what I might have got up to.'

‘But all you've done is stick around. I mean, in town. You've run your daddy's bar, you got married, you had kids.'

‘The End.'

‘Pretty much.'

‘Just imagine, Donna. Stuff that's happened to me that you know nothing about.'

‘What “stuff”?'

‘Stuff I'm not going to tell you about. Because if you don't know, you won't be able to tell anyone else.'

‘I won't be able to tell anyone else – like who? Guys who break in to the house and try and torture me? The Agency?
Please.
'

‘Someone is … on my trail. Which is why I can't call Claire, in case our phones are traced. And it's not just the blackmail. There's … some money I borrowed. And I got into trouble paying it back.'

‘How much money?'

‘A lot of money. I was able to pay it. And then suddenly, I needed more time. And as it turns out, maybe I ran out of time.'

‘Danny, what are you saying, you borrowed against … what? The business?'

‘No, the business is fine, the business is solid. You'll always get a drink and a steak at Brogan's.'

‘The house?'

Danny turned away from his sister and stared through the glass door. He could see the tops of his daughters' heads in the warm orange light of the kitchen, their dark hair seeming to glow. When he turned back to speak, it felt to him as if he had borrowed another man's vocal chords. A man who had the strength he feared he lacked.

‘Things look bad now, but I'm sure they're going to be OK. I know they're going to be.'

‘What will I say to Claire, if she calls?
When
she calls?'

‘Try and put her off as long as possible. Maybe send her a message. Don't tell her the kids are here.'

‘Why can't I bring them back to her?'

‘Because I don't want them in any danger.'

‘What does that mean? Is she in danger?'

‘I don't know. I don't think so. I hope not. But whatever happens, I want the kids kept safe. They're not safe with me, and they …
may
not be safe at the house. If you have to talk to her … tell her they're fine, they're with me, not to worry.'

‘And the blackmail. Is that connected to the debt?'

‘I don't know. Maybe. I can't really tell you any more.'

‘Any more? You've barely told me anything in the first place.'

‘Well. We all have our secrets.'

‘Reasons.'

‘Excuse me?'

‘The line is “We all have our reasons”. It's from a French film.'

‘You sound like Claire. Everything's a quote from something. I like “we all have our secrets” better. Besides, it's what I mean.'

Donna looked at her brother closely.

‘Do you ever visit their grave?' she said.

‘Whose grave?'

‘Our parents'.'

‘Why would I want to do a thing like that?'

‘I don't know. I suppose I always felt … it wasn't as bad for you. As it was for me.'

‘I had it easy.'

‘I don't mean that. Or, who knows, maybe I do. Also, I always thought you'd sell the house. Couldn't figure how you stuck living there.'

‘You lived there. When Mom was still alive, and after.'

‘That's true. Can't really figure that out either.'

‘Lots of people had a tough time with their parents and shit. They seem to make a go of their lives, not let the past drag them down.'

Donna chewed her lip. ‘That's true,' she said. ‘But you know what the problem is? We can't be lots of people, can we? We can only be ourselves.'

‘Most of the time, it's hard to manage even that.'

Danny saw Donna's eyes flicker. That was at least a smile, maybe even a laugh, in anyone else's terms. He looked at his watch. ‘I've got to go. There are people … I need to track down.'

‘Track down? What are you now, a detective? A bounty hunter?'

‘No. You're right. I'm just a married guy. A bartender. A suburban dad. That's all. But I have to do this. I'm sorry I can't tell you anything more.'

‘You're a secretive prick. You always have been. I just never thought you had anything worth being secretive about.'

‘Just because I don't wear it on my sleeve. Or even beneath my sleeves.'

‘Go say goodbye to the girls.'

Danny went in and sat with his daughters and told them he had to go.

Irene said, ‘Is Mom going to be an actor now?'

Barbara said, ‘Yeah right. I don't think so.'

Irene said, ‘I miss Mom.'

Barbara said, ‘Yeah, but we get to stay at Aunt Donna's for longer.'

Irene considered this, nodded, and returned to her coloring.

Danny hugged them both as hard and long as he could manage without freaking them out, and when each patted him on the shoulder to indicate that Dad should go away now, that's exactly what Dad did.

1976

W
hat happened was it was Halloween, or the run up to Halloween, and most kids were on a longer leash than usual, running around at night, even on school nights. Danny was running with his buddies, Dave and Gene and Ralph. The Bradberrys lived over on Schofield, east of Lake Monona. They shouldn't have been at Jefferson in the first place, only for their father had gone there or something. The bullying didn't happen except when they were at school. Danny had a reprieve that summer, and then it all kicked in again in September. But at least he had the nights, and the guys were all saying they had to do something, they just couldn't let it continue the way it had been, and it was decided to stage some kind of Halloween prank over at the Bradberry place.

It was Dave Ricks, Danny thinks, who had the idea. Because the house was beside, or backed onto by, the Catholic church there, and so they could get over the wall or swarm in through the trees and they wouldn't have to go squat in someone else's yard, they could wait there and bide their time and watch for the right moment.

So they decided they would burn big skulls and spiders into the lawn with gasoline and set them ablaze, make a Halloween spectacular. The only thing was, they wanted to be around to see the fun. They wanted to see how absolutely shit-scared they could make, not just Jackie, and Eric and Brian, but all twelve Bradberrys, the whole family, or at least, apart from the two who'd left home. Fourteen, if you count the mom and pop.

They planned it every night, hanging out in the woods down below Nakoma: how they would each siphon the gas out of the family car, maybe a soda bottle a day for a couple days beforehand, and hide them until Halloween; how they couldn't do it too early, because it wouldn't be dark enough, and anyway, the Bradberrys they wanted to scare wouldn't be home until midnight or later because Jackie and his brothers were all let run wild. How were they, at eleven years old, going to stay out until two or three in the morning to put the fear of God into those fuckers and their family?

Dave Ricks had the original idea, and Dave had the older sister who made the idea possible. Dave's parents were going to be away for some convention his father was attending, auto parts, that was his line, and Dave's sister, who was seventeen, wanted her boyfriend to stay over, and Dave said he wouldn't tell if the guys could stay over too, so the sister faked a note from Dave's mom for all the other moms, and since they were all eleven-year-old guys, not girls, no one was too bent about the peril they might get into to the extent of actually checking with Dave's mom, on top of which, it was 1976 and parents were totally more laid back about stranger-danger and shit and they all got their overnight passes.

They found a sheltered area among the trees round the back of the Catholic church and adjacent to the Bradberrys' backyard and established themselves there. What had Danny felt that night? Anger, or fear?

Anger, yes; fear, yes; but something more: the hatred that comes from persistent, belittling humiliation. He had noticed that Jackie Bradberry would occasionally forget about bullying him, sometimes for days on end, Jackie happy enough with Jason and Chad, tormenting younger kids for their milk money. Their eyes would meet, and Jackie would half-acknowledge him, as if they were friends, no, not friends, but contemporaries of equal worth who had just followed different paths in life but respected each other nonetheless. And then Jackie would arrive into school even more disheveled than usual, clothes stained and stinking, hair tousled and lank, homework undone, maybe even (at least twice, if not more often) sporting a black eye, or a raw red ear. And whatever had happened to Jackie, he would promptly pass it on to Danny in the form of notes and menaces and verbal abuse, and then of boots and fists. He understood that it wasn't entirely Jackie's fault, that if Jackie hadn't had his brothers, or hadn't been part of that family, things probably would, or at least, could have been different. But they weren't different, and there was no one else to blame, and Danny hated Jackie Bradberry, so the only solution, because middle school, or junior high as they called it back then, would last until they were fourteen, another three long years of all this, it felt as if there would never be an end to it, Jesus, so the only solution was for Jackie Bradberry to die. But Danny Brogan had not gone out on that Halloween night of 1976 with the intention of making that happen.