Cage of Night (8 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At first I wasn't sure where they were going.

We drove out of town on an old highway that paralleled the Interstate. Everything got dark. I stayed a half mile behind. Farmhouses shone in tonight's red harvest moon. I had the window down and I could hear cows and horses and barn owls.

When he turned west, I knew where he was going to take us.

I had to smile when I tried to imagine him at the well. This hard, unimaginative football hero trying to play along with her fantasy.

Maybe that would drive her back to me, the way I'd been sympathetic and pretended that I'd heard something.

Suggestible is what I'd been.

I'd gotten caught up in her mood and then, while we were making love, my mind had started imagining the voice. At least the voice had been speaking gibberish.

I smelled hay and cow manure and silo corn and prairie night; I saw hill and creek and railroad tracks shining in the moonlight.

And then we were pulling off the road, and he was parking, and they were walking up the hill to the woods that would lead them to the shack and the well.

I gave them a ten minute start on me, and then I was out of the car and walking toward the woods.

It was spookier than I'd thought it would be.

Monsters didn't bother me. But killers did. You weren't safe anywhere these days. Just last year there'd been a guy in the adjacent county who'd kidnapped an eleven year old girl and chopped her up and ate her.

By the time I reached the end of the woods, they were already down by the cabin.

I couldn't tell what they were saying but their words were harsh and angry.

He shoved her, and then he hit her.

I could see it all clearly in the moonlight.

She sank to her knees, touching her jaw where he'd slammed his fist into her moments before.

Their words continued harsh and loud but I still couldn't quite understand them.

I wanted to go down there but I knew better. She might appreciate the fact that I saved her from him but she'd never forgive me for following them in the first place.

And then she was on her feet, and pushing him.

I was surprised at her strength, surprised that he didn't hit her again.

The first time the spasm took him, he was a few feet from the well.

My first impression was that he was joking. I've seen boys try to scare their girlfriends by throwing themselves to the ground and pretending that they're having some sort of seizure.

That's what this looked like.

He started doing a sort of dance, his arms fluttering crazily in the air, his torso snapping and jerking as if in rhythm to violent music.

Then he screamed.

That's when I knew for sure that he wasn't kidding.

The spasms got even more violent over the next few minutes, and so did the screaming.

She just watched.

Didn't try to stop him or comfort him in any way.

As if she knew what was happening here and had just decided to let it run its course.

He fell to his hands and knees and, in silhouette against the blood red harvest moon, he resembled an animal, a wolf maybe, there on the ground by the well.

And then he began sobbing.

This was worse than his screaming, the way it frightened and moved me.

In the Army, I saw a man go berserk after he'd learned that his wife had left him. He took a straight razor to his wrists in the shower. We found him huddled in the corner, beneath the water, weeping.

Myles reminded me of that forlorn man—only Myles sounded much sadder and more desperate, more primal and animal-like.

She got him to his feet somehow, and then she took him to her as if he were her child rather than her lover.

And the odd thing was, I didn't feel my usual jealousy now, seeing him in her arms this way.

For the moment anyway, I wanted her to soothe and succor him. I was being selfish. I couldn't take hearing any more of his strange wailing.

Gradually, his sobbing began to wane but still she held him, even rocking him back and forth a little, gently, gently, once again as if she were the mother and he the child.

It ended then as abruptly as it began. Myles looked spent and dropped to the ground on his knees. There was nothing more to see—or nothing more I cared to see anyway.

Had something in the well set Myles off? Or was he simply caught up in her mood as I'd been when I imagined the voices.

I laughed out loud.

Certainly, it had been nothing in the well. There was nothing in the well but water, and dirty, undrinkable water at that.

So he'd been more imaginative than I'd given him credit for—so imaginative that he fell victim to himself—imagined that something had possessed him, and overwhelmed him.

But his cries had been pretty convincing.

Damned convincing.

I was glad to be out of the woods, and in my car, and heading back home.

Popcorn and Pepsi and Late Night With David Letterman sounded damned good about now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

But they didn't work for me, neither popcorn nor David Letterman.

I sat on the moonlit screened-in back porch. It was mild as a spring night and it was November. I wanted to be a kid again. I wanted to be anybody but who I was at that moment.

I thought about her and how I'd never be able to love anybody ever again the way I loved her. My first affair and it had lasted all of a week.

There had been a basketball game tonight. I should have gone to that, seen Josh play. It was heading to midnight now. He was likely out with his girlfriend.

A weariness overcame me. I felt a kind of paralysis. The night air was so sweet and sentimental, I didn't want to go inside.

I put my head back and closed my eyes.

I tasted her, tasted her mouth, tasted her sex. I didn't think I'd done especially well at oral sex—I really was a virgin—despite her claims that I'd been "wonderful."

A car pulled into the driveway, headlights illuminating the closed white garage door. Josh.

He put the car away, shut up the garage, and walked up on the back porch.

"How's it going, Romeo?"

That's what he'd started calling me after he found out I was taking Cindy out.

He sat in the chair next to mine.

"You shouldn't call me that anymore."

"No? How come?"

"She dumped me."

"Dumped you? Shit, you've only had about four or five dates with her." He grinned. "Nobody could get sick of you that fast."

I had to smile, though it was painful. "She went back with Myles."

"You're kidding. He beat her up all the time."

"I know."

"You sure about that?"

"I saw them together. And Garrett told me."

"Garrett the cop?"

"Yeah," I said.

"No offense, but when I was a little kid and he was always hanging around here—I thought he was the biggest dweeb of all."

"Yeah, I guess I did, too."

"And he grows up to be a cop." He grinned again. "I saw him strutting around downtown in his uniform yesterday. Always got his hand on the butt of his pistol. Like a western gunfighter."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

He stuck out his very long legs.

"Give her a call tomorrow," he said.

"Who?"

"Who? Cindy."

"Call her?"

"Damned right call her. Tell her it's Saturday and you want to meet her downtown on your lunch hour. No offense, Romeo, but you've got to be forceful with women."

Once again, it was little brother giving big brother advice.

"It's pretty embarrassing sometimes," I said.

"Look, brother, one thing you've got to understand about women. They
like
it when you embarrass yourself over them. That way they know you care about them. Maybe that's all it'll take."

"Just calling her?"

"Yeah, and showing that you really care about her."

I felt a loopy exhilaration. Everything would be fine. I'd call her and after a little initial reluctance she'd be glad to hear from me and she'd agree to have lunch and when she saw me at the restaurant she wouldn't be able to help herself any more. She'd rush into my arms and things would be right between us again. The way they had been last week.

"I also got somebody to take care of Myles for you."

"You did?"

"Yeah, there's a sophomore fullback named Nick Reynolds. He can bench press 350. He's also a boxer. When he was a freshman, Myles gave him a lot of shit and Reynolds never forgot it. I was telling him about you and Myles over some brewskis the other night and he said he's been looking for a reason to punch out Myles for a long time. He says Myles gives you any more shit about Cindy, you just tell me and I'll tell Reynolds and Reynolds'll punch his face in."

"Sort of like a hit man?"

He laughed. "Yeah, kind of, I guess."

He looked at me and then did something that surprised me, leaned over and gave me a little hug. "You look like you're pretty sad, brother."

I was afraid I was going to cry. I was a wuss enough already. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Fuck her. That's the attitude you've got to take with women. I got my heart broke in tenth grade and I'll tell you, man, never again. Now I do everything I can for them but if they want to dick me around and break my heart, I just say fuck 'em and walk away. That's all you can do. It really is."

I'd felt good for a moment there, felt that I was going to make things right with Cindy, but now I felt bad again.

I couldn't say fuck you to Cindy and walk away. I couldn't and I knew it.

"You think you'll ever get around to asking me about the game tonight, Romeo?"

"Hey, I forgot."

"I noticed."

"You win?"

"97-68."

"God."

"And I scored thirty-eight of them all by myself."

"Wow."

"You want to drink a brewski on that?"

"Yeah. That sounds great." I was rallying again.

"I'll steal a couple from the fridge. The old man won't mind." He stood up and walked to the kitchen door. "Remember, Romeo. What's the motto?"

'"Fuck 'em.'"

"That's right. 'Fuck 'em.'"

Yeah, I felt real good right then, and it must have lasted for all of thirty seconds.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Hi, Mrs. Brasher. I was just wondering if Cindy was up yet."

"I'm afraid not, Spence. Would you like her to call you?"

"No, that's all right. I'll just try her a little later."

"All right. I'll give her the message."

Mrs. Brasher was always nice to me. I'd only been out there three times but each time she went out of her way to make me comfortable. With Mr. Brasher it had been different. He said hello and shook hands and everything but then he didn't say anything else, just sat in his recliner and watched TV. Every once in a while I'd sense him staring at me. Sizing me up, I suppose, wondering why his daughter would trade in a football hero for somebody like me. But hadn't they noticed her black eyes and all the other bruises?

"Thanks, Mrs. Brasher."

I tried half an hour later.

"Hi, Mrs. Brasher. It's me again."

"Oh, hello, Spence."

This time she didn't sound quite so happy to hear from me.

"Is she—"

"—not yet, Spence. But I'd be happy to have her call you."

But what if she got the message and decided not to call me?

These were dangerous times.

"Nah, that's all right. I'll try again later."

"I wouldn't try before noon, Spence."

"All right, Mrs. Brasher. I'm sorry to bother you."

I spent most of the morning driving around in my old beater. I stopped in at the used paperback place and found an old Dan J. Marlowe I hadn't read—Marlowe was a great crime writer—a novel called
Never Live Twice
. Usually, I would have been pretty excited.

But all I did was pay for it and then walk outside and drop it on the passenger seat and start driving around again.

"Hi, Mrs. Brasher."

A long sigh. "Hello, Spence."

"I was wondering if—"

"I thought we agreed to twelve o'clock."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said around twelve." My whole body was shaking. Now I'd alienated my one lone ally in the Brasher house.

"Well, even if I
had
said
around
twelve, Spence, it's only two minutes after eleven."

"Oh."

"This isn't a good way to make her want to see you, Spence."

"It isn't?"

"No. You've got to give her a little room."

"Oh."

Then: "I'm sorry, Spence. I really like you."

"Well, I really like you, too, Mrs. Brasher."

Then: "She's going shopping at the mall this afternoon. Maybe you could just kind of 'accidentally' meet her there. She's supposed to meet some of her friends there around two o'clock."

"God, thanks for telling me, Mrs. Brasher."

She laughed. "My pleasure, Spence—as long as you don't call back in fifteen minutes."

"I won't. I promise."

"We both like you, Spence, the mister and me. We hope she'll want to see you again. But just take it a little easy, all right?"

"Thanks, Mrs. Brasher."

On weekends, the farmers come to the mall, a lot of them. It's kind of funny to think of us as "town people" when the town's barely 25,000 but there is a difference in the way we dress and talk and even walk around the mall. I guess we all have to feel superior to somebody so we feel superior to the farmers. They just don't understand life as it's lived by big-city sophisticates like ourselves.

God basically invented malls so high school boys would have a nice dry place to hit on girls. At least that's how I see it.

This Saturday was no exception. Love and lust bloomed every three yards or so, all kinds of boys making all kinds of fools of themselves over all kinds of girls.

I got there early to check out the B. Dalton. There were a couple of Roger Zelazny reprints I wanted to buy but I figured I wouldn't look real macho coming up to Cindy with a couple of books in my hand.

She wasn't there at two, and I got almost panicky. And she wasn't there are two-thirty, and I got even more panicky.

I patrolled the mall south to east, west to north.

As I'd been ever since she dumped me, I was alternatively despairing, optimistic, angry, joyous, confident, terrified.

And then I saw her.

The scariest thing in the world for most boys is to approach a girl when she's with a group of other girls. At least it is if you're as shy as I am.

But today I didn't even hesitate.

I went right up to her.

A couple of her friends smirked.

Cindy herself looked nervous then faintly angry then a little bit sorry for me.

The girls kept on smirking.

They were the popular girls and to them I was the kind of guy who installed their VCRs or worked on their cars. I wasn't the kind of guy you talked to in public.

I knew I had to do what Josh had told me to.

I said, out loud and right in front of all of them, "I thought maybe you'd like to go over to Orange Julius with me."

Titters.

She looked embarrassed for both of us.

Then, one of her friends nudging her and giggling, she said, "Sure, why not?"

The nudging friend said, "Hey, you were supposed to go shopping with us."

"Go ahead," Cindy said. "I'll catch up with you later."

They all looked at me with great scorn. Then they looked at Cindy with great puzzlement.

Why would she be going over to Orange Julius with me?

"I think your mom's mad at me."

"Actually, my mom likes you."

"Yeah, but I called you a lot this morning."

"Oh, right. Well, I guess she
was
a little irritated. But not much."

"I really like her."

I wasn't sure what I'd actually planned to say to her but whatever it was, this wasn't it.

We sat at a small table in Orange Julius and watched all the people go by in the mall.

They all seemed infinitely happier than I would ever be, and I hated them a little bit for it.

"Boy, isn't it great out today?"

"Yeah," I said. "Great."

"I heard on the weather report that it only ever got this hot in November once before."

"Wow. I didn't know that."

Now it was weather.

"Cindy," I said.

She looked at me a moment and then reached over and touched my hand. I went through the usual mixture of feelings, resentful, happy, and scared. A lot of fear.

Her hand was touching mine now but she'd take it away eventually. And then she might never touch me again.

My entire body—my entire consciousness—was alive and vibrant with the feel of her flesh.

But soon enough I'd be banished to the darkness again.

"I don't blame you for hating me," she said.

"God, Cindy, I don't hate you, I love you."

"You shouldn't love me, Spence. You should hate me."

"Oh, Cindy."

"There's something you don't know and that I can't tell you and until I figure a way out of it then I can't see you or anybody else."

"Except Myles."

She wore an emerald green sweater and jeans today. Her shining dark hair was pulled back into a playful little ponytail with an emerald green ribbon.

"You don't understand about Myles," she said.

"No, I guess I don't."

"I don't love Myles."

"Really?"

"I don't even want to see Myles."

"Then why do you see him?"

"That's the part I can't tell you."

"Oh."

"Maybe someday I will."

I thought of Josh again. Making a fool of yourself over women and all. And how they like it.

"I'll wait for you, Cindy."

I ached all over. It was like having the love flu. Every ounce of flesh, every piece of bone ached to possess Cindy Marie Brasher.

"That's sweet of you, Spence."

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it. And that's why it's so sweet. But for right now—I don't know what to do, Spence. You can't help me—nobody can."

Then she looked at her watch. "I really have to get back with the girls, Spence."

"I know."

"I just want you to know that I'm sorry for how I've acted the past week or so. I really am. I was a real bitch to you."

"Don't say that about yourself, Cindy."

"It's true, Spence. A real bitch." She looked about to cry suddenly. "Maybe that'll all change someday, Spence. Maybe we can go back to how things were between us."

"God, Cindy, I sure hope so."

And then she was gone.

Again.

Maybe forever.

I just sat there in a kind of stupor.

And now when I looked at the farmers, I didn't feel superior at all.

Oh, no, when you looked at all their smiles and happiness, you knew that these people knew the secrets to a successful life. Their haircuts might be funny, and their clothes might be four or five seasons out of date, and their conversations might sound kind of dorky, but they looked happy and content.

I got up and left, even though I had absolutely no place to go.