Rules for Werewolves (29 page)

—But this kid was cool. He wasn’t afraid of me at all.

—Maybe he should have been.

—I don’t think so.

—Where did you drop him off?

—I didn’t drop him off anywhere. He didn’t get back in the car. He just set the keys on the pavement and backed away. And then, right then, one of you guys showed up and started shining a light on us, and the kids took off and I just walked over and picked up the keys and drove away calmly.

—Wait, wait, wait. I thought you said you were nervous. And I thought you said the kid was calm. But now you have the kids running and you just picking up the keys like nothing.

—The younger kid ran. He was about your height—if you want a different standard of measure. And the older kid went after him.

—And the officer didn’t say anything to you?

—You call one another “officers.” That’s very Turgenev.

—Where’d you go to school?

—Fuller State.

—I’m sorry to hear that.

—It’s a good school.

—A state school.

—So?

—I probably paid for your education and this is what you do with it—

—I taught myself to act calm, even when I’m scared, especially when I’m scared. I’ve been out on the street long enough I can do it so the officers I meet have no idea what I might be nervous about.

—So what would your reaction be if I told you you weren’t here because you were in possession of a stolen car, but that I wanted to hold you on suspicion of murder?

—Oh, Jesus.

—That’s good. Did you study acting at Fuller State?

—Did you find those boys dead?

—We found that you forgot to dump their backpacks with their bodies.

—I didn’t dump their bodies anywhere.

—Their backpacks were in the trunk of your car.

—I never opened the trunk.

—Why would two boys pack their bags to run away from home and then give away their father’s car and leave behind everything they packed?

—They said they were heading down south.

—Did they?

—The younger kid said it. He was about five-five or five-seven maybe. And he was wearing a Windbreaker and shorts. Which I thought was weird.

—Like he didn’t know what the weather was gonna be.

—And he had at least two T-shirts on because I could see the different-color collars underneath one another. I remember thinking he was dressed the way homeless people dress. Wearing his suitcase, sort of.

—You were paying a lot of attention to the younger kid, weren’t you?

—No. I just didn’t know why you were asking all these questions. I thought it was about the car. But now I understand. The boys are missing.

—You seem nervous.

—I’m trying to be cooperative.

—Well, if that’s the case, I’d like to start all over at the beginning, if you don’t mind.

—That’s fine.

—How many days ago did they give you the car?

—It was the twenty-sixth, about three in the morning.

—You know the date.

—Today’s the twenty-eighth, right? It was three days ago. I’m sure.

—You’re walking too fast, Robert.

—You’re complaining too much.

—At least the moon’s out, I guess.

—Yeah, it’s pretty, isn’t it?

—It makes it easier to see what we’re doing.

—But we gotta be careful. It also makes it easier for people to see us.

—I don’t think anyone cares.

—As long as we keep moving, they won’t. We stay on private property, about ten feet inside the fence line like this. If the property owners look out their windows, they’ll assume we’re walking along the road. If a cop comes down the road, he’ll assume we’re the property owners or their kids.

—The trees are nice.

—That’s more like it. I don’t wanna hear any more complaints for the rest of the night.

—You’re complaining about my complaining.

—That’s not true.

—How is that not true, Robert?

—All I’m doing is asking you to stop. That’s a little bit different than a straightforward complaint.

—It sounds a little bit like bullshit to me.

—Yeah, well.

—How come you don’t care if I cuss anymore?

—We’re about hundred miles or so away, from what I figure. We can do twenty miles a day easy, it seems. So we’ll be there in five days. And when we get there, I’m not gonna tell you to do anything. You can cuss if you want to. You can go upstairs with a girl. You can go upstairs with a
guy
if you want to.

—Ewww.

—Don’t act all put out by that. There might be some gay guys still. And the ones there when I was there last will kick your ass if you make that face at them.

—It’s cold.

—You wanna put a trash bag over your clothes?

—No.

—You want me to put my arm around you?

—No. I’m just saying.

—You’re getting tougher.

—I’m scared.

—I know it.

—What’s it going to be like?

—I don’t know. I don’t know who’s in charge. If they found a man and a woman in that house, it could be that both Malcolm and Angel are dead. Maybe nobody’s in charge?

—Maybe you’re in charge?

—Watch out for that ditch.

—Why do they have to put all these fucking ditches everywhere?

—’Cause it’s a farm.

—So?

—Stop fucking complaining.

—Are you gonna jump it?

—No. Look. There’s a two-by-four across it down there.

—Thank you, moon.

—That’s more like it.

—Give me your hand.

—Ow.

—What’s the matter?

—That cut from the 7-Eleven. I guess that’s what I get for opening my hand in a convenience store bathroom.

—Let me see it.

—You can’t see it good out here.

—I can see it’s bad, Robert.

—I could’ve told you that.

—Why didn’t you?

—What are you gonna do about it?

—What’s your big problem with complaining?

—If you can’t do anything about a situation, then there’s no point in complaining about it. And if you can do something about it, then shut the fuck up and do it.

—Robert, the walking proverb.

—You can call me Bobert. That’s what everybody else is gonna call me when we get there. If there’s anybody else who remembers me.

—Somebody sent you the postcard.

—Yeah.

—You told me everybody called you Rob.

—I wish everybody would call me Rob or Robert.

—How did they even find out anybody ever called you Bobert?

—I told them.

—Why?

—’Cause they wanted to nickname me “Titties.”

—Haha. Why’d they wanna call you “Titties”?

—The first day I was with them there were these two girls who weren’t wearing shirts, and I swear, I tried, but I couldn’t look at them. I was embarrassed. Then all the girls started taking off their shirts whenever I came into the room. To make me blush.

—Titties DeShaw. It has a nice ring to it.

—It’s better than Bobert. I wish I hadn’t been so embarrassed.

—Hey, just so you know—I like Bobert. I don’t care that Donald gave it to you. It makes me think of you when we were kids. Fuck Donald. He doesn’t get to say what your name means.

—It’s getting light out.

—What about that shed over there?

—It’s pretty close to that house.

—The house looks abandoned.

—I told ’em to wake up. I told ’em to get outta here. I didn’t need any trouble. I beat on this barrel with this stick to wake ’em up. And then I held on to the stick in case they came after me.

—Did they come after you?

—No. The little one, he started telling me to calm down—

—Were you angry?

—I musta been a little frightened.

—And what did the older boy do?

—He just set about his business. Putting on his boots. Picking up his things and putting them inside the trash bag he had been sleeping on top of to stay dry. Then he checked it for holes and twisted the neck. Then he told the little one to get ready, and the little one stopped talking to me and did what the bigger one said. The little one had been asking me for food and telling me to calm down. I thought the bigger one was going to ignore me altogether, but as soon as he saw the little one was doing as he was told, putting his stuff in his own trash bag, then the bigger one turned to me and asked for medicine.

—What kind of medicine?

—For his hand. He stuck out his hand palm up and asked if I had any Neosporin. His palm was deep infected.

—What else did you notice? About the way they looked?

—They were dirty. They looked kind of thin. But maybe I say that because the little one was asking for food. They had a lot of layers of clothes on and the top layers didn’t seem like they fit. The little one was wearing a Carhartt that must be twice as big as he is.

—It’s probably stolen.

—Well, I didn’t see him take it. So I couldn’t say.

—What about the older one?

—His hand is what I remember most. It was infected, and the wound was weeping a little bit. It seemed like to make a fist would be like squeezing a sponge. And I remember his hair was greasy.

—His hair was greasy?

—Like Elvis. I remember only ’cause I had the strange thought he might be slicking it back with the bad hand. I get thoughts like that and I can’t get rid of them. That hand is going to be stuck in my mind for years, if I still have years. Every time I reach to pick up a knife, I’m gonna think about that cut. Probably until I see something worse that can replace it. I bet you see a lot of bad stuff as a policeman.

—I’m trying not to see anything bad with these boys.

—Me, too.

—Did you give him the Neosporin?

—I had them both in the kitchen. I cleaned out his wound as good as I could. I think that part of my mind that fixates on that kind of thing really just wanted to get a good look at it. But while it did, I was able to clean it out real good. The little one ate cornbread and milk. I hardly have anything.

—So you really helped them out.

—I did. I had half a mind not to call you.

—You didn’t call me. You called local and it all got sent around, and I’m the one working it so it got to me.

—Where are they headed?

—I was about to ask you the same thing.

—Half of me wants to lie to you. To walk over to that window and point in the wrong direction. But then that same half of me wants to break the window and take a piece of glass and cut open my hand and just wait for it to get infected.

—He cut it on some metal in a gas station bathroom. I think if you want to get an infection that bad you’re gonna have to use something worse than this windowpane.

—I wish you hadn’t told me that.

—I bet you only half wish it.

—They’re walking west along County Road 92 at night, from what I gather.

—Are you sure?

—Yessir.

—I know what it’s like to want to see those boys get away. But that’s a fantasy. You know that? To imagine they’re just going to walk until they find some version of you with plenty of food and an extra bedroom. You know that. It’s a fantasy that I can’t indulge in. You keep calling them big and little. And I keep calling them younger and older. And in your system, the big one might be bigger than you and you can think that he’s strong and he can take care of himself and the little one. But in my system, no matter how much he grows up, he’s always gonna be younger than me. They’re both younger than us and we know better ’cause we’re older. We have to know better. And what’s best is for them to be back with their mom and their stepdad.

—Is that what you think?

—That’s what I know.

—I’m not so sure.

—Well, I am.

—Yeah, well, I’m older than you and it doesn’t seem as clear to me.

—Is there anything else you wanna tell me?

—Be careful. The bigger one is bigger than you and he looks like he’s goin’ wild.

—What makes you say that?

—He cut his own hand. He told me, and you seem to know, too.

—Yeah, I guess that’s pretty tough.

—When I was young, if we were gonna have a big fight, we’d slick our hair back with grease so people couldn’t get a grip on it and pull it. That’s what the big one looked like to me. Like somebody slicked back and ready for a fight.

—West on 92.

—As far as I could tell. Although they may have waited until I stopped watching and then went another way.

—How long did you watch?

—Until I couldn’t see ’em no more.

—All right. This should be it.

—Are you sure?

—Look at the postcard. Now look at the dumb wooden sign on the fence. Do they match?

—Yeah.

—

—So what should we do?

—What do you mean?

—Like, knock?

—When you’re out in the country you just open the fence and go in.

—I thought that was how you got shot out in the country.

—Look. You can see the house over there. Let’s cut through the woods.

—You don’t want to stay on the road?

—I’m not a car. I can do what I want.

—All right.

—Let’s go.

—

—

—

—

—Well?

—Well, what?

—Does this look right to you?

—What?

—It just looks like a normal farmhouse.

—So?

—It seems like nothing’s happening?

—What did you expect?

—I guess I thought we’d see people out walking around.

—Let’s lay up in the grass over there and wait.

—What are we waiting for?

—Just to see what’s going to happen.

—What’s going to happen?

—I have no idea.

—All right. Sounds like the rest of the trip.

—Don’t complain.

—I’m not complaining.

—You think it’s weird?

—I do. We do all this hiking. We’re sick. Your hand is about to fall off. I’ve never been this dirty in my whole life. My head itches like it’s full of bugs and my hair is so slimy I couldn’t even keep a hat on. I’m tired. My feet are throbbing. We finally get here. This is everything we want, and you want to sit at the edge of it.