Run With the Hunted (5 page)

“You son of a bitch, I'll kick your god damned ass!”

“As the judge, my verdict was that this man would
hang!
So it will be! RELEASE THE PRISONER!”

“You son of a bitch, I'll kick your god damned ass good!”

“
First
, we'll hang the prisoner!
Then
you and I will settle our differences!”

“You're damn right we will,” said Hass.

“The prisoner will now rise!” I said.

Hass slid off and Simpson rose to his feet. His nose was bloodied and it had stained the front of his shirt. It was a very bright red. But Simpson seemed resigned. He was no longer sobbing. But the look in his eyes was terrified, horrible to see.

“Gimme a cigarette,” I said to Morgan.

He stuck one into my mouth.

“Light it,” I said.

Morgan lit the cigarette and I took a drag, then holding the cigarette between my lips I exhaled through my nose while making a noose at the end of the rope.

“Place the prisoner upon the porch!” I commanded.

There was a back porch. Above the porch was an overhang. I flung the rope over a beam, then pulled the noose down in front of Simpson's face. I didn't want to go on with it any longer. I figured Simpson had suffered enough but I was the leader and I was going to have to fight Hass afterwards and I couldn't show any weakness.

“Maybe we shouldn't,” said Morgan.

“This man is
guilty!
” I screamed.

“Right!” screamed Hass. “Let him
hang!
”

“Look, he's pissed himself,” said Morgan.

Sure enough, there was a dark stain on the front of Simpson's pants and it was spreading.

“No guts,” I said.

I placed the noose over Simpson's head. I yanked on the rope and lifted Simpson up on his toes. Then I took the other end of the rope and tied it to a faucet on the side of the house. I knotted the rope tight and yelled, “Let's get the fuck out of here!”

We looked at Simpson hanging there on tip-toe. He was spinning around ever so slightly and he looked dead already.

I started running. Morgan and Hass ran with me. We ran up the drive and then Morgan split for his place and Hass split for his. I realized I had no place to go. Hass, I thought, either you forgot about the fight or you didn't want it.

I stood on the sidewalk for a minute or so, then I ran back into the yard again. Simpson was still spinning. Ever so slightly. We had forgotten to tie his hands. His hands were up, trying to take the pressure off of his neck but his hands were slipping. I ran over to the faucet and untied the rope and let it go. Simpson hit the porch, then tumbled forward onto the lawn.

He was face down. I turned him over and untied his gag. He looked bad. He looked as if he might die. I leaned over him.

“Listen, you son of a bitch, don't die, I didn't want to kill you, really. If you die, I'm sorry. But if you
don't
die and if you ever tell
anybody
, then your ass is dead for
sure!
You
got
that?”

Simpson didn't answer. He just looked at me. He looked terrible. His face was purple and he had rope burns on his neck.

I got up. I looked at him for a while. He didn't move. It looked bad. I felt faint. Then I got myself together. I inhaled deeply and walked up the driveway. It was about four in the afternoon. I began walking. I walked down to the boulevard and then I kept walking. I had thoughts. I felt as if my life was over. Simpson had always been a loner. Probably lonely. He never mixed with us other guys. He was strange that way. Maybe that's what bothered us about him. Yet, there was something nice about him anyhow. I felt as if I had done something very bad and yet in another way, I didn't. Mostly I just had this vacant feeling and it was centered in my stomach. I walked and I walked. I walked down to the highway and back. My shoes really hurt my feet. My parents always bought me cheap shoes. They looked good for maybe a week or so, then the leather cracked and the nails started coming through the soles. I kept walking anyhow.

When I got back to the driveway it was almost evening. I walked slowly down the driveway and into the backyard. Simpson wasn't there. And the rope was gone. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he was somewhere else. I looked around.

My father's face was framed in the screen door.

“Come in here,” he said.

I walked up the porch steps and past him.

“Your mother isn't home yet. And that's good. Go to the bedroom. I want to have a little talk with you.”

I walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at my cheap shoes. My father was a big man, six feet two-and-one-half. He had a big head, and eyes that hung there under bushy eyebrows. His lips were thick and he had big ears. He was mean without even trying.

“Where ya been?” he asked.

“Walking.”

“Walking. Why?”

“I like to walk.”

“Since when?”

“Since today.”

There was a long silence. Then he spoke again.

“What happened in our backyard today?”

“Is he dead?”

“Who?”

“I warned him not to talk. If he talked, then he's not dead.”

“No, he's not dead. And his parents were going to call the police. I had to talk to them a long time in order to get them not to do that. If they had called the police, it would have killed your mother! Do you know that?”

I didn't answer.

“It would have killed your mother, do you know that?”

I didn't answer.

“I had to pay them to be quiet. Plus, I'm going to have to pay the medical bills. I'm going to give you the beating of your life! I'm going to cure you! I'm not going to raise a son who is not fit for human society!”

He stood there in the doorway, not moving. I looked at his eyes under those eyebrows, at that big body.

“I want the police,” I said. “I don't want you. Give me the police.”

He moved slowly toward me.

“The police don't understand people like you.”

I got up from the bed and doubled my fists.

“Come on,” I said, “I'll fight you!”

He was upon me with a rush. There was a blinding flash of light and a blow so hard that I really didn't feel it. I was on the floor. I got up.

“You better kill me,” I said, “because when I get big enough I'm going to kill you!”

The next blow rolled me under the bed. It seemed like a good place to be. I looked up at the springs and I had never seen anything as friendly and wonderful as those springs up there. Then I laughed, it was a panicked laugh but I laughed, and I laughed because the thought came to me that maybe Simpson
had
fucked a little girl under my house.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” my father screamed. “You are surely the
Son of Satan
, you are not
my
son!”

I saw his big hand reach under the bed, searching for me. When it came near I grabbed it with both hands and bit it with all the strength I had. There was a ferocious yowl and the hand withdrew. I tasted wet flesh in my mouth, spit it out. Then I knew that while Simpson was not dead I might very well be dead very soon.

“All right,” I heard my father say quietly, “now you've really asked for it and by god you are going to get it …”

I waited, and as I waited all I could hear were strange sounds. I could hear birds, I could hear the sound of autos driving by, I could even hear my heart pounding and my blood running through my body. I could hear my father breathing, and I moved myself exactly under the center of the bed and waited for the next thing.

—
S
EPTUAGENARIAN
S
TEW

 

The fifth grade was a little better. The other students seemed less hostile and I was growing larger physically. I still wasn't chosen for the homeroom teams but I was threatened less. David and his violin had gone away. The family had moved. I walked home alone. I was often trailed by one or two guys, of whom Juan was the worst, but they didn't start anything. Juan smoked cigarettes. He'd walk behind me smoking a cigarette and he always had a different buddy with him. He never followed me alone. It scared me. I wished they'd go away. Yet, in another way, I didn't care. I didn't like Juan. I didn't like anybody in that school. I think they knew that. I think that's why they disliked me. I didn't like the way they walked or looked or talked, but I didn't like my father or mother either. I still had the feeling of being surrounded by white empty space. There was always a slight nausea in my stomach. Juan was dark-skinned and he wore a brass chain instead of a belt. The girls were afraid of him, and the boys too. He and one of his buddies followed me home almost every day. I'd walk into the house and they'd stand outside. Juan would smoke his cigarette, looking tough, and his buddy would stand there. I'd watch them through the curtain. Finally, they would walk off.

Mrs. Fretag was our English teacher. The first day in class she asked us each our names.

“I want to get to know all of you,” she said.

She smiled.

“Now, each of you has a father, I'm sure. I think it would be interesting if we found out what each of your fathers does for a living. We'll start with seat number one and we will go around the class. Now, Marie, what does your father do for a living?”

“He's a gardener.”

“Ah, that's nice! Seat number two … Andrew, what does your father do?”

It was terrible. All the fathers in my immediate neighborhood had lost their jobs. My father had lost his job. Gene's father sat on his front porch all day. All the fathers were without jobs except Chuck's who worked in a meat plant. He drove a red car with the meat company's name on the side.

“My father is a fireman,” said seat number two.

“Ah, that's interesting,” said Mrs. Fretag. “Seat number three.”

“My father is a lawyer.”

“Seat number four.”

“My father is a … policeman …”

What was I going to say? Maybe only the fathers in my neighborhood were without jobs. I'd heard of the stock market crash. It meant something bad. Maybe the stock market had only crashed in our neighborhood.

“Seat number eighteen.”

“My father is a movie actor …”

“Nineteen …”

“My father is a concert violinist …”

“Twenty …”

“My father works in the circus …”

“Twenty-one …”

“My father is a bus driver …”

“Twenty-two …”

“My father sings in the opera …”

“Twenty-three …”

Twenty-three. That was me.

“My father is a dentist,” I said.

Mrs. Fretag went right on through the class until she reached number thirty-three.

“My father doesn't have a job,” said number thirty-three.

Shit, I thought, I wish I had thought of that.

One day Mrs. Fretag gave us an assignment.

“Our distinguished President, President Herbert Hoover, is going to visit Los Angeles this Saturday to speak. I want all of you to go hear our President. And I want you to write an essay about the experience and about what you think of President Hoover's speech.”

Saturday? There was no way I could go. I had to mow the lawn. I had to get the hairs. (I could never get all the hairs.) Almost every Saturday I got a beating with the razor strop because my father found a hair. (I also got stropped during the week, once or twice, for other things I failed to do or didn't do right.) There was no way I could tell my father that I had to go see President Hoover.

So, I didn't go. That Sunday I took some paper and sat down to write about how I had seen the President. His open car, trailing flowing streamers, had entered the football stadium. One car, full of secret service agents, went ahead and two cars followed close behind. The agents were brave men with guns to protect our President. The crowd rose as the President's car entered the arena. There had never been anything like it before. It was the President. It was him. He waved. We cheered. A band played. Seagulls circled overhead as if they too knew it was the President. And there were skywriting airplanes too. They wrote words in the sky like “Prosperity is just around the corner.” The President stood up in his car, and just as he did the clouds parted and the light from the sun fell across his face. It was almost as if God knew too. Then the cars stopped and our great President, surrounded by secret service agents, walked to the speaker's platform. As he stood behind the microphone a bird flew down from the sky and landed on the speaker's platform near him. The President waved to the bird and laughed and we all laughed with him. Then he began to speak and the people listened. I couldn't quite hear the speech because I was sitting too near a popcorn machine which made a lot of noise popping the kernels, but I think I heard him say that the problems in Manchuria were not serious, and that at home everything was going to be all right, we shouldn't worry, all we had to do was to believe in America. There would be enough jobs for everybody. There would be enough dentists with enough teeth to pull, enough fires and enough firemen to put them out. Mills and factories would open again. Our friends in South America would pay their debts. Soon we would all sleep peacefully, our stomachs and our hearts full. God and our great country would surround us with love and protect us from evil, from the socialists, awaken us from our national nightmare, forever …