Authors: Jack Ketchum
“Soon,” he said. “I hope. What’s the project?”
“We’re making a make-believe swamp. We got that big glass aquarium tank for the turtles? So we’re taking the turtles out and leaving in the real dirt and real moss and stuff, but then we’re making all these fake trees and bushes and vines out of papier-mâché and pipe cleaners and painting them and sticking them all around and stuff, sticking them to the glass so it looks real thick in there but isn’t? And we’re making this little pond with rocks all around it and then putting the turtles back in so that they look like
giant
turtles, like it’s a prehistoric swamp or something. Like the jungle in
King Kong
sort of. The teacher said it didn’t have to be really real.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It is fun. But I gotta get back, daddy. Linda messes up if I’m not around to watch her.”
“Okay. You go keep an eye on Linda. Put your mom back on, okay? I love you, Barb.”
“Love you, daddy.”
Silence again. Not long this time. She must have been standing there.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if I got through to him or not.”
“Jesus, I hope so. I know he’s not listening to me. All I get from him is anger, as though everything’s my fault. Either that or he’s just sullen.”
“Listen, Lila, I know it’s not your habit to, but call me. Call me anytime. I wish you’d phoned me yesterday when this happened. He’s my son too and I care about him. You don’t have to tough this out alone. Whenever you want to talk, give me a call. At work, whatever. I don’t care. Will you promise me?”
“I . . . sure, all right. I won’t call you at work, though. I know how much you hate that.”
“I mean it, Lila. Anytime. At work or whenever. I don’t give a damn anymore.”
“Sure you do, Charlie. But thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay.”
The urge to say
I love you
to her was as strong as it was to say it to his kids. Probably stronger. But all he did say was good-bye and hang up the phone. He sat looking at it for a while thinking about his son and about Lila. If he were out in Arizona with them now, where would they be family-wise? Could his presence straighten Will out any? Was it really even possible to be a family again in any sense whatsoever?
There wasn’t a single happy answer that came to him.
He got up and turned on the television. In a few minutes
Daniel Boone
was on, buckskins and all, saving the country for democracy, the best of a bad lot of shows this evening. He thought about the war and exactly who was saving the country for democracy these days.
Kids a couple years older than his son, that was who.
He got a beer from the kitchen and tried his best not to dwell on Will’s problems. He’d either straighten out or he wouldn’t. All Charlie could do was wait and see.
It was dusk and they were driving down Cedar headed for the old White Castle to grab a burger or two, Ray at the wheel and Tim riding shotgun, when the scrawny black cat with the white paws and belly walked out into the road from behind some hedges and Ray accelerated. Racing for it. Scaring the living shit out of Tim. Which was the point. Not that he’d have minded bagging some mangy cat. Especially wired on Black Beauties the way he was. But looking over and seeing Tim’s face gone white as he bore down on the cat, that was the ticket, that was what made him smile. Reminding Tim of what he could do and
would
do whenever he fucking felt like it.
The cat was fast and lucky and made it past him inches from the left front tire. Ray laughed, high and clear and giddy and glanced into his rear-view mirror and saw it frozen by the shoulder and staring after them as though all the dogs of hell had just roared screeching by.
“Jesus, Ray!”
“Yeah, I know. I missed him.”
“What the fuck you wanna go and do that for?”
“I’m here, cat’s there. I got a car, the cat doesn’t. Why not?”
“Shit, Ray.”
It was always fun to give Tim the willies because you could
do
it so easily. When they’d all gone to the drive-in to see
Rosemary’s Baby
last summer Jennifer said she’d caught Tim looking away during the Mia Farrow rape scene. While Ray wouldn’t even allow himself to blink. That scene was terrific!
They were playing that goddamn song again on the radio, the one about San Francisco
“Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
. . . .” Good Christ. He switched it off. You couldn’t much hear it anyway with the Chevy’s top down, but still it annoyed him. Fucking flowers in your hair. Yeah, right. The song was disgusting. The song was utter shit. He had a date with Katherine in a couple of hours and didn’t want a goddamn thing to spoil the vibe.
“You ever think about doing that?” Tim said.
“Doing what?”
“Going to San Francisco, to the Haight. Sometimes I think we should do that, you know? You and me and Jennifer. Get out of town and head for the Haight.”
“Now why would I want to do that?”
“Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, man!”
“Tim, we got sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll right here. Next you’re gonna want to go live in some fucking commune. Eat bean sprouts and brown rice. I worry about you sometimes, you know that?”
“They do what they want there. You deal some drugs, you always got money. You don’t have to work. You panhandle if you need a little cash.”
“Oh yeah. I can just see me panhandling. Asking fucking college kids for money. I’d kill the first little prick who said no to me.”
He would too. Just the thought of it infuriated him. Some asshole hippie with a silver spoon in his mouth telling him no. He decided to change the subject. Tim was messing up his mood just like the song did.
“You hear from Barry Winslow at all? I haven’t seen him around lately. Barry’s a good customer.”
“See? There you go. Exactly my point. Barry Wins-low went to the
Haight
!”
“Aw, jesus.”
Why he hung out with all these fucking losers he didn’t know.
They pulled into the drive-by window and ordered three burgers each and two chocolate shakes from the kid in the white paper hat. Three burgers at White Castle were about the equivalent of one burger anywhere else but together they were still about half the price. Ray paid. He was feeling expansive, thinking about his date with Katherine. Evidently Tim was thinking about it too, the poor horny bastard.
“So where are you gonna take her?”
He shook his head. “I dunno. She’s got something in mind. I got no idea what. She’s being real mysterious about it. I figure I’ll play along, what the hell. If it’s something stupid I’ll take her back to my place and fuck her on the waterbed.”
He wasn’t sure about his chances of fucking Katherine on the waterbed or anywhere else on their first date for that matter, but there was no point telling Tim that. Let him think what he always thought. That Ray was Mr. Stud and got what he wanted each and every time he spread his wings to fly.
And he
was
feeling pretty good about it.
Maybe it was the methamphetamine buzzing around in his brain, but he actually felt pretty confident. The way she sounded on the phone at lunchtime. Flirting with him but something more than that. Seeming to promise something—
I’ve got something different in mind
was the way she put it. Fucking wasn’t exactly different for Ray but maybe it was for her. Kath was younger. Who knew? On the other hand maybe she was more experienced than he gave her credit for and she’d been reading up on her
Kama Sutra
lately. He thought the
Kama Sutra
was mostly un-do-able or at the very least uncomfortable horseshit but there were a few things in there he’d definitely like to try.
That
I’ve got something different in mind
intrigued him.
He’d give her some rope on this one.
They finished the burgers and shakes in the parking lot and by then it was time to drop Tim off and get ready. He had to shower and shave and polish his boots and do his makeup—just a little, very subtle—and decide what he wanted to wear. He’d lay out all his best stuff on the bed and figure what matched what. He was very good at choosing colors that complemented one another. He’d learned how from his mother’s fashion magazines at an early age. She subscribed to practically all of them but most of the time still managed to look like Ma Kettle on a real bad day.
Women.
Then again he might decide to go for all black. The outlaw look. She might like that. He’d decide after the shower.
Her father had driven to the airport straight from work so the house was hers for a while. She took her time in the kitchen broiling herself a steak in the oven along with some fries and tossing the spinach salad Etta had made for her that afternoon. Her father was never much for steak though he’d eat it if Etta put it in front of him. She rarely did. So Katherine would treat herself to one whenever he was away.
What kind of guy doesn’t like steak?
she thought. Then again, what kind of guy spent all his free time building furniture and then giving it away? She’d never heard of either type of animal.
While she cooked she sipped a glass of Remy Martin. Another treat, albeit this one forbidden, to be savored when her father was away. When she sat down at the table to eat she poured herself another. By the time she was finished she felt a comfortable glow. Half the steak was left on her plate so she wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator for tomorrow. She’d do a teryaki marinade and slice it thin and cook it very briefly along with some vegetables and rice. She decided not to bother with the dishes. Etta could clean up tomorrow. She rinsed and piled them in the sink.
She tried not to think about her mother, about the reason her father wasn’t home tonight. But it was like trying not to think about some stupid song that had popped into your head first thing in the morning. The more you tried to lose it the longer and harder it stuck.
Practically catatonic
was what he’d said.
She could almost picture it, her mother crouched in some corner in a stark bare room, her mother thin and wasted, not eating, hair a mess and probably dirty. Would they have her in a straitjacket? No. That was only for the violent ones, not the catatonics. She wondered if they still let her wear her own clothes or if she’d graduated to some hospital gown open in the back so you could see her backbone and the crack of her ass.
It was not good, this kind of thinking.
She drew herself a hot bath and lay in the water for awhile sipping slowly at a third glass of Remy. Her father would never miss it. Her father drank so rarely that he never knew what was inside his liquor cabinet let alone how much of it. He ordered liquor in for entertainment purposes, for the occasional visit from a client. And when the visit was over the bottle went back into the cabinet and for the most part there it sat.
She showered after the bath and dried her hair, wrapped herself in a towel and padded into her bedroom and sat in front of the makeup table and mirror that had once belonged to her mother. It was still a wonder to her that her mother hadn’t smashed the mirror as she’d smashed so much else over the years. Kath had appropriated the table and mirror the same day they committed her, moved it into her room all by herself. At first her father’d been appalled.
Couldn’t you have waited?
No. She could
not
have waited. She was going to get
something
out of the woman if it killed her. She’d made their fives such a living hell for so many years that dammit, she deserved something.
After a while her father got to thinking it was just Kath’s way of remembering her mother as she was in better days, of honoring her memory and accepted what she’d done as that. She never corrected his thinking but he was wrong. Practically every time she looked in the mirror what she was saying to herself was
To hell with you mom, I survived you
. Saying it with a grim smile, as though her mother were somewhere in the mirror and could see her on the other side free while she was trapped there, trapped and able to read her thoughts. No honoring, no remembering.
Not if she could help it.
She brushed her hair and applied her makeup and dressed—one of her father’s white starched Brooks Brothers shirts and a pair of tight new jeans and tennis shoes. No belt. Very simple. She imagined Ray would expect something more elaborate and didn’t want to play to his expectations. She never wanted to with a boy. It was simple policy. You kept them off guard at first. It always paid to do so. She fastened the silver necklace her father had given her for her thirteenth birthday around her neck and she was ready.
From her bedroom window she saw the car roll up in the driveway. He honked his horn once. Briefly. Politely. A single light tap.
She sat down on the bed and opened up a
Cosmo
and began to read.
It was not a good idea to hurry.