Twisted Ones (3 page)

“Dear God, thank you,” he said, “for my health, for my home, for keeping me strong and clean, for everything you’ve done for me. Thank you and amen.”

Brock got out of the Mercury. He gave the door a gentle pat, as if to say: “You’ll be all right.”

Then he walked down the dirt road in the direction of the highway. He never minded hitching a ride back to town. After all, it was only fair.

CHARLES BERREY

Some 208 miles away, in another small city, that same afternoon, the Berrey family was preparing for a big evening. Charles Berrey, the unexpected fruit of Howard and Evelyn Berrey’s middle age, was to make his third appearance on Cash-Answer, the most popular quiz show on television.

Charles was eight, and he had already won $33,000. He was small for his age, and incredibly nearsighted, but he was a darling-looking youngster with tea-colored hair and a good sturdy build; bright blue wide-laughing eyes that were usually hid behind whirls of prescription-ground glass, and an endearing smile made more so by the fact that his upper left bicuspid was missing.

His ears were being cleaned that afternoon by his mother, in the kitchen of the small Berrey bungalow, and it was a happy moment for both mother and son.

“I reiterate,” Charles was saying, “you’re hurting me.”

“You
what?
You
iterate
?” his mother giggled.

“I reiterate,” said Charles, “I
repeat.”

“My little Chuckles,” said Evelyn Berrey proudly. “My little genius.”

“Don’t call me by that infantile name,” said Charles Berrey, “I simply abhor it!”

“Oh, you do, do you? You abhor it, do you, little Mr. Iterate.”

She tweaked his right ear, and he squealed delightedly.

Evelyn Berrey watched with pride-swollen eyes, marveling again at the fact this boy was hers. Him, with an I.Q. of 165, standing up before all America like he’d done last week, rattling off the kings of Israel and Judah as easily as if he were saying his ABC’s.

“Saul was the first king, son of Kish. Ish-Bosheth, son of Saul. David, son of Jesse. Solomon, son of David. Rehoboam, son of Solomon. Uzziah, son of….”

On and on, naming them off that way, until Jackie Paul, the quizmaster, shouted out, “You get cash for your answers, because your answers are cor
-rect!”
Then the drums beat, and the bells rung, and the light above Chuckles in the Contemplation Chamber blinked on and off, and the audience went wild. Mrs. Berrey had been moved to tears.

What made a boy like Chuckles know all that, Evelyn Berrey wondered? It was his memory. It was photograph or something. Evelyn Berrey herself had a perfectly rotten memory. God, when she thought about it, it was a wonder she remembered her own name, and the same for Howard. All Howard remembered was ball scores. Howie, Jr., too. He was just like his father—all baseball games and fix-things-down-in-the-basement, and Marines this and that. He was handsome in his uniform, all right, Howie was, and he used to be terrible thoughtful, sending home those pillows with
MOTHER
in gold on them, from Parris Island, but he’d grown away since he married that I-talian girl. It had beat Evelyn why Howie ever picked an I-talian for a wife. The years certainly changed things. Howie living down there in West Virginia with an I-talian, not even coming East for Christmas last year; and Chuckles all grown up and winning a fortune on the television.

Mrs. Berrey tweaked his left ear and said, “If you don’t hold still, Mr. Cash-Answer, I’m going to tell Jackie Paul your name is Chuckles. Ha, how’d you like that!”

“If you do … if you do,” said Charles Berrey, “I’ll—I’ll—“

“Ah? What? What’ll you do if I tell Jackie that, ah?”

“I’ll pulverize you,” said her son.

Mrs. Berrey bent double laughing. This kid could come up with the darnedest thing! “You’ll what? Ah?”

“I reiterate,” said Charles Berrey, “I’ll pulverize you, mater!”

• • •

In the living room of the Berrey household, Howard Berrey ground out his cigarette and tossed his copy of
Baseball Annual
on the table. He got up and paced around the room, back and forth in front of the imitation fireplace, a huge bull of a man with a build like a boxer. He was proud of his figure; proud of the fact he kept in shape. You wouldn’t catch old Duke Berrey getting soft, or growing an extra feed-basket. He was in the same shape he’d been when he’d played tackle out at old

M.U., and he could still run the mile without fighting for breath. He worked out at Harvey’s gym here in Reddton, New Jersey, every other night, and when he was on the road, he worked out at a “Y.” It wasn’t simply a matter of vanity either; it was good business. A man who sold sports equipment around the country couldn’t expect to gain any respect from a customer if he wasn’t in tiptop condition himself. Hell, Duke Berrey was in a lot better condition than nine out of ten of the college coaches he ran into. He could demonstrate anything he sold from a leap tick to a punching bag, without looking silly, and that was a damn important part of sales—to show the customer you used the product yourself.

Duke Berrey wasn’t going back on the road until this television ordeal was over. He had mixed emotions about Chuck’s success. He was glad the kid was winning all that money—that part was great. Not that any kid of Duke Berrey’s had to go on a quiz show to earn money for college, but it was a real boon just the same. By the time Chuck was ready for college, Duke might feel like taking it easier, slowing up a little. A man deserved to slow up when he reached his fifties. But the part Duke didn’t like was people’s reaction to his kid. People thought his kid was some kind of freak or something. After the last show, one of the men in Howard Berrey’s company had walked up to him and said, “Tell me something, Berrey. How the hell do you talk to your boy? I mean, what the hell do you talk about?”

“He’s no different from any kid of yours,” Howard Berrey had answered. “He’s just got a good memory.”

“Yeah, yeah, Berrey, but he had to read all that stuff first, to memorize it. Kid of mine can’t even read the funny papers.”

Duke had no answer for that. It was true that Chuck read books like a hungry tomcat devoured mice; read anything he could get his hands on, and when he ran out of things, Chuck hiked himself off to the library. Sometimes he came back with as many as ten books, the absolute maximum he could check out. History books, books on geology, novels, books on art—hell, anything that was between covers.

What’d he want to do all that reading for?

It was probably Evelyn’s fault, though the good Lord knows when Duke Berrey met Evelyn, she didn’t know

Paris was in France. It had to be Evelyn’s fault. All the while Howie Jr. was growing up, Duke had been home. He hadn’t accepted the sales job until after Howie enlisted in the Marines, and look at Howie. You couldn’t find a better kid. Howie’d read a book or two himself, but they weren’t his East and West, for Pete’s sake. Even if Chuck was bright, Duke wouldn’t worry if he wanted to be an engineer or something; if he wanted to read up on something that would help him careerwise in the future, but what kind of a job was Chuck going to be able to get when it came time? Some kind of teacher? Some kind of professor? Make beans for a salary?

Anyway, Duke Berrey wasn’t going to worry about Chuck’s distant future that afternoon. There was the immediate future to ponder. There was tonight. Chuck was supposed to be at the studio by eight-thirty. Evelyn and Duke and Chuck were having dinner in New York with Duke’s boss.

“I’d like to meet that boy of yours,” Mr. Carter had said, “Do you think that’s possible, Duke?”

Duke Berrey had tremendous respect for Paul Carter. Here was a man who’d started at scratch, worked himself up the ladder one rung at a time until now he was president of Sterling Sporting Goods. No college degree, no fancy-pancy; just a hell of a lot of damn hard work and a love of sports. It was a pleasure to work for a man like Paul Carter, and more than anything, Duke Berrey hoped the respect was mutual.

For a moment longer, he listened to Evelyn and Chuck giggle and babble in the kitchen, listened until he was sick and tired of it, and then strode through the hallway out there and stood in the entranceway, glaring.

Charles Berrey looked up at him with a puzzled expression. He was never able to fathom his father’s moods. He liked his father much better than he liked his mother, but he knew that when it came to their feelings for him, it was the other way around.

His mother said, “Well, what’s eating you?”

“Let’s all play a game,” said his father, “Let’s all try to talk in words of
one
syllable for twenty-four hours.”

That was funny. Charles Berrey had to laugh at that one. Maybe if he got the chance, he’d tell that one to Jackie Paul tonight. It was good irony, under the circumstances, he decided.

His mother said, “I’m afraid that’s the only choice
you
and I have, Howard.”

Charles Berrey watched his father’s expression. Was he angry at something? It was very difficult to decipher any meaning from his father’s expressions.

“Chuck,” said his father, “do you remember who we’re meeting for dinner?”

“That’s a hot one,” his mother said. “Does he
remember.”

“Mr. Carter,” said Chuck. “President of Sterling Sporting Goods.”

“The boss, to
you,”
said his father.

“The boss,” said Chuck giggling. He liked his father. His father was most amusing.

“Has Carter got any kids?” his mother asked.

“Three.”

“Oh yeah? I never heard anything about them.”

“Well, they haven’t been on television, if that’s what you mean, Evelyn.”

“I’ll bet they haven’t,” said his mother.

“What are you trying to say, that Paul Carter’s kids aren’t any good because they haven’t won any money on Cash-Answer? Is that your theory, Evelyn?”

“That’s only one of my theories. I’ve got a lot of theories about Paul Carter.”

“Like?”

“Like how come he suddenly wants us all to have dinner in New York? Hah? How come all of a sudden old man Carter wants us all to come in and sit around at dinner with him, Howard?”

“He wants to meet Chuck.”

“Oh, sure. Sure. Just wants to meet Chuck,” said Evelyn Berrey. “He’s had eight years to meet Chuck, and twenty-two years to meet Howie, and he’s never got around to either before now.”

Charles Berrey was pleased. What his mother was saying was true. Mr. Carter had asked them to dinner because of him. Charles Berrey was pleased because he had done something for his father. It was never easy to do anything for dad; in fact, when before had he ever done
one
thing that dad really approved of? You see, the difficulty was one of basic communication between himself and his father. They had enormous trouble exchanging ideas. It was perplexing.

“Shut your yap, Evelyn,” said Howard Berrey. “Just shut your yap!”

“Maybe Carter would like Chuck to plug Sterling, hah? Just a little plug, hah?”

“Evelyn, Carter’s just taking an interest in Chuck,” said Howard Berrey, “and I’m damn honored.”

“Oh, honored. Honored! He’s got three kids of his own to take an interest in, hasn’t he? But he’s big-hearted, Carter is. Old big-hearted Carter. Going to ride to Glory on Chuckles’ coattails.”

“Shut up, Evelyn. I’m warning you!”

“His own kids are flops. Flops!”

“At least they don’t wet their beds every night,” said Howard Berrey.

That was the last thing he had wanted to say. He stood in helpless silence while his son ran from the room. He stood sick inside of himself, hating his own guts, not even caring that Evelyn Berrey, opposite him, was calling him the biggest goddam bastard of all time.

• • •

At five-thirty that afternoon, Charles Berrey heard his mother say: “Well, you’ve got to go in and talk to him, Howard. That’s all there is to it.”

Charles was sitting in his room on the bed, with the door shut, but in the Berrey house, the walls were so thin you could hear right through them.

He had been reading Ironside’s book,
British Painting Since 1939
, but he quickly pushed it under his pillow. He hopped off his bed and went across to his knife rack. His father had begun Charles Berrey’s knife collection last Christmas by presenting him with a standard hunter’s knife and a Japanese sword. For his birthday, his father had given him an Indonesian knife with a guarded blade, which Charles learned was for rice-cutting. His brother Howie had sent him a straight-bladed knife used by the Temme in Africa for sacrifice. While he was not very enthusiastic about this collection, Charles had learned to feign fascination. Best of all, Charles liked the little chipped flint knife he had bought with his allowance from the Musuem of Natural History. It was the kind used in the Neolithic period, and it did not look as frightening or dangerous as the rest.

When his father came into the room, Charles Berrey was pretending to examine one of the knives, as though he had been absorbed in this occupation all along.

His father said, “Hi, fella!”

“Oh, hi, dad.”

“I thought we could have a little confab, Chuck.”

“Sure, dad,” said Charles Berrey. “I was just looking over my cutlery.”

His father sighed. “You always find another way to say it, don’t you, Chuck?”

“Knives are cutlery, dad.”

“Table
knives, Chuck. People don’t call other knives cutlery.”

“On the contrary,” said Charles Berrey, “all knives are cutlery. Why, the cutlass was named for that purpose. That was a sword used by sailors on war vessels.”

“Chuck, I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

“I wasn’t arguing, dad.”

“It beats me why you just can’t say knives. Why do you have to show off and say cutlery? People say knives. And people say ships, not vessels. Did you ever hear a sailor say he had to get back to the
vessel?”

“No, sir,” said Charles Berrey pushing his glasses back on the end of his nose. “No, sir.”

“Now you’re mad, I suppose.”

“No, sir, I’m not angry.”

“Chuck, is it so hard for you to say the same things eveveryone else says? I just said ‘mad.’ You said ‘angry.’ Now would it have killed you to say, I’m not
mad.”

“No, sir.”

“Chuck, don’t
sir
me, son. I mean, why does everything have to get so formal between us?”

“I don’t mean it to, dad.”

“I know you don’t, Chuck. Oh, God, I don’t know.” His father sank down on the bed and cracked his knuckles. “Chuck,” he said, “I came in here to tell you I was sorry for saying that back in the kitchen.”