Blaze. Part 4

He purchased a Dreamland crib, a Seth Harney cradle, a Happy Hippo highchair, an E-Z Fold changing table, a plastic bath, eight nightshirts, eight pairs of Dri-Day rubber pants, eight Hager's infant undershirts with snaps he couldn't figure out, three fitted sheets that looked like table napkins, three blankets, a set of crib b.u.mpers that were supposed to keep the kid from whamming his brains out if he got restless, a sweater, a hat, bootees, a pair of red shoes with bells on the tongues, two pairs of pants with matching shirts, four pairs of socks that were not big enough to fit over his fingers, a Playtex Nurser set (the plastic liners looked like the bags George used to buy his dope in), a case of stuff called Similac, a case of Junior Fruits, a case of Junior Dinners, a case of Junior Desserts, and one place-setting with the Smurfs on them.

The baby food tasted s.h.i.tty. He tried it when he got home.

As the bundles piled up in the corner of the Baby Shoppe, the glances of the shy young matrons became longer and more speculative. It became an event, a landmark in memory - the huge, slouching man in woodsman's clothes following the tiny saleslady from place to place, listening, then buying what she told him to buy. The saleslady was Nancy Moldow. She was on commission, and as the afternoon progressed, her eyes took on an almost supernatural glow. Finally the total was rung up and when Blaze counted out the money, Nancy Moldow threw in four boxes of Pampers. 'You made my day,' she said. 'In fact, you may have made my career in infant sales.'

'Thank you, ma'am,' Blaze said. He was very glad about the Pampers. He had forgotten the diapers after all.

And as he loaded up two shopping carts (a stockboy had the cartons containing the highchair and the crib), Nancy Moldow cried: 'Be sure to bring the young man in to have his picture taken!'

'Yes, ma'am,' Blaze mumbled. For some reason a memory of his first mug shot flashed into his mind, and a cop saying, Now turn sideways and bend your knees again, High-pockets Now turn sideways and bend your knees again, High-pockets - - Christ, who grew you so f.u.c.kin big? Christ, who grew you so f.u.c.kin big?

'The picture is compliments of Hager's!'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Lotta goodies, man,' the stockboy said. He was perhaps twenty, and just getting over his adolescent acne. He wore a little red bowtie. 'Where's your car parked?'

'The lot in back,' Blaze said.

He followed the stockboy, who insisted on pushing one of the carts and then complained about how it steered on the packed snow. 'They don't salt it down back here, see, and the wheels get packed up. Then the d.a.m.n carts skid around. You can give your ankles a nasty bite if you don't watch out. Real nasty. I'm not complaining, but'

Then what are you doing, Sporty? Blaze could hear George asking. Blaze could hear George asking. Eating cat-food out of the dog's bowl? Eating cat-food out of the dog's bowl?

'This is it,' Blaze said. 'This is mine.'

'Yeah, okay. What do you want to put in the trunk? The highchair, the crib, or both?'

Blaze suddenly remembered he didn't have a trunk key.

'Let's put it all in the back.'

The stockboy's eyes widened. 'Ah, Jeez, man, I don't think it'll fit. In fact, I'm positive -'

'We can put some in front, too. We can stand that carton with the crib in it in the pa.s.senger footwell. I'll rack the seat back.'

'Why not the trunk? Wouldn't that be, like, simpler?'

Blaze thought, vaguely, of starting some story about how the trunk was full of stuff, but the trouble with lies was one always led to another. Soon it was like you were traveling on roads you didn't know. You got lost. I always tell the truth when I can, I always tell the truth when I can, George liked to say. George liked to say. It's like driving close to home. It's like driving close to home.

So he held up the dupe. 'I lost my car-keys,' he said. 'Until I find em, all I got is this.'

'Oh,' the stockboy said. He looked at Blaze as though he were dumb, but that was okay; he had been looked at that way before. 'b.u.mmer.'

In the end, they got it all in. It took some artful packing, and it was a tight squeeze, but they made it. When Blaze looked into the rearview mirror, he could even see some of the world outside the back window. The carton holding the broken-down changing table cut off the rest of the view.

'Nice car,' said the stockboy. 'An oldie but a goodie.'

'Right,' Blaze said. And because it was something George sometimes said, he added: 'Gone from the charts, but not from our hearts.' He wondered if the stockboy was waiting for something. It seemed like he was.

'What's she got, a 302?'

'342,' Blaze said automatically.

The stockboy nodded. He still stood there.

From inside the back seat of the Ford, where there was no room for him but where he was, anyway - somehow - George said: 'If you don't want him to stand there for the rest of the century, tip the dips.h.i.t and get rid of him.'

Tip. Yeah. Right.

Blaze dragged out his wallet, looked at the limited selection of bills, and reluctantly selected a five. He gave it to the stockboy. The stockboy made it disappear. 'All right, man, increase the peace.'

'Whatever,' Blaze said. He got into the Ford and started it up. The stockboy was trundling the shopping carts back to the store. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back at Blaze. Blaze didn't like that look. It was a remembering remembering look. look.

'I should've remembered to tip him quicker. Right, George?'

George didn't answer.

Back home, he parked the Ford in the shed again and carted all the baby c.r.a.p into the house. He a.s.sembled the crib in the bedroom and set up the changing table next to it. There was no need to look at the directions; he only looked at the pictures on the boxes and his hands did the rest. The cradle went in the kitchen, near the woodstovebut not too too near. The rest of the stuff he piled in the bedroom closet, out of sight. near. The rest of the stuff he piled in the bedroom closet, out of sight.

When it was done, a change had come over the bedroom that went deeper than the added furniture. Something else had been added. The atmosphere had changed. It was as if a ghost had been set free to walk. Not the ghost of someone who had left, someone who had gone down dead, but the ghost of someone yet to come.

It made Blaze feel strange.

Chapter 8.

THE NEXT NIGHT, Blaze decided he ought to get cool plates for his hot Ford, so he stole a pair off a Volkswagen in the parking lot of Jolly Jim's Jiant Groceries in Portland. He replaced the plates from the VW with the Ford's plates. It could be weeks or months before the VW's owner realized he had the wrong set of plates, because the number on the little sticker was 7, meaning the guy didn't have to re-register until July. Always check the registration sticker. George had taught him that.

He drove to a discount store, feeling safe with his new plates, knowing he would feel safer still when the Ford was a different color. He bought four cans of Skylark Blue auto paint and a spray-gun. He went home broke but happy.

He ate supper sitting next to the stove, thumping his feet on the worn linoleum as Merle Haggard sang 'Okie from Muskogee.' Old Merle had really known how to dish it up to those f.u.c.king hippies.

After the dishes were washed, he ran the adhesive-patched extension cord out to the shed and hung a bulb over a beam. Blaze loved to paint. And Skylark Blue was one of his favorite colors. You had to like that name. It meant blue like a bird. Like a skylark.

He went back to the house and got a pile of old newspapers. George read a newspaper every day, and not just the funnies. Sometimes he read the editorials to Blaze and raged about the Redneck Republicans. He said the Republicans hated poor people. He referred to the President as That G.o.ddam Wet in the White House. George was a Democrat, and two years ago they had put stickers for Democratic candidates on three different stolen cars.

All the newspapers were way old, and ordinarily that would have made Blaze feel sad, but tonight he was too excited about painting the car. He papered the windows and wheels. He Scotch-taped more pieces to the chrome trim.

By nine o'clock, the fragrant banana-smell of spray-paint filled the shed, and by eleven, the job was done. Blaze took off the newspapers and touched up a few places, then admired his work. He thought it was good work.

He went to bed, a little high from the paint, and woke up the next morning with a headache. 'George?' he said hopefully.

No answer.

'I'm broke, George. I'm busted to my heels.'

No answer.

Blaze moped around the house all day, wondering what to do.

The night man was reading a paperback epic called Butch Ballerinas Butch Ballerinas when a Colt revolver was shoved in his face. Same Colt. Same voice saying gruffly, 'Everything in the register.' when a Colt revolver was shoved in his face. Same Colt. Same voice saying gruffly, 'Everything in the register.'

'Oh no,' Harry Nason said. 'Oh Christ.'

He looked up. Standing before him was a flat-nosed, Chinese horror in a woman's nylon stocking that trailed down his back like the tail of a ski-cap.

'Not you. Not again.'

'Everything in the register. Put it in a bag.'

No one came in this time, and because it was a week-night, there was less in the drawer.

The stick-up man paused on the way out and turned back. Now, Now, Harry Nason thought, Harry Nason thought, I will be shot I will be shot. But instead of shooting him, the stick-up man said, 'This time I remembered the stocking.'

Behind the nylon, he appeared to be grinning.

Then he was gone.

Chapter 9.

WHEN CLAYTON BLAISDELL, JR., came to Hetton House, there was a Headmistress. He didn't remember her name, only her gray hair, and her big gray eyes behind her spectacles, and that she read them the Bible, and ended every Morning a.s.sembly by saying came to Hetton House, there was a Headmistress. He didn't remember her name, only her gray hair, and her big gray eyes behind her spectacles, and that she read them the Bible, and ended every Morning a.s.sembly by saying Be good children and you shall prosper Be good children and you shall prosper. Then one day she wasn't in the office anymore, because she had a stroke. At first Blaze thought people were saying she had a stork, but finally he got it straight: stroke stroke. It was a kind of headache that wouldn't go away. Her replacement was Martin Coslaw. Blaze never forgot his his name, and not just because the kids called him The Law. Blaze never forgot him because The Law taught Arithmetic. name, and not just because the kids called him The Law. Blaze never forgot him because The Law taught Arithmetic.

Arithmetic was held in Room 7 on the third floor, where it was cold enough to freeze the b.a.l.l.s off a bra.s.s monkey in the winter. There were pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Sister Mary Hetton on the walls. Sister Hetton had pale skin and black hair scrooped back from her face and balled into a kind of doork.n.o.b on the back of her head. She had dark eyes that sometimes came back to accuse Blaze of things after lights-out. Mostly of being dumb. Probably too dumb for high school, just as The Law said.

Room 7 had old yellow floors and always smelled of floor-varnish, a smell that made Blaze sleepy even if he was wide awake when he walked in. There were nine fly-specked light globes that sent down thin, sad light on rainy days. There was an old blackboard at the front of the room, and over it were green placards upon which the alphabet marched in rolling Palmer Method letters - both the capital letters and the little fellows. After the alphabet came the numbers from 0 to 9, so beautiful and nice they made you feel stupid and clumsier than ever just looking at them. The desks were carved with overlapping slogans and initials, most worn to ghosts by repeated sandings and re-varnishings but never erased completely. They were bolted to the floor on iron discs. Each desk had an inkwell. The inkwells were filled with Carter's Ink. Spilled ink got you a stropping in the washroom. Black heel-marks on the yellow floor got you a stropping. Fooling in cla.s.s got you a stropping, only cla.s.s fooling was called Bad Deportment. There were other stropping offenses; Martin Coslaw believed in stropping and The Paddle. The Law's paddle was more feared in Hetton House than anything, even the bogeyman that hid under the beds of the little kids. The Paddle was a birch spatula, quite thin. The Law had drilled four holes in it to lessen air resistance. He was a bowler with a team called The Falmouth Rockers, and on Fridays he sometimes wore his bowling shirt to school. It was dark blue and had his name - Martin - in cursive gold over the breast pocket. To Blaze those letters looked almost (but not quite) like Palmer Method. The Law said that in bowling and in life, if a person made the spares, the strikes would take care of themselves. He had a strong right arm from making all those strikes and spares, and when he gave someone a stropping with The Paddle, it hurt a lot. He had been known to bite his tongue between his teeth while applying The Paddle to a boy with especially Bad Deportment. Sometimes he bit it hard enough to make it bleed, and for awhile there was a boy at Hetton House who called him Dracula as well as The Law, but then that boy made out, and they didn't see him anymore. Making out was what they called it when someone got placed with a family and stuck, maybe even adopted.

Martin Coslaw was hated and feared by all the boys at Hetton House, but no one hated him and feared him more than Blaze. Blaze was very bad at Arithmetic. He had been able to get back the hang of adding two apples plus three apples, but only with great effort, and a quarter of an apple plus a half an apple was always going to be beyond him. So far as he knew, apples only came in bites.

It was during Basic Arithmetic that Blaze pulled his first con, aided by his friend John Cheltzman. John was skinny, ugly, gangling, and filled with hate. The hate rarely showed. Mostly it was hidden behind his thick, adhesive-taped gla.s.ses and the idiotic, farmerish yuk-yuk-yuk that was his frequent laughter. He was a natural target of the older, stronger boys. They beat him around pretty good. His face was rubbed in the dirt (spring and fall) or washed in snow (winter). His shirts were often torn. He rarely emerged from the communal shower without getting a.s.s-smacked by a few wet towels. He always wiped the dirt or snow off, tucked his ripped shirt-tail in, or went yuk-yuk-yuk as he rubbed his reddening a.s.s-cheeks, and the hate hardly ever showed. Or his brains. He was good in his cla.s.ses - quite good, he couldn't help that - but anything above a B was rare. And not welcomed. At Hetton House, A stood for a.s.shole. Not to mention a.s.s-kicking.

Blaze was starting to get his size by then. He didn't have it, not at eleven or twelve, but he was starting to get it. He was as big as some of the big boys. And he didn't join in the playground beatings or the towel-snappings. One day John Cheltzman walked up to him while Blaze was standing beside the fence at the far end of the playground, not doing anything but watching crows light in the trees and take off again. He offered Blaze a deal.

'You'll have The Law again for math this half,' John said. 'Fractions continue.'

'I hate fractions,' Blaze said.

'I'll do your homework if you don't let those lugs tune up on me anymore. It won't be good enough to make him suspicious - not good enough to get you caught - but it'll be good enough to get you by. You won't get stood after.' Being stood after wasn't as bad as being stropped, but it was bad. You had to stand in the corner of Room 7, face to the wall. You couldn't look at the clock.

Blaze considered John Cheltzman's idea, then shook his head. 'He'll know. I'll get called on to recite, and then he'll know.'

'You just look around the room like you're thinking,' John said. 'I'll take care of you.'

And John did. He wrote down the homework answers and Blaze copied them in his own numbers that tried to look like the Palmer Method numbers over the blackboard but never did. Sometimes The Law called on him, and then Blaze would stand up and look around - anywhere but at Martin Coslaw, and that was all right, that was how just about everyone behaved when they were called on. During his looking-around, he'd look at Johnny Cheltzman, slumped in his seat by the door to the book closet with his hands on his desk. If the number The Law wanted was ten or under, the number of fingers showing would be the answer. If it was a fraction, John's hands would be in fists. Then they'd open. He was very quick about it. The left hand was the top half of the fraction. The right hand was the bottom. If the bottom number was over five, Johnny went back to fists and then used both hands. Blaze had no trouble at all with these signals, which many would have found more complex than the fractions they represented.

'Well, Clayton?' The Law would say. 'We're waiting.'

And Blaze would say, 'One-sixth.'

He didn't always have to be right. When he told George, George had nodded in approval. 'A beautiful little con. When did it break down?'

It broke down three weeks into the half, and when Blaze thought about it - he could could think, it just took him time and it was hard work - he realized that The Law must have been suspicious about Blaze's amazing mathematical turnaround all along. He just hadn't let on. Had been paying out the rope Blaze needed to hang himself with. think, it just took him time and it was hard work - he realized that The Law must have been suspicious about Blaze's amazing mathematical turnaround all along. He just hadn't let on. Had been paying out the rope Blaze needed to hang himself with.

There was a surprise quiz. Blaze flunked with a grade of Zero. This was because the quiz was all fractions. The quiz had really been given for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to catch Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. Below the Zero was a note scrawled in bright red letters. Blaze couldn't make it out, so he took it to John.

John read it. At first he didn't say anything. Then he told Blaze, 'This note says, John Cheltzman is going to resume getting beat up.''

'What? Huh?'

'It says Report to my office at four o'clock.''

'What for?'

'Because we forgot about the tests,' John said. Then he said, 'No, you you didn't forget. didn't forget. I I forgot. Because all I could think about was getting those overgrown Blutos to stop hurting me. Now you're gonna beat me up and then The Law is gonna strop me and then the Blutos are gonna start in on me again. Jesus Christ, I wish I was dead.' And he did look like he wished it. forgot. Because all I could think about was getting those overgrown Blutos to stop hurting me. Now you're gonna beat me up and then The Law is gonna strop me and then the Blutos are gonna start in on me again. Jesus Christ, I wish I was dead.' And he did look like he wished it.

'I'm not gonna beat you up.'

'No?' John looked at him with the eyes of one who wants to believe but can't quite.

'You couldn't take the test for me, could you?'

Martin Coslaw's office was a fairly large room with HEADMASTER on the door. There was a small blackboard in it, across from the window. The window looked out on Hetton House's miserable schoolyard. The blackboard was dusted with chalk and - Blaze's downfall - fractions. Coslaw was seated behind his desk when Blaze came in. He was frowning at nothing. Blaze gave him something else to frown at. 'Knock,' he said.

'Huh?'

'Go back and knock,' said The Law.

'Oh.' Blaze turned, went out, knocked, and came back in.

'Thank you.'