The Pet Part 9

"My father," she said, "is shorter than you, and he can break the handle of a shovel over his knee when he's mad enough."That's when she had taken his hand, and that's when the fun and the conversation had stopped.

"Well," she said, looking at the small house separated from its neighbors by paved alleyways leading to postage-stamp backyards.

"Yeah."

She stood in front of him and looked up. Shadows drifted over her face and made it soft, smooth, and he couldn't help but touch a finger to her cheek.

G.o.d, her skin was soft.

"Have a good time tomorrow," was the only thing he could say.

She pouted. "Yeah, great. I'd rather go to the game."

88.She leaned closer, stared at him, then raised herself up and kissed him.

"See you Monday."

She was up the stairs and through the door before he could think to kiss her in return, and he walked with his hands in his pockets and the tip of his tongue flicking out to test each part of his lips, to taste her, to remember, and finally to realize that she hadn't promised to call him, or perhaps see him on Sunday.

See you Monday was what she had said.

In spite of the kiss the translation was easy: don't call me, I'll call you, and don't hold your breath.

"s.h.i.t," he said. "s.h.i.t, boy, you sure screwed that up."

He scored himself all the way home, not noticing until the door had closed hard behind him that his parents were already there, sitting in the living room and watching him.

"Hi," he said with a wave, and stopped before he ran up the stairs.

There was something wrong. His mother wasn't looking at him, and his father was drumming a tattoo on a knee. "What's up? Good meeting?"

"A very good meeting," Norman said. "Until it was over and I had a word with Mr. Falcone."

His eyes closed slowly. A moment later they snapped open, and he pointed and said, "Wait a minute," and was up the stairs and into his room before they could stop him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his notebook and pawed through it until he found the test, ran down and stood in front of his father, pressing the page to his chest to smooth out the wrinkles.

"Don-"

"Wait," he said, he held it out. "Just look at it, Dad. Just take a look."

"Donald," Joyce started, and stopped when he pleaded her patience with a glance.Norman looked up, looked at the paper and read through it, his lips moving slightly. When he was finished, he pa.s.sed it to Joyce, sighed, and sagged back in his chair.

89."Well?"

"Don ..." Norman closed one eye, pulled at his lower lip; he was hunting for the right word. "It does seem a bit harsh, I have to be honest."

"Harsh?" He sputtered, trying to control his voice before it broke into falsetto. "Harsh? It's more than harsh, it's wrong, Dad! He took points off he never would have for somebody else. He deliberately marked it earlier than the rest of them, and he deliberately picked on me. He ...

he said before the test that I would need all the luck I could get. He said that, Dad, I swear to G.o.d."

Norman dropped the paper into his lap and set a knuckle to his cheek, ran it down to his jaw, and stared at the fireplace. "I can't believe that, Don."

"Dad-"

"d.a.m.nit, you just listen to me, boy, and stop interrupting. For all the fighting that man and I are doing now, he is still a professional and you'd better remember it. I cannot believe he would deliberately single you out. It's too obvious, don't you see that? Christ, all I'd have to do is compare this with another paper from the same cla.s.s and I'd see right away if he was picking on you."

"But he is! Wait until Monday, I can get a hundred-"

"No," Norman said forcefully, without raising his voice. "I won't. He's a d.a.m.ned fine teacher, Don, and I won't insult him that way."

"You're grounded," his mother said behind him.

He whirled, unable to take it in, unable to speak.

"Donald," she said, near to tears, "if you're going to college, you simply cannot afford to let your grades slip the way they have. This is the last straw. Colleges look at things like that, they check to see if you let your grades go down just because your school is almost over.

You're obviously distracted from your work by ... a number of things.

90.Donald, you're grounded until you can prove you're doing better."

Tears brimmed into his eyes, and he felt as if he had stumbled into a dream, someone else's dream, and he was lost and didn't know how to find his way out, back to his own bed, his own family. There was a roaring in his ears, and a constriction that prevented the air from pa.s.sing his throat. He swallowed, hoping to find his voice again, fighting not to break the rule in front of his father; he looked to Norman, who was still staring at the hearth.

He had a headache, and he knew his skull would split in half if hedidn't leave the room immediately.

He reached out, and Norman handed the test back.

He looked at his mother blankly, and turned.

There was a hint of red floating in the foyer.

Behind him they shifted uncomfortably; punishment meted and neither felt right though they knew it was the right thing.

He walked away. Slowly. So slowly a cramp began building in his left calf and he had to grab the banister to keep from racing upstairs.

The roaring increased, to a winter's storm trapped in a seash.e.l.l.

The red danced, and he told himself to remember the Rules.

Then he opened his door, and nearly screamed.

The shelves were empty except for his books, his desk was clean except for a pencil neatly centered, and the posters and prints were gone from the walls.

He was alone.

The door closed behind him and he walked to the bed, sat on the edge, and stared at nothing.

They were gone, his friends gone, and he was alone.

The red darkened, then faded.

"Donald," he whispered after five minutes had pa.s.sed. "My name is Donald, G.o.dd.a.m.nit. G.o.dd.a.m.ned Sam is dead!"

91.The defiance: it was terrifying.

And the power implicit in it even more so because he knew it was there and didn't know exactly what it would do or how he should use it. All he knew was he couldn't stand it any longer in the prison cell of his room, couldn't stand the stench of decay and betrayal that had filled the empty shelves and spilled into his dreams. It had been an oasis once, a place where he could do his homework, read his books, dream his future as he wanted it to be. Now it had been devastated. Corrupted. His mother had walked in without his permission, and without his permission had taken away everything that had been able to give him some peace.

So he had waited until they'd left the house in the middle of Sunday afternoon, for still another meeting with still another committee determined to celebrate the birthday of a two-bit town that didn't matter to anyone except the people who wanted their pictures in the paper; they had left, not saying a word to him because he was still in the ruins of his room, a.s.suming he would be there when they returned. He heard them at the front door, his mother laughing at his 92father's good-natured grumbling about not being able to attend the game because of the meeting, and how important it was that he at least show his face before the final gun sounded. There was a response, Norman laughed loudly, and the door had slammed shut.

And in the abrupt silence he hadn't been able to stand it any longer. He grabbed his jacket and left, cursing them, fighting so hard not to cry that he gave himself the hiccoughs. A small and still reasonable part of him continued to insist that they weren't being malicious, that they truly believed they had done the right thing because they loved him and didn't want to see him hurt. But what the h.e.l.l did they know about hurt?

What the h.e.l.l did they know about what it was like to have to memorize all the rules and do your d.a.m.nedest to follow them, only to have someone sneak in behind your back and change a word here and there, change a rule, change the way things were supposed to be.

What the G.o.dd.a.m.ned h.e.l.l did they know about how he felt inside?

I was young once, though you probably don't believe it, his father had said on more than one occasion; but if he did know, what did he think he was doing, going along with Joyce, standing aside and letting her strip him of his pets, of practically everything he owned, without even having the G.o.dd.a.m.ned decency to let him know before he walked into the room and saw it-the rape. What the h.e.l.l had he been thinking of, telling Brian and Tar about Don's thinking they had been the ones who'd dumped the vial into that cla.s.sroom? Jesus, didn't he have eyes? Didn't he see what was going on?

He may have been young once; he wasn't young anymore. He may think he remembers what goes on in a kid's head, but all he knows is what he's read in those d.a.m.ned books, what he hears in the office, what he's told by the Board of Education, who are only a bunch of stupid men and women 93.who think they remember what it was like to be young and what it was like to be in school and what it was like to have your parents rape you without laying a finger on your arm.

Just like Norman and Joyce, they think they know kids, but they G.o.dd.a.m.ned don't know him.

And the worst part, the absolute worst and most horrible part of it was, because he didn't know what to do or how to teach them a lesson or show them he wasn't their G.o.dd.a.m.ned dead son or their puppet or their pet ...

the worst part of it was, he was frightened to death because he wanted to kill them.

He walked aimlessly, first near the school, where he heard the crowd cheering and the blaring discord of the band, then toward the center of town, not realizing where he was heading until he pa.s.sed Tracey's house and paused at the front walk, staring at the closed curtains, the empty curb, sighing and moving on and wondering if maybe he wasn't being too hard on himself, that she had after all given him a kiss, and her reputation was that such kisses were not granted lightly. Nevertheless, she hadn't encouraged him, nor had she been dragged screaming into the house before she could tell him when they'd meet again.

What he needed to do was think.This wasn't the place to do it, and the track was out until the game was over.

So he moved on, shoulders slumped, feet barely lifting off the pavement, until he reached Parkside Boulevard and walked west toward the far end of town, watching pedestrians pa.s.s him without recognition, watching the traffic pa.s.s from one invisible place to another. There were garish signs in most of the shops, announcing sales in honor of the celebration beginning on Wednesday; there were workmen on lampposts and telephone poles, clinging to ladders or safely standing in 94.the baskets of cherry pickers, hanging up large oval medallions that featured the town's crest and the years of its incorporation; there were double-parked vans making deliveries, and a fair number of men putting the finishing touches on new paint jobs and storefront repairs, filling potholes on the side streets and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g dead matter from the trees at the curbs.

In spite of his mood he was impressed by the effort, and within the hour his depression had changed from black to grey. What happened to him when he got home he would deal with later; right now he just wanted to find a place that would make him forget. Even for an hour it would be nice to forget so he could figure out what had gone so suddenly wrong.

By four-thirty he was having a hamburger at Beacher's and not answering Joe's questions about why he wasn't at the game. When he heard the triumphant horns in the street, he knew the game was over and the home team had won. Within minutes, then, the place would be swarming and he would have to listen to the stories, the laughter, see the girls and the players and suffer the replays of the game. It took him only a moment to conclude this was not what he needed while he thought things out. He slid off the stool without finishing his food, dropped a bill beside the register, and walked outside, saw Brian's car aiming for the curb and turned immediately to his left and bought a ticket to the shoppers'

special early show at the theater. It was the same film he'd seen with Tracey, and he didn't see it again, sitting in the front row with his legs outstretched and his hands clasped across his stomach and his eyes blank on the center of the screen.

Until the first gunshot made him blink and he saw a dark-suited man fall through a window with blood on his face and fear in his eyes.

He shifted uncomfortably, thinking of that morning when he had wanted his folks dead. Thinking, too, of the power 95.one had to have not just to kill another human being, because anyone could do that if anyone had a mind to, but to cause the terror that came just before it.

Another man was slammed against a wall from a shotgun blast, and he marveled at the effects they used to make it all seem so real and at the same time so gigglingly funny.

He closed his eyes.

He pictured Joyce sprawled on the kitchen floor, blood seeping from awound in her back, her left hand gripping the table leg as though she were trying to pull herself up.

It frightened him even more to think: serves the b.i.t.c.h right.

When the film was over, he walked to the park's boulevard entrance and leaned against the wall. Hands in his pockets. Gaze on the curb. A car pa.s.sed and honked, and he smiled quickly when Tar waved from the backseat of Chris Snowden's convertible. She was driving, and they were heading toward New York, and she gave him a big grin and a wave before a bus cut between them.

Football players, he thought, have all the luck. Then he felt his legs tighten, and he realized what he should be doing instead of feeling sorry for himself. The game was long over. The stands were empty. And the sun wasn't quite ready yet to set behind the town.

He hurried, trotted, put on the brakes when he felt himself straining to break into a full run; and ten minutes later, windbreaker on the ground and shirt open to the waist, he was alone on the track.

There wasn't anyone in the world who could keep up with him when his legs were moving and his arms were pumping and his lungs were taking in that fresh cold air.

No one.

His sneakers crunched on the finely ground cinder, the 96.wind pushed back his hair, and there was a not unpleasant ache settling into his left side.

He was alone on the track, and it was his world, no one else's.

His world, where there were no ambushes, no snipers, no battles for his soul.

For one brief moment he had wanted to kill his parents, and at that moment he had forgotten the Rule: never take your anger out on someone else, not even your enemies.

In place of striking out in anger, giving vent to his temper, there were words. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Christ, how wrong that was. How pious, and how wrong!

Words were how his folks did their fighting-hissing quietly, bitterly, venomously. Using time-honed razors instead of clubs to bleed each other to death. He hadn't seen that until recently, and yet one couldn't hit the other. It just wasn't done.

Well, maybe that was one of the Rules, he thought as he began his second quarter mile, but it was a d.a.m.ned dumb one. Sometimes he knew, he simply knew how great it would feel to land a punch on Brian Pratt's face.

The trouble was, you had to know what to do if you were doing to get into a fight, and he didn't. The second Sat.u.r.day he had lived in Ashford, when he was nine, Brian had come over with a bunch of hisfriends. Don was in the front yard playing soldier by himself, and Pratt jumped him. There was no introduction, no posturing, no threats. Pratt jumped him, forced him onto the ground, and punched his back solidly a dozen or so times. Then he got back onto his bike, and rode off. Don cried because he hurt, and because he was confused, but he hadn't gone to his father because he knew what he'd hear: you have to stand up for yourself, son, you have to show them you're better than they are.

Sure. But don't act like you're better because the new Rule 97.was-you weren't. You were the same as everyone else. You were the princ.i.p.al's kid, but you were the same. Sure.

G.o.dd.a.m.n rules. They're never the same from one day to the next.

How was he supposed to act when they kept changing the Rules?

His legs were loose now, and his breathing regular. The air was no longer cool, the track no longer too hard to run on. He stretched out, picking up speed, letting his mind wander because that was the best way to keep the laps from beating you in the end. Pay no attention to them and you've got it all firmly in the palm of your hand.

The sky turned darker, and a pale ghost of a moon settled over the town.

He ran alone, alone in the stadium, thinking about Tracey, about Hedley and Falcone, Pratt and Tar Boston, and his parents. If life was like this forever, he decided he would stay in school until he was an old man.

Into his second mile, panting a bit, but his legs were holding up.

He liked running.

He liked the solitude, the way he was able to work out his problems just by sending his brain out ahead of him. Some days he caught up, some days he didn't, and some days it just didn't matter at all. But there was no one faster than he, not when he was alone and the wind was blowing in his face and the stadium was filled with cheering crowds that waved red handkerchiefs as he pa.s.sed. He saw the finish line and knew that given a little luck and one extra push, he would break the world's record. In one more turn of the track he would become the fastest man on earth.

The crowd was on its feet.

He felt himself breathing through his mouth and knew it was a bad sign, but there was a reserve somewhere down in the middle of his chest, and he called on it now. Grunting as 98.he kicked his legs out for the bell lap. The crowd screaming, horns blaring, television cameras tight on the grimace frozen to his face like the scream of a clown.

Hedley was standing in the middle of the track, twirling his mustache and combing his red fringe, and Don ran right over him without breaking stride.Pratt and Boston were down in a two-point, ready to block him into the next town, and he leapt, soared, came down lightly on the other side while they stood and gaped and scratched their heads like monkeys.