All American Boy (23 page)

Uncle Axel's voice was suddenly behind him. Wally sat up quickly but didn't look around.

“We've set four plates,” Uncle Axel said, his voice soft and sticky. Still Wally wouldn't look around. He just sat there waiting, feeling the old man's voice drip on the back of his neck like the maple syrup Aunt Selma collected from the trees. “
Four
plates,” Uncle Axel was saying. “One for me, one for Aunt Selma, one for you, and one for … can you guess?”

“He's not real,” Wally said with as much conviction as he could muster. But he could feel his heart starting to pound harder.

“Whattya mean, he's not real? He's here with me right now. He's standing right here, right behind you.”

Wally's breath caught in his throat.

“Yep, he sure is. Your old pal Jacky Tricky.”

“He is not.”

“Turn around and see for yourself, chap. He's reaching out for you. He's smiling. He's got very white teeth, you know. So white I can see them in the dark. Turn around. Don'tcha want to see his white teeth? His white,
sharp
teeth?”

Wally wouldn't look. He was eight now, not five. Jacky Tricky wasn't real. He was just something Uncle Axel made up to scare little kids.

But just the same, Wally could picture him standing there behind him, just like Uncle Axel said he was.

“He wants to shake hands witcha,” he heard Uncle Axel say. “Can you feel his hand? He's reaching out for you, chap.”

No! He's not real!

“He's reaching out for you! His hand's almost on your neck. He's smilin', Walter! He's gettin' closer, and closer—”

No!

“… and
there!
He's gotcha!”

Something brushed the back of Wally's neck. He cried out, jumping up, stumbling, not looking back. He could hear Uncle Axel guffawing, slapping his leg. Wally ran straight into the house, the screen door whacking behind him. Aunt Selma, apron around her waist and looking as if she hadn't slept in twenty-seven years, clasped her hands together and said, “My heavens!”

Wally looked down at the table, panting for breath. Three plates.

Uncle Axel came in behind him. “Smells good, Sel.”

She looked from him over to Wally, then dismissed whatever she might have been going to say. “Wash your hands, Walter,” she told him simply.

Wally obeyed, then settled into his seat. Aunt Selma poured him some milk, then moved back to the stove. Uncle Axel sat down without washing his hands. He rested a fist beside his plate. Wally wouldn't look at him.

“Said he couldn't make it,” Uncle Axel whispered. “Said maybe he'd stop by and see you tonight.”

The old man winked. He moved his fist, leaving a black, oily smudge on the white tablecloth.

“Do you think he heard you?” Mom asks after Uncle Axel's eyes close again.

Wally shrugs. “I hope he did. I hope that's the last thing he hears before he dies.”

“Oh, Walter, you've got to respect the dead.”

“He's not dead yet.”

“But he will be soon.”

They're talking normally now, from opposite sides of Uncle Axel's bed. He's still making that gurgling sound.

“I think we should sit here,” Mom says, pulling over a pink Naugahyde chair with a puncture wound.

“Mom, I have other things to do. Other people to see.”

She looks up at him. “Oh, Walter, please let me just sit here for a while.”

“For what? To hold his hand? To tell him the Good Lord watches over him?”

Mom's eyes well up. “He's all I have left, Walter. The only family I have.”

Her son laughs. “Right. You keep saying that. So I don't count.”

“Walter, I didn't mean …” She looks at the old man in the bed. “It's just that he … he took us in when we had no one. When Rocky and I were just girls …”

Wally's furious. “Not because he wanted to. Not that he ever said one kind word to you in that entire time. You've told me, Mother, told me how he bullied you and your sister—”

“Walter, please, it's not right to speak ill when a man is dying.”

“Well, you stay if you want, but I'm not about to sit here and comfort him, not when he's
this close
to burning in hell.”

Uncle Axel makes a sound, a kind of burp. Somewhere down there among all the gurgling Wally thinks he recognizes his old voice, caught in his throat. They both watch the old man's face and his chest, to see if this is it. But he goes right on breathing, right on gurgling, eyes closed.

“Aunt Selma,” Wally asked, “there's no such thing as Jacky Tricky, right?”

She was tucking him into bed. She stopped and made a face, a tired little smile. She sat down on the bed and looked at the boy with her dark-ringed eyes.

“Uncle Axel been telling you stories again?”

He nodded, suddenly embarrassed.

“Don't pay him any mind, Walter,” she said. “Uncle Axel just likes to have fun with you.” She paused. “See, he doesn't know how to be with children. I guess that's because I could never give him any.”

“He's not real, right? Jacky Tricky?”

“Now hush,” Aunt Selma said, seeming too tired to go on. “Just stop thinking about all that.”

She stood up and bent over to turn off the lamp. In its soft light, Wally thought she looked beautiful. She might have been old and tired-looking but she was still beautiful. His mother had told him that Aunt Selma, when she was young, had traveled all over the country. Mom said that before Aunt Selma had married Uncle Axel, the family had called her a flapper. Her sister, Wally's grandmother, had gotten married and had children, but Aunt Selma just kept flapping around. Wally didn't know what “flapper” meant, and Mom didn't quite know, either. “That was many years ago,” his mother told him. “Ladies can't be flappers anymore.”

Aunt Selma switched off the light. “I hope you'll understand about Uncle Axel someday, Walter. He just doesn't know about children.” She kissed him, unseen wet lips on his cheek. “Good night.”

Her perfume lingered in the dark.

Wally was almost asleep when the door opened again, the light from the hallway slicing the darkness of his room in a white column. In the doorway stood the silhouette of Uncle Axel, his shadow falling across Wally's bed.

“'Night, chap.”

“'Night.” Wally's voice was tight. He pulled the sheet up to his chin and held it there. His toes curled up under his sheets.

“And Jacky Tricky says good night too. He's in the window, you know, waving to you. Turn around and say 'night, Jacky.”

The window was behind the headboard of Wally's bed. The boy didn't budge.

“Aw, poor Jacky,” Uncle Axel said. “Don't get him angry now, chap. He's just a little guy. He can fit right there on the window box. But he's got
very
sharp teeth.”

Wally watched as the door closed, the column of white light on the floor narrowing then disappearing altogether.

For a long time he lay awake. The sheets were very hot, and he was sweating, but he didn't dare kick them off. Somehow he felt safer with them across his legs. Behind him, he knew the window was open a crack. He could hear the crickets. He lay waiting, listening for any sound.

And then he heard it: a slight scratching at the window. His muscles tensed. He told himself that he was eight years old now, a big boy, and that Jacky Tricky
was not real
. Aunt Selma said he wasn't, and Mom did, too. Uncle Axel was the only one who said he was, and Dad said Uncle Axel was a
bastard
. Wally wasn't any more sure of what a bastard was than he was a flapper, but Dad had said it with such force that
whatever
it meant, Uncle Axel was
it
, and Jacky Tricky just couldn't be real.

But the scratching kept on. Wally imagined long, childish fingers tapping the glass, agile little feet jostling for balance on the window box. He could see those long fingers slipping under the crack, trying to raise the window, a hideous grin on his baby face as he struggled. Wally knew that Jacky Tricky had a wide grin, with lots of saliva running over his long teeth. He saw him just as he was, and no matter what anyone said, Wally knew Jacky Tricky was real, and there in the dark he was even more real than Mom or Dad or Aunt Selma. Wally knew that the little imp was right there at the window behind him, that he wanted to get his claws on his throat and bite him with those long sharp teeth of his.

And then he'd laugh. Wally knew he'd laugh. Sometimes, early in the morning before he got up, when the sun was just starting to rise and the air was orange and pink, Wally could hear Jacky Tricky laughing out in the woods. A high, long laugh that reached a crescendo and then trailed off. It wasn't a bird. It was Jacky Tricky, and Wally was sure of it. It was Jacky Tricky, running wild through the woods.

Uncle Axel had told him that Jacky Tricky was a lost boy, abandoned by his parents when he was only two, left in the middle of the woods to be raised by the bears and the foxes and the rats and the hawks, and then the devil let him live forever. No one knew how long he'd been out there in the woods, but he was there. Uncle Axel knew him. He'd made friends with him. Trouble was, Jacky Tricky just didn't like little kids—except to
eat
.

“He's been known to have 'em for breakfast with a side of extra-crisp bacon,” Uncle Axel had said, many times.

Wally figured Jacky didn't like kids because he was
jealous
of them. He hated kids who still had a house to live in, and good food, and a mother and a father. Sometimes, during the day, when Wally played with his Matchbox cars or read his comic books, he felt sorry for Jacky Tricky. Sometimes he thought if he could only talk to him, tell him that he'd be his friend, then he wouldn't hate him anymore. Wally would tell him that his own parents fought a lot, and that sometimes he thought they didn't want him around. Sometimes he thought they'd like nothing better than to lose
him
in the woods. He would tell Jacky Tricky that sometimes he wanted to run away. He'd tell Jack Tricky that he wished he had a brother, somebody to play with, somebody he could talk to about all this stuff. Maybe Jacky Tricky could be his brother, and then he wouldn't be scared of him anymore.

But those were his thoughts during the day.

At night, Wally's thoughts were very different.

He heard the scratching again, and he began to whimper. He didn't want to cry out because Uncle Axel would come in and call him a sissy. He didn't want to cry out because he was eight years old now, a big boy who didn't believe in Jacky Tricky anymore. But he couldn't help it: there was the scratching again. It was him. He
knew
it was him, standing there, smiling with his crazy eyes, saying, “Turn around, Wally. Turn around and see me. Turn around and see that I'm real.”

Wally began to cry. He bolted upright, and with a hard thrust he spun around in bed. And there, at the window, was indeed the face of Jacky Tricky—sharp teeth, claws, scratching. Wally screamed, and felt a surge zap through him, like the time he'd stuck a pin into the electrical socket. He screamed again, and again, jumping on the bed, and the whole room went white.

Aunt Selma's arms were suddenly around him, pulling him down, but not before he saw the bushy tail of a squirrel wave good-bye as it jumped back out into the night from the window-box.

“Axel, you've frightened the boy terribly bad,” Aunt Selma said, her voice shaky. Wally crushed his face into her soft busom. She still smelled of that sweet perfume. His nose was in the opening of her robe, and it slipped down to the spot where her breasts parted. There he rested, heaving with sobs.

Uncle Axel stood over them, shirtless, lots of fuzz. He wore a silly polka-dotted nightcap on his head. He chuckled. “'Kay, chap, tell ya what. I'm gonna go get my shotgun.”

Wally peered over Aunt Selma's shoulder. He watched as Uncle Axel went into his room, and then came back carrying his big hunting rifle. He held it up to the boy. “See?” He walked out through the kitchen. Wally heard the screen door bang behind him.

He wasn't crying now, just heaving. Aunt Selma gestured toward the window and Wally looked. Uncle Axel was out there, the moonlight bright upon him. He disappeared into the bushes.

In a few minutes they heard a bang, a loud shot, and Aunt Selma whispered in Wally's ear, “There.” He suddenly felt very silly that this whole charade had been enacted for him, but the sense of relief was stronger. Aunt Selma tucked him back into bed, and suggested she leave the light on.

“No, Aunt Selma,” Wally said. “I'm okay.”

She left the door ajar. Wally heard the screen door slam as Uncle Axel came back inside, and then he heard the door to their room shut. He heard them whispering, a hard, intense sound, as if they were arguing. Then he heard their door open again and Uncle Axel stomp into the kitchen. Cabinet doors were opened and closed with bangs. Then it was quiet.

Wally's breathing began to relax. He stared at the soft blue light that slipped into his room from the half-opened door. A black shadow moved into it. Wally raised his eyes. Uncle Axel stood in the doorway.

“You awake, chap?”

“Yes,” Wally whispered, not wanting Aunt Selma to hear.

“Got somethin' to tell ya.” Uncle Axel's soft words seemed to echo in the dark. “I
missed
.”

“Okay, Walter,” his mother's saying. “I suppose we can go.”

“Finally.”

His mother stands, not looking down again at the old man. “They couldn't have children, you know. I think it was always an ache in Aunt Selma's heart.”

Wally just grunts, holding the door open for his mother. He lets it clack shut behind him.

Outside in the hall the lights seem to have gotten even brighter. Wally blinks against them, not knowing why they hurt his eyes so much. His mother is looking around for the nurse's station, trying to find the doctor. Wally waits by the old man's door, looking back in through the little glass window.