Ashes (28 page)

Dexter opened the pocketknife and went to work. This one was a relief. The rabbit had started out scared and stayed scared, paid for loving him without a whimper. Dexter was blind from tears by the time he finished.

He buried the carcass between the roots of a big oak tree. Right next to old Turd Factory. Dexter washed his hands in the creek. It was almost dinnertime. He turned and walked back through the clearing, past the depressions of soil where he had buried the other animals.

His own little pet cemetery. He had seen that movie. It had given him the creeps, but not badly enough to make him give up his hobby. Plus, by the time he was finished with them, no chunk was big enough to stand up by itself, much less walk.

Three cats were underground here, two of them compliments of dear old Grandma. She'd given him the rabbit as an Easter present. He'd swiped a rooster from a caved-in coop up the road, but he didn't think he'd be pulling any more of those jobs. The rooster had spurred him, plus the dumb bird had squawked and clucked loud enough to wake the dead. There was a box turtle buried somewhere around. But that had mostly been a mercy killing. Mom kept pouring beer into its water.

Same with the goldfish. He told her he'd flushed them down the toilet. Goldfish were boring, though. They didn't scream or whimper. They didn't make him want to throw up while they bled. They were too dumb to love.

Dexter giggled at the thought of a goldfish coming back from the dead and haunting him. He'd like to see that in a movie someday.
The Revenge of the Zombie Fish
. He wiped his eyes dry and headed down the trail to the house.

Mom was boiling some macaroni when he came in the back door. She wiped at her nose as she opened a can of cheese sauce. The sight of her moist fingers on the can opener killed Dexter's appetite. He sat down at the table and toyed with an empty milk carton.

She must have passed out in her clothes again. They were wrinkled and smelled like rancid lard. "Where you been, honey?" she asked.

"Out playing."

"Where?"

"Out," he said. "You know."

She slid a plate of steaming macaroni in front of him. Dexter could see dried egg yolk clinging to the edge of the plate. "How was school?"

"The usual."

"Hmm. What you going to be for Halloween?"

“I don’t know. I’m getting too old for dress-up and make-believe.”

“Whatever.” She opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a dozen cans of beer, a wilted stalk of celery, and something in a Tupperware dish that had a carpet of green stuff across the top.

Dexter watched as she cracked a beer. She was red. Her hands were red, her face was red, her eyes were red.

"You not hungry?" she asked.

"No. Maybe later."

"Well, you need to eat. You'll get me in trouble with Social Services again."

"To hell with them."

"Dexter! If your Grandma heard that kind of language—"

–
the old bag would probably slap me upside the head
.

But the good thing about Grandma, she always felt guilty afterwards. She would go out and buy something nice to make up for it. Like the pocketknife or the BB gun. Or a new pet.

He didn't mind if Grandma made his ears ring. At least with her, there was profit in it. With Mom or Dad, all he got was a scar to show for it. Maybe Grandma loved him most. He picked up his fork and scooted some noodles around.

"That's a good boy," Mom said. She bent and kissed him on top of the head. Her breath smelled like a casket full of molded grain. "Your eye's looking better. Swelling ought to be down by tomorrow. At least enough for you to go to school."

Dexter smiled weakly and shoved some macaroni in his mouth. He chewed until she left the room. The telephone rang. Mom must have finally had it reconnected.

"Hello?" he heard her say.

Dexter looked at her. He could tell by her crinkled forehead that Dad was on the other end, trying to worm his way back into the bed he'd paid for with the sweat of his goddamned brow, under the roof he'd laid with his own two motherfucking hands. And no snotty-eyed bitch had a right to keep him out of his own goddamned house and away from his only son. Now that it was getting toward winter—

"You know you're not supposed to be calling me," she said into the phone. She bit her lip as Dad responded with what was most likely a stream of cusswords.

That was the problem with Dad. No subtlety. If only he'd play it smooth and easy, pretending to care about her, he'd be back in no time. And after a few months of acting, family life could go back to the way it was before. Back to normal.

But the bastard couldn't control himself. Why couldn't he just shut up and pretend to love her? It was easy. Everybody else was doing it.

Riley Baldwin down the road said that was the secret. The word "love."

"Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em," he always said, with all the wisdom of an extra year and two more inches of height. "Works like magic."

Said love had gotten him a hand up under Tammy Lynn Goolsby's dress. Inside her panties, even. And Grandma said she loved Dexter. Of course, that was different, that kind of love gave you presents. Love got you what you wanted, if you used it right, even if it hurt sometimes.

"Don't you dare set foot near this place or I'll call the cops," Mom screeched into the phone. Her face turned from red to a bruised shade of purple.

She stuttered into the phone a couple of times and slammed the handset down, then drained the last half of her beer. As she went past him to get to the refrigerator, she didn't notice that Dexter hadn't eaten his dinner. He slipped away to his tiny cluttered bedroom and closed the door. He stayed there until Mom had time to pass out again. He fell asleep listening to her snores and the racket of the television.

Nobody said a word about his black eye at school the next day. Riley was waiting for him when he got off the bus. Riley had skipped. Dexter wished he could, too, but he didn't want Mom to get another visit from the Social Services people, showing up in their squeaky shoes and perfume and acting like they knew how to run a family they didn't belong to.

"Got my .22 hid in the woods," Riley said, showing the gaps in his teeth as he grinned. His eyes gleamed under the shade of his Caterpillar ball cap.

"Cool, dude. Let me get my BB gun."

Riley waited by the back door. Dexter dropped his books in a pool of gray grease on the dining room table, then got his gun out of his room. Mom wasn't around. Maybe she'd gotten one of her boyfriends to make a liquor run to the county line. A note was stuck to the refrigerator, in Mom’s wobbly handwriting: “Stay out of trouble. Love you.”

Dexter joined Riley and they went into the woods. Riley retrieved his gun from where he had buried it under some leaves. He tapped his pocket and something rattled. "Got a half box of bullets."

"Killed anything with that yet?"

"Nope. But maybe I can get one of those stripedy-assed chipmunks."

"Them things are quick."

"Hey, a little blood sacrifice is all it takes."

"What do you mean?"

"Breaking it in right." Riley patted the barrel of the gun. "Making them pay for messing with me."

Riley led the way down the trail, through Dexter's pet cemetery and over the creek. Dexter followed in his buddy's footsteps, watching the tips of his own brown boots. October hung in scraps of yellow and red on the trees. The shadows of the trees grew longer and thicker as the sun slipped down the sky.

  Riley stopped after a few minutes of silent stalking. "What's up with your dad?" he asked.

"Not much. Same old."

"That must be a pain in the ass, seeing him every other weekend or so."

"Yeah. He ain't figured out the game."

"What game?"

"You know. Love. Like you said."

"Oh, yeah. Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em."

"If he played the game, we wouldn't have Social Services messing around all the time."

"Them sons of bitches are all alike. The cops, the truant officers, the principal. It don't matter what the fuck you do. They always get you anyway."

"I reckon so." Dexter's stomach was starting to hurt. He changed the subject. "What was it like, with Tammy Lynn?"

Riley's face stretched into a jack-o'-lantern leer and he thrust out his bony chest. "Hey, she'll let me do anything. All you got to do is love ‘em. I know how to reach 'em down deep."

"Did she let you....?"

Riley twiddled his fingers in the air, then held them to his nose and sniffed.

"What about the other stuff?" Dexter asked.

"That's next, buddy-row. As soon as I want it."

"Why don't you want to? I thought you said she'd do anything."

Riley's thick eyebrows lowered, shading the rage that glinted in his eyes. He turned and started back down the trail toward the creek. "Ain't no damned birds left to shoot. Your loud-assed yakking has scared them all away."

Dexter hurried after him. The edge of the sky was red and golden. The forest was darker now, and the moist evening air had softened the leaves under their feet. Mom would be waking up soon to start on her second drunk of the day.

They walked in silence, Riley hunched over with his rifle tilted toward the ground, Dexter trailing like a puppy that had been kicked by its master. It was nearly dark when they reached the clearing. Riley jumped over the creek and looked back. His eyes flashed, but his face was nothing but sharp shadows.

Dexter hurdled the creek, caving in a section of muddy bank and nearly sliding into the water. He grabbed a root with one hand and scrambled up on his elbows and knees, his belly on the rim of the bank. When he looked up, Riley was pointing the rifle at him. Dad had taught Dexter about gun safety, and the first rule, the main rule, was to never point a loaded gun at somebody. Even a dickwit like Riley ought to know that.

"You ever kill anybody?" Riley was wearing his jack-o'-lantern expression again, but this time the grin was full of jagged darkness.

"Kill anybody?" Dexter tried not to whimper. He didn't want Riley to know how scared he was.

"Blood sacrifice."

Riley was just crazy enough to kill him, to leave him out here leaking in the night, on the same ground where Dexter had carved up a dozen animals. Dexter tried to think of how Dad would handle this situation. "Quit screwing around, Riley."

"If I want to screw around, I'll do it with Tammy Lynn."

"I didn't mean nothing when I said that."

"I can get it any time I want it."

"Sure, sure," Dexter was talking too fast, but he couldn't stop the words. He focused on the tip of Riley’s boot, the scuffed leather and the smear of grease. "You know how to tell 'em. You’re the magic man."