Blue Moon (13 page)

Next he took a shower. He turned the water on as hot as he could stand it. He scrubbed himself clean and washed his hair, then leaned against the tile until the water went from scalding to warm to lukewarm to freezing cold. He felt sad; he didn’t know exactly why. He didn’t understand why he was snooping through his own house.

He went down to the basement. His father had put a Ping-Pong table and dartboard down there, and his parents were always encouraging Belinda and him to have their friends over. Nothing depressed T.J. more than the idea of his parents fixing up the basement so he and Belinda could have parties there. Maybe his parents thought it would keep them off the street, out of parking lots, away from fast cars. The only kids who had parties in their parents’ basements were stone-cold drags.

On the other hand, a Ping-Pong party right here with chips and soda and ice-cream sundaes and spin-the-bottle while his parents were out of the room would be just the thing for Belinda. Perfecto. T.J. would have to suggest it to her. She’d be the hit of study hall.

He heard the back door close and his mother’s and Josie’s footsteps in the kitchen.

“T.J., are you home?” his mother’s voice called.

“Down here,” he yelled.

“Dinner in half an hour. What are you doing in the basement?”

“Playing darts,” he called, just to see if she’d come to investigate. He leaned against the Ping-Pong table, waiting. When she didn’t appear on the basement stairs, he went back to snooping. He’d always thought his mom was pretty cool, definitely smart, but she was losing it. Playing
darts
? If she’d fall for that, she’d fall for any wimp excuse. The next time he felt like taking off for Fall River with Chris and Sean, he’d tell his mom he and the boys were washing cars for charity.

Six unvarnished pine cupboards stretched the length of the room.
Their fake Colonial wrought-iron hinges and door handles were black, arrow-shaped. He remembered being scared of them when he was little. They had the same evil shape as Satan’s spear-point tail, the one pictured in his prayer book.

He could still see that picture of Satan: pointy red face, sharp beard, glittery black eyes, hooves instead of feet, a loincloth that had reminded T.J. of a diaper, that long red whip of a tail with a barbed arrow at the end. In the picture, the tail seemed to be snaking out of the diaper, and T.J. had thought Satan had a monster cock, red and dangerous, ready to jab any innocent girl who walked by.

The devil’s-tail door hinges had kept T.J. out of these cupboards; right now, about to explore something totally unfamiliar in his own house, T.J. felt strange and wild. He stared at the hinges. Satan, guardian of the basement cupboards. T.J. opened the first one: a stash of booze.

His parents hardly ever drank, except at Christmas. Not like at his grandparents’ house, where the bottles were in plain sight, full today, empty tomorrow. Of course, his grandparents never seemed affected by liquor. They were always the same: kind of grumpy in a nice way, always trying to joke, laid-back old people. They were more likely to have a shelf full of liquor than his parents. T.J., who had already drunk from a keg and bought beer on his own, felt a little shocked.

Next cupboard: a pile of records. He read some titles:
Super Session, Concert for Bangladesh, Sweet Baby James, Bridge over Troubled Waters, Tapestry, Imagine.
Nothing too unfamiliar; his parents had pretty much the same goofy shit on CDs now. He stared at Carole King’s album cover. Ugly hair, pretty tits.

Looking through these cupboards made T.J. feel like a detective. What if his parents secretly smoked pot, kept their goods down here? His parents weren’t that old; they had told him they’d tried it once in high school.

Maybe the hinges were no accident, maybe his parents were Satanists, like his cousin Sean. Sean said Satan gave you whatever you wanted, but you had to give something to him first. Sean had sacrificed his sister’s baby pictures and an entire side of beef his parents had bought at the food co-op. Steaks, roasts, ribs, chopped
beef: half a cow. He’d hauled the packages out of the freezer in the middle of the night, borrowed his father’s truck to cart them to the harbor, and fed them to the black water. He had taken Emma’s baby pictures to Minturn Ledge Light and set them afire. In return, Satan was going to get Sean his own Harley and get him laid.

“Yeah, right,” T.J. said out loud. T.J. had never gone for the Satan shit; he thought it was totally bogus. Sean was a fat kid, and Satan worship was the only way he could feel tough. In real life he was a spineless dweeb: he had made fun of the Deaf Child sign right in front of Josie, just so T.J.’s asshole neighbors would stop laughing at him.

But here, opening the basement cupboards, T.J. felt totally, one-hundred-percent convinced his parents were Satan worshippers.

It would explain everything: that distant look in his mother’s eyes, the way she never seemed to be all there anymore—nothing ever made her really happy, the way she used to get. Now his father always itched to go fishing, just to get away from home, and T.J. couldn’t entirely blame him, considering how miserable everyone was all the time. Maybe Satan had the family in his clutches, was dragging them all down to hell.

Ready to open the third cupboard, T.J. would not have been surprised to find dead babies, boiled kittens in jars, chopped-off fingers and toes. He yanked open the door.

“Holy shit,” T.J. said. Boxes of bullets. Sunny yellow boxes stacked one on top of another filled with hundreds and hundreds of bullets. T.J. opened one box, and then another. He put a bullet in his pocket. He knew his father had a rifle and a handgun. He had seen the rifle onboard the
Norboca
in April, and his father had told him it was there in case of emergency.

What the hell kind of emergency could a rifle solve one hundred miles at sea? Maybe his father was expecting a deranged whale. Or maybe he was afraid the men would mutiny, seize the helm, hijack the boat to the Bahamas.

His father had given him a man-versus-nature lecture, about sharks and hurricanes and the Bermuda Triangle, then he’d eased into a man-versus-man lecture, about drug smugglers and gunrunners
and modern-day pirates. T.J. had listened without saying one word, because he’d figured the real reason his father had a rifle onboard was that if the day arrived when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d have the means to blow himself away. None of the other reasons made any sense. Fucking pirates.

Then, arranging the bullet boxes the way he’d found them, T.J. saw the snake. He jumped about a mile. “Hey!”

He was going to call his mother, but then he changed his mind. His mom had enough to handle. T.J. would scope out the snake himself. Coiled up, it was hiding at the back of the cupboard, in the shadows. T.J. grabbed a Ping-Pong paddle, pushed some boxes aside.

“Jesus,” he said. It was his father’s handgun, not a snake. “You big asshole,” he said to himself, reaching for the gun.

He wondered whether it was loaded. He didn’t know how to tell. He held it in his right hand, pointed it at the floor. Then, he couldn’t in a million years have explained why, except maybe from some macho instinct he’d picked up from cop shows or Nintendo, he pulled the trigger. Click.

“Idiot!” he said out loud, but inside he felt charged up, thrilled, because he had known—really known for sure—that the thing wasn’t loaded. He’d just known.

“What doing, T.J.?”

He spun around.

“Hey, Josie,” he said, hiding the gun behind him.

“What doing?” She had the cutest little smile on her face; she ran toward him, trying to look behind his back, like she thought he was playing a game. T.J. pivoted, rooted to that one spot, while she grabbed at his arm. They circled around in a crazy dance. “What have? What have?”

He held the gun in his left hand and gave her a push with his right. She stopped still, like he’d slapped her. Her mouth dropped open. T.J. hadn’t pushed her hard, but he knew he’d hurt her feelings really bad. She looked more surprised than anything. She’d expect Belinda to treat her like dirt, but she trusted T.J.

“Shit,” T.J. said. He used his body to shield Josie from seeing him slide the gun back into the cupboard. He slammed the door,
then turned back to Josie. Her mouth was just starting to quiver, betrayal written all over her wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” he said. “C’mere.”

She just stood there, looking at the floor.

He sat on the floor, patted his knee. “C’mere.”

She wouldn’t budge. He knew she wouldn’t start to howl, the way she did when Belinda was mean or when she couldn’t make people understand her. Everyone thought Josie was a little weakling, a spoiled-brat crybaby, but T.J. knew that wasn’t true.

Her bad screams were how she communicated at certain times. With T.J., she didn’t need them. T.J. could always get through to her. Right now, though, her feelings were hurt, and he knew he couldn’t rush her. She’d come through when she damn well felt like it.

“Danger,” T.J. said, pointing at the third cupboard. He reached out to touch the handle and slapped his own hand hard.

“Ouch!” Josie said.

“Yes, ouch if you go near that door. You got that, Josie? Danger.”

“Danger in there,” Josie said. Suddenly she looked psyched, like she’d forgotten T.J.’s rebuke, and because she could sense he was asking her to keep a secret.

“Dinner, you guys!” their mom called from upstairs.

“Come on,” T.J. said. Josie clasped her arms around his neck, and he carried her up to the kitchen. He put one finger to his lips. “Ssssh,” he reminded Josie.

She nodded her head.

“Any bull’s-eyes?” his mom asked as soon as he walked through the door.

“Huh?”

“I thought you were playing darts.”

“Oh. Yeah, a couple.”

“A couple is pretty good. Be careful playing darts with your sister around.”

Was she kidding? God, he didn’t want to believe his mother really thought he’d been playing darts. It was every teenage boy’s dream to put things over on his mom, but this was radical. It only made it worse, her telling him to be extra careful around Josie.

His mom dished out helpings of baked sole for him, Josie, Belinda, and herself. She had a frown in her eyes, as if she were thinking of something nasty. Belinda was babbling about some great song she heard on the radio today.

“Ever thought of having a Ping-Pong party?” T.J. asked her. “Downstairs would be perfect.”

“Why haven’t you ever had one?” Belinda asked suspiciously.

“I’m planning a dart party. If it’s okay with Mom.”

“A dart party?” his mother asked, raising her eyebrows. “Is that what you said? A dart party?” She was beginning to get it.

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn’t mind a Ping-Pong party,” Belinda said carefully, warming to the idea. God, you could put anything over on her.

“They’re really fun,” T.J. said. “You could make it even a little more special by telling everyone to wear polka dots. Kind of a Ping-Pong theme.”

“And for your dart party,” his mom said, “you could have everyone wear pointy little hats and pointy shoes, and you could tell everyone they needed a password to get by the front door, like ‘What’s the point?’ They’d have to say it to me or I wouldn’t let them in.”

“Awesome,” T.J. said. His mother had this wise-guy smile on her face, like she wasn’t quite having fun, but for the moment, at least, she wasn’t miserable.

“I don’t even know how to play Ping-Pong,” Belinda said.

“Hey, I’ll teach you,” T.J. said. “If you’ll let me come to your party.”

“Are you faking me out? Mom, is he?” Belinda asked.

“Yes,” Mom said.

T.J. and his friends always joked about “Fantasy Moms,” the kind of moms who still looked young, dressed in jeans and T-shirts instead of teacher-style stuff, wore their hair loose instead of done up, were cool. You never thought of your own mom as a Fantasy Mom, but you didn’t mind if your friends did. And T.J. knew that a lot of his friends thought of his mom that way.

Josie had stopped eating. She pulled out her right hearing aid, fiddled with the control.

“What’s wrong?” their mother asked, dropping her fork to lean clear across the table.

“It’s broken,” Josie said. Only the words came out sounding like, “Eh bwokah.”

“Here,” Cass said. She wiped her hands on her napkin, then took the hearing aid out of Josie’s hand. To T.J., Josie’s hearing aids had always looked disgusting, like blobs of shapeless flesh. He didn’t know how Josie could stand them. The sight of one out of her ear made him gag. He put down his fork and concentrated on not throwing up.

Josie, tapping her left ear, started to whimper. “Eh, eh, eh,” she said urgently, like a hurt puppy. “Eh, eh, eh.”

“Oh, please!” Belinda said.

“Eh, eh, eh, eh …”

“Hang on, Josie,” their mom said. “Please don’t start that. I’m trying as hard as I can. Just a sec … Jesus, just hold on a minute.”

T.J. had the feeling their mother felt she was alone at the table, under her own pressure to fix the hearing aid before Josie launched into a bad fit. The realization filled him with rage. He felt tempted to bolt, leave them all alone, let Josie throw one of her super whoppers.

“Eh, eh, eh,” Josie went, getting louder, screwing her face into a knot. “Want it back! Want it back!” She clapped her left ear over and over, as if trying to clear it, like a diver who’d gone too deep.

“Please, Josie!” his mother said, a horrible pleading tone in her voice. “You’ll hurt your ear. Stop!”

T.J. still felt like splitting, but instead he took Josie’s left hand. “Hey,” he said sharply. “Cut it out.”

“Eh, eh, eh …”

“I said
cut it out.
Mom’ll fix it.”

Josie’s face stayed twisted and scared, but she stopped her whimpering. He stared at her for a minute, until her face relaxed. Then he stuck out his tongue, making her laugh.

“Battery,” his mom said, dashing to her desk and back. She unscrewed a piece of the hearing aid with a miniature screwdriver, inserted a tiny silver battery, and wiggled the hearing aid back into Josie’s ear.

Josie nodded without speaking and resumed eating.