Creeps (10 page)

A woman's suddenly standing in the doorway and she's nothing like the worn, drawn-out wife and mother he was expecting, and she's wearing a grey cardigan and jeans with holes in the knees and eyeliner and her teeth are perfect.

“Mrs. Avery?” his father says.

She nods. “Yes.”

“I'm Calvin Pumphrey and this here's Wayne. He goes to school with your boy, Pete.”

She takes in his father's cheek. “Peter, yes.”

His dad touches his bruise like he's just as surprised as Pete's mother to find it there. “You
wouldn't say it by looking at him, but Wayne's got a hell of a slapshot.”

Mrs. Avery tries smiling while his father says how sorry he is to have shown up unannounced and holds out his hand and what choice does Pete's mom have but to shake it?

Wayne holds out his hand too and Mrs. Avery grabs it and her grip is soft and warm like fresh bread and she says, “Weren't you one of the wise men in the pageant last year?”

“I brought frankincense.”

“You tripped.”

“Costume was too big.”

“Upset the manger,” his father says.

Mrs. Avery puts her hands in the pockets of her cardigan because she must be cold with the door open, and says, “Stole the show.”

Another voice then, a man's. “Who is it, Maureen?”

“Mr. Pumphrey and his son, Wayne,” she says over her shoulder.

“Who?”

“Come see for yourself.”

Wayne imagines two cartridges being loaded into the chamber, then Mr. Avery's grin, his quick steps up the basement stairs. Bury them in the basement, most likely.

Suddenly Pete's new dad is standing there and
he's shorter than his wife and smaller boned; he's wearing a V-neck sweater and slippers and he's clean-shaven. “Hello,” he says.

Wayne can't find any tear tattoo.

More handshakes and his dad explains the bruise again and then he and his father are invited in and led to a room off the kitchen where there are floor-to-ceiling windows and a crackling fire and a bearskin rug. Wayne sits on a leather sofa with his father while Mr. Avery settles into an armchair and Mrs. Avery wonders out loud why she's neglected to offer them tea and something to eat.

“Don't go to any trouble,” his dad says, but Mrs. Avery flicks her wrist and is gone.

Quiet for a moment, then Mr. Avery looks at Wayne and says, “No school today?”

Wayne shakes his head and imagines popping in the fire like an ember.

His father clears his throat and sits forward and says: “That's why we're here.”

“Oh?”

“No sense in beating around the bush, is there?”

Mr. Avery grips the arms of his chair like a nervous flier.

“Apparently your boy's been giving mine a hard time and you can see how small he is, so it's a bit unfair.”

Mr. Avery looks over but doesn't say anything.

His father says, “Tell him, Wayne.”

Wayne's just about to, but then Mrs. Avery walks back in carrying a plate of sweets, which she sets down on the coffee table in front of him and his father before making her way back over to her husband. Pete's second dad moves his hand and she sits on the arm of the chair and says, “It'll be a few minutes for the tea.”

“Thank you,” his father says, grabbing a snowball. He looks at Wayne. “Say thank you.”

Wayne does, then takes a Rice Krispie square and sets it on his lap and what time is it—does anyone know? Couldn't The Meat walk in at any minute?

His dad's trying to swallow what's in his mouth and talk at the same time and what he's saying is: “Donna Hiscock was staring out her window this morning and saw a bunch of boys picking on Wayne here and one of them, the ringleader, was your boy, Pete—Peter, excuse me.”

“Who was staring out their window?” Mr. Avery says, followed by Pete's mom saying, “
Our
Peter?” and then Mr. Avery going, “Did you say ringleader?”

“That's what Wayne told me.”

The Meat's parents exchange glances and then Mr. Avery says, “You're sure about this?”

“What did Peter
do
?” The Meat's mom says. “He's very sure. Aren't you, Wayne?”

Wayne imagines the looks from the girls
standing beside the water fountain when word gets out. The boys, too: smoking and pointing and flicking their lit cigarettes and calling him “rat,” and he can already feel the weight of Pete and Harvey and Bobby and Kenny as he's being pinned face first into the snow.
Now hump it, Pumphrey. Thatta boy. Faster.

“Wayne?”
his father says.

Wayne looks up with a start and his Rice Krispie square falls on the floor, so he picks it up and blows on it and puts it back on his lap and says that, Yes, he's sure, then an ember shoots out of the fire and lands on the hardwood and Mr. Avery gets up and stomps on it as if it might burn the house down and then he goes over and grabs a poker and stokes the flames despite there already being enough heat to melt the skin off their faces.

Mrs. Avery says, “Would someone
please
tell me what's going on?”

Pete's second father turns around to face his wife, the poker still in his hand, making Wayne wonder if the V-neck sweater and slippers and neat haircut are all a front for what he
really
has in mind … to bludgeon them to death with the smouldering poker.

“Peter's been bullying Wayne,” Mr. Avery says.

Pete's mom looks over at Wayne and his father like she doesn't remember having invited them in,
then sort of laughs and says, “There must be some mistake.”

Mr. Avery finally puts the poker down and goes back over to the chair, but he doesn't sit, preferring instead to rest a hand on his wife's shoulder. He looks at Wayne and says, “How long's it been going on?”

“This doesn't make any sense,” Mrs. Avery says. “He's been so good,” to which her husband replies, “There now, Maureen, there now.”

“Tell them, Wayne,” his dad says.

Pete's mom looks on the verge of tears, then the kettle starts whistling and Mr. Avery wonders if she wouldn't mind going and making the tea and taking the young one with her because he needs to have a private word with Mr. Pumphrey and not to worry because he'll fill her in on everything later.

Pete's mom heads off, and Wayne's father squeezes his thigh and tells him to go too, so Wayne follows her into the kitchen and stands beside the table, gripping the back of a chair.

“Sit,” she tells him.

He does.

She makes tea and sets everything on a wooden tray and leaves, then comes back and puts what's left in front of Wayne and says, “Don't be shy.”

Wayne takes a cup and adds milk and sugar and stirs and then rests the spoon beside his Rice Krispie square.

“Peter would eat the whole tray if I let him,” Mrs. Avery says.

Wayne takes a bite and strains to hear the words coming from the other room and they're mostly jumbled, but a few he makes out:
youngster, neglected, resentment, fresh start
—”

The Meat's mom is saying something.

“Sorry?” he says.

“What's he done? I asked.”

Wayne takes another bite and imagines The Meat walking in and seeing him there. A lot worse than eating yellow snow then, he bets.

Another word seeps into the kitchen.
Therapist
. Then another.
Happier
.

“I'd hate to get him in trouble,” Wayne says. “Don't worry about that.”

“It was nothing at first,” Wayne says at last. “Some name-calling. Drawings taped to my locker.”

“Drawings?”

“Some were funny … others not so much— What time will he be home because sometimes the cafeteria food's so bad no one will stick around.”

“He rarely comes home for lunch. If
cardboard
was on the menu, he'd eat it.”

Silence.

“Go on, Wayne. Don't be afraid.”

He picks a Rice Krispie off his square and puts it in his mouth. Grips the handle of his cup. “Pushing
started later. Tripping in the cafeteria. Charley horses. Snowballs whipped at me. Sometimes I'd have to eat yellow snow or lie on my stomach and …”

“Yes, Wayne?”

“I'd rather not say.”

A long time passes, then Mrs. Avery says, “You must think Peter's mean.”

Wayne looks away.

She reaches out and pats the back of his hand and says she's sorry and Wayne wonders why she should be sorry because of something her son did.

More words from the other room—his father's:
weaker, writing, different
.

“Sometimes he does bad things but he's not a bad person,” Pete's mom says. “I'll talk to him. He listens to me.”

Wayne squeezes his cup and he goes to speak, but then stops himself.

“What?” Mrs. Avery says.

“Naw, nothing.”

“Tell me.”

She waits.

Finally, Wayne goes, “Everyone says that Pete had a tough start and that Mr. Avery's not his real dad and I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the first one and I hope it isn't rude to ask.”

Pete's mom holds Wayne's stare for a moment, then she sits back with her arms folded across
her chest and tries to see beyond the frost on the window. After a very long time, she says, “It's awful the way people talk.” She pauses. “Peter's real father left and neither of us misses him.”

Laughter from the other room then and a door being pushed open and a voice shouting, “What's for lunch?” and Wayne has to grip the table to keep from falling off his chair.

Mr. Avery is talking and he must be shouting because Wayne can hear every word, and what he says is for Pete to forget about lunch and to sit his ass down because there's something that needs addressing and does he know who the man on the sofa is?

Then Mrs. Avery's hand is on top of his and she's asking Wayne if he's all right but there's no spit in his mouth and his throat is closed over, so how can he answer?

“It's Mr. Pumphrey,” Mr. Avery says from the other room. “His boy's Wayne.”

A long silence.

“Something you want to tell me, Peter?”

Now Pete's mom is saying something to Wayne about following her into the living room and not to worry because soon everything will be sorted out.

Wayne and Pete are sitting side by side on the sofa. Pete's mother is in the armchair while her husband paces the floor. Wayne's dad is beside the fire, the dancing flames projecting onto one side of his face like a silent movie.

Quiet save for Mr. Avery's slippers scuffing along the hardwood, and the still-crackling fire.

Wayne focuses on his own lap.

Pete The Meat's got his arms folded across his chest.

Mr. Avery stops pacing and looks at his son and says, “We're still waiting, Peter.”

Silence.

“You're upsetting your mother.”

Pete's mom slides forward so that her bum is half off the chair. “Tell us, hon. Please.”

More quiet. Then a log collapses on itself, sending up a cascade of sparks and embers, which no one can resist staring into. Afterwards, Pete says, “It was all meant in good fun. Didn't mean to hurt him.”

“Well you
did,
Peter,” Mr. Avery says. “You're twice his size for God's sake. What were you thinking?”

Pete doesn't answer.

“You owe him and his father an apology, and you'd better bloody well mean it, because your mother and I are really trying here, buddy, and
you're almost a man now, so you ought to start acting like it.”

Pete pauses. “I'm sorry.”

“Tell
Wayne,
not me.”

Wayne feels The Meat's eyes burning through his skin, exposing his insides, and he wishes he and his father could toss this day into the fire and watch it burn to ash and get into their car and just drive away.

“I'm sorry, Wayne,” Pete The Meat says. “I guess me and the boys went too far.”

“Good,” says Mrs. Avery.

“His father, too,” Mr. Avery says.

Pete turns to Wayne's dad and says, “Sorry, Mr. Pumphrey. We didn't mean to upset or scare him or anything. He's a good sport, Wayne is.”

Wayne's father nods.

Pete's mom says to her husband, “Shouldn't they shake on it?”

“Yes, good idea, that's the gentlemanly thing to do.” Then, “Whenever you're ready, boys.”

Wayne lifts his head and looks over at Pete and sees that The Meat is already holding out his hand.

“Go on, Wayne,” his dad tells him.

Wayne grips Pete's hand and it's huge, the fingers like metal, and they latch on and squeeze and if not for being in front of everyone, he'd cry out.

“Friends from now on,” Mrs. Avery says, to
which her husband replies, “Yes, friends,” while Pete The Meat keeps squeezing and grinning, and it suddenly dawns on Wayne what's beneath that smile, and what it is, is:
You're dead, Pumphrey … coming to my house. Fuckin' DEAD!