Marvel and a Wonder (3 page)

There was the awkward pause again. “Sir?”

“I can pay you in eggs,” he joked.

“We take cash, check, or charge.”

“No eggs?” Jim asked with a laugh. “How about hens?”

“No sir.”

“Well then, we’ll see what we can do. End of the month, you say?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Falls. We here at Indiana Light and Power thank you. Have a pleasant day.”

Fifteen minutes later the telephone rang again but the grandfather decided he would not answer it. It kept ringing, making his hands shake. Worried it might be his daughter, he broke, and then stood to angrily grab the phone from its cradle on the wall.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello?”

He did not recognize the voice. It was a female, someone friendly.

“Is this Mr. Falls?”

“It is.”

“Mr. James Falls?”

“The same.”

“Rural Route Road 20, Mount Holly, Indiana? Is that correct?”

“It is. Who’d like to know?”

“Mr. Falls, my name is Mary, I work in the office of Donadio and Sons, a law firm in Manhattan.”

“Excuse me, miss, but I don’t know anyone in Manhattan.”

“No? Well, as I was saying—”

“Are you a collection agency? Because I just told the light and power company I’m spent. Can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. Maybe you never heard that one.”

“Mr. Falls, I just wanted to call to confirm that we have the correct address.”

Jim felt a flash of rage and then spoke. “I know what goes on here. I was an MP back in Korea. You work for a collection agency and you’re calling to get my whatdoyoucallit? My personal information.”

“Mr. Falls, like I said, I don’t work for a collection agency.”

“So you say. If you’re going to lie to me, missy, I wish you’d have the decency to do it to my face.”

“But Mr. Falls—”

“I believe we’re done speaking.” Jim gummed his jaws. “I believe this is where I say goodbye. I hope you have a nice day in Manhattan.”

He stared out the window for a half hour after that and thought of the farm, the future. He paged through the bank book once more. There was twenty dollars and some odd cents until the end of the week when his Social Security check would arrive.

Then there was the problem of a present for the boy. It was his birthday and he ought to have a present. Jim glanced around the kitchen, hoping there might be something he could give him, but there was only Deirdre’s unemptied ashtray, a stack of bills, and a catalog from Farm & Fleet. He pondered these circumstances before striding upstairs, taking a seat on the corner of the boy’s bed, studying his lumpish shape. After a moment or two, Jim gave the boy a rough shake. Quentin groaned a little, pulling the blanket over his head.

“You planning on sleeping all day?” Jim asked.

“What time is it?”

“Half past ten.”

The boy rubbed his face and put on his glasses, ballooning his eyes. “Why’d you let me sleep in?”

Jim did not respond. He itched the side of his nose and stared at the dust-covered drapes.

“Is my mom home?”

Jim shook his head.

The boy looked confused for a moment and then said, “Oh. She must have forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

The boy looked away, an expression of painful embarrassment crossing his wide, gray face. “Today’s my birthday.”

Jim smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “She didn’t forget.”

“She didn’t?”

“No. She’ll be back.”

“She will?”

Jim nodded, feeling every inch the liar.

They went about the rest of their chores, Jim doing his best to be patient, allowing the boy to drift from his work, ignoring him as he played and cooed with the chicks. He studied the boy’s happy face, though there was nothing in it that gave him any relief.

* * *

The boy searched the house for his present, going through his mother’s room, the downstairs closets, even the supply shed. In the refrigerator, he was surprised to find there was no soda, no frozen pizza, no cake.

At dinner, the grandfather piled microwave mashed potatoes onto the boy’s plate. He inspected the way his grandson ate, watching the boy shovel forkfuls of potatoes into his oblong mouth. The boy noticed him watching and asked: “You’re sure my mom’s gonna be back?”

“She’ll be back.”

“She would have left me a present if she was going to be gone all day.”

“She’ll give it to you when she gets home.”

The boy nodded slowly, unconvinced.

The grandfather saw his doubt and asked, “What kind of present were you hoping for?”

“I don’t know,” he said, chewing. “An Indian cobra.”

“An Indian cobra?”

“I told her I wanted an Indian cobra.”

“An Indian cobra? A live cobra? What are you going to do with an Indian cobra?”

“I dunno. Try to breed it.”

Jim did not respond.

The boy continued to chew loudly, alternating with giant gulps of milk. “Did she leave me a cake?”

Jim shook his head. Instinctively, he piled another helping of mashed potatoes—the boy’s favorite—onto Quentin’s half-full plate.

“Thanks,” the boy said a little sullenly.

“A cobra?” Jim asked, though it was not even a question now.

The boy nodded, looking down at his food. “It was a stupid idea.”

Jim felt a surprising pang of guilt and so heaped on another helping of potatoes. He waited a moment and then said, “Come on. I want to show you something.”

From a shelf in his closet, Jim retrieved a dull black metal box, placing it in the center of the linoleum kitchen table. Remembering the digits—his wife’s birthday—he tumbled the numerical keys and unlocked it. The boy stared wide-eyed as Jim lifted the hinged lid. It was a pistol, a black, glossy-handled, military police corps–issued Colt .45 M1911, its harrowing sleekness dark and visible. Jim quickly fieldstripped the weapon, then reassembled it and slid ten rounds into place.

“What are we going to do?” the boy asked, but the grandfather did not answer.

Outside the two of them took turns shooting at soda pop cans in the dusk. Jim was a fair shot though the boy held the gun too loose and squinted so much it was no surprise he couldn’t hit anything. They blew off three or four dozen rounds, their ears ringing, and when it got dark, they went back inside. As the grandfather slid the Colt back into its case, he looked up at the boy, who had a finger in his ear, and said, “Now you know.”

“Now I know what?”

“Now you’re sixteen. Now you’re a man. Now you know where it’s kept.” He gave the boy a hardy stare but Quentin did not seem to know or understand. The boy only shrugged his shoulders and went back to fussing with his ear.

* * *

Later the boy played video games upstairs in his bedroom, his bedroom which had once been his grandmother’s sewing room, and which wasn’t much more than a closet. He sat on the carpeted floor in front of the rabbit-eared television playing
Doom II: Hell on Earth.
What he liked about
Doom II
was that it had both science fiction and demons, together. And the megasphere, good for 200 percent armor and health. And the Mancubus. And the Hell Knight.

On the small portable TV behind him, a tabloid-style show replayed moments from the O.J. Simpson trial. Keeping the TV on while he played made him feel like he had an audience. On screen there was a clip of the LA detective Mark Furhman faltering behind the witness stand, as an audiotape of his voice played for the court: “
People there don’t want niggers in their town. People there don’t want Mexicans in their town . . . We have no niggers where I grew up.
”

The boy heard the word, heard it again, and then sniffed once, pushing his glasses against his face. He had heard it so many times, the word, from his grandfather, from his mother, from the kids at school, that it no longer meant anything to him.

He finished a new level and then decided to work on his WAD. The cool thing about
Doom II
was that the designers had made their code available on a separate disc so, if you were inclined, you could try to design your own levels and characters. Instead of the space marines and the demons it could be the characters from
Batman
or
Star Wars
. So far all he had done with the program was try to make a replica of his own town, the rectangular buildings, the vacant glass windows, the central square, the statue, the birds that huddled around the benches. The biggest difference between his version and the original game was that there was no one to shoot, no demons, no Joker, no Darth Vader, as he had decided to leave the digitized town empty of higher-functioning life forms. Instead, he would walk his faceless character through the uninhabited streets, armed with all manner of extraordinary weapons, from brass knuckles to a chainsaw to a shotgun to the BFG blaster, his computerized footsteps and breath echoing in the neglected half-light. Like a deputy sheriff in a ghost town, he would patrol the streets, walking in and out of stores he had created, knowing there would be no one to trouble him. Somewhere within the dim digital town was his mother. He had built a character that looked almost exactly like her—short blond hair, narrow frame. It was his job to find her and keep her safe. But he could never find her; she was in some secret room he had forgotten how to get to. So on he searched, the pixelated gun held out before him, ready to be fired, and yet knowing there was nothing to shoot. He did not know why he did this; why he had built these replica buildings and had not created any enemies to attack, why he had hidden his own mother somewhere in the imitation town, except that marching along the computer version of those same deserted streets gave him a certain kind of loneliness he often looked forward to.

After dinner, the grandfather sat in the parlor alone and fell asleep in his armchair, the radio playing, the old man stumbling between a dream and a distant memory, unaware of which was which.

* * *

When the phone rang around ten o’clock, the grandfather woke with a start. He strode into the kitchen, pulling the phone from its cradle in a half-daze. It was Deirdre; he could tell right away from the irregular patter of her breath.

“Hello?”

“Daddy? Dad?”

He sighed without meaning to, and grasped the plastic phone hard in his hand. “Deirdre. Where are you?”

“I called to tell you I’m not coming back. I’m done with you. I’m through. I can’t take it anymore.”

“Deirdre.” It was not a name, not even a word, just an utterance.

“I’m not coming back. You can tell him whatever you want, but I’m not coming back. I can’t live in your fucked-up house with your fucked-up rules.”

Jim bristled at her anger more than her language. He placed his forehead against the cool of the faded wallpaper and asked, “How much do you need?”

But she only laughed and said, “No, Daddy. This is it. These are the last words you’re ever gonna hear from me.”

“You told me the same thing a year ago. And the year before that.”

“This time I fucking mean it. This is it.”

“Deirdre.”

“This is it. Goodbye, Daddy.”

Then there was the sound of the line going dead.

He stood there with his forehead against the wallpaper for some time, waiting for a sound, a voice, an apology that did not, would never come. After a few moments, the phone gave off a dull, irritating buzz and Jim placed it back in its cradle.

Later he did not know why he walked straight to the field and stood there, the rows of corn spread out against his legs, brushing against his fingertips. The left corner of his lips began to twitch and then his legs gave way, and suddenly he found himself kneeling among the rows, unable to breathe. He managed to crawl a little ways and get to his feet, staggering the thirty-odd yards to the back porch steps. There he sat, holding his rigid left arm in the dark, out of breath. It was the third time something like this had happened—two months before there was another spell, then six or seven months before that. He made a little prayer then, unsure of what he was praying for or to whom. “Please,” he said. “Please. Don’t let me go. Don’t let him find me like this.” Finally his breath became regular and he was able to climb inside. He called out the boy’s given name and Quentin came trotting down the stairs, alarmed; then the boy helped his grandfather to the parlor sofa. The look of worry on the boy’s face, his childish expression, was frightening.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Sir?”

Jim nodded, unsure if he could answer. They sat side by side on the sofa for some time, the mayflies jostling the windows, his heartbeat slowing down, his breath coming hard.

Twenty minutes later, the boy broke the silence. He looked over at his grandfather, who had his hands before him, folded as if in prayer, and asked, “When is she coming back?”

The grandfather put a hand on the boy’s knee and slowly shook his head.

The boy nodded and sniffed, then hurried from the room.

A half hour later, when the grandfather fell into bed, it felt like death.

_________________

The white mare appeared on a Monday. Neither the grandfather nor the grandson had any idea who’d sent it. At first there was only the violent agitation of the pickup as it rattled along the unmarked road, towing behind it a fancy silver trailer, all ten wheels upsetting the air with a cloud of dust high as a steeple. The grandfather raised his hand to his eyes to try to make out the shape of the thing coming. It was a late afternoon in mid-July and the sun had just begun to falter behind the hills and tree line. The black pickup with its out-of-town plates bounced through the gate then pulled to a stop near the corner of the bleachy henhouse. Every bird on the farm, all the Silver Sussex roosters, all the Maran hens, turned to face the commotion with a prehistoric silence, waiting for the grit to begin to settle. When a man with sunglasses like a state trooper pulled himself out from behind the truck’s wheel, stretching his legs from what appeared to have been a long trip, Jim asked him what it was about. The man had a clipboard and some papers which he asked Jim to sign, in triplicate, before leading him around to the back of the trailer. There he handed Jim a pink sheet of paper and pair of silver keys. The horse, sleek-looking even behind steel bars, huffed through its pink nostrils, disappearing back into the darkness.