Shadow Season (5 page)

This is how he can still be a man, standing on his own.

This here, this is just a chunk of rock. Another dozen steps down the aisle and he reaches out with his cane and strikes a statue. It’s a kneeling angel, with her wings partially unfolded. Her hands are clasped together in prayer. She’s missing her index fingers.

He walks on. A part of him expects the next tombstone to ring like a bell when he hits it. He opens his mouth to say something but has no idea what. Who is he calling to? Who does he want to respond? He wonders where the hell Roz is. He thinks of Vi but he’s always thinking of Vi. His shrink tries not to sound judgmental, but his shrink is really fucking bad at hiding her feelings.

This stone. This is Abbie Waylon, beloved mother, struck down by a jealous neighbor, 1812–1847.

“Hello again, Abbie Waylon,” he says. He wonders
about the neighbor, what prompted him or her to lash out and murder Abbie. He thinks about those tight-ass Puritans. Abbie might’ve flashed an ankle, forgotten her big hat one day. Maybe she failed to blush at the perceived right moment. What did her neighbor covet? He imagines Abbie’s kids visiting the grave, standing where he now stands. Side by side, three or four of them in a row, dressed in yellow on Easter, and laying flowers across the muddy earth.

An animal’s ugly mewls are nearly lost in the wind.

Finn turns toward the sound and drops his shoulders. The muscles in his back and legs contract. He angles the cane in front of him and assumes a defensive stance. He carries a four-inch blade in his back pocket. His shrink actually suggested he carry pepper spray, telling him that it was important for him to assert his independence, feed his need for security, and take a hand in his own self-preservation. She didn’t know he was already carrying the blade. Pepper spray never saved anybody.

A pained whimper, something crawling through the thickening veil of snow collecting on the ground. It’s not a goddamn dog or a fox or a deer. “What?” he says. “Hey?”

He starts wondering what the hell the girls have gotten up to now.

Praying to Christ it’s not Vi down there, drunk and slinking up on him.

“Hello?” he calls.

Blustering wind tugs at him like insistent childish hands.

Finn breaks from the trail and heads deeper into the
cemetery. The mewling becomes a brief moan that merges with the lamenting gusts. Something might be dying. When he tries to imagine it he sees only himself, as he used to be. The man he was periodically whimpers in his dreams, wanting to return to life.

The noise leads him past clawing maple branches. He reaches out to steady himself against the tree, bumbles over a root, and feels another gravestone fixed painfully against his calf.

Sliding his palm over the frozen face of it, he dips a finger, clears out snow, and feels the chiseled name.

KELTON MOON, AGED 2 MONTHS, GENTLE CHILD, MAY THE LIGHT OF OUR SAVIOR GUIDE YOU INTO ETERNITY. 1863, YELLOW FEVER VICTIM
.

The dead give him his bearing.

He knows exactly where he is now.

The need to speak rises within him, but he’s afraid his own voice will answer. He moves again and his toe touches what he knows must be a body.

Christ. Finn bends, goes to one knee, places both hands on the figure. It’s a girl. The wind shifts and blows ice against his lips.

She’s bleeding and the scent fills him. It fires color into his skull, and makes him tremble. His head tilts back and he says, ‘Ah…” He can’t help it and grins like a doofus.

He falls to his knees as the past embraces, fondles, and murders him.

FIRST TIME HE EVER SAW DANIELLE
, Finn’s shooting hoops with Ray in the gymnasium, up eighteen to sixteen. Both of them are sophomores taking criminal justice and English lit courses, killing time while waiting to be called up for the next NYPD Academy class.

Dani walks in from the football field side by side with some no-neck bruiser who’s getting a lot of local press because he’s the grandson of a pro. Everybody’s wondering what he can do on the field, and so far it isn’t much.

Finn continues dribbling but doesn’t drive forward, just watches her over Ray’s left shoulder as she steps onto the far end of the court. She’s wearing tight shorts and a bright yellow tee, her sports bra perfectly outlined in sweat. Whoa mama. Her blond hair is tied back in a ponytail with a red ribbon, and it bobs with her deep breaths. She’s sipping from a plastic bottle and passing it back and forth with the bruiser. She’s been running around the field while no-neck does extra drills with the coach.

Ray tries swatting the ball out of Finn’s hand and Finn lets it go. Ray passes the ball twice between his legs
before rushing past, giving it a little left-handed toss off the backboard and watching as it ticks into the basket.

Ray returns, notices the look on Finn’s face, and loops around.

He looks and says, “Hey now—”

“Yeah.”

“I like the ponytail.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Not every girl can make it work.”

“Yeah.”

“Makes you think, hair up like that, all it might take is some good conversation, a half a bottle of good wine, a vegetarian dinner nicely seasoned, snowy mountain backdrop through a cabin window, and she yanks the ribbon like a rip cord, the wild mane comes down, the real woman shows through.”

He hates when Ray is thinking his thoughts. “Sure.”

“She shows a pitiful lack of taste in men though.”

“Life is for learning.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

The bruiser is the same as every guy. He enjoys showing Dani off, but doesn’t like other men staring. He stops and gives a death glare. Ray smiles, amiable to the max, throwing his usual charm. Finn can’t take his eyes off Dani.

She’s not beautiful exactly, but she’s incredibly cute, has that thing that touches him deeply which he can’t name. Maybe it has to do with confidence and fortitude and sensuality, all of that or maybe none of it, he’s still not sure. All he knows is very few women he’s met so far have the thing that makes him wake all the way up. She’s got it, and it eases out from her and it reaches into him.

She makes brief eye contact with Finn, sort of nods his way. The ponytail bobs. That gets to him too. Her calves are sharply defined. She’s a runner, a sprinter, captain of the track team. Her breasts are large for such a petite frame. It starts him thinking what it would be like to take her to bed after the bottle of good wine and the veggie dinner. He appreciates the curve of her jaw, the length and smoothness of her neck.

There’s a lot of distance between them, maybe sixty feet, but Finn says in a normal tone of voice, “Hi.”

Her lips move and she answers, or possibly answers, too quietly for him to hear.

The no-neck slowly marches toward Finn, his eyes burning, juiced up on adrenaline. The coach isn’t working him hard enough.

Dani, in a voice as flat and commanding as if she’s berating a dog, says, “Howie, no! No!”

Howie’s been shifted to three different positions this season, the team trying to find a spot that will fit his meager skills. He can’t block, can’t catch, and can barely run. But his grandfather used to come down and rally the team and the fans, sign autographs and take pictures with the locals. It’s out of respect for the sick old man that they keep trying with no-neck. He’s in shape but way too massive on top, his legs like sticks beneath his bulk.

Howie pulls off his gear and his shirt as he approaches, and Finn can see the hard nodules on both arms where steroids have been shot directly into the muscle tissue. The university’s been cutting this guy a lot of slack and turning a blind eye for the use of his name.

Time hangs there, the way it’s supposed to for big moments like this. Finn keeps staring at Dani, and gives her his best smile. She doesn’t smile back, firms her lips and frowns like he must be crazy. He’s used to the look, has been living with it all his life. But still, she cocks her head a little like she’s curious to see what’s about to play out.

Ray, who always lets Finn take point in a fight even if he’s the one who starts it, chuckles beneath his breath and retreats a few steps so Finn’s out front.

Finn hasn’t been in a brawl for over six months, since he was put on probation last semester for smacking around a bouncer in a local club who was smacking around a drunk kid upchucking on the floor. Punching out a lightweight for vomiting in a bar like The Tenderloin was just ludicrous and cruel. Finn got into it pretty good with the punk bouncer and the asshole bat-wielding bartender, until all three of them were thrown into County.

But he’s kept up with the boxing and had just started an introductory martial-arts class. Ray keeps asking him, Why do you want to punish yourself like that? On the streets all you need is your piece. You think you’re going to karate-chop a crack dealer carrying an assault rifle?

Finn can tell that it won’t be easy to stop this no-neck. Howie’s got too much going on in his head and careening through his veins. Finn completely understands since he has a loud head too, and occasionally his blood ignites.

Ray says, “You need some help?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Not exactly one hundred percent,” Finn admits. “High nineties?”

“Maybe a little less.”

Howie’s got his whole life written in his face as he stomps forward. He’s angry but nearly expressionless. Beneath it all there’s a grim kind of sorrow. You can see that the pressure he’s under to be a star player is stealing the soul out of him. It’s not hard to believe that he loves his grandfather and hates the man too, for forcing Howie into this life.

A black vein bucks at his temple. He’s got crow’s-feet etched around his eyes and something like a burn scar flares over his right brow. As he rubs it with the heel of his hand it looks like Howie’s trying to force something out of his head. Or into it.

He glares at the center of Finn’s chest and continues making his way toward him. Howie has a hitch in his stride, probably because he’s taking needles in the buttocks too. Howie wants to share his pain.

“Heya,” Finn says.

Raising his fist, Howie seems to suddenly forget what’s set him in motion. His eyes are an intense blue and they flicker with confusion.

Then he remembers. “I don’t like the way you’re staring at my girl.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Sure, how would you prefer I stare at her?”

The question puzzles the no-neck. He seems to
seriously consider it for a second and then wags his head like he’s got an earache.

Finn wonders if Danielle has been set up with the guy to help him feel and act more like an ace. He turns and glances in her direction, sees she’s moving toward them too. Gracefully and with a beautifully controlled exertion, like she’s about to break into a run and launch herself into a routine on the mats. Finn is having a little trouble keeping his focus. He can feel his imagination starting to tug him away.

“Howie, stop!”

Dani still doesn’t know that a girl yelling “Stop” is pretty much the same as a girl yelling “Kill his ass.” A screaming woman inspires men toward greater stupidity, no matter what she’s screaming. Finn can feel himself getting dumber, listening to the sound of her voice.

The same is happening to Howie, who’s pretty dumb to begin with. The ’roids are ripping through his system and maybe withering his testicles. Whatever’s going on, it’s not helping him achieve the alpha state.

The coach must’ve really given him hell out there on the field, perhaps even in front of Dani, which would humiliate and piss anybody off. Finn feels a strange camaraderie with the no-neck and suddenly wants to just sit down with him, have an iced coffee. Dani arrives and the four of them are huddled at about center court.

“You sure you don’t want some help?” Ray whispers.

“Not yet.”

“Okay, well, do some of that Bruce Lee stuff on him.”

“I’ve only had two classes.”

“Just don’t kick. Kicking’s for sissies.”

“You are such an asshole.”

“You love me anyway.”

“Not always.”

Howie doesn’t seem to be aware that anyone is talking. He’s concentrating on Finn’s mouth like a deaf man trying to read lips. Finn figures his next words will carry a lot of weight, and he tries to come up with something for the ages. Asking about the withered testicles doesn’t seem to be the way to go.

For a second Danielle doesn’t know what to do, and again makes the worst choice. She tugs on the bruiser’s arm. He tightens his biceps and the large knots where he’s taken the needle stand out like walnuts.

There’s still time to avoid any real confrontation, but Finn makes a mistake too and allows his gaze to linger too long on Dani. There’s a trinity of freckles at her shoulder and a dusting of dried salt. He breathes deeply as if taking her in.

Howie actually growls, the animal sound coming from deep in his chest and far back in the most ancient strands of his DNA.

He lumbers forward on his thin legs and Finn skips back a step, preparing himself. The no-neck swings his enormous right arm and Finn draws his chin in about an inch. The massive fist passes by his nose and Finn realizes with some shock that if the blow had connected it probably would’ve broken his neck. There’s almost no anger in the air, nothing yet has happened that’s irredeemable.