Son of Destruction (30 page)

He circles the house on thick, springy Bermuda grass, dodging hibiscus and gardenias and crunching through Mrs Bellinger’s bougainvillea hedge to get a closer look. Boat trailer’s here, convertible with FSU decal and wife’s coupe gleam in the driveway, no Escalade. The Bellingers are gone.

All right then. Coleman’s. Nobody answers at Coleman’s house, even when he quits knocking and yells. They were just here, he can smell coffee. Now they’re not. The windows stand open behind their ironwork grills. The Von Harten house around the corner is deserted too. His orderly plan disassembles, with parts rolling away in all directions.

Dan tries a dozen other houses, thinking the neighbors will know when his marks will be back, but the Sunday morning streets in Coral Shores are like the decks of a ghost ship. Where is everybody? Why aren’t they firing up the BBQ or sitting over late morning coffee with the Sunday
Star
? Only the sound of a baby crying tells him that he’s not in some crap movie where the hero wakes up to discover that everybody else on the planet has been wiped out by a neutron bomb.

He calls, ‘Anybody home?’

He gets back the sound of nothing.

‘Where is everybody?’ Dazzled by sunlight bouncing off the white sand that borders the road, the white cement underfoot and bleached pastel houses with flat, white roofs, he whirls under a bleached sky. All his opening lines evaporate, replaced by a crap line from the end-of-the-world movie playing inside his head. ‘Where is everybody anyway?’

Frustration drives him back to his car and on, cross-hatching the deserted city. In the absence of a plan, he circles new and old neighborhoods, searching because for once contingencies elude him, thinking, thinking, until this rises up in front of him like Munch’s screamer and stops him dead:

It’s in the blood.

He is at the Archambault house.

Why here?
Dan wonders.
Why today?
He is also thinking,
Why me?
but he knows. Shivering, he enters the hundred-degree temperature and makes his way up the stairs and into her bedroom, thinking,
What does she want from me, human sacrifice?

He shouts, ‘What do you want from me!’

Dan Carteret, apparently related by blood to the woman who died in this room, folds up on the floor like a contemplative, waiting for the bitch to answer.

It’s time to come to terms with who he is.

Or what he is.

Whether it’s really in the blood. The foot, the chair. Twenty-some years later, and at the visual memory of that newspaper, he still shudders. Everything changed the day he opened Lucy’s jewel box. In a flash she snatched it away: that’s
that
. As though she could throw away the past and protect him. As if he could forget what he saw. The photo burned into the soft tissue behind his eyes. It brought him here.

Scorched, he gasps.

Behind the curtain of the known, something stirs, signaling the presence of the unknown fury, unless it’s a terrible power.

Which? This is the mystery that keeps Dan Carteret fixed in lotus position in the house he vowed never to come back to. Sitting in Mrs Archambault’s abandoned bedroom that first day in Fort Jude, he comprehended her. Old Lorna occupied him in a way he can’t specify. Rage flickered in his belly and he cried out, unless she did.

Who’s there?

Was the old woman really inhabiting him, squalling and raging inside his head? Did she really scream at him yesterday, when he fled the house? God knows he felt the heat – whether fever dream or hallucination, he can’t say. He’s been running ahead of it ever since. He and the fury that flamed out in this room hang from the same tree. Like armed thugs in a home invasion, Lorna broke into his head and he thinks, asks, wants to know and is afraid to know:
Is it something I did?

Fixed in lotus position in the spot where the Barcalounger stood, Dan closes his eyes and summons her. He expects some intimation – insight, shared memory, altered consciousness,
something
– but nothing happens and nothing comes. Flies buzz. Sweat runs down. Whatever vibe he got in this overheated room is gone. Instead his mind scrambles like a cockroach circling the drain in a summer flood. What did he think: she would come down on a fluffy cloud and explain everything? Resolutely, he occupies the splintered floor like a player in Sartre’s
No Exit
, unless it’s the schlub in that movie
Groundhog Day
. Shit, he thinks because he could sit here forever and still not know. Just, shit.
What do you mean, it’s in the blood?

In the end he begs, but he is nothing more than Dan Carteret, alone in an empty room. Extreme, sitting on the splintered floor in the heat, but he has been driven to extremes.
One thing. Just tell me one thing. Did someone strike a match or is it in the blood.
Stretched to the limit by waiting, he explodes.

‘Damn you, answer me!’

Outside a car door slams and whatever he thought was coming . . . evaporates. A girl shouts, ‘I
said
, I’ll
get
a ride home from
here
.’

He hears the tiresome, reasonable sound of a mother intent on making her point, ‘. . . budda-budda-mumble, you . . .’

‘I
told
you, Carter’s driving me!’

The woman goes on with her ‘but, but, budda-budda’ in that sweet, sweet voice. It’s distracting, but at this point Dan could use a little distraction. He came into this house alone. He got down in all humility and he laid himself wide open but nothing came in. Face it. Nothing will.

‘Three on the dot, I promise. If I have to, I’ll call a cab!’

The girl’s voice rises in a stagy sing-song. ‘Bye-eeee . . .’

Pathetically grateful, he unlocks his joints and scrambles to his feet.

Steffy McCall to the rescue. She comes in the back, calling, ‘Carter? Carter honey. Dude!’

Shit, is that kid Carter in the house? Did he hear me screaming like a psycho?
Dan goes into the hall, half expecting Carter to come thudding down the attic stairs all onka-bonka, but there’s nothing moving overhead and nobody around but the girl calling from the front hall, ‘Carter, is that you?’

Dan hangs over the banister. ‘It’s only me.’

Sighing, she starts upstairs. Her hair is combed out today; she’s wearing pink lip gloss and a pink headband that matches her dress. She doesn’t exactly hide her disappointment. ‘Oh, OK.’

‘You’re all dressed up.’

‘Church. Then the club, like every other stupid Sunday. Is Carter here?’

‘I told you, no.’ She looks like a doll set up in real Steffy’s place. He eyes the matching bag and shoes. ‘Patent leather.’

She scowls. ‘Is that a problem for you?’

‘Looks nice.’

‘You’re sure you haven’t seen him.’

‘No, and I’ve been here since . . .’ He looks at his watch. ‘Wow. Since one.’

‘He would of bombed in here straight from church, he felt so awful. Like, because of the fight? So you didn’t see him? Carter? Carterrrr!’

‘I told you, nobody’s here but me. What fight?’

‘Are you sure you didn’t see him?’ Dan shakes his head but she goes on calling. She cranes, trying to see past him. ‘Carter? Carter, it’s me. He could be hiding. Maybe he sneaked in.’

‘Nobody gets past me.’

She tilts her head, studying Dan like an entomologist coming to conclusions about a bug. ‘I don’t know, you look kind of . . . Are you sure?’

Dan knows he lost time sitting there in the ruined bedroom, but he would never lose control. ‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘No way.’

‘He could be hiding.’

Now he’s getting pissed. He says meanly, ‘Because he set that fire last night.’

Astonished, she swivels:
Is it that obvious?

Dan shrugs:
It is.

And they’re friends again. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘His dad found out it was Carter and he went ballistic at church. He went off on Carter just as Mom and me were coming out, like, right in front of everybody who’s anybody in Fort Jude? He said a whole bunch of shitty, shitty things to Carter and Carter punched him in the chest. Mr Bellinger went ooof and slugged Carter in the belly, like, wham. Shit! They couldn’t stop.’ She isn’t exactly crying, but she’s close. ‘Mr Pike had to help Mrs Bellinger pull them apart, and they aren’t even friends!’

‘Church,’ he says thoughtfully.

‘Everybody saw. Now they’re all down at the club, talking about it over sticky buns, you should hear it, you wouldn’t believe what they’re like. I hate them all. I hate this town!’

Musing, he shakes his head. ‘They were all in church.’

‘Where else? They always are, and then they come out and say the shittiest things! It was awful, like, right up there the main archway? It was like he was reviling him in the middle of Sunshine Stadium and you could watch Carter crying on the giant screens. Everybody in Fort Jude saw Mr Bellinger beat the crap out of Carter and they heard what he called him. No wonder Carter bailed. Shit,’ she says, listening at the bottom of the attic stairs, ‘he’s not up there either.’

‘I told you . . .’

‘Right.’ Her face fragments like a bad transmission and snaps back into focus: resilient kid. Big, getting-down-to-business sigh. ‘Guess I’ll go get Grammy over with.’

‘Do what?’

‘At the old folks’ hatch. It’s my Sunday, we take turns.’ She is busy brushing schmutz off her pink dress. ‘It’s not so bad, except for the smell. Lysol or some shit, like, they even disinfect the food. So. Was my mother hitting on you?’

Now it is his turn to be surprised. He gets to the answer in stages. ‘Not really. I’m sorry. Yeah, pretty much. What are you doing?’

‘Calling a cab.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll take you.’

‘It’s out in west hell.’

Church, he thinks. Then the club. They won’t be home for hours. ‘Come on,’ he says. Whatever he thought he was doing here is over now. ‘I’ve got nothing but time.’

‘Awesome!’ The crafty look she gives him is a masterpiece. ‘Would you mind coming in with me? Grammy doesn’t talk much, and it’s a lot and a lot easier with two.’

It’s not unpleasant, sitting here in the car outside Golden Acres, although after a day spent stalking, he’s sick of being in the car. Grief has taught him patience; he’ll live. He always does.

Meanwhile, it’s pretty out here on the bay, at a point that’s a little too close to the end of the world, given the function of this place. Low-lying Spanish stucco apartments and a handful of cottages sit in the landscape like Herman Chaplin’s dream community compressed by the exigencies. Some people say he started this miniature village as a demo model, some say the grand old entrepreneur was planning an amusement park, but the compound went up so long ago that nobody is sure. When the Methodists bought the property from Herman’s estate, several problems were solved. Fort Jude society had a place to stash its frail and unpredictable parents when they got too old or too crazy to take care of themselves. They were installed at Golden Acres well before the likes of Wallace Pike came to town with his pregnant wife and first-born son – not crazy yet, but there were intimations. Generations of oldsters had passed through by the time Anna Pike ran away from her husband and, with Pop the way he was, six-year-old Walker understood he was in charge of everything, including Wade.

Pop was good enough at what he did, running the garage and taking care of the bills, but daily life dumbfounded him. By the time Walker was old enough to worry, he thought that sooner or later, he’d have to make the money so Golden Acres could deal with Pop. When the old man set the shop on fire in Walker’s first year at MIT, he and Wade checked into it, even though old Wallace swore it was an accident. He was erratic, forgetful. You never knew.

Walker came down from Cambridge during term to scope the place, and this was after he’d vowed never to come back to Fort Jude. He and Wade went around with the girl from the front office; she was new. Golden Acres looked pleasant enough, with an activities director and a pianist in the dining room every Sunday. They even had a little pool. There were parties in the Health Center for every hundredth birthday, of which there seemed to be a lot. You could see they took good care of people, photos of hundredth birthday parties lined the halls. Fragile guests posed for the photographer in wheelchairs and on walkers, all dressed up and smiling bravely in their party hats. The aides and social workers Walker met were all nice enough, but when they met the director, everything changed. Odd that in an establishment depopulated by death on a regular basis, there were no vacancies. Walker was still in college but he was already earning, and Pop was slipping fast. Together he and Wade could cover it somehow, but the woman in charge took one look at them and said with the nicest smile, ‘Your father wouldn’t be comfortable here.’

It’s a cool afternoon for April and Walker has the windows down. He is parked in a spot the shade will protect until late afternoon. As Sunday is the world’s official visiting day no matter what the institution, he won’t be noticed in this crowd. Everybody in town seems to be out here, visiting somebody from the generations that went before – and there are several degrees of age from the look of it, from hale but vacant-looking grands who got struck sick or stupid too early in life on up to the wispy great-greats, skeletal old people with only a few white hairs left standing on their pink heads. Considering where he is right now and where he’s followed Dan Carteret so far today, and considering how close he’s come to being seen at every stop the kid has made, Walker finds this parade of residents extremely peaceful. Nice old couples just about his age come past, pushing old parties in wheelchairs or supporting elbows so their shaky friends and relations can totter along the walks with blissed-out smiles. The visitors all come out of the building headed for the choice benches overlooking the water, but nobody seems to mind when their charges cut out, homing in on the first available place to sit down.

Some visitors from the outside world have brought gift baskets and some go by carrying flowers. As the afternoon flows past, Walker watches as the young and healthy run out of conversation and begin picking at the contents of the baskets, proffering food they’ll end up eating themselves, nibbling out of sheer nervousness. Nobody wants to admit that fruit and candy are nothing to passengers on the long slide to the exit interview. They are beyond being interested in food. They’re beyond being interested in much of anything, and it is this that Walker finds so restful – the absence of striving. Ambition went to sleep in these old people before they lost it, or consciously relinquished control, turning over the pressure of responsibility to whoever checked them into this place.