Strangers (7 page)

No! I do not belong here.
Beth wanted to tell someone that, to rectify this error in time. She was an adult now and Miss Kostner was a terror consigned to memory.
Except
somehow
she did not feel at all grown up.
Despite this adult body cramped at the small desk, she was a child. Her world was divided into zones of safety and security, areas of known fears, and yet darker territories of fears unknown.

Young, she was young, and leaden with fright.

Then she understood
. This is a dream, only a dream. A dream cannot hurt you.

But why did the realization bring no lessening of her fear—misery?

Now she was no longer alone. Her children—
But I am a child myself
!—
was here, Kim in the desk to the left, Marcy at the right.
I can see them without moving my head
. Feet flat on the floor, hands folded; they sat stiffly as though mocking her.

And she knew the teacher planned to punish them all.

Then the teacher appeared at the desk, appeared from nowhere as people can only within a dream. The teacher was not Miss Kostner.

Michael was the teacher. He was smiling.

He would be the one to inflict punishment and she knew there was nothing she could do to prevent him.

Michael summoned her with a nod. In the eternity it took to walk from her desk to him, she watched the transformation. It was a surprise, but it had the feeling of something that made perfect, irrefutable sense.

Michael’s face lost its familiarity. He might have been a wax statue whose features had been instantly reworked by a sculptor’s invisible hand. His mouth became a cruel slash. His nostrils flared. His eyes held the too-bright gleam of taxidermist’s glass,

I do not know him,
she thought.
I have never known him.

Michael opened the top drawer of the desk. He took out the ruler.

Trembling, she held out her hand, palm up. Michael slowly ‘raised the ruler, keeping it an unending, frozen moment at the peak of its climb.

She waited for the fiery slash.

The ruler sliced the air, a blur, first the brownish-yellow of wood, then shining
steel
as it becomes a long, sharp knife that severed her hand at the wrist.

There was no blood. There was no pain. Her hand lay on the green—desk blotter, fingers curled up, an insect dying on its back.

Michael-Who-Was-Not-Michael said, “Now the pain. Now the blood.”

And he—Michael-Who-Was-A-Stranger—stabbed her, the knife a cold intrusion in her belly, stabbed her, a twisting sharpness in her chest, stabbed her, a rending, ferocious agony in her throat.

This is a dream! Dreams cannot hurt you! Dreamscannothurt!
Beth screamed in her mind.

Her subconscious commanded all its resolve, willed her
Out
—out of the dream-horror. Thoughts rushed in to soothe her, comfort her:
All is well and my children are safe I am safe no fear no harm no hurt no danger no killing no blood no death No Death NO DEATH!!!

The succession of consoling ideas wove together in a heavy tapestry that covered over her dream, hiding it under a thick-layered cloth of assurance, concealing it from memory.

When Beth Louden awoke the next morning, she felt tired, a bit achey and cranky, as though she had not had a good night’s sleep. She thought she might have had a nightmare.

She tried to recall it.

She could not, not for the life of her.

— | — | —

FOUR

MICHAEL PIERCED the yolk of his second over-easy egg with the corner of a half slice of toast. At the counter, Beth, in her housecoat, poured herself coffee in a yellow “Smiley Face” mug and then came to join him. Through the east window, the sun cast a sharply angled parallelogram between them on the
butcher block
table.

“Good eggs,” Michael said. He performed a Groucho Marx,
eyebrow waggling
leer. “Eggs help a man restore some of his recently drained vital juices.”

Beth laughed. “Michael, you are terrible.”

“I yam what I yam and ‘at’s all what I yam,’ Michael grinned, left eye set in a Popeye squint.

The portable radio on the counter reported the eight o’clock weather forecast. The start of the work week would be—“What else, Chicagoland?” demanded a manic deejay—another scorcher, temperature near 90, humidity near “hideous!”

Michael said, “We could use a good rain, break this heat wave.”

“It would help,” Beth agreed.

Same old scene in the same old script, Michael thought.
Breakfast: The Husband and The Wife discuss The Weather, and then, naturally, The Kids.

“What time do Marcy and Kim roll in?” he asked.

“The bus is supposed to be at their school by 10:30. I’ll leave here early, though, so I can stop out at Lincoln Junior College for a catalog and registration information before I pick up the girls.”

“Uh-huh,” Michael nodded, finishing the egg, then saying what he knew she’d be pleased to hear. “I’m glad to see you’re excited about going back to school, Beth.”

“And
I’m
glad
you’re
glad. I think it will mean something important to us both. I mean
,
our future doesn’t have to be more of the present routine, does it?”

“Right,” Michael said—and his future definitely would not be. As for Beth—
Hey, kiddo, you probably don’t want to plan too far ahead, okay?

Toying with the handle of her mug, Beth pursed her lips thoughtfully. She said, “It’s been strange—not having the girls home these two weeks. I’ve missed them and worried about them, but, you know, I think it did work out well for the two of us, Michael.”

“I think so, too.”

“And I’m sure the girls had a good time at camp.”

“Sure,” Michael agreed, “ghost stories around the campfire, canoe races and nature hikes. They probably got to weave a lanyard or a potholder in the crafts shop. Say, we’re talking about real adventures!”

Beth laughed,
then
became serious. “You know, living in the suburbs, Marcy and Kim get a fairly narrow view of life…”

“Uh-huh, know what you mean…”

“So,” Beth continued, “I hope they met all kinds of different people at camp…”

He was unprepared, for once completely off-guard. He took a drink of coffee and Beth said, “Maybe they learned that not everyone is the same after all.”

The laugh corkscrewed up from the center of his chest. He tried to swallow, to smother the laughter, and could not. He coughed and gagged. Coffee sprayed from his mouth and his nose. Tears stung his eyes.

Beth was on her feet, slapping his back. “Oh, I’ll get you some water.”

Sputtering and choking, he gulped the water.
Not everyone is the same after all
—another volcanic laugh threatened to erupt and he struggled for control. Oh, Beth, not everyone is the same—
I am not
—and summer camp is the ideal place to learn that—
I know. I did!

Feeling as though there was a fuzzy tennis ball wedged between his tonsils, Michael croaked, “Wrong pipe.”

“Okay now?”

“Sure, I’m fine.”

But the laugh kept trying to seep out of him, emerging as a clearing of the throat or a mock cough, and he was glad to get out of the house a few minutes later.

When he was in the car, driving to Superior Chemical Company’s office in Oakwood—
when he was alone
—he at last had his laugh, fullblown and wild and true.

Michael remembered summer camp, Camp Bethel, and Jan Pretre, and Alvin Burdell, Alvin, the very first.

Michael Louden remembered when he was 12 years old…

The screen door rasped like a parrot—
Ahrkee
—and
the
young man stepped into Cabin Three, the door clack-rattling shut behind him. He was tall. His black hair was trimmed in a neat
flat-top
. A hooked wrinkle connected his heavy eyebrows above his straight nose.

The young man’s deep-set, dark blue eyes went down the row of beds and the boys assigned to them on the left, then up the rows on the right. He had responsibility for eight boys in all. He was a volunteer counselor at Camp Bethel, a Baptist church sponsored program that gave kids low cost fun and regular religious training.

Michael thought the young man’s eyes spent a second or two longer on him than on the others, but he could not be sure. He would be careful. He was always careful.

“My name’s Jan Pretre, guys.” The counselor had a deep and friendly voice. “We’ll be spending a lot of time together the next couple of weeks.”

“Hi, Jan!” squalled the fat boy who had the bed opposite Michael’s. Michael had sat next to him on the bus ride. The fat boy was named Alvin Burdell. There was a huge, red-brown birthmark over his left ear that showed through the fuzz of his crew cut, and he smelled like cheese.

“Howya doin’?” Jan Pretre nodded at Alvin. He told the boys that once they were unpacked, he’d take them down to the lake for a dip.

After their swim, they had free time, and, after that, lunch. The camp director, Pastor Bill, spent so much time saying grace that the unappetizing food turned into barely edible cold lumps.

That afternoon, a kid from Number Six punched Michael on the arm, a good one, knuckle out, twisting into the bicep. He was looking for a fight, but Michael did not fight back; he ran away.

He never fought.

Lights out came at nine o’clock.

At midnight, Alvin Burdell’s crying woke up Cabin Three. Alvin had wet his bed.

Steve Dawes, at thirteen the biggest and oldest Cabin Three camper, hollered, “You fat-guts! Stinking up the place!”

“I can’t help it!” Alvin wailed.

Michael lay on his back, not joining in the chorus that derided Alvin.

Carrying a flashlight, Jan Pretre came in. He told them all to get back to sleep, that he’d take care of everything. He told Alvin that what had happened was “no big deal.” Anyone could have an accident, nothing to be ashamed of. Jan comforted the boy and assured him, “We’ll take care of everything.”

Alvin Burdell had his accident three nights in a row.

Steve Dawes decided they’d all better take care of “Fat-Guts.” He had a plan. If anybody snitched, he’d get it, too, but good.

Michael stayed out of it as much as possible, saying and doing only what he had to do to keep Steve Dawes and the others from turning on him.

On a free afternoon, Michael lay on his bunk, flipping through a
Picture Stories From the Bible
comic book, the only kind of comic permitted at Camp Bethel. The only other boy in the cabin was Alvin Burdell. He didn’t want to go out, didn’t want to be the “we’re stuck with him” clown in a softball or volleyball game or to go down to the lake for a “free swim” where “seeing how long you can keep Fat-Guts’s head under” was becoming the camp’s newest sports craze.

When Jan Pretre stepped in, he said, “Hello,” to Michael—it made Michael feel strange. He wanted Jan to say more to him—to really talk to him—and he didn’t understand why that was so.