The Safety of Objects: Stories (4 page)

“Hey, Johnny, is it time for medicine?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“It’s good for you, come on.” Randy held out the bottle. His fingers were wrapped around the label. He unscrewed the top and took a small swig, swished it around in his mouth, and swallowed. I shook my head. “I’m not about to force you. That’s not what I’m about.” He recapped the bottle and put it down on the ledge above the sink. “My mother used to dose us sometimes. Sometimes at night she’d want us asleep and we’d still be going full speed, and she’d come into the bedroom, hold my nose until my mouth opened, and pour stuff down me; sometimes it was brandy, sometimes I didn’t know what it was. She always did it to me and not to my brother because he had asthma real bad and she didn’t want to mess him up.” He paused. “Are you hungry?” I shrugged. Randy opened the refrigerator. “A Fig Newton might work. I’m not a cookie person, but Fig Newtons aren’t really cookies, they’re more of a medical food, you know? There’s milk in here too. There you go, Johnny.” He handed me the cartons.

“I still want to call my mom.”

“No phone.”

“She’s probably wondering where I am.”

“No she’s not, Johnny. She knows you’re with me. I told you that yesterday.”

“But aren’t I supposed to go home soon? And why don’t you have a phone? Everyone has a phone. It’s probably illegal not to have one.”

“Don’t talk law and order to me. Everyone has a phone and a television, and every other one has a video recorder and a washing machine. And then they have microwave ovens. It doesn’t mean they’re smart. Start collecting things and you get in trouble. You start thinking that you care about the stuff and you forget that it’s things, man-made things. It gets like it’s a part of you and then it’s gone and you feel like you’re gone also. When you have stuff and then you don’t, it’s like you’ve disappeared.”

“You have empty bottles in rows all around your room,” I said.

“Empties aren’t stuff. What are you, stupid?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Keep it that way,” Randy said, and then he walked away and I heard the slap of the screen door.

*  *  *

I walked from room to room eating Fig Newtons and drinking milk straight from the carton. I remember thinking it was great that no one was making me pour it into a glass. The rest of the house wasn’t much, just a living room with a busted-up sofa and a green chair made out of the same stuff as car seats, the stuff your legs stick to on summer days. I sat down on the sofa and then had to move over to save myself from one of those springs that you can’t see but all of the sudden pops through and stabs you in the butt.

I sat there eating cookies and sort of daydreaming. I thought that this was the kind of life I’d live if it was just me and my dad, no mother, no Rayanne. I thought about how everything in our house got all weird when my dad came to visit. My mother would run around putting everything into piles on top of the TV or the coffee table. Then she’d go to the grocery store and buy things like broccoli and veal chops. We’d have to put clean clothes on and sit with her in the living room until she heard his truck coming down the street, the gears shifting down. My father would come into the house and we’d be standing there like we were in the army and you could tell from his face that he wished he hadn’t come. It was like he wanted to sneak in and have us find him sitting there watching TV like he’d never been gone. It was like he made himself think that he didn’t matter, that his leaving didn’t matter. Sometimes he’d try and fake us out. He’d drop by without warning. Rayanne, my mom, and I might be out in the front yard and we’d hear the truck as soon as it turned the corner at the end of the street. Rayanne would look up and see him sitting twenty feet up in the cab and she’d take off, galloping toward the truck in her retarded way, legs getting tangled in each other, never sure which foot should go next.

The screen door slapped shut and somewhere in my head I heard it, but didn’t really know where I was. I was still thinking about my father, his truck, and the view from up in the cab.

“Hey, hey, Johnny,” Randy said. “Are you sleeping?”

“Not exactly,” I mumbled.

“What exactly?”

I shrugged.

“You don’t have to spend all day in the house. When I saw you out there playing ball, I figured you were an outdoor type.”

I shook my head.

“I like to watch TV. I watch TV and my sister comes in. I can’t stand her, so sometimes I have to get out of the house. My sister is retarded, did you know that?”

Randy nodded.

“No matter how old she gets, she’ll never be better than a seven-year-old. She calls my father “Uncle” because she says that daddies live at home and uncles just come and visit.”

“Yeah, well, get up. We’re going fishing. What we catch is what we eat for dinner.”

“I don’t know how to fish.”

“I’ll teach you, Johnny.”

I shrugged.

“Do you care about anything?”

I shrugged again.

“Don’t shrug. Either talk or don’t, but don’t goddamn shrug at me. It’s like saying go to hell, only worse. You’re saying it’s not even worth the energy it takes to say the words.”

*  *  *

I walked through the woods behind Randy.

“The trick,” he said, “is just like life. Don’t let them know you want them. Play dumb and they’ll act dumb.”

He pushed the boat into the water and we waded in. My jeans got wet up to my thighs and felt like weights wrapped around my legs. Randy rowed out into the lake. He handed me a coffee can. “Take one out and put it right there on the end.”

I looked into the can and saw about a thousand worms. “I can’t,” I said.

“You can and you will,” Randy said, holding out the hook to me. He talked in the same tone my mother used with Rayanne when she wanted her to do something. “We can sit here until the moon is blue.”

I turned my head away and put my hand into the can. The thin rolls of worm were soft and a little silky. They were stuck together, piled on top of one another. I had to look directly into the can in order to pick one up. I handed it to Randy.

“On the hook,” he said. “Put it on the hook.” I jammed it down on the hook, ripping its body, squirting worm juice into the air.

Randy cast the fishing line out over the lake, explaining how it was all in the flick of the wrist. He handed me the pole and I looked out at the thin plastic line. I looked across the lake and saw a man on the other side. I got up on my knees, nearly dropped the fishing pole, and waved. I kept doing it until Randy slapped my hand down. But the man across the lake had seen me. He waved back and then Randy had to wave to get him to stop waving.

“People here like to be left alone,” Randy said. “You shouldn’t have bothered him.”

I started crying, not out loud, but to myself. I was crying and thinking about how I wanted to go home, put on dry clothes, talk to my mom, and watch TV.

“What’s with you, Johnny? It’s a beautiful day, you’re out fishing, you’ve never fished before, but you’re doing it, and you’re acting worse than an old hat.”

There was a yank on my line and I sat up.

“Pull back slowly, just a little bit.”

I did what he said.

“Don’t let him think he’s caught. If he thinks he can get away he’ll try and wait you out. But if you let him know he’s caught, he’ll fight like hell.”

We pulled him in and then the fish was there, hanging from the hook, staring at me. Randy dropped him onto the floor of the boat. The fish flopped around.

“Say hello to dinner,” Randy said.

“I’m not eating.”

“You’ll eat.”

I shook my head.

“Bait another hook.”

I watched the fish until its gills stopped flapping, until I was sure it was dead. I watched for about ten minutes and then jammed another worm onto the hook. Randy got a bite on his line and pulled in a small fish. He took it off the hook and threw it back into the water. “I’m not a murderer, Johnny,” he said.

When we had three fish Randy put away the poles and we ate sandwiches right there in the boat with the fish at our feet. “This is the life,” Randy said.

I could feel the sun on the place on my shoulder where Randy had grabbed me when I was in his room. I could feel the sun through my shirt and it was like hands rubbing a sore place. I leaned back in the boat and used one of the floating cushions as a pillow.

“Hey, hey, Johnny, wake up.” Randy had rowed us back to shore. “You sleep a lot for a kid your age.”

“It’s because of being sick.”

“You were out all afternoon and you didn’t seem sick. It’s all in your head. You’re sick in the head.”

I got out of the boat and helped pull it back into the woods. “Last night you said I was sick. I threw up.”

“I didn’t know you like I do today.” He paused. “Pregnant ladies throw up—are they sick? It’s your head, Johnny.”

Randy cooked the fish for dinner. We ate and then I helped him clean up.

“My father’s coming to visit soon and I have to be there,” I said. “It’s the law. My mother lines us up by the piano and I have to be there.”

“Johnny, she knows where you are. If she wanted you, she’d come get you.”

*  *  *

The morning after that Randy woke me up, told me to hurry, handed me a cream cheese sandwich, and said I’d have to eat it in the car.

“Where are we going?”

“Did you ever split wood?” he asked.

“I’ve peeled the bark off branches.”

“Ever hold an axe?”

“No.”

Randy drove to a small shopping center and pulled in near the hardware store. There was a 7-Eleven right next to the hardware store with a pay phone in front. I followed Randy into the hardware store but put my hand in my pocket and felt around for a quarter. While Randy was talking to the guy about axes and wedges I pretended to get lost looking for some fishing stuff. I went outside to the pay phone, put the quarter in, and dialed. I dialed my mother and waited. I thought Randy was going to come outside and kill me. I thought he’d come out with an axe and take off my head. I didn’t care. The phone clicked a couple of times and then beeped busy. A couple of people came out of the 7-Eleven and I thought of asking them for help, but I wasn’t sure what I’d say. I put the quarter in again and dialed. Busy. I hung up, got the quarter back, and put it in again. It started to ring, but then I thought I’d dialed the wrong number. I had only one quarter and I thought I might have hit an eight and not a five. I hung up, put the quarter in, and dialed again. Still busy. I thought of calling the operator or the police. I hung up, dialed again. Randy came out of the store and saw me at the phone. He was carrying the axe in one hand and a package in the other.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Trying to call my mom.”

“Any luck?”

“Line’s busy.”

He came over to the telephone and just stood there. He didn’t get mad. He didn’t kill me. He just stood there, listening to the phone beep. “Try again,” he said.

I hung up, put the quarter back in, and dialed again. Busy. “Why is she on the phone?”

“Talking to someone,” Randy said. He leaned against the wall of the 7-Eleven like he was going to stay there all day. He leaned back like he didn’t care that I was calling home.

I felt like an idiot with him standing there, not trying to stop me. I felt mentally ill. Randy was telling the truth; my mother wasn’t worried. She was sitting home, talking on the telephone.

“Let’s go,” I finally said.

“Go on, give it another try.” I almost put the quarter in again, but then I wondered what I would say. What could I say with Randy right there, telling me to go ahead and call? I put the quarter into my pocket.

We went home and Randy showed me how to split logs; how to swing the axe with both arms straight, to swing up over my shoulder and then go straight down into the log. He explained about putting in the metal wedges so that with a few whacks the whole piece split open like an English muffin.

When we were done, Randy showed me how to cook; we made sandwiches and Rice Krispies squares. Then we went into the living room, ate, played poker, and passed a carton of milk back and forth between us. Sometimes when I drank, I’d tilt the carton a little too high and milk spilled out onto my face, ran back behind my ear and down my neck.

“A kid like you should have more to say,” Randy said. “You should be nonstop, filled with ideas, things you’re going to do, all that stuff.”

I didn’t look at him.

“It’s like you’re not all there,” he said.

I was looking at the dirt in the cracks on the floor. Randy said it was like I wasn’t all there, and I thought about Rayanne and wondered if she had lots of things trapped in her head. I thought about how she didn’t really understand how retarded she was and how she thought I was a genius or something. I thought maybe I was like her, not enough for everyone to notice but enough for a guy like Randy to catch on. I thought it was probably my parents’ fault for not telling me. Maybe that’s why my father left. Maybe my mother, Rayanne, and me were all the same; maybe we were all retarded.

“Are you sleeping, Johnny?” Randy asked.

I shook my head.

“What’s wrong with you?”

I shrugged and waited for him to hit me. The Krispies pan was on the coffee table with a couple of pieces left in it. The milk carton was right there too. I reached my foot out and with the tip of my sneaker tipped the pan over. I knocked the pan over right in front of Randy.

He just sat there and looked at me. His face didn’t change. “Feel better now?” he finally asked, sweeping the cards into a pile and then making them into a stack. I shrugged. He stood and I shriveled up. I didn’t mean to, but he was standing over me and that’s just what happened. “Don’t be scared of me, Johnny,” he said. “Be scared of yourself.” He picked up the milk carton and took it into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and close. I heard Randy pull out a chair and sit down. I got up off the sofa and onto my hands and knees. I picked up the pan, took it into the kitchen, and put it down on the counter.

“’Night, Johnny,” Randy said. He was playing solitaire.

“’Night.” I walked down the hall to my room.