The Shadow Year (15 page)

The day the horses started at Hialeah, Jim decided the ground was clear enough for us to go in search of the man in the white coat's house. It was a Saturday, and the sun was shining. There was a light breeze. As we forded the stream behind the old Halloway house, Jim said to me, “We can't keep calling this guy ‘the man in the white coat.' It takes too long to say.”

“What do you want to call him?” I asked.

We stepped onto the path, and he said, “I had an idea. Remember the name of the nun who told us about him walking the earth? Her name was Sister Joe, so…”

“Brother Joe?” I asked.

“Josephine,” he said.

“No,” I said immediately. “You can't call him that.”

“How about Deathman?” said Jim. “Like Batman.”

“I don't want to say that,” I told him.

“Well, what do you want?” he asked.

I'd thought of calling him Dr. Watson and was about to say it when Jim cut in and said, “No, wait! We're gonna call him Roger—'cause his face looks like a skull, and the flag that has the skull is the Jolly Roger. What do you think? We could call him Jolly Roger.”

“Too much like Mr. Rogers,” I said.

“Son of Krapp?” said Jim.

“How about Dr. Watson?” I said.

“No, that sucks. We could just call him Mr. White for short,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, although I wasn't crazy about it, and we both said it out loud a few times to practice.

Going back across the stream at one point, we came upon Tony Calfano's fort—a lean-to made of tree limbs and brush, a standing triangle of logs. Calfano hunted in the woods with a pellet gun. He was in my class and lived around the corner from us, next to Mrs. Grimm. When he'd kill squirrels, he'd skin them and hang their dried pelts on the walls of his fort. I'd come upon the spot by accident only two other times, and both times it gave me a shiver to see it. He'd told me in school that he knew where sassafras grew in the woods and that he'd pick it and make sassafras tea. One time this kid Tom Frost asked Tony why he was out of school, knowing that the cops had been to his house when his mother went nuts. Calfano said, “I had Frost bite on my dick.”

Farther on in our journey, we had to pass through a place we called “the crater,” a round depression in the woods on the way to the railroad tracks. It was about twelve feet deep and huge in circumference. The edge was a sloping dirt hill, and all across its sunken space knee-high pines grew like grass. Crows perched in the trees at its far edge. We didn't know that area of the woods very well. In trying to find the back of Mr. White's house, we would have to travel almost to the end of the trees.

Whenever we saw a backyard off to our right, we'd sneak up cautiously, staying well hidden, and look to see if there was a wooden garage standing by itself. At first we went all the way to the tracks and didn't find the house and had to turn back and look again. There was one with a garage in the backyard, but when I looked at the house, I didn't see that high window where the light had come on. I shook my head, and Jim laughed.

“Did you really see this place?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Were Laurel and Hardy there?”

I gave him the finger.

“Okay,” he said, and we looked some more, traveling back and forth along the western edge of the woods. Finally he said, “Forget it,” and started to head home. When we got to the middle of our path across the crater, he stopped and turned west. “Let's look over here,” he said. We walked through the low pines to the western edge and climbed up the embankment. There we found a place of giant pines with boughs that swept down to the ground. I had a sudden memory of running around them through the night in waist-high snow and knew that we were close.

“This is it,” I told Jim.

We entered an area where we'd never been before. It was more like a forest, with tall pine trees, their brown needles covering the ground. The branches were so high above us that when the sun occasionally snuck through, it was like a beam out of Flash Gordon. The fear was building in my muscles, and my head was going dull. Then, through the pines, I saw the edge of the garage and immediately crouched down. I whispered to Jim, and when he turned and saw me, he dropped, too. I pointed toward the garage. He couldn't see it from his angle, so he crept back to where I was and looked.

A minute later we were behind the last row of pines and had a clear view of the garage, the backyard, and the house. Its afternoon peacefulness made it scarier to me. We knelt there for a long time, listening to the breeze and staring at the windows. I thought of Charlie Edison trapped inside there, and my mouth went dry. I was losing strength through the bottoms of my sneakers.

Jim turned to me and whispered, “If anything happens, run home and tell somebody to call the cops,” and then he was off,
across the short space of open ground to the back of the garage. I couldn't believe he'd gone, and I didn't want to be left alone. As I started toward him, though, he looked back and held up a hand to make me stop. He stood upright and walked out of sight around the side of the garage that couldn't be seen from the house. At every second I expected the back door to squeal open, the light to go on in the upstairs window. After a very long time, Jim appeared behind the garage and waved for me to come.

I ran up next to him, and he whispered, “The car is gone. He must be out killing someone.”

I stopped walking.

“Come on,” he said. “Hurry up. I want to show you something.”

I took a deep breath before stepping into the shadow of the garage. There were oil stains on the concrete floor, and shelves lined the walls, stacked with empty Mr. Clean bottles, all turned out the same way to show the bald guy with his arms folded. Jim grabbed my arm and said, “Look back there.”

He pulled me slowly, farther into the garage. I saw a huge silver box lying across almost the whole width of the place. It hummed with electricity.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A giant freezer,” he said.

An image of Barzita, eyes shattered, frost on his chin stubble, arms twisted and solid as an ice pop blossomed in my head, and I pulled my arm out of Jim's grip. “No,” I said, and took off at top speed. As I passed the back end of the shed, I heard car tires on the gravel of the driveway. That's where Jim passed me. We got back into the woods and then stopped and got down to catch our breath. We still had a full view of the backyard, and we watched.

“Did he see you?” I asked Jim.

“No way,” he said.

The sound of the car door closing in the garage shut us up. We saw him come out and head toward the back steps. He wore a white rain hat, and over his thin wrist he carried a black umbrella. Mr. White was bony, with a big Adam's apple and a sharp nose. He reached for the railing leading to the back door and then stopped. He turned slightly and looked over his shoulder into the woods. When he took two steps directly toward where we hid, I felt Jim's grip on my ankle, telling me not to run. Mr. White stopped again and sniffed the air. At one point I thought he was staring right into my eyes.

He finally backed away toward the steps and then climbed them. We ran like hell the minute the door closed. Halfway across the crater, we started laughing, and it made me run faster. We didn't stop until we were almost home.

“He killed Barzita, froze him, and when the snow came, he dumped his body in the road,” said Jim.

“Do you think?” I said.

“What do you think?”

“I'm wondering about all the Mr. Clean,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Jim.

“Maybe he cleans up the death with it,” I said.

“A hundred bottles apiece,” said Jim.

The day the horses started at Hialeah, Jim decided the ground was clear enough for us to go in search of the man in the white coat's house. It was a Saturday, and the sun was shining. There was a light breeze. As we forded the stream behind the old Halloway house, Jim said to me, “We can't keep calling this guy ‘the man in the white coat.' It takes too long to say.”

“What do you want to call him?” I asked.

We stepped onto the path, and he said, “I had an idea. Remember the name of the nun who told us about him walking the earth? Her name was Sister Joe, so…”

“Brother Joe?” I asked.

“Josephine,” he said.

“No,” I said immediately. “You can't call him that.”

“How about Deathman?” said Jim. “Like Batman.”

“I don't want to say that,” I told him.

“Well, what do you want?” he asked.

I'd thought of calling him Dr. Watson and was about to say it when Jim cut in and said, “No, wait! We're gonna call him Roger—'cause his face looks like a skull, and the flag that has the skull is the Jolly Roger. What do you think? We could call him Jolly Roger.”

“Too much like Mr. Rogers,” I said.

“Son of Krapp?” said Jim.

“How about Dr. Watson?” I said.

“No, that sucks. We could just call him Mr. White for short,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, although I wasn't crazy about it, and we both said it out loud a few times to practice.

Going back across the stream at one point, we came upon Tony Calfano's fort—a lean-to made of tree limbs and brush, a standing triangle of logs. Calfano hunted in the woods with a pellet gun. He was in my class and lived around the corner from us, next to Mrs. Grimm. When he'd kill squirrels, he'd skin them and hang their dried pelts on the walls of his fort. I'd come upon the spot by accident only two other times, and both times it gave me a shiver to see it. He'd told me in school that he knew where sassafras grew in the woods and that he'd pick it and make sassafras tea. One time this kid Tom Frost asked Tony why he was out of school, knowing that the cops had been to his house when his mother went nuts. Calfano said, “I had Frost bite on my dick.”

Farther on in our journey, we had to pass through a place we called “the crater,” a round depression in the woods on the way to the railroad tracks. It was about twelve feet deep and huge in circumference. The edge was a sloping dirt hill, and all across its sunken space knee-high pines grew like grass. Crows perched in the trees at its far edge. We didn't know that area of the woods very well. In trying to find the back of Mr. White's house, we would have to travel almost to the end of the trees.

Whenever we saw a backyard off to our right, we'd sneak up cautiously, staying well hidden, and look to see if there was a wooden garage standing by itself. At first we went all the way to the tracks and didn't find the house and had to turn back and look again. There was one with a garage in the backyard, but when I looked at the house, I didn't see that high window where the light had come on. I shook my head, and Jim laughed.

“Did you really see this place?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Were Laurel and Hardy there?”

I gave him the finger.

“Okay,” he said, and we looked some more, traveling back and forth along the western edge of the woods. Finally he said, “Forget it,” and started to head home. When we got to the middle of our path across the crater, he stopped and turned west. “Let's look over here,” he said. We walked through the low pines to the western edge and climbed up the embankment. There we found a place of giant pines with boughs that swept down to the ground. I had a sudden memory of running around them through the night in waist-high snow and knew that we were close.

“This is it,” I told Jim.

We entered an area where we'd never been before. It was more like a forest, with tall pine trees, their brown needles covering the ground. The branches were so high above us that when the sun occasionally snuck through, it was like a beam out of Flash Gordon. The fear was building in my muscles, and my head was going dull. Then, through the pines, I saw the edge of the garage and immediately crouched down. I whispered to Jim, and when he turned and saw me, he dropped, too. I pointed toward the garage. He couldn't see it from his angle, so he crept back to where I was and looked.

A minute later we were behind the last row of pines and had a clear view of the garage, the backyard, and the house. Its afternoon peacefulness made it scarier to me. We knelt there for a long time, listening to the breeze and staring at the windows. I thought of Charlie Edison trapped inside there, and my mouth went dry. I was losing strength through the bottoms of my sneakers.

Jim turned to me and whispered, “If anything happens, run home and tell somebody to call the cops,” and then he was off,
across the short space of open ground to the back of the garage. I couldn't believe he'd gone, and I didn't want to be left alone. As I started toward him, though, he looked back and held up a hand to make me stop. He stood upright and walked out of sight around the side of the garage that couldn't be seen from the house. At every second I expected the back door to squeal open, the light to go on in the upstairs window. After a very long time, Jim appeared behind the garage and waved for me to come.

I ran up next to him, and he whispered, “The car is gone. He must be out killing someone.”

I stopped walking.

“Come on,” he said. “Hurry up. I want to show you something.”

I took a deep breath before stepping into the shadow of the garage. There were oil stains on the concrete floor, and shelves lined the walls, stacked with empty Mr. Clean bottles, all turned out the same way to show the bald guy with his arms folded. Jim grabbed my arm and said, “Look back there.”

He pulled me slowly, farther into the garage. I saw a huge silver box lying across almost the whole width of the place. It hummed with electricity.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A giant freezer,” he said.

An image of Barzita, eyes shattered, frost on his chin stubble, arms twisted and solid as an ice pop blossomed in my head, and I pulled my arm out of Jim's grip. “No,” I said, and took off at top speed. As I passed the back end of the shed, I heard car tires on the gravel of the driveway. That's where Jim passed me. We got back into the woods and then stopped and got down to catch our breath. We still had a full view of the backyard, and we watched.

“Did he see you?” I asked Jim.

“No way,” he said.

The sound of the car door closing in the garage shut us up. We saw him come out and head toward the back steps. He wore a white rain hat, and over his thin wrist he carried a black umbrella. Mr. White was bony, with a big Adam's apple and a sharp nose. He reached for the railing leading to the back door and then stopped. He turned slightly and looked over his shoulder into the woods. When he took two steps directly toward where we hid, I felt Jim's grip on my ankle, telling me not to run. Mr. White stopped again and sniffed the air. At one point I thought he was staring right into my eyes.

He finally backed away toward the steps and then climbed them. We ran like hell the minute the door closed. Halfway across the crater, we started laughing, and it made me run faster. We didn't stop until we were almost home.

“He killed Barzita, froze him, and when the snow came, he dumped his body in the road,” said Jim.

“Do you think?” I said.

“What do you think?”

“I'm wondering about all the Mr. Clean,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Jim.

“Maybe he cleans up the death with it,” I said.

“A hundred bottles apiece,” said Jim.