Untouchable (29 page)

The Kid crouched, motioned for them to huddle around. He shone his flashlight on the steel security door, the photographs wedged in behind the bars. He moved the light slowly across the photos, letting them see the faces, the woman with the red hair, her friends and relatives. It was important to him that they saw this before they saw what was inside. He felt they should know her a little, felt they should know what her mom had looked like, the kinds of places she’d visited.

“Who put these here?” Michelle whispered.

Friends,
The Kid wrote.
Relatives
.

“How many of these people died here?” Matthew said.

They both looked at The Kid. He could see they were a little afraid of what the answer might be. The Kid held up one finger. Matthew looked back at the photograph of the red-haired woman alone, smiling at the camera in front of the gas pumps. He wrinkled his nose again at the smell.

“Is she still inside?” Matthew said.

They both looked at The Kid again. He wasn’t trying to scare them, but he felt he had to tell the truth. He nodded.

The Kid took the paper masks and goggles out of his backpack, handed them out, demonstrated how to put them on. Then he pulled the security door open and they all squeezed inside.

The flashlight played against the walls and floor of the little front room. Someone held onto the back of The Kid’s shirt. It felt strange to be the one who wasn’t afraid. He moved the light around so they could see the holes in the walls, the jagged pile of wood that had been the table and chairs. The Kid could hear their hard breathing through the paper masks.

It was Michelle’s hand grabbing the back of The Kid’s shirt, which surprised him.

He led them through the kitchen, across the busted tile, past the charred appliances. He shone the light straight up so they could see the holes in the ceiling, the night sky beyond. They stopped at the pile of rubble at the bedroom door, stood looking at the remains of the bed. Michelle and Matthew were both holding the back of The Kid’s shirt now. He turned and pulled them slowly down the hall, into the living room at the back of the house.

He held the flashlight over his head to illuminate as much of the room as he could. The ruined drapes and furniture husks, the TV with its head blown off, the small clumps of melted picture-frame glass. Then he moved the light across the walls, gradually revealing the mural, starting at the rolling waves and the pirate ship and the rowboat, moving along the streets of their neighborhood, the houses and the school, finally bringing the light to rest at the center of the far wall, the unfinished drawing of the red-haired woman lifting off the ground.

The Kid set the flashlight on the floor, clicked on the high beam to show most of the mural at once. Michelle let go of his shirt, walked to the wall. She stood in front of the mural, held her fingers out, a few inches from the chalk. Followed the lines of the waves as the water turned to asphalt, the rolling streets of the neighborhood. She ended in front of the red-haired woman, looked down at her boots, up at her eyes, further up to the hole in the ceiling.

“You did this?” Matthew said to The Kid, his voice muffled behind the paper mask.

The Kid nodded.
Except the angel
.

“What’s her name?” Michelle said, still facing the red-haired woman.

The Kid shrugged. Michelle turned to him for a response and The Kid shrugged again.

“She’s not really here,” Matthew said. “It’s just a drawing of somebody, not the actual person.” This sounded to The Kid more like a question than a statement of fact.

“How long did it take to draw this?” Michelle said. The Kid joined her at the wall. Matthew came along behind, still clutching The Kid’s shirt.

A few days.

“You come here by yourself?” Matthew said.

The Kid nodded.

“No one else knows?” Michelle said.

The Kid shook his head.

Michelle looked back at the red-haired woman, moved her hand around the white-chalk glow of her face and arms.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Matthew whispered. “This isn’t what you’re supposed to do with dead people.”

“So what?” Michelle said.

“This is a blasphemy. This is something against God.”

Michelle wasn’t listening. She traced the outlines of the angel’s wings, followed the curves of the feathers, keeping her fingers a few inches from the wall. At the tips of the wings, she lifted her hands away, let them drift up a little toward the hole in the ceiling, the cool darkness beyond.

Matthew complained most of the way back, sure that his father had woken up by then, found him missing, called the police. Michelle was strangely quiet, preoccupied. At the corner of Sunset, she tossed her dead flashlight into a garbage can.

They parted ways at the bus stop. Matthew hustled down the sidewalk toward his street, breaking into a run when he reached the gated liquor store on the corner. The Kid nodded to Michelle by way of goodbye, started back around the library toward home.

She was still there when he looked back, sitting on the bus stop bench. He didn’t know what she was doing, why she’d be waiting for the bus. The Kid walked back to the bench.

“I’m not going home for a while,” she said. “I’m going to stay out here.”

Why?

“Never mind why. None of your business why.”

How long?

Michelle shrugged. She opened her backpack and pulled out a Twinkie. She tore open the cellophane and bit off the top half of the cake.

Longer than an hour?

Michelle didn’t answer, took another bite of the Twinkie.

Where are you going to sleep?

“Here,” she said, mouth full. “I’ll sleep right here.”

You can’t sleep here.

“Why the fuck not?”

You’ll get mugged or killed.

“Good,” she said. “So what?” Then she changed her mind. “Nobody’s going to kill me. I’ll fuck up whoever tries to kill me.”

You can’t sleep out here.

“You don’t believe I could do that? Fuck somebody up?”

I believe you.

“Then what’s the problem?” She popped the remainder of the Twinkie into her mouth, balled the cellophane, tossed it toward the overflowing garbage can at the end of the shelter.

The Kid looked up at the library. There was a nice lawn around the building, deep and dark. There were trees against the stone wall, places to hide, to sleep.

You can sleep up there by the library,

Michelle swiveled on the bench, looked up at the lawn, the trees. The Kid followed her to the side of the building. She dropped her backpack in a corner by the wide stone steps.

“Good. I’m here,” she said. “You happy? Go home, Kid. See you later.”

The Kid pulled a couple of Matthew’s
Captain America
comics out of his backpack, handed them to Michelle.

“What am I going to do with these?” she said. “I can’t even see the pages.”

He took out his flashlight, handed it to her.

I need it back.

“Fine. Good,” she said. “You’ll get it back.”

She clicked on the light, tested it against the side of the library, shining it up into the shadowy reaches of the trees.

The Kid zipped up his pack, readjusted it on his back, walked across the lawn to the sidewalk. When he looked back he could see the yellow circle of the flashlight beam moving across the side of the library, up into the trees, out through the lawn, scanning the terrain. At the end of the block he looked back again, but this time the light was off, the library lawn was dark again.

They had been waiting for he didn’t know how long, Darby and The Kid, sitting at the kitchen table, macaroni and cheese cooling on their plates. Lucy had placed the dishes on the table and then she had left quickly, up to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. A few minutes later Darby knocked and she’d said that she was fine, she was all right. She’d be down in a minute. He’d taken his seat at the table again, told The Kid they could start as soon as his mom came back down.

Darby took sips of his water. There was no alcohol in the house, not even a beer in the fridge. This was a decision they’d made, he and Lucy, a month or so before, after the phone call about Earl, after a few days of Lucy calling in sick to school, unable to leave the house. The house was completely dry. This was a decision they’d made, after she’d gone to see her doctor and he’d written her a prescription, a medication that was supposed to help.

They’d been waiting for he didn’t know how long. He stood outside the bathroom, quietly saying her name, his ear to the door. He could hear something, some kind of rhythmic movement from inside the bathroom, the fabric of her clothes rubbing against themselves. He said her name but there was no answer, hadn’t been an answer for ten, fifteen minutes.

He opened the door, slowly, still saying her name. He didn’t want to scare her. He had scared her before, had come upon her in the kitchen or the bedroom and surprised her somehow, like she’d forgotten he was there, a stranger, an intruder in the house.

She was sitting on the floor, her back to the toilet, her hands covering her ears, eyes shut tight, rocking from side to side. Her lips were moving but she wasn’t making a sound.

Lucy, he said, but she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t move her hands from her ears.

He stepped inside, closed the bathroom door behind him. He didn’t want The Kid to follow him in. He knelt down beside her and said her name again and when she didn’t respond he took her wrists in his hands and at this her eyes snapped open, wide and wild and terrified. She shifted herself away, out of his grasp, up against the wall, still rocking, still clutching her ears, looking at Darby like she had no idea who he was.

He stood across from the seafood restaurant, watched the same waiter pull the security gate closed and head up toward the bus stop, hands in his jacket pockets. The street silent, motionless this late. Darby watched the dark windows of the restaurant, the apartment above. He spat onto the sidewalk, tried to clear the speck. He’d thought he could keep himself from coming here, thought that once he was here he might be able to turn away and go back home. He’d thought he might be stronger than this.

He spat again, put his head down and crossed the street.

There was a small window at sidewalk level on the side of the building. No glass, just the side of a cardboard box stuffed into the frame. Bars, Darby thought. Steel bars, a security screen would prevent something like this. He pulled the cardboard out of the window, lay flat on the sidewalk, pulled himself inside. A basement, dark and musty, the smell of laundry detergent, mildew. The only light was from outside, neon shop signs and a streetlight through the open window. He climbed the staircase at the far end of the basement, opened the door at the top, trying to minimize the scream of the old hinges. He squeezed out into a back hallway where he found a flight of steep steps. The stairwell that gripped the back of the building, he guessed. The steps that led up to the plant-choked landing on the other side of the apartment’s sliding glass door.

He took the steps, careful with his weight on the creaky boards. At the top landing, he could see the streets of Chinatown below, the towers of downtown beyond. He maneuvered carefully through the piles of boxes, the plants, the twisted knot of bicycles. Stood at the glass door. He pulled the handle and the door slid open easily.

The room smelled familiar, Everclean carpet cleanser and disinfectant. He let his eyes adjust and focus, the darkness pulling back to gray, revealing shapes, outlines. The bathroom door, the bed, the dresser. He stepped through the room, the rushing in his ears so loud he’d be unable to hear if someone was coming up the stairs after him, if someone was coming in from the front. He stopped a few feet from the dresser when another shape revealed itself, inches from his next step.

There was a body on the floor.

Darby didn’t move, didn’t breathe, waited for more of the darkness to recede around the shape.

There was a sheet spread out across the carpet, and a pillow, and a man curled into both, asleep. Darby could see more the longer he stood still, the longer he held his breath. The visible half of the man’s face, pale white in the darkness. It was the father; it was Peter. The toe of Darby’s boot was almost touching his ribcage.

He waited for Peter to wake with a start, jump to his feet, howl at the intrusion. Waited for the man to rightfully defend his home. Nothing happened. Darby watched the man, his body twisted on the floor, his hands clinging to the sheet. Holding on while he slept, still dressed, in the same clothes he’d worn during the cleanup.

Darby nodded, kept nodding his head, keeping it away. This was what it looked like, this kind of sorrow. Darby nodded, took a breath, stepped around Peter, further into the room.

The dresser was as he’d left it, the photographs, the bottles of perfume and hairspray. He picked up the wooden rabbit, held it in his hand. His hands were shaking, hadn’t stopped shaking since he’d left the fish fry. He was sure that the noise of his shaking would wake Peter, that the man would rise up behind him in the mirror over the dresser, but there was nothing, no reflection but his own dark shape.

Dawn light through the grimy windows of the garage, dust swirling in tight spirals, the ragged crow of a rooster somewhere in the neighborhood. Darby set the wooden rabbit into the drawer with the ring and the snow globe. Tired, unsteady on his feet. He took the newspaper clipping from his pocket and placed it into the drawer.
Greene Goes the Distance
. He closed the drawer and stood in the garage and waited for what he hoped would come, waited for the relief, the feeling of the finished thing.

The Kid stood by the dodgeball wall before school. He saw Razz joking with some other kids in his tagging crew, saw Brian and some boys from the track team, saw Arizona talking to Rhonda Sizemore. No sign of Michelle or Matthew. He wondered how long Michelle had stayed out by the library, what time she’d finally gone home. He wondered if Matthew had gotten caught by his father, if he’d spilled the beans and told everything about the burned house, about the Covenant.