Untouchable (40 page)

She turns off the faucet in the tub. Steam swirls across the surface of the water. She undresses, folds her clothes and sets them on the toilet seat cover. She does not look at herself in the mirror as she passes back into the bedroom. The rough carpeting under her feet. She takes the package of razors from the bed. She takes two photographs out of her purse. Before she left the house, she’d pulled them from the bulletin board above her desk. She sets the pictures on the rim of the tub. The first is of Whitley, standing on the porch the previous Halloween in a costume she’d made, an overstuffed bag of groceries. The second is of David in the booth at that all-night diner on their first date.

She’d barely made it through that evening, the beginning of another black block. The fear had been so great. But there was something about him, a physical presence, an internal solidity that made her feel safe. A kindness in his light green eyes. She looked at the tattoos running up his arms, disappearing under his short sleeves. Two days before, she would have clutched her purse if he’d passed her on the street. Now she couldn’t stop looking at him.

At one point he got up from the booth to use the restroom and she almost called out to him, she almost said his name, just to hear it in the diner, just to ensure that he was coming back. A few minutes later, when he sat back across from her, she was so relieved that she took his hand on the table and held it tight, smiling like a fool, rambling nonstop again, making noise to block out the fear.

She’d pulled her camera out of her purse and snapped a picture before he could even register what she was doing. She’d smiled like it was no big deal, like it was just an impulsive act, but this was an important thing, recording this moment, his face in the booth. If she never saw him again, or if she saw him for a few weeks or months and then never saw him again, she knew it was important that she have some physical proof, that she could always see his face in this moment and remember when she felt safe.

She opens the package of razors, takes one out, wraps the rest in toilet paper and places them in the wastebasket. She pours herself another drink. No juice this time. She closes the bathroom door. She steps into the tub. The heat passes up her legs, the tiny hairs standing to attention. The room is rubbery, inexact. The pills and vodka rushing through her system. She sits slowly, carefully, easing herself into the water.

She rests her head back against the tile wall. The tops of her knees, her toes break the surface of the steaming water. The two pictures sit down by her feet. She leaves her glasses on so she can see their faces. Her glasses fog in the steam and she wipes them with her thumbs. She lets her arms slip under the water, her skin warming, softening. She looks at their faces. She is sure that she is crying, but she can’t feel anything anymore. Everything is numb. She sees David sitting at the kitchen table, his bare feet sticking out of his jeans, looking like a lost little boy. She sees Whitley at the street corner, looking back when she called to him, and she sees him as he will be in a few years, as a teenager, as a man.

She wishes that she were stronger. She wishes that she were someone stronger. She is so scared and so tired of being scared. She is so sorry. She could have covered that note with apologies, she could have filled the page, but there was nothing more to say.

The razor cuts cleanly and quickly and she takes off her glasses and closes her eyes and submerges herself in the water and lets go.

The Kid felt a hand on his arm. He opened his eyes and saw Matthew’s face hovering above him.

“I thought you were dead,” Matthew said.

Matthew led him out of the burned house, over the wall, onto the sidewalk. He carried The Kid’s backpack over his shoulders. Matthew said that he’d seen The Kid talking to Michelle after school and then running in the direction of the burned house. He was worried, so he’d snuck out of his house just before dinner to look for The Kid. He said he’d probably be in big trouble when he got home, but there wasn’t too much he could do about that one way or the other.

They walked out of the neighborhood, The Kid feeling nauseous and unsteady. He threw up in a row of bushes near
Gift 2000
and felt a little better. Not great, but better. He didn’t know what time it was. Looked like prime-time TV time, televisions flickering in the windows of the houses and apartments they passed. Matthew said that they should go back to his house so Matthew’s father could take The Kid to the hospital but The Kid just wanted to go home. His hands and feet tingled, like they had been asleep for a long time. Matthew held onto his shoulder as they walked. The blue star on The Kid’s arm was now just a dark, sweaty smudge.

The house was dark, no lights in the windows, on the porch. Maybe his dad was out looking for him. Maybe his dad had been taken away by the cops.

Matthew opened the gate and they started up the front yard. There was something happening in the darkness on the porch, movement and noise. The Kid heard snuffling and snapping, choking noises, and then they were close enough to see Steve Rogers flopping around on the porch. A real seizure, not fake like The Kid’s. Steve Rogers snarfing and gagging, rolling across the porch in jerky spasms.

The Kid didn’t know what to do. Matthew was walking backwards, eyes wide at the thrashing dog on the porch. And then The Kid remembered, he had it all written down, his dad’s instructions, the things he was supposed to do in case this ever happened again. He turned Matthew around and got his notebook out of the backpack. He turned back through the book, looking for the right page, but it was too dark to read anything. He remembered the first thing his dad had done. He ran up onto the porch, stepped around the convulsing dog, unlocked the security screen, the front door, reached inside the house and turned on the porch light. Steve Rogers’s face shone twisted, jaws biting, his eyes searching for help.

Matthew stayed put halfway down the lawn, mouth open, feet frozen in place. “What do we do, what do we do?” he said.

The Kid was scared, too, but there was no time to be scared. The Kid was sick, but there was no time to be sick. The dog gagged and sputtered on the porch. The Kid found the right page in the notebook. His dad had gotten into a good position and held Steve Rogers down, one hand on his ribs, one hand on the side of his head. This was after his dad had gotten bitten and yelled Fuck. The Kid figured he could skip that part. The dog thrashed at his feet. The Kid was afraid, he didn’t want to get down on the floor, put his hands on the dog, get bitten, but the dog needed help and his dad wasn’t there and he couldn’t let Steve Rogers flop around like that. He figured that Steve Rogers was maybe more scared than he was.

The Kid dropped his backpack, knelt on the porch, walked on his knees, slowly, keeping his notebook in one hand, reaching out with his other hand. Matthew stayed put on the front lawn, saying
Oh geez oh geez oh geez
. The Kid touched Steve Rogers’s fur and the dog jerked away, jackknifing around in almost a complete circle. The Kid was scared but he reached in again, grabbed the fur near the dog’s ribs, holding on when the dog flopped and bucked. The Kid dropped the notebook, left it open on the porch to the right page, reached in with his other hand, the really dangerous part, reaching for Steve Rogers’s head, the flashing teeth just inches from The Kid’s fingers, and then he had it, one of Steve Rogers’s ears, and he flattened both of his hands and pressed down, moved in closer to use all the weight and strength he had, pushing the dog down to the floorboards, the dog jerking and bucking and The Kid pushing and looking over at his notebook. There was something he was supposed to do that he was forgetting, something he was missing, and then he saw it, the thing his dad had said to Steve Rogers, the thing that had finally calmed the dog down. He wanted to get Matthew’s attention, maybe Matthew could read what was written in the notebook, but Matthew was standing in the yard with his eyes closed and Steve Rogers was still bucking so The Kid opened his mouth and tried but nothing came out but air, nothing but a pitiful squeak, the dog thrashing under his hands, all the weight and strength The Kid could muster not quite enough, the dog working itself loose, and The Kid tried again and this time it happened, a strange scratchy sound, an unknown sound of some kind, a secret loose in the world.

“It’s okay, Steve,” The Kid said. “This is fine, this is okay.”

Steve Rogers flopped and bucked and The Kid held tight, held him down, kept repeating what he’d said, his dad’s words, his throat scratched and burning, and slowly the dog moved less and less and then not at all, just lay under The Kid’s hands, panting, his sides heaving, snout against the floor, eyes looking out into nothing. It was over, and The Kid sat with his dog and kept his hands on his dog and felt it all gone, the angel, the Covenant, an unbelievable loss.

“Holy cow,” Matthew said.

The Kid pet the dog, stroked his fur gently. “It’s okay, Steve,” The Kid said. He didn’t need to look at the notebook to remember his dad’s words. “We did it. It’s going to be all right now.”

Bob in a message on the cell phone:

“I got there too late, David. I was in that long line of cars when the fire started, when the feds rushed in. Everyone was screaming and honking their horns. Some guys in the pickup in front of me had hunting rifles and they started firing shots in the air, but no one was moving. It was a one-lane road and nobody could go anywhere. I finally turned back, found a motel a couple of miles away and spent the night. I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t understand why I came up here. What I had planned to do. It didn’t make any sense.

“This morning I got up and drove back out to the compound. The road was mostly empty, just some fire trucks and news vans. The feds had set up a tent about a hundred yards from the press area. There were a bunch of folding chairs, a coffee pot, some bottled water. Nobody there. I sat and watched the recovery workers, the smoke from the compound. Pretty soon, people started coming. Friends and family of the Realists. They went right to the press area and the press pointed them to where I was sitting. These people came over and they were crying or they were raging or they just looked numb, they just looked blank, and I’m sitting there with a cup of coffee and some of them just started talking to me. They must have thought I belonged there, that I was there with the tent. Someone would talk for a while and then they would stop and someone else would talk. There were fifteen, twenty people in the tent at one point. They sat and talked to me all morning. I never told them I didn’t belong there. I didn’t say much of anything. I just sat and nodded, got people coffee.”

Bob coughed away from the receiver, sucked on his cigarette.

“I’m back at the motel now. I’m going to get some sleep, maybe, something to eat. Then I’ll go back to the tent. More people are probably coming and I think someone should be there when they do.”

The Kid was sitting on the porch with Steve Rogers when Darby got home. There was a rip in The Kid’s pants and most of the color was drained from his cheeks and he sat with his hands on the dog, holding the dog like something had come and passed.

Darby got out of the pickup and walked up the front yard. As he got closer to the porch light he saw The Kid’s eyes widen at the sight of the dark stain on his shirt, his nose stuffed with gauze from the old first aid kit in the pickup.

Darby sat next to The Kid and held The Kid’s head to his chest, held him close and tight and then he heard it, quiet at first but gaining strength and volume, The Kid’s sobs, rising up from the porch, coming faster and harder, the beautiful sound returning to the house.

T
hey drove east out of the city, past sand hills and turning white windmills, The Kid leaning his head against the window of the pickup, watching the wisps of clouds in the sky, the reflection of the dog in the side mirror. Steve Rogers sat in the bed of the truck, ears blown back, eyes closed, snout to the wind.

About an hour out of traffic they pulled over for a few minutes. His dad stood back by the gate of the truck, away from The Kid, scratching the dog’s neck while he smoked a cigarette.

What had happened in the time since the angel had left? A month and a half. His dad had a new job now, at a hotel out by the ocean, fixing things in the rooms, bathroom sinks and toilets and busted TVs. He worked during the day, leaving for the hotel when The Kid went to school, coming home not too much longer after The Kid got home. They still ate fast food most nights, or got takeout, but once a week a woman from his dad’s new job came by and left dinner in Tupperware containers for his dad to heat up in the microwave, meatballs and boiled potatoes and some kind of pancakes that were supposed to be for desert but that The Kid ate for breakfast. A kind of food The Kid had never heard of. Croatian, his dad said. The woman came by once a week and talked to his dad for a few minutes on the porch and then left the dinner. The Kid wasn’t crazy about the food, except for the pancakes, but his dad said they should eat it. This woman had gone to all the trouble of making it and bringing it over.

The burned house was gone. Trucks from the city had come and bulldozed it one afternoon, pushing the walls in on themselves, collapsing what was left of the roof. The Kid and Matthew and Michelle had stood on the sidewalk across the street and watched until it got dark and the streetlights came on and they all had to go home.

Arizona was gone, too. Her father had packed the family up and moved back to their old town, her old school. The Kid had gotten a letter from her the week before. She said she was happy to be back where she belonged. She said she thought he’d make a great talk show host someday. On the bottom of the page she’d drawn a red-haired angel with both hands flying up into the sky.

It was dinnertime when he and his dad entered the desert city. New, clean shopping centers, gas stations, restaurants. Palm trees like the palm trees in movies, in TV shows, tall and straight, the dead fronds cut away. Neighborhoods with nice cars in the driveways, neat houses with trimmed green lawns. No traffic, no one on the sidewalks.

They parked on a quiet side street, leaving the dog in the back of the truck. The pink stucco wall was at the end of the block and his dad boosted him up and over and then climbed over after, both of them jumping down, landing on the grass on the other side,
bump, bump,
one after the other.

The place was just like his dad had described it. The Kid looked around, amazed by the exactness of the vision. Like a memory he never knew he’d had. The colors sharp even in the fading light, green and gold and flamingo pink. The winding streets were quiet, the bungalows quiet, everyone eating dinner, maybe, yellow lights in the windows, the sky getting dark. New Year’s Eve. The clocks would strike midnight in a few hours and then who knew what would happen.

They found a swimming pool, the water bright and blue, rippling slowly with shadows from the palms stretching overhead. They stripped down to their swim trunks and his dad slid into the pool, turning over onto his back, wincing when the chlorinated water rolled over the red lines on his nose, the place where it had been broken and was still trying to heal. Sounds of people laughing in the far distance, one of the bungalows on the golf course, the sound of someone clapping, pop of a champagne bottle. The air warm and dry, the wide sky going orange and red in the sunset. The Kid stood beside the pool. The pebbled cement was rough under his bare feet. He didn’t know if they were going to get caught or what. What would happen if they did. His dad floated on his back in the pool, looking up at the blinking lights of a plane passing slowly overhead. The Kid watched the plane, thought of the weight in that machine, the magic of how it stayed up in the air. He said the word, all three syllables,
aeroplane
, just loud enough that only he could hear. He wondered if his voice had changed while he hadn’t used it, if it had gotten deeper in the time it was away.

His dad was standing chest deep in the water, neck back, watching the plane. The Kid said his dad’s name, realized as soon as he said it that he wasn’t loud enough. He said it again, “Dad,” louder this time, and this time his dad turned and saw The Kid and opened his arms. The Kid took a step toward the pool, then another, plugging his nose, one foot off the ground, the other off the ground, a moment in the air, rising over the pool, the purple hills in the distance, the plane overhead and his dad waiting in the water below.