Wait Until Twilight (10 page)

“Eeeeek!”

“Shut it up, boy.” He takes one of my trembling hands and puts it on the baby’s neck.

“No,” I say.

“Eeeeeek.”

“We hate that noise. That stupid mindless voice! Shut it up.”

“Eeeeeek! Kyuuuuu! Kyuuuu!”

I start to squeeze, and it squeaks shut. My hand stops shaking.

“Good, see. Now stop for a second.”

“Eeeeeek! Eeeeeek! Eeeeeek!”

“God, shut it up, boy! Shut it up! We hate it!”

He’s right. I want it to shut up. I want it to be quiet. I squeeze. And its face turns red, and its malformed eyes get big like a quarter and a silver dollar. Its mouth moves silently, and I realize how much more I hate that. There’s a flash of lightning, and then I feel the man behind me start to choke me. He’s laughing, and soon I can’t choke the baby anymore. I grab his hands and then he lets go. I fall over.

“Remember what you did here tonight. Remember how you felt. You’re the one. It’s you,” says the man. And I feel he is absolutely right. I am as guilty as he is. I choked it, just like a murderer. I would have killed.

“Go away from here. Go back from where you came. I’ll give you ten seconds. Nine…eight…seven…six…” He turns his hand and puts his arm over his eyes like he’s playing hide-and-seek.

It takes a moment to register. It might be a trick. He’s going to do something else. Cut me, torture another one of them, something else insane. But he doesn’t. He keeps counting. Then I stand and clamber
out of the room and down the stairs, sprinting out to the sidewalk and down the street, back to the yard of the boy, who’s nowhere to be seen. It’s raining now, and I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s just rain on my face, but I’m trying to keep from screaming. I jump on my bike and start riding as hard as I can through the smell of blood and copper in the air.

I TAKE A LONG, HOT
shower, put on a new pair of jeans and the
LIVE FREE OR DIE
T-shirt Jim gave me for my fourteenth birthday. It’s tight, but it still fits. There’s a note on the fridge from Dad saying he went out to see a movie with Tommy and Red from the store. I drink one of Dad’s beers but don’t like the way it tastes so I pour it out into the sink. To get the taste out of my mouth, I eat some vanilla ice cream and then lie down on the couch and watch television. I just want to do everything I can to bring my reality back together again, anything to forget what I saw…what
I
did…and get back to normal. I can’t let anyone know. It’s too fucking horrible, all of it, including me.
Don’t even think about it
, I tell myself.
It’s over anyway. Keep it normal
, I say to myself. Normal. Normal. Normal.
No, don’t say it too much or it sounds strange
. I doze off early in the evening and then wake up at ten o’clock at night, wide-awake, feeling better, but I really want to be around people, so I decide to take my bike out again. I don’t usually ride at night, but it’s cool and clear out and I want to ride under the stars. The mall is kind of far, but I want to try and catch Dad at the movie theater. Before I go, I write a note and leave it on the refrigerator just in case I miss him. I’ve never ridden to the mall on my bike. Mom had always forbidden it because the highway was too busy and too dangerous. She had forbidden a lot of things, like swearing, leaving the toilet bowl up, drinking beer, staying up late. Since she’s gone I’ve done all of them. What’s funny
is I liked it better when I didn’t do those things because she told me not to.

It turns out she’s absolutely right about riding on the highway. There’s tons of traffic, cars and trucks flying by me, and it takes forty-five minutes to get to the mall. In the end I make it in one piece but vow never to do it again. By the time I get there the parking lot is practically cleared out except for some kids cruising around. I don’t see Dad’s car. What I see are two cops standing beside their car watching me suspiciously. I ignore them as I keep riding around the parking lot looking for Dad’s car, but those damn cops start shining their flashlight at me and yell at me to come over. Before I even get to them the muscular black cop’s yelling in my face, “You know there’s a curfew for bike riders, don’t you?”

“Curfew? Why?”

“You know how dangerous it is to be riding out this late on a bike? Your bike doesn’t have any lights. You don’t even have a helmet. That’s against the law, son.”

“How should I know that?”

“Do your parents know you’re out riding your bike?”

“My dad went out with some friends, so I left him a note.”

“What about your mom?”

“She’s dead.”

The two cops look at each other, and their puffed-up chests deflate just a little. “Get in the car. We’ll put your bike in the trunk and give you a ride home.”

“Can’t I just ride home?” I plead.

“We can’t let you do that. It’s for your own safety.”

I get in the back while the two cops have a private discussion outside. I don’t like sitting back there staring at the grill separating the front seat and the back seat—the seat where criminals sit. I call home
on my cell phone. There’s no answer, but I keep calling and calling. On the fifth try Dad picks up. It sounds like he just got in.

“What are you doing riding around at this time of night?” he asks me.

“I needed some fresh air, but Dad, listen—”

“You don’t think it’s dangerous riding around on the highway at night?”

I say, “No,” and then, “Maybe. There were so many cars…and the exhaust…I can see why the ozone is falling apart.”

“Where are you?”

“The mall. These two cops stopped me.”

“Police? What did you do?”

“Nothing. They got me for riding my bike at night.”

“What?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell them I’ll come and get you.”

“You better tell them—they probably won’t listen to me.” I open the door and tell the cops, “Hey! It’s my dad. He said he’ll come get me!”

“Let me talk to him,” says the fat white one. I give him my phone. He talks for a minute and gives me back my phone. “Your dad’s on his way, so just stay in the parking lot until he shows up, all right?”

Then they leave just like that, as if nothing happened. I feel much better once they’re gone, but I have to admit I liked just talking to those cops. It helped me feel a part of reality again. This is real life, the sane world. What happened earlier in the day was a case of bad luck, a run-in with a nut job, and just like Dad said: deal with them, leave, and forget about it ASAP. I lock my bike up to a light pole and walk toward the movie theater. I go up the stairs toward the mezzanine, and along the way I run into Clay from school and a couple of his friends, one of whom appears to be Joe, that crazy kid from a grade above us, staggering down the walkway when the rest of us stop to talk.
One interesting thing about Joe is his nickname, “Captain Crazy.” I’m not sure what he has, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but everyone knows he takes medication and has spent some time in an institution. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s more the fact that he’s known for jumping out of moving cars, taking craps on the floor of department stores, and getting into a ton of fights, not to mention the drinking and drugs. “Is he with you?” I ask Clay.

“Ignore him. We’re ignoring him,” says Clay.

The sober friend pipes up, “I can’t believe we’re ignoring him.”

“Who wants to deal with that?” says Clay.

Joe finally realizes he has lost his two buddies and begins looking around for them.

“He looks like a zombie,” I say.

They both think that’s funny. “What are you doing out?” Clay asks.

“Just riding around. What about you—did you see a movie?”

“Yeah, but we had to leave because ass head over there couldn’t sit still,” he says.

“Where are all your women?” I ask, knowing he did well with the girls.

“I was thinking later we’d go to a party and find some. You wanna come?” he asks.

“The cops just stopped me for riding around on my bike. My dad’s on his way to pick me up.”

“Are you serious?”

“Holy shit,” says the sober friend. “You should have told that pig to go eat a doughnut!”

“Yeah, so I gotta wait around for that.”

“Good luck with
that
,” Clay says.

“Good luck with that,” I say, pointing to Joe, who’s staggering back to them. I go up toward the theater and pass a large group of
guys from Sugweepo High. The rivalry between Sugweepo and Central of Sugweepo oftentimes goes beyond mere sports and academics into a personal disliking of each other. There’ve been quite a few fights between the two. I play it cool and walk past. There among them I see Reed. He gives me a silent nod, and I nod back while continuing on. It’s weird seeing him without his cousin Chip. It’s like a grilled cheese sandwich without the cheese. Speaking of the cheese…out in the mezzanine where the benches are I see Chip standing over some guy with a bloody nose. There’s a small crowd gathered around him.

“You took my girlfriend, you son of a bitch!” I can hear the bloodied guy say to Chip.

“Man, you deserved it.”

“Bullshit. You deserve it.”

An upset-looking girl sits on the bench watching them anxiously. I put my hands in my pockets and walk by. Across from the theater are several shops and restaurants. One of these shops on the second floor called the Grab Bag stays open till midnight. It’s a weird store owned by a bunch of older guys who wear all black and have tattoos all over their arms. The place is pretty busy even at that time of night. I walk up the stairs to the entrance. Behind the register in the front area is a bunch of tobacco products, cigarettes of every kind, cigars, pipes, you name it. That’s where most of the activity is. Toward the back of the front room it’s more like a museum. There aren’t many items, just ancient and strange things, old vintage lighters and license plates and jewelry. I check out the lighters and find this one that’s shaped like a big black cylinder that you click at the top to make the flame come out.

“Hey, I like your T-shirt,” says someone from behind me. “Yeah, you,” says one of the owners. It’s an older guy with long gray hair tied in a ponytail.

“Thanks,” I say. “It’s the New Hampshire state motto. My brother gave it to me. He says it’s on every license plate.”

“Look over there, boy.” He points at some of the license plates on the wall. The New Hampshire license plate is smack dab in the middle.
LIVE FREE OR DIE
it reads, just like the back of my shirt. “Didn’t I see you the other day? Maybe at a party?”

“No, that wasn’t me,” I say, and head for the second floor, where they sell rock-and-roll music, comic books, and coffee. It’s not as busy as I thought up there, just a few people looking at the CDs and records and others standing around drinking coffee. The guy behind the counter turns out to be the guy who gave us the beer and kept us there at that field party when we wanted to leave. He doesn’t look at all menacing now, more like a slightly overweight, middle-aged clerk in a comic-book store. I try to get him to look at me, but he acts like he doesn’t know me. I browse a little, and then when I have the chance I ask him if they might be interested in buying my old comic books. I’d collected some when I was in middle school and have a cardboard box full of them.

“We don’t buy from people. We just order the ones we want,” he says.

“Okay,” I say.

“Well, what do you got?” he asks me.

I tell him what I remember from the top of my head, and he has this bored look on his face until I mention the graphic novel
Son of the Demon
. His face perks up, so I ask him if I could bring them by.

“No, don’t,” he says.

“You don’t have to buy them all, just the ones you want.”

“No, we don’t do that.”

I decide to leave then, but the guy says, “Wait.”

I just leave anyway. Shit, Dad’s probably already there. I go down the stairs and out of the store and out to the parking lot and look around. It’s times like these I wish he’d get a cell phone. I check my bike, and on the seat is a small envelope. Inside is a house key. I de
serve it for making him come out here and not even being there. I start calling home on my cell when Dad pops out of nowhere like some ninja, wearing his old gray Members Only jacket.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Where were you?” he asks.

“I went into the Grab Bag, you know the store with the comics and CDs and all that.”

“You were shopping?”

“No, no,” and I start telling him about what happened in the store. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I flinch.

“What happened to your neck?”

“You mean this? I…I went out riding my bike and ended up in this neighborhood at this house and…”

“And what? What happened? Who did this?”

“There were some kids from school. We got to horsing around, and one of them got me in a headlock.”

“Headlock? Looks like he nearly tore your head off.”

“I know. I told him if he didn’t let go, I’d beat him with a stick.”

“You see the car?” he asks me, pointing.

“Yeah.”

“Put your bike in the back, tie the trunk down with the twine inside, and wait for me,” he tells me.

“Where’re you going?”

“Just wait, I’ll be right back.”

“Dad, you don’t have to…” but he’s not listening. I follow but then turn around and put my bike in the trunk. I almost did it. I almost told him. But I couldn’t. I was an accomplice to all of it. Hell, it was all my fault. I should have never gone to that house in the first place, let alone kept going back like I did. It was so stupid. I screwed up big time. Dad comes back a little later, and we start for home.

“What happened?” I ask him.

“Stop by the store anytime you want. Bring your comics. They’ll look at them and buy the ones they want.”

“What’d you do?”

“I just talked to them business owner to business owner. Now let’s get home, I’m tired.”

“Me, too.”

Some time passes quietly in the car.

“You know when that guy got me in the headlock? I really thought he was going to kill me. I was seeing stars.”