Bad toy, p.16
Bad Toy, page 16
part #2 of Sunflower Series
When Elaine Schmidt came in with two garbage bags, Howie began the clean-up process, gathering the shredded paper and stuffing it into the bags, opening any of the gifts that had come in boxes and then disposing of the boxes. His father spent that time complaining. This was a sacred part of the Christmas ritual. Christmas invariably made for more trash than usual, and Charles Schmidt was left to deal with the aftermath. He always worried there would be more trash than the garbage collectors would take. In the history of post-Christmas trash removal, the garbage men had never left any trash behind, but still, each year, his father stressed about it until trash day, and when that day came and went, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Are we done?” Howie asked, trying to sound casual.
“In a hurry?” Charles said.
“Kinda.”
“Don’t let us keep you,” Elaine said.
He started up the stairs, paused, turned, said, “Thanks for everything,” and dashed away.
When he reached his bedroom, Howie snatched the gift from his desk, moved toward the window. It was dark out and snowing lightly. Christmas lights decorated the row of houses across the street. He stared at the Wilkins house, the colorful lights strung across the gutters, a wedge of light spilling out the front window onto the porch. He had butterflies in his stomach. Stupid, he thought, it’s just a dumb gift. Why are you nervous?
It wasn’t a marriage proposal, but he fretted just the same. Was it perfect timing? Probably not. He knew that the Wilkins also opened gifts on Christmas Eve and interrupting that wouldn’t win him any points. Not that he cared much about that. He had won over Marsha Wilkins long ago, no problem there. His relationship with Tommy’s father – it didn’t matter who you were, everyone treaded on thin ice around Doug Wilkins.
The hell with it, he thought. It didn’t have to be a production. Just go over and knock on the door, ask for Shelby, shove the box at her, say “Merry Christmas!” and jet. In and out.
The longer the gift was in his possession, the less important it became. By morning, it would be worthless. Christmas was a magic time, but magic operated on a tight window.
He threw shoes and a coat on, hollered that he was heading over to Tommy’s and would be back in a minute, was out the door before there was time for a response.
By the time he crossed the street, he’d lost some courage. Stupid. An ID bracelet? Come on, really? Never in history has anyone wanted to get an ID bracelet for a gift.
His legs carried him forward despite the doubts racing through his mind. He knew it was needless worrying; Shelby wouldn’t care what he got her. She might give him shit later if it was a stinker because that was in her nature, but she wouldn’t be disappointed. Somehow, Howie thought his doubts were connected to Tommy and Susan. Because life with them seemed blissful. Only two weeks and whatever it was they were – friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, soulmates – well, things were going well and moving fast. The fact that Tommy was still alive was cause for celebration because it had also been over two weeks since Dylan and his friends had jumped Howie outside the grocery store and issued the warning. Nothing had happened since. Weird? Yes. Cause for concern? Ditto. Maybe Dylan, knock on wood, had a heart after all.
Howie was happy for the two of them all right, but had it in his head now that what if seeing Tommy and Susan in their euphoric state had raised Shelby’s expectations. He and Shelby had never had that. Sure, it had been love at first sight, at least in Howie’s case, but Shelby hadn’t been anywhere near as smitten with him, not that she had ever made known anyway. There had been an absence of the puppy love stage. That had always been the case with their relationship: it moved along at a glacial pace, Shelby’s pace, and he had always suffered from a lack of confidence in that department. She enjoyed keeping him off-balance. It was a game to her. Seven years later, she still knew how to make him nervous.
He found himself standing in the middle of the street and it gave him an eerie feeling. It wasn’t a high-traffic street to begin with, but tonight it was barren. He took a moment to enjoy the feeling of being the only person left on Earth, then marched up the steps to the Wilkins’s front door and rang the bell.
The door opened. Shelby stood there. Howie was smiling, but when he saw her, the smile faded. There were tears in her eyes. In the background, Doug Wilkins was shouting at the top of his lungs. “Ungrateful fucking brats! Don’t deserve anything! Cocksuckers!” The words were slurred.
Howie didn’t know what to say. He stood there, silent, the gift in his hands. Shelby’s tear-filled eyes went to it. In a soft voice she said, “Is that for me?”
Somewhere out of sight but not far away, Doug Wilkins was still losing his shit and Howie assumed they were short on time.
Shelby stepped forward, her bare feet sinking into the dusting of snow that covered the porch. She had to be freezing.
“Are you okay?” Howie asked.
She nodded.
“What happened?”
She sniffled, wiped a stray tear. “What always happens. Daddy doesn’t like anyone to be happy if he isn’t happy, and tonight, as you can tell, he isn’t happy.”
“Did he hit you?”
“He never hits me.”
“Tommy?”
Silence. Howie could hear Marsha Wilkins’s voice, low and steady, calmly trying to talk reason to her inebriated husband.
“He’s in his room.”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“My house. You can stay there.”
She smiled through the tears. “Oh, yeah, right, that would make everything better. If you think my dad’s off the deep end now…”
“I don’t care.”
“I can’t. It’ll pass, just like it always does.” She straightened, visibly trembling from the cold. “I think it’s safe to say that Christmas is officially over at the Wilkins residence.”
“Not quite.” Howie held the gift out to her. The red velvet bow sat askew now. “You have one more to open.”
“I didn’t get you anything.”
“Doesn’t matter. Go ahead, open it. It’s nothing fancy though.”
Shelby wiped her eyes, carefully untied the bow, started peeling back the gold wrapping paper as though she were afraid to tear it. When she got to the black box she hesitated.
“Go on. Don’t worry, it’s not a ring.”
She opened it, studied the silver bracelet with her name on it.
Howie couldn’t gauge her reaction. “You hate it?”
“No. I love it.”
“You know how you say you know when I’m lying? Well, I can pull the same trick when it comes to you.”
“I’m not lying.” She glanced up at him, read his face. “Okay, I’m fibbing a little. Love might be too strong a word.”
“That’s better. Want to put it on?”
Howie removed the bracelet from the box, took Shelby’s right wrist and pulled it toward him, draped the bracelet over it. After a minor struggle, he managed to get it clasped, slid it around so the rectangular plate with her name engraved on it stared up at them.
“It’s supposed to be real silver,” Howie said. “I figure if there’s ever a werewolf loose in Sunflower, we could melt it down into a silver bullet.”
“Thank you,” Shelby said. She hugged him, shivering in Howie’s arms. He tried to hang onto her, but she pecked him quick on the cheek and pulled away. “I better get inside.”
“You sure you don’t want to come over?”
“Better not. I don’t want to be responsible for starting World War Three.”
She went inside and closed the door. The feeling that he was a coward started to rise up in him again. He had half a mind to pound on the door and when Doug Wilkins’s answered it –
You’ll what? He’d snap your neck before you got more than two words out.
Scratch that. What was the alternative? Sneak around back, tell Shelby to pack a bag and then whisk her away – to where? Fact: he had close to three grand in the bank. But how far would that get them? He didn’t even have a car.
Dejected, Howie crossed the street. When he reached his front steps, he turned and stared back at the Wilkins’s house, wondering why people like Doug Wilkins always stuck around. He had been through war and returned, while so many others had perished. He was considered a hero. Maybe he drank too much, maybe he had a cruel streak, but by and large in the eyes of the public that could be forgiven because he was revered as a veteran, a war hero, and in a small town that stood for something. But did any of that matter if he was rotten to the core underneath? Howie hadn’t experienced war, but could war take all the blame for making Tommy’s father what he was? Was it the booze?
Howie didn’t buy it. You didn’t wake up one morning being evil. He suspected it happened gradually over time, that a man had to be subjected to a particular series of events which dragged him kicking and screaming down that path. There was no shortage of people willing to make excuses for the man, always ready with a sympathetic statement. “He’s been through a lot,” or “He’s seen stuff,” or “It must have been terrible for him.”
There was always a choice. Howie honestly believed that. And, quite clearly, Doug Wilkins had made the wrong one. He was a monster now, a monster that specialized in terrorizing his family. Kids believed in monsters, the boogeyman, but they never expected the monster lurking in their closet to be their own father. It was a sick irony that the ones you wished dead were the ones that seemed to hang on the longest, as though whatever higher power governed the universe had a soft spot for those intent on causing misery.
His winter coat was no match for the bitter cold. He went inside, slipped off his shoes, and peeked into the living room. The TV and lights were off. The only light came from the Christmas tree in a series of pinks and greens and blues. His spoils were still spread out on the living room floor. Despite feeling immensely tired, Howie gathered up the presents and hauled them upstairs to his room.
He put his gifts in a pile next to his desk, went to the window, looking down at the street below. Nothing had changed. It was the same as he had left it minutes ago. He stripped to his boxers and got into bed, pulled the covers over him, closed his eyes. But sleep didn’t come. There was a gallery in his mind of Shelby; snapshots that he had captured and committed to memory over the years. The day he first laid eyes on her, standing in the doorway; the first time they met; their first kiss. Many were good, some bad, his brain didn’t take sides. The mental collection included a high definition image of her standing naked on Main Street, and tonight he added another: Shelby on Christmas Eve with tears in her eyes. If it would have been within his power, he would have erased it. It wasn’t a memory worth saving. Again, he had the feeling of being a coward. Maybe he was beating himself up, there wasn’t much he could do, but it didn’t change how he felt. To himself, he whispered, “Merry Christmas,” and stared up at the ceiling until he fell asleep.
2
December 25th was a bust. Presents had been opened, all the stores were closed, and Howie didn’t dare go over to the Wilkins’s house with it being Christmas Day and all. He lounged around, confined to his room mostly, giving his mother and father the alone time they so desperately needed. He booted up his computer and installed Myst, played for most of the day, occasionally pausing to look out the window.
Sunday was more of the same. Eat, play, sleep. He spent twelve straight hours in front of the computer. Time marched slowly onward.
He was up early on Monday morning, seated next to the window, waiting for Tommy’s father to leave for work. He was already dressed and ready to go.
When the car pulled away from the house, Howie rushed downstairs, put his coat and boots on. Once outside, he went directly to the Wilkins house, knocked on the front door. No one answered. He knocked again, and after half a minute the door opened. Tommy was standing there, shirtless and covered in sweat. But what caught Howie’s attention was the massive bruise that ran from his shoulder to his chest.
“Holy shit, man, what happened?”
Tommy said, “I fell down the stairs.”
Howie followed him to the basement. “Were the stairs in a mood again?”
“What’s new, right?”
The little black and white TV was on, tuned to the news. The picture was fuzzy. Tommy picked up a dumbbell in each hand, started doing curls, counting reps under his breath.
Howie wandered over to the bench, laid down on his back, reached up and grabbed the bar. “How much is this?”
“One-eighty-five.”
Howie sucked in air as he lifted the bar off the rack, lowered it slowly. He bounced it off his chest, tried to lift it, failed, realized he was stuck like that, a hundred eighty-five pounds crushing down on him.
Then, blessedly, Tommy was there to pull the weight off him.
Howie sat up, rubbed his chest.
“Maybe you should start off with something lighter,” Tommy said.
“I had it.”
“Sure.”
Tommy started on the bench press.
“Shelby home?”
“She went to the store with Mom.”
“When are they getting back?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“She was crying when I came over on Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah, well, could have been worse.”
“You talk to Susan lately?”
“Yesterday, on the phone.”
“How is she?”
Tommy grunted as he finished the last rep, dropping the bar onto the rack. “She was kind of acting like a bitch.”
Howie thought he heard wrong. “Huh?”
“I said, she was acting like a bitch.”
“Okay. She’s a bitch now?”
“That’s not what I said. I said she was acting like one.”
“You didn’t tell her that, did you?”
“Which one of us here has the four-point-oh grade point average?”
“Yeah, I know, still…since when did you start talking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Calling people bitches.”
“I call it like I see it.”
“Uh huh. I thought things were good with you guys.”
“They are. Just sometimes…”
“What?”
“Sometimes I catch her looking at other guys.”
“I’ve never noticed.”
“Cuz you aren’t watching for it. Whenever we’re out in public. She’s sneaky about it. Thinks I don’t know she’s doing it.”
“I don’t know, man,” Howie said, confused by the situation. It was Tommy standing in front of him, it was Tommy’s voice he was hearing, but the words, the things he was saying… “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m telling you, it happens.”
“Maybe you’re being paranoid.”
Tommy’s head jerked up and for a moment he was the spitting image of his father. Howie had seen that same look on Doug Wilkins’s face before. A savage look; a look that said its owner’s intent was to kill.
Me, Howie thought. Right now, it’s me he wants to kill.
Tommy’s face changed. The murderous look vanished, replaced by something slightly softer. “I’m not crazy.”
“I know you’re not,” Howie said, choosing his words carefully this time. “That’s not what I was saying. I just meant…maybe give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“Maybe.”
To Howie, the basement started to feel claustrophobic. He felt the need to get out of there. “You about finished?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’ve spent the last two days stuck in my room. I need fresh air. Let’s take a walk or something.”
“Give me five minutes.” And then he got down on the floor and started doing crunches.
Tommy’s hair was still wet with sweat when they went outside. He didn’t seem to mind. On their way out, he grabbed an axe handle from the garage. “Did you know they sell them like this at the store? Just the handle.”
“What’s it for?”
“Protection.”
“From what?”
“You never know. Plus, it looks cool.”
He really is paranoid, no joke. Did Santa bring him a box of crazy?
Howie kept his thoughts to himself, walked next to Tommy. There was snow on the ground, but the sidewalks had been shoveled.
“Where should we go?” Howie asked.
“Let’s just walk this way for a little bit.”
They continued north on Olive until they reached the intersection. Tommy led them west on Cedar, dragging the axe handle behind him so the end cut a trail in the shallow snow.
“Get anything good for Christmas?” Howie asked. Really, he didn’t care what Tommy had gotten for Christmas. He wanted to get him talking, try to ascertain how bad the damage was.
“Not really. You?”
“Myst.”
“Any good?”
“The graphics are bad ass. You should come over later and check it out.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t seem very talkative.”
“Sorry, just a lot going on.”
As they neared Holy Name, Howie thought he had a pretty good idea where they were headed and said, “You think she’s home?”
“Who?”
“How long have we been friends?” Howie asked.
