Bad toy, p.17
Bad Toy, page 17
part #2 of Sunflower Series
“I don’t know. Eight years?”
“Close, but the correct answer was: long enough to know I wasn’t born yesterday.” Howie pointed up ahead. “Unless we’re stopping at the church to pray, I’d say we’re going to Susan’s house.”
Tommy didn’t say anything. He crossed the street near the church, continued on Cedar until they were standing in front of the green house. Tommy stood there, doing nothing.
“What are we doing?”
Tommy said, “I haven’t decided yet.”
“You have to at least knock,” Howie said. “What if someone looks out the window, sees you just standing out here like…like a stalker.”
Tommy handed him the axe handle. Howie felt like a chump holding it, standing on the sidewalk while Tommy went up to the house and knocked on the door. He saw it open a crack. Tommy went inside. Howie wondered how long he would have to wait. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this new, brooding (moody, was the word that truly came to mind) Tommy.
Cut the guy some slack. He looks like he took one hell of a beating this time around.
And how many times did that make? Eight, ten, twelve, twenty? Howie had lost count over the years, and those were just the times he knew about. Afterward, there was a short period where Tommy would hate the man, would vow to kill him one day, but Tommy was like a dog that kept crawling back to its master no matter how many times you beat it. In that respect, he was like his father, because Doug Wilkins did the same only in reverse. He drifted into his moods and doled out the beatings, then later, after he had sobered up and reflected, he would return to Tommy, wringing his hands, somber and apologetic, explaining how he didn’t know what had come over him, but he could promise one thing and that was that it would never ever happen again. Howie was an outsider, but he didn’t believe a word of it, told Tommy the same. Somehow (and this baffled Howie to no end), Tommy always forgave him, saying, “He’s my dad,” as if that summed up the entirety of their fucked-up relationship.
Standing on the sidewalk now, Howie could almost understand how Tommy might be mixed up in the head; that the dark streams running through his mind were a case of learning by example. If you were spoonfed destruction, didn’t it go without saying that you would grow up to become a destroyer?
She was kind of acting like a bitch.
The words were alien. Tommy never talked like that. Maybe he had called Shelby a bitch once or twice, but they were family, brother and sister, and Shelby had done more than her fair share of name calling in return. This was different. Tommy hadn’t been joking around.
The door opened. Tommy came out. He wasn’t smiling.
“That was fast,” Howie said, handing him the axe handle. He was glad to be rid of it. Who in their right mind walked around town with an axe handle?
Tommy didn’t answer. They walked, Tommy knocking the axe handle against the cement, staying a few feet ahead. Before long, he had the sleek wooden handle in both hands, swinging it like a baseball bat. His breath plumed, his hair shiny and iced over.
“Something happen?” Howie asked, picking up the pace until Tommy didn’t have the lead anymore.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tommy said. “What I want…what I really want…is to break something.” They were passing the alley that ran behind the church when he said it, and perhaps the gods were listening because perched on one of the trashcans lining the alley was a yellow tomcat. Tommy spotted it, turned into the alley.
He approached the cat. Howie wondered where this was going. He dropped back, watched, certain when Tommy was close enough it would take off running. Only it didn’t. It did the opposite. The cat stood up, arched its back as it yawned, walked a tight circle on the trashcan lid, and when Tommy was closer it brushed up against him and purred. Howie noticed it was wearing a collar.
Tommy stroked its back. One, two, three times, and the cat purred loudly.
“Looks like you made a new frien…”
It happened fast.
That’s what Howie would remember: how in the blink of an eye something so brutal could take place.
Tommy petted the cat, had it purring like a chainsaw, when suddenly he stepped back, brought the axe handle down on the tomcat’s back. It let out an excruciating meee-owww-raaaah, and it sounded disturbingly like a child’s scream. The cat leaped to the ground, fell, scrambled away, fell again, tried to run, but Howie saw only the cat’s front legs were doing the work. The back legs dragged uselessly on the pavement as the cat scurried away, in a curious running-falling pattern.
Jesus, Howie thought, he paralyzed the thing. It’s a damn paraplegic cat.
The collar. Red with a gold ID tag dangling from the front. Had the cat’s name been on the tag? Had Tommy taken the time to read it? Would the cat make it back to its owner? If it did (and Howie somehow doubted it), what would the owner think?
“What the hell, Tommy?”
Tommy was walking again. “What?”
“That was fucked up.”
“I don’t like cats.”
“So you kill them?
“I didn’t kill it.”
“As good as. What’s going on with you, man?”
Tommy spun around. He brought the axe handle up and shoved one end at Howie’s chest. “I don’t need your shit, How. Not today.”
Howie batted the axe handle away. “You’re messed up in the head. Normal people don’t do shit like that.”
“Don’t call me crazy. I’m warning you.”
“Or what? You gonna paralyze me too?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Howie was fuming. He felt the urge to haul off and punch him, but Tommy had the strength advantage these days. And he had a weapon. Forty-five seconds ago, Howie would have never in a million years thought Tommy was dangerous. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Do something,” Tommy said. “I can tell you want to.”
“Screw you.”
“You’re a pussy, How. A giant pussy. Always have been.”
Howie stared at him, wanting to lash out.
Don’t, his brain warned. He’ll paralyze you just like he did that cat, and then you’ll be the one trying to crawl home dragging your legs behind you. Clear as day, he could see it all in his head. Pulling himself along the sidewalk like a slug, his malfunctioning legs cutting haphazard trails in the snow.
He didn’t take a swing at Tommy; he did something far worse. He said, “You’re just like your dad.”
For a moment, Howie saw disbelief in Tommy’s eyes. That quickly turned to anger, and Tommy brought the axe handle around, Howie thinking “Here it comes,” and tried to stand his ground because if he was on his way out at least he didn’t have to be a coward.
Tommy didn’t swing. He held the axe handle at each end, brought it down as his knee came up and snapped it in two. The separate pieces clattered to the sidewalk. Howie wouldn’t think it then, his brain was too busy marveling at the fact he was still alive, but later he would consider how strong a person would have to be to break a piece of wood like that. It wasn’t like snapping a twig. Howie had held the smooth length of wood when Tommy had been inside Susan’s house, and it had been sturdy; not something he could have imagined breaking with his bare hands.
“Fuck you for saying that!”
Tommy stormed off. He headed toward Olive, toward home.
Howie lingered. He wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to be anywhere near Tommy. He doubled back, and when he reached the church, he went down the alleyway in search of the yellow cat. Somehow he thought that if he could find that cat, maybe it would be all right, that Tommy had only stunned it and its paralysis had been temporary. He didn’t care about the cat. Not really. Felt sorry for it, yes, but he was in the alley because if he found the cat and discovered its injuries were less severe than they had initially appeared, then maybe Tommy wasn’t all bad either. He had done a bad thing, no getting around that, but at least he wouldn’t be bad.
He searched for twenty minutes. Long enough that he figured Tommy had made it home. There was no sign of the cat anywhere. After his search of the alley proved fruitless, he walked the neighboring streets. Nada. No cat.
Better than finding it dead.
The verdict: inconclusive.
Was any of it real? It was almost easier convincing himself it was all a dream. The quality of reality was missing. Where had it all gone wrong? He pondered that at length and decided the answer was: a long time ago. He started for home.
3
The car didn’t pull into the driveway until late afternoon. Howie had been watching for it off and on for the last several hours (way to be a stalker, Shelby would have said). He hadn’t spoken to Shelby since he had trudged over there the night of Christmas Eve and she had answered the door with tears in her eyes. He was anxious to see her. Not only to see her, but also because he wanted to talk to someone about Tommy, about what had happened to the cat. In Howie’s world, she was the only one he could tell.
It was quarter to five when he passed his mother in the kitchen, told her he would be back in a few, and crossed the street to the Wilkins house. He hadn’t seen Doug Wilkins come home yet, but he usually arrived shortly after five. Howie figured he better make it quick.
Marsha answered the door after Howie rang the bell. He greeted her, asked to see Shelby. She invited him in, but he shook his head and said, “I’ll just wait out here.” She gave him a bemused look and disappeared to fetch Shelby.
Shelby appeared a minute later.
“You can come in,” she said. She was dressed in blue jeans and a heavy-knit multi-colored sweater.
“You come out.”
“It’s cold.”
He stood there, unmoving, and after a moment Shelby relented, putting on her coat and boots and joining him outside. The light was fading fast.
“You’re acting sort of weird.”
“I’m not the weird one,” he said. “Tommy…”
He had come over with the intention of telling her about Tommy and the cat, in painstaking detail no less, but seeing her now, he realized he couldn’t do it. What purpose would it serve?
“What about him?”
If he told her, would she believe him? Howie knew she would. Maybe she wouldn’t want to believe it, but it wasn’t a remotely humorous story; she would know he wasn’t joking. But what would come of it? He couldn’t envision an outcome that changed anything for the better. Finally, he said, “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you. Say what you were going to say.”
“It’s nothing. Just…he didn’t seem like himself.”
“You mean he wasn’t pensive and hopelessly insecure?”
“I’m being serious.”
“I am being serious.” She rubbed her hands in front of her face and blew on them. “I think it’s girl problems. Something with him and Susan. She’s kind of his first girlfriend you know. Not officially or anything, but they’ve been hanging out together a lot, and Tommy’s never spent much time around girls.”
“Other than you.”
“Other than me, yeah,” Shelby said. “He probably screwed it up somehow.”
Tommy had called Susan a bitch. Howie figured that qualified as “screwing it up.”
They made it to the corner and turned back. Shelby said, “Did he say anything to you?”
Again, for whatever reason, Howie clammed up. Call it loyalty – or fear, because like the memory of the cat, similarly vivid was his recall of the look on Tommy’s face as he had snapped the axe handle in half.
Howie shook his head. “Not really. He seemed off, that’s all.”
“I thought about calling Susan, seeing if she knew anything about it. She’s my friend, too, right? You think that’s crossing the line?”
“I think Tommy wouldn’t be thrilled about it.”
“Hmm.”
“Are you doing okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Last time I saw you, you were balling your eyes out.”
“I don’t think so.”
Howie said, “Christmas Eve,” trying to jog her memory. Which reminded him: the ID bracelet. He glanced down at her wrists. She wasn’t wearing it. “You aren’t wearing the bracelet I gave you.”
“First off, I wasn’t balling. Second, I’m not wearing the bracelet because I didn’t want to lose it.”
“Are you seeing Madeline behind my back?”
She stared at him blankly. Despite his praise for The Wonder Years, Shelby hadn’t taken his advice to watch it.
“You hated it,” he said.
“Absolutely not.”
He stared at her.
“Hate’s too strong a word.”
“I knew it.”
“Deep down, you had to know it was a little cheesy.”
“Guilty.”
“Stay for dinner?”
“Naw.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Now I’m withholding information because I won’t stay for dinner?”
She nodded.
Doug Wilkins’s navy blue (it was almost dark now and in the dim light it might have been black if Howie hadn’t known better) Chevy Caprice came down the street with its headlights on. It slowed to a crawl as it passed them and turned into the driveway.
“That’s my cue,” Howie said.
“Cowardice,” she said. She was joking, but the word still cut a shallow wound.
“More like self-preservation.”
After the Caprice had disappeared into the garage and the door had come down, Howie kissed Shelby on the lips before she could object. “I just came to see how you were doing, and it looks like you are surviving, so I’ll leave you alone.”
“You’re seriously bidding me adieu?”
“Yep.”
He rushed across the street, turned and waved at her when he reached the other sidewalk. She looked beautiful standing there (she was always beautiful), and he wished he’d invited her over for dinner, or stayed for dinner, anything to rescue her for a little while. She was tough and independent and the walls she had erected around herself were a mile high and twice as thick, but that was how Howie chose to see her: as a girl in need of rescue, the damsel in distress. And he was the knight in armor. Perhaps not the strongest knight in all the kingdoms, nor the most handsome, but no one could ever call him a coward. Other names, yes, but never a coward.
Doug Wilkins appeared in the front doorway. He stared across the street at Howie and must have said something because Shelby turned and went into the house.
Yes, Howie thought, a knight in shining armor. And one day he would have to slay the dragon.
4
The first time he heard the sound Howie thought he was still stuck in a dream, but then it came again and he began to wonder, and the third time he woke and sat up in bed, listening. Something struck the window. He went over to it, glanced down below. Tommy was there, waving at him. Howie motioned for him to go around to the back door.
Howie snuck down the stairs, through the kitchen, and unlocked the back door. Tommy was already standing on the steps.
“Nice pajamas,” Tommy said, smiling. Howie didn’t respond, didn’t return the smile. “You’re pissed at me, I know. I deserve it. What I did…that was…like you said, it was fucked up. I don’t know what…there’s all these things, and I feel like…this probably sounds dumb, right? I called you a pussy, but that’s wasn’t right. I’m the one that’s a pussy. That’s the truth. Susan…she’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, and she makes me happy, but I feel like I don’t deserve it. Why should I? I’ve never been lucky. And now this girl likes me, at least I think she does, and she’s the complete opposite of a troll, and I really like her, but I get this feeling all the time that someone’s gonna come along and pull the rug out from under me. None of this probably makes any sense…I’m just saying stupid shit…just, I want you to know that you’re my best friend, How, I mean that, and I was a total shitbag today, and, believe me, I know it. I’m scared, man, yeah, that’s the truth, I said it and I sound like the world’s biggest pussy, but I’m scared out of my mind that it’s all a joke because I’m happy, and that means it has to be a joke, right?”
He stopped, finally taking a second to breathe, waiting for Howie to say something. Howie didn’t know what to say, he wasn’t used to hearing confessions.
Tommy said, “That was messy, but in case you didn’t catch on, it was supposed to be an apology.”
Howie stood in the doorway, staring at his friend. And it was his friend. The person talking to him now, the demeanor, and most especially the eyes, belonged to the friend he had known all these years. This was the Tommy he remembered.
“What you did to that cat…”
“I feel like shit about it, How.”
“You looked like you wanted to kill me.”
“I wasn’t myself.”
Howie loaded all the data into his brain and it quickly spit out an answer: DOES NOT COMPUTE. That was as good a way to think of it as any. The Tommy earlier that day and the Tommy standing in front of him now were two separate people, good and bad maybe, like that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk meets the evil version of himself.
He smiled. There was something forced about it. Try as he might to scrub the dark thoughts from his mind, they refused to go quietly into the night. They loitered at the forefront. But he heard himself say: “It’s water under the bridge.”
“Man, I can’t believe you remembered about that.”
“How could I forget? You used to say it almost every sentence.”
“We’re good then?”
Howie nodded. “Yeah, we’re good. Those things you said about Susan – do you really believe that?”
“No, I guess not. I’m telling you, my brain was wired wrong today, that’s the only way I can explain it. I’ve got a few apologies to make, and she’s next on the list.”
“I don’t think the cat’s going to forgive you,” Howie said, disgusted with himself for saying it. Sometimes, a tragic situation could be softened by injecting humor, but after saying it, Howie decided this wasn’t one of those situations. Standing here now, he didn’t yet know that he would dream later that night. Not a dream at all, more of a nightmare, definitely a nightmare, and in it he would take the place of the cat, trying to scramble away from the vicious boy with the axe handle, but only his arms were working as he dragged himself through the snow and dirt, his legs nothing but dead weight.
