They Eat the Roots

They Eat the Roots

Second Draft - Last updated Fall 2009 CURRENTLY UNDERGOING SERIOUS REVISIONS

When Alan came home her dog had defecated in his shoe, so he took the dog out back, buried two shells in its chest and threw the carcass over the fence. He spit in his hands to loosen the blood and wiped it all off on his shirt. He squeezed the thick corduroy cuffs between each of his fingers and then removed the shirt, balled it, and tossed it over the fence after the dog. Alan had taken the shirt from his mother's closet the night before. His father had loved corduroy, so his mother had always encouraged Alan to wear it. He rarely did, but today it felt appropriate. It was the least he would do for her.

Alan opened the shotgun, pulled out the empty casings and threw them over the fence as well. The other side of the fence was a dense forest that ran up to the edge of the lake. Since Alan was a boy he had always thrown things over that fence, broken toys and ruined church clothes were the most common, to hide them in the heavy brush. Once he had broken one of his mother's figurines, a little dutch boy with a flute, and tried to glue it back together, but the cracks weren't flush and his gluing skills were lacking, so the scar across the little dutch boy's face remained. Alan had rolled the sculpture up in a paper bag, smashed it with a rock and tossed it over the fence. The thought of the little broken dutch boy made Alan smile. His mother had screamed at him, sure that he was involved in its disappearance, but if he hadn't broken it then she would have been left to him in the will now. The figurine was probably still there now, perhaps somewhere underneath the dead dog.

Alan stopped at the back door and looked at the pale kitchen linoleum just inside the door and the slab of cement outside where he had been punished for not taking off his shoes before he entered the house. Alan stepped into the house.

There was a knock at the door.

“Hello?” There was a tired old voice behind the front screen door.

Alan stood up from untying his shoes again and saw the unmistakable forehead and wig of Mrs. Harrison. She had had a son, Peter, whose need for companionship led him to allow Alan to torment him endlessly as a boy. Alan had once tied Peter to a tree in the park and left him there. Still that was not enough to end their grotesque friendship. Alan hadn't seen either of the Harrisons since he left town.

“Misses Harrison, how are you doing this morning?” Alan carefully pulled his feet from his shoes and left them glued to the pale linoleum. He walked to the front door and let Mrs. Harrison in.

“Wasn't that a wonderful service this morning? Reverend Mills said some very nice things about your mother.” Mrs. Harrison was a fragile old women carrying a bunt cake she had made.

“Yes he did. Is that for me, Misses Harrison?” Alan reached out and took the cake from her, it was not as heavy as he had hoped.

“Oh, it's just a little something, I only found out yesterday so I didn't have much time to cook. Boy, where is your shirt?” Mrs. Harrison stopped in the doorway and looked him up and down, from the yellow stains on his socks to the thin sleeveless undershirt that covered his underdeveloped chest. It made Alan uncomfortable, the way she was looking at him, the way his mother had done years earlier. As if his indecency revealed his sinful nature.

“I'm very sorry ma'am. I was taking care of some work outside and wanted the sun on my shoulders.” Alan shut the screen door and pushed on it until it fully latched.

“Oh well that's understandable of course. You could probably do some good around here, Lauretta hardly did anything with the yard. You can see that, of course. But no reason to start that today of all days.” His mother's tree was sick, it was being drank dry by the cicada nymphs that were due to emerge later that year.

Alan walked into the kitchen to get the shirt he had left on one of the kitchen chairs that morning.

“It's a nice house though. I didn't realize she had so many of these nice things.” Mrs. Harrison sat down on the sofa and began rubbing one of the nearby figurines with the soft pad of her thumb.

Alan wasn't sure what to make of her sitting down. He stared at her from the kitchen and tried to think of what to do. “Would you like something to drink Mrs. Harrison. A whiskey?”

“Mister Dahl, please. Christ in heaven.”

Alan smirked awkwardly but he didn't know what to make of her reaction. “Oh of course, I was just making light ma'am I didn't mean nothing by–”

“I should certainly hope not.”

Buttoning up his shirt Alan thought of the extra shells in his pocket. “Would you like a water, or perhaps anything else?”

“No, I believe I will be just fine Mister Dahl. Thank you. It really is a nice house she had. So many nice things. Is this a real Piano? She must have been a woman of means to have such a thing. We just purchased a new one for the church, had it brought all the way from New York City. Real nice instrument, much better than the one they have down in Banesville.”

“Well this one's not from new York City.”

Alan walked back to the living room with a glass of gin he had taken from the cabinet and dropped ice in to disguise it as something more innocent. Mrs. Harrison was sitting where his mother had usually sat when he was a boy. The radio was to her right and the bookshelf where his mother kept all her religious books was behind her. His mother had bought more bible's in her life than he had books, and she had lined them all up on one shelf so that you could compare all the different spines.

“Were you in the war mister Dahl. I don't believe I remember seeing your name on the list back when the church was having its prayer meetings.”

Alan took a drink from his glass. “Yes ma'am, I was, though I was only drafted near the end so I wasn't there for a very long time.”

“That must have been just terrible for you. Agatha Stevenson, she lives down the street from my house,” Mrs. Harrison pointed out the front window of the house, “down there at the corner, she lost two of her sons. You remember Peter, all you boys were friends. Well Peter didn't have to go because of his eye, but he says he would've gone had they accepted him. The ladies at church say he's not the only man his age not to go so it's no shame on him at all. That's a beautiful painting she had there.” Mrs Harrison pointed to a painting of the lake that hung on the wall behind Alan. He wrenched his back to look at it and found it much less impressive than it had been when he was a boy. It was a few simple colors that were meant to look like the lake at sunset, but it was hardly even accurate. When Alan was a boy he and his friends would camp on the far side of the lake. He had walked around it countless times and couldn't think of a place where it turned back on itself like that. She had framed it with some cheap wood and glued shells to it, but many of them had fallen off or become discolored over the years. His mother had probably never noticed because when something is on the wall that long a person forgets it's there at all.

“Yes, that's a painting of the lake. Been there all my life.” Alan wondered when this woman would leave him alone so that he could get his work done.

“Now, if you don't mind me asking, the ladies said you and your mother hadn't seen each other in quite some time. That you didn't even come to town when she got sick. Why is that?” The church ladies had probably drawn straws to determine which of them would execute the investigation.

“Tell me Mrs. Harrison, would you know anything about this town if not for the ladies at church?” Alan stood up and walked straight for the door. “I do believe you wouldn't know Jesus had come back unless you learned it with needles in your hands. Much less believe it unless it was gossip.” Alan pulled open the door and stood there waiting.

“Excuse me? Why I never had anyone talk to me that way—” Mrs. Harrison lifted herself from the couch.

“Well I've never had anyone yell at me for offering her a whiskey, so we've both had a fun day haven't we. Now I'll ask you to leave Mrs. Harrison, this has been a mighty fine sit we've had. Do tell the ladies about it when you see them.” As Mrs. Harrison passed the endtable near the door she picked up the bunt cake she had brought with her. “Yes, here, take that with you.” Alan grabbed the cake from her arms and walked out onto the porch with it. The porch was enclosed in a fine net to keep the bugs out in the spring. He walked to the screen door that provided it with an exit and threw the cake from the porch. “I'd hate for you to have to carry that all the way to the edge of the yard.”

The plate hit the ground spinning, hurling dry baked bits into the grass. Mrs. Harrison looked up at Alan, her mouth was open and the scowl on her face was stretching out the loose skin on her oversized forehead. Without saying anything to her, Alan walked back into the house and closed the front door, leaving her there on the porch.

Once back in the house Alan marched into the kitchen and took a large knife from one of the drawers. He pulled the painting of the lake away from the wall a little and sliced through the piece of twine suspending it. The painting disappeared behind the couch and shells spread themselves out across the living room floor. Alan tossed the knife into the kitchen where it landed on the counter with a grating metallic scape.

Behind the painting the wallpaper was more colorful, so much so that he could tell the difference between the red and blue flowers. Alan walked around the room peeking behind the other pictures hanging on the wall. When he didn't find anything he went down into the basement through the door in the kitchen.

It was cool in the basement. The only light came from the small windows near the ceiling but the tall grass and the bushes blocked most of them. She had used this part of the house for storage, there were rugs in the corner wrapped up in tarps piled onto a couch with no cushions, and there was an old ice box near the stairs that he could remember someone trying to move it up the steps for his mother but they couldn't get it up the turn in the stairs. Inside the icebox was nothing that couldn't grow without fresh air for thirty years. Alan spent some time opening up the boxes wear his mother had stored old clothes and spare candles, and a roll of extra screen for repairing the porch enclosure. There was an aluminum desk in the corner. The drawers were rusted and hard to open, and when he finally broke the top drawer loose a frayed edge cut into the palm of his right hand. He clenched that fist tight, holding it near his shoulder as blood ran down to his elbow. The drawers were all empty, which added insult to his sliced hand.

Frustrated, Alan went upstairs to his mother's bedroom where he had slept the night before. He had taken the cushions from the couch in the basement and used them as a mattress. His mother's bed had been removed along with the body because of the mess that her decomposition had left behind her. Under the window was a dresser where she kept her jewelry. Sitting on the dresser were his things, his wallet, the keys, and his knife. Sweat began to burn in his right hand and Alan was dripping blood into the carpet. He went into the bath, washed the cut, and wrapped the wound with one of his mother's small hand towels.

Alan came downstairs and there was another knock on the door.

It was Reverend Mills. He had taken off his Sunday morning garb, which left him looking much like every other old simpleton in this town. Mills had owned the corner store on the way home from school when Alan was younger. He and his friends would often stop by there on the way home and practice their slight of hand. Alan had once had his mother sew an extra pocket into his favorite denim jacket. She didn't know what it was for but Alan could slip things in there without Mills noticing. Reverend Mills kept a pretty close eye on them, he knew they were stealing but could never catch them. Once they had sent Peter in alone on a mission to capture enough chew for all of them. Mills had caught him, as they rightfully expected him to, and Mills had beaten Peter pretty bad. Apparently that was all before he decided to find Jesus.

“Well good afternoon Reverend.” Alan stood at the door, his stance wide as if the Reverend was going to rush him and push his way into the house.

“Been a long time Alan. Last time I saw you was... well, a long time ago.” Was he being funny or trying to put Alan down.

“Yeah, well I've been all over since I left this town. Been real busy.”

“You mind if I come in?”

“Oh sure. Come on in.” As rebellious as Alan kept himself, something about the way this man's voice came from his chest instead of his mouth demanded Alan's obedience.

Reverend Mills walked in to the house and stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by couches. As gray as his hair was now and as noticeable as his gut had become, the man's broad shoulders were still enough to make him an imposing figure. “You left the service so quickly I didn't get a chance to tell you how very sorry I am about your dear mother.”

“Yes, I'm sorry about that. I had to get some business done and was sure I didn't have time to socialize with all the people who missed my mother.” Alan stayed near the door, uncomfortably still. “You could feel free to sit down Mister Mills.”

“No I think I'll stand. And it's Reverend Mills, Alan.”

“Oh, of course, I am sorry.”

Alan walked along the wall past the Reverend to a place near the edge of the kitchen. The Reverend's shoes caught Alan's attention, they were a polished dark brown leather that reminded him of his mother's dog, and of the shotgun around back, and of the taste of blood in his mouth. He took one step toward the Reverend, put his head at an angle, and looked the man straight in the eyes. “So you knew my mother fairly well, did you?”

“Well, she didn't come to church very often, but she did make a lovely three bean for last years community potluck.” This was the man who had led his mother into the ground.

“That's about what I thought. But that's okay, I don't hold it against you. She was a pretty quiet person, didn't like being out around people very much. It's not like it's your job to keep in touch with everybody in town. She really wasn't one of those church ladies.”

“That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I heard Misses Harrison had an eventful meeting here this morning.” The Reverend was standing with his back to Alan, gliding his fingers across the top of the bible's on the shelf. “She said you cussed at her.”

“I damn well did. She said some terrible things about my mother, about how she was whoring about when I was young and how none of the ladies in town liked her. So I asked her to leave and made her take her damn cake with her. And if you have a problem with that—”

When Alan was a boy an owl had made the tree in the backyard its home and the midnight screams would keep him awake. One night Alan had stayed out back till it got dark, hoping to strike the fowl with a rock. When it finally came back to their tree he watched it for a long time. It would move it's head the way the reverend did now, as if it had its eyes on some mouse or snake and was preparing to scream. When he showed Peter the body Peter had told him that the birds screech because it makes the mice freeze so that it's easier to catch them.

“Boy your mother would be ashamed of you, acting that way.”

“Yeah? Well she's the one who raised me so I guess that's really her fault.”

“How could any man speak that way to an old woman. And tell lies like that. I know everybody in that church and Misses Harrison would never say anything of the sort.”

Out the front window Alan could see Claudia walking down the street to the house. She was double checking herself with a sheet of paper he had written the address and phone number on, not that it mattered since the line was disconnected. She was walking with a swagger, fueled by rage and excitement. He had left her at the hotel in Banesville and told her to say there, that he would call, and surely when he didn't she came looking for him.

“What do you have to say for yourself boy? Aren't you going to say anything at all?” The Reverend was stepping closer and closer to Alan, taking up more and more of his vision. The kitchen table was right up against the back of Alan's legs now and he felt himself back in that corner store with his wrist locked in this man's firm fist. Alan could see him the way he did then, from the shopkeeper's substantial waistline. His right hand grabbed the edge of the table and his left shot into his pocket and began to fidget with the shells.

“Baby?” Claudia was standing at the end of the porch, looking in through the thick screen, trying to make out the figures she saw. “Baby, you in there?” Both men turned their heads to see her.

Alan exhaled and moved his bottom jaw forward, revealing his deteriorating teeth. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his palm and shoved a hand into the Reverend's chest, pushing him back with surprising force as he went to the front door to let Claudia in. “Doll, what are you doing here now? I thought I told you to—”

“Now, Alan you ain't going to pull that one over on me. How long have you known me, you thought I was going to stay there, alone. If I had, you would've probably come back to find me in jail, it'd have made me so mad.” She didn't notice the Reverend as she walked in, she just pressed herself up against Alan and shoved her hand down the front of his pants. Alan didn't stop her, just lifted her off her feet and turned her around, closing the door behind her. As they kissed Alan kept his eyes on the Reverend who was standing, morally superior, in the kitchen. He looked the way he had just before he whipped Peter, but he was holding his tongue, probably because there was a lady, by whatever definition, in the room. Alan looked him straight in the eyes.

“Mm, Babe, I need to piss. Where's the broad's john?” Claudia released Alan and turned to walk into the back of the house. “Oh, I'm so sorry mister, I didn't see you there.” Claudia threw her weight to one hip held her arms to her chest as if she had been caught indecently. She was wearing a man's white shirt and pair of brown slacks that had once been proper. “That must have been a bit personal for you, I am sorry. My name's Claudia.” She leaned over the couch and extended her hand, the Reverend looked down at her open hand, then down her blouse. Her chest was striped like a prison jacket where sweat had dripped down through the dirt collected under her shirt. He simply stared at her, waiting for her to put that hand away.

“Dollface, you run off and let us talk. The Reverend and I have business.”

Claudia stood back up and pressed her shirt down against her skin, raising her brow and giving the Reverend a knowing smile. As she walked around the couch her shirt rode up revealing the pistol she had tucked into the front of her pants. “You're a Reverend, huh? Well then I'll take my time, You must have a whole lot of business with Alan, I'm sure.” Claudia walked down the hall attached to the kitchen. “Where is it?”

“On your right.” Alan chewed on the dry skin of his lower lip and smiled. He was positioned between the Reverend and the door with his feet set wide apart, as if concerned that the man might rush him in an attempt to escape.

“Should have known this was the kind of person you were. You never were any good and you never will be. It was probably for the best you left town. And I think it would be best if you stayed gone Alan. Man like you is a plague on a God fearing community like this one.”

“A God fearing community, Reverend? You people ain't been outside this shithole town and you never will be. God may be here, keeping you all in line, but money and fame is in the west.” Alan slowly walked toward the Reverend, his left hand in his pocket controlling the strut with which he approached, like a snake moving across warm soil. “Man like me take's what he wants out of life, that's how I've been my whole life. My momma knew it. And she was smart enough to leave me be, let me grow up the way I saw fit. That was the only good thing she ever did for me, which makes it so hard to believe any of those damned things you said this morning.” As he got closer to the target he started sidestepping towards the back door

“Boy I should whip you the way I did when you were a boy. The way your momma never did.”

“You know how easy it is to hide a thing around this town?” Alan stood in the back door of the house facing the Reverend.

“I would lay down that if I told Edman you were in town again and that I know it was you that robbed me all those years ago he would lock you up on the spot. You couldn't hide here then. No, you ran like a snake from a burning cane field and I'm going to make sure you run again.”

Alan pressed his back teeth together and smiled at the way the Reverend was standing up to him. Calmly, he pulled the two shells from his pocket and held them near his waist as if the brass casing could go unnoticed at all. The Reverend flared and pushed in the kitchen chair that Alan had left out with such force that it nearly bounced back and fell over. “I wasn't running from you Mister Mills. It's easy to hide things here, you just need to know where the spots are. I didn't even take you for the money, I took you because I wanted to leave town with a bang.” Alan picked up the shotgun from where he had left it resting against the house and swung the butt up into his pit. The towel had soaked through with blood when Alan clamped onto the barrel.

“Boy, don't you even try—”

“Call me boy again and I'll go through with it. Claudia and I can make it out of town in no time at all. You'll be just another name on the list.” Alan opened the rifle and let it hang as he slid the shells into place. “I really think it's time for you to get gone.”

“You look like you're about to piss yourself there Reverend. Is something wrong?” Claudia could be heard coming down the hall. With the Reverend surrounded, Alan gave him a wide smile that pushed the loose skin of his thin cheeks into his dark brown eyes.

“yeah, is something wrong Reverend?” Alan asked.

The Reverend took a few steps backward, then turned his back on Alan who brought the barrel of the gun up and as it came into place it made a soft click sound that he could tell sent chills up the Reverend's spine. Was he praying?

The Reverend took as few steps to the front door as he could manage and when he was out on the porch, enclosed in the screen, he shouted back inside, “Get the hell out of this town, Alan. You and your whore.” And then he disappeared into the yard.

Claudia shot out of the hallway and around the corner to the front door but Alan caught her by the neck and pulled her back. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You heard what he said!”

“Yeah, and I let him go. Which means you do, too.” Claudia slapped at Alan's hand but it didn't budge. He pulled her in and pressed his lips into hers and then released her.

She glanced out the window and then looked back at him. “Well I don't like it.” Alan leaned the shotgun against the couch and turned to walk back upstairs. “He'll probably go to the cops, Babe. Which means we ain't got much time to get out of here.”

“I haven't found it yet.”

“What? You said it would only take a day. You didn't go to the funeral this morning did you?”

“No, but they all think I did. It's amazing how many people showed up for a woman they didn't know.” Alan started walking upstairs.

“You said it would be easy.” Claudia walked to the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, well she didn't have a bank account. I've searched this house and haven't found a thing. It's like she ate it all and they buried it with her.” Alan stopped.

“Baby, we ain't got the time for this. You got to find where she kept that money.” Claudia rushed up behind him and cautiously put her hand on his back. “Babe?”

Alan quickly walked up the stairs and into the bedroom again. He looked down at the pile of blankets and sheets and cushions that he had used as a bed. The carpet there was unbeaten and darker from the filth that collected under his mother's bed. They would have taken the mattress to the dump. They wouldn't have burned it, or cut it open. Wherever it was it was intact. Someone would know where it was and Alan would find them. “I think I know where it is.”

“Great, where?”

“Come on, lets hit the road. We probably don't have much time.”

“Baby, where is it.”

Alan grabbed his things from the dresser, bunched up his mother's jewelry in a doily and handed it to Claudia. “Oh, these are nice.” she said, following Alan as he rushed out the front door.

Days later the neighbors would complain about the smell of death from over the fence, though none of them would dare cross over to investigate, they would just wait till it went away. The birds would take its eyes and the maggots and flies would plague the body. They would find the last remnants of sweaters and dress pants, and the fractured skull of a dutch boy figurine and none of it would mean anything to them. They would feast and multiply until there was nothing left that resembled a dog at all. And then they would move on.

Something Always Remembered

Something Always Remembered

Second Draft - Last updated Fall 2008

Jonas drew up the plan while in the shower. He turned the water up until it was nearly scalding and let it drift across his back, then he turned it off and wrapped himself in a towel. His Alyssa was standing by the sink in her underwear sticking earrings into her lobes. Jonas eyed the polished wooden jewelry box by the mirror, it was a nightingale's reliquary.

“Should I wear a ski mask today? Or maybe my steel-toed boots?” Jonas asked, grinning at her through the mirror.

Alyssa grabbed his hand as he left the bathroom and pulled him to her. She wrapped her arms around his lower back and held her stomach up against him. He could feel the moisture on his skin fusing their bodies together. “We have a key, Jonas, we're not breaking in through a window.”

“But we are still breaking in.” Jonas kissed her.

“Charlotte was my best friend, she'd be fine with this. Mrs. Wallace wouldn't, but she's dead now.”

“Don't be coarse.” Jonas lifted his chin to show her his square jaw.

Alyssa grinned slyly. “Don't be so stiff. It's going to be an adventure. How many people get to break into a dead lady's house?”

“How many people want to?” Jonas bent his neck down and kissed her forehead. “Are you okay? You look a little pallid.”

“What?” Alyssa looked thrown off by the word.

“Pale.”

“I hate when you use words I don't know.”

“Just smile and nod.” Jonas left the bathroom and went to his dresser, inside which all the contents of his pockets had been emptied the night before. He put on his jeans and picked up his cell phone. He held down the two button until the screen read home. The phone on the other side of the room began to ring.

“Jonas, can you get that.”

“You know it's for you. It's always for you.” Jonas slipped the phone into his pocket.

Alyssa walked out of the bathroom, only one earing in her left ear and no necklace yet. Once she picked up the phone Jonas walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He opened up her jewelry box and quietly pushed things around until he found it.

“Well I guess it wasn't for me after all, they hung up.” Alyssa walked back to the bathroom and jiggled the knob. “Oh come on, you really gotta lock the door when you poop.”

They took Jonas' car because it was the only one with gas. He drove, because he always drove. Jonas never enjoyed having someone else drive him around, it made him nervous that something would happen. He didn't like the feeling that he wasn't in control.

“This is so exciting.” Alyssa said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation, the way she always did when they would go out to dinner. “I can't believe we get to do this.”

“I don't know why you think this is going to be so much fun.”

“What do you mean? I loved this house when I was little, Charlotte and I hung out there more than we ever did at my house. I've got a lot of fond memories of that place.”

“I guess.”

“Wasn't it fun when we went to see your folks. We got to see where you grew up.”

“Yea, but my parents have changed that house a lot. They put in a pool. All you saw were pictures of the house I grew up in. There is no way that this old house is gonna be anything like you remember.”

“Of course it will. Don't be a grouch, it's gonna be really neat.”

“Whatever you say.”

Jackson brown began to sing Fountain of Sorrows on the radio and Alyssa turned it up. “I don't know how you drive without your sunglasses when the sun is low like this.” She was resting her arm against her window and shielding her eyes with her hand. “Do you want me to get you your sunglasses?” She reached down and opened the glove compartment.

“No, no. That's okay, I'm fine without them. No, really, I don't need them. I'm fine the highway's about to turn.”

“Fine, fine. Go on being miserable.” Alyssa put the case back in the compartment and closed it. “I don't know why you don't just-”

“You aren't wearing your necklace today.” Jonas changed lanes.

“Yea. Yea, I couldn't find it this morning, have you seen it?”

“Nope. Did you have it on yesterday?”

“Yes. I always remember days I can't find it. I must have just taken it off somewhere at home. I didn't really look for it before we left.”

Jonas parked on the street, fearful that the fractured driveway would damage his tires. While Alyssa walked to the front door, Jonas stayed in the car. He took his glasses case out of the glove compartment. Tucked inside with his sunglasses was a plastic bag containing a gold necklace. He put the bag in his pocket and the case in a cup holder between the seats, where he usually kept it.

When Jonas got out of the car Alyssa turned around and asked, “Are you coming?” She stood playfully with her hips at an angle and her arms spread open. Her thin green dress hung in the still air as it would off a wire hanger.

“Just blowing my nose. I should probably take the whole box in with me, this place is going to be so fetid.” He said.

“Fetid,” she said, shaking her head and smiling as she turned back to the door.

The house was two stories with four simple windows on the front, square and equidistance from each other like the ones children draw with crayon. The stucco walls had once been a light eggshell color but were now flaking away, revealing the gray underneath and creating a lattice for some green ivy to cling to. It was like a pimple from the earth surrounded by weeds so thick that from far away the lot appeared to be covered in a healthy grass. The front door was guarded by a square cement porch. The door was bright blue at the top and lighter near the bottom where the overhang no longer protected it in the evening sun.

Elsa Wallace had lived in this house up until two days prior when she had stopped to sit in a lawn chair at her local grocery store and passed away. She was there for three hours before an employee noticed she wasn't breathing.

Alyssa was strangely comfortable there on the porch; Jonas glanced back and forth between neighboring houses in search of spying eyes, but she was calm. Alyssa relished the chance to rendezvous with her memories of that house. Somehow it felt like the house was a part of her, like it was integral to her growth.

She had strung all of her parents spare keys onto one ring so she would have to go through nearly twenty keys in order to find the right one. Jonas waited patiently as Alyssa tested each key on the chain. He restrained himself from saying anything when she tried the ones that were obviously too small, or the wrong shape, because he knew that she liked to try them them anyway. He glanced back and forth between the neighboring houses, looking for faces peeking out from behind curtains but he never saw any.

When the pins finally lined up and the key turned all the way right, Alyssa looked over her shoulder at Jonas and smiled, something childishly sinister.

The inside smelled of a stale perfume, like pollen and dirt. There was a short hallway that became stairs, poorly illuminated by light shining though thin curtains at the top. On the right was a door into the living room, and on the left a dining room. Jonas watched as Alyssa absorbed the hallway and tested the air for memories.

Alyssa took a deep breathe. “I told you it would be the same.”

Jonas followed her into the dining room where she became fascinated with her surrounding, reaching out to touch the woodworkings on the dining table and dragging her foot across the wooden floor. She seemed encapsulated in a world that had existed before him.

“Look here,” Alyssa pointed to one of the larger frames on the wall, “This is Charlotte. She must have been maybe eight here. This is her mom and this is her dad and this is Thomas.”

Jonas looked closely at the picture, first at Charlotte, who looked unsettlingly like herself, and then at Thomas. Jonas had never met Thomas but he heard news of him from time to time through Charlotte. He was married now and his daughter looked exactly like the photo of eight year old Charlotte. Next to the family portrait was a picture from Thomas' wedding and Jonas could see Alysas staring at it.

Alyssa turned around and reached out to run her fingers along the fine woodworkings around the legs of the dining room table.. “This is the same table.” Alyssa got down on her knees and looked up underneath. “Charlotte and I drew picture all over the bottom of the table once. We got in so much trouble for it. You can still see it.” She ran her fingers along the wood, testing for the waxy feeling of the crayon.

Jonas stayed standing above her. He took her word for it that the bottom of the table was scarred.

Alyssa worked her way to the kitchen door. “Oh neat! There are still dirty dishes in the sink. Think about it, she was just here, alive, three days ago.” She said, disappearing into the next room.

The dining room table was covered with boxes of pictures and a stack of classic novels like the ones Jonas had read in middle school. Jonas flipped his fingers through one of the boxes of photos marked 1993. He found a section of pictures from a barbecue which he removed from the box and began to shuffle through. A man by a grill in a pair of grungy shorts and a wife-beater. Two women posing on a sun dried wooden bench swing. A group of children with a slip and slide. A picnic table covered in food, bowls of salad, hamburger buns, chopped fruit, something in a casserole dish. Then he found a picture with Alyssa and Thomas. It was of a young couple nested at the table, they were probably high school age, she was perhaps a year or two younger than he was. She was wearing a pink top with thin straps that showed off her tan lines. Like most girls her age she wore too much makeup, simply because she could. Her unassuming lips were brighter than the patchwork red tablecloth at which they sat and Jonas could not make out the freckles across her nose. She was pressing a bare shoulder up against the his and their arms followed the same path under the table.

Jonas stared at the girl in the photo until Alyssa came back into the room, then he shuffled the pictures back together and put the box back on the table in a distinctly different place.“Whole lot of pictures.” He said to her.

Alyssa placed herself behind him, up against his back, and slid her arms underneath his, so that she could squeeze him and rest the side of her head on his back. “I told you this would be fun,” she said.

Jonas wandered the first floor of the house, investigating knickknacks, furniture, and the colorfully dark wallpaper until Alyssa started up the stairs.

“There's a neat little crawlspace under these stairs.”

“Yeah?” Jonas grasped the trinket in his pocket, rubbing its smooth simplicity through the plastic bag. He wondered how many times he would have to lie to her.

“Yeah, I loved to hide in there when we were little girls.”

“Seems like a pretty obvious placed to hide.” Jonas smiled.

Alyssa laughed. “Yea, I wasn't really good at that game. But sometimes you just like to hide away someplace.”

The first room on the left was the girls room. The walls were faded pink except for a bright square by the door where Jonas assumed there had once been a desk. There was barely room for both the beds in this room. The heads of each were placed on either side of the window that opened to the front of the house. Above each bed a dried bouquet of flowers was hanging. On the right, dried lavender with baby's breath and some kind of once green stick hanging over a bed covered by a blanket with snow white on it and a few large fuzzy bears. It was the childhood of a little girl as preserved by a mother, something shed and collected, like dust on top shelves. Above the bed on the left were white field flowers along with one red rose that seemed out of place. That bed was made with white sheets and a white comforter with light pink flowers, whatever it had been was erased. There were frilly white curtains on both windows that would appear at home in the bedroom of both a little girl and an old woman.

“Ew, she's made this room so girly.” Alyssa leaned over the child's bed to peek out the side window at her old house. “It's all so empty now.” She gently squeezed the fabric draperies between her fingers. “I don't know why she would do this. This room was so much fun.”

Jonas could tell by the look of the room that there was nothing here for Alyssa to connect with. “This was Charlotte's room?” He asked.

“Yeah. There used to be Smashing Pumpkins posters all over that wall.” Alyssa waved her hand through the air trying to envision the room in her mind as it had once been. Then she moved on.

The next room was less empty than Charlotte's. The bed was made but not by an old woman, there was a dark blue sheet over the window to keep out the sun on late mornings. There was a poster for Rushmore on one wall and the shelves under the window were still stacked with books. By the bed there was a nightstand and in the nightstand there was a drawer.

“Whose room was this?” Jonas asked, trying to disguise his voice as sincere curiosity.

“Thomas'. He was a year or two older than us.” She said walking away from Jonas to the closed bedroom door across the hall. “You want to see her bedroom?”

Jonas stared into Thomas' room at the bedside table and played with the trinket in his pocket. “You think she'd mind if I used her toilet.”

“I'm sure it'd make her furious,” Alyssa said through a laugh, “but what's she going to do about it?”

Jonas went into the hallway bathroom and closed the door. He took the plastic bag from his pocket and removed the necklace. He reached over and flushed the toilet. He rinsed off his hands, collected up the necklace, and quietly crossed the hallway to Thomas' room.

Alyssa was still in the master bedroom when Jonas sat on the bed by the table. Jonas pulled open the drawer in the bedside table. Inside was a hardcover Bible like the ones the Gideons leave behind. Jonas put the necklace in the back of the drawer, then he pushed the Bible up against it to hold it in place. Someday someone would find it, someone who didn't remember it. They likely wouldn't notice that the pendant wasn't worth as much as the replacement gold chance on which it hung, all they would see was something cheap and forgotten.

Tucked into the seem where the side of the drawer met the bottom was a wallet sized photograph which Jonas pressed his thumb up against and pulled back into existence. It was a picture of a girl, like a high school photo. She wore a green blouse and around her neck was the gold necklace, bright and new, and hanging high around her neck so that it stood out. Her freckles were still missing but at least her lips were not as bright.

Jonas put the yellowed photograph into his shirt pocket, and closed the door behind him as he left the room.

“This is creepy.” Said Alyssa, standing at the foot of Mrs. Wallace's bed.

“What is?” The room was a tan color, the sheets were brown and all the furniture was made of one stained wood or another.

“She made the bed.”

“You make the bed every morning.”

“Yeah, but I'm not going to any more. It's like she was never here, or like she knew she was going to die.”

“Would it have been any less creepy if the bed were a mess?”

“Well, I suppose not. But its creepy none the less.”

“We're in a dead woman's house.”

“I guess so.”

While Jonas investigated a shelf of books, hoping to find one that was interesting, Alyssa snuck back across the hallway. When Jonas left the old woman's bedroom Alyssa was standing just inside the door to Thomas' room, resting the palm of her right hand on her neckline. Jonas walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, grasping her left hand with his right and squeezing her tightly. He could feel the diamond of her engagement ring digging into his palm. She curled in her shoulders and leaned back, trying to push herself into Jonas. If he could have opened his chest and enveloped her in a shell he would have.

After a stretched out moment at the door Jonas squeezed her tighter than before to bring her attention back to him. As he stepped away from the doorway he released her in such a way that she submitted and left with him. When she started down the stairs Jonas went back and shut all the bedroom doors.

Alyssa marched to the car, leaving Jonas to lock up the house. As he closed the front door he listened for his mind, for his clockwork doubts, something irritating. But there was silence.

Jonas sat in a lawn chair in the garage with the door open, listening to the rain while he read a book of short stories and rocked back and forth, creating a rhythmic creaking sound that gave a pace to his thoughts.

Alyssa pulled up into the driveway and opened her umbrella from inside the car. She quickly stepped around to the trunk and pulled out a few bags.

“Reading something good?” Alyssa asked as she shook off the umbrella inside the garage.

“It's brilliant.” Jonas pulled himself away from the pages and tugged on her arm until she bent down and kissed him. “Oh, my beautiful votaress.” He said. Pressing into her wrist was a rubber band, like a chain bracelet with too few links. She must have picked it up somewhere.

“Something inspirational?”

“Yeah, though I wish it could have been mine.”

“It is yours. You bought the book didn't you. Now it's yours.”

“I don't think that counts.”

“You still haven't seen my necklace have you?”

“No. I'm sure it'll turn up somewhere. No big deal, right?” Jonas dropped his book into one of her bags, got up, and hugged her tightly.

“Right, no big deal,” she said, “it'll turn up.”

Jonas took the bags from her and led her into their house. “Nice day at work?”

“Yeah.” Alyssa turned and smiled at him, a toothy, loving smile. Something empty.

Fathers Lived in Comic Books

Fathers Lived in Comic Books

Third Draft - Last updated Spring 2007

As the elevator door opened the pain in Rick's stomach returned worse than it had been before, causing him to hunch over in the doorway and dry heave since he had not eaten yet that day from anxiety. The elevator door dried to close again but Rick forced it back open, unwilling to move from its path, still crippled by his pain. The pain finally subsided. Rick gathered himself and continued down the hall, wiping away the dampness near the tops of his pale cheeks.

Rick's eyes rolled back and forth across the frames of his reading glasses as he counted up the rooms from 200 to 212. He came to door 213, glanced down through his lenses again to check the number, and then looked back at the heavy door. There was no peep hole, only a black metal number. The hallway smelled of burning meat and voices and music shook through the thin walls near each door. It was an ambient noise that made Rick feel out of place. He checked the address on the sheet again, it hadn't changed, so he folded the slip and put it in his right jacket pocket next to the envelope. The tiles to the right of his son's door were filthy, covered with a collection of dried gunk, the remnants of water damage during the past spring. A stain of swollen wallpaper led from the damaged tiles up to the ceiling and a dark pool that caused the weakened drywall to sag. Rick pressed out a bubble from the wallpaper with his thumb. The rough texture under his fingers frustrated him, but still the column of damage seemed appealing somehow. The door was still closed, nothing had gotten better. Rick took off his glasses and neatly closed them into their case, which he slid into his left pocket.

His knocks echoed down the hallway. There was a sound like straining wood and a voice behind the door, and Rick could hear his son turn off his music.

“Who is it?” Eddy's garbled voice resounded through the wall. The door was a barricade more than a passage for his voice, but still he screamed louder than the barrier required.

Rick glanced down the hallway to the elevator.

“What do you want?” He was right behind the door and still screaming.

Eddy yanked on the door, straining the small chain lock, and slipped his face into the opening. “What?” Eddy said to his father. They both became silent.

The door closed. Rick looked back at the stain, then the elevator, and again at the door. He knocked again, softer this time.

“Why are you here?”

Rick got back to the the elevator right as Eddy opened the door again to see if his father was still there. He wasn't.

Monday, Rick though, he would come back Monday.

Nothing was familiar to Rick anymore. He walked this street every night, down two blocks and over three, from his city apartment to Carl Greene's Bar. But the path seemed different that night, something was burning in him, directing his thoughts away from his content monotony, making everything around him seem foreign.

The evening fog was beginning to collect on the ground and freeze as Rick reached the bar. There were seams in the brick where windows used to be, and an intricate molding around the door that may have once been light blue.

Rick stopped at the door and waited for the sharp pain in his belly to pass. It burned in his stomach for a minute, shooting needles into his liver and up towards his heart. He pulled open the door and stepped into the dark smoke.

“Please Da.” A young voice said.

“I don't want to play your records Junior!”

Rick's eyes adjusted to the dark as he lit up a cigarette. Wires ran across the high ceiling and down to lamps that hung a few feet above each table, creating a globe of light that seemed to encompass only the people at each table. The boys were sitting at a table near the far end of the counter as always, their own little forgotten America, and Cassidy had already started up a game of gin. Carl was behind the counter arguing with his son, Junior. Rick walked over to the counter where Junior had laid a record player.

“But I don't want to sit here doing nothin' all night.” Junior was almost eleven years old but he was small for his age. He had a habit of perfectly articulating how much he hated when people rubbed the top of his head or spoke down to him, as if they had something to teach him.

“Alright, fine. But keep it quiet, just loud enough that you can hear it by the bar, okay?” Carl was a young father. Someone must have called in sick that night to force him to work an evening in the bar away from his family.

“You want a pint Rick?” Carl asked.

Rick nodded. He put his hand in his pocket where he found the envelope. He wrapped his fingers around it while he watched Junior file through the stack of records he had stolen from his brother's collection. He had never seen his son at that age. “Well how come you're here tonight Junior? Not a place for a boy your age.”

“Ma's still up visiting Gampy.” Junior carefully selected one and pulled it from the pile.

“I was stuck. His brother's coming to pick him up later.” Carl explained.

“Ah. What's that one Junior?” Rick asked, leaning over to read the record label. He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.

“Country Joe and the Fish.” said Junior through a smile, he understood just how silly it sounded.

“What? What is that hippie music?” asked Carl. He was polishing the spots off a mug for Rick.

“It's folk Da.”

Junior slowly removed the envelope from its thick sleeve and then gently pressed his fingers against the edges of the vinyl and slid the shiny record from the paper envelope.

“He's a good boy you got here Carl.” Rick rubbed the back of Junior's head with his pale cushioned hand.

“Yeah, he's a smart boy.” said Carl, letting the head run off of Rick's beer.

“I'd like to rent him from you if I could.” Rick pressed the ash of his cigarette into a glass tray on the counter.

“What?”

“I'd like to rent him. I got some business to take care of over the next few days, I'm an old man, it'd be nice to have some help. Nothing serious. Couple of days.”

Carl laughed. “Well I dunno, it's fine with me,” he held the beer out on the counter for Rick to take, “ask him. What'd you think Junior, you wanna spend a few days with your Uncle Rick?”

Junior looked at his father, more afraid than puzzled, and then his eyes got extra wide. “Like a sidekick?” He asked.

“Sure. First sidekick I ever had.” said Rick.

“Can I really Da?”

“'Course, that's better than having you sit in the house reading all day.” Carl answered.

Rick picked up his beer, “Good, I'll come pick you up Monday morning Junior. Sound good?”

Junior nodded in amazement. To other boys a man like Rick would be an uncle, or even a grandpa, but to Junior Rick was a hero.

Rick felt a little bad using the boy like this. He walked to the usual table and sat at the empty seat and waited for Cassidy to deal him in. On the wall near the table was a cork board covered in overlapping photos and newspaper clippings that told the story of men like Rick, swept away by the idea of who they were. Colorful ideals packed into little frames.

During the twenties Rick had been a private investigator, and as was popular at the time, he did his work under an alias. He wore a mask and a signature trench coat with a small metal lapel pin on it from which he got his name, The Steel Eagle. He had gotten so popular that the police force hired him on as the poster-boy for their fight against alcohol. He rarely did anything, but they liked to bring him along for raids because it made for good headlines. The idea that this masked crime fighter was on the job seemed to draw people's attention away from the truth that there was little success during that war.

At the start of the thirties Rick had become more of an icon than a real force for good. Real Crime Comics had purchased the rights to The Steel Eagle from Rick and began printing children's pulp magazines about him. On April 19, 1933 Rick had gotten his first chance to drink since he was fifteen. Because The Steel Eagle and the Mystery of the Golden Soldier had released that day Rick wanted to find a place where he could hide from it's readers so he wandered down side streets away from the clean side of town until he found a small bar which had been converted from an appliance store. He and his friends, the other men who's lives the comics had inflated, still gathered there each night.

Monday morning Rick picked up Junior at his house, they went and got breakfast, and then he took him to Eddy's apartment building.

The hallway was especially dead that morning. There was no music collecting in the hall and only a couple of rooms seemed to even make sound. Rick knocked on the door just like he had a couple of days before. He heard a shuffle inside and then looked down at Junior, who was taking everything around him in as if it were something very exciting.

1. This time when the door opened Rick was there. “Can we come in.”

Eddy looked down at the boy, “Who's that?”

“Edward Shimmel, Junior Greene. Junior this is my son.” Rick looked at Eddy and stuck out his bottom jaw as if he were picking his teeth with his tongue. “I'm watching him for a few days.”

Eddy stood back and let the door swing itself open. The walls of the apartment were decorated with tie-dyed sheets held to the wall with thumbtacks. There was a couch, a table, a chair, and by the window was an old television sitting on a T.V. tray. Behind him he saw that the column of stain reached over to the inside of the apartment too.

Rick took a seat on the couch and Junior sat right beside him. If he could have Rick would have wrapped himself around Junior to reassure him.

Between the couch and the chair where Eddy sat there was a small glass table. Most of the tabletop was stained with water marks and dried alcohol which bottles and cups were cemented to, but one corner near the couch was rubbed clean by a nearby rag.

“Why are you here?” Eddy spread out in his chair, when he breathed his chest seemed to grow wider.

“It took a long time to find you.” Rick said.

“I'm not in the phonebook.”

“You're Aunt Ellen hasn't talked to you either.”

“You went to see her?”

“Called her on the phone.”

“So how did you find me?”

“Steve's cop friend called me when they brought you in for possession.” Rick's eyes peeled away from his son and down to his fingers where he was picking at the couch. It was a roughly textured sofa that purposely felt frayed, as if it was shedding, and Rick's thumbnail was trying to sever a small clump from the armrest.

Eddy tried not to move. “So why are you here?”

Rick removed the clump of fabric, rolled it between his fingers and flicked it away. “I've been having these pains, down in my stomach. So I went to the doctor, I thought maybe it was some kind of heartburn.” Rick paused while his eyes glanced around for something solid to hold on to. “It's cancer Edward.”

Eddy's chest shrank. The two men sat quietly for a while. Junior fidgeted.

The sun outside peaked over the building to the east, casting direct light on the windows. Though the aluminum shades were closed the light forced its way between each shutter and around the edges, laying horizontal beams of light across the room.

“How long.” Eddy finally asked.

“Six months. Less.”

Eddy's chest grew wider. “So what do you want from me?”

The old man looked up from the armrest to see Eddy spread out like the ruler of a kingdom, trying desperately to maintain order. “I don't want anything from you Edward. I just want to fix... this, whatever this is.” Rick wondered if crying would force his son's sympathy, make his son forgive him any quicker. It didn't matter much though, he hadn't cried since he lost a fight in the second grade, but he still wondered. He wanted to reach the finish as quickly as he could, not to avoid the pain of the journey but to guarantee the destination.

There was a slight pain in Rick's stomach, a short burst that went away.

“Oh you do?” Eddy's head bobbled back and forth like a dashboard hula girl on a dirt road. “Well isn't that great. I'm twenty-six years old and you want to fix things. That's... that's great.”

“I know. I've been meaning to talk with you for awhile now, but I guess I thought I'd have more time.”

Rick felt Junior shift his weight away from him and thrust his hands deep into his pockets where he began to play with something.

“Why should I care? I don't even know who you are.” As Eddy began to speak louder his throat became soar and his voice raspy.

“I'm your father Edward.”

“Since when?” More air than sound escaped Eddy's mouth. “You're the last shred of a cartoon fiction that my mother tore apart. You aren't my father. You were never real to begin with.”

“I'm sorry Edward. I'm sorry you expected me to be some hero, but I didn't send you away, she took you away from me. My life was unstable, it was probably best for you.”

“Yeah I know, we're both victims of her wrath.” Eddy laughed up something cynical. “She didn't leave you because you were unstable. She hated you. She hated you and so she hated me.”

The air between the window and the blinds was growing warm and heating the room. Rick's left leg was beginning to sweat inside of his dark green socks where the restrained sunlight was striking his leg. He reached down and pressed his pant-leg against his skin to absorb a teardrop of sweat that was tickling it's way from hair to hair down his leg. It gave him his escape from the sinkhole he found himself in.

“Mind if I get a drink of water.” Rick asked.

Eddy took a deep breath and nodded his head towards the kitchen.

“You want anything Junior?” Rick asked as he slowly pulled himself up from the couch. It was like crawling out of a bucket.

Junior twitched his neck back and forth and shifted in his seat, now alone on the couch.

Eddy looked back at the little boy his father had brought with him. “You read the Steel Eagle comics?” he asked.

Junior nodded.

“Get them from your father?”

Junior nodded.

“You know thats him right,” Eddy's voice became cinematic, “that's the shadow in the dark. The man whom all wrongdoers fear. The Steel Eagle.”

Junior pulled his hands back out of his pockets and crossed them.

“A once magnificent something.” Eddy finished. He took pleasure in the disappointed look that Junior wore.

Rick was pleased by how clean his son kept his kitchen. The counter top was cleared, there were no dishes laying around, only a rag that could use a good washing. While he listened to his son mocking him, Rick opened each cabinet, searching for an empty glass. The cabinets were mostly empty, except for one which was filled with a large bag of rice.

“When I was six they were still printing them. I would buy them at the corner store after school and hide them in my sock because my mother didn't like me reading them.”

Rick found a glass and held it under the faucet. At first the water was pink, but the color quickly faded. He turned off the water, sat the glass upside-down on the counter, and walked out of the kitchen.

“My favorite stories were when he saved little kids from kidnappers. He was a real hero.”

“This is not my fault Edward. You chose this life.” Rick was standing behind his son's chair. “Just because I wasn't around doesn't...”

“My fault? If it's my fault then why the hell are you here?” Eddy interrupted, shooting up from his seat to face his father. “You left me there with her. Alone with that woman. I didn't need a hero, or a symbol, or an idea. I needed a father. I had an idea of you but I needed a father.” Eddy stepped closer to Rick. “And I will never forgive you for that.”

Rick stepped away past his son towards the door. “I'm sorry Edward.” Rick stuck out an arm towards Junior, who got up the couch and carefully walked over to Rick's side.

Eddy had left the front door unlocked, as he often did when he was home, so when Michael arrived he didn't test the door, much less knock, he simply turned the handle and walked in. Michael wasn't one of Eddy's musician friends, he was one of the others. Had the door been locked he would have slammed into it.

Michael was an emaciated man who wore three layers of clothes and a heavy poncho at all times to cover it up. His parents were very proud of their Irish heritage so he still carried an accent thicker than any Rick had ever heard, almost artificial. Rick immediately recognized him as a parasite.

Michael obviously did not notice the old man and his boy.

“How' she cuttin' Eddy, yeh gotta bifter?” Michael was hunched over himself near the door he had left open, searching twitchily through his many pockets for something Rick was sure didn't exist.

“Jaysis Christ Eddy, I'm so fooking knackered.” Michael realized there was nothing in his pockets and looked up to see the old man staring at him, hiding a small boy behind him.

“Ah,” said Michael, “Howdy.” He stuck out his hand for Rick to take. It was pale and bony and his fingernails were misshapen and discolored. Rick imagined the man in a filthy place picking at something unidentifiable. He denied the gesture, instead Rick turned around to look at his son with eyes that clearly communicated his distaste for the newcomer.

Eddy seemed unaffected by this and only said, “Maybe you should go. Michael and I have business.”

Rick's hand moved to clench his belly as he stood between this junkie and his son, but he realized his stomach did not hurt just then.

“Fine,” Rick pulled a stuffed envelope and tossed it onto the table. It knocked over two bottles and landed on the glass with a heavy thud. Every month since Rick had last seen his son he had put two crisp hundred dollar bills into the envelope. It contained thirteen-thousand six-hundred dollars. “I'll be back tomorrow. Let's go Junior.” he said, making his escape.

Rick held Junior by the shoulders and carefully guided him to the door to avoid contact with Michael.

As they exited the apartment Eddy replied, “Don't,” harshly.

Junior kept perfectly quiet in Rick's shadow as they walked down to the elevator. On the way into the building the dark hall had resembled the grimy warehouses and secret headquarters of various thugs in the colored boxes of the old pulp pages, but now the walls were just dirty, the tiles were just old, and the air just made men want to stop breathing.

When the elevator door closed a pale light turned on in the ceiling that felt especially artificial.

“You want me to take you home?” Rick asked.

Junior wasn't sure. He just stood still, refusing to answer the question.

“You want to come home with me for awhile? Play some games.”

Junior didn't think this time, just nodded his head.

Rick's apartment didn't reach expectations. The building was nice and the room was spacious, but the decor seemed to strive for something that it couldn't attain. Rick had a multitude of expensive and beautiful artifacts that he had collected over the years but they were displayed on cheap furniture of various woods. There was a sofa with a faded but still visible stain on the side and everything felt placed in relation to the television. It was like an old man's museum, the building blocks of a tomb but with all its pieces in the wrong place.

Junior took a dark wooden box labeled with a piece of masking tape off a shelf by the television. He carefully undid the small brass latch on the backgammon board and laid it out on Rick's kitchen table. He had a separate wooden box which held the checkers. They were intricately carved from black and white marble with a star on one side and an eagle on the other.

“You want a glass of water Junior?” Rick was pouring himself a scotch on the rocks at a small wooden table just outside the kitchen. The boy hadn't said much to him since they left Eddy's apartment and though Rick understood why, the guilt was beginning to collect inside him.

Junior nodded, trying to keep his attention on the beautiful carving in the checkers.

“I'm sorry about today Junior, I didn't know it would be like that.” said Rick. He took a second glass from his liquor table, filled it with ice and took it into the kitchen. As he passed he sat the scotch across the table from Junior. He had filled the glass with ice leaving plenty near the brim that didn't touch the scotch and drowning the ice near the bottom. Junior watched the ice crack in the glass, popping and twitching uncomfortably in the dark fluid.

“You don't have to come tomorrow. You should just stay at home.” Rick sat down and placed a glass of water next to Junior. “I shouldn't have even brought you today.”

“You didn't need me?” Junior finally asked.

“I don't know.” Rick took a swig of his drink and held it in his mouth for a moment before he swallowed it. He was glad that Junior didn't ask why.

“I've never seen such a nice game board.” said Junior.

“Thanks, I bought it for my father.”

“It looks real expensive.”

“It is.” Rick rolled a two.

Junior rolled a four. “Your da must have really loved backgammon.”

“He did, we used to play together.” Rick took another drink. “It's the oldest game in the world, you know?”

“Really?”

“Sure is. He used to say it made him feel like a part of something bigger. He liked the idea that we were all playing the same games, and we'd been playing them since the start of time. Backgammon made him feel like everything was going to be okay.”

“Did you play it with your son?” Junior asked even though he felt he shouldn't.

“I never got a chance to teach him.”

Junior didn't say anything, he just held the dice in his hand for a moment, waiting for a story. When it didn't come he gently rolled them onto the board, trying to keep them from making any sound. When he was done moving his tokens he stuck his right hand in his pocket and began playing with something.

“What's in you pocket?” Rick asked.

“What?” Junior pulled his hand out and folded his arms in his lap. “Nothing.”

“No, come on. You've been playing with it all day.”

Junior found a spot on the edge of the table and stared at it while blood rushed to his cheeks.

“Tell me.”

“It's my Steel Eagle pin.”

Rick smiled and excused himself from the table. He walked to a storage closet back in his bedroom and returned with a small frame. He laid the picture down in front of Junior. “I want you to have that.”

In the photograph Rick was dressed in his iconic trench coat and lapel pin, small brown mask, and fedora, standing against a rail across from the Eiffel Tower. To his left was Cassidy and in front of them was a soldier with a camera, kneeling down to take their picture. The photo was in a thin black frame with a small chip on the top right corner.

“They sent us to take that picture after the marines took back Paris.”

Junior lifted the picture from the table and held it very close to his face, as if he was tries to step into it. He smiled, “This is so neat.” Junior pulled himself out of the photo and looked past it at Rick, his eyes sagged. “Are you sure I can have it?”

Rick sat down and began running his fingers around the rim of his glass. “We're all just men now Junior. That's all we ever were.”

They played for hours till the early Spring sunset. It began to rain outside just about the time the streetlights came on. The strong clapping against the thin pane glass seemed to echo in the apartment.

Rick had won every game but Junior was getting better. He had considered letting Junior win once but he knew how much he hated to be talked down to.

“I told your father I wouldn't have you back for another hour, so you want to go get supper?”

“Yeah!”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Don't know.”

“There's a diner at the corner, they make triple decker sandwiches.” Rick suggested.

“Yeah!”

“Let's go.” Rick looked out at the heavy raindrops on the window, they seemed to be falling faster than normal. “You didn't bring a coat did you.”

“Nope.”

“That's fine, you can wear something of mine.” Rick went into the bedroom and looked through his closet for a small jacket. Most of his things were full length, which would have left Junior dragging two feet of jacket behind him, or they were made of leather that Rick didn't want to get wet. He found an old thick sweater that he rarely wore and pulled it from its hanger. It was an off white color broken up by crooked brown lines running horizontally across it. Junior was standing in the in the bedroom doorway. Rick held up the sweater in the air as if he were testing it out from a distance to see if it would fit. Junior stuck out his arms, pretending to be a rigid mannequin, a human hanger.

“Here, this should fit.” Rick tossed the sweater over to Junior who caught it with his entire body. He stood there, drenched in the sweater, trying to find the bottom. Junior slipped the sweater over his head, poked around inside till he found an exit and then abruptly stuck out his arms into the sleeves. The sweater came down to his knees and he had to crumple the sleeves up, which made him feel like a body builder. To keep them that way he had to shove his hands deep into his pockets and hold them there. It smelled like soap and dust and it weighed him down like a lead jacket. He stood with the light to his back and his hands in his pockets and stuck out his elbows from his sides, then looked up at an angle.

“There, you look great. There are umbrellas by the door.” Rick loved walking in the rain, something about it seemed comforting, like a return to the womb. He would wrap himself in a heavy jacket and feel warm and protected in his own little bubble. The smell was always fresh and clean. He liked that no matter how long it rained it would eventually stop.

The phone rang. It was on a table in the entryway.

“Oh, let me get that before we go, it might be your father.” Rick picked up his long jacket from the bed, threw it over his arm and hustled to the phone.

“Hello,” Rick spoke into the phone but no one answered. “Hello?” he repeated.

“Hello,” a voice finally answered. It was raspy, garbled and wheezing.

“Who is this?” Rick was more concerned than frustrated now. Not many people had his phone number and whoever this was was very sick.

“I found you in the phonebook.” The voice trailed off till Rick could barely hear it, becoming only slow heavy breathes into the receiver. The breathing seemed to sputter like a laugh and then stopped.

“Who is this?” asked Rick again becoming frantic. Through the phone he heard a door close and then a loud vibration, probably the receiver being dropped on a table. It was Eddy's table, Eddy's phone, and Eddy's voice.

Rick took the phone from his ear and held it out away from himself. He tried to tell himself everything was fine. He tried to tell himself it wasn't Eddy at all. He even thought that if something was wrong, then someone else could help better.

Rick turned to Junior who was still standing by the bedroom, his head tilted slightly to the right and a concerned look on his face. The sweater seemed to be devouring the boy, making him seem even younger. Rick didn't know what to do, he couldn't take Junior with him.

The blood must have rushed from Rick's face because something gave him away.

“Edward?” asked Junior.

Rick didn't move.

“Let's go.” Junior didn't hesitate at the situation, he just gathered it all up, sorted it out, and tackled it.

Rick snapped out of his shock, grabbed two umbrellas from a hook on the wall and threw one to Junior.

It took thirteen minutes for the cab to reach Eddy's building. When they arrived Junior ran ahead to call the elevator. Rick made it into the lobby as quickly as he could.

“Let's take the stairs, it's faster!” said Junior.

“Go ahead,” Rick yelled, “I'm faster with the elevator.”

Junior disappeared into the stairwell just as the elevator door opened. Rick tapped the second floor button twice and then held down the 'close door' button till the floor began to move. When the doors opened again he came out to find Junior banging on Eddy's door. He must have raced up the stairs to be that far ahead of him.

“It's locked!” Junior yelled from down the hall.

Rick reached the door and jiggled the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He pounded on the door with his fist, “Edward.” There was no sound from inside. He threw his weight into the door but that only shook his shoulder. Rick stood back and examined it for a moment, searching for some answer.

The column of stain next to his door was alive. The rain was finding its way inside and dripping down behind the wallpaper, making the vertical stripes flow back and forth like waves.

“Junior, take off the sweater.” Even with the umbrella the sweater had gotten wet and it would weigh him down. “I'm gonna boost you up and I want you to punch through the ceiling.”

“What?” Junior shouted through the moist sweater he was pulling over his head.

“See that wet spot? The rain is leaking down through there on both sides of the wall. It's soft so you can tear through it and climb over to the other side.”

Junior grinned like any other boy his size would at this idea.

“Come on, put your foot in here.” Rick interlocker his fingers and held them like a step.

Junior climbed up Rick till his head was near the ceiling. The stain reeked of mildew. A dark sludge was pooling there and dripping down the wall. Junior made a fist and struck the stain with all his might. His hand pierced through the soft material, leaving a wet mush all over his knuckles. He pulled his hand back out, bringing a chuck of wet drywall with it, then grabbed another piece to the left and tore that out. The chunk bounced off of Rick's shoulder as it fell.

The hole was big enough for Junior to get through but there was a metal beam on one side obstructing the path, so he tore out another chunk from the dry area, one much bigger than he needed.

“That'll do, now see if you can make it over.” said Rick. He watched the boy pull himself halfway up into the ceiling. Junior's legs were sticking out, trying to push off the wall for leverage, so Rick grabbed them by the shoes to give Junior a place to stand.

The sound of the boy's fist breaking through the other side could be heard through the wall. Junior disappeared into the ceiling and Rick heard him land with a thud and a groan.

“You alright?” Rick shouted into the hole.

“Yeah!”

“Good. Don't touch anything just open the door.” Rick placed his hand on the door and waited till he felt it unlock. When it did he turned the knob and pushed it open, slowly at first till he saw Junior was out of the way and then with careless force.

Eddy was sitting on the floor with his back against his chair. He was unconscious and there was a rubber medical tube still tied around his left arm. The phone was sending out the dial tone from where it hung against the table leg.

Rick grabbed his son with both hands and shook him. His eyes were closed, his face pale, and the edges of his gaping mouth were dripping with thick mucus.

“Edward. Edward wake up.” Rick cupped his son's neck with his right hand and laid him down on the floor to check his breathing. He was still breathing but each breathe was weak and short, like a hiccup.

“Come on Edward, hold on.” Rick grabbed the receiver and yanked it, pulling the phone off the table. It landed in the open phonebook on the floor.

Rick dialed the police.

Junior just stood there by the chair he had moved away from the door. He watched Rick the whole time, making the call to the police and waiting for them to arrive. He had never seen this in the frames of the pulp pages, but he was a boy, and boys know heroes when they see them.

When Rick returned to Eddy's hospital room the nurse was replacing the IV drip of naloxone by Eddy's head. Eddy had been asking her about what hospital he was at and how he got there, but his words were still garbled so she just kept telling him to stay down and relax, that everything was just fine.

“You're awake.” Rick said, taking a sip from his coffee. He sat down in the white chair by the bed. He liked this place, everything was clean. “You've been asleep for two days.”

“How did I get here?” Eddy didn't move, he just stared at the ceiling and fidgeted his toes.

“I called an ambulance.”

Eddy laid silently till the nurse left the room. “I should be dead.”

“Almost, but we got there in time.”

“We?”

“That boy Junior helped me get into the apartment. You locked it with a folding chair.”

“I didn't ask you to come.” Eddy still didn't move, there was no inflexion in his voice and no purpose behind his words.

“You called me on the phone. The doctor said you might not remember that.” Rick took another sip of his coffee. It splashed up on something inside of him and burned. The pain shot up his throat. Rick dug his fingers into the chair and held back what seemed like vomit. Once the pain went away Rick sat the cup on a nearby table. “You want anything to drink, I can ask the nurse.”

Eddy didn't answer.

Rick watched his son for a few minutes, not saying anything. It was early in the morning and the curtains weren't closed yet. The sun was low in the sky and it flooded the room with light which reflected off the clean white colors in the hospital.

“I can't believe you came.”

“Isn't that why you called me?”

“No. I didn't think I could hate you any more than I have the past six years, but I found a way.” Eddy chuckled, but it sounded more like a gargle. “I got your number from the phonebook then I shot up and called you.” Eddy rolled his head to the right where he saw the bright blue sky speckled with wisps of white, then rolled his head back over to see his father's face, the wrinkles by his mouth lit up by the abundant light. “I called you because I wanted you to hear me die. Because that was the only way I knew how to hurt you.”

Rick moved his chair closer to his son's bed. “Every day I didn't spend with you was a day wasted.”

Eddy turned over his left hand and his father held it and buried his face in his son's sheets.

Rick finally looked up, “We're going to get you help Edward. We're going to get you cleaned up.”

Junior sat next to his father in the third row at the end of the pew, where he could lean over and peer down the aisle at the casket. It was a week after Thanksgiving and the city had become frigid, so Junior wore the heavy sweater that Rick had given him. Under his right arm was the wooden backgammon box.

The service was about to start when Eddy walked past Junior to the front row. Junior looked up at his father who nodded and pressed gently against Junior's back.

Junior stood up and carried the heavy box up to the front row. Eddy was sitting in a compact position with his arms tight to his sides and his fingers interlocked in his lap. His hair was combed straight back and slicked with a nice pomade. There was an empty space next to Eddy, where Junior set down the box. He didn't say anything to Eddy, just pressed his lips together and nodded. Then Junior returned to his seat.