Ask the Dark Page 2

  I figure it was ’bout six when a jogger ran by huffin’ and puffin’, steam comin’ out his mouth. But he didn’t see nothing. A little after that came one of them goody-two-shoes families, out to pick up litter so’s to keep the woods neat. They dawdled on the wood-chip trail, picking here and picking there, stuffin’ what they got in trash bags. The kids was dressed for camp in little uniforms, and their daddy wore a gray suit and everything else for work, ’cept his feet and pants legs was stuffed in galoshes. They didn’t come near the stream, though. When they was gone I had to take a leak and did it down through the branches, making no noise at all.

  Then a lady came out from a house I could just see through the trees, and she came down to the water. When she saw, she screamed her head off, running back up to her house.

  I climbed down and ran. No one saw me. I knew it wouldn’t be five minutes ’fore the police was there, swarmin’ all round, and damned if I’ll be stuck up in a tree all day.

  I took a trail that headed for a street. Walking along I swat branches, and let’m swat back at my face just for fun, and it hurt a little. I stuffed my hand in my pocket and felt that piece of paper. Well, at least I got the trash off’m, I thought, and I made to toss it away, but that didn’t seem right. So I hung on to it, squeezing it twixt my fingers.

  I was thinking back on how Tommy Evans used to call me nasty names, bad ones. Shit. I wouldn’t care now what all names he’d call me, if he could get up and walk around again. But cut up like he was, I knew that couldn’t happen.

  I come out the woods at them two towers where the college students live behind their school, dormitories. I had to ford the stream, climb a hill, and climb a wire fence, right up over the barbed wire. Then I let down and crost the parking lots, slinking ’tween the cars and looking inside. But I didn’t see nothing I wanted and didn’t even try the doors, which all was locked anyways, prob’ly. So I went crost the lots and up the street, into where’s all the houses is in the neighborhood all lost in trees.

  Chapter Three

  This the same day the letter came, but I weren’t home then. I was feeling too riled to go home ’cause I seen Tommy Evans, found him, I mean, though I never told it till now, ’cause wouldn’t you’f wondered why I was in them woods so early in the first place? That’s why I never told it.

  I wanted to see what I might hear ’bout it before going home, who they think might’f done it and so on. One place to do that was Shatze’s, so I figured I’d head up’ere, running through backyards and alleys. But afore I got there I seen Richie Harrigan goin’ by in that old pickup he drives. He yells, Hey, Monkey Boy, come ride with me! And I figure I might learn more drivin’ round with him than hanging round Shatze’s with Marvin, so’s I went over and got on in.

  We drove around back alleys looking for what we could salvage in yards, and asking neighbors what they had in their garages we could maybe take away. Some of them alleys are real narrow, and driving through’m in Richie’s pickup the branches was smacking on the windshield like to break it, and the tires was bumpin’ over the broken ground, so we inside was bouncin’ crazy on our asses, damn near smacking our heads on the window frames.

  But we didn’t find nothing.

  Finally Richie had this idea to go check out the big fields behind his old high school ’cause there’d be cans there to bag up and recycle, maybe make a buck off that. I knew that was time to quit. I knew ’cause I’d done it before with’m, and once he started picking up cans and bottles he’d go on to other junk like old tires and empty boxes and anything he could get his hands on, thinking maybe he could sell it for scrap, but really thinking it was his turn to go pickin’ up the whole damn neighborhood, like it’s some sacred duty he got to get it all clean.

  So I went home.

  First he drove me not too far from his house, which ain’t nowhere near my house, me in the truck bed now ’cause he wants me to hold down this mess of loose posters he found on the street. We did hear about Tommy from some people we saw, parents on lawns, mainly, who we was asking for junk. They said he was found and he was dead, and it was sad to hear it. More’n sad, really. Horrible. But there weren’t no word on who done it.

  So there I was up Richie’s way and I gotta walk home. That Richie, he got money—I mean his daddy has it—but me, I live on this one skinny little street about a mile from him, where people who ain’t got so much live. I was walking feeling that piece of paper in my pocket, same one I got off Tommy Evans, because I tell you my mind was sort of stuck on him, and wondering who the hell might’f killed him. Because I didn’t really tell you how he looked. His face, I mean. And I ain’t gonna tell you. But it weren’t something a person does, I mean no regular sane person.

  Second day of summer vacation. Hot. Bright. Me, I’m walking through the neighborhood with a nice breeze blowin’ in the trees, and sunlight shining off the house fronts as I go passin’ by. Tell the truth, when my mind got off Tommy, I was feeling pretty good, especially since I’d dodged Richie, who by now was prob’ly up to his waist in weeds digging up trash like a crazy man, for no special reason at all.

  Then I passed the house, and that should’f clued me. Should’f let me know what might be up at home.

  See, about a year ago—no, more’n that, two years ago, now that fall’s come round again—was just when my daddy was painting that house.

  I stopped and come up to it, it all quiet and neat and now painted perfect, where before it had looked haunted with rusty window screens and tarpaper peeling off the roof and dead leaves everywhere. Perfect it was, and I looked at it, the sun shining down and the cool breeze on me. I looked at the eave, the top one there, up by them box-windows three in a row.

  I’m talking now about the time just after my mother died, when all them bills was coming. Doctor bills. First there was just what they call “deductible,” then the whole thing went crazy because the insurance company stopped paying at all. Make ends meet my daddy took on more work. He was working too much, sometimes going at two jobs a day, say eight hours on a house job, then maybe four after dark and by lamplight, going over a fence or shoring up a pipe or you name it.

  That eave up there, that’s where it happened. My daddy was out painting one night, there where that little piece of roof give just enough inches for a foothold. He took a step back, and pow! Tripped on a power cord, all snagged up. Fell off that roof. Hit bushes down at bottom. Messed up his back good—fractured the spine.

  After that he’s in the hospital. Can’t pay. So next up came the mortgage. Second mortgage. My daddy owned the house. Paid for it by workin’ all his life. But a man came to him and told’m it’s worth a damn sight more’n what he paid, and with a second mortgage he could make hospital payments.

  I’d like to shoot that man.

  Anyway, he did that, my daddy, to pay up best he could. But it weren’t enough. And while all this was happening and my mother’s funeral expenses come and Daddy can’t work at all no more, we start going out to Social Services.

  Welfare. Medical. You name it. Little offices where all you do is wait forever and when somebody do come out to see you, they never give you what you want and look at you like you ain’t washed your clothes.

  So I just stood there. Lookin’ at that house. I thought maybe there was some kind of secret there. Some kind of answer. The eaves and the drainpipes and the gutters looked all complicated like a riddle.

  But there weren’t no answer. Just wood and tarpaper.

  I walked on. Didn’t think about it. Just kept going. Walked along the sidewalks and half hour later I come up the stairs to our place and went inside.

  Straight back’s the kitchen, that’s where Daddy was sitting. Sittin’ still, squat, and gray, not moving, letter on the table. I come in, amble past, and get a drink of water at the sink. He don’t move at all. It’s dark in there ’cause the window curtains is drawn, but he don’t open’m, I do.

  I say, How’re you, Daddy?

  He don’t answer for
a while. I’m leaning on the sink, drinking my water, and he says, They’re taking the house.

  How so?

  He ain’t looking at me, just staring down at the letter. He got his glasses on, ones that bug his eyes. I can’t pay, he says. Missed too many payments. Now they want it all. Foreclosure. We have three months. Pay or quit.

  Uh-huh, I say.

  I stare at him a minute. Then I go upstairs and lie on my bed.

  Ten minutes later my sister, Leezie, come in. I didn’t look up. I was staring at a little patch of wall, just staring at it, place where the plaster’s all flaky.

  She says, Billy, we gotta help Daddy.

  I know, I said.

  We can’t lose the house, Billy.

  Um-hmm.

  I felt her come closer, lean over me. Though I didn’t look up and she didn’t make no noise.

  Can you do it, Billy?

  I gave a little laugh. I said, Leezie, you sixteen and can get a job. Why put it all on me?

  I couldn’t never make so much alone, she said. Any­how, Billy, you got ways. She talked real quiet.

  I stared at that flaky place. Didn’t want to answer. I got ways? I wondered if she knew what she was askin’ me.

  Then I said, I’ll try.

  You promise?

  I felt her standing there, waiting.

  It took me a minute, but I said yeah. Then I looked up at her.

  Will you do something for me? I said. Go down ask’m what he owes?

  She murmured yes and walked away. I could barely hear her. Footsteps soft as breath.

  Room was empty now. Everything felt still.

  Minute later she came back.

  Forty-eight, she said.

  I rolled over on my back.

  Thousand?

  Yes, Leezie said, swallowing a catch in her voice.

  Don’t cry, I said.

  I won’t, she said.

  She bent down and kissed me. Then I heard the door close.

  I lay there. Looking at the ceiling.

  Forty-eight thousand.

  God fuckin’ damn.

  Scuze my language.

  Chapter Four

  Next day I got up early. Was thinking. I been saddled with a lot in my time. Seen crazy shit, ain’t lyin’.

  But forty-eight thousand was something new.

  I got up thinking about it, put my clothes on thinking about it, and ate my breakfast without it never leaving my mind.

  How the hell I gonna do it? I had no goddamn idea.

  I went out. Wandered. Went through alleys and streets looking around. But there was nothing. Just lawn furniture and junk on porches. Nothing worth forty-eight thousand.

  Saw Richie Harrigan in his pickup, drivin’ slow down the street under the trees, and he waved at me. Hey, Monkey Boy, climb in, he said.

  Monkey Boy, yeah, that’s what he calls me. You’ll see why.

  I did. I sat and he said he got a job for a man on Frederick Street, man in a big house. Says he’s going to the HomeWorld Lumber, gotta buy supplies, will I come with’m?

  Shit yeah, I say. Sure ain’t got nothing better to do.

  We drove. Went through the neighborhood and then out on some route, I don’t know the number. Summer was going good now and all the woods ’longside the route had that foamy sort of lime-green color, you know it? Outside, cars was whizzing by.

  Richie, he’s smoking a cigarette, window open, lis­tening to the radio, some country singer. He’s big, Richie. Not tall, but big arms, big chest. Burly, I mean. Short hair and looks neat, ’cept all his teeth are brown’n busted. From when he was drinking, I s’pose.

  Titans gonna win the pennant this year I bet, you know that? he says, looking forward.

  That’s a year off, I said.

  Bet they do, he said. They got some good players coming up. He nods his head and grins, thinking ’bout it.

  He’d know. Used to be captain of the Titans, his old football team—quarterback, he was, and got a scholarship to boot. Ten years back. Folks say he used to look good, drivin’ in a convertible, girls just stuffed in it, all fawnin’ on him. Say he used to be rich. Wouldn’t know it now. He told me what happened to’m. I’ll tell you too, but not just now.

  When we got to the store I took a cart from outside and went in. Richie walked beside me in the aisles, holding a list in his hand with what he needs scribbled on it.

  So I say, Richie, I need forty-eight thousand dollars.

  He sort’f just stops right there and looks at me.

  What the hell for? he says.

  My daddy’s gonna lose the house, I say.

  Hold up a minute, he says, and moving aside he gets one of them ladders with wheels on it and brings it over. Okay, Monkey Boy, climb up there, he says.

  Now you know why he calls me Monkey Boy. He don’t never climb no ladder, has me do it. Makes him dizzy, so he says, something left over from back when he was drinkin’.

  I climb and he watches, and when I’m up top I look down and ask what he wants.

  You gotta see my daddy, Richie says. Gimme those nails, flatheads, the two-and-a-halfs.

  I read the numbers and grab a bag.

  Here goes—flatheads, I say. Why’s that?

  He runs banks, Richie says.

  I hand him down the nails.

  Makes a lot of money, he says. Hell of a lot more than what you’re after.

  He ain’t gonna see me, I said.

  Why not?

  ’Cause what I done to his car. What you need now?

  Them eyebolts. Thought you paid for that?

  Nope. Never did, I said.

  I climb down and wheel the cart over to the aisle where they got concrete and plaster. Richie, he brings the ladder.

  Gimme that bag of plaster, too, will ya, Monkey Boy? Big one.

  Got it, I said.

  Damn thing’s heavy. But I lug it.

  Come see him, Richie says. See him at the bank. He’s there all day.

  You mean a loan? I climb down beside him.

  Yeah, that’s one way, he says. You just gotta have collateral. Push the cart, will ya?

  I start pushing the cart. I push fast and make motor noises and yell, Beep beep! like I’m a truck and if I gotta back up I make the other beeping sound and say, Hold up, hold up, and Richie’s there right beside me, laughing. What’s collateral? I ask.

  Something you put up against the money you get, he says.

  That’s what my daddy already done, I say. I ain’t doing that mess come nothing.

  Well, then there’s credit, Richie says. That they just give ya. But you gotta be eighteen.

  Eighteen? That’s too far off for me, I say. I need the money now.

  Richie laughs. Then you best get a job, he says. Good one.

  I’m trying, I say. And I push the cart to check out.

  Chapter Five

  So that’s what I done.

  Tried to find a job.

  It was still early after I left Richie, just ’bout eleven. So I went around. I tried the grocery store up on the avenue, Lowry’s, I tried the cleaners on Burton Way. I went to the gas station there on Bellsprint, and crost over the street where they got that little market run by the Chinese lady. They all said no. Mr. Potecki, who cuts meat up the grocery, he told me to get out. Knows me ’cause I go to school with ’is daughter and I got her once to hook school with me, and she got caught.

  By the time I was done I felt real beat, so I took a drink of water from a yard hose and lay down on the grass.

  Grass got me thinking, so I got up. Went and rung the doorbell. Hey, Mr. So-and-So, you need your lawn mowed? Shakes head, says no. I try twenty other places. Finally get one. It’s a lady in her apron cleaning house, and she sort’f thinks about it a minute with her eyes rolling around, then smiles and takes me on.

  She got this power mower, and the wheels are s’posed to turn by themselves, but something was busted or going the wrong way, ’cause I had to push hard as I could to keep tha
t thing moving.

  I go extra careful, ’specially out back round this big wood kiddie house she built, or her husband built, for their kid, boy I know named Joey, ’cause it got nice paint and she don’t want no scratches.

  Sun was hot, and pretty soon I’m wet head to foot with sweat, both shirt and pants, and when it’s all done I still got to go around with snips, ’cause the truth is what with having to push the mower, the path I went was scraggly with plenty of high grass in the gaps between.

  When I get finished, the lady she comes back out and checks what I done, then gives me the twelve bucks I’d asked her for.

  I think about that for a minute. Twelve bucks down makes it forty-seven thousand nine hundred eighty-eight.

  To go.

  I don’t know how many little yards it would take, so I start thinking ’bout how big the yard would have to be for me to make it all in one go, and I figure ’bout the size of Delaware.

  I got done there at around three thirty and still had a few hours left before curfew. I’m thinking I need more money, twelve bucks ain’t gonna cut it. So I figure I best go down Shatze’s and see’f Marvin’s around.

  Now, I gotta stop right here and say something. ’Cause comin’ up I’m gonna tell you the first thing I saw that helped me find those boys and the man who took’m.

  But you gotta understand one thing.

  I didn’t know what I was seeing.

  Least not right then, when I first seen it.

  Now some people say that makes me pretty dumb, because what with all I did see, then and a couple weeks later, they say it wouldn’t be hard to know just what it all was and put it all together.

  Well that might be true. But looking back now at what horrors I seen that still wakes me up some nights in cold sweats, I figure maybe I wish I was even dumber than I was, and never noticed nothing in the first place.