Charnel House (31 page)

Back home, he sat with the rest of the family watching the Sunday Night Movie—
The Time Machine
, which was really more Dana’s sort of thing than his own—but his mind was elsewhere. Thoughts of the carnival, and Norman, and Brother Peavey, and the Barlowe house stormed in his head. It hadn’t escaped him that things had been calm since the incident at church. Maybe his post dramatic stress had dropped when Amy asked him to the carnival. It made sense to him. A date was a lot less dramatic than what had happened to him in the crawlspace with Norman, that was for sure. Still... it concerned him that he had imagined such crazy things. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before.

But had he ever been as terrified as he was under the house with the hobo? He wracked his brain, trying to compose a list of things that had scared him over the course of his life, and what he came up with woefully inadequate compared to the lecherous touch of those hands and tongue, and the dreadful blistered thing Norman had pressed against him. Something like being frightened of a bully or failing a test didn’t really compare to that, he thought. Not even when Dana got meningitis a couple of years ago and he thought she might die was as scary (
well
, he amended,
for her it probably was
). Dramatic? For sure. Just not
as
dramatic.

When the movie ended he kissed his parents goodnight and even hugged Dana—who flinched away and made a face like a retard, even though he could tell she was pleased—before brushing his teeth and getting into bed. He could take his shower tomorrow, to be as fresh and clean for Amy as he could. He drifted to sleep thinking of the way the blue ribbon in her hair laid across the smooth skin of her neck.

A cannonade of thunder rocked the house, jolting Bobby awake. He sat up in the darkness, heart pounding, trying to orient himself.
Coming for me.
The words bounced off the walls of his skull like a rubber bullet. Gradually he calmed, realizing he was safe in his bed and not back under the Barlowe house with Norman. Not
anywhere
with Norman.
All alone.
The room flashed white, and another clap of thunder rattled the windows at the same time.
Oh no!
If it was storming, would the carnival even be open?

Bobby looked at the analog clock on the bedside table. 7:43. As he watched, the 3 flipped over to a 4. Pale purple-gray light wept into the room around the window shade, far darker than it should be this late in the morning. His heart sunk to somewhere south of his guts.
Not fair
. He slipped out of bed and padded across the room to the window, where he peeled back the shade and looked out into the back yard. Another brilliant flash of lightning struck, blinding him for a moment. The thunder followed a second later. That was good, right? It meant the storm was moving, he thought.

Heavy black clouds seethed in the sky, so low they looked close enough to jump up and touch if one were foolish enough to go out there in the maelstrom. The trees—now thoroughly stripped of their leaves—whipped in the wailing wind, their spindly branches clattering like old bones. Needles of rain spiked through the air, nearly blown sideways, the sound of it a dull roar pounding the vinyl siding of the house.
Great.
Bobby let the shade fall back into place and shuffled back to bed, dejected. He felt like crying.

He lay there for a while, but instead of giving up he prayed for the weather to clear up, though a small part of him worried it might be retribution for lying to a man of God yesterday. The Bible had plenty to say about God’s vengeance, that was for sure. Gradually, however, the daylight at the window grew brighter. The rain diminished, then stopped completely, and the wind died down. When he got up for good at 8:30, sparkles of tentative sunlight reflecting from puddles out back flickered around the edges of the shade, and the birds were beginning to trill.

By the time he’d showered and brushed his teeth it was 9:00, and the storms nothing more than bad memories. The clouds had fled in a huff, leaving behind pristine cerulean skies. Mom was in the kitchen making pancakes—a treat whenever they got a day off from school—and the velvety smells of browning flour and melted butter filled the house. His stomach rumbled greedily as he pulled on some clean clothes. He could hear the clink of silverware drifting out of the kitchen. Dana was already eating hers.
Lucky.
When Bobby came into the den from the hall, trying to decide whether he wanted syrup or apple butter on his pancakes, he found his father waiting on the couch, the morning paper folded on his lap and a cup of coffee gripped in one hand. He motioned Bobby over.

“A boy
’
s first date should be something special, don’t you think?” Dad said, his eyes twinkling. He reached into the folded paper and withdrew a twenty-dollar bill, which he held out to Bobby.

“Oh my
gosh!
”

“Shhhh,” Dad warned, casting a sidelong glance at the kitchen door. “Let this be our secret. Your mom will probably give you a little money, too. You show Amy a good time today. She’s a good girl.”

“Yes,
sir
,” Bobby said, and threw his arms around his father’s neck. Uninvited, the image of Joey Garraty’s dad pulling a limp dollar bill from his tattered wallet while snarling for his change from a pack of smokes rose in his mind, and for an instant he was filled with a love so blinding for his father that his heart felt too big for his chest and he squeezed even harder.
“Thank you so much. I love you!”

“Love you too, kiddo. Now what do you say we get some of those pancakes before your sister eats them all?”

Bobby spent the hour after breakfast alternately trying (and failing) to read an
Encyclopedia Brown
book he’d checked out from the school library the week before and nervously checking the clock and the weather. His stomach flipped and flopped lazily inside him, twisting itself into nervous knots. Finally he gave up on the book and just sat on the couch, waiting for it to be time to leave and trying his darnedest not to be scared. What if he embarrassed himself by squealing like a fag on a ride, or spilled something on his shirt, or did something truly
terrible
like let loose with a big juicy fart in front of Amy by accident? The mere thought of such an offense sent his guts into paroxysms and lit his face on fire. She’d probably run away from him screaming, never to speak to him again, much less go steady.

An eternity later, his mother stuck her head in the bedroom door and said, “Ready to go?”

Bobby followed her through the house to the kitchen, simultaneously wanting to jump for joy and go hide under the bed. What had he gotten himself into? Amy couldn’t possibly be interested in a dork like him.

“Relax, you’ll do just fine,” his mother said, picking her purse up from the counter. She smiled reassuringly. “You look like you’re about to upchuck. Amy likes you; it’s as plain as the nose on your face. You should see the way her face lights up when she spots you at church.”

“Thanks,” Bobby said, unsure of whether he believed her. Moms sometimes told fibs to make you feel better, he knew that. That was part of their job. But Amy
did
seem happy when he told her he’d go. He remembered the way she had smiled and blushed, and called it a date. Maybe Mom wasn’t fibbing this time.

“Are we going now?” Dana asked brightly from the doorway behind him.

“Bobby and I are,” Mom said. “You’re staying here with Dad.”

“But—”

“Dana, we talked about this already.”

Dana’s shoulders slumped. “Yes ma’am.”

“She can come if she wants,” Bobby said. Maybe her incessant chatter would keep him occupied, so he didn’t have as much time to be terrified of making a fool of himself. “I don’t mind.”

“Hooray!” Dana cried, and ran across the kitchen and out the door to the garage.

Bobby grinned and followed.

The station wagon pulled into the Gateway parking lot almost perfectly at noon and Mom brought it to a stop near a platoon of trucks and trailers that housed the rides and amusements when they were in transit. Not far away, a break in the sawhorse-and-rope fence surrounding the carnival area marked the entrance. A hand-lettered sign hanging from the rope announced that there was FREE ADMISSION FOR VETERANS TODAY. Bobby could see Amy waiting by the ticket booth already, standing with her arms crossed, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, looking even more radiant than the sun.

“I’ll be back at four to pick you up,” Mom said, opening her purse. She rooted around for her wallet, then opened it and took out a twenty-dollar bill, which she handed him.
Holy cow, forty bucks!
Smiling, she added, “Have a good time.”

“Are you gonna kiss her?” Dana asked from the back seat. “Princess Leia thinks you should.”

“
No
,” Bobby said quickly.

But he really wanted to.

The door clunked shut behind him and the station wagon slipped away in a whisper of warm exhaust. Amy hadn’t noticed him yet. Gosh, but she was so pretty!
Beautiful
. He crossed the lot toward her on legs that felt as shaky as a colt’s, his stomach a writhing ball of nervous energy that was somehow kind of nice. Praying he didn’t do anything stupid or embarrassing. Then she caught sight of him and ran over, her violet eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and he forgot about everything else.

“Hi!” she said, and gave him a quick hug that nearly made him faint.

Bet Tanner and Joey wouldn’t call me a fag
now
.

Before he knew what was happening, she had slipped her hand easily into his and fallen into step beside him. Like they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Bobby wondered if it was possible for the human heart to spontaneously pop out of one’s chest from joy. Probably not, but if it was, he would die happy. He handed one of his twenties to the slack-jawed girl manning the ticket booth and received a fist-sized roll of red tickets and a ten in return, both of which he crammed into his pocket.

They went through the gate together.

The day was crisp without being cold, perfect for strolling around a carnival with your girlfriend at your side, Bobby thought, later that afternoon.
Girlfriend
. The word had quite a fine ring to it, didn’t it? Was that what Amy was? He wasn’t sure, but he was starting to think so. She sure was acting like it, touching and hugging him every few minutes, leaning against him while they walked hand in hand, eating off of his ice cream cone.

Everything but kiss him.

But it was just a matter of time now, he thought. Besides, initiating the first kiss was
his
job, because he was the man. If he tried, she would let him. He was certain. All he needed was a little nerve. The mere thought of doing it sent delicious chills up and down his back. They’d been on every ride—even the
Ring of Fire
, which wasn’t nearly as scary as it had looked the night before, though it had really hurt his waist when they were hanging upside-down at the top of the track—and some of them, like the Trabant and the Scrambler, more than once. They even rode the Merry-Go-Round for little kids like a couple of dorks, so tall on the tiny fiberglass animals their feet dragged the ground.

He had almost kissed her on the Ferris Wheel, when they were paused way up high and he could see all the way to Point Mallard and the river beyond. It was the perfect spot. She had wanted it, too, he thought, nestled against him in the tight wooden seat, her head on his shoulder. Her eyes had been closed, her lips wet and full and red in the sunshine. But he had chickened out at the last minute. Just like a fag.

No.

Just like someone who was nervous. Perfectly natural.

The sun had trekked across the sky and now marched resolutely toward the horizon. Bobby knew his mom would be back to pick him up before long.
Better get a move on if I’m going to do it.
They strolled along the edge of the carnival closest to the strip mall stores, where the games of chance were set up to take money from passersby. Amy carried a tiny teddy bear not much larger than her hand that Bobby had won by (accidentally) landing a ring over the neck of a Coke bottle. It had cost him three dollars in tickets and was probably only worth about a quarter, but the big hug he’d gotten made it worth every penny. He still had ten dollars left, folded away in his back pocket for another date. The roll of tickets had dwindled to just a few, but that was okay; they weren’t doing anything but talking now, enjoying one another’s company while they both waited to see if Bobby was going to seal the deal before someone’s parents arrived.

“Oh my goodness!” Amy said, stopping suddenly. “How did I miss
that
?”

The
that
in question was another ride, sitting between the Pitch Till You Win and the High Striker. Bobby knew why she hadn’t noticed it: when they had passed this way earlier he had carefully steered her across the lane to the Pluck A Duck (where he’d won a purple and green #2 Eagle pencil for his duck plucking efforts), because he was afraid she’d want him to swing the hammer on the High Striker to ring the bell and prove he was TARZAN when everyone knew he’d be lucky if the puck moved above SISSY on the tower. If he could even lift the hammer to swing it, that is. It had looked pretty heavy.

In his haste to avoid the High Striker he hadn’t noticed the ride, either. It rested on a pair of trailer flatbeds parked side-by-side. Bobby could see the tires peeking from underneath the heavy red canvas skirt. Somewhere nearby a generator rumbled, and the air was heavy with the smell of diesel. It was enclosed—a
dark
ride, he realized with sudden interest—by a tall plywood facade and walls, and there was a two-car rustbucket of a train waiting on a narrow iron track on the platform in the front.

The facade had been painted to look like famous cityscapes populated with amateurish knockoffs of famous Disney cartoon lovers. Mickey and Minnie Mouse rode a gondola through the canals of Venice, ignoring the city to gaze into one another’s eyes. In another scene, Lady and the Tramp shared a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of the Eiffel Tower, and further down the mural, Cinderella and Prince Charming danced on a moonlit beach. Among the billowing white clouds that covered the uppermost length of the facade, cherubic versions of the Seven Dwarfs drifted on golden wings, aiming tiny arrows in tiny bows at the people passing by on the midway. Red hearts surrounded the arched entrance in the center, where the train track went under a pair of closed black doors into the darkness. In each heart was a single white letter, spelling:

A WORLD OF LOVE

“Come on,” Amy said, laughing at the sheer tacky gaudiness of it all. She tugged Bobby toward the platform. “We have
got
to go on this. It looks like fun!”

He let himself be pulled along, his head spinning the way the Scrambler had. Amy was making her point loud and clear, and he didn’t need the brains of either Starsky or Hutch to know why she wanted to go into A World of Love. She wanted to be his girlfriend. Should he ask her to go steady on the ride? Maybe he should wait for that. It
was
still their first date, after all, even if she was already acting like his girl. Plus, if he could get Mom or Dad to take him to the mall, he could use the ten dollars for a ring or bracelet to give her when he asked. Make it
for real
. He felt warm despite the coolness of the day, especially in his chest. They walked up the ramp to the platform, and Bobby handed over four of his remaining tickets to the attendant, a doughy man of about forty with close-cropped sandy hair and old acne scars pocking his cheeks. He smiled crookedly down at them.

“Young love,” he said. “Ain’t nothing in the world like it, is there?”

Bobby blushed so furiously he thought his
hair
might actually turn bright red, but Amy just said, “No sir,” and squeezed his hand so hard it nearly hurt.

The attendant led them to the front seat in the waiting train, and pulled back a chain so they could climb in and sit down. Amy scooted up against Bobby so that their legs touched, and he stretched his arm across the back of the seat, trying to seem casual. He hoped she couldn’t feel his heart pounding where her shoulder pressed against his chest.

“Keep your hands inside the car, and don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your parents to see,” the attendant said, and winked at Bobby. He crossed the platform to the control panel and pressed a green button, and with a whirring clank, the cars jerked into motion. “All aboard the love train!”

Compressed air hissed somewhere and the doors guarding the entrance opened. The train crept into the darkness. Inside the ride it was cooler even than the afternoon, and Amy squeezed closer against him. Her hand brushed the side of his leg and a rubber band connecting his stomach and his nuts seemed to twang, not unpleasantly. Whoever had come up with this ride deserved a medal. He tightened his arm around her. Sighing, the doors swung closed behind them.

The train hitched along the track, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom Bobby became aware that the floor of the tunnel had been covered with sand. The walls were painted in various shades of blue to look like the ocean receding to meet the sky on both sides, and overhead, holes had been drilled in the plywood ceiling and tiny white Christmas lights installed to simulate stars. A hidden speaker played a scratchy rendition of surf pounding the beach, which brought a smile to his face. You could almost taste the cheese in here. He smelled strawberry and realized it was Amy’s shampoo, and idly found himself wondering if that same smell was on the back of her neck, too.

“This is great,” Amy murmured.

You
’
re great
. “Yeah, it is.”

She shifted, and again the weird rubber band inside him jangled as if plucked. It felt like one of his nuts actually jumped. It had to be part of being grown up, he thought. For him puberty was just a word they’d talked about in health class. He’d found a couple of downy hairs in his armpits, but nothing down below yet. Not for lack of wishful thinking, even though he wasn’t sure what he’d do with pubic hair if he had it. Feel like a man, he guessed. Life sure was hard to understand sometimes.

The train lurched around a curve and came to another set of doors that hissed open as it approached. The tunnel came to an end and a room decorated to look like the streets of Venice opened around them. White brick buildings pressed in close and shallow metal troughs, each holding about an inch of water, were lined alongside the track. Lights in the ceiling were aimed down at the water, and the rumble of the train sent wavy shimmering shadows up the fake architecture. The soundtrack for this room was a babbling brook Bobby thought was supposed to be wavelets lapping against the buildings.

“Pretty,” Amy said.

“It sure is.”
You sure are
.

His hands felt clammy, and the butterflies were breaking free of their cocoons in his stomach again.
Quit being such a retard and just do it.
Why was this so
hard
?

And then she turned her head toward him, her violet eyes looking from his own eyes to his mouth and back again, her full lips slightly parted. They shone wetly in the rippling light. Before he had time to process any of this, she cupped his face between her hands and tilted her head forward to press her lips to his own. The voice clamoring in his head fell silent as a wave of pure electric emotion washed over him and made him forget everything he’d been worried about. He closed his eyes and kissed back, hoping it was the right way. Praying. Thinking absurdly of the fireworks going off at the beginning of
Love, American Style.
The world contracted around them until there was nothing but boy and girl and kiss.

He touched the back of her neck with his hand, marveling at its smoothness, the delicate bones beneath. The rubber band inside him thrummed like a locomotive, as if someone were playing an arpeggio on it, and his pants felt strangely tighter. Amy sighed happily, the warm breath from her nose tickling Bobby’s cheek. Some small part of him was disappointed that he hadn’t stepped up and taken charge of this the way a real man would have, but the fact that she initiated the kiss was just more proof in the pudding that she wanted to be his—

A rough hand forced its way between his legs and gave his crotch a painful squeeze. At the same time, a cold festering tongue parted his lips and slithered into his mouth, twining itself with his own.
Tastes metallic
, the dispassionate voice in his head noted.
Like licking a battery.
Fever-hot blisters erupted against his lips and popped in streamers of clotted pus and wriggling worms. The choking stench of decay billowed up around him. As he began to recoil in dreadful slow motion, his eyes snapping open in horror, the smooth neck under his hand thickened and grew leathery, coarse wiry hairs sprouting through the flesh like seedlings. The eyes looking back at him had gone the milky yellow-white of cataracts, the nose collapsed into a bloody hole where blackflies buzzed in furious activity.

“Gotcha, bucko,” Norman said in his thick, oily voice. The hand between Bobby’s legs clenched and he retched from the bloom of fiery pain in his lower belly. The hobo’s ruined lips peeled back from his black teeth in a feral smile. “So
hard
! I didn’t know you felt that way about me, kid.”

Somehow Bobby was in the second car with Norman. Amy was in front of them, her eyes widening in confusion as she registered that she was sitting alone now. Bobby screamed and pistoned the heel of his hand into the hobo’s chest. The force pushed them apart, but he fetched up against the side of the car far too quickly. What had been cozy a moment before had become claustrophobic.
Still so close.
Just ahead of the train, a new set of doors swung open. Through them, he caught a glimpse of a light-covered model of the Eiffel Tower.

Norman stood and snatched a fistful of Bobby’s hair in one hand. It felt like someone had doused his scalp in lighter fluid and tossed a match onto it. Bitter tears stung his eyes and he grabbed at the hobo’s leathery arm to ease the pain. But he wouldn’t scream, because he knew that was exactly what Norman wanted. Norman jerked him into the air, dangling him by one arm while he flailed and struggled like a hooked fish.

“Put him down!” Amy cried, beating at the hobo’s back with her fists.

“Don’t you know three’s a crowd, Bobby?” Norman whispered, and tossed Bobby over the back of the train.

He crashed onto one of the metal troughs, flinging up sheets of tepid water. The lip bit fiercely into the small of his back and for a moment white-hot agony drove every other thing from his mind. The train clanked forward, the clacking ratchet of its drive train filling the room. Norman clambered over the front of his car into the one holding Amy. She screamed and tried to jump off, but the hobo caught her by the back of her shirt.

Bobby rolled away from the track, already trying to get to his feet. He couldn’t breathe. It was like a steel belt had been wrapped around his chest and yanked tight. The area right above his butt where he’d hit the steel trough throbbed like a rotted tooth, and electric bolts of pain streaked down both legs. His nuts felt the size of cantaloupes. Every move he made sent rolling waves of nausea from them up through his lower belly. He lost his balance and stumbled into one of the plywood building settings and it toppled forward, knocking him back to the ground. Squirming, he began to work his way out from under the bulky piece of wood.