Fade (28 page)

The real test had been going to town in broad daylight when people were up and about, stores open, the cop Reap on the beat. By then he had practiced disappearing and coming back in the room at the convent. He had learned that practice
does
make perfect. He had made himself come and go, go and come, enduring that moment with no breath at all, then the brief stab of pain until he could do it all as easy as snapping his fingers. He never minded the cold. He had set off for downtown one day and made himself gone, unseen in the old alley. Then he ambled into Main Street, dodging between the people, heading for Kelcey's. The window still boarded up. Entered the store and walked down the aisles. Old Kelcey at the cash register, looking bossy as ever. He knocked over a display of canned corn chowder that had been all nice and neat in a pyramid the way Kelcey liked things done. Kelcey heard the racket and came running, put on the brakes when he saw the cans capsized and tumbling all over the floor. And while Kelcey was on his knees picking up the cans, Ozzie tipped over the island holding all the boxed cakes and other pastries in the next aisle. Bang, down they went, and he heard Kelcey call out: “What the hell …” Ozzie had to press his lips together to contain the laugh, the chuckle that threatened to escape. As Kelcey charged over to the spot where the island lay upended, surrounded by the spilled pastries, old John Stanton came in the door. He found a bewildered Kelcey standing there with hands on hips, looking at the damage, his face all puzzled. And there was Ozzie, not five feet away.

“What's going on, Kelcey?” Mr. Stanton asked. He was a retired fireman. Ozzie did not hate him as he hated other people. When Ozzie was just a tot, Mr. Stanton had let him sit on the seat of the big hook-and-ladder, lifted him high and put him there and told him to ring the big silver bell. Ozzie rang it, pulling the cord, he was maybe six or seven years old at the time. Mr. Stanton wore red suspenders over his blue shirt that day in the fire station and Ozzie's dream was to grow up and become a fireman like Mr. Stanton and wear red suspenders. Fat chance of that, though. As Mr. Stanton joined Kelcey looking at the boxes strewn all over the floor, Ozzie felt a rage gathering in him. Why a rage? He was having such a good time wrecking Kelcey's store a minute ago, having to suppress a chuckle. And now the rage was stirring in him, like a storm, and the rage was directed at Mr. Stanton.
Hit him.
But Mr. Stanton was a nice old guy, who had once treated Ozzie with kindness.
Yes, but.
…

Next thing Ozzie knew, he was approaching Mr. Stanton and the old fireman looked up at the same moment, looked directly at Ozzie as if he could actually see him but couldn't, of course, his eyes opening up wide and his mouth opening too. And that's when Ozzie hit him. Didn't want to hit him, really, had no desire to hit him at all but struck him all the same. A short, swift blow to the back of the neck, at the base of the old fireman's skull, using his hand like an ax. And the old fireman bellowed with pain, fell forward and dropped to his knees among the topsy-turvy pastry boxes, one hand flattened on a box and sinking into a cake with pink frosting.

“What's the matter, John?” Kelcey asked, bending over the old fireman while Mr. Stanton moaned and groaned, on all fours now.

Ozzie's stomach churned. Vomit gathered in his stomach and rose to his throat. His veins grew hot, boiling as the blood shot through his body. Gotta get out of here, he thought. It was not fun anymore. He made for the door, left the men there in their befuddlement. He had not really wanted to hit the old fireman who had done him a kindness once. Why did he hit him, then? He had had no choice. And, truth to tell, the blow to the old guy's neck had been terrific. It was terrific to hit out like that and know that you are the boss, in charge, and no one to see you do it. And it was terrific to start wrecking the store. He would have to return someday and do it again, do a complete job, bring the whole goddamned store down around Kelcey's shoulders and bury Kelcey in the debris that he would cause.

Anyways. That was kid stuff.

More important things were ahead.

The cops came to the convent and questioned him.

Did not question him at first but expressed their—condolences, they called it. But it was all a mockery, of course. Everybody knew that the old fraud had abused Ozzie and his mother. Beaten them both. Neighbors on more than one occasion had summoned the cops to the house and they led the old fraud off to the jail. But he never reached court because the cops said that his Ma would have to make an official complaint, swear out a warrant, and she would never do a thing like that because the fraud would come home sooner or later and beat them both up worse than ever if she did.

“Where were you the night your Pa was killed?” Police Sergeant McAllister asked in his soft voice, his blue eyes mild. He didn't wear a uniform. He wore a green plaid jacket. He spoke like a teacher or a priest.

“Right here in the convent,” Ozzie spoke up, and only a moment later realized that the cops had not come here merely to say they were sorry his Pa was dead, after all.

Sister Anunciata piped up, her voice shrill and angry, the voice she used on kids like Bull Zimmer and the wise guys. “He was here the entire night.” Eyes blazing like small fires.

“Now, now, Sister, these are just questions we have to ask,” Officer McAllister replied in his mild, unhurried way. “And answers we have to obtain. For the record.” He scratched his graying hair. “Now, Mr. Slater was murdered sometime between nine and eleven in the evening. With his own hammer that was always kept in the shed. So we have to question the whereabouts of anyone who knew about the hammer and who might have been around his place. Maybe the somebody who was around there that night might have seen something to help us.” Then looking at Ozzie: “See what I mean?”

“I was in here all night,” he said, wondering whether he ought to put this quiet-talking but quite dangerous policeman on his list.

“Mister, this place is never empty or still,” Sister Anunciata said. “Ozzie is a good boy. He is in our charge. We know when he comes and goes. That night, he was here the entire time. Even if he tried to sneak out—which our Ozzie would never do—one of us would have seen him. You may take my word….”

“And I do, Sister,” the officer said, tipping his head toward her. “The word of a Sister of Mercy is good enough for the police….”

But Sister Anunciata was still on fire with anger.

“And I don't like the implication of a boy his age doing a thing like that to his own father….”

“Ah, but you see, Sister, it was not his own father.” And turning to Ozzie: “Was he now?”

“He was a fake and fraud,” Ozzie said, saying the words out loud and pleased to be saying them, the words he had said to himself so many thousands of times. “My mother married him because she needed a roof over her head. She didn't love him. Nobody could love him. He was a mean man.” His sniveling strawberry nose was proof of that, and they all knew it. “And I can't say that I'm sorry he's dead. But I didn't do it.” It was easy to lie when you were in the right.

“No one's accusing you, Ozzie,” Sister Anunciata said, her rosary beads in her hands.

Close call, Ozzie thought later. Better lie low for a while. Bide his time, wait, he was patient at waiting.

Kelcey's was still his favorite target and he stole in the store on occasion and knocked down a display or two. Heard the stories circulating in the town that Kelcey's store was haunted. Visited the store every few days and didn't see many people in the place now. Who wanted to trade in a place that might be haunted? He picked up the conversations as he sauntered along the streets, pausing to eavesdrop, listening to the talk. But he didn't linger long, afraid an urge might come upon him.

More and more when he was gone, unseen, disappeared, the urges came to him, nudging him, tugging at him, first faintly, hardly noticeable, and then stronger as time went on. He fought against the urges because they interrupted him, prevented him from doing what he had planned to do.

One day, the voice grew out of the urges. He'd stopped by the alley as usual, drawn himself into a corner to become unseen, planning to frolic a bit in the town. He came out of the alley, feeling his oats, standing in the sun, proud of having disappeared, proud that no one could see him. He spotted a young woman across the street pushing a baby carriage, a long black pigtail down her back. She paused, bent over, and glanced into the carriage, to see if the baby was fine. He wondered if his mother had pushed him in a carriage like that. Couldn't remember even seeing a carriage around the tenement. Felt sad watching them. The urge told him to cross the street and—he turned away from the thought, the urge—do something to them. Strike them down. Who? Both of them. Make them hurt. But I don't want to do that.

Ah, yes, you do. It's better than fooling around Kelcey's.

But I want to have fun with Kelcey today.

The woman is more important than Kelcey. So is the baby. Hurt them. Hurt them both.

I don't even know that woman. I don't even know that baby.

You don't have to know them to hurt them.

The voice began to plague him after that.
Crazy
conversations. Conversations that really weren't conversations at all. Sometimes it seemed like there was somebody else inside of him or as if there were two sides of him, as if he were split in half like an apple.

Shut up, he sometimes told that voice, that other side of him. And sometimes that other side of him shut up. Sometimes didn't. When that happened, he came out of the unseen to get away from the voice. Like that day across the street from the woman and the baby carriage. He stepped back into the alley and found his corner and pressed himself into appearing. That got rid of the voice.

Then, heading back to the convent, Ozzie did something he hated to do. Gave himself away to sadness. He did not allow this to happen very often. But sometimes, first thing in the morning or, like now, when he was alone on the road back from town to the convent, sniveling, a lonesomeness came to him and he wished he were still a little baby and his mother rocked him and sang to him. He wished, too, for someone to talk to, someone to tell about the incredible thing that had happened. Could he tell Sister Anunciata? Maybe he could, maybe he couldn't. Sister Anunciata often came in his room at night and ran her hand across his brow, murmuring
Poor Ozzie boy.
He always turned away, then felt more lonesome than ever.

Then a bad thing happened.

He was spotted by old man Pinder in the alley as he underwent the change from seen to unseen. The discovery occurred on a Saturday afternoon when Ozzie had sauntered downtown to have more fun at the expense of Kelcey. He basked in the power of what he had done to Kelcey, but he was disappointed too. His biggest disappointment in his unseen state was his inability to steal from the store because anything he might take—money from the register or the groceries themselves—would be visible, would seem to float in the air and create all kinds of disturbance. One night, he broke into two other stores on Main Street, first into Demp-sey's Drug Store and another time into the Ramsey Diner. Broke small windows in the night, crawled through, was dismayed with the small amount of cash he found in the registers—a total of $23.55 from both places. After that, he bided his time about the stealing, waiting for the day when he would pull off a real big robbery—like at the Ramsey Savings Bank, when the Brink's truck picked up thousands of dollars in big burlap bags. He would have to figure a way to get the bags from the scene and stash them away somewhere, but knew he could do it. It would be a carefully planned robbery like in the movies with enough loot to get him out of this town and on his way in the world. But now he waited and indulged in small invasions of the town and sweet torments to the likes of that appetizing Kelcey. It was one of these times downtown that he stepped into the alley behind the five-and-ten that the old man spotted him. Ozzie had believed himself alone and he faced the wall, leaning against it, to give slight support to the pressing he had to do to change from here to gone. He turned around, satisfied at disappearing, and heard a noise to his right, like a small animal scrabbling away. Whirled and saw the old man heading lickety-split out of the alley, glancing over his shoulder at the place where Ozzie had disappeared, his eyes bulging in disbelief.

Ozzie stood there indecisively, yet knew what he must do. Kill the old man before he told anybody. Silence him forever. He ran quickly to the mouth of the alley, saw the old man weaving his way along the wooden sidewalk, shaking his head as he walked toward the diner. Where, Ozzie knew, he would try to beg a drink. Harmless old buzzard, probably thought he'd been seeing things, a vision from the booze or his hangover or both. Ozzie let him go. Wait and see. Who would believe the old codger anyways if he told them he'd seen Ozzie Slater disappear from sight in the alley? He remembered how the old man gave him his coat when they slept together on cold nights and assured him that his mother was a real lady, a fine figure of a woman. Let him go, for now.

Then another bad thing happened.

The urge, stronger than ever.

The urge took possession of him when he reached the corner of Main and Cotton, across from the library, and saw the library woman coming down the steps. She was beautiful. Small and dainty, took quick small steps like a little girl trying to catch up to someone who had left her behind. He sneaked into the library now and then to glance through the magazines but mostly to keep warm on cold days or dry on rainy ones. She never told him to leave the library, always greeted him in her musical voice. He knew that someday if he married, he would search for someone like her.

Now she clicked off down the sidewalk, head high, walking quick as always, wearing pink. The sight of her cheered him up. He sighed as he watched the loveliness of her moving through the summer morning.

Then, the sly voice within him:

You know what you should do to her.