Number 8 (17 page)

5:55 A.M. Why aren't I surprised?

I stretch and turn over but my fingers nick the cord of the digital clock, bringing it down on the bed. The red numbers glare up at me. Devil eyes in the dark.

Every time I wake in the night that clock says 11:11 or 1:11 or 3:33. How creepy can you get? Odd numbers only. Does this happen to other people? Or is it just me? Maybe there's a pattern at work here, something bigger than me. I'm thinking: am I supposed to learn from this? If so, what? Maybe I should pray more but I'm not sure what to pray for, or who to. I used to do a lot of praying a few years ago, when I was going crazy in Kemp's class. I'd kneel down on the floor beside my bed with my hands together making a cathedral like I'd seen people do in movies.
Please give Mr. Kemp typhoid tomorrow.
When Mom caught me doing it, she just said whatever gets you through the night, but she told me to look out for my knees because she did a lot of kneeling when I was a baby—changing my diapers on the bed—and that's how her knees got all calloused and yucky-looking.

I turn on my back and think about Esmerelda's knees. And her thighs. The way they went up into her black bikini that stretched smooth and tight as licorice. Her cheek was
so soft, the day I kissed her after the beach. I wanted to keep feeling the softness against my lips. I could smell her breath, like apples, like the inside of her.

Then that bastard, Badman, outside the gate.
Bastard
.

A queasy feeling starts in my guts. Makes me think of skin congealing on hot milk. My chest is pounding away. I hate this feeling. Happens every time I think about Badman. I raise myself up on an elbow and shove the damn clock back on the shelf above my head.

5:57. The numbers are thin and jointed, like spiders' legs.

In my opinion, those red neon numbers could be sending out an evil signal. Like devil language in morse code. Like Badman putting a spell on Esmerelda. What other reason
can
there be why she can't see he's evil? I wish Mom would stop encouraging her to find her secret self. “Let yourself go,” she urges Ez, “explore all kinds of music: go with the songs that thrill you. That's how you'll find your inner voice.” Well, that “voice” seems to have something to do with Badman.

Right down inside, somewhere beneath my third rib, I have this nasty feeling that I'm like those white sixties parents in America, the ones who wanted to stop their kids dancing. If I could stop Esmerelda liking Badman's guitar, maybe I would. If I could change her taste in music, maybe I would. But I'd never admit it. Ever.

You've got to let people be free if you love them. Mom's always singing about that.

Whenever I think about Esmerelda, Badman drifts in. He's like some creeping strangler vine, or maybe one of those alien monsters in horror movies—they just move on in with their multiple tentacles and squeeze the life out of everything.

Even my dreams aren't safe from him anymore.

5:59 A.M. My chest feels like a rocket's going off inside it. I need to move. I leap out of bed and pull on my shorts. I have to be at the newsdealer's by six-thirty. I've got a paper route to do.

I make it in eight steps from the front door to the garage. The last two have to be gigantic steps and my legs stretch like scissors. This time of the morning is great, because no one ever interrupts my challenges. I hate being interrupted. You have to go back and start all over again. I arrive at the garage with two feet together and no wobbling. That's good. It's a positive sign, for sure. It might still be a good day.

Inside the garage there's tons of stuff left by the last tenant. Shelves of paint tins, boxes of old books and records, jars filled with nails. There are lots of rat droppings, too. Mom says one day we'll clear it all out so that when she gets a new car she can put it in here, like a real suburban family. Mom puts a lot of faith in family. Once, at Milson Elementary, a parent herding her children into some fancy car told my mother you couldn't call yourself a family unless you had the full house of cards—you know, mom, dad and 2.4 kids (and a fancy car). Mom just looked at her and said, “Congratulations, you're a miracle of evolution.” Later, when I asked her what she meant, she said the woman was a throw-back, a dinosaur stuck in the ice age. I still didn't really get it but I laughed when she said, “Didn't you notice how small her head was?”

Still, I'd really love it if Mom had a decent car. She's had her Ford Escort for nineteen years (which is a very bad number) so I guess it's only natural that the radiator is gone, the brake pads need replacing and yesterday she was given the news the automatic transmission is messed up. It's all going to cost a fortune. An explosion of cash even louder than
Badman. I told her she should just get rid of it. We live really close to everything now. But Mom's lip got trembly again. She's so loyal to that car. It's like a relative, and we don't have many. Dad bought it for her and later she called it
Sal
. When I asked her why, she said it had been the name of a great-aunt of hers who was bold and daring. Said she'd need a lot of that to get us through the tough times.

So I figure a paper route is the least I can do. Given that no one will offer a thirteen-year-old a job as a dealer in a casino, which is a pity because you can make real money that way.

I wheel my bike out of the garage, trying not to make much noise. Mom worked an extra dinner shift last night and arrived home when I was already dozing off.

Before I open the gate I go over to the maple tree and check my possums. If you stand on tiptoes you can see right into the little house. It nestles in the fork of the tree, comfy and solid just like we'd hoped. The house doesn't seem to be inhabited right now. The guys are still out foraging for their food, I figure. I've seen one bigger possum and a little one inside. I bet they're the family I saw that first night. Even the babies are what you'd call nocturnal. Mom says she knows a lot of singers like that.

Asim and I looked up possums in
Australian Wildlife
and found out about their habits. The day we went to the library it was stinking hot, and it was nice being in that quiet room. You could feel all these secrets lying curled up inside the books. In
Australian Wildlife
there was a photo of a flying fox and its penis was shaped just like a human's, only really little, like a toy. It said that bat poop, called guano, was mined from bat caves and sold for megabucks. Asim and I talked about that for ages—if bats have to go to the bathroom while
they're hanging upside down, do they poop all over their faces, or what?

That night I heard on the news that twenty thousand flying foxes dropped dead from the heat. Twenty thousand! I imagined their little feet loosening on the branch, and the thud as they hit the ground. Mom listened to the rest of the news (I got too upset) and she said the flying foxes dropped dead up north because it's even more stinking hot than down here, but still, I wondered how the heat affects possums. Anyway, I make sure now there's a bowl of water for them, even though Mom says there's a lot of moisture in fruit. Every day I leave chopped up banana or apple, just in case they didn't find anything nourishing on their hunt.

You know what? I'd almost put possums up there with even numbers. When I pass their house, even if they're not home, I get this glimmering of gladness like a chink of light when you open the curtains just a little way on winter mornings. It's like looking at the future. That's what the possums do for you.

I unlatch the gate and the morning breaks open above me. Sunrise is the best time of day. You feel as if you could start over, completely.

I put the bike into first gear to ride up the hill to the newsdealer's to pick up my route's newspapers. I could say a little prayer of thanks to Bev Halliday, but I'm not sure it counts properly if you're puffing up a hill and not kneeling next to your bed. Bev gave us the bike when we moved here—it's a brand-new mountain bike—plus she went looking and found us this house to rent, paying half the security deposit money up front. She said Mom could pay it back whenever, she was in no hurry. “Money is only a tool of trade,” said Bev. “It's made to be passed around.”

Bev doesn't believe in possessions. She told me once that even parents don't own their children. “They are the bows from which children shoot forth as living arrows.” She said it was from some old Arabic poem. Bev's house was full of books, even in the kitchen. I used to love the smell of Bev's house. It smelled like spice and mystery, with her Indian incense and herbs boiling on the stove. She'd always cock her head on one side and look you straight in the eye before she smiled and said hello. It was as if she looked right inside you, clear as a TV screen, and whatever was on, it was okay with her. When I'd walk out the door after a visit I knew I'd learned something about the world, even if I couldn't exactly say what.

It was Bev who taught me how to ride this bike. I guess with all the moving, Mom and I had never got around to it. “A boy who's going places has gotta have a bike,” Bev said. “Speed is freedom.” Funny thing though, for a person who cares so little about money, she still works at the Blue Moon, and that's a place where money is everything.

At the newsdealer's, Bill gives me my box of
Homeland Dailies
. I stuff the rolled-up newspapers into my basket and take off. I head for Boundary Street, to start the two-block rectangle that is my route.

There's a downhill freedom ride before the first house and I pedal fast for a few seconds so I can enjoy the speed. I fling the newspapers at the concrete drives like a dart at a bullseye. I've got a good rhythm going and I think of Mom's pleased smile when I told her Bill had agreed to my delivery job. “You'll be a real suburban kid,” she'd said, cuffing me on the shoulder. “Good exercise, good friends, good environment—see, it was all for the best, our move to the quiet shoals of Homeland.” She says the last bit
in her solemn politician's voice, placing her hand on her heart.

In some ways I agree—if I hadn't moved here, I'd never have met Esmerelda or Asim. But then I'd never have met Badman either, and he's hardly a plus in anyone's life. If I look at Mom's face for a fraction longer after she says the thing about “quiet shoals” and “air you could bottle,” I see her smile fade like the sunrise and the clouds come into her eyes. I think she's glad for me, with my new friends and the bike and all, but sad for herself. Waitressing just can't be as much fun as singing.

I haven't told her I'm saving to help with the car. She'd just protest and grow sadder, worrying that
I'm
worrying she can't provide for us and she's a bad mother and all that kind of thing. No, I'm just going to present her with the money like a surprise.

She sure needs a surprise. A good one. In my opinion, Mom is someone who needs really good news right now.

Last night I heard her on the phone talking to Bev. I sat up in bed so I could hear with both ears. “You've got to know when to give up,” Mom was saying. “It's one of those skills I never learned.” There's silence and I guess Bev was protesting on the other end and Mom was shaking her head. “But, Bev, I've had this dream since I was sixteen,” Mom went on. “I was going to write my own songs and be political, famous, make a difference in the world. Yeah, yeah, my voice is okay, but it's not really anything
unique
. I'm not Aretha damn Franklin, am I?” She's quiet again and I could hear her fingers tapping on the kitchen bench. (She doesn't have any nails to tap, what with the way she chews them down to the raw, I'm always telling her.) “Do you remember Band Aid?” Her tone was suddenly lighter. How can the
thought of small surgical dressings make anyone happy? “It was 1985, and there was that terrible famine in Ethiopia? And Bob Geldof—remember the Boomtown Rats, ‘I Don't Like Mondays'—well, he organized that amazing Band Aid concert to raise money. You watched it on TV? Did you call up and donate? Yeah? Well one-third of the world watched with you, Bev. China, everywhere. The Sheik of Arabia rang up with one million dollars! They made so much money, Ethiopia ate again. That's the power of music for you, huh? It's like magic, touches everyone's soul.”

Bev must have told her she could still hang on to her dream, but maybe just lower her expectations a little because Mom got impatient and said, “Yeah, but how much lower do you have to go? I'm not even earning a cent singing anymore, let alone changing the world. But I'm good at taking orders for T-bone steaks.” Then she said the thing with the sudden smile in her voice that made me lie back down and put the pillow over my head. “You're right, Bev,” she said, “that's the most important thing. Jackson is happy and safe, not a care in the world. That makes it all worthwhile.”

Well, that does it, I promised the pillow. She'll never hear any more about Badman from
me
. But if that maggot makes one more heavy breathing phone call, or blows up one more thing that doesn't belong to him, I'll go to the police.

As I work my way along St. Peter's Road, I wonder if all this money I'm earning should go instead toward singing lessons for Mom. I think she's a wonderful singer, just like Bev does, but she's always going on about her range and how it should be bigger. Maybe singing lessons would build her range. Maybe if she could get that low C she'd be happier. Esmerelda told me that before she met Valerie she
thought a range was something you cook on. Her mom dreams of getting a new one, plus a dishwasher. There are actually sixteen different meanings of the noun “range.” I looked them up that day in the library. The mathematical meaning really hooked me. It was about corresponding sets and numbers going together, tight as twins. You should look it up.

In just half an hour the day has arrived, hot and still. My face is wet as I turn into my street, chugging uphill. The sky is already a deep blue but I can see a last streak of gold cloud, drifting over Esmerelda's house. Even as I look it breaks up into fluffy strands like cotton wool when you pull it slowly apart.