THE LAST BOY (51 page)

“Molly!”

“Molly nothing!” Her eyes welled with tears.“Everybody is putting pressure on me. You. Larry. Rosie. The news people. Everybody
in the whole damn world! But none of you really care about the little boy who is Danny! You just care about your own…”

“Molly,” he said reaching out for her, but she pulled away, turned and stood hugging herself. “Molly, if Daniel takes off…if we lose Daniel, it’ll be more than just your loss and mine. People are finally beginning to realize that there are crazy things going on with the weather. We’re all in trouble. Serious trouble. People are scared and I think they’re ready to listen to Daniel, change the way they live, make the sacrifices that are going to have to be made if we’re to survive this.”

Rosie, who had been keeping an eye on the exchange, rushed out to join them. Daniel tried to follow her, but she stopped him at the door. “You watch the pie!” she ordered, closed the door, and then stood with her back wedged firmly against it.

“Oh,” cried Molly,“Not you, too. Are you all going to gang up on me?” She continued to glare off into the distance.

“Yeah, me, too. For God's sake, you’ve got to listen to us.”

“I’m not an unreasonable person,” said Molly, a plaintive note creeping into her voice. “You think I haven’t thought about this a gazillion times?”

When Rosie put her arms around Molly's shoulders, she didn’t resist.“Come on, Molly. Nobody's saying that.”

Molly eyes went to the trailer door. With a voice barely audible, she whispered,“You think I’m not terrified about putting Danny in school?”

Rosie and Tripoli waited quietly.

“Okay, he's a prophet. A saint. Whatever you want to call him. But that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t go to school. It's all the more reason for him to go.”

They continued to wait her out, and she knew that she would never have peace from them—or herself—unless she came to some accommodation.

“Look,” she said finally, turning back. She caught her lower lip in the corner of her mouth and kept biting down. “I’ll go with Danny to school. I’ll stay there with him. I’ll sit right next to him, if they’ll let me. I’ll take a week off. More if I have to. We’ll see how it goes. If it looks like a disaster, I’ll be the first to know, right?”

Rosie and Tripoli traded looks.

“That sounds reasonable,” said Rosie finally.

Tripoli couldn’t realistically hope for much more. Not yet. It bought them time to win her over.“Sounds good to me,” he said.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Molly,“Larry is not going to appreciate this. It's going to take more than a miracle to keep him from firing me.” She thought again about that producer out at the orchard in her jewelry and high heels. A big lump of cash. No, she told herself, I can’t. It’ll only be trading short-term relief for major long-term trouble.

Molly hardly got any sleep that night. The air in the trailer was torrid and the bed clothes were sticking to her body. Tossing restlessly, she kept turning her pillow as it dampened with sweat. Outside, the air was inert, and every sound coming through her window seemed amplified—the frogs croaking in the nearby swamp, the crickets chirping. A couple in a nearby trailer were having a shouting match, and then the dogs in the park let up a howl. The whole place seemed on edge.

Molly kept drifting off to sleep only to awaken with a start. Her dreams were fragmented and chaotic, the barking gradually became a strident chorus. In one of her dreams, Rosie was yacking some nonsense about Danny's diapers not drying in the rain.
Diapers?
Larry was chasing her around the office, nagging about a lost picture of a snake that was to go in the magazine. Danny was standing on a television stage amidst a blaze of hot lights, pieces of him literally melting off as though he were made of wax. In the next instant,
Tripoli was chasing around in his police car and Molly found herself in the front seat hanging on for dear life as they careened along the lip of Fall Creek Gorge. Below them, the turbulent water roared over the rocks.

In one of Molly's dreams, she was wandering alone in the night. It was pitch black. Suddenly a tiny corner of the sky turned bright. At first it was little more than a pinpoint of pale blue light with a tail like a comet. Then the light grew larger and brighter, its color changing to sharp pink, then searing yellow. It kept growing in intensity until it was blindingly bright. Moving across it was a tall but hunched figure she could only make out in silhouette. Then the light diminished and Molly could see that it was the dead Hermit. Although she had never set eyes on the man, she knew it was old Matthew. In her dream, Molly tried to speak to him. She called him “Father,” and kept crying out to him. But the old man didn’t hear; he kept shuffling ahead, leaning on his walking stick. Then, suddenly, he was gone and Molly awoke bathed in sweat to realize that she had been weeping in her sleep. When she rolled over on her side and looked over at Danny, she discovered him lying there in his bed wide awake, watching her.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the tiniest of voices.

Jerry Sisler had never seen the likes of it. Everywhere people seemed to be on the threshold of madness. At the diner, Kesh, who was working the cash register, snapped at him because he only had a twenty dollar bill for a cup of coffee. A fight broke out on the Northside. Then he had to rush over to the south end of town to cover a stickup. You never got robberies or fights at seven in the morning.

All over the damn city automatic fire alarms were being spontaneously triggered, and the fire companies kept ferrying up and down the hills chasing phantom fires. As the sun sluggishly lifted itself over East Hill, the day got oppressively hotter. Without the faintest hint of a breeze, it felt to Sisler as though he were in a sealed cooker, the pressure building by the hour. His radio was acting erratically and he swore he could actually detect in his body the electrical field of a huge storm that was beginning to build. If only it would start to rain, he thought to himself, there’d finally be some relief.

On his way back to the station from yet another morning call, he had to pull over on the west end of State Street. Two well-dressed men stood in the parking lot near the magazine office trying to choke each other.

“What the
hell
is going on?” Sisler demanded, separating the two. Then he recognized them. It was Bruce Trumbell, the well-known trial lawyer, and Jason Fine, the landlord who owned half the
rental properties in town.

“He tried to steal my parking space!” cried Trumbell.

“Like hell!” bellowed Fine, raising a fist.

“I was here first!” The lot was almost empty. Maybe four or five cars at most.

Molly pulled into the lot with Daniel just as Sisler was leaving. He slowed and waved to her from his car, but Molly didn’t notice him.

“Let's make sure we have everything,” she said as she turned off the motor. The day was a real stinker. It felt like a lid had been forced down on the city; she could taste droplets of diesel and half-burnt gasoline suspended in the air. She gathered up Daniel's school papers, his registration card, the sign-up sheet for lunch, his health questionnaire, and the permission form for field trips.

“We’d better take an umbrella,” she said, turning her key and locking the steering column.

Daniel, who had refused breakfast, remained downcast in the front seat, his belt still fastened. He was terribly pale and looked sick with anticipation.

“We’ll leave the car here and walk up South Hill,” she said. Maybe the exercise would relax him, open him up. After school, Molly would bring him back to the office and try to squeak in some work. Larry was so angry, he wouldn’t even discuss it with her.

“Just do whatever you want,” he had said when she had called him at home last night.

“Larry, I’ll get the work done.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Come on, we’d better hurry or we’ll be late.” Molly grabbed her pocketbook and the papers. “Come on, Sweetie,” she cajoled. “We’ll have a good time, you’ll see.” Moving around the outside of the car, she opened the door for him. Daniel unsnapped his belt and reluctantly stepped out. His brow was furrowed, and he was chewing on the inside of his lip. To Molly, it looked as if he might be
caught in a struggle with himself.

“Please don’t look so grim,” she pleaded.“I’m going to be with you the
whole
time. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn something, too.” She forced a laugh, but it sounded flat to her own ears.

Taking Daniel by the hand, she cut across the lot to Green Street. The morning traffic was heavy. Delivery trucks and commuters backed up by red lights. Passing the law office housed in an old Victorian, Molly noticed that the trees lining the street, apparently stressed by the drought and heat, were prematurely turning color. They were red and gold and they reminded Molly of that fall day, now almost a year ago, when Danny had disappeared. Then it had been a crazy cold day with freakish snows. A year and so much had transpired that it was hard to comprehend.

As they neared Aurora Street, Molly's handbag suddenly popped open, spilling the contents across the sidewalk. Lipstick and keys and change scattered everywhere. “Oh, God!” Releasing Daniel's hand, she bent down to hastily gather up her things.

Daniel stood watching.

“Here, can you hold these a second?” She handed him the papers as she hurriedly scooped everything back into her bag.

Suddenly, a violent, spiraling wind came up out of nowhere. It gusted down Green Street, raising a swirling cloud of dust and litter in its path. The papers flew out of Daniel's hands, taking off like birds and fluttering down the walk. Molly chased them. She caught up with them a dozen yards later as they lay snared in a hedge and hastily collected them. When she turned around, Daniel was gone.

Just moments after Daniel vanished, the heavens flashed and the skies suddenly burst open, the rain came down in blinding sheets.

“Danny! Danny!” shouted Molly as she raced deliriously up and down the length of Green Street, her cries drowned out by the thunder, her tears obscured by the unrelenting rain.

She ran into the photo shop, water streaming off her onto the clean white floors. “Did you see a little boy come by?” she cried, startling the salespeople.“He must have come right past here.”

She checked with the people in the Indian restaurant and the Roma Pizzeria. The man in the cashier's booth at the Green Street parking ramp claimed he saw a kid running through the rain headed toward the Commons.

The rain-swept Commons was deserted. She doubled back to Green Street, leaping out into the middle of the roadway to wave down an approaching cop car. It screeched to a halt on the wet pavement, barely stopping before hitting her.

“Get on the radio!” she cried, beside herself with grief.“My boy. Danny. He's taken off!”

She ran back to the lot where her car stood parked, got in and turned the key. The starter kept cranking, but the wires were soaked and the engine refused to catch. She kept trying until the battery gave out, the starter groaning to a halt.

Molly dashed into the magazine office, grabbed Tasha's keys off her desk, and took her car. The rain was coming down so hard that the storm gutters were backing up and the water was now building up in the streets. Even with Tasha's wipers on high, she could barely make out the taillights of cars in front. Near Cayuga Street, traffic was tangled and she drove up on the sidewalk, weaving around the stalled cars. Running a series of red lights, she headed towards Aurora Street, her car throwing up a wake as if it were a speed boat. South Hill, she thought. He's headed up South Hill. Where else could he go? Halfway up the hill a tractor trailer stood jackknifed in the gushing water, blocking the highway. Damn! Every minute that Danny was gone only put more distance between them.

Backing blindly from the truck, she threw the car into drive, hit the gas, and swung a fast U-turn. The front tire slammed against the curb and went flat.

Abandoning Tasha's car, she ran through the rain down the street back towards the downtown. From the first pay phone, she called Tripoli.

“He's gone,” she cried breathlessly.

“Huh? I can’t—” Given the noise of the rain beating down on the shelter, he could hardly hear her.

“Danny's gone!” she screamed.“Gone for real!”

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” he shouted,“Where are you?”

She stood in the downpour, oblivious to the rain, waiting for him.

Fifteen long minutes later, she saw in the distance a pair of flashing red lights and knew it was him.

“Get in,” said Tripoli, popping the door.

“Oh my God,” she wailed.“It's hopeless.”

“Nothing is hopeless.” He peeled out from the curb.“Hang on.”

They went back up South Hill, employing side streets. They checked the alleys and backyards, then drove all the way out to the state forest.

“I was a fool,” she wept as he plowed through the storm. “An idiot.”

“Stop blaming yourself.”

“If only it would stop raining,” she prayed. At least they could see. Poor Danny, she kept thinking. Cold and soaked in the rain.

But the rains didn’t stop. It poured without respite the whole of that day as Tripoli, the police, and a crowd of volunteers dressed in blaze orange slickers combed the city and it's surroundings, their cries of, “Daniel, Daniel,” echoing through the roadways, the fields, and forests farther out.

“All is not lost,” he said, putting an arm around her as they stood that evening in the station house staring out the window at the wall of descending water.

“Who are we kidding?” she asked, her voice so weak Tripoli
could barely make it out.

By nightfall, the rising creeks in the county began to overflow their banks, flooding basements and washing out roads. With the continued runoff cascading down from the hills, once-placid brooks turned into angry, roiling rivers, ripping huge trees from their banks and sending them hurtling down the rapids, trunks and roots smashing through steel bridges and isolating communities. The raging waters lifted barns off their moorings and swept them away into the lake. Electric poles toppled like matchsticks, shorting the lines and plunging the town into an eerie darkness. In the lowlands behind the Wegman's and Tops supermarkets, the water was rising so fast that soon the entire parking lot was submerged in two feet of water; carp and bass were swimming where cars and minivans used to park.