The Most Dangerous Thing (16 page)

“It’s not the same,” Halloran shrilled, his voice high-pitched as a woman’s. “It’s not the same.”

Halloran was right, but not in the way he believed. Clem could not bear to tell Tim that a violent physical assault on a girl would, according to the law, be judged much more harshly than the touches that the old man had bestowed on Go-Go. What would the courts have done to him? He would have gotten a year or two at the most. And what if he had denied it? How could it be proved? According to Sean, Mickey couldn’t describe what she had seen in the darkness of the cabin, only that the old man had become violent when she found him alone with Go-Go. Yes, the man was old and black and indigent. The justice system would not be predisposed in his favor. But whatever sentence was meted out would never have satisfied Tim. Hell, a smart defense attorney might summon Dr. Money as an expert witness, ask him to tell the court what he had told
Time
magazine: “A childhood experience, such as being the partner of a relative or of an older person, need not necessarily affect the child adversely.” But what was a child? What was a relative? Clem remembers, as he often does, the image of eighteen-year-old Tally, passing canapés in her parents’ house, offering her tray to her bachelor uncle’s best friend, pregnant by him not even a year later. Utterly different, of course—and yet some people wouldn’t consider it so. Both situations would be covered by Dr. Money’s rubric.

The discussion was moot. The man was dead at their feet. Events and possibilities swirled around them, fast as the water rushing around the man, unstoppable, implacable. Any number of things could have killed him. The fall, the blow to his head, a heart attack, drowning. What good would it do to tell anyone about the children, how the man had chased them through the woods, much less why. They agreed that Clem would place an anonymous call to 911 from a pay phone downtown, reporting a body in the woods, then check the morgue to find out when a John Doe was brought in. An autopsy would determine if it had been a heart attack, or even a stroke, brought on by exertion. No one was to blame for what happened.

But when Clem finally called the morgue on an elaborate pretext, claiming he needed to collect data on all over-fifty deaths in September for a research project, there wasn’t a single John Doe who matched the description of the man in the woods. Had his body not been found? Could he have been wrong about the man’s death? If so—

He pushes his plate away, incapable of finishing. He should buy something for the girls, as he thinks of Tally and Gwen. But what can he take them? Tally is proprietary about her menus and resents any unsolicited contributions. Gwen no longer eats sweets. The market’s flowers are not the best, a little bedraggled and mealy-looking. He has nothing to bring them but himself, old and tired at the end of another day.

Chapter Twenty

“I
found my thrill,” Larry sings, “up on Strawberry Hill.”

“Strawberry
Hill
Apartments . . . for–e–ver,” Rita sings back, unwrapping glasses. Lord, Mickey did a shit job packing them, and a few are chipped. Inevitably, it’s her nice ones, the matched set of heavy Mexican amber from Pier One. Why couldn’t the freebies from the filling station giveaways end up cracked?

But even the broken glasses can’t dim Rita’s mood, although she makes a mental note to find Mickey later and give her what-for.

Moving, which is supposed to be one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, has brought Rita nothing but a constant, giggling joy since she signed the lease on the Strawberry Hill apartment last month. She floats through her days, her temper soft, and she rockets through her nights, shooting up, up, up on waves of sex, then falling into the best sleep she has ever known. She can’t believe Larry volunteered to move in with her, without even being asked. Being legit—sharing a bed and an apartment with Larry, if not the actual lease—is the best high she has ever known. Everything is better. Each cigarette, each drink, punching out at work. Even Joey, something of a wild child, is suddenly an angel. It’s almost as if he knows who his real father is, although Rick—of course!—continues to be the superdutiful dad, coming by every other weekend and Wednesday nights. God, Rita would love to tell him the truth, just to wipe that superior look off his face, but she doesn’t want to say good-bye to his checks.

Besides, Rick’s visits seem to be the only thing that rouses Mickey out of her permanent sulk. Suddenly, nothing makes that girl happy. Take the school thing. She hates her current school, Rock Glen. She was excited about the transfer to a new district when Rita first told her. Then Rita told Rock Glen that Mickey has a medical condition and wouldn’t be able to attend the last three weeks. She now lives too far away to walk to the bus stop, and who’s going to drive her there at 7:30
A.M.
every day? Not Rita. Besides, no one learns anything the last three weeks of school. You think a girl would be happy, getting a head start on summer vacation. Plus, Rita’s paying Mickey to babysit during the mornings, when it would be entirely reasonable to expect her to do that for free. A dollar twenty-five an hour, five hours a day, five days a week. Heck, that’s better than Rita does some nights. The girl should be delirious.

But Mickey hates the new apartment. She has to share a bedroom with Joey, at least until Rita can justify buying a sofa bed, but it’s not like either kid can be in Rita’s room, now that Larry is sleeping over. The new place may be smaller, but it’s nicer. Clean, freshly painted. Besides, her car insurance dropped almost by half just for moving out of the city, and they are a mile closer to the shopping centers up on Route 40 and out Security Boulevard. Mickey could take the bus to any of those places, go shopping, go to the movies. But when Rita points this out, Mickey sighs and says: “I miss my woods.” Her woods? Foolish girl.

Rita can’t waste time worrying about Mickey. Her immediate goal is to make Larry a man, a real man. Someone who provides. Someone who doesn’t deal drugs, maybe uses them from time to time, but doesn’t sell.

“What is this?” Larry asks, pulling a long, lidded metal pan from a box. She needs a beat to identify it.

“A fish poacher.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“No. I brought it home from work one night because I heard that was a good way to make fish, but my kids hate fish.” Actually, it was Rick who hated fish, but she tries to mention him as little as possible. She wants to erase Rick from the record, pretend he never happened.

“ ‘Brought it home’—you mean you nicked it.” Larry smiles. He likes her wicked side.

“Maybe.” She gives him a sideways bump with her hip as she passes him in the small galley kitchen, then turns and bumps her rear against his crotch, moving lazily back and forth until she sees Mickey standing in the living room, watching them through the pass-through. No expression on her face, no comment, just watching. The girl sees too much. Rita wonders if Mickey has noticed her brother’s marked resemblance to Larry. Thank God both Rick and Larry had dark hair and eyes. There’s nothing obvious to link Larry to Joey unless one looks for the resemblance, as Rita does, repeatedly. There’s a thinness at the bridge of the nose, camouflaged by Joey’s chubbiness, a sameness to the ears. Yes, the ears. She knows Larry that well, inside and out.

Which means she understands it won’t be easy, domesticating a man who loves her wild side. Rick was the big attraction, the thing that brought Larry back to her. Now that they aren’t cheating, his interest could fall off. If she leans on him to give up dabbling in drugs, move in officially—no, he has to make those decisions on his own. Or think he’s making them. So be it. She knows how to keep him happy and interested. Last week, they went to the drive-in up on Route 40 and Rita was dead tired, but she made sure to go down on him. Twice. Her hair was coated with grease and salt from his popcorn when she finally pulled her head from his lap. The people in the next car gave her a dirty look. They had a bunch of pajamaed kids with them. So what? It was an R-rated movie about two teenagers trying to lose their virginity. Those righteous parents were the creeps, bringing their kids to something like that.

She wonders if Mickey has gone all the way yet. She thinks not. She doesn’t want her to, of course, although Rita was only sixteen when she did it the first time, and girls grow up faster now. Still, Mickey needs a boyfriend, someone to distract her so she wouldn’t be in the apartment all the time, sneaking up on Rita and Larry. Maybe Rita should take Mickey to her doctor, get her on the pill? Or an IUD, like she uses, because she smokes. Does Mickey smoke? Does she use drugs? Rita won’t let her get away with that, even if it does make her a hypocrite. Does Mickey know she uses on occasion? Used. Probably, the kid doesn’t miss a trick. Look at her, standing there, staring. Who is she to judge Rita? It might look bad, leaving Rick, taking up with Larry so fast, but if only Mickey knew the whole story. Rita isn’t taking a family apart, she’s putting one together. The girl should be kissing her feet with gratitude.

“I’m going to go outside,” Mickey says. “Look around.”

“You get all your stuff unpacked?”

A pause. She’s actually thinking about whether to lie to her. The thing that kills Rita is that Mickey wants Rita to see her thinking about lying. “I’ve done enough,” she says. “For now.”

“You did a shit job packing my glasses,” Rita says.

“Maybe you should have packed them. I guess you were too busy.”

She puts a lot of spin on
busy
. There’s no doubt what she means.

“Yeah, I was busy. Busy working every night, so you can have food and clothes and a roof over your head.”

“Yes,” Mickey says, looking upward. “And what a roof it is.”

Rita raises a hand, her temper roaring back, even as Larry says, “Ladies, ladies.” Larry doesn’t like conflict. She better keep it in check if she wants to keep him, not let Mickey get a rise out of her. She wonders if Mickey understands this, if she’s baiting her mother to make her look bad in front of Larry.

Joey bellows from the bedroom, waking up from his nap. Rita’s policy is that if he takes a nap at nursery school, he sure as hell is going to take one at home. But he never goes down without a fight.

“Go get your brother,” she tells Mickey.

“I was going to—”

“Get your brother. Your stepfather and I have to—wash the sheets.”

“He’s not my stepfather,” Mickey says, and Rita can’t be sure, but she thinks Larry nods.

“Get your brother,” she says.

“Half brother,” Mickey says. She always has to have the last word.

As soon as Mickey leaves the room, Rita grabs the laundry basket and a random selection of clothes, doesn’t even bother with detergent.

“Why do I—” Larry starts, and she gives his crotch a quick squeeze. “You’ll like it,” she whispers. “Doing laundry is good clean fun.”

They can’t lock the door as it turns out, but they close it and start out standing. No one’s coming through that door unless they’re determined to push 250 pounds of human aside. But Rita doesn’t want to finish that way. It’s too tempting for her to press herself against the rattling washer, full of someone else’s clothes, Larry behind her, vibrating all over. She has to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep her pleasure to herself, and even Larry, expert at stifling his own cries, has to bite her shoulder to muffle his groans. He breaks the skin, although he doesn’t draw blood. She thinks she hears someone start to open the door, only to retreat.

This is how I will keep you
. She almost says it out loud. She has to be fun, spontaneous,
dirty
.

Back in the apartment, little Joey is running around naked, screaming at the top of his lungs, and Mickey’s just watching him, no expression on her face.

“Nake! Nake!” he screams. “I’m nake.” It’s the word he used as a toddler. He knows it’s funny.

“What the hell, Mickey?”

“He took his clothes off,” she says with a shrug. “I can’t help it if he’s retarded.”

“Don’t call your brother retarded.”

“Look at that little thing,” Larry says. “No resemblance there.”

Rita shoots him a look.
Shut the fuck up
. Luckily, Mickey is oblivious, for once. She’s watching her brother run in circles as if she can’t remember what it’s like to be that young and silly. “Nake! Nake!” he cries. Rita reminds herself to be kind to Mickey, the less advantaged child, the one without a father, whereas Joey has two in a sense. Rita can tell it baffles Mickey that Rick Senior doesn’t have any obligations toward her since moving out. He’s kind enough to include her on some outings, but everything’s tailored to Joey—tot lot, cartoons—which makes it boring as hell for Mickey. Yet Rita can’t blame Rick, either. It’s biology. He’s taking care of what he believes to be his child. Eventually, Joey is what will bind Larry to her, far more important than hot sex in the laundry room and blow jobs at the drive-in. He just needs some time.

“Nake! Nake! I’m nake!” Joey screams.

“Retard,” Mickey says under her breath, but she’s smiling. They’re all smiling. Rita wonders if it would be wrong to start calling Joey by his middle name, which happens to be Lawrence.

Chapter Twenty-one

Summer 1980

T
im stands outside his house, watching the participants gather for the Fourth of July parade. He tries not to take it personally, that his one-block street, Sekots Lane, is used as a staging area for the annual parade, but he can’t help feeling slighted. Sekots has always felt like an annex to the real neighborhood, some orphan street that got tacked on by mistake. Sekots dead-ends into a hill where children sledded once, but the Dickeyville Garden Club planted it aggressively, hoping to block out the view of the Wakefield Apartments above them. Seemed ridiculous at the time, all those little saplings, but trees grow, and the club’s objective has been achieved. Tim remembers when those trees were smaller than his boys.

It’s been years since his family was home for this parade. Even through last year, with his work life on and off, they were able to take their usual week in Ocean City. They always go to an old-fashioned rooming house that Tim’s family stayed in when he was a boy. It’s not fancy. In fact, it’s downright crummy, but what’s the point of spending dough on a place where you only come to shake sand out of your suit and hang wet towels over the railings. The location is prime, two blocks from the beach, within walking distance of the attractions along the boardwalk, where they spent almost every evening. Last summer, it broke Go-Go’s heart when he just missed the height cutoff for the bumper cars. Tim pleaded, even tried to slip the attendant a fiver. Go-Go threw a tantrum, not entirely out of character for him, although it struck Tim as particularly violent and out of control. Last summer—no, Tim tells himself. It hadn’t happened yet. It was only the one time. Go-Go said it was the only time he was ever in that old bastard’s cabin.

No shore this summer, even though Tim is back to work. He has a gig at Tuerkes, which sells luggage and leather goods. Not doing the books, but working the floor as a sales associate. He likes it, sort of. He actually has to dress better than he did when he was working in accounting, and he enjoys the store’s deep leathery smell, the company of the other guys. They’re young, blow-dried. They go to discos and come in after the weekends, talking about the pussy they get, claiming a girl’s drink preference tells you everything about her, whether it’s a Wallbanger or a Sex on the Beach. They swear that the best girls, the classy girls, drink white wine spritzers or Bristol Cream. The women they talk about—they seem like an entirely new species to Tim. They could be imported from the moon.

The Tuerkes job felt like a demotion at first, but now Tim thinks it might be a turning point. Learn the ropes at Tuerkes, rise up, maybe start his own business. The economy is god-awful, but it won’t always be. People will have money to spend again one day. The trick is figuring out what they’ll want, or how to make them think they want what you’re selling. He’s seen customers in Tuerkes who have no more need of a $200 briefcase than a pig needs a sports car, but the briefcase represents something to them, a dream, an ambition. What will people want when the money flows again? High-end appliances? Jewelry? With men wearing it now, the market has doubled. Gadgets? Look at Hechinger, beginning to spread all over the goddamn place. Who knew that a fucking hardware store could get so big? A hammer is a hammer is a hammer.

In the meantime, Tim has no seniority and no paid vacation. Which is a better excuse for not going to the shore than ’fessing up to his kids that they pretty much have no money. Interest rates hovering at 17 percent this year, and he had to pay a penalty to cash in a CD. That hurt. He told the older boys that they had to get part-time jobs this summer, making it seem like a character-building exercise. But he can’t force Go-Go to get a job and the kid’s a nonstop fount of needs. Lately, he’s obsessed with this video game where some yellow dot eats other yellow dots until some ghosts eat the big yellow dot. Thank god there’s not an arcade within walking distance or Go-Go would spend all his days there, buying time at what Tim has figured to be about three minutes per quarter, give or take.

A month ago, Go-Go started pestering him for money for a Fourth of July costume. The kid’s all excited about marching in the parade, although he’s keeping his outfit a secret, says he doesn’t want anyone to steal his idea. There are prizes for the best ones, penny-ante shit, but Go-Go’s acting like the crown jewels are at stake. Tim said he couldn’t give him money if he didn’t know what it was for, and Go-Go stopped asking. Very un-Go-Go like. Also unlike him to keep a secret, but he has managed to hide his costume from everyone, even his brothers. Even now, he is still in the house, in his room, determined not to put in an appearance until the parade actually starts.

The Dickeyville Fourth of July parade is one of those things that people love about the neighborhood, but the preciousness of it is a little much for Tim. Jesus, it looks like everyone is going to march in the damn thing, who’s going to be left to watch? The theme is vaguely patriotic, yet also kind of feel-good:
We are all Americans
. No shit, Sherlock. Who else celebrates the Fourth of July? Maybe the Brits are lifting a pint, glad to be rid of us, but their economy is in the crapper, too. Adherence to the theme doesn’t seem to be that hard-and-fast, anyway. Tim sees a platoon of tiny little girls in old-fashioned dresses, with buggies and baby dolls. Behind them, a Cub Scout troop. Tim didn’t realize there were so many little kids in the neighborhood. Judging by their ages, the Bicentennial was a big year for making babies.

As Tim looks around, he can’t believe this mix of hippies and preppies are his neighbors. He doesn’t fit in with either crowd. How did this happen? Was it always this way? He can’t remember now why he bought the house on Sekots Lane, other than that the price was right and he wanted a place whose walls didn’t connect to someone else’s walls. That seemed like a big step up. He’d like to blame Doris, but she fought him about the house—after the fact, which is the only way she fights. She said the neighborhood was too isolated and that she’d rather wait until they could afford something bigger. She also asked what was the point of moving to a place full of old-fashioned stone and brick houses surrounded by wooded hillsides, only to buy a new house that backed up to an apartment complex. “Things don’t break as much in a new house,” he argued. That’s a laugh. Things are constantly breaking in the house on Sekots Lane. There’s probably not an original appliance left in the place, and he’s pretty sure the hot-water heater is going down for the count.

Five minutes until the parade. It’s going to be a bitch of a day, hot and steamy. It makes Tim sweat just to look at the guy dressed up as George Washington. Even the sucker doing Jimmy Carter in shirtsleeves looks hot, and the poor Reagan impersonator is wearing a suit. Tim might vote for Reagan, although he’s keeping that to himself. If Teddy Kennedy can wrest the nomination away from Carter next month, then it will be different. Tim could never vote against a Kennedy. Sure, he knows about the dead girl, the secretary, and believes Kennedy was probably banging her, or planning to. So what? Those were his prerogatives. Tim doesn’t begrudge him a thing. He should be president, although Tim can’t imagine how many Secret Service agents it would take to keep him safe. Some nut will take a shot at him. There’s always a nut somewhere, willing to take a shot.

The parade is finally under way, transforming itself from a milling, formless mass into something with shape and purpose. The fife-and-drum trio has started playing, everyone is lining up. Where’s Go-Go? Tim begins to wonder if the boy understands how parades work, or if he even bothered to register, surely a prerequisite for marching and being considered for a prize. Go-Go has trouble understanding things like that, rules and regulations. His old man can sympathize.

The parade stretches out, heading down Pickwick toward the more picturesque heart of the village, wending its way toward the banks of the Gwynns Falls. Tim wonders if it’s too early to have a beer. It’s a holiday, isn’t it? The usual rules don’t apply. He goes back into the house and grabs a Schaefer. It is, as the song says, the one beer to have when you’re having more than one and Tim definitely plans to have more than one today.

A young mother, one of the ones who’s shadowing the buggy brigade, shoots him a dirty look. Hey, he put it in a Styrofoam koozie. No one can see the can. It’s a holiday, dammit.

Then he sees Go-Go, coming out the front door.
Shit
. He’s dressed as one of the U.S. Olympic hockey players. Not a bad idea, actually, for a display of patriotism. He’s more on the money than those little girls with their baby carriages. But the kid has to be dying inside all that gear. Because he’s not just any hockey player, he’s the goalie, Jim Craig, complete with pads and face mask. Although the pants are nothing but red sweatpants with duct tape and white paper stars along the sides, the rest of the costume looks authentic. Tim wonders where Doris got the scratch for it, if she’s one of those women who squirrels away money behind his back. She better not be. Shit, did Go-Go steal the stuff?

All those concerns are overshadowed by the fact that the kid is wearing actual skates. Sure, he’s got rubber covers on the blades, but he’s
walking in skates
. Short and rinky-dink as the Dickeyville parade is, there’s no way Go-Go is going to make it to the end in that outfit, brandishing a hockey stick.

Tim goes up to him. “Great costume, buddy.”

Go-Go nods his thanks, his entire being focused on what he has to do—the sweater, those skates. He’s almost vibrating inside all that gear. At least he has the good sense to wear the mask up on his head.

“But, buddy, you’ll never be able to walk in that getup. Even if you took off the skates—”

“I
won’t,
” Go-Go says. “The skates are the best part. I’m Jim Craig.”

“I got that, buddy.”

“I turned away thirty-six of the Soviets’ thirty-nine attempts on goal.”

“Yeah, in February, at Lake Placid. But it’s July in Baltimore. You’ll die. I mean, literally, Go-Go. You could die from the heat.”

Doris comes up, wringing her hands. “You can’t walk in that outfit, Go-Go. You’ll get sick.”

Funny, but Doris taking his side makes Tim want to find another one. He isn’t going to be like her, the enemy of fun, the worrywart.

“Look,” he says, “how about if I walk with you? Maybe bring some water. That way, if you get thirsty or something—”

Go-Go has been mincing forward all this time, slowly but surely, the gap between him and the parade growing larger and larger.

“You mean, like a bodyguard?”

“Sure,” his father says. “Like a bodyguard. I bet Jim Craig had a bodyguard when he went home to”—where was Jim Craig from?—“Philadelphia and all his friends came out to see him.”

“Jim Craig,” Go-Go says, every word, every step, a concentrated effort, “is from Massachusetts. Like Father Andrew.”

“Massachusetts, Pennsylvania. I always get them confused.”

Tim has Doris fill an old thermos with ice water, reluctantly trades it for his beer, then falls in behind Go-Go. Still, they’re losing ground with every labored step. Pretty soon, they can barely see the little girls with their baby carriages.

“You know, Jim Craig was a big hero in that game.”

“I
know,
” Go-Go says.

“And sometimes, when someone is a big hero, people carry him on their shoulders.”

Go-Go doesn’t break stride. If you could call those tiny, painful steps strides. “Did they do that with Jim Craig, though?”

“They did, I think, when he went home. To Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure when he went back to his hometown, that’s exactly what they did.”

He hoists his son to his shoulders. He’s ten and wearing all that gear. It’s no small thing. And it’s so damn hot. Still, Tim makes better time than Go-Go ever could have. With each lumbering step, the skates bang his chest and Go-Go ends up hitting him on the head with the stick every time he tries to adjust himself. But they are narrowing the gap now. As they catch up to the parade and the spectators, Go-Go hands his hockey stick to his father. He then lifts his arms, hands clenched, clearly imitating some victory grip he’s seen in a movie or TV show.

His brothers, who had been following the parade on their bikes, circle back, riding in slow, lazy circles around them.

“Let’s take turns,” Sean says. “We can go faster than you.”

“He’s too big for you to carry.”

“Not for me and Tim together.”

They leave their bikes by the side of the road—no need to fear them being taken here in Dickeyville, where everyone knows everyone, although some colored kids might come along. The brothers make a seat of their hands and carry Go-Go the next block. Tim then takes him back on his shoulder for a segment. And so they go, now part of the parade. But for the final stage, for the approach to the finish alongside the stream, Go-Go wants to get back on his father’s shoulders and do his hand thing again. This time, Sean carries the hockey stick.

They’re all dripping with sweat, smelly and disgusting. But the woman who frowned at Tim’s can of Schaefer smiles at him now. He smiles for himself. Go-Go wins second prize—really, it should have been first, just for the sheer stamina involved—but he’s pleased as hell with the ten-dollar gift certificate to G. C. Murphy’s and the look on his face is more than enough reward for Tim. Even with Tim back at work, things are still lean for the family.

Go-Go must understand this because later that night, after running through a list of all the things a boy can do with ten dollars at G. C. Murphy’s, he offers to put it toward school supplies.

“That’s okay, buddy,” his father says, tucking him in, something he seldom does in the summer, when the boys are allowed to stay up as late as they wish. Something he seldom does, period. “It was your costume, you get the prize, spend it on whatever you want. Where’d you get the idea?”

“I found a hockey mask.”

“Where did you find a hockey mask?”

“In the woods.”

“In the woods. I thought we agreed you weren’t going to go into the woods alone.”