The Shadow Year (24 page)

Krapp leaned over and, extending his thumb and forefinger, clasped the wooden stick, relieving me of the weight of my flattened moon. Once it was in his hand, he walked up to his desk and dropped it into the trash. It hit with a clunk, and I could feel the other kids wanting to laugh.

He said nothing. Then the other kids were called one at a time to the front of the room to explain how they had made their moons. Only once, when Mitchell Erikson told how his was molded out of Plasticine and how he and his father shot it with BBs to make the craters authentic, did Krapp look over at me and sigh. After the last bell of the day sounded, as I was slinking toward the coat closet, he called me up to his desk.

He waited until the last of the kids was out of the room and said, “Your moon was pathetic. You have till tomorrow to make me a real moon.”

I nodded.

“And it better not come on a stick,” he added.

Mary was waiting for me outside the school. I told her to hurry, and I walked as fast as I could, breaking into a run when we got to the Masons' lawn. Inside the house I ditched my book bag on the couch and headed for Nan and Pop's door. I didn't even say hello before I told them that I needed plaster.

“What for?” asked Nan, looking up from her latest paint-by-number.

“I have to make the moon.”

“You're going to make the moon out of plaster?” said Pop, and he laughed.

“It's for school, and I have to do it today.”

Nan looked over at Pop and said, “Go get him some plaster.”

Pop put out his cigarette and said, “Yes, Your Highness.”

He got dressed in his baggy pants and a button-down shirt, and off we went in the blue Impala. At the hardware store, the
guy behind the counter asked, “What do you need it for?”

Pop said, “Ask the kid,” as he pulled some bills from his pocket.

“I don't have to ask the kid,” said the guy, and he laughed loud. “Making the moon, right?”

Pop just held out his hand for the change.

“I've sold ten boxes of plaster this week.”

We left, and as we were passing through the door, Pop said, “Dimwit,” and I wasn't sure if he meant me or the hardware guy.

On the way home, he pulled in to the parking lot shared by the deli and Mr. Pizza and the drugstore. He killed the engine.

“Here,” he said. “Go into the deli and get a quart of skim milk.” He handed me a dollar. “I'm going up to the drugstore to get my prescription. I'll meet you back here in a couple of minutes.”

“Can I get a piece of bubble gum?”

“Sure,” he said. “Get one for the other kids, too.”

I took the money, nodded, and we got out of the car. Pop headed down toward the pharmacy, and I went into the deli. The deli always smelled like a holiday. Rudy, the little German guy who owned it, always wore a white apron. He cooked and prepared everything he sold right in the back of the store—potato salad, coleslaw, meatballs, roast turkey, pot roast, dumplings. It was all displayed on a field of greenery beneath a length of glass curved like the windshield of a car. I slid open the door of the cold case and grabbed a bottle of milk. Rudy asked how my parents were, and I told him, “Fine,” as I dug three pieces of Bazooka out of a plastic bucket next to the cash register.

“And you are being good?” he said, smiling.

I nodded, pocketed two pieces of the gum, and took the change. As I left, he called, “Tell your mother I have fish cakes.”

Out on the sidewalk, I held the bottle of milk under my arm as I worked to open my piece of Bazooka. I shoved the pink
rectangle into my mouth. It took some strong tooth work to turn the little rock into something pliable. While I went at it, I read the tiny comic it came wrapped in. Bazooka Joe, a kid with an eye patch and a baseball hat, and his friend Mort, who wore the collar of his red sweater up over his mouth, were standing next to a rocket ship. Neither the jokes nor the fortunes printed beneath the comics ever made any sense, but I read them anyway, getting my full penny's worth.

As I shoved the crumpled comic into my pants pocket, I felt a hand close around my elbow and a large body push against me. At first I thought it was Pop, but he'd just have called my name. I looked up and realized I was being pushed to the edge of the sidewalk, toward the alley that ran between a high chain-link fence and the wall of the deli. Turning my head, all I saw was a flap of white material.

We turned into the alley. “Move your ass,” Mr. White said, a bead of spit hitting my cheek. The thought that at any second he might snap my neck made me go slack, and I dropped the milk bottle. I heard it crash against the asphalt, and when it did, Mr. White shoved me harder, and the wad of Bazooka shot out of my mouth. That woke me up, and I started struggling. But he held on tight, his grip ice cold, and pressed me up against the wall. I tried to scream, but he leaned in next to me, his sour breath in my nose. My throat closed. I pushed off the wall, and he pushed me, and I hit the back of my head against the concrete. Things got woozy, and all of a sudden my arms and legs started to tingle.

Then Mr. White spun away from me, and I saw Pop behind him in the alley.

“What the hell d'ya think you're doing?” Pop yelled.

Mr. White brought his arm up, striking like a cobra, and his fingers squeezed into Pop's left shoulder. Pop grunted once and his knees buckled slightly, but at the same time he swung with his free right hand, a perfect punch straight out of Jamaica
Arena. It hit Mr. White square on the left temple, so hard his hat was knocked sideways, pushing White back two steps, his overcoat flapping. With that momentum he turned and ran down the alley like a spider on his long legs, his shoes clicking on the pavement, his hand clamped to the hat to hold it on. In a blink he was gone around behind the stores.

By that time I was crying, and Pop pulled me into a hug. The broken milk bottle crunched beneath our feet as we left the alley. He led me back to the car and opened the door for me. He got in behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. “We're gonna get that son of a bitch,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. He backed the car out. Next thing I knew, we were parked at the police station.

We sat at a table in a wood-paneled room. There was an American flag on a stand in the corner, and a framed portrait of President Johnson on the wall. A cop sat across from us, pen in hand, taking down what Pop told him. Every once in a while, when he stopped writing to ask a question, the cop wiggled in his seat, full of what I guessed was excitement.

“Have you ever seen this man before?” he asked, and I realized he was talking to me.

“Ever see him?” Pop asked.

I nodded.

“Where'd you see him?” said the cop.

“He was a janitor in our school for a couple of days.”

“Boris? At East Lake?” the cop asked.

“When Boris was gone,” I said. “His name is Lou.”

“I'll have to get some information from the school, and then we can put out an APB,” he said to Pop, as if I weren't there.

“I know where he lives,” I said.

The cop looked over at me. “Really? Where?”

“Around behind the stores.”

“Can you take me there now?”

I nodded.

Pop and I sat in the back of the police car, and the cop drove. We parked outside Mr. White's house. “There's another car on the way. When they get here, tell them I went inside.” He drew his gun and held it pointing straight up, checking it. “Stay in the car,” he said, looking at us through the rearview mirror, and then he opened his door and went around the side of the house toward the back.

“Dick Tracy,” said Pop. He lit a cigarette. “How did you know where this guy lives?” he asked.

I was thinking of being locked inside the freezer in the garage. “A kid in school who lives over here told me.”

He took a drag on his butt and considered what I'd told him. “How are you doing?” he asked.

I nodded yet again but didn't say anything.

“Well, my shoulder hurts like hell where he grabbed me. Must have been some kind of pressure point or something.”

Another black-and-white car with two cops in it passed by and pulled over to park in front of us. Pop got out and told them that the first cop had gone inside. They drew their guns and went around back. I kept listening for gunshots and death screams, but the day was perfectly blue and calm. The new leaves of the trees around the house rustled quietly.

“I don't know why I went to look for you down that alley,” Pop said. “Another couple of minutes and you could have been gone.”

“Chimto,” I said.

“That dog doesn't miss a trick.”

The cops returned a few minutes later. Our officer, his gun back in his holster, got into the car and said, “He's cleared out. Looks like whoever was there threw stuff together quickly. We might've just missed him. We'll tell the school to warn the kids, and we'll run it in the newspaper. Even if he crosses state lines, we'll get him.”

Back at the police station I told them what Mr. White's car
looked like, but I was afraid to say any more. Pop called home to let Nan know what had happened. By the time we passed through the front door of the house, my mother was home. She was waiting for me. As soon as I saw her, I started crying again, and she put her arms around me. “It's okay,” she said. “You're okay.”

And then the Shadow Year rolled on. The thought of Mr. White fleeing town with the police on his tail assured us it was over. We left Botch Town to its own devices and all slept better. Jim took the money he'd saved from birthdays and holidays and bought an old guitar. Mary suddenly stopped figuring the horses and spent more time outside with her new real friend, Emily, from Cuthbert Road. The girl was tall and skinny, with a big nose and long hair that covered her face. She and Mary smoked roll-ups back behind the forsythia. Their favorite song was “Time of the Season.”

The only reminder I had of my near abduction was when I saw Pop rub his shoulder where Mr. White had grabbed him. He told me one afternoon, “That guy put the touch on me.” Still, that was enough of a reminder so that I never went anywhere alone. I spent my free time writing my own version of Perno Shell's last adventure, and I avoided having to make the moon. My mother called Cleary and told him I had to take it easy for the rest of the school year and that I was going to pass to the next grade no matter what. Cleary didn't argue.

On the final day of school, fifteen minutes before the last bell rang, Krapp got out of his chair and stepped to the front of the room. We were eating cupcakes with sprinkles and drink
ing soda brought in by Pat Trepedino's mother. The kids were all talking and milling around the warm classroom.

“Well, we had a good year,” said Krapp. I think I was the only one paying attention to him. “I hope you remember your lessons and that you all enjoy the junior high,” he said, speaking to the back wall. He looked around and then returned to his desk. When the bell rang, there was a loud cheer from all over the school. I was slow gathering my things. I didn't want to leave East Lake in the wild rush to summer but rather to walk one last time down the quiet hallways.

Leaving the classroom, I turned and said good-bye to Krapp. He looked up at me, waved with a flick of his pencil, and went back to his work. As I passed through the door into the hall, his chair tipped back, and just like that, he fell slowly into my past. The halls were as quiet as the night I had roamed them with Jim and Ray. I caught a whiff of the library, the hot dogs and beans from lunch, and, always, the red stuff. My report card, though far from good, showed that I had graduated from the Retard Factory. I went through the open front doors, and summer was there to meet me—a warm breeze, a blue sky, someone mowing a lawn somewhere. Mary was waiting, and we'd never walked home so slowly.

That night I was in the cellar looking for the basketball when I heard Mrs. Harkmar, like Krapp, addressing her last class.

“You all did very good,” she said. “Mickey, you were the best. Sally, you did good. Sandy, you'll have to go to summer school, but don't cry.” She whapped the desktop with her ruler. “Mickey's moving away, so let's give him a round of applause.” There was the sound of clapping. “I'm retiring,” she said. “I won't see you again.” These last words were spoken in Mary's, not Mrs. Harkmar's, voice. I went back to looking for the basketball and found it under the supply table. As I was heading for the stairs, I heard one more thing. There came a quick
“Yay!” in Mickey's voice, and I figured school had just let out.

On the first weekend night he had free, my father cooked his meal of many meats out on the backyard grill. Hamburgers and hot dogs, chicken and sausage. There was potato salad from Rudy's. We all sat, Nan and Pop included, at the picnic table, and feasted off grease-stained paper plates. Afterward, in the dark, we kids cooked marshmallows over gray coals that glowed orange from within when you tapped them. The adults sat at the table and drank and smoked and talked. A few houses down, a transistor radio was playing “There's a Kind of Hush” by Herman's Hermits.

One night my mother didn't drink. She didn't drink the following night either, or the next. For the first few days of this new routine, she'd go to bed directly after dinner. Losing the wine made her look older and very tired. On the fourth night, she seemed to have awoken, smiling and talking at dinner. There was no mention of Bermuda. Maybe that's where her anger had gone. She took out her guitar and showed Jim a few things she knew about frets and charts. From that point on, the summer got so light it was like a dream. Days were both long and brief, if that makes any sense. I forgot if it was Monday or Thursday. We played basketball over at East Lake, swam in the neighbors' pools, read about Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos, stayed out late, and captured fireflies in mayonnaise jars. I kept away from the woods and in that way managed to forget about Charlie for the most part.

That light time lasted a month or so, and today I'm not sure it ever happened. Then one evening my mother came home from work, toting a half gallon of Taylor Cream Sherry. “Oh, no,” Jim whispered when he saw it sitting on the kitchen counter. The late sun was shining through the window, and its rays illuminated the wine. It glowed a beautiful red-amber, and the sight of it made me instantly weak. Dinner was late, it had already grown dark, but none of us kids said a word. Before we'd
gotten to the table, my mother had already had quite a few glasses. She sat smoking, her eyes nearly closed.

“Why so quiet?” she finally said, and her voice had an edge to it.

I stared into my soup.

“Look at me,” she said. I looked up and saw Jim and Mary do the same. “What's your problem?”

I shook my head, and Jim said, “No problem.” I was going to return my gaze to the soup, but I saw something move outside the darkened window behind her. Mary actually jumped in her seat, but my mother was too drunk to catch it. I can't believe I didn't cry out, but there was Ray's face at the glass. He was smiling and holding two fingers up behind my mother's head to make it look like she had devil's horns. Jim couldn't help himself; he smiled. My mother looked at him and said, “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” he said. “I was thinking about this kid in school who could put his whole hand in his mouth up to his wrist. You know that kid?” he said to me.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, but I wasn't sure which one he meant.

Ray motioned to us and then pointed his finger down. He ducked out of sight, and a few seconds later I heard the slightest noise coming from the basement window well next to the back steps. When my mother closed her eyes, Jim looked over at me and smiled. Mary pointed to the floor with the pinkie of the hand holding her spoon.

After dinner we helped clean up, and then my mother headed for the couch to pass out. We each went to our rooms and waited. We'd not seen or heard anything from Ray since the night-watch night when he'd given me the note. There hadn't even been any reports of the prowler. For some reason I'd never really wondered what had happened to him. It was like he'd vanished once the weight of Mr. White had been lifted. Ten
minutes after I'd closed the door of my room, Jim was whispering up the stairs for me. I tiptoed down and found him and Mary waiting by the cellar door. My mother was out on the couch, and the sight of her reminded me momentarily of the guitar lesson she'd given Jim. Down we went, laying each foot carefully on the creaky wooden steps. One of the back windows was open and latched up on its hook in the ceiling. The sun was on over Botch Town. Ray sat in Jim's chair, staring out over the cardboard roofs. He turned when we came toward him, and he smiled.

“This is cool,” he said, nodding toward the board.

We introduced Mary to Ray and he shook her hand, which made her smile. Jim told Ray about building the town, and Ray kept looking at it, moving his gaze up and down the block.

“He made it out of junk,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Jim, laughing.

Ray lifted up the figure of Mrs. Harrington to get a better look. He turned her around and smiled at what he saw. Placing her carefully back in front of her house, he turned to us and said, “The white guy was outside your house all last night.”

“But the cops told us he was gone,” I said.

“You talked to the cops about him?” he asked.

I told him what had happened in the alley next to the store, how Pop had saved me, and all I'd said to the police. “They're after him,” I said.

He moved the chair around to face the three of us. “I'm telling you, he was parked outside on the street right here last night. I watched him to make sure he wasn't going to try something.”

“Did you make a plan?” asked Jim.

Ray nodded. “I've got something good. Tomorrow night, you two”—he pointed to me and Jim—“sneak out and lead him over to the school. I'm betting he'll be around. It seems now he's after someone in your house. I'll be waiting at the
school. You've got to get there a little before him and run around back. I'll leave a ladder for you. Climb it, and I'll be on the roof. When White shows up, we yell at him from the roof. He'll find his way to the ladder, which once he climbs will put him right near the opening to the courtyard. The minute he steps toward that side of the roof, I'll run into him and knock him into it.”

“He'll be stuck,” I said.

“Right, and either they'll find him there the next day and call the cops or he'll try to break a window and the cops'll come. Then we'll be rid of him for good.” He stood up. “Can you do that?” he asked, moving toward the back window.

I shook my head no, but Jim said, “I'll do it.”

“Good,” said Ray. “I'll be waiting for you.” He reached for the edge of the window frame with both hands, got a good hold, and then pulled his body up in one graceful motion. Like a snake, he slithered through the opening and was gone. We stood quietly for a minute, and then Jim pulled his chair over to the window. He stood on it, unhooked the window from the ceiling, and held it while it swung closed.

“Do you think Mr. White was really out there?” I asked.

Jim brought his chair back to Botch Town and sat down. He picked up the white car, which had lain idle by Hammond for months. He blew dust off it and rubbed it clean with his thumb. “What about it?” he said, turning to Mary.

“I can't tell,” she said, and suddenly she looked older to me, like she'd grown up overnight. There was nothing Mickey about her.

We'd never even looked later on to see if the white car was at the curb, and the next day Jim didn't say a word to me about Ray. I made sure not to mention him either. As afternoon turned into evening, I started to wonder if he'd really go by himself, but the night crept by, and eventually he fell asleep on the couch watching television. When my mother told me to
wake him to go to bed, he made like he was in a daze, but I knew he was faking it. I avoided looking out the front window into the dark and made sure the front door was locked when I went up.

During the following days, we devoted ourselves to summer vacation with the same crazy energy my mother had given to Mount Kilimanjaro. A week went by, and my concern that no one had gone to see Ray began to fade. Still, I listened at night to hear if Jim was sneaking out, but there was only silence. I never mentioned it to him, because I myself was too scared to go, so I had no right to mention it. Always some small part of me expected a face at every window, but I shoved that to the back of my mind and ran harder, swam faster, and thought more deeply when I wrote, in order to fall straight to sleep at night.