Wake (13 page)

There is a long.

Long.

Pause.

“Hot damn,” Captain says finally.

She tosses her half-glasses on the desk. “How’d you do that? You’re…you’re…”

She hesitates.

Continues, almost as if to herself, in a voice tinged with something. It might even be awe.

“You’re a regular Martha Stubin.”

6:40 p.m.

Cabel and Janie are snarfing down grease-burgers and fries at Frank’s Bar & Grille, next door to the police department. They sit at the counter on round red bar swivels, watching the cooks fry burgers five feet away. It’s one of those old-fashioned places, where you can get a malted milk shake.

They eat with abandon, minds whirling.

8:04 p.m.

They are back at Cabel’s house. Cabel shows her around the two rooms she hasn’t seen: his bedroom and the computer room. He has two computers, three printers, a CB radio, and a police scanner.

“Unbelievable,” she says looking around. “Wait—wait one second…. Do you live here alone?”

“I do now.”

“How—”

“I’m nineteen. I was in the class ahead of you until ninth grade. You may remember.”

Janie remembers him flunking into their class. “It was before I knew you,” she remarks.

“My brother pops in now and then, just to see if I’m staying out of trouble. He and his wife live a few miles away. They moved out, thankfully, when I turned eighteen.”

“Thankfully?”

“It’s a really small house. Thin walls. Newlyweds.”

“Ah. What about your parents?”

Cabel lounges on the couch. Janie sits in a chair nearby. “My mom lives in Florida. Somewhere. I think.” He shrugs. “Dad raised us. Sort of. I guess my brother actually raised me.”

Janie curls up in her chair and watches him. He’s far away. She waits.

“Dad was in Vietnam, at the tail end. His mind was messed up.” Cabel looks at her. “When Mom left, he got mean. He pretty much beat the shit out of us….” Cabel looks at the table.

“He died. A few years ago. It’s cool. Yanno? I’m over it. Done.” Cabel gets up off the couch and stretches.

Janie stands up. “Take me back there,” she says.

“What?”

“Show me. The back of the shed.”

He bites his lip. “Okay…” He hesitates. “I haven’t, you know. Been back there in a while. It was—used to be—my hiding place.”

She nods. Gets her coat. Tosses his coat to him. They go out through the back door. Crunch on the frosty grass.

Taste the air for snow.

When they get close, he slows down.

“You go ahead,” he says. He stops at the edge of a small, dormant garden. Janie looks at him. She’s afraid. “Okay,” she says. The grass grows long and squeaks as she walks through it.

Janie slips away into the darkness and disappears from Cabel’s view behind the shed. She stops and peers at the shed, getting her eyes accustomed to the darkness. She sees her spot, where she leans against it in the dreams, and stands there. Looks to the left.

Waits for the monster.

But she knows now that the monster died with his dad.

She crawls to the corner, to view the place where he comes from. She sees it, vividly.

Cabel, leaving the house. Slamming the door.

The man on the steps, yelling. Following.

The punch to Cabel’s face.

The lighter fluid to his belly.

The fire and screaming.

The transformation.

And the monster, running toward her, with knives for fingers. Howling. She’s starting to freak out, in the darkness.

Sucks in a breath.

Needs, desperately needs, to hear it was just a dream.

He’s sitting on the back step. Quiet.

She walks to him. Takes his hand. Leads him inside.

The house is dark. She fumbles for a lamp, and in its glow, they cast shadows on the far wall. She closes the curtains. Takes his coat, and hers, and hangs them over the chairs in the kitchen, and he stands there, watching her.

“Show me,” she says. Her voice shakes a little.

“Show you what? I think you’ve seen it all.” His laugh is hollow, unsettled. Trying to read her mind.

She reaches up, unbuttons his shirt, slowly. He takes in a sharp breath. Closes his eyes for a minute. Then opens them. “Janie,” he says.

His button-down is on the floor.

She pulls the T-shirt up. Just a little. She watches his eyes. He pleads to her with them. Janie slips her fingers under his T-shirt. Touches the warm skin at the sides of his waist. Feels his shallow breathing quicken. Draws her hands upward. Feels the scars.

He draws in a staggering breath and turns his head to the side. His lip shadow quivers on the wall. His Adam’s apple bobs below it. “Oh, Christ,” he says. His voice breaks. And he is shaking.

She lifts the shirt, pulls it over his head.

The burn scars are bumpy like peanut brittle. They pepper his stomach and chest.

She touches them.

Traces them.

Kisses them.

And he’s standing there. Weeping. His hair floating up with winter static. His eyelashes, like hopping spiders in the dim light. He can’t take it.

He bends forward.

Curls over like a sow bug.

Protecting himself.

Dropping to the floor.

“Stop,” he says. “Please. Just stop.”

She does. She hands him his shirt.

He mops his face with it.

Slips it back on.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, and shudders in gripping sobs. She sits next to him on the floor, leaning against the couch. Pulls him to her. He lays his head in her lap and curls up on the floor while she pets his hair. He grips her leg like a teddy bear.

11:13 p.m.

Janie wakes him gently, fingers through his hair. She walks with him to his bedroom. Lies down beside him in his bed, just for a few minutes. Puts his glasses on his bedside table. Holds him. Kisses his cheek.

And goes home.

BUSTING OUT ALL OVER

December 6, 2005, 12:45 p.m.

She waits at his table in the library.

He meets her there.

“I have to work tonight,” she whispers.

“After?” he asks.

“Yes. It’ll be late.”

“I’ll leave the front door unlocked,” he says.

She goes to her usual table.

And he designs a new dream, just for her.

6:48 p.m.

A man checks in at the front desk of Heather Home. He looks around, unfamiliar. She recognizes him, though he’s tinged in gray now. Older. Lined.

“I’ll show you,” Janie says. She leads him to Mr. McVicker’s room. Knocks lightly on the door. Opens it.

Old Johnny McVicker turns toward the door.

Sees his son.

It’s the first time in nearly twenty years.

The old man rises from his chair slowly.

Grabs hold of his walker.

His dinner tray and spoon clatters to the floor. But he doesn’t notice. He’s staring at his son.

Says, way too fast, “I was wrong, Edward. You were right. I’m sorry. I love you, son.”

Edward stops in his tracks.

Takes off his hat. Scratches his head slowly.

Crumples the hat in his hands.

Janie closes the door and goes back to the desk.

11:08 p.m.

She parks her car at her house and sprints through the snow to his.

“I was wild,” she says when she slips in the house. “You shoulda seen me with the bedpans.”

He waited for her. And now he hugs her. Lifts her up. She laughs.

“Can you stay?” he asks. Begs.

“If I go home in the morning,” she says. “Before school.”

“Anything,” he says.

Janie finishes up her homework, shoves it in her backpack, and finds him. He’s sleeping. He’s not wearing a shirt. She crawls into his bed and marvels silently at his stomach and chest. He breathes deeply. She settles in.

For now, anyway.

He knows she might have to go away.

Get away from his dreams, so she can sleep.

But when he dreams the fire dream, and meets her behind the shed, kisses and cries, begging for help, she reaches for his fingers in her blind, numb state and takes him with her into it, so he can watch himself.

She shows him how to change it.

It’s your dream, she reminds him.

And she shows him how to turn the man on the step, the man who carries the lighter fluid and the cigarette, into the man on the step whose hands are empty, whose head is bowed. Who says, “I’m sorry.”

When they both wake, the sun streams in the window.

It’s 11:21 a.m. On a Wednesday.

They exclaim and laugh, loud and long. Because there’s not one single parent between them who gives a damn.

Instead, they lounge on a giant beanbag in the computer room together, talking, listening to music.

They play truth or dare.

But it’s all truth.

For both of them.

Janie: Why did you tell me you wanted to see me that first Sunday after Stratford, and then you didn’t show?

Cabel: I knew I had to hit that party—I was going to come back early. I didn’t know we were going to hold a fake bust. I got sent to jail overnight, just to make me look real. I was devastated. Captain let me out at six the next morning. That’s when I left the note on Ethel.

Janie: Did you ever sell drugs?

Cabel: Yes. Pot. Ninth and tenth grade. I was, uh…rather troubled, back then.

Janie: Why did you stop?

Cabel: Got busted, and Captain made me a better deal. Janie: So you’ve been a narc since then? Cabel: I cringe at your terminology. Most narcs are young cops planted in schools to catch students. Captain had a different idea. She’s not after the students, she’s after the supplier. Who happens to be Shay’s father. And she thought this was a good way to go—

since he’s starting to sell coke to kids at the parties. And implies he’s got a gold mine somewhere. I’ve got to get him to say it on mic.

Janie: So you’re a double agent?

Cabel: Sure. That sounds sexy.

Janie: You’re sexy. Hey, Cabel?

Cabel: Yeah?

Janie: Did you really flunk ninth grade?

Cabel: No. (pause) I was in the hospital, most of that year. Janie: (silence) And thus, the drugs.

Cabel: Yes…they helped with the pain. But then I got myself into a few, well, uh, situations. And Captain stepped in my life at exactly the right moment before junior year, before I was too far in trouble. And it sounds weird, but she became sort of this army-type, no-nonsense mother I desperately needed. That was the Goth stage, where I decided I’d never get the girl of my dreams because of my scars. Not to mention the hairstyle. (pause) But then she slammed a door handle into my gut. And when a girl does that to a boy, it means she likes him.

Janie: (laughs)

Cabel: So that made me feel better. Because she didn’t care what people thought if she spoke to me. Before I changed. (pause)

Janie: (smiles) Why did you change it? Your look, I mean.

Cabel: Captain’s orders. For the job. It’s not my car, either, by the way. It’s part of the image. I suppose I’ll have to give it back after a while. (pause) Hey, Janie?

Janie: Yeah?

Cabel: What are you doing after high school?

Janie: (sighs) It’s still up in the air, I guess. In two years, I’ve barely saved enough money for one semester at U of M…God, that’s just crazy…so, unless I get a decent scholarship, it’ll be community college.

Cabel: So you’re staying around here?

Janie: Yeah…I, uh, I need to be close enough so I can keep an eye on my mother, you know? And…I think, with my little “problem,” I’m going to have to live at home. Or I’ll never get any sleep. Cabel: Janie?

Janie: Yes?

Cabel: I’m going there. To U of M.

Janie: You are NOT.

Cabel: Criminal Justice. So I can keep my job here. Janie: How do you know? Did you get an acceptance letter already? How can you afford it?

Cabel: Um, Janie?

Janie: Yesss, Cabel?

Cabel: I have another lie to confess.

Janie: Oh, dear. What is it?

Cabel: I do, actually, know what my GPA is.

Janie: And?

Cabel: And. I have a full-ride scholarship.

Cabel is pushed violently from the beanbag chair. And pounced upon. And told, repeatedly, what a bastard he is.

Janie is told that she will most certainly get a scholarship too, with her grades. Unless she plays hooky with drug dealers.

And then there is some kissing.

December 10, 2005

The weekend is shot. Cabel is back to courting Shay, and Janie is working Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday first shifts at the nursing home.

But Carrie finds Janie. And Janie, worried that the drug bust will go down over the weekend, really doesn’t want Carrie mixed up in it. She asks Carrie if she wants to study for exams sometime. They reluctantly agree on Saturday night at Janie’s.

Carrie shows up around six p.m., and she’s already loaded. Janie makes her haul out her books and notes, anyway. “Are you gonna go to college or not?” she asks sharply.

“Well, sure,” Carrie says. “I guess. Unless Stu wants to get married.”

“Does he?”

“I think so. Maybe. Sometime.”

“Do you?” Janie asks, after a moment.

“Sure, why not. Get me away from my parents.”

“Your parents aren’t that bad, really. Are they?”

Carrie grimaces. “You should have seen them before.”

“Before what?”

“Before we moved in next door to you.”

Janie hesitates. Trying to decide if this is the right time to ask. “Hey, Carrie?”

“What.”

“Who’s Carson?”

Carrie stares at Janie. “What did you just say?”

“I said, who is Carson?”

Carrie’s face grows alarmed. “How do you know about Carson?”

“I don’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t need to ask.” Janie is walking a thin line here. One she can’t see.

Carrie, obviously troubled, paces around the kitchen. “But how did you know to ask me about him?”

“You said his name once,” Janie says carefully, “in your sleep. I was just curious.”

Carrie sloshes some vodka in a glass. Sits down. Starts to cry. Oh, shit, Janie thinks.

And then Carrie spills the story.

“Carson…was four.”