Wintertide: A Novel (9 page)

Seth bristled at that. "Give
me a break. You don't know anything about my parents."

"I know your daddy has enough
money to send you and your sister to college and pay for his whore on the
side."

"Screw you!" Seth yelled
at him.

 Eddie stood and put his face close
to Seth's. Close enough to force Seth to take a step back. "What did you
say?"

Our quiet evening had quickly taken
a sharp left turn. "Come on, relax," I said trying to ease the
tension. "All our fathers are sons of bitches. We all got screwed in the
dad department. All right?"

Eddie turned his anger on me. "You're
such a goddamned hypocrite. Don't you ever compare yourself to me.” His eyes
were bloodshot. The heavy iron fireplace poker swung loosely in his hand. "Your
father never laid a hand on you. He never came home in the middle of the night
with some drunk bitch and kicked you out of the house into the snow. He never
put you in the hospital because you forgot to take out the garbage. You both
make me sick. You have no idea what real life is like. You have no fucking
clue!”  

Eddie now gripped the poker with
both hands and smashed it against one of the chairs. When the material ripped
easily, he hit it again with more force. The wooden armrest splintered with a
satisfying crack. Eddie slammed the poker into the chair again and again. Seth
and I stood there shocked. I started to back away toward the open window. The
chair's legs finally broke off completely. Fresh wood lay in pieces on the
floor. He was now tearing at the cushions. The white stuffing poured out,
getting caught on the sharp tip of the instrument Eddie brought smashing down
while he grunted loudly. Seth now stood between Eddie and I, looking back and
forth, realizing that I meant to leave him there. Eddie and I weren’t friends.
I had no intention of calming him down or trying to make him feel better about
his miserable life. I wanted to go home and go to sleep. Seth looked at me
again, seeming torn at first, but then he made his decision.

He had just started walking toward
me when a light came on. The four walls of the room jumped out at us without
warning. We all froze. Eddie, who was breathing hard, turned to look toward the
doorway. A man stood there in red flannel pajamas. His straight brown hair hung
down into his face. He had obviously just woken up.

"What the hell are you doing
in here?” He didn't seem frightened by us, only angry.

I was next to the open window that
had been our entrance, and I fully intended to save myself, perched to dash out
and run back down the hill. But then the man looked at Eddie. If he hadn't said
anything else, maybe we could have all gotten away successfully. The night
would have ended and I would have remembered my last time with Eddie and Seth
as simply another close call. But that’s not what happened.

"I know you," the man
said pointing at Eddie who stood there defiantly, his eyes still filled with anger.
"You patched a tire for me on my way into town. You work over at the
garage, don't you? What are you doing here?"

That was it. Even if we escaped now,
the man could track Eddie down. I should have guessed then what Eddie would do.
Seth knew and he grasped my arm forcefully whispering, "Let's go. Now."

I didn't move. I think I had
resigned myself to being caught at that point. But I should have realized that
Eddie's first instinct would be violence. It was what he knew best. It was what
he had lived with for over twenty years. His movements were swift, but clumsy. He
was drunk, but not too drunk. He lunged at the man, the poker swinging back
behind his head like a baseball bat. The man barely had enough time to step
back before Eddie was on him. The poker came around quickly, whistling through
the air, hitting the side of the man's head with a muffled thud. His head caved
in, buckling and bleeding. He went down, falling to his side into the next
room, out of view. Eddie followed him, the poker drawn back again, ready to
swing. I only saw Eddie now, his eyes squinting with rage, his lips drawn back
from his teeth as the poker came down again and again.

It had all happened in an instant.
Finally, I found my voice. "Stop!  Eddie, stop!"

This woke Seth up who still stood
beside me. I had started to move toward Eddie with the thought of stopping him.
Seth grabbed my arm and held me back. He began pushing me toward the window. "Jesus,
he’s killing him. We've got to get out of here. Come on, go!”

My preservation instinct kicked in,
and I finally managed to command my frozen legs to move. A part of me thought
Eddie might come after us when he finished here. I hurled myself through the
open window, landing on all fours. Seth was just behind me, nearly falling on
top of me. He pulled me up by the arm and then ran ahead of me. I ran after him
into the woods, dashing down the hill so quickly I nearly tripped over my own
feet. The cold air seared my lungs, and I slid down as much as I ran. We were
nearly at the bottom of the hill before I realized that a thin layer of white
covered the ground. It was snowing.

We came out of the woods at the
parking lot of the Southside Tavern. Seth turned nervously and looked over my
shoulder. There was no sign of Eddie. His car stood empty next to mine. The
Southside Tavern was closed. The neon sign was turned off. Large white flakes
fell from the sky, resting on Seth's hair and shoulders. He put his hands up to
his face. "Jesus,” he breathed, “no one was supposed to be there."

I couldn’t form a response.  My
breath was coming in painful gasps from the run. This was a nightmare. I kept
looking into the woods, expecting Eddie to burst out at us with the poker
poised above his head, angry that we left him.

I fished my keys out of my pocket. A
momentary wave of terror washed over me when I couldn't at first locate them. "Get
in the car," I said. Seth followed me quickly, as eager as I to leave. I
started the motor and pulled out of the parking lot. There was still no sign of
Eddie. I began to drive toward Seth's house. He shifted uncomfortably beside
me, alternating between rubbing his hands across his face and staring out the
window.

  I hit the brakes suddenly,
bringing the car to a screeching halt. Seth looked horrified. "What are
you doing?"

"We have to call an
ambulance." I dug my cell phone out of my pocket.

"What? Are you crazy?” Seth
yelled at me.

My head was spinning. We couldn’t
just leave.

He turned to me and began to speak
in a calmer voice. "Look, we have to go home and keep our mouths shut.
That guy is dead. I mean, Jesus, you saw what happened to his head. There’s nothing
we can do to help him."

My hands shook as I grasped the
cold steering wheel.

"We don't have a choice, Dan,”
Seth continued. “Unless you want your life as you know it to end right now, you
need to keep driving.”

I realized that I wanted to do what
he said. Unless we were ready to explain everything to the police, there was
nothing else to do except go home and try to pretend the whole thing had never
happened. I didn’t want to let one stupid night with Eddie possibly ruin my
life.

I drove the rest of the way
silently, my frozen fingers gripping the wheel. We finally pulled up in front
of his house. The windows were dark. There didn’t appear to be anyone awake. The
grass on the front lawn was poking up through the fresh snow in dried yellow
shafts. I slammed the car into park.

"Eddie's crazy," Seth
said with a shaky voice.

“Ya think?” I yelled, banging my
hand on the steering wheel. Then I looked over at him. Even in the darkness, I
could see the beads of sweat that dotted his forehead. I took a shaky breath
and tried to calm down. Something I had always known instinctively was now
shockingly clear. "He hates us, Seth. Eddie really despises us. He's
probably always felt that way."

Seth shook his head. "He was
drunk. He wasn’t behaving rationally.”

"I think for the first time we
finally saw the real Eddie. We should consider going to the police.” I didn’t
really want to, but I couldn’t not put a voice to the glaring rationality
screaming inside my head.

Seth jerked up straight in his seat.
"What? No. Look, we don't even know who that guy was. He could have broken
into that place, too."

"He's not some homeless person.
He had a car that Eddie serviced. He lives there."

"My dad can't find out about
this. Okay? We can't help that guy now, whoever he is. We didn't beat him to
death. Going to the police isn't going to accomplish anything. Do you want your
parents finding out that you broke into a house tonight with Eddie McKenna and
watched him kill someone?"

I couldn't respond. It was too much
to think about; the consequences, the repercussions, the way that man's head
caved in.

"We’ll have to come up with a
story about where we were after we left the bar," Seth said, running a
shaky hand through his hair.

I watched the snow float down from
the night sky. I heard Seth, but I was unable to arrange my scattered thoughts
into anything cohesive.

Seth startled suddenly. "What
if Eddie comes by my house tonight?"

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Don't
open the door. Pretend you're not home."

He turned to me serious and controlled,
more so than I thought him capable of at that moment. "Look, if Eddie was
smart, he got out of there, too. No one saw us going up to that house. No one
is going to know we were there if we all just keep quiet. We have to stick
together, okay? If anyone ever asks us anything about this, we'll never mention
the house. When we left the bar, you and I went back to my house, and Eddie
went somewhere else. We don't know what he did. He can worry about himself."
Seth squeezed his eyes shut. "God, what a mess. You and I will stick
together. All right?"

“So you’re turning on Eddie and sticking
with me," I said flatly.

Seth and I looked at one another in
the darkness. My statement hung between us as did my skepticism. The last time Seth
was given a choice, he didn’t choose me.

He was the first to break eye
contact. "Everything will be okay,” he said. “
We
didn’t kill anyone.”

I felt myself automatically
nodding. I wanted to believe it would all be okay.

"I’m going inside. We have to
act normal now. Can you do that?"

"That depends on your
definition of normal," I answered.

A shadow of a smile touched his
lips. “Just stay cool,” he told me as he opened the door. A cold gust of wind
swept inside. Seth stepped out into the night and looked back at me through the
window for a moment. Then he walked up to his front door.

I don’t even remember the drive
home. I was reliving that moment in the house the entire ride. I can't recall
looking at the road at all.

When I pulled into my driveway and
saw that the windows in the house were dark, my relief was palpable. My feet
left prints in the newly fallen snow as I ascended the walkway. I fumbled with
my keys, my hand unsteady. Then I stepped inside quickly, closed the door
behind me and leaned back against it breathing slowly. The house was quiet. Shadows
draped softly across the floors and walls. A clock ticked rhythmically. My
father's truck was in the driveway. They were both asleep.

I moved as silently as I could up
the stairs and down the hallway. The floorboards creaked beneath me marking my
progression. Once in my room, I closed the door, shouldered off my coat and sat
down on the bed. Only a few hours ago I was preparing to go out. Had all this
occurred in just a few short hours? I didn't bother to change out of my clothes
when I laid myself down on my bed. Suddenly, that familiar smell of mothballs
seemed unbearable to me. I threw the pillow down onto the floor and rested my
head on the flat mattress. The usual shadows that moved across my ceiling were
dim in the absence of moonlight.

What was Eddie doing right now, I
thought? Had he just left the man there and ran away? Did he go home? Was he
planning to pretend nothing had happened? I wondered if that man was all alone
there. What if there was someone else upstairs? I forced myself not to consider
that. It brought up too many other variables and possibilities. I felt nauseous
and turned over onto my side. I pointedly determined not to recall Eddie's face
during that terrifying moment. But it was not so easy to forget that noise, the
thumping sound the poker made as it smashed into the man's head.

I tried to think of anything else,
my class schedule for next semester, Traci, the redhead I’d slept with a few
weeks ago who wouldn’t stop calling me. Then my eyes opened wide in the
darkness. I had to work for Professor Sheffield in the morning. How was I ever
going to concentrate on those notebooks? I closed my eyes again and forced
myself to take a deep breath. I wanted to drive back to school tomorrow, pack
my bag, kiss my mother good-bye and just leave. But tomorrow night was
Christmas Eve. Despite my overwhelming, nearly suffocating desire to leave, I
simply couldn't. If those around me couldn't perceive anything was wrong by my
behavior, then darting off to Boston without warning would certainly alert them.
I was stuck, not figuratively anymore, but literally.

I did sleep fitfully, dreamlessly. Dropping
off for a moment, only to awaken and realize it was still dark out. After an
eternity, a dim glow gradually lit my bedroom. I looked out the window and saw
that the clouds had moved out during the night. I watched as the violet sky slowly
became grey and then blue. When I sat up, my neck ached from being overextended
all night, my jeans and shirt were wrinkled, and my mouth was parched and sour.
My legs were stiff from all the desperate running. I pushed a rough, dry hand
through my hair, listening to my own even breathing. Did Eddie kill a man last
night?