Creeps (11 page)

FOUR

His father parks in front of the strip mall and shuts off the car. Grips the steering wheel and stares forward, then takes the keys out of the ignition and puts them in his pocket and says to Wayne, “Back in a minute.” He opens the door and Wayne says,

“No, you won't.”

“What?”

“Be back in a minute.”

His father—half of him inside the car and half of him out—seems unsure suddenly, as if he's forgotten what he's supposed to be doing right in the middle of doing it. For ages his dad stays that way and the cold's getting in and it occurs to Wayne that staying where you are isn't always the wrong thing, but then the car door slams shut and his father is walking away and tucking his chin into his coat
collar because the wind has picked up since leaving Pete The Meat's.

Wayne watches him pass Mike's Convenience, a dollar store, an arcade, and Pizza Delight before coming to a stop in front of a neon sign with some of its letters burnt out.
ERB'S HID AWAY
it says, although Wayne knows it's
HERB'S HIDEAWAY
because it's the place his mother most often accuses his father of going to.

His dad puts his hands in his pockets and stares at the sign for ages, then pulls open the door and goes in.

Wayne waits and wonders why his father wouldn't have left the car running. Freeze to death in here. Can't even listen to the radio or a CD. He breathes on the window and fogs it up and writes the word
weak
, then wipes it away. Thinks then of The Meat's handshake and of his own fingers nearly breaking and the way Pete walked him and his father to the door afterwards and then stood on the porch waving until they drove away.
You're dead, Pumphrey … coming to my house. Fuckin' DEAD.

The door to Herb's opens and a man comes out and he lights a cigarette and takes a few drags and walks away.

Wayne notices the e in hideaway flash on for a second, then go out again. He zips up his jacket.

One-thirty becomes two-thirty and Wayne's
freezing just sitting in the car, so he gets out and starts walking. Past Mike's Convenience, the dollar store, the arcade, and Pizza Delight, and then stopping where his father stopped. He moves to the window and presses his nose against the glass but there's too much frost to see anything. He moves to the door but doesn't go in. A woman walks past and makes some comment about how Herb's is a grown-up place and why isn't he in school anyway, and Wayne looks down at his feet and pretends not to hear. When she's gone, he lifts his head and opens the door a crack and tries to get a peek inside, but it's too dark and there's country music and the sound of a slot machine. He opens the door wider and slips in and stands in the foyer, listening to the music. The singer's singing about where he's going to live when he gets home, and how his old lady has thrown out everything he owns.

A woman shouts.

Someone curses.

He takes a few steps and looks around the corner. A man with a beer belly and wearing a ball cap is playing the slot machine while a woman with an even bigger beer belly is standing behind him. She grips his shoulder and says, “Come on, Kyle, you've played long enough.”

“Leave me,” Kyle says.

“Aren't we going out? You said we were.”

“This
is
out.”

There's no one else in the place save for Wayne's father sitting at the bar, his fist wrapped around a Bacardi Dark, and a tall bartender who's busy flicking the stations on a TV that appears to be suspended from the ceiling.

The woman says, “‘Somewhere nice,' you said.”

“Go home out of it, Tammy; you're bad luck.”

“Cocksucker!”

“Hey!” says the bartender.

Tammy turns to the bartender and says, “Tell him to stop, Bert.”

Bert rests his hands on the bar and leans across it. “He wants to spend his money on my machine, I'm not going to stop him.”

“
His
money!”

“I don't care whose it is, Tammy; just keep it down, okay. I'd like a few minutes' peace before Happy Hour.”

Tammy sulks and waddles off and sits at a table by herself.

His father lifts his empty glass, so Bert gets him another and plunks it down. His dad takes a long sip and wipes his mouth on his coat sleeve and then says something to Bert, which makes Bert laugh. Then Tammy's saying, “You let youngsters in here now?”

“Huh?” Bert says, looking to where Tammy's pointing.

Wayne suddenly realizes that it's him they're looking at. Then his father is staring too and Wayne thinks about going back to the car, but then his dad is asking Bert if it's all right if his boy comes in and Bert nods and says, “Come on over, young fella, so we can get a look at ya.”

Wayne walks up to the bar and Tammy says, “He's awful tiny,” and Bert says, “He
is
small, Calvin.” Then his father reaches out and messes Wayne's hair and asks why he's not waiting in the car and Wayne says because it's freezing and his father laughs and roots around in his pocket and pulls out the keys and hands them to Wayne.

“How old's he?” Tammy says.

“Fifteen,” says his father.

She laughs and says, “He looks younger.”

Wayne's thankful for the gloom, because he feels his face grow hot.

Bert says, “Nothing wrong with looking young, eh, Wayne?”

Wayne nods.

“I suppose,” Tammy says.

Kyle punches the slot machine and says, “Jesus Christ!”

“Kyle!” shouts Bert. “What did I tell you about hitting the machine?”

“I'm sorry, Bert, but she's not giving me an inch today.”

Tammy says, “And he could sure
use
an inch, too.”

“That's fine talk there, Tammy,” goes Kyle. Then to Wayne's dad and Bert: “The filth that comes outta that woman's mouth.”

“Let's go home, Kyle.
Please
.”

“In a bloody minute. Give me a toonie.”

“I won't.”

“Come on, Tammy, a measly toonie's not gonna kill ya.”

“No, but the thirty dollars you've already spent will. I was supposed to buy Mom a birthday gift.”

“For God's sake, your mother doesn't know Osama bin Laden's dead.”

“You're heartless, Kyle.”

“If you give me a toonie, I'll massage your toes later.”

Tammy pauses, then reaches into her purse and says to Bert and Wayne's dad, “He knows how to play me, that one.” She goes over and gives Kyle the money and Kyle winks and pats her bottom and drops the coin in and starts playing. Tammy stays watching.

“Go on now, Wayne,” his dad says. “I shouldn't be much longer.”

“Can't you come now?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“
Wayne
… go wait in the car.”

Wayne turns around and starts walking and hears Bert say, “Nice to meet you,” and then Kyle shouting, “Three cherries!” and then Tammy clapping.

Wayne pushes open the door and goes outside and it's colder somehow and the sun's already lower in the sky. He makes his way back to the car and sits in the driver's seat and turns the ignition and blasts the heat. He puts in a blank CD and it must be his mother's, because Rita MacNeil is singing about being a working man and living underground, so Wayne turns it off and sits there in silence. But then he puts the CD in again and turns it up and why shouldn't he listen to it? The heat or Rita's folksy voice makes Wayne drowsy, so he rests his head against the steering wheel and sleeps.

Wayne's choking on a Rice Krispie square as Nickelback sings that song from the first
Spider-Man
movie. Pete's second dad must be stoking the fire still, because it's so hot. Someone's on top of him and it's his father wanting to know why his son would eat yellow snow and piss his pants and run away instead of fighting. And Wayne tries to answer, but there's no voice, and then his father is laughing
and drinking Bacardi Dark and some of it spills into Wayne's eyes and it burns and he cries out—

He wakes and sits back and tries to catch his breath. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and turns off the heat because it's like a sauna. It's dark outside. He looks at the time and it's nearly four-thirty and his mother must be getting supper ready while Wanda drinks Diet Coke and dreams of being kidnapped and taken on tour by Chad Kroeger.

Then the door opens and his father is telling him to scoot over, so Wayne climbs into the passenger side and buckles his seat belt and thinks about walking instead. But then his father is backing out and putting the car in drive and the wheels are spinning on the ice for ages until finding traction. No signal light when his father makes a left onto Marconi Street. No stopping at the stop sign farther along, either. A motorist coming in the other direction blasts her horn because she's supposed to have the right-of-way.

“Slow down,” Wayne says.

His father doesn't. Takes the turn onto Glendale Street too sharply and the car fishtails and Wayne presses his palms against the dash and a light pole nearly takes out the side mirror.

“Dad!”

“What?”

“You're all over the road!”

His father eases up on the gas and pushes in the car lighter. After a while he says, “If your mother asks, Pete's father handed me a beer and what, I'm supposed to refuse a man in his own house?” He fumbles for his cigarettes. “Don't mention that I was smoking in the car, either.” He frees one from the pack and jams it between his lips and then takes the left onto Willow Avenue.

In the silence, Wayne breathes in rum and wonders if it's possible to get drunk off the fumes, then the lighter pops and his father grabs it and lights his cigarette and blows a steady stream of smoke out through his nose. Cracks the window.

No words between them.

His dad puffs.

Wayne steals glances at the speedometer.

A long ash on the cigarette now, which his father tries flicking out the window, but it lands on his pants, so he curses and tries wiping it away and doesn't see the yellow light that's turning red up ahead nor the lady and her border collie, so Wayne shouts
“Dad!”
and his father looks up and brakes hard and the car slides halfway into the intersection.

“Watch where you're going!”
screams the woman, showing her middle finger. Her dog barks and gets to its hind legs.

His father goes to back up, but there's a car waiting, so he stays where he is.

“I've got your licence plate number,” says the woman.

His dad ignores her and when the light turns green he stomps on the gas like his foot's a hundred pounds and soon the woman and her dog disappear so completely into the blackness that Wayne's not sure they were there at all.

His father throws his cigarette out the window and turns onto Lakeside Drive. Then he's shaking his head and cursing under his breath and when Wayne asks, he says, “Don't ever eat yellow snow again.”

Wayne looks away, out the passenger-side window. Grips the door handle because home's not far away and he longs to be underneath his comforter where, if he tries hard enough, he might be able to pretend that no piss had run down his leg, and no old lady had been staring out her window, and no father had gone into Herb's Hideaway as one person and then emerged as another. He might pretend too that Pete's handshake had been real and he could walk to school tomorrow and every day after without ever having to look over his shoulder again.

An approaching vehicle turns on its high beams. “You're too far over,” Wayne says.

His father snaps out of it and torques the wheel and gets the car back into its own lane as the other vehicle goes by.

Wayne looks back and sees brake lights and then
the car that's just passed is turning around and the person driving is reaching out and placing something on the roof, and that something's a siren and it's flashing and the car's coming in their direction.

“Jesus Christ,” his father says, pulling over to the curb.

The ghost car stops behind them and the police officer switches on the cab light and sits there for a moment, staring ahead, then reaches over and grabs his hat and puts it on and gets out of the car and he must be seven feet across and it's hard to tell if he's got a neck.

A hard grip on his leg then, just above the knee, and his father's saying, “Not a word.”

Wayne nods.

Then knuckles rap against the window.

FIVE

“Bastard!” Wayne's mother shouts.

His father sits down at the kitchen table and tries to wipe away the ink on his fingertips.

“And Wayne in the car, too,” his mother says.

His dad can't seem to lift his head.

“Kill yourself, go ahead, but your
own son
! Not to mention someone else's son. You should be ashamed of yourself.”