Glass Boys (26 page)

“TELL YOUR BROTHER if he does that again, he may as well stay out.”

“Stay out?” Toby said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Yes, stay out. By Jesus, if he lives in this house, he got to live by my rules.”

“So, don't come home at all?”

“That's what I said, Toby.” To Melvin, “You idn't going to torture me, my son.” Then, back to Toby. “Tell your brother he idn't going to torture me. Staying out all bloody night.”

Toby sighed, tucked his hands into the pockets of his bathrobe. Navy terrycloth, now a riddle of hitches. He looked at his brother, sunken cheeks and eyes, skin the color of ocean sediment.

“Did you hear, Mellie?” he said gently. “Did you hear what Dad said?”

Melvin, who was not more than six feet from the pacing Lewis, said, “Nope. Didn't hear fuck all.”

Toby took another step. “He said he don't want you staying out all night.”

“What do it matter?”

“He said he got real worried, Mel.”

Lewis threw his hands up in the air. “That's not what I said, Toby. I said, if he does it again, he'll be out on his bloody ass. Can find some other idiot to put up with his nonsense.” He ripped his keys off the hook, leaving the wooden hanger at a sharp angle. Kicked open the screen door, yelled over his shoulder, “Tell him, I wants that load of wood piled up in the basement by the time I gets home. He can toss it in through the window, then stack it up. And Toby, you go back to bed.” Muttering as the door closed. “Up all night waiting for your good-for-nothing brother.”

INSIDE LEWIS'S HEAD, two halves of a single idea were buzzing loudly, yet not connecting. He could sense the near misses right behind his eyes, and the useless buzz was giving him a headache. There was no relief inside his car, so he pulled off on the gravel shoulder, got out. Without thinking, he slammed the door, walked towards the ditch, and with one giant childlike leap he entered the forest. Years had passed since he'd strolled among these trees, and a patchy darkness came down around him as soon as he was a few yards in. It didn't take long to locate one of the winding paths, and even though they were softer, the criss-crossing roots thicker, Lewis's body knew which way to turn, where to lift his foot. He was confident in his choices, and these days, something that simple, that undemanding, gave him comfort.

Drizzle had stopped an hour earlier, but the naked twigs were still dripping. Lewis could hear the drops striking the soggy floor. He reached the narrowest part of the stream and looked up at the sky. The moon had dipped and the sun had not yet crested the horizon. There was no glimmer of a sunrise, and Lewis could already tell the day would promise nothing but dense clouds, faint stunted shadows.

The water reasonably low, he stepped onto the skipping stones, and when he was halfway across he nearly slipped, flapped his arms to balance himself, and there was his brother Roy. The memory rising up before him. How often as children had they stopped on those greasy stones, each holding the other's hands, not for support, but to see who could upset the other. Roy was always the winner, as he was shorter and faster and stronger. Lewis was gangly, and until adulthood he'd never quite got used to the length of his arms and legs. But standing there now, the stream gurgling past him, Lewis realized there was some other reason why Roy always won. Roy was someone who lunged first, contemplated later, while Lewis studied probabilities and angles. What if. So instead of figuring on how to dislodge Roy, Lewis focused on how to fall without hurting himself.

Lewis crossed the shallow water, walked up the slope on the other side, headed west towards the road that led to his grandfather's abandoned house. He tried to limit those moments when he thought about Roy, as the years had done nothing to sew up the hole inside of him. Still big enough to put a hand in there. Big enough to truly hurt. On that afternoon when Roy was killed, Lewis's good sense was absent. His ability to see what might happen was soused. And Lewis knew if he prodded too long, the truth of his culpability would come out into the light. Why had they trespassed onto Fagan's farm—why hadn't they wandered into town? Though his recollection was rotted, Lewis had the sneaky suspicion he directed Roy there. Through the woods and into Fagan's backyard. Lewis wouldn't have wanted to expose himself, staggering down the main streets, a new constable. Drunk on some bootlegger's potato whiskey. It was Eli's hand who drew the blood, no question there, but Lewis knew he was as much to blame as anyone. On those stepping stones back at the stream, Lewis had only thought about the safety of his own head. Never considered Roy's.

At the end of a dirt road, close to a cliff that lined the ocean, Lewis came to the old house. Some windows broken, others boarded up, long yellowed grass standing in front of the door. Lewis walked up the driveway, saw an abandoned saw beside a few lengths of gray clapboard. Blade on the saw dark orange with rust. Roy had had plans to clean the house up, make it new again. Once he found a woman foolish enough to marry him. He wanted to sit up in bed each morning, he'd often said, know what kind of day lay ahead by peering out at the sea. Tips of the waves iced or bare. None of that would happen now, and Lewis stepped on the saw, felt the decayed metal snap beneath his boot.

Off in the distance behind the house, Lewis saw the outhouse. A weathered box of splintering wood. He went over to it, overgrown grass wetting his pants, and placed his hands on the damp wood. He remembered the afternoon he and Roy trapped their grandfather inside. Roy's idea, of course, but as always Lewis was carried along for the ride. A gusty summer day, clouds running across a blue sky, and the boys saw their pop making his way through the field towards the outhouse, catalogue flapping under his arm. Once enough time was allowed for him to settle, Roy and Lewis crept up, and one, two, three, heave. They slammed the poorly anchored outhouse with their four open hands, and the back lifted, wobbled, tipped. Hit the ground. Flash of white, a dark crevice, and they bolted over the field, guts in knots of laughter, feet not touching the ground. Crouching underneath an outdoor table, they watched the slender man shimmy out through the hole in the wooden seat, narrowly missing the larger hole in the earth. Stunned, he stood, adjusted his clothes, put a hand to his brow, and stared out to the sea. Hobbled back to the house, scratching his head. He and Roy stood whistling, the image of angels, asked what happened. “Gust of wind,” he'd replied. “Caught hold to the roof. Good t'ing yer nanny weren't perched in there. She'd never get out!” Guilt soon bloomed, and confession not being an option Roy and Lewis spent three days sawing and stacking a half cord of spruce. Palms weeping, necks and shoulders blistered from the burning sun.

Lewis thought then about Melvin and Toby. And he wondered if they had a single story like that one. He started back down the road. His legs were tired, but the ache felt good, and his headache retreated. Mrs. Verge's house was only a quarter or so of a mile, and he decided to stop by there. It was late enough now, and Lewis knew she would have hot coffee percolating. A chair at her table. A pair of ears that were capable of listening. A word of two of womanly advice.

When he arrived, the kitchen was bright and warm. Mrs. Verge was tucked into a rocking chair, her slippered foot moving her back and forth. Not much more than a fold of fabric balanced in the crook of her arm. A woman, Terry's young wife, was seated at the table, her face tight and pale, like dough made with dead yeast. When she saw Lewis, she stood, but not upright, and starting shuffling out of the kitchen, gripping her zippered bathrobe with her fist. Lewis was not insulted by her turned-down expression, he had seen it often. People who didn't want to be near him, a man who enforced the rules. People didn't trust their own mouths.

“Do you mind?” she said to Mrs. Verge.

“No, honey. You go on. Rest all you can. While you can.”

Lewis sat down in her spot, wood still warm.

“Where's Terry?”

“Gone long ago.”

“Working?”

“Yes, oh yes. Helping Skipper Neary fix his nets. Terry got a way with knots.”

“Right.” Lewis looked up at the ceiling. Wondered where the joists would meet behind the drywall.

“The boys?”

Lewis sighed. “You got me, Mrs. Verge.”

“Pay it no mind, now. They'll find their way.” Voice lowered.

“Who would've guessed only a few years ago that my Terry'd be up before dawn earning a dollar, married now, and with this wee one?”

“I guess so.” He smiled.

“No guessing about it. Take heart, my son. Take heart.”

“Thank-you, Mrs. Verge.”

“And look at this, now.” She angled her arm so a tiny scrunched face was revealed. “If this don't warm you from the inside out, I don't know what will. Right fresh. Angels still got a hold to him. He's still being born.”

“Is that what you thinks?”

“Not what I thinks, Lewis. What I knows. That's why you got to hold them for six weeks or more. Make sure they feels safe enough to stay put in this world.”

“That's a nice way to consider it, Mrs. Verge.”

“Do you want to hold the little man?”

First instinct was to shake his head, but he could see Wilda clearly in his mind, how rarely she cuddled their sons, how she stared at them with anxiety instead of wonder. And how he was busy, working all hours, keeping the house in good repair whenever he had a free afternoon. He was certain he had unlimited time to connect. Unlimited time to be the best dad. And now, time had slipped away, personalities had set, and he had no idea how to reach his son. All the shouting and shaking and slamming down his fist didn't make a damn bit of difference. Melvin would not stop flailing in the darkness.

“You can't make someone open their eyes,” Lewis said. Out loud.

“No, no, he's sleeping. The little lover.”

Lewis looked at Mrs. Verge, a lady who wanted nothing more out of life than a happy family, a few good meals, and a reliable fire in the woodstove. “Yes, I'd love to. To hold him. I would, Mrs. Verge.”

“Will you stop calling me that?” she whispered. “I have a name, you know. And I'm not old, yet.”

“Oh. Oh. I'll try to remember.”

Lewis took the child in his arms, stared into the face, slightly yellow with a flattened nose. He sighed again, and couldn't help but relax. Couldn't resist the calm that settled over him. The simple joy he felt being in the company of Mrs. Verge. Peggy.

Then, snap, the two halves of that idea collided, stuck. The break-ins. Every targeted household familiar to Lewis and the boys. Melvin out during the nights. Most men would be able to dismiss it. Defend their sons. But Lewis had doubts. And did not believe in coincidences.

SILENCE IN THE KITCHEN, and Toby went to the cupboard, removed a bowl, found a box of cereal. “You want some?”

“Nope.”

“You want toast? I makes good toast. I can burn it just a bit like you likes it.”

“No, Toad. I don't want no toast.” Melvin pressed his fingertips into his eyes, then massaged his scalp as though he were washing his hair without shampoo.

“Mellie?”

“Yeah.”

“You go on. Dad'll be gone 'til supper, and I'll do the wood. I likes doing wood. If you leaves it, it'll be like doing me a favor.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He was just worried, is all. Didn't mean it.”

“Yeah. Sure. He don't get it.”

“No.”

“No one gets it.”

“I do, Mel. I get it.”

“No, you don't. And I don't want you to.”

As Melvin started across the kitchen, his body went sideways, and he struck his hip on the countertop. He didn't react, righted himself, and made it to the door that led to the hallway.

“Mellie?”

Stopped, held on. “What now, Toad?”

Quietly, “I danced with a girl last night.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. It was.”

“How'd she smell?”

“Good, Mel.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She smelled real good.”

“Right on,” he croaked. “Right on.” And if Melvin's eyes hadn't decided to clean themselves at that moment, he would have turned to his little brother, said something nice.

23

“GO ON,” MR. CLAREY said. “Go on and get a bit of fresh air. You can't be cooped up every day with nothing but carpet and glue. Not good for a young feller.”

Garrett watched as Mr. Clarey bent to inspect the underside of a roll of linoleum, the one with the beige octagonal pattern. He didn't like Mr. Clarey, the way he always gazed at Garrett's throat whenever they spoke, instead of his face. And the way he walked around with a thin nail sticking out of his mouth. In an instant, Mr. Clarey could inhale that nail, have it stuck in his throat, and then Garrett would be responsible for getting it out. Or leaving it there.

“Uh, alright.”

“Yes, you go on. Where do young fellers go these days to meet a girl?” Wide grin, nail dancing on his white lips.

Garrett blushed, and to calm himself he imagined the sound his boss might make if the nail pierced his skin. “I'll be here by eight tomorrow, Mr. Clarey.”

“By Jesus, you will too. You're that kind of worker, Gary.”

“Garrett. My name's Garrett.” He pictured a longer, thinner nail. Point sharpened.

“Right. Don't get into no trouble now. Watch your bobber, my son.” Sharp nod.

Then Garrett pictured how Mr. Clarey would look with his mouth hole trussed. “Yes, sir.”

Squeezing inside his rusting Chevette, Garrett gripped the steering wheel. Free time. He wasn't hungry, didn't want to go home. Where to go? Which way to turn? This simple unknown made his palms sweat, and he stuck the key in the ignition, twisted, sighed when he heard the hitching purr. He pulled out onto the street, decided to see where the road might take him if he always turned left. Randomness. He might end up anywhere, see or do anything. Five or six minutes later, Garrett found himself on a back road just behind an elementary school.