The Changing Seasons (2005)

Backstory

2012-06-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

This is another revision of "The Changing Seasons" (obviously) that goes even darker than "A Necessary Innocence" before it.

The story involves Harry Woodyard, who goes through women like an SUV goes through gasoline. That is until he meets the beautiful but shy Susie Steemer. If you want to know more, just look at the other two stories I mentioned and you'll figure out what happens.

NOTE: Features strong language, sexual situations, and a smidgen of violence. Not for the kiddies.

Please enjoy "The Changing Seasons (2005)..."

Chapter 36

2007-06-15T06:52:00.003-07:00

Chapter 36

I wait by the front steps of the courthouse for Susie to arrive. Todd and Brooke have already gone inside; they’re supposed to be married in twenty minutes. I hope Susie hasn’t changed her mind about showing up. This might be my last chance to win her back.

With only five minutes before the ceremony, a van pulls up at the curb. The back doors open and Susie is lowered from a ramp. She’s wearing khaki pants and a light blue sweater I remember from when we lived together. I try not to think about how flat it looks against her mosquito-bite breasts. There’s still a part of me that wonders why she would want to go back to a training bra. Being sensitive and looking at the inner beauty are concepts that will take time to master.

“You made it,” I say once she’s wheeled off the ramp. I’m not sure if I should hug her or kiss her on the cheek, so I settle for squeezing her hand. She doesn’t flinch at my touch, which I feel is a good sign.

“Where’re Brooke and Todd?”

“They went inside already.”

Susie begins pushing herself up the ramp to the front doors of the courthouse; it takes a colossal act of will to keep from offering to push her. She does let me hold the door open for her as she wheels through. We don’t say anything as we look for Brooke and Todd. I’m still waiting for any sign indicating she’s willing to reconcile.

We find Brooke and Todd outside a judge’s chambers with Brooke holding Diana. Todd is wearing the suit he wore to Dad’s funeral and Brooke has on a cream-colored dress that’s too tight around her stomach and shows off how thick her arms have gotten. Brooke and Susie both have a moment of surprise on their faces at seeing how the other has changed. “Susie, I’m so glad you could come,” Brooke says.

“I wouldn’t miss this. I’m glad Harry let me know. You’re looking great. And this must be Diana. She’s getting so big.”

“Would you like to hold her?” Brooke presses my niece into Susie’s arms. I see the sadness flicker across Susie’s face as she realizes she’ll never have a child of her own. She passes Diana back to Brooke as the door to the judge’s chambers open. Brooke hands Diana to me to keep for the ceremony.

It’s not much of a ceremony. The judge reads a few words to make sure Todd and Brooke know what they’re getting into and don’t want to chicken out. Then they sign some papers, Susie and I sign something to prove we saw the wedding, and it’s all over. I stand behind Todd, rocking Diana to keep her calm while Susie is parked behind Brooke. I sneak a few glances at Susie, but she’s looking at the judge.

After the judge has wished Brooke and Todd well, we go down the ramp to the curb, where Susie’s ride is waiting behind Brooke’s car. “You have the number for our motel, right?” Brooke asks me. “Maybe we should take Diana with us.”

“She’ll be fine,” Todd says. “It’s only for one night.”

“But she’s so little,” Brooke says. “Something could happen to her.”

“Come on, honey, it’ll be fine. Harry will take care of everything, right?”

“Sure, no problem,” I say. “We’re going to be just fine. You two go and have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Brooke is poised to snatch Diana from my arms until Todd steers her to the car. Their honeymoon will consist of one night in a moderately-priced motel before picking up where they left off at home. Todd wants to reopen Alternate Dimensions, which I told him is crazy, but he said, “I want to have something to pass down to Diana.” I didn’t want to start anything by suggesting Alternate Dimensions is hardly a gift.

Brooke and Todd wave to Susie and I from the car and then disappear into traffic. When we’re alone, I say, “I’m sorry it wasn’t much of a wedding.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad they went through with it this time.”

“You want to go somewhere for lunch? I’m buying.”

“No thanks. I’ve got therapy this afternoon.”

“Right. I guess I’ll see you around sometime.” I cradle Diana in one elbow so I can have a free arm to shake Susie’s hand. “I hope your therapy goes well.”

“Thanks.” I start to walk away, but then she calls my name. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m going to be moving this summer.”

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Connecticut. My father has some extra room. Not as much as Mother, but we’ll make do.”

I’m reminded of my dream, but I think better of suggesting Brooke, Todd, Diana, and I go out to Connecticut with her. “That’s good. Give you a chance to see your father.”

“Uh huh.”

We stand there, staring at each other in silence for a minute until I clear my throat and say, “I better get Diana before she wakes up and wants her bottle. Good luck in Connecticut.”

I start to walk away again. I almost drop Diana when Susie shoots past me and comes to a stop in front of us. “Harry, I was just thinking, maybe you’d like a little help with watching Diana tonight?”

“Sure. Come over whenever you want.”

“Good.” There’s another lengthy pause before she says, “I was thinking about what you said the other night about starting over again from scratch.”

“And?”

“Maybe we could give it a try just to see how things go.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wasn’t really sure until a few minutes ago.” She gestures to Diana. “Now I think there might be hope for us yet.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I bend down to kiss her on the cheek. It’s just a little peck, but I feel almost giddy. Maybe there is hope for us yet.

The End

Chapter 35

2007-06-15T06:52:00.001-07:00

Chapter 35

Susie’s studio at one time was a dance studio. The room is as big as the ballroom at the club she took me with mirrors all around the walls and a rail for stretching. The floor is polished hardwood that reminds me of a basketball court. This is where Susie must have learned to dance.

The studio now is a combination gymnasium and physical therapy room. I see a set of weights, a bench press machine, and a set of parallel bars mounted on a wrestling mat. A stack of towels sits in one corner, but I see no sign of Susie. The Steemroller led me on a wild goose chase. I’m not surprised.

A side door opens and through it comes a wheelchair, but the girl inside doesn’t look like Susie, at least not the Susie I knew. The girl in the wheelchair looks like the picture I saw of Susie as a teenager, before the Steemroller took her out to California for plastic surgery. She’s even wearing what look like glasses. With no discernible breasts and a short haircut that reminds of a Pydlain elf prince, she looks more like a prepubescent boy than a woman. She stops her wheelchair when she sees me.

“Harry? What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” I say. I’m so shocked by her changed appearance that I want to back out the door and forget the whole thing. Clearly the Susie I’ve come here to find is long gone. I’m not sure who this is before me.

“Could you grab me a towel from over there? I just finished doing some laps.” I nod dumbly and grab her a white towel from the stack. As I bring it over to her, I see the glasses on her face are actually goggles. She takes them off to dry her boyish hair. “I’m surprised Mother let you in.”

“She didn’t really have a choice.”

“Well, if I’d known you were coming, I would have found something more appropriate to wear.” She’s wearing a black one-piece suit that does nothing for me. I must have given something away by my expression. She says, “I suppose you’re wondering what happened to my boobs.”

“A little.”

“I had the implants removed. Those things were murder to drag around when I was getting in and out of the chair. Joanna—that’s my physical therapist—and I thought it would help my balance a little too if I wasn’t so heavy up front. I’m sure you’re disappointed.”

“No, of course not.”

“Harry, it’s written all over your face.”

“I’m just surprised is all.”

“You would be.” She shakes her head at me and then chucks the towel into a corner. “Let’s go over by the weight training bench so you can sit down. You look a little winded.”

“Right.” I can feel everything spinning out of control. All my good intentions about wanting to make things right was based on the idea she was a helpless invalid wallowing in pain and self-pity. I thought she would need me. This perky Susie doesn’t seem to need anyone. I don’t know why the hell she’d want me back when she seems to be happier on her own. I sit down on the weight training bench, hunching over to look at the floor. I don’t know why I’m still here.

“I’m glad you came,” she says. “I keep thinking about what I said to you. I’m sorry when I said it was your fault. I know it wasn’t, at least not entirely. A lot of it was my fault.”

“No it wasn’t. It was the Bandit’s fault. Why does everyone keep letting him off the hook? He pulled the trigger.”

“Harry, I came to the store that night because I wanted to give you an ultimatum: either be my boyfriend or get out of my life. I was so tired of feeling like a whore.”

“What? Why would you think that?”

“All we ever gave each other was sex. At least, that’s all you wanted us to give each other. I didn’t mind at first. I naïvely thought if I gave you enough time, you’d grow up. But you never did and I got tired of feeling dirty and used.” She says all this deadpan, without any trace of sadness.

“I didn’t want to make you feel that way.”

“But you did, Harry. You did and you didn’t seem to care. As long as we fucked when you wanted and I didn’t try to force you into anything deeper or more meaningful, you didn’t care, no matter what it was doing to me.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That’s the problem. You don’t know. You don’t know how to treat other people. Everything you do is to make yourself happy. You don’t care about anyone else.”

“I care about you! That’s what I came here to say.”

She pats me on the knee like a mother reassuring a child. “I’m sure you did, but it’s too late. You aren’t going to change, not for good.”

“Your mother said the same thing.”

“Then for once we agree about something.”

“Susie, please, give me a chance. I came here because I love you. My life has been miserable without you. I was stupid and wrong to treat you the way I did. I know that now. I only want the chance to make it up to you.”

“Just tell me one thing Harry: what did we ever have besides sex?”

I bury my head in my hands as I try to think of a suitable answer. I think back through all our dates. Those were all means to an end, a game that would end with Susie in my bed. The conversations, the dinners, and the dancing were all part of a calculated strategy to get at those breasts, which she no longer has. Then after I did get her in bed, when we lived together in the house, our lives were only about fucking. Whenever she did try to take our relationship to another level, like the trip to Indianapolis or shopping for baby furniture after Diana was born, I swatted her down.

“Exactly,” she answers when I say nothing. She pats my knee again. “I’m sure you’ll find yourself another girl who will make you just as happy.”

“I don’t want another girl. I want you.”

“Why, Harry? Why do you want me?”

She orients her wheelchair to look me in the eye as she waits for my answer. My words come slowly, but then gather momentum. “Because you’re a good person. You’re the nicest girl I’ve ever met. All you want to do is make people happy. That’s why you were always apologizing and going along with your mother and me even when we treated you like shit. I used to think that was a weakness, but now I know it’s a strength. You care about people, even the wrong people.”

As I ramble, I think about my dream after the Trench Coat Bandit knocked me out. In that dream, I saw what Susie and I could have been and might still be. When I woke up in Susanna Sterling’s apartment, I knew it was my subconscious trying to send me a message; I missed the message from my dream until now. “Let’s just forget everything that happened before. We’ll start over fresh.”

She motions to her dead legs. “I can’t forget what happened. I have to live with it every day.”

“Susie, I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“You’re four months too late, Harry. I’m sorry. Now, if you don’t mind, I wanted to work on my biceps before I go to bed. I need the bench.”

“Sure,” I say. I stand up and shuffle a few feet away. I watch her park the chair next to the bench and then begin the process of sliding herself onto it. She starts by removing the armrest from the right side of the wheelchair and then grabbing her right leg to swing it onto the bench. I lunge forward to help, but she bats my hand away. “I just wanted to help.”

“I can take care of myself,” she says. She grunts as pulls her torso onto the bench. “That’s what being paralyzed has taught me. Before that, Mother and then you made me think I was weak and I let you. Since I started therapy, I learned to rely on myself. I had to find my own strength.”

She picks up a weight next to the bench and starts pumping the iron. This isn’t the Susie I used to know. She’s too strong and confident. Or maybe, I tell myself, this is who she was underneath the whole time. It took getting shot to make her discover what was there all along. And it took losing her and gaining Diana for me to discover what I lost when Mom died.

I reach into my wallet for a picture of Diana taken two weeks ago. In the picture, she’s wearing a pink dress and an Easter bonnet I thought were tacky, but Brooke loved. Diana looks cute, but she’ll always look cute to me. In the same way, I’ll always love Susie even without her breasts, a bad haircut, and legs that don’t work. Love isn’t about all that superficial bullshit. It’s about what’s underneath, what’s inside us.

I show the picture of Diana to Susie. “She’s adorable,” Susie says. “How’s Brooke managing with the baby?”

“She managed fine. Todd is back now. They’re getting married on Monday at the courthouse. I was thinking maybe you could come to be a witness.”

Susie thinks this over for a while and then gives me back the photo. “All right,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to see Brooke again.”

“Do you need a ride or anything?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says. I believe her.

Chapter 34

2007-06-15T06:51:00.003-07:00

Chapter 34

I forget about my desire to destroy Todd by the time he finishes his story. My chilling vision is not of a pregnant girl freezing to death in an alley, but of a paralyzed girl entombed in a mansion with her evil mother. Susie is trapped in that big house with a woman who’s done nothing but ruin her life. She’s there because I abandoned her there.

She said she didn’t want me around and I believed her. Believing her was the easiest solution to everything. Retreating meant I didn’t have to make all those painful visits to the hospital. I didn’t have to sit in an uncomfortable room all night, holding her hand and reassuring her everything would work out in the end. I didn’t have to hold her when she cried after a phantom itch in her useless legs or a nightmare about the Trench Coat Bandit. I didn’t have to do any of those things a boyfriend—a loved one—needed to do. I simply walked away, telling myself that’s the way she wanted things.

As I stand in Alternate Dimensions, I think about all those heroes whose adventures I read over the years. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and all the rest didn’t quit just because it was the easiest thing to do. They didn’t walk away when someone needed them. They kept fighting, no matter what. Of course superheroes have it easy; their struggles are designed so they wind up victorious in the last page. In real life, there’s no guarantee anything will happen if I go to Susie’s house.

I owe it to her and myself to try. Like Todd said, I blew a good thing once; I’m not going to do it again. I’m going to win her back, even if it means camping out at the front gate of the Steemroller’s mansion until the cops haul me away. She’s not going to get rid of me so easily this time.

I run out to my car and start up the engine before I’ve closed the door. I streak away from Alternate Dimensions and towards Susie’s house. I’m driving as wild and reckless as when Diana had the ear infection. Someone just as important is at stake this time.

As I drive, the last nine months become clearer to me. Of all the girls I fucked, Susie was the only one I ever gave a damn about as something more than a good lay. I tried to never see her as anything more than a great pair of tits, but it was a lie I forced myself to believe. All the proof I need comes from the times I lost her. After I abandoned her Indianapolis and again after the botched robbery, I was miserable without her. I tried to move on, but I couldn’t replace her.

Now I’m ready to admit the truth to myself. More importantly, I’m ready to admit the truth to her. I drive even faster and more recklessly as I cross the river and head into the wealthier section of town. I remember the first night she took me this way to go dancing. She was so shy and self-conscious that night. I contrast this with the night she told me about her summer in California. For someone like her, it must have taken a monumental act of will to confess something so personal. That was the night everything changed for both of us. She lost her awkwardness and I gained a partner, becoming a one-woman man for the first time.

I slow down as I near Susie’s house. I wonder if things can really be the same between us. She’s crippled now; she can’t have sex. Was there ever anything more between us than sex? I think about the trip to Indianapolis. She wanted something more to happen then. She wanted us to become more than sexual partners. She wanted us to become lovers and I abandoned her. Now’s the time to correct that mistake.

I stop at the gate to the Steemroller’s mansion and press the intercom button. “What do you want?” the Steemroller says.

“I’m here to see Susie.”

“Leave now before I call the police.”

“You do what you have to do. I’m going to see her.” I’ve never tried to break through gates with a car before. In the movies the gates always go flying in either direction like they’re made of tinfoil—which they probably are—and the car keeps speeding through. I back up my Volvo, praying that safety-conscious Swedish engineering will give me the edge.

I rev the engine up to build as much momentum as I can. Smoke is coming from the tires and the car is shaking so much I’m not sure if it will hold together long enough to hit the gates. Then, just as I’m about to release the brake, the gates begin to swing open. I manage to hold onto the brake long enough for the gates to open completely and then roar up the driveway.

The Steemroller is waiting for me at the front door. “The police are on their way,” she says.

“I don’t care,” I say. I’m not about to let her cow me before I’ve seen Susie. “Where is she?”

“She doesn’t want to see you. You’re the one who ruined her life. What could you possibly say to her now?”

“I’m going to set the record straight about a lot of things.” I push the Steemroller aside and stomp along the front hall. She doesn’t even try to stop me. Maybe she figures I’ll get myself so lost in the house that I won’t find Susie before the cops drag me out. She’s probably right.

She contents herself with keeping pace so she can launch verbal jabs at me. “Do you have any idea how much pain you’ve put her through? She’s tried to kill herself twice. The first time she broke the lamp next to her bed so she could use a piece of broken glass to slice open her wrists. The second time she tried to drink a bottle of drain opener. She cries herself to sleep every night. Most nights she wakes up screaming. Before long, I’ll have to put her in a mental asylum. You’ve turned my daughter into a lunatic.”

At this point I’ve had enough. I shove her against a wall and feel the same rage as with Todd. I press my elbow against her throat to pin her in place. “If she did any of those things, it’s because you make her so miserable.” I want to press down until she can’t breathe. I’d do Susie and the world at large a favor by choking the life out of this bitch. All she’s ever done is make people miserable. Susie would still be an awkward virgin if the Steemroller had her way.

But I don’t have time to finish her off. I have to find Susie. “Where’s Susie?” I ask.

“I’m not telling you. I’m not going to let you do her any further harm.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. I want to make things right.”

“You say that now and maybe you mean it. Maybe you’ll even act like a gentleman for a little while, but you’ll grow tired of it. You can’t change what you are underneath.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I say. “And maybe what’s underneath is the nice guy. Ever thought of that?”

“I’m not going to take that chance.”

“Why? You said Susie is a lunatic. Doesn’t seem like I can do anymore harm to her then.”

The smile that spreads across her face reminds me of the Grinch in that old Christmas special. Her grin is the most repulsive smile I’ve ever seen. “Touche. She’s in her studio.” The Steemroller gives me directions on how to navigate the maze leading to Susie. I should have brought a ball of string to find my way back.

I run through the halls of the mansion, wondering how long before the police get here. Maybe the Steemroller didn’t even call the cops. She might have been bluffing, just like with the gates. If she hadn’t called them already, she might have now that I tried to crush the life from her. I run faster, hoping I’ll have enough time.

I reach a set of double doors at the end of a hallway that leads to Susie’s “studio.” I’m not sure what the Steemroller meant by that. I pause at the doors to catch my breath before I throw them open, unsure of what I’ll find on the other side.

Chapter 33

2007-06-15T06:51:00.001-07:00

Chapter 33

The car died in Wyoming. The back tire on the driver’s side blew out in Iowa and I’d been going with a spare since then. The transmission stopped shifting out of first gear somewhere in Nebraska. The radio gave out as I crossed into Wyoming. By the time I ran out of gas a couple miles out of Lander, I knew she’d had it.

I took out my duffel bag and just pushed the car off the road. I didn’t care if someone towed it away or not. Anyone who wanted to have it was more than welcome. Then I started walking towards town, whistling the theme from “The Incredible Hulk.” I didn’t see a single car along the way.

The first place I saw was a truck stop. I felt around in my pockets, but I only had thirty cents. I couldn’t even buy a cup of coffee. By then I was so freaking cold that I went inside the truck stop and locked myself in a bathroom stall to warm up a little bit.

As I sat there, I thought about what I’d do now. I thought about calling you guys to ask you to wire me some money. Or maybe I could get a job here in Wyoming until I earned enough to go somewhere else. The only problem is I didn’t know where I wanted to go.

When I left the morning of the wedding, I thought I was just going to take a drive around town to clear my head. Before I knew it, I was on the highway and heading towards Indianapolis. I got there and took out some money from the ATM. I started to think about the wedding and Brooke standing there at the altar, feeling stupid because I hadn’t shown up yet. I thought about calling her then—I even started to dial the number on a payphone—but I couldn’t talk to her. I knew if I did, she’d convince me to come home and then everything would be over. I’d have to start being a husband and then a father. I’m only twenty-seven years old. I have a lot of life ahead of me. I mean, nowadays guys live to almost eighty. Eighty!

I just kept doing that math in my head. Fifty-three years. Fifty-three years of waking up to Brooke, living in the same house, and going to the same job every day. At that point all I had to look forward to was Brooke and I growing old and fat together. I looked around the restaurant I’d gone into for the phone and watched the old people sitting together. This one old lady was sitting nearby and talking about her kids, her grandkids, and her neighbors while her husband just sat there, slurping up his soup and not paying a single bit of attention. I thought, That’s my future. I felt so sick I had to go to the bathroom, but nothing came out.

I ran out to my car, got back on the highway, and started going west. I didn’t know where I really wanted to go. I don’t suppose it was important where I was going so much as I was going somewhere, you know? I had sort of a vague idea about going to California. In movies and TV, isn’t that always where people go? To California or New York, where there’s lots of people and really tall buildings and big oceans. So I just kept going all night until I finally had to stop in Illinois to sleep in some little motel.

I thought about calling Brooke that night, because I thought I should at least tell her I wasn’t coming back. But again, I knew if I talked to her, she’d start crying and I’d feel bad enough to go back. Then I thought I could call you or George or Craig, but it just didn’t seem right to tell you guys and not her. So I got a piece of paper and tried to write a letter. I fell asleep with that paper and pencil still in the bed without a single word on the page. I didn’t know what to say. The next morning, I figured Brooke would get the point sooner or later. You guys would figure out what to do with the store and the house and everything.

When the tire blew that morning, I thought at first it was some kind of omen telling me to go back. I sat in the car for a few minutes, thinking about that until I remembered that old couple in the restaurant and decided that wasn’t going to be me. I mean, I might still wind up sitting in a restaurant with some old lady, but at least I’d have done something first. So I changed the tire and made it into Iowa.

Every time I stopped for dinner somewhere, I got into the habit of watching the people. Not just the old people, but everyone, even the kids and teenagers. I didn’t think much about it then, but I think now I was trying to find someone like me, or what I wanted to be. Some kind of role model to show me what I should do. Wherever I went, I never saw anyone I wanted to be.

In Lander I did see a girl who made me think of Brooke. I almost didn’t see her at first because she was lying in a pile of rags in an alley. I saw her hair and a little bit of her face when I was reaching into a trashcan to look for something to eat. “You’re wasting your time,” she said to me. Then the pile of rags moved and realized they were her clothes. She sat up and said, “They never throw out anything good here until after breakfast.”

“You live here?” I asked her.

“I live lots of places.”

I saw her face then and jumped. She looked like one of those kids on a “Save the Children” commercial or like one of those Jewish women in the concentration camps. I was worried at any moment the bones of her face would break right through the skin. I thought she was black at first, until I squinted a little and realized she was just really dirty.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Too old.”

“Come on, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“So am I.” I knew she was lying. She didn’t look much more than thirteen. Since she was so malnourished, though, her growth might have been stunted a little.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“Don’t you?”

I had to think about that one for a while. I felt pretty stupid to be rummaging through garbage and freezing my ass off in Wyoming when I had a house with a kitchen and a warm bed back in Indiana. “Not anywhere nearby,” I said. “You think I can stay here tonight?”

“I don’t mind. Just don’t try anything.”

I put on all the clothes in my duffel bag and then sat down next to her. We didn’t say anything for a while, until I saw how big her belly was compared to the rest of her. “You’re having a baby?”

“So what?”

I wasn’t sure how to ask her the obvious question: how was she going to have and raise a kid if she lived in alleys? “That’s good,” I said.

“Oh yeah, it’s a real blessing. I’m so fucking lucky.”

“You don’t want it?”

“Of course not. Are you retarded or something? How am I going to raise a kid?”

“Don’t you have any parents or grandparents? Any family?”

She explained to me then that her name was Shirley and she didn’t have any family. She didn’t ever know her grandparents or any aunts or uncles or even cousins. Her mom died when she was real small and her dad four years ago from a heart attack. She was fourteen at the time and put into a foster home, but it turned out to be a real bad place. The father turned out to be a drunk and the mother was even worse. She liked to drag Shirley down into the basement and use a vibrator on her.

So one day Shirley ran away from there and started living on the streets. She figured out pretty quick how to take care of herself until one night seven months ago she was lying in an alley by a bar and some drunk guys cornered her. They took turns on her until she thought she was going to die, but she didn’t want to go to a hospital or to the police, because she’d just end up in another foster home or somewhere worse. A few weeks later, she realized she was pregnant, but she couldn’t afford an abortion and they would probably turn her over to the authorities anyway.

“So what are you going to do when the baby comes?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

We didn’t say anything else that night. I’m not sure when she died. All I know is, I woke up the next morning and she was stiff and her skin blue from the cold. There was some blood on the ground by her legs and stuck to some of her clothes. She must have miscarried and bled to death while I slept right next to her in the alley.

I sat there and stared at her for I don’t know how long. Instead of Shirley, I saw Brooke lying there, alone and cold because I wasn’t there. And then everything else didn’t seem to matter anymore. It didn’t matter if I went out and had a lot of adventures if I didn’t have anyone to tell them to at the end of the day.

I wanted to go back right then, but someone who worked at the restaurant that shared the alley found me hunched over the dead body. Soon enough the police were there and I spent two months in a jail cell while they investigated the case. I could have used my phone call to contact Brooke, but I didn’t want to try explaining everything on a phone in the county jail.

The whole time I sat in that cell, I thought about Brooke and tried to figure out what happened. In the end, I felt so stupid for throwing away something so wonderful. I told myself that if the cops let me go, I’d go straight back to Brooke and never leave her again. When they decided there wasn’t enough evidence to press charges, they let me go and I hitched a ride back here.

I wouldn’t have blamed her for not taking me back. I was a total fool. I got scared and ran away like a coward. I know it’s going to take a long time to repair the damage, if we ever do, but I’m going to try. She’s never going to end up scared, cold, and alone in an alley as long as I’m around. I blew a good thing once; I’m not going to do it again.

Chapter 32

2007-06-15T06:50:00.003-07:00

Chapter 32

As much as I wish it, Todd doesn’t smack his head on the counter as he falls. He lands on his rear while I stand over him, ready to give him another shot. “I probably deserve that,” he says.

“I was going easy on you,” I say. I desperately want to pummel him until his face is a pile of red goo, but I manage to hold back. “You couldn’t pick up a phone or even send a fucking postcard in almost six months? You think you can just show up here and everything will be hunky-dory?”

“Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

“Yeah, you should be.” He tries to get up, but I shove him back down. I’m not going to let him escape so easily.

“Come on, let me up. I have to talk to Brooke.”

“I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

“I know, but there are things I need to say to her.” He tries to get up, but again I knock him down. “Look, either let me talk to her or I’m going to kick your ass.”

“You wish.” In twenty-two years, Todd and I have rarely come to blows. Our last real fight came ten years ago. I had my first sexual experience while reading a Supergirl comic. When I felt my dick growing hard and pushing against my Spider-Man underwear, I pulled my pants down for a closer look. My dick was pulsing like an exposed artery and growing larger by the second. Not knowing what else to do, I touched my erection and felt a pleasurable little tingle. Next think I know I’m beating off like a madman. When I came, it was like my whole body sighed in relief at a job well done.

Later, Todd threw the comic back at me as I lay in bed. “Nice going,” he said. “You got your cum all over my book.”

“So?”

“So, some of the pages are stuck together. You better buy me a new one or I’m going to tell Mom.”

At twelve, every cent I had was precious; I wasn’t about to waste my money to buy a comic I’d read already. “Mom won’t believe you. She’ll think you’re doing it and trying to blame me.” I threw the comic back at him and turned away, smiling to myself at my victory.

Todd yanked me out of the bed and managed to hit me twice in the face before I got my arms up. I rolled him off with one of my knees and then landed a weak punch to his arm. We grappled with each other for a minute, neither of us getting position on the other. He managed to get my arms up high enough to punch my unprotected stomach. When I doubled over, he hit me in the side of the head. For good measure, he stood up to kick me in the ribs a couple times. “That’s what you deserve, you little perv,” he said. He left the cum-laced comic by my head before disappearing. Any other time I would have run to Mom to get him in trouble, but this time I was too embarrassed. I didn’t replace the comic and he never asked again. He must have figured beating me up was payment enough.

This time I’m determined not to suffer the same fate. I lunge forward while he’s still on the ground, knocking him onto his back. He grabs my wrists as I reach for his neck, keeping my hands at bay. Then I think of Susie, trapped in her mother’s house, forever confined to a wheelchair, and I find the strength to bear down on Todd’s throat. I wrap my hands around his neck and begin squeezing.

He tries to throw me off, but I hold my ground and apply more pressure. I see a pair of white shoes behind Todd’s head and look up to see the ghost of Susie behind him. She sits in a wheelchair, a blanket over her useless legs. Her eyes are large and sad, her hair matted, and her skin paler than any ghost on a Halloween special. The sight of her so diminished and pathetic spurs me to squeeze Todd’s neck harder. “Do it,” she encourages me. “Do it for me.”

“I hate you,” I growl to him. He killed Mom, he stole my chance for a good education, and he led to Susie being shot. Everything I’ve ever wanted or loved he’s taken away from me. I think of him holding Diana. Now he wants to take her away too. After all the work I’ve done raising her, nurturing her through these awful months, and now he thinks he can suddenly waltz in and be her father. No. I’m going to choke the life from the bastard. Then Brooke, Diana, and I will disappear like Todd.

Todd’s skin is starting to turn blue around the edges. He’s not fighting back anymore. Not much longer and he’ll be finished. Then he won’t be able to hurt anyone else again. His curse will be lifted forever.

“Harry!” Brooke shouts. She grabs me, trying to pull me off. I don’t budge. I squeeze harder on Todd’s throat. At last, I’ll have revenge for Mom, for Susie, and for Diana. “Stop it! Let him go!”

“Shut up,” I say. I let go of Todd long enough to shove her away from me. “I’m not going to let him ruin everything again.”

“Harry, please, let him go. Don’t do this to Diana. Don’t take her father away.”

“That’s the best thing that could ever happen to her.” If only I could go back in time to erase Todd’s existence from the universe. Mom would still be alive. Susie would still be able to walk. No, Diana won’t miss anything with him gone. He’s a menace, a blight that needs removed.

Something hits me on the back of the head. My grip on Todd loosens as the world around me starts to spin. I try to get to my feet, but can only manage a step before collapsing in almost the same place as the night of the Trench Coat Bandit’s failed robbery. I see Brooke standing over me with a metal dustpan in her hands. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she says.

“Traitor,” I growl. Then I pass out.

I’m not sure when I wake up, but it’s dark outside. I’m too groggy yet to make out what the male and female voice shouting are saying. I put a hand to the back of my head, feeling the lump Brooke left. Who knew a dustpan could hurt so much? They don’t make them like that anymore.

I manage to get to my feet and stumble into the back room. Todd and Brooke are gesturing at each other and shouting in what sounds like a tape run at half speed. On the desk where I used to do the books, I see Diana still in her car seat. Her face is red and tears are in her eyes. Her cries hit me like a jet going supersonic. While Di’s parents continue to argue about her future, I snatch her from the car seat.

I take Diana next door, where she can’t hear her parents arguing. If I hadn’t been so woozy, I might have grabbed a bottle of formula before going next door to Starbucks. I stagger up to the counter where one of my co-workers raises an eyebrow studded with earrings. He probably things I’m drunk or high. “I got hit with a dustpan,” I say just to see his reaction.

“That happens to me all the time,” he says. Stupid, smart-mouthed punk kid. If Di ever brings home someone like that, I’ll cave in his skull with a baseball bat.

“Just give me a coffee. Plain, black, lots of caffeine, all right?”

I take the coffee over to a seat by the window. The bitterness and caffeine starts to bring my mind back into this dimension. Diana has stopped crying and fallen asleep in my arms. “I’m not going to let him take you,” I say. “He’s not going to ruin your life too.”

The coffee is gone two hours later when Brooke spots me from outside. She runs inside and tries to take Diana away. I turn my body towards the window to fend her off. “No, you’ll just give her to him,” I say.

“Harry, Todd is Diana’s father.”

“Sure, now he wants to be her father. In six months he’ll decide to bail out again when things get tough. Don’t come crying to me then.”

She sits down across from me. Her eyes are still red and puffy from crying and arguing. She looks down at the table with her hands in her lap. I relax enough to turn Diana towards her. “I want to choke him to death as much as you do,” she says. “But what am I supposed to do? He is her father.”

“You keep saying that. So what if he’s the father? He’s going to be a lousy father.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m just judging from his track record.”

“You know how I grew up. I don’t want that for Diana.”

“No father is better than a bad one.” I lean forward to whisper, “Let’s go. Right now, just the three of us: you, me, and Diana. We’ll go somewhere quiet and safe. We’ll be happy.”

“Harry, please, don’t talk like that.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.” Fresh tears come to her face. “I still love him,” she admits.

“Why? He left you at the altar. He forced you to have Diana on your own. How can you still love him?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means!” she shouts. Everyone in Starbucks looks our way. I might have to quit tomorrow to avoid the embarrassment of explaining all this. She lowers her voice and continues, “You abandoned Susie when she needed you most.”

“Susie didn’t want me around.”

“If you really knew anything about her, you’d know how much she loved you and how much she still does.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, Harry, I know.” I’m too dumbfounded to put up a fight when she takes Diana from me. “Harry, I know you’re angry with Todd, but you have to give him another chance. He’s family.”

“I don’t care.”

She gets up from the table. “We’re getting married. On Monday we’re going to the courthouse. I’d like you to be a witness. If you don’t want to, then we’ll find someone else.”

I get up from my seat and stomp away without saying anything. I throw open the door to Alternate Dimensions, where Todd is surveying the damage. He puts up his hands at my approach. “I know you’re still pissed off, but let me explain.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I want you to understand I’m not the same guy who got cold feet. I’ve changed.”

“Likely story.”

“Will you at least let me explain? Then if you want to fight again, we can.”

“Fine, go ahead and tell your little sob story,” I say. As soon as he’s done, I’m going to finish what I started.

Chapter 31

2007-06-15T06:50:00.001-07:00

Part IV:

Spring

Chapter 31

I meet Brooke after work on Good Friday to take care of some unfinished business next door. The lease for Alternate Dimensions will expire at the end of the month, so we’ve decided to clean up the junk lying around the store before the property goes back on the market. I didn’t want to do it, but Brooke convinced me by suggesting the landlord might sue us for the cost of cleaning the place up.

She’s already there when I go next door, sitting in my old director’s chair by the butcher’s counter. “Where’s Diana?” I ask.

“I put her in the back.” She whistles as she looks around the place. “You really made a mess.”

“This is Todd’s mess. I just reorganized it a little.” I brush past her on my way to the back room. Di is sleeping in her car seat, still bundled up in a heavy coat and hat. I touch her forehead lightly to make sure she’s all right and then hang my Starbucks apron on a hook.

I drag in a trashcan from the back and leave it in the center of the store. Brooke works one side and I work the other, throwing books, comics, and other debris into the can. Brooke starts humming some tune I don’t know, probably a country song. I should have brought a radio or something to provide the background noise.

I stay away from the butcher’s counter where the Trench Coat Bandit knocked me out and from the door where Susie was crippled. Even so, I can feel their presences hanging in the air like ghosts. I should have taken up Brooke’s offer to let her handle this alone, but at the time it seemed like a shot at my manhood to suggest I couldn’t clean up the store with her.

As I often do, I wonder what Susie is doing at this moment. I always imagine her bedridden or sitting in a wheelchair, unable to pick up her head from her chest. All the while, Todd is off having the time of his life without a care in the world. If it were up to me, Todd would be sitting here, confined to a wheelchair while Susie and I go on with our old life. We would still be jogging in the park in the mornings and fucking all night long.

“Maybe you should take Diana home,” Brooke suggests. “It’s kind of cold in here.”

“She’ll be fine,” I snap. I don’t need Brooke’s charity. I can get through this. To demonstrate this to her, I dump a handful of old books into the trash.

“This place looked nice,” Brooke says. “I don’t get why people didn’t come.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was just lousy marketing.”

“Maybe. It’s too bad you never really had the chance to get it off the ground. People might have come around after a while.”

“I doubt it. This place is cursed.”

“You think some voodoo priest came by and put a hex on it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” I look around and shake my head. “It’s amazing the place lasted as long as it did.”

“Todd didn’t do too badly. I mean, it wasn’t ever as busy as Wal-Mart, but he did OK.”

“Yeah, let’s give him a medal because he managed to tread water for six years. That’s some accomplishment.”

She glares at me like she wants to continue the argument, but goes to check on Diana instead. I don’t know how she can still find anything good to say about Todd after what he’s done. If a girl left me at the altar and stuck me with raising a kid alone, I’d hunt her down to the ends of the earth and then drag her back by the ear.

I should have done that to Todd. Instead of waiting for him to wise up, I should have gone off on a quest to find him and force him to face the music. Sure, he had a big head start and he could have gone almost anywhere in the United States, but I could have found him eventually. He would screw up and give himself away just like he’s screwed up everything else in his life. I would have only needed to wait for him to make the inevitable mistake and then pounce. At least that might have accomplished more than sitting around here.

“She’s still sleeping,” Brooke says before returning to her side of the store. In an hour, we’ve filled the garbage can plus a handful of boxes, but the store is cleaned up. Except for the busted windows, the landlord won’t be able to bitch about anything.

Brooke leans against the counter and I see tears in her eyes. I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder. Over the last three months, our worlds have shrunk to the point where all we have is each other. We don’t have anyone else to lean on for support anymore. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It’s just seeing the place so empty. I guess I thought as long as this was here, there was a chance he’d come back. Now it’s like he’s gone, all the way gone. Do you know what I mean?”

“I know, but he was gone a long time ago. Come on, let’s get this stuff out to the Dumpster.” The trashcan is so heavy with books that the two of us can’t lift it. We’re both sweating and breathing hard just getting it out to the door.

We’ve both gotten out of shape over the winter. Since Valentine’s Day, Brooke has added another thirty pounds, so that she looks ready to have another child. She’s taken to wearing elastic-waist pants and T-shirts that show her belly whenever she raises her arms. As for me, I have to suck in a breath just to zip up my jeans in the morning. Before long, this roll of fat will turn into a full-fledged potbelly. I guess rocking Diana and changing her diapers doesn’t count as cardiovascular exercise.

“I was just thinking, now that it’s getting warmer, I was planning to start jogging again. Maybe you could come with me.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, of course not. I’m just suggesting you might want to get out of the house for a little while in the mornings.”

“What about Diana?”

“We could get one of those carrier thingies for her. Or maybe we could buy a couple of bikes.”

“How about a bicycle built for two?” I laugh at the thought of Brooke and I on a tandem bike with that old song playing in the background.

“I wouldn’t take it that far.”

She thinks for a moment, looking down at her gut. “I guess we could try it for a little while.”

We manage to drag the trashcan out to the Dumpster, but since we can’t dump it out, we have to shovel the books and debris out a little at a time. “This seems like such a waste,” Brooke says. “Maybe we should have given these books to the poor or something.”

“We still can, if you want.” I open the trunk of my car and start piling up books around the spare tire. I’m not sure if Goodwill or the Salvation Army will take old books; I thought they only took clothes, furniture, and electronics. If they don’t want them, then I guess they can chuck them into their Dumpster instead.

Brooke and I are discussing what time we should get up to begin our jogging routine as we go inside. We both stop at the same time. The sight before us is so unreal, we pinch each other in unison to make sure this isn’t a dream.

Todd is standing behind the counter, cradling Diana in his arms. He looks like a rancher in an old western. He’s wearing a sheepskin jacket with a fur collar, something I don’t remember him ever owning before. A cowboy hat rests on his head, shading his eyes. Unlike Brooke and I, he seems to have lost weight over the last five months. “This is her,” he says. “This is ours, right?”

Brooke rushes forward to rip Diana from Todd’s arms. She doesn’t say anything before running into the back room. Todd stares at her for a moment and then turns to me. “What happened—”

I don’t let him finish the question; I give him a left hook identical to the Trench Coat Bandit’s. Welcome back.

Chapter 30

2007-06-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Chapter 30

Having a baby is expensive. Since Todd in his infinite wisdom abandoned Brooke before they married, she got stuck with the entire bill for Diana’s birth. Working three jobs, she might have paid the full amount—not counting interest or penalties—in about five years. After giving hospital administrators the full details about what happened, we managed to talk them down and work out a payment plan to resolve the matter in a year. But unless we come into another big source of income, Mom and Dad’s insurance money is spent.

I should be angry with Todd about this, but I’m not. I know Mom would want to spend the money on a sweet little kid like Diana. Di is only a month old, but already she’s smarter than her old man. She can already point to a bottle when I give her the choice between the bottle and Brooke’s stuffed unicorn. I might be giving her too much credit, but I know this kid is going places.

In terms of genetics she’s at a disadvantage compared with other kids. Neither of her parents are candidates for MENSA. Given the choice between letting Todd and Brooke raise her or throwing her to a pack of wolves, I’d take the wolves. With Todd and Brooke at the helm, Diana would end up a big-haired floozy with too much make-up reading comic books about unicorns and elves. She’d be the first-ever redneck geek. At least with the wolves she would learn to hunt her own food.

I’m the advantage she holds over her peers. As long as she sticks with me, she’ll never sleep in an empty bed. I’ll be her Jedi Master of romance, instructing her in how to dress, where to go, and what to say. I’ll give her the inside scoop from my years of experience in analyzing the competition on how to tell which guys are trouble and which are legitimate. No drunken frat boys, sleazy married guys, or would-be Casanova is going to take advantage of my niece. Not if I have anything to say in the matter. She’ll need a team of cardiologists to follow her around for all the hearts she’s going to break.

Before any of that can happen, I have to make sure she’s nurtured through childhood. I have to provide for her during this critical time to make sure she has the food, clothes, and medicine necessary to grow up healthy and strong. She won’t break any hearts if she’s emaciated, wearing tatters, and coughing up handfuls of phlegm.

For this reason, I’ve taken a job at the Starbucks next to the boarded-up remains of Alternate Dimensions. Slinging cappuccinos and lattes is not a glamorous industry—most afternoons I come home smelling like Juan Valdez’s mule—but it’s a source of income until I can finish my degree next semester and find something better.

Brooke and I have worked out a schedule now. I work from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, during which time Brooke watches Diana. When I get home, Brooke sleeps for a few hours until we make something for dinner. Then we usually collapse in front of the television with Diana between us, taking turns with her until after the eleven o’clock news.

Brooke sleeps in the nursery to handle most of the night feedings and diaper changes, but sometimes she’s too exhausted to hear Diana’s crying. At those times, I get up and take Diana from her crib back into my bedroom to feed, burp, or change her. Sometimes she needs all three at the same time. Then I take out one of my old comic books to read to her while I rock her back to sleep. I suppose The Three Little Pigs, The Cat in the Hat, or The Little Engine That Could are more traditional than The Amazing Spider-Man, The Justice League of America, or The X-Men, but at this point I could probably read the dictionary and she’d be just as entertained.

This morning our reading selection is an Action Comics from fifteen years ago. The pages are wrinkled, the cover torn, and in one frame an ancient spot of strawberry jam blots out Superman’s head. I remember buying this issue from Charlie’s. I was so engrossed in reading it on the way home that I almost walked across the street into the path of a car. Todd yanked me back to the sidewalk at the last moment. Whatever happened to that Todd, the older brother capable of saving people instead of just ruining lives? I’m not sure when he disappeared, but I don’t think he’s ever coming back.

I’m halfway through the comic by the time Diana falls asleep. I finish the rest with her asleep in the crook of my arm. I’m afraid she’ll wake up again if I move, so after I finish the comic book, I stare at the puke-orange glow coming from Herbert Chemical. The sky never really gets dark in Freepoint. Most nights you’re lucky to see a single star.

I should get Diana out of here at the first opportunity. As soon as I finish my degree, I’ll find a job in a place that has a real night, where Di can look up at the stars. I’ll have to convince Brooke to come along, but that shouldn’t be hard. All that’s here for both of us are bad memories. We’ll be better off putting as much of America between those and us as possible.

I don’t realize I’ve gone to sleep myself until I hear Brooke say, “Harry, wake up. You’re going to be late.”

She’s taken Diana from me and is breastfeeding her. The sight of a naked breast would arouse me if she wasn’t my brother’s fiancée and holding my niece. I see that I have twenty minutes to get my ass over to Starbucks. As I’m scrambling to pull out fresh clothes from my drawers, Brooke is still in my room. I turn to her and ask, “Is there something else you need?”

“I was wondering if you could watch Diana by yourself tonight. There’s something I need to do.”

“What?” She looks flustered, but doesn’t say anything. Then I remember today is Valentine’s Day, her first since Todd dumped her. I hope she’s not planning to do anything stupid like throw herself in the river. I should remind her he’s not worth anyone’s life, but instead I say, “Sure, I can watch Di. Do what you got to do.”

She nods to me and then goes back to the nursery. I hear her singing an elf battle song from one of the Pydlain movies. In retrospect, I guess Brooke is the original redneck geek. What chance does Di have to turn out anything close to normal without me?

At work as I serve up heart-shaped cookies, I’m reminded this is the first Valentine’s Day in six years I don’t have romance on my mind. Last year, I celebrated the holiday by taking home a girl appropriately named Val. We fucked three times, in three different positions, before midnight. What I remember most is she wouldn’t come until I squeezed her nipples; by the end of the night they were bleeding and my fingers were cramping. When I suggested she invest in a vise, she stormed out in a huff. Some people don’t like constructive criticism.

“Excuse me,” a girl says to me. “I think this is the wrong order.”

I’m about to argue, until I see her. She’s built like some kind of beginner art student’s drawing exercise. Two circular breasts beneath a perfect circle of a face with a pair of smaller circles for cheeks holding up two circular lenses, all surrounded by tiny circles of hair forming their own circle. There’s something alluring about such symmetrical design. “Let me fix that for you,” I say. Her order is about as complex as the space shuttle. I’m still pretty new to the coffee game, but I brazen it out. She takes a cautious sip of the concoction and smiles.

“This is what I ordered,” she says.

As compensation for wasting her time—and to curry some favor—I give her a heart-shaped cookie. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I say.

She squints behind her round-framed glasses at my nametag. “Thank you, Harry.” When she looks down at the floor, I know she’s working up the courage to ask me out. She better do it soon, before my fat, evil manager Nancy catches us and warns me again not to hit on customers. As if I have to hit on them. “I suppose you probably have plans for tonight.”

“No, I don’t,” I say before remembering Brooke is going out tonight to mope over Todd’s loss or whatever she’s planning to do. “Actually, I have to babysit my niece tonight. Maybe I could get a rain check?”

“Oh, how old is your niece?”

“Four weeks.”

“How adorable. I love babies.” I see people come through the door, heading to the counter. If Miss Symmetrical is going to make her move, she better do it soon. “Well, look, maybe you could use a little company. I’m great with kids. I could give you a hand with your niece.”

“Sure, a little company would be nice.” I make sure Nancy is still gorging herself on pastries in the back before I write my address down for Miss Symmetrical. She writes down her name and number on a napkin. Gina Zil—I can’t read the rest. Zilinksy? Zilwicky? Doesn’t matter. “See you tonight,” I say.

When I get home later, I find Brooke emptying a can of hair spray onto her head. “Much more of that and you’ll be able to run your head through a brick wall without hurting yourself,” I tease. She looks stricken by this remark. “Shit, I’m sorry. I was just kidding.”

“It’s all right. I’m so nervous. It’s been so long since I’ve been anywhere—” She breaks off before she can say, “without Todd.” She does a pirouette so I can inspect how her white blouse, ankle-length denim skirt, and fringed leather jacket fit. “Do I look like I just had a baby?”

She is still carrying an extra twenty pounds from the baby, most of it centered in her midsection, which is straining against the blouse. Unless she holds her breath the entire night, she’s probably going to shoot off a couple buttons. Saying any of that is a sure invitation for a kick to the balls. “No, you look fine.”

I should hug her or pat her on the shoulder or make some other reassuring gesture, but I don’t. We’re not really family, just two people sharing a house and caring for a baby together. She pats her hair one more time and then leans down to kiss Diana on the forehead. I wait for Di to choke from the hair spray fumes. “I guess I better get going,” Brooke says.

After she’s gone, I get on the phone to order some Chinese takeout. Not the most romantic Valentine’s Day dinner, but it’ll have to do this year. Dinner is beside the point anyway. I’m more focused on the desert. I bet Gina’s nipples and areola will be perfect circles, just like the rest of her. I wonder if that trend will extend to her clit as well. There’s only one way to find out.

She arrives at seven in a beat-up Oldsmobile. I’m sure from the slight lines around her eyes she’s a few years older than I am, so she’s either still in graduate school or else still paying off her student loans. Or she might be poor, but likes to splurge on the occasional over-priced coffee. It’s not important.

I bought some flowers after work to give her. It’s a tacky gesture, but expected on Valentine’s Day. “They’re lovely,” she says. I put the flowers in a vase to serve as the centerpiece on the dining room table. “So where’s your niece?” she asks.

We go back to the nursery, where Gina scoops Diana from the crib. The way Gina holds Di is like an elderly person struggling with a heavy sack. I step forward with my arms out, just in case she drops Diana. “She’s so cute,” Gina says too loudly, waking up Di. Gina tries to comfort the baby, but her soft words and rough pats on the back only make Diana cry more.

I finally take Diana, rocking her in my arms until she goes back to sleep. Then I set her back in the crib and not very gently tug Gina from the nursery. I lead her back to the dining room, holding out her chair like a gentleman. “I’m sorry about the baby,” she says. “That always works with my nephew.”

“She’s just not used to you,” I say. I try to think of some way to steer the conversation away from Diana. Out of desperation, I ramble on about the batch of napkins that came in with “Starbunks” printed on them. As I’m talking, I think back to those first dates with Susie, when I needed a crowbar to pry anything out of her. She was so shy back then. Only after she lost her virginity did she come out of her shell a little. I wonder what she’s going tonight?

When I stop talking, Gina tells me about herself. Appropriately enough, she’s a geometry teacher at the high school. She used to live in Kalamazoo, where she went to some college. I start to tune out her words, keeping one ear tuned for any sounds from Diana. My cashew chicken is getting cold, but I’m not hungry.

After dinner, Gina says, “You know, I didn’t have the wrong order this morning. I just thought that would get your attention.”

“It sure did.”

“I’ve been in a few other times, but I don’t think you saw me before today.”

“I’m sure I would have remembered if I had,” I say. Her round cheeks blush at this compliment. Now I’ve got her lined up in my crosshairs.

She doesn’t need a lot of convincing to get into bed with me. I unbutton her blouse and am disappointed at the raggedness of her areola and the ovular shape of her nipples. So much for symmetry.

Gina turns out to be a banger. She keeps banging her head against the headboard. I wonder how much protection her thick halo of curls gives her, which makes me think of Brooke. Where did she go tonight? Probably to a club to look for Todd’s replacement. I stop pumping Gina at the thought of Brooke bringing home someone even worse than Todd. I should have gone with her to screen her dates. Anyone she brings home could wind up being Diana’s stepfather; you can’t be too careful.

Gina’s headbanging gains momentum until I’m certain she’s about to come. If she doesn’t soon, she’ll knock herself out. Then I hear Diana start to cry. The sound freezes me in an awkward position. “Harry,” Gina whines. “You’re almost there.”

Diana’s crying becomes more plaintive. I remember that horrible day when she had the ear infection. What if she’s coming down with something again? I start to pull out of Gina. “What are you doing?” she says.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I say. I run across the hall into the nursery, naked and still hard. It’s a good thing Diana is too young to understand these things or else she might be traumatized. She flails her tiny limbs in the air, her crying growing more intense. I can smell why she’s so upset. The stench coming from her diaper is worse than a pile of corpses left to rot in the sun. “Christ, how did you manage that?” I ask her, but she has no answer.

“Harry? Are you almost done?” Gina calls from the bedroom.

“Sorry, I got to give her a bath now,” I say. To get rid of a stink like that requires more than a baby wipe and some talcum powder. I might to get out some steel wool and a can of air freshener.

“A bath? How long is that going to take?”

I stomp back into the bedroom and open the bottom drawer of my dresser. I rummage around various toys I’ve collected over the years to find a hot pink vibrator. “Here. If you’re really desperate, use this.”

She throws the vibrator back at my head. I duck in time for it to strike the dresser and shatter. She starts to gather up her clothes, mercifully concealing her ugly breasts. Looking at her now, I’m not sure what I saw in her. I must be getting desperate. That’s what happens when you haven’t gotten laid in well over a month. “Creep,” she says to me before leaving.

I pick up the vase of flowers to hurl in the direction of her car. The vase shatters on the driveway, spraying roses in every direction. “Whore!” I shout after her.

I stomp back to the nursery to pick up Diana and take her to the bathroom. She’s still too small for the bathtub, so I wash her rear in the sink. She makes a gurgling sound that is almost like a laugh. At least one of us is happy.

I’m drying Diana off when Brooke appears in the doorway. She’s not crying yet, but she looks ready to at any moment. I’m afraid to hear the answer when I ask, “How’d it go?”

“Rotten. I feel so…old,” she says. “Old and fat.”

“It’s going to take some getting used to,” I say. “You just have to give it time.”

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you go change and take a little nap? I can handle this.” Brooke looks at me a moment as if about to argue, but then shuffles towards her bedroom. I set Diana on the counter next to the sink to put a fresh diaper on her. “The first thing you need to know is to never give in to weakness and desperation. You always have to be in control,” I tell her. If only I had taken my own advice with Susie, things would be better off right now. For both of us.

Chapter 29

2007-06-15T06:48:00.002-07:00

Chapter 29

I wait a week before returning to Alternate Dimensions. All the debris is exactly where I left it, including the police tape hanging from the doorway. The police either don’t know I trashed my own store or they care about this place as much as I do. I step through the shattered glass of the front door.

The only souvenir I want to keep from the store is the ledger for tax purposes. The comics, books, and foam cups can stay where they are. Let someone else deal with them. This place isn’t my problem anymore.

I take the ledger back to my car, tossing it into the trunk and then taking out Dad’s old toolbox. On the roof are three sheets of plywood that should more than cover the broken window and door. I haven’t taken any measurements, but they look big enough. I hope I don’t have to saw anything, or else this job could get very messy.

After dragging the plywood one sheet at a time to lean against the front of the store, I consider how the hell I’m going to hold up the sheets to fit over the window so I can nail them in place. More to the point, what am I going to nail them to? I never was one for carpentry.

The only viable solution is to call for reinforcements. I doubt George or Craig are very handy, but an extra pair of hands is better than nothing. I dial George’s house first. Mrs. Marshall answers. “Harry? I heard what happened. It’s so terrible. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say. The bandages wrapped around my head have been reduced to a couple Band-Aids in strategic locations. I still have an occasional dizzy spell or bout of nausea from the concussion. The doctor says that will go away in time, so long as I don’t run my head into any walls. I felt tempted to ask him about my bruised crotch just to see his reaction, but decided to leave well enough alone. “Is George around?”

“He’s in his room. Harry, I wanted to talk to you about something else. I’m afraid your job at Herbert Chemical is being phased out. The company decided the position wasn’t cost effective.”

“I understand.” I expected Susie’s mom would make my old job at Herbert Chemical disappear. Just as well I suppose; I shudder at the thought of bumping into her in a dark hallway.

“If you need a letter of recommendation or anything—”

“I’ll be all right. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for letting me stay above your garage and for helping out at Todd’s wedding.”

“It was nothing. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“I won’t,” I say. I surprise myself by actually meaning this. Mrs. Marshall was the closest to a mother figure I’ve had in the last six years. Maybe she could stay over with Brooke. She’s been running ragged with the diaper changes and midnight feedings. I’m not sure the last time she got a full night’s sleep. Then again, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t get woke up in the middle of the night to Diana’s crying.

George comes onto the line. “What’s up?” he says.

“I need a little help down at the store. Think you could give me a hand?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m sort of busy.” I can only imagine the things George has to do: jacking off to fantasies of Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi, beating off to visions of Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager, or jerking off to an Elektra comic. His important task has to involve his hand and a pile of Kleenex in some way. I hear his mother’s voice in the background and then George says, “I guess I can help for a few minutes.”

“Great. I’ll see you here.” God bless Mrs. Marshall. While I wait for George, I go next door for a cappuccino from Starbuck’s. I don’t want to sit in the ruins of that store to relive that horrible night over and over again. Instead, I look around the coffeehouse to search for any worthwhile targets. I see a few, but I don’t have time for that right now. Maybe after George helps me with the windows I can come back.

I finish the cappuccino by the time I see George pass by the front windows. He’s surveying the damage, mumbling to himself when I say, “Yeah, it’s a real mess.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not really sure. Someone wrecked the place.”

“Aren’t you going to clean it up and reopen?”

“Probably not. Give me a hand with these.” George is clearly annoyed that I’m not going to rebuild Todd’s dream. It’s easy for him to be upset, considering he didn’t have a gun stuck in his face or have his spinal column severed by a bullet.

I pick up the end of a plywood sheet. George grunts as he takes the other end. We ease it into position over half the ruined front window. “Keep it steady.” I hammer a long nail into something. The nail catches, holding one corner of the plywood in place. George’s face is turning red and sweat is building on his forehead as if he’s Atlas holding up the world.

I hammer a handful of other nails into the plywood at random locations until it stays put without anyone holding it up. I’m worried George is going to collapse from the effort when we have to do the second one, but if I let him use the hammer it will take another week to finish the job. The second sheet is trickier because we have to fit it between the other one and the doorway, but we squeeze it in with a few millimeters to spare. “I can handle the door myself,” I tell him. I reach into my pocket for a five-dollar bill. “You could use a drink.”

“Thanks, but I got to go. I have a date. I better get home and shower.”

“Lucky you,” I say. How depressing to think George might score with an actual woman while I can only look forward to another lonely evening with Brooke and Diana. I shake my head as I watch George leave. It’s just not fair.

The phone rings as I prop the plywood over the door. Who the hell would be calling? Probably some telemarketer or a wrong number. I let the phone stop ringing, but then it starts up again. The only people who know I’m here are Brooke and Mrs. Marshall. My Spidey-sense begins to tingle at the thought of something bad on the other end of the line. I run across the store, jumping over fallen merchandise to scoop up the receiver in the office. “Hello?”

“Harry, something’s wrong with Diana!” Brooke shouts into the receiver. I was right.

“Brooke, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Diana?”

“I don’t know. She keeps crying. Her face is all red and her forehead feels hot. Harry, I’m scared.”

“All right, calm down. I’ll be right over. Just stay there, understand?”

“Hurry.” I hang up the phone, forgetting all about the door. If no one’s touched anything after a week, they aren’t going to do anything now. And if they do, screw it.

I drive home like a NASCAR driver, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights, and dodging pedestrians. I keep checking my mirrors for signs of the police, but no one pulls me over. If they had, it would have been almost a relief; then we might have gotten a police escort.

I leave the car running as I race inside to find Brooke in the nursery. As she said over the phone, Diana is crying, her face is beet-red, and her forehead is warm to my touch. “Come on, we’ll take her to the doctor. Who’s your pediatrician?”

“Dr. Carmichael, but he’s all the way across the river.”

“We’ll make it. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.” I’m not sure, but it sounds like the right thing to say. Brooke starts throwing blankets and clothes into a bag until I grab her arm. “There’s no time for that. Let’s go.” She picks up the baby and follows me out to the car.

I don’t pay any attention to the road on the way to the doctor’s office. I’m too consumed by the sight of my niece’s face getting redder with every passing moment and her cries getting more plaintive while Brooke and I are powerless to help her. Not her too, I keep thinking. Not after Mom and then Susie. I can’t lose my niece so soon.

I skid into the parking lot, leaving the car in a handicapped space. Let them tow the damned thing away. I lead the way up the steps and to the doctor’s office like a fullback. An old woman is at the reception window, complaining about something. I shove her aside. “What the hell are you doing?” the nurse behind the glass shouts.

“This is an emergency. My niece is really sick. We have to see the doctor right away. Where is he?” The nurse sees Diana in Brooke’s arms then and opens the door to let us pass.

The nurse leads us to an exam room, where Diana is put on the table. The doctor who shows up has a tangled mop of white hair like a mad scientist in a bad horror movie. “What happened?” he asks us.

“I’m not sure,” Brooke says. She has trouble getting the words out through her sobs. “She won’t stop crying.”

Unlike the two of us, the doctor remains calm as he examines Diana. I suppose it’s easy to stay cool in a crisis when you have nothing at stake in the outcome. Brooke keeps pressing him to tell her what’s wrong until I have to drag her into another exam room. She claws at me to get back into the other room. “What’s he doing to my baby in there? He’s hurting her, I know he is!”

In the movies and television someone always slaps the hysterical person. I try this, but it doesn’t work. The best I can do is to keep Brooke in a bear hug, her head pressed against my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right,” I say over and over again. If I say it enough times, I might start to believe it.

I’m not sure how much time goes by until the exam room door opens and Dr. Carmichael returns, holding a sleeping Diana. Brooke rips the baby from his arms; I’m worried she’s going to do more harm than good. “What’s wrong with her, Doctor?”

“It’s an infection, not uncommon with premature babies. She’ll be all right, but you’ll need to keep a close eye on her for the next few days. If she seems to get worse, take her straight to the emergency room and then give me a call.” The doctor pats me on the shoulder and then writes out a prescription for something. For all I know, it’s a tranquilizer for Brooke.

We sit out in the car for a while, watching Diana sleep in Brooke’s arms. I’m sure Brooke is thinking the same thing I am about how close we came to losing her. Life is so fragile.

After we return home, I have to pry Diana from Brooke’s arms to put her in the crib. “You should get some rest now. I can watch her,” I tell Brooke.

“No, I can’t sleep now. I have to watch her.”

“I’ll be right here. If anything changes, I’ll get you. You’re not going to be any good to her if you don’t get some rest.” I steer her towards the master bedroom and then tuck her in like a little girl. She’s too drained from the experience to put up much of a fight.

“If anything happens to her, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Brooke says.

“I know. Just try to sleep now.”

I close the bedroom door and then sit down beside the crib in the nursery. I rock back and forth in the chair, staring at my little niece. We could have lost her today, more to the ignorance of Brooke and I than any infection. We didn’t have any idea what to do. What kind of family are we going to be for this little girl?

Taking care of Diana was supposed to be Todd’s job, just like taking care of Alternate Dimensions. Since he isn’t man enough to do it, I’ll have to step in. Diana is my niece and I’ll be damned if she has the same kind of wild, redneck upbringing of her mother. I’m going to raise her like Mom would if she were still here. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I whisper to Diana. “Not while I’m here.”

Chapter 28

2007-06-15T06:48:00.001-07:00

Chapter 28

Brooke should have someone turn her story into a TV movie. Her story has all the elements of a good melodrama: abandoned by their mother, the drunken father, child abuse, and even a suicide. Now she even has almost the perfect ending with her newborn daughter. If only Todd hadn’t ditched her.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she asks me.

“I get it. You had a rough childhood.”

“The point is if you keep going this way, you’re going to end up just like Pa did. You’re going to destroy yourself.”

“I’m not some redneck with five kids.”

“You really think anything in that bar is going to make you happy? Did any of those women you brought home ever satisfy you the way Susie did?”

“Susie is gone. She doesn’t want me back and even if she did, I don’t want her. I’m not going to waste the rest of my life babysitting a cripple.”

“You’re a monster, Harry Woodyard!” The baby starts to cry. Brooke picks up Diana and rocks her in her arms. In a more subdued voice, Brooke says, “After you abandoned her in Indianapolis, I told Susie to dump you. I told her you were no good. She kept telling me she saw something in you I couldn’t see. You know what I think? I don’t think it ever existed.”

The baby is still crying as Brooke starts towards the master bedroom. Good luck going to sleep in there tonight. “When I come back, you better have your shit out of here!” I call after her.

This brings her back. “This house is still part Todd’s and Diana is his child. You can’t throw me out.”

“The hell I can’t. Todd doesn’t live here anymore. Until you hear back from him, I rule the roost and I say you get the fuck out of here.”

“Diana is your niece. Don’t you even care?” I look at Diana’s red, pinched face. The kid is innocent in all this. Her mother is white trash and her father would make the Loser Hall of Fame, but she’s only two days old; she hasn’t had time to screw anything up yet. “Harry, please, we need your help. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have any money and I can’t go back to work. You have to help us.”

“Fine, you can stay here until you can get a job and a place of your own. Then the two of you are out of here.” I wag a finger in Brooke’s face for emphasis. “In the meantime, no more nagging me about Susie or anything else. You mind your own fucking business and let me handle mine.”

“Harry—”

“Unless you want to end up freezing to death on the street.”

“Fine. It’s your life. You screw it up however you want. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She starts towards the bedroom again, but I stop her. “Sleep in my room tonight. Tomorrow I’ll get you a new bed and put the crib together.”

“Where’s Diana supposed to sleep tonight?”

“I don’t know. Put her in a drawer or something.” She snorts and then stomps away. Like I know anything about taking care of a baby. Susie was supposed to take care of that shit; she was the nurse.

I stomp out to my car, admiring the ruins of Todd’s bedding on the lawn. Tomorrow I’ll have to haul that shit out to the dump. I wouldn’t want to leave a reminder of Todd on the lawn all winter. Brooke and Diana are going to be enough of a reminder. How long until she can find work? Two months? Three? By the spring I’ll have the place all to myself again. Just in time to graduate and leave this whole rotten place behind me for good.

In the meantime, I drive over to Ike’s. I get a beer and my usual seat over by the pool tables. I’m not sure about pursuing girls with bandages still on my head. I should probably take things easy. Then again, I’ve been out of the game too long already. The last girl other than Susie I fucked was Greta Schmidt—Susanna Sterling doesn’t count because I don’t remember what happened.

As I nurse the beer, I search the room for likely targets. There’s a hot little brunette sitting alone at a table. I make my way across the room, almost salivating at the prospect of those round, firm melons underneath her sweater. I sidle up to the table and ask, “Mind if I join you?” Before she can answer, her boyfriend returns with two beers. Then I notice the ring on her finger. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” I say. I point to the bandages on my head, hoping they get the point.

A rookie mistake. I haven’t made such an error in appraising a possible target in six years. I chalk this one up to being sidelined for so long and the head injury. I can’t let one little mistake ruin my whole evening, so I return to my seat to begin anew.

After my embarrassing error in judgment, I decide to wait for someone new to walk in. My prayers are answered when three beautiful girls enter the bar. One is blonde, one a redhead, and one is Asian. It’s like Charlie’s Angels come to life. If I play my cards right, their mission tonight will be me.

I wait for them to get a table and relax a little before easing over. I wouldn’t want them to think I’m too anxious. As I make my way to their table, there’s a nervous rumbling in my stomach I haven’t felt since I first came in here with a fake ID. “Hi ladies,” I say. “Mind if I buy you a drink?”

“No thanks,” the blonde says. The three of them begin to giggle. A quick glance reveals none of them have rings on their fingers. I wonder if my fly is open or something.

“Come on, I won’t bite.”

“Get lost, creep,” the redhead says.

“Hey, I was just trying to be friendly. There’s no need to be a bitch about it.” Before I know what’s happening, the Asian girl leaves her seat and kicks me in the crotch. As I’m going down, feeling my nuts pulling up inside me, I wonder if these really are Charlie’s Angels.

I lie on the floor a few seconds, hearing scattered laughter around the room. I claw my way onto all fours and then into a standing position. To the delight of the girls, I limp to the front door. I’m trying catch my breath when the redhead hurls a bottle at my head. I duck, hearing the bottle shatter against the door and feeling cold beer trickle onto my bandages. I escape Ike’s to a chorus of catcalls.

For a long time afterwards, I sit in my car and wonder what the hell happened. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I’m still feeling some aftereffects of the concussion. I might have done something I didn’t even realize. No, I just walked up to them and offered to buy them a drink. The same thing I’ve done hundreds of other times.

The rumble in my stomach, that’s the difference. The game is all about confidence. Girls can smell a guy who doesn’t have confidence like a shark can smell blood in the water. They’ll eat you alive if they smell that weakness. Shit, how could I have lost my confidence? More importantly, how can I get it back? I’m not sure.

I drive back home and go inside. Brooke is asleep in my bed with Diana in my shirt drawer. Since I have nothing better to do now, I go into Todd’s old room and open the box for the crib. I read over the instructions that call for a hammer to fit the pieces together.

I drag the crib out into the wreckage of the living room. I have to sweep away a clean spot before dumping the contents of the box onto the floor. I sort through the pieces and begin putting the crib together. After hours of sweat and swearing, Diana has a new place to sleep that should be more comfortable than my shirt drawer. I haul the crib down the hallway to my bedroom, where Brooke can find it when she wakes up. It’s too bad Susie can’t be here to see Brooke’s reaction.

Chapter 27

2007-06-15T06:47:00.002-07:00

Chapter 27

I still remember the night Mama left us. It was my seventh birthday. Mama and Pa gave me a stuffed unicorn I’d had my eye on for weeks, but didn’t think they’d get for me. For dinner that night, Mama brought home a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken with all the fixings. I’m sure for you that was no big deal, but for our family that was like a Thanksgiving feast. We even had a great big store-bought cake with white icing and my name spelled out in purple. I felt like a princess that night.

When Mama put me to bed that night, I didn’t think much about her wearing a coat and carrying her purse. Mama worked a lot, so I thought she must have a new job. I asked her to read to me from the latest Pydlain book—Princess Gwynvale and the Silver Fire—but she said she couldn’t. “Mama has to go away for a little while.”

“How long?”

“Well, I’m not really sure.”

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere very far away.” When she said that, I thought she must be going on an adventure like Princess Gwynvale. She was probably going to find the Elves of the Sacred Grove so they could make Bobby’s lungs all better.

“Can I come with you?”

“No, princess, not this time.” She kissed me on the forehead and then kissed my unicorn too. “You two go on to sleep now.”

“Mama, I don’t want you to go.”

“I know, princess, but you have to be a brave girl while Mama’s gone. You’re a big girl now.”

I wanted to show Mama I was a big girl by not crying, but I couldn’t help myself. I think deep down I already knew she wasn’t going to come back. I grabbed the hem of her coat before she left, but she pulled it from my grasp. She stood in the doorway to blow me a kiss before she left. I never saw her again. The rest of the night I hugged the unicorn Mama’d gotten me and cried myself to sleep.

In the morning I got up, hoping last night was just a dream and I’d find Mama in the kitchen making breakfast. Instead, the boys were sitting at the table with a box of cereal. “Where’s Pa and Mama?” I asked.

“I ain’t seen them,” my oldest brother Jake said. He poured me a bowl of cereal, but I wasn’t hungry. “Brooke, you got to eat. We all got to pull together now.”

“When are Pa and Mama coming back?” Bobby asked. He and Jimmy were only a year older than me. Bobby started coughing and wheezing until Jake had to help him to the bathroom to take his medicine. If Pa and Mama were both gone, who was going to get Bobby his medicine from the doctor? I didn’t want Bobby to die. I started crying all over again.

Teddy, the second oldest, slapped me on the side of the head. “Don’t start acting like a baby,” he said. “If you ain’t going to eat, then get ready for school.”

I tried to get ready by myself, but Mama had always helped me. I dressed myself in the first things I pulled out of my drawers: a lime green pair of pants and a turquoise shirt. I tried to put my hair in pigtails like Mama did, but I couldn’t do it alone. I threw down my hairbrush and jumped on my bed.

After a while, Jake came in to help me. He picked out some matching clothes and tried to do my hair. He did the pigtails all crooked, not like Mama’s at all. “It’s not fair,” I finally said. “Why’d she have to leave?”

“I don’t know.” That was the first I realized that while Jake was the oldest at thirteen, he was still just a kid. “Just hush up now and go to school. Everything will be better later.”

I didn’t believe him, but I went to school anyway. When Missy Cartwright made fun of my crooked pigtails, I hit her in the face with my backpack. She started crying and screaming, so I jumped on her and kept telling her to shut up. By the time I was through with her, she had a broken nose and a chipped tooth.

As bad as it was for me, losing Mama was even worse for Pa. He came home that night smelling like he’d stood at ground zero of a brewery explosion. He collapsed right away on the couch and didn’t move for the rest of the night. Jake tucked me in that night. “What’s wrong with Pa?” I asked.

“He’s feeling sick,” Jake said.

Pa didn’t get any better. He came home drunk every night. Sometimes I would hear him come home, muttering or singing a song to himself. Some mornings we’d wake up and find him hunched over the kitchen table or laid out on the living room carpet. Once I even found him curled up in front of my door like a dog.

He only got worse after Bobby died two months later. That’s when he started bringing home the women. The first time I heard a woman laughing I thought maybe Mama’d come back. I ran out to the kitchen and saw this older lady with a big nose and stringy black hair. She looked like the Wicked Witch of the West. Pa had his arm around her. I screamed. “Brooke, this might be your new mama,” Pa said.

The evil witch bent down to give me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Her breath smelled even worse than Pa did when he came home from the bar. “Hey there, honey,” the witch said. “We can have all kinds of fun together.” I ran away and locked myself in my bedroom.

The Wicked Witch of the West didn’t last long. She was only the first in a long line of women Pa brought home. I didn’t see a lot of them, but every morning there would be a different smell through the trailer from her perfume. Pa wouldn’t get up before we left for school, so Jake had to take care of us. He did his best, but just like my pigtails that first day, nothing he did was like Mama.

After a while I noticed Teddy acting differently too. He didn’t get up right away in the morning and he was always crabby. Sometimes he smelled like Pa too. I asked Jake about it, but he said to just mind my business. “Teddy can take care of himself,” Jake said.

I minded my own business until one night I got up in the night to use the bathroom. I heard a noise from the kitchen, sort of like a dog panting. I went into the kitchen and turned on the light. That’s when I saw the three of them: Pa, a blonde bimbo, and Teddy. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but later I understood Pa and Teddy were working over the bimbo from different ends at the same time. That’s why Teddy seemed so different.

I didn’t even scream this time. I ran into the room where the boys all slept and jumped into Jake’s bed. He tried to ask me what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t really understand, but I knew it wasn’t right. He finally picked me up and took me out to the kitchen, where Pa, Teddy, and the bimbo were finishing up.

Jake didn’t say anything to anyone; he just kept walking with me right on down the road to Grandma’s. He passed me off to her and then went back for Jimmy. That was the last night I spent with Pa. Teddy wanted to stay with him for obvious reasons, but Grandma threatened to call the cops if Pa didn’t make Teddy stay with us.

Pa came over to visit us sometimes on holidays if he was sober enough. Then, about three years after Mama left, he finally got busted having sex with an underage girl in a parked car, both of them drunk. Grandma wouldn’t let us see or read anything about the trial. All we knew was Pa wasn’t going to visit us again for a long time.

I saw him for the last time when I was thirteen. He’d hung himself in his cell with his sheets. Grandma didn’t want us to go to the funeral, but I went anyway. I wanted to see him that last time. What I remember most is how small he looked then. His bald head made him look like an overgrown baby sleeping in that casket. He looked so weak and pathetic I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. That’s how I remember him: as a weak little man who couldn’t take care of himself or his family. I didn’t bother to stick around for the funeral. I left right then and didn’t look back.

Chapter 26

2007-06-15T06:47:00.001-07:00

Chapter 26

Snow begins to fall as I drive home. I hate the snow about as much as I hate Todd. I pull into the driveway, the place where Mom died in the snow because Todd wasn’t around. Yet another way he’s screwed over my life.

There had been a snowstorm dumping about six inches the day Mom died. School was cancelled, but Todd left early that morning anyway to hang around with his friends. Dad left for work at the usual time, leaving Mom and I alone with drifting snow piling up in the driveway.

“We should go out and shovel the driveway before your father gets home,” Mom says during breakfast. “Otherwise he’ll have nowhere to park.”

I mumble something incoherent in my adolescent way and then go to my room to read the stash of comics I picked up from Charlie’s the day before. Halfway through the latest Detective Comics, Mom taps on the door and sticks her head inside. “Harry, time to shovel the driveway,” she says in a singsong voice that annoys me.

“In a few minutes, Mom. I’m almost done.”

“Now, young man. Let’s go.”

If she had listened to me, there’s a good chance nothing would have happened to her that day. I put on my winter jacket, gloves, and hat before joining her outside. “Where’s your scarf?” she asks.

“Scarves are for kids,” I say.

“Harry, go inside and get your scarf.” I mutter under my breath as I go inside to get the scarf she knit for me two Christmases ago. With the scarf wrapped around my face and in my bulging parka I look about nine years old. I hope none of the kids from school see me outside, looking like this and shoveling snow with Mom. I’ll take endless abuse on the bus for the rest of my high school education. Not that they wouldn’t find something else to abuse me over anyway. At that time I’m still a fifteen-year-old with terrible acne and low self-esteem.

Mom has already started shoveling when I get back out there. Half the snow she throws seems to get carried back from the wind to the same spot. “Why doesn’t Dad just get a snow blower?” I whine.

“We don’t have the money for such things,” Mom says. I want to point out that Dad seems to have the money to hang out at the bar all night, but I’m sure she’d take his side in the argument. Parents always band together like that; anarchy would reign if they didn’t show a united front at all times.

I slam the shovel into the snow until I strike pavement underneath. I try to raise the shovel, but the snow is too heavy for me to lift. I manage to pull the shovel free and scoop out a smaller load to toss onto the yard.

Mom and I work in silence, except for the occasional grunt as we heft the wet snow. Todd and I always had fun while shoveling snow. We pretended we were Rebel soldiers on the ice planet Hoth, digging out trenches before the Imperial walkers descended upon us. Our shoveling took all day because we kept chucking snowballs at each other the moment one of us wasn’t paying attention. With Mom, shoveling is more like work. Long, dull work to carve a driveway from an icy plane. We should pay Mr. Presley to plow our driveway with his truck like the neighbors. Then I could go back inside to finish reading my comics, nice and warm in my room.

I’m sweating underneath the parka and scarf and my arms ache by the time I near the end of the driveway. Mom leans against her shovel next to me, breathing hard from the effort. Her face is flushed—I wonder why she doesn’t have to wear a scarf—and snow is trapped in her dark hair to melt. “We’re almost done,” she says.

“Uh huh,” I say, eloquent as always.

She pats me on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go inside to start some hot water? That way we can make cocoa when we’re finished,” she says.

“All right,” I say. I trudge through the path we’ve carved in the snow, back up to the house. I leave my boots on the porch, which is easier than knocking off all that snow, considering I’ll have to go right back outside to help Mom finish with the driveway. I unravel my scarf, leaving it on the dining room table as I go into the kitchen.

I put the teakettle on the stove when I hear the scream coming from outside. I forget all about the hot water, running outside as fast as I can. I burst through the door in time to see Mr. Presley’s black Dodge pick-up backing out of the driveway and rumbling down the road.

From the porch I see Mom’s pink boots sticking out of the snow. I race over to her in my socks, not noticing the cold. I tug on Mom’s left boot, only to recoil in horror when I pull out her leg, severed at the kneecap. I scream and drop the leg into the snow.

I furiously start to brush snow away from her right boot. Her right leg is still attached. I manage to free her from the snow, dragging her onto the driveway. There’s so much blood: leaking out of her, drying on her winter coat, and staining the snow all around. “Mom?” I say.

Her eyes open then and one trembling hand reaches out to me. Her hand is so cold when it touches my cheek. I take her hand in both of mine, unsure of what else to do. “Your scarf,” are her last words to me. Then she’s dead.

“Mom? Mom!” I try shaking her back awake, but she’s gone. I lie prone over the body for a long time, sobbing uncontrollably and getting myself covered in her blood. I recover enough after a while to go inside and dial 911. The paramedics show up ten minutes later; by then Mom’s face has turned white with a bluish tint at the edges. There’s nothing the paramedics can do for her. One of them puts an arm around me and walks me up to the porch, helping me into my boots. The other loads Mom’s body onto a gurney, covering her with a blanket. I want to follow the gurney to the hospital; I don’t want to lose Mom. A police officer arrives on the scene to take custody of me.

“Don’t worry, son, everything will be fine,” the officer says. It’s about the most asinine thing anyone can say in such a situation. I want to punch the officer in the face. Then I want to take the snow shovel and bludgeon Dad to death for not buying a snow blower. Then I’ll do the same to Todd for leaving Mom and I alone to shovel the driveway.

As I sit in the driveway now, that old anger wells up in me again. Todd stole Mom from me and now he’s taken Susie as well. The son of a bitch is successful only in ruining my life. I would ruin his if he wasn’t doing such a good job of it himself, and bringing the rest of us down to boot. Not anymore. I’m going to erase him from my life.

I go into the garage and find the snow shovel I used the day Mr. Presley ran over Mom in his snow plow. I walk into the living room, swinging the shovel indiscriminately, not caring what I destroy. I break the television Todd used to watch on nights Brooke had to work. I gut the chair where he sat, using the blade of the shovel like an ax. I smash the coffee table where he put his feet up and left his food. When I’m done, the living room is strewn with debris, but I’m not finished yet.

I make my way back to his old bedroom, where the baby clothes and furniture are still piled up. I swing the shovel into the shelves over Todd’s drawers, spraying pieces of action figures in every direction. I see a Robin figure missing his left leg that reminds me of Mom, fueling my rage. I break the figure into tiny fragments. Like King Kong I swat model airplanes from the ceiling, sending them crashing into the walls. With each blow, a little more of Todd’s evil influence is exorcised. He’s a curse, a plague upon me that will soon be destroyed.

In the bathroom, I break open every bottle of cologne, shaving cream, and aftershave he ever used. The resulting odor sends me reeling like nerve gas. I stagger into the master bedroom he usurped from Mom and Dad. I pound the mattress with my shovel, but it does no good. There’s only one way to rid myself of this.

I haul the mattress, box springs, blankets, and sheets out onto the lawn. In the garage I find leftover gasoline for the lawn mower, oil for the cars, and lighter fluid for the barbecue. I coat the bed in the flammable cocktail and then leap back as I toss a match onto the pile. The bedding goes up in a cleansing column of fire that melts the snow all around it.

I’m pleased by the result, but it’s still not enough. I return to Todd’s old bedroom to throw his twin-sized bedding onto the heap. For the finishing touch, I take the Alternate Dimensions sign from the roof of my car, adding it to the heap. Then I collapse onto the muddy lawn to watch the fire consume everything, my body suddenly too heavy to move.

After all the carnage I’ve wrought, the simple truth remains: Susie is still crippled. I’ve accomplished nothing and no matter what I do, it will change nothing. Even if I find Todd and kill him, nothing changes for Susie. She’s lost to me. These thoughts so deplete me that I fall asleep on the lawn.

I wake to someone shaking me. At first I think I’m still in bed, hearing Susie’s voice to wake me before we jog in the park. Then I recognize Brooke’s voice asking, “Harry, what are you doing?”

I look at the pile of smoldering bedding and then at Brooke, who has my niece in her arms. Little Diana’s face is slack and peaceful as she sleeps, oblivious to all the problems of the world. Another life Todd has ruined and she’s only two days old. “I’m cleaning house,” I say.

“Harry, I heard what happened to Susie. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. Sorry doesn’t mean shit.”

“Come on, let’s go inside.” I follow Brooke inside without protest. She sees the mess in the living room, but doesn’t say anything. She sets Diana on the dining room table and then drops into a seat. “Harry, I’m sure if you give Susie time, she’ll take you back. Right now she’s just in shock.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want her back.” I head for the door. “I’m going out.”

“To do what? Pick up another girl? You think you can replace Susie just like that?”

“She was just a nice pair of breasts, that’s all. There are plenty around this town.”

“Harry, I want to tell you something. Sit down.”

“I don’t have time for a bedtime story.”

“Sit down. Now,” she says in a steely voice I’ve never heard before from her. It’s like Mom’s voice. Maybe motherhood does that to women. I sit down and listen to her story.

Chapter 25

2007-06-15T06:46:00.001-07:00

Chapter 25

I wake up the next morning to a nurse checking me over. She has sandy hair still dark at the roots with small breasts sagging inside her blue scrubs. I play possum while she looks me over, not wanting to scare her. After she’s written whatever information on my chart, I ask, “Can I go home now?”

“The doctor still has to sign the release. Your vitals are looking good, though.”

I’m feeling better too. The dizziness has subsided and the nausea has given way to hunger. I’m tempted to ask the nurse about breakfast, but hospital food probably will make me vomit.

After the nurse leaves, I wait until I don’t hear any footsteps to unplug the tubes again and put on my clothes. I find my underwear, socks, and shoes on a chair I don’t remember seeing the night before. Then again, I don’t remember a lot about the night before and what I do seems fuzzy like a dream.

I’m not sure if what happened after I woke up the first time really happened or if I imagined it. Did the Steemroller really come in here and threaten me? Was Susie really paralyzed from a gunshot to the back? The only thing I do know is I can’t find the answers in here. The hell with waiting for a doctor, I’m getting out of here now.

This time I can move pretty well under my own power, although I still look down at my feet to make sure I don’t trip. Instead of the emergency room, I follow the arrow to the intensive care unit, where Susie should be if she’s out of surgery. The Trench Coat Bandit might be here too, unless he’s in the morgue by now. I take the elevator up to the fifth floor and go through the doors to intensive care. I meet another nurse, this time a man with spiky gray hair and a mustache.

“I’m here to visit Susie Steemer,” I say.

“Are you family?”

“I’m her fiancée.” It’s not entirely a lie: she was my fiancée for a couple minutes in my dream.

“OK, but don’t be in there too long. She needs her rest.”

“I won’t be long.” The nurse gives me the room number and I go down the hall until I find the right number next to the door. I ease the door open, expecting goons hired by the Steemroller to jump out at me. Instead, I see only Susie.

She’s lying on her right side, the same side she laid on when we slept together. They gave her a half-assed haircut so that her hair is short in the back, but still long everywhere else. I don’t want to startle her, so I whisper, “Susie? Are you awake? It’s Harry.”

“Go away,” she says, her voice muffled by the pillow. I walk around the bed and a bank of machines taking her vital signs and dripping fluids into her body. Tears stain her face; either the doctors told her the bad news or she’s figured it out on her own.

“I’m sorry, Susie. I really am.”

“Sorry isn’t going to help me walk.”

I squat down so I’m at eye-level with her. “Susie, I know you’re upset, but I want to be here for you.”

“Why? I’m no good to you anymore. I can’t—” She becomes too choked up to speak. Finally she says, “I’m never going to have a baby.”

I drop into a chair next to her bed. I came up here all gung-ho about doing “the right thing.” I would tell Susie I love her and being crippled doesn’t matter and all that garbage. We would kiss like in my dream and everything would be right with the world. But now I’m starting to see how our life together would work. I would spend most of my time helping her do the things she’s unable to anymore from getting things off a high shelf to driving her around. At the end of the day, she would struggle her way into bed and then we might kiss before falling asleep until the next day of the same.

Those days seem endless in my mind. I’m twenty-two years old for Christ’s sake. I have too many good years ahead of me to live celibate like a priest. My longest stretch of celibacy was the two weeks I spent above the Marshall’s garage and look how that ended up. Susie and I just weren’t going to work anymore. The Trench Coat Bandit’s gun made sure of that.

“I’m sorry, Susie,” I say. I want to say something chivalrous like, “I wish it had been me”, but who am I kidding? If I lost my ability to have sex, I’d smother myself with the pillow the minute I was alone. I’d rather the Bandit shook me in the head or some vital organ than cripple me. All I can think to say is, “I wish there was something I could do.”

“Just leave me alone,” she says. “You’ve done enough.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I shout. “I didn’t put the fucking bullet in you. I didn’t ask you to come down to the store at ten o’clock at night.” I point to the bandages around my head. “I tried to save you.”

She starts to sob then, her face contorting with pain. I ease towards the door, not knowing what else to do. “Mother was right about you,” she says through clenched teeth. “You ruined my life.”

“Fine, you go crawling back to Mommy like you always do.” I realize the inappropriateness of saying “crawling back” too late. There’s no point in apologizing now.

“Just get the fuck out of my life!” Susie roars. I’ve never heard her swear before. I’ve heard such raw hatred in her voice. In that moment, she sounds like her mother. I leave the room without looking back.

On my way out of intensive care, I slow near the nurse’s station. I should tell him to increase the dosage on Susie’s painkillers. I think about it for a second before leaving intensive care without saying anything.

As I leave the hospital, I keep thinking about what Susie said, mixing it with her mother’s words. How could they blame me for what happened? The fucking Trench Coat Bandit pulled the trigger. Susie showed up on her own accord. If she hadn’t interfered, the Bandit would have gotten away with the paltry sum from the cash register and some grim-faced bimbo would have shown up outside Alternate Dimensions to report the robbery.

Hell, I got popped in the mouth and probably a concussion trying to defend her. I did everything I could to protect her. If they want to blame anyone for this mess, they should blame Todd. It was his fucking store. I was there because he abandoned Brooke before their wedding. It should have been him getting robbed by the Bandit.

It wasn’t enough for Todd to squander most of Mom’s insurance money on the store, spoiling my chance to attend a real college. It wasn’t enough Susie and I had to help Brooke through the pregnancy of Todd’s child. It wasn’t enough for me to take a semester off school and go on leave from a decent job at Herbert Chemical to run his shitty store. No, he had to ruin things with Susie and I. The best thing I ever had going in my life, and she’s gone now because of Todd.

I walk over to a nearby convenience store to call for a cab. My wallet is still in my pants. I should have enough to get across town to Alternate Dimensions. As I wait for the taxi to arrive, I see the robbery leading the front page on the Freepoint Daily News. I buy a copy and sit down on the curb outside to read.

“The Trench Coat Bandit struck again for the sixth—and final—time last night at a small bookstore called Alternate Dimensions near the campus of Freepoint State University. Details are still sketchy, but it is believed the Bandit was in the process of robbing the store when a customer interrupted the theft. A struggle ensued, during which the customer was shot before the Bandit escaped.

“Police later attempted to pull over the Bandit’s car for driving without headlights at night. When the Bandit fled, police gave pursuit in a chase ending on I-69 early this morning when the Bandit’s car collided with a fuel tanker.

“The Trench Coat Bandit—Freepoint police are withholding his name at this time—was rushed to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The customer shot earlier is in stable condition. Police Chief Mayer has called a news conference this afternoon to provide more details on the case.”

I tear up the newspaper after reading it. Susie wasn’t a customer. She was my…I can’t find the right word to describe her. Someone I cared for is the best I can come up with. I go back to the payphone to demand a retraction, but I don’t have enough change in my pocket to make another call. What good would it do anyway?

The cab arrives and I give him the address for the Starbucks. I don’t know if he’s heard the news about what happened at Alternate Dimensions, but if he has I don’t want him to think I’m some ghoul hanging out at a crime scene. “What happened to your head?” the driver asks me.

“I slipped on some ice.”

“My mom broke her hip falling on some ice.” He goes on to explain the incident, but I don’t pay attention. I think about Susie and the unfairness of this. If she had arrived a couple minutes later, if she had decided to call instead of meeting me in person, or if she hadn’t gotten so wrapped up in baby shopping earlier, she would still be able to walk. We’d probably be recovering from a night of wild make-up sex. Then we’d spend today sprucing up the nursery for when Diana came home. Everything would be normal instead of a mess.

There’s yellow crime tape around the front of Alternate Dimensions, but no cops are around. I don’t suppose much of an investigation is needed when the prime suspect is dead. I pay the driver and then go inside the Starbucks to wait until the taxi pulls away. After it’s gone, I go next door to where everything unraveled.

The door is open, as the Bandit must have left it on his way out. I bend down in the doorway to see spots of Susie’s blood staining the floor. I think back to my dream and am surprised by how little blood I see. If not for those spots, it would be hard to imagine anything of consequence had happened. No bullet holes, no shattered glass, not even a broken lock on the door.

I slip through the yellow tape, heading over to the counter. I find trace amounts of my own blood on the edge of the counter where I hit my head. The counter itself is fine. The cash register is still open, but now empty. If the paper sack of money survived the crash, I’m sure it’s in police custody by now. They can keep it. The amount was hardly worth enough to ruin a young woman’s life before losing his own.

I go into the back room, where the ledger and atlas are open as they were when I first heard the Bandit’s footsteps. I look around the room, my eyes falling upon Todd’s stool. A murderous rage explodes through my body at the sight of Todd’s treasured possession. This is his fault. Susie is crippled for life because he was too fucking chicken to marry Brooke. She and I are over because he needed an adventure.

Before I know what I’m doing, I grab the stool and rush out into the store. “How’s this for an adventure?” I shout before smashing the stool into the butcher’s case. The glass shatters but the stool remains intact. Unsatisfied, I slam the stool against the cash register. The wooden stool doesn’t break. I hurl it across the room into the bookshelves. Finally, one of the legs snaps off.

I pick up the rest of the stool to finish it off. I batter it into the bookshelves until the symbol of Todd is kindling. Then I stand in the center of Alternate Dimensions, breathing hard and hungry for more destruction. Fuck this place. I don’t care if the police haul me to jail for interfering with their investigation. I don’t care if the landlord is pissed about the damage. I don’t care if the insurance policy doesn’t cover my rampage. I’m going to destroy this place so that if Todd ever comes back, he’ll find his precious store in ruins, just like Susie’s life. It’s about the best I can do for an-eye-for-an-eye with Todd still MIA.

My hatred gives me the strength of The Incredible Hulk. I topple the bookshelves in one motion. Then I go over to the comic book rack. All those superheroes fighting imagined evils while real evil struck three feet away. I heft the comic book rack over my head and heave it through the front window. The rack rolls across the sidewalk and the road before coming to a stop on the shoulder, a trail of comics left in its wake. I pick up the cash register, the object at the root of this disaster, and hurl it like a shot-put after the comic book rack. The cash register bounces once before landing in the gutter.

I look around the room for something else to destroy, but see no other worthy targets. The only one that remains is not accessible from inside. I return to the back room for the stepladder and haul it outside to the sidewalk. A small crowd has assembled now, the most ever created by Alternate Dimensions, but no one tries to stop me as I scramble up the stepladder to the roof. The sign I repainted still advertises that hated name. I reach up and rip the sign from its moorings with my bare hands. I can’t think of any way to destroy the sign here, so I drag it around back to my car. I find some rope in the trunk to tie the sign to my roof. Then I get in the car and roar away from the destruction.

Alternate Dimensions is no more, but I’m not finished yet. I’m going to do what I should have done years ago: I’m going to erase Todd from my life.

Chapter 24

2007-06-15T06:45:00.002-07:00

Chapter 24

I wake up alone, not even in a hospital room. It’s more like a stall. I’m lying on a gurney, the back of it canted up to leave me in a sitting position. There’s some equipment to the left of me, and a curtain pulled across the entrance. I see light beneath the hem of the curtain with feet passing by occasionally.

The first thing I notice about my condition is my head is ringing worse than any hangover I’ve ever experienced. This is worse even than after I woke up in Susanna Sterling’s apartment the night of Todd’s bachelor party. I lift my right hand to touch my head and feel bandages wrapped all the way around. This must be from when I struck my head on the counter.

My jaw also hurts from where the Bandit struck me, telling me I haven’t been in a coma for weeks. I don’t have my watch to tell the time, but it must be the same night or maybe early in the morning. If I was shot, shouldn’t I be in intensive care? I feel my chest for bandages, but find nothing.

The realization causes my head to throb harder: the bullet wasn’t aimed at me. I think back to those last moments. Susie screamed and then the gun fired. I wasn’t in any position to see the gun’s barrel, but he must have been aiming at Susie. I think back to the end of my dream, the blood flowing out of Susie by the bucketful. Oh shit.

I unhook the tubes connected to my left arm. I’m not sure what they’re supposed to do, but it can’t be anything too important. When I swing my feet off the gurney, my throbbing head spins. I feel a flash of vertigo, stumbling forward into a side of the stall. I reach my right hand out and find my clothes hanging up. I’m still dizzy as I pull on my shirt and then slip on my pants over the hospital gown. I can’t find my underwear, socks, or shoes. They must be somewhere else. Screw them, I have to find Susie. I need to find out what happened.

My first step is as clumsy and hesitant as an infant’s. I brace myself against the stall on my way to the curtain. I need two tries to pull back the curtain. Then I peak my head out to look around. I’m in the middle of a corridor lined with stalls like mine. I don’t see anyone else around. I hear machines and a distant mumbling. If Susie was shot, then she wouldn’t be here. She would in surgery or intensive care or something.

I start out towards the end of the corridor, going one step at a time. I need a wheelchair or one of those Amigo things like in my dream. Thinking of the dream reminds of the grim ending so I try to pick up the pace. I look down at the terry cloth slipper socks covering my feet. One step and then another. I count one hundred sixty-two steps before I reach the end of the corridor. I stick my head into a hallway and see nothing either way except another long trip.

There’s a sign along the hallway with arrows pointing either way. I have to squint and really concentrate to read the words. I see the word ‘Emergency’ and follow the arrow pointing to the right. I’m fortunate in discovering an abandoned wheelchair halfway down the corridor. I sink into the chair, closing my eyes to fight off a bout of nausea. Then I start wheeling along the hallway, picking up speed as I go.

In the wheelchair it doesn’t take me long to reach the set of double doors to the emergency room. The doors open at my approach, greeting me to a shot of cold air from outside and hurried voices talking about “trauma” and “shock.” I watch paramedics and a team of doctors and nurses roll away with a pair of heavy boots sticking out the back of the gurney. I roll ahead a few inches before the gurney disappears and see the hem of a gray trench coat. The Bandit! “You bastard!” I scream and pursue the gurney. A nurse grabs the handles of my commandeered wheelchair. I jump out of the chair, but my head and legs aren’t able to keep up so I wind up falling on my face. The Bandit and his team of doctors disappear into an elevator.

The nurse helps me up and back into the wheelchair. She’s a Latino woman with a black pageboy and no discernable breasts. “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” she says.

“That man, is he still alive?”

“Don’t worry about him. Let’s get you back to your room until you’re feeling better.”

“Don’t worry about him? He robbed my store! He knocked me unconscious! Why are you helping him?”

She turns my wheelchair in the direction I came from. I grab hold of the spokes to keep the wheels from moving. More important than finding out where the Bandit is going is where Susie is being kept. “Was there a woman who came in with me? She has long reddish hair and—” I stop myself before I make an inappropriate comment about Susie’s breasts. “Did you see her?”

“The doctors are taking care of your friend. She’ll be fine. Let’s just get you back to your room.”

“Look, bitch, I don’t give a shit about my room. You tell me what happened to her right fucking now!”

“Young man, if you don’t calm down, I’ll have one of the doctors give you a shot.”

“I’ll calm down if you tell me what the fuck happened.”

“She was shot in the back. They took her up for surgery. I’m not sure about her condition now.”

Shot in the back. She must have turned to run away after she screamed. Then the Bandit fired his gun, hitting her in the back. “The man who came in here, what happened to him?”

“He was in an accident after fleeing from the police. He went through the windshield. He’s going into surgery right now, but I don’t think his chances are very good.” She must be saying this to make me feel better, but it only makes me feel worse. That stupid bastard shoots Susie and then gets in an accident while fleeing the scene. He’ll never have to stand trial or spend a day in jail. Dying seems like an easy way out of his situation. If you’re religious I guess you can think he’ll be tortured in Hell, but I haven’t put much stock in God since He decided to kill Mom. He seems to kill without much prejudice; He might take Susie from me before this is all over.

I look up at the nurse and say, “Please, you have to find out where Susie Steemer is for me. I have to know she’s all right.”

“If you go back to your room, then I’ll see what I can do.”

I don’t like these terms, but I don’t see any better alternatives. I’m not exactly in a good bargaining position right now in my weakened state. I let go of the spokes so the nurse can wheel me back to the stall. She steadies me as I climb back onto the gurney and then helps me undress. She plugs the tubes back into my arms. I’m breathing hard and about to throw up by the time all this is finished. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. “Now, behave yourself and I’ll be right back,” the nurse says.”

“Thank. You,” I say. I’m exhausted by all the effort from my brief sojourn to the emergency room. I keep my eyes closed after the nurse has gone and slowly fade into sleep again. Images of Susie screaming and oozing blood haunt me.

Then I wake up to a real life nightmare. I hear the curtain pull back and open my eyes, expecting the nurse. Instead, I see the Steemroller silhouetted against the light. If her eyes could shoot beams of light like Cyclops of the X-Men or heat like Superman, I’d be dead. I wonder for a moment if I’ve died on the gurney and she’s come to welcome me to Hell.

“They told me you’d be in here. You son of a bitch. I knew I should have never let you interfere with my daughter’s life. I thought she would finally understand what a failure you were and come crawling back to me. Then she and I would be happy and you would still be nothing.”

“What happened to Susie? How is she?”

“Thanks to you, Susie is crippled. The bullet severed her spine. If we’re lucky, she’s paraplegic. They won’t know for certain until she’s had time to recover from the surgery.” The Steemroller lets the words sink in. There are no tears on her face as she describes her daughter’s condition to me. “Oh, in time, with a lot of physical therapy and advances she might regain some mobility, but she won’t walk again. You’ve taken that away from her.”

“Me? I didn’t shoot her.”

“The only reason she went to that godforsaken store at that hour was because of you. Because, for whatever reason, she loved you. Why, I’ll never understand.” The Steemroller shakes her head. She closes the curtain behind her as she approaches me until her face is an inch from mine. “Your life is over. I’m going to make certain your remaining years contain as much pain as you’ve inflicted upon Susan. You’ll wish he had shot you instead tonight.”

“Go ahead and do your worst. Maybe if you hadn’t been such a bitch to Susie, she wouldn’t have gravitated to losers like Floyd Jensen and I. If you had let her stay with her father, none of this would have happened.” If I didn’t have a severe head trauma, I wouldn’t have the nerve to say this to the Steemroller. I wait for her to slap me, but she doesn’t.

“You will never see my daughter again. If you attempt any contact with her, I’m going to have someone chop off your balls and feed them to you. Do you understand?”

“Why don’t you let Susie decide what she wants to do?”

“I’m not going to make that mistake again. You’re out of her life forever.” Then the Steemroller disappears from the stall, leaving me alone once again. I want to get up and find Susie, but I don’t have the strength.

I’ll get a little rest and then I’ll go see her. We’ll work everything out just like in my dream. I’ll give her Mom’s ring and then we’ll be happy, even if she can’t walk. The Trench Coat Bandit and the Steemroller can’t stop us.

Chapter 23

2007-06-15T06:45:00.001-07:00

Chapter 23

I wake up in a hospital to find Susie holding my hand. “Harry?” she says. “Oh God, I thought you’d never wake up.”

My mouth feels like sandpaper. I try to choke out a few words, but all that comes out is a wheezing sound. Susie dribbles some water into my mouth. I swish it around and then swallow, feeling a lump of pain as I do so. “Thanks,” I say. “How long was I out?”

“A month. I was starting to worry you’d never wake up.”

I look down to find bandages wrapped around my chest. “What happened?” I ask.

“The bullet came within centimeters of your aorta. They managed to get the bullet out without any damage.” She squeezes my hand and tears come to her eyes. “You’re going to be fine.”

“What about you? After he shot me?”

“He ran away. The police caught him a few hours later. Detective Gordon will probably want to talk to you later. I have to testify in the trial next month.”

“Who was he?”

“Some ex-Army guy. Jonathan Crane, I think his name was.”

The name seems familiar somehow. I shrug it away. I’m just glad to be alive. And I’m glad Susie is unharmed. I feel a stab of pain in my chest as I remember the gun swinging towards her as she came in. If I hadn’t reached for the gun, she would be dead right now. I squeeze her hand, wanting to make sure she really is alive. “Susie, I’m sorry about everything. About the way I treated you.”

“Harry, don’t worry about that now.”

“No really, I’ve been such a jerk. I treated you like shit and all this time you’ve done nothing but be love me. I don’t deserve you.” There’s nothing like getting shot and almost dying to make you suddenly introspective and sentimental. I came within a few centimeters of losing my life. Compared to that, breasts and sexual freedom don’t matter anymore. Instead, I want to grab Susie and never let her go. “After I get out of here, I want to marry you.”

“Do you mean it, Harry?”

“I’m sorry I can’t get down on one knee, but yes I mean it. I want to marry you. I love you.”

We kiss until I’m struggling to breathe. Both our faces are wet with tears of joy. This is a new beginning for both of us. I should send a thank-you note to the Trench Coat Bandit’s cell for bringing us together. Otherwise I might have thrown away the best thing to ever happen to me.

I get out of the hospital in two weeks. I have to take antibiotics every day and if I feel too much pain, I have a vial of painkillers that may or may not be addictive. Until the doctor pronounces me in good health, I’m not supposed to push myself too much. That’s easy to do with a full-time nurse in Susie. If I even try to climb a flight of steps, she warns me to go slow. In the supermarket, I drive around in one of those Amigo carts like the old people. I make shopping more interesting by offering to race Susie to whatever item is next on our list. I think she lets me win some of our races.

Susie and I have not fucked since I woke up, but I don’t miss the sex. Having her around feels even better than coming. The feel of her soft skin and silky hair against me as she sleeps is more pleasurable than an orgasm. And there isn’t any morning-after regret.

One night after she’s gone to sleep, I lie next to her, watching her sleep. So this is love, I tell myself. Funny how I spent so many years avoiding this situation. Then again, none of those other girls were like Susie. They were all beautiful—with the exception of Haley Fitzsimmons—but I never knew any of them like I know Susie. I had never given most of them a chance, assuming they weren’t worth more than a single night.

Susie and I are going to start a whole new life together. We decide the best thing for both of us is to get out of Freepoint. After some discussion, we decide to move to Connecticut so she can be close to her father. Brooke and little Diana are welcome to come along. Her father doesn’t have a mansion like the Steemroller, but there’s enough room for all of us until Susie and I find a place of our own.

The house and store are both up for sale. We’ll wait until I finish school in June before leaving. If there’s no buyer for the store, then we’ll let the lease run out. The real estate agent can sell the house without us around. In the meantime, we’re living with all non-essentials packed.

Alternate Dimensions, the place where I simultaneously almost died and was reborn, is closed forever. Susie and I don’t even want to drive past it, so George and Craig volunteer to pack everything up. They’re welcome to take anything they want. I don’t want any reminders of the place. Susie is the only reminder I need. If Todd comes back before the lease runs out, he’s more than welcome to take it back over.

The Trench Coat Bandit is convicted in a trial that lasts only two days. Susie testifies for the prosecution about what happened that night, looking at me for support the entire time. The public defender for the Bandit tries to plant reasonable doubt by suggesting anyone could have been wearing the blue ski mask and gray trench coat. The 9mm pistol used in the robbery is a weapon anyone can buy at a gun show. “I looked in his eyes,” Susie tells the public defender. She looks over at the Bandit, who’s hunched down in his seat. “I know it was him.”

Based on Susie’s testimony alone the defense’s case might have worked, but the district attorney’s office has collected more than enough forensic evidence to support their case. They have the pistol that matches the bullet taken from me, the infamous trench coat with spots of my blood, and the bag of money I gave him that night. The police searching the Bandit’s apartment also found evidence linking him to a half-dozen other robberies around town. The prosecution’s case is so airtight, I don’t even have to take the stand. The jury needs only an hour of deliberation to convict the Bandit.

Susie and I take in the news with little interest. We don’t have any need for revenge against the Trench Coat Bandit. If anything, he did us a favor by shooting me. He finally brought me to my senses, out of the misogynistic fog hanging over me since Mom died. I owe him my life in a way.

A month after the trial, it’s finally warm enough for us to begin jogging at Riverside Park again. The doctor has cleared me to begin exercising, so long as I don’t overdo it. Susie keeps our runs short so I don’t overexert myself.

Most of the time we spend on a bench, watching the sun rise over the river. I’ve seen the sunrise and sunset many times with a girl, but I was always too concerned about making my move to notice how the colors play against the water. Now that I’ve taken the time to notice, the sunrise is a beautiful sight, especially with Susie on the bench next to me. If it were up to me, we’d spend our whole lives sitting there on that bench with her head on my shoulder and my hand stroking her hair.

On Good Friday we take a short run before we’re supposed to get on a train for Connecticut to visit her father. The trip will also allow us to make preliminary inquiries about finding jobs and our own place to live. Brooke is going to come with us so we can all celebrate Easter together. A holiday celebrating a resurrection seems appropriate for us after what’s happened in the last few months.

After the run, Susie and I sit on the park bench to rest. The sky is just beginning to turn pink as the sun comes up over the river. I decide now is the time and get down on my knees on the sidewalk. “Susie, I asked you before if you’d marry me. To show my commitment, I want to give you this, if you’ll have it.” I reach into my pocket and take out a felt-covered box. I open the box to reveal a gold band with three small diamonds.

“Harry, when did you get this? It’s beautiful.”

“It was my Mom’s wedding ring. I know she’d want you to have it.” I slipped the ring off Mom’s finger at the funeral home, promising myself to give it to the woman I would marry. No one knew I’d kept it all these years. Susie is the only woman I can imagine wearing Mom’s ring.

“Of course I’ll marry you!” Susie says. She lets me slip the ring onto her finger and then wraps me in a hug. As we kiss, I notice how cold Susie’s lips feel. When she pulls away from me, I see the blood staining her T-shirt’s midsection.

The blood pours out of her in bucketfuls, much more than I ever thought possible to come from a human body. I’m still on my knees, drowning in Susie’s blood. She still has a look of absolute joy on her face, examining Mom’s ring like nothing’s wrong. The tidal wave of blood washes me away from her, plunging me into the icy river. Darkness surrounds me.

Then I wake up.

Chapter 22

2007-06-15T06:44:00.002-07:00

Chapter 22

I have to hire a new locksmith. After I arrived at the store, I called the other guy and tried to schedule an appointment. He’s booked solid for the next month. I slammed down the phone in disgust.

As I sit in the empty store, I flip through the Yellow Pages, scanning the advertisements. I may as well tack the pages to the wall and throw a dart to decide. What the hell do I know about hiring a locksmith? The last fucker should have already done the job so I wouldn’t be worrying about this shit now. I should have screamed at him instead of just hanging up to let him know exactly how I feel.

“This is bullshit,” I say to myself. Screw it. There’s nothing worth locking up in this place anyway. Dusty books, untouched comics, and worn furniture are all I have to protect. Anyone who stole those would be doing me a favor.

I set the portable television on the counter and turn to a judge show. Susie and I should go on one of these. Let someone else decide what to do now. Then we wouldn’t be able to blame each other for the unsatisfying verdict. The judge could shoulder the entire burden for us.

“Your Honor, I never led this girl on. I didn’t want her to fall in love. I just wanted to get laid. It’s not my fault she misinterpreted my intentions,” I would say in my defense.

“Your Honor, he took me out to dinner after his father’s death. He took me dancing on at least six occasions. He let me move into his house. We even took a trip to Indianapolis together. If that’s not leading me on, then what is?” Susie would tell the judge.

“Excuse me, Your Honor, but I went to Indianapolis under duress. Let the record show I left her at the Colts game to return home alone.”

“Then why did you move back in together?” the judge would ask us. That’s the question I can’t really answer. Desperation seems the most likely answer. I was living above the Marshall’s garage. I hadn’t screwed or even masturbated in two weeks. Then I got clubbed over the head at a strip joint and woke up in Susanna Sterling’s bed. By that point I think I have a pretty good case for temporary insanity. I thought Susie and I could go back to casual fucking without any romantic entanglements. I should have known better.

Three months after Mom died I met Cynthia Gibbons at a party. She had long red hair and a chunky physique that reminded me of The Birth of Venus when she got naked in my bedroom. Not the most gorgeous girl, but not a bad piece of ass either. Her being a demon in the sack is what sealed the deal. We fucked all night long.

I made the mistake of not sending her home that morning. Instead, we went out for breakfast and then to a Freepoint State football game. As the day wore on, I began to realize Cynthia Gibbons was dumber than the goalposts on the field. She thought George W. Bush and Al Gore were rival designers. She thought Columbus landed on Plymouth Rock to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Eskimos. Every time she opened her mouth, something dumb would come out.

After our second night, I knew I had to break up with her. The next morning I tried to explain things weren’t going to work out between us. “We’re just different people,” I said by way of half-assed explanation.

She furrowed her brow and stared at me for two minutes, as if I’d just told her everything in Spanish. “You don’t like me?” she asked.

“No, that’s not it.”

“You think I’m ugly?”

“No.”

“You think I’m fat, don’t you?”

She probably could have peeled off ten pounds or maybe even twenty, but she wasn’t a whale like Haley Fitzsimmons. “Nonsense,” I said.

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to be with me then.” Then of course the waterworks started up. I spent the entire morning and well past lunchtime giving her all the standard lines about it being me, not her and I needed space. She still didn’t understand.

Finally in frustration I screamed, “Of course you don’t understand! You’re a moron! A dolt, a dimwit, an idiot. You should be on the short bus with the special ed kids.” She ran away then. For the next year I avoided her in the halls. She made avoiding her a lot easier by packing on another thirty pounds during that time. I was lucky her family moved to San Francisco after that year. Otherwise I might have spent all of high school ducking her.

After the Cynthia Gibbons debacle, I realized it was better not to cultivate relationships with girls. One poke—maybe two or three—and then show them the door. Everything was a lot less messy that way. We both had some fun and got what we wanted. Why ruin a perfect night with a shitty day afterwards?

Since I doubt any TV judges would take my case, I don’t see any choice but to sit Susie down and explain we can’t go on this way. It would be stupid to play out this farce any longer. I’m not going to be tied down to her forever, end of story.

Of course in our case there’s the problem of Brooke and my newborn niece. If Brooke stays in the house, then Susie will be a frequent guest. I can’t just avoid her like Cynthia Gibbons, which will perpetuate awkward moments where we have to exchange pleasantries. Then again, it’s not so different than what we have been doing, only without the promise of sex.

I need to just get rid of Susie, Brooke, the house, and the store. I need to go back to school to finish my degree and start going back to Ike’s to find some fresh pussy. Better yet, I could follow Todd out of Indiana. I could start the next phase of my life in the deserts of Arizona, in the mountains of Colorado, or among the skyscrapers of New York. Why stop there? Paris, London, Tokyo, the sky’s the limit. I could reenact the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney World by fucking girls on every continent.

I leap from the director’s chair to find an atlas on the bookshelves. The only one I can find is from 1959 with the Soviet Union still together and threatening America. I pour myself a cup of coffee and take the atlas back into the office to study.

I would like to see everything from penguins in Antarctica to polar bears at the North Pole. The only problem as always is money. Even by selling the store and the house, I still couldn’t afford a jet-setting lifestyle for very long. A year or two at most and I would end up broke, begging for scraps and starving to death in some exotic location. I have to admit, though, becoming a bum in Asia, Africa, or Europe sounds preferable to sitting around Freepoint with Susie and Brooke. At least a bum is free to do as he pleases.

With this in mind, I start working on the books for the month so I can see where Alternate Dimensions stands. Before long I see the store is deep in the red. Only someone as dumb as Cynthia Gibbons would buy this place. I may as well board up the windows and wait for the lease to expire.

I hear the door open and check my watch. Between my daydreaming and bookkeeping it’s after ten o’clock. The store should be closed by now. Still, there’s no way I’m turning away a possible customer even at this hour.

“Can I help—” I begin, but then stop when I see my customer is wearing a gray trench coat and has a blue ski mask over his face. The Trench Coat Bandit!

The closest I’ve ever come to seeing a gun is in the movies and on television. When the Bandit pulls one from his pocket, I’m surprised by how small it is. The black barrel is all I can see sticking out from the Bandit’s meaty paw. He tosses a paper sack at my feet. “The money. Now,” he says in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

I stare at him with my hands up in surrender. I can’t move. I can’t even think. I’m too scared to even be embarrassed about the piss trickling down my leg. All I can do is focus on the gun in his hand pointing at my chest. I saw Mom die and I saw Dad’s corpse before the funeral, but never has Death look me in the eye before.

“Didn’t you hear me? Get the fucking money,” the Bandit says. The gun twitches in his hand and I flinch, expecting the fatal shot. The gesture is enough to spur me to action. I bend down slowly to pick up the paper sack and then open the cash register. As I empty the meager contents of the register into the bag, I can’t help thinking this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Batman or Spider-Man is supposed to come swinging in here, breaking through the front window to haul this creep to jail.

Instead, the front door opens and Susie says, “Harry?”

The Trench Coat Bandit whirls around in surprise. I’m even more surprised when I find myself reaching across the counter to take the gun from his hand. The Bandit swats away my feeble attempt at heroics and then nails me with a left hook. My forehead slams against the old butcher’s counter on the way down. I sag to the floor, my head spinning and the world going dark. Susie screams. The gun fires.

Chapter 21

2007-06-15T06:44:00.001-07:00

Chapter 21

The baby took eleven hours of labor. Since we weren’t relatives or coaches, Susie and I stayed out in the waiting room to let the professionals do their jobs. We watched the static-filled television, read stale magazines, and took turns going to the vending machine for coffee.

We didn’t talk much. Our conversations consisted of wondering how Brooke was holding up and then grunting something about her doing fine. Ever since I’d moved back into the house, Susie and I could only talk about the most mundane subjects, like whether a coupon for twenty cents off shampoo was worth keeping. Anything else might lead us down the slippery slope to violating our unspoken truce.

At four-fifteen in the morning, a nurse came in to make the announcement. Brooke and Todd had a daughter. Mother and baby had survived. The baby had been taken to the prenatal unit for observation while the mother was asleep. “What do we do now?” Susie asked the nurse.

“You can go home and get some rest,” the nurse said. I guess Susie and I were expecting this momentous occasion to be like in the movies, where the mother holds the darling baby for everyone to gush over while the father passes out cigars. Of course this girl didn’t have a father present and the hospital had a no smoking policy anyway.

So we went home in separate cars, meeting in bed. Susie seemed distracted as we fucked, lying inert beneath me unless I told her to move. I found myself too tired for much of an effort. I fell asleep while still inside Susie, waking sometime later with my head resting on her stomach. I pulled out and then lay down next to her, finding her still awake. She had tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m just so happy for Brooke,” she said. Per our agreement, I didn’t press for more details. I yawned a goodnight before falling asleep.

This morning we got up to head over to Maternity Barn for supplies. A few of Brooke’s friends and relatives had given her a baby shower last month, which provided a bounty of tiny booties and frilly dresses, but not the practical items like diapers, wipes, and a crib. Susie and I decided to buy those necessities before Brooke came home.

As we enter the store, I sense this is a bad idea. Susie starts to almost skip through the aisles like a kid in a toy store. From the way she’s grabbing at the racks of clothes, I know to grab a shopping cart. By the time I wheel up next to her, she’s already got an armload of dresses, pajamas, and even a rain slicker. “Aren’t these adorable?” she asks me, holding up a pair of miniature Reeboks.

“Yeah, great. Maybe she’ll be the next Lisa Leslie.” Given the kid’s background—Todd couldn’t even hit the backboard with a basketball—I doubt she has much future in sports.

“Harry, please, don’t be so cynical.” Susie throws the shoes into the cart and then assaults the bibs. She seizes upon one with a rainbow and roses motif. “What do you think?”

“Fine,” I say. She tosses it in, along with three others. I start to wonder who’s going to pay for all this shit. I know Brooke can’t afford it and neither can I, not with the way the store’s going.

We spend about two hours evaluating diapers. She finally asks a clerk not much older than a kid herself to help find diapers for a newborn. The girl looks through the aisle with us and then picks up a box. “These seem good,” she says. I question whether or not to trust the judgment of a girl with a nosering and too much black eyeliner on diapers. I should go to Alternate Dimensions and ask the Golden Girls for help. Then again, they probably didn’t have diapers back in the Stone Age.

Susie of course trusts the girl and buys three other packages to make sure we have enough for the first two months of the girl’s life. Next we buy baby wipes, talcum powder, and tear-free shampoo. I stop the expedition long enough to run back for a second cart.

My feet begin to hurt from running around, but we aren’t even close to finished yet. Susie stops at a display for a mobile with stars that change colors and twinkle randomly. “Don’t you think the baby will like this?” she asks.

“I suppose so.”

She puts the mobile into the cart. Then she starts in on the toys. She holds up a pink unicorn, a Teddy bear with long fur, and a two-foot-tall Bugs Bunny. I draw the line at Bugs. “She won’t even be able to play with that for two years,” I say.

“Harry, don’t worry so much.”

“Who’s paying for all this stuff?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“The nursing home business must be paying pretty well these days,” I say. She frowns at me but doesn’t say anything. She exchanges the Bugs Bunny for a smaller panda. In the next aisle, she performs a little salsa dance as she tests out the various rattles. Watching her breasts and hips sway in time with the rattles, I want to forego the rest of our shopping trip and go home, but she’s too intent on the rattles to notice me. I slouch against the cart, hoping no one comes along to see my budding erection.

By lunchtime we make it to the cribs. She deliberates over these even worse than the diapers. The cribs range from the basic rectangular model with very little padding to a deluxe edition with automated rocking, built-in baby monitor, and a CD player with optional iPod docking port. As Susie examines each one, I’m struck by the irony of shopping for a crib months after shopping for Dad’s coffin. There’s something almost symmetrical about it. The circle of life.

When Susie can’t decide between two cribs, she enlists my aid. They’re both white with sky-blue padding. “I don’t see the difference,” I say.

“This one has balloons around the edge and this one has roses. Which one do you think the baby will like?”

“I don’t think she’ll give a shit.”

“Harry, be serious. This is important.”

“For Christ’s sake, this isn’t even your baby!” I shout loud enough for heads to turn in our direction. I wait for Susie to burst into tears, run away in embarrassment, or even to slap me, but she does none of those.

She puts her head down and mumbles, “I guess you’re right.”

I reach out to touch her shoulder, the first affectionate gesture I’ve made in two months. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you’re right. This is Brooke’s baby. It doesn’t matter which one we choose.” She looks from one crib to the other and then up at me. “Harry, can you pick one? I’ll start taking all this to the check-out.”

I watch as she wheels the carts away with a defeated shuffle. Now I understand the trap I sensed when I came in here. Susie wants a baby of her own. My baby. All this time she was supposedly buying for Brooke’s daughter she was really buying for her imaginary little girl. I should have known after her declaration of love that things could never be so simple. I pick the crib with the flowers and then follow her.

The supplies take up the entire trunk and backseat of Susie’s car. I get to look forward to an afternoon of cursing at lousy instructions and crib pieces that won’t fit together. “You still want to go over to the hospital?” I ask Susie.

“Brooke will be glad to see us,” she says. She doesn’t say anything else on the drive over. I know it’s not just my outburst at the Maternity Barn that’s silenced her. That’s just a symptom of the malaise hanging over us for the last two months. She’s probably debating whether or not this experiment should continue. I would help her make a decision if there was anything I could say, but I spelled out the conditions the night of the failed wedding. It’s up to her whether to abide by the agreement or not.

We go upstairs to Brooke’s room, but the baby is still in for observation. Susie is suddenly cheery as she enters Brooke’s room. “Congratulations!” Susie says.

“Yeah, congrats,” I chime in.

“Thanks,” Brooke says without enthusiasm. “They still won’t let me see her. I got to hold her for two seconds and then they stuffed her in a plastic bubble and took her away. My own daughter and I barely know what she looks like.”

“Don’t worry, they all look about the same at this point,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. Susie gives me a dirty look that says now is not the time for bad jokes.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Susie asks.

“Diana Prince Pydla,” Brooke says. I understand the dual reference right away, but Susie looks confused. I’ll have to explain to her later that Diana Prince is Wonder Woman’s secret identity and Prince Pydla is the main elf hero in the The Pydlain Chronicles. “That’s what Todd and I decided if it was a girl.”

I want to ask if they would have named the kid Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent if it were a boy, but hold back. In her sensitive condition, Brooke would probably start crying, shouting, or both. She doesn’t have Susie’s reserve and repression.

Susie takes Brooke’s hand and says, “They just want to make sure Diana is perfectly healthy. It’s standard procedure for a premature birth to be cautious.”

“What if something goes wrong? What if she dies before I see her? Todd will never get a chance to meet her.” As Brooke starts to cry, Susie holds her. I slip out of the room to escape the cloud of estrogen hanging in the air.

I have no idea at this point why the hell Brooke would want Todd to see the baby. If I were her, I’d get a restraining order to keep him away from Diana until one of them died. Todd abandoned the kid while she was in the womb, so obviously he wasn’t too concerned about her.

Susie emerges from the room after twenty minutes. Her face is redder than usual and the little make-up around her eyes is smeared like the diaper girl’s at the Maternity Barn. “She’ll be all right,” I say.

“I know,” Susie says. “I just don’t understand how he could do something like this.”

“I don’t know.” At this point I should put an arm around her shoulders or take her hand like a supportive boyfriend. Instead, I walk beside her down the hall and stand behind her in the elevator. If I cave in now, we’ll be shopping for diapers and a crib in nine months.

I drive home since Susie is in no shape to operate a motor vehicle. She looks down at her feet the entire way home, focusing on her white flats as if afraid they’d start to move on their own. “You want to get any lunch?” I ask. I’d like to keep her in a public setting to postpone the inevitable breakdown, thus forcing me into a decision of whether to defend my principles.

“No, I’m fine,” she says.

When we get home, she helps to unload the car. We pile everything up in Todd’s old room, now designated at the nursery. Susie sit on Todd’s bed, clutching the unicorn. I can feel the floodgates starting to open, a tidal wave of tears ready to burst forth. I clear my throat and say, “I should go check on the store. Are you going to be all right?”

“Sure,” she says. We both know it’s a lie. She’ll begin sobbing the moment my car pulls out of the driveway. For a moment I pause with indecision, but then I think of the mess Todd’s ensnared us all in. Better to let Susie cry alone now than to comfort her and end up digging my own grave. I hurry out of the nursery and out to my car. As I pull away, I look back towards the nursery, but Susie’s closed the blinds to hide from me.

Chapter 20

2007-06-15T06:43:00.002-07:00

Part III:

Winter

Chapter 20

The alarm goes off at seven o’clock. I’ve stopped getting up to exercise before dawn. I’m too damned tired and there’s no one in my bed anyway. The radio station is playing some song that fails to get me going with its loud guitars and screaming lyrics. I reach up to slap the off button before the alarm wakes Brooke.

I go into the kitchen hoping to find Susie so I can convince her for a little romp before work, but she isn’t home yet. She’s left me a note on the refrigerator saying we’re out of milk, but she’ll pick some up on her way home. I hadn’t noticed it when I came home last night. Like I give a shit about any milk except what’s in her silicon-augmented breasts. The coffee is still warm; I pour myself a mug and then flip on the television.

I hope every morning I’ll see a grim-faced bimbo in front of Alternate Dimensions to announce the store has burned to the ground. Instead there’s just some guy with too much mousse in his hair standing in front of a McDonald’s. Last night the Trench Coat Bandit hit the store as the night crew cleaned up. It’s the third robbery this month, all by the same perpetrator: a burly white guy in a gray trench coat and blue ski mask. As I finish my coffee, I remember the locksmith is coming today to install a new lock on the door.

Not that the Trench Coat Bandit—I wonder how long some news producer took to come up with such a witty nickname—would find anything of value at Alternate Dimensions. He could steal both quarters in the MDA charity jar. I might have to steal them myself before much longer.

I go back to the bedroom to throw on an old pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. In those heady first days I tried to dress like a respectable businessman, but now I know better. I don’t even bother to shower or comb my hair before leaving. No one will notice. If I covered myself in shit, I doubt anyone would mention the smell. You need to have customers first.

Brooke is still asleep when I leave. By the time she wakes up, Susie should be home to take care of her. When I get home from the store, it’ll be my duty to fetch pillows, adjust the thermostat from one extreme to the other, and pop grapes into Her Majesty’s mouth. She hasn’t asked for the last quite yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I can only cringe at the thought of how insufferable she’ll become when the baby comes.

I would like nothing than to throw her out the door by her swollen ankles, but she and Susie are a package deal. If Brooke leaves, Susie leaves, closing off my only pipeline for occasional sex at the moment. I haven’t gone to Ike’s since Todd left two months ago. Not out of some misplaced sense of loyalty to Susie, but because I’m too damned tired. I don’t have the energy for late night trysts anymore.

When I go outside, I find two inches of fresh snow on the car. Some of the accumulated snow on the driver’s side door soaks the front of my sweatshirt as I open the door to get out the brush. At least this is the powdery kind of snow, not the heavy stuff that sticks to everything. In a situation this bad, you look for any sort of silver lining.

During the holiday season, snow on all the lawns around town looks cheery with all the lights and plastic Santas, but by the end of January, the snow is like some evil fungus covering everything. Snow buries cars, blots out grass, and clogs gutters. I need every ounce of resolve not to disappear to some warmer climate like Todd probably did.

No one’s heard from him since before the wedding. No late night phone calls, no postcards, not even a letter. The last record of him is a receipt from an ATM in Indianapolis, withdrawing five hundred dollars of Mom’s money. I’ve since moved the funds into another account. The bank hasn’t noted any attempts to access the account since then. I could use the money to hire a private detective, bounty hunter, or maybe even an assassin to hunt him down, but I don’t want to waste our inheritance from Mom on him. The dumb fuck can keep riding the rails or whatever he’s doing for all I care.

I park behind the store next to the Dumpster. A dried-up bitch from the Starbucks is leaning against the trash bin, smoking a cigarette. She nods to me as I go around the building to open for the day. I’d trade jobs with her in a heartbeat. Slinging lattes is preferable to presiding over the demise of Alternate Dimensions.

As I do every day, I pause when I put the key into the lock, trying to decide if I really want to go through with another day. Then I sigh and look up at the new sign I painted before opening the Monday after Todd left. I spent an entire night painting ‘Alternate Dimensions’ in Old English script with the picture of a quill and ink. The hardest part was painting ‘Books, Comics, and More’ in small print. At the time I thought the new sign would lend the place some class; now I see it was nothing more than a futile gesture, like slathering cosmetics on a pig.

I unlock the door and turn on the light switch. Everything is still where I left it. The shelves along one wall I hired a carpenter to build are still lined with dusty novels and outdated textbooks. The comics are still all stashed into a rotating wire rack in the corner. The old butcher’s case is still empty, waiting for the ‘More’ promised by the sign.

My first official act as proprietor of the new Alternate Dimensions was to throw Todd’s stool in the supply room. The first days I stood behind the counter, naïvely thinking I would be so busy I wouldn’t need to sit. The next weekend I bought a director’s chair from Wal-Mart. Some mornings I like to sit in the chair and pretend I’m directing a movie about a rundown bookstore that will be miraculously saved before the place is closed when the people realize what they’re missing. Most days I forsake the director’s chair for one of the overstuffed armchairs I bought from the Salvation Army.

I realized the folly of turning Alternate Dimensions primarily into a bookstore after two weeks. Books are boring. I’ve never enjoyed reading books from The Adventures of Dick & Jane to Jane Austen. When I had to read a book for school, my eyes used to glaze over until the words ran together into one big black spot on the page. Then I would reach for a comic. For that reason, I bought a portable black-and-white television from the Salvation Army store.

I set the TV on the table between the three armchairs and fiddle with the knobs until a talk show comes in. Today is yet another episode of rednecks trying to figure out who knocked them up. Inevitably, one of the women looks like Brooke. If we said we didn’t know Todd was the father, maybe the talk show producers would track him down for a paternity test. Then I could leap out from backstage to smash Todd over the head with a chair. That just might work.

I’m watching “The Price is Right” when the front door opens. George comes in and says, “Did they come in?”

“Yeah, I’ll go get them,” I say. I go back into the office for George’s comic books. In order to not alienate Todd’s loyal customers, I agreed to order their comics. It seems easier for them to get a subscription, but I think they like having somewhere to go.

I bring the envelope out to George, who sits in one of the armchairs to read. I turn back to the television to watch models pose in front of cars, boats, and campers. Since I’ve started watching, I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing the total price of each showcase at the end. When the announcer gives the instructions for getting tickets, I consider a trip to California for a taping of the show. But if I went, I’d never come back.

After the game show, the soap operas come on. George leaves midway through “Days of Our Lives,” mumbling something about coming back later. I’m too engrossed in watching a man in black sneak up on an unsuspecting bimbo who’s just dumped her muscle-bound boyfriend. The man in black reminds me of the Trench Coat Bandit on the news earlier. Where the hell is that locksmith? He should have been here by now.

When the soap opera ends with the bimbo whirling in surprise at the attacker’s approach, I get up to turn on the coffee machine. Within the hour, my pseudo-customers will arrive. I take the television off the table to put in the office so I’ll have somewhere to hide when they get here.

My policy of free coffee backfired. Granted, it drew people into the store, but the wrong kind of people. Instead of those who might want to buy books, Alternate Dimensions has become a hangout for freeloading old ladies.

It started because I was stupid enough to help an old lady. About six weeks ago she came into the store, the snow indistinguishable in her white hair. I was immersed in a PBS documentary on giraffes; at that moment I was fascinated by their mating habits. “Excuse me, young man,” she said.

My face went nova from embarrassment at being caught watching giraffes fuck on PBS. I switched off the television and hoped she didn’t want me to come around the counter, where she was bound to see my pulsating erection. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Dr. Swanson’s office. Do you know where it is?” she asks.

I want to scream at her I’m not the damned Yellow Pages so I can see if the giraffes are still fucking, but God knows I can’t turn away a possible customer at this point. “I’m not really sure. Do you have an address?”

She reaches into her purse and takes out a pair of bifocals that seem larger than her face. After she’s put on the glasses, she empties the purse out on the counter. Amongst used tissues, petrified cosmetics, and yellowed receipts she finds a business card for one Dr. Marvin Swanson, Doctor of Orthopedics. The address is for a plaza a block down the road. Now that I think of it, I remember a doctor’s office next to tanning parlor I visited three years ago. I got a fake sunburn, but the girl running the place eased the pain that night.

I give the old lady directions, enunciating every syllable so I don’t have to repeat myself three times. “Thank you, young man. You’ve been so helpful.”

“Anytime.” If I had let her leave the store at that point nothing else would have happened, but I had a moment of chivalry. The old lady’s hands were shaking as she swept the junk back into her purse. I decided to help her, our hands coming into contact. When I felt the coldness of her wrinkled flesh, I was stupid enough to say, “Would you like some coffee?”

“Oh, I can’t afford coffee these days.”

“Don’t worry, it’s free.” By now my erection had faded enough where I felt comfortable to get out of my chair to pour her a foam cup of coffee. I even put in cream and two sugars.

“This is wonderful,” she said. “You’ll have to tell me your secret.”

“Maybe next time.”

She came back the next day, only this time with a silver-haired friend. The next week their numbers increased to three and then four. So far, they haven’t picked up a single book or comic from the racks. All they do is sit in the chairs, gossip about their neighbors, show each other pictures of their grandkids, and sometimes play gin while drinking my free coffee.

I would kick the Golden Girls out of the store, but each time I imagine the headlines in the newspaper the next day. “Local Merchant Evicts Helpless Old Women.” I would end up with protest marches from AARP and church groups, not to mention a Federal lawsuit for age discrimination. They say any publicity is good publicity, but gaining a reputation as an enemy to the elderly isn’t likely to increase business.

Yet having their sewing circle taking up space every day is keeping away the college crowd I hoped to court. College kids don’t want to go into a store filled with old women who will pinch their cheeks and show them naked photos of infant grandchildren. Even Todd’s regular customers get nervous coming in here.

I keep telling myself to get rid of the free coffee or to start charging, but I haven’t done it yet. Instead, I sit in the office to watch soap operas and judge shows on the TV. I hear the Golden Girls laugh about something, their laughs soon turning into violent coughs. One of these days one of them is going to buy the farm in my armchairs and then I’ll have to explain to angry relatives why I let them loiter here.

When the five o’clock news comes on, there’s an update on the earlier story of the McDonald’s robbery. This reminds me that the fucking locksmith didn’t show up today. I pick up the phone and dial his number, but get an answering machine. “This is Harry Woodyard of Alternate Dimensions. You were supposed to install a new lock on my front door today. Give me a call back so we can arrange a new time.” I leave the number and then slam the phone down. He better give me a discount for wasting my time. Not that I have anything better to do, but principles are at stake.

The old ladies begin the process of easing out of the chairs to leave. Once I might have offered to help them up, but I’m not getting burned by misplaced chivalry again. I watch from the office doorway as they toddle out the door with the ominous promise of returning tomorrow. The last one waves her cane at me in farewell. I just glare at her, trying to silently communicate my disgust for her freeloading.

The telephone rings. I pick up expecting the locksmith and say, “It’s about time.”

“Harry? I’m at the hospital,” Susie says.

“What’s wrong?”

“Brooke is having the baby.”

“Already? It’s not supposed to be until next month.”

“Well, she’s early.”

“How is she?”

“Her contractions are still pretty far apart. This might end up being a false labor.”

“You want me to keep you company?”

“No, I’m fine,” she says in a tone that indicates I’d better haul my ass over there or I’ll face a sexual embargo until springtime.

“I’ll be right over.” I hang up the phone and hurry to turn off all the lights and lock the door. As I run out to the car, I lose my footing and slide the last ten feet through the slush. I shout a string of curses probably audible on the Freepoint State campus as I wipe the slush off my clothes. I won’t have time to change before going to the hospital.

Wet and shivering, I pull out of the parking lot. On the way to the hospital with my teeth still chattering, I roll past one bleak snow-covered lawn after another. I bet Todd is lounging around in Key West or Phoenix or San Diego right now, laughing at all us poor saps in Indiana. What a lousy day for his kid to be born.

Chapter 19

2007-06-15T06:43:00.001-07:00

Chapter 19

I go home later that night, not to George’s garage, but to what is now my home now that Todd’s gone. I suppose I should wait with cautious optimism for Todd to change his mind. He might come to his senses. More likely, he’ll find life on the road isn’t as much fun as he hoped and quits. But if there is one thing I know about Todd, he’s stubborn. He’s resisted change at Alternate Dimensions in the face of declining sales for years now. If he’s got it into his head that he needs to go out and have some quixotic adventures, then he’ll stick it out for a while until he hits rock bottom. At that point in the distant future, he’ll probably call home—collect of course—to ask Brooke or I to bail him out.

No matter what he does, I plan to operate on the assumption he isn’t coming back for a long time. In one of my management classes, the professor taught us that the one who takes charge in a crisis is the one who reaps the benefits later. As Mrs. Marshall drops me off at my house, I tell myself it’s time to take charge of this situation. Flush with my newfound power, I tell her, “Thanks for all your help.”

Then I strut up the driveway and inside like the conquering hero. My first official act will be to sit Brooke down and lay out the new ground rules. She can remain in the house at my pleasure. If Todd hasn’t returned by the time I graduate and find employment elsewhere, then Brooke will have to make other arrangements on her own. I think that’s only fair.

I open the door to find the house completely dark. “Hello?” I call out.

A light comes on in the kitchen. I find Susie there, pouring coffee into a #1 Mom mug I gave to Mom about fifteen years ago. Susie puts a finger to her lips. “Brooke’s sleeping,” she whispers. “Any word from Todd yet?”

“Nothing,” I say. I haven’t counted on Brooke being asleep, forcing me to be alone with Susie. I’m tempted to run out the door and come back later. No, this is my house.

“I don’t understand how he could do this.” She takes a sip of coffee and then narrows her eyes. “I guess it must run in the family.”

This barb both shocks and elates me. Maybe Susie has a little of her mother’s mean streak after all. “Look, about Indianapolis—”

“I don’t care anymore. I just didn’t understand why if you were so unhappy you didn’t tell me. I never wanted to make you do anything.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” I decide to take down a plain white mug and pour myself some coffee. I open the fridge to look for any cream, but there isn’t any. There’s almost nothing in the fridge, and what’s in there is expired. I would be expecting too much for Todd and Brooke to do some grocery shopping now and then. How is she going to raise a child? After I’ve found some sugar, I look back towards the bedroom. “Let’s go outside. It’s not too cold yet.”

Susie follows me outside and we sit on the front steps like we did when she told me about Floyd Jensen. She’s changed out of the lavender bridesmaid’s gown in favor of a Freepoint State sweatshirt that brings to mind Susanne Sterling. I remember the earlier revelation before Mrs. Marshall arrived and the day went to hell.

I do want Susie back, but I don’t want to get wrapped up in all that couples bullshit. I don’t want all the strings attached like in a relationship. I don’t want to think about a future together. I want us to be like those first two weeks after she moved in, when we fucked like crazy, before Indianapolis and the idea of living together. I’m not sure how I can get us back to that point. I suppose it will take time.

She must be reading my mind. She says, “Harry, what are we going to do now?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to be with you, but only if you want to be with me.” She looks down at her coffee mug like she’s expecting me to deliver bad news.

“I want to be with you too, but there’s so much shit going on right now. I’m taking over the store for Todd, plus there’s still school, and Brooke. There’s not going to be enough time for us.”

“Harry, do you love me? Because I—”

“Susie, don’t say it, please.”

“Why not? You don’t love me?”

“I don’t know, all right? I really can’t deal with that kind of shit right now.”

“I guess I should move back in with Mother until I can find somewhere of my own,” she says. She’s not crying, but from the quivering of her lower lip, I can see she’s on the verge. I wish she hadn’t brought up the dreaded L-word. As soon as love comes into play, the game is over. You can tell a woman a lot of stupid things and take them back later, but “I love you” is not one of them. It’s like the nuclear bomb of dating, as soon as it’s dropped, life as we know it is over.

“Brooke’s going to need you,” I say. “You should stay here to be with her.”

“What about you?”

“There are three bedrooms. We can clean up Todd’s old room for you to use as long as you want.” This situation seems less than ideal, but the alternative is for me to stay with Brooke alone or to keep living above George’s garage.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“In this situation, I don’t think what I want is relevant. We all got to pitch in and do our parts,” I say, regurgitating Mrs. Marshall’s words at the American Legion hall.

“You’re probably right. Brooke’s going to need help with the baby.” She finishes the coffee and then sets the mug aside on the steps. “Do you think Todd is coming back?”

“Not for a while.”

“Do you think he loves Brooke?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Then why did he do it?”

“I guess he didn’t want to wake up one morning and realize his life had turned out completely different than he’d wanted it to,” I say. I’m speaking more for myself than Todd after that close call in Indianapolis. If I’d continued on that course, I would have found myself at Bingo’s for my own bachelor party, wishing I could have done more with my life.

“But that’s not true. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean your life is over.” She reaches out to touch my arm. “It means a new life is beginning.”

“Susie, please—”

She jumps from the porch steps and looks me in the eye. “Harry Woodyard, I love you!” she shouts loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. As the echo fades, she brushes hair away from her red face. In the moonlight I can see her entire body trembling. “Well?” she says at last.

“I don’t, Susie. I’m sorry.” I get up and go back inside, leaving her standing out there in the dark. Instead of going to my room, I decide to spend the night in Todd’s bedroom. We can sort out the rest in the morning, if Susie is still here. After embarrassing herself in that fashion, she’ll probably go home to her mother.

I lie down on Todd’s Voltron sheets and look up at the ceiling. I’ve lost Susie, but I feel strangely empty. I should be crying my eyes out or punching a wall. Something. Instead, I just lie there, thinking about what I’ll do to Alternate Dimensions with Todd out of the way. Add some books, especially used textbooks. Put in some chairs and maybe a coffee machine. The coffee seems pointless with Starbucks next door, but I can offer it for free at first, until there’s a customer base. I’ll need to make a new sign, maybe repaint the walls. I’d like a dark green inside to give the place a more grown-up look. Matching shelves would be nice. Those can come later. I can’t do everything overnight. I have to work out things here first.

I’m so immersed in my thinking that I don’t notice the door open. Susie appears above me, tears running down her face. For a horrified instant I expect her to pull out a butcher knife to run through my heart. Or knowing her, she’d slit her wrists in front of me so she wouldn’t hurt me directly.

“Harry, I’m sorry,” she says.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“It’s all right if you don’t love me. I just want us to be together. I missed you so much when you were gone.”

I sit up in bed to take both her hands. She’s offering herself to me in just the way I want, with no string attached. This is too easy. I sense a trap. It’s one of those deals that’s too good to be true. “Susie, I missed you too. Really, I did. I missed us being together. I just want to take it slow right now. Not put too much pressure on us to be something we aren’t. Do you understand?”

“Yes, and it’s fine. We can go as slow as you want. As long as I have you.”

I get up and we go back to my bedroom so as not to sully Todd’s sheets. Susie’s body is as good as I remember from those golden days when she first moved in. There’s no rust from the weeks of being apart; we both know what to do the instant we get into the bedroom.

As per our new arrangement, I take it slow. After two weeks in exile, I want to savor the feeling of her. The day began with so little hope and only got worse. Now, with Susie beneath me, everything is looking brighter. I have her back, I have the house back, and I have a new opportunity. She comes with a faint groan, not the scream of our first time together.

I finish and then lie beside her. She turns towards me so I can use her breast implants for pillows. This is the moment I’ve imagined for the last two weeks. I feel her arms around me, her fingernails digging into me. “What are you doing?” I ask her.

“I just want to keep you here,” she whispers.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. At least not yet. For now, I’m right where I want to be.

Chapter 18

2007-06-15T06:42:00.002-07:00

Chapter 18

Since neither the bride nor groom have parents at the wedding, Mrs. Marshall steps in as the unofficial crisis manager. Her first act is to have us groomsmen barricade the door to the supply room. She takes her cell phone out to try calling the store. When no one answers, she dispatches her husband to drive over there. Then she grills Brooke and I about places Todd might have gone. “I don’t know,” I say.

“You’re his brother,” one of the bridesmaids says.

“I didn’t stick my nose into his business and he didn’t stick his into mine,” I reply.

“There must be somewhere he liked to go when he wanted to hide or think about things,” Mrs. Marshall says.

I think back to when we were growing up. The only place I know Todd ever went was Charlie’s comic book store. That has long since been torn down in favor of a Walgreen’s. Mrs. Marshall sends someone over there anyway. Now that I’m off the hot seat for the moment, I pull George aside. “What the hell happened last night after the club?”

“Todd got into a scuffle with the bouncer after the guy knocked you out. We took him back to his house and then Craig and I took you over to my house in my car. Then I took him home.”

“Did he say anything that might have sounded weird? Or anywhere he might have been going?”

“No. He was real quiet after we left the club.” I think back to our beer-induced conversation at Bingo’s. I should have recognized the signs of cold feet, but I was too wrapped up in my own problems. The story about him wanting to go off on adventures as a kid was especially telling.

“What time did you drop him off?”

“I don’t know. Midnight, maybe.”

That gave him about an eleven-hour head start. He wouldn’t get too far in that car of his, but he could have already boarded a plane, gotten on a bus, taken a train, or even hitchhiked his way out of the state by now. Todd is long gone. “We’re screwed,” I say.

It’s no surprise that Brooke wants to blame me for this mess. “This is all your fault! You were supposed to watch him!” She’s still wearing her white gown ruffled in the middle to hide her pregnant belly, but the train is lying next to a slop bucket on the floor.

“Me? He’s the one who left!”

“Keep your voices down,” Mrs. Marshall says. “I’m sure he’s going to turn up somewhere. Everyone gets the wedding jitters. He probably just wanted to be alone before the ceremony. Everyone just stay calm.”

Brooke and I glare at each other, ready to throw down right in the church supply room. Susie steps in to guide Brooke over to one corner while I sit down on a stack of old hymnals. I don’t want to mention that we should probably check the pawnshops to see if he sold the ring already. I wonder if we can get a hold of the bank records to find out if he made a large withdrawal this morning. It would be just like him to abscond with Mom and Dad’s life insurance money that is rightfully half-mine.

For two hours, Mrs. Marshall leads the search for Todd from her cell phone. She sends me out—I think mostly to keep me away from Brooke—to poll his guests about the last time they saw him. The last time any of his friends or regular customers have seen him was yesterday. As I walk through the crowd loitering inside the church and outside to enjoy a warm November day, I sense the growing buzz that they’ve deduced what I already know. I see some guests already heading towards their cars.

Mrs. Marshall pronounces the wedding dead at one o’clock. I’m standing in the back of the church when she calls everyone together. “I’m sorry everyone, but it looks like Todd has been indefinitely delayed. Refreshments will be available at the American Legion hall. Everyone is welcome to go over there and try to have some fun. Thank you.”

There’s a murmur through the crowd, and then the guests start to leave in droves without the organ music, the throwing of birdseed, or the limousine waiting to whisk the happy couple away. They just file out in silence. The scene reminds me of Mom and Dad’s funerals, where everyone feels a restrained sadness and an awkwardness over how to express their feelings. Saying “I’m sorry” isn’t going to be of much comfort to a tearful bride still in her wedding dress.

After the guests have gone, I’m left with the groomsmen, bridesmaids, Mrs. Marshall, and the not-so-blushing bride. Even more awkward than Todd not showing up is when the preacher has to ask me for his honorarium. He didn’t perform the service, but we have tied up the church, so it only seems fair. I write him a check on top of the altar, the symbolism not lost on me. “That poor woman,” the preacher says. “I’ve seen jilted brides before, but it never gets easier.”

“I suppose it doesn’t. This will probably help,” I say as I give him the check for his non-services. He shakes his head and then goes off to chat with the elderly organist.

I stick my head into the supply closet to make sure Brooke isn’t getting dressed before I enter. “Look, I’m sorry—”

“Get out!” she screams. “Get the fuck out!” When I don’t move, she picks up a plastic Joseph used in the Nativity scene to throw at my head. The non-biological father of our Savior whizzes past my ear before denting himself into the wall. “You son of a bitch, get out!” She looks for something else to throw, but Susie takes her arm. I leave the room as Brooke starts to cry on Susie’s shoulder.

“What do we do now?” George asks me.

“I guess go over to the hall and see if he shows up.”

George drives Craig—the other groomsman—and I over to the American Legion hall about a mile away. The hall is pretty much a pole barn with a cement floor upon which are folding chairs and tables swathed in white paper. I estimate about half the guests have shown up to eat catered meatballs, sandwiches, and potato salad. Someone has wisely kept the wedding cake out of sight. A DJ is in the corner, playing dance favorites from the ‘70s, but no one is dancing.

I stake out a chair in the darkest corner to wait. I keep my eyes focused on the front doors for Todd to make his miraculous appearance. After a couple hours, the guests seem to loosen up and begin having a good time. Some form a conga line to dance along the buffet. By my corner, George and Craig get into a spirited discussion about which superpower they’d most like to have. George argues in favor of Superman’s flying ability while Craig would rather have Mr. Fantastic’s stretching power. I want the ability to disappear, although it seems Todd has already mastered that one.

Throughout the reception, or whatever it’s called now, I don’t see Susie or Brooke. Mrs. Marshall shows up about halfway through to give me a status report. “I called the airport, bus station, and train station. No one’s seen him.”

“What about the police?”

“There isn’t much they can do to help. He’s an adult and there’s no sign of foul play.” Foul play will probably occur if he shows his face here.

Mrs. Marshall sits down next to me. “What really happened last night?” she asks.

“We went to a strip club for the bachelor party. We had a few too many drinks and then I passed out.”

“Your car didn’t break down?”

“No.” I still can’t remember how I met Susanna Sterling. I must have taken a cab or bus to Ike’s. That seems like a monumental achievement while being drunk and with a possible concussion. I must have fallen back on the old instincts. “I really don’t know what happened. What about Brooke?”

“Susie took her home. She’s still pretty upset.”

“At me or at him?”

“Both.”

“I guess I might have to stay above your garage for a while longer, if you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not, but I’m sure she’ll come around after the shock has worn off.”

“Maybe. We’ve never been exactly what you’d call friends.”

“But she’s going to need your help right now, especially with a baby on the way.”

“She doesn’t need me.”

Mrs. Marshall clears her throat. “There is the matter of Todd’s business. Ultimate Dimensions.”

“Alternate Dimensions.”

“Right. I’m hoping Todd will come back by Monday, but if he doesn’t, someone is going to have to run the place until he gets back.”

“You want me to run the store?”

“I talked it over with Brooke and she thinks it’s the best idea. You already do the books, so you’re more familiar with the operations, and she isn’t going to have a lot of time with the baby due.”

“I already have a job. I can’t just quit.”

“I’m sure I can arrange a leave of absence with your cooperative education supervisor.”

“Why not just have George or someone who’s interested in that kind of stuff do it? I don’t know anything about comic books.” In fact, I do know a lot from before Mom’s death, but I hope this lie will get me off the hook with Mrs. Marshall.

“Harry, please, everyone needs to do their part.”

“What about Todd? He’s done a real bang-up job doing his part so far.”

“I know you’re angry with him, but we have to be understanding. We have to forgive him.” That sounds like Mrs. Marshall’s religion talking. I can’t think of any reason why I should be understanding, let alone forgive Todd. The bastard stole Mom’s insurance money to buy that shitty store, has ignored all my advice while running the place into the ground, and now I’m supposed to pick up his slack? No fucking way.

“I can’t do it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

She shakes her head in a motherly fashion that probably works with her son. “Harry, I’m very disappointed. This is a great opportunity for you to do something for your brother, to repair the rift between you.” I wonder who’s told her there’s a rift between us. If there is, it’s Todd’s fault because of his selfishness. I’d rather see his store burned to the ground than spend one day as its manager.

Mrs. Marshall has one last card to play. “You know, the only thing more important than good grades is real-world experience. Managing an entire business on your own would be quite an achievement for someone your age. And if you’re successful, who knows, you might be able to parlay that success into a great new career.”

Now she’s speaking my language. I think about the ideas I suggested to Todd. With him out of the way, I can do whatever I want. And I have to admit Mrs. Marshall is right about the experience looking better on my résumé than working in the mailroom of Herbert Chemical. As an added bonus, I picture Todd’s look of horror when he sees what I’ve done to his precious store. I feign reluctance as I say, “I’ll do it. For a little while.”

I shake hands with Mrs. Marshall, but after she leaves, I can’t help thinking I’ve signed a pact with the devil.

Chapter 17

2007-06-15T06:42:00.001-07:00

Chapter 17

I wake up the next morning in a room I don’t recognize. There are wrinkled posters of half-naked men taped to the white plaster walls of the bedroom. This must be a girl’s room, unless in my drunken state I decided to experiment. How the hell did I get here? I can’t remember anything after getting knocked out at the strip club.

My head feels like one large, aching bruise. Part of this is from the knock on the head and the rest is from the hangover. I wonder how much I drank after getting tossed out of the club. There’s no way five measly beers would give me such a headache.

I’m lying in a full-size bed underneath a thin blue comforter. I slowly turn in the bed to see who’s lying next to me. I see the white curve of a girl’s back and a tangled mess of dark brown hair. I can’t tell more without seeing her face, but I don’t want to risk waking her up and having to explain I have no idea who she is or why I went home with her.

I’ve violated two of the most important rules I developed early on. The first is to never get hammered to the point where you can’t remember anything the morning after. The second is to never spend the night at a stranger’s place. Even neutral territory like a motel is iffy.

The point is to always maintain control of the situation. If you’re too loaded, then it’s easy to forget about wearing a condom and then weeks or months down the road your dick feels like it’s on fire or some anonymous piece of ass shows up on your doorstep with your baby. If you go with her back to her place, then you might wake up the next morning having to sneak out the back door before a jealous boyfriend or husband finds you. Plus, if you go with her in her car, then you’ve got to find a ride in the morning, which can be tricky depending on where you end up.

Of course I had to learn these lessons the hard way. On my sixteenth birthday I went to some kid’s party and got drunk on a combination of cheap beer and peach schnapps from the liquor cabinet. The next morning I found myself with an arm around the immense gut of Haley Fitzsimmons, who easily outweighed every other girl at school by fifty pounds. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her father knocked on the door to wake her up. I gathered up my clothes and dove out the bedroom window, getting dressed as I ran home. Even worse yet, she remembered the encounter and approached me in the cafeteria on Monday. To save my reputation I had to loudly proclaim she was out of her mind and then nail Diane Washington, the head cheerleader on the JV squad. After that debacle, I knew better than to lose control of the situation. At least I did until last night.

Now I have to figure out how to get out of here without waking up this girl or getting the shit beat out of me by a boyfriend or husband who may walk into the room at any moment. First, I have to get out of bed. I work my way off the bed in small increments so I don’t shake the mattress. I slide myself over to the edge of the bed and then get one foot down. I pause a moment to make sure the girl hasn’t moved before putting my other foot down. I go into a crouch to search the gray carpet for my clothes. I find my shirt, pants, and shoes, but not my underwear or socks. They might be in the bed with her or in some other part of the room. Let her keep them. They’re just the standard Hanes boxers and socks you can find at any Wal-Mart. It’s not like I wrote my name inside them. Unless she calls over a forensics team, there’s no way she could ever tie them to me.

I crab-walk my way over to the only window in the room. I pry apart two folds of the Venetian blinds to confirm my worst fears: I’m on the second floor of one of those cheap apartment complexes near campus. The only way out is through the front door. I crab-walk over to the bedroom door and reach for the knob. I look over at the girl, but so far she hasn’t moved. I turn the knob and poke my head into the hallway. Nothing.

After I’ve crab-walked through the doorway, I close the door behind me and stand up, my knees cracking from being stuck in the comfortable position so long. I pull on my shirt and pants, and then slip into the shoes without bothering to tie them. There will be plenty of time to tie them later, after I’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge.

I listen for the sound of anyone down the hall, but hear nothing. I creep down the hallway to the kitchen and living room. No one else is home. I heave a sigh of relief and bend down to tie my shoes.

My curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to look around the living room for signs of whom I just slept with. There’s a guitar propped in the corner of the room. Was she one of those flaky, arty types hanging out in coffeehouses? Unless the guitar belongs to a boyfriend. A picture on top of the 13-inch television in the corner confirms the presence of a boyfriend at one time. In the picture, the girl has a chubby face dusted with freckles, wire-rimmed rimmed glasses over green eyes, and dark hair falling in waves past her shoulders. She’s wearing a gray Freepoint State sweatshirt loose enough to cover any bulge in her midsection, but that also hides her breasts. They must have been smallish. I wish I could remember. Next to her in the photo is some Dilbert-type guy in a watching sweatshirt. They look like a perfect couple. I wonder why the hell she decided to sleep with me.

I still don’t hear any sign of her waking up or her possible boyfriend, so I sneak into the bathroom for some aspirin. In the mirror I see my eyes are bloodshot, my hair is sticking up at all angles, and there’s a week-old growth of stubble along my jaw. I’m reminded by this image that I need to get cleaned up for Todd’s wedding. Shit. I’m supposed to pick him up at the house to take him to the church. Brooke was going to get there first so she has time to get ready.

I open the medicine cabinet to look for the aspirin. I’m relieved to see a prescription for birth control pills. The name on the bottle is Susanna Sterling. I suddenly have the urge to throw up. I swallow the vomit and then down three Tylenols. I close the medicine cabinet and then run from the apartment. I keep running all the way down the stairs and out to the parking lot. Shit. We must have gone in her car.

I start running again until I reach a convenience store at the corner. I don’t have any change on me, so I have to go inside to buy something. The clerk eyes me suspiciously and I can understand why. Right now my face has the perfect look for a wanted poster in the post office. I buy a pack of gum and take my change out to the phone to call the house. No one answers after ten rings, so I hang up in frustration. I dial the operator and ask for George’s house. His mom answers.

“I need to speak to George.”

“Harry?”

“Is he around or not?”

“He left for the wedding already. Dick and I were just about to leave. Are you all right?”

“Um, well, I’m in a little bit of trouble.” I try to think of a lie, but thinking only makes my head throb worse. The best I can come up with is, “My car broke down. Can you give me a ride back home?”

“Sure. Where are you at?” I give her a rough description of where I think I am. She promises to come right out to get me. As I wait, I chew a piece of gum and stare across the street at the feaux-Alpine-styled apartment building I just fled. Susanna Sterling. I couldn’t have slept with her just because she has a name that sounds close to Susan Steemer, could I? Shit. I keep repeating that word over and over again to myself. How could I have been so fucking stupid?

I took a psychology class my freshman year to fulfill one of those bullshit prerequisites in social sciences or whatever. I showed up to only half the classes and slept through most of those. I remember hearing something about the subconscious and how it can make us do things for reasons we may not understand consciously. My subconscious has really bit me in the ass this time. First at Bingo’s with the girl who looked vaguely like Susie, although now that I’ve got the five beers out of my system I can see Lioness was about ten years older with smaller, sagging boobs. Then somehow I ended up in bed with a girl who has a similar-sounding name. It can’t be coincidence. I want Susie back.

I reach this revelation as a Pacifica pulls up with George’s mother at the wheel. I get into the passenger’s seat and see there’s no one else in the car. “Where’s Mr. Marshall?” I ask.

“He went on ahead in his car with Cherie. Are you all right, Harry? You look terrible.”

“I had a rough night.”

“What happened to your car?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It just made this kind of clunking sound and stopped running all the sudden.” There are of course holes in my story big enough to drive the car through, like why the hell I was out here in the first place and why I’m calling now rather than in the middle of the night. Mrs. Marshall doesn’t notice or she’s polite enough not to mention the problems with my alibi.

She tells me how excited everyone is about the wedding as she drives. I’m too tired, sore, and confused to participate in the conversation. When we reach the house, I see my car in the driveway. Mrs. Marshall is either ignorant enough or polite enough not to ask to whom the car belongs. To avoid calling attention to it, I ask if she’ll wait her until I clean up and get dressed. She agrees.

I run inside the house and to my relief there’s no one else around. I take a quick shower, shave, and then run a comb through my hair. I can’t do anything about my eyes except wear sunglasses, which would be noticeable inside a church. I go into my room to find Susie has left the place unchanged. Her suitcase is on the floor, unopened. I pull out a fresh pair of boxers and then take down the tuxedo from its bag in the closet.

I struggle with the cummerbund and bowtie, but manage to get them on. I can fix them later. The jacket and pants fit well enough after the alterations, though the shoes are a little tight. I only have to wear them for one day. I stuff my wallet into my pocket and try to think of anything else I need. The ring! Then I remember Todd never gave it to me. He was supposed to last night, but we never got around to making the transfer. Shit. I’ll just have to hope he brought it.

I race back out to Mrs. Marshall’s car. She fusses over the bowtie like my own mother would have, straightening it and fixing my cummerbund. Another day I might have taken this as an invitation for sex, but there’s too much on my mind today. She chats about the last wedding she went to a few years ago on our way to the church, but I can’t remember what she says.

The church is a single-room white church out in the sticks called St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. Cars have already filled the parking lot, with others parking in a fallow cornfield next to the church. I can’t believe Brooke and Todd could have invited so many people.

I get out of the car at the curb, leaving Mrs. Marshall to find somewhere to park on her own. I pound up the front steps and through the open doors. People are milling about the church, talking about the upcoming Colts game or Indiana’s basketball prospects this year or gossiping about some elderly neighbor. I stop dead when I see Susie at the entrance to the supply room in a tacky lavender bridesmaid’s gown. By way of greeting she hisses, “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Todd. Didn’t he come with you?”

“No. He isn’t here?”

“No,” she says. Shit.

Chapter 16

2007-06-15T06:41:00.002-07:00

Chapter 16

I was the one who left the house after leaving Susie in Indianapolis. She made it back to Freepoint in my car before I could arrive on the bus with enough spare time to give Brooke the entire story of what happened. I came back to find Brooke and Todd waiting for me. She slapped me across the face harder than Susie had. “You selfish bastard! How could you just leave her there all alone?” Brooke shouted.

“I left her the car. It’s not like I abandoned her with no way of getting back,” I said. I looked to Todd for support, but it was clear which side he was on.

“You should go back there and apologize to her right now.”

“You mean she’s here? Aw, shit, I don’t want to see her.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Brooke was ready to lunge at me and claw out my eyes until Todd intervened.

“Pumpkin, why don’t you go back and check on her?” he suggested. Brooke still wanted a piece of me, but reluctantly went back towards the bedroom. After she’s gone, Todd said, “Man, what the hell is this about?”

“I couldn’t stand being around her anymore, so I left. It’s not like it was a picnic for me either. At least she didn’t have to ride the fucking bus.” I went into the kitchen to take a beer from the fridge. “The whole way I sat next to this fatass who smelled like mayonnaise left in the sun for about two years.”

Todd wasn’t in the mood for joking around, though. “I think you better go until things cool down.”

“Me? This place is half mine. She’s the one who should go. She’s got a fifty-room mansion to go back to!”

“Brooke wants Susie to stay here until she feels better.”

“This isn’t Brooke’s house either. Not yet anyway.”

“Man, come on. She’s been bawling her eyes out since she got here. Brooke’s so wound up she’ll probably have a miscarriage. Just get out of here until they calm down.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“My friend George’s parents have a room over their garage. His brother used to stay there when he came home from school after his grandma moved in.”

“You want me to stay in a room over some stranger’s garage? What am I, the Fonz?”

“The only other place I can think of is the backroom of the store. Unless you have a better idea?”

At this point I regretted not having any male buddies with a place where I could crash. I could have called around to some of the girls I’ve fucked to see if any of them had a room. I decided I’d rather take my chances with George’s parents.

I’ve spent the last two weeks in exile over the garage. Turns out George’s brother was a big fan of heavy metal, so there are posters all over the walls and stacks of vinyl records in the closet. Todd brought over my schoolbooks and enough clothes to last for a month. He told me Susie was still distraught to the point of not being able to work. As far as I know this is still the case, because I haven’t called.

I try to avoid George and his parents as much as possible too. George is the Laurel half of the pair of groomsmen I met during the tuxedo fitting. His full name is George Lucas Marshall; he was born the year the original Star Wars came out. These two facts preordained him to be a huge Star Wars fan. The first—and last—day I went in to take a shower, he lectured me on the continuity errors in the three prequels, none of which I’ve even seen, as we waited for his sister to finish with the bathroom. His sister is a cheerleader at the high school with brown hair down to her waist and perky little tits. I’ll have to look her up in another year when she becomes legal. She gets her look from her mom, who might be fun in a Mrs. Robinson sort of way. In an ironic twist, she works for the Steemroller. I keep away from in part because I might slip up and mention Susie’s name.

As uncomfortable as the living situation is there, I refuse to look for a place of my own. The house where I grew up doesn’t belong to Susie or Brooke. It belongs to Todd and I and I’ll be damned if I let them banish me from a house that is half-mine. Susie will leave eventually and then I’ll move back in. For now I have to get used to bathing in the sink.

The worst part about my exile is I haven’t gotten laid in two weeks. I haven’t even jacked off. Not out of any misplaced loyalty to Susie, but because I don’t think George’s parents would tolerate girls coming and going from my room at all hours of the night. They’re both involved in one of those uptight churches—Baptist or Lutheran or whatever—and have Republican, pro-life, and anti-drug bumper stickers on every available inch of their bumpers. They don’t even let their daughter stay out past eleven o’clock, so I can only imagine what they’d think if they caught me up here with someone.

I’m unlucky enough to run into George on my way out the door this morning, but lucky in that he reminds me tonight is supposed to be Todd’s bachelor party. With all the Susie Steemer bullshit, I forgot to plan the party and nearly forgot the wedding is tomorrow. “How long are we going to be out?” George asks me. “I want to let my parents know about what time I’ll be back.”

“Christ, George, this is supposed to be a rowdy night of male bonding. We’re supposed to be out all night raising hell. Don’t Jedi have bachelor parties?”

“Jedi don’t get married, except Anakin—”

“Yeah, that’s great. Just tell them we’ll be back after midnight.”

“That late?”

“George, you’re almost thirty years old. What are they going to do, ground you?” I leave him with that thought. When I get to work, I find a tattered phone book in the mailroom. I don’t want to call any strip clubs with the Three Stooges around—they’d probably want to tag along and Todd’s friends are enough dead weight already—so I have to wait until lunch to use a pay phone outside a deli nearby.

As a rule I don’t frequent strip clubs. Those places are two rungs above prostitution and one rung above pornography in my mind. I get enough girls on my own that I don’t need to pay to stare at some skank’s beat-up melons. The experience might be good for Todd, George, and the other groomsman though. The closest I’m sure George has gotten to seeing breasts are on his Princess Leia action figure.

There are three clubs within the city limits and another one outside town. I call the three inside town first, figuring the other one serves a more redneck crowd I want no part of. I keep my voice level and businesslike as I inquire about the cover charge, lap dance fees, and drink minimums. By the time I’m done, my face is probably an atomic red like Susie’s could get when embarrassed. I settle on a place over by the plant called Bingo’s. They have the lowest cover and least drink minimum, although lap dances are a little pricier. If Todd or his friends have the nerve to get a lap dance I’ll keel over in my chair from shock.

After I’m done with the clubs, I call George and have him relay a message to the other groomsman to meet at Todd’s at eight o’clock. I wonder if Susie will be there when I arrive. I hope not, because then the situation will turn awkward. She’ll start crying uncontrollably and then Brooke will threaten to rip off my balls with her bare hands.

For this reason, I don’t show up in the driveway until exactly eight o’clock. George and the other groomsman are already there. I dispatch George to fetch Todd, leaving me with the guy whose name I still can’t remember. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt and black pants like he’s either going to wait tables or attend a church youth group meeting. Better than George in his Chewbacca T-shirt, though. I shiver at the thought of what Todd will be wearing.

Todd surprises me by having the good taste to wear a plain T-shirt and jeans with a windbreaker. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“That’s a surprise,” I say. Since George’s car is a decrepit Geo Metro and the other guy’s parents brought him, I decide we’ll take my car. Todd rides in the front next to me with the other two in the back, discussing the latest rumored casting of a big-budget superhero movie. Todd doesn’t get involved with the argument, looking out the window forlornly instead, as if we’re going to a funeral rather than a bachelor party. With his friends, the two are probably about the same.

He doesn’t perk up when we get to Bingo’s. The strip club is a discreet brick building that looks like it was a warehouse at one time. The only sign of its current purpose is a bright pink awning over the entrance. I lead the gang of rejects inside, paying the cover for everyone. We get a table near the stage and I order a round of beers.

“Come on, man,” I tell Todd. “We’re going to see some honest-to-God boobs. You should be happy.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s just this whole pregnancy thing. The morning sickness, mood swings, and cravings. I haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in three weeks.”

“Can’t Susie help out? She is a nurse,” I say as a less-than-subtle way to inquire about Susie without directly asking about her.

“Sure, she helps out when she’s around.” The waitress brings us our beers and Todd takes a long pull from his. I suppose that living situation would wear on anyone after a while. Maybe I should find my own place. I don’t think I want to be around after Brooke has the kid and it starts crying in the middle of the night. The noise might distract me and make girls a little uncomfortable. Let Susie deal with that shit. She can have it for all I care.

The lights dim and a voice on the PA system announces a girl named Bunny will be performing. She comes out in a furry white bra and panties with bunny ears. George and the other groomsman gape at the scantily-clad blonde, their tongues lolling out like a pair of panting dogs. When she takes off the bra, they look ready to faint. Todd only signals the waitress for another beer.

As Bunny contorts her body around a brass pole, I notice how large and ungainly her breasts are in comparison with Susie’s. This girl is probably as difficult in the sack as Greta Schmidt. I find myself pasting Susie’s head and breasts onto Bunny’s body. Then I remind myself Susie would never dance nude at a club. She’s too nice to let stranger leer at her. I motion for the waitress to bring me another beer.

Todd and I are both up to three beers apiece by the time Bunny is done performing. She blows a kiss in the general vicinity of our table, whipping Todd’s friends into a frenzy. “Easy boys,” I say. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Indeed there is. Next up is a black girl named Foxy, wearing rust-colored panties with a pasted-on tail and ears buried within her Afro. She struts down the stage, shaking her tail in the direction of our table. I reach into my pocket for some one-dollar bills, which I give to Todd’s friends. “Fold those up and stick them into her G-string,” I tell them, hoping they know what a G-string is.

By now Todd’s up on me by two beers and has a goofy smile on his face. “I’m getting married tomorrow,” he says.

“You sure are.”

“Can you believe it? Married. That’s like forever.”

“Not anymore. You can pretty much go down to McDonald’s and get a divorce from the drive-thru.”

He laughs too hard at my bad joke. “Remember when we were little and we used to watch Superfriends every morning? I always wished I could marry Wonder Woman. Then I’d follow her around on all sorts of adventures.” He snorts and then downs a beer in one pull. “My biggest adventure in the last month was going to the grocery store in the middle of the night for a can of Hormel chili with the beans. I mean, is that it? Is that as exciting as things get?”

I can feel my head starting to float away from the five bottles of beer I’ve drank. I glance over at Todd’s friends, who are pressed up against the stage and shyly holding out their money to Foxy. They’re hopeless. I turn back to Todd and say, “Look, there’s no Wonder Woman, Han Solo, James T. Kirk, or even James Bond. It’s all make-believe like the fucking Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The only ones who get to have adventures are billionaires who can afford to piss away money to climb Mt. Everest or balloon around the world. The rest of us got to just make do with what we got, like Mom used to say.”

“I wish Mom could be there tomorrow.”

“Me too.”

Before we can continue our moment of brotherly love, the announcer introduces a girl named Lioness. She has a main of crimped auburn hair just like Susie’s and breasts of roughly the same size. After five beers it doesn’t take much imagination for me to confuse them. I rush towards the stage, and before anyone can stop me, I’m scrambling up. Lioness screams and then I feel something heavy hit me in the back of the head. The world spins once around before going dark.

Chapter 15

2007-06-15T06:41:00.001-07:00

Chapter 15

The motel Susie reserved for the weekend is a Sleep Inn outside Indianapolis. Because of the Colts game—which according to some talking head on ESPN has playoff implications even though it’s only November—and the annual meeting of the Indiana Gay and Lesbian Alliance, getting a room on short notice was not easy. The Middle Eastern guy at the counter has trouble finding the reservation, forcing Susie to spell her name very slowly so he can type it into the computer. At last we get our key cards and go upstairs to the room.

There’s a single full-size bed with cigarette burns on the comforter. Susie and I aren’t planning on doing a lot of sleeping anyway. The room smells like a heavy smoker died in here about twenty years ago. Though it’s fifty degrees outside, I slide open the window in a futile attempt to air the place out. “Maybe we can find somewhere else,” Susie says.

“I’m sure we’ll get used to it like the plant back home.”

“There’s a supermarket down the road. We could buy some air freshener. Or maybe some scented candles.”

“We’d need to find a military surplus store for a couple gas masks,” I say. She looks down at the floor, her confidence shattered by my criticism. Since I learned she knew about Brooke’s pregnancy before I did, I’ve been grouchy. When we stopped at a Burger King for lunch, she dithered over what to order until I snapped, “Jesus, this isn’t like choosing a name for a baby. Just order something already!” My choice of metaphors was intentional. I thought she might break down into uncontrollable sobs or insist we go home, but she only ordered a hamburger before trudging off to find a seat.

I spent the rest of lunch apologizing for the incident. Yet even as I apologized, a part of me resented how quickly she backed down. In a way, I wanted her to fight back, not roll over like she had for the last twenty-five years with her mother. I didn’t want to be the Steemroller II.

Now I’ve gone and fucked things up again. I pat her shoulder and force down my annoyance. “I’m just kidding, honey,” I say. The word “honey” escapes my lips before I know it. Did I just say that? I have never called any girl “honey” or “sweetie” or “darling” in my life. “I’m sorry,” I add, apologizing more to myself than to her.

“I know,” she says.

“Come on, let’s get out of here and buy those candles. I just hope they don’t set off the fire alarms.” When she laughs at this I know I’ve smoothed over another mess. At this rate the weekend will be more tension-filled than an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference. Maybe I should call up Jimmy Carter to mediate.

We go down the road to the supermarket to buy the aforementioned candles. Susie forces me to smell every candle in the store. I want to snap at her to just grab a handful of the fucking things, but this time I manage to hold back. On our way to the cash register, we pass through the greeting card aisle. I stop when I see cards congratulating a couple on their conception. I pick up a card with a cherubic baby holding a colorful bunch of balloons. “You think we should get them a card?” I ask. This reference to “we” is also disturbing. When did Susie and I become a “we” sending cards jointly?

“We can do that when we get back,” Susie says. “Let’s just send them a postcard.”

We find a rack of postcards near the checkouts along with a lot of other hokey tourist shit like shot glasses with the University of Indiana logo and “homemade” craft signs made in China. I grab a postcard of the RCA Dome at night taken from a blimp during some important event. While I check out, Susie continues to browse the tourist shit. I wonder about the last time she took an actual vacation. The business with Floyd Jensen and her summer in Los Angeles don’t count as vacations.

Back in the car, I look at the back of the postcard. “What do you think we should say?”

“I don’t know. Let’s wait until later.” I’d push her on the issue, but we’ve had enough trouble already that I decide to let sleeping dogs lie. I decide to tempt fate by asking her what she’d like for dinner. “I’m not very hungry.”

“How about I go around back to the Dumpster and scrounge us up something?” I say this as a joke, but inside I’m seething at her constant passivity.

“Now you’re just being silly.”

The supermarket anchors one end of a shopping plaza. I cruise past the rest of the plaza to see what’s available. There’s a pizza parlor, a chicken-and-ribs joint, and a Chinese restaurant. All of them have a rundown, seedy quality like our motel. The Dumpster idea is starting to look better all the time. The last store in the plaza is a Greek diner. “How about here?” I say. There isn’t a Greek place in Freepoint, at least not as far as I know.

“OK,” she says. I get the feeling I could have pulled up to a restaurant operated by Hannibal Lecter and she would have agreed with me.

“I’ll be right back,” I say. I go inside and tell the fat girl at the cash register I need to place an order to go. She gives me a menu and I randomly point at things. I look at the beverages on the menu and say, “Can I get three bottles of beer with that?”

I wait on a bench by the front counter to wait for the food. As I wait, I take out a quarter to get a handful of peanut M&Ms from a Kiwanis Club vending machine. I’m sure Susie is still sitting in the car exactly as I left her. I wonder if the plastic surgeon didn’t implant her with some kind of cybernetic implants to make her so damned agreeable all the fucking time. I grind the M&Ms with a vengeance, wishing I could find a way out of this situation. I never should have accepted her invitation to come here.

Without realizing it, I’ve entangled myself in a relationship. This weekend getaway solidifies my position from sort-of-boyfriend to a full-fledged boyfriend. From here we’ll sink deeper into the ranks of coupledom until I’ll be forced to buy her a ring. How the hell did I get into this mess? Somewhere, I imagine the Steemroller laughing at my misfortune. I’m sure she knew what would happen when Susie left home. If I had rejected Susie, she would have gone home to Mommy. By taking her in that night I’ve hamstrung myself. Either way, the bitch her revenge on me. The other shoe has just dropped.

I’m so depressed by this development that I don’t hear the fat girl at the front counter until she comes over to tap my shoulder. I pay for the order and take it back to the car. Susie accepts the bags, pinning them beneath her rack. My kingdom for a pair of melons, I think as I start the car.

I’m quiet and distracted through our candlelit dinner, consumed by the symbolism of this event. I should have seen this coming sooner and put a stop to it then. I was too focused on getting her naked, and then the sex was so great, I forgot about the rest.

“Harry, what’s wrong? You haven’t touched your food,” she says, sounding like Mom when I wouldn’t eat zucchini or yams.

I poke at something that looks like ravioli that’s filled with potatoes inside. “I’m just a little distracted.”

“Are you thinking about moving out?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Brooke told me. I think it’s a great idea.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Then we can get a place of our own. With the money from your mother’s inheritance and my money from Sunnyside, we can get one of those new condominiums on the river. You could walk to work and it would be so much easier for us to go jogging in the morning.”

“Now hold on, what’s all this ‘we’ business?”

“I just thought since we were already sort of living together—”

“We weren’t living together. You needed a place to stay and I let you stay over. That’s all.”

“But—”

“If you want a condo on the river, go ahead and get one. I’m sure your mother will give you the money.” I say this knowing it’s out of bounds and as expected, Susie starts to cry. I fork one of the ravioli-looking things into my mouth in triumph. She runs into the bathroom and slams the door. I finish my dinner and then blow out the candles. After the room becomes dark, I lie on the bed and reach for the remote control. I turn up the volume on some old Chuck Norris movie so I can’t hear the sound of Susie bawling in the john.

Chuck Norris defeats the evil drug dealers with a lot of choreographed karate moves and as the credits roll, the bathroom door opens. Susie sits down on the edge of the bed and touches my hand, but I pretend I’m too engrossed in learning the name of the movie’s key grip to notice. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I guess I just got carried away with things.”

I shake her hand away and snap, “Don’t be sorry. You’re always sorry. Stand up for yourself for God’s sake!”

“Harry, please—”

“You can’t let people like your mother or even me push you around your entire life. You can’t be a doormat forever.”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

She’s on the verge of tears again. I can see this isn’t going to accomplish anything. I remember what the Steemroller said about Susie being weak. Then I think back to when Susie found out I told her mother about us. It’s the only time I remember her actually getting angry. Even then, her anger quickly dissipated into desperation. She just isn’t the kind of girl who can get mad and stay mad. I may as well get used to it. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve been a jerk. Let’s just forget about it for now.”

When we fuck later that night, she’s as limp and distant as our first time. In response I try to punish her by making the experience as painful as possible. I even bite her on the shoulder like Betsy Klein, but she doesn’t even whimper. She comes silently and then turns her back away from me, pulling the blankets tight over her chest so I can’t touch her breasts. I lie next to her, imagining us in twenty years as one of those couples in an old movie who sleep in separate beds.

If this trip has shown me anything, it’s that I’ll always be apologizing and she’ll always absorb my abuse in silence. This getaway to Indianapolis has given me a glimpse of our dismal future together. I should end this now. Like a bandage, it’s better to get the pain over with quickly instead of dragging it out. Great sex or no, the longer we’re together, the more difficult it will be to escape the relationship trap.

I can’t sleep the rest of the night. When Susie wakes up, it soon becomes clear that her strategy for coping is to feign amnesia. “Hey there,” she says. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“A little.”

As a token of reconciliation she runs a hand through my hair and then along my chest. I know this is an invitation for a morning go-round, but I’ve promised myself not to lead her on anymore. Once we get back to Freepoint, I’ll end all this. She’ll cry, of course, but I’ll remain calm and strong like Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca or Clark Gable at the end of Gone With the Wind. In time she’ll get over it. Then I’ll be free to go about my life again.

When I don’t take the bait, she gets up and takes her suitcase to the bathroom to change. I rifle through my own suitcase for a gray Colts T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Dad took Todd and I to a game about twelve years ago. The Colts weren’t any good back then. I think they lost by three touchdowns. All I remember from that experience is how many people were crowded into the stadium and how small the field looked. We would have been better off watching the game from home.

Susie comes out of the bathroom dressed like a sports geek. She’s wearing a faded Colts sweatshirt and has a blue horseshoe painted on each cheek. She’s even tied her hair into pigtails using one blue ribbon and one white ribbon. “What do you think?” she asks.

“Where’d you get all that stuff?”

“Brooke loaned me the sweatshirt. Don’t you like it? I thought it would be fun for my first game.”

“You look great,” I say without conviction. I cross the room to kiss her on one of the horseshoes. She offers me the blue paint, but I refuse to lower myself to the level of a crazy sports fan. I still have my dignity.

We have breakfast at a nearby IHOP, where the waitress astutely notes we must be going to the game. “I’ve never been to a game before,” Susie tells the waitress. I’m mortified beyond belief.

We get to the stadium an hour before kickoff and make our way through the assembled mass of tailgaters to the entrance. When we find our seats up in the RCA Dome’s stratosphere, she says, “Harry, are you still mad at me?”

“No, of course not.”

“You’re so quiet this morning.”

“I’m just saving my voice for the game. It’s a long way down to heckle the referees.” She leans her head against my shoulder while we wait for the game to begin. The public display of affection is another bad sign. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it back to Freepoint.

The game begins and I find myself pleasantly distracted by explaining the basics of football to Susie. I have to keep reminding her the team in blue is the Colts. She applauds like she’s watching a performance of “Cats” while beer-bellied guys around us shout curses at the other team and give each high-fives when the Colts make a good play.

Then the Colts score a touchdown and the stadium erupts in noise. Susie screams like the first time I made her come, though I doubt she has any idea what happened. On one of the video screens they show fans celebrating the touchdown and to my horror I see Susie and myself on the screen. In all likelihood—given our lousy seats—they were showing another couple and I just pasted us into the image. No matter, I’ve had enough.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say. I discreetly slip the car keys into her purse before I slink through the row and down the stairs to the concourse. I reach into my pocket and feel the postcard still there. I ask a security guard for a pen and then scribble on the card, “I have to leave. I’ll take a bus home. I’m sorry.” I give the guard back her pen and then ask, “Could you give this to someone for me? I’ve had an emergency come up.”

The guard gives me a curious look, but a ten-spot changes her mind. As she goes to deliver the postcard to Susie, I’m running along the concourse and to the nearest pay phone to call a cab to take me to the bus station. I imagine Susie is distraught, but she’ll get over it.

Chapter 14

2007-06-15T06:40:00.001-07:00

Chapter 14

The next two weeks Susie and I fuck three or four times a day. Once or twice in the morning and then twice more at night. I teach her every position, every erogenous zone, and every trick I’ve learned over the years. She’s eager to learn, never once questioning me. She’s like an addict and sex has become her drug of choice.

We never talk about her mother. Every day I go to work, I keep expecting to get fired or to receive a call from her secretary calling me into the Steemroller’s office. Nothing happens. She might have been a bad dream both of us were waking up from, except for the box of clothes that arrived on our doorstep three days after Susie left. We looked inside for a note, but there was neither a threatening letter nor a card wishing us well. Only clothes stacked in neat piles. I warned Susie her mother might be trying the old army trick of infecting the clothes with some infectious disease, but so far she hasn’t shown any symptoms.

The reticence on the Steemroller’s part is scarier than if she’d lashed out at me right away for taking her daughter. As it stands now, I can only go into work each day waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’s probably sitting in her office at the top of the Herbert Tower concocting elaborate revenge schemes involving me lying in a pool of blood with a knife sticking out of my throat. I try not to bother me because I know there’s nothing I can do. I may as well enjoy the ride.

Today is a Saturday and Susie’s got the day off from the nursing home. After two go-rounds in the morning, we go to Riverside Park for a run. As we jog along the trail, I find it hard to keep my eyes focused on the path instead of her breasts bouncing inside her warm-up jacket. I run into her once, almost knocking her to the ground. She recovers her balance and starts laughing. “Hey, this isn’t NASCAR,” she says.

“You’ve never heard of full-contact jogging?”

“You’re just afraid I’m going to leave you eating my dust.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“That’s right, big boy. I bet you I reach that fence before you do.” She points to a line of fence on the horizon where the path follows a bend in the river.

“What are you willing to bet?”

“You’ll find out later,” she whispers into my ear. She kisses me on the lips and then takes off. I’m too enthralled by the swaying of her ponytail, the bouncing of her ass, and the pumping of her calves to follow. She’s halfway to the fence before I start after her. I probably could have beaten her, but I want to find out what she’ll want for winning our bet. Whatever it is, I’m certain it’s bedroom related.

When I get to the fence, I double over as if I’ve just run a marathon to give her the illusion that I really tried to win our race. “I win,” she says. “Now you owe me something.”

“Yeah? What do you want?”

She reaches into her pocket to produce a pair of tickets to the Colts game tomorrow. “I got us a motel in town. Check-in is at three o’clock.”

“How long have you had this planned?”

“A couple days now. I thought it’d be fun to get away from everything for a little bit.” There’s a wounded look on her face that signals what she wants is to get out of Freepoint for a weekend so she won’t have to think about her mother.

“Sounds like a great idea. We better get packed.”

I drive her back home, where Todd and Brooke are eating cereal in the kitchen. I prepare to pass by without saying anything, but Susie and Brooke whisper something to each other before giggling. Susie must have enlisted Brooke’s help to make the plan happen. For two girls from completely different ends of the spectrum, they seem to get along like sisters. They hurry off so Brooke can help Susie pack, leaving Todd and I—the real siblings—alone in the kitchen.

“I better go pack,” I say.

“Hold on,” Todd says. He puts down his bowl of cereal and wipes milk from his beard with the back of his hand. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Is this about the wedding?”

“Sort of. Brooke and I were thinking after the wedding, we’d like to have the place to ourselves for a while.”

“How long?”

“Well, forever I guess.”

“You want me to move out now?”

“Look, the thing is, Brooke’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant? I thought she was just getting fat.”

“Come on, this is serious.” He gestures back towards the bedrooms. “We just think it would be better if we had some space when the baby comes.”

“Why don’t you move out then?”

“You’re almost done with school. Then you can live wherever you want.”

“Is this about Susie and I? We aren’t going to do anything in front of the baby. We’re not perverts or anything.”

“We just think it would be better for everyone this way. And now that Dad’s gone, we don’t need to pay for the nursing home anymore. You can use that money for your own place.”

“So you’ve got it all worked out. I don’t suppose you’ve already signed a lease for me somewhere, have you?”

“Hey, don’t get all pissy about this. It’s about time you got out and lived on your own.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Fine, if you don’t want to do it, then don’t. Stay here until you’re fifty for all I care.” Todd opens the refrigerator and takes out a beer before stomping out of the kitchen. I go in the opposite direction to my room. Susie already has her suitcase packed.

She kisses me on the cheek and then says, “I’m going to take a shower before we leave. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

She isn’t convinced, but goes off to the bathroom anyway. I consider for a moment following her so we can get dirty and clean at the same time. Instead, I take an old sky-blue suitcase from the closet I last used when I went to summer camp ten years ago. Mom had packed my suitcase then to make sure I brought enough underwear to last three summers. Before I got on the bus, she kissed me on the forehead and said, “If you ever get homesick, you call me.”

No one would kiss me on the forehead this time. Kick me in the ass was more like it. I never expected to stay home forever, but after Mom died and Dad went into Sunnyside, I figured Todd and I would share the house like fraternity brothers until I graduated from college. Now he was not only getting married, but also he would be a father.

Todd and Brooke raising a child seems like the worst idea since invading Iraq. The kid would have a better chance being raised by wolves. He or she will be destined for a lifetime of persecution as the dorky outcast reading comic books and chatting with grown men online about elves and unicorns. I try to imagine their child as a teenager and see Susie’s picture before her plastic surgery.

I’ve thrown a wad of underwear, socks, shirts, and pants into the suitcase by the time Susie is finished in the bathroom. She drops the towel after shutting the door. I want to toss the suitcases off the bed to screw her right then and there, but she’s already getting dressed. We’ll have plenty of time for fucking in Indianapolis.

“Is something wrong?” she asks me.

“No, I was just thinking how beautiful you are.”

She still blushes when I compliment her. Sex hasn’t completely banished the shy, awkward girl I met at the nursing home just yet. Still, this weekend together wouldn’t have been possible a month ago when she was in Steemroller’s power. Another two weeks and Susie might be ready to try out for Miss America. “You have to wait until later, mister,” she says.

“I know. I might just set a new speed record between Freepoint and Indianapolis.”

“You’re incorrigible.” She kisses me on the lips, but it doesn’t last long enough for anything else to happen. “Come on, the sooner we leave the sooner we get there.”

I snap the suitcase shut and change into a fresh shirt and jeans in record time. Then I haul both suitcases out to the car, noting how light they both are. Susie isn’t one of those girls who needs to pack an entire month’s supplies for a two hour trip.

I toss the suitcases into the trunk and then turn back towards the front porch. Susie kisses Brooke on the cheek and they giggle about something before Susie bounds out to the car. Todd stands on the front porch, glaring at me with a can of beer clutched in his hand. I don’t need telepathy to know exactly what he’s thinking. If he and the Steemroller got together right now, they’d probably come up with some ingenious way to make me disappear without getting caught.

“I’ll call you when we get there,” Susie calls back to Brooke before getting into the car. I give Brooke and Todd an unenthusiastic wave and then we’re on our way to Indianapolis.

As I prepare to merge onto the highway, some jerk in a pick-up refuses to make space for me in the right lane. I give him the bird and then drop behind him, flashing my bright lights to give him a piece of mind. “Harry, what’s wrong?” Susie asks.

“Brooke’s pregnant. Can you believe that?”

“I know, isn’t it wonderful?”

“She told you? When?”

“A couple days ago,” Susie says. I stop worrying about the jerk in the pick-up and feel sick to my stomach, sensing I’ve just blundered into a trap.