Awakenings Page 7

  “Mama said it ain’t right to cheat or help a cheater.”

  “Then let Mama come get you. Go home.”

  “Aw hell, you just wanna walk with Katie alone after shift.”

  “It’s the only chance I get anymore. She’s having lunch with the ‘in’ crowd these days.”

  Daniel realized how much he had taken Katie for granted over the past two years. He thought they would be buds forever. Things were changing. As his desires for girls grew, he noticed Katie’s new interest in facial hair, driver’s permits, cars, and a voice in the low-octave range—all things he lacked. She was still friendly, but always asking him for his locker room–privileged facts about one guy or another: What does so-and-so say about me? Is so-and-so still seeing what’s-her-face? It was clear she saw Daniel mainly as a search engine.

  “I appreciate your offer to sleep over, Ade, but that’ll just piss Clyde off more. He’s already madder than a hornet on good days.”

  “Dan, please,” Adrian begged. “I’ll walk behind … or, up front. I won’t listen. Just don’t make me walk home alone.”

  The shift was over. Katie began cashing out. Daniel threw the last few boxes on the pile and headed for the employees’ room.

  “Danny?” Adrian implored.

  “Fine. Walk behind us. Don’t talk.”

  Daniel launched into a trot and nearly ran over his crush flying through the employees’ lounge.

  “Jeez, Dan. Slow down,” Katie said. Her hazel eyes had a calming effect, even when she didn’t mean to. Her long auburn hair had developed a distinct scent of its own. Daniel was both numb and energized in her presence.

  “Sorry. I was hoping to catch you.”

  “Well, make it quick. I’m getting picked up.”

  “Cool. Can I hitch?”

  “Not my mom. Josh Lundgren.”

  “Captain Baseball? What makes him so special?”

  “He’s got a motorbike.”

  “Oh. I was hoping we could talk.”

  “About?”

  “Uh … well, sorry about your blouse. The one you got ink on.”

  Katie smiled—cancer and AIDS would be cured, Israel and Palestine would settle, and solar energy would be practical—to Daniel, everything would be okay.

  “I heard you got sent to Conklin,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I switched desks in most of my classes so it won’t happen again.”

  It was a bomb. Another perk of being Katie’s friend severed. No more secret notes. No more lingering scent from the previous class, her residual warmth on the seat. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Should he ask her not to switch? Promise never to draw again?

  Instead, he said, “I see.”

  “Look, Danny … I don’t know how else to say this, but … you got to stop watching me—in the hall at school, at lunch, here at work—I can feel your eyes on me. It makes me uncomfortable. I care about you, but not the way you want me to. I don’t see you as a ‘guy.’ No!… I didn’t…”

  “I know what you mean,” Daniel whispered. The shrill beep of a scooter horn cut through the thin store windows.

  “I hope we can still be friends,” she said.

  “Sure. Of course.”

  Katie danced away to Josh’s persistent tune. Daniel waited for the world to end. It stubbornly continued, so he grabbed his coat and left. Adrian followed.

  4

  Daniel and Adrian were halfway home when two large shadows burst out from behind the bushes near Mr. Randall’s house. Daniel’s first thought was that the Grundy boys watched too many Our Gang reruns. After all, who actually waited in the bushes anymore?

  Both boys had white-blond hair and angelic blue eyes, yet they were no angels. Jim-Bob, the taller one, had been left back in the second and fourth grades and used his age and size advantage to inflict terror on his younger classmates. Elijah belonged in Daniel and Adrian’s grade; a prodigy in the Grundy home, he was the first and only of six siblings never to get left back. What everyone knew, except for the Grundys, was that this feat was accomplished by years of complaints from parents about the Grundy clan’s consistent cruelty toward the younger kids. The school decided to push the last of this brood out for the benefit of future generations.

  Adrian was sweating like a race horse. His problem, as Daniel saw it, was he couldn’t stand not to be liked. Adrian never risked an action that might make someone angry. The Grundys’ animus disturbed him more than their beating. He was an unapologetic mama’s boy, the target of those who fed off the desire to be accepted.

  “You made us wait in the cold for five hours, fat stuff,” said Jim-Bob. “Where the hell were you?”

  “We didn’t realize you’d made an appointment,” Daniel said. “He’ll do better tomorrow.”

  “Stay the fuck out of this, Hauer. ’Less you wanna get creamed, too,” Elijah said.

  “Does anyone need to get creamed?” Daniel asked.

  Elijah shoved Daniel back and stood between him and Adrian.

  “If you insist,” Daniel said, and he stepped away from the scene. He surveyed the surroundings. Mr. Randall had been renovating, and there was a lot of construction trash on the side of the driveway.

  “D-Danny, where’re you g-going?” Adrian stammered.

  Adrian and the Grundy boys disappeared into the darkness behind Daniel as he walked only twenty feet away.

  “He knows enough to mind his own business,” Jim-Bob’s disembodied voice said.

  Daniel heard Adrian take a punch to the stomach. He was sure it hurt less than Adrian’s wailing implied. The boy had more natural padding than a walrus in winter. That didn’t stop him from throwing up though. He heard Adrian crying, begging them to leave him alone.

  Daniel had to get close to the trash before he spotted what he wanted. He picked up a discarded two-by-four post and headed back with it propped on his shoulder.

  “You back, Hauer?” Jim-Bob said as Daniel emerged from the blackness. “What you think you’re going to—”

  Where Jim-Bob stood, Daniel imagined Josh Lundgren’s mesomorphic form: his chiseled jaw, wavy hair, and fancy wool jacket with giant letter on the front—his lips tasting Katie’s sweet breath, his fingers fondling her …

  Daniel smashed his club into the side of Jim-Bob’s head. Jim-Bob hit the ground at thirty-two feet per second squared and didn’t move.

  Elijah tripped backward over a tree root. Daniel walked over to him and thrust the end of the two-by-four into his face. Elijah was a bloody mess.

  “Don’t pick on my friends,” Daniel said.

  “Screw you, Hauer! When we get through with you, you’ll—”

  Daniel smashed his bludgeon into the boy’s face again, this time resulting in a resounding crunch. The boy yowled, then passed out.

  Daniel threw the weapon back on the trash pile.

  Adrian trembled. “I can’t believe you…”

  “What can’t you believe, Adrian? That they’re bigger than us? Huh? They’re bullies. They don’t know how to deal with anyone who stands up to them.”

  “But…”

  “All you had to do was hit Jim-Bob! You didn’t even have to hurt him! You don’t have to win a fight to make it not worth picking on you.”

  “Don’t yell.” Adrian kept crying.

  “There are worse fucking things in the world than these losers! Things that are out of our control.” Daniel realized he was crying, too. His face was flushed and tears streamed down his cheeks. “When are you going to stand up for yourself, Ade? When are you going to stop letting others pick on you?”

  “Stop yelling at me!” Adrian screamed.

  Daniel collapsed on the curb, shoulders hunched, breath coming in spurts, shivers, and gulps. “I don’t want to go home,” he said. A shudder started in his shoulders and ran down his legs.

  Adrian put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Come to my house,” he sniffled.

  “I can’t,” Daniel said. />
  “Oh, come to my house, Danny, please. Don’t go home.”

  “I have to. It’ll be worse later if I don’t.”

  Daniel stood up and started to walk. He didn’t look to see if Adrian followed. He wasn’t even sure if it was the right direction. He just walked. The air was cold. Layers of clothing couldn’t stop his sweat from cooling to a chill. His muscles ached, as though he’d been moving for hours. Then he realized he was in front of his house.

  5

  Daniel took a deep breath as he opened the front door to his home. He walked into the dark vestibule, each step like a bare toe searching for glass shards. His blood hammered in his ears. The ground floor was dark, and for a moment, Daniel thought it might be empty, too. Maybe Clyde passed out on the floor of O’Leary’s pub. He left his jacket on as he climbed the staircase. At the top, he heard a creak and froze.

  Penny Knoffler, clutching a stuffed bear, stuck her head from around the corner and gave her older brother a big smile.

  “Hi,” Daniel whispered.

  “Are we playing peek-a-boo?” she asked.

  “No. Where’s Pa?”

  “Pa was mad. Mommy put me in my room.”

  “Where’s Mommy?”

  Penny waddled into their parents’ room and pointed to the bed. Rita was asleep. An open bottle of Valium lay on its side on the nightstand. It was typical of Rita—evading conflict through chemistry.

  Daniel picked up his sister and carried Penny to her bedroom.

  “I’m not tired,” she said as he put her on the bed.

  “I know. But Mommy’s sleeping and we don’t know where Pa is.”

  “Pa’s mad,” she said again.

  “I know. Did he go outside?”

  Penny nodded. A trickle of snot ran down her nose and she used her bear to wipe it.

  “Mr. Biggles is not a tissue.” Daniel pulled out a Kleenex and wiped the toy. Then he put the paper up to Penny’s nose. “Blow,” he said. “Did you eat?”

  Penny blew, then nodded.

  “Stay in here tonight. Play with your dollies. Don’t come out if you hear Pa come home.”

  Daniel went to the door and listened for any movement. When he thought it was safe he moved and shut the door behind him.

  He crept down the dark hallway, entered his room, shut the door and locked it. Sweat trickled from his armpits, and he was breathing hard. He heard no one in the hall. A few seconds passed before he flipped the light switch.

  On his bed, staring at him, was Clyde with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hand. His stained, white tank top showed off the semper fi tattoo on his deltoid. His stubble had dark lines where the drink ran down his chin.

  A lump caught in Daniel’s throat. From the look in Clyde’s eye it was apparent that Conklin had called him. Clyde was in the zone, a domain of pure instinct beyond reason. He just sat on the bed glaring at the boy, daring him to try and make a run for it, but Daniel’s legs felt like lead posts. Clyde stood up.

  “You know who called me today, boy?” Clyde said in a deep growl. He took a step forward.

  “I-I’ll p-pay it out of my work money, promise,” Daniel whimpered. “I swear, Clyde, it won’t cost you anything,” he pleaded. They both knew it for a lie, because most of what Daniel earned already went to Clyde. Daniel put his hands forward to ward off the impending strike. The hands fluttered about, not sure whether to protect his face, groin, or stomach. Clyde grabbed Daniel’s right hand with his left, crushing his fingers.

  “Clyde! Please. I swear it was an accident. It won’t happen again.” Daniel started to cry.

  Clyde pulled the boy’s fingers back until they crunched and popped. “Think you’re so fuckin’ talented, boy,” Clyde grunted. “Think you’re some fuckin’ arteest! Try ’n’ draw now, you good for nothin’ piece of shit. You ungrateful piece of shit! I put a roof over your head!”

  Clyde brought his knee up full force into Daniel’s gut. The shock drove the air from the boy’s lungs and made it impossible for him to draw another breath. While still exerting crushing force to Daniel’s right hand, Clyde brought the bottle around into the side of his stepson’s head. Tennessee whiskey splashed over the boy. He hit him again on the same spot. Daniel could feel his legs go from under him. As he went down Clyde would not relinquish his grip on Daniel’s hand. There were more crunch and pop sounds as bones and ligaments stretched beyond their limits. The boy still could not catch his breath. Spots appeared before him, and he started to turn white.

  Clyde let go of the hand and kicked him multiple times all over his body. It lasted an eternity.

  “Draw now, you fuckin’ piece of shit,” Clyde muttered as he staggered out of the room.

  Daniel could still hear Clyde muttering as he walked down the hall. Sobbing, he tenderly held his injured fingers in his good hand. He took stock of his condition, checking for broken ribs. There was a cut on his head. He had to hide it. No one at school could know. He didn’t want people to look at him that way. Daniel sat on the floor of his room with his back against the wall. He thought of his life and asked the ceiling why this was happening to him. He remembered happier times when his mother was still coherent and married to a better man. He sat against the wall and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 5

  ONE OF THOSE DAYS

  Cat MacDonnell waited for the e.p.t. results—two lines if pregnant, one if she wasn’t. A miracle of modern science reduced the waiting time on these tests to less than five minutes, and yet, they were the longest five minutes of the day. She’d waited until Bree was sound asleep before taking the test. In spite of her daughter’s predawn rendezvous with them, the girl didn’t settle down until 10:00 P.M. She had to kick Maggie out of the room because Bree kept playing with her, and Cat finally coaxed her to bed with a bribe of allowing her school friend to sleep over the following weekend. The girl did run on nuclear energy, as Cal often pointed out. He once suggested an insidious plan to replace oil and coal with five-year-olds on treadmills attached to industrial batteries. The beauty of the plan, he said, was the kids would be so pooped by the end of the day, it would allow parents time to make more babies, thus ensuring an abundance of clean power for years to come. Cat smiled. Cal had his moments.

  Cat had almost burst her bladder waiting to put Bree to bed. The snow from earlier that day had been replaced with a steady, freezing rain, and the drops tapping on the window didn’t help as she tried to hold it in.

  Waiting was stupid, like watching water boil. Cat put the test down on the side of the sink and turned on the TV in the living room with the volume low. MSNBC was rerunning a Dateline feature on indicted mob boss Dominic Tagliatore, “the Debonair Don” as he was called; who allegedly murdered and connived for the past decade to become head of the biggest drug and gambling network in the Northeast. There were people in the neighborhood who claimed they knew the Don from back in the day. “A standup guy, and a great cook,” they would say. Cat picked up Brianna’s toys and tossed them in a box as she listened.

  The apartment was spic-and-span. The lights were low, and vanilla-scented candles burned on the stone island that separated the kitchen from the dining room. She was glad they had renovated their own apartment first. They had just finished tearing out the center wall, which opened up the space. The hallway, which once ran from the front door to the rear bedroom now started just past the kitchen. The hardwood floors added a cozy touch. Her only regret was not having more sound insulation between the living room and Bree’s room, which were adjacent to each other.

  After tonight’s shift, Cal had three days off and Cat was determined to help him get a full night’s sleep. She wore his favorite Victoria’s Secret negligee. She had bought new satin sheets, and candles and oils were set by the bedside, as was a book on Swedish massage. Her hands were ready to knead Cal’s back like pizza dough. She would even withhold the results of her test until the morning—one less thing for him to worry about. For breakfast there would be French toast with bacon, ho
miny grits, and a steaming cup of Swiss almond gourmet roast. Then, she’d surprise him with tickets for that evening’s Jets game.

  The building was quiet. Letting their tenants go so they could renovate the other two apartments was a risky maneuver. Their single paycheck was already stretched to its limits. Once renovated, though, they could charge more for the space. Cat had offered to go back to work early, but Cal insisted she wait until Bree hit the first grade. It was important to him that the baby have constant parental care at an early age. For a man who knew nothing of his origins, Cal had a devout sense of values. He was so old-fashioned, Cat believed he was born in the wrong era. He would have been happier in the Victorian age. She didn’t know how to bring up the subject of graduate school.

  She’d put aside her ambitions temporarily to make Cal happy, and in truth, she enjoyed raising Bree, more than she thought possible. But the bug to pursue her MBA was nagging her more than ever. If Cat spent another five years at home stuck with a daily vocabulary of polysyllabic simplicities like “Boo-boo” and “Da-da,” she’d be fit to be tied. She was thirty, and this was the perfect age to practically apply an advanced degree for optimum effect. Cal would have to pick up some slack at home. How to sell it to him, though…?

  Thinking of her family and the man who was undoubtedly her best friend, Cat was amazed that she was even at this point in her life. In her youth, she would have been more likely to throw eggs and rotting fruit at her husband than kisses. When she attended Rutgers University, Cat marched in the “Take Back the Night” rallies; she once shaved her head at a sit-in to bring back the Equal Rights Amendment, chained herself to a tree in Oregon to save the old growth forests, and was a huge vocal advocate of homosexual and transgender rights, before it became the mainstream. How on earth did she end up with a cop?

  They had met at a nightclub. Catherine wore jeans and a T-shirt. Her girlfriend pointed out Cal’s interest in her, from across the club. In a room filled with dozens of prodded, preened, and scantily clad women, across a blaring dance floor, he was looking at her. He later admitted to her that his friends protested his becoming ensconced with the most hopelessly plain-looking woman in a club. She was glad Cal ignored his friends’ objections (and his own inherent shyness toward women) and followed his instincts.