Chapter 28

1

“It’s fucked up. That’s all I’m going to say.”

            “Do you agree with him?” Croak looked at Danny. They’d just finished Health class, and though most of the kids were snickering that they’d soon likely be fitting bananas for condoms or lighting up the usual gossip pool with talks about the new body found in the greenbelt, Croak and the Jew were thinking of only what had happened at Fenway: laying down the flowers at a home plate where they’d likely never swing at a ball again, understanding death was just a natural course of events after what they’d already seen transpire at the end of the summer. Seeing Robert Wilson confirmed one vital truth: one second you’re kicking it in a Mr Sub clogging the ol’ arteries, the next you’re climbing behind the wheel of an Audi somebody had just gotten the idea to sever the brakes to. Life and death. One and then the other. That was it.

            “I agree he has a right to know answers. But the shit he was talking about, Croak. It came across to me like his mind is just trying to make sense of it. Grampa was awesome. None of us are going to disagree. But he was old. And he was alone. Adam always said the guy never re-married, never really dated. And maybe he was pining to see his wife again. Maybe he was pining to see Adam’s grandma. I think that’s a choice you can make at that age.”

            “He chose to die? Shit, you say that to Adam, he’s bound to knock out your teeth.”

            Danny smiled. The cluster of students moving down the hall ignored the two walking against the grain; most were speaking about the General and the new body found in the belt. Speculating about connections. Danny was certain there were a few. “Look, I’m going to miss the shit out of grampa. Maybe my tears will come later. Or maybe it isn’t real to me yet. Like when we go to Adam’s house and see his stuff or smell parts of him, you know, like his cologne or aftershave, then I’ll understand how fleeting my time was with the guy. But now, fuck Croak, now I’ve got a lot on my mind. And Adam going to see Grimwood about a weird inclination is just one thing.”

            “But should he?”

            “Should he see Grimwood?”

            “Yeah. I mean, we all agreed we’d forget about him and what we saw. But now it feels like he’s opening an old wound.”

            Danny liked that analogy. It was apt. And considering how he felt about Reedy Creek, and the sickness in its underbelly that was just now making itself prominent on the surface, the metaphor was apropos. “The question is, what if he actually sees something on the tape?”

            “Like, what if somebody did come into the house? Somebody did…well…”

            “Yeah,” Danny said. They were heading toward the cafeteria. He was looking for one thing in particular. School was over now, and most kids were probably heading toward Deermont to scope out the crime scene. Curiosity was a wicked beast, and once you coupled that with bored townies the possibilities for exploration became virtually unlimited. “Then Adam’s got a case. He does. And I think we both know who’d call the shots for that sort of encounter. He’d have to talk to his own dad about it, right? I mean, Grimwood said enough to us to make sense of this place. Of Reedy Creek. About the cameras. He answered enough questions for us to understand adults can be fucked up. That they can be the real monsters, and the shit we were always afraid of in the closet or under our beds was just, like, an excuse to protect us from what is real. The monster in the closet with the red eyes, with the fangs, it’s there to protect you from Hitler.” Danny shivered. It was about as precise a rationalization for childhood fears than any he’d ever heard before. He figured his dad would probably agree.

            “If he does see somebody, you think it will be like the guy cutting Wilson’s brakes.”

            Danny nodded. They came to the cafeteria and he heard what he wanted to. He heard the clickety-clack of screeching wheels on a mop bucket. He heard utensils clanging, dishes clattering, those students who were so disabused of the notion of cleaning up after themselves having left their lunch or break messes scattered across tables for an ornery old Nazi to clean up as he dragged his mop along with him on the venture. He stood outside the large room, its front end blocked by a long counter and glass display where the cooks stood in hairnets dishing out what always looked like sloppy joes. “If he does see something, Croak, it will be the council. I bet you a hundred dollars on that. So if Grimwood got grampa’s name, Adam will be confronting him about it, and the shit could hit the fan. Two crazies colliding. We will feel the sonic boom.”

            Croak laughed, but it was uncomfortable. “It’s strange, right? I mean, I can laugh. I loved grampa, but I can still laugh. Remember when he’d…when he’d just fart there in front of Adam’s mom? Just so she’d get mad at him…and then he’d fart again…” Croak wiped his eyes. Laughter nearly choked the words right from his mouth.

            Danny smiled. “Laughter is more powerful than tears. That’s what I think.” He watched the janitor passively pick up plates and pour the extra food into a trash bag he was holding with his free hand. He remembered his dream. He remembered the man asking him if he wanted to see the boiler room. To scratch the tile wall as he was being fucked.

            “Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I’m worried about Adam. I think Pug would say the same, wherever the hell that fat bastard is. He didn’t even say bye, did he?”

            Reedy Creek is stretching us apart. It was a strange thought. But it seemed true at the same time. We each have our own demons. Our own concerns. Our own fascinations. He figured that last word was just a euphemism. It sounded better than obsession.

            “You wanna hit the greenbelt with me?” Croak asked. His voice sounded a thousand miles away. Danny was fixated on the man in the cafeteria. The man in the navy slacks.

            “Nah, that’s cool. Promised my mom I’d be home after school. Help with some clean up in the yard after the storm.” It was a lie. Just as Croak’s was.

            Each of us has a fixation now. Don’t we?

            “Everything will be okay, won’t it? Us, I mean. Adam didn’t want us there to remember grampa…well, he did, but I think he wanted us there more so that we could, well, approve of his going back. Going back to the farm. We did this together, right? I mean, we went to the farmhouse together, and his going back without us it—”

            “Means our summer’s really over. The Fenway Four’s done. Or whatever magic we had at the time.”

            “Yeah,” Croak nodded. He didn’t look at the janitor. Didn’t even notice Danny was watching him. “We’ll be okay, right?”

            Danny knew what Croak wanted to hear. He didn’t know the truth. The reality was, if Reedy Creek was sick, so were they. “You’re sounding like Pug, man. Stuff a donut in your mouth and stick up your nose like a pig and I’d think I was looking at him too.”

            Croak smiled. If they were joking, they were okay. For now.

            “Well, we’ll chat soon. Maybe check on Adam. Make sure…make sure everything’s cool.”

            Danny nodded. And Croak took off. Each to their own particular fixation. Because Danny figured any host might first fight its illness through misdirection: you could ignore the disease if your attention wasn’t on it.

2

Barb wasn’t a stranger to throwing impromptu events. In another life, Trevor relied on her enough to organize the sort of soirees he’d headline as a result of pressure from his publisher to kowtow to the right people. People, she figured, who would be benefactors for private funding of his further research, and thus the guarantee that further updated editions of his bestseller would be required to fulfill the obligations of his studies. Those parties involved the booking of grand ballrooms, investments made into catering and design studios meant to oblige the required aesthetic, and never once did she sit down with Trevor to discuss the inherent hypocrisies of stressing the burden of materialism in print to those indulging in its fanciful excesses. Because then she understood the game Trevor was playing wasn’t always about environmentalism, but spreading the information. What good were his words if nobody picked up his book?

            Then that life ended. And her father became a fixture. The man she thought she’d never see again; the man with whom her husband had so constantly butted heads was back because he was their savior.

            And now he was gone.

            Barb was sitting at the kitchen table when Adam got home. She was trying to write a speech. A memory. Anything for the service she was organizing for Lewis Forsmythe. Anything that might put a smile on people’s faces or tears in their eyes. Patty was down for a nap. They’d both spent much of the morning crying. And when she realized Adam had taken off before any of them had woken up, she was worried he might do something stupid. That he might take out his frustration on something or someone. But she realized she had to trust that the kid was going to mourn the only way he knew how; and this was a first for him. He was far too young to remember when her mom had passed. There was no teaching kids about how to react to death. You could present them with certain truths, but the reality itself was just a learning process. At least she thought so.

            She looked up from the pad of paper and set down her pen.

            “Adam?”

            She heard his scuffled footsteps down the hall. He came into the kitchen holding his backpack. His eyes were serious. Almost stern.

            “I didn’t expect you’d go to school.” She looked at the clock. “Or at least attempt half a day.” She offered a smile but figured it looked forced. “Are you okay?”

            “I’m fine.” Short and sweet. His tone was one of annoyance.

            “Will you sit down with me?”

            Adam set his bag at his feet and pulled out a chair. He tried to avoid eye contact, tried to look at the kitchen cabinets or the fridge, but realized it was a fruitless venture. When his eyes finally settled on hers, she was able to relax.

            “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you last night. About what you said. This…everything, it’s hitting us all hard. Even your father. I think, at the end here, they were both really trying. But it wasn’t fair of me, of us, to so quickly disbelieve what you were saying. We all grieve differently, Adam. All of us. I still don’t want to believe what happened. He was my father. It’s never easy, no matter how old you are. Some people cry. Other people try to find reasons.”

            “I’m not trying to find anything, mom. I saw what I saw.”

            “I know, hun. I do.” She reached over to touch his hand. “And you do what you have to do. You’re a good kid. Your grampa loved the hell out of you. I’d like to think coming here to Reedy Creek, coming here to spend time with you, it was the best way he could end his life.” She wiped her eye with her forefinger. “Even with what it meant happening to us. To your father. It was a blessing in disguise because he wasn’t alone anymore. He needed you more than anything in his life, and you gave it to him. You and your friends included him.”

            “I need to go.” He pulled his hand away. She could see his lower lip quivering, but his eyes remained stoic. Resolute.

            “Please…Adam.” She picked up the pen again. Just so she could busy her fingers. “This is all so fresh. It is. And it’s new to you. I hate that you have to go through this. I hate how angry you are. But you’re allowed to be angry.” She looked down at what she had been writing. She had a good control of language; she could weave passable prose. Nothing like Trevor, but she was proficient enough to ensure those who showed up to listen wouldn’t be bored to tears. “I’d like to have a service for grampa. Here. At home. We haven’t seen his will yet, but we’re pretty certain he will be buried in Boston. With your grandma.”

            Adam looked up at her. He was focusing on the table, trying to avoid eye contact. Trying to avoid her. She couldn’t blame him. He didn’t want her to see him cry. To break down. “I know. I heard you talking about it.”

            “Oh, you did?”

            Adam only nodded. “This place. Reedy Creek. Look at what it’s taking from us.” His voice was heavy with emotion.

            “I don’t understand…”

            “You said you were sick. I heard you.”

            Barb felt a warmth rise from the pit of her gut into the pores of her forehead; she’d probably said a lot last night to Trevor. A lot she hadn’t intended to be overheard. And she couldn’t be angry at Adam for eavesdropping; it was only natural that he would be curious, that he would try and find some semblance of peace from his parents while he was grieving. Or learning to grieve. “No, Adam. I thought I was. But I’m not. The stress of everything. The stress of coming here, of what happened in Suffolk, to us, to your father. It made me think I was.” But it didn’t make you feel a lump. It didn’t make you scream while you were in the shower, when your finger ran over the hard mound. It didn’t take you on trips to Davenport, upon Trevor’s suggestion, to visit the clinic there.

            “You don’t have to protect me. Not anymore. I know how the world really is, mom.”

            She exhaled and took his hand again. “I will always protect you, Adam. Always. The world can be mean. But it’s at its meanest when there’s nobody there to soothe the wounds. I’d like it if you could help me protect grampa’s friends from what happened. I’d love it if you spoke. It will be small, Adam. Not many were blessed to have met grampa here. But he made a few friends. A cop, for one. Did you ever meet a cop named Allen Webster? He came by this morning to see grampa. He was in pieces after the news. People need to know just how important grampa was. And they’ll understand if it comes from you.”

            Adam only nodded indifferently and stood up, pushing away the chair from the table and slowly picking up his bag by the strap. “I need to be alone. I…I just…”

            “I know,” Barb said.

            She wouldn’t know her son had just seen a man named Grimwood. And that he carried a VHS tape in his backpack. And maybe that was for the best.

3

Adam checked on his brother before going into his own room. Just to see if he was behaving strangely. The boy was in his crib. All was well.

            Adam understood his mom was trying to level with him, but he wasn’t sure he truly believed her. And maybe that wasn’t the point right now. Because right now he was holding the only answer he needed. He shut his door and sat down on the edge of his bed; the other VHS tapes, those he never brought with him when he and his friends met Lazarus, were tucked into the space beneath with crumpled shirts and discarded socks. It seemed so long ago now when they’d first stumbled on the box. When they first sat down to watch Robert Wilson snort coke. When grampa was still in his ratty PJs and hadn’t yet been pulled into the Creek’s underbelly. Before so many mistakes were made.

            Adam opened his backpack and pulled out the tape. He only stared at it for a moment. Now you’ll know if you’re crazy. Now you’ll know if you’re only looking for reasons to make sense of what happened to grampa. Like your mom says. As if this is the way you mourn. He thought about what Grimwood asked him to do, and looked at the paper in his bag. It was a poem, or so he thought. That didn’t matter right now. There was plenty of time for favors.

            Adam put the tape into his VCR and waited a moment. Waited for his heart to pall. Waited for the excitement to settle. Maybe he was feeling guilty, the same way Croak felt guilty for laughing at school—because a man they both loved had just passed and they each just had their specific fixations to misdirect them beyond the process of mourning.

            And if there’s nothing? And if you’ve made it all up because you’re crazy? What the Jew would call batshit insane. Then all you have are your feelings and the reality that the man you brought into this mess is lying in a morgue right now.

            He pressed play.

            The tape he was promised recorded the feed from the light post outside his house. It was the only camera with a vantage point of his front porch. Here he watched the trees already swaying with the blowing storm, leaves becoming unfettered in their swirling cacophony that turned the sky into Van Gogh’s canvas; he watched the rain thicken and fall with the barrage of enemy fire, the heavy thunder rattling the camera’s focus here and there, and the flash of lightning muting everything with a brilliant radiance that turned the world into a single pinpoint of nothing. The time stamp read 9:00. The world was so eerily still contrasted against the deluge. He saw the upper floor light in the window above the front door, the window through which he and Patty would watch the rain from the top of the stairs. Adam knew the power would go out at around 9:17. That was when he found grampa on the couch. Found him looking at a world beyond Adam. At a world of nothing.

            He leaned forward and pressed the fast-forward button, watching the scene play through a squiggled line, the individual raindrops turning into one large curtain now. He stopped the tape. The time stamp read 9:06. Was that right? Did he go past it? He wasn’t sure. Couldn’t be sure. He gripped the bed sheets and felt his body stiffen.

            The front door opened. He saw grampa standing in the light. But nobody else. Nobody.

            “What?”

            He watched the front door close. That was it.

            “What?” he repeated. You didn’t just dream about grampa opening the door. That happened. That’s on tape. So what does this mean? Why would he open the door to nothing?

            He rewound the tape and watched again. And again. And again. He watched as the door opened to the foyer light, the rain showing the coruscated reflection from the doorway; he couldn’t really see his grampa beyond his frame, beyond the silhouette of his body in the foyer’s glow, couldn’t see if the man standing there knew he would be dead in the next few minutes. Maybe the storm knocked on the door. Maybe that’s it. Like an awry branch. Adam thought it was plausible. And he watched again to check. To watch specifically for anything that might have hit the door, something big enough to be heard inside.

             But there was nothing.

             You heard a second set of footsteps in the house. Remember? And you saw something walk in. You saw grampa move aside to let it. And you heard footsteps. You didn’t imagine that. You didn’t imagine Patty pissing himself as you held him. You didn’t. And you didn’t imagine the perfume. You didn’t. It wasn’t mom’s. No, you know mom’s perfume, you do, and this one, it was older but familiar. So familiar.

            His grampa would have said, “the proof is in the pudding.” And it was. He was seeing his answer, wasn’t he? There was nobody—       

            Adam stopped. After rewinding again and watching the sequence as grampa opened the door he thought he saw something. Was it lightning? It was a flash. Something so quick it would have taken watching the footage a hundred times to catch it, to look past the familiar and see something different. Something unaccounted for. He pressed rewind and watched again. It was like some awkward feedback or distortion on the tape. Or maybe the feed. Something blotting the lens at that exact moment or marring the VHS tape in its reel. He wasn’t sure. It’s like something skips. The flash is the image jumping. Right as grampa opens the door, right as it opens and you can see him standing there, standing for the last time in his life, the picture slips forward. Look. Grampa is there, and then he’s not. He’s not there. It wasn’t quick enough for him to move aside. He’s just. Not there.

            Adam swallowed. He felt like the doctor who discovered penicillin by accident, or a ball player who’d taken a curveball outside his wheelhouse for a game winning homerun. You’re seeing something you’re not supposed to. He watched once again, but this time he settled his finger over the pause button. Waiting. Waiting for the opportune moment. When he noticed that slip.

            He hit the button. And he sat back. There, frozen on the screen behind the veneer of rain and the crest of fallen leaves finding brushstrokes on the wind, was somebody else standing in front of his grampa. The man hadn’t moved aside in that slip but was concealed. By her.

            The woman staring back at the camera.

4

He never had any intention of going to the woods.

            Croak went straight home after school. He parked his bike next to the garage, stepping over broken branches and finding shards of glass on the driveway his mom neglected to sweep up. He didn’t care. He went inside, heard the silence and knew he was alone. And that made him happy. He quickly put together what he called a survivor kit, because he wasn’t exactly certain if he would be leaving the basement at all. He opened the fridge and piled cold cuts on a slice of Wonder Bread, smearing its top half with mayo, and he palmed a can of Root Beer. When he opened the pantry he grabbed a box of Triscuits and tucked the jar of chunky peanut butter under his arm; he balanced this way for a moment, scanning the contents of the musty interior, wondering if his mom had tucked away the real goodies so he wouldn’t indulge before dinner. But he figured she was far too busy of late to stock up on those sinful concoctions, and he scuffled toward the basement stairs and carefully made his way down, watching the sandwich teeter precariously as the heap of ham and turkey nearly sidled off the bread.

            Croak had his fixation. Just as Danny had his. And Adam. And Pug. None of that mattered to him. Not yet. Because there had to be a method to the madness; he could qualify that the storm had frightened him enough to imagine he’d seen something on the news, but he would have to test that theory through replication. And if he’d learned anything in Science, it was that a theory was never patently true or false; it was always just waiting to be confirmed or denied by the strictures of experiment. And experimentation required a level of patience.

            Croak sat down on the couch and set his plate next to him. He wasn’t exactly hungry, but maybe it was the comfort of knowing it was there. That something from the upstairs world was with him, and that connection somehow made him safer down here. Because down here was in the depths, the underworld, and he knew what happened in the underworld; he knew the faces of the Watchers. He thought about Adam. It would be the last time that night he would. He wondered if Adam was okay, if he’d gotten what he needed from Grimwood? He wondered if Adam had found an element of peace, because that’s what he needed. He needed some sort of comfort. He understood what it felt like to watch your family being ripped apart.

            Croak turned on the TV and watched. He watched Inspector Gadget. He watched an infomercial about a juicer, and then he thought about The Cosby Show, thought about that episode when Cliff purchased one of those useless things and Rudy made a mess of the kitchen stuffing grapes, stem and all, into the appliance, and he thought about how he’d felt when he first watched it; how a part of him wished a father-figure like ol’ Heathcliff was there to scold him for doing the stupid things kids were wont to do. That he would have most likely stuffed shit into a juicer as well just to be punished. Because if you were punished it meant somebody cared.

            Croak finished his sandwich by the time the juicer nonsense was over, and the guy on the screen, a dude who wore enough self-tanner he could have been confused for an Oompa Loompa with glandular problems, spouted directly to him while numbers flashed on the left and right of the screen that he could make five easy payments of $15.99, and oh-what-a-steal it was that he could just sit there and make a quick call for such a deal, that he should be thanking the Consumer Gods home shopping was ever invented.

            Croak was onto the crackers by the time the 5:00 news came on from the Davenport feed. He’d dipped those Triscuits right into the peanut butter and scooped out enough with each bite he’d have trouble swallowing, forcing him to open the Root Beer and take hearty gulps that had him sounding like he was having a heart attack; he had his mom buy the chunky stuff just to ensure the bits of cracker she did find whenever she had PB & Js could be passed off as chunks of legume and that was the end of it.

            There was the newscaster, hair combed to the left. The normal way. The way it should be. His name was Darrel Janz, and he spoke with the same sort of rough staccato he remembered from the night of the storm, his stare intent and his eyes earnest but somehow comforting. You had to have a specific look if you were reading the news. You couldn’t be funny looking or too attractive or you’d become distracting. Darrel looked more like an old math teacher who had the privilege of a cosmetician making sure he looked presentable before class. The mural behind him remained the same static scene of the prairie, the sun fiery and magnificent.

            “I hate to be the purveyor of bad news so close to home. I do. Reedy Creek has been the witness to horrific crimes, with reports coming from RC police and State Troopers of a body recovered today in what the locals call the greenbelt behind the Deermont housing district, which has witnessed an increased expansion as a result of the industry jumpstart in ethanol subsidies. Yesterday two bodies, confirmed as Reedy Creek pharmacist Dr Thomas Halliburton and his assistant, Sarah Darling, were found at the General, both pronounced dead on the scene as a result of multiple gunshots. There were details on the scene that have been witnessed, but I am not of license to echo any such rumors without credible information. So I will not. I will, however, suggest as an implication of this recent clash of big city values with small town antics, that a certain level of precautionary gun control should be taken into account. I’ve been on the receiving end of NRA lobbyists harping on my criticisms of their Second Amendment rights, as if what was written in the eighteenth century should relate to the contexts of the modern world. I speak as myself right now, and do not represent Davenport News or any subsidiaries currently airing this program. I am speaking off the cuff when I say I see these reports, I see what is happening so close to home, and it strikes me as blatantly obvious that a real discussion should be had to enforce stricter laws, to limit gun sales and consequently limit gun deaths. Maybe today Thomas and Sarah would be alive and with their families.”

            Croak watched the man staring directly at the camera, at him, as he spoke. Usually he would glance down at the notepad on his desk, perhaps reading what he’d jotted down before the program aired, but right now he was confessing. Or at least Croak thought. What was happening in Reedy Creek, its sickness, it was permeating. Becoming a part of the social consciousness, though Croak wouldn’t know to call it in those terms. He’d already stood up and just watched the man as he returned his attention to the paper and started reciting the news; he knew people would probably write in angry letters or call the station to either issue support for or condemn the guy’s opinion. He sometimes saw his mom yelling at the TV when Reagan was giving a speech. He knew she hated the guy. He wasn’t sure why, but he understood the political factions in the States were powerful and the divisions were blatant; you either stood on one side or the other, and now that he’d been witnessing another election gearing up over the summer, his peripheral attention was absorbing the realities of how coarse partisan attachments could make some people. He walked around the backside of the TV, still listening to Darrel Janz speak, now referring to Davenport’s meteorologist who would stand before the big swirling map of the greater United States, highlighting the county and the cloud cover, guessing the temperature for the next five days with a degree of variance because he usually got it wrong. Unless the weather was shit. Then his predictions were spot on.

            Croak only exhaled when he pulled the plug. His mouth tasted like peanut butter. The smell had infused his sinus. The sounds died and the room went dark. He stood and listened to the silence for a moment. Listened to the world up the stairs. His mom wasn’t home yet. If his brother was, he couldn’t hear him. He felt alone. Isolated. And he figured that was right. He figured if he was going to replicate certain conditions, that sort of alienation seemed like a prerequisite. A requirement.

            He settled back in the couch, next to an empty plate, empty can of Root Beer, and a box of Triscuits with crumbs lining the bottom of the bag. The same crumbs currently mixed in with the crunchy peanuts in the jar of PB. He stared at that black screen below the rabbit ears, the darkness of his frame bordering the bottom of the glass monitor below the light coming from the stairwell, lighting a fire behind his contour. Persistence is key. He thought he saw a poster that said that. He couldn’t remember. He didn’t think it really mattered.

            What do you expect to see? If you told the guys about this, about your goddamn insistence to believe this is real, to believe there is a Backwards World in the TV that exists only when the power’s out, then you better get used to being alone. You fuckin’ nut job! He chuckled. He wasn’t sure why. The thought was sad, but at the same time it was hilarious. He was sitting alone in the basement watching a television without power. If his mom came home right now and found him this way, still somehow interested by the proposition of a blank screen, of its potential, she might just pack him up and send him to the insane asylum. He knew that. He understood that. But he also understood how different this place was. How different Reedy Creek had become, and how he and his friends were a part of a secret most hadn’t the attention span to see. You’re special. That’s why the Backwards World chose you.

            With that thought he watched the screen flicker. He saw the same static, the snow washing across the screen from a single pinpoint in the center until everything was white. Until the TV looked like a bowl of popcorn on its side.

            With the flash and squiggle of that snow breaking, of something forming underneath like a grand world rising from the depths, like Atlantis emerging from its oceanic grave, he saw the mural, this time without the fiery sun lighting the world with a golden, royal hue, but a full moon, plump and bruised in the shadows of its craters, alighting the image with the dim indigo curtain of a world in its slumber. And there was Darrel Janz, the part on the right side of his head now, the way he remembered, the way the storm made him.

            “I knew it,” he whispered, and he thought this version of Darrel could hear him. Could sense him. He felt his skin prickle. Could feel the electricity of the powerless TV still somehow embracing him, connecting him. Darrel stared at him. Not at the camera, but at him, Croak, following him as he swayed from side to side to test the theory.

            It’s a magic trick. That’s it. Somebody’s pranking you.

            Darrel shuffled a sheaf of paper and stared down at it for a moment, looking back up while clearing his throat: “A local boy has been seeking to replace the father that abandoned him. Moving up from the usual daydreaming while watching sitcoms, this boy used to imagine a man like Stephen Keaton or Heathcliff Huxtable coming home from a day of work to ask him how school was. And this boy believed this would somehow complete him, would fill the hole a negligent asshole left when he upped and jettisoned the poor boy’s mother for fresher pastures. This reporter has seen these pastures, and they are far more supple than those he left.” This version of Darrel smiled, licking his upper lip. It was a very crude gesture. Croak only watched in silence. “But this boy filled that void with good friends. Good friends who’ve made the silliest vow to avoid a very intriguing secret that resides beneath Reedy Creek’s surface. This reporter finds the choice silly, but alas an old man hasn’t the understanding of how a young man’s mind works. But this young mind, ladies and gentleman, is simple in its intentions and very innocent in its wishes: he would like to see his family whole again.”

            An image appeared above this Darrel’s shoulder, a feed, not unlike the one from last night, the one of his mother. It was her again, holding hands with the man across from her, the man whose back Croak had already grown accustomed to. They were sitting at a diner, perhaps, though they were alone, mugs of coffee between them.

            “Who is it? Who is he?” He wanted to shake the TV. “Don’t be a fucking tease!” He was standing. He didn’t remember getting up. His fists were clenched.

            “You are looking for a new father, Cory. To fix your mom and to fix your brother. Isn’t that right?” Darrel cocked his eye, staring up at Croak now, seeing him as he stood. Gauging him.

            Croak nodded. He wouldn’t think at that point how crazy he must have looked; that maybe he wasn’t seeing anything, that maybe the TV was as black as the darkest corners of the basement, that if his mom did come home and stumble in on him, she would see a boy talking to a powerless appliance. Those didn’t click, because right now this was as natural as the conversation he shared with Danny before leaving school. This was normal because this was his fixation.

            “Maybe your mom has found that man.”

            “What man? Tell me!”

            “It isn’t for me to tell. I just read the news, Cory. I don’t know. How could I know?” He chuckled. The sound was grating and distant, almost like a distorted signal, a fax machine heard through the phone line.

            “Please…” Croak walked forward, getting closer to the screen, wanting to touch it, wanting to reach right into the screen and become a part of the Reverse World, the backwards place. To see if he could spin around the image of the man sitting across from his mother as she quietly sipped her coffee, staring at a face he couldn’t see with a level of sincerity in her eyes he could almost feel. He wanted to feel. “Please…tell me…”

            “You already know the answer, Cory. I am in your mind.” Darrel tapped the screen. There was a distinct click and thud of his nail and fingertip striking the convexed glass. “You’ve always known the answer. Look, this is your writing.” Darrel turned around the pieces of paper in his hand to show his notes; they were in Croak’s writing, his loopy Ls and stodgy cursive that just appeared lazy. “The easiest way to find this man is to contact the one controlling the feeds, Cory. If you can see then he can see.”

            “My God…Adam went to see him today. He went to see him. If he can, so can I. Fair is fair.” Croak smiled. He was so close to the TV he could feel the static on his tongue.

            “Yes, Cory. Fair is fair. He will have the answer for you. All it will require is a simple favor. It’s the new bartering system. And isn’t that worth knowing who your new father might be?” Darrel shared the briefest smirk, his face nearly centered beneath the full moon suspended by ethereal yarn on the mural.

            And the screen went dark.

5

Danny followed the janitor on his BMX. The man had stayed at school for another hour or so, making his way down hallways and emptying trashcans, picking out cigarette butts from any ashtrays to determine if there was enough length left to re-light.

            When he did pack up, grabbing his tin lunch pail, something Danny was surprised didn’t advertise his Nazi leanings with full swastika regalia, he made his way to the parking lot to an old F-150, its blue paint completely rusted and its windshield so battle worn Danny figured the old asshole would have to start duct-taping it to keep the glass from collapsing inward if the wind was especially strong. He watched the janitor climb into the cab, struggling a little with his thick legs, steadying behind the wheel, and taking a long swig of a bottle it looked like he pulled either from the glove compartment or the door. He sat this way for a few minutes. Staring at nothing in particular. Danny wondered just how lonely the man was. How lonely a man would have to be to carry so much hate. He thought about the man his father told him about. George Lincoln Rockwell. A man who sought to carry a sordid tradition of evil men just because, Danny figured, some people wanted to be unique, wanted to stand out and contrast. To be contrary.

            He listened to the engine roar to life with a guttural sickness, belching fumes of black smoke, and then watched it lollop out of the lot and onto Main, where he heard the clutch screech. Danny strayed behind. The man had said he’d lived in Reedy Creek for many years before the Jews came, before the corn brought in the coloreds. Before the milk was spoiled.

            What are you expecting to find? What?

            A reason for his hate, Danny finally settled on. If he was going to fixate on what this man said, and on how powerful his grip had been on him to appear as some bogeyman in his dreams, he had to distinguish his reality from the monster his mind had turned him into. He had to humanize him.

            His Ford kept at a steady pace. Danny rode on the sidewalk, steering and skidding around pedestrians, wondering if he would stay in Reedy Creek. When he was older, if this place would take a hold of him like it had so many of the people he saw day in and day out; if the life he expected of himself was just wishful thinking and the truth was that he’d have his own stead on Deermont, a cute wife, and maybe a couple of kids to keep his mom happy. Would Reedy Creek even be alive by then?

            Can towns die?

            He thought so. He remembered reading about ghost towns, especially on the west coast during the gold rush in the 19th century. Industry booms packed in the prospects, and the first whiff of failure closed the door on the entire boondoggle. Leaving an empty shell of what once was and the opportunity to tour the remains, like some desolate graveyard, believing you’re that much better because you haven’t witnessed a fall like that, because success and prosperity allow for the sort of judgment that can turn one’s nose up at those who laid the groundwork for progress.

            He wondered if Reedy Creek would be like that in another ten or twenty years. Just a shell. A system of fiber optics and electrical circuits like the circulatory system of a corpse left to rot out in the sun.

            The janitor pulled into Burger King’s drive-thru. Danny watched him speaking to the intercom. He watched him pull forward to grab his greasy bag, and he watched him pull over against the curb and tear into his Whopper, his truck still running, the radio loud enough for Danny to hear it from his stance on Main, where he balanced his bike and watched.

            When the truck did kick up again and pull away, Danny was already pedalling. What if he sees you? What if he knows you’re behind him? He wasn’t sure he cared. Not right now. Right now the curiosity was getting the better of him.

            The janitor lived in an older section of Reedy Creek, away from the estates on Deermont and the woodsy areas, where the development had ensured the cultivation of the greenbelts retained the sort of idyllic escapism city people were after when they moved out here. The houses along this row looked pre-war, with carports tacked onto what looked like farmhouses and old jalopeys sitting in the yards, some on cinderblocks, like what the Joads would have driven across country to pick fruit when the banks bought the farms. The yards here were larger, but pitted with gravel and most of the grass was dead. When the storm rolled through, it had taken over a few spruce trees, and he saw branches poking holes through one port roof, whose posts were already splitting. A man was sitting out in the yard on a chair, smoking and watching, flicking his ashes as Danny rode by, his eyes indifferent.

            These were the real Creekers. The ones who might blow up first when the shit hit the fan, when the tensions boiled over the pot and there was nothing left for the anger to do but express itself.

            The blue Ford pulled into a gravel drive and lurched to a park. Danny braked by a poplar tree and leaned against it, watching. Just as the man down the way on the chair watched him. The janitor stepped out with the crumpled bag of Burger King and he lobbed it into a trash can sitting by the front porch, the awning above tilted with age and nearly ready to come down; it looked as if the janitor had propped up its eave side with a long branch he’d dredged from across the street, where signs were staked by a fence announcing that NO DUMPING was allowed. He waited until the janitor was inside.

            “Whatcha doin’?”

            The man with the cigarette had ambled closer to him, his hair long and in tangles down his shoulders, his jeans hitched up by suspenders and the laces on his boots coiled on the ground and looping behind him.

            “Didn’ mean to scare you. Not familiar ‘round here. But ya came when Ed did and it looks to me like you’re following him.” The man smiled, his lips pursed around the cigarette.

            “Ed?”

            “Man there in the ’78 Ford. No upkeep on the engine an’ the clutch is worn to shit. I’d gather the innards look a lot like the frame. Like his mind. Not sure what business you got with him, I don’t, and I won’t pry. You look like a good kid. But mind yourself by him. He’s loopy, by God. My wife thinks he might be retarded, plugged there by the state. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

            “What’s wrong with him?” Danny thought he knew. He was a Nazi. Your garden variety anti-Semite.

            “I known Ed about ten years, I think. Bout when that truck was brand new. Used to work as a farmhand down the road there. Then he got the gig at the school cleaning up shit. Not where he should be, if you ask me. Around kids. But what’s wrong with him? It’s in his eyes, mostly. He’s got secrets. Plenty of them. A history. You don’t move to a place like this to be a farmhand, ya hear. You move if you’ve got a farm or bought a piece of one. But you don’t stay long if you’re getting’ up as the rooster crows just for a midday meal and enough income to keep ya buyin’ one ply. He’s either running from something, or he’s here for a reason.”

            Here for a reason. That idea stuck with Danny. And it would for a long time.

            “But what’s wrong with him? Shit, son, he’s a racist. Probably Klan, once upon a time. We’ve all got our prejudices. Comes with age and with the territory. I’m sure that will keep changing with the years. You see a black and it doesn’t come as quite a shock to you as it does to me. Because you’re normalized. Soon that shit won’t matter. Soon coots like me, like him, we’ll be gone. But he carries hatred. And I only know that, truthfully, cause my skin’s almost as white as his.” The man smiled again and flicked the smoke into the grass. It looked so dry around here it was a surprise the whole area didn’t go up in flames. The butt smoldered and that was it. “You look like a good kid. But you’ve got Jew in you. He doesn’t like Jews.” The man nodded his head and walked back. Danny watched him, unsure really what happened; the man disappeared into his house, never looking back again. As if he’d never been there in the first place.

            It’s not just to you, then. This guy’s a piece of shit to everybody. To every fucking color under the rainbow. Danny left his bike against the poplar tree and went toward the janitor’s, Ed’s, ramshackled abode; he went around the side, away from the front porch and its ratty screen door and lilted awning, sidling along the clapboard exterior where weeds jutted against the foundation in awry tangles. He went to the first window; the pane was scummy, like something from an old bar, meant to remain translucent to keep out the sunlight. He peered in. He could see the kitchen. The cupboard doors were mostly hanging askew on their hinges, and dishes sat in a clutter on the counter, among crushed beer cans and empty bottles of Jack, some having tipped on their sides and others having rolled off the counter onto the linoleum floor only to shatter. There were posters of pin-up girls leading down the hallway; on one was a nice pair of tits peeking out from the pleated folds of the American flag, the seductress’s back arched in a comically exaggerated hyperextension to promote her finer assets, her plump lips pursed and lathered in red lipstick. Ahead, beyond the kitchen and on the opposite side of the house, was a small TV set and lounger. Ed had kicked back in the seat and was nursing another beer, watching a baseball game. He couldn’t tell who was playing. Ed was still in his navy slacks, but he’d replaced the uniform top with a white T, hugging deftly to his pronounced gut and most likely showing ringed yellow stains under his arms. He went to the next window. A bathroom, its window mostly fogged not by condensation but some ungodly mixture of soap and grime; he saw, trapped in the header and in the sill, countless insects, having been taken by the sap tinting the pane only to die perilously and with no hope next to a shitter.

            The bathroom door opened and he heard Ed saunter in. He heard the man humming something to himself. Danny braced against the splintered clapboard, its original color, some sort of auburn, having faded and peeled away many moons ago; he stood there listening to the man piss. When the toilet flushed and he heard the door close again, he knew he could breathe. Is this exciting? Is that why you’ve come? Because watching the feeds had become so boring you wanted an actual adventure? He thought there might have been some truth to that. Some. He moved on to the back of the place, where a large venting window sat aslant to let in some cool September air. The place had no air conditioning. The backyard was unkempt and stretched down a hill toward a copse of pines where there was an old shed. Something tacked up fifty years ago, no doubt, to house yard equipment that had likely not seen the light of day since Ike was in the White House. Ed had pinned up old bed sheets over the window, and he saw them flapping into the room with the wind; they obscured everything he wanted to see, the man’s private haven, but in those intermittent glimpses he saw more posters, naked women, taped up on the walls as if the man was a horny teenager, each woman staring outward with the suggestion that their idealism, that their version of sex was better than the reality inherent to this room’s master. He’s not married. Can’t be. No woman would allow her husband to tack up pictures of tits. The man was surrounding himself in a perverse fantasy. There was a concrete patio to the right, mostly chipped and spalling, like a basketball court in the projects where the balls dribbled day and night and the hustlers shelled out dime bags in the open because the cops knew to stay away after dark. There were a few lawn chairs outside, gathered around an unused fire pit filled with empties. The old patio door swung outwards and it had a screen as well, mostly ripped, and by the lintel was a bug zapper that had seen better days. Danny looked inside. This was a better view of the TV room. The floor was original hardwood, if Danny were to wager a guess. The kind of oak folks in New York were so busily trying to replicate in their trendy lofts. The room was mostly empty. There was a chest with a lamp. Even from the backyard Danny could see the dust piled up on the shade in tufts; there was a Bible sitting on top of that chest, squared perfectly against the base of the light, and Danny wondered if Ed actually read from the Good Book, or if he kept it as some sort of ironic depository for narcotics. He’d seen people who’d carved out the inside of books to hide shit in plain sight, whether it was money or jewellery, or hell, even the good drugs that made you feel special and alive. Danny suspected a man like Ed kept Oxy in there, or some cheap cut of heroin, something he’d shoot up on weekends while he stroked his dick when the girls on his posters came to life.

            Ed just nursed his beer and watched the game. Maybe he isn’t an American Nazi, like what your dad said. Maybe he’s just a normal guy, a boring lonely guy, who hates because hating is easy. Hating means blaming your problems on others, and everybody needs to find a scapegoat if they want to remain innocent. He felt let down. Because seeing him in the locker room, hearing him say the things he’d said made Danny believe he had to be something else, had to partake in another life when the school bell rang. But he was just your dime-a-dozen pervert.

            You wasted your whole night. Shit. And you could have gone with Croak to check out the belt. Maybe even catch a glimpse of the body. Because for some strange reason that sounds cool to you now. After what you’ve seen, that sounds enticing.

            Danny was going to return to his bike. To hitch on his ride and pedal home fast to beat his dad, maybe catch some of the scores on the news so they could talk stats but—

            Ed’s place was at the end of the street. There wasn’t any development farther along; the man, or the previous owners, had built a fence on the property that cuffed the overgrowth toward the woods leading east where Reedy Creek truly disappeared to the wild. There was a thick swatch of trees and bush here, and Danny just caught the glint. If he didn’t really look, if he’d just turned around like he was supposed to, he wouldn’t have seen it at all. Did somebody park there?

            He thought so. Danny crept to the rear of the backyard, down the sloped embankment, and toward the shed that he noticed was teetering and would soon, should nature send in another storm, totter over in one big mess of tetanus. He didn’t notice any cameras. There wasn’t much of anything out here in what could only be called the boonies. He trampled through some deadfall and heard leaves crunch underfoot; there was a stillness out here, a calm that felt like the very edge of existence. It proved, beyond a doubt, just how alone the man sitting in his lounger truly was.

            Maybe it was a restored Mercedes-Benz W31, the sort used by upper rank officers of the SS as they paraded in uniform through Berlin; maybe Ed was hiding it in the canopied jungle, preparing for his coming onslaught as he built his armament and strategized the sort of blitzkrieg attack on the Corners that would leave Main a mess of bloodied bodies.

            But it wasn’t. Danny froze. Because his imagination was overpowering his pragmatism. The car wasn’t a Benz. It wasn’t German. It was a Buick Regal Sedan. Gold. Pulled into a small alcove created in the bush by one who’d been here more than once. Maybe many times. Danny knew the car. He knew the pine air freshener dangling from the rear-view. And he knew the man, standing in the shade of that copse, wearing a black jacket, something he wouldn’t normally wear, its collar popped and erect around his head, black gloves pulled tight on his hands as he first loaded bullets into the clip of a Beretta, and then poured them into his open palm.

            The man was Danny’s father.

6

Randy got home after dinner. Avery had called down the stairs to Cory to tell him she brought home tacos. Or a version of tacos prepared by a nineteen-year-old girl with braces. He didn’t say anything in return, but she thought she heard the TV. Thought she heard a man’s voice. She couldn’t tell, and for the moment, she didn’t care. It had been a long day. What Angela had told her that morning had opened the floodgates, and a worried mother could sometimes focus only on an immediate problem. So she sat at the kitchen table, tacos still packed snugly in the paper bag with the borderline racist Mexican dancing a jig on an enormous sombrero:  El Sombrero. She went over in her head what she might say to him; she understood he wouldn’t want to talk about it. Wouldn’t want to reason with her beyond defending himself against Angela’s accusations. And she figured she wouldn’t use names, even though she wanted Randy to know how worried about him that girl down the street truly was. She wondered if Angela would still be worried, would still like Randy if she knew the truth. If she knew the truth about Avery.

            She could only close her eyes.

            Everybody has secrets.

            She heard the front door open and she could only clench her fists. Her nails bit into her palms. She’d avoided speaking to the insurance agency. It was the last thing she wanted to delve into after stopping at the greenbelt. Talk at work was strictly about what happened at the General, and the murmurings about what people thought happened behind Deermont. The place is going to shit. And so is Randy, she’d think. So is Randy. And this place did it to him. This place ripped him apart just like it’s being ripped apart.

            “Randy?”

            Her voice was tremulous. She wasn’t supposed to be this scared. She was the mother here. She was in control.

            He didn’t answer. She heard his footsteps up the stairs. She gave one last look at the bag of tacos sitting on the table. A part of her had expected a family dinner. Some semblance of normalcy.

            She would never sit at the dinner table with both her sons again.

            She exhaled and pushed the chair out, standing up, gathering her bearings and remembering when she had to tell him about his father, about how the Asshole had left, how she and he couldn’t make it work and that it was probably for the best. And when she told Randy that, when she thought he might break down and look to her for comforting, he only unleashed a sort of rage that had become accusatory, that blamed her.

            It wasn’t me, it was him. She wanted to say that. It wasn’t me, he fucked the tramp. He doesn’t love me anymore. He doesn’t want me anymore. She wondered if a similar conversation would take place soon. A different woman confessing to her children. She shook her head. She came to Reedy Creek to escape the memories of the Asshole and to give her kids a fresh start. But at the same time she came to give herself a new chance; she could argue that her life as a single mother had become somewhat empowering, had taken the mantel of feminism that was making the woman in the workforce so provocative, but she preferred being taken care of. She preferred a man, a consistent man, an efficient and loving man, somebody who could be for her sons what the Asshole never was. And she thought she found him. She did. She thought she found that man. But what did that make her in the end?

            Avery climbed the stairs and knocked on Randy’s door. He had turned on his music. She listened to the low hum of the bass, listened to the guitar riffs. She touched the door with the tips of her fingers, hesitating. Will this make it worse? Do you just let him react the way he needs to?

            She decided to knock. “Randy. Please, open the door.” She knocked harder. She heard the music turn off. Heard his steps to the door and listened to the knob turn.

            She was face to face with him. She’d dreaded this. He only looked at her for a moment, his hair unkempt, his eyes distant, still bruised and swollen, his nose turgid but straight, his nostrils still like two red-rimmed wells above the comings of a mustache. Gone was the boy who’d cut his hair to impress a girl. This fucking place had taken that from him.

            “I’m worried about you.” She broke the silence. She hated the way he was looking at her, waiting for her to start, bored of her. Indifferent to her.

            “Don’t be.”

            “Goddamnit, Randy, what happened to you?” She wanted to touch his face but stopped herself.

            “We are what we are, mom. Nothing changes that.”

            “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

            “And you don’t have to. Because the world didn’t chew you up and spit you out.”

            “That’s not true. And you know it. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one that…that this shit’s happened to. Your father left me. Left me with you and Cory. And I was broken, Randy. And you blamed me. But we grow. We grow together. So I have every right to be worried about you, to ask you what’s wrong. And I have every right to hear a goddamn answer.” She was shouting. She saw in him something beyond the apathy, as if she’d touched a nerve. Good. That meant she was making some progress. And progress was a requirement if she was going to discover the truth. “I’m sorry. You and I, we’ve been strained ever since your father left. It hasn’t been fair, but I’ve learned to accept that it takes time. It does. You don’t have to agree with what I’ve done with myself, with the choices I’ve made, but I’m still your mother. Your mom. Randy, I love you, you must know that.” She went to touch his face and he retreated. She thought she saw revulsion in his eyes; his pupils were dilated, his eyes bloodshot.

            “I’m not going to ask you who did this to you. Or why. Because I know I won’t get an answer. And I know if I did there isn’t much I can do. Boys have a different code. A weird one. But I get it. I am going to ask you if you’re on drugs, Randy. I am. And I’d love it if you’d be honest with me. For once.”

            “Are you asking me?”

            “I am.”

            “Then this conversation’s over.” He went to shut his door but she stopped him.
            “Randy. People have told me what they’ve seen. They’ve told me you’re, what, hanging around with that…that Lazarus.”

            “People?”

            “It doesn’t matter.”

            “His name is Henry.”

            She was crying. She didn’t even know when she’d started. She always knew motherhood would be difficult, she did, but she never thought the adventure would continuously break her heart and eventually turn her into the enemy. She remembered Randy when he was just a baby boy. When he needed her. When he loved her. When she would lay him on her lap and he would stare up into her eyes and smile, and she thought then that what they had was magic, and that it would never decay. But she was naïve. She was young and naïve. And the world had every intention to tear apart one’s innocence. She saw that now.

            “Randy…we can get you help. You don’t need drugs. You don’t need Henry. He will just…he’s taking advantage of you. You don’t matter to him. You’re a business transaction.”

            “We’re the same, mom. We’re outsiders. On the fucking fringe, because we don’t matter. We don’t. People have made us what we are because people see what they want to see when they look at us. Just like you. Like what you think about him. Have you ever spoken to him? Have you?”

            She didn’t respond.

            “No, of course not, because you think you’re better than him. You look at his face and you’ve already made up your mind. Look at my face. Look at my fucking face.” He touched his cheeks, leaving them red and with the imprints of his fingers. “People say the same thing about me. They avoid me. Because I don’t fit into their little picture of what’s normal.”

            “That’s not true.”

            “Yes. It. Is.” There were tears in his eyes. “Three guys did this to me, mom. Three. Because it would be safer if they had numbers. They wanted to. They planned it. I was…” He stopped himself, wiping his cheek. Avery hated herself now, hated herself for coming upstairs and accusing him. Hated herself for wanting to know the truth. “I was pissed on, mom. One of them pissed on me. Forced me on my knees by a urinal in the men’s room, and he…he pissed on me. At school.”

            “My God.” She burst out crying. Why were people so cruel? Why? “My God, Randy…are you…are you okay?”

            He pushed away her hand again. “I don’t need this. Not anymore. I don’t even feel at home anymore. What you’re doing to yourself. Your drug is men, mom. Your drug is feeling wanted. Why can’t mine be the same?” Randy turned and grabbed a bag on his floor, stuffing in some underwear and socks and an errant pair of jeans from his bed.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Doing what dad did. Doing what I should have done a long time ago.”

            “Randy, please. Don’t go. Don’t do this. We can start over. We can…”

            Randy pushed by her, slinging his tote over his shoulder and stomping down the stairs. She ran after him, nearly tripping, nearly falling. Nearly ending everything. Maybe that would have been best. Maybe in the end that would have stopped what happened next.

            But Avery didn’t fall. She came to the front door just as Randy slammed it shut. She swung it open and watched him walk by that fucking willow tree, that tree she would have torn down limb by limb until its very memory was tucked away in the farthest annals of a mulch plant.

            “Randy! Please!” Her voice carried on the wind.

            But he didn’t turn. Randy Hopson had made his choice. And soon it would begin to make sense. Soon Reedy Creek would open its floodgates and the town would drown.