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Think about it!
"Well, here you go," Arnie said. "Can you make it up the walk yourself,
man?"
I looked doubtfully around at this deserted, snow- covered development and
then nodded. Better here, on crutches, alone, than in that terrible car. I felt a
large plastic smile on my face. "Sure. Thanks."
"Negative perspiration," Arnie said. He finished his beer, and LeBay tossed
it into the back seat. "Another dead soldier."
"Yeah," I said. "Happy New Year, Arnie." I fumbled for the doorhandle and
opened it. I wondered if I could get out, if my trembling arms would support
the crutches.
LeBay was looking at me, grinning. "Just stay on my side, Dennis," he said.
"You know what happens to shitters who don't."
"Yes," I whispered. I knew, all right.
I got my crutches out and heaved myself up onto them, careless of any ice that
might be underneath. They held me. And once out, the world underwent a
swimming, twisting change. Lights came on—but of course, they had been
there all along. My family had moved into Mapleway Estates in June of
1959, the year before I was born.
We still lived here, but the area had stopped being known as Mapleway
Estates by 1963 or '64 at the latest.
Out of the car, I was looking at my own house on my own perfectly normal
street—just another part of Libertyville, Pa. I looked back at Arnie, half-
expecting to see LeBay again, taxi-driver from hell with his benighted cargo
of the long-dead.
But it was only Arnie, wearing his high school jacket with his name sewn
over the left breast, Arnie looking too pale and too alone, Arnie with a can of
beer propped against his crotch.
"Good night, man."
"Goodnight," I said. "Be careful going home. You don't want to get picked
up."
"I won't," he said. "You take care, Dennis."
"I will."
I shut the door. My horror had changed to a deep and terrible sorrow—it was
as if he had been buried. Buried alive. I watched Christine pull away from
the curb and head off down the street. I watched until she turned the corner
and disappeared from sight. Then I started up the walk to the house. The walk
was clear. My dad had scattered most of a ten-pound bag of Halite over it
with me in mind.
I was three-quarters of the way to the door when a grayness seemed to drift
over me like smoke and I had to stop and put my head down and try to hold
onto myself. I could faint out here, I thought dimly, and then freeze to death on
my own front walk where once Arnie and I had played hopscotch and jacks
and statue-tag.
At last, little by little, the grayness started to clear. I felt an arm around my
waist. It was Dad in his bathrobe and slippers.
"Dennis, are you okay?"
Was I okay? I had been driven home by a corpse.
"Yeah," I said. "Got a little dizzy. Let's get in. You'll freeze your butt off."
He walked up the steps with me, his arm still circling my waist. I was glad to
have it.
"Is Mom still up?" I asked.
"No—she saw the New Year in, and then she and Ellie went to bed. Are you
drunk, Dennis?"
"No."
"You don't look good," he said, slamming the door behind us.
I uttered a crazy little shriek of laughter, and things went gray again… but
only briefly this time. When I came back, he was looking at me with tight
concern.
"What happened over there?"
"Dad—"
"Dennis, you talk to me!"
"Dad, I can't."
"What
is
it with him? What's wrong with him, Dennis?"
I only shook my head, and it wasn't just the craziness of it, or fear for myself.
Now I was afraid for all of them—my dad, my mom, Elaine, Leigh's folks.
Coldly and sanely afraid.
Just stay on my side, Dennis. You know what happens to shitters who don't.
Had I really heard that?
Or had it been in my mind only?
My father was still looking at me.
"I
can't.
"
"All right," he said. "For now. I guess. But I need to know one thing, Dennis,
and I want you to tell me. Do you have any reason to believe that Arnie was
involved some way with Darnell's death, and the deaths of those boys?"
I thought of LeBay's rotting, grinning face, the flat pants poked up by
something that could only have been bones.
"No," I said, and that was almost the truth. "Not Arnie."
"All right," he said. "You want a hand up the stairs?"
"I can make it okay. You go to bed yourself, Dad."
"Yeah. I'm going to. Happy New Year, Dennis—and if you want to tell me,
I'm still here."
"Nothing to tell," I said.
Nothing I
could
tell.
"Somehow," he said, "I doubt that."
I went up and got into bed and left the light on and didn't sleep at all. It was
the longest night of my life, and several times I thought of getting up and
going in with my mom and dad, the way I had done when I was small. Once I
actually caught myself getting out of bed and groping for my crutches. I lay
back down again. I was afraid for all of them, yes, right. But that wasn't the
worst. Not anymore.
I was afraid of losing my mind. That was the worst.
The sun was just poking over the horizon when I finally dropped off and
dozed uneasily for three or four hours. And when I woke up, my mind had
already begun trying to heal itself with unreality. My problem was that I
could simply no longer afford to listen to that lulling song. The line was
blurred for good.
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