Bloodstone (17 page)

People been doing that all your life. Saying they know
what’s best for you, thinking they can control you. Passing it
off as neighborly concern, when it’s just plain arrogance
. How many times had he heard somebody telling him what to do, how to live his life? The doc had no right. He would drink if he wanted to drink. After all, he was over eighteen now, he was a man.

He’d downed four shots before he knew what was happening, and his head began to buzz comfortably. Stowe was an idiot, and Ruth was half-dead, and he didn’t give a damn about either one of them. He’d been spending most of his time lately at the bar or holed up in his room. Closet door shut tight, chair pushed up against the handle, no way anything could get at him from there, no sir. Not that there was anything in there anyway.

As he felt more comfortably stoned, his mind drifted back to the week before. He saw Mrs. Friedman standing in front of him in her white tank top, and this time instead of running he tore the shirt off her, then unzipped himself and let her drop to her knees, her eyes growing wide as she took in the full length of him. “Fucking old bitch,” he said to the mostly empty room, ignoring the stare from the bartender. The truth was he couldn’t seem to get his mind off her. It was driving him crazy. Had she really wanted him?

Nobody had ever liked him before. No girls had flashed their little bitch glances at him from across the room or handed him their panties in the back of his car. No guys had asked him to go out drinking or shoot some baskets or grab a movie. He had always been alone.

For a moment he actually considered getting his ass up and going down to the clinic to see the doc, crazy as it sounded. There had to be some pills he could take, something to stop this maddening chatter in his head. But what would he say, anyway?
Excuse me, Doc, I was wondering—
I think maybe I’m losing my mind. Do you think you could
give me something? Maybe I could pick it up at the drugstore
on my way back home?

He stayed at the bar and continued to drink, imagining his skin turning blue and then black, his hair falling out and dissolving, his eyebrows and fingernails too. Finally his teeth would become as loose as kernels of old corn and pop out, one by one. An hour later his bladder was screaming at him. He got up and steadied himself against the wall until a wave of dizziness passed, then shuffled down to the bathroom. Standing at the urinal he had a sudden, brilliant idea. Struck him like a bolt of lightning from the sky. Heat lightning. Mrs. Friedman was driving him crazy, wasn’t she? And that was her fault, wasn’t it? Yes. She had been the one coming on to him.

The chandelier in the dining room has burned out and I
need to get the ladder from the basement. We’re having a
dinner for friends
.

That dinner was tonight. Slowly the idea took on shape. Oh, it was perfect. Just perfect. That burning heat in his stomach flared up again, the blood pumping. Thrilled, he finished relieving himself, shook, and went back down the hall to the door.

In the parking lot, he slipped behind the wheel. As the sun set he felt the first touches of another cold night in the air. It was incredible how fast the temperature dropped these days; one minute he would be sweating his balls off, the next his teeth would be chattering.
Should have brought a jacket
, he thought. But maybe he wouldn’t even notice the cold. He would be having too much fun.

At the edge of the lot he hesitated. The Friedman house was just a mile or two up the road, but the setting sun was still lightening the sky and he wanted a little more darkness for this one. He drove to the grocery store for a six-pack of Budweiser, loitered for a few minutes until the clerk told him to leave, then drove back past his house, past the Friedman’s (he could just see the circular drive from Route 117,
and it was empty), and parked up the road on an old logging track he used to walk down when he was a kid. The ground was freezing up again, and he knew he wouldn’t have any trouble getting out of there later even though the mud was thick. Then he took the beer and crossed over the road to the woods, and from there worked his way down until he could see the lights of the Friedman’s big house. The whiskey he had swallowed at Johnny’s kept him warm and made his head thump pleasantly. He was surprised that he had been able to keep the liquor down, but it had been getting easier lately.

Yes sir, Jeb my boy, you’re a man now. Got a man’s
drinking habits and a man’s constitution to go along with
’em. I’m proud of you, son, real proud
.

That voice had sounded like his father; in fact, come to think of it, quite a few of the voices he had been hearing lately sounded like his father. He wondered why he would hear that voice now, after all these years, but the answer, he decided, was simple. His father had just died and things were fresh in his mind.

And the suitcase.

Go home and open it, Jeb. Forget about this goddamned
kid prank. There’s better things to do than this silly crap you
got your mind set on. Go straight home and open up that
suitcase and I’ll tell you about ’em
.

Jeb Taylor shook his head hard from side to side like a dog trying to lose a few fleas. He popped the top on one of the cold beers, took a long swig, and felt better. That was just what he needed. Now he could think straight. Mrs. Friedman’s breasts were in his mind again, sliding nicely against their cloth harness. Just out of reach.

He skirted the back of the storage shed where they kept the weed-eater and the mower, grass seed, bags of manure and other things, and slipped around the edge of the property to the rear of the house. Across the dark lawn he could see the outline of the garden, and above it, rising like the
mast of a ship, the oak tree. Beyond that he could see the house and the lights on the first and second floor.

Feeling that tingle of anticipation below his gut, he downed the beer, tossed the can aside, and hooked the empty plastic circle in the six-pack around his right hand. He sprinted across the soggy ground, stumbled, fell heavily to his knees a few feet before the tree, and crawled the rest of the way, feeling the icy cold of the muddy ground soak through his pants.
Jesus, what a shitty lawn
, he thought,
who
the fuck takes care of this place?
And laughed out loud. A couple of hard kicks dug up the lawn even more. Satisfied for now with the mess he had made, he turned back to the job at hand. The first branch of the tree hung down about a foot over his head, a good, solid-looking one. He reached up, hooked his arms around it and struggled awkwardly up the tree trunk, his feet in their muddy Converse high-tops slipping and sliding against bark. The six-pack of beer kept bumping him in the head, but he wasn’t going to throw that away, no sir.

The rest of the way up was easy. The oak was a perfect climber, branches large and flat and spaced just about right,
even for a drunk like me
. Whenever he slipped the branches seemed to catch him like gentle arms. When he reached the level of the window, he propped himself up with his back against the trunk and his legs hanging down and opened another can of beer. The can exploded in his hand, sending froth down over his arm and legs, and he guzzled it eagerly like a newborn at his mother’s tit.

Finally he turned to the window, and wished he had brought a pair of binoculars with him. The distance from the tree to the house was about fifty feet, just enough to frustrate him a little. But otherwise, the view he had was perfect. The window was actually a few inches lower than where he sat, and he could look directly into the Friedman’s bedroom.

The bed was against the right wall, instead of the left one like he remembered. He could just see the foot of it and a
black dress draped over the side. A large round mirror hung on the wall across from the window, above a wooden table and chair. A few odds and ends sat on the tabletop. This was where Mrs. Friedman would sit after her bath to comb out her hair and put on makeup, perfume, earrings. Staring at herself in the mirror, making herself look pretty for him.
That’s right, for me, not that big fat balding piece of shit she
calls her husband, the guy who slinks around at night alone
instead of fucking her
.

He sat in the tree, playing out his fantasy. Mrs. Friedman coming to meet him at the door after a long day in the office, meeting him with hugs and kisses and wearing a long flowing red slip with a slit up the side.
Welcome home, darling.
I’ve cooked a big dinner for us. But first, I just can’t wait.
I’ve missed you
.

Taking him by the hand and leading him upstairs—

And then it happened. By God, he had timed it just right. Out she came from the bathroom, her hair wet and shining, her skin glowing in the yellow light of the bedroom, and, sweet Jesus, she was completely naked. He could see her big, soft breasts and dark nipples as she turned for a moment toward the window, her slightly rounded belly. She paused as if posing for him, and he wished again for a pair of binoculars, so he could see her better.

Then he saw her turn and face someone who had come into the bedroom, and a moment later Pat Friedman walked past the window.

That ruined everything. Jeb swore under his breath, and continued to watch as Mrs. Friedman sat down at her vanity table and picked up the hairbrush. But now he had a queasy feeling in his stomach. Pat Friedman, the town lawyer, a little chubby, thinning gray hair. He was the real husband in our little drama, wasn’t he?

Even if he was a spineless piece of shit.

It looked like they were arguing. Mrs. Friedman put the brush down hard on the table and when he put his hand on
her shoulder she shrugged it away and stood up, walking out of sight. A moment later she came back into the picture wearing black panties and carrying a bra, which she hooked her arms through and fastened in back. Finally she picked up the dress from the bed and stepped into it.

Jeb cracked another beer and let the foam run this time. His good mood had vanished suddenly, replaced with dark storm clouds in his head. Nothing seemed to make sense to him anymore, and he wondered when this slow unraveling had begun to happen. Had it begun the other day, when Mrs. Friedman had asked him to help with the ladder? Had it begun just a few nights ago (seemed like a year ago now) when he had stopped in at Johnny’s for a beer after work? Had it begun before that, with the trip up to the State Prison?

Or had it really begun years ago, one afternoon when he was seven years old, when the blood wouldn’t come out of his hair and his world seemed to come crashing down?

Here he was, an eighteen-year-old man, nineteen in July, sitting up in a fucking oak tree playing peeping Tom, drunk on beer and whiskey. Living with his grandmother, too scared to tell the old bitch to lay off, too lazy to take care of her when she needed it. The people of White Falls might have thought him slow, or ignorant, or “disadvantaged,” or whatever the hell they called it these days, but Jeb Taylor knew the truth. He was smart enough, and always had been. Maybe even smarter than most folks in his own way. He just couldn’t relate to people. Even way back in school, when little boys were supposed to be making friends, he was the one sitting in the lunchroom corner alone. Hearing the voices of the other children, in their childish way, relentless; Dickey Pritchard and Marcy Stone were the worst, big mean Dickey Pritchard, who now worked for his father at the garage across from the high school, calling him “daddy’s boy” and “dummy” and “retard.” Marcy Stone passing him notes and then laughing in his face with her girlfriends when he got up the courage to go over and talk to her. Name-calling on the
playground at recess, nobody letting “the stupid kid” play because he couldn’t learn the game. When the teacher called on him in class for the answer, he couldn’t open his mouth to tell her. He would just sit there like a
dummy, yes, just
what they called me, a dummy
, until she sighed and shook her head and called on someone else.

Sometimes she’d pull him aside after class, and ask him why he wouldn’t say anything during the studies, and he’d just shake his head. What could he say?
I just watched my
daddy beat my mommy over the head with a broom until he
cracked her skull, Miss Hennin, and the other boys won’t let
up on me, calling me names, and the girls too, telling me my
daddy’s a killer, telling me he’s going to hell. Don’t feel
much like talking right now, Miss
Hennin. No. Better just to keep his mouth shut. After a while, she stopped asking. And life went on.

Jeb looked down through a fog of booze and realized he had finished the whole six-pack and was left holding the plastic husk. His right leg had fallen asleep and he moved it carefully, feeling the pins and needles start up. The bark of the tree was so cold against his back he was afraid he was frozen to it and someone would have to climb up with a spatula to get him off. That would be quite a scene, now, wouldn’t it? Half the town gathered around on the Friedman’s lawn to see the dumb kid who’d stuck himself to the oak tree, trying to catch a glimpse of a little pussy.

He looked over at the dark bedroom window. Where the hell had they gone?

Jeb unwound his arms from the tree branch and climbed back down until he was standing on the ground again. Beer cans, some whole, some crushed in a way he couldn’t remember doing, littered the frosted grass around him.

He felt like he had been cheated out of something and it left a sour taste in his mouth. He looked around. For a moment he expected to see, lurching toward him through the darkness, the townspeople of White Falls; not whole and
healthy but walking corpses, hands out and hungry. Dickey Pritchard and Marcy Stone leading the others.
Come here,
Taylor boy. We’ve got something for you, dummy. We don’t
tolerate your kind around here
.

He blinked. Nothing there but a half-finished garden and a bunch of his own tracks in the mud.

He worked his way over nearer the house. All the lights were burning on the first floor now. He caught a glimpse of movement in the living room, slipped a little closer, a little closer, until he was right up against the wall and an open window. He could hear voices inside.