Raising Stony Mayhall (10 page)

“Hello, Jane,” Mom said. “I brought your boy this time.”

The stone was about ten inches high. She raised the light so he could read the inscription:
Jane Doe. Died 1968
. Then in smaller print, a line at the bottom:
At Home Now
.

“I’m sorry about the marker,” she said. “I couldn’t afford a big one, or many words. I wanted to mention you somehow, but I was afraid to even hint. I hope you aren’t—”

“Mom, it’s fine. It’s more than fine.” He had no idea she had been coming out here.

“She would have been so proud of you,” his mother said. “How hard you work, how much you study.”

He crouched down, plucked a weed. He didn’t know
what to feel. He knew he should be having some moment of communication with the woman who gave birth to him—one dead person to another—but what saddened him was the thought of his mother coming out here over and over, beating herself up for raising the woman’s son without her, and not getting a big enough gravestone.

“They never found out her name I guess,” he said.

“There’s a detective I call every few years. Detective Kehl. He says he’s still looking, but no one’s ever reported a missing girl that matches her description. He thinks … well. He’s still looking.”

Stony looked up. “He thinks what?”

Even in the dark he could see his mother take a breath. “Oh Stony, he believes she was murdered.”

“You told me she died of exposure.” He got to his feet. “She was hitchhiking.”

“That probably is what happened. But he’s pretty sure she was also robbed, because she didn’t have a purse or ID. Plus, the autopsy made it clear that she’d been pregnant and had given birth recently.”

“So they’re looking for a baby? For me?”

“No, no. Detective Kehl thinks it was a miscarriage, or a … well, an abortion that went badly. He thinks maybe she was weak from internal bleeding.”

“But nothing about the walking dead.”

“Don’t you worry, you’re still safe. No one’s looking for you.”

Together they stared at the grave. For years he’d imagined meeting her. He daydreamed about walking along the winter highway, and coming upon her walking the other way, a young woman with long brown hair, wearing a rabbit fur coat and yellow rain boots. Her skin would be as cold and gray as
his own. She’d reach down to touch his cheek, and she’d say, There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.

He put his arm around his mother’s shoulders. They were almost the same height.

“I should have brought some flowers,” Stony said.

“You’re here,” she said.

rystal didn’t show up the night of graduation, or the next day, or the next week. She finally called from somewhere out west and said that her travel plans had gotten “complicated.” Then one night in mid-August she called Mom at work, saying that she’d be home for supper next Saturday. “She says she has a surprise for you,” Mom said to Stony.

“The only surprise would be if she showed up,” Junie said.

On the appointed night, Junie, Stony, and Mom sat around the kitchen table, staring at empty plates, enveloped in the smell of the lasagna warming in the oven. Crystal always loved lasagna, though maybe not enough to make her show up on time. Mom was trying hard to stay positive, but her kids weren’t making it easy. Junie kept staring at the clock and sighing, because she had a party to go to. Stony was supposed to spend the night at the Chos’, because Kwang was leaving in three days for Iowa State and it was probably the last sleep-over they’d ever have.

Mom told them to sit.

At 6:30, when Crystal was already an hour late, Mom let
them eat the garlic bread. At seven she let them have their salads. At 7:30 she said, “To hell with it.” She pulled the lasagna out of the oven, and told them to serve themselves if they were in such a rush.

Stony waited until she was out of the room before melodramatically whacking his forehead against the table. Junie cracked up. “You know what the great thing about Crystal is?” she said. “She takes all Mom’s attention off us.”

“She’s like Jupiter,” Stony said. “Sweeping all the killer asteroids out of the solar system with her massive gravitational pull.”

“Right. Jupiter.” Junie took one bite from a square of lasagna, then called her boyfriend to pick her up at the end of the lane. Stony wondered if any of his sisters’ boyfriends ever wondered why they weren’t allowed to approach the house. Probably they were happy about it.

Kwang was outside, watching the fields for Stony’s approach. He jumped when Stony appeared behind him. “Jesus, what did you do, teleport?”

“I’m working on my ninja skills. Here, Mom made lasagna. I figure you were starving over here.” The Chos were visiting Mrs. Cho’s sister in Philadelphia. Kwang took the full plate inside.

“It’ll be good to have something in our stomachs,” Kwang said. He paused. “Until it isn’t.”

Kwang had decided several weeks ago that before he went off to college, he needed to teach Stony how to drink. “You’re going to miss the most important thing about college,” Kwang had told him. “And I can give that to you.”

Stony wouldn’t admit this to Kwang, but he was touched. Things had gotten so distant between them that he was pleased that Kwang wanted to share this with him. With Mr. and Mrs. Cho gone, Kwang and Stony would have the run of
the house for the next two days—plenty of time for Stony to recover.

The bar was set up on the dining room table. Ten different bottles, most of them less than half full. “I borrowed from people,” Kwang said. “I wanted you to get a good sampling. Like this one, Southern Comfort. That’ll kick your dead gray butt, my friend.”

“This one smells good,” Stony said.

“That’s peppermint schnapps. It’s a girl’s drink, but that just means it’ll kick your butt without you knowing what’s happening.”

Stony said, “You haven’t tried any of this, have you?”

“Of course I have. I had a shot of Wild Turkey just last weekend.”

“Right. This is about you wondering if you can hold your liquor with the frat boys.”

“Hey, do you want me hurling on my first night out? Look, I bought mixers. I’m thinking we start with rum and Dr Pepper.”

Kwang declared this an awful, awful combination. Vodka and orange juice was tolerable, practically sophisticated in comparison, but bourbon was terrible no matter what they mixed it with. “It tastes like ass,” Kwang said.

“There’s certainly an assy quality,” Stony said. As with food, he followed Kwang’s lead. “With notes of burnt rubber.”

After a couple of hours of sampling, Kwang thought everything tasted like aluminum siding. The night quickly became a contest to concoct the worst-tasting combination possible.

“I call this the Gay Nazi,” Stony said, and handed him a mixture of schnapps, gin, and Mello Yello. “It’s the perfect drink right before you commit suicide in a bunker.”

“Gah! It’s like a Christmas tree threw up in my mouth. Try this. Tequila, Jack, and a dash, a dash, a dash …” He
reached for the rum, and Stony saved a row of bottles from tumbling off the table.

“Captain José Daniel’s,” Stony said.

“Yes!” Kwang said. He handed the glass to Stony.

Stony took a sip and shook his head. “Wretched. Truly abominable.”

“Abobida—abob—shit.” Kwang took the glass from him. “You’re not even buzzed, are you?”

“Did you really think this would work on me?”

“But you’ve had twice as much as me! You should be, I don’t know—”

“Dead drunk,” Stony said.

Kwang barked a laugh. “You know what? We should light the next one.”

“No. Definitely not. No fire, Mr. Cho.”

“Don’t be an old woman. You know I made out with Junie once?”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“I think she wanted to see what it was like with a man of the Asian persuasion. That’s why I have to go to college—to get some pussy! You know how many girls I’ve dated in this town?”

“You do not want to compare scorecards with me.”

“
One
. For two weeks!”

“Sherry was a nice girl,” Stony said. “Dumb as a box of rocks, though, and that face …”

“Shut up, you never met her.”

“Oh, you still have feelings for her.”

“Yeah, I got a feeling. A deep, deep feeling.” He stood up suddenly. “I have to piss.”

Stony retrieved a rag from the sink and started wiping up spills. He didn’t think the alcohol was having an effect on him, but something was churning. One moment he was happier than he’d felt in a long time, and the next he was almost
floored by sadness. Maybe Kwang’s state was contagious. In the old days it had been. Whatever Kwang wanted, he wanted. Whatever Kwang loved, he loved. Only lately had he realized how simple that had been, how wonderful. And Kwang had saved his life. When police brought Kwang home that Halloween night, his parents grounded him for a month. He’d taken the fall for Stony, and he never squealed, never complained, and never held it against him.

Kwang came down the hallway carrying a shoe box. “I found something,” he said. “I was cleaning out my closets the other day, and—well, here.” He handed Stony the box.

“You shouldn’t have,” Stony said. “You know how I love cardboard.” Inside was a clump of red knitted cloth. He picked it up.

It was a ski mask. No,
the
ski mask. The black
U
was still sketched on the front.

“I can’t believe you still have this,” Stony said. At some point he’d traded the Unstoppable for Jack Gore, the invincible dead boy for the Deadtown Detective.

It looked much too small for him, and he pulled it onto his head anyway. The bottom of it came down only to his lips.

“You look like Mushmouth,” Kwang said.

“Wuss ubba, Fabba Alba.”

The phone rang. Kwang collapsed into laughter.

“I think I should get that,” Stony said.

“Wait, it’s my mom.” It came out
isssmamom
. “If we answer it too quick, she’ll know we were up.”

Stony glanced at the kitchen clock, a big gold sunburst above the cabinets. It was nearly 1 a.m. “I don’t think your mom thought you’d be in bed by nine.” He pulled off the mask and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was crying. “Kwang?”

“Junie, is that you?”

“Stony! Oh God, Stony. I have to get out of here.”

“Where are you?” All he knew was that she’d gone out with the hair metal crowd.

“You have to come get me. Please don’t tell Mom. You can’t tell Mom.”

“Junie, what happened?”

“I’m at Sarah’s house. Do you know where she lives?”

“Sarah Estler?” Stony turned to Kwang. “Do you know where Sarah Estler lives?”

“I think so. Yeah. Northdale.”

“Okay, we’ll be there—Kwang will be there in ten minutes, okay? Will you be okay for ten minutes?”

She hung up. Stony stared at the phone. He wanted to call her back, but he hadn’t gotten the number. “Can you drive?” he asked Kwang.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” He grabbed car keys from a hook by the door and went out to the garage. He walked very carefully, got into the car, and put the keys in the ignition.

“We should open the garage door first, don’t you think?”

“Good idea.” He put his head down on the steering wheel. “Just gimme a second.”

Stony pushed open the garage door, then went to the driver’s side of the car. “Get out. I’m driving.”

“You don’t know how to drive.”

“I taught myself.”

“When?”

“When I was thirteen.” He’d made up a list of skills that he needed to learn, and driving had been top of the list. “Just get in the passenger seat. You navigate.”

Despite the feeling of urgency, he drove slowly. He didn’t want to give the cops any excuse to pull them over; this time, Kwang
was too drunk to pretend to be a drunk, at least in any well-timed way. The boy was already passed out with his head against the passenger window. Also, Stony had never driven on a road before. He’d only lurched up and down the lane of the farm, at night with the lights off. He hadn’t practiced much since he was thirteen, but he thought he still knew how to do it.

Keeping the car between the lines was more difficult than he thought. When he came to a turn—the farm lane didn’t have any turns—he swung wide and nearly struck a car in the opposing lane. He slammed the brakes and the car squealed to a stop. Kwang didn’t even wake up.

Stony began to talk to himself, becoming his own driving instructor, giving himself encouragement.

He knew the streets of the town from the maps he’d studied, and he knew how to find Northdale, but he didn’t know the Estlers’ address. As it turned out, he didn’t need it. On the first road he turned down, cars were parked along both sides of the street. The party house was obvious. Music blasted from the windows, the front door was open, and teenagers stood on the lawn. Was Junie watching for him? He stopped the car and laid on the horn. The teenagers looked at the car, then ignored him. He hit the horn again, but nobody walked out of the house.

Stony drove a little farther, then pulled in at a neighbor’s driveway. “Kwang, you have to go in there and find Junie.” He punched him in the shoulder. “Kwang!”