Ribbons (20 page)

28

“Azrael!”

“Azrael? Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

The sun was going down, and Adam wanted to make sure his cat found his way back home before it got dark. He wasn’t a kitten, but he wasn’t an old lap cat, either. Adam locked him in the clubhouse at night, and every morning he was yowling to be let out. Or maybe he was just yowling for his breakfast. He usually hung out in the backyard, but Adam had lost sight of him for a bit. He had been decorating the wall inside the clubhouse and bringing down some things from his room to make it a bit cooler.

Matt seemed all right, but sometimes he was pretty clueless when it came to kids. The CD player he had put in the clubhouse worked, but Adam didn’t have any CDs. He did have his mom’s old iPod, though. Its battery was starting to fade, so it needed to stay plugged in most of the time. Luckily, it had its own tiny speaker. He found that he could just plug it into the end of the string of Christmas lights. He also brought down some of his comic books and a few models he was trying to paint. The models were for a war game, but he had never found anyone to play with.

He had tried out the dartboard that Matt hung up. After Adam fiddled with the fins on the back of the darts, they had flown pretty straight. So far there were just as many holes in the wall as there were on the dartboard, and after one had bounced backward and almost hit Azrael, he decided to leave it alone for a while.

Still, he was glad to have his own space. The bedroom that he shared with his mom was pretty small. Her half always seemed to be much neater. That was probably just because she didn’t spend much time in there. Adam’s half was more comfortable. He liked to have his favorite things within reach of his bed, so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for him to put them away on the shelf across the room. Now most of that stuff was in the clubhouse. She seemed happy about that.

The cat wasn’t allowed inside the house. Mom said it would be bad for business. People might be allergic. Or he might scratch the furniture. Matt seemed to like him, though, and was always giving him little bits of lunch meat. He even bought him some cans of fancy wet cat food, but Azrael liked the dry stuff better.

Adam rattled the bag of cat food. “Azrael!” That would get him running for sure.

He looked down the side of the house toward the front yard. He saw something moving, but it was just a little kid across the street. The kid had his arms outstretched and was pretending to be an airplane or something. Adam took a few steps to get a better look. The kid made engine sounds as he zoomed around on the sidewalk. There was a man walking behind him who was probably his dad. The kid made a U-turn and came right at the man. They were both smiling, and the kid’s sound effects were interrupted by giggles.

The dad squatted down right before the kid was about to crash into him. He scooped up his son and set him on his shoulders. “The clouds are up here, buddy.” The kid laughed and stretched out his arms again as his dad continued down the street.

Adam could feel his face getting red. He hadn’t felt that kind of sting in a long time. He didn’t cry about not having a dad around. Not anymore. That’s why he started to feel angry with himself when he realized a tear was running down one cheek. He rubbed it away with the back of his hand. He had a dad. They didn’t play stupid airplane games, but he did come around. And he was a real-life hero. He was busy, though. He hunted down bad guys.

“Hey, Adam?” It sounded like Matt.

Adam walked back to the corner of the house. Matt was standing by the clubhouse. When he saw Adam, Matt held up an orange cat. “You lose something?”

Adam ran over to them. Azrael was biting Matt’s hand and giving him a couple of halfhearted kicks with his back paws. His ears perked up when he heard the crinkling sound of the cat food bag in Adam’s hand.

“I found him inside,” said Matt. “He must have snuck in when your mom came out to say good-bye. He’s kinda mad that I didn’t give him any lunch meat.”

Adam opened the door to the clubhouse. Azrael didn’t wait for Matt to set him down. He kicked Matt one last time for good measure, and then leaped toward the door. The cat ran right between Adam’s legs as he tried to get inside. Adam had to keep sidestepping so that he didn’t trip over him. He poured some kibble into a bowl, and Azrael head-butted the bag out of the way to start getting at the food.

Matt ducked as he stepped inside. “Has he been keeping this place clear of Smurfs? ’Cause we can put down some Smurf traps, too, if he’s being lazy.”

“I haven’t seen any,” said Adam.

Matt looked at one of the chairs around the little table. Maybe he was afraid it would fall apart when he sat on it. He lowered himself down on it anyway. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Adam folded up the cat food bag and put it up on the bookcase. “Thanks. I was gonna hang up a couple posters. Have you heard of the Imperial Academy Dropouts?”

“Is that a band?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, you stop listening to new music when you get old like me. The last album I bought was by the Beastie Boys. And it wasn’t even their latest.”

Matt picked up one of the models on the table. Adam had just started painting it, so it still looked pretty plain. When it was done, it would be a badass armored warrior with a glowing sword in one hand and a machine gun in the other. Right now it just had its base coats of paint so it looked kind of cartoony.

“I know these guys, though,” said Matt. “Warhammer 40K right? They’ve been around forever. I wanted to play but . . .” He just ended with a shrug.

Adam pointed out the symbol on the model’s armor. “This guy’s an Inquisitor. They hunt down chaos demons and stuff.”

“Cool.”

Adam picked up another model. This one had tentacles instead of arms. It still had a machine gun, of course.

“Do you have a dad?” It sounded strange as soon as he said it.

Matt paused for a second, but he didn’t look at Adam like he was weird. “Kind of. I have a guy who showed me how to tie a tie.”

“I’ve only seen you wear a tie once. At the funeral.”

“Exactly.”

Azrael hopped up on the table. His dinner had already vanished, and now he was looking for someone to pet him. He slobbered a little after he ate, and the first thing he did was wipe off his mouth by rubbing it on Adam’s arm.

Adam had to put down his model to give his cat the attention he was demanding. “Was he nice?”

Matt scrunched up his lips. “Hmm. Sometimes, I suppose. They’re not all great. Sometimes you’re better off without one.”

“I guess,” said Adam.

“Seems like the police sergeant is pretty cool.”

“He’s cool. Mom won’t let him be my dad, though. She says he didn’t want a family.”

Azrael flopped over and purred. A squad of space marines got pushed aside as he stretched out.

“He seems to come out here a lot,” said Matt.

“He mainly wants to see her,” said Adam. “He says stuff about wanting to go to the movies. But we never do.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Matt reached out a hand to give Azrael some more love, but the cat lifted its head and twitched an ear back. Matt wisely pulled his hand away.

“Your mom does a lot for you,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Adam. “She tries.”

Matt reached into one of his pockets. He held out a pill between his thumb and finger. Adam cringed a little inside.

“She sent me out here to check on you,” said Matt. “And to give you this.”

Adam took the pill, but he didn’t put it in his mouth.

“Thanks,” said Adam. He said it the same way that someone might say it after being dropped off at prison.

“She also said she would bring home burgers after her visit with Erica,” Matt told him.

“She never eats burgers,” said Adam. “She just likes to eat the fries. Sometimes she dips them in her milkshake.”

Matt stood up and started heading for the door. “I do that. But I eat my burger, too.”

“Maybe you can join us.”

“Sure . . . well, you can ask your mom.” Matt nodded toward Adam’s hand. “Don’t forget to take your medicine.”

Adam rolled his eyes and popped the pill into his mouth. Matt smiled and left. As soon as the door closed, Adam spit the pill back out into his hand.

He used a fishing tackle box to store his paints and brushes, but he used it for something else, too. It was the kind that unfolded when it opened so that you could see all the different compartments. It was handy because it seemed like you needed a couple dozen shades of paint to get a space marine to look like it was ready to kick serious ass. The box also had a tray that you could pull out of the bottom. Underneath the tray was an old aspirin bottle. Adam opened the bottle and dropped the pill in with the others that he had spit out over the past few weeks. The bottle was half-f now.

He didn’t like taking the pills. They made his stomach hurt, and his head got all fuzzy. When he took them, he just felt like sleeping or watching TV all the time. The tremors still came when he took the pills; his body just didn’t react as much. He tried explaining that to the doctors, but they didn’t listen. They had him try all kinds of different pills, some worse than others. When Adam tried to tell them the tremors still came back, they would always make him take more pills for a while and then switch him to something else. Now Adam found it easier to just tell them the pills were working.

He had to be careful, though. When the tremors did come he had to find a way to stay calm. That was hard when his parents were yelling at each other. It was easier when he was by himself. Drawing also helped. He wouldn’t draw anything in particular. Just lines. Lines that swirled, and curved, and sometimes exploded into little patterns, almost like writing. At first he had drawn on paper, but lately he had started drawing on the walls of his clubhouse. Just looking at the lines would calm him down. Then the tremors would turn into daydreams. And that wasn’t so bad. He knew he said things during the tremors. He could never remember what he had said, but he wondered if it might be related to the things he saw in the tremor dreams.

He felt them coming now. It was like hearing two people talking as they walked down a long hallway toward him. Muffled rumbling at first. Slowly getting louder and clearer. Then he started to pick out patterns and phrases. When the sound seemed like it was right next to him, he started to shake. He reached into his tackle box and pulled out a Sharpie. He heard a click as he took the cap off the pen, and then the world shook apart.

The Christmas lights started to vibrate and shift out of focus. One second Azrael was sniffing his nose, the next he was running away. Space marines jumped across the table, and the gaps between the boards that made up the floor seemed to be getting bigger.

Adam felt his pen touch the wall. The rough scratching as the tip dragged across the wood. A line spiraled, crossed over itself, and then split off in a different direction. It was like drawing lines between the stars that formed a constellation. Only, instead of stars he was connecting ideas. Then his hand pushed
through
the wall.

He was standing in a forest. It was still, and at first it was completely silent. Then he heard a bird screech off in the distance. The forest was dark and dense. It would take forever to walk through it, but he wouldn’t know where to go anyway, so he didn’t move. He looked down at his feet and saw that he was standing on a path. It disappeared into the darkness in both directions. He knew this was a tremor dream so he wasn’t afraid. Soon the tremors would stop and he would see a new drawing on the wall in front of him.

He heard footsteps coming down the path. And then music. The tune seemed familiar, but if it was from a song he knew, he couldn’t remember the words. Somebody was humming along with it. As he looked down the path, a man stepped around a tree and out of the shadows. His eyes were watching the trail as though he was concentrating hard on where he was going. He held a music box in one hand and almost dropped it when he finally noticed Adam.

“Jesus!” said the man. “You scared the hell out of me.”

Adam didn’t quite know what to say. Usually people couldn’t see him in his tremor dreams, and nobody had ever tried to talk to him.

“What are you doing here?” asked the man. “Are you looking for the garden?”

Adam opened his mouth to ask,
What garden?
but what came out was, “Take-unto-you-the-whole-armor-of-God-that-ye-may-be-able-to-withstand-in-the-evil-day-and-having-done-all-to-stand.”

The man closed the lid of his box, and the music stopped. “I don’t know what that means. Who are you? Did she send you? Are you supposed to take me to her?” He sounded very hopeful.

Adam couldn’t answer any of those questions. “The-Lord-is-my-light-and-my-stronghold-Of-whom-shall-I-be-afraid?”

The man slowly shook his head, the hope draining out of his eyes. “No. She didn’t send you. She wouldn’t. She chose
me
. I send people to
her
. You’re just another whisper left over in my head. You want me to step off the path.”