Authors: Jack Ketchum
And now he
did
want to ask her why him and why now but he knew that asking would spoil it. If there was some reason she was lying here today and not yesterday and probably there was one and probably it had to do with Ray and the party he thought he didn’t really need to know it. He was holding the old Jennifer—not Ray’s Jennifer or the drunk, stoned-out Jennifer, but the Jennifer he’d fallen for long ago way back in the ninth grade.
For the first time in months or maybe even in years, he thought, he was really happy.
He knew he’d come too quickly and that chances were she hadn’t and wondered what she thought of that, if she was disappointed in him. But he didn’t wonder too long. If she was disappointed she didn’t show it. She seemed just as content as he was lying there.
He was aware of the sweat drying on his body, of the softness of the flesh of her arms and the tight skin over her back, of the smell of her hair mingling with the scent of the pillow and—
thank god
—clean sheets. He heard birds calling to one another outside the open window. He felt her moist warm breath ebb and flow across his chest.
“That was nice, Timmy,” she said.
He didn’t need to answer. He held her and somehow knew that was what she wanted.
He felt he could stay just like this the whole rest of the day, stay like this practically forever and they did lay there a good long while, but at last she pushed gently away from him, smiling a little, turned her back to him and reached for his pack on the night table. The proverbial cigarette. She lit one and took a drag and snuggled her ass back into his crotch. Making spoons with him, settling in. After a while she passed the cigarette over and he took a drag and passed it back and they stayed that way until the cigarette was gone and she’d snubbed it out into the ashtray.
“I’m a little thirsty,” she said. “Got anything to drink? A Pepsi or anything?”
“Sure. Stay there. I’ll get it.”
He pulled on a pair of jeans and went downstairs to the kitchen. The stairs, even the kitchen looked somehow subtly different. It was as though she’d brought something with her to the place, his own place and his parents’ place, that hadn’t been there before. At least he’d never seen it. As though she’d scrubbed it clean. The sun streaming in through the window almost dazzled him.
He opened two cold Pepsis and took them back upstairs, hoping she hadn’t gotten dressed, hoping she was still in bed. She was. Smoking another Marlboro. The sheets still bunched around her feet.
She smiled at him again, a slightly embarrassed smile this time he thought. He didn’t want her to feel that way. Tim smiled back, not at all sure what his own smile was doing. He sat down next to her on the bed and handed her the Pepsi. She took it from him and he could see her nipples pucker, whether it was the cold soda in her hand or a breeze through the window or him looking at her body he couldn’t say.
They sipped the soda in silence, neither one of them sure what to say. It occurred to him that most of what they had in common centered on Ray and he sure didn’t want to start talking about Ray now, not after this and he thought that probably neither did she. When her bottle was half empty she reached down for the sheet and pulled it up and tucked it under her arms. She was frowning a little.
“Anything wrong?”
She seemed to consider this a moment, like maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t and she wasn’t sure.
“Nah. You know me. In one mood and out the other.” She laughed. “I’m just a great big pain in the ass, y’know?”
“No you’re not.”
“No?”
“No.”
They were on the verge of talking about Ray right now like it or not. It was Ray who had gotten to calling her a pain in the ass lately. The moment passed and he took a slug of his soda.
“You think we, uh . . . I mean, you think we might be able to do this again sometime?”
He
had
to ask. Just couldn’t help it.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I just needed to see, you know? I just wanted to see . . . something. I dunno.”
“Sure. It
was
nice though, Jennifer. Real nice.”
“Mmmm.” She nodded. A breeze wafted through the room and tossed her hair. She pushed it back off her forehead.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any dope on you, do you Tim?”
He didn’t especially want to do any dope with her right now any more than he wanted to talk about Ray but he couldn’t refuse her either. Then he thought of something and almost laughed out loud. The idea was exciting because it was just a little dangerous but somehow he knew it was perfectly suited to the occasion.
“Hold on. Wait a minute.”
He put the Pepsi down on the floor and got off the bed and went to his dresser drawer and opened it and dug behind the socks and took out the foil packet of hash shavings and a small wooden pipe fitted with a screen. The screen had once been gold but now was mostly black.
He handed them over to her, smiling.
“Try some of this.”
She opened the package.
“Oh, hash. Cool. Where’d you get it?”
“Ray.”
She nodded. “You usually don’t buy.”
“I didn’t.”
“Ray
gave
it to you?”
Ray was notoriously stingy with his hash. Everybody thought so. He’d dole it out to you once in a while but only when he was smoking too and you never got to take some home with you. Never.
“I mule it for him, right? Pick it up at the post office? So I weigh it and then I trim it. Been doing it for about a year now. Ray’s never noticed.”
“Jesus, Timmy.” She looked at him wide-eyed and astonished but smiling too. “You’ve got more balls than brains, you know that? Stealing Ray’s hash. Ray would have
conniptions
if he knew.”
He laughed. “I know. Let’s fire up.”
She laughed too and packed the pipe and he lit it for her. Feeling good about the whole thing, feeling good that somebody else knew his secret, and particularly that it was she who knew.
The only thing that soured it was that there they were talking about Ray again even though neither of them wanted to. He always got into it somehow.
The guy was inescapable.
Usually he waited for the weekend to call because rates were cheaper. This time he didn’t want to. He needed to hear their voices, if only for a little while. It was seven, just after dinnertime so chances were they’d be home. Lila answered.
He could tell by her voice that something wasn’t right. She was trying to make small talk, something about her friend Suzi’s daughter’s wedding but it wouldn’t wash with him. She never was good at evasion. It was one thing he was much better at than she was and except for pissing standing up he couldn’t think of another. There was no point pretending to go along so he asked her.
“It’s Will. They threw him out of summer school, Charlie. One of the teachers caught him with a joint in the men’s room. He had another in his pocket. They called me at work. I had all I could do to talk them out of turning him over to the police. He does it again, they will. And the police will send him straight to reform school they said, no options.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He’s fifteen years old for god’s sake. He got tossed out of the last school for stealing. What’s he going to be doing at twenty?”
She didn’t even try to keep the anger out of her voice. But he knew her. The anger was the only drug that could smother the fear.
“He says all the kids are doing it. Marijuana I mean. He doesn’t even seem to feel guilty. And now he’s going to have to repeat freshman math next year. I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“You want me to fly out there?”
She didn’t seem to hear him.
“I’ve grounded him. Of course. Big deal. I can’t be around to watch him all the time. I have to go to work five days a week. So how can I trust him not to go out and meet his buddies when I’m not home? What am I going to do? Hire a baby-sitter?”
“What about your mother?”
“She’s got dad to deal with. His arthritis is worse in both knees now. He can barely get around. I can’t ask her to do that.”
“I asked, you want me to fly out there?”
He was suddenly glad at the prospect of doing that and guilty about the reason why.
She sighed. “No. I don’t know. Not now. Just talk to him, will you? See if you can talk some sense into him. I can’t.”
“Sure. Put him on.”
“
Will?
Your father’s on the phone.”
In the silence he pictured her standing there holding the phone in a kitchen or a bedroom he’d seen only once before on one short visit. He didn’t know which room so he pictured them both, a beautiful woman with a haggard overburdened look about her but still beautiful. His woman once. But now solely her own, preferring her aloneness to the company of him.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end seemed to belong to someone much too young to be stealing and smoking dope. It was still in the process of changing. Every time he heard it now the voice was slightly different, a fact that usually pleased him. His son was growing up. This time he met that same realization again. Only this time there was a sadness about it and a very real reason to be worried. You could grow up every which way, a tree standing tall and straight in an open field or blasted and twisted on the side of a mountain.
“Hello, Will. How are you?”
“Okay, I guess.”
He let it hang there.
“I guess she told you, huh?”
“Yes she did. What are you doing, Will?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
The voice turned whiny and defensive. Went up half an octave.
“Look, dad, everybody does it. There’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it’s
bad
.”
“I’m not going to argue whether it’s bad or not. But it is illegal. As it is right now they can put you in reform school for smoking the stuff and in another year and a half you’ll be seventeen and they can throw you the hell out of the system altogether. You want that?”
“So? I don’t care. I’ll get a job. So what.”
“So what? I’ll tell you so what. You ever hear of Vietnam, Will? People get kicked out of school these days, they get drafted. They get shipped over to Vietnam to bleed all over some goddamn rice paddy or lose their legs on a land mine. You don’t
care
about that?”
“By the time I’m seventeen the war will be over. There won’t
be
a draft anymore. Everybody says so.”
“They do, huh. Well, I don’t know who
everybody
is but do they teach you about Laos in that school? Cambodia? The war’s escalating, for godsakes. Do you really want to bet your life that whoever
everybody
is, happens to be right? Your
life
for godsakes? Come on, Will. You’ve got more brains than that.”
He hoped he was keeping the anger out of his voice. He wasn’t so sure.
“It’s just dope, dad. God! It’s not like I’m shooting up or something.”
“Look, I’ve never smoked the stuff. I don’t know what it does to your head and I don’t even particularly care. But I know it could screw up your
life
, you get caught with it one more time. Permanently screw it up. You get yourself drafted, it could
end
your life. I love you, dammit. Your mother loves you. Your little sister’s crazy about you. How do you think Barb would feel if it just so happens that they ship you home in a body bag one day? Her big brother? Jesus, Will!”
“Okay, dad. All right. Okay.”
There was nothing left to do but let the silence do the work for a moment. He’d pretty much said his piece.
“Do the right thing, son. Don’t screw up. There’ll be plenty of time to screw up later, once you get out of school and all this is over.”
“Okay, dad. I hear you.”
Schilling wondered if he did. Somehow he doubted it. He wished he could be in the room with him, actually see if his words were having any effect at all. He felt angry at himself, frustrated. He suddenly had the urge to end the conversation right then and there. Before he said more than he wanted to.
“Is your sister around? Let me talk to her, okay?”
“She’s got a couple friends over.”
“I won’t keep her long. Put her on. And think it over, Will. Please.”
He heard him call her. He was glad she had friends there, that she was becoming more social than she’d been back in New Jersey. She needed that. Brains weren’t everything. Friends were important too.
And then after a while, another disembodied voice on the phone. This one steady and small.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, darlin’. How ya doin’?”
“I’m good, daddy. I’ve got Linda and Suzy over. Mommy let them stay for dinner. We’re making a project for science class. Are you coming to see us soon?”