Before I Kill Again!, page 14
UNCLE JOHN
I just came from the hospital. Oh, dear God, what am I going to tell poor Ruth? How am I going to break the awful news to her? How can I tell her that our wonderful Cathy is dead? That she never even came out of the coma? Never even knew I was there?
How? How? How?
JOEY
I pulled up on the reins, stopping Big Red in the shade of some old oak trees. Then I slid down off his back and began tracking this huge mountain lion that I’d just wounded.
I snuck along real quiet and careful, rifle held ready to shoot anything that jumped out on me, following the trail of blood as it ran alongside the stream toward this pile of rocks. Behind me, Big Red followed like I trained him to. Well, sort of. I mean he kept stopping every few steps to tear up grass and stuff, and then eating them like I never fed him this morning.
Afraid that the mountain lion might hear him, I turned and shook my finger at him. Big Red quieted, for a moment anyways, and I continued crawling toward the rocks.
It took a while, ’cause I had to keep stopping and looking around to make sure the mountain lion wasn’t about to pounce on me. Then, just when I was almost to the rocks, I heard this noise behind me. It sounded like someone had stepped on a dry stick. I whirled around and saw this enormous giant rushing toward me.
Frightened, I threw my rifle away and started running back toward Big Red. Now, I can run real fast. But it wasn’t fast enough. I hadn’t gone more than a few steps, when the giant caught up to me and knocked me flat. He then stood over me, shouting, demanding to know why I was spying on him.
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t spying on him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even move. So I just kept on laying there in the grass beside the stream, my heart thudding, and pleaded with my eyes for him not to kill me.
I think that’s what saved my life, too—me pleading with my eyes, I mean. Because pretty soon the giant calmed down and bending over real close to me, said: “Well? You heard me. Why were you spying on me?”
I shook my head, trying as I did to make him understand with my eyes. But he only scowled, suspiciously, and said: “You trying to say that you weren’t spying on me?”
I nodded, kept on nodding while all the time pleading with my eyes for him not to kill me.
“What were you doing, then—sneaking along like that?”
I tried to speak. But, as always, I could only make a funny sound in my throat.
The giant scowled again. “What?” he demanded. “I didn’t understand you.” As he spoke, he leaned even closer. It was then I saw something that really surprised me. He had no clothes on underneath this old white raincoat he was wearing. Also, the raincoat was much too small for him and had a lot of real blood all over the front of it. I knew then that he was truly going to kill me. So I closed my eyes and waited, not moving, not even breathing, and all the time hoping maybe he’d think I was already dead (like my Dad says you do when bears attack you), and would go away and not bother with me no more.
But giants must be smarter than bears. Because after a little while, he poked me with his foot and said: “If you don’t tell me what you were doing, kid, I’ll throw you in the river and drown you.”
Well, I knew right then what I had to do. I mean, there are no rivers around, so I knew he must be crazy. Besides, he was probably going to kill me anyways, so I moved.
I reached under me, real slowly, for the pencil and notebook I always carry in the back pocket of my jeans. Then sitting up, I wrote: “Don’t kill me. Pleese.” Then I scribbled: “I wasn’t spieing on you. Honest.”
“What were you doing, then?” the giant said.
I wrote: “Prettendin to be hunting.”
“Hunting? Hunting what?”
“Mountain lions.”
That must have amused the giant because he smiled and said: “With just that stick?”
I wrote: “Mom wont let me have a reel rifle so I make prettend with a stick.”
The giant grinned. It was a real friendly grin, ’specially for a giant, and it made me feel a lot less scared of him.
“Sorry,” he said, helping me up. “I thought you were—well, I wasn’t sure what you were doing.” He paused, brushed some of the dirt and leaves off me, then added: “Are you all right?”
I nodded, and tried to grin like he did. Now that he was standing up straight and had the raincoat fastened in front with the belt, you couldn’t tell he wasn’t wearing no other clothes. Instead, it just looked like he’d for gotten to put his pants and shoes and socks on. I watched as he shaded his eyes from the sun and stared off down the canyon as if he was looking for someone. Then he turned to me, asking: “You haven’t seen Kathleen, have you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know who Kathleen was, but since I hadn’t seen anyone since entering the canyon, I wasn’t really telling a lie.
The giant looked worried. “She’s supposed to meet me here, so we can go for a walk in the woods.”
I didn’t write nothing. I just watched him looking off down the canyon and wondered which woods he meant. Now that he wasn’t shouting or shaking his fist at me, he seemed like a real nice giant. And except that he looked kind of funny in this old raincoat that was too little for him, so little in fact he couldn’t lift his arms up properly because of under the sleeves was too tight—well, he didn’t seem crazy at all. Especially not his voice—that was the friendliest part about him. It was so friendly in fact, that when he asked me what my name was, I didn’t lie or nothing, like I would’ve at first, but wrote: “Joey Lott”.
“Mine’s Noel,” he said, offering me his hand.
I shook it, like my brother Gary showed me, and wrote: “I am pleese to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you, too, Joey. Do you live around here?”
I nodded, and pointed toward some low hills that showed in the distance beyond the mouth of the canyon. Then I wrote: “Wear do you live?”
“Not far from here. I catch the 73 bus that stops just this side of Richmond Bridge—you know where that is?”
I shook my head. I’d never heard of any 73 bus, or a Richmond Bridge, and I’ve lived here ever since I was born. I realized then that he must be lost and felt sorry for him.
Once, when I was real little, I got lost. It was in the hills and nobody ever found me for all day and almost all night, and by that time I was awful hungry and thought I was going to die. I didn’t though, because some people on horses found me and took me to their home, where they fed me and called the police. Then, while the police were coming, this lady washed and put a lot of medicine on all the cuts and scratches I’d gotten when I’d fallen down. The medicine was bright pink and had a funny sounding name. It also stung a lot and the lady said I was real brave not to cry.
Now, looking at the giant’s bare feet, and seeing how badly scratched they were, I remembered that Mom had some of that same pink medicine at home. I wrote: “If you want to come home with me, Mom will wash those cuts and put this medisin on your feet.”
“Thanks, Joey, but I’m all right. I am hungry, though. Very hungry. Do you think you could get me something to eat?”
I wrote: “No. But my Dad will feed you. He is allways feedin—” I paused, because I didn’t know how to spell homeless, so instead I just showed the giant what I’d already written.
He shook his head. “I can’t leave here, Joey. I’m waiting for Kathleen.”
I didn’t know what to write.
“Maybe you could bring me some food? You know, Pretend it was for you and then give it to me?” When I didn’t write nothing, he kneeled down, put his face close to mine and said: “Please, Joey. Couldn’t you do that? I’m awfully hungry.”
“I don’t no,” I wrote. “Mom gets awfull mad when I steel food.”
The giant ruffled my hair, saying: “If you did bring me something, Joey, I’d make you a bow and some arrows.”
“Can you make a rifle?”
“I’m afraid not. But wouldn’t you like a bow and arrow?”
I thought it over. Then figuring a real bow and arrows was better than a stick shaped like a rifle, I nodded.
He smiled, real kind and gentle, and said: “I’ll need a knife and some string. Can you get them for me?”
I reached in my jeans and gave him my knife. The big blade is busted, but the little one cuts real good.
The giant opened the little blade, tested the edge and said: “This’ll do fine. Now, you go bring me something to eat—a sandwich, piece of cake, apple, anything—and some string, and I’ll start making your bow and arrows.”
I nodded, put my pencil and notebook away, and started back toward Big Red. He’d wandered off a little, to munch on some grass farther down the canyon, and as I walked over to him I wondered how I was going to sneak any food out past Mom. She doesn’t like me taking food out of the house, or the diner, and is always yelling at me when I do. “Anything you want to eat,” she’s always saying, “you eat right here—indoors—where I can see you eat it and not waste it on any of these imaginary friends or yours.”
NOEL
I watched the boy return to the big chestnut horse, pull himself up on its back and ride away. I watched until the bushes and trees filling the canyon wall hid him from my view.
Kathleen, where are you? Why are you so late? Don’t you know I’m waiting for you?
After a little, when she still didn’t show, I went and sat on a flat rock beside the river and bathed my feet in the water. It was the same rock I’d been sitting on when I heard the horse coming along the canyon, and there were spots of dried blood on it. I dipped my bare feet into the river. The cold water made me shiver. But then gradually all the soreness and throbbing was replaced by a pleasant numbness and I sat there in the sunlight thinking how quiet it is. There were no lovers walking hand-in-hand along the towpath. No whistles from passing steamers. No ducks quacking softly among the reeds. And no Kathleen. Where could she be? She’s never been late before. Not like this.
Before me the river ran swift and gurgling over the rocks. It was a happy sound. The sunlight danced on the surface and made the tiny smooth pebbles spread along the bottom look sparkling clean and white. Now and then leaves and twigs floated past. Miniature boats carrying stranded bees and grasshoppers to far-off places.
Wait a minute. I can hear the ducks quacking now.
Flick! Something tiny sailed past my face and landed beside me on the rock. It was a big green grasshopper. I watched it without moving. It sawed its big arched back legs together but otherwise did not move.
Hello, mister hopper. Did you come to keep me company?
The grasshopper cocked its head at me. Its back legs kept sawing together.
Are you waiting for your girlfriend too?
High above me I heard a throbbing sound. I shaded my eyes from the sun and looked up. It was a helicopter. The grasshopper heard it also. It arched its back legs and suddenly, flick, it was gone.
I lost sight of it momentarily. Then there was a faint plop as it landed in the river. It floated on the surface, the current taking it downstream.
Goodbye, Mr. Hopper. Have a pleasant trip.
Above me the noise of the descending chopper grew louder. I looked up and saw that it was hovering overhead. I wondered what it was doing there. Shortly, it veered off and flew on down the canyon.
I’m so hungry. I wonder where Joey is. Hope he’ll be back soon. Then I remembered that I’d promised to make him a bow and some arrows. Rising, I belted the raincoat about me so that it wouldn’t stay open. Long ago the buttons had torn loose and the material had ripped under my armpits.
Kathleen, my darling Kathleen, where are you?
I started walking alongside the river, looking among the trees for a branch suitable for Joey’s bow … all the while listening to the ducks quacking softly among the reeds.
MRS. LOTT
“Go to your room,” I told him. “And stay there, Joey, until you know the difference between the truth and make-believe!”
He trudged from the kitchen. I went on ironing. I hate being hard on the boy, but at the same time he must be made to understand that these imaginary friends of his are just that: imaginary. Because if he doesn’t realize that soon, and goes on thinking that they really exist outside of his imagination, he’s likely to end up in a mental home. And that’s the last thing I want for him.
Later, after I’d finished ironing, I went to his room. His room’s in the back of the house, away from the highway and the smell of grease and cooking that comes from my husband’s diner, and when I entered I found Joey sitting in his favorite place in front of the window, staring out at the hills and trees that begin at the end of our property.
You know, it’s real odd. That boy can sit and stare at those hills for hours and hours on end. I mean, it’s almost as if he finds something magical about them. What’s more, it’s always been that way. Even when he was really little and could barely toddle, I only had to sit him in his highchair and put him by the window so he could look out at those hills, and he’d be good as gold for hours.
Now, of course, that he’s old enough to go outside and be by himself, I can’t keep him out of the hills. He stays there for hours and hours.
It’s like I told his brothers only yesterday, when they were wondering why I let Joey go out by himself so much: “Shoot, that boy would rather be out wandering around in those precious hills of his, than any other place I know of. And that includes here in his own home.”
AUNT RUTH
Please, dearest God, help them find him. Please, please, dear God, help them. Help them. Filthy murdering beast, don’t let him get away with what he did to Cathy.
Don’t. Don’t. Don’t!
MRS. LOTT
“Well?” I asked Joey. “What’s it going to be, young man? Are you going to tell me the truth or keep up this make-believe nonsense?”
He didn’t look at me. He just shrugged in a way that could have meant anything and continued staring out the window at the low green hills.
Sitting beside him, I said: “Do you still believe there’s a naked giant starving out there?”
He didn’t answer.
Losing my patience, I shook him by the shoulders and forced him to look at me. “Well?” I demanded. “Do you?”
He nodded, and pleaded with his big sad brown eyes for me to believe him.
I wanted to but I couldn’t. I said sternly: “You know what this means, then?”
Again he nodded, his pathetic little upturned face all pinched and miserable.
“And you still want to go on lying?”
He wrote something on his talking pad. “Not lieing. He is there. Beside the streem. I swear it. I talked to him.”
“You talked to him?”
He nodded.
“What did he say?”
“Hungry. Very hungry,” Joey wrote.
Remembering something, I said: “Why was he naked?”
Joey shrugged, then wrote: “Wasn’t all nakid. He had this old white coat on what was to little for him and—”
“Now I know you’re lying.” I said angrily. “Before, you said he was all naked.”
Joey started to write something.
I jerked his pencil away. “Never mind that. The only thing I want from you, young man, is a promise that, from now on, you’ll quit making believe there’re real live people running around in those hills of yours. Is that clear?”
He nodded, lower lip quivering, eyes all moist with tears.
My heart softened. I returned his pencil to him, rested both hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“Look,” I said gently. “I know with your brothers gone, and Dad and me working in the diner most of the time, it must get awful lonely for you. But, even so, you’ve got to quit making up all these wild fairy stories. I mean, pretending you’re Buffalo Bill or out lion hunting is one thing; actually believing that there are real people in the canyon, well, that’s another. Do you understand that, Joey?”
He nodded, and tried to sniff back his tears.
“Very well then, son. Now that we’ve got all that straightened out, let’s have the truth from you, so you can save yourself from a whipping.”
For a long moment he continued to stare at me. Then he looked away, down at his talking pad, and wrote: “Not lieing Mom. I’m NOT. Pleese believe me. PLEESE.”
I stared hard at him; at the pad where his tears were now splashing. I wanted to believe him. God knows, I did. But after all his other wild stories—well, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I went and fetched the belt.
LT. McBAIN
The pilot landed the chopper on the dirt driveway beside Lott’s Diner. I waited for the dust to settle, then climbed out and headed for the small wood-frame house built among the trees in back. Two sheriff units were parked out front and as I walked between them, up to the porch, one of the deputies indicated the house. “She’s inside, Lieutenant—with Sergeant Carmody.”
I nodded, and climbed up the sagging wooden steps onto the porch. It was hot, especially for this late in the year, and the greasy smell of hamburgers cooking filled the stagnant windless air. As I crossed the porch a dog began barking inside the house. The front door was open and I approached the screen-door warily. The dog kept barking.
“Shut up, damn you,” a woman’s voice yelled inside.
Before I could knock, Sgt. Carmody appeared in the doorway. With him was a short, dark, bitter-looking woman in a faded blue dress. He introduced her as Mrs. Lott, and wasting no time, I said: “I hear you’ve seen our suspect, Mrs. Lott. Want to tell me about it?”
“It’s my youngest, Joey,” she said, worried. “He’s the one who saw him—talked to him, in fact.”
“Where’s your boy now, ma’am?”
“I’m not sure.” She paused, her square, unattractive face wrinkled by age and hardship. “With him this man, I think.”
“What makes you think that, Mrs. Lott?”
