Freak the Mighty (9 page)

There’s a back alley between the tenement buildings, you can’t see it from the road,
and Iggy takes us along the alley to this other place. You can tell how the door has
been busted in and the lock broke, and we go into the dark hallway.

The lights come on and the first thing I notice is the perfume an old lady wears,
and the smell of cats.

“It ain’t much, but the old bat who lives here took the Greyhound to visit her sister
for the holiday,” Iggy says. He’s trying to smile.

The little room is warm and close-feeling, and the furniture is real old and saggy.
There’s a big old TV with a doily on the top, and an empty goldfish bowl, and piles
of newspapers tied up neat with string, and a Bible on this little table by the TV.
Also there’s this trick picture of Jesus on the wall, where his eyes keep following
you, and you go cross-eyed looking at it.

“Ain’t much worth taking,” Iggy says.

My father is looking around, making sure the curtains are closed. “You think I’d steal
from an old woman?” he says.

Iggy shakes his head. “I sure don’t.”

“Never you mind,” my father says. “This will do in a pinch, until we get started.”

“I better get back to Loretta.”

“You do that.”

My father watches the door shut behind Iggy and he doesn’t say anything. I’m just
standing there in the middle of the room because I don’t know what he wants me to
do.

“Make yourself comfy, boy,” he finally says. “I’m going to check we have a back way
out.”

I’m looking at the door we came in by, just looking, when all of a sudden he’s there
behind me, and I feel the cool air of him on the back of my neck.

“You wouldn’t light out on me now, would you?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t.”

“Sit down,” he says. “We need to talk, man to man.”

I sit down in this old-lady chair that’s so soft, I almost sink through to the floor
and I’m wondering what happened to the cats. Maybe she took them with her, to visit
her sister. Or maybe Iggy let them out and they can’t get back in.

He leans over me and puts his big hands on the arms of the chair and he says, “Now,
your grandparents say you’re nothing but a dys
functional retard, but no kin of mine is a retard, and that’s a fact. So first thing,
you’ve got to start acting smart. Use your head. We’ve got a situation going here,
boy, so the way to handle it, you just do exactly what I say, no matter what. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

His hand shoves through my hair and I can feel how strong he is, even though he doesn’t
hurt me.

“That’s good,” he says. “That’s real good.”

He goes into another room and I can hear a door banging and stuff being moved around
and when he comes back, he’s got this rope in his hands. “A boy who doesn’t know his
own father might be dumb enough to run away,” he says. “We can’t have that, can we?”

“No, sir.”

“No, sir, what?”

“No, sir, we can’t have that.”

What he does is tie up my feet and hands and then he loops the end of the rope around
his waist.

“I’m taking sack time while I can,” he says. “You’re as smart as I think you are,
you’ll get some shut-eye, too.”

He turns out the light and lies down on the floor beside the chair, with just his
arm for a pillow, and for a long time I can’t tell whether he’s asleep or pretending.
Then I decide it doesn’t matter, if I move, the rope will surely wake him.

It seems like we’re frozen inside that room, even though the air is warm and stuffy.
The soft chair keeps a hold of me, I’m not strong enough to get up, my feet and hands
are getting tingly where they’re tied, and pretty soon I can’t even keep my eyes open.

I’m half asleep, dreaming a cat is in the other room, mewing for milk, and I’m still
thinking about that cat when something tugs me.

He’s sitting there in the dark, so I can’t see his face, and he says, “Wake up, sleepyhead.
I better tell my own son a thing or two he needs to know about his own father. First
thing, like I already said, I never killed anybody. I’m big like you’re big, so folks
assume things they shouldn’t. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good. Now the other thing is the geezers you’ve been living with all these years.
I bet they never gave you the presents I sent you, did they?”

“No, sir, they didn’t.”

He shakes his head real sorrowful. “That’s a crime, not giving a boy presents from
his father. I suppose you didn’t get the letters I sent? No, if they didn’t give over
the presents, they likely tore up the letters. Another crime against humanity, that’s
what
that
is. They hated me from the first sight. On account of my appearance, and because
I wasn’t good enough for their precious daughter. As if a man should be
blamed for how fearsome or cruel he looks, when in fact he’s truly a loving person
inside. Which I am. I can hardly see a sad movie without crying and I’m not afraid
to say so.”

There’s just enough streetlight coming through the curtains, so I can make out part
of his face when he turns it. You can see where there’s a wet spot on his cheek, and
he brushes it away.

“I’ve been locked up like an animal,” he says. “Every single night I cried myself
to sleep and that’s a fact. Killer Kane, that’s just an unkind nickname they hung
on me. You know how kids can be mean in school, mean as animals? It was like that,
only these weren’t kids, they were adults who should know better, except they’re so
ignorant and hateful they believe the worst.”

His voice is sort of ragged, but you can’t help but listen to him, you follow the
words up and down like you’re riding through mountains and you can’t see to either
side, all you can see is the road just ahead.

“A great injustice was done to me, boy,” he says. “What those people did, they stole
my life. They took
years
away from me, might as well have cut out my heart with a knife, that’s how it was
to lie awake each night and think about the injustice was done to me. They’d blame
me for all the wrongs in the world, those people. By which I mean the geezers,
her
folks that always hated me, and of course the police who failed to see the truth
of the situation.”

He stops to rub away another stream of tears. There’s no crying in his voice, you
can’t hear it there, but sure enough the tears are all over his face, slick and shiny
in the pale, pale light.

“I woke up just now worrying that you might wonder why I never did mention her. Your
mother. You might still be thinking the wrong way on that, and believe what they told
you. You being such a tiny little thing when it happened, how could you know the truth
of it?”

He gets up then, and he goes over by the TV set, far enough so the rope is tugging
at me. Then he’s back and he’s got a book in his hands.

“You know what this is, boy?”

“The Bible,” I say.

“You can tell that in the dark, can you? That’s fine. What I’m going to do, I’m putting
my right hand down on this Bible, see?”

“Yes, sir, I see.”

“And I’m putting my other hand over my heart, can you see that?”

“Yes, sir, I can.”

“That’s good, boy. Now listen up. I, Kenneth David Kane, do swear by all that’s Holy
that I did not murder this boy’s mother. And if that isn’t the truth, may God strike
me dead.”

I’m waiting to see if something happens, and nothing does. The room is the same. It
smells of old-lady perfume and missing cats, and my hands and feet are still tied
by a rope to his waist.

“Satisfied?” he says.

I want to answer him but my throat closes up and my tongue is so dry, I can’t hardly
open my mouth. I keep thinking about how heavy his hand was on that Bible.

“I asked you a question, boy.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I’m satisfied.”

He lies back down after that and pretty soon he’s breathing heavy again. I can’t sleep,
though. I just sit there like a lump until the sun comes up, trying not to think about
things I didn’t want to remember.

I’m waiting for something to happen. The whole world except me is asleep and the only
sound is him breathing heavy. I’m trying to see through the curtains, out the old
lady’s window when it finally gets light, but the snow is stuck to the glass and everything
is fuzzy, which is pretty much how I feel.

Looking down at him on the floor, how he overflows the rug, I think about that story
where a giant falls asleep and is tied up by little people. Not that I do anything.
I’m just a blob in the chair with numb hands and numb feet.

Finally what happens, there’s a noise from the back and these light skittery footsteps,
and then my father comes awake so fast he almost yanks me from the chair.

He’s on his feet with this wild look in his eye, and Loretta Lee glides into the room.

“Merry Christmas, boys,” she says. She’s got this pizza box in her hands, holding
it out like a present.

“Where’s Iggy?” my father asks.

“Waiting for Santa Claus,” Loretta says. “Ain’t nothing open this morning, but we
got this left over, you’re welcome to it.”

“Best put that down,” he says, and he pulls on the rope and lifts me up. He gives
her this cold look. “You go on and get Iggy,” he says.

Loretta Lee is wearing this long winter coat, it looks clean and brand-new, so she
probably got it for Christmas, but her legs are skinny and bare where her feet go
into these old rubber boots. She’s smoking this cigarette and squinting through the
smoke at my father, like she’s trying to figure out what he’s thinking.

“Why can’t you be nice, Kenny?” she says. “We had some good times in the old days,
remember?”

“The old days are over,” he says. “That the best you can do for us, leftover pizza?”

“Hey, pizza is good for you,” she says. “It has vitamins and stuff.”

“I still want to see Iggy.”

Loretta takes a drag on her cigarette and she’s got this crooked smile. Her eyes keep
flicking at me and the way I’m roped up, but mostly she’s looking at him. “Ig’ll be
up soon,” she says. “He had himself a tough night.”

“I have business with him, Loretta,” he says. “Important business.”

“I’m sure,” she says, and she turns in her boots and leaves through the back.

The pizza box is sitting there on the table, but my father says we can’t eat anything
touched by her dirty hands, so he walks me out into that dark little kitchen and he
unties me and we go through the cupboards and find mostly boxes of prunes and old
cereal. There’s nothing in the refrigerator that hasn’t already gone bad, so I eat
a bowl of cornflakes with water and I’m so hungry, it almost tastes good.

“This is what they call a temporary situation,” he says. “I know a way we can live
like kings if we play our cards right.” He stops for a while and squints at me, like
he wants to see inside my head. “We’ll be heading for warmer weather. That agreeable
with you, boy?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

He seems real thoughtful. “I had a lot of time to plan this out. A lot of time to
study people, figure what makes them tick. First thing, we’ll get a bus, one of those
RV things, a real big one, because it’s important to look impressive. Put a name up
on the side: The Reverend Kenneth David Kane. Or it might be we’ll go with another
name, just to be on the safe side. Did you guess I was a man of God, boy, could you
tell that by looking at me?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I mean, no, sir.”

“What’s that mean, boy?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

He reaches out and tussles at my hair. “You’ll
learn,” he says. “You’ll be standing out in front of the bus in a real nice suit.
What you do is collect money in a basket. You won’t have to steal it because folks
will give to a man of God, and what they love to hear about is a bad man who has redeemed
himself. I learned how to preach the word to a lot of illiterate convicts, but they
were no more ignorant than a lot of other folk. No, sir. We’re going to do just fine.”

After I finish the cornflakes, he ties me up again.

“This is just a precaution,” he says. “Can’t take any chances until you see the light.
You want to see the light?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

He’s grinning at me and he taps himself on the chest and says, “You’re looking at
it, boy. I
am
the light, and don’t you ever forget it.”

He turns on the TV, it hardly comes in at all the screen is so fuzzy, and he keeps
switching channels and he’s cussing out the old lady for having such a crummy TV.
All that’s on is Christmas stuff and cartoons and what he wants is the news, to see
if we’re on it.

“I bet they haven’t even missed you,” he says. “Kept you down in that cellar like
an animal, how would they know?”

We’re sitting there waiting for Iggy when the blue lights start flashing bright against
the curtains. He quick grabs me by the neck and shoves me down to the floor and we
both lie there. The
blue lights go by real slow, you can see them shining all around the room.

“Might be someone else they’re looking for,” he says. “A place like this, it could
be anybody. Still, you can’t be too careful.”

When the lights stop flashing, he crawls to the window and looks out.

“There’s nothing dumber than a dumb cop,” he says. “If they were so smart, they wouldn’t
be working on Christmas day, would they?”

“No, sir,” I say.

“You hush up, boy, and let me think.”

I’m lying there on the floor tied up when Iggy sneaks in through the back. I know
it’s him by the draggy way he walks, and the heavy boots.

“Kenny!” he’s whispering. “You there?”

“’Course I’m here,” he says. “Show yourself.”

Iggy comes into the room and his eyes are darting around. At first he’s surprised
to see me trussed up, then he shrugs and doesn’t look at me anymore. “Close call,”
he says. “You see that cop car?”

“I saw it.”

“They come right up to my door looking for the boy,” he says. “I said, come back with
a search warrant, you want to see what I keep under my bed, but I let ’em have a good
look from the door, satisfy ’em you weren’t there.”

“They believe you?”

“Who knows with cops?”

Then my father is sort of drooping his arm
around Iggy and giving him a squeeze, and you can see the cold, scared look in Iggy’s
little eyes, and that wet mouth of his inside his beard. “You turn on me, did you?”
my father says. “That how they just happen to come to your place, of all the places
in this town?”

Iggy laughs real nervous. “It was that crippled midget kid,” he says. “They had him
out in the car. It must have been him, Loretta saw him peeking up over the seat.”

Freak.

“What midget kid?” my father asks. “You think I’ll fall for that?”

Iggy points at me and says, “Ask him does he have a midget friend. The two of ’em
stole Loretta’s purse, that’s how come they know this place. That’s the God’s honest
truth, Kenny.”

My father kneels down and looks at me up close. His face doesn’t show anything. “Well?”
he says. “What’s your story?”

“We didn’t steal it,” I say. “We just brought it back.”

“Oh,” my father says. “Now
that’s
an interesting story. I
like
that story.”

Iggy is talking fast, like he can’t wait to get rid of the words and leave. “The crippled-up
kid belongs to Gwen. Remember Gwen? Her and your wife were pals, that’s what Loretta
says.”

My father puts his hand on Iggy and shoves him down into the old lady’s chair. “Never
mind about her. It doesn’t matter how the cops got
onto you, all that matters is they
did
. And now what do we do about it?”

Iggy is scratching at his beard and he starts to say something and my father says,
“Shut up and let me think.”

Iggy shuts up. Every now and then he sneaks a look at me like he’s trying to tell
me something with his eyes, but I can’t figure out what.

After a while my father says, “First thing, get me a firearm. Something small but
functional. Next thing is transportation. I don’t care what, as long as it runs. Can
you do that for me?”

Iggy says he can, no problem.

“Then do it,” my father says. “The quicker the better.”

Iggy leaves, walking backward out of the room. My father lifts me up by the rope and
says, “I know you have more sense than to waste your time stealing pocketbooks with
a cripple kid. You can’t trust a cripple, but I guess you know that now, don’t you?”

He shakes the rope.

“Yes, sir, I do.”