The Little Friend (76 page)

The angle of the X had grown too shallow to stand in. Harriet sat again, straddling the bars, grasped the bars on the other side. The angle was difficult; there wasn’t much feeling in her hands any more and her heart flip-flopped violently as she swung herself out into open space—arms trembling with fatigue—and around to the other side.…

Safe now. Down she slid, down the lower left crossbar of the X, as if sliding down the banister in her own house. He’d died a terrible death, that old man, and Harriet could scarcely
bear to think of it. Robbers had broken into his house, forced him to lie on the floor by his bed and beat him senseless with a baseball bat; by the time his neighbors got worried and came to check on him, he was lying dead in a pool of blood.

She’d come to rest against the opposite girder; the ladder was just beyond. It wasn’t such a tricky stretch, but she was tired and growing careless—and only when she found herself gripping the ladder did a jolt of terror snap through her body, for her foot had slipped, and she’d caught herself only at the last instant. Now it was over, the dangerous moment, before she’d even known it was happening.

She closed her eyes, held on tight until her breathing returned to normal. When she opened them again, it was as if she were suspended from the rope ladder of a hot air balloon. All the earth seemed to spread itself out before her in a panoramic view, like the castle view in her old storybook
From the Tower Window:

But there was no time for daydreaming. The roar of a crop duster—which she took, momentarily, for a car—startled her badly; and she turned and scrambled the rest of the way up the ladder as fast as she could.

————

Danny lay quietly on his back, staring at the ceiling. The light was harsh and sour; he felt weak, as if recovering from a fever, and suddenly he realized that he’d been looking up at the same bar of sunlight for quite some time. Somewhere outside, he heard Curtis singing, some word that sounded like “gumdrop,” over and over again; as he lay there, he gradually became aware of a strange thumping noise, as of a dog scratching itself, on the floor beside his bed.

Danny struggled to his elbows—and recoiled violently at the sight of Farish, who (arms crossed, foot tapping) sat in Eugene’s vacated chair, regarding him with a gluey, deliberative
eye. His knee was jittering; his beard was dripping wet around the mouth, as if he had spilled something on himself or else had been drooling and gnawing on his own lips.

A bird—a bluebird or something, sweet little
tweedle dee
like on television—twittered outside the window. Danny shifted and was about to sit up when Farish lunged forward and prodded him in the chest.

“
Oh
no ye don’t.” His amphetamine breath struck hot and foul in Danny’s face. “I’m
onto
your ass.”

“Come on,” said Danny wearily, and turned his face away, “let me up.”

Farish reared back; and for an instant their dead father blazed up—arms crossed—out of Hell, and glared scornfully from behind Farish’s eyes.

“Shut your mouth,” he hissed, and shoved Danny back on the pillow, “don’t say a word, you listen to
me
. You report to
me
now.”

Danny lay in confusion, very still.

“I seen interrogations,” said Farish, “and I seen people doped.
Carelessness
. It’ll get us all killed. Sleep waves are
magnetic,
” he said, tapping his forehead with two fingers, “get it? Get it? They can erase your whole mentality. You’re opening yourself to electromagnetic capacity that’ll fuck up and destroy your whole loyalty system just like
that.
”

He is wack out of his mind
, thought Danny. Farish, breathing fast through the nostrils, ran a hand through his hair—and then winced, and shook it spread-fingered away from his body as if he’d touched something slimy, or nasty.

“Don’t get smart with me!” he roared, when he caught Danny looking at him.

Danny dropped his eyes—and saw Curtis, his chin on a level with the threshold, peeping in the open door of the trailer. He had orange around his mouth, like he’d been playing with their grandmother’s lipstick, and a secretive, amused expression on his face.

Glad for the distraction, Danny smiled at him. “Hey, Alligator,” he said, but before he could ask about the orange on his mouth Farish spun and flung out an arm—like an
orchestra conductor, some hysterical bearded Russian—and shrieked: “Get out get out get
out!
”

In an instant, Curtis was gone:
bump bump bump
down the trailer’s metal steps. Danny inched up and started to creep out of bed, but Farish spun back around and stabbed a finger at him.

“Did I say get up? Did I?” His face was flushed almost purple. “Let me explain something.”

Danny sat, agreeably.

“We are operating at a military awareness. Copy?
Copy?
”

“Copy,” said Danny, as soon he realized that was what he was supposed to say.

“All right now. Here’s your four levels—” Farish counted them out on his fingers—“within the system. Code
Green
. Code
Yellow
. Code
Orange
. Code
Red
. Now.” Farish held up a trembling forefinger. “You might be able to guess Code Green from your experience in driving a motor vehicle.”

“Go?” said Danny, after a long, strange, sleepy pause.

“
Affirmative. Affirmative
. All Systems Go. In Code Green you are relaxed and unalert and there is no threat from the environment. Now listen up,” said Farish, between gritted teeth.
“There is no Code Green. Code Green does not exist.”

Danny stared at a tangle of orange and black extension cords on the floor.

“Code Green is not an option and here’s why. I’m only going to say it once.” He was pacing—with Farish, never a good sign. “If you are attacked on a level of Code Green, your ass will be destroyed.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Curtis’s plump little paw reach out and place a package of Sweet Tarts upon the sill of the open window, by his bed. Silently, Danny scooted over and retrieved the gift. Curtis’s fingers waggled happily, in acknowledgment, and then dropped stealthily from view.

“We are currently operating at
Code Orange,
” said Farish. “In Code Orange the danger is clear and present and your attention is focused on it
at all times
. Repeat:
all times.
”

Danny slipped the packet of Sweet Tarts under his pillow. “Take it easy, man,” he said, “you’re working yourself up.”
He’d meant it to come out sounding.… well, easy, but somehow it didn’t, and Farish wheeled around. His face was clotted and quivering with rage, bruised and engorged and empurpled with it.

“Tell you what,” he said, unexpectedly. “You and me’s going to take a little ride.
I can read your mind, numbnuts!
” he screamed, thumping the side of his head as Danny stared at him, aghast. “Don’t think you can pull your shit on me!”

Danny closed his eyes for a moment, then re-opened them. He had to take a piss like a racehorse. “Look, man,” he said pleadingly, as Farish gnawed his lip and glowered down at the floor, “just calm down a second. Easy,” he said, palms up, as Farish glanced up—a little too quick for comfort, eyes a little too jitterbugged and unfocused.

Before he knew what was happening, Farish had jerked him up by the collar and punched him in the mouth. “Look at you,” he hissed, jerking him up again by the shirtfront. “I know you inside out. Motherfucker.”

“Farish—” In a daze of pain, Danny felt his jaw, worked it back and forth. This was the point you never wanted it to come to. Farish outweighed Danny by at least a hundred pounds.

Farish slung him back on the bed. “Get your shoes on. You’re driving.”

“Fine,” said Danny, fingering his jaw, “where?” and if it came out sounding flip (it did) part of the reason was because Danny always drove, everywhere they went.

“Don’t you get smart with me.” Ringing backhand slap across the face. “If one
ounce
of that product is missing—no, set down, did I say to get up?”

Danny sat, without a word, and tugged his motorcycle boots onto his bare, sticky feet.

“That’s right. Just keep looking right where you’re looking.”

The screen door of Gum’s trailer whined, and a moment later Danny heard her scraping along the gravel in her house shoes.

“Farish?” she called, in her thin, dry voice. “All right? Farish?”
Typical, thought Danny, just about typical that he was the one she’d be so worried about.

“Up,” said Farish. He grabbed Danny by the elbow and marched him towards the door and shoved him out.

Danny—flung headlong down the steps—landed face-down in the dirt. As he rose and dusted himself off, Gum stood expressionless: all bone and leathery skin, like a lizard in her thin housedress. Slowly, slowly, she turned her head. To Farish, she said: “What’s got into
him?
”

At this, Farish reared back in the doorway. “Oh, something’s got
into
him, all right!” he screamed. “
She
sees it, too! Oh, you think you can fool
me
—” Farish laughed, a high unnatural laugh—“but you can’t even fool your own grandmother!”

Gum gazed long at Farish, then Danny, eyelids half-closed and permanently sleepy-looking from the cobra venom. Then she reached out her hand and caught the meat of Danny’s upper arm and twisted it between thumb and forefinger—hard, but in a sneaky, gentle way, so that her face and her little, bright eyes remained calm.

“Oh, Farish,” she said, “you ort not be so hard on him,” but there was something in her voice which suggested that Farish had good reason to be hard on Danny, hard on him indeed.

“Hah!” shouted Farish. “They did it,” he said, as if to hidden cameras at the tree line. “They got to him. My own brother.”

“What are you talking about?” said Danny, in the intense vibrating silence that followed, and was shocked by how weak and dishonest his voice sounded.

In his confusion, he stepped back as slowly, slowly, Gum crept up the steps of Danny’s trailer, up to where Farish stood, glaring daggers and breathing fast through the nose: foul, hot little huffs. Danny had to turn his head, he couldn’t even look at her because he could see only too painfully how her slowness infuriated Farish, drove him nuts, was driving him psychotic and bug-eyed even as he stood there: tapping that foot like dammit, how the
hell
could she be so freaking
poky? Everybody saw it (everybody but Farish) how even being in the same room with her (
scratch … scratch …
) made him tremble with impatience, drove him apeshit, violent, bonkers—but of course Farish never got mad at Gum, only took his frustration out on everybody else.

When finally she got to the top step, Farish was scarlet in the face, shaking all over like a machine about to blow. Gently, gently, she cringed up to Farish and patted him on the sleeve.

“Is it really that important?” she asked, in a kindly tone that somehow suggested yes, it was very important indeed.

“Hell yes!” roared Farish. “I won’t be spied on! I won’t be stoled from! I won’t be lied to—no, no,” he said, jerking his head in response to her light little papery claw upon his arm.

“Oh, my. Gum’s so sorry yall boys can’t get along.” But it was Danny she was looking at as she said it.

“Don’t feel sorry for me!” screamed Farish. Dramatically, he stepped in front of Gum, as if Danny might rush in and kill them both. “
He’s
the one you need to feel sorry for!”

“I don’t feel sorry for either one of ye.” She’d edged past Farish and was creeping into the open door of Danny’s trailer.

“Gum, please,” Danny said hopelessly, stepping up as far as he dared, craning to watch the pink of her faded house-dress as it vanished into the dim. “Gum, please don’t go in there.”

“Good night,” he heard her say, faintly. “Let me make up this bed.…”

“Don’t you be worrying over that!” cried Farish, glaring at Danny as if it was all
his
fault.

Danny darted past Farish and into the trailer. “Gum, don’t,” he said in anguish,
“please.”
Nothing was more certain to launch Farish into an ass-kicking rage than Gum taking it into her head to “clean up” after Danny or Gene, not that either one of them wanted her to. One day years ago (and Danny would never forget it, never) he had walked in to find her methodically spraying his pillow and bedclothes with Raid insecticide.…

“Lord, these curtains is filthy,” said Gum, shuffling into Danny’s bedroom.

A long shadow slanted in from the threshold. “I’m the one thatas talking to you,” said Farish in a low, frightening voice. “You get your ass out here and
listen.
” Abruptly he snatched Danny by the back of the shirt and slung him back down the stairs, down into the packed dust and litter of the yard (broken lawn chairs, empty cans of beer and soda pop and WD-40 and a whole battlefield of screws and transistors and cogs and dismantled gears) and—before Danny could rise to his feet—he jumped down and kicked him viciously in the ribs.

“So where do you go to when you go driving off by yourself?” he screamed. “Huh? Huh?”

Danny’s heart sank. Had he talked in his sleep?

“You said you went to mail Gum’s bills. But you aint mailed them. There they sat on the seat of the car for two days after you come back from wherever, mud splashed on your tires a foot deep, you aint got that driving down Main Street to the post office, did you?”

Again he kicked Danny. Danny rolled over on his side in a ball, clutching his knees.

“Is Catfish in on this with you?”

Danny shook his head. He tasted blood in his mouth.

“Because I will. I’ll kill that nigger. I’m on kill the both of you.” Farish opened the passenger door of the Trans Am and slung Danny in by the scruff of his neck.

“You drive,” he shouted.