Twisted Ones (8 page)

Instead of hugging him hard, the way she usually did when they said goodnight, she simply bent and kissed his forehead.

“Go right to sleep, Chuckles,” she told him.

For awhile, after he was undressed and in his pajamas, Charles Berrey thumbed through Ironside’s
British Painting Since 1939
, but he was not as fascinated with it now as he had been late that afternoon. He kept trying to figure out why his mother had acted as though she were angry with him when they were in the kitchen, toward the end. He would never have dared to show off his vocabulary around his father, but his mother usually enjoyed it. Maybe he had gone too far when he had called her Mrs. Amphigoric. Tomorrow he would remember to explain to her that the word amphigoric came from the word amphigory, and all amphigory meant was a nonsense verse. He shouldn’t have told her it meant meaningless. He had probably hurt her feelings.

When he put out the light above his bed, he lay in the dark thinking about what his father had said earlier. He was glad he had made up his mind to be good in bed, like Howie’s wife, but it still confused him. Why were only Italian women good in bed? It might have something to do with the fact that they were all Catholics, and Catholics were extremely religious. Religious people would not be bad in bed. Maybe what his father had meant to say, was that
Catholic
women were always good in bed. He was pondering over this when the argument started in the living room. This one was even worse than the one on the trip home. In the car, Charles had not worried as much, because his father could not very well become violent in traffic, but now there was nothing to stop him.

Charles crawled out of bed and listened at the door. He did not have to open the door to hear what they were saying because the bungalow walls were paper-thin, and both of them were yelling.

“… never teach him any respect!” his mother was screeching, “No wonder he’s mixed up!”

“He’s not mixed up, you’re mixed up! Your brains are scrambled, Evelyn, scrambled and fried!”

“If he’s going to lie to
Life
magazine, who’s he going to lie to next?”

“What the hell do I care about
Life
magazine!” said his father, “I don’t even read
Life
magazine!”

“You mean you don’t even
read!”

“Shut your yap!”

“He never said anything like that before tonight. That’s all I know. Not before tonight, he didn’t. You’re the one that put it into his head to be a smart aleck.”

Charles Berrey stood anxiously by his door, wondering if he shouldn’t go in there and tell her what amphigoric meant right now, instead of waiting until tomorrow. She had taken it all wrong.

“You’re the one that told him to lie about his grades,” said his mother. “Now he’s going to be a smart aleck.”

“What’s wrong with that? I’d rather have him be a smart aleck than a goddam book-sissy!”

“You’d rather have him stand right there in
that
kitchen and tell his own mother he masturbated the dictionary?”

“He was making a joke!”

“A smutty, smark-aleck, wise-guy joke! In front of his own mother, in that kitchen,
right here tonight!”

“I’m glad he knows the word. I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him, reading in the goddam library all day and night!”

“What kind of a father are you? You want your own son to masturbate!”

“What’s he supposed to do?” said his father, “go out and screw eight-year-olds in the recess yard? Berrey men always grow up fast!”

• • •

Charles Berrey sank onto the edge of his bed. His face was red-hot with shame. He bit on his knuckles and jiggled his knees. That wasn’t what he had said at all; he had
never
said that word! Not even to himself! Everything was crazy suddenly. There was his father in there saying he didn’t care if he was bad in bed, and only tonight he said Howie had married Jean because she was good. His mother had mixed everything up, and his father didn’t even know it, and Charles didn’t know anymore who was right and who was wrong. The shouting was growing louder and louder now, and Charles was frightened and sick of listening. He didn’t know why he got up and went across to his closet in the dark, nor why he reached for his wool jacket on the hook behind the door.

“Shut your yap!” he heard his father say, “or I’ll give it to you good, Evelyn!”

“Go ahead and hit me!” his mother shouted back. “Just you go ahead and hit me!”

When he heard the crash, he ran to the window.

The night was cool and not too dark because of the moon. It hadn’t been much of a drop to the ground. The only hard part was getting the screen unhooked without anyone hearing the noise when it fell off onto the sidewalk below. But even that was easy, because the Berrey bungalow was wild with the sounds of his mother and father screaming and throwing things. Were they just throwing things, or had his father hit her? Charles Berrey read the newspapers every single day, and they were full of stories about men murdering their wives, and women murdering their husbands. Sometimes even children murdered their mothers and fathers. If he could stop them some way, or make someone stop them. If he could find a policeman, or do something.

For awhile he simply stood out behind the garage by the trash can. There were matches in his coat pocket left over from burning the trash yesterday, and he thought of the dry grass, half-burnt already, and of the oath he had taken on his mother’s eyesight not to set fire to it anymore. He thought of Uzziah coming down with leprosy in the temple while he was burning the incense; and he thought of the rain pouring down in the Polynesian myth, and Maui’s grandmother with fire coming out of her fingers and toes.

From inside the house, he heard another crash, and now he began to run, back through the fields behind his house, running and crying and wetting his pajama pants. His bedslippers were thin-soled and he could feel every bump and stone, but he ran as fast as he could, without knowing where he was going or how he was going to get help. When his feet hit pavement, he realized he was on Rider Avenue, and when he stopped, breathless and wet and desperate, he saw the red firebox on the corner. He didn’t even bother to use the little iron mallet to break the glass, but with his whole strength, punched it with his fist until it smashed. Then, with his other hand, he pulled down the handle.

It would only be a matter of minutes now. Charles Berrey knew that. Soon the fire engines would roar and clang, and lights would go on in all the dark houses, and people in robes would lean out of their windows, and everyone would wonder where the fire was.

It was near midnight. In Sykes, New York, a boy named Brock Brown was secretly retrieving seventy-two cents he had left on a neighbor’s screen porch; and in Auburn, Vermont, Reginald Whittier was asking Laura Lee to elope with him. Charles Berrey climbed back in the window of the bungalow and waited.

PART THREE

BROCK BROWN

The Memorial Day weekend was three days away.

Clara Brown wanted to be sure that nothing would interfere with the trip to the Adirondacks which she and Robert had planned. She knew that her husband was worried about Brock, about what had happened two nights ago. He sat across from her at the table, frowning, only picking at the stew she had prepared for their lunch.

She said, “Bob?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are you thinking about Brock again?”

“I’m sorry, Clara.”

“Bob, it’s the first time he’s ever gotten into any trouble,” she said. “Besides, he really
didn’t
get into trouble. It’s all straightened out now. It was just a misunderstanding.”

Clara Brown didn’t really believe that. Whatever Brock had been doing on the Rubins’ back porch when Mr. Rubin caught him, Clara Brown did not believe Brock’s story that he was only trying to warn the Rubins that someone was stealing their plants. Mr. Rubin had found him trying the door that led into the Rubins’ house. Brock said a man—a big, bushy-haired man—had run down their driveway carrying a plant, and that Brock had startled him in the dark, and that then he had gone to warn the Rubins.

Estelle Rubin had been very nice about it. She had thanked Brock, and told Robert Brown that she was sorry there had been some confusion about the matter; and she had said that she had found her poor petunia all smashed in the driveway. But Sam Rubin had acted doubtful and suspicious. Why would a big, bushy-haired man want to steal a petunia plant,
he
wanted to know, and if what Brock said was true, why hadn’t Brock just rung the Rubins’ doorbell?

Brock said he was too upset to think straight.

“What were you doing down by the Rubins’ at midnight anyway?” Robert Brown had asked.

And Brock had answered. “I was just taking a walk. Clara and I had had a little quarrel, and I was just simmering down. Just walking around. You saw me when I left the house, dad.”

Robert Brown said, “That was about ten-forty-five. What were you doing for an hour and a quarter?”

“I told you, dad. Just walking around.”

Maybe he really
was
telling the truth. Clara didn’t know. But Brock’s story certainly sounded fishy.

Robert Brown put his fork down at the lunch table and sighed. “I
hope
it was simply a misunderstanding,” he said.

“Of course it was, Bob. Brock wouldn’t have any reason to be snooping around the Rubins’ house.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“What would he want to snoop around the Rubins’ house for?”

“I don’t know, Clara. But why were his clothes so dirty? That’s what I don’t understand. You know how Brock is about keeping everything clean. The knees of his pants were dirty, remember?”

“He explained that. He said he knelt down to see what the bushy-haired man had dropped.”

“The plant was dropped on the driveway, Clara. That’s a gravel driveway.”

“I don’t think we should dwell on the matter, as though Brock was a criminal or something, Bob.”

“Bushy-haired stranger!” said Robert Brown. “It sounds phony. Like that murder case a few years back, when that fellow killed his wife.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Clara. “They didn’t believe he was innocent either. There was a bushy-haired man in that case, and no one believed it.”

“Did you?”

“Of course! Of course I did! All through the trial, I could just feel it in my bones.”

“Well, I wish I could feel it in
my
bones about Brock.”

“Bob, you know something. You’re just spoiled, that’s what.”

“Spoiled?”

“That’s right. Brock’s such a good boy, you’re just not used to having the slightest little thing go wrong where he’s concerned.”

“Clara, the Rubins are our neighbors. I do all Sam Rubins’ work for him. Only last Monday, I sold him a new set of tires.”

“Sam’ll get over it.”

“I
hope
so.”

“Estelle was as nice as pie to me today. She waved and smiled when I got off the bus, and she was as nice as pie.”

“I just wish I knew if Brock was telling the truth. I’d be sore as hell at Sam Rubin for thinking Brock was up to something, if I could just believe Brock.”

“I believe him.”

“And you believe a bushy-haired man took one of the Rubins’ plants.”

“There are plenty of nuts loose, Bob. They’re not all locked up in the loony-bin.”

“He’d have to be a nut to cut through somebody’s screen just to steal a plant.”

“You read about nuts in the newspapers every day, Bob. Every day you read about another nut.”

“I suppose so, Clara. I suppose so.”

“It’ll do us both good to get away for awhile. Do you suppose it’ll be warm enough for shorts in the mountains?”

“Probably not.”

“That’s good, because I don’t have any that fit anymore. Since last summer, I’ve gained about ten pounds. Imagine?”

“Clara?”

“What?”

“Do you honestly think Brock will be okay while we’re gone?”

“I’m not worried one single bit about Brock,” said Clara Brown that May noon, “not one single bit.”

And that much was true. Whatever the truth was about the other night, the wife of Robert Brown saw nothing even remotely ominous in Brock’s recent behavior. In Clara’s mind, the very worst explanation she could come up with, for Brock’s being on the Rubins’ back porch, was that Brock might have been trying to see in their windows. There were two windows on the porch, and Brock could very well have been looking in them. Estelle Rubin was always running around in her backyard wearing practically nothing at all, and she might very well have aroused Brock’s curiosity. After all, he was a shy, bashful boy … What did Brock know about women?

Clara thought it might even be possible that Brock
had
cut the hole in the screen so he could go and look in the windows, and that he might have heard Mr. Rubin coming and thrown the plant out on the driveway and invented that story. Put dirt on his clothes and made up that story about the big, bushy-haired man, so that the Rubins wouldn’t know he’d been spying on them.

That was the very worst Clara could imagine, and it seemed to her that even
that
was not really very serious. Brock had never done anything wrong before, and if the worst was true, he never would again. She had never seen Brock as frightened as he was that night, with Sam Rubin scowling at him, and Brock quaking, with his face drained of color. In the long run, Clara supposed, it was a good thing. It had taught Brock a lesson.

“I suppose it would be silly to postpone our trip,” said Robert Brown, picking up his fork, “I guess I am spoiled. Brock’s a good kid.”

Robert Brown, at high noon that day in late May, was at last reconvinced of this. Brock’s story about the bushy-haired stranger could very well be absolutely true. Only a few days ago, the garage had gotten a call to pick up a green Mercury on a back country road. It had been stolen, it turned out, and the thief had tied a ten-dollar bill to the steering wheel with a rubber band. Then just abandoned it, in the middle of nowhere. Clara was right. There were a lot of nuts around, even right here in Sykes, New York.

• • •

At Sykes High, the class in general psych had seven minutes to go. Brock Brown had not heard a word Dr. Mannerheim had said. His mind was striped with thoughts of the night at the Rubins’, and Carrie Bates. Carrie sat across from him, and she was coming on again. She had been “on” the whole hour, staring directly at him, turned sideways in her seat, so that it was obvious to Brock and everyone else in the class. Some of the guys were snickering and glancing back in Brock’s direction, and the girls were busy scribbling notes furiously to each other. At the very beginning of the hour, Brock had found a note on his desk. It said:

“You look like Montgomery Clift
…
C. B.”
He had not bothered to answer her note, nor even to look in her direction. It had angered him that he had been unable to keep the flush of color from spreading across his face to his ears, as he read the note; and he was furious with himself for grinning the way he had to. He hadn’t wanted to smile. It happened without his being able to control it—the same way it happened when anyone told him someone they knew had died, or someone they knew was very sick. He’d just stand smiling, without being able to do anything about it. The other night, he had even smiled when Mr. Rubin caught ahold of his shirt collar and said: “What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Brock had answered, trying to shrug his shoulders, with that silly grin on his face. His knees were shaking under his trousers, and his stomach had flipped over with fear, but he just said, “Nothing,” and grinned at Sam Rubin.

“You were trying to break in here, weren’t you?”

“No, Mr. Rubin. I was trying to warn you.” He had had no time to think up a better lie. Everything had happened suddenly. Brock was not sure why he had tried the Rubins’ door on the screen porch, but he was afraid about it. He remembered only that he had decided to go back there and get his seventy-two cents, which he had left on the ledge for taking the plant. After all, he really hadn’t taken the plant. It was there in the driveway. When he left the bushes, where he had gotten sick to his stomach, he had wanted his money back. That part didn’t make him afraid. He was entitled to his money; it was his own money.

But what had happened next worried him. Next he had seen the knob of the door that led into the Rubins’ house. He had put his hand on it, let his fingers curl around it and feel the brass, and he had thought:
I have to go in there
…. What had he wanted to do? That was what he couldn’t figure out, or remember anymore. It had something to do with the fact his clothes were soiled. That wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t made himself dirty. The plant was responsible for that—the hole in the bottom of the flowerpot, and the dirty water that leaked out of it. But why did he want to go inside the Rubins’ house? To
get
them for it? Had he thought something about getting them for it? That was the creepy part. That was what shook him up. And he
was
all shook up; boy cat, all shook up.

• • •

Brock had his sunglasses on in the classroom. He had decided to leave them on all day. They looked good. He was wearing dark brown against tan today, and the frames of his sunglasses added to the over-all effect. They were shell frames, brown ones. Before he had left the house that morning, Clara had asked: “Who are you being today, Brock?”

“What does that mean exactly, Clara?”

“Movie star, international spy, who?”

“I’m that quiz kid on Cash-Answer,” he had told her. “I just won 44,000 dollars for knowing the jugular vein is the trunk vein in the neck.”

“Congratulations,” Clara had said.

“It was nothing at all.”

“Anyway, Brock, you look very handsome. You’re a very handsome boy. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“You did, if
you’re
anyone.”

“Come on, Brock, let’s patch things up.”

“You mean, before Memorial Day, Clara? So you can go away with a clear conscience?”

“I’m not the one with a guilty conscience.”

“You don’t have
any
conscience.”

“What is it, Brock? What’s gotten into you the last few days?”

“I guess I just hate housework,” Brock had said. “I guess I’ll just be glad when you and dad have a baby, and a girl comes in to do the housework.”

“Don’t try to be funny, Brock. I told you I didn’t mean that about hating housework.”

“Maybe I really
am
crazy, Clara. Maybe I’ll get so crazy I’ll just burst and bleed to death, unless someone comes along and applies a tourniquet.”

“Will you ever forget
anything?”

“No, I have a very good memory. Just like that little quiz kid.”

“Well, you better remember to stay away from people’s back porches while your father and I are away in the mountains,” Clara had said.

Brock had thought about that while he drove to school that morning. He hadn’t had a headache since the night at Rubins’, but what if he got one over Memorial Day weekend? What then? It would be okay. His father would leave him extra money. He said he was going to leave him some money; and what if he
did
get a headache? There were worse things than taking somebody’s car for a ride, or taking somebody’s goddam flowerpot! He’d never take a flowerpot again. Everything would have been all right, if he hadn’t picked out that goddam flowerpot. It couldn’t happen to him again in a million thousand years … Could it?

Brock knew plenty of guys that wouldn’t even give a second thought to what had happened at the Rubins’. Compared to other guys, Brock was a crazy angel, about as shook up as Clara, and she was a lump of clay. Other guys were running around in their dirty cars doing things to girls. Pawing them and mauling them. More than that, too. Brock had seen the inside of Derby Wylie’s old Ford, and it was knee-deep in rubbish. Old newspapers and magazines, and buttons pinned all over everywhere saying sexy things like: “I want yours!” and “Give it to me, baby!” … Brock sighed. Sure, Brock knew about other guys. Rock ‘n’ roll and run around the way they did, and Carrie Bates went right along with them. Brock wasn’t that kind of guy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rubin had wanted to know.

And all he could do was answer, “Nothing.” Grinning like that.

He wished he could stop thinking about it. Something else bothered him. When his father had said, “What were you doing for an hour and a quarter?” Brock had wondered about that himself. Was there something he couldn’t remember? The part in the bushes, when he had got sick to his stomach, was fuzzy. He thought he might have been crying, but that was too crazy. He wouldn’t cry. Had he gone somewhere, or had he done something he didn’t recall?

While he was sitting there in psych thinking this, another note landed on his desk. Carrie Bates had passed it to the boy in front of him, and the boy had reached back and dropped it by Brock’s inkwell. This time, Brock wasn’t even going to read it. He might not be perfect—he knew he wasn’t—but he wasn’t like the other guys, he wasn’t that bad. Carrie Bates could come on all she wanted. She could turn herself inside out. Brock wasn’t going to have anything to do with any girl! No one could ever accuse him of that!