Whirl Away (3 page)

Kevin's mother held the door open as he went out onto the deck, telling him not to get into trouble. “Stay on the deck and stay off the road,” she said, and as she did, a car whooshed by next to the deck, like an example she'd whipped up just for him.

“Stay off the road,” she said again, and she put all the emphasis on “off.”

Kevin heard the door latch behind her, the click sharp and final.

Kevin's father hadn't said anything when Kevin was in the kitchen, but a few moments later Kevin heard the deep rumble of his voice from the kitchen, not so much words as a deep straight line, all one note. And over the top of it, his mother's thin voice, growing higher and then falling away like a ball bouncing up and down, up and down. It was like they were singing together, each one already sure where the other was going and just exactly where they would eventually end up.

It was hot in the sun, Kevin thought, and the water in the inflatable swimming pool on the deck was murky, catching
struggling daddy-long-legs and wandering, curious, paper-winged moths that lay flat on the surface, at the mercy of potential rescuers. It was too late for several toys, completely submerged and fuzzed with small air bubbles.

Kevin fished the toys out—a green rubber frog that sprayed water out through a small hole in its mouth, a plastic power shovel, the hard yellow wand from a bottle of bubble liquid—making sure he kept the dripping water away from his T-shirt and shorts, and then threw them back in again, watching them sink back down to the blue vinyl bottom of the pool.

After he threw them back in, they lay still on the bottom. Above them, the ripples on the surface made them appear to wriggle for a few moments before the water fell still. The bottom of the pool had lines where the weight of the water had pulled the plastic down into the cracks between the boards.

“There you go again,” Kevin said to the surface of the water. “There you go again. How many times do I have to listen to this stuff?”

He turned, and out on the road he saw a man with a dog on a leash. The dog was brown and white, a heavy, low-slung beagle with big, sad, bloodshot eyes and dragging ears. Kevin thought that the dog and the man looked a lot alike, and he watched them through the slatted pickets as they made their way along the road.

He pressed himself down onto the surface of the deck, trying to make himself inconspicuous, creeping on his stomach
so that he stayed even with the dog's slow, plodding walk. The street ran in tight to the front of the deck, so Kevin could look through the railing and see the mottled colour of the side of the man's face, dappled with small, shiny beads of sweat.

The man looked angry, Kevin thought, even though there was nothing to be angry about.

Suddenly, there were seeds from dandelions parachuting in on the wind under their silver-white canopies, regiments of soldiers, landing all around him, and Kevin was the only one left to protect the base, the only survivor.

“Bang!” he said, pointing a loaded index finger at the air.

The dog looked around at the sound and stopped walking, but the man kept going, pulling the leash hard. The dog appeared startled when the collar suddenly dug into its neck.

“Save it for someone who cares,” Kevin said to the dog. “Save it for someone who cares.”

The dog didn't look back.

Across the street, Mrs. Batten came around the corner of her house from the backyard and started to rake the grass. Rake, rake, stop. Rake, rake, stop.

During one of the stops, she looked across, spotted Kevin and waved. But Kevin wasn't sure whose army she was with, whether she knew the password or not, so he kept very still and looked up under the edge of the railing, watching for airplanes. Everyone has to watch for the planes. It was like that in every movie.

Sometimes, airplanes draw lines with clouds, Kevin thought, like arrows that show you right where they are. And sometimes, they make a noise that makes you think they're actually somewhere else, not where they are.

Then he saw there was a spider in the corner of the deck, a brown, fat spider with a white pattern on its backside. The spider was finishing a small and perfect web under the top edge of the deck railing, the tips of its front legs plucking at the sticky lines, placing the threads.

Kevin pointed at the spider and shook his finger. “You don't want to fix things, do you? You don't even really want to try.”

The spider continued picking at the sticky webbing, working its way around the outside circle of the web, Kevin's words passing right through it.

He sat down on the deck and watched the spider, pushing his glasses back up his nose every time they slid down. It was getting hotter on the deck, and he was starting to sweat.

Mrs. Batten finished raking and walked back behind her house, and Kevin purposefully watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Still, neither of his parents came to Kevin's front door. He thought they should, that someone should check to see what he was doing. The door was closed tight, like it was sealed into place. There were grown-up voices in the distance behind it, rumbling like a thunderstorm far away.

By then, the sun was high, and Kevin thought he would like a sandwich and some juice.

He would like a tuna fish sandwich on white bread, cut into triangles so that he could eat in from the points towards the crusts, and then leave the crusts behind on his plate. It would be even better if the bread was soft and fresh, so that he could flatten it into bread pills with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. And all the tuna, every scrap in the whole sandwich, would be light and pinkish and salty, with no fishy-tasting dark bits that pop up sometimes and wreck a whole sandwich.

Kevin thought he'd like a glass of apple juice, poured fast so that the bubbles stayed in place in a ring along the inside of the glass.

But there was no sandwich, and no apple juice.

Kevin watched the spider, and wondered if it would catch a fly and eat it. The web didn't look strong enough to hold anything, even if a fly accidently flew into the trap. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?” Kevin said sharply. “You'll go along with anything, as long as we're doing it your way.”

Then there was the sharp sound of glass breaking inside the house, and from the front windows, loud voices that got louder every time the wind from the back of the house puffed the curtains out against the window screens. Now and then, Kevin could hear snatches of words, sometimes his mother, her voice low and hard and biting off the end of every word, his father's a steady grumble that sometimes erupted into single clear words like “job” and “paid.” Once, a sound like someone smacking their hand flat down on the smooth surface of the countertop. Then, crying that sounded far away
to Kevin, like he was hearing it through a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. The sounds kept rolling from the house, like waves slapping in on the shore.

Kevin remembered the dog on the leash and wished he had a dog. It wouldn't have to be a big dog, he thought, just a friendly little dog with black eyes and a wet nose, the kind of dog that would drink water from the swimming pool and then look out through the fence with him. They could explore the back of the house and the bottom of the sharp cliff, and all the time the dog would be busy with its nose, head down and curious. Kevin thought he would let the dog sleep in his room, up on the foot of his bed if it wanted, and if there was ever a fire or burglars, the dog would wake up and lift its head and growl deep in his throat as a warning. After the first time the dog warned them about something dangerous, his parents would let the dog sleep anywhere it wanted.

After a while, Kevin found the last part of the deck where there was still a long blue triangle of shade, and he fell asleep on the boards watching a line of ants march around the corner of the house and down the siding to the ground. Just before he slept, Kevin was thinking about what kind of name his dog would have.

When he woke up, the sun had toppled over the cliff behind the house and the whole deck was in shadow. It was colder, and there was a white and blue police car parked on the road, the lights on its roof flashing and throwing the shadows of the fence palings across him and all around the front of the house.

A policeman got out of the car and closed the door. Then he walked up to the deck, reaching over the top of the gate so he could open the latch from the inside.

He nodded at Kevin and put one finger in front of his lips, but he didn't say anything. Kevin nodded back, and he thought the policeman smiled, but he wasn't sure. The policeman's face was pulled tight.

Kevin sat up, resting his back against the fence, and watched as the policeman reached a hand out for the doorknob and turned it without even knocking. The policeman's other hand was on top of the gun in his holster. Kevin could see the black butt end of the gun, its plastic handle patterned and rough. That's so you can get a good grip on it, he thought. So you can hold on tight when you shoot.

The policeman held on to his gun, although he didn't take it out of the holster, and with his other hand he pushed the door open and went in, the door angling closed behind him.

Kevin stood up, looked across the street and saw Mrs. Batten looking out through the front window of her house, but she only stayed there for a second. All along the street, Kevin saw people in their doorways, as if they were listening to some distant sound, like a mysterious silent dog whistle. He saw the way the neighbours were all tilting their heads, all turning a little bit the same way. He saw the Barretts and even Mrs. Connaught, who sometimes brought warm cookies over to his house on a big colourful plate with a rooster on it.

Kevin thought he would like a cookie now.

Another police car arrived, and then another, a second policeman, then a third. The second policeman went into the house. The third one took Kevin's hand in his and pulled him in tight alongside the house.

“We'll just wait right here,” the policeman said. He had short blond hair, and he sounded almost scared.

“Nothin' else on my dance card,” Kevin said, his voice low and gruff. “Maybe you should just sit down and shut up for once.”

The policeman looked at him and then towards the noises coming out of the house, but he didn't let go of Kevin's hand.

Soon, Kevin heard the rise and fall of a siren, getting closer and closer. By the time the ambulance swung wide around the narrow corner, all its lights flashing and taking up more than its own lane, there were people in almost every door along Fahey Street, and Mrs. Batten was standing on her lawn with both hands up in front of her mouth.

Kevin watched very carefully, without speaking or blinking. Watched as his father performed his disappearing act all over again, this time with his arms tight behind his back as if he was hiding something. The first policeman was holding on to his shoulder, as if he was trying to help him keep his balance. There were more policemen now, and there was a van. Inside the house, someone was taking photographs. Kevin could see the white flash from the camera bouncing off the walls.

He was thinking about tuna fish again. Then he thought that the ambulance attendants should be bringing the long
white stretcher out and his mother should be reaching out from under the sheet and holding his hand for a moment before they took her through the gate to the ambulance.

“Be a good boy.” That's what she would say, he decided. “Be a good boy and do what they tell you.” Kevin was sure he would start to cry.

But his mother didn't come out, and the ambulance lights kept flashing, the back doors open so he could see inside.

Behind the police cars, a blue car with a serious-looking woman behind the steering wheel pulled up next to the fence. Kevin watched the car sitting at the curb.

“I'm Mrs. Thornhill,” the woman said to Kevin after she climbed heavily up onto the deck next to him. “But you can call me Bo.”

Bo had a folded grey blanket in her hands, and she unfolded it and put it over Kevin's shoulders. It was rough on his skin, and he shrugged it off the first time, but she put it back over him and led him to her car, where she put him in the back seat and fastened his seat belt.

“There you go, dear,” she said.

Kevin didn't say anything.

Then she got into the front seat of the car and pulled her own seat belt across herself with a long, slow movement that looked difficult. It took a few tries before the tongue of the belt clicked into place. Then, Bo Thornhill said, “We're going to go for a ride. Here we go.”

Kevin watched out the window, watched the way the pickets on the deck seemed to jump when the car started
moving. He squinted his eyes, making the edges of the pickets flicker and go faster.

“Don't you care what I think?” he said to the smooth glass of the closed window as the lights started to hurry by, faster when his street joined a larger street and the car sped up.

He watched his breath fog on the inside of the glass when he said the words.

“Don't you even care?”

The inside of the car was still. When he listened carefully, it sounded like Bo Thornhill was humming quietly.

Then Kevin said: “Bitch.”

After a moment, he added, “Just like your goddamn mother.”

Up above, Kevin watched the flashing lights of a single airplane fingering the fading sky. The sound of its engines hadn't caught up yet, he thought, because it was still stretched out behind it across the air.

D
ENNIS MEANEY
was painting The Thunder apple green—a brilliant green that would make the roller coaster stand out even when the spring had brought the prairie into that brief emerald flush before the sun got around to browning it over. It wasn't the colour he would have chosen. Mr. Reinhoudt had picked the colour, even though Dennis told him just looking at the paint samples hurt his eyes.