And it was this part that would do his remembering later ... unless it became convenient for him to remember some other truth. Or any other truth, for that matter.
Pop Merrill raised the sledgehammer over his right shoulder and brought it down hard - not as hard as Kevin had done, but hard enough to do the job. It struck squarely on the roof of the imitation German cuckoo clock. The clock did not so much break or shatter as splatter; pieces of plastic wood and little gears and springs flew everywhere. And what that little piece of Pop which saw would remember (unless, of course, it became convenient to remember otherwise) were pieces of camera splattering everywhere.
He pulled the sledge off the block and stood for a moment with his meditating, unseeing eyes on the shambles. The bird, which to Pop looked exactly like a film-case, a Polaroid Sun film-case, was lying on its back with its little wooden feet sticking straight up in the air, looking both deader than any bird outside of a cartoon ever looked and yet somehow miraculously unhurt at the same time. He had his look, then turned and headed back toward the shed door.
'There,' he muttered under his breath. 'Good 'nuff.'
Someone standing even very close to him might have been unable to pick up the words themselves, but it would have been hard to miss the unmistakable tone of relief with which they were spoken.
'That's done. Don't have to worry about that anymore. Now what's next? Pipe-tobacco, isn't it?'
But when he got to the drugstore on the other side of the block fifteen minutes later, it was not pipe-tobacco he asked for (although that was what he would remember asking for). He asked for film.
Polaroid film.
CHAPTER 13
'Kevin, I'm going to be late for work if I don't -'
'Will you call in? Can you? Call in and say you'll be late, or that you might not get there at all? If it was something really, really, really important?'
Warily, Mr Delevan asked, 'What's the something?'
'Could you?'
Mrs Delevan was standing in the doorway of Kevin's bedroom now. Meg was behind her. Both of them were eyeing the man in his business suit and the tall boy, still wearing only his jockey shorts, curiously.
'I suppose I - yes, say I could. But I won't until I know what it is.'
Kevin lowered his voice, and, cutting his eyes toward the door, he said: 'It's about Pop Merrill. And the camera.'
Mr Delevan, who had at first only looked puzzled at what Kevin's eyes were doing, now went to the door. He murmured something to his wife, who nodded. Then he closed the door, paying no more attention to Meg's protesting whine than he would have to a bird singing a bundle of notes on a telephone wire outside the bedroom window.
'What did you tell Mom?' Kevin asked.
'That it was man-to-man stuff.' Mr Delevan smiled a little. 'I think she thinks you want to talk about masturbating.'
Kevin flushed.
Mr Delevan looked concerned. 'You don't, do you? I mean, you know about -'
'I know, I know,' Kevin said hastily; he was not about to tell his father (and wasn't sure he would have been able to put the right string of words together, even if he had wanted to) that what had thrown him momentarily off-track was finding out that not only did his father know about whacking off - which of course shouldn't have surprised him at all but somehow did, leaving him with feelings of surprise at his own surprise - but that his mother somehow did, too.
Never mind. All this had nothing to do with the nightmares, or with the new certainty which had locked into place in his head.
'It's about Pop, I told you. And some bad dreams I've been having. But mostly it's about the camera. Because Pop stole it somehow, Dad.'
'Kevin -'
'I beat it to pieces on his chopping block, I know. But it wasn't my camera. It was another camera. And that isn't even the worst thing. The worst thing is that he's still using mine to take pictures! And that dog is going to get out! When it does, I think it's going to kill me. In that other world it's already started to j-j-j '
He couldn't finish. Kevin surprised himself again - this time by bursting into tears.
By the time John Delevan got his son calmed down it was ten minutes of eight, and he had resigned himself to at least being late for work. He held the boy in his arms - whatever it was, it really had the kid shook, and if it really was nothing but a bunch of dreams, Mr Delevan supposed he would find sex at the root of the matter someplace.
When Kevin was shivering and only sucking breath deep into his lungs in an occasional dry-sob, Mr Delevan went to the door and opened it cautiously, hoping Kate had taken Meg downstairs. She had; the hallway was empty. That's one for our side, anyway, he thought, and went back to Kevin.
'Can you talk now?' he asked.
'Pop's got my camera,' Kevin said hoarsely. His red eyes, still watery, peered at his father almost myopically. 'He got it somehow, and he's using it.'
'And this is something you dreamed?'
'Yes ... and I remembered something.'
'Kevin ... that was your camera. I'm sorry, son, but it was. I even saw the little chip in the side.'
'He must have rigged that somehow -'
'Kevin, that seems pretty farf -'
'Listen,' Kevin said urgently, 'will you just listen?'
'All right. Yes. I'm listening.'
'What I remembered was that when he handed me the camera - when we went out back to crunch it, remember?'
'Yes ... and I remembered something.'
'I looked in the little window where the camera keeps count of how many shots there are left. And it said three, Dad! It said three!'
'Well? What about it?'
'It had film in it, too! Film! I know, because I remember one of those shiny black things jumping up when I squashed the camera. It jumped up and then it fluttered back down.'
'I repeat: so what?'
'There wasn't any film in my camera when I gave it to Pop! That's so-what.'
I had twenty-eight pictures. He wanted me to take thirty more, for a total of fifty-eight. I might have bought more film if I'd known what he was up to, but probably not. By then I was scared of the thing
'Yeah. I was, a little, too.'
Kevin looked at him respectfully. 'Were you?'
'Yeah. Go on. I think I see where you're heading.'
'I was just going to say, he chipped in for the film, but not enough - not even half. He's a wicked skinflint, Dad.'