“Maybe he damn well should live in fear of you.”
“Watch your language in front of the children.”
“Fuck the children!” He wrenched Timmy’s collar hard enough to make the boy gasp. “You don’t keep a watch on them. You don’t care what happens to them. You let them wander and that’s how they get hurt. It’s bitches like you that make the world the way it is.”
The trembling in his arms intensified, spreading through Timmy and making him queasy. He tried to pull away but the man held firm. When he looked up he saw that Mr. Marshall’s face was swollen with rage.
“Let them go.”
He didn’t.
Timmy’s mother took a step forward, teeth clenched. “I said, let them go, Wayne. Let them go and get the hell off my property or we’re going to have a serious problem.”
Mr. Marshall dropped Kim’s wrist. Timmy felt the grip on his T-shirt loosen. They went to his mother’s side. Mrs. Quinn tousled their hair and told them to go into the kitchen. As they did, Timmy heard Mr. Marshall mutter darkly, “We already have a problem. But I’ll fix that. You’ll see.”
CHAPTER NINE
After Mr. Marshall stormed off, Timmy’s mother made the kids some lemonade and ushered them into the living room. Timmy noticed the ice clinked more than usual as she set the glasses down on coasters for them, her smile flickering as much as the lights. She switched on the television and changed the channel to cartoons. Spider-man twitched and swung through the staticky skies of the city. Rain drummed impatient fingers on the roof. Kim scooted closer to Timmy and, though pleased, the boy guessed the image of Mr. Marshall’s hands bursting from the trees was still lingering in her mind. Those hands had terrified him too. Even when he realized it was his friend’s father that he was looking at and not the mangled squash countenance of The Turtle Boy, he hadn’t felt much better. Or safer. Though Pete’s dad had never been the friendliest of people, it seemed he’d become a monster since the start of summer.
They watched cartoons for a few hours until Timmy’s father came home, cheerful though soaked from the hissing downpour. With a degree of shame, Timmy watched his father’s good mood evaporate as his mother related the day’s events. Kim shrank down further in her seat.
Eventually his father sat at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee and called him over. His mother ferried a basket of laundry into the den and Kim watched with fretful eyes as he swallowed and slowly obeyed.
“Your mother tells me you were down at the pond today?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Timmy felt as if his chin were the heaviest thing in the world. It was a titanic struggle to meet his father’s eyes.
“Didn’t we discuss this? Didn’t I ask you to stay away from there?”
Timmy nodded.
“But you went anyway.”
Timmy nodded again, his gaze drawn to his shoes until he caught himself and looked up.
His father stared for a moment and then shook his head as if he’d given up on trying to figure out some complicated math problem. “Why?”
“We were trying to find The Turtle Boy.”
He expected his father to explode into anger, but to his surprise he simply frowned. “This is the kid you said you and Pete saw?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you really did see a kid down there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was everything you told me about him true, even the stuff about the wound he had?”
“It was horrible. He kept dipping it in the water. Said he was feeding the turtles.”
His father nodded and poked his glasses back into the red indentation on the bridge of his nose. “It sounds like one of your comic book stories, but I believe you.”
Timmy was stunned. “You do?”
“Yes. And I think the reason Mr. Marshall is so mad is because he’s been drinking like a fish the past few weeks. It doesn’t help to have you hanging around with his kid and making trouble.”
“But I wasn’t making tr—”
“I know, but the way he sees it you are. Wayne is going through a tough time, Timmy. His wife passed away, he started messing with…well, with bad stuff I don’t really want to go into. He drinks too much and it’s starting to get to him, to make him crazy, so I think it would be better to avoid him from now on.”
This had never occurred to Timmy. His mind buzzed with possibilities. “But what about Pete?”
A sigh. “Son, I think it’s time for you to start making new friends, like Kimmie there. Now wait — before you get upset. If you wanted to play with Pete I wouldn’t raise a hand to stop you, but I found out that Wayne put his house up for sale this morning. And with the way things are developing around here, he’ll have it sold in a heartbeat, especially at the low price he’s asking for it. So I don’t think they’re going to be our neighbors for much longer.”
Timmy was appalled. “It’s not fair. Pete’s my best friend.”
“I know,” said his father, clamping a hand on Timmy’s shoulder. “And God knows he’s not having an easy time of it either. It’s not right what Wayne’s putting him through.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. I’m going to ask you now to stay away from Pete’s dad, and this time I want you to promise you’ll do as I say.”
Timmy was buoyed a little by this new alliance in the dark world his summer had become. “I promise. He scares me anyway.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does. He had no right to speak to you or your mother like he did. I’m going to go over there and have a few words with him.”
Timmy felt something cold stir inside him, an icy current in the tide of pride he felt at his father’s bravery.
“Don’t.”
His father nodded his understanding. “He’s a bully, but only with kids. He’ll think twice before crossing me, I guarantee it. He owes all of us an apology and I’ll be damned if I’ll let him be until I get it.”
“Are you going to fight?”
“No. That’s the last thing we’ll do. You know how I feel about violence, what I tell you about violence.”
“But…can’t you go over there tomorrow?” Timmy gestured toward the rain-blurred kitchen window where the storm tugged at the fir trees. “It’s nasty out there. You’ll get drenched.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not exactly bone dry as it is.”
“But—”
“Timmy, I won’t be long. We’ll just have a little chat, that’s all.”
But Timmy wasn’t reassured. The storm was worsening, buffeting the house and blinding the windows. Lightning flashed, ravenous thunder at its heels, the sibilance of the rain an enraged serpent struggling to find entry through the cracks beneath the doors. It was the kind of weather when bad things happened, Timmy thought, the kind when monsters stepped out of the shadows to bask in the fluorescent light of the storm, drinking the rain and snatching those foolish enough to venture into their domain.
And his father wanted to do that very thing.
“Why don’t you wait until the storm passes?” he asked, though he could see the resolve that had hardened his father’s face when he shook his head and downed the dregs of his coffee.
“Timmy, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Timmy didn’t agree. There was plenty to worry about, and as he watched his father stand and steel himself against the weather and the things it hid, he felt his legs weaken. A voice, calling feebly to him from the far side of the sweeping desert of his imagination, told him that he would remember this moment later, that summoning it would bring a taste of grief and regret and guilt. And failure. It would etch itself on his brain like an epitaph, inescapable and persistent, haunting his dreams. He felt he now stood at the epicenter of higher forces that revolved around him in the guise of a storm, that this little family play was taking place in its eye, tragedy waiting in the wings.