Chapter 27.
"No, Mop!" said Bryce, tugging a cardboard box away from his father's hands. "Mine." The empty Coke case traveled from room to room for several weeks, performing several functions for Bryce – as a table for his toy train, as a place to store stolen tissue from the roll in the bathroom, and as a weapon for chasing the dog. But the primary use of the Coke case was as a hat. The large rectangular shape blocked the boy's eyes when he donned it. In darkness, he felt his way around the kitchen and living room, inevitably running into corners and table legs.
"No!" said Bryce for no apparent reason, using his favorite word. Josh's patience grew thin over the boy's insubordination. With Rhea, he could nudge her behavior using carrots-and-sticks, rewarding her with candy or disallowing her favorite TV show. The same methods worked with employees. But not with the boy.
"My box!" said Bryce, his eyebrows arched and eyes glaring up at Josh. With a stern fatherly face, Josh aimed to show the boy his steadfastness. Children showed the honest face of human nature, as Josh interpreted it. People were self-serving from the moment they could reach for objects. The tree of knowledge was not an apple in the garden, it was learning the word Mine. Possession caused the biting of hands and yanking of toys – and also caused the corresponding responses of the bitten and the have-nots. Both biter and bitten, the reactions of children reminded Josh of adults. In watching children feud, he believe the entirety of the world's conflicts could be seen in its most basic state. Stealing, fighting, wailing, appealing, retaliating. All of the proclivities of adulthood were already manifested in diapers.
"Want Mommy!"
"Mommy's not here right now," said Josh, considering whether to spank or not to spank, as the boy did not seem to understand carrots-and-sticks. A stubborn boy. "Fine, take your box. But when you bump the wall and stub your toe again, I'm not going to come save you. Do you like running into things?"
"No, Mop!" Bryce shouted, nonsensically, reinforcing dissent with whatever his father had uttered. The boy's answer was no and his father was an implement for washing floors. A fine insult. With the Coke box planted firmly on his head again, he stumbled blindly toward danger, pulling the box's flaps tight over his ears.
"Have fun," said Josh, watching the boy trip on the carpet and step forward quickly to catch himself before falling. Occasionally Josh peered out the window, expecting to see Kathy return any moment. Not the first time after a heated argument when she fled the house, only to return in the evening, cowed and ready again to resume the status-quo.
The children became restless at the supper table, itching to put on their Halloween costumes, eating chicken nuggets and French fries, drinking orange soda. Josh's cooking skills relied on all things frozen with preparation times of less than twenty minutes. Dusk fell upon the Werther house. He watched with admiration as Dawn cleaned up her plate. His oldest daughter had a terrific appetite. Next to Dawn, Rhea dawdled in the ketchup and drew red lines using a fry, until Josh followed the nightly routine of coaxing her to eat, then demanding her to eat, then threatening to withhold something (in this case her Halloween candy), then adding a second threat of no trick-or-treating at all – until the five-year-old capitulated and ate a single chicken nugget and then resumed drawing ketchup lines with the French fry.
"Where do we usually go trick or treating?" asked Josh. "To the neighbors?"
Rhea and Dawn spoke at the same time. "In town." Dawn said, "Jinx! Co-jinx! With personal lock."
Rhea said, "Not fair!"
Dawn whacked Rhea in the shoulder twice and said, "No talking. That's two words, that's two hits."
Josh rolled his eyes. "Let me fix this. Rhea. There I said her name, now she can talk again."
"Not," said Dawn. "Not with a personal lock. Only if I say her name can she talk."
"Oh, I see," said Josh, unaware of the rules of the Jinx game. "So we go trick-or-treating in town?"
"Yes, Dad," said Dawn, open mouthed, pre-teen incredulity in her voice. "Don't you remember?"
"I forget," Josh said. On his pants, he felt a hand. Bryce reached into Josh's pocket and removed the wallet. Little feet scampered away with the stolen item in outstretched arms. Josh reached out and plucked the wallet out of Bryce's hands and said to Dawn, "There's a thief among us."
"Who is that picture of in your wallet?" asked Dawn, pointing to a transparent frame on the outside of the wallet that contained a baby picture.
"Well, that's you, Dawn. I've been carrying it around for years." Holding the wallet at arm's length to account for his far-sightedness, Josh said, "I sometimes take this picture out at work and wonder where the years have gone. And where my little girl has gone. Now she's a big girl."
"Let me see." Dawn took the wallet from Josh and inspected the photo, removing the picture from its sleeve to look closer. "That's not me. That's Rhea, Dad. Oops!" She covered her mouth.
"You said my name!" said Rhea, jumping in her seat. "I can talk again."
"The jinx is gone now?"
"Yes," said Rhea. "That's me in the picture, Dad?" Rhea dropped her nugget, happy to speak, and also latching onto the chance to avoid eating. "You carry a picture of me?"
"Only by accident," said Dawn. "Only because he thought it was a picture of me."
"Now, now, Dawn," Josh said, touching Dawn's nose. "I thought it was a picture of you. I'll get a new one of you. An updated one."
"And a new one of me, too?" asked Rhea.
"Only if you eat your food."
The phone interrupted Josh and he left his wallet on the table. He got up to answer it, but after a single ring the phone stopped. The signal from Shannon. A fever in her today, he mused. Twice in one day would be a first. Electricity started in his veins once again, forgetting the lingering threat of Judd Blanks for a moment, forgetting that his wife had stormed off and left the house, forgetting the three children in his charge for the afternoon. Lost in his want for another tryst, he did not notice the children divesting his wallet right before his eyes. With tunnel vision, he sat at the table, and slowly became aware of his children playing Indian poker with his driver's license and credit cards.
"Should we go for a ride, kids?" he said, snapping to focus, seeing his MasterCard sticking to Dawn's forehead. "Hey, give me those cards, those aren't play things." He snatched the wallet off the table, as their prying fingers had not yet discovered one item inside the deepest pocket of the wallet that formed a circular ring in the leather.
"I have the highest card," said Dawn.
"No," Josh said, noticing Rhea with a Visa stuck to her forehead. "Rhea wins, hers has the least debt. Now give me those. Bryce, spit it out," he said, pulling a wet Social Security card out of his mouth.
Rhea said, "Bryce put teeth marks on your card just like he does the Candyland cards. He tries to eat them."
"We can't even play Candyland anymore," Dawn said, "because we know all the cards by the teeth marks on the cards."
"Bryce," said Josh, "no more eating cards, of any kind." The phone jingled again and Josh jumped out of his seat to answer it. He rushed to reach the phone before the first ring ended and he answered with the words, "Don't hang up…" He wanted to tell Shannon to name a time and place, so they could skip the mailbox routine and save time and get straight to the bliss.
A man's voice on the other end replied. "I won't hang up. Where are we at on our negotiation?"
"Same place we were before," said Josh. "Nowhere. You threaten me again and I'll call the police. This is the last warning, Judd. I'm not playing games."
"Neither am I," said Judd, lacking the composure he maintained during his earlier threat. "This isn't a game, Werther. Think hard on what you're throwing away. I'll be stopping out at your house in a few hours. I'll start the countdown, and when time runs out, you'll have the right answer or Kathy will see the pictures. I almost hope you say no, just so I can see her fa
ce."
"You can have my answer right now, Judd. It's the same as it was this afternoon, the same as it will be tonight, the same as it will be a hundred years from now. If I were you, I'd crawl into a bottle tonight, because if you push this further, it'll be your last night of freedom for a while."
"I'm going to give you these few hours to mull it over."
"You've got nothing on me that I'm not prepared to deal with. Do you understand that? You don't have leverage on me. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want the town to find out? Did it?" It had never occurred to Josh until he said the words.
"You have until seven o'clock. And if you don't say yes, it's going to hurt."
"What are you going to do, Judd? Shoot me?"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do!" Judd shouted loud enough that Josh held the phone away from his face. The conversation ended. The kids watched him from the table, holding the cards but no longer playing, observing Josh with curiosity. To break the silence, he laughed and said, "Ok, let's get your costumes on." Thinking of Judd's ridiculous threat, he laughed louder. "Let's go get some candy, kids. What do you say to that?"
All three children jumped at the suggestion and shoved the chairs back from the table. The girls scattered to their rooms to put on the costumes, Bryce following in a sagging diaper. Josh restored his wallet and decided to gamble with a phone call, to skip the mailbox drop and speak to Shannon directly. In the aftermath of the bullying from Blanks, Josh felt bold, unafraid of getting caught, pressed to prove that no one pushed him around, that the world was his oyster. Besides, if Jack Hoffmann answered instead of Shannon, he could easily hang up and use the drop. Before he dialed the number, he peered up the staircase, checking that no little ears could hear him.
When Jack answered the phone, Josh did not hang up, but reacted by altering his voice, saying, "This is a polling call."
"A what?" asked Jack.
"Would you or your spouse be willing to answer a few questions about the upcoming election?"
Jack Hoffmann grunted. "I don't vote. Waste of time. My wife votes. Just a second."
After a pause, Shannon's voice entered Josh's ear and he used his normal voice. "Hello, Mrs. Hoffman. Do you like to play with fire? Do you like walking at great heights without a safety net?"
"Yes, to both," she said.
"I realize you have limited time and can only answer yes or no right now."
"That's right," she said.
"At which polling station would you prefer to vote this year? Answer 'one' for meeting at the back door at the bank, or 'two' for my uncle Walt's house, who is in Florida for the winter."
"Two," she answered. "Definitely, I prefer the second candidate."
"Good choice, Mrs. Hoffmann," said Josh. "There will be a lot of kids in town. Walt has a cozy camper, as you know."
"Yes."
"Now for costume – since it is Halloween – would you rather be Marilyn Quayle or Tipper Gore?"
"Marilyn," she said, and added in a whisper, "Monroe."
"I like that answer, I like it. And would you rather I be Al Gore or Dan Quayle?"
"You be JFK," she whispered.
"Six o'clock?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hoffmann. This concludes the poll." Josh set the phone down, and yelled up the staircase, "Kids, time to go to town!" while he simultaneously dialed his mother, calling in a relief chaperone to take the children trick-or-treating, while he played with fire, for the last time.