CHAPTER SIX
HENRY OPENED THE DOOR to the hamster cage, and trickled food into the bowl. There was no movement from the nest in the corner.
“Chipper, come’ere,” he called softly, clicking his tongue. “Come on.”
Still no familiar twitch and sniffing nose. Henry put his hand in to rouse Chipper. He touched a cold, stiff body. He recoiled, jerking his hand back out and scratching it on the top of the cage.
Henry sat down on the edge of his bed, overwhelmed. Everything was falling apart. He’d lost Frank again. Everybody at school figured he’d had some improper relationship with an older man. His mom was hardly able to look at him. His pet, now, dead. Bobby was about the only one who hadn’t started treating him differently, and he was teething to beat the band, so he was grumpy eighty percent of the time he was awake. It was all just too much for one person to handle at a time. It was just too much.
The days passed excruciatingly slowly. Henry hated going to school, and hated being at home. There was no reprieve anywhere.
At the end of the week, Clint was home when Henry got in. Henry looked around, frowning.
“Ma home?” he questioned.
“No, she’s gone out.”
“And Bobby?”
“Yeah. She took him to that play center at the mall.”
“Oh,” Henry tried to figure out what to do. Go in his room and do his homework? Clint didn’t usually stay around when the house was empty. Henry wasn’t used to being alone with him, and was awkward, not sure how to behave.
“Your ma wanted me to have a talk with you,” Clint said.
Henry frowned at him, not understanding. His brows drew down and he shook his head uncertainly.
“A talk,” Henry repeated. What was this? What was happening now?
Clint rolled his eyes.
“The Talk,” he said significantly. “You know, the birds ‘n’ the bees.”
Henry grimaced and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
“I always figured you the type to do that by taking your kid to a hooker on his sixteenth birthday,” he offered.
For a moment Clint looked stunned. Then he burst into laughter, the tension broken.
“You’re some kid!” he guffawed. He dabbed at the corners of his eyes and continued to snicker. “But you’re not sixteen yet, huh?”
Henry nodded.
“Yeah, too bad. But I already know all that stuff. We take it in school, you know?” he hoped that Clint would just agree and let it go. Clint didn’t need to be teaching him anything.
Clint nodded.
“I know you’ve been taught all the biological stuff, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a lot to understand. It can be… confusing.”
Henry sighed.
“Ma’s still fussing about Frank. But nothing happened. I swear.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Clint said flatly, “you still gotta know.” For a moment he was silent, casting about for what to say, for how to introduce the topic. “A turn-on’s a turn-on, whether it comes from the cute girl next door or a dirty old man. Just because you… have feelings… it doesn’t mean that you’re… something you’re not…”
Henry felt his face flush, flooded with embarrassment. He clapped a hand to his forehead and swore under his breath. He didn’t normally cuss, but he didn’t know what to say. Clint was going to tell him, whether he wanted to hear or not. No matter how uncomfortable it was for both of them. Henry tried to look attentive and just nod his head, while attempting to focus his mind on something else.
The doorbell rang. Henry frowned. In this neighborhood, people generally knocked and walked in. He wiped his hands on the towel thrown over his shoulder, and picked Bobby up from the high chair. Henry went to the door and opened it. A couple of cops. Henry looked them over, as they quickly sized him up. Henry saw by their eyes that, like the store clerks at the mall, they discounted him as no threat. Just one spindly, geeky boy.
“Are you Henry Thomas?” one of them questioned.
Henry nodded.
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Are your folks home?”
“No. Just me.”
They exchanged glances, communicating with each other in silence, and then the taller one continued on.
“There was a complaint issued about you by Trent Lang, a boy at your school.”
“A complaint?” Henry repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Can we come in?”
“I guess.” Henry stepped back from the door, motioning them in. He was going to take them into the living room, but he hesitated at the kitchen doorway.
“I have dinner cooking,” he said uncertainly.
“We’ll come in there.”
Henry nodded. He put Bobby back in the high chair and checked the pots on the stove while the cops looked around, looking out of place.
“So what happened?” Henry prompted. “With Trent.”
“He found a nasty surprise in his locker.”
“Yeah? What?” Henry questioned, stirring a pot.
“You didn’t hear?” the other cop challenged.
“No… I’m sort of out of touch with the grapevine. Too much of a geek,” Henry shrugged.
“I see. Well maybe you could guess,” the tall one suggested.
“What was in his locker?” It sounded sort of like Bilbo’s riddle to Gollum in The Hobbit. How was he supposed to know? “I dunno. Something gross? A week-old lunch or something.”
“A dead hamster, dripping with what turned out to be ketchup, and a threatening note.”
“Really?” Henry snickered. “What’d he do? Gross out?”
“He was sick. And very upset. Is that what you were hoping for?”
Henry suppressed his humor quickly, sobering up and adopting a serious expression.
“He really thinks I did it? Why me?” Henry questioned.
“Apparently, there was quite a scene in the cafeteria a few days ago. He said some things that upset you.”
Quite a scene was one way to describe it. Henry had no doubt that all of the teachers and administrators had heard about the things that Trent had said. Certainly all of the students had. Things weren’t easy for Henry at school. Even the boys he had counted as his friends before avoided him, didn’t want to be seen talking with him. He was completely isolated, a pariah thanks to Trent.
“I’m not the first,” he commented. “Ask around. He’s a jerk and a bully. He’s upset a lot of people.”
He saw by their eyes that they already knew that.
“Yeah, he made me mad,” Henry agreed. “He would have ruined my reputation, if I’d had one to start with. But I don’t really care what anyone else thinks. I know the truth. I don’t go to school for the social life.”
“Well that’s a healthy attitude. You do well at school?”
“I get good marks. I do my homework.”
“Do you have a hamster?” the shorter one questioned.
“Yes.”
“Can we see it?”
Henry took Bobby out of the highchair.
“Sure. In my room.”
He led the way. In his bedroom, he put Bobby down on the floor and opened the door of Chipper II’s cage.
“Chipper, come’ere Chipper,” he called quietly, and picked the hamster up. He held the soft ball of fur against his chest. “So you think I’d kill a helpless creature to make a point? To get back at Trent for embarrassing me?”
“That was the suggestion,” the tall one admitted.
“That’s like how a serial killer or something starts out, isn’t it? Vivisecting animals?”
“That’s what they say.”
“I would never do that,” Henry declared.
He put the hamster back in the cage.
“You don’t have a record, do you, Henry?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never even had a detention at school.”
“And no one’s ever accused you of this kind of thing before?”
“No,” Henry shook his head. “Trent teases a lot of people. Maybe I’m at the top of the suspect list, but I’ll bet he’s ticked off a lot of other people lately.”
“Who do you think would do something like that?” the cop asked, as if they were friends, as if he really thought Henry might have some insight into it.
“I don’t know anyone that well. But then, they say you can’t tell, even if it is someone you know real well.”
“That’s been my experience. People who do these kinds of things usually keep their deviance hidden pretty deep.”
“So what are you going to do? You’re not gonna charge me, or tell my mom or anything, are you?”
“I don’t think we have any evidence to charge you. Just one person’s suspicion.”
Henry nodded, relieved.
“But I do think your mom should know what’s going on. She should know you’re having trouble at school with this guy.”
Henry was uncomfortable.
“My mom…”
“I’m sure you won’t be in trouble. But it helps parents to know what’s going on in their kid’s life.”
“But my mom’s sort of… she can’t handle stress. She’s not emotionally well.”
“What do you mean?”
“If things don’t go good, she gets sick. We have to protect her from things that might upset her.”
“But she’s well enough to take care of you,” the officer asked tentatively, looking around to re-evaluate whether he needed to call Social Services or something.
“As long as everything’s cool,” Henry assured him, “and I’m old enough to look after myself. When I was little, sometimes I had to go into foster care until she could get back on track.”
The cop shrugged.
“Well, you’re most experienced in dealing with her. You can decide what to tell her.”
“Thanks.”
“If you continue to have problems with this Trent character, you let someone know what’s going on, okay?” he suggested. “Sometimes these things can get out of hand. I wouldn’t want it to escalate to violence.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Nice to meet you, Henry.”
Henry escorted them out to the door. He saw them shake their heads as they walked away, and heard a murmur of conversation between them: “…nice kid… responsible.”
Henry hummed to himself as he finished making dinner. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
> > >“
Henry waited nervously, the clanging of the heavily barred doors behind him making his heart race. His stomach was tied in knots. Eventually a guard rejoined him and took him into the visiting area, where Frank sat on the other side of a pane of bulletproof glass, with an old style phone on either side. When Frank saw him, his face twisted into a scowl. He picked up his phone receiver.
“Henry. What are you doing here?” he demanded roughly.
“I wanted to see you. Hear your side of the story,” Henry explained, hurt by Frank’s manner.
“My side of the story?” Frank repeated. “I wasn’t supposed to be around kids. I knew that,” he said bluntly. “I broke parole.”
“No, I get that. I mean… before. Did ma just make that up?” he urged.
“You don’t remember,” Frank said, with a jerky shake of his head.
“I remember lots of things,” Henry said softly. “You being like a dad to me. I don’t remember anything… wrong,” he said uncomfortably.
Frank looked different in here. He had ragged gray whiskers that he hadn’t bothered to shave lately. He looked like he had lost weight. And instead of fatherly, he looked like a convict. Was it because of his attitude, how he felt being locked up in prison, instead of free? Or was it that Henry was looking at him with fresh eyes, clouded by suspicion?
“I didn’t think you remembered,” Frank said, swallowing hard. “You said you remembered, and I thought that… never mind what I thought,” he said abruptly. “I think a lot of things. I thought… things were okay between us.”
“You never did anything,” Henry asserted.
“I did love you like a son, Henry. I helped to raise you. And that just makes it that much worse.” His voice was rough, harsh. Despondent.
Henry waited, wanting to know, but not wanting to ask. He couldn’t put it into words. He couldn’t accuse Frank. Couldn’t rip his heart out.
“How do you think I feel?” Frank questioned. “Knowing that inside, I’m… a monster. I would do something, and then just be so sick, and ashamed, so disgusted with myself. I would swear that it would never happen again. And I meant it. But the temptation was just too much for me. The monster would poke its head out again. I was almost relieved when your mom found out. I thought I could start over, somewhere else, and it would be different.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. I still had the same feelings. And I let myself be caught again. I wanted them to lock me up.”
“Why?” Henry questioned.
“I didn’t want to hurt kids. But I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Why did they let you out again?”
“I got lots of counseling in here, lots of help. I thought I was over it. That I didn’t have to worry about… the monster in me coming out again. But when I saw you, and held Bobby—it all came back. The temptations were getting too strong. When I would touch you on the shoulder… look at you across the table… I didn’t know how to approach you. You said you remembered, and I didn’t know what kind of relationship you wanted or expected.”
Henry swallowed. The awkwardness that would pop up between him and Frank in odd moments… the look that Frank would give him… uncertain and questioning…
“What did you do to me?” Henry asked hoarsely.
“If you don’t remember,” Frank questioned. “Why do you want to know the details?”
“I always thought you were my friend. Now… I want to know the truth.”
“You don’t want to hear. And I don’t want to put it into words,” Frank said, shaking his head. His eyes were shiny with tears.
“I’ll find out,” Henry countered. There were ways he could find out. It didn’t have to be from Frank himself.
“Not from me,” Frank said steadily, staring at him. “You won’t hear any details from me.”