Black Evening

  Granite Falls. That's not too far from here. My Dad said some nut from there could easily drive to other towns like ours. I wasn't going to give up my route, though, just because of what happened there. Like I said, I'm used to the money I make and going downtown on Saturdays to buy a new CD. But I felt kinda fluttery in my stomach. I sure didn't want to disappear myself. I'm old enough to know about the creepy things perverts do to kids. So my Dad went with me the next few mornings on my route, and I took a flashlight when I started going alone again, and I delivered the papers fast, believe me. You can't guess what the wind scraping through bushes behind you in the dark can make you feel when it's early and there's nobody around to shout to for help. But after a month when nothing happened, I started feeling easier, ashamed of myself for getting scared like I was a little kid. I slipped back into my old routine, delivering the papers half-asleep, looking forward to the homemade Orange Julius my Mom always has waiting for me when I get back from the route. I read the comics in the Gazette before I catch an extra hour of sleep till it's time for school. After being out in the snow, those blankets feel great.

  Three weeks ago, another paper boy disappeared, this time right here in Crowell, and you remember how the neighbors searched the same as in Granite Falls, and his picture was in the Gazette, and the parents offered a reward, but they didn't find him, only his sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes like the last time. The police said it looked like the same M.O. That's fancy police talk for "pattern." But heck, you don't have to go to police school to figure out that both kids disappeared the same way. And one kid might have run away, but not two of them, leastways not in the snow.

  Oh, yeah, that's something I forgot to mention. Both mornings when the kids disappeared, it was snowing real hard, so there weren't any tracks except for the neighbors searching. No kid runs away in a blizzard, I'll tell you. The rest of us paper boys nearly went on what my Dad calls a strike. Actually it was our parents wanted us to quit delivering. They demanded police protection for us, but the police said we were overreacting, we shouldn't panic, and anyway there weren't enough police to protect us all. The Gazette said if we stopped delivering, the paper would go out of business. They asked our parents to keep a close watch on us, and they made us sign a contract agreeing to give up seventy-five cents a month, so the paper could insure us in case something happened to us on the route.

  Well, that made my Dad twice as mad. He told me to quit, and I almost did, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the money I like to spend on Saturdays. My Dad says I was born a capitalist and I'll probably grow up to vote Republican, whatever that means, but I told him I won a ribbon last year on the sixth-grade track team, and I could run faster than any pervert, I bet. Well, he just laughed and shook his head and told me he'd go out with me every morning, but my Mom looked like she was going to cry. I guess Moms are like that, always worrying. Besides, I said, I only have to worry if it's snowing. That's the only time the kids disappeared. My Dad said that made sense, but all my Mom said was "We'll see" which is always bad news, like if you ask for a friend to stay overnight and your Mom says "We'll see," you figure she means "no".

  But she didn't. The next morning, my Dad went with me on the route, and it was one of those sharp cold times when your boots squeak on the snow and the air's so clean you can hear a car start up three blocks away. I knew for sure I'd hear any pervert if he tried sneaking up on me, and anyway my Dad was with me, and all the other carriers had it as easy as I did. Still, every morning I got up praying it wasn't snowing, and lots of times it had snowed in the night but stopped, and when I saw the house across from ours clear in the streetlight, I felt like somebody had taken a rope from around my chest.

  So we went on like that, getting up at five-thirty and doing the papers, and once my Dad got the flu, so my Mom went with me. You can believe it, she was nervous, more than me I guess. You should have seen us rushing to finish the route all the time we were looking over our shoulders. Mr. Carrigan was yelling at his wife like always, and Mr. Blanchard was crying for his own wife, and Mr. Lang was drinking beer when he opened his door and scared me, getting his paper. I almost wet my pants, no fooling. He asked if I wanted to step in and get warm, but I backed off, saying, "No, Mr. Lang, no, thank you," holding up my hands and shaking my head. I forgot about his stairs behind me. I bet I'd have broken my arm even sooner than now if he'd shoveled them. But the snow made them soft, and when I tumbled to the bottom, I landed in a drift. He tried to help me, but I jumped up and ran away.

  Then last Sunday I woke up, and even before I looked out, I knew from the shriek of the wind that it was snowing. My heart felt hard and small. I almost couldn't move. I tasted this sour stuff from my stomach. I couldn't see the house across the street. The snow was flying so thick and strong I couldn't even see the maple tree in our front yard. As warm as I'd been in bed, I shivered like I was outside and the wind was stinging through my pajamas. I didn't want to go, but I knew that'd be all the excuse my Mom'd need to make me quit, so I forced myself. I dressed real quick, long under-wear and the rest, and put on my down-filled coat that almost doesn't fit me anymore and my mitts and ski mask, and it wasn't just my Mom or Dad who went with me that time, but both of them, and I could tell they felt as scared as I was.

  Nothing happened, as far as we knew. We finished the route and came home and made hot chocolate. All our cheeks were red, and we went back to sleep, and when we woke up, my Dad turned on the radio. I guess you know what we heard. Another paper boy had disappeared, right here in Crowell. That's an M.O. if I ever heard of one. Three carriers gone, and two of them from town, and all three when it was snowing.

  The storm kept on, so this time there weren't even any tracks from the police and the neighbors searching. They couldn't find his sack of papers. A couple of people helping out had to go to the hospital because of frost bite. The missing boys didn't live on our side of town, but even so, my Dad went over to help. With the streets so drifted, he couldn't drive — he had to walk. When he came back after dark with his parka all covered with snow, he said it was horrible out there. He couldn't get warm. He just kept sitting hunched in front of the fireplace, throwing logs on, rubbing his raw-looking hands and shivering. My Mom kept bringing him steaming drinks that she called hot toddies, and after an hour, he slumped back snoring. Mom and me had to help him up to bed. Then Mom took me back downstairs and sat with me in the living room and told me I had to quit.

  I didn't argue. Crowell's got forty thousand people. If you figure three-quarters of them get the paper and most of the carriers have forty customers, that's seven hundred and fifty paper boys. I worked that out on my Dad's pocket calculator. Kinda surprising — that many paper boys — if you're not a carrier yourself. But if you're on the streets at five-thirty every morning like I am, then you see a lot of us. There's a kid on almost every corner, walking up somebody's driveway, leaving a paper in front of a door. Not counting the kid in Granite Falls, that's two missing carriers out of seven hundred and fifty. That might make the odds seem in my favor, but the way I figured it, and my Mom said it too, that many paper boys only gave the nut a lot of choice. I like to play video games and all, but the money I earned wasn't worth disappearing the way those other boys did with my sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes, which by the way is where they found the third kid's sack like the others, when the snow stopped. After we put my Dad to bed and my Mom looked out the living room window, she made a funny noise in her throat. I walked to her and saw the house across the street, all shimmery, covered with snow and glinting from the streetlight. Any other time, it would've looked peaceful, like a Christmas card. But I felt sick, like all that white had something ugly underneath. I was standing on a vent for the furnace, and I heard the gas burner turn on. Warm air rushed up my pajama leg. All the same, I shivered.

  I've told you I quit. But my Dad says we've got something called a body clock inside us. It comes from being used to a regular routine, like when you know even if you d
on't have your watch on that it's time for your favorite TV program or you know you'd better get home 'cause your Mom'll have supper ready. I wasn't going to deliver papers, but I woke up at five-thirty the same as usual, even if Mom didn't wake me. For just a second, I told myself I'd better hurry. Then I remembered I wasn't going to deliver the papers anymore. I slumped back in bed and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept squinting at the digital clock Mom and Dad gave me last Christmas, and the red numbers kept changing, getting later. 5:40. Then 5:45. At last I couldn't bear feeling guilty, like I'd done something wrong even though I hadn't. I crawled from bed and opened my curtains and peered at the dark snow in our driveway. I could see the tire tracks on the street where the guy from the Gazette had pulled up and thrown my bundle. It was all by itself in the driveway, sunk in the snow. It was wrapped in a garbage bag to keep it dry, this big black shape with all this white around it.

  I kept staring at it, and the Gazette office hadn't been open the day before, on Sunday. Even on Monday, they're not open till eight, so there wasn't any way for the paper to know I'd quit. I kept thinking of my customers getting up, looking forward to reading the paper at breakfast, going to the door, not finding it. Then I thought of all the calls we'd soon be getting, forty of them, wanting to know where their paper was. The more I thought about it, the more I felt worse, till I reminded myself of what my Dad always says: "There's only one way to do a job, and that's the right way." I put on my longjohns, my jeans and sweater and parka. I woke up my Dad, whose face looked old all of a sudden, I guess from being out in the storm searching the day before. I told him I had to deliver the papers, and he just blinked at me, then nodded with his lips pursed like he didn't agree but he understood.

  My Mom made a fuss as you'd expect, but my Dad got dressed and went with me. I wasn't sure if I was shaking from the cold or from being scared. It wasn't snowing, though, and even shivering I knew I'd be all right. We hurried. We'd started a half hour late, but we got the papers to every customer without seeing any tire tracks in their driveway to tell us they'd left for work already. A couple places, we met a customer shoveling drifts, puffing frost from his mouth from the work, and every one of them looked glad to see me, like they'd been sure they weren't going to get a paper and here I'd been as dependable as ever. They grinned and promised me a tip when I came around next time to collect, and I guess I grinned as well. It made me feel warm all of a sudden. Even Mr. Lang, who's normally so hard to get along with, came out and patted me on the back the way the track coach sometimes does. My Dad and I did the route the fastest we ever had, and when we got home, my Mom had pancakes ready and syrup hot from the Radarange. I guess I'd never been so hungry. My Dad even gave me a little coffee in a glass. I sipped it, feeling its steam on my nose, actually liking the bitter taste. Then my Dad clicked his cup against my glass, and I felt like I'd grown in the night. My chest never felt so big, and even my Mom had to admit it, we'd done the right thing.

  But that didn't change what had happened. At eight, just before I left for school, my Mom phoned the paper and told them I was quitting. When I went outside, I felt relieved, like something heavy had been taken off my back, but that didn't last long. A block from school, my stomach started getting hard, and I couldn't stop thinking I'd lost something or like the track season was over or I'd missed a movie I was looking forward to. It's funny how you get used to things, even a job which I know isn't supposed to be fun, that's why it's called a job, but I liked being a paper boy, earning money and all, and I could tell I was going to feel empty now from not doing it.

  All morning, I couldn't concentrate on what the teacher said. She asked if I was sick, but I told her I was only tired, I was sorry, I'd be okay. I tried my best to act interested, and when I got home for lunch, my Mom said the paper had called to ask if they could send somebody over to talk to us around suppertime. She'd done her hardest to tell them no, but I guess they insisted, 'cause someone was coming anyhow, and I ate my hamburger fast from being curious and I'll admit excited from getting attention.

  The afternoon was the longest I ever remember. After school, I didn't care about hanging around with the guys. I just stayed at home and played video games and watched the clock on the TV recorder. My Dad came home from work a little after five. He was just opening a can of beer when the doorbell rang. I don't know why but my arm muscles hurt when he went to the door, and it was Sharon from the paper. She's the one who came to the house and explained how to do my route when I first got started. Lots of times, she stopped at the house to give me extra cards for figuring out how much my customers owed me. Once she brought me the fifty dollars worth of movie passes that I won from going around the neighborhood and convincing the most new customers than any other carrier in town to take the Gazette in the morning instead of the Chronicle from Granite Falls, which is the evening paper, but you know that, I guess.

  Sharon's younger than my Mom. She's got a pony tail and rosy cheeks, and she reminds me of the student teacher from the college here in town that's helping my regular teacher. Sharon always shows more interest in talking to me instead of to my parents. She makes me feel special and grown up, and she always smiles and tells me I'm the best carrier she's got. But last Monday she wasn't smiling. She looked like she hadn't slept all night, and her cheeks were pale. She said so many carriers had quit and no new carriers wanted to take their place that the paper was worried, like it might go out of business. She said her boss had told her to go around to all the carriers that had quit and tell them the paper would pay them three dollars extra a week if they stayed, but my Mom wouldn't let me answer for myself. My Mom said no. But it was like Sharon hadn't heard. She said the Gazette would promise that any morning it snowed the papers didn't have to be delivered, and I could see my Dad agreed it was a good idea, but my Mom kept shaking her head from side to side. Then Sharon rushed on and said at least let her have a few days to find a replacement for me, which was going to be hard because I was so dependable, and that made my heart beat funny. Please give her a week, she said. If she couldn't find somebody else by next Monday, then I could go ahead and quit and she wouldn't bother us again. But at least let her have the chance — her voice sounded thick and chokey — because her boss said if she couldn't find kids to do the routes he'd get somebody else to do her job.

  Her eyes looked moist, like she'd been out in the wind. All of a sudden I felt crummy, like I'd let her down. I wanted to make myself small. I couldn't face her. For the first time, she paid more attention to my parents than to me, blinking at my Mom, then my Dad, sorta pleading, and my Mom didn't seem to breathe. Then she did, long and deep like she felt real tired. She said my Dad and her would have to talk about it, so they went to the kitchen, and I tried not to look at Sharon while I heard them whispering, and when they came back, my Mom said okay, for a week, till Sharon could find a replacement but no longer. In the meantime, if it was snowing, I wasn't going out to deliver the papers. Sharon almost cried then. She kept saying thanks, and after she left, my Mom said she hoped we weren't making a mistake, but I knew I wasn't. I figured out what had been bothering me — not quitting, but doing it so fast, without making sure my customers got their paper and explaining to them and saying good-bye. I was going to miss them. Funny how you get used to things.

  The next morning, I didn't feel nervous as much as glad to have the route back, at least for a few more days. It was one of the last times I'd see my customers' houses that early, and I tried to memorize what it was like, taking the paper to the Carrigans who still kept arguing, and Mr. Blanchard crying for his wife, and Mr. Lang still drinking beer for breakfast. My Dad went with me that Tuesday, and you could see other parents helping their kids do the routes. I'd never seen so many people out so early, and in the cold, their whispers and their boots squeaking were as clear as the sharp reflection of the streetlights off the drifts. Nothing happened, though the police kept looking for the boys who'd disappeared. And Wednesday, nothing happened either. The fact is, by Satur
day, everything had gone pretty much back to normal. It was never snowing in the morning, and my Dad says people have awful short memories, 'cause we heard how a lot of paper boys who'd quit had asked for their routes back and a lot of other kids had asked for the routes that needed a carrier. I know in my own case I'd stopped feeling scared. Pretty much the opposite. I kept thinking about Monday and how it was closer all the time and maybe I could convince my Mom to let me go on delivering.

  Saturday was clear. When my Dad came in from the driveway, carrying the bundle of papers, he said it wasn't hardly cold at all out there. I looked through the kitchen window toward the thermometer on the side of the house, and the light from the kitchen reached it in the dark. The red line was almost at thirty-two. I wouldn't need my ski mask, though I made sure to take my mitts, and we packed the papers in my sack, and we went out. That early, the air smelled almost sweet from being warmer than usual, and under my longjohns, I started to sweat. We went down Benton, then over to Sunset, and started up Gilby. That's the hardest street 'cause it's got this steep long hill. In summer, I'm always puffing when I ride my bike to the top, and in winter, I have to stop a minute going up with my heavy boots and coat on. How we did it was my Dad took one side of the street and I took the other. We could see each other because of the streetlights, and by splitting the work, we'd do the route twice as fast. But we'd got a note about a new customer that morning, and my Dad couldn't find the house number. I kept delivering papers, going up the hill, and the next thing I knew, I'd reached the top. I looked back down, and my Dad was a shadow near the bottom.