In the Middle of the Night

  He was without enthusiasm for anything these days.

  He seldom consulted the editorial page, although he sometimes glanced at the political cartoon or forced himself to read the editorial. “You must learn about your new country, and the newspaper is the best place,” his father said. Dutifully, he scanned the editorial, something dull about wastewater treatment. His eye fell upon the Letters to the Editor space at the bottom of the page and the brief caption over the single letter printed there: “Case Open?”

  After reading the letter, he dropped the newspaper to the carpet, knowing at last that the tragedy would go on forever, that he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

  That knowledge was lodged within him like a block of ice that would never melt.

  On his first day back at school, John Paul was glad for the bigness of Wickburg Regional. The corridors were filled with hurrying students as the bells sounded at regular intervals. No one paid attention to him. Remembering the photograph in the newspaper, he tried to shrivel into himself, wishing himself invisible. He was relieved to find that students regarded him indifferently, as usual. He avoided looking into other people’s eyes, even the teachers’.

  The only awkward moment came when he reported to his homeroom. He became aware of eyes staring at him as he took his seat in the next-to-last row, near the window. He wondered if a father or mother of one of these students had written that letter to the editor.

  Mr. Stein rapped on the desk with a ruler and said: “We are happy to have you back, John Paul.” Then glancing across the rows of students: “Isn’t that right, class?” A demand in his voice.

  “Right,” someone called out, followed by other friendly greetings.

  John Paul blushed furiously with both pleasure and embarrassment, as the bell rang for classes to begin.

  As usual, he was not called upon to recite. A few classmates nodded at him, neither friendly nor unfriendly, just as they had before the tragedy. As he walked out of U.S. history, a kid he did not know grabbed his hand and pumped it. “Glad you’re okay,” he said.

  Stunned, his palm instantly wet, John Paul managed to say, “Thank you.”

  He was stunned again during lunchtime when, eating alone, he saw the blond girl who had helped that day at the theater coming toward his table. He had looked up from the unappetizing hamburger plate—all food was still unappetizing to him—to see her heading his way, her eyes seeking his, her long blond hair bouncing lightly on her shoulders.

  He rose to greet her.

  She smiled at him, with her lips and her deep brown eyes, the eyes such a contrast to the fairness of her skin and her blond hair.

  “Thanks for answering my letter,” she said.

  He felt his mouth drop open in astonishment. And could not close it, as if his jaw had frozen in place.

  He had answered Nina Citrone’s letter, not this girl whose name he didn’t even know.

  “Don’t you remember me?” she said. “You must get a lot of mail. I’m Nina Citrone, from the theater …”

  “Nina Citrone?” he said. Stumbling on her name, feeling stupid.

  “Yes.”

  “But …”

  “But what?…”

  “You said I was kind and helpful that day …”

  “Oh, but you were. I was terrified. My parents never let me work, never let me do anything, and all those kids, I was really nervous …”

  “You did not look nervous …” Forgetting his contractions.

  “I know. I put on this big act. Like before the oral book reports. Did I yawn? I have these terrible things I do, like yawn, when I’m nervous. Like talking to you now. Know what? My knees are shaking. And I’ll probably yawn any minute …”

  She began to yawn, maybe on purpose, and he joined her with a fake yawn and they laughed together, as if they were old friends or maybe more than friends. Clatters of dishes and metal trays faded in the distance as they walked out of the cafeteria together, talking, although later he could not remember what they said, except that she looked at him with a kind of tenderness in her eyes. He could not believe his good fortune, walking in the corridor with a beautiful girl beside him.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she said when they reached her homeroom. “Maybe we can sit together at lunch sometime.”

  He swallowed, took a big risk: “Tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” she said, and actually began to blush, her pale skin turning pink, a beautiful pink. With a sweet smile, she was gone.

  Heart singing, light in his heart instead of darkness for the first time in ages, he made his way to his homeroom. Walked to his desk without worrying about whether anyone looked at him or not. Sat down and lifted the desktop to pick up his social studies textbook. Saw the sheet of paper on top of the book, the words written in blunt letters:

  Welcome Back,

  Killer.

  Part Three

  Denny Colbert stood in the kitchen of the apartment in Barstow waiting for the telephone to ring again. He had answered the day before for only the second time in his life, and the echo of that strange intimate voice still lingered in his mind. He was also exhilarated by the mere fact of finally having answered the phone, amazed that he had waited so long.

  He went to the window and looked out, parting the white lace curtains. The neighborhood to which they had moved four months ago was a mixture of apartment buildings, some old, some new, with small neat lawns out front and space for small vegetable or flower gardens in the backyards.

  Nothing of interest in the street. A woman leading a procession of four small children, linked by a length of clothesline. There was only one tree on the entire street, a scraggly, pathetic maple whose leaves, even in September, had begun to shrivel and turn brown at the edges. He remembered the girl at the bus stop and what she had said about him and the trees. He wondered whether the girl would show up again. He should have been nicer to her. Should have been more civil.

  A thump from the porch brought him to the kitchen door. The Barstow Patriot lay in a plastic wrap on the porch floor.

  He held the newspaper in his hand but did not unfold it, thinking of another newspaper headline from long ago, a headline he had thought was buried forever in the past but jarred loose now and vivid in his memory:

  GLOBE HORROR LINGERS AFTER 20 YEARS

  He had been eleven years old when he’d found out that his father had been involved in a tragedy in which twenty-two children died. He had read about it in a kitchen much like this one, startled to see his father’s picture in the newspaper, his eyes zooming over the sentences as the cruel words leaped from the page—bomb threats to his home … harassing telephone calls … hate mail …

  At last, he had finally learned the secret behind those middle-of-the-night calls, the mysterious letters, why they moved so often, why his father went from job to job. And why he seldom smiled and made such strict rules: Don’t answer the telephone, Denny. Don’t let anyone in the house. Be careful whom you choose for friends.

  Denny shook his head as he thought of how he had lived with those rules, not daring to break them.

  Until yesterday.

  But I’m sixteen now—I want to be like other kids. Answer the telephone, get my license.

  He looked at the telephone, silent, inanimate, wondering if it would ring again. Not sure whether he wanted it to ring. Jesus, what did he want, anyway?

  I want to get out of here.

  That’s what he did. Put on the leather flight jacket that always cheered him up. Zipped it. Then out the door and down the stairs and into the street. Stood there, uncertain. He glanced at his watch. His mother wouldn’t be home for another hour and a half, his father even later.

  He caught a bus downtown and walked from the bus stop to the library. The whiff of books and bindings greeted him as he entered through the sliding doors, and he immediately thought of Chloe. They used to meet at the Bartlett Public Library, pretending to study and sometimes actually studying, other times writing
notes to each other and sliding them across the glistening oak table. He didn’t want to think of Chloe now, and he shut her out of his mind as he went to the desk and asked if his permanent library card had arrived. Not yet, the young librarian said. She was blond, and revealed dimples when she smiled. Her smile set off a glow within him until he noticed that she smiled automatically at everybody the same way.

  No new 87th Precinct books in the mystery section. Or least none he had not read. The library buzzed with after-school activity, kids doing research or just hanging out.

  Dust motes danced in the splashes of sunlight slanting through the windows. The memory of Chloe and that terrible school pageant clutched painfully at his heart. It had been a pageant dramatizing historical events in Worcester County: the Underground Railroad before the Civil War; Indian attacks on the town of Lancaster; the loss of Wickburg millionaire and philanthropist Daniel S. Hobart on the Titanic; and the reenactment of twenty-two children trapped in the Globe Theater fire and balcony collapse, in Wickburg, narrated by Chloe Epstein. Her words created an uproar when Denny’s English teacher, Mr. Harper, leaped to his feet to denounce the presentation. “Don’t you know what you’ve done to a student who’s sitting right here in the auditorium?” Pointing to Denny and, despite his best intentions, bringing the spotlight of notoriety upon him.

  Everybody had apologized later, Chloe in tears, almost hysterical—“I never connected your father with the tragedy” … “I thought the name was a coincidence” … “I’m so sorry, so sorry”—her words running into each other, stumbling over each other, grief ugly and raw on her face. He believed her, of course, but ruin had set in, his days at Bartlett Middle School spoiled forever as the story reached the newspapers and television, and Denny was weak with relief when his father said they were moving away. In the Bartlett Public Library, whispering furiously in a Saturday afternoon silence, he vowed to keep in touch with Chloe, said he would send her his address when his family got settled. But he never did.

  Fleeing the library now and the memories, he caught a bus to his neighborhood but lingered in the street. The 24-Hour Store beckoned and he went inside, bought a Snickers, chewed it while perusing the magazines, aware of the store manager stationed at the cash register, glancing his way occasionally.

  As he made his way to the doorway, he heard the manager say: “You live around here, don’t you?”

  Denny stopped in his tracks. He saw that the manager wasn’t the manager, after all. His name was Dave and he was, as the badge on his lapel made known, the “Ass’t. Mgr.”

  Puzzled as well as surprised, Denny said, “Yes, that gray three-decker down the street …”

  “You don’t want a job, do you?” Really surprised this time.

  Dave went on: “Big turnover here—I’ve only been here a month myself. The boss is always looking for more help, especially somebody in the neighborhood.”

  “I never worked in a store before,” Denny said, angry at himself for what he was saying. Not the right time to be negative. “I never worked anywhere. I just turned sixteen …” Shut up, he told himself.

  “You don’t need experience on this job,” Dave said. “The computer does it all for you. You punch in the amount, the computer tells you how much change to give. You don’t even have to know how to add or subtract. You could flunk kindergarten and still do this job. Pretty good pay, too. Fifty cents an hour over the minimum. Name your own hours …”

  He was about to say: I’ll have to ask my father. Instead, he said: “I’ll think about it …”

  “Okay,” Dave said. He seemed like a nice guy. “The boss is all right, leaves you pretty much alone. I’ve worked in a lot of stores, and I like it here. I think you will, too.”

  When another customer entered, Denny stepped away and had a chance to look more closely at the assistant manager. Something strange about his looks. Denny could not put his finger on it. Then did: that black hair. He was wearing a wig. Denny knew it was a wig because it was too perfect, too black, too shiny, like shoe polish. Did not match his eyebrows. Surprise: he had no eyebrows.

  Dave had evidently caught his scrutiny. When the customer had left, he said: “What do you think of my roof?”

  “Roof?”

  Gesturing to his head, Dave said: “I underwent chemo and all my hair fell out. It’s supposed to grow back better than ever, but not mine. Came back in clumps and patches. So I got this roof. Don’t worry—it’s not catching.”

  “What’s not catching?” Denny asked, confused, uncomfortable at this sudden turn of the conversation.

  “The Big One. What I’ve got. It’s not contagious.”

  How could he be so cheerful?

  “Hey, I’m in remission,” Dave said, smiling, a weird smile. Those teeth, a perfect row of gleaming teeth. Dentures, of course. But the smile seemed genuine.

  Denny thought how tough it must be to have the Big One, to undergo chemo—such a terrible word—and wear false hair, false teeth.

  “You have to count your blessings,” Dave said.

  What blessings does Dave have? Denny wondered.

  A flurry of customers now, and Denny made his getaway, breathless, the boredom of the afternoon and the uneasiness about the phone call fading as he pondered his strategy for getting his father’s permission to work at the store.

  “I’ve got a job,” Denny announced at the dinner table, the words popping out of his mouth as spontaneously as a sneeze.

  “What did you say?” his father asked, dropping his fork, which rattled on the plate.

  His father seldom displayed any emotion and never showed surprise or disappointment. But Denny had scored with his announcement. His father’s eyebrows drew together, forming a big black mustache over his eyes.

  “A job,” Denny said. “At the 24-Hour Store down the street. Part-time, after school …”

  His father blew air out of his mouth and looked toward Denny’s mother as if for support. Another surprise, since his father usually made all the decisions.

  “We have not talked about this,” his father said, his voice formal, his eyebrows back in their regular position. “This is an important step, Denny. You have to think of school, your grades, homework. You should have asked permission.”

  That word permission rankled him.

  “You keep telling me that I should accept responsibilities, that I’m a young man now,” Denny said, allowing himself for the first time in his life a display of anger toward his father. “But when I try to take responsibilities, like getting a job, you get mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” his father said. “Surprised, yes. Disappointed, yes, because you didn’t talk it over with us.”

  “How did this happen?” his mother asked, without rebuke or reproach in her voice. When Denny looked at her, he thought he saw some sort of approval in her eyes.

  “I dropped into the store this afternoon and the assistant manager offered me a job. He said they’re looking for someone from the neighborhood.”

  His father had not picked up his fork. The food lay neglected on his plate. His eyes were far away.

  Denny knew he had deceived him. He had never lied to his father before, but at this particular moment he felt reckless, charged with energy. Without a shred of guilt. Maybe the guilt would come later. But right now: the hell with later.

  “Look, Dad, I can earn my own way now. I won’t have to ask for an allowance.” Always humiliating, accepting money week after week, like a bribe for being a good son. “I can save for college.” This last was stretching it a bit, but what the hell.

  “Good, Denny,” his mother said, looking at him with a hint of a smile, as if she was amused at that college remark but was going along with it. “I’m sure you’ll be a great success no matter what you do.”

  Thanks, Mom.

  “I suppose you are growing up,” his father admitted, nodding his head in resignation.

  Denny knew he had won, had scored a triumph over his father for the first time in his lif
e. He drew a deep breath, concentrated on the plate before him, aware of his parents looking at him as if they had never looked at him before. He felt, strangely, a huge tenderness and love for them at this moment. Which did not prevent him from thinking:

  Next move—my driver’s license.

  The girl stood at the far end of the bus stop, staring across the street as if something very interesting was going on there. Denny followed her gaze and saw nothing unusual: apartment buildings, people going to work, a homeless man pushing a grocery cart carrying his belongings. Everything in quick tempo.

  The girl’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail, accenting her high and delicate cheekbones. She was even more beautiful than before.

  Denny wondered if he should speak to her. Whether he should apologize. He wanted to celebrate the possible new job, wanted to share his good fortune with someone.

  “Hey, Denny, your girlfriend’s here,” Dracula yelled.

  Denny ignored the kid, his cheeks growing warm. The girl did not turn her head and made no comment, although she must have heard the little monster.

  “Hey, Denny. I don’t think she likes you,” Dracula called out.

  The awkward moment passed as the usual scuffle began, two monsters pushing and shoving each other. Dracula began to kick a kid Denny had never seen before—small, skinny, desperate on the pavement, clutching his stomach.

  “Okay, break it up,” Denny yelled, pulling the kids apart.

  Before he could take any more action, the bus arrived in a belch of exhaust.