pushes the kidâs hand back and tries to smile, but it hurts. He turns and heads back out, trying not to look at the kid â the blood from his nose matching Gordonâs own. He shuts the door as softly as he can and walks off, the cooling slag closing the night in around him. You canât save anyone. Not even yourself.
Itâs only when he climbs the stairs to his room, key in lock, that he remembers the wallet he forgot, the five maybe ten dollars inside.
Hell, let him have something. Pushing through to the roar of the empty space beyond.
10
N ormando is sinking into the flowered chesterfield, sucking on a bowl of stewed prunes, the television strobe lighting up the room. Randolph Scott is coming through a canyon, white cowboy hat pushed back as he speeches at Joel McCrea about poor men. McCreaâs cradling a rifle like a baby and he looks off into the great blue yonder and Normando pulls himself out of the swamp of the chesterfield, dialling the volume up until the speakers rattle so he can hear this. Hear him say it. Almost chokes on a prune straining to hear it.
âAll I want is to enter my house justified.â
Pat steps in front of the set.
âNorm â Norm, can you turn that down? Turn it down, Norm.â She doesnât wait, yanking the plug out. âNeed you to come look at my pee, Norm â itâs got a funny colour. Can you come look at my pee, Norm?â
Normando struggles out of the chesterfield, making the move to plug the set back in.
âYouâve already seen that one, Norm. Can you just take a blue minute here and look at my pee?â
âPat, I donât need to see yer goddamned pee.â
âWell, you just go ahead and write that on my gravestone, Norm.â Pat turning away, turning back. âWhatâre you doing moping about in here with the lights out?â
âLights werenât out â watching the TV .â
âAlways moping about, you. You just havenât been the same, Norm. No sir.â She lets the words hang, incomplete, her face all pinched up as she walks out of the room. Not since you retired â but she doesnât say it, and her not saying it lets the words become something else. Something that reaches back farther. Not since the mine. Not since the boy. Not since ever.
She chirps up again from the other room. âYou hear bout that boy they found out on the highway?â
âYep.â
âWhat dâyou think about that then?â
And he doesnât answer, because you donât talk about the damned dead. Theyâre gone and thatâs that. Let em have their peace.
âThis came for you today â first one.â Scurrying back in, she shoves an envelope into his hand â plastic crinkle of a government window and his name typed in. âYouâre an old man now.â
She leaves him alone to fumble with the plug, to curse, to sit back and be silent in the dark of the living room.
11
E milia first mentions something about a body after they crawl under the wooden fort. The thump thump of the other kids running around above them, laughing like a bunch of dorks. Emilia Zanetti and Elwy Zott side by side down here in the dark with their plastic ninjas and the last of the earwigs.
âAnd my dad said they donât even know his name , isnât that nuts?â Emilia always asking her questions twice. âIsnât it?â But she never really needs an answer, so Elwy doesnât say anything. Instead he tries to whistle. Because heâs nervous. And he can make great whistling faces but he canât make great whistling sounds. Or any whistling sounds. Itâs what Emilia calls his ghost whistle. Under the fort, Elwy purses his lips and makes strange breathing noises.
âQuit ghost whistling, El, this is serious.â
Elwy stops making strange breathing noises and concentrates on not being nervous. Itâs hard because thinking about dead bodies is
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