Baker's Dozen, page 7
Jenni was almost as excited as her daddy, being in a place that actually had an upstairs and was a block away from a big playground. She forgot all about their old house. Everything here was fresh and mysterious.
Harry was the third wheel who didn’t want to be there. He sat on his bed in a strange room for many hours, listening to music on his iPod, sketching, trying unsuccessfully to take a nap in an unfamiliar place. A few tears came and went, but Harry never broke out into a cry. As much as he wanted them to, the walls, the smell, and the misplaced windows did not rearrange themselves back into the home he remembered so dearly. Even the posters of the dragons on his new walls looked weird. The lights were too bright and in the wrong places. Sounds weren’t the same, either. He could hear his sister giggling and running, his father yapping on the phone, and at nine o' clock, his mother walking in through the front door. It seemed like everyone was happy except him.
More tears came. These ones stayed a while—until he began crying. Some time later, sleep saved him.
***
The dream was in black and white—contrasty. It was either nighttime, evening, or dawn, and Harry was standing in his new front yard, looking into the space under the porch where something was making terrible gnawing sounds. Two glowing round circles—eyes—stared back at Harry from within the murky darkness of that dark chasm. Those eyes spoke the word: "Behemoth!”
"Harry! Rise n' shine!" his mother said, all too loudly.
"What are you?!" he screamed as he jolted upright in bed. But the nightmare was over.
His mother, Sylvia, a short woman who was thin everywhere except her thighs, recoiled, then giggled. "Dad told you to stop reading those scary books. See what happens? You dream about what you read. Last time, you were afraid to look in your closet."
She rubbed his head, but he pulled away. Harry was coming to that “If you're a parent, don't touch me” age.
"Well, get dressed, take your shower, and brush your teeth. We're leaving to see mams and gramps in a few."
Harry groaned. "I want more sleep. Can you go without me? I'm so tired."
She pulled the covers away from him. "You don't want to see your grandparents? Come on now, get up and get ready to go. We're going."
"Ohhhhh, no. I'm staying. I need more sleep and stuff." He grabbed the covers and wedged them under his body.
Sylvia knew he meant business, that he was going to be stubborn, and said, "It's not like we see them everyday, Hare. Come on." She placed her hands on his shoulders.
"Dammit, I'm staying here! I'm not going to see them. They're old and they—"
Sylvia sighed, frustrated already. She knew her child only too well. "You're going, Harry, whether you like it or not. Don't test my patience."
"Then fucking ground me. I don't have anywhere I need to be in this place anyway. This isn't home."
"All right. That's enough of this. I'm telling your father and—"
"Sylvia," Ben said, entering the room, "where's Jenni? She come up here?"
"No, I thought she was downstairs with you."
Ben sighed, irritated. "She was.
“Jennnnnni!" he yelled, turning and walking back out of the room and down the hall.
Sylvia looked back down at Harry and said, "Ten minutes. Don't give me any shit. Got it?"
"Whatever," Harry replied, mushing his head against the pillow.
She thudded out of the room.
Harry lay there, despising the bright sunshine beaming through the window. He stared off into space and said, "Fuck you."
Harry did not like either of his two remaining grandparents. They smelled weird, criticized him too much, and looked more likely to break apart than a stack of Legos.
"Jennnnnni? Jen? Where are you? Come out. We're leaving soon!" his father hollered from downstairs.
"Jenni," Sylvia said from an upstairs room, "no more hide and seek. Where are you now? Come out. We have to go."
"Stupid bullshit," Harry mumbled. He felt like jumping up, breaking the window, yanking the sun from the sky, and stomping it out like a lit cigarette.
"Jenni, come on now," Ben hollered, his voice like nails to Harry's ears. Nothing was in harmony.
"Slee-hee-heep." the boy muttered, hiding under the covers.
"Harry!” mom shouted from the hallway. “Harry, get up and help us find your sister."
"She's probably—" he said, then grunted.
After hearing his parents stampede through the house and call for his five-year-old sibling a thousand times, Harry sat up, angry.
"Did you find her yet?" Sylvia asked Ben as she jogged downstairs.
"No, let me check the basement."
"Where was she the last time you saw her?"
"Right outside, on the porch."
—This caught Harry's attention. He remembered those sounds, and more importantly, that dream...
"Behemoth."
Reading too many horror stories again.
"Harry!" Sylvia screamed. "Get up now!"
"All right! God!" Harry regrettably climbed out of the bed and followed his orders.
After pissing and brushing his teeth, Harry walked out into the hallway where he heard the uneven, upset voices of his parents calling Jenni's name, louder and louder.
They couldn’t find her anywhere.
Ben threw open the front door and stepped out onto the porch. "JEEEEEEENNNI! Where are yoooooou?!"
There was a faint crunching sound from under the porch, but Ben was too involved to hear it. He leaped down the steps and ran around the side of the house, in search for his only daughter. The pathway leading to the backyard, small and narrow and private, seemed like a place where a child could be (gulp!) abducted.
Ben hoped to God that wasn't the case, but it did cross his mind.
"Jenni? Has anyone seen her? My daughter!!" he yelled, probably waking up half the neighborhood. Nobody came to help.
He rounded the back corner of the house when—
SLAM!
He collided with her. At first he was relieved, thinking he'd found his daughter; second, he thought he'd run into a kidnapper; third, he realized it was Sylvia, his wife, who’d rounded the opposite corner.
"You okay?" Ben asked her.
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
Together they jogged into the alley, searching for any signs of Jenni.
During all this, Harry stepped out onto the porch and glanced down, wondering of Jenni was underneath the concrete beneath his feet.
I hope not.
***
"Twenty-four hours is bullshit. Absolute bullshit," Ben barked at the officer four hours after Harry had woken up. The Torrices, a trio now, were standing or sitting in their kitchen, among three policemen. One was morbidly obese, one was so thin that the other could have probably eaten two of him, and the other, the average one, hat in hand, was talking to Ben. Sylvia was smoking a cigarette, a habit she'd given up only five months ago without fail. Till now.
Harry was in the hall, peeking in, listening to their conversation.
"That's the way we do things in this county, sir. I know your daughter is missing, but in twenty-four hours, we will send out a search party for her. We will find her, I assure you."
The other cop, the young fat one, said, "Well maybe she just got lost. I mean, you did just move here. Maybe she just wondered off, or—"
“My daughter did not wonder off. She was on the porch blowing bubbles one minute, laughing, and gone the next. Now, if you don't go out there looking for her—and I'm talking now—then I will."
The head officer said, "That's okay if you search for her, yourself. By all means, please do. Just keep it in order until the law permits we can do more."
Harry noticed that the thin, older policeman was nervous, suspicious—as if he knew something was out of sorts. He kept looking around as if he were trapped in a box, needing to get out, needing room to breathe. Nobody else seemed to notice this.
"Meanwhile," the officer said, "don't let your son get out of your sight. Just in case."
On that note Harry turned and ran back into the living room, flopped down onto the sectional couch, and began watching cartoons. He knew that he would probably never see his sister again. He knew it had something to do with the noises under the porch. He been never felt more heartbroken. Not only was he far from home, but his only sibling was now missing.
The birds still chirped, and the sun still gleamed. People outside were moving through life normally.
Five minutes after the police left, Ben and Syliva entered the living room to find Harry lying across the couch, seemingly catatonic. The boy fought to hold back the tears that were trying to break through. Cartoon figures ran back and forth on the TV screen.
"Harry,” Ben said, “do you have any idea where your sister went? Have you seen her?"
Sylvia, nervous as hell, started on her third smoke.
"I don't know, dad."
But he did. And he knew that speaking the truth would have gotten him in big trouble.
“The monster thing under the porch stole her”
Maybe he was wrong, he desperately wanted to believe. Maybe she did just run off somewhere.
"Well, stay here with your mom while I go out and, uh, drive around, searching." He turned to his wife, sad to see the smoke fogging from her nostrils, and said, "She's gotta be somewhere."
"Find her, Ben. Find her," she said, more shaken up than an underground fault line.
And like that, he was gone too. Harry had never heard the tires of their Explorer peel out like they did that day. He'd also never seen his mother cry so hard.
She must have smoked one whole pack of Marlboros in under an hour.
"Honey, are you okay?" she asked her remaining child.
He didn't answer for a while, then said, "I guess."
"You didn't see her at all today? After you woke up?" she said, lighting up again.
"Mom, I'd like to go home. I don't like this place, this house. I never wanted to move here. And look what happened."
"Don't blame your father for this. He's tried to make our lives better by coming here. This is a good home, a good neighborhood," she said, unsure.
Harry sighed. It was on the tip of his tongue to speak about the thing under the porch, but he couldn't. He would have probably cried had he said another word at all. Instead, he sat and watched the television without watching the television.
***
A little while later, the phone rang. Sylvia, finishing her last cigarette, got up and answered it. Harry listened closely as she spoke.
"Hi, mom. What?!" she said, horrified. "Oh my God! No! You're there now? At the hospital? How's he doing? Oh, Jesus. I can't believe this day! It just keeps getting worse and worse."
Harry knew before he was told, that something bad had happened to his Grandfather Sam. He knew for certain of his ailment when his mother repeated the words: "A stroke?"
Time went by much slower than normal, and Harry probably glanced at the clock more than the television, waiting on pins and needles for his father to come back. His mother started crying shortly after the call and never let up. The sun receded gradually, and the floating nicotine didn't really dissipate.
Harry woke up before nine, when the front door opened and banged shut. He was still lying on the couch, having taken a pleasant snooze away from all danger. His dad had returned, and Harry could tell he had cried recently.
"What—did you find her?" Sylvia asked him. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. They threw their arms around each other—he and Sylvia—and cried. Harry lay there, watching.
Shortly afterward, they joined Harry on the couch and had a small family meeting.
"Harry, are you okay?" Ben asked. "You know what's going on?"
He nodded. His father's eyes were extremely red, and his hands shook. His mother looked lost.
"I'm going to stay here, Harry, and wait to see if Jenni comes back. I'll man the house and all, and be here to answer the phone in case the police found anything out yet. You and your mom are going to the hospital to visit Pap. Mom said your Grammy said he might die within hours. You go see him, and don't worry."
Harry felt extremely relieved. It was not because his grandfather might die or because his sister had vanished; it was because he was about to leave the horrible new house for a while.
Ten minutes later, mother and son left. The night was swiftly devouring the sun, and the surroundings couldn't have been more different for poor old Harry. It began sprinkling as soon as they were a block away; once they hit the interstate, it was pouring. Neither of the two spoke a word during the drive. Harry's urge to cry was extreme. Holding it back was actually painful, but somehow, he managed to do so.
***
"Room 112," the short Oriental nurse told them at the desk on the uppermost floor.
Sylvia and Harry walked the length of the hall and entered that room. Inside, Grandma Catherine was sitting in an orange chair next to the window, clutching her husband's hand. Outside, streaks off lightning touched down in the distance. Rain pelted the glass.
"We're here," Sylvia told her mother.
Catherine was a short, stick-thin, black-eyed lady dressed in a pink Parka, with little endurance for life, herself. Her husband, the old overweight fellow with almost a dozen tubes sticking in and out of his body, lay there in deep slumber.
Harry hated everything about the place—the clean, bleachy smell, that monotonous beeping of the heart monitor, and that dying man lying there, knocking on death's door. Despite all this, even this building was better than the one from which he'd come.
"Hello, Sylvia. Harry, how's my little guy?" Catherine said.
Harry, who was afraid to see his grandfather in such a state, hid behind his mother.
"It's okay, really," Catherine told him.
He reluctantly stepped out from behind his human shield and approached her. His grandmother was usually cold and curt, but now there was something soothing and welcoming about her.
Harry went to her slowly—while staring at the old man clinging to life on the bed—and gave her a hug.
"How's my big boy doing here?" she wondered, grinning.
Harry could not smile back. He responded, "I don't like today."
She chuckled, understanding, and replied, "I know what you mean, sweetheart. God makes some days special for some folks; others, he makes it downright looming." She was unable to put any real effort into the philosophy. Harry could tell, for the first time ever, that Grandma Catherine was struggling with this dilemma.
Then she looked at her daughter and said, "It's up to me to pull the tubes. The doctor said he's brain dead. No chance of him pulling through and being functional. Stroke got him good, I guess. I have a few hours to decide what to do."
Those eons of Grandparent wisdom right out the door, Harry thought. Even Yoda fails on occasion.
"Oh God, mom!" Sylvia said, wrapping her arms around Catherine. Of everyone in the room, Harry seemed the most calm, the least on edge. Truth be told, he could hide his feelings very well. Most of the time.
"Is there anything we can do for you—" Sylvia asked her.
"I just need you here, sweetie. I'm just—don't know where to go from here—" she replied.
The two hens continued yacking, sobbing, emitting high-pitched squeals that could have scared away wild dogs. The whole time, Harry could not take his eyes off the old man in the bed—the man who once bought him a box of Pirates of the Caribbean Legos that cost almost a hundred bucks—lying there with about as much worth to the world as a sack of potatoes. Maybe even less.
Slowly the boy closed in on him, the nearby breathing tube almost as loud as the crying women. Grandpa did look peaceful, and Harry wondered if he was still in any way conscious, or if he could sense him in some more magical way. The man's face was pale, his flesh riddled with age spots, his eyebrows bushier than Harry had remembered.
"I love you—"
"Why this, why now—"
"We just have to be strong, mom—"
"We've been married for 53 years—"
Harry heard them—faintly but inattentively. He walked right up to his grandfather and looked at him in the eyelids.
"I wanna go back home to—” Harry muttered. Before he could finish, a huge, blinding bolt of lightning struck right outside the building. The lights went out. Something very rough and pliable cemented around Harry's wrist. He looked down, thinking it was the thing from under the porch, but was too shocked to scream or pull away.
When the lights flickered back on, every eye in the room was on grandpa. He was not out, yet not completely conscious, either. His face was peach-red, his teeth clenched tightly together. Worst of all were his eyes: two glossy, teary, intense blues which delved deep into Harry's.
Then he spoke: "September… 1949… it happened… it cannot be stopped… it eats… it eats… it devours—kills—hates… Jesus of Nazareth said after he'd exorcised the demon, that it will go many miles and possess a hog… a pig… any animal… a DOG."
The huuuuum of a flat line… the repetitive growls of thunder… the slack being cut from Harry's grabbed wrist… the silence of Sylvia's and Catherine's cries… the explosion of Harry's screams…
What did it mean? Was he really aware when he said it? Was he dreaming it? Why—for what reason did he say… that?
***
One hour later and everything was tame again; at least tamer. Catherine, Sylvia and Harry were sitting in the waiting room, mourning the death of Grandpa Patterson. Both women were calm now; however, Harry was trembling. He could hardly stay seated.
"This is going to sound odd, but do you have any idea what he meant when he said all that stuff?" Catherine wondered.
Sylvia shook her head; Harry just shook.
