Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [56]
THEY’RE UP. With all the noise, how could they not be up? I come over the fence into the backyard, see the lights on inside, walk to the side of the house, and dump the guns over the gate into a bush in the front yard. I won’t carry a gun into my mother’s house. When I open the back door and come in limping, Mom starts to cry.
—Henry. Henry.
—It’s OK, I’m OK.
She’s shaking her head.
—Something woke us up, a crash and then, then, then.
She can’t talk, she’s crying too hard. Dad holds her.
—It sounded like guns out there, Hank.
I’m turning off the lights.
—I’m going to go away.
Mom buries her face in Dad’s chest. It sounds like she’s saying no over and over, but I’m not sure.
—The police are gonna know I’m here. I have to.
Dad is shaking his head.
—We can talk to the police, Hank, it’s time to stop this. It’s time to fix this.
—Dad.
—We can, we know people here, we can fix this and you can stop.
—Dad, listen.
He grabs me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes.
—You listen, son. Enough of this. It’s time for you to stop running from this trouble and do something about it.
I’ve never said no to my father, always done what he told me to do. I look back into his eyes.
—I killed people.
Whatever was going to come out of his mouth freezes in there, and dies.
—Some of the people they said I killed. I killed them. I’m a killer.
I go upstairs to my old room. I grab my money and the clothes I washed earlier and the phone Dylan gave me and I go back down. Dad is at the foot of the stairs, Mom next to him. Dad reaches for my hand as I come down, I pull it back.
—I need the keys to the shop.
He points at the table next to the front door. I grab the keys. I feel Mom’s hand on my back.
—Henry, oh my poor baby. Oh, baby.
She wraps her arms around me, and I feel Dad grab us both in his big arms and squeeze us together, trying to compress us into the one flesh we once were. But we are no longer. I am different. I pull myself free.
—Don’t try to protect me anymore. It’s not. I’m not worth it. Just.
Mom tries to hug me again, I look at Dad, he stops her.
—The police will be coming, tonight I think. You can’t lie about hiding me. Tell them you tried to get me to give up and I ran. It’s the truth. Tell the truth.
I reach for the doorknob. Stop. Turn and grab Mom and kiss her cheek.
—I love you, Mom. I won’t be back. I’m sorry. I love you, Dad.
I open the door and the dogs come barking down the stairs. Blow up the world and they won’t notice, fuck with the front door and they go berserk. I step outside. Over the barking dogs I hear Mom.
—We love you, Henry, no matter what.
I pull the door closed, and I’m running again.
THE SHOP is in the middle of town, about a ten-minute walk. I can’t move very fast with my leg, but I know a shortcut. I dig the guns out of the bushes, huddle there for a second as a van drives past on the street, then walk up to the corner, take a right, and climb a short chain-link fence. It’s not easy with one leg to work with, but I make do. On the other side, I sit down on the edge of the dry culvert, push off, and slide to the bottom. I hit bottom and get a shock of pain up my left leg.
I’m lucky it’s been a dry winter so far; there are only a couple inches of water down here. I splash through the darkness for a couple hundred yards till I get to the spot where steps are carved into the south wall of the culvert. They’re steep, like Kulkukan. I shake that vision from my head. No time for that.
At the top some kids have clipped a hole in the chain-link. I squeeze through and pop up under the bleachers of Patterson High’s football field. I weave through the lattice of struts, come out from the west end of the stands, cross the track that circles the football field, cross the field itself, and stop. Right in front of me are the baseball diamonds. I trot as quickly as I can between the diamonds, glancing at the spot where I broke my leg and U-turned my life.
Get over it, Henry.
The campus is pretty much like it was back in my day. I cross the quad with the big red P painted