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back   part one   part two   part three   part four   part five  //  henry    by  Mark Spencer & Shawn Chuisano   

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I finally decided I couldn’t just lie there forever being a baby, so I pushed my bike out of the woods.  The front wheel was all screwed up.  It wobbled.  My paintball gun was scratched up but okay otherwise.  I was thinking it was good that I was a small guy because if I’d been big the fall probably would have hurt worse.

     Out in the open park, there was a big pond and a sidewalk that circled it, and along the sidewalk were tall streetlamps, and under them benches.  Ducks were asleep along the shore of the pond.  At first, I didn’t think there were any other people around, and I was just pushing my bike along through the patches of light cast by the streetlamps.  I was worn out and limping a little and wondering what I was going to do.  I thought about lying down and sleeping on a bench like a bum.  I didn’t care. 

     Then without warning a couple of kids a little older than me appeared out of a dark patch.  The girl was wearing a dress and trying to walk fast on heels to catch up with the guy, who was busy trying to light a cigarette.  They passed right by me without looking at me.

     “Hey, Don’t you . . . don’t you love me?” the girl said.  “Huh?  Don’t you? . . .  Aaron?”

     I stopped, looked after the two.

     “Aaron.  Aaron.  Come on.  Tell me    you love me.  I’ll do it again, Aaron.  Just say it.  Just ask for it.  I’ll do anything you want.”

     I stood there and my head was throbbing.  Then I exploded.  “For God’s sake, tell her!”

     The girl whirled around toward me and screeched, “Shut up, kid!  It’s none of your business. . . .  So screw off.  Screw you. . . .  Aaron, Aaron.”

     I started walking again, and the girl’s voice faded, but I could still hear her, and the guy still hadn’t said a thing.

     One of the streetlamps was broken, and the bench beneath it was almost completely invisible in the dark.  I sat down on the bench, then lay down on it.  I reached over my head, stretching, and touched something.  I sat up, rolling some kind of silky material in my fingers.  I carried it to a patch of light to see it better.  It was a pair of panty hose. 

     Then from across the pond I heard the girl again.  “I love you so much, Seth.”

     “Man, you are some crazy chick,” the guy said.

     I dropped the panty hose.

     “You got any money?” the guy said to the girl.

     I looked down at the panty hose, then picked them up and stuffed them into my pocket.  I had an idea about what I wanted to do, what I had to do.  I was sick of pushing my stupid broken-down bike, and I shoved it away and watched it fall over.  It just plopped over like nothing.  Man, I wished I had been sixteen and had a Trans Am or a Corvette or something. 

     Then I started walking fast, my paintball gun dangling from my belt and the panty hose in my pocket.

* * *

I stood in the shadows of the trash bins at the back of the Taco Yummy lot, watching.  Inside, Edward, the ultimate geek boy, was mopping the floor in the dining area.  A couple of other workers were finishing the cleaning of the grill area.  Brandi had worked earlier, so she wasn’t there.  The last two customers of the night were leaving. 

     I fidgeted like it was cold, but it wasn’t cold at all.  It was summer and the asphalt was still hot from the sun burning down all day.  I kept licking my lips, too. 

     When the two grill-area cleaners left the place, I was hiding behind the dumpster.  They were both a couple of high-school-drop-out druggies, skinny guys lighting cigarettes as soon as they came out the door.  They looked so much alike they could have been twins.  One of them said, “Ah, screw him.  Just screw him.  Don’t worry about it.  Screw it.  Screw him.”  They got in a car together and drove away, and I moved up to the back door of the place. 

     I took some deep breaths and mumbled to myself like a moron: “You can do this.  You got to.”

     I pulled one leg of the panty hose over my head.  The other leg flopped in front of me until I twisted it around so that it drooped from the back of my head like a tail and hung half way down my back.  I felt like an alien.  Or a jester like kings had in olden times.

     Then I took my paintball gun off my belt and knocked on the backdoor. 

     Geek Boy said, “Who is it?”

     I just knocked again.

     “That you, Wally?”

     I kept knocking.

     When he finally opened the door, I pushed him back from the door so that we were both inside. 

     I had my paintball gun in his face.  Before I said anything, I swallowed and cleared my throat, and then I tried to sound like Arnold in that movie Raw Deal so that Edward wouldn’t recognize my voice.  “Give me the money.”

     “Hey, I don’t like people that push me.” 

     “Boo hoo, faggot.”

     “Aren’t you kind of short for a bad guy?  Who the hell are you trying to sound like?  John Wayne?”

     “Boo hoo, faggot.”

     “I’m not a faggot.

     “Get the money.”

     “I want to make this clear.  I’m not a faggot.  I’m one hundred percent heterosexual.”

     “The money!”

     “And I’m night manager of this store, and as the sign at the drive-in window clearly states, the night manager has no large amounts of cash on hand.  Are you literate?  Can you read?”

     “Bullshit.  Where is it?”

     “And . . . that’s only a paintball gun.”

     “If I shoot you in the face, you’ll be blind for life.”

     “The money’s in a safe with a timer.  I can’t open it.  Mr. Krebs opens the safe in the morning.”

     “Show me.”  My throat was already getting sore from talking like Arnold.

     “Be my guest.”

     We walked to the front counter.

     “There.”  He pointed to a safe under the counter.

     “What about the cash drawers?”

     “You needed to get here earlier for those.  It’s all in the safe now.  Timing is everything, kiddo.”

     He reached under the counter and pulled his hand back quickly.

     “What did you just do?”

     “Did what?  You know, you seem familiar.”

     “No way, faggot.  I don’t know you.  You don’t know me.  I’m not even from around here.  I’m from, ah, Canada.”

     “Are you homophobic?  Are you maybe insecure about your own sexual orientation?”

     “What?”

     Then I heard sirens, and they were coming our way.

     “What the hell?  What the hell?”

     “Silent alarm,” said the bastard.

     I pushed my paintball gun toward his face, my hand trembling, but I didn’t shoot.  I could have.  But I didn’t.       The sirens were getting louder every second.

     I bolted through the grill area and out the back door. I ran down an alley. 

     Behind me I heard Edward yelling in his faggoty voice, “Careful!  He’s got a gun!  He went out back!”

     Footsteps were slamming the pavement behind me.  A cop hollered, “Stop!”

     But I was gone.  Like a bat out of hell.

     I climbed the privacy fence of a house, ran through the yard, climbed another fence, ran through more yards.      Then I was back in the park next to the pond.  I pulled off the panty hose, stuffed a rock into them, and flung them into the water.

     I was hunched over for a while with my hands on my knees, and I thought for sure I was going to puke, but I didn’t, and finally I just picked up my bike and started pushing it along the sidewalk, the front wheel wobbling. 

* * *

Beer signs flashed in the windows of The Red Dog.  Pick-up trucks and choppers filled the parking lot.  I went to one of the windows and looked inside at the bikers and the whorey looking biker babes, not that a couple of them weren’t bad looking--I could appreciate that even though I was pretty scared and depressed and tired and everything. 

     I kept looking through the window with the beer sign flashing across my face until I spotted Mom. She was carrying a tray of beer mugs and smiling and flirting with a table full of bikers.  I knew she was flirting just to get tips, the same reason she was wearing the tight clothes.

     I pushed through the door and made my way through the crowd.  The place was noisy as hell and full of smoke.  I had my paintball gun hanging from my belt, and some biker hollered, “Hey, kid, no guns in here,” and laughed. 

     Then some other biker said, “Since when?” and lifted some giant revolver from beneath his table, and a bunch of people laughed.

     I went up to my mom.  “You did it.  You’re here.”

     “What are you doing here?  You can’t be here.  You trying to get me fired, huh?  You little shit.”

     “I tried to get you the money.”

     “Will you get out of here?  Go home.”

     “Mom.”  Then I couldn’t talk anymore because I was crying like some little baby.  Some times I really was a dork.

     Mom let out her breath and stopped looking quite so mean.  “Go on.  I’ll be home after closing.  Go home and go to bed.”

     The bartender yelled, “Hey, get that kid outta here!”

     Mom touched my shoulder for half a second and said, “I gotta work.”  Then she bolted like a bat out of hell to serve more drinks to more drunk bikers.

     I started heading back to the door, but everything was blurry, and I kept bumping into people.  The place smelled like beer and cigarettes, and again I thought I was going to puke.

     Some woman said, “Hey, Linda.  There’s a young one for ya!”

     Then the one named Linda said, “Jesus, talk about jail bait.”

     I shoved my way out through the door and stopped and breathed in the outside air and watched a cop car cruise past slowly.  But nothing happened.  Maybe the cop didn’t see me or he didn’t think I looked like a kid.  Maybe he just thought I was some midget.

* * *

I had this dream that freaked me out.  I was robbing Edward at Taco Yummy, but I wasn’t wearing the panty hose over my head.  We were behind the front counter of the restaurant, and the safe was open.  Edward was pulling out wads of bills and handing them to me, and I stuffed the money into both legs of the panty hose.  Pretty soon, the panty hose were standing  by themselves like the lower half of some girl was standing there.

     Next to me was the girl from the park, the one that told me to get screwed.  She was my accomplice.  She was holding my paintball gun on Edward, and she said, “Edward.  Edward.  Don’t you love me?  Tell me you love me.”  And she started crying.

     Edward looked at her like he really felt sorry for her and said, “I can’t.  I’m gay.”

Then he winked at me. And that was when I woke up.

     I was home in my bed.  The clock on my nightstand said it was nearly eleven.  My whole body hurt when I stood up, and I almost got back in bed, but I heard Mom and Dog talking in the living room. 

     “So you gonna do it today?” Dog said.

     “You know it.”

     I was still wearing my clothes from the day before.  I didn’t care.  I kind of staggered into the living room.

     Mom and Dog were drinking beers.  Dog lifted his beer can and said to Mom, “Cheers, baby.”

     When Mom noticed me, she said, “Jesus, kid.  You look like hell.”

     Dog belched and said, “I hope the other guy looks worse.”

     Mom laughed.  “If the other guy looks any worse, he’s dead.”

     “You’re in a good mood,” I said.

     “No thanks to you.  What was the idea coming in the Red Dog like that last night?  Were you trying to get me fired?”

     Dog laid his meaty hand on Mom’s shoulder.  “Who cares, babe?  It worked out for you.  I told ya the tips

would be freakin’ fantastic.”

     “Oh yeah.  Plenty for what I need.

     “You got your money for that operation?”

     “Yeah, kid.”  She laughed.  “Your ole mama’s gonna live.”

     “Yeah.  And with the meanest-lookin’ pussy cat on her belly of any righteous babe in America!”

     “Hey, that’s an idea.  How about if the kitty can be layin’ on an American flag?”

     “Real patriotic.  Just don’t go showin’ it off to the troops.  You’re my old lady.”

     “What are you guys talking about?”

     “Nothin’.”

“Her operation.”

“What?”

“Your mama’s gettin’ a tattoo, kid.”

     “Huh?”

     “Some times I think the kid’s as dumb as I am.”

     The telephone rang.  It stopped after two rings because Brandi picked it up in her room.

     “You needed money for a tattoo?” I said.

     “Hey, you’re startin’ to catch on.”

     Brandi came skipping into the living room like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz.  She was all excited like she’d just gotten offered a part in a porn movie.  “Taco Yummy got robbed!”

     Mom said, “When?  Just now?”

     “Last night.  Lou just called.”

     “Who?” Mom said.

     “Lou. . . .   Mr. Krebs.”

     Dog belched again.  “How they do it?”

     “With a paintball gun.”

     And the whole world looked at me.

     Finally, after everybody had gotten in a good gawk at me, Brandi said, “Yeah.  Exactly.  The kid had panty hose over his head, but Lou has a pretty good idea of who it was.  Edward was working last night, and he says to Lou this morning, ‘Doesn’t Brandi have a brother, and isn’t her brother a paintball freak?’ Emphasis on freak, please.”

      Mom was suddenly really pissed looking.  Her face was so red I thought she’d have a stroke.  “Jesus Christ.  Did you rob that place, kid?”

     “No.  No, Mom.”

     “How much money you get?” Dog wanted to know.

     “I don’t know anything about it.”

     “The robber didn’t get a dime,” Brandi said.  “A complete dweeb.  So I figure it had to be Henry.  Open and shut case.”

     “I didn’t—-”

     “Anyway, Lou said the cops should be coming any time.”

     Mom’s eyes got big.  “Coming where?”

     “Here.  To question dork.  Hey, Henry, maybe you can start lifting weights while you’re in prison, and you can come out and be all buff.”

     “I didn’t—-”

     Mom started waving her arms around.  “You little shit.  You’re gonna screw up my plans for the day.  I was gonna go down town and get my pussy cat tattoo.”

     Brandi’s mouth fell open.  “Really?  That will be so cool.”

     Dog said, “Let Big Henry handle the kid.” 

     “Yeah,” Mom said.  “I’m washing my hands of this shit.  See ya in jail, kid.  We’ll visit at Christmas.”

     “I thought you needed help!  I thought you were sick!”

     Brandi looked at me.  “I’d say you’re the sick one, dude.”

     I bolted.  I was out the door without my feet touching the floor.  I started to get on my bike but then noticed the screwed-up wheel and remembered how nothing had gone right in days, weeks, months, years.  I grabbed my paintball gun off the handlebars and then shoved the bike over and kicked the stupid thing.  Everything would have been better if I had been six feet tall and if I had been sixteen or twenty-one and if I had had a Corvette and if my Mom and Dad and sister and everybody else hadn’t been a bunch of assholes.

     I started to walk down the driveway but stopped and looked back at the house.  As I stared at the house, my chest hurt and I couldn’t breath, didn’t think I’d ever be able to breath again if I didn’t do something.

     I charged toward the front door of the house and burst in on them.  The bastards.

     Dog was sitting on the sofa.  Mom and Brandi were standing in the living room. 

     I aimed at Mom and shot her in the stomach.

     “What the hell, kid?”

     I turned to Brandi next.

     “No! I just did my nails!”

     I shot her in the chest.

     “Ouch!  You dork!”

     Dog was laughing his ass off.  I shot him in the chest, and he stopped laughing instantly.

     “Hey!  Now I got to kick your butt, kid.”  When he came after me, I dodged his meaty hooks, danced around the chairs and coffee table.  “I can’t let you get away with it.  So just come on.  Let’s get your beatin over with.”

     Mom said, “Now wait a minute, Dog.”

     “Guess what, Dog,” I said.  “The dinosaurs are all dead.”

     “What the hell does that mean?”

     I shot him in the chest again.

     Brandi was looking out the window and said, “Cops are here.”

     Dog got hold of my shirt sleeve as I ran past him and ripped it off, but I got out the back door, leaving everybody dripping paint.

* * *

I approached Josh’s house from the backyard, looking around, hoping like hell nobody would see me.  I snuck up to the backdoor and tried the door knob.  It turned, and I pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside.  It felt creepy because it was cool and dark inside and real quiet and I didn’t know if Josh was home.

     I walked through the kitchen, smelling all the greasy stuff Josh had micro-waved for survival since his mom died.

     In the hall, I said softly, like I might wake up somebody otherwise, “Josh?  You here?”

     Soft foot steps on the carpet came at me.

     “Josh?”

     “Josh isn’t here.  Hey, don’t shoot, man.”

     “What?”

     “Hey, don’t shoot, man.”

     Josh’s dad flicked on a light.  He was kind of short for an adult.  He had glasses on with black frames that made him look smart and kind of like an old Harry Potter or something.

     I looked down at my paintball gun dangling from my belt.  

     “I’m sorry.”  And I headed toward the back door.

     “It’s okay.  You’re Henry, aren’t you?  Josh’s best friend, right?”

     I stopped and looked back at him.  He was smiling.  “Yeah.”

     “Josh will be back.  Why don’t you wait for him.” 

     “No, that’s okay.”

     I started toward the backdoor again.

     “Stay.  Where have you got to go?”

     I stopped and thought about that.

     “Yeah.  Maybe.”

     “You look a little frazzled.”

     “I didn’t sleep too good.”

     “Bad dreams?”

     “Weird dreams.”

     “Weird is better than bad.”

     “Yeah.  Weird dreams.  Bad life.”

     “Come in the living room.  Have a seat.”

     We went into the living room.  The TV was off, and a lamp was on next to the lounge chair.  Lying on the chair was a paperback book called Crime and Punishment.

     “I was just doing some reading.”

     “Really?  For your job or something?”

     “No. Just for fun.”

     “Just for fun?”

     “Yeah.  For fun.”

     “I never met anybody that reads.”

     “Oh, well, I grew up back east.”

     “Oh.”

“It’s kind of dark in here, I guess.  Let’s have some light.”

     He went over to the picture window and pulled a cord to open the heavy drapes, and light poured in, and there were millions of dust motes floating around.

     “Have a seat.”

     I sat in a chair across the room.  He sat down in his lounger.

     “You can go ahead and read.”

     “Rough night, huh?”

     “Yeah.  Morning, too.”

     “Josh says your dad’s a policeman.”

     “Yeah.”

     “That must be kind of cool.  To have a dad who’s a policeman.”

     “Not really.”

     “No?”

     I was staring at my reflection in the blank TV screen while I talked him. 

     “No.  But when I was real little, I thought it was cool.  I always bragged to the other kids at school that my dad was a cop.  But my mom always hated him being a cop.  I remember how she’d be okay in the mornings when he worked the three-to-eleven shift and was home, but then when it got close to time for him to go to work she’d get all moody, and they’d have a big fight just before he had to leave for his shift. She’d scream at him how she hoped he got blown away, and he’d leave without saying anything, and then she had to take a nap, which really meant she had to go in her room and start drinking. . . .   Oh, man, I talk too much.”

     He just looked at me for a minute.  I mean, it felt like he was looking at me, but I was still staring at myself in the TV.

     “It’s okay,” he said.  “You go on talking. Sounds like your mom was scared.”

     “She hated my dad’s guts.”

     “Sounds like she loved him a lot and was just scared.  People say mean things and do mean things to each other . . . and themselves just because they’re scared.  Your mom was probably terrified that your dad was going to get killed every day he went to work, so she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care.”

     “That doesn’t make any sense.”

     “People often make no sense.”

     “Yeah.  I guess so. . . .  They’re divorced now.”

     “I’m sure that was hard on everybody.”

     “Wasn’t hard on my dad.  He was banging some girl, and now he’s married to her, and she’s knocked up.”

     “Your dad was probably pretty unhappy himself.  Think about it.  How would you feel if your mom was telling you she hoped you got blown away every day you left for school?”

     “He didn’t need to go banging Jenny the Ninny and leave us.”

     “Your mom had the booze.  Your dad had the girl.”

     I shook my head.  “Josh was right.  You adults are more screwed up than us kids.”

     “That’s a good thing for you guys to know.  Maybe it will help you forgive us.”

     “My mom’s a whore.”

     “What makes you think so?”

     “Well, I don’t think she’s really a whore.  She just acts like one.  My sister really is one.  I try to take care of them, but they won’t let me.” 

     “You can’t take care of them if they don’t want to be taken care of. . . .  So who’s taking care of you?”

     I looked him.  He just kept looking back.  Then I looked at myself in the TV again. “I can take care of myself.” 

     “So what’s going to happen to you, you think?”

     “I don’t know.  But I can take care of myself.”

     “Oh.  Okay.”

     Through the picture window, I saw a cop car pull up to the front of the house.

     “Oh, no.”  I was bolting.

     “What?”

     “They found me.”

     Josh’s dad looked out the window.  My dad was getting out of the car.  I was headed for the backdoor.

     “Hey, wait.”

     “No, I can’t.”

     “You look to me like you’ve done a lot of running lately. You sure you want to do some more?”

     The doorbell rang.

     I moved again toward the backdoor.  “It’s my dad.”

     Josh’s dad was following me through the kitchen.  “Then it’s probably important.”

     I had my hand on the doorknob.  “Yeah, it is.”

     The doorbell rang again.

     “You look tired.”

     I dropped my hand.  Nodded.

     We walked together to the front door, and he opened it.

     “Officer.”

     Dad looked at me standing behind Josh’s dad.  “You have to come with me, Henry.”

     “I know.” 

     Then I did this really dumb thing.  I puked.  Right there in Josh’s front door.  Some times I was such a baby.  I stayed bent over with my hands on my knees for a minute, and Josh’s dad said, “You feel better?”

     I nodded.  “Yeah.  Kind of.  I guess I need to go now.”

     “Yeah.”

     Dad said to Josh’s dad, “Thank you.”

     “No problem.”

     I followed my dad down the sidewalk to his police cruiser.  A bunch of adults and kids both were in their doorways, at their windows, and standing in their yards, gawking, but they all kept their distance like they might be scared.

     Some little girl said to her mom, “Is that boy in trouble?”

     “Looks like it.  Policeman come and get bad boys and girls.”

     Brandon was standing in the yard across the street, grinning like a psycho. “Fry his freakin’ butt!”

     Dad and I were almost to the police car, and I said, “Do I have to get in the back?”

     “I guess not.  I guess I can let you sit up front.  If you promise you won’t decide to run.”

     “I’m too tired.”

     Dad opened the passenger side door for me, and I got in.  Dad walked around the car and got in.

     The car windows were down.  Dad looked in the rear-view mirror.  “Back-up’s coming.  Just sit tight.”

     Another cop car pulled up behind us.  I slumped against the door, feeling pretty tired and achy but kind of relieved that it was kind of over in a way and I could just start my new life in a juvenile detention center.  Maybe I would start lifting weights, and when I got buff, it wouldn’t matter so much I was short.

     “I’m hungry,” I said without thinking about it.

     “You’ll get something.  So, Henry, you had quite a night.  The night manager at the taco place thinks he

can pick you out of a line-up even though you had the panty hose over your head.  And you’d have to talk so that he could try to recognize your voice.”

     “I didn’t want Mom to--”

     “Your mother is going to do what she wants.  You can’t stop her.  I sure can’t.”

     “I know.”

     Another cop got out of the cruiser that had pulled up behind us, and he came to Dad’s window. “I see you found him.”

     “Yeah.  He was scared and didn’t know what to think, but he’s co-operating now.” 

     “You want me to take him in?  If it was my kid, I—”

     “No need, Bill.  I’m taking him home.”

     “Home?” I said but Dad ignored me.

     “Home?” the other cop said.

     “Yeah.  Henry ran off last night from his mother’s house.  That’s true.  But I went after him.  Mona can verify that.  And I found him.  He didn’t want to go back to his mother’s house, so I took him to mine.  He was with me all last night.”

     The other cop was looking Dad straight in the eyes.  Then he nodded to Dad. “Okay.  I’m glad to hear that.” Then this Bill guy bent down to look into the car at me.

     “I’m glad to know you were at your dad’s house all night.

     That’s good.”

     Then he walked back to his car and drove away while Dad and I sat there.

     “I don’t want to go back to Mom’s.”

     “No?”

     “No.”

     “Where then?”

     “How about your house?”

     Dad nodded.  “Okay.  But I’m on duty.  I’ve got to work the rest of my shift.  You’d have to hang out with Jenny until I get off.”

     “Does she have any tattoos?”

     “What?”

     “Never mind.”

     Dad started to put the car in gear.

     “I didn’t think you would,” I said.

     “Would what?”

     “You know . . . .”

     Dad nodded, and I was glad he didn’t say anything, and we just drove away.

* * *

If my life was some stupid movie, I know everything would have turned out goddamned peachy, and Mom would have stopped boozing and started wearing dresses and would have gotten a job as a receptionist in a dentist’s office and then the dentist would have fallen nuts in love with her.  But Mom kept right on sitting on the sofa with Dog, drinking beer and watching Jerry Springer with her stomach bare so that everybody in the world could see the head of that tattooed cat peeking out of her pants. 

     And Brandi was still a slut.  She kept working at Taco Yummy, and I would have bet anything Krebs gave her fifties to take off more and more of her clothes, but I was sure Brandi stayed on the other side of his desk.  I knew she had her limits.  

     I started going over to Dad’s a lot, and I might have even gone there to live, but Mom said no because she’d lose the child support and needed it to buy beer.  Jenny had her baby, but Dad still paid attention to me, and Jenny made cakes and stuff when she wasn’t changing diapers or serving as a milk jug to the new kid. 

     Dad bought me a set of weights, and we’d go out to his garage and pump iron in the evenings with the garage door open, and he’d yell at me like a coach to grind out one more repetition, while the sun set.

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