Chapter XXXII: Little Lies
Chapter Thirty-Two: Little Lies
Vance was going to be ready in a week or two and the car was still running. I taped a strip of carpet to fill the gap between the windshield and roof. It kept the snow out, at least, and when I arrived in
Erin and I went to a few movies at the Greenfields mall and played some video games. We walked side by side through the bright hallways talking about my adventure in
A few days later, I was in the kitchen with my
“The surf got better after you left, Oggy. Ten-footers every day. I did real shittily in my classes but I can stand up on a board now. It's great fun. You should come down again. The guys wondered where you went. They all thought you were a student.”
“Well, I got a car and I'm driving to
“I think they dropped out after you left. I'm not sure they were even students.”
“No shit. Well,” I said sagely, “College isn't for everyone.”
“You see Bullwhip and those guys yet?”
“Couple nights ago. Kodiak had a party. Bullwhip was there.
“Sticky went to a party?”
Chap's surprise wasn't unusual. Cristo was a bona fide sissy in High School. The second someone pulled out a hash pipe or even a package of condoms, Cristo ran away.
“He's grown up now. He grew like two feet since we graduated. He drinks and smokes. He still lives with his parents, but who doesn't? He was there when I picked up this chick hitchhiking and brought her with me.”
“Did she know anyone?”
A sensible question in response to bringing a stranger into a tight tribe.
“Not a soul. Just hitchhiking home in the snow and I picked her up.”
“That ain't a good idea, Oggy. Those guys are animals.”
“Tell Jeannie about it. That was the chick's name. I was just gonna give her a ride home but she couldn't get into her house. So we went back to Kodiak's place and they started throwing shit at her.”
Chap shook his head. He knew the consequences.
“So I tried to get her out but she was trashed. She'd been drinking before I picked her up. Her kid's birthday party or something. Then Bullwhip was spitting on her and then Mutt threw a beer at her.”
“Good old Mullray Border!”
“It was good for a howl. I tried to get her out but she wouldn't come. So I pulled her outside and everyone came out and threw shit at us and, just when I had her at my car, Kodiak or Skip or Bullwhip hit her with a full beer can and she turns around and runs back, you know, yelling 'Who threw that? Son of a bitch! Which one of you punks threw that?'“
“She should've left.”
“I tried to get her out. But she wouldn't budge. Finally I decided she had dug her own grave and I got in my car. Just as I turned my lights on I watch Bullwhip kick her in the stomach and she fell down a hill near Kodiak's house. She just slid down on her ass in the snow. It was pitiful but I wasn't gonna fight ten kids.”
“They'd kick your ass too.”
“That's what I told my dad. My dad thought I should've helped her. He doesn't understand. That was my ass on the line. Bullwhip doesn't show mercy. He doesn't care about my baby. I couldn't help her. She was doomed.”
“Dead,” Chap agreed. He understood. There was nothing I could do.
“How is Erin? I haven't seen the kid. Still up at the Cadet school?”
“Still there. I guess he's good. He's a junior now too. Crazy how fast it goes. You know...”
I stopped and listened for movement from upstairs. My father was home working on a report in his office. I decided he couldn't hear me but still moved a little closer to Chap and kept my voice low.
“The other night. Listen. The other night. Me and Kodiak are at Gillies when these girls come in, high school girls, and start talkin' smack. No reason. They thought my car was joke. So listen...”
Just then I heard someone walk up the front stairs and knock on the door. I told Chap to stay back while I peeked around the corner. What a coincidence: It was the last person in the world I wanted to see.
“Chap, I think I'm going to need to hide in the basement.
The doorbell rang again. My father yelled down.
“Are you going to get that?
I whispered, “Wack, I'm going to hide now. Don't say anything.”
I spun around and ran into the basement and found a shadow to hide in near the front of the house. My father called for me one more time and then came down the stairs. I heard him open the front door. The visitor walked in just inches above my head. I kissed Dewey's hat for luck. Maybe she was here selling magazine subscriptions. Maybe this was just some awful coincidence, a little joke God was playing on me to let me know that my plans were pure folly in the eyes of the universe. Ha! What a good joke this would be. Please Dewey, whispered.
“Does the owner of that car live here?”
That was it. These were among the worst words a car owner could hear and a sure sign that God was not playing a joke on me. He wanted blood.
“The one with the nice paint job? Ha! Sure. Ogden?! He was just here. Ogden?! I wonder where he went?”
I sat on the stairs and shook my head. This couldn't possible get worse. I could hear everything they said.
“Ogden?! Hey, you aren't the girl from the other night are you?” He asked.
Honesty did not pay. I had told my father about the hitchhiker for some reason, probably pity, to include him in my life, but he didn't know about what happened at Gillies the next night.
“Yeah, I am,” she said. “That was messed up. I can't believe he told you about it. It really screwed me. I almost died.”
“I'll bet. It sure must have been cold out there. Ogden?! He was just here. He said you were old. That's strange. Well, I guess you'll never hitchhike again, right? How old is your daughter?”
There was a pause long enough for me to put my head between my knees.
“Hitchhike? Daughter? What do you mean? Who are you talking about?”
“Aren't you the person he picked up hitchhiking and drove over to Erin's house? Didn't everyone assault you and leave you in a snow bank at one in the morning covered in beer and spit? Pretty bad. They really are assholes. Ogden!”
I could sense her frustration. I put my hand down in case I passed out and touched a broken plastic sled. Rosebud? No. Citizen Kane didn't know how good he had it. He was rich. I had nothing and God was out for my head. This wouldn't have happened if Schiraldi had struck out Ray Knight. There was no way in the world I would've ended up hiding in my own basement if the Red Sox were 1986 World Champions. So was it really my fault?
“No. Who? That wasn't me. I don't hitchhike. I don't know who he picked up hitchhiking. I had nothing to do with that.”
There was a long pause. Under the plastic sled was a box with the old Atari games. So that's where it went. My father's voice shifted in tone.
“You aren't Jeannie?”
“I'm Rachel. Rachel Divine. I don't know any Jeannie. Do you know any Jeannie with a kid?”
Another girl said she also didn't know anyone named Jeannie with a kid. Great! There was a whole gang of girls up there.
Chap was generally one inning behind in the game but the present situation had him completely lost.
“If you aren't Jeannie...then...then what...what did he do to YOU?”
Finding a sympathetic ear opened the flood gates. I imagined Rachel putting her hands on her hips or folding her arms and saying, “Well...
Afternoon light shone through the window where I had spray painted “SOX #1” Sometime before they became the poster child for #2. I sat in the light on the basement stairs and listened to her accuse and curse me. Rachel's story made the Jeannie incident seem like a Curious George plot. I was so guilty, hiding on the cellar stairs with green moss and the mice and spiders in their webs between boxes of musty books. My father had mistaken Rachel for Jeannie, another victim. I could picture my father's face hardening as he realized that, no, his son was not just a simple young painter who gave ill fated rides to women on the road and left them in a snow bank in Willowville, hounded by a pack of drunks. No, his son was worse, much worse, according to Rachel.
How, I asked myself, had this happened? How had she tracked me down?
My father happened to ask the same question.
“He painted his name on the side of his car. Half the people at Pic and Pay knew him. They all said he is insane. Cristo told me where he lived. This is serious.”
Betrayed by Cristo? Again? Chap snickered in the kitchen. He was beginning to catch on. Yes, I had tried to encourage the Transcendentalist spirit by spray painting “WEB” on the side of Poncho along with some other Ninja power symbols, but I hadn't intended on robbing banks or getting involved in other capers demanding anonymity.
Rachel choked back tears as she finished the story.
“Now I have to take the bus again,” she blubbered.
“MARK!”
My father's voice probed the walls and cracks hunting for me. It even scared Twain and found my burning ears on the dark cellar steps. His voice stirred the Timewraiths.
The last time I recalled hearing that voice was nine years earlier at a July 4th rental lake house in central New Hampshire. A younger boy had been throwing stones at me for ten minutes while a barbecue heated our burgers. I told him to stop but he kept throwing them at me. There were no adults around. I walked away and he followed and threw more stones. They didn't hurt much when they hit my back or legs but I still felt humiliated. Maybe I wouldn't play with him. I don't know what his problem was. I told him to stop again but he refused. Finally, I picked up a good sized stone, about as big as a golf ball, and threw it at him. The stone hit the boy directly on the forehead and he collapsed without a sound to the gravel driveway. I was sure I had killed him.
I was 100 yards away and picking up speed when the first adult shouts pursued me down the dirt road leading from the lake. I heard my father's voice cut through the forest silence. I then crept into the forest and hid behind an old chimney, watching as my father ran past, calling my name. Hours later I turned myself in. The same voice now echoed through the cellar, convicting me with its tone. But now I was trapped, too big to hide and too clumsy to flee. Could I hide behind the water heater? Could I crawl beneath the workbench? Could I fit in that old refrigerator box or under the sled? No. Hiding would just make things worse. Maybe things would work out. My father stomped into the kitchen. He could smell my fear.
“Where's Ogden?”
“I don't know,” said Chap, “Maybe he went outside.”
He was probably staring at the cellar door because my father walked to it and exposed me. I pretended like I was coming up the stairs already and had just been down there fixing the plumbing or draining the water heater.
“There is someone here you need to talk to.”
“Really? Somebody for me? I heard some water dripping down here. Just making sure the sump pup was working.”
“Don't give me that crap. Get up here and deal with this. What have you and Erin been up to?”
The next few minutes would be hard. Very hard. Lies needed to be told. Good lies. Lies I could defend. Who knows, I thought, What I say now could be held against me later. I didn't want to hear, 'Mr. Bleacher, did you or did you not claim to be possessed by demons during the month of December, Nineteen-Ninety One? Keep in mind that you are under oath.''
I needed to be careful and calculated. My bladder felt like I had swallowed a gallon of anti-freeze. I could smell my armpits. Sweat from my back worked its way down the crack of my ass. My mouth watered like it does just before I vomit.
The dark-haired girl waiting for me in the hallway was about the size of Cristo. She wore Gapish high school fashions and too much makeup that failed to cover up her genetic shortcomings. She had a similar looking friend behind her for backup. I was repulsed.
“Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?” I asked cheerfully.
“Yeah, God damn it. You...” and she ran through the whole event double time. “Everything is ruined.”
“No, really! Cut it out. You look fine.”
Yeah! The junkyard wouldn't even buy the radio because they figured it was broken too. They paid me forty dollars for the tires. Ten dollars a piece! Forty dollars for the whole car! Look!”
She gave me a sheet of printed paper with a garage name on it. I took it with a trembling hand and then I gasped. A drop of sweat from my nose fell onto the number 2,300. 2,300 dollars for a new transmission. It was just one of the many four digit numbers on a repair invoice that looked more like a 'Build-it-yourself' parts list for a 1987 Buick Skylark. The items were too numerous to name. Everything from the axle ($1,700) to the antennae ($9.50) was listed. Even the seat covers were on there.
“No!”
“Yeah, and it is all your fault. The police want to talk to you. They're looking for your car.”
I found this news a little amusing considering that I lived three blocks from the Police Station, but I decided to mask my mirth. My bowels rumbled like a boulder rolling in a deep cave full of mud. I needed to fart but I held it in and said, “Now, slow down there, Jane Jetson. How do you figure?”
“Well, Jesus Christ, you...”
For the third time in ten minutes I heard the story of a night I was doomed to account for.
“Yeah, well, that sucks. I didn't actually cause all this. See? We were just kidding. Erin and me were just fooling around. Come on. Seriously.”
I waved the repair list and smiled with extra charm.
She launched into the narrative for a fourth time and was about half way through it, around the 'We were screaming for our lives” part, when I handed her the estimate back and asked what she wanted from me.
“To pay this,” she said, and waved the invoice in my face.
Ha!” It was less a laugh and more a noise a man makes when kicked in the groin.
“Ha!”
Rachel mumbled some words I couldn't understand because a buzz had developed in my ears. I did, however, grasp the words, 'Court' and 'Sue'.
The gloves were off.
“You might as well forget it. If I had that much money do you think I would've bought my car? I don't have that much money.”
“Neither do I, and I don't have insurance.”
“Why not?”
“I just bought the car two days before. It was my dream car. I was going to drive to California after I graduated and study acting. I was gonna be a star and you ruined my dream!”
This just gets better and better, I mused.
“That is my fault because...?”
“...because you are a maniac. It was my first car and you destroyed it. You have to pay.”
If I decided to kill her then I would also have to kill her friend, my father, and The Wackmaster. That was four bodies to bury out at Ogden's point. Poncho’s trunk could only hold two bodies. At most.
“Can't we just talk this over?”
“I don't know what else to do.”
“Look. I'll call you after Christmas and we can get this whole thing sorted out.”
Translation: Leave so I can get out of the state.
“You'd better. I needed that car for my job. It was my dream...”
“Sure it was. Sure. I'm real sorry about all of this. I'll see you soon.”
I comforted her by petting her shoulder as I led her toward the door.
“I don't want to have to sue you,” she mumbled and she looked at the estimate again..
“Of course you don't, sweet child. There won't be any need for that. Absolutely none. Believe me. I have experience in these things. I'll make a few calls. You just stay by the phone, but don't worry. We'll take care of this. Bye bye. Merry Christmas.”
I pushed her out the door and then I shut it and double locked it. I watched her walk down the steps and then I looked up and down the street for any further attacks. Who was next? Maybe the girl I called a big baby in third grade would demand compensation for her pain and suffering. Maybe Nancy would drop by to call me an asshole. Still, I had managed to get rid of Rachel without physical violence. It wasn't a complete disaster. My father was waiting, arms folded at the end of the hallway. Chap was gone.
“What was that all about?”
“I...”
“When are you going to grow up?”
“She...”
“Is this what you do with your time?”
“Kodiak...”
“Can't you even take responsibility for it?”
“Cristo...”
“I'm embarrassed, Ogden. I thought she was the person who you nearly killed, but she turns out to be a completely different person you nearly killed. Is there anything else I should know? Someone is wanted for a robbery in Whaleswood. Do you know something about it?”
“I swear, Dad. Jesus Christ himself was not persecuted as much as I am. Where is the crucifix? Is it in the garage? Get the hammer and the nails. Crucify me on the lawn. Make a crown of thorns and nail me to the cross. You might as well.”
“How could you?”
“We all make mistakes. Look at Schiraldi. An oh and two fastball over the plate? An oh and two fastball? How?”
“Mistakes? I know I made a mistake twenty years ago.”
“I see. Now it's going to get nasty. Now you want to get personal. Well maybe if you and mom hadn't broken up I wouldn't be such a fahk up. Maybe if my mommy was around for my formative years then I would be a doctor by now.”
“Now that isn't fair, Ogden. The breakup hurt me as much it hurt you. Don't get mean. The choices you make...”
“I haven't even started getting mean. You remember the twenty-year old girlfriend you had for three years? What morals did I learn from that disaster?”
“Now, don't bring Joan into this. Don't do it.”
“And remember how you forced Brooklyn into the Army?”
“That isn't true and you know it. This is about you, Ogden. This is about your attempts to extend you adolescence.”
“Extend it? Why would I want to extend the worst years of my life? Why? Don't you see how haunted I am? I'm trying to escape adolescence. But they won't let me.”
“They?”
“The Timewraiths. Can't you see them? They're everywhere. Look. This is Calvin Schiraldi. He threw an oh and two fastball to Ray Knight that was pure meat. This is Dewey who promised me they'd win.”
I pointed wildly.
“Rose's on the couch with her shirt unbuttoned. Erin and I are walking out the door on our way to the Dump. Cristo and JoJo are waiting for me to play whiffle ball. Kurt's throwing rocks at my window. There's Buckner running in for the ball. They're everywhere! I can't get away from them. They made me do it.”
“You need help.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you could cut me some slack then. Huh?”
“But that has nothing to do with these latest incidents. Ogden, you are turning into a serial criminal.”
“My lawyer has instructed me not to discuss it.”
“You aren't in high school anymore. There are consequences. Even if your parents separated, there are consequences.”
“Tell me something I don't know.”
“That wouldn't be so hard.”
He shook his head, asked himself why he bothered, and walked away. I sat down on the couch next to Rose's ghost, and looked out at the street where Poncho was parked. A curse or a credit, I wondered?
“I'm leaving tomorrow,” I announced. “And I'm never coming back.”
My father called down the stairs.
“You are not! You will not slink away from this. Your grandmother isn't going to be alive for many more years and she got you something, though she should give it to charity. You will stay for Christmas!”
This was going to be a great Christmas. I was held hostage by guilt while my crimes multiplied, my enemies increasing by the second, so I could attend a Christmas and have to further defend myself. There was only one thing to do. I turned the television on and hit Play. Gary Carter was coming to the plate. I channeled all of my frustration towards Schiraldi.
“Strike that bum out. Come on!”
Schiraldi threw the pitch and Carter slapped it into Left field for a base hit.
“Damn it!”
Kevin Mitchell was sent in to pinch hit for Darryl Strawberry.
“One more out! Just give me one more out. Please god! Please! I'll pay Rachel back. I'll make amends if you will just give me one out.”
Mitchell crushed a Schiraldi offering into Center Field. Carter moved to second. Ray Knight came to the plate. My enemies were all around me. I depended on Schiraldi for the last out. He gathered his strength and got two strikes against Knight. The count was 0-2. All Knight needed to do was wave at a pitch in the dirt and the inning would be over. The Sox would be champions. All my years of pain would be erased.
“Throw the ball in the dirt. Just throw a junk pitch. Throw it up in his eyes. Just don't give him something to hit.”
My father came to the top of the stairs and called down to me.
“The game is over, Ogden. It ended over five years ago! They lost! Get over it!”
“You don't know anything. You don't know Ray Knight. You want them to lose, but they still have a chance. If Schiraldi doesn't give Knight anything to hit right here. Please. Please.”
Schiraldi leaned into his next delivery. It was right over the plate and Knight swatted it into short center field. One run scored. Tying run on third base. Stanley was called in to pitch to Mookie Wilson. I lay on the floor. My right eye had developed a twitch and something gurgled in my lungs. Stanley threw a pitch that Gedman failed to glove. The tying run scored. Then Wilson hit a spinning, skipping ball toward first base. Stanley raced for the bag. Wilson ran with his arms pumping. Buckner charged the ball. I groaned and clawed at the remote.
“Sox Win! Sox win!”
posted by Oggy Bleacher | 12:08 AM
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