December Park(128)

My grandfather blinked rapidly and made a soft hitching sound way down in his chest. In all my sixteen years, I had never heard my granddad make such a sound. “It’s just something to think about when you’re up in arms with your father,” he said, then went silent. This time, I knew he had finished.

I kissed the side of his face. His cheek was unshaven, rough, and his skin smelled like tobacco.

“Before you head out,” he said, one arthritic finger pointing crookedly at the porch’s awning, “tell your grandmother I saw that poor excuse for a meat loaf she’s defrosting for dinner and I won’t have none of it. I won’t. I’m too old to eat leftover meat loaf. I’m just too damn old.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

He leaned to one side and slid a hand into his pocket. “Here,” he said, producing a ten-dollar bill. “Get one of them sausage and pepper dogs for yourself at the parade. But only if you promise not to smoke that cigarette you had tucked up behind your ear when you came out here.”

“I promise.”

“Good kid.”

I thanked him, kissed the side of his face again, and fled back into the house.





Adrian was waiting for me on the curb in front of his house.

“I got bad news,” I said and told him I had to be home at nine o’clock.

“But the curfew’s lifted for tonight,” he said.

“Not my dad’s curfew.”

“What about the fireworks?”

“I don’t know, man.”

We walked toward the highway, the day already hot and sunny. Down in the Superstore plaza, a few guys I knew from school zipped by on skateboards. One of them was Dieter Grosskopf, an Austrian exchange student and inventor of the smokeless smoke bag. It consisted of a Ziploc bag sealed shut with packaging tape and a McDonald’s drinking straw poking from it. When smoking in the boys’ lavatory at school, one need only to blow into the straw and fill up the bag, leaving no trace of smoke behind.

“Hey,” Peter said, coming up behind us. He shook some Cracker Jacks into his mouth. “You guys hear about Mr. Van Praet?”

“No,” I said. “What about him?”

“He died last night.”

“No shit,” I said. “How?”

“Heart attack,” Peter said.

“How’d you find out?”

“Monica’s piano teacher is friends with Van Praet’s wife.” Monica was Peter’s eleven-year-old half sister. He tilted his head back and upended the box of Cracker Jacks into his mouth. Munching, he said, “Isn’t that wicked?”

“Poor Mr. Van Praet.”

“Who’s Mr. Van Praet?” Adrian asked.

“He was our freshman geography teacher,” Peter said. “Now he’s worm food. Poor bastard.”

Across the parking lot, Scott and Michael came out of the Quickman. Upon seeing us, Michael whooped and they both ran in our direction. Skidding to a stop mere inches from me, Michael proceeded to juggle—quite impressively—a bunch of wrapped Quickburgers.

“Mr. Van Praet’s dead,” I intoned.

“Our old math teacher?” Michael said, keeping his eyes on the burgers as he juggled.

“Geography,” I corrected, snatching one of the burgers out of the air. This caused the rest to fall to the ground, which Michael scooped up.

“You mean the Piper got him?” Scott said.

“No,” said Peter. “Heart attack.”

Scott looked momentarily crestfallen. “I guess he was a bit overweight.”

“That’s what you get for eating unhealthy food,” Michael said and took a massive bite out of a Double Hermes Burger with extra cheese.

The five of us cut across the highway and down the embankment into the Dead Woods. More signs had been posted since our last visit—Keep Out and Park Closes at Dusk. After a fusillade of springtime thunderstorms followed by several weeks of sunny days, the woods had become a veritable jungle. The trees were big heavy things bristling with leaves. The brook flowed steadily toward some distant point on the horizon accompanied by a chorus of frogs. Little brown shrimp streaked through the water.

Just as we reached Echo Base, Scott slowed his pace.

The headless statues stood upright in a rough circle about the clearing.

We approached with caution and walked slowly around them. Only one remained lying on the ground, though it had been dragged a few feet from its usual spot beneath the chorded veins of roots and ivy and left in the center of the clearing in plain view. The other headless statues surrounded it, like witnesses at a crime scene.

“Who would do this?” Adrian asked.

No one said a word. There were other kids from school who knew about the statues, but they never really came down here, and most of what they knew had been told to them by older siblings. In the past year, we hadn’t seen anyone else hanging around down here.

“Devil worshippers,” said Scott.

“Cut it out,” I said. I stared at the statue lying on the ground, its concrete body ribbed with weeds.

A heavy thud shook the ground as Michael knocked one of the statues over.

We all looked at him, startled.

“Sorry,” he muttered, stepping away from the fallen statue.