December Park(50)

One time, I saw Dennis walking by himself up Woolworth Avenue, his meaty hands wedged into the pockets of his too-tight corduroys, his attention focused on his feet. He had the same look of stupefaction from that day in the classroom. I wondered if it would be there until the day he died. However, I never found out, because his family eventually moved away.

Sometimes Adrian reminded me of Dennis Foley and of the look of stupefaction seated permanently on Dennis’s wide, dull face.





Despite Adrian’s request, I considered giving Peter a call and seeing if he’d tag along with us on whatever adventure Adrian had planned. I wasn’t afraid, but Adrian’s intensity and awkwardness were generally best diluted among others. To suffer him alone was to truly suffer.

However, in the end I decided to abide by Adrian’s wishes and go it alone. I was certain he would refuse to show me whatever it was if Peter—or anyone else, for that matter—was present. And as wary as I was about the whole thing, I couldn’t pretend that my curiosity wasn’t also piqued.

I showered and dressed in warm corduroy pants, boots, a flannel shirt over a thermal one, and a hooded sweatshirt. My dad was in the basement, screwing around with the furnace, which seemed to cause trouble every February. He knelt in front of the open grate, peering at a wavering blue flame. There were various tools spread out on a grease-spattered drop cloth on the floor beside him.

From halfway down the stairs, I watched him work for a few moments. When he stood to look around the back of the furnace, I heard the tendons popping in his knees—great audible cracks that sounded like twigs snapping. Listening to that sound, it occurred to me that my father would grow old and eventually die.

My mother had died, leaving nothing behind of her memory except a photo album with all her pictures in it in the den, wedged between an atlas and a thick leather-bound volume of Kipling stories, as well as the framed picture in my dad’s bedroom. I scarcely knew my mother, so her absence meant little to me.

Charles had died in combat in 1991, and that had caused an indescribable darkness to come to our house—a darkness that could never leave. Charles’s death had stripped something vital from my basic framework, my insides, simultaneously replacing it with a burning rod of anger. I often felt that parts of me had become translucent, turned to glass, since he’d gone.

But thinking of the inevitable death of my father instilled confusion within me. Despite our differences, I loved my father very much. I knew I would never be the son that Charles had been—my father would never be proud of me the way he had been proud of Charles and all that Charles had accomplished—but I also knew he loved me, too. Sometimes I wondered if our differences—and the mystery of our differences—forged the strongest bond.

“Hey, Dad. I’m gonna run out with that kid Adrian from next door for a little while.”

He poked his head out from behind the furnace and mopped sweat away from his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Where are you guys going?”

“Probably just for a quick bike ride.”

“Did you finish all your homework?”

“Mostly. I’m still working on a paper for English.”

“I want you back before dark, okay?”

“Sure.”

He nodded, scooped up a wrench from the drop cloth, and disappeared behind the furnace again.

Outside, the evening had turned cool and gray. The moon, a faint whitish pearl, was already visible over the Mathersons’ house. I could tell by the current temperature that tonight would drop to damn near freezing, which was probably why my father had seemed so pressed to get the furnace up and running today. I crossed the yard and sat atop the woodpile where I had a cigarette while waiting for Adrian.

Nearly twenty minutes went by with no sign of him. I had nearly given up and gone back inside to finish my homework when I heard him rustling through the trees.

“Angelo?” he called.

“I’m back here.”

“Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?” I said, sliding off the woodpile.

He stumbled into the yard, breathing heavily and adjusting his glasses. He had his backpack on, and the weight of it made him look unsteady. “I thought maybe you’d change your mind.”

“I said I would, didn’t I? So where are we going?”

“To the woods where they found that girl’s body. Just like you said they did.”

I stood there staring at him. “Why?”

“Because we have to. You said you’d come,” he reminded me. “Are you gonna change your mind?”

Not that I had anything to prove to this mealy limp-wristed kid, but I couldn’t go back on my word. Short of jumping off the Bay Bridge with him, I’d said I was in. And so I was.

“Yeah, okay.” My tone should have alerted him to my displeasure in being duped. He’d tricked me into following him on some odd little escapade that served his morbid obsession. I hadn’t expected to traipse out across the highway to what the neighborhood kids had started referring to as the Dead Woods. “Let me get my bike.”

“We gotta walk,” Adrian said.

I pulled my bike out of the ivy patch on the side of the house anyway. “It’s too cold to walk and it’ll take too long. Besides, I gotta be back before dark.”

“We have to walk,” he insisted.