Good Neighbors(63)
Silence. Then, “Are you well enough?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t ache today. The little fibers. Thank you for asking.”
They started for the kitchen, shoulders so close they nearly touched, Sharpie line between them, like that coyote and sheep dog from those old cartoons, relaxing at the end of a long day.
* * *
Soon after, Dave broke the house arrest that the Maple Street parents had quietly agreed upon. Charlie Walsh opened on the first knock, like all he did was sit around, praying for visitors. He’d planned to suggest that they sneak out and drink the oilcan of Foster’s that he’d nabbed from his big brother. But the inside of Charlie’s house (pretty furniture, books organized by subject, happy family photos on the walls) looked so inviting. “You got any food?” he asked.
“I’m making a turkey sandwich. Want one?”
As they ate, Charlie said, “I’ve been talking to Julia. We’re gonna find Shelly.”
116 Maple Street
Thursday, July 29
At dinner that evening, the Wildes were interrupted by a bang on the door. It sounded like a rock. Arlo’s first instinct was to flip the table and use it like a shield.
Another rock: Bam!
“Hey! Hello?” a man’s deep voice called from outside. “It’s me! Peter Benchley!”
“Stay here,” Arlo called to the kids, gruff. Then he checked the window. There was Peter, right at the edge of the stoop. He’d been tossing pebbles because his chair couldn’t traverse the steps. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Just stay where you are,” Arlo told Julia and Larry, then went out, shut the door behind him, and met Peter at the landing.
The guy wore a plain white T-shirt and khakis pinned back. He was carrying a leather case on his lap. He’d shaved, but there was a pallor to his complexion. His eyes were pinpricks. More than a decade sober, Arlo still felt a twinge at the back of his neck. A pull and release pleasure-memory.
He crouched and extended his hand to Peter. “You vouched for me with the cops. I never thanked you. Thank you.”
Peter nodded.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. It meant something to me and Gert that you helped us and you stood up. Can I do anything for you?”
Peter let go. He had a loose grip and baby-soft skin, like maybe he only rolled that chair once a week. “I need to tell you something,” he said. His voice was distant, like he was only half living in this world. Arlo remembered that feeling with fondness and alarm. It’s different from drinking. It’s different from anything you can imagine.
“What?” Arlo asked. Though he didn’t want that hot shot of white gold, he could hear the pant of desire in his voice.
“They’re after you.”
“Who? Did you happen to see which one threw the brick?”
“Do you know for how many years I’ve been looking out my window?”
Arlo shook his head.
“I grew up here. But all my friends moved away. I’m like Peter Pan,” Peter said with a smile.
“Sure.”
“I know these people like the ridges of my stumps.”
“Yeah?”
“They’ve always been predictable. Sleep and eat and work, it’s always the same. And then this thing happened.” He nodded his head in the direction of the hole. “And it’s all different. They’re different.”
Arlo stayed crouching in front of Peter. His knees wobbled, off-balance, and he steadied himself by lowering his hands to the bitumen-sticky ground. “What’s different about them?”
“Did you know I was in Iraq?” Peter asked.
“I figured.”
“A kid set off a homemade bomb. He was holding it. His parents made him do that, I guess. Or whoever.” Peter’s eyes stayed far away. “The boy died instantly. So did my CO. I wasn’t hurt that bad. His bones turned to shrapnel inside my legs. The problem was that pieces of his marrow got mixed. The boy’s immune system grew inside me. That’s why the amputation. That’s why the mirror therapy. My whole room’s covered in mirrors. People think it’s made up. I’m a junkie. But it’s real. Did you know that?” He didn’t wait or look to Arlo for acknowledgment. “It hurts so much that I can’t even wear the prosthetics—they’re just for the mirror therapy. I wear them to see my reflection as a whole person. So my brain gets confused and thinks I’m healed. Anyway, when it happened, when that boy did that to me and my CO, I heard these cheers. The people in hiding. Civilians. Neighbors. They cheered.”
Arlo pictured that. Tried to.
“There was this energy to the place. It wasn’t happy cheering.”
Arlo gave up crouching and balanced himself by holding on to the sides of Peter’s chair. Up close he saw that Peter wasn’t as old as he looked. It was just his sunken eyes.
“Maple Street has that same electricity.”
“What is it?”
“It’s hysteria. And I don’t even know why. I don’t know if it’s about you. You’re just the target.”
Peter nodded behind him, at a handicap-accessible airport shuttle van. A man was loading luggage while a couple in their seventies, the senior Benchleys, waited at the curb. “It’s too hot for them. They’re making me leave for Florida.”