NOS4A2(86)

Wayne shut his eyes, snatched a desperate breath of air, and shouted, “Go away!”

He heard the door ease inward, whining on its hinges. A hand pressed heavily on the edge of the bed, right by his knee. Wayne forced out a thin, whinnying cry, almost inaudible. He opened his eyes and looked—and it was Hooper.

The big, pale dog stared urgently into Wayne’s face, forepaws on the bed. His damp gaze was unhappy, even stricken.

Wayne looked past him at the partly open door, but the Manx shadow wasn’t there anymore. On some level Wayne understood it had never been there, that his imagination had stitched together a Manx shape out of meaningless shadow. Another part of him was sure he had seen it, a profile so clear it might’ve been inked on the wall. The door was open wide enough so Wayne could see into the corridor that ran the length of the house. No one was there.

Yet he was sure he had heard a knock, could not have imagined that. And as he stared down the hall, it came again, thump, thump, and he looked around and saw Hooper beating his short, thick tail against the floor.

“Hey, boy,” Wayne said, digging into the soft down behind Hooper’s ears. “You scared me, you know. What brings you?”

Hooper continued to gaze up at him. If someone had asked Wayne to describe the expression on Hooper’s big, ugly face, Wayne would’ve said it looked like he was trying to say he was sorry. But he was probably hungry.

“I’ll get you something to eat. Is that what you want?”

Hooper made a noise, a wheezy, gasping sound of refusal, the sound of a toothless gear spinning uselessly, unable to engage.

Only—no. Wayne had heard that sound before, a few moments ago. He had thought he himself was making it. But the sound wasn’t coming from him, and it wasn’t coming from Hooper. It was outside, somewhere in the early-morning dark.

And still Hooper stared into Wayne’s face, his eyes pleading and miserable. So sorry, Hooper told him with his eyes. I wanted to be a good dog. I wanted to be your good dog. Wayne heard this thought in his head, as if Hooper were saying it to him, like a talking dog in a comic strip.

Wayne pushed Hooper aside, got up, and looked out the window into the front yard. It was so dark he could at first see nothing except his own faint reflection on the glass.

And then the Cyclops opened one dim eye, right on the other side of the window, six feet away.

The blood surged to Wayne’s heart, and for the second time in the space of three minutes he felt a yell rise into his throat.

The eye opened, slow and wide, as if the Cyclops were just rousing itself. It glowed a dirty hue located somewhere between orange Tang and urine. Then, before Wayne could produce a cry, it began to fade, until there was only a burning copper iris glimmering in the darkness. A moment later it went out completely.

Wayne exhaled unsteadily. A headlight. It was the headlight on the front of the motorcycle.

His mother rose from beside the bike and swiped her hair back from her face. Seen through the old, rippled glass, she didn’t seem to really be there, was a ghost of herself. She wore a white halter top and old cotton shorts and her tattoos. It was impossible to make out the details of those tattoos in the dark. It looked as if the night itself were adhering to her skin. But then Wayne had always known that his mother was bound to some private darkness.

Hooper was out there with her, whisking around her legs, water dripping off his fur. He had obviously just come from the lake. It took Wayne a moment to register that Hooper was beside her, which didn’t make sense, because Hooper was standing beside him. Except that when Wayne looked around, he saw he was alone.

He didn’t think about it long. He was still too tired. Maybe he’d been awoken by a dream dog. Maybe he was going crazy like his mother.

Wayne pulled on a pair of cutoffs and went out into the predawn cool. His mother worked on the bike, rag in one hand and a funny tool in the other, that special wrench that looked more like a hook or a curved dagger.

“How’d I get in your bed?” he asked.

“Bad dream,” she said.

“I don’t remember having a bad dream.”

“You weren’t the one having it,” she said.

Dark birds dashed through the mist that crawled across the surface of the lake.

“You find the busted sprocket?” Wayne asked.

“How do you know it’s got a busted sprocket?”

“I don’t know. Just from how it sounded when you tried to turn it over.”

“You been spending time out in the garage? Working with your dad?”

“Sometimes. He says I’m useful because I have little hands. I can reach in and unscrew things he can’t get to. I’m great at taking stuff apart. Not so good at putting stuff together.”

“Join the club,” she said.

They worked on the bike. Wayne was not sure how long they were at it, only that by the time they quit, it was hot and the sun was well up above the tree line. They hardly spoke in all the time they worked. That was okay. There was no reason to ruin the greasy, knuckle-scraping effort of fixing the bike with a lot of talk about feelings or Dad or girls.

At some point Wayne sat back on his heels and looked at his mother. She had grease up to her elbows and on her nose, was bleeding from scrapes on her right hand. Wayne was running steel wool over the rust-flecked tailpipe, and he paused to look at himself. He was as filthy as she was.