“He’s been doing it since Brian’s accident,” Ralph said. He touched the swollen place over his left eye, winced, and dropped his hand again. He stared at David through two sets of bars, looking as self-conscious as David felt. “I came upstairs to kiss you goodnight this one time-it was a few days after they let Brian go home-and I saw you down on your knees at the foot of your bed. At first I thought you might be… well, I don’t know, doing some-thing else… then I heard some of what you were saying, and understood.”
David smiled, feeling a blush heat his cheeks. That was pretty absurd, under the circumstances, but there it was. “I do it in my head now. I don’t even move my lips. A couple of kids heard me mumbling to myself one day in study-hall and thought I was going feeble.”
“—Maybe your father understands, but I don’t,” Ellen said.
“I talk to God,” he said. This was embarrassing, but maybe if it was said once, and right out straight, it wouldn’t have to be said again. “That’s what praying is, talking to God. At first it feels like talking to yourself, but then it changes.”
“Is that something you know for yourself, David, or is it something your new Sunday pal told you.”
“Something I know for myself.”
“And does God answer.”
“Sometimes I think I hear him,” David said. He reached into his pocket and touched the shotgun shell with the tips of his fingers. “And once I know I did. I asked him to let Brian be all right. After Dad took me to the hospital, I went to the Bear Street Woods and climbed to the plat-form me and Bri made in a tree there and asked God to let him be all right. I said that if he did that, I’d kind of give him an IOU. Do you know what I mean.”
“Yes, David, I know what an IOU is. And has he col-lected on it. This God of yours.”
“Not yet. But when I got up to climb back down the tree, God told me to put my EXCUSED EARLY pass on a nail that was sticking out of the bark up there. It was like he wanted me to turn it in, only to him instead of Mrs. Hardy in the office. And something else. He wanted me to find out as much as I could about him-what he is, what he wants, what he does, and what he won’t do. I didn’t exactly hear that in words, but I heard the name of the man he wanted me to go to-Reverend Martin. That’s why I go to the Methodist church. I don’t think the brand name matters much to God, though. He just said to do church for my heart and spirit, and Reverend Martin for my mind. I didn’t even know who Reverend Martin was—‘ at first.”
“But you did,” Ellie Carver said. She spoke in the soft, soothing voice of a person who suddenly understands that the person she’s talking with is having mental problems.
“Gene Martin has come to the house two or three years in a row to collect for African Relief.”
“Really. I didn’t see him. I guess I must have been in school when he came.”
“Nonsense,” his mother said, now in tones of absolute finality. “He would have come around near Christmas, so you wouldn’t have been in school. Now listen to me David.
Very carefully. When the stuff with Brian hap pened, you must have… well, I don’t know… thought you needed outside help. And your subconscious dredged up the only name it knew. The God you heard in your moment of bereavement was your subconscious mind looking for answers.” She turned to Ralph and spread her hands. “The obsessive Bible—reading was bad enough, but this… why didn’t you tell me about this praying “Because it looked private.” He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “And it wasn’t hurting anybody.”
“Oh no, praying is great, without it the thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden probably never would have been invented.” This was a voice David had heard before, a nervous, hectoring voice that his mother adopted when she was trying to keep from breaking down completely. It—‘ was the way she’d spoken to him and his dad when Brian had been in the hospital; she had gone on in that vein for a week or so even after Brian came around.
David’s father turned away from her, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking nervously down at the floor That seemed to make her more furious than ever. She swung back to David, mouth working, eyes shiny with new tears.
“What kind of deal did he make with you, this won derful God. Was it like one of the baseball-card trades you do with your buds. Did he say ‘Hey, I’ll trade you this neat Brian Ross ‘84 for this Kirstie Carver ‘88.’ Was it like that. Or more like-”
“Lady, he’s your boy and I don’t mean to interfere, but why don’t you give it a rest. I guess you lost your little girl; I lost my husband. We’ve all had a tough day.”
It was the woman who had shot at the cop. She was sit-ting on the end of the bunk. Her black hair hung against her cheeks like limp wings but did not obscure her face; she looked shocked and stricken and tired. Most of all tired. David couldn’t remember ever having seen such a weary pair of eyes.
He thought for a moment that his mother would turn her rage on the dark-haired woman.
It wouldn’t have sur-prised him; she sometimes went nuclear with total strangers. He remembered once, when he’d been about six, she’d flamed a political candidate trolling for votes outside their neighborhood supermarket. The guy had made the tactical mistake of trying to hand her a leaflet when she had an armload of groceries and was late for an appointment. She had turned on him like some small, biting animal, asking him who he thought he was, what he thought he stood for, what his position was on the trade deficit, had he ever smoked pot, had he ever in his life converted the six-ten split, did he support a woman’s right to choose. On that last one the guy had been emphatic—he did support a woman’s right to choose, he told Ellen Carver proudly. “Good, great, because I choose right now to tell you to GET THE HOLY HELL OUT OF MY FACE!” she had screamed, and that was when the guy had simply turned tail and fled. David hadn’t blamed him, either. But some-thing in the dark-haired woman’s face (Mary, he thought, her name is Mary) changed his mother’s mind, if blowing up had indeed been on it.
She focused on David again instead.
“So-any word from the big G on how we’re supposed to get out of this. You were on your knees long enough, there must have been some sort of message.
Ralph turned back to her. “Quit riding him!” he growled. “Just quit it! Do you think you’re the only one who’s hurting.”
She gave him a look which was perilously close to con-tempt, then looked back at David again. “Well.”
“No,” he said. “No message.”
“Someone’s coming,” Mary said sharply. There was a window behind her bunk. She stood on the bunk and tried to look out. “Shit! Bars and frosted glass with goddam—chicken-wire in it! But I hear it, I do!”
David heard it, too-an approaching motor. Suddenly it revved up, blatting at full power.
The sound was ac-companied by a scream of tires. He looked around at the old man. The old man shrugged and raised his hands, palms up.
David heard what might have been a yell of pain, and then another scream. Human, this time. It would be better to think it had been a scream of wind caught in a gutter or a downspout, but he thought it had almost certainly been human.
“What the hell.” Ralph said. “Jesus! Someone’s screaming his head off! Is it the cop, do you think.”
“God I hope so!” Mary cried fiercely, still standing on the bunk and peering at the useless window. “I hope someone’s pulling the son of a bitch’s lungs right out of his chest!” She looked around at them. Her eyes were still tired, but now they looked wild, as well. “It could be help Have you thought of that. It could be help!”
The engine-not too close but by no means distant revved. The tires screamed again, screamed the way they did in the movies and on TV but hardly ever in real life Then there was a crunching sound. Wood, metal, maybe both.