“Her,” the neighbor corrected, bending low over the carcass. Rueben had the impression that he might start feeding on the dead thing at any moment.
“It’s a her... a female,” the man repeated without looking up from his careful scrutiny.
With a shock of revulsion, Rueben realized that he had lifted the poor creature’s tail to expose the hindquarters for his benefit.
“Yes, I see... a female,” Rueben acknowledged uneasily.
Still squatting, he turned his face up to Rueben and smiled. This time it was the wan light of the moon that pooled in the grimy lenses of his skewed glasses, hiding the bloodshot piggish eyes that Rueben remembered so well. The same light delineated the face like a stark black-and-white portrait; each detail stood forth from the composite whole as unattractive in its own right, independent of the unpleasant picture they all conspired to create: the crown of the lumpy skull was nearly exposed, with only a few lank wisps trailing down to join the true hairline that began just above the large, furry ears. The rest had been allowed to grow to shoulder length and was so dirty that it looked like the hair of a drowned man — wet and twisted into greasy ropes by the currents. Dirty-looking stubble covered the drawn lower face, and Rueben briefly marveled at how someone could always be unshaven, yet never grow a beard. In the thousands of days that Rueben had watched his neighbor lounge about his property (no, his father’s property, Rueben primly corrected himself), his appearance never changed. The hair, the stubble, the lank, wispy moustache that barely draped the long, thin upper lip, even the glasses always sported some homemade, amateurish repair. He was like some prehistoric insect trapped in amber, Rueben thought meanly — hideous and unchanging.
The face continued to grin up at Rueben as if awaiting an answer that would surely be wrong. Rueben stared back, unable to shift his gaze or just walk away, aware for the first time just how much the man frightened him and how closely that fear resembled hatred.
“That mighta been me,” the neighbor observed as he stood. “Dead, like that.” He nudged the carcass with the toe of his engineer boot to emphasize his point. “Almost was.”
“You were on the wrong side of the street,” Rueben squeaked, outraged and made nervous by the insinuation.
“I’ve been runned over before,” he pronounced proudly, pointing to the left side of his face and turning his small, round head to best advantage in the moonlight.
Rueben was horrified to see a whorl of scar tissue at the man’s left temple that appeared to extend into the eye socket. Face-on, with the glasses, it was almost hidden, but from the angle he presented, it appeared as if a spike had been driven into his head and wrested out many years before. Rueben could barely contain his disgust.
“My God,” he whispered, “how did that...?”
“Speeder... like you,” the neighbor offered pleasantly, his tiny teeth an uneven row of mottled corn kernels. “Left me for dead.” As an afterthought, he added, “But I wasn’t.”
For the first time in the twelve years that Rueben had gone from amused tolerance of the youngster who seemed unable to leave his father’s nest to thinly disguised contempt for the surly abuser that ruled over his ageing parents like a tyrant, Rueben felt a spark of compassion. Was this injury the root cause of such repellent behavior?
“Danny,” Rueben tried the name like a foreign word; he hadn’t used it since Curtis, Danny’s poor, broken father, had died. “When did this happen... your accident, I mean?” He gestured weakly at the scar.
Danny seemed startled at the use of his name, but quickly recovered. “Right about when you moved into the neighborhood.” He stared into Rueben’s eyes meaningfully and smiled.
Now it was Rueben’s turn to be startled. “You’re not insinuating that I...” He stopped, unwilling to complete the implied accusation. “You’re not serious!”
Danny stopped smiling. “Mighta been you,” he opined evenly. “It almost was you tonight.”
“I was nowhere close to hitting you,” Rueben protested, the sweat breaking out on his forehead now as well. “You were on the wrong side of the street!” Rueben thought to take the initiative. “Besides, what are you doing out here at this time of night, any-way? And with no lights or reflectors?” he asked as accusingly as he dared.
“Gimme ten dollars,” Danny countered, taking a step closer.
“What?” Rueben was flummoxed by the sudden change in tack.
“Ten,” Danny repeated firmly. “The Bealwood closes in half an hour.”
The Bealwood was a local watering hole; not the kind of place Rueben patronized. “You want beer money?” Rueben gasped, taking a step back.
“Ten,” Danny repeated and shot out a grimy, black-nailed hand. “Then we’ll just keep this to ourselves.”
“Keep what?” Rueben protested, even as he pulled out his wallet and extracted a five with shaking hands. He was disgusted and ashamed of his easy capitulation, but the nearness of this man, the smashed animal at his feet, and the eerie solitude of their situation all conspired to deprive him of what little courage he possessed.
Danny snatched the five from his grip and instantly returned his open palm for Rueben’s inspection. “I said ten.”
Humiliated, Rueben dug out several more bills to find another five, only to have Danny snatch the remainder from his grasp and crush them into a ball without even bothering to count. Incredibly, he smiled and slapped Rueben on the shoulder.
“Wanna come get a drink?” he inquired amiably.
Rueben shook his head weakly and looked at his feet to hide the tears that welled up in his eyes.
“Aw’right, then,” Danny acquiesced cheerfully. “But I aw’ways shut the place down.” With that, he climbed onto his shaky bicycle and grunted and puffed until he gained enough speed to glide away.
“I could have him arrested,” Rueben told himself as he stared angrily after his antagonist, then just as quickly dismissed the idea. The additional humiliation of explaining to officers, people he saw on a daily basis, how he was robbed without a blow or a weapon was too much. He could easily imagine the sly exchanged glances and barely concealed smirks. No, he would tell no one. It would be unbearable.
Danny had been in his late teens when Rueben had bought the house just next-door, and even then, Rueben had sensed all was not well with his neighbors. Curtis and Dot were quiet, friendly folk who had made a point of welcoming Rueben to the neighborhood with an iced cinnamon cake baked by Dot herself. They had arrived at his door without their son, and never once mentioned him throughout their brief, chatty visit. Rueben might never have known he existed if not for his sullen, beer-drinking presence camped out for hours at a time in their backyard — ensconced in a lawn chair and glaring at Rueben whenever he ventured into his own. Apparently, he did not attend school, as Rueben (who had always worked the four-to-twelve shift) found to his dismay when he wished to enjoy his own yard. It was unsettling to be the subject of such intense and, seemingly, malevolent scrutiny, but Rueben kept his peace, not wishing to upset Curtis or Dot, who obviously bore a heavy, and what must have been disappointing, burden in their son. Rueben’s attempts to break the ice with a friendly wave were ordinarily met with a toadlike stare, the occasional curt nod, and more than once, the “finger.” If things had continued in this manner, Rueben might not have found himself standing on a lonely roadside twelve years later with a dead deer, an empty wallet, and, worse still, a gut-sick fear that was rapidly evolving into murderous hatred.
It was typical, if destructive, boyish pranks at first: a full garbage can left at the curb for pickup turned upside down, the lid vanished; impossible to right without emptying the entire stinking contents into the street. A carefully carved jack-o’-lantern smashed against the siding of the house, orange gore dripping and a stain that took great effort to wash away. A paper bag set aflame on his front step, which Rueben found, after stomping it out, to be full of excrement (he never cared to discover whether it was of animal or human origin). In every case, he could count on looking up and finding Danny watching impassively, a cigarette dangling from his lips.