Pax pushed down the top of his father’s head and the old man obediently faced forward and bent his head.
Pax said, “Deke told me about—about how the chub boys suck that stuff out of you.”
“They came again last night,” his father said. Pax could hear the accusation in his voice. “Big day, they said. A double-header.”
“I was with Deke yesterday. I was, well, recovering.” His father didn’t say anything. The hair along the sides of his head had dried and tangled. Pax tugged and cut, tugged and cut.
Several minutes passed. “I remember Jo Lynn when she was small,” his father said. “I remember both of you …”
Pax’s hand was resting against his father’s head, holding it steady; he felt his big body tremble. “I’m not feeling so good,” his father said. He exhaled heavily. “Help me get back to the living room.”
“Just a second, I’m almost done,” Pax said.
His father pushed up against the tabletop, tried to rise, and fell back.
“Hold on, hold on,” Pax said. He put down the comb and scissors and stepped in front of him. His father was just so damn big. Pulling him upright, Pax realized, would be an engineering problem—an exercise in mechanics and leverage.
He straddled one of his father’s legs and got a hand under each arm. “Ready?” he said.
He braced his feet on the linoleum floor and leaned back. His father held on to him, then with a lurch rose from the chair. For a moment they held each others’ arms like dance partners: London Bridge Is Falling Down.
His father was much shorter than he remembered. It wasn’t just that Pax had grown. Maybe the weight had compressed Harlan’s spine. Maybe charlies gradually became perfect spheres. This old man came rolling home.
His father looked up at him and laughed. “He arose!” Like that his mood had lightened. He moved slowly toward the living room, planting each huge foot a few inches in front of the other.
His father’s shape had been embossed onto the couch. The big man turned, put one arm on the back of the couch, and dropped into the same spot.
Pax parted the drapes. The chub’s car was still out there. “Do you know what they’re doing with the stuff, Dad?” he said. “After they take it from you?”
“Oh, you can ask Rhonda about that. Somebody ought to ask her.” He pointed at the TV. “Turn that on.”
Pax turned on the set, handed his father the remote, and then went back into the kitchen to make a sandwich from the deli meat he’d bought. By the time he returned with the plate his father was asleep.
Pax opened the kitchen windows, turned on lights. The kitchen was filthy, but ten years in the restaurant business, working every position from dishwasher to line cook, had inured him to vile substances that bred in the dark. He’d just clean up a little, and then when his father woke up he’d say his good-byes and get the hell out of there.
He swept up the hair clippings, and when he couldn’t find a garbage bag, tossed them into the grocery sack. There was Palmolive dish soap under the sink—his mother’s brand. He washed the dishes and rinsed them in bleach water. Then on to the refrigerator. The racks held nothing but condiments and Tupperware and foil-wrapped bowls. After inspecting a few of the containers and finding their contents far gone, he began to toss everything. His father’s snoring drowned out the sound of the TV.
He could have come back here and started cleaning last night after supper at Deke’s. Instead he’d driven up to the Lambert Motel 6. Deke and Donna had tried to get him to stay with them, but the vintage was still in his system and the oversized bed in the giant house was a little too Alice in Wonderland. He felt like he was overdosing on strangeness.
That night he sat on the polyester bedspread in his underwear, eating CiCi’s pizza and flipping through channels. For dessert he smoked a joint while he watched a South Park rerun. Around ten he called in to work and told the night manager he couldn’t make it back to the restaurant by Monday. The manager started to be a dick about it, as usual, but quickly backed off when Pax told him his father was sick. Pax must have sounded genuinely upset.
He said he didn’t know how long it would take to get someone to take care of his father. Which was true, as far as it went.
Nobody at work knew he was from Switchcreek. None of his friends either. They knew he was from down south, but so far he’d never felt the need to open up a conversation—or shut one down—with Hey, you know that biological catastrophe thirteen years ago? That was my hometown!
It helped that nobody he knew in Chicago talked about the Changes, or had even seen a Switchcreeker in person. All the years Pax lived in Chicago the only Changed he’d seen was an argo boy on a talk show. He’d heard there was a beta in L.A. who ran some kind of fetish website, but he’d never looked it up. His people stayed home, or they became professional freaks. Only the unchanged, like Pax, had the option of passing in the outside world. Pax could slip back to his life in the city any time he wanted to. Any time.
He heard a faint thump from outside—the chub’s car door shutting? He hurried into the living room, and stopped short before reaching the door.
His father’s body had swelled. His stomach had pushed open the robe, and his face and neck had ballooned. His snoring had stopped, but his eyes were still closed and his breathing was coming heavy.
“Dad?” He went to his side, touched his shoulder. “Dad!”
His father’s eyes slowly opened. His pupils were dilated. “Lorraine. Lorraine was here.”
“Mom’s not here, Dad. You were dreaming.”
His eyes seemed to focus on Pax’s face, then his head fell back in surprise. “Paxton? Is that really you?” He smiled. “The prodigal returns.”
Shit, Pax thought.
“You mother was just here,” he said. “Or maybe that was yesterday.”
The blisters had erupted again. They were everywhere on his skin, all sizes, weeping and shiny. His father reached for him and Paxton stepped back. He remembered that electric rush of emotion that had struck him, left him lying stupid in the grass.
He heard voices and went to the door. Through the diamond-shaped window he saw another car in the driveway—one of those new Cadillacs with a snout like a bulldog—and Aunt Rhonda waddling toward the house in her blazing pink pantsuit. Close behind came three chub boys: Clete, who was carrying a Styrofoam cooler; the one with the diamond earring and a head like a bowling ball who seemed to be Aunt Rhonda’s personal bodyguard; and another muscled boy he didn’t recognize who swung a duffel bag in his hand.
Paxton locked the door and stepped to the side, out of the view of the window. Even though he was expecting it, the knock made him flinch.
“Reverend Martin?” Rhonda called. “Paxton?”
He backed away from the door—he didn’t want his voice to sound too close—and called back, “This isn’t a good time, Aunt Rhonda.”
“Don’t let her in!” his father bellowed.
One of the men laughed, but was quickly cut off. Rhonda said, “Paxton, honey, I’m here to help. Boys, go back to the cars and sit awhile. Paxton and I need to talk.”
Pax risked a glance out the window; the chub boys were walking back to the driveway, talking among themselves.
In a lower voice Rhonda said, “Paxton, open the door and let me explain what all’s going on.”
Pax glanced at his father. He was staring at his knees, shaking his head back and forth. Pax unlocked the door and slowly opened it. “I think we should talk outside,” he said, and pulled the door closed behind him. The chubs glanced back but kept walking.