He Ate The Dates
“I told you to stay out of here.”
Jeremy,
my seven-year-old brother, doesn’t bother to look at me when I speak. He just stands there staring down at our
unconscious babysitter Esme.
“I
just wanted to check on her,” he says, still naked even though his bath has
been indefinitely postponed. “I’m
worried.” His gaze is clearly focused on
the discolored lump on Esme’s forehead where Joshua clocked her with the
bathroom scale.
“She’ll
be okay,” I assure him. “So will we”.
“I
don’t think so,” Jeremy says. He starts doing that annoying thing he does
with his hands, interlocking his fingers and turning his palms first out, then
in. “I think we’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Oh
we’re in trouble all right. But we’ll be
okay. And don’t blame Josh for
this. He did what he had to do.”
My
little brother finally looks up at me.
“I’m not blaming Josh,” he says
grimly. “I’m just worried. I hope she doesn’t die.
“She’s
not going to die,” I say. (At least I hope she doesn’t, considering the
fact that she’s in my bed.) “Come on, go
to your room and read or play video games or something. And put some clothes on for God’s sake.”
“No,” Jeremy says firmly. “I want to take my bath.”
“You
do?”
“Yeah.”
This
surprises me. Sure he’s been abnormally
fond of bath time ever since Esme became our babysitter, but still, you would
think he’d never want to get near a bathtub again after what she tried to do to
him.
“The
water’s probably cold by now,” I say to
discourage him.
“No
it’s not. I checked it. It’s just right.”
“I
don’t know Jeremy. I don’t think you
should be in the bathtub when they come home, just in case they’re – “
“Come
on Franny,” he pleads. “I really want
to.”
Maybe
he needs to do this in order to cope. I
sigh. “All right. But do it quickly. And as soon as you’re finished, put something
on, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He turns and walks solemnly to the bathroom.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself.
Jeremy
Phillips: Age –- Seven. Relationship –- brother. Intelligence –- Far above average. Subject has a high school reading level and
attends a school for gifted children.
Athletic ability –- Below average.
Subject is small and physically weak for his age. Social skills – Average. Despite his superior intelligence, small
stature, and lack of athletic ability, subject has several friends and gets
along well with his classmates.
Interests –- Reading, video games.
Vices –- A superior attitude towards his siblings.
I
turn off the lights in my bedroom, close the door, and head to Mom and Dad’s room
to check on my older brother’s progress.
I find Josh rifling through the contents of Dad’s top dresser
drawer. Josh’s mission for the past two
hours has been to find the combination to Dad’s gun box so that he can get his
hands on Dad’s gun. Needles to say, this
is an extremely risky activity. Just
being in Mom and Dad’s bedroom without permission is a punishment offense, but
attempting to violate Dad’s sacred gun box is a hitting offense. Dad once slapped Linda just for opening his
closet door and looking at his gun box.
And then, just to drive the message home, he locked her in there for
three hours. (That’s probably the main
reason why she’s such a timid wuss today.)
If Dad came home now and saw the gun box sitting on his bed and Josh
going through his papers, Josh would be history.
“Any
luck?” I ask, even though it’s obvious
that he still hasn’t found it.
“No,” Josh says.
I
sit down on the edge of the bed, next to the gun box. “Maybe he didn’t write it down.”
“He
wrote it down. People always write down
their important personal numbers. Don’t
worry, I’ll find it.”
Joshua
Phillips: Age –- Thirteen. Relationship –- Brother. Intelligence –- Average. Subject is a C student. Athletic Ability –- Far above average. Subject is an all around athlete, the star of
several school and neighborhood sports teams.
Social skills –- Far Above Average.
Subject is extremely confident and attracts friends easily, mostly due
to his athletic ability and good looks.
Interests – Sports, girls. Vices
– A bad temper, a fondness for fighting.
I
lift the gun box off the bed to check its weight. It’s surprisingly heavy, considering the fact
that there’s only one gun inside it – a five shot, .38 caliber Chief Special,
one of the official handguns of the New York City Police Department. Dad is a big cop buff. He donates a lot of money to various police
fraternal organizations and in return gets to go on ride alongs and vice raids. He told me once that he would have become a
cop himself if the pay hadn’t been so low.
“Do
you know where the bullets are?” I ask.
“In
the closet, on the top shelf.”
The
closet door is open. I glance up at the
top shelf. There are two small gold
colored boxes stacked in the center, between a folded plaid sweater and a shoe
box. They’re both marked “.38 Special.”
“That’s
all there is – just what’s in those boxes?”
“There
might be more somewhere, maybe in the basement.
It doesn’t matter how much ammo we have if we don’t find that
combination.” He unfolds a piece of
paper, reads it, and tosses it aside.
“Did you put the chain on the door?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did
you and Linda pile that stuff in front of the door like I told you to?”
“Not
yet. I was going to but first I went to
check on Jeremy. I found him with Esme.”
Josh
takes a rubber band-bound bundle of papers out of the drawer. He yanks off the rubber band, throws it on
the floor, and starts examining the papers one by one. “How is she?”
“She’s
still unconscious.”
“Good. I hope she stays that way.”
“No,
not good Josh. What if she doesn’t wake
up?”
“That’s
the least of our worries.” He drops a
paper onto the floor, then another.
I
lie down on my side, propped up on one elbow, and replay Esme’s meltdown in my
mind. Why did she freak out the way she
did? Sure she’s our babysitter, but
she’s only seventeen, a mere three years older than Josh. She should be on our side of the fight.
“We
should have turned the T.V. off when she told us to,” I say.
“That might have been what set her off – seeing all that violence. She’s always been squeamish about blood. Remember last Halloween – how she wouldn’t
let us watch that movie about the serial killer? What was the name of that movie?”
“The
Agonizer.”
“The
Agonizer. She wouldn’t let us see it
even though it was Halloween. She’s
always had a hang up about gore.”
Josh
finishes reading the last paper in the bundle and drops it on the floor with
the others. “So she hates violence so
much that she tries to drown a seven-year-old kid. That makes a lot of sense. Nah, she’s just gone nuts like the
adults. Maybe whatever’s happening to
them affects older teenagers too.” He
starts rifling through the drawer for more papers.
“Do
you think Mom and Dad are going to be nuts too when they come back?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Josh says without looking up. “Yeah, I do.”
That’s
Josh. No false hope, no fake optimism.
“Go
back to the living room. You and Linda
pile all that junk in front of the door.”
On
my way back to the living room I stop by the bathroom to check on Jeremy
again. He’s in the tub soaping himself
with a washcloth, a solemn, almost mournful expression on his face. He seems okay, so I leave him alone and head
for the living room.
I
find Linda exactly as I left her, sitting on the sofa with her head down, lost
in thought. Only a few feet away from
her, on the other side of the room, the television is providing yet another
glimpse of hell: A schoolyard full of
children being kicked and stomped on by their teachers and parents. But Linda is oblivious to the televised
carnage. She’s totally preoccupied with
the latest riddle Jeremy has chosen to torment her with.
Linda
Phillips: Age – Nine. Relationship – Sister. Intelligence – Average. Subject is a B student. Athletic Ability – Far below average. Subject is overweight and clumsy. Social Skills – Below average. Subject is a shy and often teased loner. Interests – Painting, romantic movies,
teenage singing idols. Vices – Chronic
day-dreaming and inattentiveness.
Linda
is smart in her own way, but she’s not clever smart. Anagrams, puzzles and especially riddles
almost always leave her stumped.
Whenever Jeremy wants to avenge himself against her for some perceived
slight he always challenges her with a riddle.
Where he gets them from I don’t know, but he seems to have an endless
supply. This one goes something like
this: A man is stranded on a desert
island with nothing but the clothes on his back, a Bible, and a calendar. There’s a fresh water lake on the island but
no food, and yet he manages to survive for a whole year. How does he do it?
Jeremy
sprang that gem on Linda at breakfast this morning, right after Esme told us
that Mom and Dad never came home from their night out.
“The
answer must have something to do with food,”
Linda muses out loud. “He has
water, but what does he do for food?”
“Will
you stop obsessing over that stupid riddle!”
I snap.
“I’m
not obsessing, I’m just trying to figure it out.”
“With
everything that’s going on? Here, help
me put this stuff in front of the door.”
I
go over to the boxes of books that Dad stacked up against the wall next to the
door to our apartment. The books were
donated by Dad’s friends and co-workers, some of our neighbors in the building,
and various strangers who read the small article in New York People two months
ago about the charity my Dad founded – “Bridges of Books.” Bridges of Books sends used books to
impoverished villages in third world countries, villages that don’t have
libraries. A very noble charity. I’m not close with Dad, but I have to admit,
he’s civic minded.
There
are ten boxes, each containing two dozen or so hardcover and paperback
books. The combined weight of them in
front of the door will be more than enough to slow down anyone who wants to get
in. Besides the books there’s also some
other stuff we can use as a barricade:
the coat rack, the umbrella stand, and the small wooden dresser where we
keep our gloves, scarves and sweaters.
I
grab one side of a box of books and wait for Linda to assist me, but she just
sits there like a lump.
“Linda,
will you give me a hand?”
“Okay,
okay.” Linda grudgingly drags herself
off the couch. She grabs the other side
of the box. “What if Mom and Dad need to
get inside in a hurry?”
“Then
we’ll move everything and let them in.
But this way we’ll have some time to check out their mood.”
“The
chain is on. Won’t that give us enough
time?”
“Putting
this stuff in front of the door will give us extra time.”
Linda
and I lift the box and plop it down in front of the door.
“They’re
gonna be pissed about Esme,” Linda says.
“Josh
did what he had to do. If they’re pissed
when they come home it won’t be about that.”
We
pile the books, the coat rack, and the umbrella stand in front of the
door. But the dresser is a little too
heavy for us, so we leave it where it is.
I don’t have any upper body strength whatsoever, and Linda has less, so
by the time we finish all the lifting we’re both exhausted. We go back to the living room and collapse
onto the sofa.
The
cable show on the boob tube is now broadcasting the most horrendous display of
corporal punishment I’ve ever seen. A
quarterback-sized man is seated on the hood of a car with a boy about Jeremy’s
age across his knee. The boy’s pants are
pulled down and the quarterback is laying into him without mercy. About a dozen other adults are cheering him
on. Somehow this time-honored and widely
accepted practice is even more horrifying than the other violence we’ve seen
today. Linda, probably recalling her own
parental hammering, cringes.
“We
should turn this off,” she says.
“Josh
said to leave it on, in case there’s a news broadcast.”
As
if on cue, a victorious Josh enters the room carrying Dad’s five shot .38
caliber revolver, a small instruction booklet, and one of the boxes of bullets.
“Got
it!” Josh crows. “You know where he wrote it down? On the bottom of his night table drawer, in
ink in really small letters.” He sits
down next to me on the sofa, gun in hand.
“For
God’s sake be careful with that thing Josh,”
I say.
“Don’t
worry. It’s not loaded – yet.” He puts the box of bullets and the gun on the
table and starts leafing through the instruction booklet. “Shit, I wasted all that time looking for a
piece of paper. I should have known he’d
write it on something more permanent. Did you and Linda pile that stuff in
front of the door?”
“Uh-huh.”
The
poor kid on the television is screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Change
the channel,” Josh says without looking
up from the booklet. Linda picks up the
remote and starts channel surfing, but the only thing available on the cable
channels is either child torture or static.
“Try
the networks,” I say.
Linda
switches to the major networks and comes up with static on all but two: Channel Thirteen, which – incredibly – is
showing its scheduled programming (a new Masterpiece Theater production of “The
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”), and Channel Four, which is showing a live
discussion between an anchorman-type of guy in a suit (the show’s moderator, I
assume) and a well-dressed, middle-aged woman who looks like she might be a
professor of some kind. They are
debating the cause of the current “crisis.”
“I
disagree with that conclusion,” the
professor says curtly. “I don’t have any
children, and yet for the past twenty-four hours I’ve felt the same
uncontrollable rage towards pre-adolescents that mothers and grandmothers have
been experiencing.
“So
you don’t think this ‘rage’ is a matter of biology?” the moderator asks.
“No. I think it’s a matter of psychology.”
Josh
smirks. “And when I start shooting
people it’s going to be a matter of bullets,”
he says with his typical bravado.
He has figured out how to open the cylinder of the gun and is loading
bullets into it one by one.
“Which
people are you referring to?” Linda
asks.
“Anyone
who tries to hurt us.” He inserts the last bullet into the gun, closes the
cylinder, and sticks the gun in his waistband, like a teenage thug in a
movie. “I’ll show them rage.”
“Just
make sure I’m out of the line of fire,”
I say. “Remember, you’ve never
fired a gun before.”
“There’s
nothing to it. All you do is point and
shoot.”
“Of
course. And all that firearm training
that cops and soldiers get is really just for show.”
“Would
you rather I lock it up again?” Josh
snaps.
I
shake my head. “No. No, of course not. I’m just razzing you.” I do have serious doubts about whether or not
Josh can score a hit even at point blank range, but still, having the gun is a
definite advantage, even with him pulling the trigger.
“You
mean this is all the result of mass hysteria?”
the moderator asks. He reaches a
hand up to adjust his tie and I see that the back of his hand has scratches on
it. What has he been doing with his rage
for the past twenty-four hours?
“No,
not mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is
usually caused by some kind of shared trauma, and it’s usually a localized
phenomena, restricted to the area of the trauma event. What we’ve been seeing is a global phenomena
that crosses all societal and cultural boundaries. It’s far too extreme to be classified as mass
hysteria. If I had to give it a name I’d
call it spontaneous global mass rage.”
“Wow. She’s really waxing analytical,” Josh says sarcastically.
Maybe
it was the way Josh said it, or maybe it was the words he used, but all of a
sudden I get this stupid joke image in my mind of the professor standing in the
driveway of a big suburban house, wearing a sweatshirt and a shit eating grin
and waxing a big yellow Cadillac with license plates that read
“ANALYTICAL”. I’m sure I’ve heard a joke
like that somewhere – about “waxing analytical”. Or maybe it was one of Jeremy’s riddles –
wherever I heard it, thinking about that image makes me laugh.
“What?” Josh asks, leaning back and resting his right
hand on the handle of the gun.
“Nothing,” I sputter, trying to hold back the
laughter. “Nothing.” Josh and Linda both stare at me. I try, but I know I’m going to laugh again,
so I decide to leave the room. I do a
fake clearing-my-throat cough and say “I’ll go check on Jeremy.”
As
I make my exit I sense Josh and Linda watching me. They probably think I’m cracking under the
pressure. So what? They’re in no position to judge. They’re just as scared as I am. That’s why Linda’s obsessing over that stupid
riddle and why Josh was so fanatical about finding Dad’s gun. I don’t blame them for being scared but by the
same token they shouldn’t blame me for “waxing fearful.”
I
laugh again. Then, as I pass Mom and
Dad’s bedroom I hear a cell phone ringing.
It’s Mom’s cell phone, on her night table. Mom always leaves it home when she goes out
to dinner with Dad, since Dad always brings his. At breakfast this morning, after we turned on
the television and found out what was happening, but before her meltdown, Esme
told us not to touch any of the phones in the apartment. She said to wait for Mom and Dad, or her
parents, to call us, not to call them.
Well the phone in the apartment went dead an hour ago. Now someone’s calling Mom’s cell. Despite the risk, I have to find out who it
is. I pick up the phone and press
“talk”.
“Hello?”
“Franny,
it’s Dad.”
“Jesus
Dad, are you okay? Is Mom okay?”
“We’re
fine. We tried calling the apartment but
we couldn’t get through.”
“The
phones are dead. Where are you? Why didn’t you come home last night? We waited and waited. Esme – “
“Is
Esme still with you?”
“Yeah,
but she’s hurt. She . . . Dad, she tried
to drown Jeremy in the bathtub. Josh had
to hit her.”
“Is
she all right?”
“No. She’s unconscious. Dad, what’s going on? Grownups are killing kids everywhere – all
over the world. Even their own kids.”
“I
know. But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I
ask the big question. “Are you and Mom .
. . mad at us for anything?”
“No. Of course not.”
“You
sure?”
“Why
would we be mad at you? Now look Franny,
you and your brothers and sisters stay right there in the apartment until we
get back. Don’t open the door for anyone
except us, not even if it’s someone you know.
Understand?”
“Okay.”
“Tell
Josh that I called, and that we’ll be home soon.”
“Okay. Is Mom there with you?”
“She’s
right here.”
“Let
me speak with her.”
There
is a brief silence. Then I hear Dad say
something. I can’t make out what he’s
saying, but a few seconds later I hear a weird gutteral sound, almost like a
growl.
“Dad?”
“Franny,
your mother says she’ll talk to you when we get home. Now remember, don’t open the door for anyone
until we get back. We’ll see you in a
little while.”
“Okay.”
He
hangs up.
Charles
Phillips: Age – Forty-four. Relationship – Father. Intelligence – Above average. Subject is a stockbroker, an expert on
currencies and financial investments.
Athletic ability – Above average.
Subject is a talented amateur golfer and tennis player. Social skills – Above average regarding his
job and charity work. Subject has the
respect and admiration of all of his co-workers and friends. Below average regarding his family and home
life. Subject is a disinterested husband
and a domineering parent. Interests –
Sports, guns, sleeping with younger women.
Vices – Cruelty, philandering, belief in physical punishment.
If
Mom had spoken to me I would have given both of them the benefit of the
doubt. I would have believed that they
were still basically on my side in life, and not out to kill me. But Mom didn’t speak to me. And what was that weird growling sound? No – Despite Dad’s insistence that he and Mom
aren’t mad at us, I’m not comforted.
Just the opposite – I’m overcome with dread.
I
know I should tell Josh about Dad’s phone call, but for some reason I can’t
bring myself to do it. At least not
right away. I proceed to my original
destination: Jeremy’s room.
The
door is open. Jeremy is sitting on his
bed in his bathrobe, staring into space.
“Hey,
you okay?”
It
takes him a few seconds, but he finally acknowledges me. “Franny, I know what this is all about,” he says.
“You
do?”
“Yeah. It’s child envy.”
“What?”
“Child
envy. That’s why the grownups are
killing us – because they envy us.”
“Why
would they envy us? They have all the
money and power and freedom. We’re just
pawns. I can’t wait to become an adult,
so I can do what I want, when I want.”
“Come
on Franny. All grownups envy kids. Think about it. Everything these days is about being
young. Movies, T.V. shows, commercials,
magazines – they all focus on kids. And
adult life sucks. Grownups have to go to
work, pay bills, and – worst of all – make plans for the day when they’re old
and sick. A grownup would have to be
crazy not to want to be a kid again. But
none of them can be, so they hate us.
And all that hate has finally boiled over into mass hysteria.”
“No,” I say.
“Not mass hysteria. Spontaneous
global mass rage.”
“Whatever.”
I
consider his theory for a moment.
“No,” I say finally. “It couldn’t be just that. What about Esme? She’s only a few years older than Josh. She’s not an adult. If this is all about child envy, why did she
try to drown you?”
Jeremy
rolls his eyes. “Franny, of course Esme
is an adult. She’s always been an adult,
even when she was my age. She told me so
herself. She said she never had a chance
to be a kid because of how screwed up her parents are.
Esme
Adams: Age – Seventeen. Relationship – Babysitter. Intelligence – Above average. Subject is an A student. Athletic Ability – Average. Subject is strong and healthy but shows no
interest in sports. Social Skills – Far
above average. Subject is not only
popular with her classmates and teachers but is also capable of controlling
(and winning the affection of) younger children. Interests – Studying, writing poetry,
babysitting. Vices – None apparent. Additional Information – Subject is
surprisingly well adjusted and cheerful, considering that both her parents are
alcoholics who verbally abuse her and her younger siblings.
“Talk
about child envy,” Jeremy says, shaking
his head solemnly. “Esme must have a
real bad case of it.”
“Esme! Shit, I better go check on her!”
“I’ll
go with you.”
“No. You stay here. And get dressed.”
I
hurry to my room, open the door, and turn on the lights. As soon as I see Esme I know that she’s
dead. Her eyes are open, her skin is
grey-white, and she’s obviously not breathing.
My first thought is: Somebody has
died in my bed, in my room. I’m never
going to be comfortable sleeping here again.
My second thought is: Eventually
we’re going to have to get her out of here.
And that will mean opening the door and going outside. Damn!
I
reach for the switch to turn the lights off, but then notice a red envelope
propped up against the radio on my dresser.
I identify it immediately as a gift card of some kind, but what the
occasion is, and why I failed to notice it until now, I can’t imagine. Even though I want desperately to get away
from my late babysitter’s remains, I go over to the envelope. “To Franny” is written on the front. I recognize the handwriting: Mom’s.
The flap isn’t glued shut, just inserted into the envelope. I lift the flap and take out the card.
It’s
a “Thinking About You” card. On the
front is a cartoon showing a sleepy-eyed sloth hanging from a tree branch. The caption underneath it reads “Thinking
About You”. Inside the card is a second
caption reading “Let’s Hang Out Together”.
In the blank spaces around the inside caption, and on the back, Mom has
written me a letter.
Dear
Franny The Spy,
Or should I call you Franny the
Flirt? I had a little spare time after I
completed my latest search of your room (Yes, I search all your rooms for
drugs) so I figured I’d drop you a note.
So you’re still keeping those cute little files you started writing
after reading “Harriet The Spy” in the fourth grade. Well, what’s cute for a ten-year-old isn’t so
cute for a twelve-year-old, especially when the twelve-year-old in question is
a self-righteous, judgmental brat. So my
intelligence level is “average”, huh? My
social skills are “adequate”, but only within my “elite circle of shallow,
money-marrying, emotionally stunted, upper middle class women”. Well, at least you approve of my taste in
men. I saw you flirting with Ricky the
other day, bending over in your short shorts to pick up your little brother’s
Hot Wheel car. You did that just to be
helpful, right? And all that talk about
how you hate boys your own age. Too bad
Ricky didn’t go for it. And too bad your
father doesn’t approve of my going through your things, otherwise I’d tell him
what you wrote about him in your files.
As it is, I’ll just have to settle for secretly hating your would-be man
stealing guts.
n
Mom.
P.S. One last word of advice. You should smile more. Men who like little girls like them to be fun
and innocent, not serious and sulky – no matter how short their pants are.
Child envy.
Shit, maybe Jeremy has a point.
Judging from Mom’s card, there’s certainly more to her hostility than
the fact that I dissed her and Dad in my files.
That bit about me flirting with her personal trainer/crush du jour
Ricky? Completely untrue. Regardless of what I was wearing at the time,
If I did bend down to pick up one of Jeremy’s toys I did it for a purely
selfless reason – to keep it from being stepped on. Yes Mom, I did it just to be helpful. And what do my shorts have to do with
anything? Obviously somebody has issues
with my body. Envy issues.
I toss Mom’s card and it’s envelope into
the garbage can next to my night table.
Well, her little missive has certainly taken the mystery out of what her
state of mind is going to be when she gets home. Even if she hasn’t succumbed to the
spontaneous global mass rage she’s still going to despise me. Either way I’m screwed. And yet I’m not afraid. In fact, all of a sudden I feel very
calm. And it’s not just because Josh has
found the gun. No, it’s the fact that,
as far as my parental relationships are concerned, all bets are off. Not that the bets were ever really on. To be honest I’ve never really cared much for
either one of my parents. I know that
sounds awful but it’s true. Dad is too
cold and too dependent on punishment to love, and I don’t have anything in
common with Mom. But still, I’ve always
felt obligated to feel at least some affection towards them, since they were my
parents, and since neither one of them hated me. But now, with Mom’s declaration of war
against me, I’m free of that. Whatever
happens when they come home, they’ll be no holding gack on my part and no guilt
later if I survive. And if Josh has to
pull the trigger, so be it.
Franny Phillips: Age – Twelve.
Relationship – Self. Intelligence
– Above average. Subject is a straight A
student. Athletic Ability – Above
average. Subject has a brown belt in
karate and is training for her black belt.
Social Skills – Below average (by choice). Subject considers her peers foolish and
immature and has no close friends.
Interests – Martial Arts, observing and recording the characteristics of
her family and acquaintances. Vices – An
inability to like or love people.
I return to the living room. Josh is sitting at one end of the couch,
watching the television, his right hand still resting on Dad’s gun. Linda is sitting at the other end, muttering
calendar related terms to herself (“weekend, weekday . . . “), once again
trying to figure out the answer to Jeremy’s tormenting riddle. I sit down between them and check out the
T.V. The moderator and his professor
guest are strangling a little girl in a parochial school uniform. Where
they got her from I don’t know. The
moderator is using his tie to choke the life out of the poor kid, while the
professor is lifting her feet off the ground and pulling her body in the
opposite direction of the moderator’s garrote, increasing the pressure on her
neck.
“There’s nothing but atrocities on the
tube,” I complain. “Turn it off.
Let’s play some CD’s instead.”
“Leave it on,” Josh says.
“There might be a news update.”
“This is a news update.”
“Days, dates . . . “
“No it’s not. It’s one of those . . . shit, what do you
call them? News magazines.
A loud thud at the apartment door puts an
end to our argument. All three of us
jump off the couch and look anxiously towards the foyer.
Another thud. Josh switches off the television and takes
Dad’s gun out of his waistband. None of
us move from the couch. There are a few
seconds of silence. Then the doorbell
rings.
“Shit!”
Josh says. He edges past me and
creeps to the entrance of the foyer.
“Is it them?” I ask stupidly, even though it’s obvious that
the door is still closed and there’s no way that Josh can tell who’s
there. Josh waves a hand at me to shut
me up, and keeps his eyes focused on the door.
Silence.
Then a voice. Dad’s voice. “Josh?
Franny?”
Neither one of us answers. Josh glances at me, a finger raised to his
lips, then turns back to the door.
“Paper, numbers, letters, boxes . . . “
I look at Linda. Amazingly, she’s still pondering Jeremy’s
riddle and muttering calendar components under her breath. Only now she’s muttering the words a lot
faster, almost frantically, as if her life depends on solving the riddle. I want very much to get away from her at this
moment, so I tiptoe up to Josh and stand behind him.
“They must have tried to open the
door,” he whispers to me, “but all the
junk stopped them.”
“Did you hear Mom’s voice?”
As we watch, the doorknob turns, and we see
the door being pushed forward against the boxes of books. Whoever’s pushing against the door continues
to apply pressure. The stack of boxes
slowly starts to give way. A half an
inch. An inch.
Then Mom’s voice. “Of course they’re in there! That’s why the door is blocked!”
“Is it them?” Jeremy asks coolly. He has come up behind me, still in his
bathrobe, and is standing with his arms folded across his chest, eyeing the
door without fear. His cool amazes
me. What will it take to make this kid
sweat?
“Yes,”
I say. And wouldn’t you
know? That one word breaks him. His cool turns to fool. Grinning senselessly, he abandons the
self-preservation instinct and shouts “Mom!”
“Shut up idiot!” Josh hisses.
But it’s too late.
“See!”
Mom shouts. “I told you they’re
in there! Come on! Push!
All of you!”
“Shit!
They’re not alone!” Josh cries.
Mom and Dad and their allies push against
the door and move the boxes back another two or three inches. Thank God for the chain lock on the
door! It holds just long enough for the
three of us to run back to the couch and duck behind it, where Linda is already
hiding. Jeremy follows Linda’s example
and sits down on the floor with his back to the couch, but Josh and I remain
standing. Josh holds Dad’s gun straight
out in front of him, gripping it with both hands. I curse myself for not having secured some
kind of weapon from the kitchen, a knife or a cleaver or something.
“Day, date, diem . . . “ Linda mutters.
Mom and Dad and their fellow child haters
throw themselves against the door one last time. I hear the sound of wood splintering as the
chain lock is ripped from the door jamb, and then the sound of the boxes
crashing to the floor.
“I got it!”
Linda shouts. “He ate the
dates! He survived by eating the dates!”
And then the living room is filled with
grownups, and Josh starts shooting.