I wrote this story shortly after I wrote "Belly Up"––in Binghamton, NY in the early 1980s. I can tell because it appears to have been written on the same typewriter, with the same thermal ink. it is unabashedly autobiographical, down to the name of a neighborhood tormentor. It's not entirely so, because the shooting happened during summertime when there was no school. 

There is a lot of cruelty in this story, in a very New Jersey sort of way. Casual cruelty. Spite for delight. I've never been drawn to the story the way I was with "Belly Up," partially because of the ugly emotions portrayed and partially because I just didn't think it was as good. Looking at it now, I see the same writer I've been every since. 

It's also possible that I've avoided looking at this story for decades–– I really don't believe that I've seen it since I wrote it–– because I unwilling to look at what is probably the clearest record of how I responded to the news of my father's assault with intent to kill. There's nowhere else in my work where I've discussed the fundament of my father identification––the absolute core of daddylabyrinth––better and more clearly than I do at the end of the penultimate section of this story. When I transcribed it, I had to stop for a while and recuperate. It got right to the heart of things.

Autobiographical juvenilia, sure. I never published it before now, never even sent it out. But I was wrong to disown this piece for so long, because nothing has captured the core of my father/son mess more completely and elegantly than this. 

---

Though he had no conception of what had happened the previous morning, David did not quite believe it when Mark Berman told him that his father was a murderer. It seemed to him that more people would know, that it would be less of a secret than it was, and that certainly mother wouldn't have let him go to school the very next day.

He could not be sure, though. All he had to trust were his feelings, because mother had not mentioned father at all since the previous morning and had withheld the local papers both yesterday and today. He knew then that his father had done something bad enough to get into the papers, or else how would so many people know so quickly? Mother had not been on the phone, had she, calling everyone and telling them family secrets? He doubted this too, though his image of it was clear: mother sitting by the waist-high kitchen table, in her bathrobe with her legs crossed, one hand by her knee holding her glasses, the other holding the phone near her downward-craned neck.

But when Mark Berman called him a murderer's son he suspected that Mark was merely being malicious, and exaggerating something that everyone knew but, out of shame or consideration, would not tell him. Who would doubt that Mark was stretching the truth? But then again this was all the news David had to go on, since nobody else was telling him anything, and they were just avoiding his eyes all day.

Perhaps it was good then, that he met Mark Berman on the street corner, coming out of Brandon's with a Coke and a pint of cream––one for himself and no doubt one for his mother, though David knew he would love to drink the cream all by himself, hidden in a corner somewhere, or under a bridge, fat slob that he was.

There was another reason he did not quite trust Mark's remarks. The Bermans and Gills never quite got along, mostly because David's brothers Ted and Tony teased the oldest Berman brother, Stu, who was retarded. The worst fight came when they––David couldn't say he was really involved, though he was a condoning witness––cut the grass in the neighborhood park to read STU BERMAN IS A RETART. Their guilt in the matter was hard to hide, and though father laughed it off mother insisted on punishment (which was physically delivered to Ted and Tony, and given to David only via silent reprimand). She and Mrs. Berman wept over the phone together several times and were now best friends. She was even trying to teach Stu to read on Tuesday afternoons. Usually it was at their house but once Stu came over to David's house. David mentioned something then about how stupid one of his classmates was, and she sent him to bed without supper or TV.

"Hey," Mark said, corralling him by the front door of Brandon's as he looked in, hoping to find his brothers. "I heard what your daddy did."

"What'd he do?"

"Ha! You don't know? You mean they didn't tell you? It's all over town, everybody knows."

"Then how come I don't?"

"'Cause nobody told you. I bet if you go up and ask anybody in the street what your father did yesterday, they'll tell you."

He looked at the faces walking up and down the sidewalk and saw everyone––businessmen who had no fixed hours and walked along as they pleased, cases in hand; secretaries returning from lunch; students going home; the unemployed. What could they care about father? They didn't know him, they didn't work with him or live with him, or even near him. But if they did know, what then? David's sense of privacy was invaded. People who had never seen him before would know who he was, and would judge him for what his father had done. If indeed his father had done anything. He still did not trust Mark Berman.

"Well if nobody told me," David said, "it mustn't be that bad."

"Either that, or it's so bad nobody wants to tell you."

"So how come you're telling me?"

Mark finished the soda in a big swig and stamped his foot. He started to pull open the cream, then remembered it wasn't his to open.

"Whoops. That's mom's. If I drink it dad won't have any cream for his coffee."

"My dad doesn't drink cream with this coffee."

"Your dad's not going to drink any coffee, except from a pail. Not where he's going. He's going to jail."

"What for?"

"What for? You expect me to tell you now?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

Mark grabbed him by the collar and twisted. He was much bigger than David but didn't dare beat him up because of what Teddy and Tony would do to him, and because of what David would do to his little brother Roy, who was a year older than David but nowhere near as strong.

"Because your father is a murderer, you little brat!"

He pushed David backwards, but David kept his balance long enough to take a swing and knock Mark in his fat stomach. It was not much of a blow, being made while falling backwards, but he thought it would remind him that a Gill oughtn't be trifled with. Especially by him. David didn't like Mark or his stupid family. He wanted to call him a kike but had been warned against that ever since third grade, when he called a boy a kike in front of class and made him cry. He wanted to call Mark a kike as loud as he could and kick him in the kneecap, just as his father taught him to kick anybody in the kneecap if they were bigger than him and giving him trouble.

But that word would get him into much more trouble and maybe someone would arrest him, and they would see his name and lock him up because of his father and he would never be able to go home. If he did that, he'd never find out what his father had actually done, or how Mark Berman found out. David didn't have much chance to do any kicking, because Mark pushed him against the window.

"Say Uncle!" Mark said, breathing heavily.

"Uncle."

"Again."

"Uncle."

"You better promise not to tell your brothers either, or you're in trouble."

"I promise."

"Good." Mark started walking and David walked behind. There seemed to be peace now and since they lived on the same block, why not walk home together? That way he could find out how Mark knew so much. Mark looked like he was heading for the shortcut, behind the supermarket and along the stream. Their block was right near a green water tower that rang out when you threw rocks at it, even though you weren't supposed to throw rocks at it, because of the rust inside that would get into your drinking water.

They were indeed taking the shortcut. Once they were out of hearing of the cars and people, David began to feel more relaxed and even hummed an incomplete tune. There were sounds of children playing in the water. Could he call them children, even though they were only a year or two younger than he was? The familiar sounds of water splashing and happy screams. They must be clay hunting. At least the kids called it clay hunting because what they found look like clay and felt like clay, and behaved like clay for a couple of days, until whatever shape they had made out of it dried and crumbled, and wasn't even good for dirt in their mothers' house plants anymore because once you put water on it, it was like clay again and nothing would grow.

Far away there was the sound of a lawnmower. David thought of what his brothers did in the park grass last summer and wondered if Mark did too. Probably not, at least then. But he was thinking of something, you could tell by the side of his face, by the way his jaw was clenched.

"You want to know what your father did?"

"Uh-huh."

"He shot somebody. Shot his boss."

"Patti?"

"Not him. Somebody else. Sanaka, Sadaka. Japanese."

"He's not Japanese. Suhaka."

"That's it," Mark said.

"Why?"

"He didn't say why, he was crazy. They had to tie them up and put him in jail."

"Who had to?"

"The police, stupid. Who else comes when you shoot somebody? He showed up for work drunk and had a gun, and went right up to the building the guy was working on, and shot him. Dead. Boom. Down like a bottle."

"So he was on top of the building?"

"No. He was on the ground. The guy he shot––killed, I mean––was up on the roof."

"That's what I just said," David told him. 

"No, that's not what you just said."

David didn't want to argue. He could argue for days about what he said or not, about what he meant or not, or should have said, or wanted to say. But he was tired of this already, and wanted to go home and bury his face in a pillow or a book or a deck of cards. He didn't really need to know what his father did because dad wouldn't be there when he got home anyway, and if mother hadn't told them by now she didn't ever want him to know.

What was the difference if his father killed somebody or just shot somebody, or even just walked around the streets carrying a gun and threatening people? He would still go home and stick his head in a pillow, or in the dog's fur, something. The only difference would be that before he buried himself he'd either say "My father murdered somebody" or "My father just shot somebody," and he would have to get used to it because it was a fact. He'd seen his father leave the house yesterday with a gun and dad hadn't come back, and now everybody in town knew his name without knowing him.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I know?" Mark said. 

"No."

"Why not? Don't you want to know?" 

"I know. You read it in the papers."

"No, I didn't read it in the papers. Somebody told me."

"Who told you?"

At this point they were rounding a bend in the creek where the bank was steep and muddy, and he felt Mark stiffen and get angry, just like his father always did when he was fixing the car. He felt he was going to get hit again and turned, but not quickly enough, for Mark grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him down the bank. His books, held for a moment by the tether of the elastic strap that bound them together, fell down and landed on shore, but he fell into the water shoulder first and got mud in his eyes.

Mark pushed down a few clods of dirt from the bank with his feet, which caused a baby landslide that rumbled into the water and splashed more mud into David's face.

"The JDL told me!" Mark screamed, running away. "You tell your brothers that. The JDL!"

The JDL, David knew, were the people to look out for when you called somebody a kike, which is what he found out in third grade. But his brothers never seemed to learn, because he always heard stories of how the JDL was after them and, by extension, him. It must've been a pretty large organization, to have so many members, and so many young ones at that. But on the other hand he couldn't really take it seriously, because there were a lot of people who said things were done by the JDL when they could have been done by anybody. Like vandalism. Nobody believed it anymore when someone said that the JDL did it, so David couldn't believe Mark when he said the JDL had told him about his father.

But to the matter at hand: he was covered in mud or muddy water from right ankle to right shoulder. No doubt his hair was also the color of mud. Mother, when he came home, would ask him what happened and he would have to explain. To say he fell would not be enough; she would sense the lying in his eyes and be silent until he told her something else. If he told her the whole truth she would call Mrs. Berman and everyone would be in trouble. But he would have to explain the fall somehow and include Mark just for the sake of reality. He was walking home with Mark when an older boy came over and pushed them into the creek. He tried to push Mark, who was too fat. That story wouldn't be good, though, because if she called Mrs. Berman, Mark could give a totally different story.

Truth was the best policy. But who wanted to tell a truth like this? He settled on it: he tripped over a root and dropped his books on the bank, and when he went to get them he sipped again and fell in. This she would believe because he had done it going to fetch his books, and that would make her happy.

When he looked at his books on the bank he saw that they were perfectly clean. He took one of his hands and smeared it on the spines and covers of his textbooks, which like the other children he got on loan from the school. His canvas-bound looseleaf notebook, which mother had gotten him (a year or two early, he thought) he jabbed into the wet earth to make it look as if it fallen a great distance with great force.

*     *     *

Normally David would go through the front door, and have at least a few seconds to himself before mother came to him, her hands wet from cleaning or doughy from baking, and asked him how his day was, and if he got into trouble. But because he was wet and muddy––perhaps a neighbor had seen his condition on the way up the block, and called his mother, and she expected him––he went to the back door.

There was an advantage in this today in that he could avoid seeing the front of the house, and in that way not have to find out whether anyone different was there in his father's place. Or perhaps it was all a joke and father would be there in his recliner, laughing about it, already making up stories to tell his grandchildren. In which case it was good that he didn't come around the front because there would be more of a surprise. He'd find out the good news while he was in the house right next to his father, instead of before when they couldn't even see each other.

Since their house was on a corner, it had a side gate instead of the back gate, and it was by this side gate that he entered. Lucky, who was fat and brown and old, barked twice and ran over. Poor nearsighted dog, she couldn't see him. Lucky was eleven and her eyes were turning silver. Cataracts, the veterinarian explained in the waiting room while mother paid the bill and he held the terrier, drugged and limp, against his chest. He wanted to look into her eyes––of course he couldn't because she was so heavy and so close to him, and all he could see was the bristle of fur on her back––and to imagine that he could see waterfalls in each because that was what cataracts were, waterfalls. He'd looked the word up.

He thought of this and knew that Lucky was going to die. Rather than crying in the doctor's office he walked out to the car. Mother explained that she wasn't dying yet, but yes, it would be soon, because she was getting old. And when people and animals go blind it means they're getting old, and dying. Just like Miss Aggie, an old friend of mother's whom they visited Sunday mornings instead of church and who gave them some cookies, always very good cookies from expensive paper packages. She had a balcony apartment and mom would go visit her alone awhile, while he and Tony (Teddy never went) were supposed to stay around by the car. There were things around, though––a school, a stream, a highway––and they always had some cause to roam. Mom would call them after half an hour or so and they would walk up the creaky stairs to the fifth floor. They hated the noise and didn't want to be hollered at by the old people they knew they were disturbing, so they tried to be as ginger as possible, though this only made the creaks longer and eerier.

Miss Aggie never left the apartment––if there were a fire, she would surely die. They stayed there with her, smelling must and mothballs and old people smell, for another half hour, and looking at old pictures that were either hung up on the living room wall in beautiful gold frames or retrieved, with mother's help, from the bedroom. They would sit on the deep soft couch and eat cookies and milk and comment about how long ago all the things in the pictures happened. Then they would leave and Miss Aggie would kiss them and give them more cookies and tell them how they brightened up her life––though after a while she only kissed David, because she said Tony was too old to be kissing women her age.

Miss Aggie was getting ready to die, mother said. Was she really getting ready, actually making preparations? Lucky wasn't making preparations. She was still alive and still loved him. He too was very glad to see her and dropped down on his knees to hug her.

"Lucky!" he repeated, in time to the vigorous rubbing he gave the backs of her ears. There seemed to be some kind of speech he wanted to give her, something he could lean back and say calmly, with that serious look in his eyes and that serious tone mother had when she tried to explain to him what he had done wrong. But the words didn't come, because Lucky hadn't done anything wrong.

She was still capable of being spritely when she desired and scrambled up the steps now with no trouble, and squeezed in between the screen and wooden doors. David pushed at the inner door, but it only gave its customary half inch. It was locked. Was mother not at home? Had something happened to her, too? He regretted now not coming around the front, and seeing if there were any cars or open front curtains. It was spring, and the front curtains would be open, the windows too, if anyone was home. The curtains to the kitchen were open but that didn't count, because the kitchen curtains were always open, unless there was very bright sunlight. He knocked on the door. Maybe mother was there but had forgotten to unlock it. Maybe she just got back recently, in time for him to come back from school, and hadn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe she didn't expect him to come in by the back door. Maybe she didn't expect him to come home at all. 

*     *     *

Inside, Mrs. Gill was sitting at the kitchen counter, where they ate their meals whenever the dining room table, which her father had built, was covered up with tablecloths and flowers and a candelabra. Next to her was Mrs. Contaldo from across the street and two houses down––a knight's move in chess––who was her close friend and a widow.

What must their conversation have been? Of the impetuosity and frailty of men in the face of their own petty failures, of their inability to survive the tiniest annoyances despite their strength in confronting major obstacles? Of the tenacity with which they clung to those petty questions of ego when humility, self acceptance, and consideration for the lives of others was what they really needed?

"If they say he's crazy––" mother was saying to Mrs. Contaldo, "I just don't know. He was obsessed. He put it in front of everything. I can't believe it."

"Believe it, believe it! What choice is there now?" Mrs. Contaldo broke in half a cracker and dipped it into a glass of bullion she drank instead of coffee or tea. For her this must have been the rerun of a nightmare, this witnessing the beginning of the end all over again. Though her husband had died of natural causes, she could see the similarity in the ends of all men: they lost their pride, their sense of value in their own lives. Her husband had simply ceased to care about anything; he laughed at the news on TV where before he would have been outraged, shrugged off news of a wife beating where before he would have been outraged. With her father the symptoms were different but the disease was the same. He became sickly and constantly pleasant, and told complete strangers would a pitiful old man he was, whereas before he wouldn't admit weakness even to himself. With Mary's husband Tom it was just the same. He put his own little thing ahead of his family, lost his pride in what he had accomplished and chased after the little trolls of self-glory that are left alone by wiser men, by better men.

Oh, this was the end, Mrs. Contaldo believed. She could see it plain as day. She couldn't tell Mary that, though Mary had to know inside herself too, even if she fought the truth. She'd never have Tom back again. Certainly not whole. At best he would be like a vegetable.

"That must be Davey," Mrs. Contaldo said when she heard the push at the door. "How come he's in back?"

Mrs. Gill was near the door and pulled at it. Stupid! She had forgotten to undo the deadbolt, which unlocked from inside with a key, European style. Stupid! She should have expected David to come home late, and not to want to come in by the front door. He probably thought there would be company in front. Such a considerate boy. And now he was locked out. Before she could let him in and embrace him she had to find the keys, and they weren't stuck in the door, so they had to be in her pocketbook. Where was her pocketbook? In the living room on the chair? Wasn't there.

"Arlene, where's my pocketbook?" she said, and she whirled as best as a woman of her bulk could whirl.

"Calm down, you'll make yourself dizzy and cry. In the bedroom, on the door, remember?"

She went to get them. The pocketbook was on the door all right, and the keys in the pocketbook. Why could she never remember these little important things? Why was she always panicking, especially now when she needed steel nerves? Arlene had to remember it for her. If they told her now that she wasn't fit to raise children, she would agree. Who would trust children to a woman who was always forgetting things?

Now Mrs. Contaldo, quite conscious of her role as the woman who has been through this before, thought of David by the door, still waiting. She didn't want him to think there was no one home.

"Your mother'll be right there David," she said. "She's misplaced her keys."

David pondered this unfamiliar voice, which sounded very official. Was it a woman policeman, then? Or a doctor? There were women now who were doctors and policemen, but not both at the same time. So it had to be one or the other.

"Who are you?" he asked the voice.

"This is Mrs. Contaldo. I'm your neighbor. I'm here to help your mother."

Help her? What could she need help with now? The dishes, vacuuming? Her husband had just killed a man, what could she be doing that would need Mrs. Contaldo's help? He pushed the door again but it still wouldn't open. He had to ask.

"Helping her with what? What are you doing in my house?"

"Just helping her, David. Just being with her. Your mother is very sad now."

Mary came in, hunched over the keys and fumbling. "I just can't remember which one it is, now that I need it."

"Mary, don't be so frantic." She held out her hand. "Here."

"It's my house, I know my own keys."

"I have your keys too, remember?" She held out her hand again and Mrs. Gill thumped the keys into them. Mrs. Contaldo found the right one with no less fumbling but at least, she thought, there wasn't all this crying and whimpering. People would be able to deal with things much better if they didn't feel the need to overreact. She herself knew how numbing it all was. But of course you can't let anyone see you're numb or else they'll accuse you of being unfeeling, and you'll accuse yourself of being unfeeling. So you show fear and panic, the next closest emotions. Mrs. Contaldo tried to unlock the door but the bolt wouldn't move, for David and Lucky were pressing too hard against it.

"Don't press so hard, David," she said, pushing the door back.

"I'm not pressing. It's Lucky."

"Lucky then. Move her out of the way!"

Why was Mrs. Contaldo ordering him around? She wasn't his mother––his mother was right there in the kitchen, he'd heard her just a minute ago. Mrs. Contaldo was taking over because she didn't think they could fend for themselves. That was like your teacher coming over and doing a problem for you because she thought you'd never be able to do it, and she given you what she thought was more than enough time and you still hadn't done it, and then she came over and made a fool of you in front of your classmates. This was what Mrs. Contaldo was doing to his mother as she pulled open the door and let him in. The dog tumbled about at everyone's feet. Mrs. Gill saw David's muddy clothes and pounded herself at the hips.

"Who did this to you?! Today of all days!" She turned to the window pane and slammed her fist down on it. Mrs. Contaldo touched her lightly by the waist to calm her.

"Stop, Mary. Just get his clothes off, they're all muddy."

"I know they're all muddy. Somebody pushed my son into the mud!"

"Just get his clothes off!"

David liked Mrs. Contaldo's bossiness even less now. It would be good to have mother near him again, gently peeling the wet clothes loose from his skin. But when she tried to take off the jacket she jerked his arms back and above his head painfully, and he whimpered from lack of breath.

"Mary, get yourself together. I don't have to do this for you too, do I?"

David did not like this comment and pictured himself calling her a bitch like his father would.

"You might as well, I'm only hurting him."

"That's not the only way you hurt him," Mrs. Contaldo said under her breath, pulling off David's jacket roughly. 

"What?" Mother wasn't sure she heard it right, for she was sitting down with a humph at the kitchen counter. But she didn't pursue it because Arlene was the only friend who would possibly stick with her through this. "Arlene, somehow I get the feeling you don't think there's much hope."

"No," she said, straight and sincere. "It's the beginning of the end for Tom. What he did today, it's the last act of a desperate man. Anyone who does that, isn't getting better."

"But don't you think he can get better? I mean, it's not impossible."

"He won't get better. He'll go to jail or to the hospital and he'll come out a bitter man, a bitterer man. If he comes out. And he'll only be half well, only on the outside, and that's worse than being sick."

"You have no hope," mother said. "You don't trust in anything."

"Not now, I don't. Prepare for the worst, like they say. When Pete died I didn't know what was coming until a couple days before, and looking back I could've seen it half a year before. I was stupid, I believed in things." Mrs. Contaldo unbuttoned the last button of David's shirt and pulled it off.

"You're so hard now, Arlene. Maybe if you'd believed in something, he'd have had a reason to help himself. If Tom sees that the things around them are good, maybe he'll want to help himself."

"You're going to save him now? From this? Sorry baby, it's up to him. You're just going to wear yourself thin trying."

Mother got up and walked angrily into the living room and fell onto the sofa. "I'm going to have hope!" she said. "You do what you want." Her voice was far away and muffled, like she was talking to herself. Mrs. Contaldo undid David's buckle and zipper and pulled down his pants. He didn't like the way she did it, like a nurse would. The only thing that could be worse was if she pulled off his underwear now too, and made him run around the house naked. She tugged at the elastic waistband.

"It's wet too. Change your underwear." David nodded his head. She put her hands on his shoulders, the same way mother did when she was looking into his eyes, but she did not look into his eyes. "Be nice to your mother. She's having hope. Go!" 

She slapped him on the rear and he was off, running past mother with his head down, even though he knew she wasn't paying attention and wouldn't try to look at him. At least father wasn't there to see him humiliated like this––undressed and sent to his room by a strange woman, with his mother collapsed a few feet away. Then it occurred to him that father wouldn't be there anymore, most likely, to ever see him run through the house naked, and that was both good and bad.

*     *     *

He knocked on the bedroom door by custom, so Ted and Tony would know it was him and not mother, who never knocked but burst the door open and said something loud first thing. He knocked tentatively because he was afraid they would resent him for being allowed out of the house on a day they were kept in. Mom's argument was that older boys and girls would know more of what happened, but since no one would tell a child David's age, he could go to school. This was true (excepting Mark Berman) but still he didn't like getting privileges when they didn't, because they could make the air in that bedroom impossible to breathe if they were mad at him.

Inside Ted and Tony played War with two decks of cards by the bunk bed. The game had been going on for hours now and both had two aces, so they decided to throw out everything between two and seven, and in that way hope to line up more draws and get the game over with so they could start a new one. 

"Who is it?" Ted said, and David stuck his head in the doorway. "Oh, you. You can't play, we're in the middle of the game."

"I didn't ask. I have to change clothes." 

"So mommy made you change your clothes, huh? ' It's after school, boys, time to put on your after school clothes!' Right, so she can save money and we look like dorks. Davey, somebody said something about your clothes the other day. I forgot to tell you. George Tanopolous was with his little brother and they said they saw you down by the school last week. He told me 'Hey, I saw your little brother down by the school with polyester bluejeans!' And he laughed. You don't know what shitty stuff she makes us wear. Wait, you'll see."

Teddy went back to the game and David changed in the corner. Sure, he was getting lousy clothes to wear––he especially hated the polyester bluejeans, which she bought to make him feel like he was one of the boys. It was funny because he grew up in blue jeans, but once Teddy got to high school they couldn't wear them anymore. His polyester bluejeans were stupid and they shined, they look like they were made entirely of Sears iron-on patches, but mom liked them because they didn't get dirty and they didn't fade. Teddy noticed him changing his underwear and turned around briefly.

"What, she's got you changing your underwear now after school? What'd you do, shit your pants?" He giggled and looked at Tony, whose stone face let go a small smile.  

"No. Mark Berman pushed me into the brook behind the A&P. The JDL told him that dad killed his boss."

"What?!" Ted and Tony both threw down their cards and stood up, confronting David in his underwear. He at first wanted to shake and cover himself up, but he calmly put on his polyester bluejeans and explained it before Teddy had a chance to pry. 

"I saw him at Brandon's on the way home. He told me he knew what happened to daddy and that everybody else knew too. Then on the way back he pushed me into the brook. That's why I have to change clothes."

"Fuckin' Berman," Tony said.

"So what'd he say?" asked Teddy.

"He said that dad shot his boss and killed him and they took him to jail. But I didn't believe him 'cause he kept changing his story. First he said he killed him. Then he said he shot him. Then he said he killed him again. But I didn't believe him. It sounded like he was making it up, but he said it's in the papers." David could see Tony's jaw muscles flex, and that meant he wanted to go out and beat up Mark Berman.

"Did you see the paper?" Ted asked David. "Is the paper here yet?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't you check? You check every day."

"I was all muddy. I went around the back."

"Shit. Tony, look out the window, see if the paperboy's coming. What is it, three-thirty?"

"Yeah, three-thirty." Tony craned his head out the window. Teddy paced around with his hands in his pockets. He loved doing this because it gave everyone a chance to watch him scheme and plan, and that showed he was smart too, not just big. Tony was even bigger but he only wanted to be big, not smart. David knew that since he was the smallest of them all, all he could do was watch.

David tucked a T-shirt from yesterday into his pants. Ted didn't make any further comment about the polyester bluejeans because he was still busy pacing the floor. It occurred to David that Ted was always pacing, and that everything he said came out in an urgent and nervous tone. Mother always told him to watch his tone of voice, as this was very important, because other people judge you more by the way you talk than what you say. She would demonstrate this by experimenting with the dog. "I love you!" she would growl. "I love you so much it hurts!" And Lucky would crawl under the nearest piece of furniture. Then mother would coax her out again by insulting her in a sweet tone of voice. 

"Lucky, you sick, disgusting little mongrel! I should have you put to sleep right away! I should have Mr. Ribuffo come and shoot you through the eyes!" And sure enough Lucky would come out with her tail wagging and her nose close to the ground and it was proven that honey sells better than vinegar.

David suspected this logic. People weren't dogs, they understood the words you said for what they meant, and didn't get all the meaning from your tone of voice. Oh, if mother only knew how many of her ideas he objected to! She'd get all mad embarrassed and never say anything to him again. The other people he didn't always believe––his teachers, for example––wouldn't have the same reaction, because they weren't his mother. They would just say, as some of them already did, that he was a know-it-all brat, and maybe they were right. If knowing that other people could be wrong made you a know-it-all brat.

*     *     *

Early that morning before the sun came up, David had entered a period of his life destined, to some degree or another, to last its entire duration. That is: the vicious and absolute pushing away of anything that reminded him of the shock he had received when this phase began, when he should have been in bed but was instead in a sleeping bag in the living room, keeping mother company. She was on the couch, not wanting to be in bed if father ever came home, for he would be stinking drunk. She'd already heard about his binge through the wives of his friends, and even some of his friends themselves, and seemed to spend the whole night crying into the kitchen telephone. David only heard murmurs of that, because he was still in the bedroom then, trying with his brothers to keep the noise of their nervous breathing to a minimum in that room where all the unnatural but comforting creaks and scrapings of branches against windows seemed to have stopped for the night. It was only later, when she hung up the phone and sobbed on the couch, that he asked if she wanted him to sleep in the living room, and then she cried all the more and held him close, and told him what compassionate boy he was, and supportive, and how he made it all much easier to bear.

He stayed up with his eyes wide and fixed on the ceiling, which wasn't cracked like the one in the bedroom. He didn't see any designs to turn into living shapes, but it still seemed to him like the ceiling was a mirror that could tell him exactly what was keeping him awake, though he could not interpret what it said. The mirror never talked to him in words; all it gave him were pictures of his father's anger. Anger at the car for not working, at the tarpaulin for not staying up in the wind, at the tollbooth operator for being slow in getting his change.

At 5:30 a.m. father pulled up into the driveway and slammed into the back end of the second car. Mother shot up and breathed heavily, and when he banged on the door (no doubt his keys were in the ignition) she debated with her body whether to open the door or drag David into the boys' bedroom, where they could all hide. She pulled David up by his shoulders but he resisted being dragged––he would have gone if only his feet weren't hemmed in by the sleeping bag. So she had to open the door, or certainly Tom would have torn it down. Torn down their whole house to spite her, and himself.

She undid the bolt––she had to lean all her weight against it to free it up because of her husband's weight against it––and it flew open and into her hip. In came father, stalking to the bedroom. It seemed to David these were monstrous steps he took, like a giant on stilts. Mother followed him into the bedroom and he heard a struggle and a slap, and the closet being torn apart. When he came back out mom followed safely behind, stopping by the foot of the couch as he stopped by the door. Father twirled the gun and his fingertip and pointed it playfully––playfully, very definitely playfully!––at David in his sleeping bag. He winked and made an exploding noise with his lips, then laughed and winked again.

Mother rushed to him and fell to her knees, and embraced him, and begged him to have forgiveness for whoever had done him wrong. And to forgive her for crying, and forgive David for seeing this all.

"Don't call the cops," he said, pointing the gun muzzle at her shoulder. "Don't tell anybody. Anybody gets in my way, I'll gun them down too." Then he sprinted out the door, life-size again, and slammed the car door. There was no sound of the car starting, just the sound of metal separating from metal.

Mother, not seeming to notice David at all, rushed to the bedroom to cry. She left him alone! Alone, to relive the scene dozens of times! Why had father winked when he pointed the gun? Did he expect David to think of it like the old times, when the fake gunshots he made with a pointed finger and popping lip were signs of love, signs that he was in his best mood, feeling lively and full of imagination? It occurred to him that all those times the imaginary gun was pointed at him were times of stories and jokes––like having them hold their breath together to see if they could make the clouds move. David understood that there had to be some connection between those times and now, when the gun was imaginary and the gun was real. But he would not for a moment believe that the gun his father had just pointed at him was meant to be a real gun. It was a fake gun to father, that was why he winked and smiled. He was just telling David that everything was all right, that he knew what was happening and knew what the score was in life.

His father became his usual self for a moment in David's imagination––angry all the time but not insane, not a step away from shooting someone––and that moment kept David out of shock, even though the father he pictured was also him. He was fixed on the image of this other self that was his father, overwhelmed by that self, filled with the sense of his father to the point where he himself no longer needed to exist on his own. That little corner in his father's life would be enough for him. No––not enough for him, but perhaps all he would ever be able to have, all he would be limited to. His life was over, it had taught him its lesson, he had played his part. Now his usefulness was spent, and he could die.

But life would go on, David knew, and every second he experienced now reverberated years and years into the future. He felt like an astronaut––funny, he'd wanted to be an astronaut years ago, when they first put men on the moon––losing consciousness in a ship that flipped end over end faster and faster until it was a little orange blur across space. He felt himself falling and knew he could die, very easily, right now.

Thankfully his body, which could never remain in one place for long, but twitched all through the night, decided to turn on its side in the sleeping bag. What a fortuitous move! What a wise and lucky turn of the hips and swing of the legs! His eyes could have continued screwing so far back into his soul that he would never recover, but that little movement stopped them. He felt relieved in that small motion of a great burden––perhaps it was his soul, disappearing into the mist of himself. Mother would certainly say that, if she were him: soul. He didn't believe in the soul but he knew there had to be something inside you that you couldn't put a word on. If there weren't a thing like that, how else would you know when it disappeared for good or went into hiding? It wasn't love that disappeared––that was another word his mother used. He could still see himself loving things and people, see himself playing in the fields, even with friends, though it was empty and joyless, almost formal.

Were he older and wiser he might have said it was compassion that he lost, for he had given up so much of it to his father in that one moment, then forced it away from himself because it brought him pain. It was compassion too––that he felt for his mother––that had gotten him into this mess. Like she said, a compassionate boy, who felt his mother's fear and wanted to be with her. Why? If he hadn't, he could have slept through it all with his brothers. They might have barely woken up, and the only mention of father's intrusion would be in the morning when they were all drowsy and trying not to face the day. If only he hadn't put himself in her shoes, there wouldn't be this empty feeling in place of pain. It was as if his lungs, believing all the atmosphere was sulfur, puffed themselves up and hardened and vowed never to take in air again.

*     *     *

David, whose compassion had already hardened into the bedrock of logic like a shell on the inside of his skin, agreed wholeheartedly when Teddy suggested that he pop his head out the window and get the attention of the paperboy, whom he could dissuade from putting the paper on the porch in favor of giving it to them by the window. In exchange for a dollar, say.

They had to move the dresser for him to reach the window, and this caused some anxiety that mother would hear them, because only the bathroom and two thin walls separated them from her. But David knew she would not wake from her crying for something as minor as the scrape of wood against wood. By now it might be less crying and more sleep, accepted without expectation of relief. 

"Who is he? Who am I supposed to look out for?" David said this mostly to make conversation. He knew what paper boys looked like, as he'd been one himself.

"You should know," Teddy said. "You're around here more than I am. More than we are." 

"But I never see him, I just see the paper. Besides, he works for you."

"This isn't my district." Teddy collected delivery fees every day except today, when someone else had to do it for him. At lunch time his boss had come over to pick up his change machine and list of uncollected houses. Mother wouldn't even let them talk, she made Teddy hand her the stuff from behind the cracked open bedroom door.

"Teddy, Mr. Perrone needs your change machine and collection list," she'd said. "It's just for today."

"Hi, Mr. Perrone!" Ted had shouted from the bedroom.

"Hey, Ted. Keep your chin up, Ted."

"My district is down by Eleventh Street," Ted told David. "I don't know anything about this area. You figure I should, since it's my house, but I don't." He stared at the ground and wrinkled his hands––Teddy getting nervous once again about something he'd just said, David thought. Teddy regained his cool and moved closer to the window, pointing to a redheaded figure in gray. "There, there he is! You should've been watching!"

David was glad Teddy noticed the paper boy before he did, because if it had been him he would've felt a private shock, for he knew the boy and was on uncertain terms with him, though they had once been friends and playmates. Last summer he, Richard Dillard by name, had stolen David's Los Angeles Rams football helmet, a birthday gift from his father. He had to chase him all over town for it and finally found him with the helmet on his head, and beat him up in front of his friends. At the very end he hit him in the face of the helmet, which caused his nose to bleed, and of course Richard had to tell his parents. Thereafter they said nothing to the Gills and ordered the boy to stay away from David. He hadn't spoken to him since except once, and very rudely, at school, and he didn't know what to say now or how Richard would react. 

"Richard!" he whispered loudly to the dog-faced character slumping by on the sidewalk. David knew that Richard was not very intelligent and worried he wouldn't understand the need for whispers. The boy's first reaction upon seeing David in the window was to run, but he only took a few awkward steps because of the newspaper bag at his side. Then he stopped and looked back.

"What?"

It wasn't far from the window to the sidewalk, so David didn't have to yell. He'd measured it once exactly when he was younger, using his feet, but had lost the figure in multiplication because he was not really paying attention. Besides there was no reason Richard couldn't come closer. Their lawn was not a thing to be proud of and walking on it wouldn't make a difference. 

"Come over here!" David half-whispered, and Richard put down his papers. "No! Bring the papers, just one." David was sure that mother had heard, or worse, that a neighbor had seen what was going on and would call very soon. "Richard, I'll give you a dollar if you give me the paper instead of putting it on the porch." 

Teddy handed him a dollar and he waved it in the air at Richard.

"What for?"

"Because I want to see it before my mother does." David knew he shouldn't have said that. Richard looked at the ground suspiciously, and Teddy rolled his eyes. It was hard to think up a lie on such short notice, especially when the truth was so much more desperate and real than fiction. "She always hangs onto it for hours and hours. You can't get it till after supper time. I just want to see the sports page."

Richard came closer and David leaned through the window to trade the paper for the dollar, dangling so far out that Teddy had to hold him by his ankles. He could feel the metal of the window frame cutting against his thigh and imagined a permanent mark, because he got it doing a bad thing. 

He had the elastic band off before he even reached the floor. Teddy grabbed the paper and flung everything but the first section on top of the bunk bed. He opened it up and crashed to the floor.

"That's it!" he said, noticing their name among all the words that looked and sounded like it: bill, pill, still, kill. He quickly pointed, but David could only see three words––PATERSON MAN ARRAIGNED––and though he didn't know what arraigned meant he could tell it was something not as bad as murder, or the headline would surely say more. He wanted to not be in that room with his brothers, to be off by himself with the dictionary, looking up the word arraigned. Then it would be just a curiosity. But now the thought of learning that word's meaning was too much for him, because he knew from the sound of those letters together that his father's life really was all over, like Mrs. Contaldo said, and that made his body shiver.

At that moment mother, who had heard him talking out the window with Richard, pounded once on the door with her fist and burst through.