Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

“Like hell it is. This is a father thing.”

“And you’re his son, now?”

Pax sat back from the table. He thought about saying, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” But he knew what he meant. Pax hadn’t called his father in years. He hadn’t planned to come back to Switchcreek until the old man’s funeral. He just never planned on the wrong person dying.

Pax stood. “You know better than anyone, Deke. He sent me away.”

“Where are you going?” Deke said.

“Just take me to my car.” He turned toward the door. His head still felt light from the dose, but he could move fine. Mostly fine.

“Come on, P.K.,” Deke said. “You can’t just walk away every time you-”

“Cut this out, both of you!” Donna said.

Pax blinked at her. Deke started to open his mouth and she shushed him.

“We’re all going to sit down and eat dinner,” she said. “Whether you like it or not.”

The two men sat back down. When she turned back to chopping the vegetables, Pax raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t piss off an argo woman holding a knife,” Deke said quietly, but of course his voice carried through the house.

Pax said, “We’re not done talking about this chub thing.”

“Didn’t think so,” Deke said.

THE NEXT DAY, one of the chub boys was waiting for him at his father’s house.

It was the blond one, spiked hair like a patch of dried straw. He sat behind the wheel of a new-looking Toyota Camry parked in the driveway. Metallic green paint job, shiny rims, everything gleaming in the morning sun. Pax pulled past the car and parked between it and the house.

The boy sat with his elbow propped on the window, heavy bass thumping from the stereo. He nodded at Pax through the windshield, and kept smiling as Pax walked over to him. The music was some kind of slowed-down hip-hop, old stuff that sounded like eighties rap.

“You mind turning that down?” Pax said. He had to shout to be heard over the music.

The fat boy grinned at him, but didn’t reach for the stereo. His close, pink scalp showed between those carefully gelled and sprayed strands. Pax wanted to punch this guy in the mouth, a straight-arm right through the open window. It was a pleasure to know something so certainly, spoiled only by the equally certain knowledge that the chub could break him in half.

Pax leaned on the car and felt the vibration of the speakers through the sheet metal. He smiled and said quietly, “You’re going to be bald by thirty, dough boy.”

The chub’s smile vanished. He punched a button to silence the music and said, “What was that?”

“Thank you,” Pax said. “Much appreciated.” He glanced back at the house. It looked the same as the other day: door shut, drapes closed. “Your buddies inside?”

The chub regained his grin. “Nosirree, Cuz. Just me. Hey, you feelin’ any better today? Or a lot worse?”

“Fine, thanks.” Pax looked back at the house. “So.”

“Yeah?”

“You can leave now.”

“Nah, that’s okay.”

Pax stared at him. “Listen, you can’t just sit here in my dad’s driveway.”

“Well I been doing it all night. Where you been, anyway? I was here from eight o’clock on.”

Pax straightened. This kid had been staking out the place all night? What must Harlan have thought? “Listen, I’m going inside and I’m calling the cops.”

“Aw, come on now, you can’t do that to family.” He smiled. “Aunt Rhonda says we’re cousins. Your momma was a Pritchard, and her granddaddy was my daddy’s granddaddy’s brother.” He worked a stubby pinky into his ear. “Or great-granddaddy.”

“What’s your name?”

“Clete Pritchard.”

Pax didn’t remember any kid named Clete. He would have been six or seven years old when Pax left.

“Well listen, Cuz,” Pax said. “You got about two minutes before the cops get here.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be waiting for ’em right here, then.”

Pax wheeled away from the kid before he really did punch him. He strode back to his car, and behind him the music started again. Pax retrieved the plastic grocery bags from the backseat and carried them up to the front porch.

The door was unlocked. Pax went inside without looking back and closed the door behind him. He could hear the whump, whump, whump of the Camry’s bass. Clete wasn’t going anywhere.

Pax walked into the living room. His father wasn’t on the living room couch, but the ripe smell still filled the air.

“Dad?”

He walked down the hallway. His father’s bedroom door was closed, but the bathroom door hung open. The room had been renovated: the old toilet had been replaced by one with a huge seat like a car tire; sturdy metal handrails had been fastened to the walls on each side of it.

Pax heard the clatter of something metal. He backtracked to the front door, then made his way to the kitchen.

His father sat wide-legged on a chair nearly swallowed by his huge body, a comb in one hand and scissors in the other. He wore the same robe as before, but his hair was wet. A hand mirror lay on the table, and there were long chunks of black hair scattered over the table and floor.

After seeing his father yesterday Pax would have thought he was too big to move on his own, much less walk to the kitchen and wash his hair. And now he seemed even larger. The skin of his face, baggy before, stretched tight over his cheeks and forehead. The blisters on his face were shiny and pink.

His father blinked at him. “I thought I made you up.”

“No such luck,” Pax said.

“Here,” his father said. He worked the scissors from his fat fingers. “I can’t see the back of my head.”

“I don’t know how to cut hair.”

“It’s just hair, Paxton,” his father said. He shoved the scissors toward him. “Snip snip.”

Pax set the grocery bags on the table. He took the scissors by the blades. “There’s a guy”-he almost said chub-“sitting out front in his car, watching the house. He said his name is Clete Pritchard.”

His father grunted.

“Did you call the police?” Pax asked.

“Paxton, that’s one of Rhonda’s boys. He is the police.”

“What’s he doing out there? He can’t just… sit there.”

“You going to cut my hair or not?”

Pax stepped behind him, and his father bent his head. Up close, the damp black hair was shot with gray. His father didn’t have to do this. Surely he could find somebody in town or in Lambert who could come in and cut hair.

His father grunted impatiently.

Pax wiped the handle of the scissors on his jeans and picked up the black plastic Ace comb. He smoothed the hair over the rolls of fat at his father’s neck, careful not to scrape the necklace of small white blisters just above the robe’s collar, and began to cut.

“You were here the other day,” his father said.

“Yesterday.”

“That’s what I meant. I woke up and you were gone.”

A minute or so later his father said, “When are you going back to-back to where you live?”

“I’m still in Chicago.” Did the old man not even know where he lived? “I’ve got to leave this afternoon. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Good.”

Paxton felt his face flush in anger. That tone. He’d forgotten how fast, how effortlessly, his father could piss him off.

His father leaned away from him, turned his head to eye him. “Look at what happened when you showed up. Before yesterday it hardly ever came. You’re only making things worse.”

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.”