John Saul: Creature

"Good dog," Mark murmured. He pattedChivas's flanks, then filled the rabbits' bowl with food. He changed their water, slid the tray that caught their droppings out from under the hutch, hosed it out and replaced it. Just as he was finishing the job, he heard his mother calling out to him from the back door.

"Come and get it, or I'll throw it away!"

Smiling fondly at the half-dozen rabbits who were now gathered around their dish, Mark lingered for a moment, then reluctantly turned and started toward the house. Sensing his master's change of mood,Chivas paced beside him, his tail curving downward.

As soon as he came into the kitchen and seated himself at the table, Mark felt his father staring at him with silent disapprobation.

"Is that the way you dress for school on the first day?" Blake Tanner asked, his low voice edged with sarcasm.

Mark tried to ignore the tone. "Everybody wears jeans," he countered, and shot a warning look at his nine-year-old sister, who was grinning wickedly at him, obviously hoping he was going to get into trouble.

"If everybody wears jeans," Blake replied, leaning back in his chair, and folding his arms across the massive expanse of his chest in a gesture that invariably presaged his intention to demolish Mark's arguments with cool logic, "then why did your mother spend nearly two hundred dollars to buy you new clothes?"

Mark shrugged, and concentrated on cutting the segments loose from the half grapefruit that sat on the table. He could feel his father's eyes still on him. Even before Blake spoke, he knew what was coming next.

"Joe Melendez likes the guys on the team to look good," Blake said, as if on cue. "He thinks the team should set a good example for everyone else."

Mark took a deep breath and met his father's eyes. "I'm not on the team," he said.

"You might be after this afternoon," Blake reminded him. "You're a better place kicker than I was."

"I was a better place kicker than you were," Sharon Tanner interrupted, sliding her husband's invariable stack of pancakes in front of him and wondering yet again why they never seemed to affect his athletic figure. "And Mark's right-everybody wears jeans to school. I knew that perfectly well when I bought him those clothes." She winked at her son, and Mark felt himself blush, embarrassed that his mother thought she had to defend him.

"It doesn't matter how good you say I am, Dad. I'm not any good, and even if I were, it wouldn't make any difference. I'm too small for the team."

"Kickers don't have to be big," Blake began, but Mark shook his head.

"We don't have kickers, Dad," he said. "This isn't a pro team-it's only San Marcos High School. And Mr. Melendez is only going to take the big guys who can do a lot more than kick. Besides, I can't be on the team and take pictures at the same time," he added, the idea that had been forming in the back of his mind surfacing before he'd fully thought it out.

His father looked at him in confusion. "Take pictures?" he echoed. "What are you talking about?"

"For the school paper," Mark said, his words coming faster now that he'd broached the idea. "I'm good with a camera-Mr.Hemmerling said I was better than almost anyone else last year. If I shoot the games for the paper, how can I be on the team? Anyway, isn't it better if I'm at least on the field doing something instead of just sitting on the bench?"

Blake's eyes narrowed darkly, but before he could say anything, Sharon spoke again. "Before you get into an argument, you might want to look at the clock."

Seizing his opportunity, Mark finished off the grapefruit, gulped down his cup of cocoa, and scuttled out of the kitchen. Only when Kelly, too, had gone, her face falling when the fight she'd been looking forward to didn't develop, did Blake turn his attention to his wife.

"We already decided," he said. "He was going out for the team this year. We talked about it all summer."

Sharon shook her head. " You talkedabout it all summer," she corrected him. "You've been talking about it ever since he was born. But it isn't going to happen, Blake." Her voice turned gentle. "I know how much it meant to you, darling. But Mark isn't you, and he never will be. Maybe if he hadn't gotten sick…" She fell silent, her eyes clouding at the memory of the illness that had nearly killed her son and destroyed all Blake's dreams that Mark would repeat his own glory on the football field. Then she took a deep breath, and finished the thought. "Maybe if he hadn't gotten sick, things would have been different. But they might not have been. Mark just isn't cut out for football. It's not just his size-it's his temperament, too. Can't you see it?"

Blake Tanner's face darkened as he lumbered to his feet. "I can see a lot, Sharon. I can see that I've got a son that's a wimp and a misfit, who has a mother who lets him get away with it. Christ! Spending all his time with a camera and a bunch of rabbits and half-dead birds! If I'd been that way when I was his age-"

"-your father would have whipped you!" Sharon made no attempt to keep the anger out of her voice as she finished the familiar litany. "And your father was a drunk who whipped you and your mother for anything he could think of, and a lot of things he couldn't! Is that what you want for Mark? To take out all his anger on the football field, like you did?"

"That wasn't it at all," Blake protested. But of course that was exactly it, and he knew it as well as Sharon did.

Indeed, it had been Sharon who understood it from the very beginning, when they'd first met in high school, and he'd fallen in love with her. And from then on, whenever things got too bad with his father, she'd always encouraged him not to fight back, not to make things any worse at home than they already were.

"There's the field," she'd told him over and over again. "Go put on your uniform and get out there and keep at it till you're not mad anymore. Because if you don't do something about it now, you'll turn out just like your dad, and I'll never marry a man like that." And so he'd done what she'd told him, and it had worked. All the fury he'd felt toward his father had been directed to the game instead, and in the end the skills he'd gained on the field had paid his way through college.

He wasn't like his father and never would be.

Except… Except that deep inside he still nurtured the hope that his son would be just like him; that through Mark he could relive the days of his youth, when he'd heard the crowds cheering him from the grandstand, felt the thrill of completing a sixty-yard pass, felt the flush of exultation that came with every touchdown he'd scored. It didn't matter that Sharon was certain it would never happen, for deep in his heart he was certain that it would.

Mark, after all, was only a sophomore this year. He'd lost a year when he was sick, so now he was the oldest in his class. He could still begin to grow-the doctors had said when he was sick that though he'd probably never grow as large as Blake himself, there was no reason to think he'd be less than average. So this year-or next summer-he could still begin shooting up the way Blake had the year he was fifteen. And when he did…

But Blake said nothing of his hopes, for Sharon, who read his mind so perfectly after all their years together, knew his thoughts almost as well as he did himself. Instead, he simply gave her a hug and a kiss, then left the kitchen to pick up his briefcase. Before he got to the door, however, she stopped him.

"He's a good boy, Blake," she said. "He's not you, and he might never be. But he's still our son, and we could have done a lot worse."

Blake flashed a grin back over his shoulder. "Didn't say he wasn't," he agreed. "All I want for him is the best. And there isn't any reason why he shouldn't have it."