Christopher Conlon - Savaging the Dark

“Sure, Ms. Straw. I’ll come over.”

“You…?” My breath is shallow, short. “Connor, won’t you be out sledding or…?”

“Nah. There’s not really enough snow for that. I’m not doing anything anyway. I can come right away.”

And he does. It feels as if it takes him twenty centuries to arrive and yet it feels, as I see him hustling coldly up the walk in his big coat, that he has arrived much too soon, as if he must have hitched a ride on a lightning bolt to have arrived so quickly. I’m wearing my pink blouse and blue jeans. The top buttons are undone on the blouse but that’s because I’m just casually hanging around at home, no other reason. The same reason I’m not wearing a bra. I’m just a teacher on a snow day, that’s all, sluffing around the house.

I open the door before he even knocks. We look at each other. Finally he says, “Hi, Ms. Straw.”

I realize I’ve forgotten to speak. “Hi, Connor,” I say, gesturing him into the house.

“Back walk again?”

“Yes, yes, that would be… great. That would be great.”

“All right!” He grins, marches through the hall and the living room and to the rear door. I watch him shoveling. It doesn’t take him long, there isn’t much snow. But when he comes back in he’s panting.

“Sit down, Connor,” I say. “Take off your coat. Rest a bit.”

“Thanks,” he says, handing me the coat and dropping to the sofa. He has on a red-and-white striped shirt underneath. “I hope my shoes aren’t dirty.” He lifts each of his legs so that I can see the soles of his tennis shoes.

“No, they’re fine. Just a little wet. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” He smiles, still catching his breath.

I sit gingerly on the hassock in front of the sofa, facing him.

“Where’s your daughter?” he asks.

“My husband took her to a kids’ movie. Would you like some hot chocolate, Connor?”

“Well, sure. If you have some, Ms. Straw.”

“Of course we do.” I jump up quickly, move to the kitchen, put on the kettle, pour powder into cups. My hand slips and one packet bursts out onto the counter everywhere: a spray of brown dust. I wipe it up quickly, not wanting Conner to see, anyone to see. I wait for the water to boil. Like his arrival, it takes twenty centuries. Finally it does and I pour it into the cups holding myself very steady and take the cups into the living room. Connor is looking at the long line of videos on the shelf.

“You sure got a lot of movies, Ms. Straw.” He takes the cup. “Thanks!”

“Would you like to watch one, Connor?”

He glances at the shelf. “Well, sure… If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll watch it with you. It’s a snow day. We don’t have anything else to do, right?”

“Right!”

“Do you think you should call your dad to let him know where you are?”

“Nah. He’s at work. He doesn’t care.”

“Oh.” I look at him. “Well, what one do you want to watch?”

He chooses Double Indemnity, one of my all-time favorites. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, their illicit relationship, her husband’s murder. He sits on our sofa engrossed in the film. I sit on the other chair. After twenty minutes or so we’re finished with our cocoa and I rise to take the cups to the kitchen.

“Should I pause it, Ms. Straw?”

“No, I can hear it, Connor. And I’ve seen this movie lots of times.” I smile and, to my astonishment, reach out my hand and tousle his hair. I’d not intended to do that. He hardly seems to notice, continues staring at the screen.

I move to the kitchen, wash the cups. I don’t have to wash the cups. We have an automatic dishwasher. But I stand there at the sink carefully rinsing each cup with hot water, applying a bit of liquid detergent, scrubbing each cup inside and out for several minutes, rinsing again. I wonder what I’m doing. What I’m doing here, at this sink, what I’m doing with this boy in the living room, what I’m doing with my life. And yet I’m so excited I can hardly see. The cups blur before me, the countertop sways. I’m hot, flushed. My arms tingle. I’m wet between my legs. I can’t get over how pretty he is, how young, and how he’s in this house, alone with me.

I return to the living room. MacMurray and Stanwyck are at the train tracks, disposing of her husband’s body. I sit down on the sofa this time, hardly aware of what I’m doing. I’m on the other end, not close to him. Everything is perfectly innocent, appropriate, explicable. If Bill and Gracie were to come in at this moment they would be a little surprised, but there’s no mystery. After all, Gracie even knows this boy. He’s just finished shoveling our back walk. He’s tired, he’s sweating. I offered him cocoa and he wanted to watch Double Indemnity. I haven’t even been here the whole time, Connor can attest to that. I disappeared for at least twenty minutes, washing those cups until they were as clean as they had ever been, as clean as anything could possibly be. It’s all right. There’s nothing wrong here.

The movie plays. After a while Connor says, “Ms. Straw, can I go to the bathroom?”

I smile. “Sure.” I take the remote, pause the film, point. “It’s up the hall on your left.”

“Thanks!”

He gets up, moves quickly to the bathroom. The door closes. I don’t listen, I try not to listen, but I can’t help but hear, faintly, the sound of the lid being raised, the rustling of clothing, the liquid sound of his urinating. Then clothes again, flush, the sound of the faucet. Good boy, I think. He washes his hands.

He reappears, smiling, and drops down where he was on the sofa. As he sits I smile and take up the remote, simultaneously sliding closer to him. He doesn’t seem to notice as the movie begins running again. I watch him instead of the screen, watch his bright eyes, his lips, the supple curve of his neck. I force myself to look at the film, a film which has never seemed so dull, so utterly irrelevant. As the movie nears its end I suddenly find that my hand is on Connor’s hair, smoothing it, stroking it so gently that it’s possible he hasn’t even noticed.

When the film finishes he sits there unmoving, still staring at the screen which is now blank except for a bright blue glow. My hand hasn’t left his hair. If he wasn’t aware of it before, he is now. My fingers move outside my own control. I’m unable to stop them as they drop to his neck, gentle touches of the sort you’d offer to a small, frightened bird. The fingers move to his cute little ear, run softly around its edge. They move to his temple, his nose, across his lips.

“What are you doing?” he says finally, in a quiet little voice.

“Nothing,” I say.

We sit there, my fingers moving over his hair and face for a long time.

“I have to go home,” he says finally.

“Okay, Connor. If you want.” I smile at him.

But he doesn’t move. Neither does he look at me. He simply stares at the blue screen.

After several minutes he says again, “I have to go home.”

“Okay.” My fingers don’t stop. They can’t. I’m where I want to be, where I need to be, for the first time since I can remember. I want to be nowhere else, with no one else.

My hand finally moves down to his, covers it. I squeeze it gently, hold it. I turn it palm up and our fingers intermingle. He glances at our hands entwined, looks back up at the TV.

“I—” he starts to say. “I have… to go… home.”

I think: You are home, Connor. But I don’t say it. I lean to him, kiss him softly on his flushed cheek. He sucks in his breath. I can see the outlines of an erection pressing against his blue jeans.

Finally the sound of Bill’s car pulling up in the driveway. I break away, drop his hand. I stand, listening as Gracie’s voice comes over the sound of cars doors closing: “You shouldn’t do that!” she shouts. She’s laughing. So is Bill.