Tom Piccirilli: Clown in the Moonlight

It's still not enough. He calls it in and learns my history. Then he really starts grilling me.

I don't mind. I answer all his questions amiably and honestly. He's still got my wallet in one hand, my mother's photo in the other. I think about how bad things will go down if I tell him about Lowers. I don't bother. The whole world will know soon enough.

The cop doesn't like mutts like me messing up America's beautiful parks. It's obvious he wants to tune my ass. He's got a lot of steam built up and wants to let it loose by working me over with his nightstick. We had bulls in the can like this. We had orderlies on the ward like this. My father is like this.

The cop loosens his shoulders, cracks his neck. He sticks my mother's photo back in the wallet to free his right hand and throws the wallet at my feet. He's clear to draw his club or his gun. I'm resolved not to let that happen no matter what the cost. He senses I've taken a stand. The summer morning heat is bad. He's sweating and uncomfortable and he's got an edge to him. Probably a bad marriage, a gambling problem, a small coke habit. He's as twitchy as Ricky. He's got a lot on his plate.

We stand there like that for a while, neither giving any ground, the moment lengthening and full of possibility. His hand hovers over his holster. Now we're getting somewhere. I like the direction. He's through with the idea of beating the hell out of me. I wonder how he expects shooting me in the head will change his life for the better. Maybe he thinks it's the first step to the lottery, a stronger marriage, earning his daughter's respect, an easy retirement on the south shore. I represent so much to him now that I'm flattered.

He's not fast enough to draw and shoot before I launch myself and break his neck. He could always run for cover, but retreat will destroy all the amassed power of this instant. He can either do it now or he can't.

His eyes are practically spinning. He grins and it's the grin of my old man. It's my grin. His face flashes with homicide one more time before the idea finally drains away from him as if it was never there at all.

He tells me, "The park's closed at night. From now on sleep at home, whatever the problem might be."

"Right."

"Keep out of trouble."

"I will."

He starts to step away but has one last comment to make. "Your mother is a very handsome woman."

It freezes me where I stand, like electro-shock, like a lithium shot, like leather straps holding me in place, a twisting knife in the spine. It's just the wrong thing to say. It's the very worst thing to say.

The rage waits for times like these. It skitters out from behind whatever walls and fences I've built around it, and I realize, once again, that I always leave the largest doors unlocked. I think I'm chuckling.

I'm lucky I can't move. If I so much as raise a hand to this man I'll have to murder him. He knows my name. He knows what my mother looks like. Like him, if I start something, it has to end in death.

So I watch the cop as he recedes back to his patrol car. Once in his seat his gaze lingers over me for an extra second, and then he pulls out, turns around, and disappears. A gust of wind rises off the water and blows the black bouquet of a rotting New England south into my face. I can smell the Salem witch hunts, bodies hanging in the sun. Giles Corey refusing to enter a plea of guilt or innocence, doomed to torture and crushed to death beneath a board covered in rocks. His words carry on the breeze. I can hear him demanding of his judges, more weight. More weight. What a total badass. More weight, as the rocks piled up and his lungs exploded.

I run my index finger along the grooves.

SAY YOU LOVE SATAN.

I climb back into the Mustang and follow the slow-trolling cop out of the park. I kill a couple of hours grabbing a long breakfast at a local diner. I drive home and find my father's vomit all over the place. He's had a bad night himself but he made it in to work. I'm impressed. There's no note for me. We'll never exchange words again.

I pack my shit in two rucksacks, steal what cash is around, and take a cold shower. The icy water isn't enough to drive down my fever. I climb out sweating, my face red, my eyes spider-webbed with bloody veins. I dry myself. A couple of the bites and scratches are infected. I clean and bandage them as best as I can. You could make a set of dentures from the teeth indents on my thighs.

I dress, take one last look around, and I'm off for good.

I head to the cemetery to make sure that Ricky and his cronies haven't disturbed my mother's grave. It's entirely conceivable. I didn't tell him my name but I'm certain he knows it by now.

I stand before my mother's tombstone and my ankles throb as if she's reached up and taken hold of them. She's taught me prayers that aren't quite prayers, and I recite them aloud, louder than I intend. The fever burns through me.

Other mourners and visitors turn in my direction. Rose petals and strands of silk flowers float by on the breeze. I nearly ask my mother what I'm supposed to do now, but I'm afraid that she'll answer, with a tone of disappointment thick in her voice.

It's impossible to shake the image of her skull on Ricky's homemade altar, radiating force and dominion. I can see him and his followers kneeling before a reliquary of ashen bones and stolen trinkets. They're out in a field that has a lightning-split coven tree at its center. They chant petitions and benedictions they've learned from stolen library books. They dance around in the nude, in the tidal spray, calling on the infernal order, crying out for more soldiers from the pit.

I can see Ricky going down his list, name by name, inviting his victims out to the woods, the thickets, the sawgrass, the dunes. He maims and kills and leaves his prey unburied. He takes their eyes and throws them into the fire. He takes their eyes and uses them in his dreams. He makes me bear witness.

On Linda's porch I stand fast while her father works my midsection. Like her, he's got a lot of muscle to him. He hooks me twice more to the ribs while screaming what a filthy animal I am. I swallow my laughter. He should only know what his daughter is capable of. He should only see her in action.

Linda's eyes meet mine. She's having a hard time hiding her smile too. And her fear. The amusement plays there in her face. The terror rises and fades from one moment to the next. She loves me genuinely now. She loves me now because she knows Ricky is no longer the only boy who knows how to talk to demons.

Her old man says he's calling the cops. He says he's going to kill me. Her mother lets out a wail from the other side of the screen door, like a trapped animal seconds away from gnawing off its own trapped paw.

Despite his brawn he's not doing much damage. I resist striking him back. My father's done a lot worse to me. I know how to deflect and dodge and buckle just right. It keeps everyone happy. He's not hurting me and I have no need to kill him. Unlike the cop, whose rage can never be spent, Linda's father is already wearing himself out. I can take this in my sleep. I do take this in my sleep.

I understand his fury. Linda's covered in bruises, welts, bandages, butterfly Band-Aids and gauze. Some of it's my fault. Most of it is Gwen's. All of it was at Linda's own request and passionate need. No matter how bad she looks, Gwen is bound to look much worse.

He backhands me and I taste blood. The heady stink of it ruins what's left of my patience. What would daddy say if he knew his little girl got off fifteen times thanks to our minor agonies? I spit and my laughter comes out with the blood. He rushes in to try to pummel my belly again but I've had it. In one fluid motion I'm on him and he's down next to the barbeque grill, and I'm making sounds that I haven't made in a very long time.