Norman Partridge - Dark Harvest

Pete runs his thumb over the oiled blade. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut. Maybe. But after five days locked up in this shoebox of a room, he just can’t do it.

“Looks like this thing could do some damage if a guy had the guts to put it to work.”

Pete speaks those words evenly. His tone is matter-of-fact. But those words are bait tossed in the water, and Pete knows it, and so does his old man.

“You have something to say to me, son?”

“I just did.”

“Listen, I know what you’re thinking — ”

“No you don’t, so don’t pretend that you do.”

“Pete, I know how you feel. But it’s one night, and you’ll get through it. And tomorrow I’ll get to work on things. I mean it. I’ll call Joe Grant down at the elevator, and maybe I can patch things up and get my job back — ”

“It’s too late for that, Dad. I’m tired of listening to you tell me how things are going to change when I know they won’t. You lost your chance to do that when you crawled inside a bottle.”

“Wait a second, boy. Hear me out — ”

“No. Our backs are to the wall. There’s only one way out, so I’m going to take it. I’m going out there tonight, and I’m going to change things. I’m gonna win the Run, and I’m not gonna do it with words.”

His old man grabs Pete then. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do. Pete pushes his father away, harder than he should, and he snatches his frayed denim jacket off the bed, and he heads for the doorway.

Outside, some guy screams in the street, but Pete doesn’t jump. Up the block, an axe handle rattles across a gap-toothed picket fence, but Pete doesn’t twitch. He starts down the hallway, leaving his bedroom behind without a backward glance.

The old man’s calling after him. Pete hears the words, but they don’t matter now that he’s said his piece. So he buries those words under his footsteps, and he leaves them behind. He only cares about what’s up ahead, ready to charge his ass like a rusty Chrysler with a pair of Gorgon headlights. And he walks down the shitty little hallway with its lone lightbulb and nicotine-stained paint, and he passes his kid sister’s bedroom, but not fast enough to escape the muffled sobs behind the eight-year-old’s painted handprint on the door. Kim shouts his name as another pack of guys scream by in the street, but Pete doesn’t slow a step.

He can’t afford to. That thing up ahead is suddenly real, and it’s pulling at him. The October Boy. It’s all he’s heard about for the last two months. The story’s been drilled into him and spackled over. He knows what it is, and what it means.

If Pete’s got the guts, he can grab it.

If he’s got the smarts, it’s all his.

So his lips stay buttoned as he opens the front door. His father’s footsteps are dogging him now, and his little sister’s still calling his name in a voice that’s burning a hole straight through his heart, but he’s through that door in a second, and he hits the street with his father’s machete clutched tightly in his hand.

He runs into the night. His Chuck Taylors don’t make a sound. But somehow, no matter how fast he humps it, that beat-up look in his father’s eyes keeps the pace. Pete can outrun his father’s words, but he can’t outrun that look. It’s welded to his spine like a shiny key stuck in the back of some cheap Japanese toy, and with every click - clack twist it winds his bones and muscles tighter, so when that key spins free he runs like the devil himself is cranking his gears.

And that’s the way it is for our buddy Pete, all the way from his front door to the alley behind a rundown bungalow that faces North Harvest Street.

Pete’s tennis shoes skid over gravel as he comes to a stop by the back fence. He cools his jets for a second, takes a quick look up the alley. There’s no one else around. So he tosses the machete over the fence, then jumps the sucker himself.

He comes down on a weed-choked lawn that died about two months ago. The backyard’s as empty as the alley. There’s not even a dog, but that’s no surprise. Because this house belongs to a cop named Jerry Ricks, and a brutal son of a bitch like Ricks sure wouldn’t figure he’d need a dog to scare anyone in this town.

But Pete isn’t scared. He’s sure Ricks won’t be anywhere close to home tonight — not with the Run kicking into gear. He also knows that the cop lives alone. So the house is dark. No lights on outside or in. Pete picks up the machete and crosses the lawn, dead grass crunching underfoot. There’s a hose by the back stairs, and he turns it on and has a quick drink. The water tastes like rubber, but at least it’s cold.

Pete sits down on the back steps and catches his breath. There’s an overhang covering a cracked cement patio, but it doesn’t look like the kind of place anyone would pick for a summertime cook-out or anything. Hanging from one thick beam in the center of the overhang is a heavy bag — the kind boxers use. For a second Pete remembers the job Ricks did on him with that nightstick. For another second he pictures the cop out here, working on that bag, pummeling hard-packed canvas with his fists the same way he jammed Pete’s kidneys with that nightstick, grinning like an ape while he works up a real good sweat.

That’s enough to get Pete moving again. He tries the back door, but even Jerry Ricks doesn’t trust his reputation that far — the door is locked. So Pete goes around to the side of the house, finds a window set low enough in the wall that he can work on without hunting for a ladder.

It’s a double-hung job — the easiest kind. Pete works the machete blade between the stool and the bottom rail, levering the steel sharply. This time luck’s on his side. The lower sash rises, which means the window wasn’t even locked.

Pete reaches inside and drops the machete to the floor. He slips over the sill and closes the window behind him. It’s dark inside the house, but he doesn’t turn on a light. Instead he waits for his eyes to adjust, and it doesn’t take long.

There’s the machete, lying on the floor. Pete snatches it up. If things go the way he’s planned, he won’t need it much longer. The way Pete’s got things figured, a twenty-year-old machete isn’t going to cut it when it comes to the job that needs doing tonight. It might have been good enough for his father all those years ago, but Pete’s all through fooling himself about what kind of guy his dad is. What did the machete get his old man, anyway? Twenty years stuck in this town. Twenty years spinning his wheels, so he could crawl inside a bottle when things got tough.

No way Pete’s going to end up like that. That’s why he’s here, taking a chance no other kid has even contemplated. Any other night, breaking into a house owned by the town’s leading hard-ass would earn you a one-way ticket to the graveyard. But not tonight. If Pete gets out of here without getting caught, and if things go the way he plans out there on the streets, well, no one will care how many laws he broke in this stinking little crackerbox as long as he ends up grabbing the brass ring before the bell in the old church steeple tolls midnight.

That’s a whole lot of ifs to swallow, but there’s no other way Pete can see this night going. Either he’ll end up a winner, or he’ll end up dead. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a one way or the other proposition. Forget settling. Forget compromise. Tonight he left all that behind in his father’s house, and —

Hell, Pete doesn’t have time to stand here jerking himself off with words. That’s his father’s game. First things first is the way he sees it. That means he’s going to worry about his belly instead of his brain, because he’s got a five-day hunger to kill if he wants to run full-out tonight.