Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

I took another cookie.

“And drink your tea, boy.”

I drank my tea.

“I guess I’ll do the upstairs next. Prob’ly change the sheets on the beds instead of just strippin em, at least for now. What do you think’s going to happen with this house?”

“Gee, I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. Not a clue. Can’t imagine anyone buying it. Mr. Harrigan was one of a kind, and that goes the same for…” She spread her arms wide. “…all this.”

I thought about the glass elevator and decided she had a point.

Mrs. G. grabbed another cookie. “What about the houseplants? Any idears about them?”

“I’ll take a couple, if it’s all right,” I said. “The rest, I don’t know.”

“Me, either. And his freezer’s full. I guess we could split that three ways—you, me, and Pete.”

Take, eat , I thought. This do in remembrance of me .

She sighed. “I’m mostly just dithering. Stretching out a few chores like they were many. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself, and that’s the God’s honest. What about you, Craig? What are you going to do?”

“Right now I’m going downstairs to spritz his hen of the woods,” I said. “And if you’re sure it’s okay, I’ll at least take the African violet when I go home.”

“Course I’m sure.” She said it the Yankee way: Coss . “As many as you want.”

She went upstairs and I down to the basement, where Mr. Harrigan kept his mushrooms in a bunch of terrariums. While I spritzed, I thought about the text message I’d gotten from pirateking1in the middle of the night. Dad was right, it had to be a joke, but wouldn’t a practical joker have sent something at least half-witty, like Save me I’m trapped in a boxor the old one that went Don’t bother me while I’m decomposing? Why would a practical joker just send a double a, which when you spoke it sounded kind of like a gurgle, or a death-rattle? And why would a practical joker send my initial? Not once or twice but three times?

I ended up taking four of Mr. Harrigan’s houseplants—the African violet, the anthurium, the peperomia, and the dieffenbachia. I spotted them around our house, saving the dieffenbachia for my room, because it was my favorite. But I was just marking time, and I knew it. Once the plants were placed, I got a bottle of Snapple out of the fridge, put it in the saddlebag of my bike, and rode out to Elm Cemetery.

It was deserted on that hot summer forenoon, and I went right to Mr. Harrigan’s grave. The stone was in place, nothing fancy, just a granite marker with his name and dates on it. There were plenty of flowers, all still fresh (that wouldn’t last long), most with cards tucked in them. The biggest bunch, perhaps picked from Mr. Harrigan’s own flowerbeds—and out of respect, not parsimony—was from Pete Bostwick’s family.

I got down on my knees, but not to pray. I took my phone out of my pocket and held it in my hand. My heart was beating so hard it made little black dots flash in front of my eyes. I went to my contacts and called him. Then I lowered my phone and put the side of my face down on the newly replaced sod, listening for Tammy Wynette.

I thought I heard her, too, but it must have been my imagination. It would have had to’ve come through his coat, through the lid of his coffin, and up through six feet of ground. But I thought I did. No, check that—I was sure I did. Mr. Harrigan’s phone, singing “Stand By Your Man” down there in his grave.

In my other ear, the one not pressed to the ground, I could hear his voice, very faint but audible in the dozing stillness of that place: “I’m not answering my phone now. I will call you back if it seems appropriate.”

But he wouldn’t, appropriate or not. He was dead.

I went home.

In September of 2009, I started school at Gates Falls Middle along with my friends Margie, Regina, and Billy. We rode in a little used bus which quickly earned us the jeering nickname of Short Bus Kids from the Gates kids. I eventually got taller (although I stopped two inches short of six feet, which sort of broke my heart), but on that first day of school, I was the shortest kid in the eighth grade. Which made me a perfect target for Kenny Yanko, a hulking troublemaker who had been kept back that year and whose picture should have been in the dictionary next to the word bully .

Our first class wasn’t a class at all, but a school assembly for the new kids from the so-called “tuition towns” of Harlow, Motton, and Shiloh Church. The principal that year (and for many years to come) was a tall, shambling fellow with a bald head so shiny it looked Simonized. This was Mr. Albert Douglas, known to the kids as either Alkie Al or Dipso Doug. None of the kids had ever actually seen him loaded, but it was an article of faith back then that he drank like a fish.

He took the podium, welcomed “this group of fine new students” to Gates Falls Middle, and told us about all the wonderful things that awaited us in the coming academic year. These included band, glee club, debate club, photography club, Future Farmers of America, and all the sports we could handle (as long as they were baseball, track, soccer, or lacrosse—there would be no football option until high school). He explained about Dress-Up Fridays once a month, when boys would be expected to wear ties and sport jackets and girls would be expected to wear dresses (no hems more than two inches above the knee, please). Last of all, he told us there was to be absolutely no initiations of the new out-of-town students. Us, in other words. Apparently the year before, a transfer student from Vermont had wound up in Central Maine General after being forced to chug-a-lug three bottles of Gatorade, and now the tradition had been banned. Then he wished us well and sent us off on what he called “our academic adventure.”

My fears about getting lost in this huge new school turned out to be groundless, because it really wasn’t huge at all. All my classes except for period-seven English were on the second floor, and I liked all my teachers. I had been scared of math class, but it turned out we were picking up pretty much where I’d left off, so that was okay. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing until the four-minute change of classes between period six and period seven.

I headed down the hall to the stairs, past slamming lockers, gabbing kids, and the smell of Beefaroni from the cafeteria. I had just reached the top of the stairs when a hand grabbed me. “Hey, new boy. Not so fast.”

I turned and saw a six-foot troll with an acne-blasted face. His black hair hung down to his shoulders in greasy clumps. Small dark eyes peered out at me from beneath a protruding shelf of forehead. They were filled with bogus merriment. He was wearing stovepipe jeans and scuffed biker boots. In one hand he held a paper bag.

“Take it.”

Clueless, I took it. Kids were hurrying past me and down the stairs, some with quick sideways glances at the kid with the long black hair.

“Look inside.”

I did. There was a rag, a brush, and a can of Kiwi boot polish. I tried to hand the bag back. “I have to get to class.”

“Uh-uh, new boy. Not until you shine my boots.”

Clueless no more. It was an initiation stunt, and although expressly forbidden by the principal just that morning, I thought about doing it. Then I thought about all the kids hurrying downstairs past us. They would see the little country boy from Harlow on his knees with that rag and brush and can of polish. The story would spread fast. Yet I still might have done it, because this kid was much bigger than I was, and I didn’t like the look in his eyes. I would love to beat the shit out of you , that look said. Just give me an excuse, new boy .