Jonathan Lethem - The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

But Peter didn’t sit still for very long. He squirmed in his seat until Maureen noticed.

“Mom?” he said. When he leaned forward I saw the big purple bruise I’d left on the side of his face.

“What?”

He held his nose and made a face. “I think Dad needs a shower.”

The quality of their disregard was terrifying. I wasn’t, as I’d flattered myself by imagining, a monster in their midst, a constant reminder of a better life that had eluded them. They weren’t somber or mournful at all. They coped. I was a combination of a big, stupid pet and an awkward, unplugged appliance too big for the closet. I was in the way. It was too soon for them to begin hoping — or dreading — that I’d come back, and in the meantime I was a hungry, smelly nuisance.

When Maureen leaned in close and suggested I go clean myself up, I knew to agree politely and follow the suggestion. I welcomed the chance to get away from them and reconnoiter, anyway.

When I emerged from my shower they were already at the table eating. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected an invitation. They’d set a place for me, and I went and sat in it, and ate, quietly, and listened while they talked.

The subject of Peter’s “injury” came up only once, and then just barely. I gathered that Frank and Maureen had decided to suppress any discussion, to play it down, and hope that Peter was still young enough that he would just plain forget. Find some childlike inner resource for blurring experience into fantasy.

Maybe they would confront me later, when I came back, with Peter out at a friend’s house. But the subject was obviously taboo right now.

The discussion mostly centered on Frank’s plans. The apartment he was looking at, and some second thoughts he seemed to be having about settling in this area. I sensed an undercurrent, between him and Maureen, of what wasn’t being discussed: Frank’s trouble. The phone calls he was avoiding. Yet more stuff for Peter not to hear. I wondered, though, knowing Peter’s smarts, how much he was picking up anyway.

I was dying for a drink. I tried not to let it show on my face.

After the meal Frank pleaded exhaustion and went into the guest room, and Maureen read a book on the bed. I set up in front of the television and tried not to think about what I was doing or why I was doing it. I walked through the apartment a couple of times on my way to the bathroom, and when I passed Peter’s door he looked up from his computer, and I had to struggle not to meet his eye. He would have admired my ruse, and I would have liked to let him in on it, but that wasn’t possible. So I stalked past his room like a zombie, and he turned back to his homework. I spent most of the evening on the couch, slogging through prime time. After Maureen tucked Peter into bed I followed her into the bedroom.

She made the phone call about five minutes after she turned off the lights.

“Philip?” she whispered.

A pause.

“Can you talk? I couldn’t sleep.” Pause. “No, he’s right here in bed with me. Of course he can’t hear. I mean it doesn’t matter, even if he can. No. No. It’s not that.” She sighed. “I just miss you.”

I guess he talked a bit.

“You do?” she said, her voice half-melted. I hadn’t heard her that way in a while. “Philip. Yes, I know. But it’s not that easy. You know. Yes. I wish I could.”

They went on like that. Her voice was quiet enough that Peter and Frank wouldn’t hear, but in the darkened bedroom it was like a stage play. I could almost make out her boyfriend’s tinny replies over the phone.

Then she giggled and said, “I’m touching myself too.”

Thank God it was dark. My face must have been crimson. I felt the room whirling like a centrifuge, the bed at the center. I weighed a thousand or a million pounds and I was crushed into my place there on the bed beside Maureen by the pressure of gravity. I couldn’t move. I felt my blood pounding in my wrists and temples.

Why was I there? What was I trying to prove?

I knew, dimly, that I’d had some reason for the deception, that some part of me had insisted that there was something I could learn, something vital.

It couldn’t have been this, though. I didn’t need this.

So what was I after? What—

I sat bolt upright in the bed, dislodging the covers.

“Huh?” said Maureen. “Nothing, nothing. Listen, I have to go, I’ll call you back.” She hung up and turned on the light. I turned and looked at her in shock. She opened her mouth to scream, and somehow I got my hand over her mouth first. I wrestled her down against the bed, pushed her face into the pillow, twisted her arm behind her back, put my weight on her.

I could hear her yelling my name into the pillow, wetly. Her ears were bright red.

I tightened my grip on her arm. “Shhh,” I said, close to her ear. “No noise. No noise.” I listened at the hall, alert now, panicked. I had to convince her. “No noise.”

“You’re dead,” she hissed when I let her up for air. “All I have to do is report you. You’re dead.” Her eyes were slits.

“Shhh.” I let her go, forgot her. Focused on the hall.

There wasn’t any light. Peter’s night light was out, or his door was closed.

Impossible. Peter wouldn’t permit it.

Someone was in the house. Frank’s pals.

I slid into my pants, silently. I was operating with my Hell-reflexes now, and they were good. There wasn’t going to be any hostage. I would make sure of that. I would have complete surprise.

I turned back to Maureen. “Call your pal,” I whispered. “Keep it quiet. Have him bring in the cops, but quiet, and slow.” She looked at me, stunned out of her outrage. “I’m serious. Call him. And stay in here. Whatever happens.”

I didn’t leave her time for questions. In my pants and bare feet I crept out into the hall and made my way to Peter’s door.

Inside I heard him whimpering softly, as if through a gag.

I burst in.

Peter was spread-eagled on his bed, bound with neckties. His pajamas were in shreds around his ankles. Frank, who wasn’t wearing anything at all, was kneeling on the side of the bed, as if praying over Peter’s helpless body. One hand was resting lightly on Peter’s stomach. In the other hand he held his own penis. His pubic hair was white. He looked up at me and his eyes widened for a moment, then fell. And then he grinned. His hands stayed where they were.

I picked up Peter’s keyboard and smashed it against Frank’s white skull. He straightened up and stopped grinning, and reached back to feel his head.

“Tommy,” he said, his voice soft, almost beguiling.

I drew the keyboard back like a baseball bat and hit him again. This time I drew blood. I didn’t stop hitting him until he fell back against the floor, his mouth open, his eyes full of tears, his erection wilting.

Peter watched the whole thing from the bed, his mouth gagged, his eyes wide. When I dropped the keyboard and looked up, he met my eyes, for a minute. Then I looked away. I found his floppy disks for Hell, the main disk and the backup, and I tore them in half and tossed them onto the floor, beside Frank.

Peter didn’t get untied until the police showed up. Maureen was hiding in her room and I, try as I might, just couldn’t bring myself to touch him.

I live alone now. The settlement went like this: I see Peter every other weekend — if I happen to be back from Hell, that is — and only in the company of his mother. And I don’t go anywhere near the house.

Yes, Uncle Frank was Colonel Eagery, aka The Happy Man. He’d molested me as a boy, right in our house, while my father was away, and with my mother in the kitchen making breakfast. I remember it all now.