Rick Moody - The Ice Storm

The house belonged to her. She held a worn T-shirt to her small, dainty nose and breathed deeply from it. She searched, knowing from Paul where such things were hidden, and found Mike’s collection of pornography, in the closet. She even found a ladies’ undergarment, still moist with some incriminating glue. At first the sticky lingerie shocked her and she dropped it gingerly to the floor. But then she felt some pity about the necessity of hiding those stolen bras or panties, about the shame and remorse attached to this prop. Choking the chicken, jerking the gherkin, polishing the nightstick, flogging the bishop, spindling your fist: the loneliness and anxiety that had Mike hiding himself away-she felt sad about it right then. Wendy decided to take the garment with her, and shoved it under her shirt, tucking it into the belt line of her powder blue ski pants. It was gross, but she liked it.

And then she went for a peek at the water bed. Mike had showed it to her once before. They had stood on the threshold of the master bedroom like it was one of those roped-off historic homes exhibits-like FDR’s house, where they’d had to go on a field trip when she was nine — and watched the water bed. Mike hurried over to disturb its surface. She remembered it was a sunny day in early autumn, and she followed him to the side of the bed to sink her hand into its vinyl blubber. Then they hastily retreated to the doorway and watched it ripple and wave.

Mike was afraid of the master bedroom. The way she was afraid of her own parents’ room. The idea of her father sleeping, vulnerable, maybe with one of those nocturnal boners, or in plain fetal position — it disgusted her. She preferred to think of him awake long hours, reading some tome on business or politics. She figured she could take comfort in the notion that her parents never made love. They didn’t seem attracted to each other anyway.

But here in the Williamses’ house, she was fearless. And since the door to the master bedroom was open, and since she could see that the water bed was unoccupied, she just settled right into it. She was engulfed in its amniotic comfort. It sloshed protoplasmically to one side and then shifted back into the center. She pulled the hand-sewn quilt at the foot of the bed over her — and then kicked it off again. She had smushed the Devil Dogs a little bit in all this activity, but now she opened them up anyway. They would be good whatever their shape.

And then she was interrupted.

— What are you doing?

Sandy Williams. He’d snuck up on her. Sneaking was his passion, so this wasn’t a surprise. His tone wasn’t outraged or even interested particularly. He just had to ask.

Wendy was startled up to the edge of the bed. She smoothed her poncho down over her lap. For a while she couldn’t think how to answer. Then:

— What team is that on your jammies, little Sandy? Her mouth was jammed with Devil Dog. She stood on the hard surface of the floor again, the water stirring uneasily behind her.

— Oakland Raiders. But I don’t follow football.

— Hand-me-downs?

Sandy said nothing. Just stood in the doorway. He was really short for his age. In his football pajamas and spectacles, with his cowlick and put-upon expression, he was an odd mixture of an infant and a middle-aged middle-manager. He didn’t know where Mike was. His parents were at some party. The exchange of monosyllabic questions was short and unfriendly.

— So what are you doing in here?

— Just taking a look around, Wendy said. What are you doing here? I thought you were over at somebody’s house for the night. Like anybody would have you over.

He turned and headed back down the hall. She wasn’t thinking. She should have seen the light under his door. She should have known. Maybe there was no light, maybe he planned all his nefarious plans by penlight. Wendy followed, feeling leaden now, defeated, certain that her trespassing would be passed on to the Williamses. Suddenly she was afraid her father would tell them about her and Mike, too. She was caught between a bunch of bad examples of truancy. It was closing in on her. And she was only fourteen. — Sandy, she said, lemme see some of your models. C’mon, wait, what’s going on?

He squinted at her from down the hall. His glasses were never strong enough. He wore a little clip-on sun-filter attachment on them these days, like a big-league outfielder. He padded around the banister and into his room without a reply. But he left the door open.

In the guest room, on the way by: rumpled bedding.

On his bed, beside him, Sandy had a G. I. Joe with Lifelike Hair, the newer model with the hippie grooming, the facial hair. There was a little scar on Joe’s cheek, a vermilion, plastic scar. And he talked, too, when you pulled his dog tag. Sandy was quick to point out that his particular G. I. Joe, however, was malfunctioning. Joe had only one thing to say, no matter how many times you pulled the dog tag:

— Mayday! Mayday! Get this message back to base!

In his orange jumpsuit, Joe looked really comfortable, not at all like a P.O.W. or M.I.A. on the run. But Sandy had some grim plans for him. As Wendy looked on, Sandy was calmly tying a noose for his doll. He pulled the dog tag again.

— Back to base!

— Sometimes, Sandy said, he doesn’t even make it all the way through.

— Mayday! Mayday! Joe said. Get this message back to base! Back to base! Back to base!

— Quit it, Sandy said, it’s already driving me nuts. Wendy cradled the helpless little man in her lap. She posed his limbs — so that he seemed to be giving some kind of Nazi salute, so that he waved, so that he was goose-stepping. Sandy attended to the noose, except when he was firing questions at her. Like about the weather.

— There’s this crusty stuff, Wendy said. She had tracked the stuff in with her.

— You got that all over the water bed. She probably had. Mud and sand and slush.

— Only a little.

— It’s gonna get a lot colder tonight. Sandy said, I predict. Probably a blackout. Do you have candles in your house? I know where the candles are, and I have my own flashlight. Over there. Also, I know where every emergency exit is on this floor.

— So where’s Mikey?

— I told you. How should I know? Sandy looked up from his handiwork. He gave her a long once-over.

— But he’s probably down at the hospital. It would be a cool place to be. The way the grounds sloped down toward the Silvermine River. Tonight would be a good night to ride the refectory trays, as she and Paul had once done, down the hills. The trick was to bail out before you slid into the water. The tray shot out from under you, like some kind of low-flying bird, sailing out onto the Silvermine. They had to cross out into the river, on stepping stones, to recover the trays. Truly, though, the security guys had caught them, had run down the hill after them, slipping and skidding in their polished uniform shoes, to grab Paul by the shoulder and roughly commandeer his sled. She had a way with the Silver Meadow security cops. Paul never did.

— What’s he doing down there?

— Looking for you, probably. Sandy said. With that he stood, measuring by eye the distance from the top of the closet. He raised his makeshift lynching apparatus toward its anchor. Standing on a modern and insubstantial hammock-style desk chair, he tied the end of the rope around a nail he had already pounded into the top of the closet frame.

— This knot’s called a bowline, he said. He let the noose swing free now, and in the meager light of Sandy’s swivel desk lamp its shadow swung with it, its ominous double.

— Mayday! Mayday!

— Not gonna give him a chance to share any last words, huh? Wendy said. She pulled the tags again.