Christopher Hebert - Angels of Detroit

On her way back to the screen door, Clementine passed the kitchen again. Her mother was standing in the doorway looking cross, about to open her mouth to yell, when Clementine pressed her lips against the metal mesh and shouted, “Are you coming?”

Dobbs had made it only as far as the edge of the neighboring lot, up to his knees in grass. He seemed afraid to come any closer than the swing set.

“Who are you talking to?” her mother said.

Clementine could tell from the tone of her voice that her mother didn’t really want to know.

“A friend!” she yelled, loud enough for Car to hear.

Dobbs must have seen her mother appear at Clementine’s side, because after inching forward another step, he suddenly stopped, dead in his tracks.

Her mother took Clementine by the shoulder and pushed her aside.

“Who are you?” she yelled through the screen.

Dobbs looked up at her. Her mother might have been taller than him even if she hadn’t been inside the house.

He took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Clementine.” Her mother’s voice dipped to that low place she went when she wanted to show her disappointment.

Clementine started to push open the screen door. “I invited him over for dinner.”

Her mother reached out for the handle. There was cheesy laughter from Car’s stupid show. But when Clementine turned around, her sister was standing at the opposite end of the hallway, watching and listening.

“He’s my friend,” Clementine said again, even louder this time.

But now Dobbs was backing away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m leaving.”

Clementine wedged herself past her mother. “Don’t go.” She got as far as the top stair before her mother grabbed her shoulders.

Her mother’s voice was rising now, as it did when her disappointment turned to anger. “How exactly are you and my daughter friends?”

“We’re not,” Dobbs said. He took another step back. “Not really. We’re neighbors.”

Her mother came down and joined Clementine on the top step, still not letting go. “Where do you live?”

Dobbs started to gesture over his shoulder, but then he must have remembered he was lost.

“Over there,” Clementine said.

Dobbs squinted at where she was pointing. From there, even he could see the crazy tower rising above the trees. She could tell he was surprised that Bernadine Street was so close.

The news didn’t change her mother’s expression.

“We’ve run into each other a couple of times,” Dobbs said.

Clementine felt her mother shift her weight from one foot to the other.

“Do you normally hang out with ten-year-old girls?” she said.

Dobbs lowered his head. “Not usually.”

Her mother responded with that slow, heavy shuttering of her eyelashes. Clementine rarely got to see it directed at someone else. “What’s your name?”

“Dobbs,” Clementine answered for him.

“What kind of name is that?”

“I should be going,” Dobbs said.

He took another step back toward the weeds.

Clementine’s mother did too, descending to the next step. “How long have you lived here?”

Dobbs’s fingers were scratching at his chin. “A couple of weeks?”

“Strange place to move to,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Clementine told me to come with her, so I kind of just came. I don’t know why.”

Her mother palmed Clementine’s head, letting her nails dig in. “She can be hard to say no to.”

“I don’t think I even tried.” Dobbs turned around to face the empty lots. “She was showing me some of her favorite places.”

Her mother sighed. “She thinks the whole neighborhood is hers.”

“Can he stay for dinner?” Clementine asked.

The laugh track rose up again.

“I have to go,” Dobbs said.

Clementine’s mother climbed back up a step. “He has to go.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Dobbs said over his shoulder as he waded back into the weeds.

Her mother’s hand scratched down Clementine’s head to the base of her neck. “Pay will be home soon,” she said. “You can tell him about your new friend.”

Clementine tried to wave goodbye, but Dobbs didn’t look back.

Pay grounded her for two weeks. No TV, as if that was something she’d miss. But she also wasn’t allowed to leave the house except to go to school.

That night, lying in bed, confined to her room, she took out her book again. She’d checked it out from the library months ago. Eventually, she guessed, they’d stop sending notices, asking for it back. Feet on the wall, she turned again to her favorite part. The sixth extinction, already under way. She’d read this chapter a million times. The planet heating, ice caps melting, species dying, ecosystems collapsing. The sixth extinction would wipe out everything now living, changing the world forever.

Through her window, she watched the sun set behind the empty house next door. The roof looked as though it were engulfed in flames. The heat was rising. The new ice age was coming, and Clementine imagined a girl slapping at a cell phone with fins instead of fingers, a kinder, gentler version of Car.

The lectern was cut from a refrigerator box, a slab of cardboard creased twice to form three sides. They’d topped it with a square angled slightly toward the back. There Myles had laid his single sheet of paper, just a little too far away for him to be able to read it clearly. But if he were to lift the sheet or the hand that was holding it, everything would have blown away — paper, cardboard, and all. Almost Memorial Day, and a storm had blown in overnight from what felt like the arctic, blasting through the flat, open plaza in front of the HSI Building. The lectern clung to Myles’s legs like a terrified child. The hand that wasn’t pressing down on the paper hovered above his head, above the dancing locks of his powdered wig. The loose sleeves of the black robe snapped around his upraised arm.

Over the snapping, over the screeching wind, over the rumble of the traffic, over the hurried patter of leather-soled shoes, there were the shouts of interrupted cell phone conversations.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Wait.

I can’t.

The wind, I can’t.

Hold on.

Their heads were lowered, hunkered down. Nobody so much as glanced Myles’s way, which meant, to Holmes’s relief, that no one noticed him, either. Too busy, too cold, too busy.

It was Friday, just before nine in the morning, and the eastern edge of the HSI Building was aglow. Holmes stood several paces to Myles’s right, aware that he was visibly swaying but unable to do anything about it. His problem had nothing to do with the wind. He barely felt the cold. He was focused instead on trying to keep his knees from giving way beneath him.

Myles was the judge. Holmes was the bailiff, a plastic star from the dollar store pinned to his chest, an army surplus patch on his sleeve. Shiny black thrift store tie to match his shiny black thrift store shoes. Every piece of the ridiculous costume felt as though it were pressing in on him, cutting off his circulation.

All this had been Myles’s idea, another little surprise for McGee, another bit of theater. Holmes had spent the previous night trying to talk him out of it, as he had earlier with the video. Stunts like these never worked, especially on McGee.

“But she’s tired of picket signs,” Myles had said. “She told me. She thinks we should try something else.”

“Fine,” Holmes had said, “but I don’t think this is what she had in mind.”

“Then what?” Myles had demanded. “What?”

And Holmes had been able to see his desperation. How could he say no? His oldest friend. A pointless action was one thing, but love was something else. And underlying everything lately was Myles’s fear he was losing her.