Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Seth C. Adams
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not to blow it all at once.
Now with three times that amount, Reggie felt momentarily overwhelmed with the possibilities. He could get a new bike. Or the new Xbox everyone at school had been talking about.
Then his excitement was quickly squashed as he considered the source of his newfound wealth. Where it had come from. How it was obtained.
We have an arrangement. We have a deal.
There’s consequences for breaking your word.
Suddenly, Reggie wasn’t sure if he really liked the terms of the deal. If he spent the money, it would be as if he agreed to it. But if he didn’t spend it …
Shoving the bundle back under his clothes, Reggie shut the drawer and walked out of his room, then downstairs, putting as much distance between himself and the cash as possible.
***
His mom did indeed want to go to lunch and a movie; Reggie didn’t know how to get out of it, and it was all because of the bruise on his face. She overreacted when she saw it, as he’d known she would.
‘It’s just a bruise,’ he said, trying to push her hand away as she cupped his face and turned it in the light of the kitchen for a better look.
‘How’d it happen?’ she asked.
‘I fell off my bike,’ he said, not quite lying.
‘You need to be more careful,’ she said, just short of a shout. ‘I can’t watch you twenty-four seven, Reggie!’
‘I know,’ he said, hanging his head low, hoping submission would end the interrogation.
‘You’ve got to be responsible, Reggie!’ she said, wetness gleaming at the corner of her eyes. ‘No one else is going to look out for you!’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘Your father would be disappointed,’ she said, peering so close and intently at his discoloured temple Reggie could feel her breath. ‘He’d never approve of such recklessness.’
In Reggie’s mind flashed backyard wrestling matches with his dad. Hikes along forest trails. Woodcrafts in the garage, the table saw buzzing, sawdust sprinkling the floor.
He was sure she knew the untruth of what she said. Her husband, his dad, had done many things with certain risks, and invited his son to all of them.
But that wasn’t the point, and Reggie knew this as surely as she knew the reason for her harsh words. Without his dad around, certain things just weren’t safe anymore. As his death had shown, anything was possible at anytime.
Only vigilance could assuage disaster, and that only with luck.
She went to the freezer and got out a bag of frozen peas, came back and pushed it at his face. He tried pushing it away but she prevailed, pressing the cold bag against his temple.
‘Hold it there for a bit,’ she said.
‘Mom,’ he began.
‘Don’t argue with me,’ she said in near hysterics, pushing him onto the sofa.
So he sat there in the living room, reached for the remote and turned on the television. Onscreen, the starship Enterprise blasted at vicious Klingon cruisers. Uninterested in the explorations of the crew that had in years past previously enthralled him, Reggie changed the channel, found a talking head on a cable news station. Sat back and tuned out the world to the droning white noise of the smartly suited anchor. His mom moved about the house in an imitation of work – dusting this, rearranging that – but always found her way back to the living room. After a dozen or so circuits, she stopped in the hall and looked in at him.
‘Want to go see that movie?’ she asked.
Her arms were crossed and that meant that though she’d calmed down outwardly, internally her gears were still turning, her mind working.
Reggie knew there was no arguing when she was in such a mood.
‘And lunch?’ he asked.
‘And lunch,’ she said, smiling.
‘Pizza?’ he said, figuring he’d go whole hog if this was his sentence for the day.
‘Pizza it is,’ she said. Her arms fell away from her chest in a motion approaching relaxation, and she strode away to get her purse and keys.
***
The movie was a comedy, not the comic book movie he’d initially wanted to see. For some reason he wasn’t in the mood for violence and action, even stylized and cartoonish like in a Marvel Studios film.
The comedy was of the slapstick Leslie Nielsen variety, and made them both laugh in their high seats at the back of the theatre. In the dark of the theatre with the lighted screen in front of them and their laughter echoing it was almost as if that was all there was. The world relegated to four walls and their easy laughter, and for a time things didn’t seem so bad.
After the movie they ate their pizza on the patio of the restaurant and the soaring summer sun cast everything in bright hues. In the warmth and a light breeze with the food and cool drinks before them, they recalled some of the best gags in the movie and laughed again.
They walked back to the car side by side and to Reggie it seemed there was a lightness in their step and stride. As they drove he hung an arm out the window and the wind of their passing buffeted his hand like a sail and it felt good. Along the dirt shoulder of the highway, padding heavily in the opposite direction, a pregnant stray mutt made her way down the road, head down and sway-backed with the weight of her burden.
Reggie averted his gaze.
For a time, with the Dodge rolling along in the quiet of the day, the bleached hills sliding past, nothing mattered. Not the man in the tree house. Not the deputy offering up his rape pictures. Not the condom bandit with his hard fists and taunts. Certainly not a pitiful dog treading down the highway.
Then they were approaching a certain familiar turn-off and a large, bold bronze and stonework sign and something in him froze. At first thinking it accidental – that his mom was just taking a different route home – Reggie tried to calm himself. But then they were pulling into the parking lot of the place, and his anxiety kicked up a notch.
He thought of the conversation he’d only just had with Ivan. His ideas about places and memories.
His mom steered the car into a space and put it in park.
He felt sick in his stomach, like he might throw up.
He looked around at the rolling green hills and the stones about them stretching in all directions from the perimeter of the parking lot.
‘I know it’s hard, Reggie,’ his mom said, touching him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Mom,’ he mumbled.
‘But I think this is for the best,’ she said.
‘Let’s go, please,’ he said, shaking a little. He had a tight grip on the passenger door handle. His other hand gripped a fistful of his pants legs.
‘I think you should visit him,’ she said. ‘It’s been awhile.’
He surprised himself by laughing. It was a short, wicked noise.
‘There’s no “him” to visit,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Reggie,’ his mom said in a soft voice like a caress. ‘You can talk to him. Tell him how you feel. It might help.’
‘He can’t hear me,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘He’s worm food.’
‘Reggie,’ his mom said, her own voice changing from softness to warning. ‘Don’t be like that. That’s your dad you’re talking about.’
‘No,’