3
Buddy Pruitt slumped through the movie theater lobby, looked at the posters promising him this movie would be a laugh riot, and wondered if
anyone anywhere
had even worked up a giggle during the one hour and fifty minutes of film. Well, that one guy in aisle five laughed constantly for the first twenty minutes, but the theater manager removed him when he spotted the guy raising a liquor flask to his mouth. With the exception of Mr. Entertainment, everyone else had seemed to be in the same state of mind as Buddy:
Crummy.
He thought it must be because he’d seen Marissa Gray today. Buddy hadn’t liked her since Marissa was sixteen. They’d been at Tonya Ward’s eighteenth birthday party. Tonya hadn’t invited Buddy—Dillon had just dragged him along. Buddy hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Marissa with her long blondish hair and velvet low-slung jeans and sparkly T-shirt. She’d gotten close to him and he smelled her perfume, which proved the final blow for Buddy’s self-control.
Buddy had grabbed Marissa and kissed her. In return, she’d smacked him so hard he’d slipped and fallen on the floor. Everyone laughed and it was the first time Dillon had gotten mad at Buddy—
really
mad. Buddy hadn’t known Dillon liked Marissa—Dillon sometimes dated Tonya, but not Marissa. Anyway, afterward Buddy had felt bitter whenever he thought about Marissa, and he still thought about her a lot.
Yes, it was seeing Marissa that made him feel the way he did tonight, he decided. She’d come strutting into police headquarters in her fur coat, not speaking to him, acting like the whole world should stop for her….
Buddy closed his eyes and sighed. Even his thoughts wouldn’t give him peace. Probably no one even remembered his burst of unbridled lust so long ago, he admitted to himself. He was upset because Jeff’s young voice echoed relentlessly in his mind: “I’ve heard
Dillon Archer
has come back to town.” Dillon Archer. Dillon Archer. How Buddy wished he’d never heard that name.
But he had. He’d heard the name; he’d called Dillon friend. Dear God, Buddy had considered Dillon Archer his
first
friend. Maybe Grandpa was right, Buddy thought. Maybe I haven’t gotten more out of life because I don’t know up from down. Worse, maybe I haven’t gotten more out of life because I don’t deserve it.
Buddy jammed his hands into his pockets and tried not to shiver as he started toward home. He’d walked to work this morning, called home and lied to his mother, telling her that he had to work late, then gone alone to the movie. Spending every evening with her was becoming more than he could bear. The fact that he was twenty-seven and still living with his mother was bad—really bad when his mother clung like she did—but she was so alone. So was he, for that matter. He’d never had many friends. He hadn’t had
any
friends until Dillon Archer had come along.
Buddy had been twelve when he’d met Dillon. He’d sweated through a dorky elementary school graduation ceremony feeling like a fool when his mother clapped madly for him as he scuttled across the stage in his paper graduation cap and gown and picked up a diploma printed on a school secretary’s computer.
His grandfather had come with Buddy’s mother. Buddy couldn’t figure out why Grandpa had wanted to attend until the Old Man began snickering, muttering, and then outright laughing when Buddy crossed the stage. Bastard, Buddy had thought, his cheeks bright red. Grandpa had only come to embarrass him. Other people tried and failed to ignore the old geezer sneering and snorting at his ugly little illegitimate grandson, and Buddy had wished with all his heart God would strike him dead.
Then Buddy had seen Dillon Archer—unusually handsome and poised for an adolescent—sitting in the audience like a young prince and looking at Buddy’s grandfather as if he were a squirming maggot. Like magic, on that beautiful day some of Grandpa’s power to hurt Buddy had drifted away like foul air.
Now, a cold gust of wind lifted Buddy’s overly thick hair that would never naturally lie against his scalp. After many experiments throughout the years, he’d learned longer top hair worked best for him. Every morning after his shower, he carefully massaged in heavy-duty hair gel, placed three long metal clips on the top hair and two clips on his particularly rebellious cowlick to hold everything in place, blew it dry, then left in the clips another ten minutes for a firm set.
One morning he’d been in a rush, forgotten to remove the clips, and worn them to work. Everyone at headquarters had fallen into hysterical laughter. Everyone except Eric Montgomery. With his own thick, loose curly hair, he’d simply muttered, “Getting my hair into any kind of shape is a pain, too. That’s why I don’t even try. It would be easier if you and I would just shave our heads, Buddy.” Then Eric had gone on working without even the twitch of a smile. Dillon had usually been nice to Buddy, but to his surprise, sometimes Eric was nice, too.
Buddy turned down Oak Lane, which he’d always liked with its huge, billowing oak trees that everyone wanted to cut down because the trees shed literally thousands of leaves in the fall. This past autumn Buddy had taken about twenty photographs of the trees in their colorful glory—golden, dark purple, copper, lime, and yellow-edged emerald green. He’d taken four shots of his favorite tree—a huge old oak whose leaves had turned a uniform burnt orange. In the late afternoon autumn sky, the tree looked brilliantly aflame. His mother, Bea, had put them in an album she’d been keeping since he was thirteen titled “Buddy’s Photograph Album” and she looked at them every night, marveling over his talent.
Not that anyone respected Bea Pruitt’s opinion of talent, and with good reason. Intellectual matters were not Bea’s strong point. Although Buddy loved his mother, he’d known since childhood she was sweet, kind, dumb, and silly. She dithered through her small circle of the world oblivious to her low intelligence and lack of perception. Luckily, other people’s poor opinion of Bea’s brainpower did not hurt her, because she simply didn’t feel it. Unkind actions, judgments, and even subtle insults simply passed by her. She rarely left the house, but within its dingy walls she was usually smiling and happy. She didn’t even sound bitter when she told seven-year-old Buddy she’d wanted to name him after her father, who had less than politely refused the compliment. Grandpa’s attempt to wound Bea hadn’t worked. Instead, she had cheerfully named her son after her beloved girlhood dog.
Another gust of wind blew up and Buddy felt it lifting his stiff hair like a banner. He automatically pushed down the hair, but it didn’t matter. Large, lovely nineteenth-century houses once had lined the street. Most people had abandoned the houses after a flood twelve years ago, and hardly anyone lived here. Sometimes looking at the formerly opulent homes made Buddy sad; other times, he fantasized that his father had lived in a house like one of these in its prime.
Buddy had no idea who had fathered him. His mother told him the story of a handsome, charming, extremely rich man who’d fallen madly in love with her where she worked. She’d never explained why this wealthy ideal of manhood was shopping in the sewing department of Walmart, but she claimed their romance was short, sweet, intense, and he’d asked her to marry him. Supposedly, he had died in a plane crash only a month before they were to wed. She said his family did not communicate with her and Buddy because they’d wanted their son to marry a rich girl, and Buddy always acted as if he believed every word of her fairy tale.
They lived with Buddy’s widowed grandfather, who had made every day of Buddy’s life a misery. He was whip thin, leathery skinned, and had the conscienceless eyes of an alligator. Buddy had always suspected the man had two sets of eyelids. He’d nearly forbidden the boy to have friends, not that anyone wanted to be friends with Buddy anyway. Then Dillon had walked up to Buddy at the sixth-grade graduation and introduced himself. Grandpa had glared for all he was worth and Buddy had found it astounding that one fiery glance from Dillon’s brilliant blue eyes weakened the confidence of his grandfather’s gaze.
Buddy couldn’t believe it when Dillon had asked him if he’d like to walk around and get acquainted. Buddy had followed like a frightened puppy. They’d eaten potato chips and drunk some vile punch. Dillon had explained he’d attended the ceremony because his father—Isaac Archer—had a niece who’d also successfully made it through the sixth grade.
Then Dillon had asked if the next day Buddy would like to see a tree house he and his older brother, Andrew, were building. Buddy had found being in Dillon’s presence a bit heady, not only because he was so good-looking but also because Dillon was thirteen, an actual
teenager,
and already a student at the middle school, but the boys had become friends.
Guiltily Buddy now looked at his watch. He’d spent a lot of time driving around in a patrol car this afternoon, blowing off steam, and after the movie he’d walked with lagging steps toward home. Bea would be upset that he’d missed the first ten minutes of the reality show about fifteen people living in one apartment and fighting all the time. She loved television.
At least now, though, his mother could stay up as long as she wanted to, watching one inane TV show after another. Her father had forced her to go upstairs to bed at nine o’clock the same as Buddy, even when Bea was in her thirties. Grandpa had gone to bed whenever he pleased, but he had invariably crept back down the stairs to have at least one shot of whiskey, although publicly he violently disapproved of drinking.
Then had come the evening Grandpa had gotten furious with Bea. Earlier, when cleaning a cabinet, she’d dropped and broken his bottle of bourbon during the day and didn’t have enough money to buy a replacement. When Grandpa discovered she’d destroyed nearly a full bottle of bourbon, he’d punched her in the face. Buddy had lunged at his grandfather and nearly knocked him down.
In return, he had marched up to Buddy’s tiny bedroom, collected his little sketchbook full of Buddy’s execrable but heartfelt drawings, his one volume about photography, and his small notebook with the few dreadfully bad poems Buddy had labored over for months. The man had carried it all to the backyard and burned it, making Bea and Buddy stand and watch.
Buddy now closed his eyes for a moment, remembering that day as if it had happened last week. Then he heard noises behind him and he jerked around to see a half-broken tree limb creaking in the stiff breeze that propelled crackly dried oak leaves down the street. Buddy shuddered slightly, then laughed aloud to reassure himself he was being imaginative and silly.
Almost against his will, his mind returned to that awful day so long ago when Grandpa had set fire to Buddy’s most precious possessions. Buddy hadn’t turned to Bea, who’d stood in helpless devastation. He’d run to Dillon. At first Buddy had been reluctant to tell Dillon the things Grandpa had burned—it all sounded so girly—but when he’d finally spilled all the details Dillon hadn’t laughed. Buddy would never forget that far-off look in Dillon’s intensely blue eyes when he had said, “This time the Old Man has pushed the limit.” Buddy’d had no idea what Dillon meant, but then often he didn’t. He’d just accepted that Dillon had a superior mind and would always know the right way to handle difficult matters.
The day after Grandpa had burned Buddy’s treasures, he hadn’t been able to get out of the house fast enough. June had come again and he didn’t have school. He’d pulled on cutoff jeans and a T-shirt and, still barefoot, hurried for the stairs, scraping his ankle on the sharp hinge once used for a baby gate. He hadn’t even noticed his bleeding ankle until he got outside and saw Dillon. Dillon’s sharp eyes had honed in on the dripping blood and Buddy had explained what had happened. They’d used toilet paper from the gasoline station restroom to clean the wound, and neither had mentioned it again.
Then, around four when Buddy had to go home, Dillon gave him that long, intense look of his and said, “I’ve thought about the Old Man and I’ve decided what we’re going to do about him.” Dillon explained his plan. It sounded good at the time. Buddy had agreed to everything Dillon had wanted him to do, and for a couple of days he’d actually felt powerful. Let the Old Man say or do what he wanted, Buddy had thought swaggeringly. He and Dillon Archer were going to take care of him.
Buddy’s grandfather drove a delivery truck, and on Wednesdays he had a longer route and more heavy equipment to unload at various stores. He always came home late, worse tempered than usual, and he went to bed early. At ten o’clock Buddy had heard Grandpa clump up the stairs, go to his bedroom, and slam the door.
For nearly an hour Buddy had lain still, almost rigid, listening to his old-fashioned alarm clock loudly tick away the last minutes of Grandpa’s life. After he’d heard Grandpa begin to snore, Buddy slid from his bed and slowly opened his bedroom door he hadn’t completely closed.
He’d fought the urge to run down the hall. If he was merely walking and his grandfather opened his door, Buddy could say he was going to the bathroom. He’d wanted to run, though, because the hallway felt completely alien—cold on a summer night full of shadows and the essence of…evil. He’d stopped short. He now realized his conscience had been talking to him. Why hadn’t he listened?
But back then, he’d closed his mind to
all
thoughts and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. He held a strong length of hemp twine Dillon had gotten, boasting it was 170-pound natural-colored hemp. Some twine was dyed blue or red and would leave marks that could do them in, Dillon had said ominously. Buddy had merely listened, owl eyed.
That awful night, shaking, his breath coming hard and fast, Buddy had tied one end of the twine around the hinge for the baby gate and the other end about two inches above the floor on the newel post. Then he’d cat-walked to his room.
Buddy’s old clock had ticked away another seventy minutes before Grandpa’s snoring grew more irregular, he emitted the horrid hacking, gurgling sound that had always made Buddy shudder, then he groaned as he climbed out of bed. Grandpa had opened his door and walked heavily down the dark hall. He never turned on the hall light.