Stranglehold Read online

  "Ruth, do you know what you're doing? You're threatening an officer of the law."

  "You want to arrest me, fine. You go right ahead. After we find Arthur."

  "Boys forget. They get to doing things."

  He could hear the policeman shift uneasily on the stairs.

  "And I got a fire to fight!"

  "So how do you know he's not in it?"

  "What?"

  "In your damn fire, Ralph. How do you know he's not lying out there hurt, right in the path of the damn thing? My Arthur had asthma when he was three. Had fainting spells. What if he's had a relapse or something?"

  "Jesus, Ruth."

  The boy smiled. His mother was going to win.

  His mother always won.

  Best of all she was using the same explanation he'd intended to use anyway—the fainting spells. And now he knew it was going to wash with them. It'd scare them. He didn't know why he wanted to scare them but he did. His mother would make a whole big thing out of it and he'd stay out of school tomorrow and maybe even the next day or the day after that. There might even be a doctor.

  "All right, Ruth," Duggan said. "You win. You and Harry climb in back. I guess what we'll do is start behind the fire, close as we can, and then work back toward the house. Not a lot of light left, though."

  "And you call it in."

  "All right, Ruth. I'll call it in."

  He heard them go down the stairs and heard car doors open and then slam shut and the police car starting up and pulling away and then there was just the familiar silence, crickets and frogs way down the road at the beaver pond across the hill.

  He crawled out from under the stairs and sat down on the grass with his arms folded over his legs. Nobody was going to see him sitting there. He felt invisible, like he wasn't in the same world as everybody else, like he wasn't even there.

  He sniffed his shirt.

  The shirt still smelled of smoke. So did his jeans. Smoke and dirt.

  He wondered if they would still smell like smoke when they got back later and if his mom would notice.

  It was possible he'd get caught.

  He felt a bright rush of fear at the thought. At the knowing that there was danger. It was very nearly the same thing he'd felt using matches on the pile of brush and then crouching there watching the fire crawl from brush to trees to more brush, smelling the smoke and listening to the crackling sounds.

  Eventually the feeling had overpowered him and made him want to run and hide.

  It felt very much like joy.

  He was bad.

  And now he was invisible.

  And no one would ever know either of these things. He'd sit here until his senses told him to hide again and then he'd crawl back into the crawl space and listen to his mother's worry and his father's silence inside the house until he was good and ready to come out and no one would ever know.

  Two

  Teens

  Wolfeboro, New Hampshire

  May 1971

  "Come on, Lyd. You know you want to."

  "I don't want to."

  "Sure you do."

  "I don't. Don't touch me."

  "Look, you just wrap your hands around it. Hold it like this. Then you squeeze ..."

  The sound was deafening. The Budweiser can seemed to leap off the stump.

  "God, Martin!"

  "Is that something? Is that cool or what? As soon as my dad saw this movie he had to have one. Bet it could stop an elephant. Here. Try it."

  "I don't want to stop an elephant."

  "My dad wouldn't mind."

  "Your dad would mind. And you know it."

  "So? Who's gonna tell?"

  "Couldn't we just go inside? I'm cold."

  It wasn't true. The wind was blowing hard off the field but it wasn't a cold wind. In fact it was the first sunny day they'd had after a winter that seemed to go on and on, simply devouring the spring.

  "Not till you try."

  She didn't like the gun. Dirty Harry gun, he said. It was smooth and beautiful in the way that bright new polished silver was beautiful but she didn't like the smell of it or the enormous sound it made or the way it had bucked in his hands like something alive over which you could have only a limited, conditional control.

  She didn't trust the gun.

  He fired again. Missed this time. There was an explosion of sawdust at the base of the stump and the impact of the bullet toppled two cans and rattled all the rest. Not even the protective gear could keep her ears from ringing.

  "I'm telling you. You'll love it."

  She doubted that.

  He handed it over.

  She held it and admitted its attractions. Balance, substance, smoothness, weight.

  "Hold it like this. Both hands. You gotta spread your legs wide and balance your weight, okay?"

  He was standing in back of her now, his arms around her, his hands cupped firmly over her hands.

  That part at least felt nice.

  "Okay, now line up the target to the sight and squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk it. And keep your elbows bent. She recoils like hell."

  "She?"

  He laughed. "Yeah. Kicks back at you. Like you do."

  She did as she was told, aimed and squeezed. The gun was heavy for her and hard to hold steady. The trigger seemed to melt steadily, slowly toward her. Then the blast and the shock that traveled up her arms all the way to her shoulders.

  On the stump nothing moved.

  "High," he said. "You shot high."

  How high? she wondered. She imagined the bullet traversing some infinite distance, going on forever across the field and the forest to the road and whatever was beyond it. She could not imagine so much power simply dropping from the sky out of sheer inertia.

  Her bullet could kill someone the next town over.

  She really didn't care for this at all. He wanted it. And here she was again, going along.

  He stepped up behind her again, took both her hands in his and extended her arms.

  "Take it farther out, Lyd," he said. "Just a slight bend to the elbows. You'll steady her better."

  He pressed her tight. She could feel his penis against her buttocks.

  It made her a little uncomfortable. So that she was sort of glad when he moved away. She knew he didn't particularly want to move away but it was part of the game, making her aware of him yet going no further. Not quite yet.

  She knew that game.

  And knowing it made her feel scared and suddenly a little angry.

  She aimed the gun, squeezed and fired. A beer can danced and tumbled sparkling in the sunshine.

  "Hey! I knew you could do it! Terrific!"

  She turned and smiled for him.

  "Can we quit now?"

  He laughed. "Sure. Come on inside."

  They walked up the hill and through the glassed-in porch, down the hall to the living room. She thought again how the house was not at all the kind of place you'd expect from the president of a bank. Its furnishings were Spartan and inexpensive. Cheap, to be truthful. They made her aware of her mother's quiet good taste in these things, which had continued even after her father's death—when many women, she guessed, would have just stopped caring. It was clear that Martin's mother, who had a husband, a live one, had no interest.

  "You want a beer?"

  He was across the room putting on a record—the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Music-wise it was as adventurous as Martin got.

  "A beer?"

  "Sure. They're not gonna miss a couple."

  "Uh-uh. No thanks."

  First we have guns and now we have beer.

  As far as she was concerned, this wasn't going well at all. She wondered how well she really knew this boy.

  She'd only been dating him for about three and a half months, though she'd known him for years through his family. Her father'd worked for his father. Martin's little brother was in the same class as Lydia's sister Barbara.

  They had all come to her father's funeral.
>
  In fact it was at Russell McCloud's funeral that Martin first seemed to notice her. At the reception afterwards they'd talked and talked. She did most of the talking and he seemed willing to let her. He seemed like a pretty good listener. She'd vented like crazy.

  Though she hadn't told him everything.

  "You sure you don't want one? Absolutely positively sure?"

  "I hate beer. A Pepsi, though."

  "Comin' atcha." He went to the kitchen.

  Paul was singing "I've Just Seen a Face." The music is up too loud, she thought. Or else my ears are still sensitive from the gunfire.

  She got up off the couch and walked over to turn the music down. They had a brand-new, state-of-the-art Magnavox amplifier/receiver and she couldn't find the volume at first amid all these other dials so Paul continued to blare sweetly at her. She found it just as the song ended and John started on "Norwegian Wood."

  She turned and there was Martin right in front of her. Beer in one hand and Pepsi in the other. She came to a quick decision.

  "I'll make you a deal," she said.

  "What's that?"

  She put her arms around his waist and hugged him. "You forget about the beer and we can ... um, you know."

  "Oh yeah? What's you know?" He was laughing.

  She slapped his shoulder. "Don't be a smartass."

  It was easy to make a deal like that. It was natural. There were girls her age who smoked dope and girls who drank and girls who had sex with their boyfriends. She had interest in only one of these.

  She loved the feel of his body. And she hated beer. There had always been beer on her father's breath at night when he came to her.

  When he came to her he had always been drinking.

  And it was drinking—that and being dumb enough to be driving too fast on a dark country road that had killed him—and left her alone with her nasty little secret.

  "You got it," he said. "Whatever you say. No beer."

  He put the bottles down on the coffee table and kissed her.

  Her father had never kissed her.

  He hadn't done that at least.

  But she'd thought she would never want a boy to touch her after what he'd done, that at sixteen she was through with sex forever. So she was surprised at how quickly and how much she'd wanted Martin.

  She thought he was beautiful to look at and even more beautiful to touch. He was hard and warm and smooth everywhere. And if he got a little pushy sometimes like he had about the gun and was just a little too full of himself sometimes it didn't matter because men were like that. And the first time, in the backseat of his father's Cadillac, that he'd brought her to orgasm—she didn't really think it was possible for girls to have an orgasm despite what everybody was saying—she felt like she'd gotten her virginity back just to lose it all over again.

  It was only afterwards that she felt like the same old damaged goods.

  She always did. It was as though sex were some sort of drug that cured all the loneliness and guilt and unhappiness but was also, for her, a deadly poison.

  She tried never to think about what it would be like afterwards.

  She wouldn't now.

  He unbuttoned her blouse and pushed the bra up out of the way and cupped her breast. Her nipple rose beneath his palm and sluiced sudden magic through her body. He could make her have an orgasm sometimes just by stroking one of her nipples. He didn't know that.

  He didn't know a lot of things about her. Nobody did. "Come upstairs," he said and took her hand.

  She followed.

  It was the first time he was ever rough with her.

  She didn't know why. She wondered if it had anything to do with the gun. Some aggression thing.

  Her nipples ached where he'd squeezed them. She ached inside too and there'd be bruises on her upper arms tomorrow.

  She'd had no orgasm. Not this time.

  When he dropped her off it was clear she was mad at him. She hadn't said a word but she knew he knew. The silence itself was enough to tell him.

  What he didn't know was that she was probably just as mad at herself. For not stopping him.

  She'd never even tried to stop him.

  She'd just let him.

  "I'll call you," he said. He sounded a little remorseful. Not remorseful enough.

  She slammed the car door and didn't look back.

  She wouldn't be taking any calls from Martin, she thought. Not for a good long while and maybe never. There were other boys.

  You just don't do that to people, she thought.

  You just don't hurt them for no reason. Just because you want to and somebody lets you.

  She walked up the steps to the porch, opened the door and walked inside.

  Her mother was sitting in the living room reading a day-old newspaper. Judging by the good, rich smell coming from the kitchen, dinner tonight was going to be ham and cabbage.

  "Hello, Liddy," her mother said and looked at her over the top of the paper. She saw her expression darken. Then she put aside the paper.

  "What is it?" she said.

  And all she could do was cry a little while her mother got up and put her arms around her and hugged her and asked her what was wrong? what had happened? because she couldn't tell, she wasn't supposed to be making love to boys in the first place, not at her age, not coming from this family.

  So Liddy had yet another guilty little secret.

  Plymouth, New Hampshire

  July 1971

  They were sitting at a desk inside the small glassed-in cubicle when Harry Danse came shuffling through the stationhouse door. The glass was cloudy from years of cigarette smoke but Harry seemed to spot his son immediately. He walked over.

  "Hiya, Ralph."

  Duggan nodded. He saw Harry was putting on weight. His son wouldn't look at him.

  "How's Ruth?"

  "Same."

  Ralph Duggan felt bad for the man. Harry'd married a pretty young woman who'd turned into one salty old ball-breaker of a wife and here was his boy Arthur in trouble again.

  Only this time they'd caught the kid red-handed.

  "Before we get into what, uh, happened here I'd like for you to see something," Harry said. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  "What's this?" said Duggan.

  "High school report card. See what it says there? All A's but for one B in algebra. See, the boy's doing pretty well, Ralph."

  "This Ruth's idea?"

  "I guess so, yeah. She'd of come down herself but she's not feelin' too well."

  "Flu?"

  "Uh-huh."

  Duggan sighed and settled back into his chair. He looked the card over. Harry wasn't kidding. All A's. Duggan handed the report card back to him. Harry folded it and tucked it into his shirt as carefully as though it were a page from the family Bible.

  "Let me ask you something, Harry. Sit down here. How's the store doin'?"

  Harry sat.

  "Not bad. Still the only place to buy beans and boots in the town of Ellsworth. Still a long way for folks to come into town here or on over to Compton."

  "That new complex out on 93 hurt you any?"

  "Some, maybe."

  "How come the boy don't work for you, Harry?"

  "We was planning on sending him to college next year."

  "You can do that?"

  "We think we can."

  Duggan looked at the boy and then at the father. The boy was slumped in his chair, frowning, looking grim. He guessed the boy didn't much care for getting caught. The father leaned hunched toward Duggan across the desk. For whatever reason he reminded Duggan of a dog hoping for a treat—looking at him with sorrowful big eyes. Well, he wasn't getting any treats tonight.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the fat red Swiss army knife.

  "You stock these in the store, don't you?"

  "Sure I do."

  "They go for about how much?"

  "That kind's twenty-five, twenty-six dollars
maybe."

  "So what's Arthur doing stealing this knife from Becker's?"

  Harry looked disconsolate. He shook his head.

  "Right. Damned if I know either," said Duggan.

  He let the silence work awhile. He could do that much anyway.

  "The fact is that Becker's not pressing charges. I got to tell you, that's against my better judgment. But Old Man Becker knows you and respects you, Harry, the two of you being in pretty much the same business all these years. If it were me, I'd see your boy in Juvenile Court. You know and I know this ain't the first time he's been in trouble, even if we couldn't make it stick to him."

  He heard the boy mumble something.

  "'Scuse me?"

  "I just said ... you never ..."

  "That's right. We never. But I'll tell you something, kid, all I had to do was take one look at you to know you were guilty as shit on that break-in last summer so don't you try to bullshit a bullshitter. You're right. We never. But someday, somebody's going to. You can bet your A-plus college-bound pants on that. Somebody's going to."

  He looked at Harry. Harry reminded Duggan of that same old dog only now the dog'd been beaten.

  Why was there always the fucking temptation to apologize to this man?

  "You can take him home, Harry. Tell Ruth I said hello."

  He opened the door for them. The boy went first, gangly and moving fast. His father followed more slowly a few paces back. They could have been a pair of strangers coincidentally walking down the same hall at the same time.

  Duggan leaned out the cubicle.

  "Hey, Harry?"

  He stopped and turned. His son kept going out the door. "What college, Harry? Where's he going?"

  "Boston University. Boston, Massachusetts."

  He said it with what for Harry almost amounted to pride. Duggan nodded.

  "Well, good luck, Harry."

  He watched the man walk away. He lit himself a cigarette and sat back down at the desk.