Robert Reed - The Boy.pdf

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The Boy
by Robert Reed
The mass market paperback edition of the Robert Reed’s latest novel,
Marrow , is just out from Tor Books. Mr. Reed tells us the inspiration for the
following story came from two sources. “At a flea market, my wife bought
one of those Christ-with-the-flock-of-sheep prints. She claims that she only
wanted the frame, but somehow the Savior remains in his home. Nicely
combed and very long hair; almost feminine, in some ways.” He also had a
tall adolescent boy come to the front door and ask if he could pick one of his
flowers. Those two incidents got the author thinking about a simple what-if.
* * * *
Dies Veneris.
A throbbing finds Helena.
It is warm and insistent, and in a small hard way, it feels angry.
For a slippery instant, the sensation is her own. Her heart is thundering, or
maybe a sick artery is pulsing deep within her brain. Then she finds herself awake,
realizing that a lazy after-lunch nap must have ambushed her, and as she sits up in
bed, breathing in quick sighs, the throbbing turns from something felt into a genuine
sound, and the sound swells until the loose panes in her windows begin to rattle, and
the air itself reverberates like the stubborn head of a beaten drum.
A car passes. Smallish, and elderly. Nothing about it fast or particularly
dangerous. But it is endowed with oversized speakers, their unlovely, thoroughly
modern music making the neighborhood shiver.
Helena watches the car as far as her lilacs.
Then it vanishes, and the rude noise diminishes, and she lies back on her
pillow, considering. Considering how much time she has, and her mood. Twenty
minutes left in her lunch hour. A six-minute drive to work, if traffic cooperates. Her
right hand tugs casually at her zipper. An after-lunch indulgence, she’s thinking. She
thinks about one man, then another. But the music returns, and her window glass
rattles until it stops in mid-throb—a cessation of sound that startles in its own right.
Helena takes a breath, and holds it.
Through the windows, a person appears. A male person. On foot, strolling
with purpose along her narrow driveway.
Helena feels embarrassed for no good reason. She sits up, telling herself that
nobody can see her. And even if they could, she was doing nothing but enjoying a
dieter’s lunch and an innocent nap.
 
Her doorbell rings.
Helena gives her zipper a tug before slipping into her front room.
She’s not sure what to do. Nothing is a viable, sensible option. Stand and wait
and do nothing. Because caution is always sensible, she reminds herself. Just last
week, another local woman was raped, and they still haven’t found the monster
responsible. But then the doorbell rings again, gnawing away her resolve. Cathedral
bells, it’s supposed to sound like. But it’s a cheap wireless bell that she installed
herself, and the batteries are dying, and a bright sharp hum lingers. She can still hear
the hum as she unbolts and opens the front door. Standing on her tiny concrete
porch is a tall thin boy. He looks to be sixteen, with few pimples and a neat
diamond-shaped scar standing on his right cheek. She doesn’t know his face. Or
does she? Placing a hand on the locked latch of her storm door, Helena begins with
a soft cough, then growls, “Yes?”
The boy seems to be staring at the rain gutter, eyes held in a half-squint and
his narrow body held erect with his hands empty at his sides and his young,
surprisingly deep voice saying to someone, “You’re going to think this is retarded.”
Apparently speaking to her, he asks, “Can I pick one of your flowers?”
She thinks nothing at all. Except for a sudden relief that he isn’t a rapist ready
to crash through the glass. Why did she open her door to a stranger? How much
good sense does that show? Even if it’s daylight, in a good neighborhood... !
“Ma’am?” he prompts.
She says, “I guess. Of course.”
Then she smiles, her expression going to waste.
The boy says, “Thank you, ma’am,” without ever looking at her face. He
seems embarrassed, turning and stepping off the porch, following the narrow walk to
the driveway and the driveway out to where his ugly little car waits.
Helena closes her door and bolts it.
By the time she looks outside, the boy is carrying a single red tulip by the
stalk. Her tulips are past their prime. One good shake, and that blossom flies apart.
But no, he seems to be careful. Considerate. Climbing behind the wheel, the boy
gently sets the flower on the seat beside him, then starts the little engine with a coarse
rattle that brings back the music. Unchanged. Deep, and rhythmic. A male singer
chants about some burning issue or love, but she can’t quite make out the words,
standing at her window, watching as the boy pulls into her driveway in order to back
out again, turning back the way he started, again vanishing somewhere past the soft
pink lilacs.
Helena can’t help but wonder who’s getting her flower.
 
Her big sedan is parked beside her very little house. East is the quick route.
But today, Helena steers west. For a moment or two, she considers all the good
sensible reasons to be curious about a stranger passing through her neighborhood.
But she’s not actually following the boy, she promises herself. Slowing at the corner,
she looks ahead and then right, seeing the little car parked on the street, and silent.
Nobody sitting inside it now.
The boy stopped in front of Lydia’s house.
Unsure what she’s thinking, Helena turns right and slows, staring at the brick
bungalow with its little porch and little windows, its blinds and drapes pulled shut.
She catches herself nearly stopping in the middle of the street. Then she accelerates,
but only a little bit. And always staring.
Lydia’s car is nowhere to be seen.
But her daughter’s sporty little red car is in the driveway. For some reason,
Sarah is home from school today. That bright and pretty girl whom Helena has
always liked, and been friendly with, and occasionally felt motherly toward. And the
blinds have been pulled shut. And Helena still isn’t sure what she is thinking. Except
that she has the burning premonition that someone here needs to be given a good
sharp warning.
Dies Saturni.
Helena loves men.
And in all the good modern ways, she tries to understand and respect them.
Men are relatively common at work. Coaxed by the courts and changing
times, state government has made heroic efforts to find room for qualified citizens of
every ilk. Not that her male co-workers hold their share of the high posts. In most
cases, departments are still ruled by gray-haired women with political minds and
provincial morals. But some men have risen higher than Helena ever will, and she
doesn’t begrudge them their successes. Not at all. They are good smart and decent
people, and each one deserves every opportunity that he has earned, or that he has
been given. No person journeys through life today without holding such a charitable
view toward the other half of her species. Helena believes. And she says what she
believes whenever the occasion demands it.
When she’s with her male work-friends, it seems as if they can chat about
anything, without taboos. Office gossip. Politics. Crude jokes, and insulting the old
religions. If handled with care, even romance and sex are viable topics. Helena likes
to believe that the men are pals and confidants, and that they genuinely trust her. She
definitely wants to feel worthy of their trust. But as with everything, there are limits.
Her closest friends are always women. Single, like her. Or dykes. Most with
children, while a few are involved in some kind of marriage. Sitting in the breakroom
with her girlfriends, or sharing a pitcher of beer after work, she hears herself
 
speaking out of a different part of her mind. With women, she’s more likely to use
questionable language. To speak frankly about sex. And on occasion mention God
and Christ without the modern scorn. Likewise men in the company of other men
have their own mores. More than once, Helena has eavesdropped on their
conversations. They can be the most modern, civilized creatures. Wealthy in their
own right, and educated, and loyal to their nation and their assorted families. Yet
despite all that, they forever carry a useful fatalism and a deep and abiding fear.
Centuries of slow reform have built this world, and its considerable freedoms. But in
their harsh jokes, they expose their real hearts. Everything they have won can vanish
again. Suddenly, without the pretense of fairness. Each time they mutter “Bitches,”
their ancient fierceness betrays itself. Even when their curses are dressed up in smiles
and laughter. One of them whispers, “Stupid cunt,” and that’s all it takes for them to
laugh together, happy beyond words, and the woman listening at the breakroom
door has no choice but to grimace, and shiver.
* * *
Yet this isn’t the old world; the new freedoms lift everyone higher.
In this enormously prosperous society, a single woman has her own rich
opportunities, and risks, and the responsibilities that come with these blessings.
Helena has owned her little house for twelve years. With the bank’s help and
approval, of course. She does all of the vacuuming and dusting. Whenever the urge
and energy strike, she redecorates one of her little rooms, and she does as she
pleases with her grass and gardens. No sisters or fellow disciples offer their poor
advice, or goodhearted criticism, or forbid what you so much want to do. Like that
weekend morning when Helena decided to paint her trim and her little garage. It was
her impulse. She was the one who drove to the paint store. She selected the bright
shade of blue and the ordinary white. Then she saved herself a small fortune by
doing the work herself.
Mostly.
Lydia had just moved into the neighborhood. She brought her daughter and an
older son, plus their father. Callan, the father, was a part-time presence. Home some
nights. Other nights, absent. He worked construction jobs and as a bartender and
sometimes a handyman for hire. He was a smiling, handsome fellow. A little short,
but not too short. Boyish in the face, but old around his dark eyes. The
consequence of being a smoker and a determined drunk, no doubt.
Lydia’s property sits perpendicular to Helena’s backyard. It was a Saturday
afternoon, sunny and warm, and Helena was busily painting the backside of her
garage. Callan was standing behind the fence, making small talk while watching her
backside. In the most offhand fashion, she admitted that she didn’t like climbing too
high on her ladder, which was why she hadn’t finished the trim just beneath the peak
of her house. No, Helena wasn’t begging for favors. She took pride in doing her
own fix-it jobs. But Callan took the confession as a plea, and laughing in that fearless
way that only men can, he told her, “I’ll do the ugly for you. How about that?”
 
She heard herself say, “If you don’t mind. I guess.”
But he turned away and started for Lydia’s back door. “If I’m going to do
this chore,” he explained, “I’ll need a good shot of vodka first.”
He was a talkative, usually pleasant drunk.
After the painting was done, Helena invited him inside her house. No vodka,
she warned. But she had beer. And Callan happily drank her beer, regaling her with
stories about his adventurous little life. He had done his stint in the Service, he
boasted. Australia, then the Middle East. “Eleven kids on three continents,” was his
favorite boast. Which was an astonishing, almost baffling number. How could so
many women allow themselves to get pregnant with his seed? Callan’s charms were
simple and probably didn’t reach very deep. By his own estimate, he wasn’t
particularly bright or creative. Really, his only substantial claim was that he was an
exceptional lover. “Enough cock for two men,” he promised, sitting on her sofa with
the spent beer cans crushed at this feet and his knees apart and his pants hiked up
high and tight.
Helena decided to call his bluff, asking, “Is there enough cock for two
women?”
He blinked, flashing a boyish grin as he sang out, “Always, darling. Forever!”
This was eight years ago.
They slipped into her bedroom, and plopping down on the bed, Helena
instructed him to undress as she watched. Callan seemed perfectly happy. But once
he was naked, stroking himself to prove his boast, he happened to glance above her
tall dresser. A picture hung there. Helena had bought the picture at a garage sale. For
its frame, she explained. Wider than it was tall, with an arching and halfway ornate
backbone, the frame was made of some cheap metal meant to resemble brass,
embossed with a vine and flowers that might or might not be honeysuckles. She had
kept the picture inside because she hadn’t found any other that quite fit the frame,
she told him. Though in some ways, she rather liked that image. There was
something comforting about seeing Christ sitting among the flock.
Men can be extraordinarily superstitious.
Callan, particularly. He immediately dropped his prick. His erection began to
fade, the scared blood in full retreat, and with a suddenly soft voice, he announced,
“It bothers me. Would you get it out of here?”
Helena had to laugh, but to mollify the man, she covered the offending image
with her paint-spattered shirt. Yet Callan remained ill-at-ease. It took another twenty
minutes to get him back into shape again, and then, he wasn’t particularly fun.
Tentative. Self-conscious. Far from the horny maverick that he’d promised in the
first place.
 

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