Full Dark, No Stars

“I have a couple of times,” Streeter admitted, “but I think that’s the chemo. I’m cal ing a halt to it, by the way.”

Roddy Henderson frowned. “That’s very unwise.”

“The unwise thing was starting it in the first place, my friend. You say, ‘Sorry, Dave, the chances of you dying before you get a chance to say Happy Valentine’s Day are in the ninetieth percentile, so we’re going to fuck up the time you have left by fil ing you ful of poison. You might feel worse if I injected you with sludge from Tom Goodhugh’s landfil , but probably not.’ And like a fool, I said okay.”

Henderson looked offended. “Chemo is the last best hope for—”

“Don’t bul shit a bul shitter,” Streeter said with a goodnatured grin. He drew a deep breath that went al the way down to the bottom of his lungs. It felt wonderful. “When the cancer’s aggressive, chemo isn’t for the patient. It’s just an agony surcharge the patient pays so that when he’s dead, the doctors and relatives can hug each other over the coffin and say ‘We did everything we could.’”

“That’s harsh,” Henderson said. “You know you’re apt to relapse, don’t you?”

“Tel that to the tumors,” Streeter said. “The ones that are no longer there.”

Henderson looked at the images of Deepest Darkest Streeter that were stil flicking past at twenty-second intervals on the conference room’s monitor and sighed. They were good pictures, even

Streeter knew that, but they seemed to make his doctor unhappy.

“Relax, Roddy.” Streeter spoke gently, as he might once have spoken to May or Justin when a favorite toy got lost or broken. “Shit happens; sometimes miracles happen, too. I read it in the Reader’s Digest.”

“In my experience, one has never happened in an MRI tube.” Henderson picked up a pen and tapped it against Streeter’s file, which had fattened considerably over the last three months.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Streeter said.

Thursday evening in Derry; dusk of a summer night. The declining sun casting its red and dreamy rays over the three perfectly clipped, watered, and landscaped acres Tom Goodhugh had the

temerity to cal “the old backyard.” Streeter sat in a lawn chair on the patio, listening to the rattle of plates and the laughter of Janet and Norma as they loaded the dishwasher.

Yard? It’s not a yard, it’s a Shopping Channel fan’s idea of heaven.

There was even a fountain with a marble child standing in the middle of it. Somehow it was the bare-ass cherub (pissing, of course) that offended Streeter the most. He was sure it had been Norma’s

idea—she had gone back to col ege to get a liberal arts degree, and had half-assed Classical pretensions—but stil , to see such a thing here in the dying glow of a perfect Maine evening and know its

presence was a result of Tom’s garbage monopoly…

And, speak of the devil ( or the Elvid, if you like that better, Streeter thought), enter the Garbage King himself, with the necks of two sweating bottles of Spotted Hen Microbrew caught between the fingers of his left hand. Slim and erect in his open-throated Oxford shirt and faded jeans, his lean face perfectly lit by the sunset glow, Tom Goodhugh looked like a model in a magazine beer ad. Streeter could even see the copy: Live the good life, reach for a Spotted Hen.

“Thought you might like a fresh one, since your beautiful wife says she’s driving.”

“Thanks.” Streeter took one of the bottles, tipped it to his lips, and drank. Pretentious or not, it was good.

As Goodhugh sat down, Jacob the footbal player came out with a plate of cheese and crackers. He was as broad-shouldered and handsome as Tom had been back in the day. Probably has

cheerleaders crawling all over him, Streeter thought. Probably has to beat them off with a damn stick.

“Mom thought you might like these,” Jacob said.

“Thanks, Jake. You going out?”

“Just for a little while. Throw the Frisbee with some guys down in the Barrens until it gets dark, then study.”

“Stay on this side. There’s poison ivy down there since the crap grew back.”

“Yeah, we know. Denny caught it when we were in junior high, and it was so bad his mother thought he had cancer.”

“Ouch!” Streeter said.

“Drive home careful y, son. No hot-dogging.”

“You bet.” The boy put an arm around his father and kissed his cheek with a lack of self-consciousness that Streeter found depressing. Tom not only had his health, a stil -gorgeous wife, and a

ridiculous pissing cherub; he had a handsome eighteen-year-old son who stil felt al right about kissing his dad goodbye before going out with his best buds.

“He’s a good boy,” Goodhugh said fondly, watching Jacob mount the stairs to the house and disappear inside. “Studies hard and makes his grades, unlike his old man. Luckily for me, I had you.”