The Pet

So he moved on, shoulders slumped, feet barely lifting off the pavement, until he reached Parkside Boulevard and walked west toward the far end of town, watching pedestrians pass him without recognition, watching the traffic pass from one invisible place to another. There were garish signs in most of the shops, announcing sales in honor of the celebration beginning on Wednesday; there were workmen on lampposts and telephone poles, clinging to ladders or safely standing in the baskets of cherry pickers, hanging up large oval medallions that featured the town's crest and the years of its incorporation; there were double-parked vans making deliveries, and a fair number of men putting the finishing touches on new paint jobs and storefront repairs, filling potholes on the side streets and trimming dead matter from the trees at the curbs.

In spite of his mood he was impressed by the effort, and within the hour his depression had changed from black to grey. What happened to him when he got home he would deal with later; right now he just wanted to find a place that would make him forget. Even for an hour it would be nice to forget so he could figure out what had gone so suddenly wrong.

By four-thirty he was having a hamburger at Beacher's and not answering Joe's questions about why he wasn't at the game. When he heard the triumphant horns in the street, he knew the game was over and the home team had won. Within minutes, then, the place would be swarming and he would have to listen to the stories, the laughter, see the girls and the players and suffer the replays of the game. It took him only a moment to conclude this was not what he needed while he thought things out. He slid off the stool without finishing his food, dropped a bill beside the register, and walked outside, saw Brian's car aiming for the curb and turned immediately to his left and bought a ticket to the shoppers'

special early show at the theater. It was the same film he'd seen with Tracey, and he didn't see it again, sitting in the front row with his legs outstretched and his hands clasped across his stomach and his eyes blank on the center of the screen.

Until the first gunshot made him blink and he saw a dark-suited man fall through a window with blood on his face and fear in his eyes.

He shifted uncomfortably, thinking of that morning when he had wanted his folks dead. Thinking, too, of the power one had to have not just to kill another human being, because anyone could do that if anyone had a mind to, but to cause the terror that came just before it.

Another man was slammed against a wall from a shotgun blast, and he marveled at the effects they used to make it all seem so real and at the same time so gigglingly funny.

He closed his eyes.

He pictured Joyce sprawled on the kitchen floor, blood seeping from a wound in her back, her left hand gripping the table leg as though she were trying to pull herself up.

It frightened him even more to think: serves the bitch right.

When the film was over, he walked to the park's boulevard entrance and leaned against the wall. Hands in his pockets. Gaze on the curb. A car passed and honked, and he smiled quickly when Tar waved from the backseat of Chris Snowden's convertible. She was driving, and they were heading toward New York, and she gave him a big grin and a wave before a bus cut between them.

Football players, he thought, have all the luck. Then he felt his legs tighten, and he realized what he should be doing instead of feeling sorry for himself. The game was long over. The stands were empty. And the sun wasn't quite ready yet to set behind the town.

He hurried, trotted, put on the brakes when he felt himself straining to break into a full run; and ten minutes later, windbreaker on the ground and shirt open to the waist, he was alone on the track.

There wasn't anyone in the world who could keep up with him when his legs were moving and his arms were pumping and his lungs were taking in that fresh cold air.

No one.

His sneakers crunched on the finely ground cinder, the wind pushed back his hair, and there was a not unpleasant ache settling into his left side.

He was alone on the track, and it was his world, no one else's.

His world, where there were no ambushes, no snipers, no battles for his soul.

For one brief moment he had wanted to kill his parents, and at that moment he had forgotten the Rule: never take your anger out on someone else, not even your enemies.

In place of striking out in anger, giving vent to his temper, there were words. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Christ, how wrong that was. How pious, and how wrong!

Words were how his folks did their fighting-hissing quietly, bitterly, venomously. Using time-honed razors instead of clubs to bleed each other to death. He hadn't seen that until recently, and yet one couldn't hit the other. It just wasn't done.