Joe (21 page)

Part
II: Sunday

Millions long for immortality who do not
know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
–Susan Ertz

People react to fear, not love. They
don’t teach you that in Sunday School, but it’s true.
–Richard Nixon

The feeling of Sunday is the same
everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still. Like when they say, “As it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
–Jean Rhys

Sunday: A day given over by Americans to
wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors
were dead and in Hell.
–Henry Louis Mencken

Chapter
Thirty Two

Joe

It
was one of those days that began far too early and would surely end far too
late. There was a lot to be done. I had come up with no solutions to my
problem, so yeah, a
lot
to be done.

I had slept, but not pleasantly. I
hadn’t tossed and turned. I would simply find myself alert and awake as ever
and staring into the nothingness of my dark room. Then I would be out like a
light, no transition stage. Just there one minute, thinking very clearly and
very dreadfully about the things I would be facing soon, and the next, just
gone, missing pieces of the clock, who-knows-what’s, and
how-much-time-has-gone-by’s. I wasn’t sure how many times I switched from state
to opposing state, but that just told me it must have been a good amount.

I finally stood from my bed at
four-thirty, went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee while
cogitating very intensely about what actions I would take in the next few days,
worrying terribly about my own sanity and safety. I clutched my steaming mug
tightly as I sat at my small table, the skin on my palms burning a little at
the contact of my coffee, but that was okay. That was good, even. It was a
sensation that elicited a reaction out of me, and pain—while obviously not
pleasant—was a preferred feeling to the floating numbness I felt now. It was
kind of like a slap in the face when daydreaming. It assured me that I was in
reality, and that reality seriously sucked right now.

Eventually I showered and turned the water
to as hot as I could stand it. That was real, too. That was good. It let me
think.

The answer to it all was painfully
simple, or maybe the question was the hotter topic of interest. The question to
my answer was,
was I willing to go into the battle, prepare myself to
attempt to take out the madman at the chance of saving so many innocent people,
and probably die in doing so?
The answer was simple:
Yes
. The
reasons behind the answer were complicated. It was not because I thought I
could win. I had been here before, to this place of horrible inadequacy, and I
knew good and well how it would turn out, and I would not win. It’s truly a
sick joke that my “gift” liked to play on me. It would show me small snatches
of the future in visions. The things are inconvenient and bad, but not
life-shattering and horrible, and I would be able to prevent those small things
from happening, like Mr. Landry falling down the stairs. But then when the
drawings came, or better yet, the
urges
to draw came, I knew something
absolutely insidious was going to happen and there would be almost no way for
me to stop it. On the one occasion I did seem to succeed, if only marginally,
in thwarting the drawn future, the person I had saved had ended up hating me
even more than she had before. She even
blamed
me. Why? I don’t know.
You would have to ask my mother that question. You would think that my thumb
had spun the wheel on the silver lighter and dropped it on her.

I was not
completely
without a
plan. What had to be done was simple: I would have to arm myself and take down
the attacker. Since I am neither a Kung-Fu master nor a trained marksman, this
would be an easier-said-than-done sort of task. Also, I didn’t own a gun. The
guy I was going up against had at least two. Big problem.

I laughed a little about this as the
steaming water fell over me in the shower. Was I supposed to be the genius who
brings a knife to a gun show? And what did I expect to do with said knife? Or
maybe I could knock him out by throwing a large rock. Or hit him over the head
with my club and drag him back to my cave. The ideas in my head were so awful
and outrageous that I laughed until I cried. I had a feeling that if I wouldn’t
have laughed, I would have just cried. I prefer laughing. There was no way
around it. I was in over my head.

The only thing that I did have in my
favor was that I was a decent shot, but this was a worthless thing without a
gun. I have never owned a firearm, but my father had owned a few, and probably
the only thing he ever taught me was how to shoot. This was a long time ago, so
I wasn’t even sure I could still do it. I knew that I could probably obtain a
registration and buy a gun at Walmart or something, but that was the problem:
the weapon would have to be
registered.
And if I did manage to take the
gunman down, the police might be able analyze the bullets or something and then
they would have major questions for me. I wasn’t entirely sure that their
technology went so far, but I was not willing to risk it. More than anything
else in my life, I must ensure that my secret does not get out. Again, I am no
hero.

No, this would only go two ways: I would
stop the gunman and get away before I was identified, or I would die in this
process. I would not, under any circumstances, allow myself to end up in a lab
somewhere, or a padded room. I have faced many terrible things in my life and
managed to keep on walking, but men in white coats with clipboards was where I
drew the line.

After my shower I dressed in some old
gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt and pulled my hair back into a ponytail.
These tasks made me feel as if this were any other Sunday, and all that was
ahead of me was just unloading shipments at Mr. Landry’s tobacco shop in the
morning, reading in the afternoon and finishing homework in the evening. I even
pretended that was the truth as I headed out the door and locked it behind me.

Mr. Landry was just stepping out of his
apartment as well. As always, his silver hair was trimmed freshly, and
underneath it he wore a slight grimace, along with khaki slacks and a golf
shirt. He held his back rigid and managed to move strongly but slowly. His
voice came out old and deep and abrupt, but I knew that he was curt by nature.
“How ya doing, Joe?” he asked.

I managed a halfhearted smile. I wasn’t
doing great. “Fine, sir,” I said slowly, pleased when the words came out
smooth. I forced the smile to full fledge.
Just fine and dandy. I’ve got a
really nice knife in my kitchen that I’m planning on taking to this big gun
show tomorrow or maybe the day after, but I got a feeling it’s on Monday. Fine
and dandy indeed.
The smile fell from my lips too quickly to be natural,
but at least I was able to keep the rest of my face neutral.

“Huh-how about you?” I asked.

The old man didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he stared at me for a moment, a neutral look on his own face, and then
looked down at his feet. He shuffled his loafers a little, and for just a
second I thought I saw something strange take over his expression. I had never
seen anything but an indifferent drill sergeant’s look on his face. This
strange one was so foreign to him that there was no way I could decipher it.
After what seemed like a long time, he met my eyes. I smoothed out my brow,
realizing that I had been frowning in concentration.

“Just fine,” he said. “Getting old.
Getting too damn old.”

I was unsure as how to respond. The old
man rarely offered such commentary. “I…uh, I asked a fuh-friend to huh-huh-help
with the shipment. I huh-hope you don’t mind,” I said.

Mr. Landry nodded and began heading down
the concrete steps to the parking lot. “That’s fine,” he said, looking at me
strangely again. I grew a little uneasy, though I am not entirely sure why. A
heartbeat later, his usual not-interested-in-the-rest-of-the-world expression
returned. “See you there,” he said, and started down the steps.

I arrived at the shop only seconds after
Mr. Landry, and had to pick my jaw up off of the dashboard when I saw Michael
leaning against the driver’s side of his black Lexus. I really hadn’t thought he
was going to come, and honestly, I hadn’t thought too much about him at all.
Understandably, I had a lot of other things on my mind. Seeing him now, my
heartbeat kicked up a notch, and the feeling was alien to me. Michael wore a
simple blue t-shirt and black basketball shorts. I saw now why I had thought
the word
jock
when I had first noticed him. He was built rather nicely,
and his face was handsome in a way that just made you want to trust him. Not that
I did. I hardly trusted anyone anymore. Black work gloves were clutched in his
right hand. He smiled, and waved at me with his left.

I waved back, growing more nervous now
that I had taken time to acknowledge how good looking this guy was. This worried
me as well. Michael had seen me save that stupid drunk woman the other night at
the bar. I had not been able to restrain myself from telling him to skip school
on Monday. I was getting sloppy, and he could very well only be interested in
me out of curiosity. Paranoid? Uh, yeah.

Parking my El Camino alongside the
Lexus, I grabbed my own work gloves out of my glove box and stepped out of the
car. Michael was already walking toward me. I swallowed hard. His straight
white teeth were still showing in an open smile. Oh man, the last thing I
needed was a crush. He was too cute for my own good.

“Hey,” he said, stopping when he reached
me.

I stood there awkwardly, and nodded my
response. Had his eyes always been such a brilliant shade of green?

“Well,” he said. “I’m here.”

I nodded again, feeling like one of
those lost foreigners who don’t understand a word of English and instead just
smiles and nods at everything they hear. I cleared my throat. “Cool,” I said.
Oh yeah, that was much better. He must think I’m a genius.

Michael laughed, and it made his face
somehow more attractive. I looked down at my feet, self-conscious at the
intensely interested look in his eyes. “We gonna do some work?” he asked.

I nodded again. “Yeah.” Looking over his
shoulder I saw Mr. Landry headed our way. “This is muh-Mr. Landry,” I said when
the old man reached us. “We’re going to-to-to huh-help him with some
shipments.”

Michael held out his hand to Mr. Landry,
who seemed to be studying him closely. I hoped that Michael didn’t misinterpret
the perpetual scowl that the old man wore. “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Michael
said.

I shifted uncomfortably. This situation
was strangely like introducing a guy to one’s father for the first time. Mr.
Landry took a long moment before answering. “Same,” he said. “Come on around
back. Truck should be here any minute.” He headed off around to the rear of the
small store without further comment.

Michael stared after him a moment, then
turned to me. “I like him,” he said, sounding quite genuine.

I felt my shoulders relax a little. “Me
too,” I said. Well, at least he was a good judge of character.

Little by little, as the day progressed,
I began to relax more and more. Michael was a hard worker, and together we
would finish the unloading and stocking in a third of the time that it usually
took me and Mr. Landry. Also, he didn’t talk too much as he worked, which was
just fine with me. The more I looked at Michael the more I felt self-conscious,
and the less confidence I had in the fluency of my words.

Mr. Landry, on the other hand, had more
to say than usual. Michael was behind the store grabbing more crates, and the
old man and I were in the store room taking inventory when he looked over at me
from the opposite side of a low shelf containing cartons of cigarettes.

“Joe?” he said.

I looked up from the clipboard I was
holding, raising my eyebrows in question. I figured he had some other task for
me to do or that maybe I had messed up somehow with the orders.

Instead, he said, “He’s a decent boy.”

It was such a random thing to say that
it took me a moment to realize that he was referring to Michael. My face must
have shown my surprise, because Mr. Landry gave a rare half-smile. “Oh?” I
said. I could think of nothing else.

Mr. Landry’s face went serious once
more, and I shifted the clipboard in my hands uneasily. “Yeah,” he continued.
“He’s a decent boy. Maybe a little too…inquisitive for people of our tastes,
but he’s pretty smitten with you, besides all that.”

Umm, okay. What was that supposed to
mean? Mr. Landry never made such observations, at least not verbally. I stared
at him a moment, searching for how exactly to respond to that. “Wuh-what do you
mean?” I asked.

The old man waved a hand in dismissal.
“How’s school going?” he asked, changing the subject too abruptly.

My eyebrows were drawn tight in
confusion. “Fine, sir,” I said.

Mr. Landry never inquired into my life.
Was he doing so now because he felt responsible for me? Like he had to play the
father role now that I had introduced him to a guy? I didn’t think that was it.
I didn’t know what it was. This was utterly weird. At least it was a
distraction from my other depressing thoughts about knives and gun shows.

For several long moments, the two of us
just stood there staring at each other. I got the impression that he was
battling with something. He had the same strange expression on his face as he’d
had this morning. I waited. Eventually, his face was set indifferent again and
he nodded once to himself. His mouth fell open as if to speak.

“Where would you like these, sir?”
Michael said, walking into the storage room with two large crates stacked in
his muscled arms. Mr. Landry and I both jumped a little at his voice.