Shadow Season (6 page)

Finn fires two sharp jabs into Howie’s nose. The bruiser’s head snaps back twice but he makes no sound and his expression doesn’t change in the slightest. Finn
imagines that Howie hears the cheers of hopeful crowds, screams, wails, women holding up their babies in the bleachers, but all the applause is for his grandfather. Howie is given fixed looks of disappointment and pity.

Once again Finn’s chest fills with a kind of sympathy and remorse. Howie lunges, tucks his chin in, and barrels along. His hands are open now and he grabs hold of Finn’s left wrist, tries to twist and shatter it. Finn right hooks Howie to the temple as Danielle scoots in agitation and follows the fight around the scuffed gym floor. Her breasts jiggle, the meat of her thighs is tight but also bounces nicely.

Unable to get his wrist free, Finn tries a few other maneuvers. He hammers the no-neck on the point of his jaw. Stomps his instep. Nothing fazes Howie. The bruiser puffs and his spittle-flecked lips vibrate, but that’s it. He hasn’t made any sound of pain, hasn’t backed up a step, hasn’t said another word.

So much of Howie moves into Finn that for a moment he hates himself. He sees himself the way the failed football hero would. Intense, deep-set eyes flashing with intelligence and ego. Dark curly hair with a thin streak of premature white that high-school girls hated but college girls seem to dig. A grin that appears when it shouldn’t, like now. Someone who fights because he likes it and not because he has to. Who searches for trouble and when he finds it has a difficult time denying it.

Howie glances at Danielle and sees what Finn sees, a total lack of real feeling for him. She’s come to a decision to cut him loose, not because of this fight or because he can’t win games on the field, but because he’s allowed
himself to be pressed into the service of others. His willingness to turn himself into a terrified hulk in order to satisfy people who abuse him and fans who aren’t his own.

Ray moves to her, places his fingers lightly on her arm in a kind of charitable gesture, and says, “Hey there, I’m Ray. Don’t let this upset you at all, okay? It’s going to be fine. Trust me, I’m never wrong about these things.” Finn watches Ray’s hand stray to those freckles on Dani’s shoulder. It makes him hiss.

Finn can picture the kind of cop Ray will be, handling the families of victims murdered on the streets, thinking about widows and their dead husbands’ insurance policies, walking up and going, “Hey there,” and flashing the teeth.

But Ray putting his hands on Dani only inspires Howie to real animosity, and he growls again, much louder this time, and allows the sound to grow and evolve into a roar. He’s still got hold of Finn’s wrist and tightens his grip until Finn grunts and, fueled by sudden panic that his arm might soon snap, manages to tear himself loose and stumble away. Howie’s not so slow anymore, his cloudy eyes are beginning to clear. Finn feels himself coming into focus as if crosshairs are lining up on his forehead.

You’ve got to wonder what any of it means. Maybe there will be revelations and understanding at the end, but probably not. You don’t always get the answers you need.

Finn never used to think in a fight, but the last few, especially while he was duking it out with the bouncer
and the prick bartender swinging the Louisville slugger, he found his mind drifting, like it is now.

This shouldn’t be happening. He wants to ask questions but he doesn’t know what they might be. The no-neck shrugs and now he really has no neck, the points of his shoulders up around his ears.

What the hell, Finn hooks Howie to the temple again.

The bruiser doesn’t feel it. His head is like an outcropping of rock that has existed since before the dawn of man. Finn tries once more. The fury of Howie won’t let him feel anything. The fury of Howie is connected to 10 million years of sons disappointing their fathers. Finn is a part of it. Ray is a part of it.

Finn can’t help but look over at Dani. He catches her eye and feels the deep tickle under his heart. His dreams unravel and he thinks about asking her to a dance. What dance? Finn doesn’t dance, why does he suddenly want to dance?

Danielle’s face becomes the face of all the girls he’s ever known. His current squeeze who keeps talking about her ex-boyfriend. His prom date, his first lay, the girl he cared enough for to try his hand at poetry. The ones he learned to love and the ones he learned to hate. The girl seated diagonally from Finn in his creative writing class who has whore’s eyes and wants to write children’s stories about talking teddy bears.

Finn moves in again and Howie feints with a slow left, then loops a heavy right across his chest and into Finn’s gut. It’s got a lot of rage to it but there’s also plenty of self-pity, which weakens the jolt. Howie’s face
is as bland as dust but inside he’s crying and has been for a long time.

The basketball is somehow between them, bouncing about an inch off the floor. Howie kicks it straight into Finn’s nuts.

It’s a seriously cheap shot and Finn buckles. He wonders if he has enough breath to tell Ray, Now, Jesus Christ, I need help now!

But he sees that Ray is speaking pleasantly to Danielle, smiling and nodding while she glances distractedly back and forth between Ray and the fight. She’s got her hands tightened into fists and is holding them up against her magnificent chest. Howie’s got his hands around Finn’s throat and is lifting him slowly off the floor. Finn’s vision is starting to turn black with yellow spots at the edges.

The two martial-arts classes have concentrated on sweeping the legs, tripping your opponent, learning how to fall properly. Finn’s not sure any of it will work for him here, but he angles a kick upward into Howie’s skinny knee, trying to blow it out.

“Hey now,” Ray calls, “what’d I say about kicking, huh?”

As Finn gurgles and tries to snap his heel against the no-neck’s knee again, Howie suddenly screws his face up and turns his head. He lowers Finn carefully and releases him, taking a step back. He rubs at the burn mark over his eye as Finn coughs and sucks air, his mouth full of blood from biting his tongue.

Aware that they’re a part of the same brotherhood of pain, Finn reaches out but Howie is stumbling for the locker-room door. He trips over the mats and almost
takes a header, weaving blindly with his eyes still shut and watching whatever visions or memories are playing out in his head. He shoulders the wall and follows it to the locker room, where the dark doorway swallows him. Finn never sees him again.

With some difficulty, Ray draws himself away from Dani, looks over at Finn, and says, “If you plan on being my partner, you’ve got to be sharper than that. My life’s going to be in your hands. You think you’re instilling any trust here?”

A few seconds go by where anything can happen.

Finn might not be able to catch his breath, his windpipe could be crushed. Danielle might rush away, call for security, go date the QB instead. A low-flying plane, heard in the distance, could bank sharply, break into a nosedive, and crash through the roof. Left behind, Howie’s fury might dissolve the foundation of the school and send everyone spiraling.

All seems imminently possible. A breeze from the still-open gym door washes inside and flaps the ends of the ribbon in Dani’s hair.

She steps toward Finn and Ray’s whole body jerks. His hand rises as if he might yank her back to him.

Finn’s belly tightens. All the stupid poetry he’s ever written sings in his ear.

She presses a palm to the side of his face and says, “Are you hurt?”

He has a strange premonition then, in the moment that they first touch. A silent voice speaks very clearly, telling Finn that he will be a fine cop who will bring a small standard of justice to his scrap of the world. He and Danielle will have a home on Long Island down by
the water, where he’ll learn how to fish. They’ll have a dog named Portnoy. A cat she calls Blue and he calls Boo. They’ll raise two children, Adrian and Madison. He’ll put his twenty in and make a difference. His career and life will have some meaning. They’ll move down South to North Carolina and find a place on the coast, have some room for when the grandchildren visit. He’ll die ancient and beloved, a ring of glowing, wet faces around his bed.

He grins at her while blood leaks off his chin. The sweet agony of infatuation blazes through his brain as he says, “I’m Finn, the love of your life.”

“… YOUR LIFE…”

Finn hears his own voice whispering.

He finds that he wants to answer. Without realizing it, he’s been on the move, a thickening layer of snow beginning to coat him.

In his arms is about a hundred pounds of deadweight. Long, ice-encrusted hair whips into his face and stings his nose and cheeks.

He knows better than to handle someone who might be badly hurt, but he’s got to get her out of the storm. There’s a warm wet spot on his chest from where blood has dribbled from the back of her head. She has a possible concussion and maybe even hypothermia; her breathing is a touch ragged. Sticks are snagged in her clothing as if she’s run through the deep woods.

The trail is quickly being covered over and he’s having a hard time following it. There’s no way to stay focused. He’s weaving and only knows he’s gone off track when he feels the slight incline as he totters up onto the snow-thickened scrub. Soon he won’t be able to tell the difference.

He has no cell phone. Everyone in his world is within a hundred yards of him at almost all times. Nobody
ever needs to get ahold of him that desperately, and he worries about how easily he might become dependent on it. Calling Judith or Duchess in the middle of the night just to hear the sound of their voices. Or if he gets turned around on the paths, suddenly snapping the phone to his ear and asking Murph, Heya, I think I’m lost, can you come find me? Murph answering, What the shite, man? You’re twelve feet away, I could piss and hit your shoes.

But in Three Rivers cell phones are pretty much a moot point anyway because there are no relay towers. Some of the girls climb up onto the dorm roof and shout, I’ve got two bars! One! Two! I’ve got none! One! Duchess chases after them with ladles, rapping the backs of their legs. It’s what he sees.

Now he’s bringing another young girl to his cottage. One he’s got his hands on, pressing the palm of his hand to her sternum to check her heartbeat. The shadow of serious trouble that already surrounds him abruptly grows and deepens. Maybe he causes these things to happen somehow. The fuck is wrong with him.

She stirs in his arms. “Daddy?”

Finn wonders how he should answer. He wants to comfort her. Waking up in a storm being carried in the arms of a blind man whacking his cane around, it’s bound to spook a kid. But saying, Yes, Daddy’s right here, angel, just isn’t going to work.

He hefts her a little higher so he can speak quietly in her ear. “You’ll be all right.”

Struggling weakly, she shifts and the blood leaks down across the back of his left hand, warming his
knuckles in the cold. “Heya, man,” she says, “what are you doing with me?”

“I’m carrying you.”

“Oh.”

“You’re hurt.”

“Am I?”

“I think so. You hit your head.”

“I remember. Wasn’t me who thumped it.” She brushes snow from herself, then swats at his chest, neck, face. She takes off his glasses. They’re thick with ice and she clears them, then awkwardly replaces them on his nose.

She grunts softly like she’s mulling over the scene, deciding on what to say next.

“Where’s your dog, blind man?”

“I don’t have one.”

“I thought all you folk had dogs.”

“Not me,” he says.

“How do you get around, then?”

“I walk.”

“Yeah, man, but do you know where you’re going or do you just mostly hope for the best?”

“A little of both.”

“Your ears are blood red.”

“I don’t have a hat.”

Her breath is hot against his chin. “Well, that is a foolish thing.”

“So people keep telling me.”

“You got metal in your head.”

It stops him. “How do you know that?”

“Where you taking me?”

There’s an abrasiveness to her words, and he finds it
refreshing. It’s better than listening to all that hep-cat juvie talk. It’s not a Southern accent exactly but it’s close enough that he sees her as the Tennessee belle who moved up the block from him when he was fourteen. A teen beauty queen who was always talking about riding the floats in the Apple Cider Pageant or Blueberry Day Parade.

He imagines her there in his arms, staring up at his face, blue-eyed with a spatter of freckles across her cheeks, a darker beauty mark at the corner of her eye. Dirty blond hair always loose and wild. The Blueberry Queen.

Finn starts forward again and says, “How about if we put this conversation on hold until we’re out of the storm?”

“Time’s low.”

“What?”

He feels her shrug. “I’m not afraid of a little snow. You?” The hard wind tears her words from him so that it sounds like she’s being pulled away, even though she’s here in his arms. “There’s plenty worse to fear in this holler. Aren’t you aware?”

“Let’s get to my place and I’ll call someone to help,” he tells her.