Two minutes later, his mom and dad spilled into the kitchen, decibels louder than any phantom.
“Oh, fuck him if he can’t take a joke. How many tedious golf stories can one woman take? I ask you.” His mother laughed obnoxiously, the sound spilling across the kitchen floor and fading into the wood of the den. “Hon, did you leave the TV on in here?”
Hunter sat up in his bed and stared at the door. He hadn’t been anywhere but the kitchen since they’d left.
“No. I can’t say I did. Do you really need another drink?”
Ice clinked into glass. “For chrissake . . . do you think he got into the scotch? Will you talk to him, hon? He sure as hell won’t talk to me. It’s like he hates me.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s a teenager. All teenagers find their parents annoying. Okay? C’mon . . . no more vodka. Let’s get you to bed.”
“You’re no fun anymore, Myron. When did you stop being fun?” A glass slapped down onto a half-finished marble counter.
“And this is fun? Enough. Come upstairs with me, and we’ll have some fun. Okay?”
“Mmmm . . . what kind of fun?” They shared a muffled exchange while Hunter grimaced in the dark. Footsteps stumbled up the back steps, and Margot murmured something.
“Shh . . . he’s sleeping.”
Hunter watched the shadows of their feet pass by in the sliver of light beneath his bedroom door. A minute later, the hall went dark.
16
The Klussman Family
September 14, 1990
Staring out at the sidewalk from his second story window, Benny Klussman sat in his usual spot, rocking back and forth in his chair. Back and forth. Back and forth. On the other side of the glass, the cars moved with him, back and forth down Lee Road. Red and shiny. Dull and black. White and dirty. A yellow one made him sit up straighter. He followed it with his eyes all the way across South Woodland and out of his windowpane. Yellow. That was unusual.
There were fewer cars that morning. Not as few as on a Sunday. But fewer. A dozen or two less than normal. He double-checked the calendar hanging from his wall. Friday, September 14, 1990. He checked it again. Friday. The digital clock next to his bed read 7:16 a.m. It was seventy-five seconds fast compared to the watch on his wrist but was close enough. The morning rush should be as expected. He checked the calendar again, noting Rosh Hashanah wasn’t until next Thursday. He didn’t know what those words meant, just that special days on the calendar affected the traffic out his window.
He snapped his calculating eyes back to the road and watched for his regulars. White Honda with lady putting on lipstick was three minutes late and counting. Green Jaguar with angry man should’ve passed six minutes ago. Something was wrong. He began to count cars again. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. He checked his watch. Forty-two in sixty seconds wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for a Friday. Is there an accident somewhere? He traced the sky for signs of smoke. The uneasy feeling crept into the fists clenched like vises in his lap, making them want to move. To hit.
His mother hated his fists. They gripped together harder.
Benny knew he wasn’t like other boys. He would never grow up and move away from home, no matter how hard he wished he might. At twenty-four years old, he couldn’t tie his own shoes. He needed Velcro, and sometimes he needed help working the straps when his fingers curled into his wrists like claws and wouldn’t do what they were supposed to do.
Out on the sidewalk, the brown-skinned ladies were walking to the bus. Only seven today. Yesterday it was nine. The day before it was ten. Where did they go? The other three ladies? One with the flowered purse, the other with the plastic shopping bag, the third with the glittery hat. Where are they?
The pack of boys heading to the high school from south of Chagrin Boulevard walked under his window two minutes late. Three baseball hats. Not four. Nine boys, not eleven. Something was wrong.
Benny turned to the maps his mother had taped to his wall. She’d finally gotten the one he really wanted. The one of Shaker Heights that matched the words marked on the mail labels that would come to their house: “14895 Lee Road, Shaker Heights, Ohio.” Back when she’d let him sort the mail. Back before the hospital.
It had taken a long time for her to figure it out. Hours of staring at maps in books. Pointing. Smiling. Quiet. Happy. Mesmerized. I don’t know. He just loves maps! Maybe it’s the colors.
He stared at his map of Shaker Heights, eyeing the roads. Counting the streets. Could the missing boys have gone a different way? He squinted at the words, only recognizing some. His mother had put a big red star on it and said, Look. There we are. This is our house, Benny. And here’s our street. Lee Road. And there’s the library and there’s the grocery store and the gas station . . .
She never pointed out a school. They’d tried going to school many, many years earlier when Benny was very small. It had only made things worse. He’d come home with bruises, his muscles tensed up hard as wood and the look of a caged animal. His mother would spend hours yelling into the phone and even more hours crying behind a closed door. Benny hated school.
But he’d loved his backpack. There had been a big red truck on the front, and it had been filled with paper and crayons and his favorite toy cars. He’d insisted on wearing it every time he’d left the house until it had no longer fit. He watched the larger backpacks on the boys’ shoulders outside his window. No trucks. But he knew they were going to school. Only some weren’t today.
Only thirty-two cars passed in the next minute, and his fists had wound themselves into hard knots. They started to pound his leg.
He yelled at them in his head. Only it was her voice yelling. Just RELAX! Count to ten, nice and slow. One, two . . . Let go, baby. LET GO! Her eyes would be screaming what her mouth wouldn’t say: Jesus, what is WRONG with you?
Her voice pleading in his head felt like stabbing knives. Even though he knew she meant well, her voice dripped with helplessness and desperation and sorrow and anger and all the hate love could bring. It wouldn’t stop. He tried to overpower the thought of her with his own mangled voice that he rarely heard come out of his mouth correctly. SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! “SHUUU—”
“Benny!” his mother gasped from the doorway, but only the watcher in the corner of his mind could hear it. The watcher heard and saw everything, always lurking over his shoulder, but it could never control his hands, his mouth, his body. It could only light a desperate spark behind his eyes. It could only whisper in his ear. She’s coming.
His mother’s hands fought to catch his fists. They were pounding, pounding, pounding his head. SHUT UP! The watcher curled up beside him, not wanting to see but unable to stop seeing. The watcher had no eyelids. No hands. No mouth. Just eyes to see and ears that heard everything.
“Benny! No. NO!” His mother caught his wrists and pressed all the weight of her 160-pound body against his arms to keep them down, to keep them from hitting her too. A dull pain beat in his head almost loud enough to stop the voices. But not loud enough. He knocked his head against the floor. Shut up! SHUT UP!
“Honey, stop! BILL! I need HELP!” The panic in his mother’s voice made him pound his head harder. No, Mommy. No. Don’t hate me. Don’t—
He writhed to get her off him, away from him. The watcher sat in his corner helplessly recording it all. The way Benny’s fist caught his mother in the chin. The way she recoiled from him in terror, backing away. Away. Away. The animal shrill in her voice as she shrieked, “BILL!”