Good Neighbors Page 24

  The drapes in their living room ruffled in the bitumen-stinking breeze. “I saw you fuckers the night of the brick. Nobody else walks that slow.”

  He walked next to the Singh-Kaurs. They owned the Baskin-Robbins–Dunkin’ Donuts chain on Garden City’s main drag, plus two more in Rockville Centre and Mineola. Arlo stood just in front of their Honda Pilot, in which Julia and Larry had carpooled to countless Little League games. They had a big TV in there. Watched crappy Netflix teenage rom-coms on it. Shit like The Kissing Booth 2, which they mistook for the essence of Americana. He knocked on the car. Just a tap with his knuckles.

  Next, the Harrisons, those crazy assholes with the divided house. The only people who’d never hosted dinner parties because it would have been too much of a shit show. “Hypocrites!” he shouted. And then the Pontis, that house of craven men with giant biceps. “Hypocrites!” And then the Ottomanelli house, where Linda and Dominick didn’t have the sense of a bird between them, and their mean-spirited twins ran their roost. “All of you, hypocrites!”

  A door opened. The Pontis started toward him. Dominick Ottomanelli came out from his house, too.

  “Arlo, come on. Let’s go,” Gertie called.

  Arlo saved the Schroeder house for last. Fritz’s car wasn’t in the drive, which was too bad. It felt more comfortable to threaten when the man of the house was home. He stood for a five-count, then raised his gun and pointed. Aimed at the front porch.

  “Arlo!” Gertie cried.

  “Daddy!” Julia screamed.

  Something hard slammed against the back of his head. He was on the ground, eating gravel and sand oil. The gun skittered away from him. And then somebody kicked him. A vivid sense memory flashed. His dad. He got up on all fours.

  It was Steven, Marco, and Richard Ponti. It was Dominick Ottomanelli and Sai Singh. He tried to stand. Steven was holding a baseball bat.

  Another swing. His legs went out from under him. He tried to get up again, because Julia and Gertie were watching. A scream—deep, masculine, and primal—emanated from Dominick Ottomanelli as he kicked Arlo in the chest with a heavy work boot. The blow lifted him from his knees and back down. He tasted salt. Adrenaline didn’t let him feel his broken ribs, one of which now poked his left lung.

  Wearily, Arlo noticed as Rhea Schroeder bent down. Lifted something from the ground… The gun?

  He saw a leg and held on to it. Pulled himself up by it. Gertie and Julia had pushed through the men. They were at his side. There was shouting but it wasn’t coming from them. It came from the rest of Maple Street. Some came out to their porches. Others hollered through their windows. The sound came from Nikita, Pranav, and Michelle Kaur and Sam Singh. It came from Rich, Cat, Helen, and Lainee Hestia. It came from Sally and Margie Walsh. It came from Rhea, FJ, and Ella Schroeder. It came from Tim, Jane, and Adam Harrison. It came from Jill Ponti. It came from Linda Ottomanelli and her weird twins. They were screaming and smiling and pumping fists. Jesus God, they were cheering.

  Gertie shoved Steven Ponti and his bloody bat. He had the good sense not to fight back. Then she was on the ground next to Arlo, her hands on his ribs as if trying to hold the falling-apart pieces of him together. Julia was next to her.

  Arlo realized that it was Dominick’s leg he was climbing. The man’s expression was animalistic and ugly. A sweaty-sex face on the verge of completion. Still that cheering. Dominick stomped him down, then cranked his foot. The treads dripped bitumen. Arlo had the time to roll. But would that cause collateral damage to Gertie and Julia, beside him? Would his unborn daughter accidentally take the brunt?

  He didn’t swerve. Cheering, cheering, like Romans at the Colosseum, the people of Maple Street rejoiced as Arlo Wilde received his punishment. A direct hit: work boot to face.

  From Interviews from the Edge: A Maple Street Story, by Maggie Fitzsimmons,

  Soma Institute Press, © 2036

  “Yes. I recall that. I recall the cheering.” —Sally Walsh

  “I don’t remember. You tell me witnesses saw me laughing and clapping. But I don’t remember that.” —Rich Hestia

  “There’s times in your life that you regret. I watched what was happening and I knew I should go out there and try to stop it. It wasn’t like you think. My moms weren’t happy when it happened. Almost nobody looked happy. I don’t know why they cheered, but they weren’t happy.” —Charlie Walsh

  “He was a pervert with a gun. We took him out. You do what you have to do.” —Steven Ponti

  “We had a problem on the block and the cops wouldn’t solve it. So we solved our own problem.” —Dominick Ottomanelli

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody cheered.” —Nikita Kaur

  Hempstead Motor Inn

  Monday, August 2

  They didn’t get back to the motel until late. Gertie felt tired inside. In her bones and her blood. She paid for the room but didn’t take the bags from the car. Just walked with Julia to the room and turned all the locks. At times, she cried. She was too tired to try to hide it.

  They sat in their beds of the first hotel room Julia had ever stayed in. Gertie noticed that she didn’t touch anything unless she had to. Probably afraid she’d break the mini fridge or the water glasses and they’d have to pay for them.

  “He’s alive. That’s what’s important,” Gertie said. “We all are.”

  Julia looked straight ahead. They hadn’t brushed their teeth and wouldn’t. They hadn’t changed into pajamas, and wouldn’t do that, either. These were the kinds of things Arlo kept up. The maintenance things.

  There’d been more police at the hospital. She’d told them what had happened. The men—the Pontis and Dominick Ottomanelli and Sai Singh—had already been arraigned and released on bail. They’d doubled down on their accusations against Arlo, now more convinced than ever that he’d sexually harmed every child on Maple Street. Child Protective Services would be back. With the hole getting filled in the morning, they’d lose their last chance at clearing his name. Probably, Arlo would go to jail. Just as likely, Gertie would get charged with attacking Larry. Linda Ottomanelli claimed to have been watching through her window. She told the police that she’d seen Gertie strike her own son and then start screaming about it, as if shocked.

  Arlo had suffered a broken cheekbone and jaw. It would have to be wired shut. A liquid diet for the next three months. Also, three broken ribs and a punctured lung. But he’d live, and that was something. After seeing him, they’d visited Larry, who was still sedated.

  While Gertie’d been at the hospital, Bianchi had gotten a search warrant for both the Schroeder and the Wilde houses. They’d searched everything, but neither the gun nor the lockbox with the phone in it were found. In the morning, she was expected at Bianchi’s office to talk more. He would probably take her side. He was a reasonable person. But that might not be enough.

  For now, she sat in the bed, too tired to move. She’d slept in crappy hotels a lot growing up. Had always hated them. The air-conditioning spewed dry air, and the carpet smelled like cats, and the bedcover was coarse. She’d come full circle. All these years she’d spent, trying to break free from her old life, and here she was again, in a hotel room with a twelve-year-old girl. Hardly a penny to her name.

  She got up with a grunt. Walked slow. Pulled back Julia’s sheets. “Move over,” she said. Then she spooned Julia, and Julia clutched back, sighing out the deepest of sighs.

  * * *

  Late night. Julia waited beside her softly snoring mother. The air-conditioning whined its strange sound. She got up ever so slowly.

  She sneaked out. There wasn’t anybody to follow. No annoying little brother, asking what she was doing, holding his Robot Boy. Just the dark, and the street outside, where the only passersby were the kinds of people you see in East New York. White-mouthed junkies and streetwalking women.

  She wore her good shoes. It was two miles to Maple Street.

  * * *

  It got quieter once she returned to the residential
neighborhood. Cars didn’t screech as much when they turned. There were more trees. She kept walking, and it got even quieter. You couldn’t hear the insect night song, and you didn’t see possums in the streets or raccoons raiding garbage cans. You didn’t hear squirrels and no tree branches shook overhead.

  By the time she got to Maple Street, it was nearly dawn. Because of the brownouts, the grudging streetlamps surrounding the park shone soft yellow. It seemed normal until you got to Sterling Park, where light both absorbed into and reflected against the tar sands, making the whole area glow.

  No one was out here, even though they’d agreed to meet. But that was fine. Better, even. She preferred to do this on her own.

  She passed her empty house. It looked foreign, like it had never belonged to her. She kept walking, averted her eyes. It felt too haunted. And maybe there’d still be her dad’s blood on the driveway out front.

  She crossed the pudding stone periphery of the park. At first it was sticky grass, and then it was just oil. The closer she got, the more she felt that something was out there. Not a person. A thing. The listening thing.

  When she got halfway, something bright flew, blinding her. The light swung away. “It’s me,” Charlie loud-whispered. Then he cupped the flashlight under his chin. It made him look scary.

  A lump expanded in Julia’s throat. His presence made this real. He came over, stood close. Offered his hand. She took it. Then he swung the light to his left, illuminating Dave Harrison and the sinkhole behind. Dave looked like always, only more so: angry and frustrated and vibrant. He’d been a good match for Shelly.

  They were closer to the hole than she’d thought. It had grown too gaping for a giant wood cover, and parts were exposed. She could see bright things atop the pitch. These were tools for the excavation, but in the glow they looked like bones.

  In the quiet, more human sounds. Charlie shined his light on four more kids standing along the half-lit dark: Mark and Michael Ottomanelli, Lainee Hestia, Sam Singh, and even little Ella Schroeder. Pinched face and light brown hair, she wore all black like a widow.

  “You told them?” Julia asked, letting go of his hand.

  “They want to help,” Charlie said.

  “They can’t help. They suck!” Julia hissed.

  “Your dad had a gun!” Lainee Hestia cried. Lainee was in pajamas that said MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, and the shirt and shorts were raining pink stormtrooper heads.

  “Fuck you! You stup—”

  “We took it back. We said it’s not true,” Michael Ottomanelli, the mean twin who’d once said she had food line feet, interrupted. “We all did. We took it back.”

  “You took it back? Your dad was beating on my dad! He broke his jaw. My brother’s got a concussion!”

  “It’s not our fault,” Lainee said. “You can’t blame us for stuff we got tricked into saying.”

  “Let us help, Julia,” Sam said.

  “Go home,” Julia answered.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark Ottomanelli said. He was crying. “I tried to tell my parents. They didn’t listen.”

  “Go home,” Julia said.

  Then everybody was talking over everybody else. Lots of words Julia didn’t care to hear. Words of regret and conviction and justification. Words of wounded pride and childish words. Words and words. At last, she covered her ears until they stopped. “This doesn’t belong to you. I’m going down there to prove my dad didn’t do it. When I bring her back, you’ll be the ones who go to jail because you lied and I’ll be the one who laughs.”

  Pinched, tattletale Ella Schroeder spoke for the first time. “It doesn’t belong to you, either.”

  Julia had no answer to that.

  Mark cried harder. Sobbing and slurping. Then Michael started in.

  “They’re sorry,” Charlie said. “Let them help.”

  Julia looked away, so she didn’t change her mind and feel sorry for them.

  “She’s my sister,” Ella said.

  “Yeah,” Julia let out.

  “Was,” Ella added.

  “We don’t know that.” Even as Julia whispered it, she knew it was wishful thinking.

  “We were all friends with her. Even before you came, Julia,” Lainee said.

  Julia tried to keep it together, but now she was crying, too. “If somebody gets hurt you’ll blame me. You’re just here to get me in trouble. Then your parents’ll stomp on my face, too.”

  “I don’t tell anymore,” Ella said. “I’m here for my sister.”

  Mark was still blubbering. Everybody stood close. By flashlights and cell phone lights, she could see their intense faces, assembled in a semicircle. She wanted to hate them.

  “We’re not our parents,” Dave said. “Neither was Shelly. We need to do this together. The Rat Pack.”

  She looked from one kid to the next. She didn’t forgive them. She didn’t think she could trust them. But how could she stop them? “Fine,” she said.

  They went to the edge, the place from which they’d seen the rescue crew descend. Dave bent down first. Then the rest. Somber as pallbearers, they lifted the slab’s edges and wrenched up stakes. Chemical candy apple wafted as they eased the giant thing to the side, leaving a small opening through which to squeeze. Inside the deep hole, the ladder rungs disappeared into nothing. They’d heard and read that hydraulic shoring went down to the bottom. Beyond that was the small, metal tunnel that narrowed into something impassable, at least for an adult.

  Julia looked each of them over: Charlie, Dave, Ella, Lainee, Mark, Michael, and Sam. All earnest. All here to right a thing that had gone so very wrong. None of them remotely resembling their parents.

  She climbed inside the hungry hole.

  One by one—Charlie, Dave, Mark, Michael, Lainee, Sam, and Ella—followed.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Into the murk.

  118 Maple Street

  Monday, August 2

  The police searched Rhea’s house, leaving no bottle unturned. They found nothing.

  Instead of leaving for his office or hiding out in his basement once it was all over, Fritz stuck around. He watched out the dining room window, and he made phone calls, his voice hushed. He knocked on Ella’s door. Then, in muffles she couldn’t hear, was afraid to listen for, he spoke to FJ. At some point, FJ broke down. Rhea heard him crying. Heard Fritz whisper, “I’ll take care of it.”

  She understood then, that Fritz was plotting. That’s why he’d followed her to the police department. He was setting the grounds for their divorce.

  She retreated to her office with her wine. Locked the door. With nothing else to do, she went over all the stored things. The dissertation she’d wanted to turn into a book about the panopticon. In her memory it had been brilliant, but upon inspection this was not the case. She’d written it before her father’s death, though it was evident a part of her had known, even before the final, grand mal seizure, that he was a drunk.

  She looked up what had happened to Aileen Bloom. She’d become a professor, just like Rhea. She’d taught first at the University of Washington, but they didn’t give her tenure, so she’d moved to smaller school upon smaller school, and now she was an adjunct at an online university. She mocked her students’ stupidity in online posts, which a large portion of her following thought was funny. Her teaching reviews were mostly negative. She graded too hard, and kept trying to teach Bertrand Russell to remedial teenagers.

  This was the loser who’d ruined her life.

  She looked up Jessica, but then stopped, afraid to learn that the child had died. So instead, she looked up Larry Wilde. Saw pictures of him from various feeds. A newborn. A toddler. A Little Leaguer who never got off the bench. An uncomfortable feeling rushed over her, similar to the feeling of prey when it’s watched by a predator. She thought about how strange it was, that Gertie had done such a horrible thing to him in the night.

  Who would hurt a child like that? Why?

  She rememb
ered her dad driving her home from school in a swerving car, feeling so safe. She remembered watching the sci-fi channel with him, each drinking from separate Coke cans. She remembered the first time he’d shaken, his arm going tight to his chest in a palsy, eyes open but unseeing. They’d been watching The Black Hole. She’d been four or five years old. They’d been talking about time travel, pushing through one side, becoming infinitely dense, and then coming out the other side, clean and new. If you think about it like cellular teleportation, it’s purifying. Time and distance are the same, he’d told her. The farther away you get from an event, the easier it is to fold it back on itself, to change it.

  And then her dad’s body had seized. She’d tried to wake him. He’d been rigid, his arm fastened to his chest, fingers locked in bent positions like claws. His skin frozen in a grimace. It had gone on long enough that she’d had time to look back at the TV. A spaceship was riding through the hole. Bright flashing lights smeared all together into infinite, rainbow density, and then darkness. Meaningless and murk. The sins of the world. And then it transgressed, through heaven and hell and then back again, to before it had all begun. The ship survived. Pristine now. New.

  When her dad woke, he didn’t remember. He acted as if it had never happened. He smiled at her, and she’d seen a godlike glow all around him. So bright. And she’d known that she’d harnessed time. She’d pulled away from the earth and traveled through a black hole. When she’d come through the other side, she’d entered them both into a new reality. She’d saved his life. His seizure had taught her that she was special.

  Years passed. She remembered the school nurse noticing her wrinkled clothes that she didn’t know how to wash, her knotty hair, and asking, Is something wrong at home? and thinking, Of course. Why else would I be here every day? But instead asking, What could be wrong? She’d meant this question seriously. Because she hadn’t lived anyplace but with her father, so how could she know? Seriously, she’d wanted to ask. Explain to me. What could be wrong?