The Mall Page 37

  There are no doors. No windows. The porch leads nowhere.

  I’ve had the dream so often now that I’ve taken to calling it the House Without Doors.

  Over the railing, I look down into the valley below where I live.

  The world below is in flames. I see the homes of my neighbors in smoking ruins. Tiny figures flee in mobs through the streets cluttered with abandoned vehicles. Just to the northeast, the town water tower erupts in an explosion of boiling water. Flames on all sides color the sky around me an eerie crimson like the sky of an alien planet.

  And then there’s the moon.

  Above, a full moon swollen like the belly of a mosquito that has just fed, glows the color of blood. As I watch, the moon shudders and breaks apart, its pieces floating slowly apart, the veins of darkness that separate them growing larger and larger.

  Then I realize. This is the End.

  What is the word my Uncle Hank would use?

  Apocalypse.

  I hear the screams in the distance and wonder if they are the screams of my mother, my father. No, somehow I know that everyone I care about is in there. Inside the House Without Doors. It is then I realize that I have come to rescue them.

  But I’m only five years old.

  Suddenly, it is all too much for me. The stark terror. The overwhelming sense of death.

  It waits for me inside. Patiently. It knows I am here. It has prepared for me.

  My hearts races, pumping adrenaline, and my instincts warn me to get away from this unholy place. No matter what the consequences, no matter who I might leave behind, I must flee. It is the need of an animal trapped in a forest fire, a compulsion beyond rational thought.

  I look down and see the orange plastic pumpkin in my hand and recognize that it must be Halloween and from the amount of candy in the bucket, I must have been at it a good, long while.

  There is an aroma of fresh apples, a smell so overpowering that in my mind it becomes the aroma of the season: apple bobbing, candied apples, apple cider. When I was five years old, it had been everything. The dark magic. The candy.

  But tonight those silly childhood fantasies wouldn’t be enough to save my family.

  That’s when I awaken. Sweaty. My heart pounding in my chest.

  Have I told anyone about the dreams? Never.

  I’m sure Mom would try to get me counseling. Dad would shrug and tell me to stop eating so late.

  And Uncle Hank… I believe he would try and read something into it.

  There is one thing that has helped me cope. The overwhelming opinion of the interpretations I’ve read is that dreams featuring end of the world scenarios generally mean the exact opposite of what we might believe. It usually symbolizes new beginnings. A re-ordering of the world we know.

  Some say that dreaming of an old house signifies an impending reunion or a renewal of an old association.

  Chapter 1 (early September)

  It was Monday afternoon the first day of my junior year of high school when Claudia came back into my life.

  Halfway through fifth period band practice, I noticed the small dark shape up in the bleachers, sitting in the shade of the announcer’s box. At first, I thought it was just a couple giving each other CPR, but the closer we got to the stands, the more the shape looked like an individual. Just before the end of class, the shape strode down the stands, a baggy black shirt flapping in the wind, long black hair flowing out behind from beneath earphones. The girl carried a notebook and a wadded up brown lunch sack that she hooked into a trash barrel from several yards away.

  I stared up at this spectral creature with fascination, as did most of the trumpet section around me. The girl reached out behind her, snagged her hair with practiced precision, and wound it into a loose knot. She flipped it back and disappeared into the shadows like a ghoul.

  Greg Hebert sidled over to me, lowering his cornet. “What the hell was that?”

  My mouth opened and I started to tell them it was Claudia, when suddenly I wondered how I could be so sure given the fact that I hadn’t seen her for seven years (which, to a teenager, translates to an eternity). If it was Claudia, she had morphed into a completely different creature than the one I remembered.

  “New girl. Had her for second period English,” Sonny Bertrand responded, clearing out his spit valve.

  “Sonny, you were here back in third and fourth grade, weren’t you?”

  I got a blank stare.

  “That’s Claudia Wicke. Remember?”

  His eyes glazed over as he tried to pass a thought.

  “Oh yeah,” Sonny answered.

  “Hallow.”

  A chill passed through me.

  There it was. It had been eight years and already the old label had been re-attached.

  Claudia had garnered the nickname “Hallow” back in fourth grade when the kids were assigned to write a poem about their favorite holiday. Claudia chose Halloween. One by one, the kids were required to, in the typical sadistic fashion of public schools, stand up in front of the class and recite their work.

  We had most of our classes together that year and I was there the day Claudia read the poem in question, but I was so completely focused on my own impending doom that I didn’t realize who was next on the chopping block until I heard her voice.

  “‘Hallow,’ by Claudia Wicke.” She stared down at her single page of college-ruled paper, hiding behind the long black bangs that obscured her eyes, seemingly oblivious to the snickers that had already begun.

  “When the season transforms the weather,

  When leaves fall and nights grow long,

  That’s the time when the spirits gather,

  They might scare you, but I never fear.

  I walk past the graveyard and sing a song,

  Cuz things aren’t always as they appear.”

  The class began to titter and elbow anyone next to them who wasn’t paying complete attention. The sadistic ones knew this would be good fodder for later and if their audience couldn’t recognize their insightful references to the source material, their cruel puns would be wasted.

  Claudia continued undaunted into the second stanza.

  “They want to be heard but sometimes are unable.

  On this night of nights you can hear.

  Loud and clear.

  For this is their time of year.

  The season of the shadow people.”

  Clearly, I remember that she looked up and in the face of the blatant laughter from her classmates, she looked only at me… and caught me with a smirk. She shot me a glare as dark as ink, as if I were the only one in the room who was laughing, and slunk back to her seat.

  Then there was the time in fourth grade when the rest of the class was reading books like The Hobbit and Watership Down, Claudia asked Mrs. Sommers if she could read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. When Mrs. Sommers, told her that the novel wasn’t appropriate for her age level, she went to the principal, Mr. Smalls, who of course, told her that he didn’t care what she did on her own time, but the school district could get in real legal trouble for approving a book for a ten year old about a quadruple homicide. Claudia responded by reading the book, writing the book report, and handing copies out to whoever was curious about it. Since it was outside of the school grounds, she would have gotten away with it, if some of the students hadn’t--maliciously I suspected-- brought the reports with them to school the next day.

  She ended up getting two days detention for it.

  That was the Claudia Wicke I remember and it was also the one I found later that day leaving the senior hallway pursued by several large senior girls led by Trudy Simmons, student counsel and cheerleader (a label that seemed to be required immediately following her name whenever and wherever her name might be printed).

  I turned at the sound of a loud voice proclaiming: “Excuse me, but there are no Juniors allowed in the Senior bathroom.”

  In the uncanny speed of the world we inhabit as teenagers, the crowd had dropped
whatever important business to which they had been attending, and were now gathering expectantly around Trudy and Claudia. Much to Claudia’s credit, she had stopped and had turned to face Trudy, who was a good foot taller than her and almost as broad-shouldered as Brad Fuller, the Varsity tackle.

  “You’re new here so maybe someone needs to explain the facts of life to you, newbie.” It was at this point that Trudy got chest-to-chest with Claudia and adopted a loud, slow-paced delivery as if speaking to one of the mentally challenged. “This is the See-nior hallway. The hallway for See-niors. You are a Jun-ior. Not a See-noir. Am I making any sense to you yet?”

  From my vantage point, I could see Claudia, though I could not reach her, if I had wanted--which I particularly didn’t. After all, why was this any of my business? I hardly knew this person anymore.

  Without a glance at the gathering throng of people around her, Claudia stared calmly back at Trudy. Without any change of expression, she said the most bizarre and non-sequential thing I had ever heard in the course of an angry confrontation.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  The expression on Trudy’s face was an odd combination of confusion and satisfaction. Should she be offended or gratified? Wasn’t this supposed to be a fight or did someone change the rules?

  Claudia continued, oblivious to the rising murmurs of the crowd all around her. “But… you’re going to die someday, because everything in life passes away.”

  Trudy’s jaw dropped. I mean, actually dropped. Y’know, you read about this sort of stuff happening to characters in novels and you see it in cartoons, but it doesn’t really happen, right? Well, that’s exactly what Trudy’s jaw did. Drop. She tried to recover then and looked at her nearest minion and began to laugh.

  “Can you believe this little freak?”

  It was about this time that the crowd started to break up because Principal Smalls (who was anything but, as he is six foot five and was once Lieutenant Smalls in the U. S. Army) had caught the foul scent of a fight on the wind and was sweeping down the steps of senior hall like an eagle.

  Trudy’s co-horts had begun to abandon her at the steadily increasing approach of Lieutenant Smalls’ size twelves. Now it was Trudy and Claudia standing alone with a few of us hardcore bystanders seeking closure. From a distance, the two of them made an interesting couple: the statuesque blond in fluorescent green blouse with a tight canary yellow skirt and the other; short, dark in a baggy black shirt and jeans. It looked like a Rat Terrier facing off against a Golden Lab.

  Claudia reached up and actually grasped a lock of Trudy’s blond hair. “Y’see, this silky hair will fall out and your tanned flesh will rot, so you better enjoy it while you can.”

  Then Principal Smalls was between them and the rest of us suddenly remembered something important we needed to do. He led them both to his office. I’m not sure what transpired in there but by Tuesday both of them were back on the streets.

  ***

  Claudia and her mother, Pat, had originally left Haven for greener pastures and a better job. Mrs. Wicke had been a counselor for a school up in Dallas/Fort Worth, four hours away from the tiny forgettable town that is Haven, population 475 or so.

  Haven, Texas. The town where I was raised. I’ve never spent any significant amount of time anywhere else. It’s been sixteen years since I was born, and as Mom is fond of telling me, very little has changed. While the rest of the world advances, Haven had always seemed to be frozen in time.

  The old saying—if you stay in a place long enough, you become that place—seems to have been created for our town of Haven. Visitors come and go, but the anchor families formed the hard nickel-iron alloy which is the central core of our community. Their hearty material composition seems to be mostly French and Irish stock, with names like Richard, Bertrand, Thomas (or Thompson), Murphy, Kelly, Sullivan commonly heard at our school and the Rotary Club and Knights of Columbus meetings.

  The main reason Haven has managed to stay so small: Location.

  Haven is a two hour drive from the nearest big city, Austin, and not close enough to any major highway to attract any capitalist interest from the likes of McDonalds or WalMart. But that was exactly the intention of Haven’s founders.

  When given the opportunity to host a train depot back in 1865, the founders said, “Much obliged, but no thank you.” When asked if they would permit a minimum-security prison to be built in Haven around 1946, the founders said, “No thanks. We’ve got enough scoundrels already.”

  As a result, the town became like a ship in a bottle. While the rest of the world sailed out to meet the future, Haven stayed stubbornly on shore, arms folded. A model of good old-fashioned 1950’s horse sense with a touch of technophobia.

  Yet more and more lately, Mom has begun to change her tune, adding that more has changed in Haven since the days of hanging out at the Lucas Park and Eat (Broward County’s answer to the Dairy Queen) in “bobby-socks” than has changed in the century and half since the town’s creation. Cable television arrived in 1990, about 20 years after the rest of the world. We have only recently gotten a decent Internet service.

  Like Old man Barrett, proud owner of Anderson’s Parts and Feed Store, is fond of saying: “Progress s’fine, long as it don’t go too far.”

  So, surely you would think that every year the median age of Haven must rise due to the exodus of the youngsters who can’t bare living in such a “prehistoric” community. But the fact of the matter is for every two teenagers who flee to college, a young couple returns to have their children here. As a result, the population of Haven, Texas tends to stay stable, hovering just shy of the five-century mark.

  And as surely as a cork bobber shooting back to the surface of a lake, Claudia and her mother Pat followed this formula and returned to town in late August, just before school started again.

  Pat (or Mrs. Wicke as I know her) was “released” from her counseling job, because of a “difference of vision” according to the vice-principal. What it came down to was that she was fired for talking to a student about faith in a higher power. “Apparently, teaching fourth graders natural selection or how to put on a condom is completely acceptable, but mentioning the word abstinence or even insinuating that there might be an intelligent guiding force to the universe is crossing the line,” Mrs. Wicke told us the weekend after she got back into town.

  After my initial shock of seeing Claudia again, Mrs. Wicke and my mom had had several hours of conversation over coffee. I don’t recall hearing that much laughter in our house in years.

  Before she left, she asked me if I wouldn’t mind saying “hello” to Claudia in the school hallways once in awhile. “She was into a lot of negative things in the city. Fighting and hanging out with friends with dark ideas,” she told us. “Unfortunately, being the daughter of a counselor seems to mean that your mother is the only one you can’t talk to.”

  ***

  Next Monday I decided to finish lunch early and make a pass by the bleachers before practice. On the way down Junior Hall, I happened to see a small group of senior girls giggling around one of the lockers. After they dispersed and went their separate ways, I realized that they’d been standing in front of Claudia’s locker door.

  I knew this only because of the graffiti written across the front: “Hallow,” it read in large letters of bright red lipstick.

  When I reached the bleachers, Claudia was already there, wearing a shapeless black blouse and jeans, almost identical in color, and scrutinizing a worn ringed notebook in her lap. A plastic baggy filled with what looked like Crunch Berries cereal and a can of Coke sat with an empty brown bag atop a black backpack upon which had been drawn a spiked ball and chain in silver. Some black noise leaked through the buds in her ears. Wires led to her breast pocket, where I surmised the player must be hidden.

  After a minute or two of my staring, she finally lifted her head. Jet black sunglasses covered her pale, unmade up face. With her look taken as a sign of acknowledgment, I starte
d up to her. She seemed to stiffen and grow smaller at the same time, like a cat preparing for flight.

  “Stay back,” her body language screamed. “I bite.”

  She sighed heavily and made no attempt to remove the buds wedged into her ears.

  “Yeah?’

  “What are you doing up here?”

  She must have surmised that I wasn’t the threat she had first perceived and lowered her pen back to her notebook, the charms on the bracelet around her wrist settling with a jingle. A silver ghost, a skull, a bat, a crescent moon, and what looked like a tiny haunted house lay there sparkling in the sunlight, contrasted against the stark white paper.

  “You with the thought police or something?”

  That one had staggered me a little. Didn’t she recognize me? I figured I’d spur her memory a little.

  “Y’know, your mom came by our house Sunday.”

  That ought to be enough of a hint.

  Her eyes never wavered from the notebook. “So what.”

  As I languished in the hot Texas sun for a few moments, I considered how much less awkward this had seemed when I had played it out in my mind.

  “So, your mom looked happy. It was good to see her, y’know.”

  “What are you doing here, Paul?” she asked in a condescending tone as she pushed a button on the tiny unit in her pocket.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Other than skipping class?”

  Heavy sigh. She turned back to her notebook.

  Okay, I’d had my daily limit of abuse and was just about to leave, when I recognized the shape of stanzas. Thought I’d take one last shot. “You into poetry?”

  Claudia grimaced and looked up at me through those jet black lenses covering her eyes. “Yeah, like you’d even recognize a poem if you saw one.” Claudia ripped the page she was working on out of the notebook, wadded the page, and tossed it back over her shoulder. “Okay, what is this? Did the ‘counsinner’ send you over here to talk to me? Draw me out? Is that what this is about?”