Part 23 (2/2)
He paid off the cab and got out to stare at a for sale sign. The gra.s.s had been cut but half of it was brown patches, and the flowers that used to border the house were all dead.
There was no car in the driveway. He peered into the garage and it was empty-not only was his mother's car gone, but so was all the years of c.r.a.p that should have been piled on the shelves all around.
He peered into the living room and there was no furniture, just fresh paint and new carpeting. He tried his key in the front door and it just got stuck.
”What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doin'?” Spider turned around. One of the neighbors-Mr. MenzelManville?-was standing there with a baseball bat.
”It's me, Spider.” The man took a step toward him and Spider cringed back. ”John. John Darcy.”
”Good G.o.d, boy.” He peered at him ”You look like h.e.l.l.”
”I was in an accident at work. Been in the hospital.”
”Didn't know you was back from Vit-nam.” He gestured with the baseball bat: the lawn, the house.
”What happened with your folks?”
”I was gonna askyou. What is this?”
”I don't have the faintest. You know your dad was gone for a while. Then he come back two days, Mrs.
Marvell says, or at least his car's back. Then he goes away again and about a month later your mom goes away, too. Then a coupla weeks ago this movin' crew comes in and cleans the place out and they paint it inside and mow the lawn-I mean it was afoot high-and put up the for sale sign.”
Spider shook his head. ”Jesus.”
”You got any relatives could tell you something?”
”One aunt. Tried to get her from the hospital. She's got an unlisted number, though, and the phone company wouldn't give it to me.”
”I was you, I'd call this real estate company on the sign. You can use our phone.”
Spider wrote the number down on the back page ofWar With the Rutt and went inside the Marvells'
home. It was oppressively neat, doilies on top of plastic on the arms of furniture.
The real estate lady said the owner of record was the Bank of Bethesda, and gave him a number. The woman at the bank said they couldn't give him any information unless he showed up in person, with identification.
”Maybe you better shave and dress up before you go to some bank,” Mr. Marvell suggested.
”Yeah, maybe.” Spider wasn't going to shave. He didn't want to know what his face looked like. ”My stuffs all over in Riverside. Mind if I call a cab?”
The cab took about ten minutes, while Spider and Mr. Marvell engaged in excruciating conversation on the front porch. He directed the cab to the doughnut shop, since he didn't remember the Remingtons'
address.
The shop had a new paint job, an awful shade of pink, and a new neon sign. Inside, it had a new owner.
He was Indian or Pakistani, friendly and earnest but without much English. Spider was able to make out his explanation that the previous owner had retired to California and ”Would like old job back, please?
Boys we need two.” No, thanks. He'd had a lifetime's worth of doughnut shop experience in one night.
The Remingtons' bicycle was still locked up where he'd left it, but both bike and lock were rusted solid.
He walked the few blocks to their house. His car wasn't parked outside.Mr. Remington talked to him without opening the door for a minute, unconvinced that he was who he said he was. Finally, Spider held his driver's license up to the peephole.
He opened the door a foot. ”We thought you'd took the bike and gone. Kids do things like that.”
”Like I say, I had an accident at work. I didn't have any way to get in touch with you.”
”Well, that ain't my fault. What about the d.a.m.n bike?”
”It's still down at the doughnut shop. I would've brought it up, but the lock's rusted shut.”
”Hmm. Figured you were gone for good.”
”That's okay. Can I just get my stuff? My car?”
”Cleaned out the room when we got a new tenant. Down to the Goodwill. Police took your car away.”
”You gave away all of my things?”
”We ain't no storage company. You go down to the Goodwill, it's likely mostly there.”
”But the car, my car. it wasn't illegally parked.”
”Couldn't have it clutterin' up the curb. New tenant, he had a car, too. You go down to the Riverside police station and they'll have it there.” His brow furrowed. ”One thing we still got is that guitar. Mrs.
Remington kept it for her grandson, but he didn't want it. Said it was a piece of junk.”
Spider knew that. ”Could I have it back, anyhow?”
”I don't know. You want the room?”
”I thought you had a tenant.”
”Didn't work out. Foulmouth kid.”
”Look, that guitar'smine. Could I please have it back?”
”Don't you raise your voice at me, young man.” He walked away. After a couple of minutes he came back, but with a hacksaw rather than a guitar. ”Now you bring back that bicycle. Then we'll see about the guitar.” Spider took the saw and the man shut the door.
He went about a block and threw the saw behind a hedge. Then he headed for the police station.
Spider would never find out what had happened to his parents. His father had one last drunken confrontation with his mother and then left, picked up his Baltimore girlfriend, and went out west to ”make a new start.” That lasted less than a year. She testified against him and he wound up in a Phoenix prison, doing time for a.s.sault and battery and a.s.sault with a deadly weapon, a tire iron.
His mother grew increasingly depressed and ineffectual. Her sister stopped having anything to do with her, and on impulse she drove up to New Hamps.h.i.+re, where she had a half sister from her father's first marriage. The older woman, recently widowed, took her in, but they weren't good for each other, bothalcoholic and depressed. She stopped making sense and her half sister had her committed, and then sort of forgot about her, and then died.
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