Savaging the Dark Read online

  “I guess.” He looks puzzled. “Did you want something, Ms. Straw?”

  “No, I…” It occurs to me then. “Connor, would you like to make some money?”

  “How?”

  “Are you good at shoveling snow?”

  “Pretty good. I shoveled the front walk at our house yesterday.”

  The thoughts suddenly tumble into place, onto after another, dominoes falling.

  “We have a back path,” I say, “that leads to our storage shed. My husband hasn’t gotten around to shoveling it. Would you?”

  “Well, sure, I guess. But I don’t know where you live.”

  I tell him. I don’t tell him that I’ve looked in the file at the main office, learned where he and his father reside. It’s in a different housing tract, a poorer one, but not more than a mile from us and on a main bus route. We talk about price for a moment.

  “And you could use our snow shovel,” I say.

  “Okay.” He smiles. “When?”

  “How about tomorrow?” I say. “Friday. Could you make it on Friday afternoon? Should I call your father about it?”

  “Nah, he’ll be at work anyway. He won’t care.”

  “Four o’clock?”

  “Sure. Okay. I’ll be there.” He looks distractedly toward the classroom window. “Can I go now?”

  I smile and stand. “Of course, Connor. Thank you.”

  He grins and runs for the door, stopping to pull on his old brown coat before scampering out onto Cutts School’s gentle hills, green in spring, smooth and white now. I walk to the window where I can see him and Douglas pulling red sleds up the steepest hill on the property, which isn’t very steep, really. Still, they ascend the hill, mount their sleds, slide down. I can hear their little boy cheers as they drop. My body tingles. Sweat trickles down my neck. Looking down at my hands I realize that they’re quivering. Yet I’ve done nothing wrong, I know. I have done nothing wrong. This is a perfectly pedestrian arrangement between a teacher and her student, and what I told him was absolutely true. There is a back path to our storage shed where we keep our firewood, among other things. Bill has failed to clear it yet. What’s more, I know Connor has no money. The few dollars I’ll pay him for this service will be a godsend to him, allowing him to buy any number of things. Comic books. French fries at McDonald’s. Admission to a movie downtown. Perhaps the back path doesn’t really need to be shoveled with any urgency—we have plenty of firewood in the house anyway—but this kind of make-work project just shows once again how caring I am as a teacher. He’s a poor boy. I’ve found an excuse to let him earn some money. No one could possibly criticize, no one could judge.

  He comes the next day, fresh-faced and on time, his cheeks bright apple-red in the cold. Gracie is playing with a picture puzzle on the floor. Bill is at work. I watch my young student walk briskly up our front walk in his brown coat and red wool hat, ring the doorbell.

  “Is that the boy?” Gracie asks. I’ve told her he’s coming.

  “Yes, sweetheart, I think it is.” I run my hands over my hair nervously, smooth my blouse, go to the door and open it.

  “Hi, Ms. Straw!”

  “Connor. You came.”

  “Sure! I like money.”

  I smile. “I’ll bet you do.” My fingers flutter around my face, my hair. “Come in, Connor. Meet my daughter, Gracie. Gracie, this is Connor. He’s one of my students.”

  “’lo.” She glances up, then back down at her puzzle. Gracie doesn’t care for strangers.

  “Hi, Gracie!” Connor steps quickly over to her and kneels down. “Hey, you like puzzles, huh?”

  She shrugs. “Sorta.”

  Connor studies it for a moment, picks up a loose piece and points out where it belongs. He hands it to Gracie to put in, and she smiles a little. He stands again, faces me.

  “Well,” I say, “are you ready?”

  “Sure!” He looks around. “You have a nice house, Ms. Straw.”

  “Thank you, Connor. Step into the living room here. That leads to the back.”

  We do. Connor’s eyes look around admiringly at the big-screen TV and big collection of videocassettes on the shelves. “Wow, Ms. Straw, you must have a hundred movies here!” He tilts his head sideways to look at the titles.

  “You’re welcome to borrow any that you want, Connor.”

  “Yeah, but you know what?” He looks at me sadly. “Our VCR’s busted.”

  “Oh, no. Can you get it fixed?”

  He shrugs. “My dad keeps saying he’ll get around to it. It hasn’t worked in a week.”

  “I’m sorry, Connor.” I look at him. “Listen, the job’s in back here.” We step onto the rear porch. “See the shed there? There’s a walkway to it, but you can’t really see it in the snow. It’s just sort of an indentation. See?” I point.

  “Yeah, I see.” He notices the snow shovel leaning against the house and grabs it in his mitten-wrapped hands. “I’ll have it done in no time!”

  I smile. “This is a big help, Connor. Thank you.”

  “Sure!” He grins brightly under his red wool cap, takes the shovel and marches over to the start of the walkway. I watch his shoulders as he works. He’s energetic, stronger than I might have thought. He’s very tidy, making sure each portion of the walkway is completely cleared before moving onto the next. I realize I should stop staring at him and turn away, look at Gracie who has come into the living room and is watching him too.

  I have a vision, a sudden image in my mind, Bill and I, Gracie, we’re together in this house and we’re happy and normal and there’s a fire in the fireplace and a holiday movie on the TV and hot chocolate with marshmallows in mugs on the table and Connor, if he’s there at all, Connor is simply a neighborhood boy, my student whom I’ve hired partly out of practicality, partly out of sympathy, he shovels the walk in my vision and comes in and I pay him his money and he thanks me and out he heads into the fading winter afternoon, happy as a lark at his newfound wealth, running off to join Douglas or some other boy and frolic in the snow exactly as any sweet trusting eleven-year-old boy should. Yes. For an instant this is vivid in my mind, as bright and detailed as any vision can possibly be. And as evanescent. As unreal.

  11

  The lunchtime sessions become movie-watching sessions. I have a VCR and TV combination unit permanently in my classroom, after all. Connor’s father is seemingly in no hurry to repair the equipment at home. And so I suggest to him that he can watch movies here at the noon hour. “You’ll have to break a movie into two parts, probably, the lunch period isn’t long enough,” I say. “But you’re welcome to use the equipment here.”

  “Wow! Thanks, Ms. Straw!”

  He does. And watching Strangers on a Train, Foreign Correspondent, Key Largo, Public Enemy proves to be even more enticing than sledding with Douglas Peterson. The snow melts rapidly enough, anyway, soon nothing more than gray and white splotches on the landscape. For a while I fear that Connor may suggest that Douglas or some other boy come watch the films too, but this doesn’t happen. I wonder why not. Maybe Connor simply knows that other boys his age aren’t interested in such old movies. On the other hand, perhaps he senses something special about this time we spend together. He knows I don’t offer the classroom at lunchtime or the TV and VCR to anyone else. In truth, I’m not even there every day: occasionally I have to attend a meeting or conference with a parent. Once I have to rush to Gracie’s school because she’s throwing up. (Mild food poisoning: she ate a crayon.) Still, I allow Connor to watch his videos whether I’m there or not. I trust him. He sees that, appreciates it.

  But I’m usually there, sitting at my desk, watching with one eye as James Cagney or George Raft or Humphrey Bogart goes through his ancient black and white motions. The rest of my attention is occupied with lunch, or with grading spelling quizzes and practice paragraphs. Of course the truth is that little of my attention is really focused on any of these things. Instead I watch Connor, his enraptured eyes aimed at the TV screen. Oc
casionally he’ll blurt out some sound of enthusiasm (“Wow!”) or ask me something (“What does ‘cracking wise’ mean, Ms. Straw?”), but mostly he’s quiet, an ideal filmgoer, completely fascinated.

  As with everything we do together, our movie-watching is perfectly appropriate. I sit nowhere near Connor. The lights are on. The door is open. Every now and then someone steps into the classroom: a stray child, perhaps, who’ll watch the unspooling film for a minute or two, grow bored and leave.

  At last it snows again.

  It’s not a major storm, just a few inches, but it closes school for the day. Bill, in a generous moment, offers to stay home and take Gracie out for lunch and a movie. “Stay here and get some sleep, Mom,” he smiles.

  “Bill, thank you. This is so nice of you.”

  He shrugs, getting into his coat. “We’ll give you a few hours of peace.”

  I wave to them as Bill pulls the car out of the driveway.

  Then I stare at the phone for a very long time. I know Connor’s home number; I’ve called his father a couple of times, good-news calls about Connor’s excellent performance in my class. Connor won’t be there, I know. He’ll be out sledding with Douglas Peterson. He’ll be out running errands with his dad. I know he won’t be there. I’ll call and there will be no answer, or I’ll get their machine, or his father will pick up and I’ll tell him how well Connor is doing again and hang up.

  My throat is dry. My hands quiver. It’s as if I’m a child again, an adolescent just on the cusp of dating and wanting, desperately wanting to call some boy but frightened to pick up the phone.

  I pick up the phone. As I punch in the numbers I feel my body relax because I’m completely certain he won’t be there. This is nothing, I think. Just a call to his dad. After all, he just got a 100 on his last spelling quiz. That’s good news, sharable news. The line rings once, twice. Exhaling, I wait for the answering machine, his father’s gruff We can’t come to the phone, leave a message. “Hello, Mr. Blue,” I rehearse in my mind, “this is Mona Straw, Connor’s English teacher, and I just wanted to say how well he did on…”

  “Hello?”

  It’s Connor.

  I stammer, wipe my mouth with my hand. My fingers run shakily through my hair. Somehow I choke out the words snow, shovel, work, pay.

  “Sure, Ms. Straw. I’ll come over.”

  “You…?” My breath is shallow, short. “Connor, won’t you be out sledding or…?”

  “Nah. There’s not really enough snow for that. I’m not doing anything anyway. I can come right away.”

  And he does. It feels as if it takes him twenty centuries to arrive and yet it feels, as I see him hustling coldly up the walk in his big coat, that he has arrived much too soon, as if he must have hitched a ride on a lightning bolt to have arrived so quickly. I’m wearing my pink blouse and blue jeans. The top buttons are undone on the blouse but that’s because I’m just casually hanging around at home, no other reason. The same reason I’m not wearing a bra. I’m just a teacher on a snow day, that’s all, sluffing around the house.

  I open the door before he even knocks. We look at each other. Finally he says, “Hi, Ms. Straw.”

  I realize I’ve forgotten to speak. “Hi, Connor,” I say, gesturing him into the house.

  “Back walk again?”

  “Yes, yes, that would be…great. That would be great.”

  “All right!” He grins, marches through the hall and the living room and to the rear door. I watch him shoveling. It doesn’t take him long, there isn’t much snow. But when he comes back in he’s panting.

  “Sit down, Connor,” I say. “Take off your coat. Rest a bit.”

  “Thanks,” he says, handing me the coat and dropping to the sofa. He has on a red-and-white striped shirt underneath. “I hope my shoes aren’t dirty.” He lifts each of his legs so that I can see the soles of his tennis shoes.

  “No, they’re fine. Just a little wet. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay.” He smiles, still catching his breath.

  I sit gingerly on the hassock in front of the sofa, facing him.

  “Where’s your daughter?” he asks.

  “My husband took her to a kids’ movie. Would you like some hot chocolate, Connor?”

  “Well, sure. If you have some, Ms. Straw.”

  “Of course we do.” I jump up quickly, move to the kitchen, put on the kettle, pour powder into cups. My hand slips and one packet bursts out onto the counter everywhere: a spray of brown dust. I wipe it up quickly, not wanting Conner to see, anyone to see. I wait for the water to boil. Like his arrival, it takes twenty centuries. Finally it does and I pour it into the cups holding myself very steady and take the cups into the living room. Connor is looking at the long line of videos on the shelf.

  “You sure got a lot of movies, Ms. Straw.” He takes the cup. “Thanks!”

  “Would you like to watch one, Connor?”

  He glances at the shelf. “Well, sure…If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll watch it with you. It’s a snow day. We don’t have anything else to do, right?”

  “Right!”

  “Do you think you should call your dad to let him know where you are?”

  “Nah. He’s at work. He doesn’t care.”

  “Oh.” I look at him. “Well, what one do you want to watch?”

  He chooses Double Indemnity, one of my all-time favorites. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, their illicit relationship, her husband’s murder. He sits on our sofa engrossed in the film. I sit on the other chair. After twenty minutes or so we’re finished with our cocoa and I rise to take the cups to the kitchen.

  “Should I pause it, Ms. Straw?”

  “No, I can hear it, Connor. And I’ve seen this movie lots of times.” I smile and, to my astonishment, reach out my hand and tousle his hair. I’d not intended to do that. He hardly seems to notice, continues staring at the screen.

  I move to the kitchen, wash the cups. I don’t have to wash the cups. We have an automatic dishwasher. But I stand there at the sink carefully rinsing each cup with hot water, applying a bit of liquid detergent, scrubbing each cup inside and out for several minutes, rinsing again. I wonder what I’m doing. What I’m doing here, at this sink, what I’m doing with this boy in the living room, what I’m doing with my life. And yet I’m so excited I can hardly see. The cups blur before me, the countertop sways. I’m hot, flushed. My arms tingle. I’m wet between my legs. I can’t get over how pretty he is, how young, and how he’s in this house, alone with me.

  I return to the living room. MacMurray and Stanwyck are at the train tracks, disposing of her husband’s body. I sit down on the sofa this time, hardly aware of what I’m doing. I’m on the other end, not close to him. Everything is perfectly innocent, appropriate, explicable. If Bill and Gracie were to come in at this moment they would be a little surprised, but there’s no mystery. After all, Gracie even knows this boy. He’s just finished shoveling our back walk. He’s tired, he’s sweating. I offered him cocoa and he wanted to watch Double Indemnity. I haven’t even been here the whole time, Connor can attest to that. I disappeared for at least twenty minutes, washing those cups until they were as clean as they had ever been, as clean as anything could possibly be. It’s all right. There’s nothing wrong here.

  The movie plays. After a while Connor says, “Ms. Straw, can I go to the bathroom?”

  I smile. “Sure.” I take the remote, pause the film, point. “It’s up the hall on your left.”

  “Thanks!”

  He gets up, moves quickly to the bathroom. The door closes. I don’t listen, I try not to listen, but I can’t help but hear, faintly, the sound of the lid being raised, the rustling of clothing, the liquid sound of his urinating. Then clothes again, flush, the sound of the faucet. Good boy, I think. He washes his hands.

  He reappears, smiling, and drops down where he was on the sofa. As he sits I smile and take up the remote, simultaneously sliding closer to him. He doesn’t
seem to notice as the movie begins running again. I watch him instead of the screen, watch his bright eyes, his lips, the supple curve of his neck. I force myself to look at the film, a film which has never seemed so dull, so utterly irrelevant. As the movie nears its end I suddenly find that my hand is on Connor’s hair, smoothing it, stroking it so gently that it’s possible he hasn’t even noticed.

  When the film finishes he sits there unmoving, still staring at the screen which is now blank except for a bright blue glow. My hand hasn’t left his hair. If he wasn’t aware of it before, he is now. My fingers move outside my own control. I’m unable to stop them as they drop to his neck, gentle touches of the sort you’d offer to a small, frightened bird. The fingers move to his cute little ear, run softly around its edge. They move to his temple, his nose, across his lips.

  “What are you doing?” he says finally, in a quiet little voice.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  We sit there, my fingers moving over his hair and face for a long time.

  “I have to go home,” he says finally.

  “Okay, Connor. If you want.” I smile at him.

  But he doesn’t move. Neither does he look at me. He simply stares at the blue screen.

  After several minutes he says again, “I have to go home.”

  “Okay.” My fingers don’t stop. They can’t. I’m where I want to be, where I need to be, for the first time since I can remember. I want to be nowhere else, with no one else.

  My hand finally moves down to his, covers it. I squeeze it gently, hold it. I turn it palm up and our fingers intermingle. He glances at our hands entwined, looks back up at the TV.

  “I—” he starts to say. “I have…to go…home.”

  I think: You are home, Connor. But I don’t say it. I lean to him, kiss him softly on his flushed cheek. He sucks in his breath. I can see the outlines of an erection pressing against his blue jeans.

  Finally the sound of Bill’s car pulling up in the driveway. I break away, drop his hand. I stand, listening as Gracie’s voice comes over the sound of cars doors closing: “You shouldn’t do that!” she shouts. She’s laughing. So is Bill.