Page 4 of The House on Haven Way

“I... I... Oh, God.”

Sweat is forming on my face like I’ve been running in the rain. The pain that seizes me is sudden, sharp, and worse than when I got a bullet in the shin. It wasn’t much of a wound, but it hurt, damn it. This is worse.

This is worse, and Harry’s a doctor, or close enough.

“You’re not okay. Maybe you oughta call this off, Johnny. You look sick. Real pale.”

“Call off what? Tonight?” I groan.

“Tonight. Everything. Nancy deserves someone who loves her, all out.”

“Who says I don’t?” I demand—and then I have to turn to the sink and heave my guts up.

“Something you ate?” Harry asks, standing next to me. His face is still closed over.

I almost tell him that he’s the medic. He should check me.

But something stops me. The way he’s acting.

Pieces fit together fast and frighteningly. Harry doesn’t want me to propose to Nancy. He wants her for himself. He slipped me something. He slipped me something from the hospital dispensary, probably put it in my drink while my back was turned to keep me from proposing to Nancy tonight.

He slipped something into the beers we just drank, or maybe into the water I poured while I was getting the ziti out.

That snake. What kind of a dirty trick is that?

He needs to leave.

“Go, Harry. I’ll call Nancy and tell her it’s off for tonight.” No, I won’t, but I want him to think that before he can punch me while I’m doubled over. I see now that he’s no fair fighter.

“Okay. Okay, but—”

With the last of my strength, I push Harry out of the kitchen door and watch him stumble out of the house. He catches himself on the hedge, staggers, straightens up, and just stares at me. He doesn’t move for a long time.

When he does, I knock over half the glasses in the cupboard, pushing past the aspirin and Bisma Fizz, past the bandages and Mercurochrome, all stocked by Mama when she came to see me in July.

Ipecac. The little brown glass bottle stares at me from the dark interior, an amber savior. I unscrew the black cap and swallow half of the bottle and wait for the vomiting to pull all the poison out of my system.

As soon as I’m better—I’m gonna beat the shit out of Harry Rogers.

I didn’t get better.

I threw up everything I’d eaten that day. Felt like I was throwing up crud I’d eaten back in Brooklyn, for God’s sake.

September 17th, 1954

The pain got worse. And the world got blurry. Then very bright, very sharp, and very empty.

The next day, they must have taken my body out of the house at night, because I remember hovering above it—and then it wasn’t there anymore. Everything was a blur.

I know figures were there, but I wasn’t “there” with them. I was in the empty place, trying to figure out what was happening.

By the time I was back to some sort of sense of time and place, “I” was gone.

The police never came. Nancy never came.

My brothers came. Cleaned out a lot of my things. Left some furniture. Didn’t talk much. All three of them cried when they thought the other two weren’t looking. I couldn’t even figure out how to talk to them.

Gave Pop my car, or said they would.