Son of Destruction

46




Both


Wham!

Walker jumps. This is what you get for drifting.

Someone’s banging on the roof of his car.

‘What,’ Walker shouts. ‘What?’

It’s the kid.

It’s Dan Carteret, with his angry mouth squared like the door to an open furnace and his eyes peeled stone naked, wider than Pop’s, glaring in at him. He rocks the car, shouting at Walker through the glass: ‘WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?’

Shit, Walker thinks, I guess this is what I saw coming. Sighing, he rolls down the window. ‘No real reason, son,’ he says evenly, although he has damn good reasons.

‘Don’t call me son!’

‘I’m sorry.’ Anything to talk him down. ‘Quiet. He’s sleeping in there.’

‘I know. I know!’

‘You don’t want to wake him up.’

‘The f*ck I don’t!’

‘Shut up, will you? Shut up!’

Dan grabs the door handle, shaking it violently. ‘Get out of the f*cking car!’ He kicks the door with each word.

With Walker unshelled, his son starts pounding on him instead of the car, livid, and yelling so loud that the commotion sets off Kalen’s automatic burglar lights. Suddenly the driveway is brighter than day. ‘What the f*ck,’ he shouts, blinded by the glare. ‘What the f*cking f*ck?’

Walker takes advantage of the distraction and grabs the kid, holding him at arm’s length to make him stop hurting himself. Not only are his eyes peeled wider than Pop’s, they are the exact same cobalt as Pop’s eyes and Walker’s eyes, and the set of the brows, the whorl of hair at the top of his head, everything – even the line of that jaw – signifies that this crazed, out-there guy directly related to Walker can do more damage than he knows.

Straight-armed by Walker Pike, he digs his fingers into Walker’s forearm. ‘Let go.’ Wild, he is shouting loud enough to wake the dead-drunk.

‘Shhh, honey.’

‘I said, let go!’

‘Shut up,’ Walker says in a level tone, ‘shut up, if you don’t want the cops.’ He has been following this boy it seems like forever, frightened and proud and dubious and hungering for a glimpse, a moment in which he knows and the kid knows. For the first time since this thing started they are close enough for Walker to see him plain. Certain now, stricken and joyful, Walker lets go. He looks like me.

The kid’s eyes fly even wider.

Walker is used to dissembling. He covers quickly. ‘Keep it down or Brad will . . .’

‘You mean Kalen.’ Astounded, Dan softens. He looks like me. All those years looking for the truth in a mirror and here is the man he was looking for, blood and bone, spit and image. Right now, it’s too stupendous to process. Like Walker, he has grown up vigilant. Schooled in protecting himself. ‘Yeah. That’s who I’m looking for.’

‘He’s usually passed out stone drunk at this hour.’

Walker should know. He drove back to Fort Jude years after the fact, grieving for his life and bent on satisfaction. He sat in front of the Kalen house, considering. What he is: the son of destruction. What happened to the old lady was a mystery. If he caused the fire, it was accidental. Unless. He hated her, but he walked away. He walked away and she caught fire anyway. What would he become if he knowingly torched the slouching monster he’s hated ever since that night? He tries too hard to sound easy, adding, ‘Dead drunk and senseless.’

‘I heard.’

‘He usually is,’ Walker says easily, trying to discourage this kid who is by no means a kid. He must be thirty now. Lucy’s baby is a grown man, older than Walker was when he lost them both. No. Loved, wanted to keep, but for their own peace and safety, let them go. Don’t. You’re too strong to go there now. ‘You better be glad he’s put himself away, so he’s no threat to the population. He’d be out here charging us with his SUV.’

Not Walker’s fault the kid is struggling with this. All of it. Frustrated and raging. ‘F*ck that shit!’ Pulling free of Walker he wheels, shouting loud enough to wake the dead but not the dead drunk. ‘Come on out here, a*shole. I know what you did to my mother.’

‘He’s beyond hearing you now.’

The next thing Dan says overturns him. He turns back to Walker so fast that pain smears his face. ‘Well, so is she!’

Walker staggers.

Reflexively, Dan reaches out to steady him. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Tears start in the stranger’s eyes, but the desperate man Dan found here in the dark is no stranger. Where he had been struggling, Daniel Ames Carteret comes to a full stop.

My God, he really does look like me.

There is so much to say, so much to tell and so much to ask boiling up in him that he can’t breathe. For the first time in his life, he’s flat out of words. All he can come back with is that name. It comes out like a sob. ‘Lorna Archambault.’ What is he trying to do, repel all boarders with his lame cover story? Get this man who looks like me to reassure him, tell him the old woman is no kin? ‘F*cking Lorna Archambault.’

Walker doesn’t want the kid to know who he is or what he is – what his son may, under pressure, become. He shouldn’t, he can’t, but at bottom he does want the kid to know and it’s killing him. He doesn’t know whether to unburden himself or deny everything, but he will not let Dan Carteret see him crying. ‘Yes. Lucy’s grandmother.’

The next thing comes out of his son in a great rush of air – is it a sigh of relief or an agonized groan? Walker can’t tell. ‘She got on fire.’

‘You’re Dan Carteret,’ Walker says. ‘Lucy’s son.’

Dan dips his head in acknowledgement. ‘Lucy’s son.’

‘I’m Walker Pike.’ It’s as close as they will get to the Father! Son! moment.

Words boil out of his son. ‘He has to pay for what he did to her.’

Walker says, ‘I know.’

‘I’ll make him pay. He has to pay.’

‘No!’ It’s all coming in on Walker, whole and fully realized: what happened back then and why he thinks it happened, the scream of rage that overflowed the old woman’s bedroom; it could have been hers; the anger flickering between them, what his anger did to her . . .

Or what he thought it did to her.

He will not pass this burden on! Walker is frightened not for himself or for Brad Kalen but for Dan Carteret, the son of destruction. He will not have it! He grips his son’s arm, profoundly moved by the contact after all these years. Walker wants to keep him here, he wants to sit with him, talk and keep talking until certain things are understood between them but all he can do now is what he has to do. He starts moving Lucy’s son – their son – back to his car and he keeps pushing in spite of the fact that Dan digs in his heels, resisting every step of the way. Walker says through tightly locked teeth, ‘Now, leave.’

‘No!’

‘I mean it. You can’t be here.’

Naturally he’s struggling. This is Walker’s flesh and blood! ‘Not until I . . .’

Swift and urgent, Walker backs him up against the rental car. ‘You have to go.’

‘But this dirty, f*cking . . .’

‘Go,’ Walker says firmly, forcing his will on his son without being able to explain why this is essential. Central to both of them. ‘Leave it to me.’

‘No way.’ Anger makes Dan incoherent. ‘That f*cking bastard f*cking hurt her and I’ll make him pay. He wrecked her life! I have to . . .’

He shoves Dan backward, into the car. ‘No, I do.’

‘But the bastard, bastard . . .’

‘I’ll take care of it.’ Here is Walker Pike, the most father he will ever be, speaking to the only living person he loves, and he does love Dan Carteret in ways he will reflect on from now until his death: Walker Pike, sending his only son away. A light goes on inside the house. Walker closes the car door on him. ‘Now, go.’

Sure and gentle as Lucy, his father thumps him between the shoulder blades. Dan backs sags, but he can’t give up. Quite. ‘Wait.’ Torn, he cries from the gut, ‘Wait!’

Everything Walker is thinking and everything he is afraid of rushes into his face. Words pile up, but they stay locked inside. Then Kalen’s front door opens and Walker slaps the car door like a NASCAR starter, dispatching everything in the world that he cares about, sending it away with an order that will not be defied because Walker Pike is taut with urgency, his mouth an open grate, the air bright with his soul blazing. ‘Just go.’

Dan dips his head in acknowledgement. That’s all.

Later that night Kalen’s bedroom window will bloom for no known reason, and not for long enough to cast any light on the deserted street.