excerpt
Dessert devoured, the dishes stacked in the sink, my mother ignited
a DuMaurier, leaned back in her chair and exhaled.
– You’ll never believe, she said, what happened next . . .
The social worker Lois Daniels went to the front door and gestured
to a man behind the wheel of a car. He took up a position on
the boulevard.
– He looked like a secret service agent or something, my mother
editorialized. Sunglasses and everything.
– It takes one to know one, Dad snorted.
Mrs. Rhodes knocked on Fender’s bedroom door.
– They’re here, sweetness.
The boy could be heard shuffling around inside.
– The place has a billiards table, Fender, Mom said. You can play
all day.
They took turns listening at the door. Mrs. Rhodes, Lois Daniels,
then Mom. The radio was playing a Beatles tune; the boy hummed
along.
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh . . .
They went outside to talk over their next move. Lois Daniels consulted
with the spook, who retrieved a ladder from the side of the
house. He climbed to Fender’s second-floor window and peered
inside.
– Well? Lois Daniels asked.
Mom interrupted the narrative to fire a volley of smoke rings
across the kitchen. Through the haze I could see the despair set like
floor tiles in Mrs. Rhodes’ troubled face.
– The kid’s gone, the spook said. Door’s open.
The four of them raced to the rear of the house. They looked under
the porch and searched the shed. Lois Daniels poked the long grass
pushing up through the fence, a border guard sniffing out illegals.
The spook shook the apple tree.
–He seemed disappointed,Momsaid. Like he expected Fender to
fall to the ground like a piece of fruit.
Mrs. Rhodes climbed the back stairs and beckoned her son home.
To those who lived nearby her cry had become as familiar a sound as
the passing of the afternoon freight train.
– Fen-der! Fen-der!
They heard the moan of a distempered canine, the howl of a hungry…
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 