Are You There and Other Stories Read Online Free Page B

filth, sat down. He unrolled the comic book and opened it again to the first page. His father’s initials were barely visible in the cold glow of the street lamp. The Shadow . His dad had been a collector, but not like the fat man in the Midtown Hotel. As a small child, Norman had longed to be a hero. A mysterious one, of course. Striking down Evil and injustice wherever he encountered it. Instead Evil struck down his own father. MIA. No one knew how he died. In Norman’s mind the death wasn’t real, not like Mona’s bloody end. He had seen Mona die. Years later Norman read a Life Magazine article about American G.I.s who had defected to the North. He knew his father hadn’t done that, he knew it. But the idea grew bitter roots in him, from a seed planted by Steve.
    Plenty of guys defected, kid. They were scared, and they loved their chicken asses more than they loved their country. I’m not sayin’ that’s your old man for certain. Hell, Bernie seemed like a decent guy. But there’s plenty of guys living up there north of the dmz with gook wives that left more than their country behind. All I’m saying is, I never saw Bernie go down. All I saw was him running.
    *
    When Steve kissed Norman’s mother he liked to squeeze her ass. The first time Norman witnessed this he almost started crying. Almost. Even then, at age eight, he was past crying about anything. It stuck in his head, though. Steve’s big ape’s paw grabbing a handful of his mother’s ass, the way her housedress bunched up. And Steve looked right at Norman, letting the kid know who owned what in that house. Who was boss. It was the comic burning thing all over again, but worse.
    *
    Norman wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. The buildings leaned and twisted over the sidewalk. Brassy jazz issued from nightclub doorways. Mutated simulacrums of vintage Detroit steel rounded city blocks, headlights aimed at unaligned angles, as if searching for something. A girl screamed his name, and Norman stopped. He squinted, listening. Scout looked up at him.
    “Was that real?” Norman asked.
    “The girl? Absolutely.”
    “Where—”
    “What am I, your guide dog?”
    “ Where?”
    “Okay, okay. Sheesh. Follow me.”
    Scout turned and trotted back to the last nightclub they’d passed, Norman stepping quickly after her. Red neon tubing pretzeled into a symbol unrecognizable to Norman. A black man of sumo proportions lounged in the doorway with his arms crossed. He wore a leather vest and small, round, perfectly black sunglasses.
    “Yeah?” he said.
    The girl screamed again. She screamed, and Norman knew who she was.
    First love.
    He started to go inside, but the bouncer or whatever he was stepped in front of him.
    “You aren’t on the list.”
    “What the hell’s going on in there?”
    “Nothing of interest to you.” The bouncer dropped a huge hand on Norman’s shoulder and squeezed, not too hard, but hard enough to indicate it wasn’t a friendly gesture.
    Norman slugged him.
    It was a reflex, and his rage was behind it, and it surprised him as much as it surprised the bouncer, who fell back clutching at his gut. His face clenched in an ugly knot. He started to reach out, and Norman side-kicked his knee. The bouncer hit the ground and did not bounce. Norman stepped over him. Scout followed at his heels, thought-projecting:
    “Nice work.”
    The interior of the club was dark. Smoke layered the air in noxious strata. It wasn’t all cigarette smoke, either. The trio on stage were smoldering, the trumpet player in particular. Or was it a quartet? The chanteuse in a black dress lay sprawled at the front of the stage, and she was the smokiest of them all, like a thing burned out of the sky by lasers. Norman pushed forward between the crowded tables. When he got closer he saw that the chanteuse was just a kid, a teenager. In fact she was the girl he used to hold hands with in high school. Connie.
    Somebody grabbed his arm and yanked him