Lost Between Houses Read Free

in the parking lot for his father to pick him up. He looked sort of forlorn out there, tapping his school bag with his foot, killing time, like a guy who didn’t have anythingto look forward to, and I felt a sort of wave of sympathy for him.
    “Hey George!” I hollered. He stopped kicking his bag and waited for me to get there. He even stuck his hands in his pockets like he was a bit uncomfortable. I went right up to him. “Hey man, do you want to come to my party?”
    And guess what he said?
    I’m telling you, for awhile there, it was like being mayor of the city.
    A few days later, we went to visit the old man in the Clinic. It was set in a pretty enough spot, if you like that sort of thing, about a half-hour outside the city. Me, it always makes me nervous leaving town. I always feel like I might be missing something. Call it a hole in my personality, whatever, I just don’t care for all that empty space and nobody around. Harper was supposed to come too but he pooped out at the last minute; said he had cricket practice. Right.
    Anyway, this place was a grand old mansion in the country. Even the physical whereabouts seemed subdued, like somebody had told the birds to shut the fuck up, didn’t they realize the gravity of the situation, all these rich folks going nuts, trying to kill their wives and drinking antifreeze. Or freaking out about money and hitting the sauce, like my dad.
    As usual, Mother went in to see him first. I waited outside in the hall. I was watching this old Cleopatra clanking around the halls in her jewellery and smoking a cigarette in a long black holder. She was pretty friendly actually. Very chatty. Probably a drunk, I figured, and her kids stuck her here because she was just too much to have around. I mean fifteen minutes was fine but I can’t imagine having that coming at you in the kitchen at eight o’clock in the morning. I mean that’s the thing aboutcrazy people: they’ve got so much energy, they’re always up to something, projects, realignments, that kind of thing. She didn’t dawdle either, this one, told me she had to speak to a doctor about something going on in France.
    Ten minutes went by; not a sound from my dad’s room, not a peep, I didn’t know what they were doing in there but I started to get self-conscious, the nurses looking at me as they went by. So I went wandering around the halls. There was lots of sunlight streaming in, canned music, all very
up.
But when I turned the corner, I heard a groan coming from behind a door, a really awful, end-of-the-world groan, like only a crazy person who didn’t care what anybody thought of them would make. It was so raw, like watching an animal being born and it scared the bejesus out of me. I hurried back to my dad’s room. I didn’t wait, nothing, I just burst in the door.
    My mother was sitting on the bed, holding his hand, and I heard him say, “I just don’t have the confidence any more.” Then he saw me standing there and this expression of impatience and irritation came over his face. He just closed right up.
    “Just a minute,” he said, like I was a moron, like I’d turned up at a wedding with jam and cat hair all over my face. “Your mother will be right there.”
    I went back out into the hall, considerably offended. When I get pissed off like that, I get this sensation in my body, a sort of metallic hollowness, and I can’t get rid of it unless I complain about it to the person who made me feel like that. But with my dad—he was from the old school, in case I haven’t mentioned it—he didn’t figure it was my place to talk back. So you never really got to have it out with him. It just left you sick with rage and planning to stick him with a pitchfork.
    I glared at a nurse who looked at me. Even my posturechanged. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. It felt sort of familiar. Then I remembered why. It was the way I stood in the hall when I got kicked out of class for being an asshole. Same