Stars Screaming Read Free Page A

now?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine. Selling insurance. I don’t know,” she said and paused. “Maybe he’s dead.”
    “Maybe he is, but maybe he’s listening right now. I know this is a long shot,” Radio Ray said, “but if you’re out there listening, Donnie Randolph—”
    “My name’s Margerie Willis,” the woman said, her voice brightening. “Warner Avenue Elementary, class of ‘forty-seven. I hope he remembers me.”
    “I hope so too.”
    A few minutes later a woman with a southern accent told Radio Ray that she once knew a boy named Donnie in Gulfport, Mississippi, thetown where she was raised. “But we used to call him Wonderhead, ‘cause his bucket was shaped like a loaf of bread. Get it? Wonderhead, Wonder bread.”
    Laughing, Radio Ray said, “Was his last name Randolph?”
    “His name was Donnie. That and his big-ass head is all I can remember.”
    After a station break and a commercial for a weight reduction powder imported from Canada, Radio Ray took a call from a man who said he was using the pay phone outside the Vogue Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
    “My name is John Beal,” he told Radio Ray, “and I’m from Omaha, Nebraska. You familiar with Omaha, Ray?”
    “As a matter of fact I am, John Beal. I worked at KKOW back in the summer of ‘fifty-two.”
    “I was nineteen years old that summer,” John Beal said.
    Out loud, Burk said, “Gene was twelve and I just turned ten.”
    “I stayed at the Hotel Sherwood,” said Radio Ray, “right up the street from the Greyhound station.”
    “I rode the dog a few times,” John Beal said.
    “It’s a good way to travel across America. Cheap, too.”
    “Ray, did you ever eat at Chloe’s?”
    “Many times.”
    “I used to bake their pies,” John Beal said proudly.
    “I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, John. But I sure remember that meat loaf.”
    “Shoulda tried the pies. Then we would have something to talk about,” John Beal said, and the line went dead.
    Burk put his hand on the receiver and left it there for several seconds before he dialed.
    “Last call,” Radio Ray said with a regretful sigh. “You’re on the air.”
    “When I was ten years old I didn’t make Little League,” Burk said, hearing the bed groan slightly as he stood up and moved the phone into the bathroom. “Neither did my older brother, Gene. The coach told my dad I took my eye off the ball and my arm was too weak. He said Gene was too slow. But Ricky Furlong made it,” he said, and his voice began to quaver. “He lived across the street, and we all tried out together. And when we drove home that day, he was in front withmy dad . . . and me and Gene were in back. I didn’t feel that was right. I felt we should’ve been up there with him, no matter how bad we did.”
    “What about your mom?”
    “She was gone. She left my dad when I was eight. She wasn’t around for anything.”
    “That’s tough,” Radio Ray said. “I’m sorry.”
    Burk grimaced. “Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding hurt, “so am I.”
    After Burk came back to bed, Sandra tried to maneuver herself into his arms, but his shoulders tensed and he rolled out of her embrace.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked him.
    “I’m not in the mood.”
    “Well, I am.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Sandra let her hand slip between her thighs. Burk said, “Don’t, please.”
    “Why not?”
    “Let’s talk.”
    “No. I don’t want to talk,” she said, and Burk could feel the bed move.
    “Stop it,” Burk hissed.
    “Then fuck me!”
    “No,” Burk said loudly. Then, in the dark, he saw his son move slowly into the bedroom. “Louie? What’s wrong?”
    “I’m scared.”
    “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Sandra said, sitting up. “Go back to sleep.”
    “I heard noises.”
    “You were just imagining.”
    “No.”
    Burk said, “He was hearing us. We were loud. Weren’t you, honey?”
    Louie shook his head. “Outside,” he said, pointing. “I heard noises