The Pagan House. David Flusfeder

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      ‘In your face. Watch me and weep, you suckers.’

      ‘I want my quarter back,’ Edgar said.

      Someone else had come into the pizza parlour, another enormous boy—they grow them big here—closer in age to the hoodlums than to Edgar. He carried himself awkwardly, as if he was making a perpetual apology for his size, the fluff of his incipient beard, the cleanness of his jeans and the T-shirt he wore over his sweatshirt, the pimples across his broad Scandinavian forehead.

      ‘Now look what you done made me do! Lost the fuckin’ ball!’

      Edgar wished the gang’s inattention back. The sight of them all staring at him was not a comfortable one. He had met their type before, in London, brutalists, torturers of boys and beasts; they immediately went to the top of his list of suspects. He hoped the bulky stranger would intervene. Maybe their attention would turn to him.

      ‘I want my quarter back. You took my quarter. I want it back.’

      He had established his position. There was no turning back. So this was how he was destined to die, friendless and forsaken in a pizza parlour in Creek. He supposed even his mother wouldn’t be able to recognize his battered remains after they had been dredged out of the river. No, no. That’s not him. That’s not my son. It can’t be!

      I’m afraid there’s no mistake, ma’am. Dental records and DNA and suchlike prove it. That’s your boy, or what they left of him. Just for God’s sake get that, that thing into the ground quick, the sight of it is making decent men weep.

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘I didn’t hear him. You hear him?’

      ‘I don’t think he spoke. Did he speak?’

      ‘You must have heard. He’s got a really funny voice.’

      ‘Did you speak, kid?’

      ‘My name’s Edgar.’

      It was the first time his secret name had been spoken in public, and how he hoped it had the magic it promised.

      ‘What? What he say?’

      ‘He says his name’s Edgar.’

      ‘He’s got balls.’

      ‘Where you from, Edgar?’

      ‘Are you British, Edgar?’

      ‘Have you got balls, Edgar?’

      ‘He’s got balls. Edgar’s got balls.’

      ‘I thought the British were famous for having no balls.’

      ‘You got balls, Edgar?’

      ‘He’s not talking now.’

      ‘I don’t think he talked before.’

      ‘If you’ve got balls, Edgar, I think you’re gonna have to prove you got balls.’

      ‘You going to show us your balls, Edgar?’

      ‘He might be leaving.’

      ‘I think Edgar’s leaving. Are you leaving, Edgar? You didn’t say anything and now you’re leaving and we’re not going to see you again? Give Edgar some room. I think he’s leaving.’

      ‘I want my quarter back.’

      Edgar had gone beyond being astounded by his own behaviour. He was reconciled to it now and fixed to his path and would take it to its inevitable violent end.

      ‘Did Edgar say something?’

      ‘I think he’s definitely got balls.’

      ‘Almost definitely.’

      ‘I think Edgar talks too much.’

      ‘I like how he talks, though. I warnt my quharrrrtarr. It’s funny.’

      ‘Edgar’s talking is going to get him into trouble one day.’

      ‘He’s in trouble now.’

      ‘Let’s see his balls,’ said the weasel, trying to incite his more powerful friends.

      ‘You took my quarter. I want it back.’

      They were about sixteen or seventeen years old and they had muscles that were streaked with motorcycle and pizza grease and they wore tufts of hair on the chins of their hard, unforgiving faces, and he was almost thirteen and lightweight and maybe they’d go easier on him because of that. He wasn’t reassured by the affectionate way they were sneering at him. He had seen enough playground massacres to know that the bully loves his victim.

      ‘Give him a quarter, Ray.’

      ‘Wha’? Why me?’ whined the weasel. ‘I don’t have a quarter.’

      Sky cuffed Ray on the side of the head and kept hitting him until he pulled out a quarter.

      ‘Shit,’ said Ray, enviously. He flipped the quarter to Edgar, who predictably dropped it. He didn’t suffer the kicks to the head he was expecting as he retrieved it from the grease-spattered red lino floor.

      His new name had proved itself, and this was a good transaction, his father’s coin exchanged for the currency of the community.

      ‘Okay,’ he said.

      The pinball machine sparked back into life.

      ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

      He was ignored. They clustered around the machine again. Sky pulled back the plunger to propel the ball, but was interrupted by the stranger saying, ‘Hi,’ and Edgar—shocked at his own malice and ignobility of nature—hoped to see the bad intentions going his way.

      ‘Hey Marvin.’

      ‘Husky! What’s up.’

      ‘Guys.’

      Sky released the plunger and headed for the back room, with the others following, the ball jittering and pinging, it and the machine and Edgar ignored. He braved himself to leap in to play the rest of the game, as the band clattered back into action with the same mistimed vigour of delivery, but they had a vocalist now, Marvin, he guessed, who sang in a beautiful and reckless low voice that Edgar hated him for possessing.

      When Edgar returned to the house, hoping to get to his bedroom, to collapse into solitary consolation, Warren called him into the kitchen, where he was emptying the dishwasher. Warren peeled off the black rubber gloves he wore for the performance of domestic tasks. His hands were, Edgar inconsequentially noticed, slightly paler than his arms.

      ‘You missed your dad.’

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘Your СКАЧАТЬ