The Sitter Read online

  “Hey, little guy,” Larry murmurs, smiling.

  “Miss Canton said he's been doing this off and on pretty much the whole day, so I picked him up a little early,” Steven says, looking at me.

  “Why didn't she call?” I ask.

  And, why didn't you call to tell me you would be early?

  As gently as I can, I take Kevin from his father and hold him close. Away from Larry. I am so sorry I hadn't insisted on keeping him home with me.

  “She almost did, I guess,” Steven says. “She kept thinking he'd cry himself out of it and be okay.”

  Kevin is wriggling in my arms, pushing against me. He is trying to turn his head so he can see Larry.

  I sigh, well aware that I've lost this round. I lower Kevin to the floor, where he is scooped up by an eager Larry

  “How ya been, Kiddo?” He asks, hiking the little boy up higher so they are eye to eye. Kevin gives him a little smile as the tears on his face begin to dry.

  *****

  So, Sport, how did it feel when your breath turned to water? When all you knew was that life-sucking water?

  Larry remembered hearing somewhere that drowning was an easy way to go, once you stopped fighting it. All you had to do was open your mouth and take in a deep breath, and it was over.

  Was that how it was for you, Stevie?

  In bed Larry lay on his side and stared out the small window in his room, listening to the hot wind blowing through the scrub oak trees in the back yard. He couldn't keep his eyes closed: they kept fluttering open. He heard his mother shuffling down the hall to her room. She bumped his door slightly as she passed, then paused. Eyes squeezed shut, Larry held his breath. Don't come in--chrissak--Please... He wasn't up for one of those mother-son chats she was always so hot for. With his hands clenched into fists at his sides, he held himself motionless. Larry felt the beginning throb of another headache.

  “Larry-Sweetie?”

  He had a chair braced against the door, its back wedged under the door knob. But if Catherine tried to come in, she'd know about the chair, and then he'd have to explain--make up some story--on and on. Every time he put a lock on the door, his mother would take it off, 'What if you pass out? What if there's a fire and I can't wake you?'

  But he heard her start off again to her room, bumping into the sides of the hallway as she went. Bombed again. It was after 11:00, and by this time of night she was usually out of her head. A shame she didn't just pass out, but he knew from sad experience she was just about two minutes away from the adjoining bathroom and another of her endless nocturnal soaks. It was a race every night to see if he could fall asleep before she started her noisy, nightly tub. And every night he lost.

  Yeah, there she was. He heard her clearly through the paper thin wall, heard the water splash grudgingly into the tub. He tossed the sheet off and swung his feet to the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed, raking his fingers through his thick hair. The glowing clock on his bedside table read 11:13. Didn't matter what time he hit the sack, or how much booze she put away. Nope. Catherine always went to bed later than he did--it was probably a point of pride with her. There was no way to sleep with her in that bathroom. So close...always too close. He put a hand to his eyes, fingers at his temples, rubbing.

  “A little rest,” he pleaded softly to a God he knew wasn't there. “I want the fog in my head to go away.” And, the headaches. They came all too often these days, always just behind his right eye.

  The game was on now, and there was so much he needed to do. But, he had to have a clear head. He fumbled with the pole lamp near his bed and turned on one of the lamps, training it on the ceiling. He shook a Marlboro from the pack on his bedside table and lit it. Sucking the acrid smoke deep, he began to feel better. He gazed at the new desk he'd just bought himself for his seventeenth birthday, and felt better still.

  It was beautiful. Raw, unfinished pine, a put-it-together-yourself computer station in three levels. All those cool cubby holes and shelves--plus two drawers--it was a kick-ass piece. Too big for the room and he had no computer, but hell, it looked real good and it held a lot of stuff. And, best of all, it was truly his. Larry had picked it out, paid for it and put it together, all on his own.

  He pulled on a clean pair of black jockeys, took his cigarette and a battered tin ash tray, and settled himself on the stool in front of his desk. Taking another drag, he looked over his small domain. Living in Pine Flats all his life, Larry had never been in a fine home like the Connors' until he'd begun sitting for them about two years ago. The difference between his house and theirs had been fiercely depressing.

  He would always remember the day he first walked into the Connor living room. Never had he been in a room so beautiful. It was all golden, like Jeannie herself. The walls were butter colored with huge windows, and the sun streamed in through open wooden shutters and warmed the room. The furniture had seemed outsized to him, the chairs upholstered in browns and gold, the rugs and some of the cushions were in quiet floral patterns. The room dazzled him. He felt clumsy, a foreigner in a strange and painfully lovely place.

  Larry remembered too, the first time he saw Stevie's room. It had been a sledgehammer to his gut. A big room with toys everywhere, the latest stuff Larry had only seen advertised on TV--never in real life. Everything a guy could want. A collection of toy soldiers, model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, stuffed animals on the bed that had a thick fluffy quilt on it and lots of pillows, on and on. Bookshelves with lots of books, and sports stuff, a basketball, a soccer ball, bats and mitts--Larry was dizzy just taking it all in. Stevie had all that and Jeannie and the old man for parents! After seeing that room, he had been depressed for weeks.

  But that was a long time ago. Little by little Larry made some changes in his own room, the only area in his house he had any say over. He liked the new red throw rug he'd placed right where his feet hit the floor every morning. And, it almost matched the faded red spread he kept folded neatly at the foot of his bed. He liked the black pole lamp too, because with its three lamps he could change the lighting to suit his mood.

  On the beige stucco walls he put magazine pictures of rich people's homes. Interiors, exteriors, gardens, spreads from ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST and similar publications--whatever he could lift from the library.

  Snapshots of the Connor family occupied the central place of honor, along with several drawings he had made of Jeannie Connor. He loved the drawings and thought they were good. Near them were three photos of Larry playing tennis on the Pine Flats high school team and two action shots of Andre Agassi. Larry's Nike Prince racquet hung neatly from a bracket under the pictures.

  He took a final drag and ground the cigarette out into the ash tray. He straightened the newspaper on the desk, lining its edges up with the edges of the desk-top. Larry saw a stray paper clip and put it carefully into its container.

  In the bathroom Catherine finally shut off the water, and he heard her grunt as she lowered her body into the tub. He hated that sound and began to chew on the inside of his right cheek.

  Reaching into one of the cubbyholes in his desk, he pulled out the rest of the snapshots he'd taken of the Connors. They were mostly out of focus; he didn't know why he was hanging onto them. There was a very good one though, of the whole family standing together on the Connor's terrace. Larry thought he might frame that one. Steven looked like a movie star, squinting into the sun like the Marlboro Man, while Jeannie smiled and her white-blonde hair made a golden halo around her face. Kevin was grinning and Stevie was giving the camera that wimpy, crooked smile of his. It didn't take a genius to know that Stevie was--had been--his father's favorite. First born and all that shit; but they looked alike too. Larry thought Stevie probably looked like his dad had looked as a young kid.

  He pulled a small collapsible mirror out of a drawer. He set it up and put a crooked smile on his face as he examined his image in the half light reflected off the ceiling. Larry held the picture up next to his face and tried on a squint. No
t bad. Plenty of similarities. Heavy black brows over dark, almost black eyes with lots of lashes. Ruddy cheeks, just like Steven. Larry knew he looked like a Connor. A little dangerous too, he thought, with that faint masculine smudge of hair on his jaw lately--happy as hell to see that. The old man's jaws were always in rugged shadow, like those square-chinned superheroes in comic books.

  Larry had something Steven didn't, though. A thin white scar from a fall he took when he was twelve. It kind of glimmered there on his tanned forehead. He remembered how he'd worked with that mark. He had worried it with his Swiss Army Knife and made it deeper. It slanted down his forehead and joined up with his solitary frown line and gave him a handsome, kind of scary look.

  Fuck, what was that on his shoulders? Hair? Was that hair? Strands of wiry black hair had somehow sprouted up on his shoulders. Was that a good look like the hair coming in on his chest, or was it creepy and weird? Larry didn't know. Lots of stuff like that he didn't know, and it bugged the hell out of him. The guy in the mirror looked like he knew everything. Fact was, though, his insides didn't match up with his outsides. Especially now with that headache gnawing away behind his right eye.

  “You, Stevie--little fucker,” he whispered, “all you had to do when you didn't know something was ask the old man.” He sneered into the mirror, picturing that dumb-lucky Stevie. “Yeah well, maybe not so lucky after all.”

  How did it feel, Stevie?

  Through the bathroom wall, Larry heard his mother give an underwater fart. So crude, it was like she took lessons. As he looked at the picture again, the Connor family so happy and all, he felt the headache pain surge farther up into his head. He heard his mother fart again.

  It isn't fair...I'm in the wrong family!

  Larry pushed the heel of his hand into the slight depression at his right temple, but the pain, throbbing now, stayed. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as the pain began to creep down the right side of his face. He wanted to use his nails, wanted to dig into himself right where the pain was...but he held off. Because he knew exactly what was needed; he knew how to get rid of the pain.

  Pulling out the bottom drawer of his desk, Larry lifted out several more drawings of Jeannie. Using photos from PLAYBOY as a guide, he had copied a few of the poses, putting her face on the sexy, naked bodies. It gave him a delicious charge to see what looked like Jeannie's naked body.

  His head was pounding now as he reached for the worn PLAYBOY he'd stashed deep in the drawer and opened it hurriedly. To the place. And there she was. Incredible breasts with gigantic nipples; her huge white hips and thighs rose up at him...bronze pubic hair, glistening. And her face...a color drawing of Jeannie Connor's face and head—his finest work—was carefully taped onto this beauty.

  Standing, he dropped his jockeys and looked down at himself—amazed and proud he was so big. It always made him feel guilty at first, but then, when he got going...all he felt was wonderful. And, as usual, it worked. By the time he'd finished, the pain in his head was fading.

  There was a drawback to this procedure. It always brought home to him the sorry fact that he'd never had a woman--a real one, that is. Newly seventeen, Larry was ashamed that he was still a virgin.

  Later, his gaze fell once again on the photo of the Connor family. Now, it just pissed him off. Yanking open the other drawer, he fished around until he found his knife. Larry sliced Stevie Connor right out of that happy-all-American-family photo.

  There is no Stevie any more, no first born--no favorite!

  So, what should his next move be? He paced around the room, trying to calm down. Kevin was his ticket, he figured, by far his best chance of entry. But how to use him? What to do right now? And then he knew. It was so simple!

  I'll buy him something! Comic book, I guess. Maybe...GI Joe, something like that. Yeah. Take it over to the Connors. Read it to the little guy like I used to.

  Larry could see them together--the two of them. He could almost feel that small body next to his.

  He heard his mother shifting in the tub, finally pulling the plug. About time.

  Did I lock the bedroom door?

  Well sure. He wasn't about to forget that. If he didn't, she'd barrel on into his room any old time she felt like it. Larry heard the last of the water gurgling down the drain, and he knew she'd be out of there and into her room soon. Maybe then he could get some sleep.

  He lay on his back, spread-eagle on top of the sheets. The night was still warm, but beginning to cool. Larry began to think of Stevie, but he had to be careful. If he allowed himself to think of the crazy, dizzying power that had come into him when he held that kid down--that blinding, exhilarating rush--his blood would race through his body, pumping and pounding its way to his brain. If he allowed that to happen...sleep would never come.

  *****

  Soapy water slowly drained from the tub, causing Catherine's belly and breasts to rise up out of the suds. Propped up slightly against the end of the tub, she had one hand on her stomach while the other clutched a small squat glass holding about an inch of Jameson's Irish.

  “Thank God for fine Irish,” she murmured. Catherine liked to chat with herself. 'You are one of the most interesting and entertaining people I know,' she often told herself.

  Thinking of the poor Connor family--of their loss and of her own Larry's unfortunate involvement in that loss--she was certain, of course, that Larry did everything humanly possible to save the poor little lad. It was a mystery though, how that little fellow could slip into the water that way--unseen by Larry--and drown before her boy could save him. Catherine knew her son to be a strong swimmer.

  Salty tears mixed with the steamy water on Catherine's face, oozing their way over her cheeks and down into the grooves beside her mouth. “A shame. Oh yes, such a shame.”

  She finished the last of the whiskey, remembering how Daddy used to admonish her when she'd leave something in the glass. 'Drink 'er down Sis,' he'd say with that big, toothy grin of his. Catherine did so miss that man, even now. She set her glass down on the lid of the toilet as she hoisted her body up and climbed out of the tub. A raspberry-colored bath towel hung from the rack, and she pulled it toward her. Briefly massaging her sore knee, she wondered if the nagging pain there was the beginning of arthritis, or a muscle strain of some sort.

  “Lor-dee, but that feels good! She whispered to herself so as not to awaken her boy, sleeping so near. She stood, took the half step to the basin and leaned against it, wiping off the steamy mirror with the towel. Her smiling image and wavy red hair came into focus.

  “Lovely,” she whispered and knew that to be true. The rest of Catherine Cutler may have faded and become blurred, but her hair was still beautiful. Thick and shoulder length, it was a radiant red 'as if', Daddy used to say, 'lit from within by the Good Lord himself!' With natural curl and color, it fairly sparkled out at her from the mirror. She was blessed with her hair, but not so pleased with the rest of her reflection.

  Casting a critical eye, she noticed once again those fine high cheekbones of hers had all but disappeared into the ample flesh of her face. Once well defined lips were now sporting vertical lines that blurred their edges. And, there was a hint, a mere suggestion, of bulb-like growths beginning to form on each side of her finely sculpted nose, down toward its tip.

  “A nose job? A lift of some sort?” she wondered. “Your eyes though, m'dear...” Catherine put the middle finger of each hand just below the brows and pulled up the heavy flesh there so as to see then more clearly. “Those emerald beauties are just as pretty today as they ever were. “You don't know what you're missing, John,” she went on, dabbing at her face with the towel.

  At sixteen, crazy in love and three months gone, Catherine married seventeen year old John Cutler; she'd jumped at the chance. The wedding was followed by her miscarriage, which though difficult, was a blessing as they were little more than children themselves. To make a fresh start, they moved down from the rain of Northern California to the sunshine of Los Angeles
, and eventually to Pine Glen and The Pine Flats area.

  John considered police work, but settled for a job as a bouncer at the Red Rock Saloon in Pine Flats, and Catherine waited table there. 17 fallow years went by until, at the age of thirty-three, Catherine gave birth to little Larry Cutler. She was thrilled. Just twenty-four hours after his birth, her milk came, and Larry was a lusty drinker. She would never forget the moment she held that baby boy to her breast for the first time. Her entire body shuddered with the exquisite pain and joy of that tiny mouth.

  She remembered fondly the times she would find some reason to put John out of their bed and take sleepy little baby Larry into it with her. His small insistent mouth at her nipple was a sensation she fancied she could still recall--a wave of sensual delight, not only at her breast, but down in her womb, her sexual core. Catherine was never happier than when nursing her little boy.

  John wasn't as excited about her new-found passion, and she couldn't really blame him. Other than financial, however, Catherine found she had no need of her husband. All desire for him had vanished with the birth of her son. It wasn't long before John started staying long hours at the Red Rock. And, not long before he left. That was in August of '85--left her and little Larry flat out. But Catherine didn't really miss him. It had been nothing like that aching, wrenching pain when Daddy died, Lord rest his immortal soul. And wee Larry didn't seem to miss his father either.

  There had been fear though. So big and strong, it actually hurt. How would they manage without his monthly paycheck? She would have to go back to work and how could she take good care of Larry?

  She needn't have worried however, because less than three months after he left, a check arrived. Every month since, regular as the tides, John's checks came and continued to come--generous ones at that. No address, just a Los Angeles postmark on the envelopes, but Catherine didn't care; she had no desire to track him down. As a matter of simple fact--and this she had the good sense not to blab to friends because they would never understand--it was downright pleasant without the man!