The Neighbor

5

That evening, after we washed and dried the dinner dishes, but before the old man could tell me to take it to the garage, I went out there with my saxophone, while Amalia sat at the kitchen table, being smoked at by our mother and made to appreciate the reasons for the dreadful inadequacy of the mashed potatoes that she had served with the roast chicken, even though both our parents had taken second helpings.

I didn’t start playing right away, but listened to some cool big-band stuff. We had a cheap stereo in a corner of the garage and some records, including a number of vinyl platters from the 1930s that we’d found for next to nothing in a used-record store. I was in the mood for the band called Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy. Several times during the ’30s and early 1940s, they almost got famous, but never quite. Now, some thirty years later, I was a fan of their tenor saxist, Dick Wilson, and of Ted Donnelly, one of the best swing-band trombonists ever, though it was Mary Lou Williams on piano that fully captivated me. I sat on a crate and let “Froggy Bottom” wash over me twice and then “Walkin’ and Swingin’ ” before Amalia arrived.

We listened to “Roll ’Em,” which Mary Lou Williams had written, as good as big-band boogie-woogie gets, and when it was over, my always-energetic sister wasn’t jumping or finger-popping or in any way stoked by the music. She hadn’t brought her clarinet. We weren’t going to play together.

I said, “What’s wrong?”

She stepped to the single small window, which faced toward our deceased neighbor’s house, and the distilled sunlight of that early June evening gilded her lovely face. “There was this time I was in the backyard, standing at the picnic table, working on an art project for school. I was really into it, and after a while I looked up and saw Clockenwall just the other side of the fence, staring at me. He was very … intense. I said hi, and he didn’t respond, and he had this look, it almost seemed like hatred, but it wasn’t just that. The day was warm, I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and suddenly I felt as if … as if I was naked. He wasn’t anything like he’d always been before. He wasn’t Teacher of the Year, that’s for sure. He licked his lips. I mean, he made this huge production of licking them, staring at me so bold, I can’t even describe how bold, with this need. Maybe there was hatred on his face, hatred and rage, but not entirely that, if you know what I mean.”

I knew what she meant, all right. “What did you do?”

“I picked up my art supplies and took them inside.”

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“I was too embarrassed to talk about it. Anyway, who was I going to tell? Dad was at work. When he comes home, he doesn’t want anyone to get between him and that first beer. Mom was glued to afternoon game shows. I’d have rather put my hand in an alligator’s mouth than distract her from Bill Cullen and The Price Is Right.”

“You could have told me,” I said.

“This was four years ago. You were eight, sweetie. You didn’t need to hear about something like that when you were only eight.”

“And you were only thirteen,” I said. “Man, what kind of creep was he?”

She turned from the garage window, and that square of golden sunshine backdropped her head. “It happened again, about six months later. I took some trash out to the alleyway to put it in the can. He wasn’t there at first, but when I turned to come back to the house, he was right behind me, like three feet away. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he, but he did that lip-licking thing again. And he … he put one hand on his crotch. I dodged past him. He didn’t reach for me or anything, and after that, nothing ever happened again.”

“I hate him,” I declared. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

She sat on a wheeled stool near the crate on which I perched, and she stared at her hands, which were clenched in her lap. “When we were over there today, I really heard him, Malcolm.”

“All right.”

“I really did. He said ‘Sweet Melinda.’ And then when we were in the foyer, looking up the front stairs, he said my name … my name and something filthy.”

She raised her head and met my eyes. This was no hoax. I didn’t know what to say.

“Stay away from that house, Malcolm.”

“Why would I want to go there again?”

“Stay away.”

“I will. Are you kidding? I’m creeped out. Jeez.”

“I mean it. Stay away.”

“Well, you better stay away, too.”

“I intend to stay away,” she said. “I know what I heard, and I never want to hear it again.”

“I didn’t know you believed in ghosts,” I said.

“I didn’t. I do now. Stay away.”

We sat in silence for a while. At last I said I needed to listen to something that would soothe away the heebie-jeebies, and instead of one of the old vinyl platters, I put an album on the turntable, a collection of Glenn Miller’s best-known numbers. We liked rock ’n’ roll, but at heart we were throwbacks to another musical era.

Amalia listened to “In the Mood,” but just before the band swung into “Moonlight Serenade,” she said, “This isn’t going to settle my nerves. I’m going to bed and read. I’ve got this novel.” At the side door to the garage, she looked back and said, “Don’t stay out here after dark.”

“I always stay here after dark.”

“But not tonight,” she said. “Not for the next few nights.”

She was clearly frightened. I nodded. “Okay.”

After she had gone, I listened to “Moonlight Serenade” and then to “American Patrol,” after which I lifted the phonograph needle and returned it to the beginning of the album.

As “In the Mood” began, I left the garage and went into the alleyway. About forty minutes of daylight remained. I walked to the back gate of the Clockenwall property.