The Favor Read online

  “Gabriel. Are you finished with your work?”

  Gabe shows Mrs. Moser the unfinished map. “I need crayons.”

  “What happened to yours?”

  Andy broke them all up and mixed the pieces together, then put them in the oven to melt into a “supercrayon.” Gabe shrugs, the truth not worth saying. Mrs. Moser clucks her tongue.

  “You should be more careful with your things, Gabriel. Your father—” she says it like fazza “—he works hard.”

  Gabe feels his entire face wrinkle like a raisin. “I need them for school! It’s not my fault Andy broke them! I’m tired of everyone blaming me for stuff that’s not my fault! I hate it!”

  Crash goes the chair. Bang goes the table when he slams it. Slap go the papers when he shoves them to the floor. Mikey looks all goggle-eyed, his upper lip pink from the punch Mrs. Moser let him have with his snack, because milk gives him a bellyache. Andy looks scared.

  Gabe is a dragon, he’s a bear, he’s a dinosaur. His fingers hook into claws. He roars and stamps, and it feels good, letting all this out. Making noise. It feels good to watch his brothers cry and squirm away from him. It even feels good to run away from Mrs. Moser, because she’s too old and fat to catch him.

  He’s still running around the table when Dad shows up in the doorway. Gabe runs right into him. Dad’s solid, like a mountain. Gabe hits and bounces off, lands on his butt so hard tears fill his eyes from the pain.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What’s going on in here?”

  Andy and Mikey start up with the wailing while Gabe struggles to get to his feet. Mrs. Moser tries to explain, but Dad reaches down to grab the front of Gabe’s shirt and haul him upright. Dad smells like sweat and dirt and cigarettes. He shakes Gabe, hard.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I was just playing.”

  “Playing like an idiot. Jesus Christ.” Dad wipes his face with one big hand. His eyebrows are big and bushy. His breath stinks like the peppermint candies he’s always sucking. He shifts one now from side to side, clicking it against his teeth.

  When Dad lets him go, Gabe stumbles. His butt still hurts, bad. His back, too. It will hurt for almost a week, and when he twists to look in the mirror later, a huge bunch of bruises will have blossomed there.

  “I don’t understand you, Gabe. I swear to God, I don’t.” Dad shakes his head. “Go to your room.”

  “He hasn’t finished his homework,” Mrs. Moser says.

  Dad looks at her. “Well. That’s his own damn fault, isn’t it? Go to your room. Where’s my goddamned dinner?”

  Gabe goes to his room. He’s not tired, but he gets into bed, anyway. There’s nothing else to do. His teacher will be mad if he doesn’t do his work, but he can’t make himself care. He can’t finish the project without crayons, so what difference does it make?

  He sleeps, finally. Wakes a little when Mrs. Moser brings the little boys up and oversees them getting into their pajamas, brushing their teeth, tucking them into their matching twin beds in the room across the hall from Gabe’s. He keeps his eyes shut tight, his face to the wall, so she doesn’t know he’s awake. He drifts back to sleep amid the whistling snores of his brothers, who both have colds.

  He wakes again when the stairs creak, and once more keeps his eyes shut tight, his face turned to the wall. Maybe tonight those footsteps will move past his doorway and not come inside. Maybe not.

  The floor also creaks. It makes music. It’s like the school chorus Gabe didn’t try out for, but had to participate in, anyway, for the Christmas show. Every voice blends together to make a whole song. Each step on this creaking, squeaking floor has a different voice, but most every night it sings the same song.

  Tonight the footsteps don’t stop across the hall. They keep moving toward Gabe’s bed. His eyes squinch tighter, tighter, his fists clutching at the sheets. He doesn’t dare move or breathe or shift or so much as let his eyelids twitch.

  A big hand brushes over his hair. Gabe braces himself, but the hand retreats. The floor creaks, the song changes. When at last he dares to open his eyes and look to make sure the bogeyman has indeed retreated, he sees something on the dresser that wasn’t there before. He has to sit up in bed to make sure. The light in the room is dim, so he also has to touch it. But when he does, he takes the offering into bed with him, lifting the lid and breathing in the best smell in the whole world, over and over.

  A box of brand-new crayons.

  * * *

  Gabe thought of those crayons, that fresh and brand-new box of crayons, when he saw what the old man had left him on the kitchen table. He poked it with a fingertip, his lip slightly curled. Couple packs of cigarettes, his brand.

  “What’s this for?” he asked from the living room doorway.

  The old man didn’t even look up from the TV. “Had Andy bring ’em home for you. What, you don’t want ’em?”

  It wasn’t that Gabe didn’t want the cigarettes. Smokes weren’t cheap, and if his father wanted to gift him with a couple packs, he wasn’t going to complain. But the old man’s gifts never came without a price, and Gabe wanted to know what it would be before he accepted.

  “What do you want?” he asked evenly.

  His dad still didn’t look at him, another sign he was working up to something. “Nothing. Why do I always have to want something?”

  “Because you always do.” Gabe came into the room to look him over. “Shit, old man. You stink. Why don’t you take a shower once in a while?”

  “Why don’t you shut your pie hole,” the old man muttered, shifting in his recliner. The flickering light of the television reflected in his eyes for another few seconds before he finally looked at his son. “I need you to take me to the doctor tomorrow.”

  Gabe didn’t say anything for a long minute, during which his father shifted uncomfortably.

  “What time?”

  “I have an appointment at four.”

  “Jesus.” Gabe sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “You couldn’t have asked me this a week ago? A couple of days, even? How long have you known about it?”

  “Language,” the old man reprimanded. “I knew you’d say no, that’s why.”

  Gabe rubbed his tongue against the back of his teeth until it ached. “I didn’t say no. What’s the appointment for?”

  His father gave him a shifty glance. “It’s private. I just need to go. Can you take me or not?”

  “I have two jobs going on tomorrow. I can maybe juggle the second one, yeah. But you know, you have to ask me this stuff ahead of time so I can make it work. I can’t just be at your beck and call.” Gabe paused, eyeing him. “You sick?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s wrong with you, then?”

  “I got piles, okay?” The old man scowled. “Hurting something fierce. Is that what you want to hear? Fine, I’ll tell you!”

  Gabe laughed. “If you got off your ass once in a while, maybe you wouldn’t have that problem.”

  His dad raised a trembling finger, his lower lip pooched out. “You can just shut your mouth. Disrespectful son of a bitch.”

  It was an old insult, one that no longer stung. Gabe shrugged. “I’ll take you. Thanks for the cigarettes.”

  He pocketed both packs and went out back to smoke. Light spilled from the Decker house next door, golden and somehow warm even in the frigid January chill. From this angle he couldn’t see inside, but shadows moved in the square of light from the kitchen window. Janelle, he imagined. Washing the dishes, maybe. Standing at the sink, looking out into the snow-covered backyard.

  The light upstairs went on, snaring his gaze. From here he couldn’t see inside any more than he could into the kitchen, but more shadows shifted up there. He imagined her pacing. Unpacking a box, making the bed.

  Dancing.

  “When I dance,” she says, “I feel like I can do anything.”

  A shudder rippled along his spine that had nothing to do with the cold outside. Gabe drew agai