Danny
The exam room was in sore need of a patch-and-paint job. The ceiling peeled in a few spots from years of rain damage, and the walls weren’t in much better shape. A long counter with a stainless-steel washbasin was lined with jars of cotton swabs, wooden tongue depressors, bandages, ear- and eye-exam lights, and the like.
Carl fidgeted in a small chair and looked around the room at everything except Danny, who now sat upright and on the edge of the exam table. Flecks of dried blood stuck to Danny’s face and neck, and his jaw had swollen up and hung open, slack and to the right. The inside of his mouth wasn’t much better—a mess of loose teeth and torn-up gums. Danny looked down at his hands and said nothing to Carl.
Outside the exam room, they could hear Doc Pete moving around and probably fixing himself a pot of coffee.
Carl kicked some mud off his boots and cleared his throat. “It was an accident, you know?” His voice came out sounding small and uncertain.
Danny picked at a rip in his work pants and was quiet for a second before responding. “Where’s Mindy now?” Saying just these three words caused Danny a world of hurt, and they came out sounding like he was talking with a mouthful of marbles. Wharths Mindee na?
Carl looked over at him, then turned away and shook his head. “She’s gone, Danny.”
Danny finally looked up at him. Tears welling in his eyes. “What do you mean she’s gone? What happened to her? She’s really dead?” The words came out sounding like, Wha ya meen sheez gon? Wha hapin to har? Sheez reelly ded?
Carl fidgeted in the seat and ran his hands over his bald spot, near tears himself. “We’d been drinking, and Mike wanted to see her.” He bit at his fingers again. “Shit o’mighty.”
Everything was moving fast in Danny’s head. The notion of Mindy really being dead and gone didn’t quite seem real. He could still see her smashed-in head and her swollen throat and all that blood. What kind of accident could make all that happen? He wanted to understand.
“How . . . ?” was all he could manage.
The question made Carl stand up like he’d just sat on a piece of glass. He crossed to the window that looked out from the back wall of the exam room. He peered outside, seeing a cornfield covered in snow that led to a tangle of thick trees and brush. Beyond that, the trees faded into the blackness of the Endless Mountain range that surrounded the entire town.
A phone rang from somewhere in the doctor’s office. A set of heavy footsteps walked quickly toward the source of the ringing, and Doc Pete’s muffled voice could be heard talking on the phone.
Carl turned around and finally faced Danny.
“Look, Danny, I know I ain’t never done shit for you, and I was like everybody else in high school, picking on you and making fun of the way you talk and act and shit. I guess I never cared about how all that stuff made you feel, but I was just a kid, you know?” Carl stopped and thought for a moment before continuing. “The fact was, I didn’t think you and I were that different.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving behind it a snail trail of wet snot. “Every class has to have a kid to pick on and get their balls busted. I didn’t want it to be me, so I joined right in with the other kids and made you the butt of the joke.”
Doc Pete stopped talking, and the office outside the exam room went quiet.
Carl noticed this and kept on talking. “And I’m sorry about what happened to you and your folks back then and all, but that wasn’t my fault.” He ventured another step closer to Danny. “This shit that happened at the trailer between Mindy and Mike, there’s nothing we can do to bring her back. It’s done. She’s gone. You understand?”
Danny usually had a hard time looking at folks when they spoke to him. He always looked at his hands or his feet or up into the sky, but right now he kept his eyes on Carl, listening to everything he said real careful.
“I got a little boy and a little girl at home, and they’re all I really care about. They’re just youngsters, and they need their old man. I feed ’em and keep a roof over their heads. If they go and put me in jail for this thing, my kids won’t have nothing. You know? They won’t have no one to take care of them.”
Tears rolled down Carl’s rutted face. He wiped them away, but they kept flowing, and he never took his eyes off Danny. He waited to see what Danny would have to say.
Danny felt real thirsty all of a sudden. His throat was dry, and when he swallowed, it hurt his jaw something terrible. He looked away from Carl—other than Uncle Brett when he was getting ready to go up to heaven, Danny had never seen another grown-up man cry. Sometimes when Danny got to thinking about his folks, he would cry a little even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to.
“They’re gonna blame you for killing Mindy, and I know it ain’t right or fair, but I don’t want to get locked up.” Carl was really crying hard now. His hands hung at his sides, and he just let the tears and snot run over his lips and chin.
“I’m sorry, Danny. I really am. Shit.”
Danny didn’t know what to do. If he didn’t hurt Mindy, why would he get blamed for doing such a bad thing? He would never do anything to Mindy. Nothing at all. She was his friend.
“They’re gonna come for you, Danny, and take you away from here.” Carl turned and walked back to the window again. Snow was picking up steam and blowing horizontally outside.
“Goddamn it all,” Carl muttered softly. He peered outside for another minute, then turned and slinked out of the room. He didn’t look at Danny. Didn’t say another word.
The door closed, and Danny kept sitting on the exam table. He heard Carl say something to Doc Pete out in the office. His throat clicked from the dryness again. He had never been so thirsty. He stood up, wincing at the pain that even standing made his jaw feel. Stepped over to the small sink and turned on the water. Cupped his trembling hands under the stream of water and put the cold liquid to his lips. He sucked in a little of the water and let it run down his throat. He did this a few more times, then turned off the water.
He caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink and stared at what he looked like now. Face swollen and splattered with dried blood. His jaw flopped open like a dog panting in summertime. Even his eyes were different—red and glassy. He looked like a monster—the kind that hides under your bed at night and waits for you to stand up so that it can grab you by the ankles. Danny brought his fingers to his cheek just to make sure that it was him looking back from the mirror—it was. His hand. His face. It was what he had become.
He stepped over to the window and stared at the falling snow slapping against the glass in layers, getting thicker and thicker until the view of outside grew hazier and hazier, the world going white. The snow was pretty. Calming to him—made him forget about turning into a monster. Lots of times Danny would stand outside in a heavy snowstorm with his head turned up and let the frozen flakes land on his face and tongue. He liked rain, too, but snow was his favorite. Looking up into the sky and watching the snow fall around him made him forget what might be troubling him.
He put his hand on the pane of glass and watched the condensation form around his fingers. He wanted to forget about what had happened to Mindy. Wanted to forget about the blood and her dead eyes. He wanted to be in the snow again.
