THE CAT'S MAW

CHAPTER X

X:  OF GRUDGES AND GIFTS

Saturday afternoon came, and everything was amazing at the Claytons'.

The long driveway was freshly paved. Every blade of grass was trimmed on the lawn. There were bunches of red balloons tied to all of the trees. The air was thick with the scent of BBQ and sunscreen. A throng of happy bodies giggled and splashed in the new swimming pool behind the house. And there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was as if Tommy’s parents had ordered the perfect day from the perfect birthday catalogue.

Which made sense, because they were perfect people. 

Mrs. Clayton – with her crisp white sundress, flawless hair and makeup, and a smile that hurt your eyes if you stared directly into it — delivered tray after tray of the tastiest lemonade ever to grace a tongue.

Meanwhile, Mr. Clayton — with his even tan, snug white shirt, and a full head of slick blonde hair — flipped the juiciest burgers and hot dogs on a grill the size of most people’s beds.

Billy arrived late. He had asked his father to drive him there earlier, but his mother’s logic had won out.

“If you go early, you’ll be expected to stay until the end,” she had said. “You’re still too weak to spend a whole day out, so we’d have to make two trips. But if you go later, then we can run some errands across the river, you can eat an early dinner, and we’ll swing back to pick you up when everyone’s starting to leave.”

It made sense. But to Billy, it meant being stuck in the heat of midday with little shade and no way to swim. It also meant looking every part the cripple to the greatest number of kids possible, as they celebrated the one who hated him the most.

Tommy Clayton avoided him at first, and Billy was content to go unnoticed in his grassy purgatory away from the pool. But, inevitably, kids started coming over to get a look at the boy who got run over and somehow lived to tell the tale.

And Billy told it. Many times. It got a bit grosser, and a bit bloodier, and a bit scarier with each telling. Eventually, a blue marker got passed around, and the crowd of kids lined up to sign his cast. 

First was Kirk Leggett — a bucktoothed 11-year-old whose dad owned the general store, giving him the biggest hockey card collection in the county – and Joey Small, who kids called ‘Carrots’ because he was freckled and rake-thin with a pointy wedge of ginger hair. They both made loopy scribbles on Billy’s cast, mimicking the signatures they’d seen their parents do at the bank.

There was Jenny Lee — a cute girl whose folks owned the town’s only Chinese restaurant – who doodled a smiley face on roller-skates. And then Heather Hallsy — a stocky girl with thick eyebrows and pearish nose – drew a frowning bear that had dropped his ice cream.

Even Mikey Durlick and Trevor Spool — Tommy’s knuckle-dragging lunch-hour lackeys — wanted in. Mikey took his time drawing a bug-eyed rabbit with floppy ears and oversized feet. And Trevor, perhaps foreshadowing a career in juvenile crime, sketched a skull-and-crossbones. It had sunglasses on, and was smoking a cigarette.    

“Hey buddy,” someone crooned from behind Billy’s rickety lawn chair.

The crowd parted, scattering back to the pool as Mrs. Clayton approached with her smirking son. Tommy Clayton had really grown in the last year. The sinews in his arms and bare chest flexed as he pushed aside the sun umbrella, and made room for his oversized head.

“We’re so glad to have you here”, Mrs. Clayton said.  “Your mother was absolutely right to get in touch. It wouldn’t be the same without you, would it Thomas?” Her smile got so big, and so wide, that it looked like her face might break. But Billy felt a chill from the frost in her stare, and knew it was meant for him.