Read Online The Night Gwen Stacy Died by Sarah Bruni - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Bruni
Ads: Link
had implicated her. It made Peter think she was a part of the equation. It made him
think she was part of everything that would come next.
Peter lifted the gun from the passenger seat and turned it in his hand, assessing
the level of threat it posed. He didn’t want to scare the girl, but he wanted to encourage
her to help him. It wasn’t entirely clear to him what the point of the gun was, but
it had been in his hand in the dream. It seemed important to use it somehow, to point
it somewhere. Peter tried to think of it more as a prop than a weapon, something to
keep in his hand in order to ensure he would say what he had come to say, to make
certain he wouldn’t deviate. He angled the rearview mirror so he could see himself,
so he could watch his mouth form the lines. He understood, then, how he would appear
to the girl when he entered the gas station. “I’m going to Chicago,” Peter practiced,
steadying the gun so his hand wouldn’t shake, his best attempt to sound confident
and inviting. “I’m going to Chicago. I thought you might like to come with me.”
At twenty-six years old, Peter knew himself to be an expert driver, a decent pool
player, reasonably good looking, but he only needed to consult the corners of his
mouth in the rearview mirror of his taxi to understand what he was slowly becoming:
a man nearing thirty, living alone with his mother. The arrangement had been borne
of necessity and habit. They had been living like this for the past twenty years.
He never knew his father. As a child, he had been afraid that his father was both
everywhere and nowhere. Any male of a certain age he encountered in the street who
was not the father of another child he knew had the potential to be him. The man walking
a dog in front of the movie theater? Possibly. The new assistant principal of his
school? Unlikely, but maybe. Peter’s mother had been of the opinion that children
didn’t really need to know the details of everything, only the gist, so he understood
that his father and mother had met in Davenport, Iowa, that they had quarreled before
he was born, that he and Peter’s mother had lost contact shortly after. All the photographs
had been cleared out of the house. Peter had found an old Polaroid of his father,
but in the moment it captures, his father is bent over his shoe, his features largely
obscured by the angle. In the photograph, his father is sitting on the living-room
sofa—the same one Peter had sat on for years!—pressing his heels into a pair of loafers
with a shoe horn. A shoe horn? The instrument seemed superfluous to him and slightly
awkward, but his mother insisted that in those days everyone used them.
Then, there was what happened when his brother went missing. Peter had been six at
the time, and his brother eighteen. For two full days, Peter and his mother searched
the parks and police stations, while Jake had slept in the closet of his childhood
bedroom after swallowing every pill in the house. When their mother found him, she’d
had his stomach pumped clean, but two weeks after his medical release, Jake had tried
it again and succeeded. Then Peter and his mother had lived alone in the house. Sometimes
his mother played the piano in the evenings, and Peter sat beside her and turned the
pages of her music when she said, “Now.” Sometimes they went to the movies and ordered
the large popcorn with extra butter to share. But the house was too big for them.
It was two stories high with enough rooms for entertaining—which they never did—and
often Peter had a whole story and an attic to himself to make all the noise he wanted.
But mostly he stayed quiet.
He had been playing dominos with his mother when he first understood. They did that
sometimes, if he didn’t have homework, and after the dishes were done. His mother
would wash and Peter dried. There was a drawer in the kitchen that held the
think she was part of everything that would come next.
Peter lifted the gun from the passenger seat and turned it in his hand, assessing
the level of threat it posed. He didn’t want to scare the girl, but he wanted to encourage
her to help him. It wasn’t entirely clear to him what the point of the gun was, but
it had been in his hand in the dream. It seemed important to use it somehow, to point
it somewhere. Peter tried to think of it more as a prop than a weapon, something to
keep in his hand in order to ensure he would say what he had come to say, to make
certain he wouldn’t deviate. He angled the rearview mirror so he could see himself,
so he could watch his mouth form the lines. He understood, then, how he would appear
to the girl when he entered the gas station. “I’m going to Chicago,” Peter practiced,
steadying the gun so his hand wouldn’t shake, his best attempt to sound confident
and inviting. “I’m going to Chicago. I thought you might like to come with me.”
At twenty-six years old, Peter knew himself to be an expert driver, a decent pool
player, reasonably good looking, but he only needed to consult the corners of his
mouth in the rearview mirror of his taxi to understand what he was slowly becoming:
a man nearing thirty, living alone with his mother. The arrangement had been borne
of necessity and habit. They had been living like this for the past twenty years.
He never knew his father. As a child, he had been afraid that his father was both
everywhere and nowhere. Any male of a certain age he encountered in the street who
was not the father of another child he knew had the potential to be him. The man walking
a dog in front of the movie theater? Possibly. The new assistant principal of his
school? Unlikely, but maybe. Peter’s mother had been of the opinion that children
didn’t really need to know the details of everything, only the gist, so he understood
that his father and mother had met in Davenport, Iowa, that they had quarreled before
he was born, that he and Peter’s mother had lost contact shortly after. All the photographs
had been cleared out of the house. Peter had found an old Polaroid of his father,
but in the moment it captures, his father is bent over his shoe, his features largely
obscured by the angle. In the photograph, his father is sitting on the living-room
sofa—the same one Peter had sat on for years!—pressing his heels into a pair of loafers
with a shoe horn. A shoe horn? The instrument seemed superfluous to him and slightly
awkward, but his mother insisted that in those days everyone used them.
Then, there was what happened when his brother went missing. Peter had been six at
the time, and his brother eighteen. For two full days, Peter and his mother searched
the parks and police stations, while Jake had slept in the closet of his childhood
bedroom after swallowing every pill in the house. When their mother found him, she’d
had his stomach pumped clean, but two weeks after his medical release, Jake had tried
it again and succeeded. Then Peter and his mother had lived alone in the house. Sometimes
his mother played the piano in the evenings, and Peter sat beside her and turned the
pages of her music when she said, “Now.” Sometimes they went to the movies and ordered
the large popcorn with extra butter to share. But the house was too big for them.
It was two stories high with enough rooms for entertaining—which they never did—and
often Peter had a whole story and an attic to himself to make all the noise he wanted.
But mostly he stayed quiet.
He had been playing dominos with his mother when he first understood. They did that
sometimes, if he didn’t have homework, and after the dishes were done. His mother
would wash and Peter dried. There was a drawer in the kitchen that held the
Similar Books
