Page 5 of Bump in the Night
Elliot
The crunching of leaves underfoot has always been one of my favorite little pleasures of the season. I don’t know why I like it. I take in a big breath of the crisp fall air. Anything to distract myself from Pumpkin. Anything to keep her close to my mind,too.
Simply put, the situation with Pumpkin is a problem I love to have. I haven’t had many of those in my life. Growing up, the problems my mom and I had were more serious – and just plain bad. I had an alcoholic father and a mom who didn’t want to leave him. She did leave, eventually – but it was a long time coming. I didn’t get the best education because we didn’t live in a great neighborhood, so despite always being told that I was bright, I was also told it was a shame I’d never be able to get out of my shittyneighborhood.
Well, that problem’s gone – and now, my biggest problem is my obsession with the most incredible fucking woman I’ve ever met. The fact that John and I both want her isn’t a problem – it’s a complication. A complication I think I’m actually pretty damn lucky to have. I know that individually we could each give Pumpkin the world. Together, though? We could give her the moonandthestars.
When we get to the sidewalk, John shoves his hands into his pockets and stares up at Pumpkin’s bedroom window. I hit his shoulder with the back of my hand and he smiles at me, rubbing his shoulder as if I really hurthim.
“Keep your eyes to yourself, Romeo,” Isay.
John and I have been friends for what feels like forever. After high school, he decided not to go to college - not because he didn’t have the grades, but because his grandmother became ill and she’d needed help maintaining the building she owned on the narrow Brooklyn street where he’d grownup.
My mother and I had moved into the ground floor, one-bedroom unit. We’d had no money and few prospects, but John’s grandmother was so damn caring and kind that she’d let us move in anyway, even without a security deposit or one month’s rent in advance. She’d just trusted me when I’d said I would make it right. She lived off of the meager rent her tenants paid and the small social security checks she received. She was probably crazy to trust me, but I’m glad shedid.
I’m a year older than John, but we couldn’t have been more different. He’d grown up the middle son of a nuclear family, with a cop for a dad and a school secretary for a mom. They wereperfect.
I’d grown up with a mother who was a devout Catholic and a father who was a devotee of the bottle. When she was at home – worried sick and watching talk shows all night, wishing her husband would come home – my old man was out drinking and getting into barfights.
One night, he’d come home more belligerent than usual. I’d grown used to the fights between my parents – or, more accurately, the verbal beatings my father would give my mother. I’d told her I’d support her no matter what her decision was – whether to stay with her sorry excuse for a husband or leave. I suspected in the back of my mind that my mother would never want adivorce.
But that changed the first time my mother’s cheek caught the back of hishand.
I’d seen red. My body had filled with anger and rage at witnessing that. I’d muscled my old man out onto the concrete by the collar of his shirt and pushed his cheek into the pavement. I’d told him to stay there, count to ten, and then leave. He was able to get a swing in, but it turned out that double vision gives you bad aim. When he’d fallen to the ground, I’d calmly gone back inside, shoved my mother’s makeup into an overnight bag while she packed her clothes, and we’d never seen himagain.
We’d ended up renting from John’s grandmother. I worked construction jobs, tended bar – anything I could to make rent, which I always paid ontime.
My father never did grant my mother thatdivorce.
John’s grandmother, turns out, got well again. The tumor they’d found was successfully targeted by radiation and chemotherapy, and she’d pushed John to find something he really wanted todo.
He didn’t have to look very far. He’d always known what he wanted to do. He’d always wanted to be a cop, just like his father was. He’d brought the idea to me because he thought I might be interested, too. I was very interested. We both enrolled in community college to meet the educational requirements, completed the other steps we needed to, and finally becamecops.
We’ve been part of a special investigation for months, tracking the movement of a drug ring that’s being taken down from theinside.
John and I aren’t just best friends who share everything. We also lean on each other. We rely on eachother.
We’ve always shared everything – and then, when we met Pumpkin, she became the most important thing in the world to us. Both ofus.
And I don’t know how long we can keep pretending she isn’t alreadyours.
