For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,26
was afraid she’d drive the top ones up into her skull. Somehow, she still managed to speak.
“Well, if this doesn’t bother you. . .”
“Honey, I don’t even see what you’re talking about.”
“Take a better look.” Abby produced a small flashlight from the back pocket of her sweats and pointed it at the sidewalk.
The orange blotches became a little clearer as I knelt to follow her flashlight beam. And then I saw why Abby was so upset.
There on the sidewalk, in clear (however faded) block letters were the words “FUCK ETHAN.”
“Oh, shit.” I suppose you could have done better.
“I spent the whole night comforting him and then washing the sidewalk,” said Abby.
“Any idea who might have done this?”
“You’re the investigative reporter.”
I started to feel like I’d eaten a hand grenade for dinner. “Oh, not you, too.”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s been off all night playing detective.”
I stood again, my knees cracking as I did. “Yeah, and doing a damn lousy job of it, too.” I noticed something lying next to the garbage cans on the side of the house, and walked over to it. Bending down again, I found a plastic squeeze bottle.
“Well, our first clue.” I examined it in the light from the porch, and probably chuckled in spite of myself.
“I don’t see how this is funny,” Abby sniffed.
“Well, you have to see the humor in it. Somebody just wrote ‘Fuck Ethan’ on our sidewalk with a squeeze bottle of barbecue sauce.” I held it up to show her.
Sure enough, the bottle, which had clearly been pilfered from some restaurant counter, bore the label “Big Bob’s Bar-B-Q Pit”—a picture of a large porcine creature wearing a chef ’s hat and standing next to a log cabin.
Abby burst out laughing, then put her hand over her mouth, upset with herself for the natural response. I stood up and took her hand.
“Could be worse,” I said.
“How?”
“Could’ve been ketchup.” We both hate ketchup, and she involuntarily made a gagging sound.
Abby turned off the flashlight and we started back up the steps to the house. I put my arm around her shoulder to prove that I’m really not that bad a guy, and she put her arm, hand still holding the flashlight, around my waist, to prove that I’m really not that bad a guy.
“Is he still up?” I asked as we made it back into the house.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s pretty upset. He figures it means that absolutely nobody at school likes him and he’s destined to live his life alone and in misery.”
“It probably really means that someone in his class just learned the word ‘fuck.’”
She chuckled. “You’re so naive.”
“How do you wash a sidewalk, anyway?”
“With Mr. Clean and a brush.”
“Aha, two-timing me with this Clean guy, huh?”
I trudged up the stairs to talk to my son.
Ethan was lying in bed, his overhead light dimmed to just slightly not-off. He’s working on his fear of the dark. Pokémon posters decorated the walls, and used socks decorated the floor. He’d been crying.
“Hey, Pal.”
He didn’t move. “Hi, Dad,” came a voice from somewhere near his pillow. Two artists from Webster’s came in and began sketching a picture of Ethan to put next to their definition of “dejected.”
“How you doing?”
“Bad.”
Uh-oh. I sat down beside him. He hadn’t left me much room on the twin bed, and I had to fight to keep from falling onto the floor.
“I heard about what happened tonight,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You have any idea who might’ve done it?”
He rolled over, so as not to be facing me. “No. It could have been anybody. Nobody likes me.”
“I like you.”
“I mean nobody young.” Webster’s artists now had a choice: they could take Ethan’s face or mine.
“Well, let’s think about it,” I said, remembering a technique Ethan’s therapist had offered. “How many people like you?” He didn’t move.
“Let’s see,” I continued. “There’s me, and Mom, and Leah. She’s young.”
“She’s too young,” he countered.
“Okay. How about your friend Matthew? And Andrew from camp? And Thomas from the baseball team?”
It took a long time, but he rolled back to look at me. “I guess,” he said.
“And Emma from school. . .”
“Emma doesn’t like me. She calls me names all the time.”
“You have a lot to learn about girls, my friend.”
“Girls don’t count, anyway,” he went on, ignoring what I’d said.
“So. We’ve established that a pretty decent number of people, some of whom are not even related, like you. Now. Who doesn’t like you enough to write that on our sidewalk?”