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Ian DiFabio

    She was not there today. What were they going to do with their Saturday afternoon? Why the hell else would you want to go to this mall? Fourteen-year old John watched cars sloshing through the parking lot on this cold March day. Musac was pumped into the long corridor in front of the shops: what sounded like Lawrence Welk’s version of Strawberry Fields Forever clashing with the Bach on his I-pod. The intoxicating smell of sauerkraut, coming from the deli, mingling enchantingly with the musac.
    John’s friend Joe (a year younger than himself) and his eight-year old brother James had been spending Saturday mornings and early afternoons at Eastwood mall for months now. A small strip mall, one of a billion spread across the American landscape like pox; there were seven or eight stores: drug, post office, office supply, deli, greeting cards and a Chinese restaurant. And of course, clothes—mostly catering to the typically rotund American, pretending they were sexy—and the ubiquitous cell phone dealer. A long enclosed arcade or gallery—protecting shoppers from the mid-west elements—stretched in front of the long row of shops, brown and tan tiled floor, complete with benches and obsolete pay phones.
    The boys first became aware of her last fall, an old Indian woman walking back and forth along the strip, bending every few steps to pick things up off the floor. She was seventy at least; she wore a gray over-stuffed winter coat over her pink sari and gray tennis shoes. She wore her gray hair in a bun and wore thick glasses (to help her see the floor better, no doubt).
    One day Joe noticed it was coins she was after: so of course, they had to drop some here and there—in strategic locations naturally—and watch her pick them up. This was beyond hysterical, the pinnacle of humor (if you were a thirteen-year old boy). James, their lackey, would be sent to the various shops to have one and soon five-dollar bills—their habit was growing—changed; the merchants foolishly assuming that the money was being spent at their stores—but why all the change? John told one questioning clerk that paper money was too modern; he preferred coin. The man only stared. There was a business transaction going on that did not include the mall shops. The boys exchanged capital for their new friend’s services... Adam Smith couldn’t complain.
    Anyway, there comes a time when making James try on bras, turning off the bathroom lights on old men and calling the operator on the pay phone to ask her what color underwear she was wearing, just didn’t cut it anymore. Even yelling “rat!” in front of the Chinese restaurant and watching James squeeze his whoopee cushion behind old women began to lose its savor.
    Joe, nothing if not subtle, started dropping the coins right in front of her and then practically throwing them—even hitting her shoes. She would simply pick them up, never paying the boys the slightest attention (probably laughing all the way to the bank). John—who fancied himself intellectual—saw it as a symbiotic relationship; she was well paid for a few teenage laughs.
    Joe rolled his eyes at that.
    She wasn’t there today however, and wouldn’t be next week or the next. Their friend being the only draw, they soon lost interest in the mall. Joe would now spend his Saturdays watching sports on TV, and John would be at the library. James would spend the day whining because he wasn’t with his idols (what sort of taste could you be expected to possess at eight?)
    John usually stayed over at Joe’s house on Saturday nights, to carry on their war with Joe’s older sister Renée. All the previous summer sixteen-year old Renée would lock Joe out of the house while their parents were at work. The boys, armed with squirt guns would storm the citadel, trying to pick locks or pry open windows. John liked to imagine that this was Troy besieged, though this rather neglected, unkempt, filthy colonial was no royal Ilium; and this was no Helen or Hector inside the fortress. She was an Achilles; this Iliad was backward. Joe would launch an assault, he would start it, and Renée would brutally finish it. Joe would scream at John for help while being annihilated. Confronting the stronger and considerably heavier opponent toe to toe, John knew, would be suicide. John would employ what he called light cavalry maneuvers, stick and move; float like a butterfly... He easily out distanced her like fleet-footed Hermes when she turned on him. This Achilles had no weakness; her heals were impervious to their darts (or water pistols).
    The winter though, had been quieter, as was natural for an ancient war. Subtler campaigning, special ops—commando raids: smelling salts under her nose while she slept, she hiding in Joe’s closet to jump out at him. She knew that Joe, not the bravest to begin with, was particularly terrified of his closet: a flight of stairs behind his clothes led to the attic. Neither side was able to claim decisive victory. Only small Pyrrhic victories on the boy’s side; not worth the sound thrashing Joe received—John was less convinced—during or after the peace talks.
    On a Saturday night in April, James came over with John to spend the night. John’s mom persuaded the boys to let James come—he had been begging for weeks—and they reluctantly agreed. James was happy until bedtime (although there really was no bedtime) and was almost as scared as Joe was. Maybe playing with the Ouija board and listening to a Vincent Price recording wasn’t such a good idea after all.
    Joe and James fell asleep around twelve; John, the night owl couldn’t fall asleep, so he just laid back listening to the Brahms third symphony. Joe said that that kind of music should be able to put anyone to sleep. John ignored the Philistine.
    John could hear the ping or tap noise again coming from the ceiling when he came back into Joe’s bedroom after using the bathroom. Joe had been hearing it for weeks, what sounded like a metallic thud on the attic floor, then a reverberation or settling. John dismissed him—he was always freaking out about something—until he heard it himself a few times. “Renée”, Joe said. “She goes up in the damn attic trying to scare the shit out of me. She’s getting revenge for the smoke bomb we lit under her bed. The bitch waits till I fall asleep, and then sneaks her fat ass up the steps. I don’t believe I can’t hear her.”John figured she must have snuck in while he was in the bathroom, assuming he was asleep. He woke Joe—they would get her.
    They crept slowly up the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible, which wasn’t easy on the creaking steps. They were nervous and trying not to laugh, water pistols at the ready, and a secret weapon—the Trojan horse: Joe had taken a container of pepper spray from his mother’s purse; this was the perfect occasion to deploy it. Tonight, it was business, he wasn’t gonna get the shit kicked out of him. No, not tonight—she would get what John called her Waterloo. She wouldn’t be screwing around in the attic anymore.
    Turning on their flashlights when they reached the top of the stairs, they scanned the room. There were only a few places she could be hiding: under an old kitchen table or behind one of the boxes of Christmas decorations. They split up, going to opposite corners of the attic. John’s heart pounded as he looked behind the boxes, bracing himself; he whistled the Brahms, trying to be nonchalant. The flashlights threw up shadows, making them wince; each one was Renée, her formidable bulk lunging murderously out of the darkness.
    Come on out bitch!” Joe knew cussing would make her betray her location; she would threaten to tell their mother who frowned on such language, like many contemporary parents—you can bomb your school, you can worship Satan, but you had better not use foul language while doing it. John began giggling, they were walking around the attic carrying water pistols in the dark, Joe swearing at his sister. John relished the ridiculousness of it—everything being funny in the middle of the night. John’s house was clean, quiet and well ordered—civilized. Joe’s was like crossing Hadrian’s Wall, the Wild West—Here Be Dragons!
    After several tense minutes of searching, there was only one hiding place left—under the sheet-covered table. They approached together, phalanx formation; lifting the sheet—pepper spray leveled, ready to fire.
    She wasn’t there—the lights showed nothing but the table legs and the other end of the sheet that hung down between the far legs and the wall; and that was where she jumped out from.
    “Haahh!” she screamed.
    “What the...” Joe began. They both fell back. The pepper spray was dropped and rolled out of reach. John, as he regained his senses wondered if she spotted it, but she seemed too busy laughing.
    “You bitch!” Joe squealed.
    “You’re gonna wake everybody up,” Renée yelled back. “And you better watch that fucking mouth, or I’m gonna tell mom! Goodnight boys, you should’ve seen you’re faces—wimps!” Renée practically skipped down the stairs laughing.
    Back in Joe’s room, they began orchestrating their next maneuver. They could not seem to be able to get the better of this Hannibal. Nevertheless, like the Romans after Cannae, John thought, they refused to accept defeat. John couldn’t believe that James had slept through the commotion above him.
    Joe was back asleep by three; John who was half-asleep on the top bunk heard the noise again around that time. Surely, he would have been awake enough to notice Renée sneaking back up those steps—didn’t she sleep?
    He heard the floor creak in the hall; he sat up and looked through the open door—Renée stood in the hallway, facing Joe’s room; he could not make out her face very well. He could however, by the dim hallway nightlight, see the gray winter coat she wore over her nightgown.
    The next moment he jumped violently, practically out of his skin, the shock made him lightheaded, for a moment he felt like he was knocked outside himself. A crash in the attic: the unmistakable sound of coins—hundreds of them hitting the wooden floorboards, like a jar or piggy bank being poured out.

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