Taming the Star Runner

The headless body still twisted, Motorboat still fought it, and Travis ran back into the barn to get Casey. He slid to a stop, thinking: If the body was still moving, the head...

He turned back. The Lab was barking at Motorboat now, who seemed to be torn between batting the snake's body and clawing the dog.

The snake's head lay in the wet grass, and Travis poked at it with the shovel, intending to scoop it up and put it in the trash barrel. Suddenly it seemed to disappear. Travis lifted the shovel, searching the ground. Then he saw that the severed head had bitten onto the edge of the shovel, and hung there, staring at him.

"Goddamn." He half sobbed, shuddering, sickened, amazed. He didn't throw the shovel, screaming, although the thought flashed across his mind. He carried the head to the trash burner and shook it off.

Casey was standing in the doorway.

"That was a water moccasin. They're poisonous, did you know that?"

"I knew it was a snake." Travis shrugged off the creeps. She was looking at him like he was a person, not a nephew, a hired hand.

"Pretty brave," she said.

The excitement of the fight was ebbing, leaving him chilled and nauseated. But he went back into the barn to finish the stalls.

Brave. It wasn't a word Casey used lightly.

He was on his way through the house to the shower when the phone rang. He picked it up on the third ring, not sure if Ken was home or not, and was surprised to hear Mom's voice. He'd just talked to her, and Stan was a real miser about long-distance calls.

"Honey," she said finally, after all the how-are-yous and how's-everyones, "Stan wants to read your book."

"I'll send him a copy." Travis grinned, picturing the way he'd autograph it.

"No, I mean, he wants to read it now, before it's published." Her voice faded and picked up. "He wants to make sure there's nothing in it about him."

For a moment Travis froze. Then he said quite calmly, "Well, he can't. I don't need his okay on my book. It's got nothing to do with him."

"Travis, hon, don't be upset, but you know you can't sign a contract until you're eighteen, I'll have to sign for you--"

"And you won't until Stan reads it, right?"

The phone hammered against his head and Travis had to grip it with both hands. "Well, he won't read it! I'll burn it first! I should have killed him when I had the chance!"

He could still hear Mom nattering away but couldn't make out a single word.

His fingers itched for the fire poker. "Goddamn it! Goddamn it!"

He yanked the phone off the wall and slammed it across the room.

It barely missed Teresa, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.

It barely missed Christopher.

Chapter 7

He couldn't stop pacing around in his room, because when he did he could feel his heart pounding so violently it scared him. He'd heard of kids his age having heart attacks...

He didn't want to die now, not until he had one more crack at Stan--goddamn him! Motorboat had picked up on the vibes and was racing around the room too. Travis envied the way he could climb the curtains, jump up the walls, rip the stuffing out of the chair when he paused to sharpen his claws--Travis would have liked to be doing those same things.

Travis could hear, distantly, Teresa and Ken arguing. At one time he would have given anything to get an earful of a fight between those two to see what the deal really was: but now--

"You're not leaving him here with him, you're leaving him here with me," Ken said.

Travis heard that one, along with Christopher's crying. The whole damn house was a storm center, just because of that beer-bellied jerk hundreds of miles from here. He'd get even. You bet he'd get even. If he had to hitchhike back, steal a gun, buy an axe--

After what could have been minutes, or hours, Travis came out. It had been quiet awhile, Teresa was gone. He wanted to tell Ken what Stan was pulling. Maybe there was something legal he could do about it. Boy, he bet Ken would be mad--

And Ken did listen to him with that preoccupied silence that was a sure sign of fury. He listened to Travis's railings against Stan, his outrage at Mom's betrayal, his threats. They were dealing with somebody dangerous, now, man. He had nothing to lose! He'd burn that book if he had to, burn it page by page before he asked Stan's approval. Ken would talk to Mom, right? Ken would help him--

"I'll help you pack and drive you to the airport, that's what's going to happen."

Travis had a sudden flash: Ken's anger didn't have much to do with Stan. He sat down and stared across the coffee table at his uncle.

"Do you think I'll let you stay here and mess up my chances with Christopher? Teresa's going to fight me for custody and she'll use the fact that I'm obviously living with a dangerous delinquent. Except after today I'm not going to be. Get packed."

Travis felt sick. There was nowhere for him. Mom would choose Stan, Ken would choose Christopher, anytime he started feeling safe, someone would jerk the ground out from under him. To his own horror and surprise he burst into tears.

"I thought you liked me." He sobbed, knowing he sounded like a baby, a girl, a moron, and tried to straighten up, get it together, but he was just too goddamn tired.

He'd thought he had been pretty brave through all this mess, had half hoped someone was going to pin a medal on him; but the truth was, everyone was too busy elsewhere.

"Oh, geez," he heard Ken mutter.

Travis got to his feet and managed to say, "I'll get ready."

He didn't know where Ken had put his suitcase, so he just started piling stuff on his bed. He wondered if he could live at home for a little while, at least till he bashed Stan again, before he was sent to the reformatory. But maybe Stan would get him first this time.

He couldn't stop crying. All the crying he hadn't done before was stored up, waiting for a chance like this, he hadn't even known he was carrying it around. But he knew it now.

I sold my book.

That wasn't any comfort now. It'd never get published, not till years from now when he was eighteen. Or maybe--he could admit it now--there was a possibility he'd break down, let Stan read it, get his goddamn approval ... Travis thought of trying to go on living after a humiliation like that. His spirit broken, not special anymore, nothing of his own...

I'll rot in jail first, he thought. I'll kill myself, and I won't burn it. It'll get published.

Then he thought of what it was going to be like, never seeing Casey again. And Ken. He really had thought Ken liked him...

"Look." Ken had opened the door, or maybe Travis had forgotten to shut it. "At least tell me why you threw the phone at Christopher." Travis wiped his face with his old Led Zeppelin T-shirt. It was too small for him now, anyway.

"I didn't. I didn't see them. I was just so mad ... I wasn't aiming at Christopher."

"Teresa said they'd been standing there a few minutes, you were ranting and raving over the phone, then you threw it at them. You mean you didn't see them all that time?"

"No, I was talking to Mom."

Ken stood there quietly. Travis hated the sound of his own sniffles, and blew his nose into the shirt. "Why would I throw a phone at Christopher, anyway?" He gulped.

"Well, Teresa thinks you're on drugs."

"I'm not on drugs. I don't even like drugs."

Which was basically true, although the one time he'd tried cocaine, he'd liked it so much it scared him. He'd seen people get to where all they thought about was that stuff and how to get it. Picturing himself throwing everything away like that scared him enough to never do it again.

"And you swear you didn't see them?"

"I was talking."

"Some people might find it hard to believe you can't talk and see at the same time," Ken said.

Travis held his breath. Maybe ... maybe...

"But I've been around you long enough to believe it. You just look so normal it's easier to believe you're drugged instead of eccentric."

Ecce

ntric. Travis connected that word with little old ladies living with hundreds of uncaged birds, or some professor with his lunch money pinned to his suit...

"I'll talk to Teresa. Maybe we can give it another try. You just don't know how dirty a fight can get when it's about your kid."

That's right, Travis thought bitterly, I wouldn't know.

But he said, "Thanks."

Ken said, "Listen, one more thing. You do like drinking."

"Well, yeah, but I can usually hold it pretty good. I can usually put everybody under the table."

"That's one of the earliest signs of alcoholism. I don't know if anyone's told you," Ken said slowly, "but you're genetically programmed to be an alcoholic. Our dad--your grandfather--died in a veterans' hospital of cirrhosis. And now you've joined a profession that seems to encourage it, if I remember my English lit courses. I'd watch it if I were you."

So. His grandfather had been an alcoholic, huh? Ken was right, all the big-name writers seemed to be boozers...

"How about my dad?"

"No, Tim was--actually Tim was capable of knocking back a few, in the right mood, who knows what ... You know that saying Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse? Cirrhosis is not all that fast, and what you leave's not pretty."

Great. Just when you were onto a good story, it turns into a lecture.

"Achilles says: What sometimes sounds like a lecture, is sometimes just the truth."

Travis jumped with surprise.

"I'm telling you, kid, it doesn't seem like that long ago, I was there."

Ken paused. "I'll talk to Teresa," he repeated.

The tears still wouldn't quit coming, although he wasn't sobbing anymore. Travis wadded the shirt around for a clean spot. "Tell her I'll piss in a bottle for her anytime."

He hadn't meant to be funny, but Ken took it that way, and chuckled all the way down the hall.

Travis started sticking his stuff back in the drawers. He finally paused with his T-shirt, deciding between the trash can and the dirty-clothes hamper. He finally put it in with the dirty clothes. He'd hang on to it a little bit longer. He could still stay, and this time it didn't have anything to do with Tim.

It was the hangover, he decided later. And the damn snake. He'd stayed in the shower so long the hot water ran out, and felt a little better. He wouldn't have been such a big baby if he hadn't been so hung over and tired. He hurt, too, with his sore ribs, and a backache from shoveling, you had to consider that.

He lay flat on his back. Motorboat lay on his chest, his paws tucked under him, staring at Travis with half-shut eyes, rumbling with a loud purr. Cats had such weird eyes...

Ken knocked on the door, then said, "Telephone."

Travis had heard the phone, but figured it was probably Teresa making sure Ken hadn't been murdered by the frenzied drug fiend.

"I don't want to talk," Travis yelled.

Ken opened the door. "What?"