Free William H. Hallahan - by The Monk Page B

of Terry's
most intimate secrets. His second sight was growing stronger than
ever.
    In this room Terry had cultivated a strange and perverse
loneliness. Here he'd fed the bitter pleasure of feeling rejected.
And here he'd done a lot of weeping. Brendan felt a great pity for
him.
    Also, as he watched the Staten Island ferry cross the dark harbor,
Brendan felt pity for himself. He was in the grip of strange forces,
premonitions, sudden revelations of other people's affairs. Worst of
all, somewhere ahead of him in the frightening future, a terrible
challenge was in store for him. A dark furious figure waited to
pounce.
    He didn't want to know about Terry, didn't want to see the past or
the future, especially his own. He yearned to be normal. In his fear
he desperately wanted his parents, and knew he would never see either
of them again. For the first time in his fifteen years, he discovered
the inconsolableness of grief.
 
 
    "He was pickled in his own juices," Aunt Maeve said of
her son in the morning. "I tried to love him but I never found
the way into his heart. It was like trying to handle a porcupine. He
simply rejected me and everyone else. I knew there were many times
when life hurt him and he was feeling very dejected but he never let
me comfort him or get close. Even as a baby he didn't like to be
held. Most of all, Terry loved to feel sorry for himself."
    One morning Terry's vibrations felt stronger than usual, and that
afternoon when Brendan came in from school, Terry sat in the kitchen
in his familiar slouch, one leg slung over the other, kicking slowly,
cheek on fingertip with the expression on his face of a man who had
just smelled a skunk. He didn't speak to Brendan.
    Brendan felt embarrassed, seeing the man up close and knowing his
most intimate boyhood secrets. It was as though he'd heard another
man's confession to a priest. He took a few hesitant steps into the
kitchen.
    "I like your room, Terry. I can lie on the bed and look out
over New York Harbor."
    "I always kept the shade down on that window," Terry
said.
    Brendan left him talking to his mother in that whiny murmur of
his, stirring his tea with a spoon absentmindedly as he talked. When
Brendan came down later, Terry was gone, as furtively as he had come.
    "Terry," Aunt Maeve said sadly, and shook her head. "God
help me." She radiated dismay and regret and guilt. Impulsively
Brendan put his arms around her.
    "You'll never go into a nursing home as long as I'm around,"
he told her.
    "How did you know we were talking about that?" She
looked at him curiously.
    "A guess," he said.
    "Ah, well, he thinks I'm one of his stamps that should be
safely stored in an album." She smiled at Brendan. "Have a
cup of tea and cheer me up. It's not nearly time to talk of nursing
homes. These modern medicines make things a lot different from
Momma's day."
    The arthritis was getting into her knees and her hands, especially
the left hand, and she had to wear rubber gloves whenever she washed
anything in soapy water. She used a cane now.
    A little irritated, she pulled a colorful folder from her apron
pocket and dropped it into the wastebasket. "Golden Years
Nursing Home" it said in happy yellow letters.
    She smiled at him. "Brendan, don't be so nice to the world.
It doesn't deserve you."
    That night, Brendan was waked from a deep sleep by a sound on the
landing outside his bedroom door. A board had creaked in the
darkness.
    Then the door moved slightly. Something was rubbing up against it.
Then he heard the snort of an animal. It rubbed against the door
again, moving it on its hinges. The latch tapped back and forth,
threatening to pop open. The angry snorting grew louder.
    Brendan sat up in his bed and watched the door. He told himself he
was dreaming but the fear was real enough. The animal leaned forcibly
against the door and snorted again in frustration. Brendan leaped
from his bed, seized his desk chair and propped it under the
doorknob. The animal sensed his presence and