Low men in yellow coats by Stephen King

Soon as the Western Auto opens. Then we’ll — ‘

‘I don’t want a bike,’ he said. ‘Not from that. And not from you.’

She froze with her hands full of money and he felt her rage bloom at once, something red and electrical. ‘No thanks from you, are there? I was a fool to ever expect any. God damn you if you’re not the spitting image of your father!’ She drew back her hand again with the fingers open. The difference this time was that he knew it was coming. She had blindsided him for the last time.

‘How would you know?’ Bobby asked. ‘You’ve told so many lies about him you don’t remember the truth.’

And this was so. He had looked into her and there was almost no Randall Garfield there, only a box with his name on it . . . his name and a faded image that could have been almost anyone. This was the box where she kept the things that hurt her. She didn’t remember about how he liked that Jo Stafford song; didn’t remember (if she had ever known) that Randy Garfield had been a real sweetie who’d give you the shirt right off his back. There was no room for things like that in the box she kept. Bobby thought it must be awful to need a box like that.

‘He wouldn’t buy a drunk a drink,’ he said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You can’t make me hate him . . . and you can’t make me into him.’ He turned his right hand into a fist and cocked it by the side of his head. ‘I won’t be his ghost. Tell yourself as many lies as you want to about the bills he didn’t pay and the insurance policy he lost out on and all the inside straights he tried to fill, but don’t tell them to me. Not anymore.’

‘Don’t raise your hand to me, Bobby-O. Don’t you ever raise your hand to me.’

In answer he held up his other hand, also fisted. ‘Come on. You want to hit me? I’ll hit you back. You can have some more. Only this time you’ll deserve it. Come on.’

She faltered. He could feel her rage dissipating as fast as it had come, and what replaced it was a terrible blackness. In it, he saw, was fear. Fear of her son, fear that he might hurt her.

Not tonight, no — not with those grimy little-boy fists. But little boys grew up.

And was he so much better than her that he could look down his nose and give her the old la-de-dah? Was he any better? In his mind he heard the unspeakable crooning voice asking if he wanted to go back home even though it meant Ted would have to go on without him. Yes, Bobby had said. Even if it meant going back to his bitch of a mother? Yes, Bobby had said.

You understand her a little bit better now, do you? Cam had asked, and once again Bobby had said yes.

And when she recognized his step on the porch, there had at first been nothing in her mind

but love and relief. Those things had been real.

Bobby unmade his fists. He reached up and took her hand, which was still held back to slap . . . although now without much conviction. It resisted at first, but Bobby at last soothed the tension from it. He kissed it. He looked at his mother’s battered face and kissed her hand again. He knew her so well and he didn’t want to. He longed for the window in his mind to close, longed for the opacity that made love not just possible but necessary. The less you knew, the more you could believe.

‘It’s just a bike I don’t want,’ he said. ‘Okay? Just a bike.’

‘What do you want?’ she asked. Her voice was uncertain, dreary. ‘What do you want from me, Bobby?’

‘Pancakes,’ he said. ‘Lots.’ He tried a smile. ‘I am so-ooo hungry.’

She made enough pancakes for both of them and they ate breakfast at midnight, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. He insisted on helping her with the dishes even though it was going on toward one by then. Why not? he asked her. There was no school the next day, he could sleep as late as he wanted.