Angry Management by Chris Crutcher Read Free Book Online

pale.
    Sarah says, “Hey.”
    Her mother sucks the air out of the room.
    In the dead silence I step forward. “I’m Angus,” I say, putting out my hand. “I’m Sarah’s, uh…chauffeur.”
    She ignores my hand; or, more likely, doesn’t see it. “What are you doing here? I thought—”
    “You’d never see me again?” Sarah says. “I thought that, too. I came to tell you my dad’s in jail. It’ll be at least fifteen years before he’s eligible for parole. You’re safe. I thought I needed you to testify when I was here before, but it’s over, that’s all. I thought you should know.”
    Sarah’s mom drops the plate she was holding into the box and sits back on the floor, speechless.
    I was born Mr. Fix-It. I cannot reconcile the silent scream between them, but even I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
    “Is there a way,” Sarah says, and hesitates, points to her face. “ Was there a way for this not to have happened?Was there anything in you that could have grabbed me and run? Or escaped before it even was possible?”
    Sandy Byrnes rises, tears streaming down her face, closes the maybe ten feet between them, shaking her head with each step. She touches Sarah’s face. “No,” she says. “I was weak, nobody. I’m still nobody. Whatever awful thing he was going to do, he was going to do.” She looks at her watch, then toward the front door. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You can say whatever you want to say to me, or think whatever you want to think. It can’t be half as bad as what I tell myself every day.”
    Sarah nods. Her shoulders slump. I can’t tell if she’s defeated or relieved. Then, “If it helps,” she says, “some people stepped up to help.”
    Her mother breaks into sobs, nodding. “It helps.”
    “And because of them, I won’t be nobody. I won’t be like you. I’ll try to stop hating you, I will. I’ll try to forgive you. But I can’t say that will happen.”
    Her mother continues nodding, bent over. Tears fall directly to the floor. “You have to go now,” she says. “You’ve seen all there is of me.” She straightens up, takes a deep breath, glances at her watch again, then nervously toward the door. “Please. Go.”
    “Is that the last word you want me to hear?” Sarah says. Ice forms in her voice.
    Sandy starts to respond, glances at the door again, and simply nods.
    I rise and put my hand in the middle of Sarah’s back. “Let’s blow this pop stand, baby,” I whisper. “You got all you’re going to get.” In my heart of hearts, I want to beat Sarah Byrnes’s mother to death. In the furthest corners of my imagination I cannot accommodate anyone having done what she did, lived all those years with it, then simply saying, “Go.”
    We stand on the stoop outside the trailer, catching our breath. A girl, maybe junior high, peddles her bike up the street. A dog barks. The wind rustles a broad-leafed tree. We walk toward the car; Sandy Byrnes stands in her doorway, looks down the street, and I see a flash of panic. She glances back at us. “You need to go,” she says. “Hurry.”
    Something is not right here. Hell, there’s a lot not right, but something specific. I see the girl on the bike approaching. She looks right at us, peddling faster. Sarah’s mom looks directly at her, turns away. That’s where the panic is coming from.
    “We’ll go in a minute,” I say, and squat.
    Sandy disappears into the trailer.
    Sarah says, “Let’s go now, Angus. I know what I need to know.”
    “In a sec,” I say, and stay put.
    Sarah walks to the car. The girl rides past her, and their eyes lock. The girl slows. Sarah turns. The girl drops her bike in the yard, glances back at Sarah, says hi to me, and yells, “Mom!” She disappears into the trailer.
    Sarah freezes, staring at the bike lying on the lawn. I run to her, trace her gaze to the bike. Attached to the middle of the handlebars by two thin wires, a personalized license plate—the kind you get in