Lights Out by Peter Abrahams Read Free Book Online

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    Two boys, Eddie and Jack, on a mattress in a darkened room. The mattress was the good ship Fearless , the room a storm-toss’d sea. Eddie was Sir Wentworth Staples, captain in the British Navy, on a mission to exterminate pirates on the Spanish Main, and Jack was One-Eye Staples, king of the buccaneers. Through a series of efficient coincidences, thelong-separated brothers now found themselves alone on the Fearless , sailors and pirates all drowned, the ship sundered and foundering. The situation and characters came from a book the boys had found in a trunk in the basement of one of the rooming houses they’d lived in after their mother got fired: Muskets and Doubloons . They made up their own endings.
    “By thunder,” said One-Eye, because One-Eye had a salty way of talking, “we’re in a tight one now.”
    “Aye, matey,” said Sir Wentworth.
    A mighty wave struck amidships. The brothers clung to the sheets to keep from being washed away. The wind moaned all around. After a while the brothers realized it was a real moaning, the moaning of a woman: Mom, to be precise. The sound came through the thin partition.
    Then they heard Mel: “You like that, don’t you, babe,” he said.
    No answer. The boys clung to the sheets.
    “Say you like it. Then maybe I’ll do it again.”
    Pause. “You know I like it.”
    “Say you like when I do that to you because you’re such a hot slut.”
    Sir Wentworth tugged on One-Eye’s pajama sleeve. “We’ll have to make a raft,” he whispered. “She’s sinking.” One-Eye didn’t move.
    “Say it,” said Mel, on the far side of the wall.
    “I like when you do that because I’m just a slut,” said Mom.
    “Good enough.”
    Sir Wentworth tugged again at One-Eye’s sleeve. “Help me,” he said.
    “Help you what?” asked One-Eye.
    “Build a raft. The good ship Fearless is going to Davy Jones’s locker.”
    One-Eye pushed him away. “Stop being a jerk,” he said. He rolled over and closed his eyes.
    Sir Wentworth built a raft out of pillows. The Fearless went down. The storm moaned and moaned all around them, with two voices now, male and female. Sir Wentworth lay silent on the pillow raft until it passed, the body of One-Eye motionless beside him.

    There had been a succession of Mels, each one harder to live with than the last. Maybe their own father had been just another Mel too; the boys didn’t know. He’d checked out early, and Mom didn’t talk about him. The last Mel liked to slap the boys around a bit. One day Jack slapped back. The scene that followed prompted Mom to farm the boys out to Uncle Vic, on the New Town side. She and the last Mel moved to California a few months later. That was that.
    Eddie stood in front of 23 Turk Street, Uncle Vic’s house in New Town. It wasn’t much of a place; they’d known that even then: a shotgun house with wavy floors, depressing wallpaper, grimy trim. But Uncle Vic wasn’t even their uncle, just some old friend of Mom’s. He didn’t have to do it. That was a plus. Another plus was that he kept his fists to himself.
    Uncle Vic worked the night shift at Falardeau Metal and Iron. In the afternoons, he coached the high-school swim team. That had been the biggest plus of all: he had taught Jack and Eddie how to swim, really swim, and they had swum their way out of town.
    Twenty-three Turk hadn’t been much of a house then. Now, like the rest of the town, it was past saving. Eddie walked across the sagging porch and knocked on the door. No one came. He knocked a few more times, then put his ear to the door, listening for movement inside. Someone said, “Tonight at seven—nudist camp murders.” Then came a Coke commercial.
    Eddie knocked once more, harder. He was ready to do it again when the door opened. A tiny man with a matted beard and stringy white hair looked out, blinking. He shrank back a bit when he saw Eddie’s hand, in knocking position. Eddie lowered it.
    “Whatever you’re sellin’ I’m not