The Town Crazy by Suzzy Roche

Author:Suzzy Roche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gibson House Press
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

AFTER SIX DAYS at the McCarthy home, Alice was badly constipated, not even knowing what that meant. She’d been holding on to every inch of herself and couldn’t get comfortable at their house, most especially in any of the family’s bathrooms. Making even a tiny stink or tinkling noise was unbearable. It seemed that whenever she snuck away to try to use one of the bathrooms, the door was closed, and she worried it would be impolite to knock or wait in the hallway. She feared that from behind the door Mr. McCarthy might emerge in his boxer shorts, with a newspaper under his arm, having just flicked a cigarette into the toilet bowl as it flushed, with a bad smell lingering. It had happened once, and upon seeing Alice, he’d walked past as if she weren’t there, but then turned back abruptly, and said, “Boo!” He laughed so loud it seemed more like a roar, and though Alice had the sense that he was trying to be funny, she didn’t like it at all. Mr. McCarthy’s size alone was beastly, but his hairy back and chest made him seem like something that belonged in a zoo, not in someone’s home.

“Mom,” she kept saying to herself. “Mom!” she called out one night, waking herself up, but no one else.

Alice hadn’t seen Sneedler all week, and she pictured him shivering in the cold woods that lay beyond the McCarthys’ at the end of Mundy Lane. When no one was paying attention, she peeked out the windows on that side of the house, but there wasn’t a trace of him. She knew she should search for him, but sometimes at night the trees looked like they might become uprooted and run around.

And what if Sneedler died?

Before bed, her dad would call to say goodnight. Most of the time, Clarisse McCarthy stood beside her in the kitchen as she talked to him, but one night he called while Clarisse was tending to the twins.

“How’s it going?” said her father.

“Not good,” Alice whispered.

“Not good? Why?”

“Dad, can I come home?” said Alice, clutching her hand around the receiver.

“Not quite yet, sweetie. Soon.”

“Is Mom there?”

“She’s asleep. She loves you. We both do.”

“Dad, please.”

“Very soon.”

But Clarisse came back into the kitchen and gestured for the phone.

“Jim,” she said. “We’re having a grand old time. Don’t you worry. Alice is settling in, and we adore her.”

After the call, Alice stood in the kitchen staring at the wall phone wishing that instead of the nightly good night from her father, her mother would call. Clarisse seemed to think she was still hungry.

“No more food for you! You must have a tapeworm. Come on, go play with the girls.”

But playing with the girls was not that easy. Her initial hopes that her stay would be fun had dwindled quickly. Behind their mother’s back, they teased her relentlessly, just like in the playground, excluding her from their private games and making jokes at her expense.

At lights out, she lay straight and

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