The Scream

He hated to call Sally. He was shaky, and if there was anyone he wanted less than his mother to know what he'd done, it was Sally. He kept putting off calling her until it was almost time for his mother to come home, and then he went out and used the nearest public phone.

"I wanted to be sure you got home all right last night," he explained.

"You'd have known by now if I didn't. It was real mean of you, David, to go and leave me with that pack of wolves."

"I didn't leave you! You said… whatever you said. It doesn't matter. What happened?"What almost happened on the way home was worse. We had to go the County Road-the interstate was closed.…"

"I know," David said. "What happened to you, I mean?"

"The guys were fooling around. They're sex fiends, and all of a sudden we almost hit a car parked halfway on the highway. No lights, nobody around, like it died and somebody just left it there."

David saw the whole thing in his mind's eye. "Did you stop?'

"Why should we have? We didn't hit it or anything. But it cooled off Micky's sex urge. When we got to Oak Forest, he dropped me at our driveway and took off."

If the car was still there later, what did it mean? What had happened to the woman?

"If I didn't see it," David said, the words of denial slipping out, "you must have come home a lot later than me."

"Not much. I kind of agitated to get us on the road. I'm sorry I said what I did, David. You shouldn't be so sensitive. Women can be frustrated too, you know. You're not crude like those other guys, and I admire that. I admire a lot about you."

"Thanks," he murmured.

"What do I have to do to make up for what I said? Ask you for another date? I was the one who asked you last night, you know."

"I'll call you real soon, Sally."

"I go back to school on Sunday." She was on midterm break.

"I'll call you," he said again.

"Okay, David. Thanks for calling." The phone clicked off.

Now he had hurt her, but he couldn't help it. He stood in the booth after hanging up and tried to find the words with which he could tell Sally what had happened to him. It went fine until he had to say, I didn't stop. They hadn't stopped either, but they'd not seen the screaming woman.

A man waiting to use the phone pushed open the door. "Do you always go into a phone booth when you want to talk to yourself?"

After an early di

She listened thoughtfully. Then, out of a clear sky, she said: "Would you like a year of study in France if it could be managed?"

David was stu

"Well?" she prompted.

"Yeah, sure. I mean, that's a third-year alternative and I'm only a freshman."

"Only a freshman," she repeated. "You put yourself down, Davie. You shouldn't do that. The essay is very good."

"It isn't long enough to call an essay."

"Nevertheless. Would you like to read the poem itself to me?"

He was on his way to get the book when the phone rang. His mother called out to let the machine take it for now. He pretended not to hear her. All evening, except for when he lost himself in the poem, he had anticipated something heavy about to happen. Nevertheless, when he heard McGraw's voice, his heart gave a sickening thump.

"David, I hope I'm not interrupting your di

"No," David said. "It's not convenient for me."

"Then you must make it convenient. It's not a matter of choice, young man. Are you with someone now so that you can't talk?"

"My mother's home," David murmured.

"Well now, sooner or later, you will want to involve her. Maybe not. That's not my business. Let's meet somewhere in the morning. I would say my office, but it's being decorated. Unavailable, really. And I don't want to meet in your car again

We're not conspiring thieves, are we?"

"David?" his mother called inquiringly from the study.

"I'll be in in a minute, Mother." To McGraw, he said, "You can come here in the morning, but not before eight-thirty." It was his mother's turn to drive. She'd leave by eight o'clock.

McGraw repeated the time and checked David's address. He had it right.

Returning, book in hand, to where his mother was waiting, David explained, "I got some scratches on my car going down to the beach last night. A guy's going to paint them for me."

"Have it done by a professional, David. I'll help you pay for it."

"Great," he said.

"Not everything is great," she said. Then: "Shall we put off the poem until another time?"

McGraw arrived not long after the hall clock struck the half-hour. David had again cut loose his riders. He took the lawyer to the kitchen. McGraw was wearing the same topcoat. He took it off and put it on the back of a chair and perched the hat on top of it. "It's a good thing I make house calls, isn't it? Any coffee left in the pot?"

David poured half a mugful and heated it in the microwave. McGraw was taking inventory of every convenience in the kitchen-like he was pricing it for a yard sale.

He took the coffee black. "Why don't we start with your side of the story first, David-what really happened to you on the way home?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything," David said.

"In that case, hear this," McGraw said. "A farmer whose address is rural box seventeen on the County Road heard a woman scream out in front of his place after midnight last night. It woke him from a sound sleep. He looked out, thought he saw a car stalled on the road, and decided to call the sheriffs patrol. The call was clocked at twelve-twenty. But on account of the accident on the interstate, the patrol didn't pick up on it till daylight. I went out there myself with Addy Muller, drove him, in fact. He was dead on his feet after a double shift. But the farmer was pissed at how long it took the sheriffs men to show up. I'm telling it to you straight, David…"

David didn't say anything. McGraw took a noisy sip of his coffee. "Addy remembered you kids on the beach and figured you might've been heading home about then. He remembered you live in Oak Forest. He asked me if I'd like to look you up while he made the rounds of the hospitals. You were the one he remembered by name and school. He thought you were too young to be ru

"You didn't want to talk to me, David; you didn't show much respect for the truth either. In other words, you were scared. I can see why.

"It turns out the woman was on her way home from work, tired, late, and she had to relieve herself. No traffic that she could see. She pulled halfway off the road, turned off the lights, and went in front of the car. Now wouldn't you like to take it from there?" David was silent.

"David, there was a witness. You were driving at high speed, came out of nowhere just as she came around from in front of the car. You could have made sausage meat of her, and you didn't even stop."

"I didn't hit her. I know that."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"So what do you think happened to her?'

David shook his head.

"But you didn't care as long as you could get away."

"I did care, but I knew I hadn't hit her."