The Devil's Alphabet

don’t get paid unless he produces.”

Pax turned away from the desk. He went back to the big chair opposite his father and sat, leaning over his knees.

They didn’t speak. Pax studied his clasped hands, trying to get them to stop trembling. Jesus, he was a fucking wreck.

“You’ve got bruises,” his father said.

Pax didn’t reply.

“Are they making you do this?”

“No,” Pax said. “They’re not making me do anything.”

His father nodded. Several minutes passed.

“So,” Pax said. “How ’bout them Cubs?”

His father didn’t answer. They spent the next two hours in silence.

The vintage refused to return.

Each night Pax decided that he wouldn’t go forward with the deal. His craving seemed as strong as ever, but it wasn’t getting worse. He could handle it. He’d go back to Chicago, get on with his life.

Yet each morning at 8:45 he was waiting in front of the house for Everett to pick him up.

The visits lasted until noon. Then Travis would wheel his father off to lunch, and either Everett or Barron would give him a ride back to the house.

Because his father declined to talk, and because Rhonda thought TV would interfere with the process, Pax had to find some way to get through the hours. Each morning before he arrived he and Everett would stop by the Gas- n-Go, say hello to Mr. DuChamp, and pick up three papers: the Knoxville News-Sentinel, USA Today, and the Maryville Times. In the atrium Pax and his father would thumb through them, and usually Everett and Barron would join them. Travis sat well away from Pax and surreptitiously played games on his handheld.

One morning in the second week of visits, Pax handed his father the Sentinel and his father said, “How’s Mr. DuChamp’s hair?”

Pax looked up. “What? Oh. Fine.” He smiled. “Still looks as good as the day he bought it.” Twelve years after the Changes, Mr. DuChamp still wore a coal black toupee, never acknowledging that he’d become a beta.

His father grunted. He was silent the rest of the morning. But the next day his father dropped the section of paper he was reading and Pax automatically stooped to pick it up. His father looked down at him, a half smile on his face, but he seemed to be seeing someone else.

“Dad?” Pax asked. Then he smelled it. The vintage.

He glanced toward the desk. Everett was on an errand with Aunt Rhonda, and Barron was out of the room. Travis was engrossed in his handheld.

Pax touched his father’s hand. The skin seemed more moist than it had been. Quietly he said, “Dad, are you okay?”

“You said you wanted red, right?” his father said. “Fire-engine red.” He didn’t seem to be talking to Pax.

Travis still hadn’t noticed the change. Pax returned to his seat but his eyes were on his father’s face, his neck. He could see the skin of his cheek begin to swell, fast as a boxer’s after a vicious punch.

“It’s me, Paxton,” he said.

“You have to promise me to be careful,” his father said. “Don’t ride it on the road. And if your mother ever catches you without your helmet on, it’s going right back in the garage.”

“I promise,” Pax said. His parents had given him the Yamaha ATV when he was thirteen, seven months before the Changes. It was the best Christmas of his life.

The first blister formed just below his father’s right eye. Pax leaned forward, reached up to his father’s face.

Someone slapped his hand away. Pax lunged forward and Everett shoved him back in his chair. Pax hadn’t heard him come back in the room. “Stay put,” Everett said. “Travis, go get an extraction pack.”

The smell of the vintage blossomed to fill the room. Aunt Rhonda came out of her office holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She put one hand on Paxton’s shoulder. “Good boy,” she said.

Half the linen closet seemed to be flapping on lines strung across the front yard. The twins had been cleaning again.

They were waiting for him in the house. They saw his face and one of them said, “Did something happen?” That was Rainy. She seemed years older than her sister, a young woman deigning to act childlike on occasion for the sake of the smaller children.

“Listen, girls,” he said. “I need you to go home tonight.”

Sandra said, “But we’re making supper! Spaghetti and garlic bread.” She wore a billowing green dress. “Plus we need you to unlock the other bedroom. We couldn’t clean it.”

“Enough cleaning,” Pax said. “And we can have the spaghetti tomorrow. Right now I just need some time alone, okay?”

“What’s in the bag?” Rainy asked.

Pax looked down at the black plastic baggie. He hadn’t realized he was carrying it in his hand. “Look,” he said, “tomorrow before you come, why don’t you go to the grocery store.” He put the bag into his front pocket, then handed Sandra two of the twenties Rhonda had given him. “Buy us some food. Get whatever snacks you want.”

“We need baby food,” Sandra said.

Rainy glared at her. “We have to show you something first,” she said, and then went into the kitchen.

“Oh, right,” Sandra said. Then, “We don’t really need baby food.”

Pax said. “Rainy, I don’t have time for games tonight, okay? You can show it to me tomorrow.” The refrigerated bag felt cool against his thigh.

The girl came back into the room carrying a thin white laptop. She handed it to him. “We need you to open this,” she said.

“Whose is this?” he asked, even though he was sure of the answer. Taped diagonally across the lid was a black-and-white bumper sticker of two fish: a Christian fish symbol, and right behind it, a larger Darwin fish with stick-figure legs, its mouth wide open to swallow the fish in front of it.

“It was Mom’s,” Rainy said. “It’s ours now.”

He sat on the couch and put the laptop on the coffee table. “Where did you get this? Your house?”

They didn’t answer. He looked up, and Sandra was looking at Rainy. “Can you open it?” the girl said.

He thumbed the latch and lifted the lid. “Okay, what next?”

“No, unlock it,” Rainy said. “It has a password.” She sat next to him and pressed the power button. The computer started booting up.

“Why did you hide this?” he asked.

“We didn’t hide it,” Sandra said. “Reverend Hooke took it. Her and Tommy.”

“What? When?” Pax asked.

“The morning after,” Rainy said. “We saw her take it, and Tommy saw her too, but he didn’t say anything.”

“Why didn’t you speak up? This is important. It could have Jo’s-” He started to say “suicide letter,” but thought better of it.

“Can you open it?” Rainy said. On the screen was a prompt for a password. “We can’t get past this part.”

“How would I know the password?”

“Just try,” Sandra said.

He shook his head, put his fingers on the keyboard. He thought for a moment, then typed “BrotherBewlay” and pressed return.

“Incorrect password,” he said.

Rainy was looking at him intently, but as usual he couldn’t read her expression. “You’re not even trying,” she said.

“Okay, fine,” he said. He tried “BewlayBrother,” then several variations with different capitalization and spaces and plurals. Then “hunkydory” and “changes” and “prettythings.”

Pax said, “If we keep putting in bad passwords we may lock it up permanently.”