Fitz Read Online Free Page B

regrets telling him that much.
    “Yeah,” Fitz says. “Groovy.”
    Fitz wonders if his father even likes his music all that much. Probably these CDs are just fashionable props, like his briefcase, a bunch of titles recommended in some slick men’s magazine.
    Fitz slides the Dinah Washington out of its sleeve. He’s heard the name, probably from Caleb, the music encyclopedia. He slips it into the player, and the first track starts just as they see the first sign for the zoo. There’s some strings, then Dinah starts singing, belting it out in this amazing voice: “What a difference a day makes/Twenty-four little hours.”

8
    “Pull over,” Fitz tells his father.
    They’re on the park grounds now, just passing the Frog Pond. Fitz can see the dome of the conservatory, a huge, humid greenhouse full of exotic flowers, shrubs, ferns, and even trees. Fitz thinks of his mom—the Como Conservatory is one of her favorite places in the world. They’ve been visiting together for years: even if they come to the park for the animals or the rides, they usually stop in at least, pay a quick visit. She loves it, and he endures it for her sake. She can look at orchids forever, and Fitz sort of understands—here, she is like how he and Caleb are at the music store. If you know the stuff, flowers or guitars, it doesn’t matter, if you love them, they are all fascinating and beautiful, the colors and shapes and smells of them. He and his mom usually talk a little about what they’re looking at, take turns playing the teacher, so now his mom knows the difference between a Les Paul and a Strat, and Fitz has learned some basic flower names. Fitz has, though he would never admit it, grown especially fond of the crooked little bonsais, the Japanese trees in pots, which seem tohim to have distinctive personalities, some of them looking feisty and defiant, others sad and apologetic.
    Where does a guy like his father go to lose himself? Fitz wonders. What does he look at to cheer himself up? What makes his tail wag? Sports cars, maybe? Italian suits? Fancy watches? Fitz has no idea.
    His father slows the car down a little, but he doesn’t stop.
    “I said, pull over.” Fitz raises the gun again. “Now.” His father covers the brake, checks his mirror, and parks at the curb. He glances at Fitz then, as if for his approval: Fitz feels like the most hard-core driving instructor in the history of the world. The gun, it occurs to Fitz, is just like the conch, the shell that the wild pack of boys in
Lord of the Flies
uses in their councils—as long as you’re holding it, people listen to you. Fitz holds it now, and he’s not about to let it go.
    “Okay,” Fitz says. “Turn the car off and hand me the keys.”
    His father obeys. He takes the keys from the ignition and holds them out in the palm of his hand. Fitz grabs them and pockets them with his left hand, the gun in his right hand, at his hip.
    His father is looking at Fitz now in a way that seems almost clinical, studying him, as if Fitz is a client or even a patient—he’s silently taking him in, taking his measure, forming some kind of judgment or diagnosis.
    “So,” his father says. “What’s your favorite subject?” He sounds like a school nurse making small talk while she’s preparing to take out a sliver, that same tone of voice, kindly in a sort of abstracted, generic way. It’s how you talk if you get paid to be nice, if you don’t want to scare someone you know you’re going to hurt.
    “You’re kidding me, right?” Fitz says. “What’s my favorite subject?”
    “I’m just asking.”
    Fitz feels another wave of anger wash over him. His father’s composure, his professional cool, his small talk, here and now, with a gun in his face—it’s making him crazy. “What was yours? Life-wrecking? Is that a subject? I’m just asking.”
    His father leans away from Fitz, away from the heat of his outburst. It’s how people respond to the scarily inappropriate.