Chapter 19

1

The first day of school would always be remembered. Because that first day came part and parcel with what it meant being a kid. Summer was the expression of freedom, but even kids understood impermanence because school taught them that all great things came to an end. That joy was ephemeral, and thus misery was an inevitable reality. So even though Adam slogged through his morning routines much earlier than usual, chowing down cereal instead of the oatmeal his mom said would keep him fuller till lunch, Lewis watched with a clear fascination that would always ring a particular nostalgia, no matter his age. It was bright out, the grass green and just showing coats of morning dew that retained, even after all these years, a very specific sensation that reminded Lewis of his own boyhood, throwing the morning paper on front stoops, enveloped by the coming humidity; but here, in Reedy Creek, the world was awash in the verdant throes of summer, even as September promised more rain. Because the first day of school was always marked by similar mornings, yellow sunshine, the raucous intonation of people going to work or busying their own children to get them out the door in time. Adam pecked little Patty on his head, and gave his mom a quick hug before she sat in the kitchen to wait for the phone to ring, because as all things were privy to impermanence, so too did life follow that misfortune.

            “You excited?”

            “A little peeved.”

            “Cause summer’s over?”

            “Cause this keeps happening. Until one day I’ll just stop noticing.”

            Lewis cocked his eye. Barb was nice enough to lend him the Acura, forewarning him that she’d memorized every scratch, and that if he were so inclined to follow up his last act behind the wheel with another joyous sequel, she would have preferred it wasn’t in her car. “Either that’s really deep or just depressing.”

            Adam smiled. He was sitting shotgun, his backpack on his lap with a bagged lunch Barb had put together. From what he could tell, she’d made a simple bologna sandwich with mustard and an apple with crisp red skin. Nothing fancy. “I’m just getting old, grampa. Kind of sucks.”

            Lewis could only laugh. “If you’re old, what the hell am I?”

            “You know what I mean.”

            Lewis pulled the Acura up to the Jew’s place; the grass was nice and short, the hedge along the side of the yard trimmed and precise. Adam had mentioned Danny’s mom had a green thumb and his dad liked pushing the mower while the radio blared the Yankees game, if any stations were broadcasting. “Look, kiddo, don’t take for granted this time. Sure summer’s over, you’re in another grade. Hell, you have so much in front of you to look forward to. First kiss…well, consensual kiss. I’ve heard the girls in Suffolk delighted in chasing you down.”

            “If they could catch me.”

            “Your driver’s license. College. Hell, if I were to wager a bet, I’d say some nice colleges are going to scout you soon here. Probably send a good number of them to Reedy High, welcoming them to this Podunk for the first and hopefully last time of their lives just to speck out what this kid Adam Kramer is packing in his bat.”

            Adam watched Danny trudge down the front path, his fro somewhat manageable today, as if his mom spent some time combing it out and putting some wet product in it to take care of the tangles. He wore jeans and Chucks with a Yankees T. He climbed in the back.

            “Hey grampa. Adam.”

            “Danny, m’boy.”

            “School sucks.”

            “Adam was just saying the same. Though I do like your brevity.”

            Danny only smiled, watching out the window as Lewis pulled away from the curb and headed toward Deermont Road, where he suspected the foldable tables may have still been stacked against the sidewalk by the PURE ETHANOL trailers.

            “You guys had a good summer though, right?”

            “Yeah,” Danny and Adam said at the same time.

            “Jinx.” Again. The boys laughed. Pug was standing outside on the lawn with Chels, letting his knapsack dangle against his leg as the dog eyed the world from the perch on her tummy, her nose peeking above her extended paws. His short hair was combed to the side like a prep; his mom had most likely laid out his outfit the night before while he groaned and moaned, only to relent when she gave him what Lew would always call the stink eye. Betty had a great stink eye. His shirt was a perfectly pressed button-up, stark white, and his jeans were ironed to take out any of the wrinkles so privy to boyhood, his knees patched up and the split seam at his thigh reinforced with stitching; what the Greenfields had done for their lawn, Pug’s mom had accomplished with his outfit. The Nelson’s lawn was slightly unkempt, with dead and dying spots where Chels had peed. “Because of the nitrogen,” Danny would have said. “Too much of it will give the grass lawn burn. Like eating too much makes you fat.” And then he’d punch Pug in the arm to insinuate the insult was meant for him.

            “Hey Pug,” Lewis said. Croak’s place was just up ahead, under the shade of the great willow. He wondered if the root system had affected their basement foundation at all. He supposed it didn’t matter.

            “Hey guys. Don’t say it. I look like I should have taken the special bus.”

            Danny guffawed in the back as Pug waved to Chels out the window. She stood on her haunches and watched the Acura off, retreating toward the front door where Pug’s mom stood carrying a dish rag in one hand, her other mimicking her son’s insouciant gesture.

            “I think you look great, Pug. Professional.”

            “Yeah, grampa…I mean, thanks, but I’m not really after the office worker type.”

            “Maybe bathroom attendant then,” Adam said, and Danny fell into an even greater uproarious laughter that was almost contagious. “If somebody doesn’t flush, you can have a chocolate shake with your mac and cheese.”

            “Gross, Adam!” Pug said, but couldn’t help smiling.

            Lewis loved to be a part of this. As far as memories went, some of his finest were with these four boys. So why not cherish another? It wasn’t exactly a selfish thought. He was mostly done with the scrapbook, and he even watched Trevor’s debate, still shocked the man brought it to him; it was an interesting topic, man’s ingenuity versus man’s blight (or something), he thought that back when Barb implored him to be excited about it, but even now listening to Trevor talk only reminded him of that first dinner when he didn’t touch the roast. That first time he was certain he’d be arrested for murder. He’d found the spot he wanted in the tape and stopped it, taking it out of the VCR and tucking it back in his room until it was time to move it. He pulled the Acura under the willow’s canopy, watching the flayed branches above sway in the slight breeze and holding onto the moment. Every moment was fleeting, he realized. Every single moment, every sight, every sound, so fleeting and indifferent to the choices he’d made. The choice.

            “Lay on the horn, gramps,” Danny said.

            “Maybe his mom will come out in her robe. And nothing beneath,” Adam snickered.

            “Adam,” Lew said crossly. “That’s no way to talk about a lady.” Though he wouldn’t have minded. Croak’s mom was easy on the eyes; he’d met her a few times, and at each he was decent and chivalrous enough to kiss the back of her hand as he took it in his own.

            Croak opened the front door and galloped down the steps with his gangly legs, wearing jeans Lew figured were pass-me-downs. He got into the car and Danny scooted into the center. “Pug, Jesus, your hammy ass is pushing into me.”

            “Good thing Jews don’t eat pork,” Pug retorted and Lew slapped the wheel, snorting. God he loved what these boys had. He did. Because what they had was so real and powerful. Powerful enough, he figured, to fight back against the decay in Reedy Creek that was eating at its seams. There was innocence in youth, the sort none of the boys probably even noticed, but he did. He recognized it every time they were together, and he could feel from them an exuding warmth that didn’t make any rational sense but purported to project an outward happiness, as if the four of them were always in the middle of some great joke. He supposed it was that very feeling that made life manageable when everything else was shit.

            “We good to go?” he finally mustered, still smiling, watching Danny in the rear view, who understood he’d been had and could only sit in silence. The boys all said yes, some more agreeable than others.

            “We safe being in the car with you, old timer?” Danny jibed. If Pug had gotten him, he might as well turn his attention to Lewis. “Rumor has it the eyes ain’t what they used to be.”

            Lew could only laugh. A sense of humor came attached to a little self-deprecation. “The eyes are fine. I just shouldn’t have attempted changing my diaper while driving on Main, but I was sick of sitting in the mess.”

            The Jew howled. The other boys followed. The sound was like magic. Like the crack of a bat or the Beatles singing “Hey Jude.” It was the only way to characterize it. He drove the boys toward Main; they watched the school come into focus, saw the kids already in the field, maybe some new friends, new bullies. There was silence as he pulled up front.

            “You guys better let me know about the prettiest girls. I’m old, but gramma’s been dead awhile.” He winked and the boys laughed again. He wished he could just record that sound and play it as he fell asleep. Maybe then he would not dream of the crows but of baseball. Of Ted Williams. Of the Sox finally winning the Series just to shit on Ruth’s curse.

            “See ya grampa,” Adam said, climbing out of the car and looking back once before joining the guys. The foursome. Oh God he hoped they understood how important they were. How fleeting these moments were and how real their friendship was in spite of the vagaries trying to tear them apart, be they time or girls or parents or disagreements. Or hell, even this town. He watched them walk into the school, finally disappearing in the throng of students who would one day move away from Reedy Creek and probably just forget about it. Forget about those steps that led up to their adulthood.

            But in the end he was wrong, wasn’t he? No, these kids would never forget Reedy Creek.

2

Homeroom was cool because the Fenway Four stuck together; the classroom was typical, chalkboard up front, desks a-row to create those tight aisles the teacher could roam during tests to ensure the smart asses weren’t cheating off the smart kids. Adam sat next to Danny, with Pug and Croak behind them in a cluster near the window looking out over the baseball field where just yesterday they huddled under the bleachers in a mock council that decided the guy living under the town who wanted to make errand-boys out of them wouldn’t find the satisfaction. They were each given their respective schedules and courses; in most cases the four remained together, with the exception of Language Arts, where Pug and Adam would share the pre-lunch class together reading Moby Dick while Adam would comment whether or not Melville was just bragging about his cock, and Danny and Croak would sit together and ponder whether Shakespeare was just an Olde English pun about wiggling out the last drops of piss after a jetstream; math was the oddest, with Pug learning he’d be alone while the other three met after lunch with Mr Kornelson. And there were girls. Hell, a few of them. Some the guys had seen out and about during the summer; some they remembered from the waning months of the last school year. There was an elemental level of interest denoted by boyhood, and the four devoted themselves to baseball and, later on, exploring; those two ranked higher than girls then but now, now as they sat in that homeroom, that redhead Stephanie and Olivia over there by the door in the tank just starting to show those curvilinear juts on her chest so prominently displayed by Pug’s sisters, both girls sitting aloof and disinterested, skin tanned with just the hint of lip liner to really cast a great first impression, the boys graduated instantly from the impulse to throw around the ball to imagining what that tingle truly meant enrapturing their balls.

            “Jesus, Croak, did you see Steph? I mean, man, I’m not much into gingers but she was…” Croak nodded, smiling at Danny. He did see and he did agree. “Doesn’t matter much. She only had eyes for his pecker.” He punched Adam in the arm and Adam only politely told him to fuck off. Because boys were playful and rude and impolite, and though none would admit it, maybe not now, a little jealous. Because once you realized the fairer sex really had some control over you, the envy of the guy with the looks that made the exchange far easier and the communication natural was enough to prove genes were assholes when you saw asses that looked good in jeans.

            “Hey Adam,” Stephanie said as they left homeroom to gather their bearings.

            “Jesus, man, they flock to you like…well, moths to porch lights,” Croak said.

            “That ain’t a moth,” Danny corrected, “but a butterfly.”

            “And quite the butt,” Croak said, almost mesmerized. That was school. You fell into your place, your roster.

            “Nice outfit, dickhead. You gonna do my dad’s taxes?” It was one of the older kids, brushing by Pug. Yes, you were awarded your place on the roster in school, and now Adam knew his. Pug’s mom helped to determine his as well, even before his weight could play a part. If you were fat and dressed poorly, the older kids, the bullies, they’d likely pick one over the other, and usually the tougher to make jokes about. So Pug was an accountant now. And Adam a Don Juan.

            “Welcome to grade seven,” he said with a smile and Croak only told him not to worry about it. But worry is all he could do because school and its pecking order, its roster, it defined what you were and how your year would be. Right from the get go.

            Mrs Napolitano was their homeroom teacher. She was the sheriff’s wife and, Danny would opine, one of those lookers you don’t really recognize until you’ve settled into the routine of having her in your daily life, allowing the gradual realization that maybe those thin lips, that aquiline nose, and hazel eyes globbed in mascara have a merit of beauty to them that isn’t exactly latent but requires some form of familiarity before they can be noticed. And she was beaming. About the school year and about Reedy Creek. Unnaturally so:

            “You students are lucky because in addition to getting an education you’re also living in a grand experiment that will prove so important to fix what us wastrels have done to the planet. Many of you are here because of the ethanol plant. I am. I was so enticed by the idea of domestic sustainability, of reverse engineering our drastic and destructive reliance on fossil fuels, that I thought it a no-brainer to leave my professorship in Philadelphia to make a difference here. To strike into a new generation an idea that will find blossom and hopefully feed new growth in ecological thinking. To nurture a harmony between nature and man.”

            “She sounds like your dad,” Danny said as they walked the hall after lunch            ; the cafeteria was a gaggle of groups all vying for real estate. Adam held a bench near the back by the exit while Croak stood in line to purchase what looked like lasagne but smelt oddly like broccoli; to the Jew the stink was vaguely similar to Pug’s farts and he wasn’t shy about making the comparison.

            “Sheriff’s on the council. I think she might be too,” Adam said. He and Pug had Language Arts and was dreading the syllabus. If there was one thing he disdained about school, it was the reading list.

            “So do you think she knows Grimwood?” Pug asked.

            “Let’s just not talk about him,” Croak answered quickly. “Even saying his name gives me the shivers.”

            “Why, did you dream again about him last night, ya homo?” The Jew only laughed but watched a sort of dawning horror in Croak’s eyes as if he had. Their council was really only about telling the guy no, that maybe four twelve-year-olds shouldn’t be milling about under the Creek, that if their parents even knew about what they were up to they’d lose their shit. They wouldn’t believe the tall-tale, well, with the exception of Adam’s dad, but they’d still be furious that they’d even suggest they’d trespassed on private property.

            But maybe it wasn’t just the thought of Grimwood. Adam understood that was true in a moment. Because Croak saw him first. His older brother. The guy who high-tailed it Saturday night when Lazarus threw him the dime-bag and flashed his gun, disappearing only to end up at home after having the living shit beat out of him. And though they each found it strange, they’d pictured in their minds only a minor scuffle, something you walked away from only having to pop an Advil and rip open a new package of Band-Aids. That was the sort of fighting they understood. Danny included, even though he’d witnessed a few in his time in New York, when the older kids, some his father mentioned were in gangs, beat up a few guys in the subway station and left them in a ragged pile of ripped clothes and blood. But Randy Hopson, the guy who called them all fags whenever they had the pleasure to cross his path, looked like a zombie from one of those comic books tucked farther back in the stacks at The Hobby Shop, or one of George Romero’s movies their parents wouldn’t let them watch because they knew the moment the lights went out the nightmares would start. And they were usually right.

            Randy was walking with his head down and his binder tucked up tightly against his chest; he walked with a hitched limp, something you’d expect to see on somebody with a sprain. He walked on by the boys without saying a word. Without an insult. They weren’t used to it. He’d left his hair down over his eyes; that same hair he’d just cut and moussed up for his date with Ange, leaving him with the sort of lothario look the girls in the hall would have blushed at but now only avoided because a guy like that would have to be invisible just so you could pretend you didn’t see him, so you wouldn’t have to stare and wonder just what the hell might have happened and for that moment elicit a sliver of empathy that might even gravitate the guy toward you. His eyes were swollen, his nose bloated with a purplish hue that reminded Pug of the bruises he’d get on his upper arm when the bullies back in Provo punched him, just above the sleeve-line where the teachers couldn’t see.
            “Christ, Croak, you weren’t kidding. You know what happened?”

            Croak watched his brother. God, he was so scared for him, because last night he did dream. He did. As much as he’d hold onto that truth, keep mum about it, he dreamed Reedy Creek had big teeth and a healthy appetite like some feral dog raised in a dark wilderness, but this gnashing creature was on a leash, dangling in an arc from the fist of a man in the distance only watching, curious, his eyes bright white opals under the brim of a fedora. Watching Randy change for Ange, become something he isn’t, it was nice because you worry about him. You do. You and mom do. And for that one moment you thought he would be okay. But Reedy Creek punished him for it. “I don’t, and he won’t say anything.” He clenched his fists until he felt his nails bite painfully into his palms.

            “That’s savage,” Adam said. “Maybe he opened his big mouth to the wrong guy.”

            “Shut up, Adam,” Croak simply said, watching his brother disappear, watching the reactions of people as they turned to look. And the bell rang.

3

“Randy, you have to talk to me. You can’t keep ignoring me.”

            Angela was in Randy’s homeroom. She watched him walk in with a few other students, his head down, his eyes almost vacant and unknowing, and he sat near the door, plopping down his binder and opening it randomly to empty pages. She stared at him, certain others were doing the same, because his face was a mess. She’d approached Brad about it, angry, Wendy standing back asking why the cute guy down the street looked homeless all of a sudden, as if she’d ignored what his face had recently gone through. “What did you do to him?”

            “To who?” Brad replied, only pulling Ange close while Oliver laughed like some retarded goon.

            “Don’t be stupid, asshole. We aren’t anything. I don’t care what you think and what you want, but this isn’t happening. And it never will.” She walked away, wanting so badly to say more, to truly express herself, but she knew it wouldn’t amount to anything. She was young, but she’d learned to read people, and Brad’s eyes proved he wasn’t one to trifle with, that he may even have a screw loose but his good looks had somehow protected him from any sort of diagnosis.

            “Randy…”

            He finally did stop. She was following him; she understood he was mad, and had every right to be. She ran her mouth. When Horace showed her the Polaroids and gave her the ultimatum, she vented, and it only made sense to find some sympathy from and solace in the group who’d been in the photos with her. Guilt by association ran hand in hand with misery loves company, as far as bromides went. She touched his arm. He was wearing a black hoodie. She understood he was just trying to disappear. A hoodie was what girls called comfort clothes; when shit went down, you pulled out the loose hoodie and grabbed a pint of Rocky Road. Because sometimes you could trick the mind into diverting its attention from your problems to indulge in a little pleasure; it didn’t always work, but it usually helped.

            “Please, Randy. I’ve tried calling. Everything. Why won’t you talk to me? This isn’t fair.” She took him by both arms now, standing by the water fountain, ignoring the idiots staring at them, the idiots who would no doubt talk about the Nelson girl flirting with the Hopson boy, you know, the guy with the busted nose. “You have to talk to me.”

            “Fair?” It was really only a whisper.

            “I know. I know. Not the right word to use. I get it. But I didn’t ask for this. You want me to be honest. And I am. I didn’t like you. When my brother, well, when he blackmailed me, I got mad and maybe said some things I shouldn’t have. To Brad. But not this. I didn’t tell him…” She trailed off and could tell her eyes were misting. She remembered bringing him into her house during the barbecue, when the place was dark and empty but so inviting, and she’d thought then that she had been so wrong. She’d always judged a book by its cover because that’s what people do, but that didn’t make it right. And she’d understood whatever it was she was waiting for all summer, whoever it was that might pass by as she lay in her two-piece, expressing literally that this was her book cover (take it or leave it), he’d been right down the street hidden under a mop of hair and crappy music. And she kissed him. Because it was right and the movies had taught her never to let the moment pass. He was her Jake Ryan.
            “It’s okay, Ange, it is. I got what I deserved…”

            “You didn’t deserve anything.”

            “No. No, I did. Because I thought this would make me different.” He ran his hand through his hair, pulling it out of his eyes, just mere slits in sallow dough. “But I’m meant to be alone, Ange. People just up and leave whenever they want and this was just the truth telling me to get out while I can.”

            “That…That’s bullshit, Randy, and you know it. Bullshit. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

            “Somebody has to.” He turned and walked away, leaving Angela alone in the hallway while the gossip mill pulsed and pulsed and word got around.

            Because it always did.

4

He was standing under an elm tree by Reedy Creek Secondary, just off the skirts of the field where the Creek Hornets, donned in maize yellow and black trim, had patroned a fine baseball team and junior football varsity squad, no doubt taking advantage of the mechanical strengths of those big kids lugged from the farms and away from parents who so often argued for home schooling to keep the big boys out in the barns during the prime hours. Plus a few of those American Gothic mothers and fathers saw in the public school system, so ingrained in what they called the federal leviathan, a cesspool of liberal, Godless thinking. Andy spotted him from Main, and without his customary G20 Chevy parked out by the curb as some kind of calling card, the sheriff was left to patrol the main drags for any sign of his asset.

            Andy flashed his lights and pulled over, watching the red and blue dance in a flickering tango off the guy’s white T-shirt as he stood against the arched bark, arms folded and long hair wistfully flung over his scars.           Andy climbed out of his car, leaving the engine running; his fingers playfully touched his cuffs as he walked over the boulevard, certain a few kids were looking out the windows at this peaceful takedown. Any way to discourage a deadly habit.

            “Sheriff.”

            “Henry, we need to chat.”

            “So soon. Shit, man, I just got here. Distress page from one of the Creek’s finer students lookin’ for pain meds.”

            “You know I don’t like hearing that.”

            “And you know I don’t give a hunky-dory fuck what you like hearing.”

            Now Andy did touch the bracelets, letting that cool tingle rush up his flesh. He could pull his pistol. He could. But it wouldn’t serve any point here. The kid just knew the dance. “Alright, Henry. Hands behind your back.”

            “Seriously?”

            Andy only nodded, extracting the cuffs, letting them dangle.

            “Shit, I didn’t do nothing.”

            “Shut up, Henry.” He clasped the boy’s wrists behind his back and led him to his cruiser, guiding him into the backseat without a word and checking the street around to gauge the looky-loos. They were always around. Always. He only nodded his head at Mrs Rhinestaff, just across the street carrying a bag of groceries, and she would no doubt call Mrs Riddell, who would call Mrs Bass and so forth until the entire world knew the police had taken that poor little scarred boy into custody, and opinions would form without facts; it was certainly a luxury the boy had done what he’d done to his face, because in spite of his reputation in this town, his purpose, there lingered a fellow concern that pitied the poor guy for how he looked. And women like Mrs Rhinestaff were famous for their outwardly signs of sympathy even if it—as he suspected it did—lacked any authenticity but just subscribed to a pattern of maternal bonding among the hens.

            Andy looked at the guy in his rear-view mirror, sitting in the back, fidgeting. “You know why you’re here.”

            “As a matter of fact, asshole, I don’t.”

            “Come on, Henry,” Andy smiled. He was new to all of this, the grind, policing, but it was kind of like riding a bike. Not that the act itself could ever be forgotten, but once you learned and adapted it became sort of second nature. “You know our deal.”

            Henry sat silent for a moment and Andy put the car into gear, still idling next to the school.

            “There’re some pictures on the seat next to you.” He watched Henry glance over as he drove up Main, north toward the columns spewing smoke at the horizon where Bob Arnold’s operation was churning and churning. He’d continue to drive while they spoke. Because he knew Henry would have lots of questions. Shit, there was a reason he let the guy off any sort of leash; he could provide his services, no matter their apparent illegality, as long as he remained open to a certain employable benefit if Andy ever came calling. And maybe he saw the distress in the kid’s eyes now, the distress that was a sign of the end-times, because any favor or quid pro quo relied on actions rendered in the future. And so here was the future.

            “Come on, sheriff, I’ve had a shitty time at it. Some cranky old fuck wrecked my van and I’m on foot patrol now. These damned boots are giving me calluses.”

            “Shut up, Henry,” Andy said. “What do you see in those photos?”

            They were laid out in a couple of rows, atop an open duotang. Photos of an attractive girl, the type Andy saw a lot of when he was still teaching, before he was ousted; shit, he even had a pretty girl just like that one, an aspiring poet, Bethany Roberts, whose own work masqueraded under his name because he saw an amazing opportunity in extending a quid pro quo to her: 4.0 GPA in compensation for authorship of an anthology called “If I’m Alive”, about a grim future of which the writer was ashamed to be witness to and alive in. Because the writer understood where the fault found its roots for the state of the world. Trevor Kramer loved that epic, he did, and would constantly tell him. All while poor Andy understood the words weren’t his, but he cherished the lie, didn’t he? Yes, he really did.

            “I recognize her.”

            “And him?” He watched Henry look over the photos, cocking his eye, his hair still over that ugly scar. You asked him, point blank, why he looked like that. And what did he say? “If it was your business, sheriff, I’d have shown you the home movie. I used to be into snuff. You should know. I met your wife on set.”

            “Yeah, I know him too. Shit, sheriff, I didn’t know these two were fuckin’.”

            “Neither does his wife,” Andy said. He pulled up toward the large parkade entrance into the distillation plant where there was a security station blockading the road and a couple of rental cops sitting inside with coffee and papers. They both looked up and Andy waved, pulling a quick U so he could return down Main while he and Henry had a tet a tet.

            “So what? Nothing to do with me.”

            “It has everything to do with you. Why do you think you have carte blanche run of this place, Henry? Do you even know?”

            “Shit, sheriff, I’d like to say it was my good looks.”

            “You’re an asset.”

            “First I’ve ever been called that. It’s a good thing, right?”

            Andy didn’t answer, because he knew Henry was being a smart ass. He was always being a smart ass. “You control Reedy Creek’s underbelly, Henry. I’ve allowed that. I have a dossier on your frequent buyers. A lot of them are working in that plant, right? Big city people bored in Podunk USA. Shit, I’m one of them. Never been fond of the nose candy though.” No, your drug of choice was always lying. Plagiarizing. And maybe there was some truth to that. He never thought of it as a drug, but it had become a necessity, something he required to function. Because knowing a secret, controlling a secret, something very few would be privy to, was almost sexual in the very continuation and persistence of the lie. “You knew it had to amount to something.”

            “I guess. What do you want with these two? You want me to plant something on them? Call them out?”

            “I’ve compiled my own dossier. About Reedy Creek. The world requires sinners so the good know they’re good.”

            “Didn’t know you spouted the Christ babble.”

            “You’re a professional scapegoat, Henry. It’s why people like you even exist. In the coming world you’ll be a necessity.”

            “Yeah, and why is that?”

            “Because you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty.”

            Henry sat silent for a moment, looking back at the photos, most of the pretty girl and the older man. In a few the two are together, in those throes of passion that was their own dirty little secret, the older man disrobed in the last photo to show the sagging flesh of one who most likely no longer turned on his wife, and who used his power and power of suggestion to entice a far more supple up and comer in the world to give in to his needs. But it was their secret and Andy was convinced that could be enough to sustain it. The power of how wrong it was. He pulled up toward the school again, toward that elm. Mrs Rhinestaff was gone, most likely having picked up the phone while she turned on her shows. Andy wondered if she had any secrets and knew she probably did. They all did.

            “What are you asking, then, sheriff?” Now there was genuine concern in his eyes, masked from the sarcasm, the wit, the smart assery.

            “I know you have a gun. Guns. We did a broad sweep of your van after the accident, Henry. And we’re reaching a boiling point here where my deputies, the bulk of them, are questioning my insistence to let you roam free when your intentions here are so obvious.”

            “Gracias. That what you want to hear?”

            Andy smiled. “I want to read about an incident in The Post tomorrow. Shit, I’d gather the Davenport Journal would love to report. Cause this will be news. Big news is coming to the Creek. Adultery. Murder.”

            “Jesus, sheriff…”

            “Consider it your test for further employment. There are opportunities coming, Henry. And you get to choose your side.”

            “My side in what?”

            Andy tapped the steering wheel. “Whether you’re for the Cause or not. Our agreement stands: You have guaranteed immunity.”

            Henry looked at the pictures. “From God, too?”

            “There is no God, son. So the tough decisions are up to us. And we’ll be making plenty of them.”

5

There was a payphone across the street from the school on Main. He waited for the cruiser to disappear north.

            He inserted a quarter and dialled, looking at the etched glass where bored kids vandalized the booth with their initials, cuss words, poor drawings of dicks. An older version of himself would have chuckled.

            “You were right. Sheriff Napolitano asked me to work with the misfits.” He stood there a moment, Henry Glassman, a kid with a second chance. Or so he was told, before coming here, to Reedy Creek. We all make mistakes, but some of us actually find a reason to fix them. To make amends. “I need confirmation you want me to do what they tell me to. It’s heavy, what he was saying.” He swallowed. It was audible. “I’m meeting the kid after school with the methodone. He contacted me earlier than I thought he would. Than I think even you thought he would.” He looked down the street. There was a boutique clothes store there and he could faintly hear the radio coming from its open door, blasting ice-cold air conditioning into the street. Above, on the light posts, he saw the cameras. He looked up at the closest and wondered if he was being watched. “At 4:00 send me your answer through Creek FM.” He exhaled. “I know who you are, what you’ve done for me, but what they’re asking still doesn’t feel right. None of this does. I’m—” Scared. Was he allowed to say that? To feel that. He didn’t know anymore. Since coming here he was less and less human and more a tool. A thing.

            He hung up the phone.
 

6

Randy knew it was intentional. The fucker wasn’t really near him, but he sort of zagged toward his lane and just dumped the rest of his juice, tipping the bottle before there was any contact. His sweater was soaked. He could feel the sticky dampness and just knew he couldn’t go the rest of the day with that sugary shit all over his stomach.

            “Sorry dude,” the guy said indifferently, scurrying off. Randy didn’t recognize him, but he didn’t think it mattered. Brad probably organized it. A welcome back slosh fest. He was just surprised a crowd of the guys didn’t pop out like Jacks-in-the-box to start a cheer that the new Scarface had an accident, turning the sugary sluice dripping down his front and onto his crotch into piss.

            He made a beeline to the washroom. He didn’t have an extra shirt. He hadn’t gotten his gym clothes yet. He only had gym Tuesday through Thursday, and Mr Ooms would sign out those god-awful yellow sweat shorts and Reedy Creek Secondary T-shirts at that time, handing out shirts far too large and shorts far too short. He pushed open the door and tromped toward the sinks at the far end across from the urinals. Even after going a summer student-free, and most likely meeting the business end of a mop a few times over the last month in preparation for today, the bathroom still reeked of urine. Stale and putrescent. Randy looked at himself in the mirror as he turned on the faucet, pumping some soap into his hands; he’d cleaned all of the blood out of his hair, and even tried icing the swelling, gobbling down ibuprofen to combat the goddamn soreness and inflammation that was turning his face into a bastardized version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But even grinning thinking about Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd busting through the bathroom door to cross their streams, the pain would not subside. That stretching sensation, that he only had so much skin pulled taut like linens over too much mattress, made speaking, blinking more difficult because it took actual effort to do so.

            “What did I say, man?”

            The voice came from behind him. And he knew. The juice, the spill. Right near the bathroom. He knew. “Shit…”

            Brad was standing there with Dave, the lackey tool, both in Ts and jeans, Brad without his Indians cap and his hair swept in a wave across his forehead in a do Randy would have called gay had he not known what this guy was capable of.

            “Jay-sus-H-Cheeeerist, boy. I did a number on you, didn’t I?” He was smiling. Randy didn’t think he recognized anything resembling humanity in the guy’s eyes. They were lifeless, like windows into an empty warehouse. Or abandoned. Yes, he thought that was more fitting. “You’d think looking like that, fuck, you’d just think you’d remember. Or did I knock you senseless and we’ve gotta do it all over again? Is that what happened? You go night-night and forget what we discussed?”

            “No, no, I remembered everything. I’ve stayed away.”

            “That right? What do you think, Dave? Is he lying?”

            Dave only looked at Randy, proud to be standing there with Brad but also partly scared as well. Scared because he was dragged into this, and scared because he didn’t know what Brad was going to do.

            “I heard you and Ange were sharing a heart to heart in the hall. You had your dirty fuckin’ mitts all over her.”

            “No, Brad. I swear, she came after me. I think to check on me. Make sure I was okay. She mighta grabbed my arm or something, I don’t remember.” He wanted to move forward, to show a gesture of honesty, as if the guy might read the sincerity in his pinpoint eyes, but he stood frozen by the running sink, listening to that water.

            “We made a deal,” Brad said, stepping forward now. He nodded toward the bathroom door and Dave traipsed over to turn the deadbolt. He stood by the door in case somebody tried pushing in and called out to see what the problem was. Especially if it was the janitor, Hilton or whatever his name was. Like the hotel-guy. “Look man, I don’t like being here, in this town, any more than you. But the rules apply cause there’s a code. A real code. A code among brothers. That’s my girl, Ange, and you tried to take her away from me. Not just once. No, the first time I had to teach you a lesson. And I thought you learned it. I did. I hoped. But shit, you’re daft, greaser. You are. Maybe you got a concussion. I was really mad the other night. Maybe I went too far. I do that. I’ve got what some people call an extreme personality. No, I’ve got this dedication to the code. And you broke it again.”

            “No, Brad, I didn’t break anything. I didn’t even talk to her, she talked to me.”

            “So you’re saying it’s her fault?”

            It was helpless. Randy understood that now.

            “Come on, Randy. You seem like a decent guy. You do. But at the same time I think you’re retarded. Fucking retarded. Maybe you shouldn’t be in this school. If you can’t remember a simple lesson beat into you, how the hell are you going to remember math? You see what I’m saying?”

            Randy didn’t answer. He didn’t think it would matter either way. Brad was close enough to touch him; he could smell a whiff of his cologne, mixed now with the piss, the stuff that hit the floor on either side of the urinals, the stuff people stood in and tracked everywhere.

            “Christ, I can see the stupidity in your eyes. Like looking at an animal. Scared and stupid. Fuck, man, why did you make me do this?”

            “Brad—”

            Brad grabbed Randy’s shirt and pulled him forward. He relented at first but then the pain gathered in his ribs, cramping his side, and he knew that burst of endorphins usually reserved for the fight or flight was as impotent as he must have looked, and his parasympathetic nervous system was just like this bathroom, empty and stained with piss. Brad’s hands were large and powerful. He throttled Randy’s throat, nearly crushing his trachea, pushing it back so all he could do was gag; he could feel that pressure and pain radiate into his nose, into his orbital sockets, and just as Dave watched pensively, uncertain, Brad pushed him against the tiled wall between the urinals, where the porcelain was already dirtied, and where clumps of pubes had already plastered to the toilets’ rims as if pissers were bored just standing there and decided to pluck. “What do I do to make you remember? Tell me.”

            He could only gag, regurgitate stuttered coughs. So he did. Then there was silence. And the running sink behind them. “Nothing, Dave. He’s giving me nothing.” Brad turned around and looked at the basin, at the steady stream, and he smiled. It was such a strange look, like a vampire laughing at a joke told by the body at his feet, uttered just before the vampire finally struck and ripped the carotid from his neck to feed. “Dave, come here.”

            “But the door—”

            “Just fuckin’ come here.”

            Dave relented. As he always would. He left the locked door unattended and quietly walked toward Randy, not wanting to look, not wanting to see the pleading in the guy’s eyes because he, unlike Brad, could feel remorse and had an inkling of feeling.

            “Maybe a beating didn’t work. It would for me, but different strokes, right. What’d that little nigger always say? Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis.” Brad laughed, still holding Randy by the throat, still pressing him into the tiled wall. “So maybe I need to take a different approach with you, greaser. Shit, what a name. Appropriate. Greaser.” He laughed even harder, and the sound was hollow. Tinny.

            “What do you want me to do?” Dave asked.
            Brad kicked Randy’s legs, sweeping his feet out from under him. He landed hard on his knees and saw black; the spiralling numbness in his ribs, for moments almost comforting, finally exploded into a white fury that he could see on the backside of his eyelids. Like a lit fuse. He could still feel Brad’s hand on his throat even though it wasn’t there. Now he was just staring up at them, unable to talk, unable to move.

            “Lay your head on the pisser, Greaser.”

            “What?” Dave asked. He looked down at Randy, then back at Brad. Unsure and frightened. Because maybe now an understanding was starting to blossom. Maybe now he could see Brad’s insanity for what it was. And he might just take that home with him and try to convince his parents to move away from this place, and in the end, if it had worked, it would have been for the best for Dave, but in the end those decisions aren’t made by kids. No, the kids are powerless. And he felt that way in here. Just as powerless as Randy down there on his knees.

            “Put your head on the urinal. Dave, you hold him there. He moves, kick him as hard as you can. This little fucker needs to be taught a lesson. Is there a sign in here that says this is against the rules? I didn’t think so.”

            “Brad, this is—”

            “This is what? Stop being a pussy and hold him down, or you’re next.”

            Dave stepped around to Randy’s side and pushed his knee against the guy’s back, nudging him forward. Randy only scooted.

            “Lay your head down. I won’t ask again nicely.” Brad lightly kicked Randy in the stomach and he could only exhale. There was pain but it was only a nuisance now, like a heavy leaden weight. Randy just looked at the rim of the urinal. Looked at the sticky, aging yellow rings and the kinked hair and he just closed his eyes. He wanted to get this over with. “That’s a good boy,” Brad laughed. Randy heard a zipper and he closed his eyes. This is the lowest point of your life, he thought. If only your daddy could see you now, tough guy. “You open your eyes and look up at my dick, maybe then I know you ain’t after my girl. Maybe then I know you’re just a faggot using her to get to me. So maybe you might just reach up for it, right? Is the Greaser a faggot?”

            Randy kept his eyes closed. He could feel the pressure on his back from Dave’s knee waning and he knew the guy wanted to get out of here as bad as he did. He felt the warm splash first on his forehead, and just as Brad started breathing, breathing through that empty smile of his, the stream grew thicker and coarser and hotter, and it filled his eye socket; he could feel freshets straining through his eye lashes, could feel it pooling on the side of his nose and suctioning into his nostrils, filling his sinus like acid, and running down his mouth, between his lips no matter how hard he tried to keep them closed, until he could taste it, could almost gargle it.

            “Shit, maybe you ain’t a faggot. Didn’t even look. And here I thought I had such a nice cock.” He heard Brad zip up his fly, in spite of the piss settling in his ear. He knew standing meant ribbons of the stuff streaming all over his clothes. Maybe he could just stay down here. Maybe that’s what was meant for him now. “Dave, what do you think, it’s nice, right?”

            Dave must have nodded because he didn’t say anything.

“Well, this is for not looking.”

            He felt the bone-hard joint in his chest and knew Brad must have kicked him. The pain washed back into his head and he bucked back, striking the urinal, splashing piss all over the floor, and then falling in a tangle on the unwashed tile where he rested for a moment, the dry side of his face comfortably contoured against the resinous slurp you’d find on the bottom of most boys’ shoes.

            Is this what’s it’s going to be like here? This? Fuck, boy, you were just pissed on. You’re a toilet. That’s your worth in this world.

            “Let’s see if you learn your lesson this time, fuck-wad. That’s two strikes. Two. You don’t wanna make it three.”

            Randy heard Dave unlock the bathroom door and then he heard them both leave. He stayed there, beneath the urinals, for another minute or two. He didn’t cry. He wanted to. But he understood that would somehow make it worse. When he did stand up the pain wanted to pull him back down, like tight cords of rope wrapped around his wrists, his ankles. He felt like that giant in Gulliver’s Travels. He made it to the sink, its faucet still running, and he stared at himself only briefly. He looked monstrous to begin with, but it was far worse with warm piss running down the bruises and over the knotted bone. Far worse. He ran his hands under the water and washed himself. As best as he could.

            That’s how school went for Randy Hopson.

7

“Holy crow, I hope you didn’t do that on account of my flashing a gun.”

            Randy texted Lazarus after the incident. That’s all he could call it. He’d soaked his hoodie under the tap with some soap until he got a fine lather, and then he rinsed his hair. He was lucky class was in session and nobody found the urge to come in, because he stood for a good five minutes at that basin shirtless and humiliated. And that would have just been the cherry on top. But that’s how bad it’d gotten. The pain and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. He called from the payphones in the front lobby, next to the raised ledge showing a few rows of corn husks growing from the planter, watching head admin in the office stare at him casually, Principal Perez’s desk secretary glancing up every so often through the plate glass as she typed on the computer, her posture so stiff and perfect. When he got the callback, he answered even though it hurt to open his mouth.

            They met by the elm on Main at the skirt of the field, its branches hanging in an arc over the road. School had just let out and the gaggle of kids were cutting across the field, others hitching a ride on the few school buses required in the Creek. Most students were likely within walking distance.

            “Here, let’s duck out across Main and hit up the back lane.”

            Randy only nodded. A piece of him was hit hard when he took the boys out into the greenbelt and woods Saturday night, and that piece was what he figured younger kids looked up to and feared. What he saw in Lazarus was a guy who could appear even-keeled, but whose temperament could explode like TNT at a moment’s notice. And he wouldn’t test him. Not since the incident. Farther south he could see the Pizza Parlor. God, memories were tough. Those high times, they were so temporary.

            “I ain’t one to judge, bud, but you smell like piss.”

            Randy reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. One of the twenties Cory gave him to start up this shit show in the first place. A part of him wanted to wail on his brother and his friends, but it wouldn’t solve anything. Not a damn thing. “Just the painkillers. I don’t need any commentary.”

            “Look, shit man, I didn’t mean to offend. The other night, that was just me trying to look cool. You know something about that, right, what with a younger bro and his little friends tailing you, looking up to you? But this,” he gestured to Randy’s face, to his knotted nose and split lip, his turgid eyes like slats peering from a purple well, “shit, it’ll heal. Nothing long term there. Not like this.” He pushed aside his hair to show the scars, the pitting, the ossified white cords of flesh that contorted the one side of his face into something rather horrifying. Something Randy didn’t quite want to look at. “We cool?”

            Randy only nodded. He knew smiling, even half-heartedly, would hurt like a bitch.

            “Put that shit away,” Lazarus said, nodding toward the folded twenty. “Your money’s no good with me. I’ve been an asshole to you, and if I’m going to want your repeat business, I’m going to need your trust. And trust ain’t gained fiscally. That’s how you get fucked. And I’m no banker. I’ve got some pills here. 10 mg. It’s a first dose thing, see how you handle it. Usually when somebody’s looking to escape, shit, I just hand over the needle and a spoon, ya dig, but I’m not one to get a guy like you hooked on opiates. On Smack. No, shit, that stuff is for people too old to change or make a difference. I don’t mind the fifty-year-old with track marks on his arm, cause his life doesn’t measure shit anymore; he made his choices. But you, you’re an older brother, a role model. This is Methadone. High powered narcotic but with a noble purpose: it mimics peptides, man, like a natural high. Weans folk off of the hard illegal shit, the stuff you cook on spoons, the Black Tar.” He tossed the pill-bottle and Randy caught it, grunting when he shifted his arm.

            “I don’t know…whuh—what to say,” Randy said, looking at the bottle, the prescription tag ripped off. He wondered if Lazarus pilfered it from the General. And maybe he had. It wasn’t really his business. “Shit, man, it’s just…it’s been a bad day. Couple of days.” He chuckled, trying to find some humor in it. Anything.

            “Who did that to you?”

            “Assholes. World’s full of them.”

            “Well, at least you can throw the blame their way. This,” he pointed to his face again, “is on me.” He smiled. It was a kind smile. Randy thought he might have been good looking once; the same way cutting his hair seemed to temporarily fix him, a perfect skin graft might do the same for Lazarus. “But you be careful with those. They are strong as fuck. One pill a day. Okay. 2 mg. I don’t want to read about some busted up kid going into a coma. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

            Now Randy did smile. This couldn’t have been the same guy who flashed his gun at him the other night; the same guy he was afraid to leave his brother with. For the first time in days he felt rewarded, lifted some out of the darkness.

            “One word of advice: get your nose set. You’re a looker, bud. Without the bruising, pussy won’t be a problem for you. But you don’t want the honker. The deviated septum, they’re calling it. You’ll breathe like Vader. I can fix it for you once you’re high. You just let me know.”

            “Yeah…yeah, okay.”

            “Look man, I’ve gotta go. Shit to do, people to see. You know the biz. Keep in touch—”

            “Randy,” he said, not sure why. But maybe he sensed a kindred spirit here. Two guys with fucked up faces. Two outsiders.

            “Randy. Okay. Shit, if we’re on a name basis, you might as well know I ain’t Scarface or Lazarus or the Pusher, Montana, whatever the hell it is people are calling me. My name’s Henry. Used to wish I was named after Henry Aaron, but I ain’t black and my dad hated baseball.”

            “Okay Henry…thuh—thanks, for this. For, well, for caring.” Now Randy did smile. Even if he could still sort of taste piss, could still smell it in the contorted chambers of his nose, he knew he wasn’t exactly alone. And maybe that would be enough for him.

            “Shit, Randy, don’t get all misty eyed on me.” Lazarus smiled as he left the alley; there was more life in his eyes than Brad could ever brag to have. Maybe what he needed now wasn’t a friend to pity him but someone who genuinely understood how he felt.

            Someone who’d seen the darkness. Who’d lived in it.