Authors: Edward Lazellari
“You should pick your fights better,” Rita said. They pulled into the driveway. The house was looking run-down, an eyesore on the block.
“Mom…”
Rita turned off the ignition and looked at the boy. Her eyes were alien. Nothing of Daniel’s resided there.
“What?”
“Is Clyde looking for a job at the hospital?”
“Not that I know of. Why? Was he at the hospital today?”
“I thought he came for me.”
“Where did you see him? Emergency room? Was he injured?”
“He was talking to a woman. A secretary. Or something.”
Rita released a lungful in a huff and exited the car. She stormed into the house. Daniel dragged his feet going in.
The kitchen radio played “I Can See for Miles” by the Who. Rita threw dishes and cutlery onto the table, mumbling under her breath as the utensils clanged and clinked. Dinner was still at least two hours away. Rita had forgotten to retrieve her daughter from their neighbor.
“I’ll get Penny,” Daniel said.
He passed the phone, which blinked a fast red digital
4
on the display. Daniel pressed play. The hiss of an outdoor line, probably a pay phone, played for three seconds then clicked.
“Message received 3:58
P.M.
,”
said the pseudo-feminine drone of the machine. Daniel thought he had heard a sniffle in that hiss. The second message played. This time he was sure there was crying on the other end before it clicked. “
Message received 4:07
P.M.
” The third message Danny heard a sobbing girl mumble something that sounded like his name. “
Message received 4:15
P.M.
” In the final message he recognized Katie Millar. “
Oh God Danny, Please be home. Pickuppickuppickup … Message received 4:21
P.M.
”
Daniel star-sixty-nined the call but received an earful of that terrible static that informs one the call was from
“outside the class calling area.”
“Shit,” Daniel said.
The phone rang. He picked it up before it occurred to him that Clyde might be on the other end. “Hello.”
“Danny? Oh God. It’s really you.”
“Katie, what’s going on?”
“Oh Dan … oh Dan, oh Dan…” More sobbing. Daniel wondered if anyone was having a good day.
“What happened?”
“C-ca-can you c-come g-get me?” Daniel could hear her shivering through the receiver.
“Where are you?”
“Outside O’Leary’s.”
Chills marched down Daniel’s spine. His best friend, who was experiencing mortal terror, wanted him to come to the one place common sense dictated he should avoid. O’Leary’s was Clyde’s den, the place his stepfather ended up seven nights a week.
“Katie, what’s going on?”
“He’s looking for me. I can’t stay here.” Click. The line went dead. Daniel stared at the front door. His foot took a step toward it contrary to the little voice in his head telling him to stay put. From the kitchen, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash wafted on the air. The whole day waxed ironic.
“Who was that?” Rita asked.
“Katie. Something’s wrong.”
“Something’s wrong? Can you be a little more specific?”
“She sounded scared.”
“And just like that, you’re off to the rescue? In case you didn’t get it already, you’re grounded.”
“Grounded? Clyde’s going to find out about the arrest and the lawsuit. I don’t want to be near this house when he comes home. I take enough crap here to get a lifetime pass on time-outs and groundings.”
“Watch your mouth, Danny. We put food on the table. There’s a roof over your…”
“And it gives that asshole the right to use me, to use
us
for punching bags?”
Rita slapped him hard. The sting lingered, his ear rang. He was alert. The whole day had been a bad dream; now he was awake. Clarity, emanating from the pain, fueled a burst of bravery.
“You let that man ruin us,” Daniel said. “I remember having a childhood. Now we live on food stamps and public assistance. Dad bought this house, and we’ll probably lose it because we can’t keep up with the mortgage. Don’t you know what people say about us? Clyde’s an alcoholic. No one wants to hire him. You’re doped on Valium half the time. I’m the one watching Penny when you’re passed out. And get this…,” Daniel could no longer hold back the flood of repressed tears, “people think I’m a delinquent. Me! I’m the delinquent even though I stand behind my friends when they’re bullied. I’m the delinquent even when I get into the hardest classes and get good grades.
I’m
the malcontent, when all I aspire to these days is for people to leave me the FUCK alone!”
Rita slapped him again.
“You can keep hitting me, but you don’t have the guts to tell that piece of shit Clyde to get out. You’re a fucking coward.”
Rita tried to slap him again but Daniel stepped back out of the way. He headed for the front door.
“Don’t you walk out!” Rita ordered, in tears.
Daniel was inclined to tell her that she was not his real mother. Instead, he bit his tongue. He took a deep breath.
“You didn’t hear Katie’s voice, Mom. She’s terrified. Something really bad has happened.”
“You’re not a hero! You can’t save everyone—you can’t save the world!”
“I’m not brave enough to improve my own life. Might as well help my friends with theirs. Everyone turns to me when they need help.”
“Danny! If you walk out that door … don’t come back.”
As he shut the door, the muffled cries of a desperate, lonely woman fell upon his ears.
2
It’s a trap.
That’s what Daniel kept thinking over and over. Clyde beat the crap out of Katie to lure him to that side of town. Why else would she be in
that
neighborhood? Clyde wouldn’t know their friendship was merely an ember of what it had once been; he had missed their last scheduled heart-to-heart chat.
Daniel stopped his bike about a block from the bar. It was a run-down block. With chipped wood siding and a sagging shingled roof, O’Leary’s fit the scene. Coors, Budweiser, and Miller Lite glowed through the dust in the windows. The sidewalk was cracked and the lots to each side of the bar were overgrown with weeds and littered with broken beer bottles.
Daniel kept one eye out for Katie and the other for Clyde. There were very few cars parked on the street. A blue Ram pickup quivered on squeaky shocks—no doubt a trapped pet getting antsy while its owner downed a mug. Daniel rode the center line of the street, far from anything that might serve as an ambush point. His instincts said to go home.
Across the street from the bar stretched a poor excuse for a baseball field, boxed in by dilapidated dwellings and fences and bordered by a hedge. Next to the entrance by the right-field foul line was a solitary pay phone. Daniel rode onto the field, which was a big sand lot with the remnants of a mound in the middle. The roughness of the dirt caused his bike to shake, and it aggravated his bruised rib. Two depressed dugouts built from cinder blocks framed the sides of the invisible diamond. Empty beer bottles littered the whole bunker and graffiti covered the walls. Bundled in the corner of one dugout was a varsity jacket, number six. As Daniel approached, a cheerleading skirt and legs emerged from the bundle.
Katie was curled in a fetal position. She lifted her head with a start. Strangely, the look in this terrified girl’s eye lifted Daniel’s spirits. He had never met anyone so glad to see him. When he sat beside her, she unfurled and threw her arms around him. He put his own arms around her.
“What happened?” Daniel asked.
“We cut school after lunch. He said he had something he wanted to show me.” The “he” she referred to was not Clyde. Daniel was relieved this wasn’t a plot to get at him through a friend. Not everything that happened revolved around him.
Daniel realized there was booze on her breath.
“He has a hangout a few blocks from here,” Katie continued. “Just an abandoned shed that Josh and his pals fixed up with old couches and some posters. We were alone. He turned the radio up, said it would give us privacy. He gave me a flask to sip and razzed me when I said no … said that was the reason he didn’t like to date little girls.”
Katie stopped and fell into a fit of tears. Daniel hugged her tighter and waited for the fit to subside.
“So you took a sip?” he asked.
“I took a gulp.”
It was tough to compete with older kids. The senior girls wore their nascent bosoms as badges of honor, stuffing themselves into form-hugging tops any chance they got. The art of not staring was mastered better by some more than others, but every male noticed, every guy bragged when he brushed a gifted girl in a crowded hallway. Katie was still a work in progress.
“Burned your throat?”
“Heck, yes. He stopped razzing me about drinking and then we started … It was nice at first—it was … it was what I wanted. But he started putting his hands in places where I didn’t … I said no, and he’d stop for a while; then try again. He got frustrated, said I was leading him on … kept calling me a little girl. My head was spinning. Somehow, he got his fingers underneath, in my … in my … and he was…” Katie succumbed to a second fit.
Through a fold in her skirt, Daniel realized Katie was missing her underwear. He felt guilty that this excited him. In the past, Katie and him changed into swimming suits separated by no more than a shrub. Somehow this was different … or he was different. He was very aware of her sex just under that layer of rayon. The situation called on him to be stronger than his hormones. He focused on the moment. “What happened?”
“I didn’t want to!” she sobbed. Anger edged into her voice. “I told him no! I told him
NO
more than once. I couldn’t get off the couch. He was on top of me; he was too…”
“Jesus, Katie.”
“And all of a sudden his pants were down…”
“Couldn’t you knee him? Scratch his eyes?”
“He said just touch it … to help him out … since I … since I wouldn’t … He said … I—I didn’t think … I didn’t think he…” Katie began to hyperventilate. Then she threw up, mostly the dry heaves. Daniel stroked her back. The retching soon subsided.
“HE WAS MY BOYFRIEND!” she cried in a torrent of grief.
Daniel stroked the back of her head. The gray fall sky was giving way to darkness on the horizon. There was a nip in the air and Daniel’s skin where Katie’s tears fell turned cold. His friend’s ordeal had one unexpected result; it succeeded in taking his mind off his own problems.
Daniel heard the crunch of gravel behind him. He unwrapped himself from Katie and stood, worried once more that Clyde had found them; only to be oddly relieved to be looking up at Josh Lundgren’s well-chiseled face instead. One of Josh’s cronies, Todd Harkness, stood uncomfortably behind him.
“There you are. I been looking all over for you,” Josh said.
He tried to make eye contact with her. Katie used Daniel as a shield. Each time Josh moved to get a clear view of her, Daniel shifted to keep himself between them. “This ain’t your business, Hauer. Keep out of things that don’t concern you.”
Daniel didn’t respond. The warmth of Katie’s breath on his neck, her arms on his shoulders, spurred his courage. He’d been dreaming of her arms around him for months, and odd as this situation was, it qualified. Todd looked more uncomfortable by the moment. Daniel knew him as a clean-cut, straight-B student. He played for the baseball team and hoped to get into college on an athletic scholarship. Helping Josh cover up an assault was not his style. He was only here because of Josh’s persuasiveness. Handsome, strong, funny, rich—Josh’s approval made your ho-hum existence a little more exciting.
“Hey, Todd,” Daniel greeted. Todd looked upset that Daniel knew his name.
Josh stepped down into the dugout, clinking discards as he landed. He thumbed his nose, straightened his posture, took a deep breath, and put out his chest. Josh had a good six inches and twenty-five pounds on Daniel, and it was evident he thought this would be enough make Daniel move away from the girl. Daniel almost laughed out loud at the jerk’s attempt to be intimidating.
“Hey, don’t be stupid, kid,” Todd said to Daniel. “Josh just wants to talk to her, that’s all.” Todd’s plea was halfhearted. He didn’t believe his own words and was worried the situation would escalate with
him
as an accessory.
“You know … Elijah Grundy told me to mind my own business too, before I inverted his face,” Daniel said with a straight, albeit bruised, face.
There was something about cuts, welts, and splints on a young man that warned an antagonist,
You’ll get hurt, too.
Josh hesitated. Todd appeared even more apprehensive. Although the events of the past twenty-four hours were not as dramatic as the buzz they generated, Daniel was aware that he now had a reputation. He’d been carted off to jail by the police in front of the whole school for single-handedly beating up two of the town troglodytes. There wasn’t a person in town under twenty-one that didn’t have a beef with one Grundy or another. This act was simply putting his juvenile delinquency to good use.
“And Elijah didn’t rape anybody,” Daniel added, for emphasis.
“Nobody got raped!” Josh shrieked.
“Fuck, man!” Todd cursed. The word rattled the jock.
“There was NO rape!” Josh repeated, more for himself than anyone else, but hearing the word again made Todd squirrelly.
“Screw this, man,” Todd said. “This dude’s nuts. Last thing I need is a busted arm or leg before the scouts see me play. I’m outta here, Josh. Sorry.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Todd! Get back here, you pussy.” Todd kept walking.
“And then there was one,” Daniel said.
“Shut up!” Josh didn’t stand quite so tall anymore. He looked deflated. He looked alone in more ways than one.
Daniel was beginning to see a ray of sunshine in this situation. The last thing he needed was another fight. If Josh was shaken enough, they might walk out of the park unscathed.
“Think you can sweet-talk Katie into thinking she wasn’t raped?” Daniel said in a mocking tone.
“Stop saying
that
word! I didn’t force her into the shed.”