But he called me when he got back.
And I was hoping to get with Leah, who
was also away at camp all summer, but not the same kind of camp. She had a job as a counselor at a kids' camp up in cottage country.
So when he called and asked me to come over so we could catch up, I said, “Sure.” But I should have said no. I should have stayed away from him. Then it never would have happened.
The worst thing is, it was my fault.
What happened: After the girls pile into the black Mustang with the tinted windows, JD and I get on our bikes and ride through the park. I can tell he's antsy, probably because he didn't get what he wanted. He didn't get the redhead. I try to get his mind off the girl. I say we should get something to eat. He's not interested. We keep riding until finally we're out of the park that runs along the beach. We turn and ride north and find ourselves close to another park that's more or less in our neighborhood. This is the park with the swings we were on the day before. I'm really hungry now.
Partly it's because of all the weed and partly it's because by now it's three o'clock in the afternoon. We've been riding all day. The only thing in my stomach is a bowl of cold cereal, and it's probably not there anymore because I ate it hours ago.
We're riding along and I just happen to glance down an alley. And I just happen to see one of those canteen vans. You know, the ones that you see on the street down by city hall. The ones that show up at construction sites. You can buy coffee and pop, cookies and donuts, sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, fries. All that kind of stuff. So there's one sitting in the alley. The rear door is open and I can see inside. My eye goes right to a rack filled with bags of potato chips. Suddenly there's nothing in the world I want more than a bag of potato chips. Maybe two bags.
I detour into the alley and lean my bike up against a brick wall. Behind me I hear JD say, “Now what?”
I check out the alley. No one is around. None of the buildings have windows that look down into the alley. No one can see me.
I duck into the van and grab a couple of bags of potato chips. Then I see a freezer. Inside are some ice-cream bars and icecream sandwiches. I grab a handful of those.
“As long as you're in there,” JD says, “you see anything to drink?”
I toss the chips and the ice-cream bars to him and open a cooler to get some pop. I'm jumping down out of the van with it when a door opens and a man steps into the alley. He's wearing a shirt with the same logo on it that's on the van, so I know the canteen van is his. I start to run, but he's fast and he grabs me. He has a grip of iron. He isn't about to let me go. Then I realize who it is. It's the same guy who gave us a hard time in the park the day before. The guy who threatened to call the cops on us. At first I want to laugh. Mr. Accomplishment gives me a lecture about taking up space and it turns out his big accomplishment is running a canteen van. Like one of those girl country singers says, That don't impress me much.
I get over wanting to laugh when I try to break free of the guy. He isn't big but, boy, is he strong. He's got a real good hold on me, and now he's reaching for JD. He says, “I knew you two were trouble the first time I laid eyes on you. I'm making a citizen's arrest.”
I remember thinking, Boy, this guy is nuts. Everyone knows it's stupid to make a citizen's arrest. Anything could happen. In the first place, there are two of us and only one of himânot that this is slowing him down. In the second place, it would be his word against ours and, like I said, there are two of us. Except that JD has already been in trouble before and it could go hard on him. I'm thinking that exact thought when it happens.
JD dodges the guy. I try to break free, but the guy holds tight.
I see JD back up in the alley. I think, Great, he's going to take off and leave me in the guy's clutches. The guy even seems ready to let JD go because he grabs me with both hands now. He looks determined. There's no way he's going to let me go.
Then JD says, “Hey, mister?”
The guy and I both turn our heads to look at him.
JD hasn't taken off. He's come back and he's just standing there, close enough that the guy could grab him if he wanted to. He's looking at the guy. I see him reach behind with one hand. I start to shake my head, but JD pulls out the gun and points it at the guy. The guy's eyes bulge when he sees it. Then his mouth turns up into a grin, the same kind of superior I-know-everything-and-you-know-nothing grin that you'd expect from a vice-principal.
“What are you going to do?” he says to JD. “Shoot me?”
JD's face changes. It gets hard. He pulls the trigger.
I'm standing in the alley, frozen and burning up all at the same time. The noise from the gun is deafening. I can't understand why there aren't a hundred people running into the alley to see what happened.
But there aren't.
The guy is on the ground. Blood is pooling around him. I can't tell if he's breathing or not.
I'm just standing there, looking at JD. I can't believe he shot the guy. I can't believe he did it when the guy was still holding on to me. I think, What if he missed the guy and hit me? Did he even think about that?
Then, I don't even know how, we're on our bikes and we're riding down the alley. My first thought is to get out of the alley the same way we came in. But JD grabs my arm and heads off in the other direction. I follow him. I'm totally uncoordinated. It's like I've just got my training wheels off and I'm not sure of my balance. But I follow him, pedaling fast. The alley joins with another alley, so we turn and ride down there. JD slows down when we get close to the end of it. He makes me slow down too. It's torture because all I want is to get out of there as fast as possible. But I do what JD is doing. I take it easy. We ride casually out of the alley, JD in the lead. We ride leisurely down one block, then another. My heart is pounding the whole time. My
legs are itching to go faster, go faster. We make another turn and JD really powers on the speed.
Finally we get to JD's house, where we put our bikes in the garage. We go into the house and JD starts pulling off his clothes. At first I think he's crazy. Then he points to my shirt. I look down. There's blood all over it. There's some other stuff on it too, but I don't know what it is and I don't want to think about it.
“We've got to wash these,” JD says. “We've got to wash everything. You've seen those shows on
TV
. They can find stuff that we can't even see.”
They
can find stuff? He means the cops can find stuff. I start to shake all over.
“Relax,” JD says. “No one saw anything. And I didn't see anyone. Just give me your clothes.”
When I don't move, JD comes over and starts to unbutton the denim shirt I'm wearing, like I'm a little kid and he's my mother. I jerk away from him, mad that he's touching me. Mad that there's blood
on my shirt. Mad that he had that stupid gun sticking in the back of his pants.
“You have to give me your clothes, Q,” he says. He's already peeled off everything, and I mean everything. There is a stack of clean bath towels sitting on top of the dryer. He wraps one around his waist. “Come on,” he said. “We have to wash everything
now
.”
I take every thing off except my underwear. JD hands me a towel. He says, “Go up to my room and find us some clothes. I'll start the washing machine.”
So I do. And while I'm getting dressed, Leah shows up. Then JD and I go into the garage and wash our bikes, just in case. And while we're doing that, JD says, “If I get caught, they'll lock me up. They'll probably want to try me as an adult and try to get me an adult sentence. You too, Q. You were robbing the guy when it happened. They go hard when it's a robbery where someone gets killed.”
We stand there for a few minutes looking at each other. We're probably both
wondering the same thing: How did a day that started off okay go so wrong?
And now here it is, the day after the guy died. I'm stocking the soup aisle in the grocery store after school, thinking, Now what?
I make a lot of mistakes. I mix the tomato-and-rice soup in with the cream of tomato. I put the celery soup with the mushroom soup because, on the label, the pictures of the bowls of celery soup and the bowls of mushroom soup look the same. I put chicken noodle with chicken and rice. It wouldn't be such a big deal except the manager comes by and looks at what I'm doing. Nobody likes him. People are quitting all the time, if they're not getting fired. The main reason people quit is that it's hard to work for someone like him. He's the kind of guy who likes the shelves fully stocked all the time, no excuses, and the products to be straight and neat. If that means you have to work through your break or put in a little (free) time after your shift, then that's what he
expects. He looks at my work and tells me, “Do it again. And do it right this time.” He also says, “If I have to tell you a second time to do it again, you won't be working here anymore.” See what I mean?
When I finally get off, half an hour later than I should because of the do-over, JD is waiting for me out on the sidewalk. I get that frozen-burning up feeling again.
“Geez, relax, will you?” JD says. He puts an arm around my shoulder to steer me away from the store. “You look like you're going to jump out of your skin.” Once we're away from the store, he lets go of me.
“What's wrong?” I say. “What happened?”
He gives me a look. “Nothing happened. Nothing's going to happen.”
“Then why are you here?”
He laughs. “I'm glad to see you too, Q,” he says.
“I'm serious, JD. What are you doing here?”
“I just want to make sure you're okay,” he says. “You looked so freaked out at
school. You need to stay calm, Q. You can't panic. If you panic, something bad will happen. If you stay calm, everything will be fine. Okay?”
“Did you hear anything? Was there anything on the news?”
“Nothing,” JD says. “The guy was just a guy. He wasn't anything special. No one's going to make a big fuss over him.”
“Yeah, but the cops are going to want to find out who did it.”
“Sure they are,” JD says. How can he be so cool about this? “But what are they going to find? No one saw anything, remember?”
But I'm thinking, Just because we didn't see anyone, that doesn't mean no one saw us.
It turns out I'm right.
How I find out I'm right is this: I'm at home alone. My mom is on the evening shift. She works in the kitchen at one of those chain restaurants. I don't have a father. Well, I do, somewhere. But he left my mom when I was two years old and has never been back in touch. I don't remember him.
So I'm at home with a plate of warmed-up macaroni casserole on my lap that I
haven't even touched, and I'm watching the local news. I'm just about thinking that JD is right, maybe the cops are on the case but no one else is, when up pops a picture of the guy that died. It hangs there, a little behind and just to the right of the guy who's reading the news. The guy reading says that the police are looking for a male between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who was seen in the vicinity of the shooting. They give this description of the male suspect: medium build, sandy-colored hair, wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt. I feel like I'm going to throw up, even though I haven't eaten a bite since breakfast. The announcer says if anyone has any information, they should call the police or Crime Stoppers.
I'm still staring at the
TV
half an hour later when someone hammers on the apartment door. The warmed-up macaroni casserole is cold. I'm waiting for a loud voice to say, “Police. Open up.”
Instead what I hear is “Hey, Q, it's me.”
JD.
I want him to go away. I don't want to see him ever again.
He says, “I know you're in there. I can hear the
TV
.”
I get up and shut off the
TV
. I put the plate of cold macaroni casserole in the kitchen. I open the apartment door.
“I figured maybe you could use some company,” JD says. He inspects me. “You saw the news, right?”
“Yes,” I say, and my voice doesn't sound right. It's high, like a girl's. “I saw it. Did you? Did you hearâ”
JD puts a finger to his lips to silence me. He pushes me inside the apartment. Before he comes in, he looks up and down the hall. Then he closes the door behind him and moves me along into the living room.
“You really have to calm down,” he says. It's practically the only thing he says to me anymore. “You keep panicking and yelling like that, you might as well turn yourself in.”
“Turn
myself
in?” I say. “I'm not the one who shot the guy.”
JD's voice is soft and low. “What I mean is, you keep yelling like that, maybe one of your neighbors will get the wrong idea.”
“But you heard what they said on the news. They're looking for a guy who looks just like me.”
JD shakes his head. “They're looking for a medium-build guy with sandy hair who was wearing jeans and a blue shirt. Do you have any idea how many people in a city this size fit that description?”
“But what if whoever saw that much got a good look at me? What if he can identify me?”
“If he could identify you,” JD says, “the cops would be here already and they wouldn't have to put that description out to the media.”
That makes sense. Then I remember something. “What about my clothes? Are they still in your dryer?”
JD shakes his head again. “I took care of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those
CSI
guys on
TV
, they can find all kinds of things you'd never even know were there. So I took our clothes and I burned them.”