Authors: T. Glen Coughlin
“Imagine that,” says Bones. “Diggy Masters living in the ghetto.”
“Why don't you blow me.” Diggy passes Jane's old house. The fence is overgrown with vines and the windows are boarded up.
“Did you have a wrestling mat in your basement back then?” asks Gino.
“We didn't have a basement.”
They wind around the block. “That's Jimmy's house,” says Diggy. “We used to hang like every day of the week.”
“Can you believe he's getting a piece of Roxanne Sweetapple? I bet she craps cherries and whipped cream,” says Bones.
“I could be dating her if I wanted,” snaps Diggy. “Last year she was blowing up my phone with texts.”
“But this year she lost your number!” Bones laughs.
Diggy slams the gas. His eyes are heavy. Keep moving. Keep driving. He speeds south on Tennant Road, wishing it was Jimmy in the front seat, not Bones. He trusted Jimmy. He could tell him stuff. Not like Bones. Everything is a joke to him. Once Jimmy and Diggy tried to cross the ice-covered lake. Twenty yards from the shore, they fell through. They both panicked, until they felt the soft bottom and then laughed with relief. They told that story for about a year and it was always funny.
He turns at the police station and passes the weekend flea market, hangs a right, and enters Jane's complex. He stops next to the Saturn with no engine and dials her number.
“What are you doing, a booty call?” laughs Bones.
Diggy tries to ignore him. “Hey,” he says into his cell. “I'm outside with Bones and Little Gino.” He shuts his phone. “You guys act like asswipes, I swear to God you'll never get another ride from me. I don't care if it's ten degrees.”
Jane emerges wearing skinny jeans, a black T, and a short denim jacket. Her hair is parted in the middle.
“Hey, Diggy.” She leans into the window.
“Hey.”
She looks at Gino and Bones. Both of them are grinning. “You guys smell like a freaking brewery,” she says.
“Gatorade screwdrivers, yo,” says Bones and burps. They laugh.
“Where'd you cop 'em?”
“That's for us to know,” says Bones.
Jane squeezes into the middle of the bucket seats, half on Bone's lap, and half on the console. She smells like cigarette smoke and vanilla icing.
Diggy drives into the back of the deserted flea market. Sometimes high school kids park near the fence, but tonight it's empty. He passes the wire trash cans and the plywood remnants of the weekend stands. Facing the lines of empty tables, all in straight rows, he shuts off the engine and turns the key to ignition. With Z-100 on the radio, they pile out with the bass pumping. A jet streams overhead. “Got any more of those screwdrivers?” asks Jane.
“Gone,” says Bones.
“Well, what'd we come here for?”
“I'm not driving anymore with half a buzz on,” says Diggy.
Bones takes Jane's hand. “Let's go see if anyone left anything on the tables.”
“Get off me.” She yanks her hand away. “You must be drunk.”
“What, all of a sudden you're too good for me?” asks Bones.
“Not all of a sudden,” says Jane. “Since the beginning of time.”
“Come on, little man,” says Bones. “Let's leave the lovebirds alone.” Gino follows Bones toward the yellow building, cutting through the tables. “We'll be back, don't make a baby,” shouts Bones.
“Assholes,” mutters Diggy.
“Most guys are,” says Jane.
They sit there swinging their legs. Diggy hates the silence. He positions his arm behind her and considers resting it on her shoulders.
“My brothers have found some amazing junk here. If people don't sell their crap, sometimes they chuck it in the trash,” says Jane.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“The alcohol is keeping me warm.” Diggy removes his varsity jacket and puts it on her shoulders. His heart pounds in his ears. “You can wear my jacket if you want to.”
“Really?”
“I may need it sometimes, but yeah.” He can hardly breathe.
“At school?”
“Yeah.”
She kisses him, slowly, deeply, her tongue working against his. Then they hug with her head on his shoulder. “I'm going to feel so tough,” she says in his ear.
“I'm not as hardcore as everyone says I am.” He smiles.
“I could have killed Trevor for wrestling you off,” she says. “One match doesn't make him a better wrestler than you.”
“I'm not going to hear the end of it from Randy.” His finger sends a wave of pain up his arm. “And look at this. Dislocated again.”
She brings his hand to her face and sucks his skin.
D
IGGY GETS RID OF
B
ONES FIRST.
“I
T'S BEEN REAL, YO,” HE
calls, pulling his guitar from the back seat. “Stay in touch with yourselves.”
Next Diggy wants to drop off Gino, so he can be alone with Jane, but Gino cries like a little emo-bitch, saying he can't go home until after his father's left for the graveyard shift at the nuclear plant. “He sniffs my breath,” says Gino, “makes me blow into his face.” Gino's father isn't an engineer. He's a square-badge guard.
“I should get home. I'm really tired anyway,” says Jane.
So Diggy drops Jane off instead of Gino. Diggy holds her for about five minutes in front of her door, knowing Gino's watching. Diggy feels his eyes, but tries not to care. Finally, he decides he'd rather hold her than worry about what Little Gino thinks. “So, I'll see you tomorrow at school,” she says, pulling her lips off his. “Are you sure about the jacket?”
“Keep it. Wear it tomorrow.”
In the car, Gino lowers the music and says, “You gave her your jacket?”
“You got a problem with it?”
“The first time I saw her,” says Gino, “I thought she'd been hit in the head with a hockey puck or something.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“I'm just surprised, that's all I'm saying.”
“Like your little hobbit ass is ever going to have a girlfriend,” says Diggy.
“Mention her name to anybody and what's the first thing they think of?” asks Gino.
“You short little turd,” shouts Diggy. “Shut the eff up.” Diggy head slaps Little Gino; the same way Randy smacks him. “You never got past first base and you're cracking on me?”
At the fork, he veers onto Iron Ore Road. He presses hard on the gas pedal. They zip by the plank fence that surrounds the horse ranch, then past long stretches of dry corn stalks.
“Where to?” asks Gino.
“I have to check something out.”
At the Lobster Mobster Restaurant, he turns onto Route 33. They fly by the used car lots, then the hot tub place. “Where're we going?” Gino asks again.
Diggy doesn't answer. He's almost there. Little Gino brings his legs on his seat, curling into a ball. Diggy slows and pulls off the highway. Fifty yards ahead, a spotlight shines on the
SECRET KEEPERS
sign.
“Crow lives here.” Diggy pulls into the parking lot. “Can you believe this?” Some of the rooms are lit. He drives to the edge of the lot. Television screens flash behind the curtains. A puppy is chained to the cyclone fence. The dog stands and trots forward, dragging the chain toward the headlights.
“That's got to be Trevor's new puppy,” says Gino, opening his door. “Come 'ere boy,” he calls.
Diggy positions the car so that the dog is at Gino's door. The dog steps forward.
“If I had a puppy, he wouldn't be chained in the cold,” says Diggy.
“Ditto that,” says Gino.
“Unhook him,” he says, leaning over the console to see the puppy.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Gino unhooks the chain from the dog's collar.
Diggy reaches across Gino's lap and snags the collar, yanking the dog into the car. The puppy twists and braces his legs against the front seat. His tail whacks the dashboard.
“What if we take him?” Diggy looks into the animal's brown eyes.
“And do what with him?” asks Gino.
“Keep him for a while.” Diggy pictures Trevor in the parking lot, lifting the chain, then looking up the road. How is that going to feel? A surge of power rushes through Diggy.
“Crow's not the same guy he used to be. He'd kill you.”
T
REVOR IS WASTING HIS FREE PERIOD IN THE LIBRARY WITH HIS
feet on a radiator. He squints at the athletic fields, hoping Whizzer might emerge from the pin oaks and maples beyond the fields. School is a long way from the motel, but maybe Whizzer is completely lost. It's been three days of riding around with London and his mother searching for Whizzer or his body on the side of the road. It's hit Trevor like a bad virus. He can't focus. He hasn't done any homework. He's skipped wrestling practice. He can't think of anything else.
He walked the highway calling Whizzer's name, imagining him trotting from an alleyway with his tongue hanging from his mouth, scared and anxious. Trevor's roamed all over town, down Main Street, through parking lots, around the flea market buildings, circling the elementary schools. He's peered into backyards and over fences. He's stopped people coming from the train. Holding Whizzer's picture, he's asked them if they'd seen his lost puppy. “A Lab mix,” he said, “about four months old.”
Jane sits two tables away. When their eyes meet, Trevor looks past her toward the main desk. He's seen her sucking face with Diggy in every hallway.
Trevor's phone vibrates in his pocket. “Hello.” Shuffling, noise in the background. “Hello.” He looks at the phone, a private number. “Hello?”
“Trevor?”
“Gino?”
“Yeah.”
“What up?” Trevor tries not to smile. Gino has never called him.
“What are you doing?” Gino's voice is high.
“Nothing. What's the matter?”
“You going to practice?”
“I suppose. Why, is something going on?”
“No, I just was thinking....” Gino's voice trails off. “You hear anything about your dog?”
“Nothing new.”
“Okay, listen.” Gino heaves a deep breath.
“What?”
“Ah, forget it, I'll see you at practice.” The call disconnects.
Trevor puts the phone on the table and looks at it. He wonders if Diggy and Gino have devised some type of revenge. Are they going to give him a “lights out” party, and jump him in the locker room?
Jane gets up, shoves her fingertips into her hip-hugger pockets, and approaches. She's wearing a tight shirt that says “Jersey Girl, 'Nuff said.”
She slides into the seat across from him. “Heard anything about your puppy?”
He shakes his head. “Gino just asked me the same thing.”
“I saw your flyers. You named him Whizzer?”
“Yeah.”
“Like the wrestling move?” Her eyes are hard, unblinking.
They've always been aware of each other. He's the Indian. She's the girl with the birthmark. They pass each other in the halls with small nods of recognition or “Hey,” then “Hey” back. But they've never been friends and it wasn't the birthmark that stopped him. Trevor knew, and he imagined Jane knew, the two
different
kids in the school shouldn't hang out. It would have been unpleasantly weird.
“Did you ever think your dog could have slipped his collar?” she asks with an edge.
“I would have found the collar hooked to the chain. Right?” He says this as if it's her fault.
“I think someone checking out from the motel must have taken him,” she says. “Did you check the ASPCA?”
“Twice.”
“I'm sure he'll turn up.” She doesn't take her eyes off him. Still doesn't blink. Jane folds her arms across her chest. “Your mother is the motel manager?”
Why is she interested in his life? Is she going to tell this to Diggy? “She works the desk.” And cleans rooms. They get free rent. Bug off, Jane.
Trevor turns to the window. Rain is coming down at an angle. Some winter track guys run across the field with their sweatshirts pulled over their heads.
“Your father was Penobscot, wasn't he?”
Trevor's surprised. Everyone knows he's Native American, but no one in the school knows the tribe. “How do you know that?”
“A presentation you gave in the fifth grade. You said a bunch of Indian words. The teacher thought it was extremely badass.”