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On the Rock

Christina Hoag

    Richie coasted down the hill in his chocolate-brown Plymouth Duster and turned into the shopping center. Three cars were parked in the middle of the empty parking lot. Their drivers lolled against the fenders with ankles crossed, smoking and drinking from bottles in paper bags like they owned the asphalt. Richie knew them from school, who didn’t – Mark Ambriano, Lenny Wosniewski and Butch O’Brien. They had just graduated.
    Richie cranked up the Lynyrd Skynyrd on the eight-track, checked the windows were rolled down and pressed on the gas. The engine rumbled. As he sped past the three guys, he glanced in the rearview mirror – they didn’t even turn their heads. Douchebags.
    He spotted a parking slot under a light. He braked and spun the chrome steering wheel with the heel of his hand so the Duster stopped dead within the white lines. He got out and stood for a second to admire the wax job he had spent the afternoon on. The car gleamed. He had bought it three months ago with his dad pitching in a thousand bucks for his seventeenth birthday. So it wasn’t Mark’s 357 Mach II Mustang, Butch’s sleek black-and-gold Trans Am or Lenny’s metallic blue Challenger with a white double-stripe, but that was why he had signed up to take auto shop as his senior year elective instead of art. He’d make his ‘72 Duster into something those assholes would have to look at - deck it out with a spoiler, jack up the rear suspension, give it a cool paint job with the money from his job at the car wash.
    Twirling his keys on his forefinger, he sauntered over to the blacked-out storefront of Palace Games. It was just after nine and summer’s darkness was settling into a Friday night thick with invitation. The manager was letting the last customers out of the Grand Union supermarket and locking up behind them. The arcade and a dusty fabric store were the only other tenants in the strip mall. The rest of the windows bore “for lease” signs and curls of whitewash.
    Richie swung open the door to Palace Games and was greeted by a blast of cigarette smoke and the driving bass line of Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever.” He fished a couple quarters out of his jeans pocket and jingled them in his palm as he roved. Clicks from the air hockey, foosball and pool tables and the tinny bells of pinball filled the air. Kids crowded around the new Space Invader game machines. Keith was nowhere around. He was probably at the Dairy Queen waiting for Charlene to get off work. He’d been asking her out for two weeks and she kept turning him down. Richie had told him to give up already, but as Keith pointed out – what did Richie know about girls? He’d never had a girlfriend.
    Richie knew all the kids from school, by sight if not by name. Except for two girls wearing tight Sassoon jeans playing the Star Trek pinball machine.
    Neither looked up when he sidled up to the machine and shook out a Marlboro from the soft-pack, plucking it out with his lips. He shot a look at them over the lighter’s flame. The one playing had wings of brown hair hanging in front of her face as she leaned over the machine in concentration. She was as tall as Richie. The other was baby-faced, shorter and a little chubbier, with a dirty blonde Dorothy Hamil haircut.
    The ball rolled into the chute. “Game over” flashed on the board.
     “Agh!” the one playing threw up her hands. Her hair fell back revealing a long, pinched face.
    “You did good, Lisa. You scored a lot more than last time,” the short girl said.
    “Nah, I did shitty.”
    “Yeah, that’s not bad,” Richie said. They noticed him for the first time. “Mind if I take a shot?” They moved aside and he slid a quarter into the slot. As he hoped, they stayed to watch. The silver ball popped into the launching chute. With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he pulled back the spring-loaded lever as far as it would go and released it with a twanging thud.
     Richie was good at pinball. That and welding sculptures out of scrap metal with his dad’s oxyacetylene torch. Everybody thought his stuff was weird, except for Mr. Sampson, the art teacher who was always encouraging him to enter contests. He had won a couple. But the prizes didn’t mean much to his father, a welder at the Ford plant up on Route 17. His dad would stand with his hands jughandled on his hips, head cocked, as he considered his son’s contorted shapes. “Good seams,” he’d say finally.
    “But what do you think of the form, Dad, the expression?” Richie would ask. That was how Mr. Sampson talked. He’d say things like the “expression of the piece,” “the evocation of emotion,” “the resonance.”
    “Well, it’s a piece of fine cutting, just like I taught you,” his dad would answer. Then he’d take Richie to the salvage yard and they’d pick out bits of metal for Richie’s next welding “practice.” At least, Richie got to keep making his sculptures but he wished that just once his dad would see the creation, not the welding.
    The ball zinged from pillar to pillar as bells pinged and tinged. Aware he was on show, Richie put extra effort into swiveling his slim hips one way then the other, depending on which flipper button he pressed, and thrust his pelvis forward when he hit both at once. Points kept mounting to an impressive total at game’s end.
    “You’re really good at this!” the short girl said.
    “Yeah, look at those points,” the slim one added.
    “I’ve been playing a long time.”
    “Oh, that’s why,” the slim one said.
    “I haven’t seen you girls ‘round here before. What school do you go to?”
    “We’re sophomores at Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” the short one said.
    “How ‘bout you?” the slim one asked.
    “Indian Hills.” Richie jerked his thumb in the general direction of the high school.
    “What grade are you in?” the slim one asked.
    “Senior.”
     They nodded. Silence fell. “So, ah, what are you girls up to tonight?” Richie looked at Spock’s ears on the machine’s backboard and felt his own ears get hot. “Want to go for a ride? My car’s outside.”
    The girls looked at each other. The slim one leaned into the short one’s ear, then straightened. “Okay,” the short one said. “But we have to be back by eleven-thirty.”
    “Sure, no problem. I’m Richie, by the way.”
    “Lisa,” the slim one said.
    “Vicky,” the short one said.
    They walked out into the parking lot. Richie looked for the muscle-car trio, but they’d gone. Figured. Just when he had girls to show off.
    “Our parents think we’re at a birthday party tonight,” Vicky said. “They’d never let us come down here by ourselves.”
    “So you’re playing hooky.” Richie got in and leaned over to pull up the passenger side lock. He was glad when Vicky slid in first on the bench seat, then Lisa.
    “Richie, can you cop us some beers?” Lisa was combing back her feathered hair.
    His hand accidentally-on-purpose brushed Vicky’s knee as he put the car into drive. “Er, sure. I’ll have to find my connection.”
    Richie drove down Oakland Avenue, past the car wash where he worked, to the DQ next to the bowling alley. He hoped Keith was there. He’d know what to do. He pulled into the DQ lot. Keith’s Chevy Nova was parked three slots down from the entrance, as usual. He exhaled.
    “Shit!” Lisa suddenly slid down in the seat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going by the bowling alley? My dad bowls every Friday night. Get down, Vicky. He knows I’m with you.”
    She grabbed Vicky’s arm and tugged her. She hit the floor, too. “Don’t worry, Lis. He’s probably inside.”
    “I’ll be right back,” Richie said.
    Keith was sitting with a soda and playing drums with straws on the table. Charlene was wiping down the counter.
    “Hey, man, how’s it hanging?” Keith said.
    “Cool. Any luck?” Richie gestured his head toward Charlene.
    “She’s coming round.” That’s what he said every time.
    Richie slid into the booth and leaned over the table. “Listen, I got two chicks in my car ready to party hardy.”
    Keith stopped drumming and looked out the window. “I don’t see anyone.”
    “They’re on the floor in the front. They’re scared their old man might come out of the bowling alley and see them.”
    Keith grunted and resumed drumming. Richie slapped his hand down on the straws. “They want to get some beers. What the hell do I do?”
    Keith removed Richie’s hand and drummed. “Go hang out at the back door of Oakland Liquors and ask someone to buy you a six-pack.”
    “I never did that before.”
    Keith gave him an oh-come-on look with raised eyebrows. “Man, you are such a dork.”
    “Come with. Charlene’s not going with you and you know it.”
    Keith looked at Charlene’s bobbing ponytail as she wiped down the ice cream machine. “What do they look like?”
    “Real foxes.”
    “I have first dibs.”
    “Done.”
    “Let’s book.” He slipped out of the booth. “Later, Charlene.”
    She looked up surprised. “Hey wait, KeithÉ” The door closed on her.
    They laughed. “’Bout time you showed her - dork,” Richie said.

    Richie had struck out twice. It wasn’t as easy as Keith had made it out to be. One man gave him a dirty look, another told him he should know better than to drink at his age. Richie lit a cigarette and inhaled. Smoking scratched his throat but he liked hanging out with the crowd in the smoking courtyard at school so he kept doing it.
     Laughter rippled from the car. Keith was having a good time with the girls while he was making a fool of himself. But he’d look even more foolish if he returned empty-handed.
    “Hey, what’s taking you?” Keith yelled out the window.
    Richie shot him the middle finger.
    A Harley pulled in. A guy and a girl dismounted, pulling off their helmets. They both had ponytails. Bingo.
    Seven minutes later, Richie trotted back to the car with a paper bag containing two six-packs of Lowenbrau. Much to his annoyance, Keith was sitting in the backseat with Vicky. Lisa was riding shotgun.
    “Party time, kids!” Richie’s tone was a little too hearty.
    Keith grabbed the bag and handed the girls beers as Richie put the car in gear. “Let’s go to the rock,” Keith said.
    “At night?” Richie was dubious.
    “We’ve never been to the rock, have we, Lisa?”
    “No, let’s go.”
    “Don’t worry, man,” Keith said. “The trail’s clear. Here, have a Lowie. Loosen up.”
    “I have a flashlight in the trunk, I think.”
    Lisa shuffled through his eight-tracks in the glove compartment and held one up. “I love this album.” She slid the tape in. The Allman Brothers’ twangy guitar riffs filled the car as it left behind the “Welcome to Oakland, New Jersey” sign. The road darkened as it wound up the mountain.
    When “Ramblin’ Man” kicked in, Richie belted out the lyrics while Keith put on an air-drum show on the front-seat back. The girls laughed and joined in the chorus. Richie chucked his empty out the window as they rounded a bend. Keith did the same, grabbing and tossing the girls’ empty bottles, as well.
    “I didn’t finish that one yet,” Vicky protested.
    “Spit and foam at the bottom. Have another one.” Keith stuck his head out the window and wolf-howled. Richie howled even louder. The girls giggled.
     They pulled into the entrance to the Ramapo Mountain Reserve, parked and got out. “Wait up, nature’s calling,” Keith sang out as he walked to the edge of the woods and unzipped. The girls giggled some more. Richie opened the trunk. He was pretty sure his father had packed a flashlight in his emergency kit. Yep, good old Dad. He switched it on and shone the light around the lot. The beam caught three cars parked on the other side, cars he knew.
    “Let’s gooo,” Keith called. Richie turned his attention to the trail.
    They followed the bouncing cone of yellow light along the path. The rock lay about a mile up the mountain. It was a huge slab of stone that sloped down to a lake surrounded by pine trees. Rangers seldom bothered to make the trek up there so kids used it as a hangout to get high.
     The trail narrowed as it grew steeper and stonier. The girls panted and stumbled. The boys grabbed their hands and pulled them along.
    “Wow, this is really far,” Lisa said.
    “Yeah, this is kind of creepy,” Vicky said. “I don’t know if I like this.”
    “Almost there,” Keith puffed.
    The climb finally gave way to a “Swimming Prohibited” sign. They stood at the water’s pebbled edge catching their breath. The moonlight glistened on the lake’s black surface. The trees were dark silhouettes. The air was still and summer-sticky. Richie’s spine prickled. A crash of glass and a whoop of laughter from down the shoreline suddenly startled the solitude. Richie remembered the cars.
    “Party up ahead. Let’s go.” Keith started down the narrow track along the shore. Richie and the girls fell in behind him.
    A few minutes later, they climbed onto the rock. Richie looked around. No one. Then a grating rumble sounded from higher up. He shone the flashlight up the slope. Three beer bottles rolled down. Three figures appeared after them.
    “Hey move out!”
    “You’re in the way!”
     The group moved out of the path of the bottles. Mark Ambriano, Lenny Wosniewski and Butch O’Brien emerged from the darkness as they raced after the speeding bottles, which curved into each other at the bottom with a clank.
    “Woo hoo!” Mark said. “Mine won.”
    “Who’re you fooling, man, it was mine,” Lenny said.
    Butch leapt down to the stone where the bottles had rolled to a rest and crashed them against the rock. Only Keith laughed. They sat down and opened beers.
    “Butch, quit that shit!” Mark said.
    Lenny walked over. “Hey, you guys want to party?”
    “You got the brewskis, we got the weed,” Mark said.
    “Yeah, it’s decent stuff,” Lenny added. “Sinse.”
    Lenny and Mark squeezed in next to the girls. Butch sat next to Lenny, who rolled a joint from a baggie of pot. A pint bottle of Jack Daniels came from somewhere and was passed around. Richie felt like he was floating, watching the scene from on high. These guys would never give him a second look, not at school, not in the parking lot, not even in the smoking courtyard. Now he was sitting here, partying and bullshitting with them like they were buddies.
    After a couple joints, shots of JD and a beer, Richie’s head was fuzzing. Voices blurred into a cloud. His closed his eyes and saw the star-speckled sky on his eyelids. He forced them open and wondered vaguely how he was going to get back to the car. He looked around. Keith was lying on his back with his knees up. Butch was rolling another joint. Mark’s arm had disappeared around Vicky’s back and she was leaning into his shoulder. Lenny and Lisa were making out. The night that had seemed in the palm of Richie’s hand had slipped from his grasp. He elbowed Keith.
    “Let’s get out of here.”
    Keith grunted. “What? Yeah.”
    They stood. Richie’s head swam. He grabbed the flashlight and lurched down to the lake, crouching to splash water on his face. The cold wetness broke his stupor. He slurped a palmful of water to wet his cotton-mouth and spit it out. Keith stumbled behind him. He threw some water on his face and shook his head.
    “Jeez, that reefer was wicked.” Keith’s voice sounded like it was in slow motion.
    They jumped off the rock on to the trail, which was shrouded in shadow. The moon had brightened, bathing the lake in a pearly silver glow.
    Richie switched on the flashlight, took a few steps then heard a noise. A chill ran like mouse feet over his back. He turned and shone the flashlight. It was Keith, leaning on a tree and retching. He straightened and wiped his mouth with his T-shirt.
    “You okay?”
    “YeahÉnow that I barfed.” Keith croaked. He walked to the lakeside and splashed more water on his face and rinsed his mouth.
    The flashlight was faint. “Not much battery left,” Richie said. “If we hurry, we might make it before it goes dead.”
    A scream pierced the air. A girl’s scream. Richie and Keith froze.
    “Hold her!” Butch.
    “Leave her alone!” Lisa.
    What the fuck was going on?
    Another scream.
    “Shut the fuck up!” Lenny.
    A girl’s sobs. “Leave us alone!” Lisa.
    “Shut your fucking mouth! It’s your turn next.” Butch. A slap. A cry. “I told you, shut it.”
    Keith and Richie looked at each other. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Keith said in a loud whisper.
    “What do we do?” Richie whispered back.
    “Fuck!”
    “We got to go back.”
    “Are you shitting me?” Keith grabbed the flashlight. “They’ll think we’re part of it.” He set off down the trail. Richie was still paralyzed. “Richie, they’re just goofing off. Come on.”
    He hesitated, then followed Keith. They skidded down the first steep stretch, then Richie paused and listened. All was silent. Keith turned. “What the fuck are you doing? Come on, man. We don’t want those guys on our asses.”
    “I don’t know, Keith.”
    “Those girls were going along with anything. You saw them.”
    Richie couldn’t move.
    “Listen, if you want to be a dork, then that’s your fucking problem. See ya.” Keith moved off at a fast clip.
    The flashlight’s beam bobbed into the darkness. Keith was probably right. The girls were looking for trouble. They were likely playing some stupid game. He’d go back and find them all laughing and joking. He’d look like a real douchebag. Richie forced his legs into a trot to catch up with Keith, but a lump formed in the pit of his stomach.

    The rest of the weekend, Richie worked his hours at the car wash then slumped on the couch in the basement watching “All in the Family” reruns.
    “You feeling all right, Richie?” his mom called down the stairs.
    “Yeah, I’m fine, Ma.”
    As the laugh track played on the TV, Richie played the night over in his mind. The screams. The crying. “It’s your turn next.” Something bad happened. He knew it in his gut. He should have gone back. He should have told Keith it was a lousy idea to go to the rock in the first place. Why did he ever listen to him?
    Maybe it was just the pot that spooked him. Those guys would never have done anything to the girls, would they? They were just goofing off, got carried away, like Keith said. And those girls really did ask for it. They wanted to go to the rock. They were making out with those guys. He wasn’t responsible for them. Or was he? He drove them there. Maybe, he thought, he should sell the Duster, then he’d be permanently grounded and nothing like this could happen again.
    Richie felt a weight on his chest that made it hard to breathe. He suddenly remembered experiencing that once before, when he was a skinny ten-year-old playing in the sea at Wildwood, letting the waves dance him around like a piece of driftwood. It was fun for a while, then the waves got rough, crashing over him and pushing him under. As soon as he got his head above surface, another submerged him. The water slammed against his body. He started thrashing and flailing. He couldn’t remember how he got out.

    Monday was a good day at the car wash. Richie made fifteen dollars in tips and Mr. Stavros told him he was doing a good job. Feeling lighter than he had all weekend, he strode into the kitchen after work and opened the fridge.
    “Get out of there - dinner’ll be ready soon.” His mother spoke without looking up from the newspaper she was reading at the table.
    “Just milk.” He grabbed the carton, poured himself a glass and gulped.
    “There was a gang rape of some teenage girls over the weekend up at Ramapo. Says the investigation is ongoing.” His mother turned the page. “I always told you kids got up to no good up there.”
    Richie spluttered on the milk. His mother looked up in alarm. “You okay?”
    He wiped his mouth with his forearm. “Went down the wrong way.”
    He rushed into his bedroom and flopped on the bed, burying his face in the pillow. Gang rape. He was responsible for two girls getting raped by three guys. Was he an accessory, an accomplice, a witness? Why didn’t he walk past those girls at the Star Trek pinball machine? Why did he have to show off? Why him?
    Richie didn’t feel like eating, but he didn’t want questions from his parents so he shoveled down his dinner and retreated to the basement. “Laverne and Shirley” was starting when he heard the doorbell chime. A minute later, his mother opened the basement door. “Richie, some boys are here to see you. Mark, Butch and Lenny.”
    His stomach sunk. “I’m not home, Ma.”
    “I already told them you are. They said it’s important.”
    Richie punched the cushion. He hauled himself up the stairs and out to the front porch, carefully closing the door behind him. His parents were in the living room, playing along with “Jeopardy.”
    Mark stood on the porch. “Hey Richie, got a sec?” Mark cocked his head toward the driveway, where Butch and Lenny hovered. They walked over. Richie shoved his hands in his pockets.
     “So, ah, you know the other night, well, nothing really happened, you know,” Mark said.
    “You didn’t see nothing anyway, right.” The way Lenny phrased it, it wasn’t a question. Mark shot him a shut-up look.
    “We’re just saying because those girls were real wasted, man, and they might be going around saying stuff, but they were real easy, real teases, you know. Nothing happened like they might be going around saying. And you were there, and your buddy Keith, so they might have got all us guys mixed up. It was real dark, you know what I mean?” Mark arched his eyebrows.
    Yeah, Richie knew. He was trapped. He wanted to yell “what did you do to them?” He wanted to knock that smartass look off Mark’s face with a right hook like his dad had taught him with the punching bag slung up on the tree in the backyard. He slapped at a mosquito on his arm instead.
    Butch took out a hunting knife and cleaned his fingernails with the blade tip. The steel glinted. His old man was the police chief. Mark’s dad was a lawyer. And Lenny, rumor had it that Lenny’s father was in prison. His mom was a drunk who lived in the trailer park down by the river and went with all the town badasses. Richie’s chest felt like it was bursting. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, I really don’t remember much of that night. I was pretty shitfaced.”
    “That’s what we kinda figured. We just wanted to make sure,” Mark said. “So now we got that all straightened out, we’re cool, man, okay?”
    “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Richie’s skin squeezed his bones.
    “Let me know if you want some help with that Duster,” Mark said. “We could do a real cool paint job on her, a nice racing stripe or some flames on the fenders.”
    “Yeah, sure,” Richie mumbled.
    “It’s been real, Richie.”
    Keith. He had to get to Keith. He waited til they left then he got in the Duster and cruised down Oakland Avenue, keeping right on the speed limit. He pulled into the Dairy Queen. Richie could see Keith through the window, scarfing down ice cream at a booth. Richie walked in. Charlene was serving cones at the walk-up window.
    “Man, where you been hiding?” Keith’s spoon clattered into the empty banana split dish. He pulled a napkin from the dispenser and wiped his mouth. Richie slid into the booth.
    Keith leaned over the table. “Charlene’s going out with me after work tonight. Told ya I’d get her. Take it from me - girls like the chase.” He grinned. “I took a bottle of Southern Comfort from the liquor cabinet. The old lady’ll never miss it.”
    “Cool.” Richie grabbed the salt shaker and spun it. “So Butch and them just came by my house.”
    Keith lowered his voice to a whisper. “I told them I didn’t see nothing, hear nothing, I was wasted off my ass. I don’t even remember how I got home. That’s what happened.”
    “But we heard them, the girls screaming and all that.”
    “Richie, we left, we didn’t hear jack. End of fucking story. You say any different, we’re going to land in a major pile of shit, capisc’?”
    Richie unscrewed the salt shaker top and poured the salt onto the table. There was something soothing about watching it flow into a perfect white mound.
    “Would you quit that? Charlene’s going to think I did it.” Keith glanced over his shoulder and swiped the salt under the table. He grabbed the shaker out of Richie’s hand and screwed on the top. “Besides, no one’ll ever believe us over them. Remember their old men.”
    “It was your fucking idea to go to the rock in the first place.”
    “Don’t go dumping this shit on me, man.” Keith jabbed his finger at Richie. “You were the one who brought those girls here and begged me to go with you. They were sluts, let’s face it. They were looking for trouble. They got what they deserved.”
    “Keith, I’m closing out the register. I’ll be done in five,” Charlene called. “Can you bring over your dish?”
    “Sure.” Keith stood. “Think about it, Richie. You’ll see I’m right.” He grabbed the dish and walked to the counter.
    Richie went home and opened the garage door. He got a wrench out of the toolbox and unscrewed the Duster’s rear bumper. He put on the welding mask and gloves and fired up the oxyacetylene torch. He twisted and melted the bumper into a contorted figure until his arms ached.
    That night, Richie dreamt of the rock. He lay on top of Vicky, thrusting at her with his pants bunched around his knees and blood from her nose smeared on his cheek. Butch, Lenny, Mark and Keith were watching. He wanted them to see how tough he was, to see he was one of them, so he drove harder. Vicky’s face grimaced in pain. The guys were smiling, he smiled back. She opened her mouth and released a scream. He woke in a panic as he humped the mattress. Sweat plastered his T-shirt to his body. His stomach churned.

     The next night after dinner, Richie went into the garage and dismantled the Duster’s front bumper and grill and started welding. His mother peered through the half-open door as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. Her brows knitted. A few minutes later, the door flung wide open. His father marched in, a rolled up newspaper in his hand.
     “Son, what in God’s name are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
    Richie focused on his seam. His dad whacked the newspaper hard on the tool bench. “Richie, you pay attention to me when I’m talking to you! Turn that torch off!”
    Richie didn’t stop. He father took two steps and furiously twisted off the spigots on the oxygen and acetylene tanks. The torch’s flame fizzled. “Get in the house!” Richie, still wearing his welding mask, got up and turned on the tanks. His father’s face went as red as a boiled crab.
    “Richard, get-in-the-house-now!” His dad’s arm shot out, pointing to the door. Richie lifted the torch. Its 3,000-degree blue flame spit directly at his dad. His father reeled back and crashed into the garbage cans.
    “All right, if that’s the way you want it. I never should’ve given you the money for that car. You’re goddamn spoiled!” He hauled himself up and went into the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, he almost killed me with that torch! I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
    “It must be girl trouble,” his mother said. “He’ll get over it.” The door closed. Richie kept welding.
    The next night, Richie came home from the car wash, took his dinner plate into the garage and started working on the hub caps. His father entered and sat on a milk crate.
    “Son, you can tell your old man – you got some girl knocked up?” Anger rose in Richie’s throat. He wasn’t going around knocking up girls. He ignored the question. “Jesus, Richie, this is crazy.” His father combed his hair with his fingers and rubbed the graying whiskers on his chin. Then he heaved himself up and retreated to the kitchen.
    “It’s that goddamn fag art teacher,” his dad said. “I’m going to fix this once and for all.”
    The next night, Richie went into the garage and flicked on the light. It was empty. The welding equipment, his sculpture - gone. He got into the Duster and banged his forehead against the steering wheel. The blows reverberated through his skull. His life was a disaster. He slid the key into the ignition and backed down the driveway.
    He roamed downtown for a while, then decided to head for Burger King. He parked and walked in.
    “Hey Richie!” Mark, Butch and Lenny were sitting at a table, trays of burgers and fries in front of them. Shit. He briefly considered walking back out, but he’d look like a wimp. He nodded at them and ordered a Whopper, fries and shake. Maybe they’d be gone by the time his food was ready. But they weren’t.
    “Richie, over here!” Mark waved at him. He felt obligated to sit with them.
    “You doing some work on the Duster? I saw it when you drove in,” Mark said.
    “Kinda.” Richie bit into his burger and chewed. It tasted like cardboard.
    “We’re going over to borrow a swimming pool, if you want to come.” Mark said. The others chuckled.
    “I like that – ‘borrow a swimming pool’,” Lenny said.
    “The Politanos are away so we have a little swimming party there at night. The house is set back. No one sees us,” Mark said.
    “Sure,” Richie heard himself say. His chest was constricting again, the waves were buffeting him. He couldn’t
    “I want to pick up Veronica on the way,” Lenny said.
    “We know what that’s about,” Butch said slyly.
    “You betcha!” Lenny made an obscene gesture. They all laughed. Richie put down his Whopper. He couldn’t eat any more.
    Richie knew his father would kill him for trespassing on someone’s property and using a pool without permission. He was turning into another Mark, Butch or Lenny. He realized he didn’t want to be one of them – and he didn’t want to let down his dad. Then he remembered. He remembered it was his father who had plucked him out of the water all those years ago. That was how he got out of the waves.
    A calmness overcame him. He stood up. “I just remembered. I gotta do something.” He picked up his tray, looked the three guys straight in the eyes, and drove home.
    Richie entered the living room. His father was in his recliner, half reading the paper and half playing along with “Jeopardy” on TV.
    “Dad, you gotta minute?”

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