Pete said, “Hey, wait... Wait, I think he’s dead,” but at first nobody paid any attention. They were flipping curses, having fun with it as they kicked the kid. Pete said again, “I think he’s dead,” and that time Ron heard him. Ron said, “No way,” but stopped his kicking, and then Nick and Louis stopped too. They looked down at the unmoving boy.
Nick said, “What?” and Pete said, “He stopped moving, you guys don’t see he stopped moving? I don’t think he’s breathing,” and Ron said, “No fucking way,” but it was Louis who got down by the kid and checked. He put his hand in front of the kid’s mouth, then pressed his fingers against his neck. He shook his head a little bit, said, “Feels like he’s dead,” and then, “I got blood on my hand.” That bothered Louis, which was why he was almost strictly a kicker. He’d let Ron and Pete and Nick start in with the punching, and he’d kick them once they were on the ground.
Louis stood up and wiped his hand on his jeans. Clean before, now they had a single dark streak just below the right pocket. They were all looking at each other, the body of the boy in the center of them. Pete said, “What the fuck did you guys do?”
Louis said, “Us?”
Ron said, “I don’t see how we could have killed him. I just hit him a little.”
Louis said, “Man, all I did was kick his stomach a couple times.”
“Guys, shut the fuck up.” Nick kneeled down by the body, feeling around it.
“Should you touch it?” said Pete.
“We already touched him,” Nick snapped.
“I mean should we touch him more?”
Nick stood up and glared at Pete. “Shut up, dammit, shut up, okay you fuckin pansy?” They did. Only Ron, Nick’s brother, ever much argued with Nick, but Ron looked as scared shitless as everyone else. Nick got down by the body and looked at it. “I think we busted his head too hard. Man, somebody got him in the temple.” He stood up, shaking his head. “Fuck!” It was a quick, angry exclamation.
“We have to get rid of the body,” said Nick. Ron stood up and started walking away. “Ron, get back here,” yelled Nick, but Ron said, “Sorry guys, I’m out,” and kept walking. Nick ran behind him, grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, whispering something in his ear the others didn’t hear. Ron, looking sullen, came back to where the others stood.
Louis asked, “Anyone know this kid?”
But he knew they didn’t. They never knew the people they jumped; they were just looking for some fun, a little action, whoever walked their way. It was probably someone from school, but Louis didn’t recognize him.
“I think he was in my science class,” said Pete, and everyone looked at him.
“You think?” spat Nick. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know, it was a big class and school was a month ago, man. I don’t know him, okay?”
“We have to get rid of the body,” Nick said again. “We have to get rid of the body, now.” He paced the alley, absently rubbing his left cheek. They were in the shadows, certainly, but the street where they grabbed the kid was ten feet down, and there were houses on either side of the alley, both some distance away. On one side of the alley was a fence; its shadow obscured most of the body. One arm was flung out into the light, the hand closed into a fist. A ring glittered red in the setting sun.
“Why don’t we just leave it here?” asked Pete, and Ron started nodding.
Nick was furious. “What the hell is wrong with you guys? How many people have we jumped here?” The correct answer was five, but nobody said anything. “You think people don’t know what we do here?”
Ron said, “We’ve never gotten caught,” and Nick started trembling he was so angry.
“If this body is found here we’re all in deep shit. Deep shit!” He glared at each of them in turn. “You guys do whatever the fuck you want. I’m getting rid of this body because somebody has to and I guess that means it’s going to be me.” He leaned into the shadow of the fence and started to hoist the body up by the arms. Louis grabbed the legs, then dropped them suddenly and turned into the fence and vomited. He turned back and grabbed the legs again. Nick said, “Man, you all right?” and Louis nodded.
“Where are we taking him?”
“Down to the creek,” said Nick, “maybe the underpass?”
“There’s that old shed there,” said Ron, “but how are we going to get it there?”
“My old man’s probably sleeping,” said Pete, “I can take the car.” Pete’s house was only a little ways down the block. “Be in some trouble if he finds out.”
“You have to go get it,” said Nick, “and hurry.” Pete ran off down the alley. Nick said to Louis, “Help me drag it behind this bush till he gets back.” So they pulled the body over behind a bush. The grass and weeds were bent where the body had been, and there was a little blood on the fence, but you had to get right up next to it to see it in the light. “Everybody don’t stand so close,” Nick said. They all backed up a little. “Don’t look so guilty,” he told them, so Ron put his hands in his pockets and Louis sat on the ground.
A few minutes later Pete pulled the car into the alley. No one had passed. Pete jumped out of the front seat and opened the back door. “I brought this blanket, don’t get blood on the seats, please don’t get blood on the seats.”
“Are we putting him in the back seat,” asked Louis, “or in the trunk?”
“Man, just hurry,” said Nick, his hands shaking and sweat trickling down his cheek. They spread the blanket over the back seat and Ron and Pete hoisted the body onto the blanket. Nick slammed the car door shut. He turned to Pete and said, “Drive. I go with you.”
“Where you going to put it?” asked Ron.
“Shut up,” said Nick, walking around the car to the passenger side. “You two walk home, act regular, don’t say anything ever.” He got in the car, slammed the door, and watched Pete climb into the driver’s seat. Louis started down the alley. Ron looked into the back seat of the car, glared at Nick, then turned to follow Louis.
Ron’s house was past Louis’s, in the same direction, but neither was very far. They didn’t make it to Louis’s house before he started crying. It was just a little bit at first. Ron didn’t say anything. Then it turned into big wracking sobs. Ron gently said, “Geez, Louis, get a hold of yourself.” Louis turned to him, crying harder, and leaned into him, and Ron had to catch him. Suddenly they were hugging in the middle of the sidewalk, with Louis bawling his eyes out. Ron said, “Louis, someone’s going to see us.”
Louis said, “Oh my God oh my God.” He was sobbing too hard to say anything else.
Ron said, “Come on, Louis, stand up and we’ll walk to my house, okay? Someone’s going to see us.”
Louis stood up and sniffed a couple times. “Right, all right. Yeah.” They started walking down the street again. In a bit Louis had settled down and looked normal, except for puffy eyes. He said, “I don’t know, Ronnie, I don’t know about this.” Ron didn’t say anything. Louis walked a little more and said, “We have to completely forget about this.”
Ron said, “Yeah? So get started.”
Louis grunted, but he was beginning to feel better, and could tell Ron was starting to get irritated. “I’m sorry,” he said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m just a little shook up.”
“Me too,” Ron said, “But you can’t just act like a fool.”
“I know,” said Louis.
“Look,” Ron said, “We can’t talk about this, you know?”
“I know,” said Louis.”
“And Louis,” said Ron, now stopping and talking very seriously, “Listen. You have to forget all this. And I don’t mean so we don’t get caught, but yes, so we don’t get caught. But you need to leave this behind us. You know? You have to get over it. You have to forget it.”
Louis nodded. “I know.”
Ron started walking again and Louis followed him. They didn’t say anything until they had arrived at Ron’s house, and Ron said, “Play some Playstation?” and Louis said, “Sure,” and Ron started flipping through games. Louis sat down on the couch, leaning his head back. He was tired, drifting off. He said, “Man, you play, I’m gonna catch a short nap,” and Ron said, “Okay, cool,” and Louis drifted into sleep.
*
When he woke up he was lying on his side on the couch and someone had put a little blanket over his legs. He kicked it off, stood up, and stretched. There was an opening to the kitchen on one side, but though he could hear Ron’s family having dinner, he couldn’t see into the kitchen through the wall that cut the two rooms in half.
He could hear Nick talking, and his whole body started to shake as he remembered what had happened. He sat back down on the couch, trying to be quiet, not wanting them to know he was awake. Nick said, “I just don’t why we have to always be having people over, that’s all.” He sounded tense but not particularly angry.
“C’mon, Nicholas, it’s Ron’s friend.” That was Ron’s mom, slightly pleading but mostly disinterested. But she was firm when she said, “Look, he’s spending the night, Ron already asked before you got home, okay?”
There was no response, just the click of silverware on glass plates. Louis got up quietly and went upstairs to Ron’s room. He shut the door, sat on the bed. Flipped through some comic books. He was getting a headache, bad.
After a while Ron came in. “Woke up, huh?” He said. Louis nodded, not looking up from The Fantastic Four. Ron said, “I’m so glad I don’t have to work tomorrow, get to sleep in.”
“Yeah,” Louis nodded again. He closed the comic book and looked up at Ron. “Hey, what’s up with your hair?” he said.
Ron looked confused. “What?”
Louis stood up and set the comic book down. “What is that?” He squinted. Ron kept flinching away. “Hey, stay still,” Louis said, peering intently at Ron. “I thought your hair was frizzed out weird or something, but that’s not what that is.”
Ron said, “What what is?” He was starting to sound scared.
“Man, it looks like you’re smoking. I mean, like you have smoke coming off you.”
“Louis, shut up,” Ron said. He pushed Louis away, kicked through some clothes over to a mirror, inspecting himself. “I don’t see anything.” He looked back at Louis. “Quit fucking with me.”
Louis came over and stood behind him, looking into the mirror. He could see it clearly, even through the mirror, not what it was, true, but that it was. “You don’t see that?”
“Fuck you,” said Ron.
“That’s weird,” said Louis. “It’s on me, too.” He started looking at his arms and hands.
Ron scooped The Fantastic Four off the bed and sprawled out over the blankets. “Man, shut up.” He opened the comic book somewhere in the middle, looking at the pictures. Louis had a pinched, concerned look on his face but didn’t say anything.
Restless, Ron threw down the comic book and stood up. “I’m going up on the roof,” he said. A segment of ledge outside Ron’s window made it pretty easy to climb onto the roof of the house, and in the middle you could sit down between two sections of the roof and not be seen from the street. Ron pulled the blinds up on the window and pulled it open, stepping up and around and disappearing. After a moment, Louis followed him up to the little enclave, where Ron was lighting a joint.
Louis sat next to him, and Ron silently passed him the joint. Louis looked up at the stars and the crooked sliver of the moon as they passed the weed back and forth.
Not long later, Nick climbed up to join them. It was hard to gauge his mood in the darkness, but he sounded irritated when he said to Louis, “Man, why are you spending the night?”
Louis said, “What?”
Ron said, “Jesus, Nick, it would be strange if he didn’t spend the night. And be quiet, you want Mom to know this place is up here?”
Nick lowered his voice to match their quiet tones. “Louis, you aren’t freaking out, are you?” He sat down and took the joint. “Cause if you’re freaking out, I’ll kill you.”
Ron said, “He’s fine.”
It was too dark to see if Nick had any of the strange smoke coming off of him. Quietly, Nick said, “Listen. We took it down to the shed by the underpass, but we thought about it more and we don’t think that’s good enough. It’s too close. Tomorrow we’re going to take it farther, out to Huntsville.”
“Why didn’t you take it there already?” Ron asked.
“Pete couldn’t take the car that long.”
Louis said, “Someone’s going to find it in that shed.”
“Overnight?” asked Nick. “We put it in plastic and covered it, I don’t think so. And there’s nothing right now that points it to us.”
Ron shook his head. “Then why not just leave it.”
Nick hesitated a long second. “It’s too close, it’s too much us. People know about that shed, you know that. I asked Mom if I could take the car to Brownsburg tomorrow, she knows I’m supposed to go see Andie anyway. I just think that’s better.”
Ron said, “What about Andie?”
Nick said, “She’ll cover for me.”
Ron said, “You’re gonna tell her?”
Nick said, “Hell no. I’ll tell her something else.” That seemed to satisfy Ron. Nick had pretty much taken over the joint, but nobody said anything as he took a final hit and pinched it out. He stood up. “Look, we can’t tell anyone anything about this, ever. I mean that. Wouldn’t hurt for you guys to find something to do tomorrow, make yourselves a little visible. But that’s it on talking about this. It’s over and done. Got it?” They made little sounds of agreement, and Nick climbed back off the roof and disappeared.
Louis lay down on the incline of the roof, looking up at the stars again. He said, “I think he had that smoky stuff coming off of him, too.”
Ron said, “Who, Nick?” Louis nodded. Ron said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Louis said, “Never mind.”
Ron said, “Yeah, you’re starting to freak me out,” and then he, too, got up and disappeared off the roof. Louis lay there, looking at the stars, feeling a great tightness growing in his chest. Gradually, he started to cry, the constellations blurring into watery sparkles.
When he climbed back into the room, Ron was already asleep on the bed. Louis stretched out on the floor, quiet and still, but unable to sleep for most of the night. When he eventually drifted off, his sleep was dreamless.
*
Ron woke him roughly, with, “Take a shower, we’re going to Billy’s birthday party.”
Louis squinted, the light from the window hitting him painfully in the eyes. “I thought we weren’t going to that.”
“Now we’re going,” said Ron, with finality, so Louis pulled himself up off the floor and out into the hall.
After showering, he borrowed some of Ron’s clothes. He told Ron, “I think I got a little blood on my pants.”
Ron gave him a sharp look and said, “So? Throw them out.” And he held out the room’s trashcan, half full, with no trash bag. Louis tossed the pants. “Keep those,” Ron said, indicating the clothes Louis had put on.
“Thanks,” said Louis.
In the sunlight through the window the stuff coming off of Ron looked less like smoke to Louis and more like a shadowy cloud. It was easier to see in the daytime. He didn’t say anything about it. The cloud around Ron was dark, but not the black it had looked last night — more of a burnt grayish-brown. Around his own hands, Louis could see a similar darkness. When he went to fix his hair in the mirror, he could see it all around him. It looked dark, black, shaded but without color.
They went downstairs where Ron’s sister, Lisa, was watching TV and reading a magazine. She was fourteen, two years younger than Louis. Something in the magazine was entertaining; she was looking at a picture and grinning with enthusiasm.
Ron said, “Hey, where’s Nick.”
Lisa looked up, said, “Nick went to see Andie, he probably won’t be home till after supper. Mom went over to Stan’s.” She looked at Louis and smiled. “Hi, Louis, I like your shirt.” It was really Ron’s shirt. It was bright yellow and said, “Dare to Say No to Drugs” on the front.
Ron disappeared into the kitchen. Louis said to Lisa, “Thanks,” and, to make conversation, “what are you reading?”
Lisa showed him the cover: Cosmopolitan. She giggled and said, “Hey, do guys really think like that?” She pushed the article she was reading toward him. Louis read the title, “Guys Uncensored, The Dirty Thoughts Men Have.”
Louis, blushing, said, “I don’t need to read that.”
Lisa stopped smiling, seeming suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said.
Louis looked at her, said, “Okay let me read it,” and took the magazine. But he didn’t look at it; he was looking at the haze around Lisa, not nearly as dark as his or Ron’s. It was a rich reddish orange, full of shadows and highlights. Lisa’s hair was loose and frizzy, and there was much of it. Now Louis could see wisps of this reddish-orange color escaping from the blonde curls and around her face.
Lisa became shy under his scrutiny. Fascinated, Louis watched the color around her dim to a much softer, pastel red. “What?” asked Lisa, “What is it?” Her nose and brow wrinkled.
“I don’t know,” said Louis. He knew he shouldn’t say anything about the colors. “You’re getting really pretty.” But he knew that wasn’t the right thing to say, either, though it was true. All the color came vibrantly back around her, and she grinned big, and said, “You think so?” He hoped she didn’t tell Ron or Nick he had called her pretty. He wanted to take it back. Instead, he said, “Yes,” handing the magazine back to her without reading it.
“I just got up, I haven’t even gotten ready yet,” she said. Ron came back in, then, and Louis self-consciously took a step back from where Lisa sat on the couch.
“You want some pop tarts?” Ron asked Louis. “We got strawberry.”
“Yeah, strawberry,” said Louis, and Ron disappeared back into the kitchen.
Lisa asked, “You guys going somewhere?”
“Yeah.” Louis sat down on the easy chair across from the couch. “Billy’s birthday party, I guess.”
“Really?” Lisa leaned forward, excited. “Can I go?” Louis shrugged. Lisa said, “I got invited, I can go, you don’t mind, do you?”
Ron came back in, saying, “Lisa, shut up, no you can’t go.”
Lisa ignored Ron, looking at Louis as she repeated, “Please can I go?”
Louis said, “Yeah, you can go, if Ron says okay.”
Ron narrowed his eyes at Louis, but said, “Okay fine. We’re leaving in five minutes, we’re not waiting around.”
Lisa jumped up off the couch. “I have to go get ready,” she said, smiling at Louis, “and take a shower and everything.”
“We’re not waiting around,” Ron repeated.
“Louis, don’t let him leave without me,” Lisa said, disappearing up the stairs.
To Louis, Ron said, “Quit hitting on my sister.”
“I wasn’t.” Lisa reappeared at the top of the stairs wearing only a towel. She walked to the upstairs bathroom, not too quickly, not looking at them. Louis looked away, back at Ron, who was frowning.
There was a dark look in Ron’s eyes Louis wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. For the first time, Louis thought then of Ron as a killer. As someone who had killed. Of course Louis, too, was someone who had killed, but now he saw Ron as something different, something to fear. He believed in Ron’s friendship. But the act of killing, as unintended or accidental as it had been, had revealed them, Louis recognized, as animals, and Louis doubted if they could be trusted with life, and with their own judgment of it.
Louis shivered and followed Ron into the kitchen. Ron handed him a glass plate with two pop tarts on it, toasted brown. He bit into one. Ron pulled a box of cereal out of a pantry and stuck his arm into it, grabbing a handful to dump into his mouth. Chewing, he said, “I didn’t want to take my sister.”
“I know,” said Louis.
They were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. They walked around the wall to see Nick throwing himself down on the couch.
Ron said, “I thought you had left already.”
Nick looked up, and Louis could see he was sweating. “Guys, listen, it wasn’t there,” Nick said. He wiped at his clammy face. Then his eyes focused and he looked closely at them for the first time, at their faces, then at the pop tart in Louis’ hand. During this time Louis watched the dark smoky shadows around Nick suddenly tighten, pulling in, taking on the barest hint of an orange cast.
Ron said, “What do you mean it wasn’t there?” Sounding irritated. “What, you mean the body?”
“Shut up!” said Nick once, quickly, glaring suddenly at Ron. Ron turned his profile to Nick, looking toward the kitchen, clenching his jaw, just as Lisa came running down the stairs. It was obvious she could feel the tension in the room. She slowed, silent as she came down the last few steps. She had put on some jean shorts rolled tight at mid-thigh, and a pink t-shirt with a cartoon ghost that said “Spooky” right across her chest. Nick looked at her, then back at Ron. “Are you going somewhere?”
Lisa said, “We were going to Billy’s birthday party.”
Nick looked somehow offended. “Billy’s birthday party?”
“Yeah, man,” Ron said, impatiently, raising his eyebrows meaningfully as he added, “You know, we just felt like going out somewhere.”
Nick shook his head. “No, no you aren’t.”
Louis said directly, “You told us to go somewhere.”
Nick looked hard at Louis, then said, “Yes, I did.” Silently, Louis handed him the pop tart. Nick took it and bit into it. He turned back to Ron and spoke while chewing. “Hey, let’s go talk for a minute, okay?” He stood up and brushed by Lisa on the stairs. Ron followed, glancing at Louis as he walked by, eyebrows raised a bit, expression unreadab le.
Lisa came the rest of the way down the stairs, looking quizzically at Louis. “What was that about?” She seemed mostly unconcerned with the drama between her brothers.
Louis shook his head a little and brushed it off. “Nothing, you know, Nick said something and Ron got his feelings hurt.” Lisa nodded as if that explained everything. “You look nice,” Louis said.
Lisa blushed and said, “Thanks, I got this shirt for two dollars at thrift town.”
“It’s cute,” said Louis. He sat down on the couch. Lisa hesitated, then sat down next to him. Louis said, “I’m not sure we’re going to Billy’s birthday party after all.”
“Yeah?” said Lisa.
“Yeah. I think Ron might have to stay home.”
“Yeah?” said Lisa. Then, after a brief pause, “Maybe you and me can go.”
Louis looked at her. “That would be fun,” he said, “but I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
Lisa’s lips tightened into a small frown as she looked down at her feet and scratched her knee. Louis watched her, a bit overwhelmed at the way she almost looked on fire with the sun streaming through the reddish haze around her. His inexplicable visions were growing clearer and brighter, and he found himself caught between the desire to stare and the self-conscious need to look away. He was very anxious about this, ashamed of his vision - too real to be ignored - and made inarticulate by the fear of being discovered. After an awkward silence, Lisa picked up the remote to the TV and turned it on.
It was in the middle of a re-run of The Simpsons. Louis had seen it before, but it was entertaining and he loosened up a bit. At one point when she laughed, he felt Lisa relax into his side, leaning into him. From the corner of his eye he could see the top of her head. Little tendrils of amber smoke rose from her still damp hair, and when he breathed in the flowery aroma of her shampoo, he had the strange and fleeting idea that he was seeing the scent of her rising into the air.
He started to feel very odd and nervous. He stood up with the sudden desire to move around, excusing himself with, “I should go see what’s up with Ron.” At the same time, Ron and Nick started coming down the stairs. He froze, his knee still touching Lisa’s knee on the couch, but neither of the two brothers were paying any attention to him. Ron’s eyes were red and swollen, like he had been crying, and Nick still looked agitated and a bit confused.
All Ron said was, “We might be leaving in a little while, no rush,” and went into the kitchen. Nick didn’t say anything at all, or even look at them, as he too turned the corner into the kitchen.
Both were out of sight when the phone rang. Lisa was quick to pick it up, before it had even finished the first ring. “Hello?” she said, then held it by her knee as she yelled into the kitchen, “Nick, it’s Pete.” She put the phone back to her ear. Louis could hear Nick from the kitchen as he picked up the phone, yelling back, “I got it.” Lisa kept the phone to her ear, with no intention of hanging up. Louis shook his head at her, taking the phone from her hand and returning it to the cradle. Lisa leaned back into the couch, grinning at him.
He shrugged at her, as if to say, what’s so funny, but she just kept grinning. He could tell she was in a good mood, a fun mood, but he couldn’t match it. “You don’t know anything about anything,” he told her.
“I know enough,” she said. She turned her attention back to the TV, a slight smile still on her face. Louis turned and left her there, following Nick’s voice into the kitchen.
“Bring it over here,” Nick said into the phone. Louis sat down at the kitchen table, across from Ron. “Just bring it over here,” Nick said again, impatiently. He hung up the phone and looked at Ron, then Louis. He stood up abruptly and walked over to the kitchen door, looking into the living room. “Lisa, go somewhere,” he said. He looked back into the kitchen, at Louis. “Louis, take her somewhere, please.”
“Sure,” said Louis, but all the urgency and hidden anxiety was starting to give him a headache. He said, “You guys going to tell me what’s going on?”
Nick, still looking out the door, said to Lisa, “Were you and Louis going somewhere?”
Ron said, “We don’t know what’s going on.”
Lisa came into the kitchen, saying, “Are we going to that birthday party?”
Louis didn’t want to go to a birthday party. To tell the truth, he wanted the quiet of his own home, which would at this time be empty. He could sense Nick’s and Ron’s desperate desire to fix things, to protect themselves, to cover their tracks, but he himself was feeling separated, frustrated, and he was starting to get angry. Leave me out of your plans, he wanted to say, look what you’ve already done. They all looked at him, waiting. He shook his head and said, “I’m going to walk to my house. I don’t really feel up to that party.”
Nick said, quickly, “You and Lisa are going to your house?”
Louis could tell Lisa didn’t like that, the way Nick was trying to get rid of her. He felt a small rush of anger at Nick, at the way he was always pushing people around. Ignoring Nick, he said, “Lisa, you want to come to my house for a while?” She shrugged like it didn’t matter, but Nick could see she did want to go. “Come on,” he said, and left the kitchen. He went straight to the front door and out, only looking back to see if Lisa was following. Neither of them spoke anything until they had turned the corner two houses down.
“How far is your house?” asked Lisa, who had never been there.
“Not far,” Louis said, giving her a little smile. She seemed to sense that he was not in the mood for chatter, merely following along beside and slightly behind him.
In the fresh air, his claustrophobia and the strange sense of urgent frustration were fading. He was surprised at how comfortable their silence was, now, outside away from her house. On the other hand, he felt far from normal. His mind was full of things; he knew he could share none of them with Lisa. She was easygoing and funny. He liked her, but they didn’t know each other well enough to be called friends.
After the events of the previous day, as the hazy clouds of smoke had appeared around his friends, he had called into question his own perceptions, and even to some degree his own sanity. He had been, not frightened, but certainly concerned. My mind is playing tricks on me, is what he thought, which meant, It’s not to be trusted.
But now, in the daylight, sanity seemed to matter less. In the open air, the vague sense of ugly unease started to fade and his visions took on a spectacular beauty. He slowed enough that Lisa was walking beside him. He wanted to look at her without her notice. In the sunlight, unimpeded by shadow, she glowed. Not in the metaphorical sense – well, yes, that, too – but in his own vision, with a clean, prismatic, jewel-like highlight of green surrounding her.
The whole street was lit up in the same way. There were trees along the sidewalk, each lit with its own fire. The grass in the yards and along the street, dry as it was under the summer sun, sparkled as though covered with dew.
Louis was transfixed. He slowed to a stop, taking it in. Lisa stopped too, looking at him with her head cocked to one side and her brow furrowed. Still, she didn’t say anything. He wondered for a moment if she could see it the way he was seeing it, the world lit up like a giant crystal disco ball. But there was nothing in her eyes that hinted she shared his vision. She was looking at him, simply, waiting for him.
He looked up at the sky. Beads of white danced in his vision. The sun was behind him. He could feel its heat on the back of his head. He turned to look at it, with no feeling of impending danger, just simple curiosity. But it was too bright, dazzling. For a moment he could see the sun, rainbows dancing around it, not the blazing white he was used to. Then he felt his eyes burning and watering, a pain in his head that felt like he was splitting.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground with his eyes closed. He could feel Lisa beside him, holding his arm. She was saying, “Danny? Danny, are you okay?”
He opened his eyes, but to his alarm nothing changed. “I can’t see,” he said.
“Are you okay, Danny?” she repeated.
“Why are you calling me Danny?” he asked, that just registering. And then, the alkaline taste of fear on his tongue, “Why can’t I see?” But to his relief, the darkness in his eyes began to lighten. His eyes watered, and now the black gave way to soft, great smudges of light, a bright crystal violet, and blue around it that he decided must be the sky. He blinked, trying to clear the liquid from his eyes.
“Danny?” Lisa said again.
“I’m not Danny,” Louis said, his voice a tight arrow of frustration. Now his eyes were clearing. He blinked again, tears streaming down his face, and when he opened his eyes he could see Lisa in front of him. “I’m not Danny,” he repeated.
She was holding tightly to his arm, and he saw her own tears with surprise. “What?” she said, “Who’s Danny?”
Louis said, “You called me Danny,” but she quickly shook her head.
“No, I didn’t.”
Louis said, “Why am I on the sidewalk?”
“You fell over,” she said. “You were moving funny.” He started to stand up. She grabbed his arm and pulled to help him. In a moment, he was standing again. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Louis didn’t know; he didn’t know what had happened. As far as he could see nothing had changed; the things of the world still glowed with eerie light. He remembered looking at the sun and felt a shiver of fear. Is that what did it? he wondered. He turned his back to it without looking up at it. “I’m fine,” he told Lisa, and began walking again, toward his house.
“Maybe we should go back, Louis.”
“I’m fine,” he said again.
Lisa shook her head, refusing at first to walk with him. He shrugged and continued on down the street. She started to follow after a moment, but they had only gone a short distance when Pete’s car came crawling down the street toward them. He pulled up next to them, the window down. “Louis,” he said.
“Hey, Pete,” Louis said. “Going to Nick’s?”
Pete nodded. Lisa said, to Pete, “Pete, take Louis with you.” There was a taut urgency to her voice, and Pete’s eyebrows came down abruptly.
“Why?” he asked, “What did he say?” To Louis he sounded suspicious.
Lisa looked confused. “I think he had a seizure or something.”
Louis shook his head. “I did not,” he said, “I didn’t have a seizure.”
But Pete was looking at him closely, now. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m fine,” Louis said.
“You aren’t freaking out, are you?”
“No,” Louis said shortly, “I’m not freaking out.”
Pete looked at him for a second, then at Lisa. “Get in the car, Louis.”
Louis said, “Pete, I’m fine.” He started walking toward his house again. “Come on,” he said to Lisa. She followed, leaving Pete idling his engine by the side of the road behind them.
“Louis,” said Pete, “come back here.”
Louis ignored him. He heard the car door open and shut. Louis didn’t look back, but he could hear Pete’s feet behind them, and wasn’t surprised to feel a hand on his shoulder. Irritated, he looked down at Pete’s hand, curling tightly onto the fabric of his t-shirt. He was wearing a ring Louis hadn’t seen before (but he had, hadn’t he?). It was silver, of a snake eating its own tail, with a single red jewel for an eye. The red jewel glared in the sun. The strange dark smoke rose from Pete’s hand, but the ring itself had its own quality. Looking at it, Louis again felt his eyes watering, the splitting pain in his head. He felt himself losing his balance, Pete’s hand sliding off of his shoulder as he fell forward. He held his hands out to stop his fall, but by the time they touched the ground he was no longer aware of them.
#
He was lying on his back again, looking up into the sky. Pete was leaning over him, blocking out the sun. He looked panicked. Louis said, “You okay, Pete?”
Pete said, “Louis?”
Louis said, “Yeah, what?” At the same time he became conscious of the sound of Lisa crying.
Pete said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Louis started to sit up, and Pete pushed him back into the ground. “What’s wrong with you, why are you shaking like that?”
Louis said, “I’m not shaking.” He wasn’t, as far as he could tell. But then Pete took a hold of his shirt and he did start to shake, but it was Pete who was shaking, not Louis.
Pete said, “Quit freaking out.” He repeated it, louder, “Quit freaking out!” and then he screamed into Louis’ face, “STOP FREAKING OUT!!” Spittle flew from his lips onto Louis’ face, and Louis pushed him away with a sudden heave that sent Pete sprawling.
Louis stood over Pete, leaning back on his hands with a shocked look on his face. “I’m fine,” Louis said. Lisa wasn’t exactly crying, but her face was blotched and her hair was a bit mussed and most of her brilliant light had darkened to little tendrils of brown smoke. Louis said, again, “I’m fine,” but he didn’t feel fine, he felt like he was losing his mind.
Lisa said, “Louis, you had a seizure.” He shook his head at her, a silent no, but instead of continuing to his house, he walked around and opened the door to the passenger side of Pete’s car. He sat down, closed the door, leaned back and closed his eyes. He could hear Pete and Lisa talking, but he ignored them. He wanted his splitting headache to go away. He tried not to think. He heard Pete getting into the car, Lisa climbing into the back seat, where they had carried the body just the day before. He kept his eyes closed, resisting the temptation to look around, the insane impulse to check for blood on the seat.
When they pulled into Nick’s and Ron’s driveway, Louis’s headache was still going strong. He opened his eyes as the car came to a stop, opened the door, got out. He said nothing to Pete or Lisa. He didn’t knock on the door, he never did; he just opened it and walked in. Nick and Ron were sitting on the couch watching TV. It seemed very dark after being outside. Nick and Ron looked up from the TV, squinting toward the door. Louis ignored them and went into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and took out a Coke, popped the tab and drank from it. He sat down at the kitchen table. He could hear Pete now, in the other room, and Lisa, and now they were all talking, too loud. He didn’t pay any attention. He shut his eyes. He tried not to think. He drank from his Coke and hoped for his head to stop splitting.
#
No one came in to check on him there. He didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t care. He was grateful, as gradually his headache faded and he felt okay to open his eyes. His head was free of pain and felt reasonably whole by the time he finished his Coke. The other room sounded empty. He got another Coke from the refrigerator and sat and drank it. The kitchen was lit coldly white by the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. He finished the second coke and got up and left the kitchen.
The living room was as empty as it had sounded. Louis went up the stairs, to Ron’s room. It too was empty, but the window was open. Louis climbed out the window and onto the roof. They were all there except Lisa: Nick, Pete, and Ron. They were arguing about something, but they stopped when Louis climbed up to join them. Though they all seemed stressed, their looks weren’t at all accusatory. Ron motioned him to sit down, so he did, next to Ron, in the shade.
Nick said, “Here, look at this,” handing something to him. Louis took it. It was an envelope, unmarked on the outside, with a card in it. On the front of the card it said:
BIRTHDAY DINNER
For
“Danny Glass”
July 27, 7:00pm
1506 Arquette Ct.
YOU ARE INVITED!
The name, “Danny Glass,” was handwritten, and on the inside of the card was this message, written in the same hand:
Hey Pete,
I’d love it if you came to my birthday dinner on Wednesday. Bring your friends. You know the ones I mean.
Danny
Louis read it twice, then handed it back to Nick. “Who’s Danny?” he asked.
“Who do you think?” Pete asked, shortly.
Ron said, “Pete found that in his dad’s car this morning. Don’t really know when it was put there.”
Louis said, “I thought you didn’t know him, Pete.”
Pete said, “I don’t know him, okay? He was in one of my classes, I don’t think I even ever talked to him.” There was an aggravated edge to Pete’s voice, and Louis realized Pete was not nearly as calm as he wanted to seem.
Louis said, “This can’t be from him.” They all looked away as if they had no answer to that. “It can’t be from him,” Louis insisted again, “he’s dead.”
“Maybe he’s not,” Ron said quietly.
Louis shook his head. “No, you all saw him.” But there was something about them all, especially Nick. For the first time, color rose around all of them other than black and grey. A pale yellow haze surrounded all of them, though Pete’s had something of a sickly greenish cast. Ron and Nick looked calm, besides, at least more relaxed than they had since yesterday. “You guys are planning on going to this thing tonight.” He was beginning to feel numb, it was all coming too fast.
Ron said, “Yeah, we already decided.”
“I just want to know what’s going on,” Nick added.
“It’s a trap,” Louis said, because it didn’t make any sense any other way. “You don’t really believe today is this kid’s birthday, do you?”
“A trap for what?” said Ron. “From who?” And that was the thing. There was no way it made any sense.
“Someone’s playing games with us,” Louis said. “Look at it, someone knows what we did, we’re being set up.”
Nick looked at him, his mood unchanged. “You think we don’t know this is some kind of set up? So what? You know it’s not the police, you know it’s not something they would do.” He was speaking for Louis’ benefit, not arguing, this Louis could already tell. It was decided. “I just want to know what’s going on,” said Nick again. “I’ve been going crazy.” Louis had no reply to that, nothing to argue on that score, of course. “It’s just after four now,” Nick went on. “We’re going to take Mom’s car at around 6:30. You coming?” He already knew the answer; they all did.
“Yeah,” said Louis, still shaking his head. “Yeah, might as well.”
They all seemed relieved, but Louis felt none of it. When Pete said, “Smoke a blunt?” Louis waited while it was rolled, and he hit it when it came around. But he kept his eyes half-closed and imagined himself far away, separate from all of them.
#
But he felt much less separate from them standing on the porch in front of 1506 Arquette Ct. Over the past two hours trepidation had begun eating its way into his nervous system. Louis could feel it in them all, a sweaty apprehension that caused them to avoid each other’s eyes and clench their jaws shut. The weed extended the moments too long, blurring curiosity and fear into a strange sense of waiting.
He had not been to this house before, but he had passed it many times. He had always considered it something of an eyesore. In a neighborhood where a single birdbath could be considered decorative, this yard stood out for its numerous rock decorations, elaborate shrubbery, and wooden figures like ducks and pixies.
They crowded onto the small porch like trick-or-treaters, silent as Pete rang the doorbell. None of them knew what to expect. Louis tried to picture the face of the boy they had beaten to death and could not. Were that face to appear in the doorway, he wondered if he would recognize it.
But when the door opened, it was a woman who stood there. Louis did not know her, but he had seen her before, often, working in the yard. She was ugly – not grotesquely so, but too much sun over too many years had burned her skin into a blotchy brown. Of course he had not before seen the strange play of light he saw around her now, as to Louis’s eyes she seemed enshrouded in a viscous inky indigo that obscured the play of her features in the shadow of the door. She was smiling, showing teeth that were possibly dentures.
“You must be Danny’s friends,” she said, “Please, come in.”
She pulled the screen door open. Pete shrugged, the tiniest motion of the shoulders, then stepped through the door. The others followed, Louis bringing up the rear, self-consciously pushing the door closed behind him. Nick let burst an awkward cough, then said, “Is Danny around?”
The woman, leading them down a hallway, said, “He was getting ready, it seems he isn’t done yet.” She stopped when she came to a dining room, ushering them in. “I’m his Aunt November. I’ve wanted to have a special dinner for Danny for a long time,” she said. “I’m so glad you could come.” The dining room was elegantly prepared. The tablecloth was white with subtle satin trim and still showed marks from having been folded. Louis wondered if the woman could sense their anxiety. The table had not been entirely set, though silverware and napkins marked each place, and a flower arrangement stood in the center of the table.
The utter normalcy of everything made him want to scream. Danny was nowhere in sight, and Louis was unsurprised. He was convinced the boy was dead. He found the possibility of Danny’s being alive somehow embarrassing, and cruelly contradictory to the heaviness he felt on his spirit.
Seated at the table, across from Louis, Nick said boldly, “So how has Danny’s summer been?” No doubt he thought he seemed casual, but to Louis there was a discernable tremor in his voice. Louis looked at the strange woman, Aunt November, taking advantage of her face turned in profile, wondering what she knew, or didn’t know.
“You should ask him when he joins us,” the woman said, her casual tone too easy, too friendly. She made a quick gesture with her hands, palm to palm, almost like a silent, sliding clap. “Soup should be ready, coming right up,” and she disappeared through a swinging door. It swung back towards them, like a pendulum, and through it Louis glimpsed a section of kitchen, dominated by a huge oven and a stove top covered with pans.
Ron said, in a quick whisper, “She’s going to eat us,” expelling a short bark of a laugh. Louis shot him a look, but Ron went on, less whisper and more of a taunt, “Like Hansel and Gretel. ‘My, what a big oven you have, the better to fry you with.’” He started to laugh bitterly again, but Pete was suddenly snarling at him, his upper lip pulled back with such savagery that Ron flinched. Pete seemed about to say something, but instead he dropped his lip back over his teeth, and the silence stretched until Aunt November’s return through the swinging door. She was still smiling as though this were a normal dinner party, carrying bowls that she deposited around the table. She disappeared back through the door.
“What about poison?” said Nick, quietly, after the door closed. “She could be trying to poison us.” Ron was nodding as if he’d already thought of that.
Pete said, “I don’t think she even knows,” but the others looked at him like he was crazy. No one had time to reply; a second later the woman returned again, this time with a mid-size pot of soup and ladle.
“It’s borsch,” she said, placing the bowl in the middle of the table, next to the flower arrangement. “That’s a traditional Russian beet soup. The recipe has been in our family for generations.” They looked at the soup, the bright redness of it, and no one made a move to take any. November sat down at the head of the table, took the ladle and filled her own bowl. They watched her spoon a few bites into her mouth with evident pleasure. “Please,” she said, when no one moved to join her, “help yourselves.”
Louis was watching her with fascination. The deep murky blue cloud around her was thickening, becoming almost completely opaque. The room, though not brightly lit, was far from dark; still, except for her eyes, her features were becoming increasingly hard to make out.
The room was too silent. Aunt November said nothing as she ate her bowl of soup. The boys wanted to demand answers, but no one quite dared.
Louis was the first to take some of the soup. He sensed the woman’s smile as he started to fill his bowl. The others looked at him without expression, waiting. Too much waiting, Louis thought. Too much waiting. The soup was red like tomato soup, but thinner, and had vegetables and tiny bits of meat. It tasted delicious. The warmth of it in his mouth gave him a rush of courage. He said, to Aunt November, “How old is Danny today?” He ignored the others, each adopting their own reproving look.
Aunt November, on the other hand, smiled as though they had shared a secret joke. “He is seventeen.”
Louis forced a smile of his own. He said, “I only met him once.” He paused, but the woman didn’t respond. He said, “He seemed nice.” Only after he had spoken did he recognize the finality in his tone, and the tinge of solemnity that made Ron, across from him, look down into his empty bowl.
November still smiled, but it seemed to Louis her eyes grew colder. All she said was, “Yes, he is.” Her gaze trailed off into the distance. Then she looked at him sharply, saying, “You must be Louis.”
That shocked him, but he tried to keep his face clear and his voice even. “Yes, how did you know?”
Aunt November said, “Danny told me about all of you. He was looking forward to your visit.”
“Really?” Louis said, “I wasn’t sure he’d remember me.” The indigo blur around November darkened at this, but she sat silently, her expression unchanged. He said, “I’m sorry, we should have introduced ourselves. This is Ron,” who looked up from his bowl and nodded once before looking back into his bowl. “This is Nick,” who mumbled “nice to meet you” and couldn’t seem to hold back a scowl, and finally, “This is Pete,” who didn’t look up or say anything at all.
“He is blessed to have such friends,” said November, with apparent warmth. “He’s always been a very quiet boy, rather like you young men seem to be.” She gave them all a sweeping glance, then continued eating her soup.
Louis continued eating his as well, noticing with surprise that he had almost finished the bowl. He said to Ron, rather pointedly, “This is delicious, you should have some,” which made Ron scowl and November’s smile widen.
“Yes, please,” said November, “you simply must try the borsch.” When the others still didn’t reach for the ladle, Aunt November grabbed it herself, scooping soup into Ron’s bowl, then into Nick’s, then into Pete’s. Ron and Nick mumbled quiet thanks. Pete said nothing, but after a moment, all began eating the borsch.
Louis finished his bowl of borsch, and pushed it away from him. Aunt November finished hers as well, and they regarded each other across the table, the others still sullenly slurping their soup. November smiled and stood up. “I will go see what’s taking Danny so long.” She opened the swinging door into the kitchen and disappeared.
Immediately, Nick gave him a savage look and whispered, “Quit talking to her, Louis.”
“I thought you wanted to know what the hell was going on?” Louis demanded.
Nick shook his head furiously. “She doesn’t know anything, can’t you see that? She’s trying to get information out of us, can’t you tell?” His tone was impatient and condescending. “She knows he’s dead. I don’t think she knows we did it.”
“She knew my name,” said Louis.
Ron said, “Yeah, now thanks to you she knows all our names.”
Louis said, “You don’t think she did already?”
Pete said, “I’m telling you, she doesn’t know anything.”
“Who cares?” Ron demanded. “Who cares? I’m just going to eat and get out of here, I’m tired of this shit.”
At that, Pete got a strange pinched look on his face. “Why don’t we just leave now?” he asked. But he didn’t stand up, and neither did anyone else.
For his part, Louis’s head was starting to hurt again, with that strange splitting sensation, like someone was gently sawing through the center of his forehead. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, the other three were looking at him anxiously.
“What?” he asked.
Ron said, “Are you okay, Louis?”
Louis said, “I’m fine,” though his eyes were blurring some, and he had to blink a lot. He wiped at his forehead, at his eyes, and realized he was squinting.
Pete asked, “What’s going on with you, Louis?”
Louis, confused, said, “What are you talking about?”
But then, the door to the kitchen swung open and Aunt November returned, carrying more bowls. Humming softly, she exchanged the bowls she was carrying for the bowls of borsch, most of them uneaten. Stacking them precariously, she exited. “Pot roast will be out in a moment,” she said as the door swung shut behind her.
Immediately, Nick whispered furiously, “Shut up! All of you! She only knows what you all tell her!”
The door swung open again as Aunt November returned, with an oven mitt on one hand, the other protected by a washcloth, awkwardly carrying a large pot. Steam curled up around the glass lid where the handle of a spoon protruded. She put it in the middle of the table, dropping the mitt and washcloth next to it, then she took the lid off the pot and set it on the oven mitt.
“Our family’s special pot roast,” she said, a proud glint in her eye. “Traditional recipe.”
It smelled delicious, similar to the microwaveable turkey potpies that were Louis’s favorite, and despite – or perhaps because of – all the tension he felt a pang of hunger gnawing. Nick, impatient, said, “Miss November, is Danny coming?” Aunt November didn’t respond. She took the big spoon and the bowl in front of Nick and filled it with pot roast. She did the same with Pete’s, then Ron’s. Nick pushed his chair back a little bit and made a small show of looking at his watch. “It really is getting late,” he said, as she filled Louis’s bowl.
Aunt November raised her eyebrows at that, but filled her own bowl before saying, “Really? There’s a lot of food here, I’d hate to see it go to waste.” She picked up a fork and took a bite, chewing assiduously, eyebrows still perked too high on her forehead. “Delicious,” she said, and took another.
Nick’s eyes flicked away from her and down, giving in, and he pulled his chair a little closer and picked up his own fork. With his silent permission, all the boys started eating, except Louis, who was watching with fascination the strange yellow steam that was coming off the roast. He had never seen colored steam come off food that he could remember, but the others didn’t seem to notice, so he too was silent, his own eyes betraying too much color recently.
He still hadn’t taken a bite, when Pete suddenly made a face and spit into his hand, saying, “I think I bit into a bone,” then, looking into his hand, “that’s not a bone. What is that?” They all tried to lean over to look into his hand, but it was Louis who had the best angle.
“What is that?” he asked, “is that a snake?” He could see it was, though, it was a snake eating its own tail, and he had seen it before. “Pete,” he said, “isn’t that your ring?”
Pete looked at him, puzzled. “This isn’t a ring,” he said, but Louis knew better, knew it to be a piece of a ring he had seen before.
“It’s part of a ring,” he said. “You were wearing that ring, I saw you.”
But Pete was shaking his head firmly. “I don’t wear rings,” he said, “I don’t like rings.”
“I’m sorry, did your ring break?” interrupted Aunt November, with sympathy, “Is your mouth okay?”
“It wasn’t my ring,” said Pete, indignantly, but then Nick startled them all by attacking his food with a vengeance, with such wildness that Ron snorted.
“Damn, Nick,” he said, “hungry?”
Nick barely slowed down. “Shut up,” he said quickly, decisively, and kept attacking his bowl. The others, astonished, were silent, even Aunt November, eyebrows still raised, smiling benignly. In less than a minute, his bowl was empty. He set it down with a smack, and looked November in the eye. “Done?” he said, definitely more of a question than a statement. But after Aunt November nodded slightly, there was no hesitation as Nick pushed his chair back and left the dining room, hurrying down the hall and out of the house.
In the silence, Aunt November began humming again. The song was easy to recognize; “happy birthday to Danny, happy birthday to you.”
Dully, Louis said, “Shouldn’t we wait for Danny to sing happy birthday?”
“Oh, Danny,” said November. “Poor Danny.” She was still smiling. “Danny’s at the table now.”
“You’re crazy,” Ron said. “What is this, a séance?” But Louis knew it was more than that, and maybe Pete did too – the expression on his face was unreadable.
“You expect us to eat this?” he asked. He knew what it was, he understood now what this madwoman had done. And now he felt the borsch, or whatever had been in the soup, heavy on his stomach, and a sharp pain, a splitting pain, again through his head. His throat spasmed, and he swallowed, hard.
November was still smiling, but her eyes had taken on a cold distance. “Little boys think they can do anything,” she said. “What, you don’t have the stomach for it?” Her tone was contemptuous.
Louis didn’t answer. He was tired of her indigo glow, and now he could see his own spark red around his hands. Angrily, he grabbed his own fork and took a bite. He expected a lance of pain in his brow; instead, to his surprise, the pain lessened and the colors around November noticeably dimmed. He took another bite, the pain slowly evaporating. He thought wildly, it can all go back. Of course nothing could go back, he knew that more than ever. But bite after bite, as the tell-tale colors faded around November and his friends, he felt sanity returning. He understood that he would not be ill, that his stomach and intestines and liver and whatever else he didn’t know about would do their proper job. In time whatever he put into his body this night would leave it, and the body would go on. Indigestion would pass as it always did.
Louis bit. He chewed. He tasted. With difficulty, he swallowed. Eventually, his bowl clean and his vision clear, he left the table.
