Wraith
Chapter 1: Summer
Eric Obame
Derrick Treavers, a shy type, black thirteen year old, floats over a maximum security prison as a wandering soul. His body is in bed asleep. It is just after 4 on the clock on his bedside table. His dream this morning is different than any he has had before. He has superpowers, and he is using them. A chubby white guard on a break lights up a cigarette in the courtyard, and Derrick seizes the moment. He focuses, and the lighter shoots out of the guard's hand.
'Whhhaaa,' the guard says, watching his lighter rise, then disappear over the roof.
But for a few clouds, the moon and stars brighten the night unhindered. An angry wind tries to push everything around, but it passes through Derrick like moonlight. There is a ventilation shaft nearby, and Derrick uses it to sneak the lighter into the Supermax. He then slips the lighter through a food port and into a cell with two sleeping convicts. Lying on bunk beds, both men snore like roaring lions.
Not waking each other up? I'm here. Don't know them, or what they've done, doesn't matter. No one is in a Supermax for snatching a woman's purse.
He has the lighter in hand. He can set them on fire. Still, Derrick hesitates. There is something about burning criminals he finds morally questionable.
Drug lords, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, murdering pedophiles, serial killers. Predators, rabid animals not people, don't care who they hurt.
He flames up the lighter, floats to the end of the bottom bed, and sets the sheets on fire. As the flame spreads over Bottom Convict's feet, Derrick lights up the top bunk. Fire feasts on cotton.
So light them up up up, light them up up up, light them up up up. Three hundred and forty-eight to go.
Derrick exits the cell, opens the food port, and brings the lighter out through it. At that moment, screams erupt in the cell, and Derrick wakes up from his nightmare. His sheets are wet from sweat. He sits up and rubs his head, his buzz cut allowing him full access. He is hot, but he doesn't know why. He went to bed an hour ago tired and dry. Adjusted to darkness, his puzzled eyes take in his quiet room.
What was that?
He doesn't remember watching a movie or a TV show recently, where someone burned down a prison. He doesn't know anyone in jail. He has never been a crime victim. He lives in Potomac Maryland-the suburbs. He doesn't understand what inspired that nightmare.
Burned them?
Even if they were bad guys and it wasn't real, he feels strange having murdered people. Go back to sleep, or play video games? Fall classes start next week, so he can do either.
Great, have to change clothes, sheets.
He grabs his remote control, turns on his TV, grabs his controller, and restarts his game. He then gets out of bed to change.
#
Derrick, William Brooks, a white, nerdy cute thirteen year old, and Markus Riley, a raven-haired, fifteen year old jock, ride their bikes home from the mall. It is Friday evening and the weather is warm and sunny, a perfect time for bike riding. Derrick and William though would prefer to be a duo, having little in common with Markus. By coincidence they happened to meet him at the mall today, and now they are going back to his house to play video games.
'There's your chance, Derrick,' Markus says, spotting two familiar girls on the sidewalk ahead.
Derrick slows down, while Markus and William maintain their pace. With Markus around, Derrick isn't sure what will happen. Markus is older and popular, whereas he and William mostly hang out with each other.
'Come on,' William looks back and tells Derrick.
Still, Derrick hesitates. He has a crush on one of the joggers, Jessica Yates, a somewhat plain but could be prettier if she worked at it, amber-eyed red-head. She is a year older, but like Markus in the same grade, so he figures he has a shot. Yet he isn't ready to ask her out, and he fears Markus might expose him.
Hey Jess, Derrick has a crush on you, but he's chicken. Put him out of his misery, go on a date with him. No? Sorry Derrick, I tried. Looking like a bitch, slowing down. Giving him ammo.
Recognizing that Jessica and her jogging partner, Lillian, a cute, sixteen year old light-skinned girl, will intercept them in seconds, Derrick speeds up to avoid looking like a wimp. The only reason he and William are hanging out with Markus is because most of Markus' friends aren't back from vacation. Normally, they would have been able to pass him in the mall without acknowledgement.
'Hey Jess, Lillian,' Markus says, as he rolls to the sidewalk and brakes.
Derrick parks beside him, wondering why a typical ride to the mall with his best friend is turning into a class reunion.
'Hi guys,' Jessica says, as she stops. 'Markus, I saw your mom's new car. It's nice.'
'Yeah, thanks. Are you busy later?'
'Why?' Lillian asks.
Derrick looks over at William, not believing what he just heard. It seems Markus is trying to hook up with his dream girl.
Are you busy later? What's he doing?
Something will happen in the next few seconds he won't like, Derrick senses, and he looks around. He wants to escape before the blow to his ego comes. He wants to back away from the sidewalk, Jessica, Markus and Lillian, and tell William 'let's go', but he doesn't have the guts to do so.
'Kevin is back. I'm meeting him tonight. His aunt gave him four tickets for this movie premiere in D.C, and he asked me to bring a couple of girls,' Markus explains.
'Sounds cool,' Jessica says. 'Lily?'
'Yeah, sure.'
'Great. Dress up, you've got three hours. My mom will drop us off. See you later,' Markus tells the girls, as he backs away from the sidewalk.
'Bye Derrick, bye Will,' Jessica says, before she and Lillian run off.
Though Markus continues the ride to his house, Derrick and William don't move. 'What are you waiting for?' he shouts.
'Don't you have to get ready?' William asks.
'Only girls need three hours. Come on, let's go,' Markus answers, and he pedals away.
Derrick stays put, not liking being a tagalong. He can count on one hand the times he has played video games with Markus. With what just happened, he wants to hit him not hangout.
Join him, I'm his bitch. He tells me to come, I come. He flirts with her, I take it.
Still, he wants answers. He needs to know why a date between Markus and his potential girlfriend got made, and worse in front of him. Curiosity trumps pride, and he turns his bike to follow the older boy he thought he was cool with, and William then does the same.
#
A minute later, they reach Markus' street just two blocks away from their neighborhood. Markus leads them past the familiar upper-middle class homes with their recently mowed lawns decorated with various summer flowers and trees. In a backyard, someone barbecues. The smell of meat cooking over a charcoal flame fills the boys' nostrils.
'Why didn't you ask her out?' Markus says.
'Oh, I don't know, because you're already going out with her,' Derrick answers.
'She's not my girlfriend. If you keep waiting, it's never gonna happen. You'll just keep looking at her from far away. Everyone sees that shit, dude. It's pathetic. Ask her out. The worst that happens is you get rejected.'
'Yeah right.'
'You're scared of her...You can do it now, or when school starts and you have to see her everyday if she says no, your choice.'
Markus is right. Try as he might, Derrick can't come up with a counter. He and William have known Jessica three years now.
She probably won't laugh. Maybe she'll let me down easy. Can't look in her eyes, she's out of my league. Just a fool to believe I have anything she needs. She's like the wind. Or not.
It's worth a try, he decides. The benefits outweigh the risks, but he isn't sure when to do it. Jessica is with Markus tonight, and he guesses asking her to go out with him tomorrow won't work.
Might have plans, not enough time. Monday, make a move?
Stores close early on Sunday, so he doesn't want to do that either. He can go out with her Labor Day, he thinks. He will have to ask her out during the week, and hope she and her parents stay in that weekend.
Do I call her? I call her. And if she says no? No rush, gonna be busy Monday, the whole week really.
With school starting, he better wait and see how everything goes with his class schedule before he asks her out, he reconsiders.
'Shit,' Markus says seeing his father's Mazda in the driveway. 'Dad wants to run drills. I thought... He was supposed to be home later.'
'So?' Derrick asks.
'So fun time is over. I'll see you guys around, alright?'
Without hesitation, Markus rides up his driveway alone. Without a look back at Derrick and William, he drops his bike beside his garage, and walks to the front of his white brick two story house with the American flag above the front door.
Derrick shakes his head. This is why he and William left the mall? This is why they gave up their afternoon plans?
'Let's go,' William says, and he pedals away.
Derrick does the same a second later, vowing never to let this happen again. He and William are not dogs to be played with and sent away on command.
#
Something is definitely wrong. There is plenty Derrick wants to scream about, but apparently William doesn't feel the same way. William isn't looking at him or giving him any hint he wants to cut off Markus.
Hasn't said more than ten words since we left the mall, was acting weird when we were watching TV.
As he rewinds the day in his mind, Derrick visualizes all the clues he ignored that something was bothering William: smiles that seemed forced, blank stares, William letting him initiate every conversation, hesitation. 'What's up?' he asks.
'What?'
'You're somewhere else and you've been there all day,' Derrick says, expecting William to open up. Yet William stays quiet. 'Is it your dad again?'
'No.'
'Then what?' Derrick presses, as he and William reach their street.
'It's...'
'How to form a sentence, lesson one. Start with a subject like I, follow it with a verb like want, then add an object, an adjective, an adverb or a noun, like I want a complete answer
'He's right, you know. If you keep waiting, it's not gonna happen.'
'That's your problem... Will?'
'I'll tell you later,' William says, as they arrive at 11602 and 11603 Evergreen Lane, and brake. The pressure is too much, however, and he can't take it. He has a secret, and he wants to reveal it to his best friend, even though he is worried it will scare him away. 'I'm gay.'
Error-unable to process this information, Derrick freezes for a few seconds. 'Dude, that's not funny,' he then says, but William isn't smiling.
He's not kidding. He's serious. What?
He thought he knew William better than anyone. William is the only person he trusts with his secrets. They have been together twelve years, ever since the Brooks moved into the neighborhood. William is more than a friend. The two of them are similar in so many ways, it must be fate they ended up neighbors. Yet he didn't see this. He has a lot of songs in his head, from different decades given his parent's tastes in music. He has an easy memory for TV shows, music and movies-a media mind, but he hasn't heard a song fitting this moment. A massive earthquake ruptures his world. A mile long asteroid crashes into his Earth and destroys it. Derrick's reality turns inside out and upside down, and he doesn't know what to do.
'I'll see you tomorrow,' William mumbles, before he turns and rides up the driveway of his grey brick two-story house.
Without a sound or movement, Derrick watches new William open his garage door, get inside, and disappear as the door comes down.
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