Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  “You drive here?” Eric asked.

  “You think I walked?”

  “Give me a ride?”

  “Maybe. You have to do me a favor first.”

  # # #

  Back in her car, blowing smoke through the window, Nicky waited for him to appear. When he finally came through the door, she couldn’t see his face. The bag was so big that he hoisted it up to his shoulder as soon as he got out from under the awning.

  Nicky jumped to open the trunk. She threw aside her cigarette and took the bag from him as he lowered it. Together, they wrangled it into the trunk. It wasn’t heavy, just big.

  “Why couldn’t you get that yourself? They would have helped you to the car.”

  “I hate those bitches,” Nicky said. “That’s all you need to know. If there had been somewhere else to get that fabric, I wouldn’t have given them my money.”

  Eric shrugged and moved to the passenger’s door.

  “Wait—one more thing,” Nicky said. “As long as we’re here…”

  She pointed towards the pizza place and then hauled ten bucks out of her pocket.

  “Are you kidding? You make better pizza than that,” Eric said, laughing.

  “I have to keep an eye on the competition.”

  “And you can’t go in there either?”

  “I wouldn’t give them the pleasure.”

  Eric rolled his eyes and sighed, taking the money from her as he passed.

  “Get those canned mushrooms on it. And a soda. And I want my change!”

  While he went back towards the strip mall, she ducked back into her car before anyone saw her.

  Nicky watched him through the glass as he went up to the counter and placed the order. When she was in high school, there was always a group of kids hanging out near the elm trees. It was almost all boys—only a couple of girls dared to enter that zone of violence, spitting, and foul language. People referred to that group as the Smokers, even though they were hardly the only kids who smoked. Smokers were violent tyrants when they were in packs, and they were always in packs. There was a pack of Smokers at the end of the counter at the pizza place.

  Had Nicky dared to go in there, they would have followed her out to the parking lot and slapped the pizza out of her hands. Smokers picked on anyone weaker than them, and most people were weaker.

  They didn’t even seem to see Eric. Ever since he had gone away and come back, Eric had become translucent. When he hunched his shoulders up and slipped inside himself, they didn’t even turn to look at him. That same posture never worked for other kids. Retracting from the world seemed to invite bullying for most kids, but Eric slipped by unnoticed.

  A week after she graduated, Nicky had been working at Dottie’s when Eddie and Brett had come in. Stupidly, Nicky had assumed that their foul temper had stemmed from being required to attend a school where they were hassled all day by teachers and staff. But Eddie had managed to graduate on his first try and, after one unsuccessful attempt at his senior year, Brett had been shown the door as well. There was some speculation whether Brett had earned his degree through merit or because teachers were tired of his constant sly threats.

  While they were browsing for chips and trying to decide if they wanted sandwiches, Nicky had made the mistake of striking up a conversation.

  “Good to be out of that place, right?”

  Their conversation stopped mid sentence and they both turned to her at the same time. Hatred filled their eyes—a black fluid that might shoot out and over her with indelible ink.

  “I mean Deacon High. Good to be done,” she said with a scratchy voice. At one point, Dottie’s husband had kept a bat under the counter. One of Dottie’s grandkids had borrowed it one day for a baseball game and the thing had never come back. Looking at Eddie and Brett, Nicky wished for it.

  “You think it’s good?” Eddie asked. His husky voice started just above a whisper, but rose with each syllable. “You know that we can be drafted now? Is that what you want? You want to see us dead with some Polynesian bullet scrambling our brains?”

  There were so many things wrong with what he said that she didn’t know where to start. She had been silenced by his ignorance.

  “Who you talking to, Eddie? All I hear is a pig,” Brett said.

  Eddie smiled. His eyes transitioned from hatred to cruelty. The difference was that they gained a glimmer of evil glee in the corners.

  “Like a wild boar?” Eddie asked.

  “No, a boar is a male. This one sounds like a sow to me,” Brett said.

  All Nicky could think about was a kid she had heard about a few summers earlier. His name was Vernon Junior, even though he was named after his grandfather. The parents lived up in a town called Rome, but they had come down for the summer to work a job at the college. Their kid—little Vernon Junior—had been a regular at Dottie’s. His parents gave him five whole dollars every day to spend and plump little Vernon Junior would always break the five on candy as soon as Dottie’s opened.

  When he stopped showing up, Nicky had heard the story from Carl.

  Eddie and Brett had caught little Vernon on the River Walk, over near the dam. After taking his Lifesavers and Snickers, they had tried to shake him down for the money still in his pocket. Vernon Junior had run for the river, peeling off his clothes as his fat little legs took him towards the edge of the rocks. Downstream of the dam, in the middle of the summer, the water looked pretty calm. Maybe Vernon Junior thought he could swim for the other side before the bullies made it all the way up to the bridge and crossed over. By all accounts, Vernon Junior could swim like a fish and bob like a cork if he wanted to.

  Down to his skivvies, Vernon Junior almost made it.

  They said that he squealed and screamed when Eddie caught him by the ankle and pulled him from the water. The kid thrashed as Eddie carried him back towards the woods and Brett collected his clothes to dig out the money.

  Some other kid—his name lost if he had ever existed at all—told them to leave off. After all, they had the candy and the money. What more could they want from little Vernon Junior?

  They didn’t leave off.

  Vernon’s pockets had provided the tools of inspiration. Along with the money, they found a length of twine and a magic marker. Once they trussed Vernon Junior up, Eddie used a knife to cut off Vernon’s tighty whities and stuffed them in his mouth to stop the squealing.

  Using the marker, Brett drew a line from Vernon’s bunghole up to his chin while the two of them discussed the best way to dress and butcher a little piggy.

  “I like the hock the best,” Eddie had reportedly said.

  “Nope. I’m a bacon man, all the way. Which part does bacon come from?” Brett had supposedly asked.

  When one of them touched the knife to Vernon Junior’s belly, the frightened kid’s bladder had finally given out.

  “Fuck me,” Eddie had yelled. “Fucking Porky just pissed all over my arm.”

  At that point, something spooked the boys. Maybe they heard a car up on the street screech to a stop, or maybe someone shouted. Whatever the reason, they looked at each other and decided that dressing and butchering little Vernon Junior would have to wait.

  It was possible the whole thing was nothing more than a rumor. Vernon Junior and his parents had left pretty abruptly, not saying a word to their neighbors. But, as far as Nicky had heard, Eddie and Brett had never gotten in any trouble. Everyone claimed to have seen the incident, but people lied about that kind of thing all the time. It was just as likely that the entire assault was invented by Eddie and Brett themselves so they could strike fear into the hearts and minds of kids everywhere. The two of them were nourished by fear, or so another rumor went.

  Regardless of whether or not the story was true, Nicky had been terrified to be called a pig by Eddie and Brett.

  “Are you a sow or a boar?” Eddie had asked.

  The two of them began to advance towards the counter.

  Nicky thought fast.

&
nbsp; She turned her head slightly towards the door that led to the storeroom and office.

  “Hey, Carl? Can you take the counter for a minute?”

  The thought that there might be someone else there made them pause for an instant. Before they could call her bluff, Nicky said.

  “I’ll get him. Wait right here.”

  She backed away from the counter and then turned, walking fast through the door. Turning for the office, she raised her voice and said, “Hey, Carl, there are two boys out there who are asking…”

  She shut the door and clicked the lock as she leaned back against it. Dottie would have a heart attack if she knew that Nicky left the floor unattended while people were there—especially people like Eddie and Brett. Those boys were trouble even when they were being watched. Nicky put her hand on the phone, thinking she might call the cops. She wasn’t sure what to say though. If those two hadn’t gotten into trouble for what they did to Vernon Junior, then nobody was going to give a shit about some threatening language.

  Even from the office, she heard the bell of the front door.

  Against her better judgement, she cracked the door and peeked out. She didn’t hear or see anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t hiding. She stayed in there, peeking out and waiting to slam the door again, until the bell rang again several minutes later. The guy who came in called, “Hello?”

  That’s when Nicky finally came out.

  Eddie and Brett were gone. She hadn’t run into them again, but she still carried the fear of them and any other Smokers who were looking for trouble.

  Eric was immune. He grabbed the pizza and put the sodas on top of the box and walked right out of there. The Smokers didn’t even give him a second look.

  “Where are we eating this?” Eric asked as he got in.

  “Who said I’m giving you any?”

  “I’m still holding it, and I still have your change.”

  “Good point,” Nicky said. “Train bridge?”

  “Sold.”

  # # #

  The better view was on the other side of the trestle, but neither of them felt like walking across. Instead, they sat on an old tie near the slope. They could see part of the Merrymeeting Bay—the place where several rivers dumped their contents before everything washed out into the cold ocean.

  “This is pretty good,” Eric said, starting on his second slice.

  “Sauce is good, but the crust is crap. They should throw it in the oven for a few seconds before they soak everything into it.”

  “Why do you like these canned mushrooms? They’re like slime balls.”

  “Did I ask you to eat my pizza?” Nicky asked.

  Eric picked off a mushroom and threw it towards the water.

  “What are you doing here, Nicky?”

  “Eating pizza,” she said through a mouthful of pizza.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Come on,” he said. “You have the grades. You could get a scholarship. You’re going to be nineteen soon.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked. “What are you doing back here? You’re seventeen. What’s your excuse?”

  “I told my uncle that I would stick around until Lily comes home.”

  Nicky laughed.

  “Besides,” he said, “you were the one who convinced me to stay.”

  “I convinced you not to run away like a fool when you were clearly hours away from starving to death. Guess what—you’re not starving anymore and your cousin isn’t coming back.”

  “The postcard said that…”

  “Come on. You believe she wrote that?” Nicky asked. She hadn’t meant to say that, but it was out now. It would be a lie to try to take it back. In a moment of doubt, Eric had been the one to come up with the theory, but he had since disavowed it. The big block letters on the postcard could have been written by Lily, but they also could have been written by someone else just as easily. The signature was definitely not written by Lily. That part wasn’t even up for debate. For one thing, the name had been spelled Lilly, with two Ls.

  Eric didn’t answer the question. He just stuffed more food in his mouth and chewed like a wild animal, slime ball mushrooms and all.

  After clearing her throat, Nicky said, “I guess I just want to get my shit together before I move. I don’t want to bring all kinds of hang-ups to a new place.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, Nicky. Uncle Reynold says that you can’t heal while the knife is still being stuck into your guts.”

  “What knife?”

  “It’s an expression.”

  “Yeah, but what’s the knife?”

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “Metaphorically, what do you think that the knife being stuck into my guts is?”

  He looked at her carefully, like she was a bomb that he was going to have to diffuse.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I think you did,” she said.

  “I was just mad because you said that Lily was dead.”

  “I never…” she started to say. It didn’t matter. She knew what he meant, and he had heard the implication behind her questioning of the post card. When Eric had questioned who had written it, he had really been asking to be reassured. Instead, she had held onto his doubt and thrown it back into his face. She blushed as she came to terms with how shitty she was being.

  “You’re going to do great things,” Eric said.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m just saying—whether you stay here or you move away, you’re smart and determined. You’re going to do great things one day.”

  Nicky took a breath and let the compliment evaporate. It was a nice thing for him to say, but Eric didn’t really understand how the world worked. To point that out would just be mean.

  “Can I ask you something?” Nicky asked, glancing at Eric to try to guess what was going through his head.

  “Sure.”

  His face was smooth and open.

  “When you came back last year and you almost moved on, what were you afraid of?”

  Eric glanced up to the sky. It had been sunny all day so far, but there were clouds creeping in from the south. By evening, it would likely be one of those cold spring downpours that reminded everyone that winter was always within reach in Maine. There was no way to truly get away from it.

  Eric leaned in close to whisper the secret. “My dreams. There were things following me in my dreams.”

  “Things?”

  Eric shook his head. He had clearly divulged more than he wanted to and he was now shaking it away.

  “Come on. You know I won’t judge you.”

  Eric shrugged and shook his head again.

  “You remember my obsession with Narnia? How I used to hide in that trunk, thinking that I could find the way there if I just stayed long enough?” she asked.

  His smile stopped just short of a laugh.

  “Do you know the last time I tried to get there?”

  “When?”

  Nicky put a finger to her temple and looked up as she pretended to think about it.

  “Hmmm, let’s see… About three weeks ago.”

  “Get out of here,” Eric said, laughing.

  “No joke. Tell me about your dream. I won’t judge.”

  Eric’s laugh faded and then his smile disappeared. He took a deep breath.

  “It goes back to my mom,” he said, looking down.

  Nicky pulled up her feet and folded her arms around her knees. It looked like the rain was going to come sooner than she had thought.

  ERIC

  “I KNEW SHE WAS going to have ups and downs when I went back. I could tell that from her letter or when I talked to her on the phone. She was just off balance, you know?”

  Eric dug in his back pocket and took out his wallet. He had shown her the picture before—his mom as a teenager, standing next to an old car. She looked so formal in the photo. It was imp
ossible to imagine how she had transformed into the woman that Eric had known.

  “So I figured I would just roll with it, you know? You can’t blame a person for their problems. That’s not the right way to help them.”

  He caught the sideways glance that Nicky shot him.

  “You always say that I’m the kid and it wasn’t my job to help her, but you’re wrong. Sometimes even parents need help, and I wanted to try to help her if I could.”

  “I didn’t mean it was wrong of you…” Nicky said.

  Eric shrugged it off.

  “Anyway, my point is that she was pretty much the way I expected. What I didn’t expect when I moved back there was that I would have so many problems. I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was being hunted by something. In my new school down there, I was always looking over my shoulder and taking corners wide so I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. The other kids thought I was a weirdo, and that didn’t help. I barely had a minute where I wasn’t completely paranoid.”

  “That sounds awful,” she said.

  “Yeah. Then, almost every night, I had these dreams. There was someone following me because I owed a debt. I could hear his voice, calling to me while I slept. In every single dream, it didn’t matter what it was about, I would eventually realize that I couldn’t sit still. If I stayed in one place for too long, he would catch up with me. He was only walking, but he never, ever stopped.”

  “What did he want?”

  “His payment,” Eric said. “I owed him and he was coming to collect.”

  “Owed him what?”

  Eric looked at her. He could see his own fear reflected in her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t have any idea. It was like I had made a contract, but never settled on the terms. He could have wanted anything. He could have wanted everything I had and more.”

  Nicky pulled back and swallowed while she processed this information. He could see her work to fit the story into her view of the world.

  “I’m sure it was just a reaction to moving and the instability you felt,” she said. “It could happen to anyone. You uproot yourself, drop into a new situation, and try to deal with a not-so-stable home life. That would make anyone insecure.”