TWENTY-SEVEN
The two stood together, twenty feet outside the canopy, talking in hushed whispers. Steve hung his head in either humiliation or to hide his tears, his hair covering his face. Jason, next to him, had his hand on the other boys shoulder, reassuring him over and over that everything was alright.
I moved in closer to Cory, not so much worried anymore about his desire to beat the snot out of me, and asked him, “Do you know what happened to Steve’s head?”
Cory had mellowed out some and there wasn’t any reason for us to bicker at each other anymore. After Steve’s performance, it didn’t seem worth the energy for either of us to be mad at the other.
“He never told me,” he said. “I saw that scar a couple of times before, but I was always afraid to ask him about it. I kind of always thought that Jacob did it.”
“Me too.”
We stood there together for a few minutes longer, not talking, watching Jason calm Steve down and after a while it seemed that he had done just that. They came back into the shade of our fort, Steve wouldn’t immediately look at any of us and we kept our mouths shut, not wanting to set him off again. He put his shirt back on his thin chest, hiding the horrible purple bruise his brother had marked him with. Next, the bandana, to cover up the sins of the father. His eyes were red and puffy, dirt streaked his cheeks where his tears had run.
Steve was twelve and being the oldest, was the leader of our group. He always seemed so cool and laid back, a little rough around the edges but still we all looked up to him. It was just a little awkward having to face him after seeing him explode like that though. No one knows better than a child, that crying is pretty much the only cure for emotional frustration. Adults will scream and hit or drink and smoke or curse and screw when they need to relieve stress. But for children, crying can lift the weight of a thousand worlds from their shoulders, even if only for a short time.
Steve had needed that cry. He had probably needed it for longer than we had known him.
The silence, in our fort, was astounding, broken only by the buzzing of fat, emerald June bugs as they soared from branch to branch like tiny acrobats.
In my mind, a shoestring sat in the drawer of my desk and somewhere there was a dead girl who had been strangled by its mate.
Steve spoke so softly then that we almost didn’t hear him. “Sorry, guys.”
Tearing at some loose bark on the trunk of the tree, Jason reassured him. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” he said back, finding more of his voice now. “I had no right to yell at you guys like that. What happened to me was no ones fault but my own.”
“Steve, it’s not your fault that your dad put you in the hospital like he did. It’s not your fault that your brother hits you, either. The guy’s an asshole and we all know it,” Jason told him.
Steve shook his head. “I still had no right to treat you guys like that. Cory, I know you just like to joke around a lot. I’m sorry for saying what I did.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Cory told him.
“Ricky, I can’t tell you what you can or can’t believe in. If you want to believe in God, then follow your heart. Just cause I don’t doesn’t mean I can tell you not to. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Steve.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m so ashamed of myself right now. You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had. I don’t need to bring you down with my problems.” He paused for a moment to wipe the dirt from his cheeks. “When I thought of that girl, Amy, the one in girl scouts with Jackie, and I pictured her being choked with a shoelace, it just got me. No one deserves that. It also made me think of my dad and Jacob and the things they’ve done. I can’t understand why some people have to be the way they are. Why some people feel the need to hate so much.”
None of us knew what to say to him. We knew he was sincere in asking our forgiveness, although he didn’t need to. We loved Steve like a brother, and nothing he said or did could ever have changed that.
After a moment of pondering, Jason said, “You know, there was something you read in the paper that reminded me of something.”
“What was it,” Steve asked.
“I don’t know,” Jason said with his eyes shut, thinking. “It was there for just a second. It was like when you get that feeling that you’ve heard something before or been somewhere and just can’t remember.”
“Déjà vu?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Cory stepped in between the two and said, “Maybe you just got that feeling when you heard about the shoelace remembering when your brother found the package.”
Shaking his head, Jason said back, “No. It seems like it was right before that part, like there was something that the police chief said or something. All the sudden it gave me chills. The shoelace thing made me sick, though, that’s for sure.
“Me, too,” I interjected, speaking of the lace. But unlike Jason I hadn’t gotten that feeling of Déjà vu.
“You want me to read it again?” Steve asked. “Maybe if you hear it again it will come to you.”
Jason thought about it for a second but said, “No. I don’t want you to get-. No. That’s okay. It was probably nothing.”
“Well,” Steve said, his mood brightening, “maybe it will come to you later.”
Jason nodded.
“Maybe.”
And once again we all sat in silence, watching the beetles dance their lazy figure-eights above and listening to the birds sing out in the field. The day was peaceful but hot.
Little kids become curious at a very young age and I was at the peak of my curiosity at that point in my life. Jason and Cory probably never would have asked what I did then, but something inside me was burning to know.
“Steve?”
“Yeah,” he said, flipping a stick from hand to hand.
“What did your dad do to you?” The stick suddenly fell to the ground and he looked at me with a blank stare. “How come he put you in the hospital?”
He sighed and looked away out into the late morning day. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said in a voice lacking any emotion.
A small rock hit me square in the chest. I looked over at Jason who was shaking his head slowly, from side to side. Just drop it, that look said. And so I did.
None of us ever asked Steve that question again. We figured if he wanted to tell us, he’d do so in his own time.
“You know what guys?” Steve asked suddenly, his mood fully changed now. “I want to make up for being such a jerk a few minutes ago.” He hopped off the box he was using for a seat and dusted off his butt. “Anybody thirsty?”
Hell yes we were. It was in the high nineties outside and the California sun could dehydrate a kid faster than anything.
“Shit yeah,” Cory said.
Jason and I nodded.
“My mom gave me a couple dollars this morning before I left. Let’s go up to the pharmacy for a coke and a candy bar, my treat.”
It was an excellent idea. And although the oranges we had picked at Mr. Gagner’s house had slaked our thirst for a bit, we were ready for something cold to drink.
None of us ever thought to bring water with us when we went out during the summer days. We’d usually use the spigot in front of someone’s house to drink from when the heat got the best of us.
The pharmacy, on the other hand, had air conditioning and snacks. Dr. Stan, the pharmacist, was a nice guy and would let us hang out inside to cool off for awhile as well.
Heading out from under the cover of our shelter, we trekked west through the high, dead grass toward our next destination. At the base of the massive pepper tree, the newspaper was left, discarded. On the cover, a dead girl watched beetles dance in the foliage.
Frisbee Page 34