THIRTY-EIGHT
Although it wasn’t threatening, the voice was sharp and a little slurred and startled me all the same. The black boots belonged to Mark Payne, the guy renting the Maherrin’s guesthouse. I guess I should have known he’d be home by the green Mustang parked at the curb. His right hand was wrapped around the belly of a Coors can, his left rested on his hip, thumb hooked through a belt loop. His eyes were deep blue and rimmed red as if he had recently been crying, though the beer was a more likely culprit. I could smell the sour odor on him from where I stood.
“Richie?” he inquired, eyes squinted, searching for my name in his fogged head.
“Ricky,” I corrected, shyly.
His eyes widened in confirmation. “Right. Ricky.” He lifted the beer to his lips and killed the last of it, crushing the can as he gulped. The last swallow he held in his mouth a moment as if to savor the bitter taste. When he finally got it down he gave a low silent burp, looked at me and asked, “May I?”
I looked back at him, not sure of what he was asking.
“Throw the Frisbee?” he added, seeing my confusion.
I was reminded of the day we had come charging out of Dead Grove and through the alley, being chased by Ben, when we had first met Mark. He had asked Steve the same thing of the BB gun.
May I?
And that had been a really cool trick; shooting the beer can one handed. It made me wonder if he would do an equally amazing trick with the Frisbee.
I handed him the green disk and at first he just stared at it, turning it over in his hand, studying it. Then, after a moment, he walked down the middle of the driveway, tossed it vertically in the air with his left hand and caught it behind his back with his right. The hand flew from behind him, lightning-quick, and flung the Frisbee with a snap of his wrist.
At first I thought he might have just faked the throw and was holding it in front of him where I couldn’t see it, but as I strained my vision, out into the cul-de-sac, I saw the green blur humming along toward Steve. It sailed about ten from the ground, perfectly horizontal, until at its halfway point it started its descent, slowly falling to earth as gravity worked its magic. Down a few more feet it went, still on course, until Steve, who hadn’t moved an inch, caught it with both hands.
It was a perfect throw.
The distance between Mark and Steve must have been a good fifty yards, and I would have bet that if Steve had left his arms at his sides the Frisbee would have hit him square in the belly. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the BB gun trick, but it was still a damn good throw. Mark had hit his target once again.
This man was Robin Hood.
“Hey, good throw,” Steve yelled from across the street.
“Just good?” Mark said, jokingly, arms outstretched. He shook his head, smiling. “Hey, you guys want to do a little target practice?”
Steve walked a little closer to where we were so they wouldn’t need to shout back and forth to each other. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Why don’t you go grab your gun? We’ll shoot some cans in the backyard again,” Mark said.
Steve and Cory had gone with him into the Meherrin’s backyard a few days before and shot at beer cans, when Jason and I had gone home for dinner but, now, it was still early and we had time to practice our marksmanships. I just hoped that the other guys were up for it.
Steve, looking at Jason and Cory, asked, “What do you say, guys? Want to shoot the gun?”
Nodding his head, Jason said, “Yeah, that’s cool.”
“Alright,” Cory answered.
“Well, come on over, then,” Mark said, waving his arm. “Steve, go grab your gun and meet us in the backyard.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in a sec.” Steve told us. “Come on Frisbee.”
As Steve headed to his house with the dog and the disk, Jason and Cory trotted on over to where Mark and I stood. Extending his arm, Mark shook their hands in greeting. He hadn’t acknowledged me the same as he had with them which made me feel a little left out. He hadn’t even gotten my name right when he’d asked to throw the Frisbee. But still, in his presence, I couldn’t help but like him. He seemed like a big kid himself. None of us saw anything threatening about him just then.
“Let’s go set up some cans before Steve gets back,” he suggested.
The three of us then followed him to a gate on the side of the house. After unlatching it he held it open for us and we passed through. Old junk and debris littered this side of the house and we had to step around cords of firewood and a wheelbarrow with the wheel missing-just a barrow?- to reach the back. We had all been in the Meherrin’s backyard a hundred times before, playing with their son Chris and knew this side of the yard was the only messy area. The rest wasn’t immaculate but the lawn was always mowed and raked, the weeds plucked before they became terrorist. Rose and oleander bushes lined the wooden fence that separated their property from Dead Grove.
Close to the cinder block wall that ran along the alley side of the yard was a swimming pool. The Meherrin’s had had it built two summers prior. At times I felt a little sorry for Chris that they shipped him off to his grandparents at the peek of swimming season and a little sorry for us too since we couldn’t use it until he came back home. But in southern California, you could swim until November and still not feel a chill in the air when you got out of the water.
Mark said, “Cory, remember how we set up the platform the other day?”
Cory nodded.
“Okay, do it just like that again. These two and I will grab some cans.”
Jason and I followed him over to the small guesthouse that he rented. It was about the size of a studio apartment, had one window, one door and a light fixture-sans bulb-on the edge of the slanted roof. As many times as we had been in the back we had never gone inside the guesthouse. Chris’s dad had never allowed it. He had told us all once that it wasn’t a playhouse and to just stay clear of it and we minded him.
But Cory had told us that he had gone in the other day after he had taken a spill on his bike, said Mark had patched up his leg for him and even given him a beer.
“She may smell like ass,” Mark said, gesturing toward the small structure, “but I love her.”
Laughing at his crude wit, I wondered if he were going to take us in but instead he lead us to the left of the small house and pointed to a five gallon bucket filled to overflowing with Coors cans.
“Okay, we don’t need all of them, so why don’t you guys just grab ten or so and take them over to Cory. I’m gonna grab another cool one.”
Mark went inside as I thrust my hands into the bucket trying to grab a half dozen or so but they just kept sliding out of my arms and I ended up dropping all but three, the cans pink-ponking as they hit the ground.
“Do it like this, Ricky,” Jason instructed, sticking his fingers into the open mouths at the top of the cans. When he stood up he had three on one hand and four on the other. He looked at me, tapped the cans together and said, “Warriors. Come out to play-ay,” sounding nothing like Luther from the movie.
Laughing at his bad imitation, I tried to do the same thing and came away with three cans on each hand. When we got over to Cory we saw that he had taken two aluminum trash cans and had turned them upside down on their heads, a wooden two-by-four lay on top making the whole thing look like the worlds worst sawhorse.
“Just set the cans in a row on the board,” Cory told us.
In the time it took us to set up, Mark had come back out of the guesthouse, finishing up one beer and popping open another. He set the empty one on top of another already on the board next to us, a double stack.
“Alright,” Mark said, looking at us, “Whoever can get this top can off the board, without actually shooting it, gets a full beer.”
Ping.
Both cans jumped as if they had been slapped by an angry ghost.
“Shit,” Mark yelled, almost dropping the full beer in his hand. Jason, Cory and I jumped back a few feet, eyes wide.
We turned to Mark who was staring at Steve, unblinking. He eyed him for a moment then said, “You got it, sharpshooter,” with a hint of tension in his voice.
Steve walked over to where we stood, handed Jason the gun and Cory a rust colored carton that looked as though it should hold milk but instead was full of Copperhead BB’s. He must have left Frisbee at his house for the dog wasn’t at his heel this time.
Mark, said, “From now on, we make sure everyone’s out of the way before we shoot. Is that clear?”
We all nodded.
Mark stared down at Steve as if he weren’t sure if he wanted to ring his neck or high-five him. In the end he clapped a hand on the back of his neck and said, “Come on. I’ll get you a fresh one. In a mug even.”
He lead Steve over to the door of the guesthouse and just before they stepped inside, I heard him say, “Man, hell of a shot though. Almost pissed myself.”
As the door closed behind them I felt a twinge of jealousy. Now Cory and Steve had been inside Mark’s place. Why did I want to see the inside so bad? I guess it could have been the sense of being left out of something, like there was a secret that I wasn’t being let in on.
Cory handed Jason the carton of BB’s and then picked up the two cans that Steve had shot down and set them back on the board. Jason loaded the rifle by opening the carton and pouring in a small handful of copper balls into the chamber by the trigger guard, pulled the bolt to load a BB and began pumping the gun. The three of us walked back twenty feet or so and took turns firing at the targets. Cory was able to hit seven cans out of ten shots, Jason hit eight and I hit five on our first turns. I kind of expected Mark and Steve to come back out and join us but they stayed inside, unseen, for some time.
After ten minutes or so and four turns a piece, I finally asked, “What do you think they’re doing in there?”
“Who cares?” Cory said. “Give me the gun. It’s my turn.”
“They’re probably just talking,” Jason added. “Go set your cans back up, Ricky.”
I did as I was told, placing the pockmarked cylinders on the board an equal distance from each other and for another few minutes we shot at and replaced the cans. It wasn’t until Jason had finished his turn that the door to Mark’s house opened and Steve stepped out. He looked at us, lips tight and an angry pallor about him. “Let’s go,” he commanded in a low voice.
The three of us looked from him to one another in confusion.
Cory spoke up. “Come on, Steve, come shoot with us.”
Steve looked back and told him, “I said bring the fucking gun and let’s go. Now!” When he said it, it made us all flinch. It was in the same tone a father would use when being firm with his child and it got us moving.
We followed him back down the side of the main house and just as we got to the gate, Mark shouted, “Steve.”
Steve, opening the gate, stopped. We all looked back to see Mark standing just outside the door to the guesthouse. He was pointing a finger at us, shaking his head and giving a look that meant business. That look scared the shit out of me and I had no idea where it came from.
Steve stood there for a moment, staring back at Mark, unflinching. He then raised his hand and flipped him off before walking through the gate with us in tow.
When we got to the bottom of the driveway and into the street, Cory said, “Hey, what was that all about?”
Steve turned around and faced Cory who in turn took a step back. He looked at all of us, let out a pent up breath and said, “Nothing.” He took the gun from Jason and the carton of BB’s that I was holding. “Listen. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, right? To clean up my backyard?”
We nodded.
Jason said, “You mad at us, Steve? What’s going on?”
He stood there a moment, staring back at my brother and finally said, “You guys are my best friends right?”
Again, we nodded in agreement.
“Then promise me,” he said, “that you’ll never go near him again.” Steve turned and walked home.
Frisbee Page 45