Fade to Black

by Alex Flinn

  “Those cops listening?” he says finally.

  “They’re just here in case something goes wrong. They’re not close enough to hear.”

  “Glad you’re so sure.”

  I shrug. “Check.”

  “I don’t need to do that.” He says it loud. Then he tiptoes to the door and looks outside. He comes back. “Coast’s clear … unless you’re wearing a wire. I mean, if this is to get me to confess something, you should know I won’t, ’cause I’ve got nothing to confess. I didn’t do it.”

  “I’m not wearing a wire. You can check for yourself if you want.”

  “No thanks, man. I don’t want to touch you.” He holds out his hand, like to ward me off. Even from a distance, I can see he has these red welts on his arm. It looks like he stabbed himself with something. Football Jock Involved in Bizarre Self-Mutilation Ritual. Weird.

  “No offense,” he adds.

  “None taken. I don’t want you touching me, either… No offense.” I untuck my T-shirt and lift it so he can see my stomach and chest. There’s a few bandages and scratches, but no stitches and no wires. “Look.”

  Clinton doesn’t move, but I can tell he’s looking. I turn so he can see my back.

  “You can pull that down now.” He shakes his head. “Whoever it was really did a job on you.”

  “Yeah. Whoever it was did.”

  He holds both hands up. “It wasn’t me, man.”

  “Sure.”

  “It wasn’t. I mean, maybe you thought it was. Maybe I can see why you could think that, but it wasn’t.”

  “Can you see why I’d think it was you?” I’m still trying to figure out if he could have done it, even if he didn’t do this. If he could have, maybe it’s the same as if he did. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  “I’m not following what you mean.”

  “You’ve done a lot of other stuff. Why should I believe you didn’t do this? Why would anyone believe you, Cole?” I know he didn’t do it, but I want to see him squirm. I hate him for all the stuff he’s done to me since I’ve been here. I hate him for scaring my family, too. I want him to at least think about that for once. “Everyone’s sure you did it because they all know what a raging asshole you are. Everyone.”

  When I say “everyone,” Clinton’s face changes, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. He turns away and walks to the door again and looks out, but I know it’s just for something to do this time. He stands by the door a long time, and I sit there, quiet, feeling my face hurt. Finally he comes back.

  He says, “Look, I know I wasn’t nice to you, but…” He gestures at me. “This was over the line. I wouldn’t do that.” He takes a breath, a shaky one, and looks away. “You’ve got to believe me. My parents—they split up last year, and my mom’s trying her best with us, but this is killing her. I don’t expect you to care about me, but you know my mom. And my sister, Melody. They’re good people. Probably I’m not a good person, but I’m not… I wouldn’t do this. Cutting someone up. A baseball bat—shit—maybe I’m a jerk, but I’m not an animal. I didn’t do this. I didn’t—”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  I don’t know why I say it. I was planning on playing with him, toying with him awhile to see what he’d do. But when it comes down to it, I can’t. He’s there, practically blubbering, talking about his mom, and it makes me think of my own family, my parents. Clinton’s still going, but when I say that, he stops. He looks at me.

  “Huh?”

  “I know you didn’t do it,” I say. “I saw the guy who did this. It wasn’t you.”

  His face breaks into a big, doofy grin like he’d kiss me if … well, if he wasn’t him and I wasn’t me.

  “That’s great.” He points toward the door. “Did you tell them?”

  I shake my head no. “I said I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what?” His smile begins to fade.

  “Cole, you’ve been hounding me since the first day I walked into school. You left notes in my locker. You threw rocks at my house. My family’s afraid to go outside because of you. You bother me every chance you get, and I’m sick of it.”

  “Look, man, I’m—”

  “Sorry. Right. For now, so I’ll tell the cops it wasn’t you.” Clinton’s looking at the door again. “They can’t hear us. I can take you down. I have every reason to let you rot in jail and get you off my back.”

  “Would you do that?”

  “I want to. I really want to.”

  “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “What about this is right? I know you threw the rock at my house. Daria doesn’t make stuff up, and she couldn’t have known that if you didn’t do it. You did it. You hurt my sister, hurt all of us. But they’ll give you a hand slap for that. You think that’s right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I don’t say anything. He paces across the room, then comes back. “No. No, it wasn’t right. It was a crummy thing to do. I didn’t want to hurt Carolina. She’s a sweet kid.”

  “But you wanted to hurt me?”

  “No. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I didn’t want to get hurt, either. I wanted you out of here. I don’t hate you. It wasn’t personal, but I didn’t want to sit by you in class. I didn’t want to get AIDS.”

  I nod. “I didn’t want HIV, either. But you can’t catch anything, being in class with me.”

  “How can you be sure, though?”

  “You get HIV from blood, from sharing needles or from sex. I’ve never met one person who got it any other way. They do studies about it, with scientists. It’s not on toilet seats or chairs or pencils.”

  He looks at me. “How’d you get it, Crusan? From a transfusion like they said?”

  The way he asks it, it’s not mean for once, just curious. I almost want to tell him the truth. If I did, I know he’d believe me about everything. But I also know he’d tell everyone. I’m not sure Mom and Carolina are ready for that. I can’t make that decision for all of us yet.

  “You get HIV from sex,” I repeat, avoiding his question but not his eyes. “Sex or blood. No other ways. You can’t get sick from being in class with me. Understand?”

  He looks away. I think about that blaze of glory again, and I think maybe that’s not what it’s about after all. Not something like a song or a home run record or even a debate title. Maybe it’s all about how you live your life, about being human. And suddenly, I know I’m not going to let the police go on thinking Clinton did it. If I did that, I would be no better than Clinton is.

  I have to let him go. I will let him go, but I want him to understand.

  He still hasn’t answered, so I repeat. “I can’t get you sick, man. God, you think I’d want to go to school here if I could get people sick? You think I’d even be around my family?” I want him to … see me, Alex. Just Alex. I want someone to see me, even if it’s Clinton. “I just want to be—a regular person until I can’t be anymore. You need to believe me. Get it?”

  He looks at me for a long time, like maybe the big behemoth is actually thinking. Finally he nods. “I get it.”

  I feel like I’m practically shaking. At least, I’m trying pretty hard not to. When I look at Clinton, maybe he is too.

  I hold out my hand.

  “Go ahead,” I say. “Nothing will happen.”

  He doesn’t move. Part of me’s loving it, this ability I have to make him sweat. But I need him to shake my hand for real, not because he has to.

  So I keep holding it out. I’m wondering whether I should just not push it. He said he understands. Maybe that’s enough. I know I could get him to do whatever I want, just by threatening to tell them he did it. But I don’t want that. I want him to believe me. So I don’t say anything.

  Finally he takes my hand.

  Wednesday, 9:20 a.m., Memorial Hospital

  CLINTON

  His hand’s not bleeding or nothing, so probably it’s okay. It’s not like I have much choice in the matter. I mean, if I shake his hand, there’s this l
ittle chance I might get AIDS. But if I don’t come to some kind of understanding with this guy, there’s like a 100 percent chance I’m in deep shit. And even the school nurse said AIDS gets in through blood and … well, fluids, so if you aren’t swapping any, you should be fine. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself now. I’d feel better with gloves, but it’s probably okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. So I do it.

  His handshake is firm and dry and somehow, I know it’s okay. I wonder what made me tell Crusan that junk about Mom and Dad. I never told my so-called friends that. I sort of thought Crusan might understand, might even know something about disappointing parents. I wonder again if he really got AIDS from a transfusion. I don’t think so.

  But asking again would be a deal breaker, so I keep it zipped.

  It’s like this special I saw on the Discovery Channel once (okay, it was Mel who watched it, but Dad and I were in the room, playing blackjack) about lepers. That was this real bad disease where people’s body parts fell off. It was in the Bible. They used to think it was a curse from God—like some people think about AIDS now, I guess, like people deserved it because of something they’d done. And they put them in special places so other people couldn’t get it. But it turned out you couldn’t get it from someone who had it. Dad said he wouldn’t want to hang with them anyway, and I agreed with him then.

  But now I’m thinking maybe Dad was wrong about things. A lot of things. I mean, it’s been three days, and he hasn’t returned a stinkin’ phone call. He said Mom didn’t want him involved with us—but I heard her, calling and calling, and he hasn’t called back. Man, this was important. If I was with him, and not Mom, I might be in jail now.

  Jail.

  I let go of Crusan’s hand. I start to wipe my palm on my jeans. I stop myself when I realize he’s looking at me. Stupid.

  I say, “Sorry, man.”

  He shrugs. “We don’t have to be friends.” I can hear in his voice that he doesn’t want to be friends with me anyway.

  “What do you want from me then?”

  He looks down. “Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “But you’re going to tell them it wasn’t me, right?” I don’t get this guy. He dragged me here for—what? Just to chat?

  He nods. “I’ll tell them it wasn’t you that morning. And the other stuff, the rock and the notes in my locker and stuff…” He shrugs. “I guess we’ll see what happens.”

  “You want me to confess, don’t you?”

  I sure don’t want to. Mr. Eutsey said they might not believe Daria, on account of her being retarded. So I don’t have to confess anything. Not unless that’s part of Crusan’s deal for telling them I didn’t do Monday. I still don’t get what his deal is.

  “You don’t have to,” he says.

  “But you must want something from me?”

  He thinks about it. “Well, yeah, there’s one thing.”

  “What is it?” Shit. What is it already?

  “Just leave my family alone, okay? My mom, she wants to leave town over this. I hate it here, but we can’t afford to leave. I can’t make you stop it, but would you … just be decent, huh?”

  I nod. I know that now that I’ve talked to the guy, face-to-face, man to man, I couldn’t go shoving secret notes in his locker anymore anyway. It’s hard to explain, but once you look someone in the eye like that—I mean, really look at them—it’s like you can’t not look at them again. You can’t not see them. It was a stupid thing, throwing that rock. Stupid, and mean, too. I know that now.

  “I’ll tell them I threw the rock.” Even as I say it, I’m thinking, Are you nuts, man?

  “I said you don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t have to, but I will. I just… I want to get it over with. I want this over. And…”

  I don’t finish. What I’m thinking is something like, I want to make it right. He was decent when he didn’t have to be. I want to be decent too.

  He examines my face, then gestures at the door. “Then why don’t you go get those cops in here?”

  I do.

  Wednesday, 10:30 a.m., Mrs. Taub’s office, Pinedale High School

  DARIA

  Mama says,

  it is fine.

  Alex Crusan saw.

  Alex Crusan

  knew.

  Not Clinton

  who hurt Alex.

  But Clinton

  threw

  the rock.

  They know that

  because of

  me.

  Mama says

  I am still

  a

  hero.

  Wednesday, 11:00 a.m., Memorial Hospital

  ALEX

  After Clinton and the cops leave, I go into the bathroom. I want to see my face in the mirror. The verdict: could be worse. The cuts look pretty scary, and it will be another week before I can get the stitches out. I won’t go to school until then. If it was up to Mom, I’d never go to school, but we compromised on this.

  When I was a kid, I was in the hospital once with pneumonia. I cried the whole time. I missed school, missed my friends. I wanted to get out.

  These past two days, I’ve hated being here, but not because I missed anything on the outside. So far I’ve had nothing on the outside. But I want to now.

  I go back to my bed and press the button for the nurse. When she shows up, I ask her, “I’m sorry to bother you about this but … will I have scars all over my face?” This is suddenly intensely important to me.

  She looks at me a second, then says, “Didn’t the doctors tell you about taking care of yourself?”

  They might have, but I might not have been paying attention.

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “What you want to do, hon, is wear a hat and use suntan lotion—SPF thirty, at least, every time you leave the house for the next few months. Six months to be safe. Then you should be okay. Maybe you’ll have some little marks, but they won’t show to anyone who doesn’t know they’re there, you know? Nothing worse than a pimple, hon.”

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, you’re a good-looking boy. Gotta take care of yourself, right?”

  Much later, I turn out the light and lay back for my last night in the hospital bed. It’s only nine, but for once, I’m ready to go to sleep. Today was a good day. I feel like, maybe, I actually got through to Clinton. I made him understand. Maybe he’ll even tell his friends. Maybe.

  Okay. Doubtful about telling his friends. But I know that talking to Cole did something for me.

  But I know that I have to talk about what happened to me. And to do that, I’d have to tell the truth about how I got sick. It shouldn’t be that big a deal—it’s nothing that earthshaking. Except that Mom and Dad have been going with that Ryan White/Innocent Victim transfusion story for so long that it seems like a big deal. It seems like they’re ashamed of me, is how it seems.

  I push the thought out of my head. My mother said she isn’t mad at me, and I have to believe that.

  I turn on the light and sit up. Maybe this won’t be an easy night like I thought it would be.

  How My Life Changed Forever by Alex Crusan

  This whole thing started because Austin Ionata’s older brother knew how to get us into a college party.

  It was the week after my sixteenth birthday. Austin and Danny and I were at Austin’s house. We always hung there because Austin’s parents were never around, never hovered over him, unlike mine, who’d follow you into the bathroom if they could get away with it. We’d stolen a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet and were playing Quarters. I never drank much, and I was sort of flying before the bottle was even half empty. So I was glad when Danny said, “Let’s order a pizza. This is boring.”

  After Austin ordered the pizza, I called home to let them know I wouldn’t be there for dinner. Austin’s brother, Mike, who was a freshman at the university, came in when the pizza did.

 
; “Hey, pizza.” He opened the box and peeled off two slices. He folded them and shoved the whole mess into his mouth.

  “Hey!” Austin said. “That’ll be five dollars, please.”

  “Put it on my bill,” Mike said. “Or better yet…” He finished wolfing down the two slices and peeled off another.

  “Hey!” Austin said again.

  Mike took a bite, doing a major cheese pull with it. “You want to go to a party?”

  “A college party?” I said. “We couldn’t go without ID.”

  “Nah—this one frat has all their parties off campus now. Makes it more … interesting without the campus police around.”

  So, of course, we were going. But, also, of course, I had to call home again. I told Mom I was staying over Austin’s.

  “Are his parents there?” she said.

  “They always are.”

  A sigh. “Be careful, Alejandro.”

  “I always am.”

  When I hung up, Danny said, “It’s so lame, you having to call your parents all the time, Crusan.”

  “Hey, Danny,” I said, “ever think maybe your parents don’t make you call because they don’t care if you get home?”

  Which shut him up.

  The party was at an apartment complex near school. There were at least two hundred people there, spilling out of the building and into the parking lot. Some guy stopped us at the entrance. I wasn’t really worried about passing for a college student. People always thought I was older because I was tall. But when the guy stepped in front of me and said, “Fifteen,” I stopped.

  “No, I’m…”

  Mike nudged me. “He means fifteen dollars for the beer and stuff.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d drink anything. I wasn’t drunk anymore, but I felt sort of halfway there, halfway human, halfway alive. But I paid my fifteen dollars anyway, got a wristband, and followed my friends to the keg.

  I got a beer and sipped it. My friends went off somewhere, gesturing to me to follow. But then a bunch of other people got between us, so I lost them.

  It got darker, and people kept coming, and I held tight to my cup, which was sweating and half gone warm and funny tasting. Some people were dancing in the grass, and I saw Mike with some guys drinking out of funnels. The music was an electronic haze, hanging in the trees. People were moving in and out of their own shadows, and I knew I shouldn’t be drunk. I hadn’t even had very much. But I felt like when I was a little kid and sick, when you wake with these fever dreams and everything feels half real, half not. I could feel the pizza like it was clogging my head, in there with the music, and finally, the beer became too hot even to pretend to drink. I dumped it out, got another, and held the cold plastic cup to my forehead until it hurt. Then I thought, Maybe go ahead and drink it.