If You Go Down to the Woods

by Seth C. Adams

  “What do you guys do there?” I asked as we walked the now familiar dirt road to the hill, where we would then start down and make a beeline for where we now knew the access road and the car to be.

  “Just talk really,” Fat Bobby said and shrugged, as if it were no big deal.

  But it was a big deal for me: two guys out there alone with my girl. That’s how I thought of her: my girl.

  “Sometimes we climb up Lookout Mountain—”

  “What?”

  “That’s what we call that rocky hill we climbed. Where we saw the car closer up that first time, me, you and Jim?”

  He said this with the smallest hint of exasperation, like he was talking to someone hopelessly out of the loop. Which I guess I was in this regard, and it pissed me off.

  “Oh,” I said.

  We entered the trees and they closed in around us with branches outstretched as if in embrace. There at the edge of the woods, under the branches but not lost in them yet, I heard an engine. Bobby and I turned around to see a cloud of dust rising as a car rolled down the dirt hill. Slowing, it parked maybe a dozen yards away from us. I saw the siren bubbles on top, dead at the moment, and the seal on the hood and doors. I knew I should have run, pulling Bobby with me, but I stayed where I was, under the trees, as if that were protection enough.

  The driver’s door swung open, the engine still idling, and Sheriff Glover stepped out. The dirt clouds behind him and drifting away gave the impression of a magician appearing in a puff of smoke.

  “Well, howdy boys,” he said, one hand at his belt where his gut hung over in a huge bulge like a monstrous pregnancy. He tipped his hat to us. “You know these woods are dangerous. Not to mention off limits if you’re minors. Need parental supervision.”

  He made a show of looking around, and then he scratched his chin as if puzzling over a problem.

  “Now,” he said, and a cruel grin came over his face, “I don’t see your parents around, do you?”

  Neither of us answered, but I took a step back and pulled Bobby with me.

  “Now don’t go nowhere,” the sheriff said, moving across the distance between us. “It wouldn’t be very responsible of me to let you kids go running off by yourselves.”

  “Leave us alone,” I said, turning. Thankfully Fat Bobby turned with me, and we quickened our pace. But he was fat and didn’t move so fast, so that it was either run off by myself or stay with my friend.

  I stayed with my friend, and then the sheriff was on us, hauling us to a stop with one meaty hand on each of us.

  “You need to learn some manners, boy,” he said and shoved me, and I went down hard on my butt. A shock of pain went up my tailbone, throbbing. He still held Fat Bobby by a fistful of shirt, but he was looking down at me. “Your daddy’s got a bit of a mouth, and so does your sister and mama.” He grinned and showed teeth that were large and tobacco stained. “But mouths on women I don’t mind so much, if put to good use.”

  I had an idea of what he meant and my face went red. With embarrassment or shame, I don’t know. Probably both.

  I got up and ran at him, and he lifted a big boot and I stupidly ran headfirst into it. I went down again, now with a throbbing in my head to match the one on my ass. He shook Bobby, hard, as if punishing him for my crimes.

  “You uppity little bastard,” he said, shaking Fat Bobby, but looking at me. My friend started crying, really blubbering, and this time I couldn’t blame him. I was pretty scared too. This wasn’t some teenager with a knife. This was a lawman, he was big, and he had a big gun at his belt. “I told your folks I’d be around.”

  His free hand—the one not shaking Bobby like a carpet needing aired out—went to his belt, and I thought he was going for the gun. I thought of looking down that muzzle, black and long like a tunnel, a tunnel to places I could never come back from, and I was close to crying too. It was like having the knife blade at my throat again.

  But he didn’t go for the gun.

  He went for his nightstick, pulling it out of its loop like a sword from a scabbard.

  “I think you need a little correcting,” he said, and now Bobby was tugging at the large hand that held him, scratching at it, pulling back on the fingers. The sheriff turned towards Bobby and brought the nightstick around, slicing through the air like a baseball bat. It thunked Fat Bobby on the temple, and my friend’s eyes rolled up and he went slack. Sheriff Glover let him go and Bobby fell to the ground like a heavy sack.

  “Now your turn,” he said, facing me again, taking a step in my direction.

  I stared at Fat Bobby, crumpled on the ground like a broken doll, like I imagined Batman with his stuffing guts pouring out looked like on the floor of the Haunted House. I saw the blood trickling from his head and I remembered the blood trickling from his head that day at the stream when the final rock had hit him. I was scared, scared that I was looking at my friend dead on the ground.

  The sheriff took another step towards me, and I crab walked backwards on my hands and legs, then pushed myself up and to my feet. The nightstick rose again in the sheriff’s grip and started down in another arc. I turned and ran, and something hard clipped me along the collar. I stumbled, found my balance, kept running.

  Fuck! I screamed at myself. Where’s Bandit? And then I remembered I’d left him home after sucker punching my dad and running off, and I screamed at myself again. Fucking moron!

  The forest seemed to spring out of the ground around me, trying to box me in. Pines and firs like large blades of grass made me feel like an ant, an ant in a large world, and everything in my way. Everything an obstacle as I ran from the man close behind me, the sheriff, a police officer, someone I was supposed to trust, gone mad. He was swinging a nightstick like a stick at a piñata, and I was the target. The prizes that would burst out of me if one of his swings connected wouldn’t be candy, however, but busted bones and blood and maybe bits of teeth.

  Stomping across the stream, splashing, my footfalls landed awkwardly on the silt and soil beneath the water. I slipped. My knees banged against stones. My palms shredded skin on pebbly silt. I rose and kept running.

  Close behind and getting closer: larger and louder splashes.

  Skidding to a halt at the access road, I saw the rusted sign fallen in the weeds. I turned, remembered the divots and ruts in the old road, danced about them, leaping and jumping. But the sheriff didn’t know about the ruts or was too enraged to mind them, and I heard a tremendous thump and a cry of surprise more than pain.

  Risking a glance back, I saw he’d fallen. I was gaining ground on him, but he was already standing again. No ankles twisted or femurs poked out of his thighs, unfortunately, and the nightstick was still in his hand. His big arms and legs pumped, his momentum building like a bull looking to gore. Spittle like rabid foam flew from his mouth as he yelled after me, his face flushed red.

  My lungs burned, my chest hurt, but I pushed my body harder, faster. A slight turn in the pitted road and there it was, the car, and there perched on the hood, tossing rocks about, my friends, Jim and Tara. Hearing my footfalls they looked up in surprise, saw me, saw the monstrosity behind me, and in unison they leapt off the hood. Dust rising in little plumes as their feet met the ground, they each stooped, scooping something off the road like laborers picking a field. I was confused for a moment, wondering why the fuck my friends were picking daisies when there was a crazed sheriff behind me keen on murder. Understanding blossomed a moment later however: ammunition!

  I slid like a runner diving for home, and the dirt ground scraped my skin like a potato peeler. I came rolling to my feet, and in either hand I held rocks. Big rocks. I stood to take up position by my friends, their arms already cocked and ready.

  Sheriff Glover skidded to a stop some yards away from us, the nightstick in his hand held aloft like a conductor’s baton. I think he wanted to play the Smashed Kids Concerto, in C minor. But he saw what was in our hands, and froze in indecision.

  Breathing hard, he tried to catch
his breath. His chest rose and fell like a great bellows. His gaze fell on the Buick for a couple beats, and he gave this slight lift of his eyebrows, like he’d stumbled on something he’d forgotten about.

  Then we were the center of his attention again.

  “Big trouble …” he wheezed, “… if you throw those … at a peace officer.”

  “What about for chasing a kid with a nightstick?” Jim said.

  “I don’t … need no smart mouthed … nigger boy talking back to me,” the sheriff said. He let the nightstick fall to his side, then deftly slid it back into its loop. His hand went to the gun and pulled it free. He pointed it at us, and yes, the tunnel of the muzzle was as black an eye as I’d imagined. “I’m not playing games with you little shits. Put the goddamn rocks down.”

  I thought about it. I think we all did.

  In the end we stood our ground, holding our rocks like they were talismans.

  “You going to shoot us?” Tara said. Her voice trembled, but only just so, and her courage made my young heart yearn for her even more.

  Sheriff Glover smiled at this like he was saying: Hey, now you’re getting the idea.

  “Sheriff sees gang up to no good,” he began. “Follows them into the woods where they ain’t supposed to be. Sees them vandalizing stuff maybe. There’s this car that maybe was stolen awhile back. So he confronts them, and the kids throw rocks at him, so he has no recourse but to open fire.”

  His smile widened. His lips looked like two big pink earthworms, writhing and wriggling in the creases of his face.

  “Think you can get all of us?” I said. “If one of us gets back and tells a different story, you think you’ll get out of this scot-free? Shooting three kids dead? Don’t you think that’ll be all over the news?”

  His smile faltered, the wriggling earthworms going still.

  There was a shuffling sound from behind him. A rustle in the trees as something cut through the air like a bullet. The sheriff stumbled forward. The gun went off, kicking up dirt and grit not two feet in front of me. He turned, a hand to the back of his head and coming back blood-specked.

  Fat Bobby stepped out from the trees, stones in either hand—his head likewise bloody.

  “No one’s hitting me anymore, shithead!”

  His scream was something fierce, like a primitive warrior letting loose the hunting cry. Fat Bobby spun his arm and another rock went flying.

  Sheriff Glover raised his gun hand.

  Jim, Tara, and I moved as one, arms spinning, rocks sailing.

  Pelted like an Old Testament sinner, the sheriff screamed and his gun fell to the ground. We picked up more, the three of us from behind him, Fat Bobby from his front, and we threw them, most of the stones finding their mark.

  The sheriff fell to his knees. One hand, bloodied at the knuckles, tried to find his fallen service pistol. Jim darted forward and kicked it away into the bushes. Fat Bobby met Jim halfway and, skirting the sheriff, walked back with him to our side, near the old car.

  Each of us reloaded, stones in either hand.

  The sheriff, hands outstretched before him like a man praying, scooted on his knees so he was facing us. He seemed to be crying blood, trickles of it running down his face. He was trembling with rage or pain or both, and his eyes, ringed by blood, looked inhuman.

  “Go away,” Fat Bobby said.

  “Leave us alone,” Tara said.

  “And don’t call me nigger,” Jim said.

  I thought that about covered it all, so I said nothing. Just stood there in those tense seconds that seemed to drag on forever.

  “You … goddamn brats,” he whispered. “Fucking … losers … you think this is … over?”

  “It better be,” I said, finally finding my voice. “Or do you want how you hit a kid in the head with your stick, how you pulled a gun on others, in the paper? And don’t forget my dad. Hurt any of us and he’ll shove your gun so far up your ass you’ll be shitting lead.”

  “Now get out of here,” Jim added. “And don’t let your son and his friends bother us no more. This here area belongs to us.”

  The sheriff looked from each of us, back and forth, and there was death in his eyes. I knew he’d kill us if given the chance. He looked towards where Jim had kicked the gun. We all raised our arms, ready to let loose another volley.

  Lastly, he considered the Buick again.

  He stood, turned, and walked away from us, giving one last menacing look before disappearing into the green like a phantasm.

  5.

  We stayed there for awhile, letting the calm of the forest work its magic. When we felt we’d recovered somewhat, gathered our thoughts and bearings, we likewise gathered around the hood of the old rusted Buick, like generals around a battle map.

  “A lot of people don’t like us,” Jim said, and there was nervous laughter.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I keep getting called a loser. Hurts my feelings.”

  “Maybe we should start a club or something,” Fat Bobby said, kind of smiling.

  No one laughed at that, and we kind of looked around at one another. Me and Jim longer than the others. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged at him. What the hell? we were saying to each other. More than that, though. Not just What the hell? but maybe Why not?

  “The Losers’ Club,” Tara said and we all looked at her. “Like the Justice League, only not as cool.”

  I smiled at her, and she at me, and there went my heart again.

  “That has a nice ring to it,” I said. “But it’s already taken.”

  I thought of what my dad had said not so long ago, back at the store when I’d brought Bobby in after the confrontation with Dillon and his pals at the stream. You’ve never chosen your friends easily, Joey. Always been a bit of an outsider that way. These three, in their own ways, were as much outsiders as I was. And I’m not so sure I chose them as friends, as we chose each other. Or something else entirely brought us together. Something beyond our control. Something written into the very machinery of the world. There was the sense again, as I stood there with my friends near the old Buick, of things not so much building momentum, but falling into place.

  “How about the Outsiders’ Club?” I said, feeling the words as they rolled off my tongue. They sounded somehow right. As if I wasn’t making a suggestion, but merely declaring something we all knew to be true.

  Tara and Bobby looked at each other, then back at me, nodding in turn. Jim kind of shrugged, but I could see a gleam in his eyes.

  “We’d need special names,” I said.

  “Oh, geez,” Jim said and passed a hand over his face. I remembered the look he’d given me at the fair when he’d seen the plush Batman under my arm. “How about yours is Joey the Dork?”

  I smiled, said: “Why not.”

  “I’m Fat Bobby,” Fat Bobby said, as if he’d read my mind. He said it with a sort of pride that made me smile.

  “You got quite an arm,” I said, looking at Tara. “You nailed the sheriff right between the eyes.”

  “Yeah,” Fat Bobby said. “You don’t throw like a girl at all. You should be in the major leagues.”

  “Tomboy Tara,” I said, and she slugged me on the shoulder.

  “Saying I look like a boy?” she said, that crooked smile like a quarter moon playing at her lips. I blushed, feeling the heat in my face, and I think that was answer enough for her.

  Last of all we looked at Jim, and he kind of gave us this challenging look, daring us to say something.

  “And I guess I’m Nigger Jim?” he said, and he looked at each of us in turn. None of us said anything, and he gave a little chuckle. “Nigger Jim, huh? Bunch of racist honkeys.” But he was smiling now, we were all smiling, and he stuck his hand out over the hood of the car and said: “To the Outsiders’ Club.”

  Fat Bobby put his big hand out on top of Jim’s brown one.

  “The Outsiders’ Club,” he said.

  “The Outsiders’ Club,” Tara said, her hand going out an
d grasping theirs.

  There was a buzz in the air, I thought, and something pleasant tingled down my spine. I put my hand out on top of Tara’s, on top of them all.

  “The Outsiders’ Club,” I said. “We always watch out for each other, no matter what.”

  “No matter what,” they all said as one.

  And that’s how it was for the rest of our days together, until the end.

  PART TWO

  The Car and the Collector

  CHAPTER SIX

  1.

  I saw the man in the fedora and long black coat for the first time outside our house at night.

  Initially asleep, Bandit’s growling woke me up slowly. At first I thought it was part of the dream I was having. High up with Tara at the top of the Ferris wheel, she was leaning forward for another kiss. That’s when I heard the growling, and in the dream the growling was juxtaposed with the groaning of the Ferris wheel. It was falling apart around us, bolts and screws and beams falling away, until it was just our bucket seat in the night sky. Then that was falling, too, like an elevator cab cut loose of its cable.

  The ground rose up quickly to meet us.

  As we plummeted, I screamed and Tara laughed, saying: “Come on, kiss me!” I turned to her and it wasn’t Tara, it was Dillon and his dad, Sheriff Glover, and they were both stuffed inside the dress Tara had been wearing. Packed in there together like Siamese twins, Dillon had his knife, and his dad had his gun. Both were leaning towards me saying: “Kiss me! Kiss me!” over and over. The glint of the knife in the moonlight was like an eye; the dark tunnel of the barrel of the gun, a mouth.

  The Ferris wheel bucket seat slammed into the ground.

  I woke up with a start, pushed the blankets aside, and saw Bandit at the window, growling. I called him softly to me but he wouldn’t come. I stood and walked quietly to the window, avoiding the areas of the carpeted floor that I knew squeaked, not wanting to wake my parents.