by Tom Perrotta
“Hey Buddy,” he said. “You ever write a poem?”
“Nope.”
“Think you could handle it?”
I whizzed a paper at someone's front porch, just a little too hard. It slammed into the screen door: dogs started barking up and down the street.
“Sure,” I said. “No sweat. Just let me finish up.”
He leaned out the window and waved some money in my face.
“Come on,” he told me. “I'll make it worth your while.”
At the corner, Burnsy opened his trunk and threw my bike and canvas bag inside. By the time we got back from Angela's, I didn't feel like finishing my route. I went home, stuffed the last fifty papers into my bag, and rode out to the woods behind Indian Park. I dumped the papers into the brook, then sat down under a tree to leaf through a copy of Playboy someone had thoughtfully left behind.
“Sue really likes you,” Angela whispered. “Do you like her?”
“I don't know,” I said. “We just met.”
Sue was the redhead. Her parents were away for the weekend, and her older sister had agreed to let us have the house to ourselves on Friday night. It was my job to keep her occupied so Kevin could be alone with Angela.
Sue and I sat rigidly on the love seat while Kevin and Angela huddled together on the couch, holding hands and playing games with their fingers. Angela smoked like an old movie star, closing one eye and shooting a slender jet of smoke at the plastic-covered lampshade. She was wearing a turquoise tube top, and I felt a pang of sadness. Sue was okay. She had thick red hair and a cute face. But Angela! I must have been staring, because she smiled at me and stuck out her tongue.
“Hey,” Kevin said. “Let's play spin the bottle.”
It was a surprising suggestion. None of us had ever played before, and Kevin had to explain the rules. I got Sue on the first spin of the game. Embarrassed, I craned my neck and planted a quick dry peck on the corner of her mouth. Kevin booed.
“What kind of a kiss was that?”
Sue spun next and got Kevin. Their mouths were so wide open it looked more like artificial respiration than making out. When they finally unstuck their faces, Kevin collapsed to the floor. Sue wiped her mouth and grinned.
Angela's kiss had a sweet, complicated taste. I felt her tongue working its way between my teeth and then something else, something soft and loose, and the next thing I knew her gum had slipped into my mouth, a secret gift. We kept going until Kevin wrenched us apart.
Angela fanned her face with one hand. “Whew,” she said. “Who turned up the heat?”
The game ended on the next spin. Kevin and Angela started on their knees, then tipped over and stretched out on the floor. Five minutes passed, and they still hadn't surfaced for air.
Sue smiled apologetically. “Well,” she said. “Looks like you're stuck with me.”
We kissed for a while, then decided to go for a walk. We ended up sitting on the swings at a playground down the street. It was a beautiful night, the whole world at room temperature.
“I'm sorry Kevin dragged you here,” she said.
“He didn't drag me. I wanted to come.”
“Right.” She pushed off and started swinging lazily back and forth. “Angela always tries to fix me up with her boyfriends’ friends.”
“Does she have a lot of boyfriends?”
“Pretty many. The last one was nineteen. Her father threw a shit fit when he found out.”
“Nineteen,” I said. “That's incredible.”
“I know,” said Sue. “But I think she really likes Kevin. He sends her flowers and writes her these sweet little poems. I wish someone would do that for me.”
I didn't say anything. I just sat there chewing Angela's bland gum, thinking about her and Kevin.
“I'm scared of going to high school,” she said. “Aren't you?”
“I'm not going yet.”
She seemed surprised. “How old are you?” “I'll be thirteen next week.” “Huh,” she said. “I thought you were older.” She hopped off the swing and cartwheeled into a handstand. Her shirt came untucked, exposing a band of creamy skin.
“Come on,” she called out. “Let's go home.” Sue walked effortlessly on her hands for an entire block, her palms slapping out a rubbery rhythm on the sidewalk. At the corner she arched forward like a Slinky and snapped into an upright position. We went back to her house and played Ping-Pong until Burnsy showed up to drive us home. Kevin was quiet in the back seat. Midway through the ride, he tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a ten-dollar bill.
We had planned to go to Bowcraft Amusement Park on Monday night—play a round of miniature golf, take some cuts at the batting cage, feed a few quarters to the pinball machine. But when Burn-sy's car swung into the Little League parking lot, I could tell something was wrong.
“Where's Kevin?” I asked.
“Back here.”
I leaned over the headrest and saw him lying on the floor between the seats, his head poking out from underneath a green army blanket.
“I'm dead,” he told me. “The accountant came today and Paul found out about the money.
I think he knows it was me.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No, but you should have seen the way he was staring.”
I felt myself getting angry. It was fun being rich, doing something different every night, writing stuff for money. I wasn't ready for it to end. In less than a month I'd managed to save almost fifty bucks, but that wasn't nearly enough for the ten-speed bike I was hoping to buy.
“I thought you said it was foolproof,” I snapped.
“Christ, Buddy. I didn't know he had a fucking accountant.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I can't go home,” he said. “Paul's gonna kill me.”
He spent the night in Burnsy's car. The next morning Burnsy drove him to Seaside, where Kevin figured he could stay with his brother until Paul had a chance to cool off. But when they finally located the house where Jack was supposed to be staying, they found out that he had split for Florida with this chick he'd picked up on the beach.
“So where's Kevin now?” I asked Burnsy later that night.
“Come on,” Burnsy said. “I'll show you.”
He parked his car on Center Street and led me into Indian Park. At the edge of the bike path, he stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The signal was returned from inside the woods.
“Go in about a hundred yards and take the left fork,” he told me.
“Aren't you coming?” I asked.
Burnsy shook his head. “I'm going back to Seaside. They said I could have Jack's room.” He kicked some gravel and told me to take it easy.
Kevin was waiting for me on the main path, his blond hair and white T-shirt radiating a ghostly light, seeming to float disembodied on the darkness.
“Boy,” he said. “Am I glad to see you.”
He had a pup tent set up in a small clearing, its fluorescent orange fabric camouflaged by a web of tree branches and uprooted weeds. We sat together on a half-rotten log and made plans for Kevin's new life as a fugitive. I promised to keep him well-stocked with food, to deliver messages to Angela, and not to reveal his hiding place even if Paul tried to torture me for the information, which Kevin claimed was a definite possibility. Everything was okay as long as we kept talking. But as soon as our conversation died out, the woods turned spooky. A million insects hummed together; small animals darted through the underbrush.
Kevin slapped his leg. “Damn! I wish I had some bug spray.”
“I'll get you some tomorrow,” I said, standing up from the log.
His fingers wrapped around my ankle. “Hey,” he said, “why don't you go home and tell your parents that you're sleeping over at my house. Then you can get your sleeping bag and come back here. It'll be like that camping trip.”
“Not tonight, Kev. I have to fold my papers.”
His grip tightened. “Please, Buddy. Just this on
ce?”
I shook my leg free. “I can't.”
There was a long pause. The insects turned up the volume. I was glad I couldn't see Kevin's face.
“Thanks a lot, Buddy. After everything I've given you, you can't even do me this one little favor.”
“Hey,” I said, “no one told you to rip off your own family.”
I went home and folded my papers on the living room floor. My parents sat behind me on the couch, laughing along with the canned laughter on television.
“Happy birthday!”
My mother woke me the next morning with a lipsticky kiss on the cheek. It was August 8,1974, and I was officially thirteen years old. It was something I'd been waiting for for a long time.
“Don't make any plans for tonight,” she said. “We have a surprise for you.”
After she left for work, I wolfed down a bowl of cereal and hopped, still half asleep, onto my bike. I wanted to finish my paper route as quickly as possible so I could spend the afternoon with Kevin. I hoped he wasn't mad at me.
Around eleven o'clock a brown tow truck turned the corner and began tailgating me down Maple Street. I veered up a driveway to give it room, but the truck didn't accelerate to pass. Then I saw why: “PAUL'S AMOCO EMERGENCY SERVICE” was written in yellow letters on the side door. Paul himself was scowling at me from the driver's seat, jabbing his finger like a cop pulling over a speeding car. I stepped on the brakes and so did he. The truck's passenger door swung open on a creaky hinge.
“Get in,” he commanded.
“What about my bike?”
“Just leave it.”
I dropped my bike on someone's lawn and climbed into the cab, which smelled pleasantly of gasoline. Paul sat beside me, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. The skin on his knuckles was cracked, the crevices caked with grease. He took his hand away from his face and looked at me.
“Where's Kevin?”
“Isn't he home?” I tried to sound casual, but I could feel my blood abruptly reverse itself, rushing into my face as though I were doing a headstand.
Paul gave me a disgusted look and shifted into gear. I wondered vaguely if I was being kidnapped.
“It's not the money that bugs me,” he said. “It's really not. But if he needed it, why didn't he just ask?”
I didn't answer. How could I explain that Kevin didn't need the money, that we were just having fun?
“Tell me the truth,” Paul said. “Is he doing drugs?”
I shook my head. It gradually became clear to me that I wasn't being kidnapped. We were just orbiting the streets of Darwin, cruising up one and down another. I began to relax and enjoy the ride, my first ever in a tow truck. The heavy chains swayed and clanked behind us; our bodies vibrated along with the powerful engine. The parked cars we passed looked small and vulnerable. If Paul and I had felt like it, we could have just hoisted one up and dragged it away.
“How come he hates me?” Paul asked.
“I don't know,” I said.
He took a couple of quick turns, and pretty soon we were back on Maple. I was almost disappointed that nothing more exciting had happened, that Paul hadn't tried to make me talk. I had one leg out the door when he grabbed my arm.
“You tell Kevin to come home. He's not going to get punished. We just want him back. You tell him his mother's worried sick.”
“Okay,” I said.
I got out, walked over to my bike, and slung the heavy canvas bag over my shoulder. The tow truck didn't move. Paul was slumped forward in the driver's seat, his forehead resting on the wheel.
That afternoon I told Kevin about my encounter with Paul. He was only half finished with the sandwich I'd brought him, but he got mad and whipped it at a tree.
“He's a liar! The second I walk through the door he's gonna kill me.”
“I bet he won't.”
“You don't know him.”
We sat sullenly on the log. The woods weren't the least bit scary during the day. Birds were chirping; the air was cool and fresh. You could see through the trees to the houses on Center Street.
“Can you camp out tonight?” Kevin asked.
“Tonight's my birthday,” I said. “I promised my parents I'd spend it at home.”
Kevin looked tired. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair matted down against his head. “But what about later? Think you can sneak out?”
“I'll try.”
Before I left, Kevin asked me to do him a favor. He unzipped the flap of his tent—not very well camouflaged during the day—and pulled out a wrinkled envelope, which he handed to me along with a crisp twenty-dollar bill. Angela's name was scrawled across the envelope in big childish letters.
“I wrote it myself,” he said.
People's houses have distinctive odors. Kevin's, for example, always reminded me of a doctor's office. Burnsy's smelled like cat food, even though he didn't have a cat. My grandmother's house gave off an odor of rancid orange peels. And the Far-rones’ house smelled like Angela. As soon as I stepped inside, I remembered that when I had kissed her, her mouth had tasted exactly like this.
I followed her father down the hallway into the kitchen. On the way I caught a glimpse of the living room. It resembled a display in a furniture store, not a cushion dented or an ashtray out of place. An oil portrait of Angela, done before she bleached her hair, was hanging above the couch. In her tartan plaid dress with the lace collar, this brown-haired Angela looked innocent and full of wonder.
Mr. Farrone tossed my bouquet carelessly on the kitchen table and headed for the refrigerator. It was the modern kind that dispensed ice water from a compartment on the freezer door. I had only seen them on commercials and game shows, never in someone's house.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Just water.”
On my previous flower deliveries, I had managed to escape undetected. But that afternoon my timing was off. I was halfway up the front steps when a maroon Lincoln Continental pulled into the driveway. A dumpy man in a gray suit got out of the car and came to meet me.
“I'm Pat Farrone,” he said, extending his hand. “You must be Kevin.”
I started to say no, then caught myself and nodded. It seemed easier not to have to explain the situation.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the roses into his arms. “These are for Angela.”
Mr. Farrone cradled the roses like a baby. He had heavy jowls and a mustache that looked like a misplaced eyebrow. It seemed bizarre to me that such an odd-looking man could have a daughter as beautiful as Angela.
“Kevin,” he said, “I think you and I need to have a talk.”
Mr. Farrone sat at the head of the table, stroking his mustache. His voice was calm and professional, as though he were interviewing me for a job.
“How old are you, Kevin?”
“Thirteen,” I said.
“Thirteen.” He nodded solemnly. “You know, Kevin, when I was thirteen I wasn't chasing girls. All I wanted to do was play baseball.”
He lifted the flowers to his nose, sniffed them, and frowned. When he set them back down, he inadvertently rotated the bouquet, so the envelope with Angela's name was now facing up.
“Roses are expensive, Kevin. Where do you get your money?”
“My Dad owns a gas station. He lets me work there.”
“Tell me, Kevin. What do you want to do with your life?”
“I'm not sure. I think I'd like to be a park ranger. Either that or a truck driver.”
“My daughter tells me you're quite the little poet.”
“Thanks.”
I was blushing with pride when he reached out and casually detached the envelope from the wrapping paper on the bouquet. He jammed his finger into the flap and began tearing it open, as though it were addressed to him. He stopped halfway through and glanced at me.
“That was a helluva hickey you gave her the other night.”
“A hickey?” I said.
“Don't bullshit me, Ke
vin. I don't like bull-shitters.”
I should have been alarmed, but I had this funny feeling that I wasn't really there, that all this was happening to Kevin, not to me. Mr. Farrone unfolded the sheet of loose-leaf paper and spread it flat on the table. He squinted at the words. A vertical fold appeared in his forehead.
“You little bastard,” he whispered.
For a heavy man he was nimble. Before I understood what was happening, he was out of his chair. He grabbed a handful of my T-shirt and yanked me to my feet. We danced awkwardly across the linoleum floor until my back slammed into the humming refrigerator.
“I oughta knock your teeth out,” he said softly. “She's just a little girl.”
His face was so close to mine I could feel hot bursts of air coming from his nostrils. A muscle in his cheek began to twitch. I watched his hand form itself into a fist. “What kind of rubbers did you buy, smart guy? Why don't you take them out of your wallet and show me?”
This isn't happening to me, I told myself, but the formula had lost its magic. All at once I was terribly frightened, not just for me but for Kevin too.
“Come on, big man. Show me your rubbers.”
“I don't have any,” I told him. “I don't even know what they look like.”
“I oughta knock your teeth out,” he said again, drawing back his fist until it was level with his ear. His knuckles were coated with thick black hair. “What do you say to that, big man?”
I had spent the past several years learning not to cry, but I hadn't forgotten how. My bottom lip trembled. My eyes felt like they were growing inside my head. The first few sobs came from somewhere deep in my stomach. A jet of warm snot exploded from my nose.
“I'm a kid,” I blubbered. “I'm just a kid.” Mr. Farrone lowered his fist and let go of my shirt. He stepped back and looked at the floor, as though he were ashamed for both of us.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, then went and got me a Kleenex.
My father wheeled the bicycle into the living room. My mother stood behind him, smiling nervously.
“Happy birthday,” they said.
This was definitely not the bike I wanted. It was a Schwinn three-speed, clunky and old-fashioned, with a chain guard, lots of chrome, and a two-tone seat straight out of Happy Days.