The Devil's End

by D A Fowler

  Bruce accepted the ridicule good-naturedly. “Yeah, it is fun to believe in the boogeyman. I wasn’t really serious, though. I just don’t think Jay would’ve done something like that. Not anybody, really. It probably was another animal.”

  Dennis nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

  Lana wasn’t so sure. She would have an easier time believing it if those two hadn’t acted like they’d been caught with their pants down.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Dennis said, uncomfortably aware of his need for a cigarette. He always had to have one when he was nervous. And he was very nervous now, though he refused to consciously acknowledge it.

  “Well, we can talk about this.” Bruce grinned, reaching into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a joint. “I just happen to have a little rocket fuel on me. Care to go on a jaunt through outer space, Major Tom?”

  Dennis nodded enthusiastically. “All-fucking-right. Where’d you get it?”

  “My cousin mailed it to me from Boulder. Tells me he gets it from his psych professor,” Bruce said proudly. “Bitchin’, huh? I can’t wait till I go to college…if I get to go,” he added somberly. Then his face brightened; he wasn’t going to allow his mood to be dampened. “But hey, why worry about tomorrow, right? How about you, Lana? You like to get high?”

  She looked uncertainly at the thin white cylinder between his fingers. She’d never thought that sending smoke of any kind into her lungs was a very good idea—breathing secondhand cigarette smoke was more than she could tolerate—but desperate to be “in,” especially after the two girls’ rejection of her, she altered her attitude for the occasion. “I’ve never tried it before, but I guess I’d like to.”

  Bruce looked amused. “I like the way you talk.”

  “You do?”

  “Sexy, isn’t it?” Dennis said, putting a hand on Lana’s knee. He was glad she was going to try the marijuana; it frequently had the side effect of making people horny.

  “Probably won’t do anything to you, if you’ve never smoked it before,” Bruce informed her. “Pot has what they call a reverse tolerance effect, just the opposite of alcohol. You have to get it built up in your system a little bit before it’ll do you any good. But you might get a buzz. It’s pretty potent stuff; pure Colombian bud, no shake.”

  Unfamiliar with the terminology but unwilling to appear ignorant, Lana nodded as though she had understood; apparently, appreciation was called for. She smiled, appearing duly impressed, picturing the look on her mother’s face should her daughter come stumbling home stoned out of her mind.

  Bruce lit the joint and inhaled deeply, then passed it to Dennis, still holding his breath. When Bruce finally let it out with a vague cloud of smoke, he explained to Lana, “Try to hold it in as long as you can.”

  Dennis took a hit, passing the joint under his nose for an additional whiff, then handed the joint on to her. She tentatively raised the foreign object to her lips and began to suck. A blowtorch suddenly fired down her throat, exploding in her lungs, and she began to hack violently. Bruce and Dennis cracked up.

  “Maybe you’re not cut out for this,” Dennis said, conscious of the precious herb she was wasting now that he was aware of reverse tolerance.

  “You can’t take too much in at once, especially if you’re not used to it,” Bruce cautioned too late. Lana handed him the joint, her face a deep red. She continued to cough, and feared for a moment she was going to gag. All she needed was to have to throw up in front of Dennis.

  When the joint came around to her again, she had pretty well gotten things under control, but she passed on the offer with a wave and croaked, “No thanks. I think that’ll do it for me.”

  Dennis and Bruce continued to pass it back and forth until it was too small to handle without burning their fingers, at which point Bruce put out the flame with a wet finger and dropped the roach in his shirt pocket, his hazel eyes floating blearily in rosy, glazed cream. He smiled dreamily. “Hits the spot, huh?”

  Dennis grinned back. “Makes me want a cigarette like hell. Left my pack in the car. Es’scuse me while I float on over to get ’em.” He rose in an unseen fog and moved in slow motion away from the gazebo, swaying like a reed in a gentle wind.

  Bruce chuckled. “He’s fucked up.”

  Lana glanced back in Dennis’s direction. “Yeah, I’d say.” But her mind was now on something else; on the subject of the Obers and their alleged connection to witchcraft. She’d wanted to find out more, but Dennis had quickly stomped the life out of that little conversation. Now he was gone, but he would be back soon. She leaned forward and searched Bruce’s eyes, aware of the admiration that was showing in them. She pretended not to notice. “What was that you were sayin’ about the Obers? Do people think they were witches just because they died on Halloween, or was there something else?”

  Bruce gazed back at her reflectively. For a moment he didn’t answer; he was on a different channel completely. She looked like an angel to him, all softness and sweetness with no trace of the artificiality normally associated with girls so pretty. She probably knew she was gorgeous, but the fact hadn’t gone to her head. Rare. But what was someone like that doing hanging around with a skunk like Dennis? Bruce liked Dennis, to some degree, but that was only because Bruce had the ability to accept people at face value, no personal standards imposed. He lived and let live. He liked everybody, had no enemies.

  Perhaps that was because he was fairly adept at keeping a protective amount of space around him at all times.

  Her question made a leisurely stroll through his brain, then exited his left ear. The subject of the Obers was far too removed from what his tongue was arbitrarily inclined to discuss. Diplomacy laid waste by the marijuana, he said, “I don’t mean to change the subject, but did Dennis break up with Marla?”

  Lana felt something like a brick come down on her head. “Who’s Marla?” Her voice was clipped.

  Bruce, aware that he’d just committed a grave faux pas, colored instantly. “Oh, uh, never mind. She’s just this other girl he used to go with. Guess they must have broke up and I just didn’t hear about it yet. Well, uh, the Obers. Don’t know much about that, just that they both died on Halloween, like Dennis said. Maybe some older people around here know more, but if they do, they’re not talking about it. I haven’t heard anything anyway.”

  Lana barely heard him. “How long ago were they still together?”

  Bruce shrugged, dismayed that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “I dunno. Saw ’em together in the halls last week and everything seemed okay, but they must’ve had a fight, right? Otherwise he wouldn’t be with you.”

  This being what Lana wanted to hear, she accepted the rationale. “I would hope not. So what do you think about that rabbit? You really think another animal killed it? Those two friends of yours sure looked guilty.”

  Bruce thought for a moment. “Yeah, they did, didn’t they? Well, they could’ve been up to something else they didn’t want everybody knowing about. Nancy’s pretty paranoid about her reputation. I can’t—” He stopped, his eyes trailing upward. Dennis had returned, happily puffing on a cigarette.

  “I think,” Dennis said airily, sitting back down next to Lana, “that if everybody in the world smoked pot, we could get one hell of an orgy going. Doesn’t it make you hornier than hell? Sure does me.”

  Lana shot him a warning glance. “Don’t go gettin’ any wild ideas.”

  “Oh, don’t start that shit again,” he scoffed. “I could’ve raped you last night if I’d wanted, but I played Mr. Nice Guy, right? So why would I get any ideas now? Think I’m gonna spread you out right here on the table in front of Bruce?”

  Lana stared back, open-mouthed, at a severely tarnished image. She had imagined this vulgar, foul-mouthed jerk as her next steady boyfriend. She felt like a complete dunce. If he was talking to her like this just one day after they met, what sort
of things would he say once they were really familiar with each other? Suddenly the little faults she had whitewashed away stood out with stark clarity. The smoking, the rude way he had pulled her over to that car on the hill, hoping to embarrass her. His suggestiveness, way out of line when he barely knew her name. He was a pretty cake, all right. But beneath the icing he was crawling with worms. “I’d like to go home, please,” she said stiffly.

  Dennis nodded in the direction of the street beyond the parking lot. “Then go. I’m not driving in this condition.”

  On the verge of tears, Lana rose and stalked out of the gazebo, feeling like an insect under the curious stares of those she passed on her way out of the park. The sound of running feet caused her to imagine that Dennis was coming to apologize, but she didn’t turn around. It wasn’t Dennis anyway. She could hear him back in the distance, laughing. At her, no doubt. For being such a gullible little fool.

  Through a blurred haze she walked numbly past a succession of tar strips between the asphalt squares of the sidewalk, being sure to step on every one, chanting a silent, incessant, Step on a crack, break Dennis’s back. So childish, but somehow placating. He had just been using her. He’d probably had a fight with his girlfriend, his pretended interest in her motivated either by revenge or a plot to make Marla jealous. No doubt the conflict between them would be resolved within a short period of time, and she would have been left standing alone, a heartbroken idiot trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. Just like her mother. The bastard!

  The rumbling of an engine slowed beside her. She glanced up to see a primer-red pickup with only traces of blue paint still visible above the rear panels. The driver was grinning at her. Lana wiped her eyes and managed to turn up the corners of her mouth.

  “Hi.”

  “Need a lift? Sorry about Dennis being so rude. He gets that way sometimes when he gets high.” Bruce was, he knew, being generous toward Dennis, and getting high was no excuse for anything. But he didn’t like to get radical with opinions.

  The pickup came to a halt. Lana got in the reeking cab, recognizing the pungent-sweet smell of marijuana. It reminded her of a sweaty tennis shoe. “I appreciate your pickin’ me up. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about Dennis. I know he’s your friend an’ all, but I’ve decided I don’t like him very much. At all.”

  Bruce pressed on the naked gas pedal, propelling them forward. “Well, we’re not really close friends. He mostly hangs around with a guy named Wayne when he’s not with, uh, Marla. Guess they really didn’t break up after all. He told me after you left that they’d just had a little fight. He was gonna use you to try to make her jealous. I think that’s pretty rude. People shouldn’t treat other people like that. But, the world’s full of that crap…takes all kinds, right? Nothing we can do about it, ’cept get high and try not to think about it.” A flash of teeth. “Right?”

  Lana’s suspicions confirmed, she felt the heat of hatred rise up within her. “Why did he drop me so soon, then? Marla hasn’t seen us together yet, has she?”

  With a heavy sigh, Bruce shook his head. Buoyancy in this atmosphere was getting hard to maintain. “No, but just as good as. The girl that was there with the black hair…Jay’s girlfriend? She’s Marla’s best friend. Dennis knew she’d run home to call Marla, tell her about seeing him at the park with another girl.”

  “Oh, great. So I haven’t even started school yet an’ I’ve already got an enemy?” Lana groaned, tossing her head back against the seat. So that’s why the two girls had hated her before she’d even opened her mouth. They were friends of Marla. The bastard’s girlfriend.

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. You’ll make plenty of friends, I’m sure. You’ve got me, if that’s any consolation.”

  Lana smiled. “Thanks. It is a consolation. What’s your name, anyway? I don’t guess we were formally introduced.”

  “Bruce Meadows. Hey, wanna go get a Coke? I’ve got a really bad case of cotton mouth.”

  Lana didn’t care to know what that meant, but she was more than willing to go for a Coke with him. “Sure, that would be nice.”

  Sipping their Cokes through candy-striped straws, sharing idle conversation about school subjects and tastes in movies and music, revealed that Bruce and Lana had much in common. Bruce wasn’t as good looking as Dennis; his nose was a little too thin and pointed, and his lips appeared hard, not exactly inviting. But his eyes were large and thoughtful, ginger-brown flecked with specks of green circling the pupils. His hair was shaggy but clean, light brown, and with natural curl. He was okay, Lana thought, already at work considering new possibilities. She was more emotionally dependent than she’d realized. An inherited trait, no doubt. She concluded that looks really weren’t that important anyway. It was the asshole that counted. Unlike Dennis, Bruce didn’t seem to be one.

  It was four o’clock before they knew it. “I guess I’d better be gettin’ on home,” Lana said regretfully. “I ran off without doin’ what I promised my mom I’d do today.”

  “What is it? I’ll help you,” Bruce offered, stuffing the last of the french fries they’d shared into his mouth. He was in no hurry to go home.

  Lana shook her head, her expression doubtful. “It’s cleanin’ up dog poop in the garage.”

  “Oh, I love to clean up dog poop!” Bruce exclaimed exuberantly, his features arranged in an exaggerated expression of delight. “It’s one of my favorite pastimes. Ask anybody! I’m always walking around looking for fresh piles.”

  They laughed together like old companions, the relaxed, easy music of a relationship long sealed. Finally Lana, teary-eyed and plagued with a sudden case of hiccups, said, “Well, far be it from me to deprive you of—hic—your favorite pastime.”

  When they pulled up in front of Lana’s house, she was thankful for the empty driveway, a testimony that her mother, and most likely her brother as well, were gone, probably shopping. She wasn’t quite ready to face her mother again, though her anger toward her had mellowed into ambivalence.

  Next door, Spiro was sitting on his front porch staring at his feet. He didn’t look up when the pickup stopped in front of Lana’s house, nor when the two people stepped out of the cab.

  Lana turned to Bruce. “I’ll be right back. I have to go talk to that guy for a minute. My dipshit brother really hurt his feelin’s yesterday, so I guess it’s up to me to apologize.”

  Bruce peered in Spiro’s direction. “Hey, that’s Spiro Guenther, isn’t it? Everybody at school calls him—”

  “I know. Tardo.” Lana frowned. “He told me. I hope you don’t participate in any of that.”

  “Hey, not me,” Bruce replied truthfully. “I don’t get off on things like that. I’m one of the good guys. Promise.”

  “I believe you.” She walked toward the lone creature hunched over on his front porch. “Spiro, about yesterday—”

  Her words were cut short by the sight of Spiro’s lobster-red, blistered right palm, which lay turned outward beside his right foot.

  “My God, what happened to your hand? Is it—hic— burned?” She cursed at her malady under her breath, as if doing so would make it go away.

  Spiro remained silent, his eyes fastened to the shoelaces of his worn-out tennis shoes as if at any moment he expected them to crawl up his legs.

  “Hey, are you okay? Spiro?”

  He finally raised his head, slowly, beads of sweat shining on his Cro-Magnon brow. Looking past Lana, his dark gaze fell on Bruce, who stood waiting in Lana’s yard. “Who is…that?”

  “His name is Bruce. Now tell me, what happened to your hand? How’d it get—hic—burned like that?”

  “Bruce.” Spiro repeated the name as if it were a dirty word. His facial muscles twitched. He looked like a boxer after the tenth round, contemplating how he might annihilate his opponent in the next. His expression chilled Lana. She remembered referring to him as “sweet.
” He certainly didn’t look sweet now. His face personified raw hate.

  She glanced nervously back at Bruce, half inclined to just walk away; she couldn’t deal with this. She wondered what could possibly be going on in Spiro’s mind, that he should cast such a murderous glare at Bruce. Surely Bruce had never done anything bad to him. She felt she already knew Bruce pretty well; he wouldn’t have lied to her. He wasn’t the type to pull cruel jokes on the underdogs of society. She faced Spiro again and spoke softly. “Listen, if you don’t wanna talk about your hand, fine. I came over here to apologize for what Luke said yesterday. He can be a real jerk sometimes, but he really didn’t mean it. He’s called me worse things. I…I came over yesterday to tell you that, an’ your mother…I really didn’t understand—hic—what she was sayin’, but I got the idea she was super pissed-off at me about somethin’. Somethin’ about a picture. You know what she was talkin’ about?”

  Spiro returned his attention to his feet, and what had appeared on his face as fierce anger seconds before was now replaced with shame. Lacking the sophistication to create a lie, he allowed the truth to fall from his trembling lips. “I drawed a pitcher of you. Naked. Mama found it.”

  Lana felt herself flush with embarrassment. She was too stunned at first to speak. What on earth was the proper response to a confession like that anyway? Finally she stammered, “Well, that, uh, explains that, I guess.” Her hiccups were suddenly cured.

  Her eyes fell again on the burned hand, a terrible suspicion rising. And how possible it was! She remembered her first impression of Bertha Guenther. Hateful, cruel. Treating her son like a dog…worse than a dog. Would she have? Lana didn’t want to think so, but the idea wasn’t totally absurd…“Spiro? I want to know about your hand. Did your did your mother do that to you? Was that your punishment for drawin’ the…the picture?”