—
Damon and Ryan walked through Elisabeth Avarine’s living room and out to the redwood deck. The deck glowed under yellow spotlights and beyond the rail there was nothing but black trees and the canyon underneath, the earth skidding down to a creek that was shushing along below.
Nick was over in the corner, just chilling with these girls in a circle of cushy patio furniture. He sat in a chair with a freshman perched on one arm; three more girls spooned each other in a long chair next to him, and there were two more armchairs with dudes who jumped up and disappeared when they saw Damon and Ryan coming.
“Yo, Ryan! What up, Flint!” People called to them from all around the deck. Everyone happy to see them. Which was just how it was when they walked into a function together. And when Damon and Ryan settled into their chairs, the energy shifted—like everyone took a few steps to the left without even knowing they were doing it. Not even wanting to, just sensing shit was about to get interesting because the right people had arrived. This was how Damon knew what actual power felt like.
It never worked when he was alone. It was the power of the three. Damon, Ryan, Nick. They’d figured that out back in eighth grade, and that was why they stuck together. If they split up, would they ever feel this kind of power again? Would they have to go through life without it? That was the most depressing thought possible.
“Want something?” Nick asked them, flicking ash from his cigarette. He’d come early to set up. Must be making a play for Elisabeth Avarine, Damon thought. Nick wasn’t afraid of anything. It was crazy how he never had an issue getting girls, even though he was beanpole skinny with a razor-blade face. It was probably ’cause he always thought of funny shit to say, or because he made their fake IDs.
Ryan took a cigarette and said, “Fuck yeah.” Ryan got even more girls than Nick and didn’t have to say or do anything. He just looked like Justin Bieber and played like Buster Posey and it turned out for most girls that was enough. And like they were reading minds, two freshman girls (both flat-chested, one had braces) jumped up from the long chair and scurried inside to get them drinks.
“This house is sick,” Ryan said, exhaling smoke. “Elisabeth’s got bars.”
“No shit,” said Nick.
“Have you seen her mom? Fuckin’ MILF.”
“Hell yeah,” Damon said. “I’d hit that.”
But they all looked at him like, What? and then cracked up. Like, Who the fuck are you kidding, Flint? Like anyone would want to get with your fat ass. Ha-ha. Damon was laughing too because it was fuckin’ funny, or he was used to it.
The freshman girls got back. One carried red cups for Ryan and Nick, and the braces one had a forty that was supposed to be for Damon. He wondered what bet she’d lost, ending up with him. She walked slow, smiling all shy and scared, and kept tugging at her tube top that she didn’t have the tits for, but he had to give her credit, she came right up to him.
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted.” She smiled in that braces way, halfhearted, pulling her top lip down over her teeth to hide the metal he could obviously tell was there.
“Cool,” he said. He wasn’t gonna drink it or anything, but this chick had got it for him and if he said he didn’t want it, she might, like, run to the bathroom to cry (every function, somebody always did), and if he said the whole thing about rehab and Lance, she’d just think he was gay. So that was why he took it, sliding his fingers over hers and around the cold, wet glass. Plus it gave him something to hold on to.
The freshman blushed and went back to her long chair where the other girls were crushed, giggling. Damon spread his legs and lounged back in his chair. Arching his neck, he looked up at what sky he could glimpse through the arms of the trees. The sky was clear navy, but the trees were thick and black and waving just enough he knew it wouldn’t be clear for long. There was the hum of people mingling and talking and drinking and smoking and shouting at each other across the deck. And everyone a little unsure ’cause they were at Elisabeth Avarine’s, so it was a distinct possibility the function could turn out to be bunk.
Damon thought that if Nick was tryna get with Elisabeth, he’d better do it already. But she was probably cowering in the kitchen like she was when they walked in, with a look on her face like What did I just do? This chick was hot as fuck but still. No wonder she didn’t have any friends.
Damon tried to relax. He watched the sky and held on to the forty that dripped dew into his palm. The sky he could see was so minimal. That deep in the canyon, it was all just trees. He could hear the creek splashing along in the darkness down below. Over the edge of the deck, there was nothing, and he felt like an astronaut, staring down the kind of black that didn’t end. It was some spooky shit. If he tried to bring his horses, they’d be like, Fuck no, you can stay, we’re getting up out of this bitch.
He started picking at the label on the bottle. He held it up to his face and scratched at it with his fingernail. Shit stuck to his fingers, but he got a few good strips off and shook them onto the deck. Like Lance said, living in the moment. His boys kept up the conversation and the braces girl blushed in his direction and the night was fine (but the air kinda tingly and strange, a rim of a cloud at the edge of the sky) and everything was chill. And then out of nowhere the rain came down.
—
Hammered them like a motherfucker.
They ran inside. Damon and Ryan were fastest and claimed the two white couches in the living room while Nick went to handle the stereo. Ryan took the shorter one, but the girls flocked around him in two seconds, even the braces girl from the deck, and the ones that didn’t make it sat around him on the floor. Most were freshmen and sophomores, but there were a few juniors too—like Emma Fleed, who was short and on the thick side actually, but okay looking, and pretty much DTF with whoever but especially Ryan. And he had the hottest freshman, little Asian-looking chick Emily, perched on the edge by his head and Damon gave him a look like Get there.
Damon’s head and face were wet from the rain. He grabbed a fuzzy white blanket from the back of his couch and rubbed its soft face on his. “Fuck, I gotta get me one a these,” he said. “This shit is the bomb.”
“Ima get one a these couches in my dorm room,” Ryan said. “And put like cozy-ass shit all over it. Ima have all the bitches up in there.”
“What dorm room?” Damon said.
“Fuckin’ college?” Ryan said. “Hello?”
“You’re going to college,” Damon said, and laughed.
“Fuck yeah I’m going to college. My grandpa’s on the board at Pepperdine. Know where that is? Malibu, motherfucker. Ima do my classes at the beach.”
Damon’s heart began to disturb his ribs. Like, When the fuck did this happen? He tried to have his face not show it.
After Ryan, everyone started bragging. Jonas Everett was going to CU Boulder to snowboard. Nick could get in anywhere, everyone said so, but wanted something in The City. Abigail Cress was talking East Coast Ivy League. Dave Chu had scraped the SAT and seemed pretty sure about Berkeley. Emma Fleed had some dance thing in New York. They all knew their GPAs by heart. Took the SAT two, three times already.
Like, When the fuck did this happen?
Out the window the beach kids were crazy dancing in the middle of the storm. Cally Broderick and this hot piece Alessandra Ryding and these weird-ass hippie dudes he knew but didn’t know. They all were soaking wet and the girls’ shirts turning see-through like some kinda magic and it was a good distraction from the inside conversation, Alessandra’s little brown nipples and Cally’s broader pink ones perking through as they spread their arms and licked the sky. Were they going to college too? he wondered. Were they in this secret get-your-shit-together club like everyone but him?
No one had talked to Damon about the SAT. His parents had talked a couple times about the community college that was fifteen minutes away. And he’d said, “Whatever.” Who cared about college, anyway. Sounded boring as fuck.
Now he saw it. Everyone
was going but he was not. This was the last big party of the year. It was gonna be summer, then senior year. It wasn’t too late to apply to places, but D’s and C-minuses weren’t getting him anywhere good. Plus three years of summer school. Getting wrapped. Going to rehab. Not even taking the SAT—was it too late? Could he take it in September? He was so far behind already.
He was an idiot. The fuck did it matter if he did this little homework assignment or that one. Big deal he could stay sober for twelve weeks. Like that meant anything to anyone.
There was one year left before his friends left him behind. Even Ryan, who wasn’t any smarter than him—Damon always thought they’d get an apartment together, hang out and host functions and get all the girls from there to Terra Linda with no problems. And have the time of their lives. But no. Ryan out of nowhere was going to some school on a L.A. movie set. Ryan all of a sudden had a plan. Now he was talking about going to visit. Talking actress girls everywhere, hot tub parties, bonfires on the beach.
What was Damon working so hard for? Since rehab he’d been torturing himself, for what? He cocked the forty to his lips and drank until he felt like his gut and heart and lungs were full of it. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let’s get housed!” he yelled, and all around him a cheer went up.
—
Then he was jumping in the BMW with Ryan in front with him and Nick in back with Cally Broderick, Alessandra Ryding, Emma Fleed. He was driving the dark, curvy streets in full confidence, skimming his thumbs on the leather wheel, kicking back and enjoying the feel of the driver’s seat he’d been kicked out of for so long.
When they got out of the canyon, Cally said she saw a cop, so Nick pushed Emma down and over until she was lying with her head on Alessandra’s lap and her torso stretched over Cally, who petted it. Emma’s ass and legs were still on Nick and she was wearing this, like, ballerina skirt and in the rearview Nick slid his hand under its ruffly hem and she let out a little animal moan and was quiet.
In the passenger seat, Ryan put on this rapper Earl Sweatshirt. He was their age only he was a fuckin’ genius. His voice was deep and it stretched out of his throat like thick black paint pulled over glass, filling all the empty silent spaces that none of them could stand.
“Crank that shit,” Damon said, and Ryan pumped it till there was no room left to think.
In the backseat, Alessandra started to bitch. “Ugh, no. This song is so sexist, you guys.”
Ryan turned it up. The bass shook the car and thrummed in Damon’s chest. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he said, riding the beat. “That is the fuckin’ bee’s knees.”
“Fuck you guys, he’s talking about fucking rape!” Alessandra yelled.
“Turn it off, asshole!” Cally said.
“Why do you always gotta be such a bitch?” Ryan yelled back, and Damon remembered how he and Cally had a thing back in eighth grade, which suddenly seemed so long ago he had to squint to remember it even existed.
“You’re a pig,” Alessandra said.
Emma said nothing. Nick’s eyes were closed and he was making this math-test grimace and Damon wondered what it was that he was concentrating on.
He swerved before he knew it was there. Cally screamed. A deer in the road, standing there staring at him with its shiny eyes. Veering right he felt a thud, a far-off crunch of metal and cracked glass, a push against his seat, a thrust, a tree trunk glossed with rain, a balloon exploding in his face.
Then he was ice calm. He thought, Oh shit, someone got in an accident.
Behind him, Alessandra started yelling, “Oh my God, oh my God!” Ryan was hugging his airbag like a teddy bear and it was funny as shit but it wasn’t. Cally was crying and screaming and Nick was holding up his hands now, staring at his lap. Dark blood sliced his forehead. Damon wondered what he was looking at.
It could have been the sirens he heard or just his memories of them echoing. He didn’t wait to find out. He rolled out the driver’s-side door, took off running through the rain, and didn’t look back.
MISS NICOLL
On the morning after the faculty dinner, Molly scanned the news online. Dutifully she checked the New York Times, although its violent photos and stern headlines had seemed over the recent months increasingly distant and unreal. Then she clicked over to the local Marin Independent Journal:
May 26, 2013
Mill Valley Crash Injures Five Teens, One Critically; Driver Arrested on Suspicion of DUI
by Nathan Hanlon
MILL VALLEY—One juvenile has been detained by police and another is in critical condition after their 2012 BMW 5 Series sedan slammed into a tree at high speed early this morning, officials said. The crash occurred at approximately 1:30 a.m. on Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley, Mill Valley Police Department spokesman Dan Cisco said.
The critically injured teen, a 16-year-old female, is being treated at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae. Four additional passengers were treated for minor injuries and released this morning, hospital officials said.
According to Cisco, the car was driven by a 17-year-old juvenile of Mill Valley and registered to his parents, also of Mill Valley. Cisco added that the teens were fleeing a Cascade Canyon house party that had “spun out of control.” Officers were called to the party scene by a neighbor who complained of “disturbing and excessive noise,” Cisco said, and the accident occurred as the teens exited the canyon and headed toward Lytton Square in downtown Mill Valley.
It is believed that alcohol as well as marijuana and possibly other illegal substances were present at the party. The MVPD is still investigating how the teens obtained the alcohol, said Officer Aaron Shmersky. Several witnesses who wished to remain anonymous indicated that all of the teens, including the driver, had been drinking prior to the accident.
Cisco said the car may have been going as fast as 55 miles per hour through this quiet residential neighborhood when the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed headfirst into the tree, an old-growth redwood native to this region.
Immediately following the crash, the driver attempted to flee the scene, Cisco said. He was pursued on foot by an MVPD officer who observed the accident from his patrol car. The officer was parked a block from the crash site, near the intersection of Throckmorton Avenue and Olive Street. According to Cisco, the driver’s blood alcohol level was measured at 0.16 percent. (The legal limit for adults is 0.08 percent.)
“This incident underscores the need for stricter enforcement of our citywide curfews,” said Mill Valley City Council member Sandra Smith-Wolinsky. “As we have seen in this case, teenagers allowed to roam our community freely and unattended are likely to pose a danger not only to themselves, but to all of us.”
COMMENTS
Al Blackburn: Just more stupid Marin kids taking peoples lives in their hands.
Dianne P.: Don’t teenagers have parents anymore?
Cheryl Yamhill-Brooks: Kids’ brains don’t develop until they are in their twenties. thats why they need guidance to learn about the DANGEROUS affects of drug and alcohol.
steven p.: tax payer money being used to send these iresponsible rich kids to rehab? I DON’T THINK SO.
Greg Hill: What are these parents thinking giving that kid that nice of a car???
Janis W.: I don’t understand why did this happen? When I was a kid I had to buy my own car.
cynthia y.: lock this kid up NOW before he hurts somebody else!
1MarinView: This is not even half the story. Get all the details and REAL reporting at www.onemarinviewblog.com!
—
Molly ventured down the Internet rabbit hole. She typed in the blog’s url. Here names were named. Screenshots were posted from the night before: reposts from teenagers’ accounts on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Vine. She read about the ransacked house of Elisabeth Avarine and the arrest of Damon Flintov. Everywhere were names she knew, and faces. Faces she knew drinking and smoking and grinding and stripping, names she knew—even Nick Bric
kston—spouting obscenities and humiliating the weakest among them. In dull horror she scrolled through nearly naked photos and videos of the injured Emma Fleed, a popular girl who’d eaten lunch in Molly’s classroom but whose name Molly hadn’t known. The kids had posted all this online with apparently brazen indifference, and the Internet had refreshed their posts over and over again, until it seemed the night had occurred not just once but an infinite number of times.
Alone in her apartment, Molly was powerless. She hated the feeling. After an hour of pacing, she gave in to impulse: she picked up her cell phone and dialed the number she had.
“Nick,” she said to his voicemail, “it’s me, Molly. Miss Nicoll. I’ve just seen the news. It’s so horrible, I can’t believe it. What happened last night? I mean, I can see—I know what happened. Everyone knows what happened. But why?” Her voice threatened to crack—she hung up. She sat on the edge of her love seat still vibrating from the call. In her head she heard her message as Nick Brickston would, and she sounded unhinged.
But she was unhinged. These were her kids, and their darkest moments were playing out on a public stage—there had to be something she could do.
She went to Facebook and logged on. She went to Nick’s wall, then Amelia Frye’s, Steph Malcolm-Swann’s, Ryan Harbinger’s, Damon Flintov’s, leaving comments everywhere.
Molly Nicoll: I can’t believe this is happening. What did you guys do??
Molly Nicoll: You know you should have called me! That poor girl who was hurt.
Molly Nicoll: What is the girl’s name? Emma? Who’s her English teacher?
Molly Nicoll: Emma Fleed, I’m so sorry this happened to you.
Molly Nicoll: Damon, you are on my mind. Please msg me if you need to talk.
The Most Dangerous Place on Earth Page 21