There was a lady’s muffled scream of agony, as the police officers tried to explain to Artie’s parents what had become obvious to everyone else watching. Their son had drowned in the swimming pool.
Naz stood silent, twisting a tendril of his hair. He had heard somewhere that you could not feel two opposite emotions at the same time—that sadness couldn’t exist in the presence of joy. But he didn’t know that to be true, and he wondered if that’s what was meant by the term “bittersweet”. Maybe they canceled each other out to nothingness, as that was what he was feeling right then: nothing. He did feel bad for Mrs. Duplessis when he saw the police officers and Mr. Duplessis trying to restrain her. But he didn’t know what to think, what to feel for Artie, and he was ashamed of that. Only then it occurred to him that Meri wasn’t the only one who hadn’t cried since their mother had died.
“Did you know him?” asked D.
“He was my best friend.”
PART TWO
DURATION
In The Past …
Cory and Naz race down the mountainside in the black Suburban.
From high above, the road glides through the virgin forest: humanity has done little to the landscape as the road calmly descends the mountain. Closer in, the same collection seems treacherous as the black Suburban travels up and down narrow pathways and around hairpin turns. Inside the Suburban the atmosphere is again calm as Cory slows a tad to negotiate a tricky bit of road. Further along, he accelerates.
Cory didn’t think it would come to this, but he was prepared. He had turned down the United Nations: the greatest military complex in the world, but he didn’t care about any of that. All he wanted to do was change the world, make a big difference, and he had. He had found a way to make a man more than a man, and in the process given his only son a gift. Still, he couldn’t help but feel he had somehow used his son, and now he was about to lose everything. Well, not everything; he had one last play.
Cory looks at Naz and shakes his head. “I told you, never use your abilities to hurt anyone.”
Naz watches the heat-induced mirages appear and disappear on the road before them. “That fat man wasn’t hurt; he’ll wake up. Anyway, he was trying to hurt me.”
Cory doesn’t respond but continues to look out of the front windshield, clearly troubled. “What?” asks Naz.
“Nothing.”
“I thought you said this was just another training mission. That man was really trying to kill you.”
“I thought I told you never to read people”
“Sometimes I can’t help it … and I wasn’t reading him. It was obvious what he was about to do. He was trying to kill you; there wasn’t blanks in that gun. Tell me the truth. What’s going on, Daddy? What did those men want? Why were they trying to kill you ... and not me?
“‘Weren’t’ blanks in that gun.” Cory stares out the windshield, haunted by what is to come.
“Whatever. Is it because of the things I can do?” asks Naz.
“Why don’t you just read my mind?”
“Because it doesn’t always work with you … and you told me never to do that.”
“Since when did you start listening to me?” Cory takes a deep breath as if gathering courage then continues. “Look, Son, I … I have to go away for a while.”
Naz ponders Cory’s revelation. “Away … what do you mean?” Naz asks with panic in his voice. “This is away.” He looks out the passenger window at the mountains and valleys. “We never see anybody, and nobody ever sees us.”
Cory is silent again.
“Is it because of the things I can do?” Naz raises his voice.
“Yes.” Cory snaps back.
“Then I won’t do them anymore.”
“Like you said, you can’t help it.” Cory smiles.
“I can.”
“It’s who you are. It’s a part of you now … and asking you not to is like asking a bird not to fly.”
“Well, where are we going now? Where are you going?”
Cory pulls a small watch from his shirt pocket, flips it open, and checks the time. As with most things, his calculations are right. Everything is going as planned. He looks at the picture of Camille opposite the watch—she was right. Why can’t we just be normal, everyday folk? Why do you have to change the world? It was one of the last things she said to him before they went their separate ways. The troubled look on her face was burned into his memory.
He had been called the smartest man on the planet, once gracing the cover of Time magazine. “Let’s feed the poor, not make war,” he remembered his then famous quote in the caption. He was the youngest scientist to ever win the Nobel Prize, but none of that mattered now. He would give it all up if he could turn back the hands of time.
He looks at his watch again and then back at the picture of Camille.
“Daddy, what will happen to me?”
“Nothing, you’re going to live with your mother.” He looks back and forth between the watch and the road.
Naz looks at the picture of his mother in Cory’s watch.
They catch each other’s eye.
“Momma? I haven’t seen her since my birthday last year at the park. I don’t … I don’t even know her.”
“You’ll be OK, Son. More importantly, you’ll be safe.” Cory puts the watch back in his pocket and pulls out a powder blue pill.
Naz stares out the passenger window confused, his eyes watering.
“And you better not be crying either,” says Cory in a stern voice as he looks at Naz.
Naz wipes the tears away before they can escape his eyes.
“Here, take this.” Cory hands Naz the pill.
“What is it?”
“Vitamin C.”
“No it’s not.”
“See, you’re right. You can’t help it. You’re reading me again.”
“I wasn’t reading you,” Naz struggles to say and not cry. “You already gave me a vitamin C pill this morning. But I’m reading you now. This will make me forget.”
“Yes.”
“Forget what?”
“Forget all of this.” Cory looks out his driver’s side window at the vast mountains. Rusty guard rails, trees, and foliage rush by. “All the things you can do … and me.”
“I don’t wanna forget,” yells Naz.
“You have to.”
“I don’t want to forget the things you taught me. I-I don’t want to forget you!”
“You have to!” Cory jams on the brakes, and the car comes to a screeching stop on the side of the road. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.” He turns to Naz, who still has the pill in his fist and grabs him by the shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
“What?”
“Do you trust me, Son?”
“Of course.”
“Then look at me, read my mind, and know this to be true. It is the only way to keep you safe … and we will be together again … and you will remember ... when the time is right.”
Naz studies Cory’s eyes for a moment, then closes his own eyes. He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, puts the pill in his mouth, and chews it. He gives Cory a look of forced courage. Cory acknowledges his son’s response with a nod of pride.
Cory begins to speak, but the words are stolen from him by what he sees in his rear view mirror. Naz notices Cory’s eyes and change of expression and turns around to see the Crown Victoria followed by another black sedan. Cory quickly moves back into position, puts the Suburban in drive, and peels away.
“Can you stop those cars, Son?” Cory smiles at Naz.
“Easy,” says Naz with an air of confidence.
“Without hurting anybody?”
“Daddy … trust me.”
“Do it.”
Cory continues to drive at the same dangerous speed, looking back and forth between the road and his rearview mirror where he sees the sedans still gaining on them.
“Now would be a good time, Son.”
“You have to let them get close
r.”
“Closer.”
“Yeah … you don’t want me to accidentally knock one of them off a cliff or make them crash into each other, do you?”
“I thought you were good,” says Cory mockingly as he slows the Suburban, allowing the sedans to close the distance between them.
“Whatever.” Naz has become noticeably disoriented, shaking his head and squinting. “I feel funny … kind of good.”
“Hurry, we’re running out of time.”
“A little more,” Naz struggles to say as he looks out of his passenger side mirror.”
Cory eases off the gas a little more then turns to see Naz slowly closing his eyes.
“Son,” yells Cory.
The first sedan skids right and clips the mountainside. The second sedan skids left and stops just at the cliff’s edge, one tire still spinning in the air. Cory takes in the scene through his rearview mirror as he speeds away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MURDER?
Present Day …
Fears excused Naz from last hour health so he could pick up Meri and return before game-time. Naz took his time walking to Higginbotham as he ran through it all in his mind.
It had been two weeks since Artie’s suicide and Naz still wasn’t buying it. Fears spent the next two days after they found Artie talking about teenage suicide and how it had become an epidemic in the Exclave. He lectured that almost forty percent of kids attempting suicide had made their first try in middle or even elementary school. But not Artie. He was always so happy, so upbeat. He didn’t have any of the signs, like changes in eating habits, violent or rebellious behavior and drug and alcohol abuse that Fears spoke of, or at least Naz wasn’t aware of it. With the exception of their run-in with the gang members weeks earlier, until Naz saw him with Dill and Denali that day, he had never even seen Artie stressed—not one bit.
When Naz told Fears about the exchange he had witnessed in the hall that day between Dill, Denali, and Artie, Fears just blew it off, attributing it to bullying. He said Dill and Denali were both major screw-ups, but they weren’t murderers. Naz suggested to Fears the suicide note the investigating officer found in Artie’s locker must’ve been what Dill and Denali were trying to get Artie to finish that day.
Fears challenged, Naz was reaching, and Dr. Gwen agreed. They insisted Naz didn’t know Artie as well as he thought he did, and he should just let it go. But he couldn’t do that because it wasn’t like when his mother had died. Even with the nightmares, the situation was resolved; he was there that fateful day. With Artie, something was out of place. He couldn’t get it out of his mind, and he was bound and determined to get to the bottom of it.
Naz was relieved the chess coach didn’t take it personally about him postponing joining the chess club until basketball season was over. And Pauling seemed just as excited to see Naz on the basketball team as he did when he had heard about Naz joining the chess club; in fact, a little too excited. He expressed his concerns to Fears about Pauling, about seeing Pauling that first day of school and at the festival.
Fears seemed surprised at how paranoid Naz was. He suggested Naz was too young to let such thoughts plague him, and he should start hanging out with the team more, having some fun, and getting into some kid-trouble, but nothing too serious.
And then there was Ham. After practice one day Fears pulled Naz aside and asked that he have a little patience with Ham and not be so quick to judge. He said Ham needed a friend like Naz and just because Ham had a mom, dad, and seven brothers and sisters at home didn’t mean he felt like he had a family. Fears offered that he knew from experience, with eight brothers and sisters of his own, that more could actually feel like less. But just the same, Naz walked a different way to school every morning to avoid running into Ham. He didn’t trust him anymore, and he couldn’t help that.
As Naz approached Meri on her school’s steps, she was too enthralled in the book she was reading to notice him. He snatched the book, startling her.
“What’s this?” he asked playfully.
“Quit.” She grabbed for the book. “You coulda ripped it. It’s a library book. You woulda paid for it too.”
Holding her back with his free arm he looked at the cover to read:
Clairvoyance, Thought Transference, Auto Trance, and Spiritualism
By: L.W. de Laurence
She calmed down when she saw his reaction.
“They don’t have books like this in your school’s library,” he said suspiciously as he opened the book and fanned the pages.
“That library.” She pointed across the street.
“Meri, you know you’re not supposed to leave the school.” He thought about the implications of the book and Meri’s excursion to the public library across the street, shook his head, and handed the book back.
She ignored the gesture. “So, are you excited?”
“About the game … maybe … a little. I hope it’s a whole lot more fun than practice.”
“Is your girlfriend with no name coming?”
“She’s not my girlfriend, and she has a name.” He laughed.
“Not your girlfriend, yet … and D … is not a name.”
“Well, I don’t know if she’s coming.”
“So have you figured it out yet?”
“What?” He knew what she was asking.
“You know, the murder mystery?”
“It’s not a game, Meri,” he said in a serious tone.
“I know,” she replied apologetically.
“Like everyone says, it was suicide. There was a suicide note. It’s open and shut … case closed.”
“But you still don’t believe that, do you?”
“Not for one second.” He jumped at the chance to vent. “Coach said that Dill and Denali aren’t murderers, but he also said suicide attempts start in elementary school.” He looked at her suspiciously. “If suicide can start that early, then murder can too. It’s all disregard for life, and I don’t put anything past Dill and Denali. They were with Artie just before it happened. Why? Somebody once told me that there’s no such thing as a coincidence … and I believe it.”
“Your dad?”
“Maybe … probably.”
“You’ll catch ’em, Naz. I know it.” She embraced her library book. “I have a surprise … actually two surprises.”
“What?”
“You have to wait, until the game and later tonight.”
Naz hated surprises, especially the ones he had to wait for. “Well why’d you say anything at all?”
“’Cause I like to see you squirm.”
“Well I don’t care, and I ain’t squirmin’ either.”
“OK.”
The two walked in silence for a few minutes.
“So, you’re really not gonna tell me, huh?”
“Nope.” She moved her head to an imaginary beat. “But listen.” She put her hand on his chest, stopping him. “Can you hear that?”
“What?”
“Sounds a lot like somebody squirmin’ to me.”
They both laughed.
“Payback is a dog, you little firecracker.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PEP-TALK
Fears came out of his office with a cardboard box as the team sat impatiently waiting in the War Room. “Gentleman, I have an announcement to make. You are looking at next year’s varsity boys’ basketball coach for the Union High School Dreadnoughts.”
The boys looked confused and began clapping tentatively.
“But fear not …” said Fears, pausing.
Naz assumed it was because of Fears’ word selection—the emphasis on fear.
“Fear not,” Fears continued. “You will be stuck with me for the rest of this season.”
All the boys clapped in relief.
“I’ve had championships before,” continued Fears. “I’ve had championship teams before. But one thing that has eluded me here at Lincoln is an undefeated season. That is my goal. That will be
your goal. I believe this to be the finest team I’ve ever coached, but make no mistake. This will be no easy task; Marshal is the toughest division in Section 31, maybe the whole of the Exclave. With a great team last year, we still came up one game short. I have something for all of you just to make this season memorable.”
Fears reached in the box and pulled out a crisp, brand new, royal blue jersey. The boys’ faces lit up. Their last names and favorite numbers were on the back. The funny-looking caricature of Honest Abe graced the front and there was a black strip on the left shoulder of each jersey in honor of their fallen comrade. He passed them out until he came to the starters.
Fears announced, “First, we have number thirteen, Milt the Stilt Kaseltree. Do your nick-name-sake good tonight, son. It’s war on the boards. Try to get at least as many rebounds as Bender here.”
“Not gonna happen, Coach,” said Soul confidently. “He’d have to get over fifteen.”
“Speaking of the number fifteen, we have,” said Fears. “the Animal, Bender.”
“Soul, Coach,” said Soul.
“Whatever they call you, try to not get kicked out the first game of the season … and don’t try to dunk the ball on every open lay-up, unless we’re up by thirty of course. The same goes for you,” said Fears, as he looked at Naz. “Which brings us to number thirty-two. Welcome to the team, Andersen.”
“Thank you, Coach.” Naz nodded as the other boys pushed him around playfully.
“And next we have number three. Something about this number works for you, son. I don’t know how you did it, probably by the skin of your teeth.”
“We know how, Coach,” said Soul.
Some of the boys laughed and pointed at Ham. Ham was dating Victoria Bethlehem: one of the not-so-popular, not-so-attractive girls of Lincoln Middle, just so she would do his homework and help him pass his tests. It was his master-plan for getting eligible to play ball, but something inside told Naz Ham had actually started liking Victoria.
“Well I don’t wanna know,” bellowed Fears, settling the boys down. “But, congratulations on getting your grades … and don’t feel like you have to shoot the ball every time you touch it tonight, Martinez.”
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