Sons of the 613

by Michael Rubens

  “I know you!” says Terri.

  The look of horror on Senior’s face indicates he really, really didn’t expect this.

  “I see you in the club all the time, you pervert!” says Terri.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but anyone who says that line the way he says it knows exactly what the other person is talking about.

  “Oh, yeah? How’d you like me to tell your wife what you do in the club?”

  “Now, listen,” he says, but she’s already in his face, crowding him.

  “You know what we think of bastards like you, guys who are always groping the girls?”

  “Look—”

  “You know what you are?” she says. “You’re a . . .”

  It’s astonishing. I don’t think I’ve ever produced a sentence that long and complex in my entire life, and it’s pure obscenities, a nonstop chain-gun explosion of abuse at full volume. I look around, fearful/hopeful that the neighbors are watching, and yes, of course, there is Mr. Olsen, standing in his front yard, not even trying to disguise his fascination. Tim Senior is trying to interrupt Terri, trying to get a word in edgewise. “Now just hold on a minute—”

  Fire-hose power stream of insults.

  Now he’s switching to holding up two hands to placate her: “I can see you’re upset.”

  Increased intensity of insults.

  Attempted counterattack: “You listen to me!”

  Insults reach white-hot fever pitch.

  And then he’s just turning tail and fleeing toward his car as she dogs him at every step, still going, determined to drown him in her ire.

  It’s all a farce now, an episode of Cops playing out right there on our front yard. It’s going to be okay! Terri saved Josh! There’s no way Senior got that 911 call off. He’s going to drive away, and we’ll go back in and it’s all going to be fine! Patrick is laughing. I’m laughing. I think even Mr. Olsen is laughing. It’s all fine.

  But then Senior kind of pushes Terri away, and Josh escapes from Patrick and strides across the lawn and grabs Mr. Phillips by the shoulder and spins him around and gives him a lightning punch in the stomach.

  “OOOoohh!” says Tim Phillips Senior, or something like that, but I can’t hear it, because it’s blotted out by a harsh staticky squawk coming from the police car that is pulling up to the curb.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  TERRI PROVES HER WORTH

  MERIT BADGE: LEGAL KNOWLEDGE

  Important lesson, learned just this very instant: When the cops show up to your house, do not run toward them waving your hands as they’re climbing out of their squad car and say, “Please, you don’t need to Taser my brother!”

  It’s immediately apparent that my request has had the exact opposite effect from what I was hoping. They exchange a look, and one of them reaches to undo the snap on his Taser holster.

  “Go back inside, please,” says one of them.

  There’s no way they got here this quickly from Tim Senior’s call. It had to be a neighbor. It’s the two officers from the day of the fire: generic Minnesota faces, almost identical in their blandness, except one has a white patch in his cropped blond hair.

  “Inside, please,” repeats White Patch.

  Instead I run back across the front yard to Josh and say, “Josh, do not resist arrest,” because he’s got that look.

  Patrick has a different look, a completely blank expression, the sort you must learn to produce after years of being stopped by the police. Terri is still shrieking at Tim Phillips Senior, who is bent double, one hand on his gut, the other resting on the side of his SUV for support. I’m praying that Lisa is still on the back porch.

  “What’s going on, Josh?” says the other cop, the wrestling fan from the other day. White Patch is talking into his radio.

  “What the hell do you think is going on, you dumb bastard!” bellows Tim Senior, who I don’t think is making any friends today. “This sonofabitch assaulted me!”

  “Josh, can you come over here for a moment?” says Wrestling Fan. It’s not really a request. Both of them have their batons out. Josh hasn’t budged.

  “That bastard hit me!” screams Senior again, his voice breaking on “hit.”

  “The EMTs are on their way,” says the tall one.

  “I don’t need any goddamn EMTs, I need you to arrest him!”

  “Josh,” says Wrestling Fan, “I need you to put your hands on your head and turn around. Josh, hands on your head and turn around. There’s an easy way and a hard way.”

  “Josh,” I hiss. “Don’t. I can see what you’re thinking.”

  There are other neighbors out, watching. A car has slowed.

  “He hit my kid, too!” says Senior, who is now standing mostly straight up.

  “We’ll talk to you in a moment, sir,” says White Patch. They’re walking slowly toward Josh. Wrestling Fan has put away the baton and drawn the Taser.

  “Josh!” says Wrestling Fan, Taser trained on Josh. “Hands on your head and turn around! Now! NOW!”

  Strategy. Think! Chessboard! Consequence mind! What would Josh respond to?

  “Josh, if you resist, they’ll Taser you. They’ll beat you up with their batons!”

  Nothing. He’s still keyed up, not hearing me.

  “Josh, if you get arrested, Mom and Dad will kill you!”

  Of course that’s not going to work. Think!

  “Who’s going to take care of us?”

  A glance at me, then he refocuses on the cops. He does a little neck roll, a move I’ve seen him do right before a wrestling match, except this time he’s warming up to a felony.

  “Josh! If you get arrested, I’ll tell Lisa that you’re a drug dealer and that you’ve been dealing drugs to little kids.”

  This gets him to actually look at me.

  “I swear to God, I will,” I say.

  He lets them cuff him and put him in the back of the patrol car. They call things in on the radio, and an ambulance shows up, only to have Tim Senior shout the EMTs away. He’s furious, screaming at the cops, saying, “A fifth-degree misdemeanor? A citation? What the hell does that mean! He assaulted me!”

  “Looks to me like he punched you in the stomach,” says Officer Thomke, the wrestling fan. “Once.” Both he and Federson, the one with the white patch, have been using their professionally polite tones, disconnecting their mouths from their emotions.

  “He resisted arrest!”

  “You know what?” says Federson, writing something in his notepad. “I actually know what resisting arrest is. And you can be sure we would have handled this pretty differently if he’d resisted arrest, ’kay?”

  “Now, you said something about him hitting your kid?” asks Thomke.

  Blink and you’d miss it—Tim Senior glances over at Terri, who is watching from about ten feet away. She raises an eyebrow.

  “He hit your kid?” repeats Thomke.

  “No . . . forget it,” says Senior.

  Another lesson learned: If you punch someone in front of a cop in Hennepin County, they don’t arrest you and take you to jail unless they think you’re planning to commit another crime. Instead they give you a citation for a fifth-degree misdemeanor, just like Tim Senior was complaining about. You have to go to court, though.

  We watch from the porch as the cops talk to Josh. Terri comforts Lisa, who finally came outside to see what was going on and is now crying and clinging to her adopted older sister. Tim Senior has left, screeching off down the road, the cops looking at each other and shaking their heads. Now they’ve taken Josh out of the squad car and uncuffed him, and Federson is writing out a ticket. The mood seems very different: I can’t hear them, but from their movements, Thomke seems to be querying Josh about wrestling techniques. At one point Josh even demonstrates on an eager Thomke, grabbing one of his legs to illustrate the finer points of a takedown, both Federson and Thomke nodding—Ah, now we get it.

  “See that?” says Patrick. “That’s the th
ing about your boy. He knows how to make friends with people.”

  “When he’s not punching them,” I mutter.

  There are handshakes all around, and then Josh walks toward us across the lawn. Thomke calls after him: “You’re gonna make that court date, right, Josh? And stay out of trouble?” Josh twists and gives him a little half salute/half wave in confirmation.

  “Josh, I’m dead serious about this,” says Thomke. “You get into trouble again before the arraignment, even something small, and I guarantee you’re gonna end up in jail.”

  “Got it.”

  “Gonna behave?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “Okay, then.”

  As we watch the cops drive off, Josh’s phone pings. He digs it out in a hurry and reads it. Whatever it says, it transforms him, fills him with joy. It’s a type of smile I don’t remember seeing from him before, a moment of pure, unguarded happiness and excitement, like a kid who was expecting coal but instead got a pony.

  “What?” says Patrick.

  “Remember that party you were talking about?” Josh says to me.

  “The one we’re not supposed to have?” I say. “That party?”

  “Yep. We’re going to have it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  PARTY PREP

  “Josh, you heard those cops. You can’t get in trouble again.”

  “What trouble? What’s going to happen?”

  It’s about an hour after the cops left our house. We’re in the parking lot of a liquor store. He’s placing the second large keg into the trunk, the car sinking visibly under the weight.

  “Uh, you’re buying forty-five gallons of beer?”

  “So?”

  “You’re underage?”

  “Not according to my ID I’m not.”

  Patrick is grunting, trying to lift the third keg. Josh grabs one of the handles and they put it in the trunk. Josh starts to tie the trunk lid closed.

  “Is this part of the Quest, Josh?” I ask.

  “Sure, yeah. You’re learning how much beer to get for a house party.”

  “Josh, Mom and Dad—”

  “Aren’t home.”

  “You signed the contract.”

  “The situation has evolved.”

  I know how it evolved. I did a little more electronic espionage, snooping on Josh’s phone. There was a string of text messages between him and Trish.

  TRISH: You could have a party.

  JOSH: Not like youd come.

  TRISH: I might.

  JOSH: You wont get a drink w/me but youd come to a house party.

  TRISH: Maybe.

  And so on, back and forth, until the sentence that I saw him composing earlier: If I do it, will you show up?

  And the magic, golden-smile-inducing reply:

  TRISH: Yes.

  So we’re at the liquor store. I don’t know why, but I try again: “Josh, you can’t have a party.”

  “Why not?”

  “Things could happen. Things could go wrong.”

  “Like what? It will just be a few people. It will be fine.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  AN INVITATION

  I still wasn’t feeling great, so I spent the next day at home too, mostly napping. When I woke up this morning Josh was still asleep. I’m not sure why, but I went for a short run and did some pushups and sit-ups. Also, I actually studied my haphtarah by myself after last night’s beer run, because Josh seemed pretty distracted. I’m not sure if the Quest is still on or not.

  I decide on an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the summer soccer league. I’m not employing any product. Other than my haircut, there is no trace of the Lesley-influenced New Isaac. All right, I am wearing boxer briefs, but no one is going to know about that unless things get really weird.

  The scratches on my face have scabbed over into three semiparallel lines running down my cheek. Like Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea, with the scars on his face from the nameless black beast that he summoned from the lonely outer darkness.

  I ride my bike to school, timing it so that I arrive just before homeroom starts, meaning there will be fewer kids outside or walking through the halls, and those who aren’t in classrooms will be concentrating on getting to them as quickly as possible. Before I step through the doors I take a moment for a deep breath. You got nothin’, says Patrick. Right. You got nothin’.

  The school is a foreign country. It feels like a century since I’ve been here. I walk through the halls, past the lunchroom, the gym, the trophy case, and I wonder if it will ever seem normal again. It’s like one of those optical illusions, where once you see it one way you can’t go back to seeing it the other. But it’s not the school that has changed, it’s me.

  The first test: homeroom. But Paul isn’t there. Maybe he’s out sick. I sigh in relief. I sit and bury my head in a book. If people are looking at me, I don’t know it. When the bell rings and I’m walking out, Mr. Leopold pulls me aside.

  “You all right? Not like you to be absent.”

  I give him the note that Josh signed for me. Mr. Leopold reads it.

  “You feeling better?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened here?” he says, wiggling his finger at his own face, asking about the condition of mine. A nameless black beast from the outer darkness is what happened.

  “Nothing. Just wrestling with my brother.”

  I make it through the next two periods without incident. No one pays any attention to me. I don’t spot the Assholes. I don’t have any classes with Paul or Steve or Danny today, and I don’t intend to seek them out at lunch.

  It’s right before third period that I spot Danny. I’m just turning away from my locker, and there he is, walking straight toward me. He looks determined.

  “Hi, Danny,” I say when he gets close.

  He punches me in the face.

  In the forehead, really. It makes a bonking noise, sort of a miniversion of what it sounded like when Josh elbowed me. I reach my hand up and touch the impact point, surprised. Danny has taken a step back and is standing there, his fists clenched, his eyes wide, looking as surprised as me. And scared. And in pain. I think he hurt his hand on my forehead.

  We’re both nearly motionless, except for me rubbing the spot where he hit me. He is breathing hard, waiting for me to make the next move. So I do.

  “My brother is having a party tonight,” I say. “Wanna come?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE PARTY

  MERIT BADGES: TOO NUMEROUS TO COUNT.

  The floor is a living thing under my feet, vibrating, pulsing like a heartbeat under the collective weight of the ten thousand people packed into our home, all those individuals blending into some sort of supercreature bouncing ecstatically to the music.

  “This is a fucking awesome party!” bellows Patrick, his words less comprehensible through hearing than through lip reading, the music overwhelming his voice.

  I’m used to his enthusiastic speaking style, and I’ve got my mouth shut and eyes reflexively squinted. Danny and Steve and Paul are just meeting him now, though, so I’m pretty sure they caught some spray, especially with the way that they’re goggling at his appearance, mouths agape.

  “Patrick!” I bellow up at him. “These are my friends, Danny, Paul, and Steve!”

  “What’s up, Motherfuckahs!!”—the last syllable in a ghetto falsetto. High-fives that nearly take each of our arms off, a “Yeah, dude!” accompanying each slap, and then he bends and grabs Steve’s head like a melon and mashes his forehead against Steve’s in a primitive greeting, giving him three gentle-ish head butts. “Yeah!” says Patrick as he’s doing it. “Gimme some pain!”

  Then he straightens and dance-squeezes his way through the throng and is lost to sight, his Mohawk scraping the ceiling.

  “What the hell was that?” shouts Danny, wiping punk-rock spittle off his face.

  “That’s just Patrick,” I shout back.

  The Four Geekatee
rs, together again.

  After Danny punched me and I invited him to the party, we went for a long walk around the school. And we talked. I apologized for hitting him. He apologized for hitting me. We agreed we were even. I told him a little bit about my adventures the past few days, with plenty of lingering on the strip club part of the story.

  Mostly we had one of those awkward but hopeful talks you have after a bad argument, where you’re both hideously aware of the issue but you’re intentionally avoiding it and doggedly talking about other things, giving each other verbal pat-pats, both of you smiling and laughing just a bit too hard because you’re so desperate to get things back to Normal.

  The three of them showed up around nine o’clock, as the party was starting to pick up speed, dumping their bikes on the front lawn. I hadn’t yet talked to Paul or Steve, and there was a good ten seconds where no one said anything when I opened the front door. Then Paul pointed at my Ramones shirt and said, “You are so gay.”

  “Sooo gay,” seconded Steve, and I knew everything was going to be all right. Things are right back to Normal.

  But in the back of my head there’s a little voice telling me that everything has changed, that it will never be quite the same.

  A new song starts, louder than the last, everyone cheering. So much for “a few people”: there are cars parked in our driveway, cars halfway on our lawn, cars up and down and probably around the block. There are people crammed into every square foot of the upstairs, the downstairs, the backyard. The musics are loud—musics plural, because there are at least three competing sources thumpa thumpa thumping against each other in an epic battle for dominance: the stereo in the living room, a portable boom box in the basement, and another one out back where the kegs are. I saw Josh out there earlier in the center of a cheering mob, hoisting one of the 170-pound kegs above his head and drinking directly from the nozzle that someone held in his mouth. Somebody may call the cops because of the noise, but it’s not going to be Mr. Olsen. He’s in the sardine-packed kitchen, beer in hand, big grin on his face, chatting up one of Terri’s stripper friends.