Into that Good Night

by Levis Keltner

  Tiffany covered her mouth loosely with the back of her hand as she laughed. E. could see that the girl wasn’t trying to appear modest. She looked truly ugly when she laughed. Tiffany’s mouth and eyes tensed as if speeding a hundred miles an hour in a car without a windshield.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what school the kid goes to. I really don’t. But probably Paragon Prep. You know, the delinquent school. But! I met him … over there.” She pointed through the dark at the crime scene.

  “In what way does he—excuse me—” Alex blinked, freckled nose wrinkling “—look like Doug?”

  “Oh, he’s got a buzzed head. The thin and pale type. Sickly. No offense, genius. I’d say too thin, though—like, stretched out. Doug, you’re a short-thin, so it works on you. Maybe skeletal? Like the guy thinks he’s a genius, some big deal, but all he eats is alcohol and pills and smoke.”

  E. passed the bottle around John—who rocked back and forth, either looking into the fire or eyes closed—to Josué, who also passed. Doug was stuck with it, then. He scrutinized the label like a connoisseur, stalling.

  “What did he do to you?” Alex asked, not intending to upset Tiffany. It was a hardball question, the liquor talking. Alex leaned in and unapologetically stared across the fire at Tiffany.

  The flickering light on Alex’s face made the girl appear bewitched, Tiffany thought, almost sexy.

  “I wouldn’t let that bastard touch me. Once, he tried hitting on me by bragging he’d killed the principal’s dog. The kid gives me the creeps,” she said. “But he always has a lot of good drugs. I’m sorry, but he does.”

  “He knew Erika?”

  “Hey! That’s two more sips. Doug—” Tiffany took the bottle from his hands (thankfully), tipped it back, without making a show of it this time, and sent it around. Greg passed.

  Alex took two deep breaths and two splashes down the throat. The liquid was developing a noxious aftertaste reminiscent of men’s aftershave. Alex’s body temperature had risen, and so the sweater vest got shed and cuffs loosened.

  “You’re really pretty, actually,” Tiffany said and looked around the circle defensively. “What? She is. That’s an observable factoid, my good friends.”

  “You know what I want to know,” Alex said. “Is Rocky capable? Do you suspect him?”

  “Are you kidding me? Everyone’s a suspect. I don’t know many kids who haven’t come to the woods and partied. Erika and me, we’d meet a lot of weirdos out here. Some of them weren’t kids, but older people who were perverts or maybe just bored. Mostly, it was parties, drinking, some drugs, and other stuff. Yeah, sex. Get over yourselves. Sometimes, though, shit got weird. This one time, I don’t know what Rocky gave us. It was like acid or E.” She smiled, no longer self-conscious. “E., you need some E. in your life, that’s what I think. It was a candy cocktail that Rocky called Purple Rain. Though the candy wasn’t purple. It was piss-colored with some black symbols on it. So we do the candy—Rocky calls his pills candy. ‘You want candy, little girl?’ He says it like he’s some forty-year-old creepo and not some nerdball sixteen-year-old creepo. We do the candy—me, him, and Erika—we eat it—whatever—and the woods get streaky. Not like a blurry camera or whatever, but like the trees and us are trapped behind glass, and you can see smudges in the glass where God didn’t do such a great job cleaning up because the fire is turned up so bright behind us. Erika—oh, man—she’s totally naked. Because that’s Erika. She still had her neon gym shoes on and these white cotton panties, which is hilarious if you know her. Knew. She was jogging in place, like just warming up. Everything else was gone, until she sprinted in a circle, just like a blurry camera this time, where the light leaves tails in the air. She made a solid white ring around the fire. That’s how fast she was. Give me the fucking bottle again, E. I don’t know how she took her jeans off—unlaced her shoes, pulled off her pants, laced them back up? I don’t get scared often. But there’s this man standing there all of a sudden. I must’ve known it before. People come and go. I was pretty high. The guy was weird, but he was Rocky’s friend. What do you expect, right? I’m on the ground when I notice him. I get the chills like it’s eight freaking degrees out, which is why I’m laid out by the fire to thaw. Erika says something to me at one point, and I lift my head to see Rocky and this older dude, who just appeared out of nowhere, and Erika, of course, who’s still tits-out but has her sweater tied over her shoulders like a cape, as if she thinks she looks very fashionable like that. You know. She just wanted people to admire her and all that puke. And the one guy—the older guy, he has a stubby knife out. Not like he’s going to slash anyone to death. He’s picking at his nails—I guess cleaning them—and he’s got this big grin on. The guy really looked like a bum. He was kinda dirty, or more like dusty. And I remember thinking, ‘That guy wears a lot of gray.’”

  “How old was he? Twenty?” Alex asked.

  “No. Way older. He cut his hand then, and … eh, it got too weird.”

  “Please,” Alex said, “I need to know everything.”

  “You really don’t. You’re not as twisted as me. Only Erika could hang. She was a total bitch and the best friend ever.”

  “We need to know,” Alex switched strategies, “to help her.”

  “I don’t know, not really—was it by accident or on purpose? You couldn’t tell because the guy still had this big grin. I was high, fucked up, so maybe none of it was all real. Blood ran down his hand, like how tears drip when you’re bawling like a baby. And then—I was still out of it, seeing things, these albino bats flickering around the edges of my eyeballs that were more annoying than anything. Rocky drank some of it, the guy’s blood. The guy’d made a fist, let it drip into Rocky’s mouth. Rocky was stretched out with his hands behind his head, just kicking it, relaxing, you know, drinking this guy’s blood. It didn’t all get into his mouth. Some splattered on his nose, down his chin. So Erika had a lick. She crawled over on all fours and licked his face. I don’t know if she did more than that. Blood makes me squeamish, so I think I vomited. She wanted me to do it. No way. Not even if it was on the face of a really cute guy. I mean no one should need to tell you that that’s a majorly fucked thing to do. Erika was out of her mind. We all were, and everyone’s done stupid stuff. So drop it, detective. I don’t want to talk anymore about the past.”

  They waded through an awkward silence. Some expected Tiffany to wink or shout, “Suckers!” She set down the bottle and hunched at the waist. Her hair pitched over her head and waved dangerously close to the fire. She swept it out of her face and, miserable, stared at the flames.

  John regarded the moon as if deciding whether to walk there. During Tiffany’s story, E. had gotten up. She had her back to the group, arms crossed. The others didn’t know what to do. They’d hardly seen Tiffany in any other state than raging excitement.

  “I miss Erika,” Tiffany said. “She was … just a kid, you know? I should’ve looked out for her. I didn’t. I didn’t and—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry—E. I’m sorry, guys.”

  “Don’t do that.” Alex came around to her.

  “I know. I know, but—I’m sorry, you know?”

  Greg made room for Alex. Tiffany closed her eyes and let Alex hold her. She hid her face in Alex’s sweater.

  Doug watched Alex hold on with no outward expression of sympathy, as if content to serve merely as a warm body, face stern if anything, protective, responsible for pushing Tiffany in the pursuit of adding two new suspects to the list—Rocky and the Man in Gray. Eyelids droopy, but not guilty-looking, either, it was late and Alex had had a bit to drink. On the other side, Doug put his hand on Tiffany’s shoulder to say he cared. Tiffany didn’t shrug away, so he didn’t dare try for more and rub her in consolation. He didn’t know how to care for anyone. When someone in his family got upset, they went to their room until it blew over. Doug had sometimes wished his family wasn’t like that. To be able to touch Tiffany, even uncomfortably in that moment, made him necessary and, for the firs
t time, glad to be in the woods.

  It was past midnight. The fire was dying, and E. called time to bed down. They would rotate in pairs, she said, and guard the camp in two-hour shifts. A murderer was still out there. If anybody needed anything, call her name and she’d take care of it, she added. E. was playing the overseer, who acknowledged that others’ physical and emotional needs required attention. She’d assumed the role partially out of responsibility for talking the group into the idea, partially out of necessity. John couldn’t be relied on to manage matters of the material world, and their work in the woods truly was a matter of life and death. Her manner was only a role, affected. What knowledge or experience did she alone have that qualified her to lead? Tiffany’s nightmarish story had proved that E. knew very little about what people—kids—were capable of. Her paper castle at the public library, though raised on pillars of wisdom, had served mostly as a defense against lessons from struggle, and, in her inexperience, E. was more of a child than Tiffany. This didn’t make her envious. She was repulsed by Tiffany’s behavior, yet humbled by her own ignorance. So, to keep the others strong, E. assigned the order of the watchers as if her plan to safeguard the camp was best and foolproof. Tiffany and Doug would take first watch. John offered to take the last. He didn’t sleep much, he said. The kids unfurled their sleeping bags, zippers tinkling like tiny dull bells in some pagan rite to clear the air of ghosts.

  The group lay down in the woods and closed their eyes against the night while the terror inside E. of losing one of her friends rattled her uncertainty about asking for their help. Naivete seemed to underpin her every decision. In assuming command, she’d imitated her dad whose shouting matches with Mom had returned now that the initial shock of losing their daughter had worn off. E. had long thought they’d be happier divorced. Instead, they kept waiting on her to get a little older to be able to better cope. Meanwhile, their bitterness grew and made any kind of relationship afterward impossible. Worse, it made her feel complicit in their misery. They don’t know what they’re doing. The thought echoed through her body and roused both sympathy and resentment. As leaders of their family, they were responsible for their actions—just as she was responsible if somebody got killed out here tonight. She was doing her best, as they probably were. Tomorrow she would have to dispel the illusion of her confidence in the group’s safety so they could choose their own fate, free of her influence, she decided. It was the only way she could continue to believe they were doing the right thing.

  Doug watched E. fold John into his sleeping bag. She sat up in her own a minute after that. Doug thought she might look up and say something. She zipped herself in behind John and spooned the guy. The Dead Man had won. He was Doug’s better in so many ways, except for lacking the capacity to love her. It was obvious to him now: E. wasn’t John’s girlfriend, but his nurse. She lay at his side, corpse-like herself, vibrant red hair accentuating the dead white of her skin, content or at least prepared to tuck in the guy and say goodnight on the day he took his final rest. And after? Maybe she’d return. Go walking with Doug, arm-in-arm this time, kicking the autumn leaves along some sidewalk, maybe as soon as this fall, invite him up to her bedroom where they would look back at their crazy business in the woods and laugh in astonishment at how they’d spent the last days of their childhood. He couldn’t picture her calling John a big mistake. Maybe a learning experience, a necessary encounter with death and dying. Would he take E. back? His imagination had already answered. Doug didn’t want to think of her at all. He wanted to think about Tiffany and nothing but Tiffany, the way E. obsessed over John. He wished he were more grateful that she’d given them the first round of night watch. She must’ve guessed at what could happen, allowing them to stay up late alone.

  During the first hour, he and Tiffany tended the fire and listened to the trees groan. They made up funny names for the animals that chirred and whooped and whistled around the ridge. Then they talked softly about all the reasons Tiffany had dropped out of cheerleading.

  “I’m kinda running away,” she said. “It feels good. Better than what I was doing. Which was letting people hurt me for as long as they felt like it. I’m staying away from the troublemakers. Like we agreed. Remember?”

  Doug mostly listened. He asked questions to keep her talking. He was afraid of what he might say if she stopped. He asked who her troublemakers were and immediately regretted it. Hearing about all the things she’d experienced was excruciating. He knew, he just didn’t want the barbed details about the various drugs and being intimate with athletes like John, Doug’s betters except for their inability to care about her beyond what they could get from her sexually.

  “Were you in love with them?” he asked. It was a stupid question. Something deep inside himself had spewed it, needed to hear her answer.

  Tiffany said she wasn’t sure she believed in love.

  “I think people take what they want from you, or they sit around waiting for it to drop in their laps,” she said. “We might be on their wish list, or not. Or be on it for a while. Then they get bored, want something new. Caring about someone despite bullshit and life, despite everything, is something our parents can’t even get right half the time. Not mine. I don’t pretend to be much better at it—love. Not at all. It’s a goddamn shame.”

  If not love, Doug didn’t know what she wanted from him. He wasn’t sexy or handsome or smart or remotely funny. All he had was his laser-beam attention, a few dribbled words of affection, and a heart-shaped bucket full of love. Doug wasn’t even sure that he could love Tiffany. Mostly he wished his worries would shut up before he blew a once-in-his-lifetime opportunity. A beautiful girl was treating him like a human being, and he was thankful for that and tempted that she was a girl who would go all the way. But she’d probably done stuff Doug couldn’t even dream up, and that made him feel small.

  Tiffany grew tired of hearing herself speak, think even, and stopped to let the genius get a word in about her totally fucked life. The dork nodded his head a long time. He went still and then she feared he’d fallen asleep. The kid was searching the stars with watery eyes magnified by his glasses as if mocking John or else really praying to God. She’d scared the shit out of him, she realized. Tiffany kissed him, rubbed his thigh, taking it slow to ground him. The kid was like a stone, and not in the way she wanted. He wouldn’t touch her or respond at all. She unsnapped her bra to make it easier to forget himself. The trick always worked on timid boys, though wasn’t much fun, handing herself over. Doug touched her breast through her shirt, tenderly with his fingertips, just the one.

  He pulled away and apologized.

  “What’s going on, Dougy?”

  “Don’t—I don’t like to be called that.”

  Dougy sounded too close to Ducky, the childhood nickname his parents still used. He wasn’t grown, but didn’t feel like a kid anymore. E. called him that, too, and he wanted to forget her.

  Tiffany tried to reach him with a joke: “Don’t worry. These babies didn’t make it on John’s list of commandments.”

  Doug couldn’t laugh. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by saying the wrong thing or the right thing poorly.

  Tiffany said to treat her right, damnit, and be straight with her.

  “It’s not how I wanted you,” he said.

  “OK. Well, how did you want me?”

  “I wanted to feel … special.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  “I know. I’m stupid.”

  “I’ll say,” she said. “I’m kidding. It’s stupid because you are special, ya dope.”

  “I don’t want to be anybody—just anybody, I mean.”

  “How do you think you make me feel when you clam up like you’re doing? Newsflash: You’re not the cutest guy I’ve been with. Not the least, either. You’re cute in this frog-ish way. Like I want to put you in my pocket and take you to my room and pet you. That’s not why I kiss you. I like that we can talk about stuff and be real with each other. That’s rare
. You know that?”

  “Yeah. Like a friend … sorta.”

  “Right. I want a different life than the one I had. Right now, that means being with someone I can call my friend.”

  Doug looked up at Tiffany. Her smile was thin-lipped, cheeks taut and eyes scrunched, wonderfully so, a humanizing grimace of joy. Doug took her hand as she moved to cover her mouth. To see her happy because of him was all he could possibly ask for in life. Their eyes met. He hoped she was feeling something like that, too, and wanted to kiss. Otherwise, he didn’t know where to drop his gaze. Her chest was still bulging inches from his hand, and even in the firelight, the translucent pink of her nipples showed through her shirt.

  “Doug, I can give these babies to whoever I want, for whatever reason. Got me?” she said. “I’m giving them to you now for a very specific reason: I thought you cared about me. Me-me. Not just—” she lifted one breast, let it bob “—me.”

  “But I really do, actually.”

  “It surprises you, too, huh?”

  “I mean—I do … care. You’re—”

  “The hottest girl you’ve ever been with.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “The only girl you’ve ever been with.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But funny as hell.”

  He laughed.

  “And—?” she said.

  “I’m sorry … for making you feel bad.”

  “Oh, god. Will you please just kiss me already?”

  13

  Tiffany woke at sunrise, underclothes damp and T-shirt clingy, not in post-coital baptism, but panic sweat, her heart pounding.

  She’d led the group deeper into the woods than Bachelor’s Grove and gotten them murdered by the Man in Gray. They’d gotten lost after her assurances that a “really cool graveyard” was back there. They needed water badly and the Man appeared. A party drug he’d served made their concerns bubble ineffectually and fizz out of mind. Their bodies slumped as if their bones had become sandbags, as it slowly paralyzed them. Tiffany watched while the Man in Gray took his time kneeling behind each of her friends, happily, then greedily pushing a curly straw into their necks and sucking until frowns hardened on their ashen faces. He’d saved Doug for last. Tiffany tried to stop it, rolled a circle in the mud. She was too wasted to save even herself in the dream.