Grade a Stupid

by A. J. Lape

  Dylan and I hadn’t swapped DNA, but as a rule, he could be totally engrossed in a task, and if he felt I needed him, he’d drop whatever he was doing and make me his first priority. Trouble was, he sometimes felt it miles away.

  It was no surprise he was dialing. There was a really good chance I wouldn’t live to see sixteen.

  I didn’t know Juan or Jinx that well, but when one of them stuck my shoe in the mailbox, obviously they were throwing me a challenge. Was I scared? Sadly, no. For me, this came down to winning and losing. Winners rise to the level of their competition. Losers descend to the level of their own incompetence. I’d rather chew glass than lose a challenge to the likes of them and was banking on the fact they were incompetent screwups that lived in reactive mode.

  Why the confidence? I was crossing my fingers that “good” won out for once. Whether they pulled the trigger or not, they knew something and weren’t helping Oscar. I always felt when you laid down at night you needed to like yourself. No way in the world were these guys on the road to self-actualization. Was I? Doubtful, but I was at least closer than they were.

  Tapping the “talk” button, I barely got, “Heeeey,” out of my mouth when he rudely cut me off, his voice crashing like rolling thunder.

  “Pinky swear you’re not involved in anything, that you’re bored out of your mind, and you’re doing everything that normal teenagers do.” Add some heavy breathing.

  Normal teenagers either did as their parents requested or rebelled and snuck out to places, partying until sunrise. Then there was me. I wasn’t sure a category had been defined for me yet.

  I coughed. “Could you define normal?”

  Explicit profanity that probably made God plug his ears followed. Dylan went ape poopoo, and when his breathing became labored, I developed a guilt so heavy it nearly toppled me over. He was the only one I gave my thoughts to, uncensored—but on this? That was like plugging a dam with a piece of gum. An explosion was imminent.

  When he revved up the cursing, I buckled, telling him where we went, what I saw, down to the least of details like Frank and I drank Black Tiger coffee specifically. The issue with my shoe was on the tip of my tongue, but that’s where it stayed. No matter how hard I tried to spit it out, it anchored and wouldn’t budge. I didn’t know what Dylan would do with that information once he returned. He barely wrapped his head around Adam Neeley. Would he confront each of them? In some form or another, yes. Would that screw up my yet-unplanned next steps? Most definitely.

  After some silence where all I could hear was my heart beating, Dylan lowered his voice with a growling, “Stop.” Immediately, I got a set of angry chills. I didn’t like Dylan’s one-word commands. I really didn’t, but when he added a soft begging, “Please,” I stumbled around with a promise we both knew was a waste of breath.

  It was ten o’clock here; four o’clock in the morning, island time. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  Dylan was fighting a yawn but somehow managed another stiff lecture. “I happened to be up when I got an email from Murphy, and it worried me, Darcy. Now, I realize he gave me the condensed version that’s barely truth at all. What if down deep Frank’s an axe murderer or something? He could’ve thrown you in the back of his truck, and we’d never see you again.”

  “There wasn’t room,” I dumbly said. “A naked mannequin was already taking my spot.”

  “Oh, God,” Dylan prayed. “This is beyond twisted. Can’t you see that?”

  Dylan and Murphy occasionally ganged up on me. Most usually—okay, always—I could count on Dylan being on my side. He’d agree with Murphy but somehow transfer my meted-out punishment into a guilt trip only. By the tone of his voice, he’d slug me if I were a guy.

  “You’re not going to stop, are you?” he murmured desperately.

  I gave him an honest answer. “Would you believe me if I said I’d try?”

  Dylan’s voice wouldn’t go dormant, and he’d now gone from best-friend-concerned to full-blown predator. Here’s where I checked out altogether. Pushing off the floor, I stood in the middle of my room and looked around. Yesterday’s clothes were hanging from my desk, a pair of socks dangled from the lamp, and a week’s worth of paper plates had begun to reek in the waste can. In the next twenty minutes, I mobilized like a happy rent-a-maid. I stuffed a trash bag to capacity, my underwear drawer was color-coded, dust bunnies were set loose in the back yard, and my fish food (for the fish I’d yet to kill) was grouped into large and small flakes.

  Dylan hadn’t remotely run out of gas, and my latest escapade was only the tip of the iceberg where his temper was concerned. His pride was still smarting from our dropped call a few days ago when Liam took me home from school. That was a particularly unpleasant conversation. Apparently, my phone turned itself off when it sailed over UDF’s magazine rack, and Dylan automatically assumed I had no desire to talk to him. To make matters worse, Liam uploaded the picture he took of us to Facebook right there for mankind to see. It didn’t take long for Dylan to put two-and-two together. Fastard move on Liam’s part, and sort of mean. I didn’t like anyone being mean to my best friend, no matter if I did have a crush on them.

  Question was, why were Dylan and Liam “friends” on the social networking site if they clearly weren’t friendly with one another in person? Dylan’s answer was slightly on the Mafioso side: I keep my friends close, my enemies even closer.

  Well, guess what I was going to do with Jinx King and Company? The answer was a five-lettered word: ditto.

  Walking over to my desk, I pulled out my spinny black chair, and plopped down. Quickly firing up my laptop, after a brief search, I discovered that Juan, Jinx, Justin, and Adam all had Facebook accounts. With a few trusty strokes, I sent each an invitation to be on Darcy Walker’s list of friends. Reclining back in the chair, I propped my feet on the desk and clasped my fingers behind my head with a big, stupid smile.

  The way I saw it, I was back in the lead.

  Dylan finally stopped for a breath. “You agree with me, then?” he murmured. My word, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what avenue he’d turned or what I’d agreed to.

  I gave him a codependent, “Sure,” certain I’d just lied.

  Semi-arguing with Dylan made me feel hypoglycemic, completely without energy and out of balance. I ate four cookies and felt better...crisis averted. In my heart, I knew he meant well, but my urges were beyond my control at the moment. The best thing I could do for myself—and my loved ones—was to plan my next move and work within some sort of safeguard.

  You know, make out a will or power of attorney or something.

  Other than the library (which Justice’s mother was going to take us to), my plans were nixed for the day—or the way I liked to look at it, delayed. That didn’t mean I couldn’t plan for tomorrow. Plus, I was hoping for a miracle on Murphy’s part. A miracle where he’d come home and backpedal on the discipline. A girl could dream, right?

  After I ran a load of dishes through the dishwasher, I colored kangaroos with Marjorie then pulled my Geometry book out of my backpack and sat down at the black wooden kitchen table. For once, I wasn’t going to wait until the last minute to finish an assignment. I wanted to be unencumbered for the rest of the week when I was going full-throttle with Oscar Small.

  Flipping through the book, I thought about my relationship with numbers. Sometimes we got along, others we’d rather slap one another into unconsciousness. I’m not sure why, but my brain’s complexities were just that...complexities. I jacked up a test two weeks ago on your basic stuff. Normally, I did well in math, good enough for an A or high B, but on that particular test I was four points from failing. I spazzed out; no excuse other than I spazzed out and didn’t even finish in time. Mr. Gordon gave a retest for people in the same boat, but even if you got everything correct, the most you could get out of your effort was a seventy percent. Made sense, I guess, but I found it hard to get geeked up for a C.

  I sailed throug
h eight problems when the portable phone broke my concentration with Home on the Range. I thought that ringtone was funny weeks ago. Now, it was categorically annoying. Scribbling down an answer, I saw the caller ID listed Finn Lively, so I hit the speakerphone.

  “Bonjourno,” I greeted, remembering he was walking in the land of France today.

  “Bonjourno, Bella. Seems ole Jinxie boy hasn’t led a charmed life.”

  “How so?”

  “First off, he’s not Jinx King. He’s Gavin Hilliard.”

  Huh…you don’t say.

  I picked up my jaw then laid down my pencil, giving him my full attention. “Adopted?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Your typical story. Biological parents were both users with OVIs, reckless endangerment, and other crimes out the yin-yang. As a result, Jinx was made a ward of the state at age nine and thereby was in and out of the foster system for the next few years until the King’s took him at age eleven. Evidently, he was with them for only a short time before they started the proceedings to adopt.”

  That was going to take some time to digest, but what I was most concerned with were his own particular offenses. I told Finn, “I got the feeling from Jinx’s father that Jinx may have inherited the knack for falling into trouble from his parents. Does he have a file in juvie other than being a ward of the state?”

  Finn laughed; a mix between sarcasm and disbelief. “Oh, Bella, Jinxie has been one naughty little boy. Petty theft, grand larceny of a school bus, public intoxication, public nuisance, robbery, felonious assault, filing false reports, desecrating a grave…”

  Finn and I both stopped, allowing that last offense to gel in our brains. That statement in itself was all I needed as corroboration. What kind of person messed with corpses? Plus, that voice in the back of my mind reminded me that Darth Vader claimed he liked dead bodies.

  After Finn cleared his throat, and I massaged away the goose bumps on my arms, he finished, “Most of that stopped when the King’s stepped into the picture. Jinx was brought in as an “unruly” a few times newly into their relationship, but other than that, it looks like he’s stayed clean.”

  Or daddy dearest was keeping his record clean.

  Claudia’s sister, Ana Rosalina, and her son, Choncho made the trek to Cincinnati to verify the validity of the Jesus cookie. Who would’ve thought the Walkers would spawn some sort of religious pilgrimage? As they say, reality’s stranger than fiction.

  The seven of us were sitting around the kitchen table finishing up Pollo con Arroz y Queso, Claudia’s traditional Eastertime dish that put pounds on you simply by smelling it.

  I popped the button on my jeans then wiped my mouth, complimenting her with an “Oooh, delicioso.”

  Ana Rosalina gave her a tight smile; not even an appreciative burp.

  Ana Rosalina was the competitive type, even in cooking, and more specifically in the spirit world. If Claudia got Jesus on a cookie, then by goodness, Ana Rosalina wanted a piece of the action, too. Thing was, she was like the Black Death. She got inside a car; it crashed. She broke a mirror; it’s fourteen years bad luck instead of seven. Black cats run in the other direction and good luck horseshoes tumbled and crawled back to their horses. Hard to say whether she deserved a visit from the Divine; especially when she’d been compared to Satan.

  While she examined the cookie like a dog would a bone, I stole a look at Choncho. He was dressed as usual: gray sweat pants and a matching shirt on an eight-year-old body at least 25 pounds overweight. The kid had no neck, and frankly, you had to look hard for his eyes. When I gave him a smile, he stood up from his chair then tossed his white plate up against the wall. It crashed, split in two then tumbled like a rockslide to the floor. Murphy’s jaw dropped, and Choncho’s behavior could only be explained—like most things—with a really good, profane metaphor. Surprisingly, Murphy kept his metaphor to himself.

  Murphy angrily pointed to the mess—demanding a cleanup—but Choncho jumped on his imaginary horse and galloped into the living room, spanking his own behind. Murphy turned to Claudia, saying with some force, “They’re gone tomorrow. Bad stuff happens when your sister’s on my property.”

  Bad wasn’t the half of it; it was weird beyond weird beyond weird.

  Claudia had a one-bedroom townhome down the street. When Ana Rosalina was in Valley, she and Choncho stayed in our guest bedroom. It sounded like a good idea at first until they brought the drama of a Mexican soap opera with them...literally. Ana Rosalina was an on-hiatus soap star made famous for killing her cheating husband with a pickaxe.

  Hmm, made you wonder, didn’t it.

  Claudia grabbed a dishrag, falling to her knees to clean up the mess. “She’s got good hoo-doo now,” she protested nervously. “She jest want to see the koookie.”

  Murphy flicked some rice off his light blue Ralph Lauren button-down, pushing back his chair with an angry screech. “Hoo-doo, boo-boo, ca-ca, juju,” he mocked. “I don’t give a darn. Ana Rosalina’s staying on the porch. Choncho, bless his heart, needs to be scared straight and his scalp checked for 666.”

  Well, there you have it, folks. Murphy thought Choncho was moronically stupid and possessed the devil’s mark. I scratched my head, wondering if I agreed.

  Earlier, I’d changed into a navy, long-sleeved t-shirt and a new pair of dark-wash, hip-hugger jeans that rode a little too low for public decorum. Cheesy rice was somehow squished down into my waistband. I flicked it out as best I could then wiped up the last of the chicken, tossing the paper towel into the stainless steel waste can. Needing dessert, I tiptoed to the top shelf of the pantry, reaching behind the Captain Crunch box for my secret stash of cookies. There were none. The only cookie on the premises was now on the countertop.

  Home to Jesus Christ.

  Off-limits.

  This was where I knew I had bad in me because I reached for it and actually had to smack one hand with the other. After I paced the counter a few times, I decided to eat a fudgsicle and save what little bit was left of my soul.

  For the next twenty minutes, I folded laundry and talked Choncho out of pulling the wings off a moth that was hovering in the kitchen chandelier. Choncho wasn’t Einstein, but stuff like this should be obvious. When he was shoving his pudgy feet in Marjorie’s tap shoes, I spied Marjorie’s squirrel scampering outdoors searching for acorns on the patio. I grabbed the phone and a handful of mixed nuts then walked over to the back door, stepping outside into the night.

  It was gloaming, the period from sunset to nightfall. The sky was a dusky blue, and the night air was fiercely cool on my bare feet. Pitching some nuts in the squirrel’s direction, I gazed up to the stars, fixating on one that was so visibly clear you could almost reach out and touch it with your hand.

  Adam Neeley was on my mind. Was he alive? Dead? Grossly injured or brain damaged? Dialing 411, I took a chance he was he was the only Neeley in Valley and requested the phone number for his father. While the operator surprisingly relayed the digits, for a split second, I pondered that this was a mistake. The Neeley phone, if it had caller ID, would denote Murphy Walker once I dialed. What did it hurt now? If he’d spoken with the others, then they’d probably informed him I witnessed the whole thing. I might as well gather what information I could.

  Punching in the digits, someone answered with a sleepy, “Hullo,” on the third ring.

  “May I speak to Adam?” I said.

  “Asleep,” was this man’s answer.

  “But he’s breathing?” I asked. I squeezed my eyes tight, wishing I could retract that statement.

  This man grumbled something to himself. “I haven’t checked, but I assume so.” There was no offer to wake him, and I wasn’t sure it was wise to ask. The longer it took me to respond, the more the energy mounted through the phone. “Is there a message you’d like me to give him?” he finally asked.

  Jeez, I didn’t know what to do. This man was growing paranoid, and if he was even remotely in Murphy’s league, the moment Adam woke he’d
ask him who Murphy Walker was. I decided on the truth. “Um, yeah,” I said. “Tell him Darcy called and that he’s making a mistake.”

  There was a pause that neither of us chose to fill. Seconds from disconnecting, he recycled my phrase, repeating it back verbatim. “That’s right,” I told him. “He’s making a mistake.”

  I hung up and immediately went numb. You could’ve skinned me alive, and I wouldn’t have felt it.

  I was getting in too deep but reminded myself this was for Oscar. We hadn’t covered when he’d call again, and I honestly didn’t know the rules on prison communications. Regardless, I needed to see him tomorrow, but how was I going to score a sit-down session? Shielding my body from the cold, I crossed my arms over my chest and bounced up and down, trying to birth some creativity. Figures, it would fail me at the moment. The instant I turned to go back inside, headlights lit up the back of the house, blinding my eyes. It’s like someone was purposely leaving them on, either to scare me, or let’s face it, take a shot.

  Normal people would be scared stiff or maybe dive for the bushes. Instead, I took three brazenly, stupid steps forward when a glint of yellow lit up my vision. A yellow Dodge Charger, I gasped. Whoever this jerkaholic was, he revved his engine twice, flicked the lights then circled around the cul-de-sac leaving Bison Boulevard. Our street was off the beaten path. It wasn’t like people pulled in here accidentally because they’d taken a wrong turn.

  Had the driver sought me out to just...what? Spy on me?

  An uneasy feeling crept up my spine, and I shuddered at the thought, wondering if perhaps they were the one to place my sneaker in the mailbox. If so, then why? Why and for what motive? When I saw them last, I was convinced they were trying to give me a head start away from the gangland beating. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe they were trying to rat me out instead.

  Before I could panic or find a way into the witness protection program, the house’s foundation shook, Murphy’s normally boisterous voice sounding like a startled elephant charging in the jungle.