Darkborn

by Matthew J. Costello

  The water turned to luke and then hot. Will twisted the knob a bit and stepped in.

  Real fast, he thought. Just get wet and —

  The water was warm, soothing after — what, a dozen laps?

  It dribbled over his head, covering his ears, his mouth. Muffling the noise of so many showers. The other kids talking.

  When he felt something.

  On his back. Then right on his ass.

  A slightly warmer stream.

  He jerked his head out of the spray. The noise, the voices were there, surrounding him.

  He turned quickly, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.

  What the fu —

  He turned. There was D’ Angelo. A stupid grin on his face. Laughing. Like a mechanical clown. Heh-heh-heh. Grinning, looking at his buddies.

  Will looked down.

  D’Angelo’s prick was shooting a stream of piss right at him. -

  “Shit!” Will yelled. He backed away.

  And now D’Angelo couldn’t stand it, couldn’t fucking stand the comedy of it. He doubled up, convulsed with how funny it all was.

  Will jerked backward and banged against the metal soap dish — always empty — driving the thin metal into his back.

  D’Angelo just stood there, laughing, grinning.

  Everyone was watching.

  Everyone.

  And the only sounds were D’Angelo laughing and all that water hitting the tiles, swirling into pools, then rushing down the drain.

  And it didn’t matter anymore.

  It didn’t matter that D’Angelo was built like a human tank, all blubber and muscle, with a neck like a telephone pole. All Will felt was everyone watching him, and the horrible laughing.

  What the fuck do I have to lose? Will thought crazily. What the fuck —

  He leaped at D’Angelo. He grabbed at that bull neck. It was so thick that Will’s two hands couldn’t even close around it, but he grabbed it as hard as he could and squeezed.

  And then — a moment of inspiration — he brought his knee up.

  Right into D’ Angelo’s groin.

  And all the while Will screamed at him.

  “You fucking bastard, you lousy, shit-eating —”

  He saw D’Angelo’s eyes bulge with the sudden, completely unexpected pain.

  But then, after that terrible burst of adrenaline, he saw D’ Angelo’s face change.

  Here was a guy who every weekend smashed into the big black monsters from Power Memorial. He’d had half a dozen guys fall on him. Regularly. And then he’d stand up, good as new. No problem. He had his face smashed, his legs crushed, his head banged like a punching bag.

  D’Angelo sure the hell isn’t scared of me, Will knew.

  And — while everyone started whistling, calling, screaming for the wonderful show to continue —

  D’Angelo moved, quickly, smoothly, with an animal strength that absolutely terrified Will.

  * * *

  3

  Will felt Tim watching from the sidelines. Everyone was watching. Sure, everyone liked to see a fight, even one as obviously mismatched as this was.

  For a second he could see the absurdity of it all. All these naked guys standing in the shower, their wieners hanging out, watching a gorilla who enjoyed his work.

  The metal soap dish cut into Will’s back. He felt the steel edge break his skin. He groaned. But then D’Angelo’s meaty hand covered his mouth, ending the sound.

  Such a giant hand, hard and fleshy.

  Then Will felt the edge of D’ Angelo’s palm slip up toward his nose.

  I won’t be able to breathe, he thought. I won’t be able to breathe and no one will know.

  They’ll just think that I’m struggling to get away from the Big D.

  That’s what everyone called him.

  The Big D.

  And when Will and his friends sat in the luncheonette, they joked about Big D and how it stood for “big dope.”

  Will felt a quick punch to his side. Fast and hard, and suddenly his eyes filled with red fireworks.

  I’m going to throw up, he thought.

  His eyes were fixed on D’Angelo’s. And D’Angelo’s eyes were dumb, animal eyes . . . with just a hint of amusement. This was fun.

  They reminded Will of his dog’s eyes. Kind of dull. Empty.

  And what do my eyes look like? Wide, terrified?

  Is that giving the monkey an extra kick?

  Another rap, and Will felt the wind knocked out of him.

  Will kicked at D’ Angelo’s legs, scraping at his hairy shins with slippery wet feet, trying to get his arms up. But D’ Angelo had both arms pinned with a forearm block that pressed Will’s ass right against the shower wall.

  Everyone was quiet, and Will realized that something real serious was going on here.

  This was more than just a joke, more than a nasty prank.

  This was about settling differences.

  The differences between the jocks and the other kids who didn’t give two shits about heroics on the home field.

  This was fucking primitive.

  And the sick thing — the really sick thing, Will realized — was that if D’ Angelo removed his pan-sized palm from Will’s mouth, he knew what he’d do.

  I’d beg.

  I’d do anything to get the killer monkey off my back.

  D’ Angelo’s hand had slipped toward Will’s nostrils. Up. Over. Closing them.

  D’ Angelo didn’t mean to do it . . . did he?

  And Will kicked.

  It was like being underwater.

  I can’t breathe, he thought. I can’t fucking breathe . I’m gonna die.

  And then there were more punches, just to hasten the process, and more, until —

  A voice.

  Henkel.

  Barking out one word, just one word, at first.

  “Hey!”

  Please, Will thought. Move your ex-Marine ass over here.

  Please.

  “Hey, D. D! Hey, let him go. What the hell are you doing?”

  Then Henkel, shorter than D’Angelo by a foot, was right there, grabbing at D’ Angelo’s leaden arms, pulling on D’Angelo’s elephant-like torso. Tugging at him, yelling loud now for other kids to, Jesus, come and help him.

  And then some of D’Angelo’s friends trudged forward — Will saw their faces, smirking, perhaps sad that it was all ending.

  D’Angelo’s hand popped off Will’s mouth.

  Will sucked in the air.

  “Now, what the hell’s going on here?” Henkel shouted, looking at the two of them. “What are you two doing?”

  Right, thought Will as he doubled over, chugging the air.

  As if I’d start anything with that human tank. But Henkel had his favorites.

  Of which I’m certainly not one.

  “What was it, Dunnigan? What were you two doing here?”

  What an idiot, thought Will. What is this guy using for brains?

  D’Angelo backed up only a few steps.

  He still wore that same grin. As if he were thinking it wouldn’t take much for him to lift up Henkel, move him aside, and come back to play with Will.

  “This animal —” Will said.

  Realizing — only then — that it wasn’t just the shower water running off his cheeks.

  I’m crying. Goddammit, I’m crying in front of everyone.

  That was the worst, the absolute lowest.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Henkel said, turning to him, waving a meat-bone index finger that showed he descended from the same evolutionary offshoot as D’Angelo.

  There were humans, and there were these geeks.

  “None of that,” Henkel scolded. “Watch your language!”

  Then Will saw an incredible thing.

  Henkel turned back to D’Angelo and actually put an arm around his shoulders. Patted his oxlike back. “Go get dressed,” he said. Then, as if the physical education teacher realized that he had a crowd of kids watching, he said;
r />   “The two a yers are going to detention today.”

  Yers ? What kind of word is that? wondered Will.

  D’Angelo stopped. “But, Coach, what about practice?”

  Henkel raised a hand. Such a fair and impartial man. “Detention first,” he said, looking at Will and the other kids, and then he turned back to D’Angelo. “And then practice. Now, everybody clear out of here before you miss lunch.”

  And Will stood there a moment.

  Marveling.

  The whole thing had taken only minutes. But it seemed as if he’d been in this hell, this shower, for a lifetime.

  He turned to walk out, to leave with his friends, to the corner of the locker room where they had their lockers.

  But they weren’t there.

  They had left already. Quickly.

  Leaving Will behind.

  He saw them at lunch. His friends, but he quickly looked away.

  He swore he saw Whalen lean forward and say something to the others that made grins bloom on their faces.

  They were all there. Tim. Narrio. The Kiffer.

  But if they’re my friends, Will thought, angry at being left to fend for himself, maybe I’m better off hanging alone.

  So he took his tray of pureed mystery meat on toast points and a big slab of what was dubbed “Boston cream pie,” and went off to the side, where the freshmen — looking absolutely juvenile — sat.

  For now he didn’t want to talk with anybody.

  It was before the last period when Tim came up to Will just as he slammed his locker. Tim pushed back his glasses and stood next to Will.

  “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  Will nodded.

  Great. Wonderful. Nothing like getting pissed on by the star fullback who then tries to kill you.

  Will nodded and then turned to go to their last class, Latin 4. Cicero was wrapping up Caesar’s last campaign. Gripping stuff. . . especially in the original.

  Tim grabbed his arm to stop him. Will shrugged it off.

  “Hey, wait a second,” Tim said. “Christ, Will, don’t go getting all bent out of shape. You had a fight.” Tim leaned close to Will, had to actually stretch up to say something in Will’s ear.

  “He’s a fucking Gamma-minus,” Tim said, referring to Aldous Huxley’s alphabetical classification of humanity from Brave New World . Will and his friends were sure that they were the Alphas — the smart ones who’d someday buy and sell D’Angelo and his goony friends.

  Will smiled, despite his anger.

  Tim could do that. He could always make Will laugh.

  But then he forced an angry mask back onto his face. “We’re gonna be late,” Will said.

  The hall was empty, except for Father Ed, the youngest teacher in the school. He played guitar. Took them to the soup kitchens of the Catholic Worker.

  A real Red, Tim pronounced. But Will thought that the priest was okay.

  “Are you mad at us?” Tim asked. “Are you mad ‘cause we didn’t help?”

  Will stopped. “Some help would have been nice.”

  Tim let his arms fly out, gesturing dramatically. He was the school’s best debater, a state champion. He knew how to take the podium and use it.

  “Sure, and can you see me up against that monster? He could fucking pick me up and bounce me against the ceiling. Besides, Narrio had already gone for Henkel to get help —”

  “He did?”

  “Sure he did.”

  But Will remembered being left there afterward . . . being left all alone. They had abandoned him to his shame, he thought. His friends didn’t want anything to do with him. Nada .

  Or maybe I’m reading that wrong, Will thought. Maybe they were just hurrying to their class and —

  And he thought of Ted Whalen, his hair slicked down by the shower. Making a joke that Will was sure was about him.

  Maybe I’m just paranoid, Will thought.

  “Give me a break,” Tim said one more time, giving his black-frame glasses another push.

  Will nodded. Then he smiled, just a bit. “Okay,” he said.

  “You’re still coming this afternoon — to the luncheonette?”

  “Right after detention.” Will grinned.

  Tim spun around to see Father Ed come up the hall.

  “And we’d better get to fucking Latin class, Dunnigan,” Tim whispered, “or our ass will be grass.”

  And for a moment, Will felt a bit better.

  Detention was conducted in Father Gately’s small antechamber — a dark, windowless room done in a spooky blackish wood, filled with glass-enclosed book cabinets that held oversized books that looked as though they had never been read.

  Ever.

  Gately was, according to the popular wisdom, insane. What other kind of priest would make a career out of discipline?

  The headmaster might run the school, but Gately, the Prefect of Discipline, owned it.

  The seniors joked about Henkel. By their fourth year at the school, some of them could probably beat up the bowling-ball-shaped man.

  But nobody ever joked about Gately.

  And the priest with a face that made Boris Karloff look handsome had a wicked sense of torture.

  Like now, Will thought. He had set D’Angelo and Will facing each other.

  So Will had to sit there, look at D’Angelo, and just imagine all the things the Big D might want to do.

  Gately gave orders to sit up. Nice and straight. Any slouching, and he’d have us on our feet, Will knew. Maybe with our arms out. Holding some books.

  He was a fun guy.

  Used to be a boxer, the rumor mill said. Before becoming a Jesuit. Good career preparation . . .

  Will tried to look around at anything but D’Angelo’s pug-nosed face. Anything.

  Is it my imagination, Will thought, or is D’Angelo breathing heavy, snorting? Making weird piglike noises.

  He heard Gately typing inside his office. The minutes crawled.

  And you could do nothing, Will knew. No homework, nothing.

  But then — a welcome relief — the phone rang and Will heard Gately talking. The silence had been horrible. Gately spoke, a whispery garble. His voice had the vocal consistency of sandpaper.

  He heard Gately push his chair away from his desk, the legs screeching on the polished wood floor. Then Gately opened the door wide to his office.

  The Prefect of Discipline cleared his chain-saw throat.

  Will imagined that the priest might hawk a louie in his direction.

  “You may go, D’Angelo. Mr. Henkel wants you on the field.”

  Great, Will thought, the creep does ten minutes’ time and I still have fifty more. Can’t let anything interfere with football. No, sir, sports fans, the big Thanksgiving game is only weeks away.

  But D’Angelo made an unfortunate mistake.

  As he stood up, still staring at Will, he smirked.

  An ugly sight if ever there was one.

  And Gately didn’t like that.

  The priest suddenly moved across the floor with all the speed and grace of a leopard. With pinpoint accuracy, Gatley’s hand shot out and grabbed at D’Angelo’s hair. There wasn’t much of it. Crew cuts were out and there was a neat forelock, a sheaf of long greasy strands that Gately’s hand closed on.

  For a second Will thought that the hair would just slip through the priest’s powerful fingers.

  But no. The grip was much too strong. Too solid.

  Gately held, and now he rattled D’Angelo’s head back and forth, faster and faster. The football star looked like Wile E. Coyote after getting hit by one of the Road Runner’s cannonballs. The small, pudgy head — not much space for a brain cavity — wobbled back and forth, faster and faster, a blur.

  “Do you find something funny about this, Mr. D’Angelo?” Gately said through clenched teeth.

  Bite him, Will thought. Open up your gummy old mouth and lower those vampire-priest’s choppers right on the asshole’s neck.

  But Gately was
content to just put D’Angelo’s brain through his own blending process. Back and forth until — when Gately let go — D’Angelo stumbled forward like a top. The fullback threw out one rhino leg to break what might turn into a fall.

  His hands fluttered, helping him balance. Then D’Angelo looked up at Gately.

  And Will thought: He’s going to kill him. D’Angelo is going to kill the priest!

  But D’Angelo just looked down, and them mumbled the only word Gately ever wanted to hear.

  “Sorry, Father.”

  “Now get out of here!” Gately growled, the voice rich with phlegm and bloodlust.

  What a cleric! Will thought.

  And D’Angelo staggered out of the prison, humbled.

  Will guessed D’Angelo would think twice about gunning for him later. Not with Gately around to mete out such creative punishment. Gately turned to Will, who made his face as flat and impassive as possible.

  Maybe he’ll let me go early too, Will thought.

  But Gately just shook his head in disgust.

  The priest walked back into his office.

  A big Regulator clock, just within Will’s peripheral vision, clicked.

  It was 3:20. Will had forty more minutes of this garbage before he could leave.

  To meet up with his friends.

  And hear what had Kiff — crazy Kiff — so damned excited.

  Not knowing how everything about this day was falling together, in a certain way, like the clock he watched, pushing him toward something that he’d regret for the rest of his life.

  * * *

  4

  It went silent the minute Will opened the door to Koko’s Luncheonette.

  One minute his friends were all laughing and talking. And the next, they stopped.

  As if their actions had been frozen for some picture.

  School chums. Senior year. Fall 1965.

  And Will wondered if maybe he should have gone home. He let the door slip through his fingers and it slammed shut.

  Mr. Kokovinis, over by the counter, talking to two men squatting in front of coffee cups, looked up.

  But then Tim said, loud enough for Mr. Koko himself to look over and shake his head, “Hey, Dunnigan! Get your butt over here!”