by Jesse Jordan
There. He’d been right there, at the doors, leaning against the door frame and looking at James. A tall, thin man with light-brown hair graying at the temples, watching him with a small, soft smile. But he was gone. James shook his head and looked again. No one. But he could’ve sworn he saw him.
He could’ve sworn.
As often happens with humans, when James’s brain was given time to ruminate, it worked itself into a very excited state. The day progressed, and the image of the man’s smiling face returned again and again to James’s mind, along with those blinds snapping closed when school started. Those eyes. There had been eyes there. His eyes? And that Escalade . . . ?
Seventh hour. Art. The class toiled on wood carvings, half of the students bent intently over their work, while the other half giggled and gossiped. James tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t help but watch Jess from the edges of his eyes. Jess sat with Gail, Maria, and Katie and laughed louder than anyone, repeating mildly amusing phrases as if they were comedy gold.
To James, though, she looked sad. She looked sad and scared to show she was sad, using her howling glee like a shield. James watched, transfixed, because it seemed so obvious to him. How could the others not notice?
“I know! I wanna lock myself in the bathroom with Oreos, but then I’ll just be doing cardio until midnight!”
The others laughed along with her, and as she turned back to Maria, she saw him. Her eyes screamed like someone caught, and for an instant, her loud mask slipped aside. It was like James could see inside of her. Just for an instant. And what shone through was fear and wretched sadness. Jess seemed to reset herself, and the glimpse disappeared and she was staring at James, who had to look away. Those eyes—he saw them still in his mind, full of rebuke, as if he’d done something reprehensible. He didn’t look up at her again throughout the period. He just kept his head down and focused on his project.
Everyone had selected a plank of wood and, using chisels and soldering irons, proceeded to create an image of their choosing. A few peace signs and crucifixes were under way as well as the requisite butterflies, flowers, and footballs. James’s plank was a relief of Batman that used three different levels of wood depth. For the last two classes, he’d worked on nothing but the cape, which was caught by the wind, billowing off Batman’s left shoulder.
Mr. Gere, the art teacher, moved quickly by James’s work space with an offhand “Nice, James.”9 The other students, too, would stop by and look at the piece and smile and marvel. James’s art, he’d noted long ago, didn’t have the same effect on people that he did. When they finally did look up, though, when they tore their gazes from whatever he was working on and looked up to him, their smiles inevitably faltered. Then he’d be left with some mumbled, monosyllabic compliment and their backs.
James finished a large swath of cape that he’d been working with the soldering iron and set the tool back in its aluminum tray before massaging the cramp gripping his hand. The muscles in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger felt like they were being bisected by a hot, dull knife. He kneaded the pain with the thumb and knuckle of his left hand and leaned back in his chair. He blew out a deep breath and looked around—and there it was.
Just outside the window behind Mr. Gere’s desk, sitting in the morning drop-off zone, was the black Escalade. He couldn’t see the driver this time, as the vehicle had its passenger side to him and offered only the dismissal of tinted windows.
James stood, and just then, the brake lights announced the Escalade’s shift into drive. James made for the window, bumping desks and chairs and trailing shouts and grunts. The Escalade erupted from its position, speeding out of the parking lot and then to the right, again denying James a look at the license plate. James stood at the window, his face pressed to the pane long after the vehicle disappeared, and for the first time, he was positive something was very, very wrong. Liquid-ice fear spread through his stomach and pressed his lungs tight.
“Mr. Salley,” Mr. Gere said, “is something the matter?”
The final bell released them.
James dumped his books in his locker, put his head down, and made for the exit at the back of the school.
Before he reached it, though, Nick and Colin and LaMarcus erupted from the main-hall boys’ bathroom like guided cannonballs in a cloud of shouts and laughter, trailing the noises of mischief wrought within. All three were puffed up and riled with that hunting-party look of theirs.
James froze. This is the worst—the absolute worst—time to run into them. He turned to make for the other exit but, in doing so, smacked into the torso of a man standing there, almost falling—A fall! At a time like this? Might as well wear a bell—and looked up to see the man from earlier smiling down at him out of two light-blue eyes. Though, he noticed, the eyes weren’t the same. In the right eye, the pupil was much more open than in the other eye, a dark circle ringed by a thin river of blue.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” James said, finding it hard to look away from those eyes, even though he knew he should check on Nick’s confederacy. When he finally did manage to look away, sure enough, there they were. They’d seen him. “Uh, I gotta go.”
“My name is Mr. Moon.” He extended a sinuous left hand.
James shook it with absent politeness—Quite a grip you got there, man—and mumbled, “James.” He was about to step around the new librarian when his periphery was filled up all of a sudden: Nick and Colin on one side and LaMarcus on the other.10
“Jimmy,” Colin said, almost stepping between James and Mr. Moon. “Jimmy, Jimmy.”
“You walkin’?” Nick said, his smile pure extortion.11
James tried to say something about having to stay late, but his usually reliable trove of lies returned nothing. He stood there frozen, mouth open, watching Nick’s eyes beat him up in advance.
“Nicholas, is it?” Mr. Moon’s words were clipped, like they’d been made in a factory.
Nick looked up at Mr. Moon. “James and I are having a conversation. You boys run along.” Mr. Moon retained his friendly countenance, but Nick’s nose crinkled and he got this look on his face like he was trying to place a memory.
LaMarcus said, “Nick?”
“C’mon,” Nick said, and in a single motion he was gone, striding down the hall to the front doors with Colin and LaMarcus fighting to catch up without appearing to.
James watched this scene with mounting unease. This is not right. The whole way Nick just reacted, that’s not . . . not . . .
“Well, James, I think you’ll be fine walking home now.” Mr. Moon’s cheeks pulled back into a running-for-office smile, and he once again proffered his hand.
James shook it in dumb compliance. What was I just thinking about?
“It was nice meeting you.” And with that, Mr. Moon turned sharply and strode away, his heels beating out a military march.
James watched him go, and when the new librarian turned the corner, he realized he was standing alone in the hallway.
7. James was rightly embarrassed about this. While at the mall, he had made his way into Bath and Body Works more than once, sampling different lotions and body splashes until he nailed the smell. He will never tell anyone this.
8. 16 Down—Deer Hunter Director (6 Letters)
9. Mr. Gere was only a so-so teacher; obviously more interested in his own fledgling art career (painting famous war photographs, such as General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon, on large mirrors) than the education of his students. Still, he encouraged James when he was working on something challenging and was honest when James made crap. Plus, he’d been the one who showed James Guernica and explained the historical context and symbolism of it, at which point Guernica became James’s favorite painting ever. (He even had a big print of it on his bedroom wall.) But for the most part, Mr. Gere was only ever half present (not to mention he always smelled like patchouli, chemicals, and armpit).
10. LaMarcus would later
often feel a nauseating wave of shame when he thought of how they’d tortured that weird kid in high school. He often thought of tracking him down, of reaching out and saying how sorry he was. Unfortunately, LaMarcus never became the kind of man who acted on thoughts like that.
11. FLASH: Early last summer—Nick sitting on the small of my back, fingers under my chin, cranking—Laughter, glimpses of Jess and sky and trees—“Camel clutch!”—Helpless, terrified—Pops in my spine, scary bad pressure, screaming, crying, that face upside down.
4. Enter Antichrist
Mom called not long after he got home to tell him the whole sales/PR/marketing team was going to stay late to do a run-through on the entire company’s presentation at the sales conference in New York that weekend and she, as the project leader—and what a huge opportunity that was—really, really should stay, but she’d leave if he wanted her to.
James told her it was fine and he understood.
She said, “Thanks, Lovie,”12 and told him they’d do something big that weekend.
Approximately ten minutes later, Mom called back to tell him it turned out Dad had a great networking opportunity13 he’d put off for the birthday dinner, but if they were moving the dinner to the weekend, then he guessed he’d go. She told James to just go ahead and use the credit card in the kitchen drawer to order pizza, which is exactly what he did.
James told himself he should work on his comic book or maybe go for a run like he kept telling himself he was going to start doing. By eight o’clock that night, however, all he’d done was eaten three-quarters of a pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza and a bowl of chocolate ice cream, drank three Cokes, reread half an Avengers trade paperback,14 and watched part of a documentary on HBO about the disappearance of five hundred people in a cult in Colorado.
James considered sneaking one of Dad’s Budweisers from the fridge, still thinking the thoughts of earlier in the day, of slurping down a couple beers and a bunch of booze from the liquor cabinet for courage and heading back to the water tower to do it right this time. But he had to admit the thought had lost its charge. He felt better. He always felt better after a night like this. Food without judgment and comic books and movies—they were his salve.
Instead, James lifted one of the Marlboro Lights from the carton Mom kept in cryofreeze in the bulk freezer in the garage. He went out to the front, where he rocked on the porch swing with the Kree-Skrull War blocking out the world, sneaking tiny drags.
He’d been outside for exactly six minutes and twelve seconds when he heard it.
A distant, high-low squeak drifted through the neighborhood, and James instinctively cupped the cigarette behind the swing to hide it. He stopped the porch swing with a toe to the ground. What is that? The squeak was repetitive and rhythmic, and it seemed to be growing louder, closer. The breeze died; the neighborhood felt still as a child’s hiding place, other than the squeak. Nine thirty on a suburban weeknight—the leaves tussle, cars are tucked into driveways and garages, and random house lights tell the stories of who’s up and what they’re doing.
The squeak grew, and James noticed a pattern in it, a sort of cycling repetition. Squeak-squeak . . . squeak-squeak . . . squeak-squeak. Then, in the distance, a few blocks down, James caught sight of what appeared to be a man on a larger-than-usual bicycle. It seemed the squeak accompanied the downstrokes of the pedals, though he could see the man only as he passed through the yellow circles of light the street lamps threw on the asphalt below.
It wasn’t until the man reached his block that James recognized him.
It was Mr. Moon.
The bicycle he rode was indeed larger than normal, an old, battleship-gray monster that looked like the prototype. And atop it sat Mr. Moon, still in his dress pants, shirt, and sweater vest, though he’d abandoned the sport coat and rolled up his sleeves.
It tickled James’s brain all wrong, that this man should be out on his prehistoric bicycle so late at night and in this dead neighborhood. What if he sees me? James imagined him stopping to chat and felt a strong urge to dive into the bushes. Then he remembered the cigarette, and he wondered if something could be made of it even though he wasn’t presently at school. He thought about going inside, but Mr. Moon was almost to his house, and a sudden movement seemed more likely to draw his attention. So instead, James just sank into the porch swing and sat very, very still.
The bicycle squeak-squeaked up to the walkway in front of James’s house and stopped. Mr. Moon swung his left leg off the contraption with the agility of a ballet dancer. Bracing it along the curb by the kickstand, he looked up at James and smiled.
James found himself smiling back. He had no idea why; he didn’t feel like smiling, but the muscles of his face pulled his mouth into a welcoming grin anyway.
“Happy birthday, James,” Mr. Moon said as he made his way toward the porch in long, even strides.
James’s first thought was simple—Run inside and slam the door. But he didn’t. Couldn’t? It was as if he was slipping in and out of a dream, one where his legs refused to recognize the orders of his brain. Dude, who is this guy? Why is he here? How does he know it’s my birthday? What the hell, man? Get up. Move, moron!
But James didn’t move, and Mr. Moon—the interim school librarian, let’s not forget—ascended the steps. His smile did not falter or fade. It was a wide, powerful smile, showing teeth and calling back to some old, old memories lodged in the minds of all humans, of returning friends who the tribe had once thought lost. It was warming and comforting, and it was oddly paralyzing.
Mr. Moon walked to the top step and leaned against one of the posts, easy as could be. “You don’t have to be afraid, James. Believe me.”
Those last two words came at James with the sincerity of an old dog’s gaze, and he felt himself relax a little. “Uh, Mr. Moon—”
“Ezra.”
“What?” James said.
“Ezra. My name is Ezra Moon, and as we’re gonna be friends, you can call me Ezra.”
“Okay, Ezra—”
“I don’t want you to perform fellatio on me, James.”
There were a few seconds of silence, and then James nodded. That’s good.
“Nor do I want to perform fellatio on you. I don’t want to penetrate or fondle you. Also, I don’t want to videotape you masturbating, and I don’t want you to urinate or defecate on me or to spank or hold me or for either of us to do anything to each other that would be, in any way, sexually gratifying to either of us. I am not a pedophile, a pederast, a kidnapper, a murderer, or a pervert. Does that pretty much clear up what was, I believe, your main concern?”
James’s earlier smile had morphed halfway into confusion before locking up, and what remained was simian: brows down and in, mouth slightly agape.
Ezra continued, “So again I say, happy birthday, James.”
“How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Oh, I know a lot of things.” He crossed his arms and looked skyward, as if accessing some long-dormant part of his memory. “I know your family has missed your birthday. I know you want to draw comic books when you grow up. And I know it was you who threw a rock through the Schroeders’ living room window last summer.”
The warm summer-night air seemed to freeze on the back of James’s neck. He looked away from Ezra and searched up and down the street. Nothing. Just us.
“I know about Dorian. And I know where you were last night. I daresay I know what you were considering doing as well.”
James’s mind moved in slow motion, like all his thoughts were trying to ascend through a lake of sap. He stared at Ezra, saying nothing.
“You agree, right, James, there’s no way I could know these things?”
A single nod.
“Good. That’ll make things easier. There’s nothing I hate like arguments in the face of overwhelming logic. There are two reasons I know more than is possible about you. The first is simply that more is possible than you comprehend. The second is that we’ve been keeping tra
ck of you for a very long time, because you are a very special boy. I’m sorry—young man. A very special young man. You must excuse a certain amount of unintentional condescension from those of us who are very old. In any case, what I was beginning to say is that I’ve been watching you. And I’ve been waiting for this day, when I could finally meet you and begin.”
James managed to unlock his throat. “Begin?”
“Yes, begin! That’s what this is. A beginning. We are about to embark on the—The!—single greatest adventure anyone has ever known.” Ezra took a great breath, straightened up, and stepped forward. “James, do you want to know who you really are?”
“Are you with the Escalades?” James said.
A monstrous breeze rushed through the neighborhood, bending branches, and for the first time, Ezra’s face hit a sharp note. James felt for an instant as if he’d just come awake, and some part of his brain screamed to get the hell out of there.
“James? James.”
James looked up to see Ezra’s face, the hand of the captain once more. What was I just thinking?
“What Escalades, James?”
“There was an Escalade this morning, by the tracks, and I thought the guy was watching me. Then, later, I saw another one.”
“Hm. Well, that is unfortunate. I’d hoped we were uniquely aware of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I only mean that this is unfortunate. It means they’re aware of you, at least as a possibility. Hopefully as no more than that.”
“Who?”
“Who? Oh, I think that’s a question for another time. For now, let’s just say they are suspicious that you may be someone important, but they’re not sure. I’m sure they have a large pool of boys they’re watching. You’re just one of many.”
“Many what? What does that mean?”