USA Noir Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series

by Johnny Temple

  “Remember how good it used to be?” Chad asked. “You and me, droppin’ it like it’s hot?” He took a swig from his beer and wiped his mouth.

  I remembered how it was, letting Chad talk me into sneaking into someone else’s garage, their car, their house, riding away on their bikes with PlayStations and laptops stuffed into our backpacks. It was everything I had wanted to forget about myself, but for Chad. Once he left, I started trying to clean up my act, but now Chad was back and he had a thousand dollars riding on my back.

  “Yeah, that was cool,” I said as we finished off our beers before heading out to find a new ride for the night. Maybe it’s cause we grew up without a dad, but it was easier to lie than to admit that I never wanted to do any of that stuff, I had just wanted to be with Chad. “Welcome home, bro,” I said. “It’s good to have you back.”

  Chad passed me another bottle of beer. As he steered the car onto the dark road, I felt myself move back to that place I had been trying to get beyond, but now that Chad was home safe I knew I had never wanted to leave.

  We parked behind the valet parking booth next to the Pocasset Golf Club clubhouse. Chad took a lumpy sock out of a military duffle bag and tucked it inside his jean jacket. “BRB, dude,” he said, and got out of the car and went inside the booth.

  The booth sat there, dark, motionless, silent, with a blue glow coming through the blinds. I sat and downed another beer, tasting its bitterness, waiting for fifteen minutes, maybe more, for Chad to emerge.

  Chad got into the car and held up a set of keys to a ’66 Mustang.

  “Whoa, so how did you do that?” Like I needed to ask.

  “Just a little barter. This way we get the sweet ride, we gas ’er, and return ’er by eleven. Ain’t no need to go breakin’ no law.”

  Chad texted his friends: Got the ride boyz. Where U @?

  * * *

  In Woods Hole, we all gathered back at the dock at five, like always. Stubby was yelling into his cell phone, pacing back and forth. Second Chance was gone.

  Freddie and Tiny never made it to Osterville. A coast guard patrol boat picked them up near Popponesset where the boat had run out of gas. They said they had planned to bring it back in time and would have filled it up, but they didn’t have any money because of school policy so it wasn’t their fault Second Chance ran out of gas.

  * * *

  The Mustang at the golf club had a full tank. So did Chad. Whatever he had done in that booth had shot his eyes through with blood.

  We drove to where his friends were sliding a slim jim into the door of some shit Toyota.

  “Well, I guess you won,” one of his friends said and gawked at our ride.

  Chad and I had a few beers left, but his friends were out so Chad thought it would be cool to race to the liquor store over on the other side of the Bourne Bridge.

  “The old Bridge Over Troubled Waters, ha ha ha,” his friend, the one who was driving, said.

  “Whoever gets there last is buying,” Chad commanded, then laid down enough rubber to leave them behind in a cloud of smoke.

  The more fucked up and dangerous Chad’s idea was, the more likely it was that he could pull it off. That’s what set him apart. That’s why I loved him and feared him all the same. Why I thought he was going to come home a hero. Why we were going to beat his friends across that bridge and they were gonna be buying us a case of Bud and a bottle of Goldschläger, suckahs.

  Later on, the cops kept asking me what I said to try and stop Chad from “stealing” the Mustang or from cooking up Ritalin and Talwin—which, they explained, is as good as mixing coke and heroin—in that valet booth, or even putting back half a case of beer while driving. They made a big deal out of the drinking and driving as if everyone else around here didn’t do it. But I never said anything to stop Chad. It wasn’t just because I knew there was no stopping him once he set his mind to a thing, or that I knew how badly he needed to win at something since coming back home. It was that I had wanted us to win together.

  * * *

  Cunningham ended up revoking Saturday privileges because we all knew that Freddie and Tiny were planning to steal the boat and never said anything about it.

  Bobby tried to reason with Cunningham: “But if you had never known about it you never would’ve gotten upset, so you don’t need to punish us because there was no reason to tell you. Besides, Tiny had been talking about stealing Second Chance for weeks. Until they didn’t come back, nothing bad had happened, so what was there to say?”

  Freddie and Tiny were punished with extra wood chopping. Bobby had to shovel shit all week.

  * * *

  I still remember what it felt like going over the bridge in that Mustang. All I could feel was how high and fast we were, Chad and me together, set free from something inside.

  “Pop me another cold one,” Chad said.

  I reached into the backseat, grabbed one of our beers, and cracked open the bottle as we were nearing the exit. But we were in the left-hand lane and the exit ramp was already in sight. Chad’s friends were right behind us. Chad floored the Mustang to get ahead of an SUV next to us and ferry over straight onto the ramp. But the SUV driver gave us the finger and accelerated too, cutting us off from the lane. Chad slammed on the brakes. My head whipped forward. The beer went flying out of my hand. The bottle sailed into the windshield and exploded. A spray of beer stung Chad’s eyes. He lifted his hands off the wheel. Shards of glass cut his face, his hands.

  My shoulder hit the window. The seat belt cut into my neck. And the Mustang slammed into the driver’s-side door of a Honda Civic that was trailing the SUV.

  Katelyn Robichard, UMass Dartmouth freshman and Corsairs striker, 2009 Little East Conference Women’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Year, was at the wheel of the Honda. Her seat belt stayed secured, but her airbag didn’t inflate. And pretty little Katelyn Robichard snapped forward at her waist, just like a jack-in-the-box that sprung up out of its lid and collapsed.

  * * *

  Freddie and Tiny were out doing their time, chopping a forest full of wood for the third day in a row, when a periwinkle shell flew out of the clouds and pelted Freddie in the head.

  “Muthahfeckah,” Freddie muttered and slammed his axe down on a piece of wood.

  Another shell came hurling toward him. He swung at the clouds with his axe and yelled, “Come down here, you bitches! You want a piece of me? I’ll show you a piece of me, ya shit-eating birds.”

  The sky filled with cackles, like God was slapping his thigh at the sight of Freddie blowing his top.

  A gull dive-bombed his head and tore at his hair. A shrieking Freddie covered his head with his one free hand and continued swinging his axe overhead. More gulls flew at him. Tiny started throwing pieces of wood into the sky.

  We hated those giant, hungry clouds of birds, but we hated Freddie and Tiny more for getting us all in trouble.

  Except for Bobby, who was in the outhouse, we were all inside supposedly doing homework and chores. But we got up to watch the big show out the kitchen window. Freddie was swinging his axe around like some murderous fuck. “I’m wicked pissa sick o’ bein’ out here with all these birds shitting on me all the goddamned time!”

  “It’s not the birds that’re causing the problem,” Cunningham said. He stood on the porch, the picture of calm. His voice sounded out low and deep, like a horn through the fog.

  Tiny could always tell when Cunningham was about to deliver one of his living-like-a-homesteader-is-good-for-you lectures. “Astern, astern! Eye-roller coming on!” he would shout, like a rogue wave that only he could see was moving through Cunningham. But for now, Tiny was still throwing pieces of wood in the air at the gulls. Da Cunha came busting out the back door and beelined straight for Tiny, throwing him down in a hammerlock.

  “It’s you, Freddie,” Cunningham said. “The birds are just birds. You’re the one choosing to see it as an attack. Life is full of people and things, situations that are going to dump shit on you.
You can’t control that. You can only control your reaction to it. You have to learn your Pukwudgies.”

  “Feck you and your fekwudgees!” Freddie shouted. “I’m sick of getting it in the ass from you pricks.” The gulls shrieked and laughed as they followed Freddie, who stormed off toward the water with that axe.

  Da Cunha still had a grip on Tiny, who turned limp as he watched Freddie disappear. “It’s not fair!” Tiny sobbed. “It’s not fair. It wasn’t my idea to steal the boat. I didn’t want to take it. It’s all Freddie’s fault.”

  It was true. It had been Freddie’s idea, but Bobby had tried to paint it like it was Tiny’s doing. Cunningham said it didn’t matter whose idea it was. They had stolen Second Chance together.

  Da Cunha released Tiny, who rolled on the ground. Stubby appeared. He and Da Cunha went out toward the water, after Freddie.

  “What’s a Pukwudgie?” DeShawn asked.

  “Come on,” Cunningham said. “Time for a little island history lesson.” Cunningham gave Tiny a hand, helping him up. He wrapped his arm around Tiny, and led the rest of us up the hill. As we rounded the graveyard we could hear Freddie’s shouts of “Feck you, you feckin’ narc, Tiny!” go by on the wind.

  The stone ruins of the leper colony looked like the bones of a giant that had been buried there and gradually unearthed. As soon as we passed them for the windward side of the island, the seagulls that had been trailing us dropped off. The wind started to howl and whine.

  Ryan and Kevin went back cause they were on the evening’s cook shift. DeShawn gave me a look like he didn’t want to walk back with Ryan, who was nothing but a snot-nosed pain in the ass, or Kevin, who was bound to do something stupid like walk us off a cliff. Maybe he was also scared that Freddie was still running around with that axe. No matter. I could tell by the way Cunningham had his arm around Tiny that he wasn’t going to let him go anywhere. This walk was for Tiny. Maybe I knew it was also for me.

  * * *

  I put up my hands as we crashed into that girl’s car, but I could still see her face. Her body jackknifing. Her head and chest flying over the steering wheel, toward the windshield.

  They call it safety glass because when your head hits the windshield it shatters but stays in place so that it catches you, like a net. If that fails, and you’re airborne, it crumbles like a cookie so you don’t get cut. But chunks of metal went flying. That girl didn’t stand a chance.

  Sometimes I feel as if I’m made of safety glass, as if everything inside me has shattered yet somehow stays intact. But Chad was all cut up inside, like that broken beer bottle, which sliced up his face.

  Everything would’ve been okay if I hadn’t handed Chad that beer.

  * * *

  Cunningham took us to a crumbling stone courtyard that gave us a little protection from the wind. Me, Tiny, and DeShawn sat down on some old stone benches where we could see the water and some lights from New Bedford, on the other side of the bay. Cunningham cleared his throat, like he had been practicing some speech he’d prepared.

  “After the leper colony closed, a caretaker lived out here with his wife and two sons. They were the only people on the island. Then one of the kids killed the other. They said it was a freak accident, but anyone who knew this place and that family knew the truth. It was because of the Pukwudgies.

  “The Pukwudgies were these little demons, no bigger than your hand, that made the Wampanoags’ lives miserable. They broke their arrows, bored holes in their canoes, and ruined their crops. It would not be inaccurate to say they were the Wampanoag equivalent to having a seagull defecate on your head, but as tiny as they were, they had great power over the Wampanoag giant Moshup and his sons.” When he said “giant,” Cunningham shot Tiny a meaningful look.

  “One day, Moshup declared war against the Pukwudgies. He gathered his sons and set out across the Cape to hunt them down. At night, while Moshup and his boys were sleeping, the Pukwudgies snuck up on Moshup’s sons, blinded them, and stabbed them to death. Moshup buried his sons along the shoreline. He was so aggrieved he covered their gravesites with rocks and soil to create enormous funerary mounds. In time the ocean rose, carrying the mounds—and the boys’ remains—to here. All the islands here in Buzzards Bay—Naushon, Pasque, Nashawena, Cuttyhunk, and Penikese—are what remains of the great giant’s sons.”

  The wind was threading its way through the holes in the stonework, curling itself around us, sliding across the backs of our necks.

  “You mean we’re sitting on some Indian grave?” DeShawn asked.

  Cunningham nodded. DeShawn shuddered.

  In the silence, you could hear the ocean churning underneath the wind. That was when I heard what sounded like a small mewling thing. I looked around. DeShawn caught my eye and nudged his head over toward Tiny who started bubbling up like a hot two-liter that had just been cracked open. “She-she-she—”

  DeShawn scratched at the ground with a rock. It smelled like fresh dirt.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Tiny gurgled. “I loved her.”

  Tiny was now going like a geyser. I just kept watching the water, the blackness moving out there, flashing like silver in the moonlight.

  “I liked her so much.”

  DeShawn looked like he wanted to dig his way to China with that rock, anything to get out of there. Then he suddenly stopped, like he remembered he was digging on someone’s grave. He sat on his hands and glanced away.

  Tiny curled up in a ball and put his hands over his head, as if he was scared he was gonna get hit. Cunningham scooped him up like Santa Claus picking up some big fat kid who was crying because he wanted a new fire truck, only it wasn’t a truck Tiny wanted. It was a new life. That was all Tiny wanted. At age seventeen.

  * * *

  The world is full of people like us. Floating out here like these half-sunk islands covered in shit. We’re drifting through your city, your town, cutting across your backyard, walking up your fire escape, sliding a slim jim between your car window and door, slipping into your leather bucket seats that smell like money—your money. We’re wiring your ignition, busting your satellite radio, rifling through your shit, tossing out manuals and hand sanitizer, tissues, registration, and pens, until we find that emergency envelope full of freshly printed twenties. We coast along your streets, caught up in the current of something swirling inside us, riding swells of blacktop anger with the wind at our backs. We don’t really want your car, your daughter, your jewelry, your things. Just like with you, that shit helps us forget why it can hurt to be alive, but only for a little while.

  * * *

  We snuck away, DeShawn and me, leaving Tiny to be lectured by Cunningham about “crossing the treacherous waters,” “a new day dawning,” and “making the journey called Second Chance.” Somewhere behind us on that dark path, we could hear Tiny say he wanted to be different, but he just didn’t know how. He just didn’t know how, he repeated again and again, the sound of his voice echoing in the wind.

  Later that night, we could hear Tiny crying himself to sleep, rocking back and forth. It was like we were all at sea, rolling through the waves of regret crashing around inside him.

  “Feckin’ A,” Freddie said. “Feckin’ knock it off, you pansy.” Freddie had calmed down since earlier. At dinner that night he was so cool it was spooky, like Stubby and Da Cunha had worked him up something good.

  “Shut up,” DeShawn said. “I’m sick of you and your freak-ass shit.”

  “Yo, homes,” Freddie said. “I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. You and me, we’re cool, a’ight?”

  “No,” DeShawn answered. “We ain’t never been cool.”

  We had all been pretending to be asleep, just waiting for Tiny to knock it off, which he did, eventually. Then the house slowly quieted down as the other guys stopped tossing and turning and dozed off for real. But after all of Tiny’s tears, that silence kept me awake.

  I stared out the window and watched the moon rise higher like a giant eyeball staring out
over the hill where the leper cemetery was. In the silence, I could tell someone else was awake and knew I was up too. And he—or it—was just waiting for that moment when I would fall asleep. I lay as still as possible and listened to the waves against our island rock. It was like we were part of some cycle of nature, meant to crash up against things forever.

  Eventually, I fell asleep.

  In the morning, I could hear Cunningham racing down the stairs. Tiny screaming. Voices coming in from outside. DeShawn and me flew out of bed at the same time, put on our jeans and boots, and ran downstairs. Ryan, Kevin, and Bobby came stumbling out of bed behind us.

  Opening the door, I heard it. Like so many little creatures, Pukwudgies maybe, sobbing or laughing—I couldn’t tell which—in the wind. I looked around for them, but I didn’t see anything. DeShawn pointed to the chicken coop.

  Cunningham, Da Cunha, and Stubby just stood and stared. Tiny was on his knees, inside the coop. No one was saying a word.

  The chickens, which were usually running all over the place by the morning, crowing and cock-a-doodle-dooing, were trying to stand on their little chicken legs, but as soon as they got halfway up, they fell over. Someone or something had come in the middle of the night and broken all their legs, just snapped them like twigs. The chickens kept trying to stand, flopping over, and crying out. Lying there, dying, but wanting to live.

  At least twenty pairs of beady little eyes looked up at us for help, looked at us for nothing cause there was nothing we could do but put them out of their misery.

  Tiny was running his fingers through the dirt, tears streaming down his face. Even Bobby looked like someone had just punched him in the gut.

  Freddie was the last person to come out of the house. He strolled up to the chicken yard and didn’t even try not to laugh.