by Dan Cummings
A flash of annoyance etched then rapidly smoothed itself across Neil’s features in the space of a second, replaced by a polite smile. He signalled impatiently towards Matt and Sam, and dived for something witty and aloof to leave on, hoping to rekindle an actual conversation with her soon, tomorrow maybe. ‘Err, brush your teeth,’ he settled on, turning away to his moment-killing friends only to hastily spin back towards her, panic ringing throughout his mind, his own brain attempting to make coherence of his words and realising it was a possibly abusive statement. ‘I meant, after you’ve eaten—’ he quickly pointed towards Doris and her crew of sturdy, hard-faced cattle-feeders.
‘I know.’ Her smile radiated, and she looked more embarrassed for him rather than his misinterpreted comment.
Flustered, he held contact with her hazel eyes for an all too short moment and turned back, irritated by the delirious amusement on Sam and Matt’s faces. He shouldered the pair of them like he was escorting them away from his horrific crash site, as they struggled to breathe with their wild laughter.
‘“Brush your teeth?”’ Sam was in pain, his wide, stoned eyes looking like he was on the verge of heart palpitations. ‘You told that girl to brush her fucking teeth?’ Sam and Matt high-fived as they were marched out the cafeteria.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Neil mumbled in agitation. ‘I meant… forget it.’
Chapter 3
Out in the grey October chill of the school parking lot, away from prying eyes of the faculty, Sam had produced a thick white papery cylinder from a classy cigarette case. He jostled the fat joint before them with jumping eyebrows and proceeded to light up, walking against the breeze, his hand cupped around the cherry. Feeling his head swim, he passed it back to Matt, the three of them moving single file through the ranks of cars.
‘You got eye drops?’ Neil asked.
‘Yes, mother,’ Sam teased, taking the doobie from Matt, knowing Neil’s new stance would result in him declining a drag. ‘This straight edge thing you’re playing about with is getting tired.’
Neil looked bemused. ‘I’m not straight edge. I was drunk with the both of you last weekend.’
They came to a stop next to Sam’s rundown van, one panel door completely mismatched in colour, red on black. Sam rubbed his knuckles on the bristles of one of his itchy sideburns. ‘Look, it’s not that I’m not thrilled you’re having this mid-teen crisis, Captain Sensible, what with all the running and pseudo clean living, but when are we getting our friend back?’
Neil gestured to the locked van, wanting Sam to hurry up and open it so they could get in from out of the cold. ‘I just want to try and keep my head on straight for a while. Don’t you guys give a shit about college next year? Being a fucking dope all day long wears pretty thin. There’s only so many times you can get high and watch Comedy Bang! Bang!’
‘You could watch something else?’ Matt suggested with a sleepy smile. ‘You know what I’ve been binging on lately—’ His recommendation was cut off like a pulled record needle, as his attention suddenly shifted towards some stealthy danger lurking down the lot’s aisle. Neil and Sam followed his rigid stare. A restored Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was grumbling towards them, black as a starless night; a gold phoenix splaying its flaming wings as if to embrace the darkness, was slowly coasting towards them. Autumn leaves seemed to scurry out of its path to take shelter beneath other nearby cars. ‘Fuck, Sam…’ Matt whispered, knowing full well that running wouldn’t be a wise move. ‘It’s Noakes. Maybe you should have called Shit Storm sooner.’
Sam’s expression was that of a trapped animal; he ground out the joint and pocketed it quickly.
‘See, this is another good reason why laying off the smoke is a good idea,’ Neil said quietly. ‘You don’t have to deal with assholes like this.’ The Firebird slowed to a stop in front of the van, the occupants hidden behind the sun glare on the windshield, the dreary clouds floating across the glass like passing hitchhikers.
‘Sam, you better do some primo grovelling.’ Matt couldn’t move but was careful not to stare directly at the muscle car’s windshield in case they took it as a challenge.
‘Okay, we just stay calm and sort this. Sam, tell him you’ll only buy from him from here on out. Then I’m going to lecture the both of you on how fucking retarded you both are,’ Neil rebuked.
Music rumbled the asphalt, the car resonating its surroundings like a rung tuning fork. The passenger door opened with a plume of smoke and Shit Storm appeared like a magician ready to mesmerise and throttle his anxious captive audience. Neil looked beyond the scrawny but strong frame of Russel Staubach, spotting the imposing aura of Jason Noakes behind the wheel, watching the situation unfold passively. Noakes was a few inches shorter than Neil, but he was built like a pile of sandbags, wide shoulders stretching his blue and white striped polo shirt, toned arms which bulged from every movement. His hands were tattooed with spider webs; red hearts and diamonds, black spades and clubs were the snared prey. The webs crawled up his arms, giving way to shiny, chrome-coloured barking engines and pin-up girls.
Staubach confidently paced towards Sam, a half-smoked joint between his fingers, his angle of approach pinning him to the left fender of the van. ‘Sam Dulane, just the sneaky fuck I’ve been looking for.’ Staubach glanced at Neil and Matt like they were a couple of absolute zeros and immediately ignored them. ‘Didn’t you get my message?’ Any notion of settling this with words already felt impossible; Staubach’s hackles were up and his attitude was clearly running counter to polite discussion. ‘Looking a little uncomfortable there, Sam. You feeling okay?’ Staubach enjoyed the fear contorting Sam’s body into a series of awkward twitches and half-movements.
Sam’s voice was practically squeaking like a mouse. ‘Yeah, I’m cool.’
‘No you’re not,’ Staubach snickered, as the remark drew a nasty little cackle from the Firebird’s backseat. Neil and Matt noticed it was Dodd who was watching from the backseat like a demented hyena chasing wounded prey, his latest black eye making him look like some type of bandit, maybe a raccoon.
‘I was going to call you, honest. I just wanted to get something to eat first.’ Sam’s sycophantic routine made Neil feel contemptuous, a fact he would never openly admit or boast of with pride in his private moments. He knew all too well that he was no tough guy either, but still, it was a horrible thing having to watch a friend demean himself for idiots like Staubach.
‘Well that’s great timing then.’ Staubach’s forced cheer was a transparent front of simmering tension. ‘And I’m sure you were going to call me as soon as you finished eating, right, bro?’
Sam was still all but plastered against the corner of his van, Staubach not giving him an inch. ‘Yeah, right after. I mean, I’m a valued customer, right?’ He tried to soften the mood with a nervous laugh.
Staubach’s strong slender fingers commenced playing with his patchy chin wisps like a great mind pondering the mysteries of the universe. ‘Yeah, of course. Unless you were planning on going to buy off that fucktard, Sticky, again? But you wouldn’t do that to us…would you? After all those times I’ve so generously let you open a tab.’
Sam voice was wrought with tension. ‘It was just a couple of times. He said he had some good stuff so I just thought I’d check it out.’
Staubach continued to rub his chin, dropping his head slightly like he was trying to catch a lie hidden behind Sam’s eyes. ‘Not valued customer behaviour. I hope you’re not fucking with us here. I’ve known you guys…five years.’ Staubach placed a hand delicately on Sam’s shoulder. ‘I don’t want to be hurting people I’ve come up through school with—’ his bloodshot eyes squinted into rock-like fissures, ‘—but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy it if you continue to fuck over your friendly neighbourhood dealers.’
Sam tried to hold eye contact with the oppressive intimidation as Staubach edged closer and closer into Sam’s personal space. ‘I’ll never score off him again. I’ll delete—’ Staubach cut him
off mid-sentence with a sharp, humiliating slap across Sam’s acne-sprinkled cheeks.
Neil and Matt felt the springs in the balls of their feet jounce, almost firing them into some type of ill-conceived action until an override from their collective common sense stilled them. They both looked at each other hopelessly, then weighed up Staubach, who was bad enough, then considered the quiet presence of the true danger sitting behind the wheel. Noakes was a legitimate reason to ride this humility out, everyone knew to some extent the people he was connected to.
‘Shit, guys.’ Staubach turned to the stone-faced Noakes and heckling Dodd. ‘You see those cheeks wobble? You got jelly in your mouth, tubby? Because from the looks of things, you could have easily skipped lunch to put my mind at ease.’
Sam’s eyes started to water from the sting of the slap and the utter shame and embarrassment of his situation. He bit his lip, begging not to let his fear win and break him into a sobbing wreck. Neil and Matt continued to exchange helpless glances with each other and felt like the biggest fucking losers on the planet, standing there, dry mouthed, electrical tingles of adrenaline trembling their limbs as their friend was practically sandwiched against the corner of his own ride in shame and brewing violence.
‘Time it, Shit Storm. See how long it takes for the jigglin’ to stop,’ Dodd jeered over the Firebird’s music.
Like a Rottweiler having its tail yanked, Staubach spun around, all blazing eyes and frothing mouth. ‘Don’t fucking call me Shit Storm, fuck head!’ With a deft flick, he fired the remainder of his joint towards Dodd, planting a hot kiss on his cheek as the embers were pulled away from the fracas by intervening winds.
That silenced Dodd, who battered the hot sting away and seemed to turtle-up into a shell of skittishness, furtively glancing at the big quiet man behind the wheel. The only exceptional aspect about Dodd was how profoundly unremarkable he was. A blond crewcut, thrift store clothing, personality and intelligence of a house-trained puppy, albeit one which received regular kicks to the hind quarters. Noakes didn’t even react to Staubach’s swift eruption, he was the cool ice cap to Staubach’s rumbling fault line; if anything he was more concerned that some of the joint’s ash might have smeared the interior upholstery, but Staubach was lucky this time. One large tattooed hand played with his solid brass zippo — All In engraved in fine calligraphy across the body — as the other turned up the volume on the gold dashboard’s radio. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club asking him what his weapon of choice was, the buzz of the guitar loud enough to startle the birds in the tree-lined parking lot.
A sadistic little smile stretched the gaunt, pale cheeks of Shit Storm’s mouth. ‘Still, not a bad idea.’ He slapped Sam again, who tried cowering behind his raised arms. The occasional student, even the occasional teacher, attracted by the disturbing of the peace, threw a disposable glance across the lot only to see the Firebird and Staubach’s latest unfortunate, and quickly developed amnesia, hurrying away behind a veil of ignorance. Neil saw the wolfish teeth of Staubach bare in a pitiless grin, making a game of slapping Sam, hitting any exposed area like a game of whack-a-mole. ‘I’m the only guy you buy from,’ he said as his palm connected sharply with the back of Sam’s head. He slipped a quick hand under the denim jacket and twisted Sam’s left nipple like an oven dial, applying enough pressure to damn near tear it from his flabby pectoral. ‘You hear me?’
Before Neil had time to thoroughly analyse his decision, he barged past the piano-wire-taut Matt and stepped up to Staubach, his voice distant and muffled over his static nerves. ‘Leave him alone, we get it. It won’t happen again.’
Staubach couldn’t believe such an insult, staring at Neil, who had a good six inches on him, like he was some snivelling brat speaking out of line. As he slapped his palm to his beanie in exclamation to this unimaginable act of disrespect, his eyes crinkled in lines of fury. ‘The fuck did you just say?’
Neil tried to lower his tensed shoulders but his muscles were supercharged with vinegar and dread, keeping his neck tight for the blow he knew was coming. Seconds stretched like minutes. No blow came. ‘We’ve always been good business, right? We’ve been buying from you since forever. Sam won’t buy from Sticky again.’
‘No fucking shit,’ Staubach spoke with conviction.
‘Look, I’ll even pay you for the business Sam gave the other guy.’ He fished out forty dollars and change.
Matt’s frantic eyes spoke more elaborately than his scrambled brains and tongue could, but his quiet ocular communication was trying to say he wanted to help. He got out a thoroughly battered five dollar bill, looking almost bereft. ‘I only got this, Staubach. But take it, just stop hitting him.’
Staubach sagged back on one propped leg and dropped his slapping palm on Sam’s flinching shoulder. ‘Nice friends you got here, Sam. Pulling your fat out the fire. Matt’s always been a broke fuckin’ moocher and he’s still making it rain for you.’
Sam looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and die. ‘Guys, put it away. If he wants money, I’ll pay.’
After a second of confusion, still surfing that adrenaline half-pipe, Matt blinked awake in time for Staubach to rip his meagre contribution from his fingers whilst Sam rummaged in his jeans for his fiscal reparation. Staubach silently ignored Sam for the moment, his attention fixed on Neil. Neil felt those mundane cherry-red eyes bore into him, red storm clouds with flickering bolts of capillary lightning. He looked past Staubach to the still silent Noakes who was watching the commerce with a bit more interest now, his brow wrinkled beneath a curl of greasy black hair. Dodd was practically hanging out of the car, his hands looped around the headrest of the passenger seat, watching like a five-year-old entranced by Saturday morning cartoons.
Unfolding his arms, Staubach took another step to Neil. ‘Tell you what, piss streak, you’re feeling so charitable. I’ll take your donation too.’
Neil felt so worked up he was pretty sure his every exhalation was like steam billowing from his nostrils. ‘Fine.’ He held it out to Staubach who snatched it like a crow swooping in for a fat worm.
‘Since you’re not wearing those gay fucking track shorts, what else you got in those pockets?’
‘What?’
‘You fucking deaf? Empty your pockets.’
Neil’s hands balled inside his coat pockets and he wished he had the power or the balls to knock this prick to the ground. But then what? He knew these guys weren’t posers shaking down nerds for lunch money. ‘You already got our money…’ His voice trailed off, so weak and uncertain that it seemed to accept defeat of its own accord.
Staubach pocketed the bills and shook his head sympathetically. ‘Think of it like…disloyalty tax. We run a business, how would it reflect on us if word got around to any other wannabe botanists that we’re a soft touch? That jizz stains like you think they can take advantage of our good nature and take their business elsewhere. It makes us look like we can’t keep business, that our product’s bad.’
Neil felt like he was cocooned in bubble wrap, nothing feeling was quite real at this bad moment in time. Glumly, he turned out his possessions, another ten dollars and his iPod. He had left his phone in his bag which was securely stowed away in his locker. The ten dollars he would get over, but the iPod was a heavier blow. Staubach scrunched the money and iPod into his pocket.
Matt unglued his lips and finally spoke, sensing a possible end to this disproportionate levy. ‘C’mon, man, is that enough now?’ Matt didn’t like the blank look on Staubach’s rodent-like face. Staubach had been a piece of shit since the day they had all met in freshman year, had remained shitty all through their ensuing tenure at Hawthorne High, but he had definitely been getting progressively worse. Matt felt like he was on a ledge, waiting for Staubach to break his quiet stretch and push him off. Matt swiped a sideways glance at Noakes watching with one hand poised on the wheel, clearly bored by the shakedown.
Something clicked back into life behind Staubach’s eyes, and his smile became a perverse
parody of amicability. ‘Sure thing, slugger. If I remember right, you were always better at pitching than catching, right.’
Matt dropped his chin an inch in agreement. Neil was slowly exhausting his panic and just wanted this bullshit to end; he looked at Sam, not wanting to make his friend feel any more insignificant by fussing over him, and knew that he was mentally beating his self-respect within an inch of its life.
‘Pitching is way more fun,’ Staubach sneered, as springing back to life, he spun Sam around roughly and aggressively pretended to have anal sex with the husky protesting youth, grabbing a fistful of his auburn curls and wrenching his head back.
Something cracked inside Neil, it was as if someone or something usurped control of his autonomy, but he took that step and roughly grabbed Staubach by the back of his gilet, pulling him off Sam and then with a pivot of his hips, hurled him into the side of the humming Firebird, where he came a fraction of an inch from elbowing the hypnotised Dodd in the face. Everything went quiet. The deafening music. The whistle of the wind. Even his own heartbeat seemed to have frozen into a painful lump in his chest. After that split second of clarity, the whole world seemed to speed up into double time as his lungs inhaled a big gulp of panic.
Staubach looked just as shocked as Neil, splattered beside the rear right tyre, his beanie skewed revealing black hair in a Caesar haircut. Worse though, they now had Noakes’s undivided attention, his put upon air which, on the surface, seemed almost fraternal, a bigger brother preparing to trounce some jumped-up nuisance. Matt had both hands over his mouth now, having no delusions about how this was going to play out. Either Neil got a horrible beating, at best, or the three of them did.
Neil’s focus was like a pinball machine, ricocheting from Noakes, to Staubach’s pent-up fury and back to the passive-featured pack leader. He barely noticed Sam yelping, ‘C’mon,’ and scrabbling behind the wheel, driven by the mad fear of what traumas might follow Neil’s foolhardy actions. Sam fired the engine like there was lightning in his veins. Neil and Matt burst into life, throwing themselves inside the van as Staubach pelted towards Sam, ripping at the handle and beating on the glass.