Bystander

by James Preller

  Eric thought it was kind of comical. It was a cemetery, and that’s serious stuff, but the names on the tombstones were, like, Sparky and Mugsy and Luther and Bubbles.

  A few had pictures of the (dead, buried, rotting) pet, and there were even little statues of dogs and cats at some of the grave sites. Eric noticed fresh flowers at a couple of sites and that gave him a chill, the thought of some lady weeping at a grave site over poor old Mr. Chuckles, the world’s perkiest Yorkshire terrier.

  He thought of Mrs. Rosen, the lunch aide whose dog died over the summer. When she had talked to Griffin that day, she seemed really heartbroken over it. Maybe her dog was buried in here somewhere. What was its name? Daisy. He remembered something his father said, back a few years ago when Eric was lobbying hard for a pet. Eric’s dad replied, “Dogs are built-in heartbreak. Ten good years, two bad years, some giant vet bills, then they die and break your heart. It’s not worth it, believe me.”

  That was sooo his father. Mr. Half Empty.

  “I wish I had a dog,” Eric said.

  Hallenback remained quiet, distant. He hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the cemetery. Something on his mind, Eric surmised.

  When they neared the far corner, Hallenback steered them to a low, granite tombstone. Several small American flags—the type that kids wave at Fourth of July parades—were planted in the ground at each side of the site. The tombstone read: CHECKERS, 1951–62, NIXON.

  “Is this it? This is what you wanted to show me? Where President Nixon’s dog is buried?”

  Hallenback appeared distracted, not listening. He was looking off in the other direction. A group of five boys emerged from the far side of the cemetery.

  Eric knew each one of them. They were led by Griffin, with Cody at his side. By the look on their faces, Eric could see they meant trouble.

  Hallenback was going to get creamed.

  “You’d better get out of here,” he said to David. “Maybe I can talk to them.”

  But Hallenback snorted, a sound of disgust. He took a few steps closer to the approaching boys. “Hey, guys,” he said.

  “David,” Eric warned. “Don’t.”

  Hallenback lifted his head and stared at Eric. The look on his face was pure, unabashed disgust. “You stupid idiot. You think he’s after me, don’t you?”

  It took a moment for it to register. Eric looked from Hallenback to Griffin, to Cody’s hatchet face. A hollowed-out feeling entered Eric’s chest, like a balloon expanding. An electric current tingled through his fingers, his legs felt leaden.

  Oh, crap.

  22

  [boot]

  CODY MOVED AGGRESSIVELY FORWARD. HE WAS ON EDGE, hyper, dangerous. He stood directly in front of Eric, too close for comfort. The others drifted nearer, forming a loose semicircle that faced Eric. Drew P. was there, with Will, and Sinjay, too. His so-called friends, here for the show.

  Hallenback crossed an imaginary line and now aligned himself with Griffin, who greeted him with a subtle nod. Eric understood that something significant had happened. David Hallenback—of all people—had lured him off school grounds. It had been a trap. And it was here, Eric realized, where it was going to happen.

  He looked at Hallenback. “Is this what you wanted to show me, David?”

  “No, I’ve got something I want to show you!” Cody leaned in close. He put a hand on Eric’s chest. “I heard what you said about me, Hayes.” There was fury in his voice.

  Eric didn’t understand. “What I said . . . ?”

  “What you called me.” Cody tapped his knuckles on Eric’s chest, not hard, but not soft, either.

  Cody didn’t want to say it out loud.

  Not in front of everybody.

  For the sliver of an instant, Eric wondered how Cody found out. He had said it out loud only once, and that was over a month ago, at the supermarket with Griffin.

  Griffin. He was the one. Had to be. Griffin was the puppet master, pulling the strings without even lifting a finger. Griffin had arranged it all. Cody was just a tool, a weapon that Griffin used whenever he wanted.

  Eric smirked. At that moment, he hated Cody’s face, hated his horse teeth, his ragged hair, everything about him. “What’s the matter?” Eric said. “You don’t want everyone to hear your new nickname?”

  Eric paused, stared hard at Griffin, whispered it. “Weasel.”

  Cody’s eyes blazed and he hit Eric on the side of his face with a ferocious right hook.

  Eric staggered back, but did not fall. “I don’t want to fight you, Cody,” he said.

  “I don’t think you have a choice,” Griffin noted from the sidelines.

  Eric turned to walk away. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do? The easy advice they give you. Just walk away.

  When Cody reached for him, grabbed him hard, a switch went off in Eric’s head. He turned and swung wildly. Cody ducked the blow and danced out of the way.

  “Fight!” someone cried.

  “Do it, do it!”

  The others moved in closer, like sharks circling a swimmer. Blood was in the water.

  Whoever taught Cody how to fight deserved a lot of credit. Those karate classes really paid off. After a rapid flurry of punches, he grabbed Eric in a headlock and twisted, twisted, twisted until Eric was on his knees, fearing that his neck might snap.

  He clawed at Cody’s fingers, desperately trying to pry them apart. It was getting hard to breathe.

  That’s when punches rained down upon Eric’s face. All left hands, hard and true.

  At a certain point, it became a blur.

  The whole fight—if you could call it that—probably lasted less than three minutes.

  Eric was on the ground, gasping heavily on his hands and knees, spitting blood.

  “Okay, Cody. You’re done,” Griffin said.

  “Consider that a lesson,” Cody said.

  The others murmured, disturbed and excited. It was a chilling display of pure animal violence.

  And it thrilled them.

  Eric had only wanted it to end. And now he regretted, more than anything, his one punch that hadn’t landed. If only he could have had the pleasure of cracking Cody in the face, just once, to feel his fist crunch against Cody’s cheekbone.

  Griffin bent over and plucked something from the ground. It was a little American flag from Checkers’s grave.

  Eric understood the gesture: Griffin needed his souvenir.

  The party was over. But no one told David Hallenback.

  Two feet stepped close to Eric’s head. “You think you are so much better than me, don’t you?” Hallenback spat. There was anger in his voice. So much pain bubbling up to the surface.

  “I don’t—” Eric gasped.

  “Now you know what it’s like!” Hallenback screamed. “Now you know!”

  Hallenback had worn hiking boots that day, Eric noted, not the sneakers he usually wore. Special occasion, Eric guessed. And now Eric watched the boot lift, swing forward, and drive into his stomach.

  Eric absorbed the blow, crumpled like a paper cup. He felt the cool earth on his face. It was nice, like a damp towel. Eric tasted grass, and dirt, and a warm trickle of blood from his lips.

  Hallenback kicked a few more furious times. He wasn’t practiced at it, though, and the kicks were only glancing blows. Eric covered up, hands wrapped tightly around his head, body in a ball. He refused to cry out. No sobbing, no pleas for mercy. He took it in silence. But—ungh—that last kick knocked something out of him. His body grunted, heaved, constricted in pain.

  “That’s enough,” Cody barked. “Leave him alone, Hallenback. He’s down.”

  Eric heard them walk away. And a sound came up from his throat and passed through his lips. Laughter, except it hurt his ribs. Still, it was funny, though, when he thought about it.

  David Hallenback had found a way to belong.

  He was one of the gang.

  All it took was kicking Eric’s ass.

  For a while—one minute,
two minutes, five minutes—Eric just lay there, feeling oddly serene, wondering how badly he was hurt. He slowly stretched out his arms and legs. He ached all over. His neck was stiff. He felt his face. It seemed okay; only a little blood came off on his fingers.

  Then he heard a bicycle pull up.

  What now? Eric wondered.

  “Are you okay?” Mary asked. She sounded frightened.

  Eric half rolled to look up at her. Mary was standing with the sun behind her back, framing her head. Eric squinted; her face was in shadow, dizzying. “Oh, sure, I’m peachy,” he said. Or maybe he just thought it.

  “What?” Mary leaned down close, put a hand on Eric’s shoulder, listened.

  He shook his head. There really wasn’t anything to say. It took too much effort anyway.

  “I was hiding. I watched from the hill,” she confessed. Her hands touched his face, wiped the hair from his eyes. “I waited for them to leave.” She pulled at his arms and helped him sit. “It’s not so bad. I’ve seen worse—but only in slasher movies.”

  Eric snickered at that.

  And after a while, with her help, he stood.

  “Let’s get you home.”

  And somehow, together, that’s what they did.

  23

  [unsent]

  ERIC PLAYED A LOT OF GUITAR DURING THOSE DAYS. IT was the best thing for him, just losing himself in the instrument, slamming out fat chords, but mostly, not thinking.

  He had written a letter to his father—the first one in a long, long time—and now it rested on the desk in his room.

  Dear Dad,

  Hi, it’s Eric.

  I guess you know all about us living on Long Island. I like parts of it, and other parts are kind of weird. The ocean is cool. School is a little crazy.

  It’s hard being in a new place, you know? I had some friends but now I know they weren’t my friends after all. So I’m kind of starting all over again at zero. Or one, maybe, but that’s a long story. The truth is, I got beat up the other day. Don’t worry. I’m okay. It wasn’t so bad. I mean, sure, it totally sucked. So I spend a lot of time trying to forget all about it. Some days it works.

  Is that how it is for you?

  I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you on the phone the other day. Don’t be mad at me. Sometimes I just do things. It’s hard to explain why.

  I listen to your CDs a lot. I close my eyes and turn the music up loud. There’s that song by Jimi Hendrix when the guitar goes whoosh from the left ear to the right ear and then back, like it’s whipping through my skull. Pretty cool. The other day I thought of you and for a minute I couldn’t remember your face. It scared me. I have a picture of you inside my desk drawer. I had to go and look at it. It’s from that time when I beat you at putt-putt golf. I was so happy that day. It was when we were on vacation by the lake. Remember that? I do.

  I think I’m going to ask Mom for a frame and hang that picture on my wall. I think about you a lot. I still have that guitar you gave me, but I mostly play the electric now. I just learned how to play “Ziggy Stardust.” It’s a cool song . . . Ziggy played guitar! You are right about what you said. Music helps.

  Rudy is doing great. He’s getting good at sports. I never let him beat me, but sometimes I let him come close. I might try out for the school basketball team. I’ve been practicing a lot, dribbling with both hands, shooting jumpers from behind the line. I really, really hope I make it.

  Anyway, I don’t know. I just wanted to say hi. And I’m sorry. I guess that’s what we both do. We keep saying I’m sorry.

  I miss you.

  Love,

  Eric

  P.S. Did you know that President Nixon’s dog is buried out here? How weird is that? He’s the one that robbed the hotel, right? Or something like that!

  It was a stupid letter, Eric decided upon rereading it, and I never should have written it in felt marker. Eric ripped it up and let the pieces flutter into the wastebasket, like snowflakes falling into a dark, deep well.

  And so he picked up his guitar, plugged in the headphones, and started strumming.

  24

  [fallout]

  MRS. HAYES’S INITIAL REACTION WAS SHOCK. AFTER ALL, her son had been beaten up in a pet cemetery. It was not the kind of news a mother hears every day. So she freaked.

  Eric couldn’t blame her. He did look like a mess. Before they reached Eric’s house, Mary had helped him clean up in the bathroom at McDonald’s. She went right in the men’s room with him, just locked the door and went to work, dabbing and rinsing and making a fuss. Eric’s face was bruised and swollen around the eyes and cheek. His lower lip was split. His body was sore, stiff, and bone tired. Nothing that two Advils every four hours, with a full weekend of rest, couldn’t cure. His body would recover.

  Mrs. Hayes asked a million questions, and when she didn’t like the answers, she picked up the phone and started dialing. Eric, for his part, downplayed everything. At first he hoped to claim it was all a football injury, but after he looked at his face in the mirror, he knew the story wouldn’t fly. So he spooned out a watered-down version of the truth—it wasn’t that big of a deal, just a misunderstanding, and so on and so forth—but his mother took everything superseriously. She wanted names, she wanted facts. She was like one of those detectives on Law and Order. She even asked, “Checkers’s grave site? Why is Nixon’s dog buried in Bellport?”

  Mrs. Hayes was not the type of person to let this kind of thing fade into the background, as Eric had hoped. She talked on the phone with school counselors, teachers, and the principal. She turned everything into a big deal. For Eric, that was the worst part of it. Being at the center of all that hand wringing. He just wanted it to go away. At the same time, a part of him was relieved. He was glad the school knew, that eyes had been opened, that this thing (supposedly) wouldn’t happen again.

  Eric managed to keep David Hallenback’s name out of it. He had to tell about the other guys: Cody, Griffin, Drew, Will, and Sinjay. Maybe not telling the whole truth was a mistake. Maybe he should have said something about Hallenback. But some instinct told Eric to leave it alone. He wouldn’t have said anything about Mary, either, except she insisted on waiting with Eric until his mother came home from work.

  That was the first thing Eric said, after his mother exclaimed, “Eric, oh my God, what happened?”

  He gestured feebly with his hand and said, “Mom, this is Mary O’Malley.” It wasn’t really a great time for introductions. But what are you going to do? It was not a perfect world, as Eric had resoundingly discovered.

  “The dogs!” Eric suddenly remembered. He’d forgotten all about his dog-walking duties. Mary volunteered to do it. Eric wasn’t sure.

  “No,” Mrs. Hayes cut in. “I’ll take care of the dogs.”

  “Then I’ll wait here with Eric,” Mary said, and there wasn’t a trace of question in her voice. She wasn’t asking permission.

  “Fine,” Mrs. Hayes relented. “I’ll be back soon. There’s some ice cream in the freezer.”

  Eric was sullen and embarrassed to be alone with Mary, and in such sorry shape. He was relieved when his mother returned and Mary left.

  But she stopped by the next day. To drop off a video, she said. It was The School of Rock, starring Jack Black. Eric had seen the movie a few times already—“I pledge allegiance . . . to the band . . . of Mr. Schneebly . . .”—but it was the thought that counted, and to Eric it counted a lot. Seeing Mary was good, though, because now more than ever he felt cut off and alone.

  Eric hated that first day back at school on Monday. Everyone knew about the fight. There were no secrets in seventh grade, plus his face looked like a bruised peach. He wanted to stay home an extra day, but his mother wouldn’t allow it. She was all about “getting back on that horse” and blah, blah, blah. There was no arguing with her.

  Walking the halls, sitting in classrooms—from the way kids looked at him, you’d think that his hair had turned into live snakes. He was, as Sophie Cerrone said in
French class, “Le freak du jour.”

  She was kidding. Eric hoped.

  Mr. Floyd, the counselor, summoned Eric to a meeting in his office. Eric was instructed to bring his lunch. The invitation came as a relief, since it allowed Eric to put off for another day the discomfiture of the cafeteria.

  Mr. Floyd rose and greeted Eric when he entered the office. He inquired how Eric was feeling, gestured to a chair. All very gracious and smooth. Eric glanced around the room. In addition to the usual setup of a big desk and high-backed swivel chair, Mr. Floyd’s office included a round conference table, “to facilitate meaningful dialogue,” no doubt. It was here where Eric now sat. Nothing much happened at first. Mr. Floyd busied himself with a folder stuffed with a notepad and papers. So Eric tore into his sandwich. Ham and Swiss on rye, with just a whisper of mustard. Not bad.

  There was a knock on the door behind Eric. Mr. Floyd looked up and said, “Thank you for joining us, Cody. Please take a seat.”

  Eric’s heart sputtered. Cody looked glum and distrustful. He set down his lunch tray and took a seat at the table as far from Mr. Floyd and Eric as mathematically possible, so that the three participants now represented the points of a perfect triangle.

  “I realize this must feel awkward for you,” Mr. Floyd began, “but I felt it was important to bring you boys together to discuss what happened after school on Friday.”

  Mr. Floyd ran a hand over his goatee and pursed his lips. “I understand punches were thrown.”

  Cody and Eric exchanged wary glances. Neither said a word.