by J. R. Brule
“Will I get to see it before it’s printed?”
“I could do that,” she said. “It’s not customary, but I’d like to make sure I got everything.”
Rudy smiled. He thought she was kind of cute . . . too cute for him. “Okay.”
She was pocketing her pen when he got this ridiculous idea . . . this idea that he wanted to take her to a movie. That’s what boys did for dates, right?
“Um,” Rudy said, touching her arm. She looked at his hand and then up to his face.
Shit, now what?
“Do you like movies?”
She smiled. “Yes! I watch them all the time.”
“Um.” His heart was racing.
Stupid fucking nerves, can’t you chill for just a second?
“Would you maybe come to one . . . with me?”
She giggled. “Okay.”
“Great,” Rudy said, now wanting more than anything to be away from her so that his heart could settle. “See you around, then.”
She nodded and left the library.
When she was gone, Rudy sunk back in his chair. His arms and legs went limp, as if his entire body exhaled, and his racing heart slowed to a euphoric beat.
Did I just do that?
The bell rang and Rudy went to his locker, still riding a cushion of air. People congratulated him on the new record. The attention felt good, and he was happy.
But the feeling ended as quickly as it’d come, when he realized he hadn’t set a date.
---
“What do you figure you’ll find, anyway?” Finch asked.
“He’s got a motion sensor in front of his house. What do you think about that?”
“He’s just paranoid, kid,” Mr. Kloom said. “Probably fought in a war. You know how those old veterans get.”
“Or he’s paranoid about getting caught,” Rudy said. “Look, Finch, the other day, I saw someone’s face get yanked back from the window.”
“Let me ask you something,” Mr. Kloom said. “If you had something to hide, would you invite strangers into your home?”
Finch pointed with all his fingers. “Oh shit. He’s got you there.”
“Okay. You’ve got me there. But listen to this. While we were inside, remember all those empty bags of bread?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Okay, and he had Barbie dolls, kid’s toys, on the countertop. And what did he do when we came in? He swept them into a drawer, so we wouldn’t see them!”
“Well I didn’t notice that,” Mr. Kloom said.
“Probably just ashamed of his pastime,” Finch said. “Didn’t want you knowing he was into dolls.”
“No, no, they were for his dog,” Mr. Kloom said. “I remember now. Name’s Chester.”
Rudy shook his head. “No barking, no food bowls, no dog hair, all the furniture unused. A dog does not live there.”
“Oh boy,” Finch said.
“But,” Rudy said, “let’s backtrack a bit, okay? We’ve got Barbie dolls, piles of empty bread bags, scratching at doors, and now a note hanging down from the second story window, with ‘HELP’ wrapped in the middle.”
Mr. Kloom stared. “What are you suggesting, then?”
“After that face I saw,” Rudy said, looking between them, “I think that old fuck is hiding someone up there.”
“One question,” Finch said.
“Yeah?”
“What in the hell does any of this have to do with your mother?”
“The note,” Rudy said, and slid the paper toward Finch. “Look at it.”
“Okay, so it says ‘help.’ Big deal.”
“The only thing I ever got from her looked exactly the same. I think she wants me to help whoever’s inside.”
Mr. Kloom threw his hands up. “Oh, for God’s sakes, this is the dumbest conversation I’ve ever had, ever, and I’ve had LOTS of dumb ass mother shitting conversations.” He turned to face them. “Kid, listen, you’re not going over there. If you do, I’ll fire your ass and still sleep soundly on my little boat while you find nothing out at all.”
Rudy scrunched the papers, stuffed them back in his pocket, and went for the doors.
“Hey!” Mr. Kloom shouted, bottle still in hand. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’re quitting?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what the FUCK are you doing?”
“Putting the pieces together. I’ll see you in the morning.” Rudy walked out.
Finch shook his head. “Mm-mm, that boy’s something else, ain’t he?”
“Shut the fuck up, Finch.”
“You ought to have clued him in.”
“Maybe,” Mr. Kloom said. “But knowing too much would spoil his chance to get out of our man’s scope. The doctor won’t win.”
32:
“HOLY SHIT,” SAM SAID.
“Huh?”
“The plaque!” Jud said. “You beat John’s record!”
“Chuck told the whole school, man,” Jake said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“I don’t understand it,” Sam said. “You haven’t cared at all about this. What’s the deal? Aren’t you even the least bit excited to get your own plaque? I mean, it’ll be on display forever!”
“Or until someone beats it,” Jake said.
“I am excited,” Rudy said.
“What did you talk to Clarissa about?” Zach asked.
Jud perked up. “Clarissa Onnihon?”
Rudy flushed.
“She’s like, my dream girl,” Jud said.
“She’s everyone’s dream girl,” Zach said. “I’ve asked her out three times this year.”
“She just wanted to talk about the race,” Rudy said. “To write a story for the middle school paper.”
Jake clasped his hands together and leaned into Rudy, batting his eyelashes. “Oh, Rudy!” he said, imitating Clarissa’s voice in falsetto. “I’ve never kissed a star before!”
“You must’ve been nervous,” Jud said. “I know I’d be nervous around a girl like her.”
“Of course he was nervous,” Jake said. “Let’s be honest, we’d all be. Us nerds don’t have what it takes to get a girl like that.”
“Too bad,” Kevin said. “I’d spend all my mana to tap that creature.”
“I asked her out,” Rudy blurted. It felt good to say aloud—like some valve de-pressured inside.
Silence.
Jud’s mouth hung open mid-chew.
“Liar,” Jake said.
“You’re not kidding?” Sam asked.
“Who cares?” Zach said. “If she didn’t say yes, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“She did.”
More silence.
“Son of a bitch,” Jake said, and Jud swallowed something. “What luck you have.”
“It’s not fair,” Sam said. “Why do you get a plaque and the hottest girl?”
“I don’t believe it,” Kevin said. “We need to find out.”
Rudy’s heart jumped. “No we don’t.”
“Oh yes we do,” Zach said. “Someone go ask her.”
Shit. Should have kept quiet.
“Okay,” Jake said and stood up.
“Jake!” Rudy called.
He was gone.
Jake went straight over to where Clarissa and her friends sat and tapped her on the shoulder. She and the other girls stopped talking and eating to look. Jake smiled, said something Rudy couldn’t hear, and then pointed at their table. All the girls glanced over, giggling. Rudy watched Clarissa, sitting in her white tank-top and jean skirt, with thick black glasses, moving her hands and lips, and felt his crotch swell. He shifted in his seat, afraid someone might see.
Jake came back and the table thumped from his weight. Everyone stared, but he said nothing.
“Well?” Sam asked.
Jake took a big bite of macaroni. “It’s fucking true. She even said he was pretty smooth about it.”
“Son of a bitch,” Kevi
n repeated.
“I asked her to the movies.”
“Classic,” Zach said.
“It’s so simple it’s almost complicated,” Jud said.
The table was quiet after that. They all ate for a while, sharing no words.
Sam broke the silence. “Did anyone else notice that John isn’t here?”
Rudy and the others looked around. Sam was right. John Handley wasn’t in the cafeteria.
“He’s probably crying about his broken record,” Jake said.
They laughed, mostly because none of them could imagine John Handley shedding a tear.
Little did they know, John Handley was crying. He’d wandered off school grounds and nestled himself on a log that was hidden in trees near the side of the road—the same road Rudy would later take to get to Sam’s house.
---
No, no, no, Chad thought. You can’t see Mr. Kloom just yet, kiddo. We’ve got to wait for the others to arrive. Only then is your story over.
Let’s see how fucked up we can make you, okay? How much can one little boy handle?
---
When the final bell rang, Rudy went to put his books away. Students flooded onto buses as Rudy waited for Sam outside.
“You’ve never been to my house, have you?” Sam asked.
“Nope.”
“We’ve got all kinds of frozen goodies in the freezer. Listen to this. Cheese sticks, fish sticks, bread sticks, chicken strips, ranch dips, potato discs, gummy grips, and steak tips.”
Rudy laughed. “Did you just come up with that?”
“I’m not even done, bozo. That’s only the frozen foods.”
“You could be the next Eminem.”
Sam laughed. “Okay, I admit it, I practiced.”
They turned onto the sidewalk, passed the plugged-up afterschool traffic, and walked for a while before Sam grabbed Rudy’s arm, stopping him.
“What’re you doing?”
“You don’t hear that?” Sam asked.
Rudy listened, and he did hear something. It sounded like someone struggling to breathe.
“What is it?” Rudy asked.
“I don’t know. It sounds the same as when my parents have sex.”
“Gross, Sam.”
Sam turned red, seeming to forget his filter. “Well it does.”
“Wait,” Rudy said, “it sounds like someone crying.”
Rudy went into the trees, pushing through leaves and branches, and came upon a sitting, sobbing John Handley.
“Hey!” John yelled, jumping to his feet, his eyes puffy.
Sam bumped into Rudy and gasped.
The three of them stared each other down.
“You must feel pretty fucking good about yourself, huh?” John said.
“No.” Rudy struggled to speak, his throat like a clenched fist.
“Going to go tell everyone in school how you found John Handley crying in the woods?”
“No, John, I’m not.”
“You know what I don’t understand?”
“What?” Rudy had the feeling the question wasn’t so simple.
“How a bottom feeder like you got a pair of wheels like those,” John said, pointing at Rudy’s legs. “You should have just kept your head down, Cloven. You were born on the bottom and you’ll stay at the bottom.”
John stepped forward. Rudy didn’t move. Whether from fear or bravery he couldn’t tell.
“People like you crawl through life without disturbing the surface, where guys like me skate over the world. I’m the one who’ll inherit my father’s business and I’m the one that’ll keep the economy going. You’ll go on to do nothing with your life, just sap the resources from guys like me. The guys that drop our pennies for you to survive.”
In one fluid motion, John tilted his shoulder, and his book bag slid down his arm, the strap catching in his hand. All the while he turned at the waist, winding up, and whirled the weighted bag.
It cracked against Rudy’s cheek, knocking him sideways onto the forest floor, causing him to see bursting white flowers across his vision. The zipper must have hit his ear, too, because it felt warm there, like someone really slapped it. He felt a tooth wiggle out from the back of his mouth. It clicked into his other teeth as he coughed up a mouthful of blood, spattering the pine litter.
“I saw your tooth come out from that one. Did you know teeth leave the strongest first impression? Now everyone’ll know where you belong, Cloven. Right at the bottom of a swamp.”
John’s shadow stretched over him, and Rudy was too busy exploring the new gap in his mouth to defend against the second swing. The backpack smacked the top of his head, flattening him to the ground. For a moment, Rudy lost consciousness, and when he came back, his head ached and a little pulse thumped against his skull.
Rudy didn’t hear John telling him about how he could have avoided all of this. He didn’t hear John say he missed his opportunity to refute the track record, back in Mrs. Dawson’s office. He didn’t hear John’s warning to forget about Clarissa. He only heard a monotonous ringing sound.
He also missed Sam stomping and screaming threats of the law. After a mention about jail, John was through, and promptly left the scene.
Two warm somethings slipped under Rudy’s belly and rolled him over onto his back. The sky looked spotty and Sam’s face looked huge above him. Sam’s mouth moved but Rudy didn’t hear the words. Sam shook Rudy, and the motion rattled his head painfully. Rudy wanted to yell STOP, but his lips were tingling numb.
---
“How do I look?” Rudy asked, coming out from the bathroom. He held his arms out to both sides.
Sam looked him up and down. “Your upper lip’s all swelled up. Turn around.”
(hey, turn around)
Rudy did. “Your shirt’s got blood all over it, take this one. But I gotta say, you look a hell of a lot better than you did.”
“I think the same of you just about every day,” Rudy said, tossing his shirt on the floor.
“Dude! You gotta throw that away. My parents will know.”
“Sorry. My head’s still aching pretty bad.”
“Come on, the food’s ready.”
---
Rudy was looking out the window of the bus, tonguing the healing wound on his lip, wondering how long it’d been between now and that fight in the woods, when he felt the bus seat flatten. Someone sat beside him. It was Chad, with his gleaming blond bowl cut and sly grin.
“Since when do you ride this bus?” Rudy asked.
“Since today.”
“Where do you live?”
“Why do you care, Cloven?”
“You’re sitting next to me, aren’t you?”
Chad took out that silver bullet with the pop-up cap, and offered it again.
“No, thanks.”
Chad shrugged, sniffed from it, and put it back in his pocket. “God damn, Cloven, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Are those . . . drugs?”
Chad looked at him with a scrunched face. “No, dummy, it’s sugar. Haven’t you ever snorted sugar?”
“No.”
“You should try it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Stay a square, then. See if I care. Hey, wanna see something cool?”
Chad leaned forward, and reached into his back pocket. He dug deep and brought out some Polaroid photos. Seeing them made Rudy think of that payphone in Canada, how dated they both seemed.
“Check these out.”
The first one was of John Handley leaving school, the next of John walking in the woods. Rudy kept thumbing through, and there John was, sitting on a log, his face buried in his hands, at the same spot where Rudy found him earlier. The next photo was of Rudy and John, with John’s backpack blurred in action, and Rudy’s body flying backward; it looked like a comic book action scene.
“Holy shit, Chad, who took these?”
“Who cares? Look at how stupid you look!” Chad laughed.
&nb
sp; “Chad, this isn’t funny. John could get into a lot of trouble.”
Chad’s face went solemn. “Haven’t you ever thought that maybe he deserves a little bit of trouble?”
“I’m sure John’s got his own problems. I mean, he was crying alone. We can’t show these to anyone.”
“Shit,” Chad said.
“What?” Rudy asked.
“You’d hate seeing the last picture. Give em back.”
“No! I want to see.”
“You’re not going to like it. Not one bit.”
Rudy thumbed to the last one. His eyes bugged out. “Chad . . . when was this taken?”
He shrugged. “Who knows.”
The bus pulled into the school lot, and Rudy saw whirling red and blue lights thrown against the brick walls. Dozens of cop cars and several ambulances were parked out front, and a bunch of officers were paying out yellow caution tape. Masses of students and parents worked to see what was happening, and cops were questioning some students.
The driver called in to dispatch, asking what he was to do. They told him to go ahead and let the kids off, which Rudy found strange, but he was the first one off, running to see if the photograph was true.
He rushed around the side of the school, snaking between parked cars, and hopped a small fence. He went through some brush, and across someone’s backyard. He crawled through a line of prickly bushes, and he popped his head out just enough to see.
And he saw it.
The photograph was real.
A group of officers huddled around the base of the flagpole, their radios transmitting voices from those not present. A limp, blue-faced John Handley hung from the very top of the pole, his neck tied with the rope used to raise the flag.
33:
RUDY WHIMPERED IN THE brush, the photos shaking in his trembling hand. He couldn’t stop glancing at the pictures and then at John’s hanging corpse. “Fuck me. What the fuck.”
He dropped the photos and went across the back walkway, into some trees, and out again into the parking lot. A cordon of officers weaved through the crowd, asking questions and scribbling on notepads. Rudy saw Sam and Jake being interrogated.
Rudy didn’t know what to do or where to go. He couldn’t go home—he was afraid of his father, unsure when that had become the norm.
Someone grabbed Rudy’s arm. Chad was pulling him through the crowd, his blond bowl cut shimmering in the sunlight.