“Katie, what’s going on?”
“Oh Dan … oh Dan, oh Dan…” More sobbing. Daniel wondered if anyone was having a good day.
“What happened?”
“C-ca-can you c-come g-get me?” Daniel could hear her shivering through the receiver.
“Where are you?”
“Outside O’Leary’s.”
Chills marched down Daniel’s spine. His best friend, who was experiencing mortal terror, wanted him to come to the one place common sense dictated he should avoid. O’Leary’s was Clyde’s den, the place his stepfather ended up seven nights a week.
“Katie, what’s going on?”
“He’s looking for me. I can’t stay here.” Click. The line went dead. Daniel stared at the front door. His foot took a step toward it contrary to the little voice in his head telling him to stay put. From the kitchen, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash wafted on the air. The whole day waxed ironic.
“Who was that?” Rita asked.
“Katie. Something’s wrong.”
“Something’s wrong? Can you be a little more specific?”
“She sounded scared.”
“And just like that, you’re off to the rescue? In case you didn’t get it already, you’re grounded.”
“Grounded? Clyde’s going to find out about the arrest and the lawsuit. I don’t want to be near this house when he comes home. I take enough crap here to get a lifetime pass on time-outs and groundings.”
“Watch your mouth, Danny. We put food on the table. There’s a roof over your…”
“And it gives that asshole the right to use me, to use us for punching bags?”
Rita slapped him hard. The sting lingered, his ear rang. He was alert. The whole day had been a bad dream; now he was awake. Clarity, emanating from the pain, fueled a burst of bravery.
“You let that man ruin us,” Daniel said. “I remember having a childhood. Now we live on food stamps and public assistance. Dad bought this house, and we’ll probably lose it because we can’t keep up with the mortgage. Don’t you know what people say about us? Clyde’s an alcoholic. No one wants to hire him. You’re doped on Valium half the time. I’m the one watching Penny when you’re passed out. And get this…,” Daniel could no longer hold back the flood of repressed tears, “people think I’m a delinquent. Me! I’m the delinquent even though I stand behind my friends when they’re bullied. I’m the delinquent even when I get into the hardest classes and get good grades. I’m the malcontent, when all I aspire to these days is for people to leave me the FUCK alone!”
Rita slapped him again.
“You can keep hitting me, but you don’t have the guts to tell that piece of shit Clyde to get out. You’re a fucking coward.”
Rita tried to slap him again but Daniel stepped back out of the way. He headed for the front door.
“Don’t you walk out!” Rita ordered, in tears.
Daniel was inclined to tell her that she was not his real mother. Instead, he bit his tongue. He took a deep breath.
“You didn’t hear Katie’s voice, Mom. She’s terrified. Something really bad has happened.”
“You’re not a hero! You can’t save everyone—you can’t save the world!”
“I’m not brave enough to improve my own life. Might as well help my friends with theirs. Everyone turns to me when they need help.”
“Danny! If you walk out that door … don’t come back.”
As he shut the door, the muffled cries of a desperate, lonely woman fell upon his ears.
2
It’s a trap. That’s what Daniel kept thinking over and over. Clyde beat the crap out of Katie to lure him to that side of town. Why else would she be in that neighborhood? Clyde wouldn’t know their friendship was merely an ember of what it had once been; he had missed their last scheduled heart-to-heart chat.
Daniel stopped his bike about a block from the bar. It was a run-down block. With chipped wood siding and a sagging shingled roof, O’Leary’s fit the scene. Coors, Budweiser, and Miller Lite glowed through the dust in the windows. The sidewalk was cracked and the lots to each side of the bar were overgrown with weeds and littered with broken beer bottles.
Daniel kept one eye out for Katie and the other for Clyde. There were very few cars parked on the street. A blue Ram pickup quivered on squeaky shocks—no doubt a trapped pet getting antsy while its owner downed a mug. Daniel rode the center line of the street, far from anything that might serve as an ambush point. His instincts said to go home.
Across the street from the bar stretched a poor excuse for a baseball field, boxed in by dilapidated dwellings and fences and bordered by a hedge. Next to the entrance by the right-field foul line was a solitary pay phone. Daniel rode onto the field, which was a big sand lot with the remnants of a mound in the middle. The roughness of the dirt caused his bike to shake, and it aggravated his bruised rib. Two depressed dugouts built from cinder blocks framed the sides of the invisible diamond. Empty beer bottles littered the whole bunker and graffiti covered the walls. Bundled in the corner of one dugout was a varsity jacket, number six. As Daniel approached, a cheerleading skirt and legs emerged from the bundle.
Katie was curled in a fetal position. She lifted her head with a start. Strangely, the look in this terrified girl’s eye lifted Daniel’s spirits. He had never met anyone so glad to see him. When he sat beside her, she unfurled and threw her arms around him. He put his own arms around her.
“What happened?” Daniel asked.
“We cut school after lunch. He said he had something he wanted to show me.” The “he” she referred to was not Clyde. Daniel was relieved this wasn’t a plot to get at him through a friend. Not everything that happened revolved around him.
Daniel realized there was booze on her breath.
“He has a hangout a few blocks from here,” Katie continued. “Just an abandoned shed that Josh and his pals fixed up with old couches and some posters. We were alone. He turned the radio up, said it would give us privacy. He gave me a flask to sip and razzed me when I said no … said that was the reason he didn’t like to date little girls.”
Katie stopped and fell into a fit of tears. Daniel hugged her tighter and waited for the fit to subside.
“So you took a sip?” he asked.
“I took a gulp.”
It was tough to compete with older kids. The senior girls wore their nascent bosoms as badges of honor, stuffing themselves into form-hugging tops any chance they got. The art of not staring was mastered better by some more than others, but every male noticed, every guy bragged when he brushed a gifted girl in a crowded hallway. Katie was still a work in progress.
“Burned your throat?”
“Heck, yes. He stopped razzing me about drinking and then we started … It was nice at first—it was … it was what I wanted. But he started putting his hands in places where I didn’t … I said no, and he’d stop for a while; then try again. He got frustrated, said I was leading him on … kept calling me a little girl. My head was spinning. Somehow, he got his fingers underneath, in my … in my … and he was…” Katie succumbed to a second fit.
Through a fold in her skirt, Daniel realized Katie was missing her underwear. He felt guilty that this excited him. In the past, Katie and him changed into swimming suits separated by no more than a shrub. Somehow this was different … or he was different. He was very aware of her sex just under that layer of rayon. The situation called on him to be stronger than his hormones. He focused on the moment. “What happened?”
“I didn’t want to!” she sobbed. Anger edged into her voice. “I told him no! I told him NO more than once. I couldn’t get off the couch. He was on top of me; he was too…”
“Jesus, Katie.”
“And all of a sudden his pants were down…”
“Couldn’t you knee him? Scratch his eyes?”
“He said just touch it … to help him out … since I … since I wouldn’t … He said … I—I didn’t think … I didn’t
think he…” Katie began to hyperventilate. Then she threw up, mostly the dry heaves. Daniel stroked her back. The retching soon subsided.
“HE WAS MY BOYFRIEND!” she cried in a torrent of grief.
Daniel stroked the back of her head. The gray fall sky was giving way to darkness on the horizon. There was a nip in the air and Daniel’s skin where Katie’s tears fell turned cold. His friend’s ordeal had one unexpected result; it succeeded in taking his mind off his own problems.
Daniel heard the crunch of gravel behind him. He unwrapped himself from Katie and stood, worried once more that Clyde had found them; only to be oddly relieved to be looking up at Josh Lundgren’s well-chiseled face instead. One of Josh’s cronies, Todd Harkness, stood uncomfortably behind him.
“There you are. I been looking all over for you,” Josh said.
He tried to make eye contact with her. Katie used Daniel as a shield. Each time Josh moved to get a clear view of her, Daniel shifted to keep himself between them. “This ain’t your business, Hauer. Keep out of things that don’t concern you.”
Daniel didn’t respond. The warmth of Katie’s breath on his neck, her arms on his shoulders, spurred his courage. He’d been dreaming of her arms around him for months, and odd as this situation was, it qualified. Todd looked more uncomfortable by the moment. Daniel knew him as a clean-cut, straight-B student. He played for the baseball team and hoped to get into college on an athletic scholarship. Helping Josh cover up an assault was not his style. He was only here because of Josh’s persuasiveness. Handsome, strong, funny, rich—Josh’s approval made your ho-hum existence a little more exciting.
“Hey, Todd,” Daniel greeted. Todd looked upset that Daniel knew his name.
Josh stepped down into the dugout, clinking discards as he landed. He thumbed his nose, straightened his posture, took a deep breath, and put out his chest. Josh had a good six inches and twenty-five pounds on Daniel, and it was evident he thought this would be enough make Daniel move away from the girl. Daniel almost laughed out loud at the jerk’s attempt to be intimidating.
“Hey, don’t be stupid, kid,” Todd said to Daniel. “Josh just wants to talk to her, that’s all.” Todd’s plea was halfhearted. He didn’t believe his own words and was worried the situation would escalate with him as an accessory.
“You know … Elijah Grundy told me to mind my own business too, before I inverted his face,” Daniel said with a straight, albeit bruised, face.
There was something about cuts, welts, and splints on a young man that warned an antagonist, You’ll get hurt, too. Josh hesitated. Todd appeared even more apprehensive. Although the events of the past twenty-four hours were not as dramatic as the buzz they generated, Daniel was aware that he now had a reputation. He’d been carted off to jail by the police in front of the whole school for single-handedly beating up two of the town troglodytes. There wasn’t a person in town under twenty-one that didn’t have a beef with one Grundy or another. This act was simply putting his juvenile delinquency to good use.
“And Elijah didn’t rape anybody,” Daniel added, for emphasis.
“Nobody got raped!” Josh shrieked.
“Fuck, man!” Todd cursed. The word rattled the jock.
“There was NO rape!” Josh repeated, more for himself than anyone else, but hearing the word again made Todd squirrelly.
“Screw this, man,” Todd said. “This dude’s nuts. Last thing I need is a busted arm or leg before the scouts see me play. I’m outta here, Josh. Sorry.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Todd! Get back here, you pussy.” Todd kept walking.
“And then there was one,” Daniel said.
“Shut up!” Josh didn’t stand quite so tall anymore. He looked deflated. He looked alone in more ways than one.
Daniel was beginning to see a ray of sunshine in this situation. The last thing he needed was another fight. If Josh was shaken enough, they might walk out of the park unscathed.
“Think you can sweet-talk Katie into thinking she wasn’t raped?” Daniel said in a mocking tone.
“Stop saying that word! I didn’t force her into the shed.”
“You can’t even convince your best friend,” Daniel said, motioning to the distant dot that was Todd.
“She wanted it. She got all funny after it happened.”
“LIAR!” Katie bolted forward from her human shield, scratching and clawing at Josh. “GODDAMN LIAR!”
Shit, Daniel thought.
3
The five-fingered gash across Josh’s face enraged him. He grabbed Katie’s wrists and threw her to the ground into a pile of beer bottles. Daniel picked up a stray bottle by his foot and hit Josh square in the forehead with a solid throw. The jock staggered back, tripped on another empty and landed hard on his back. Daniel grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled her out of the dugout. He dragged her toward his bike as she struggled to lunge at Josh. She had lost all sense about the reality of fighting a big, angry, dumb jock. Daniel shook her by the shoulders.
“Stop it, Katie! I know you’re mad, but he’s going to cream us when he gets up.”
The sound of bottles rattling signaled the jock regaining his feet. Something about the look in Josh’s eye snapped the girl from her fit; perhaps it was the same gleam of bad judgment with which he stole her virginity. Josh looked resolved to undertake new sins. It was time to go.
Daniel peddled for two toward the field exit. The dirt was terrible for traction, but he didn’t dare look back. He turned right at the exit on a course for the better side of town, riding along the first-base line. Daniel barely registered that Josh had climbed over the chain-link fence ahead of him when all of a sudden he landed on them hard and knocked them down. Katie rolled into the street. Daniel was pinned, the bike frame cutting into his leg from his assailant’s weight. His rib was on fire. A fist smashed his nose; pain swimming across a web of nerves. Another one hit him in the jaw. He saw spots before his eyes. Katie rammed Josh with her whole body and knocked him back. Daniel slid out from under the bike, trying not to pass out. His bandaged rib protested any further action. He staggered to his feet just as Josh grabbed Katie’s wrist and twisted. There was a horrifying crack. She screamed. He clipped her in the cheek with a right jab and she crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.
Daniel was furious, angrier than he’d ever been in his life. Josh blocked his punch and returned a solid jab to the gut. The jock grabbed Daniel by the top of his shirt and almost lifted him off the ground as he shoved him back onto the hood of a parked Dodge Ram. Daniel struggled, but his assailant’s arms were birch-tree thick.
“I am not going to jail for raping no one!” Josh shouted. “Especially for your little tramp girlfriend.” Then, Josh stopped punching him and looked into the cab of the pickup.
Daniel looked, too, and saw a bare leg in a white lady’s pump straddled over the steering wheel. The other leg lay over the headrest of the driver’s seat. A well-manicured woman’s hand gripped the passenger-side dashboard. And above the horizon of the dashboard were two pair of eyes looking straight at him. One of those pairs was Clyde’s.
“Oh, crap.”
4
She was the same woman Clyde had met in the hospital earlier. She struggled to put her tits back in her bra even as Clyde buckled his pants. Josh had stopped hitting Daniel, and hovered over him with a gaping mouth, confused by the distraction. Clyde looked incensed, which Daniel knew to be his default face.
“Shit,” Josh said.
“Worse than that,” Daniel responded. “That’s my stepdad … ex-Marine.”
Josh let Daniel go and backed up a few steps before turning and running off. What a pussy, Daniel thought. He rushed over to Katie, who was still out cold, and patted her face. She had a dark purple bruise where Josh hit her. Even with welts, she is beautiful, he thought.
“Katie, wake up,” he whispered in her ear.
Clyde got out of the truck. “What the hell are you doing here, boy?”
The day’s events had
yet to catch up with Daniel’s stepfather, but the boy realized catching Clyde in his extracurricular activity was enough to warrant a beating. Clyde wasn’t stupid or drunk enough to do it in the middle of the street, in front of Daniel’s friend whose father had some influence in the town … at least he hoped. He realized how silly he was earlier thinking that Clyde had attacked Katie. If she would only wake up.
“Katie,” he repeated, tapping the back of her wrist lightly.
“Boy…”
“You know, Clyde,” Daniel said, trying to keep the fear from his voice, “most dads would be proud to see their kid hold their own against someone bigger and older than they are.”
“First off, runt, you wasn’t holding your own. You were getting the shit kicked out of you. Second, you ain’t my kid.”
Katie groaned. She stirred, then opened her eyes. Clyde stood his ground. The woman staggered from the truck and joined them. They were both two sheets to the wind and would be adding a third before calling it a night. Daniel turned cold as he read the hospital name tag on her blouse: Conklin. That’s why she looked familiar. He’d seen her in a photo in the principal’s office. Clyde was banging Conklin’s daughter.
The principal’s animus toward him took on new dimensions. Clyde’s actions, his lusts, greed, and poor character even polluted Daniel’s sanctuary at school, the one place he had never had to worry about his stepfather. His collection of havens was shrinking. Clyde was his bane in an almost biblical sense. A new chapter had to be written for any possible future to exist. For the first time, Daniel feared Clyde less than the prospect of extricating him from his life. He should have ratted the bastard out to the sheriff earlier. It wasn’t too late to go back and lodge that formal complaint. Rita would have to live with the consequences of her own lies. Penny would have to endure a house full of strangers. Daniel had had enough.
He helped Katie to her feet. She leaned on him for support, favoring her uninjured arm. “I’m going to take Katie home,” he told his stepfather.
He picked up his bike and wheeled it by the handlebar while supporting Katie with the other arm. Daniel held his breath as they inched away. It felt like they were backing out of a lion’s cage. Daniel hoped Clyde’s lust for Conklin’s brat was greater than the taste for his blood. After a few minutes they were around the corner and out of view. The boy sighed in relief.
Awakenings Page 20