“If he’s talking about killing people…”
Graham stood. “Yeah, but who knows if he’s even serious about that? I just think some of what he says makes sense. I thought you, of all people, would know what I meant.”
“No, I mean, I get it. Being used. That stuff.”
“Whatever.” Graham turned away. “We should get going.”
“Okay. Just a sec.” Eli went to the locker room and changed by his corner locker, head down. He used to bring his clothes with him to the shower and change in the stall afterward. But he was getting better at the main room.
He found Graham and they headed downstairs, past the training rooms and the yoga studio, and out the back door.
“This is gonna be good,” said Graham. He seemed happy again, so different from how he’d been at school the last couple days. He crossed the bike trail and charged into the woods that sloped steeply upward beyond it.
Where are we going? Eli stumbled through the brush behind him, swatting away damp branches. They emerged on a wide dirt path that traversed the hillside.
Graham started jogging up the forested trail. “When I remembered that your gym was next to Burke Park, I realized this was the perfect place.”
To do what?
Cascading tangles of blackberry vines towered on either side of them. Eli hadn’t been here very often, but it looked huge on the map. One of those weird Seattle parks that was mostly trails in the woods and eventually a beach somewhere down down down. This path seemed to keep to the upper section.
“How’s your girlfriend?” Graham asked over his shoulder.
“What?” said Eli, adrenaline coursing through him.
“You were pretty worried about her the other night.”
“I’m not allowed to talk to her anymore.”
“That sucks. Probably for the best, though. You don’t need her around reminding you about the past all the time.”
“I guess.”
“Plus, she didn’t seem very stable. You never know who she’ll go blabbing to.”
“Yeah.” But a wave of frustration surged inside Eli because it was actually sort of the opposite. During that week when he and Maya had been in touch, he’d actually felt better. Thought less about other things. Graham was like his mom and sister, saying it was better this way, and yet Eli was still thinking about her all the time.
“She was cute, though,” said Graham. “I get why you decided to save her that day. Be the white knight, maybe get a shot at those tits.”
That wasn’t it. “That wasn’t really it.”
Graham stopped, winded, and slapped Eli’s shoulder. “Sure it wasn’t. You spared my life,” he said, starting to shimmy and talk in a girl’s voice. “How will I ever repay you?” He made a blow-job motion.
Eli sort of smiled, but only so maybe the conversation would end. You should tell him to knock it off, he thought. But he didn’t really want to make Graham mad at him, especially over something that didn’t matter anymore anyway.
“I just don’t want you to get messed up over some dumb girl. And remember, you’ve still got me, though you’d better not try to suck my dick. Over here. This is it.” Graham ducked onto a narrow dirt path that headed down the slope. They squeezed through a long tunnel of blackberry, the thorns nipping at their clothes, and emerged in a wide, bowl-shaped space with mostly open ground, a high canopy of trees overhead. Hazy amber sun filtered through the drying leaves.
“How did you know about this place?” Eli asked.
“I scouted it over the weekend. A good soldier always plans ahead before a sortie.” Graham knelt and rummaged in his pack. Looked back at Eli. “Okay, you stand right there.”
He moved to a nearby fallen tree and placed a square speaker there. Fiddled on his phone. Sideshow Fantasy burst into the silent woods.
“All you bitches better watch your backs.
You fucked with Freaks and now we’re on the attack.”
Graham darted across the clearing and knelt about twenty feet away. Arranged something, stood, and jogged back. Eli saw a cardboard cutout stuck in the ground facing them, shaped like the head and shoulders of a person.
“Cereal box,” said Graham, “taped to a ruler. I think it will actually work pretty well.”
For what?
“Check it out.” Graham reached into the backpack again.
Pulled out the gun.
Compact. Sleek. Black.
Eli’s stomach dropped. Where did you get that? He looked around, but there were only trees. Cedar and elm. Nothing moving.
“So cool, right?” said Graham. He slipped it from the holster, flexed his fingers on the grip. “It’s a Ruger P Ninety-five. Marketed for self-defense, but it’s equally good for”—he flicked off the safety, straightened his arm, lined up the target—“payback. What’s up, Mateo? Oh, wait…”
He rolled his eyes and dug his phone from his pocket. Tapped at it, the gun dangling from his index finger. “Here, make a video, okay?” He handed Eli the phone and aimed the gun again. “Get me shooting, then zoom in on the target.”
“Okay.” Eli stepped back, heart hammering. Centered on Graham and pressed record.
“Now get on your knees; I’ll make you say please.”
Graham spoke in a deep, reedy voice. “Act like an animal and you’ll be held to the laws of the animals. I’m predator. You’re prey.”
BLAM!
The sound detonated in Eli’s ears, a breakwater of ringing tones echoing around the hillside, through the trees.
“Ow.” Graham rubbed his forehead. His fingers came away with blood. A thin gash there. “That thing has a kick.” He blinked, shook his head. “No, not at me, at the target!”
Eli forgot he’d even been recording. He swung the phone around and zoomed in.
Graham was already running over. He yanked the target from the ground and held it up. Pointed to a hole on the right side of the forehead. “Oh yeah, kill shot, baby! Would have been even better if I didn’t have this fucking swollen eye.” He stuck it back in the ground and returned to Eli, then aimed again, this time with both hands. “Suck on this, bitch!”
BLAM!
The target jumped, the ground exploding in a cloud of leaves and dust.
Eli staggered. It felt like someone was screaming right inside his ears, the rest of the world miles away.
“Woo!” Graham fired again.
The sound ballooned away from them. Eli scanned the forest. They couldn’t be that alone. There were neighborhoods. People would hear.
“Come on.” Graham jogged toward the target.
Eli followed a few steps behind, holding out the phone, hand shaking.
The target was lying flat on the leaves. Graham stood over it and aimed. “Say you’re sorry, bitch. I want to hear you beg.” He switched to a girly voice. “ ‘I’m sorry, Graham, I didn’t mean to, I—’ Tell it to Jesus.”
BLAM!
A splintering crack, a hiss of air. “Ahhh, fuck!” Graham flinched, then kicked the target aside. Beneath it was a black rock with a fresh white streak. “Bullet ricocheted. I think it missed me by like an inch! Fuuuck.” He shook his head and inspected the target. “Right between the eyes, though.” Blew over the point of the gun. Grinned at Eli. “Pretty cool, right?”
Right.
He propped the target back up. Started walking back to where he’d first fired from. “Coming?”
Eli stared at the ground. His insides clenched. We shouldn’t be here. He stopped the video and caught up.
“It’s my brother’s,” said Graham. “He and his buddies went through a phase where they were training to be survivalists. They would go up to the pass and try to live off the land for the weekend. I think he was scared about terrorists. Jules is kind of high-strung. But he didn’t take it to college,
’cause if you got caught with a weapon in the dorms they’d kick you out.”
He gave it to you?
“He thinks he’s got it so well hidden—Mom and Dad have no clue he even has it, surprise surprise—but I found it. In his closet, in the box of letters from his old high school girlfriend. That’s fitting symbolism, right?”
“What is?”
“Never mind.” Graham spun the gun on his finger. Switched it to his other hand and held it toward Eli, butt-first. “Wanna try?”
I am not a weapon.
“Come on,” said Graham. He pushed it closer. “You can pretend the target is Gabriel. No more talking about your feelings with some therapist. Time to deliver some righteous justice.”
Eli gave Graham the phone and took the gun. Felt the weight in his hand, something so solid about it. He held it up and pointed it at the target.
“Okay, I’m recording,” said Graham.
“Freaks are gonna rule the world, muthafucka.
I say, I say, Freaks are gonna put you under.”
Breath held. Body a stone. His stomach lurched, like he might vomit. He blinked, aimed the gun with shaking arms. You shouldn’t have this, you’re not a weapon— Yes you are, this is what you’re meant for— NO. He didn’t want to. He did. Fingers flexing, pressing the trigger, then not, then harder—
You were made to deliver the Purpose. Crushing the little neck, the fur like air, the cat shrieking. Gabriel’s hands on Eli’s shoulders, chest pinned against the floor, held down—
BLAM!
The sound blistering, his arms crying out in pain as they lurched with the recoil, the explosion…the power. DIE—
BLAMBLAMBLAM!
“Whoa, shit!” Graham laughed incredulously.
His legs buckled, a storm of pain up and down his spine. Acrid smell of gun smoke. A balloon of silence, the aftershock of the thunderous sound.
“Dude.” Graham punched his shoulder. His hand fell over Eli’s, still outstretched. His other hand still holding his phone out, recording.
Eli blinked. Lowered the gun. Fingers trembling. He felt emptied out, like there were acres of space inside him, but also an ocean of potential energy.
“I’m just going to take that, cowboy.”
Graham slid the gun from his fingers. The metal, the weight…he didn’t want to let go. Tore his gaze away and squinted at the target. “Did I hit it?”
“You had four chances.”
“I shot it four times?” Eli’s memory was a blur, like the gun had bypassed his mind, connected to some deep dark part of him. You see? It’s what you are. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, man,” said Graham. “I want you to go ballistic. You deserve it. Jules’s got a box of bullets back at the house, I just didn’t bring that many with me. Next time, though. Let’s see how you did.”
They returned to the target. One bullet had torn the top curve off the head, left it dangling. The other three had missed.
“One is all it takes,” said Graham. He bounced the gun in his hand. “It’s awesome, isn’t it? Judgment. The power to silence life. To shut them all up. Someone talks too much? Bang! Someone bullies you or takes your girl? Bang! We call the shots!”
He thrust his arm and fired again, this time off into the trees. A thwacking sound as bullet found branch.
Eli swam in his head. Wound up so tight. What would a bullet do to a lung? To Gabriel? If he’d had one in the red dark, on the mall escalator, in the trunk of the car…BLAM! A red hole in Gabriel’s forehead.
A siren wailed in the distance.
“Shit!” Graham grabbed the target and ran back for his speaker, shoving everything in his bag. “Go, go, go!”
They hurtled through the blackberry, thorns raking their arms, and onto the wide trail. Eli’s lungs burned. He scanned the trees in all directions, expecting police to appear at any moment.
“Come on,” said Graham.
They sprinted down the trail and crashed through the woods, stopping just before they reached the bike path. Stood in the shadows, bent and huffing, as bikers and joggers passed in either direction, unaware.
The sirens, still out there, but they didn’t seem any closer.
“We’ll wait until the coast is clear. You head inside. Text me when you’re home.”
“Wait.” Mom’s car was by the front door. “You have to come in with me. I said I was with you, and if my mom talks to Lamar—”
“Oh, she’s here already?” Graham brushed his hair and straightened his shirt. “Well, this is perfect. I need to meet her, right?”
“Well—” Eli hadn’t thought it through that far. “She still doesn’t know that you know. Also she’s— Never mind.”
“What? Tell me.”
“She’s not sure you’re a good influence.”
“Me?” Graham sounded shocked. “All the more reason, then. Come on, I got this.”
He stepped out and crossed the bike trail, Eli trailing behind him. They went inside and up the stairs. Mom was standing in the lounge area, on her phone. As if on cue, Eli felt his phone buzz.
“Hey,” he said as they neared her.
Mom looked up. In that instant, her face looked ashen, like it did at night when she was on the computer. Then she smiled, but it was the Eli-sized one—never quite as big as for Melissa. “Lamar told me you went to the trail with someone. Is this—”
“Hi, I’m Graham.” Graham smiled and stuck out his hand. Mom eyed it and then shook it.
“Hello, Graham. I—”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Graham said in this friendly, almost adultlike tone, “and don’t worry. Eli didn’t tell me anything; I figured it out on my own because I had to write a report on the—you know—incident, last year.”
“Oh.” Mom looked at Graham uncertainly. Then at Eli.
“It was dumb luck,” Graham went on, his eyes bright. “A shot in the dark. Eli denied it, but I swore to him, and I swear to you, that his situation is absolutely safe with me.”
“That’s good to hear,” Mom said quietly. “Eli didn’t mention that you—”
“He’s been scared you won’t want us to hang out,” said Graham. “Which, frankly, would be a huge disappointment.”
Frankly? Was this the same Graham he’d known?
“Eli is one of the nicest kids I’ve met at EHS. Sometimes it’s a challenge for me to make friends, but Eli’s one of the good ones.” He held out his fist for Eli to bump.
Eli returned it, his fingers still tingling from the gun, and also tried to give him a look like Okay! That’s enough!
Mom nodded. “Well, I’m glad Eli’s been a good friend. I think, Graham, it might be good if I talked to your parents. Do they know about this, about Eli?”
Graham shrugged and made a teeth-sucking sound. “You know, I have to be honest, they don’t. But Darren and Heidi would love to hear from you. That would be good too, because Eli and I have been talking about having a sleepover at my place.”
We have?
“Okay, well, then maybe Eli can get their number from you later.” Mom sounded worn out from the conversation. “We should get home. Do you need a ride somewhere or—”
“Nope, I’m good. The bus goes right to my house. It was nice to meet you.”
“You too,” said Mom.
Graham slapped Eli’s shoulder. “Catch you later,” he said, still with that professional smile, and turned and walked briskly out to the road.
Mom and Eli got in the car. As they buckled up, Mom cocked her head at the sound of a siren. Eli tensed, but it was even more distant than before.
“Wonder what that was all about.” She scrolled on her phone. “Nothing on the police or fire feeds yet.”
You could maybe not be always checking those, Eli thought. “Can we go?”
“He’s not always like that. But he wanted to meet you.”
Mom pursed her lips. “You didn’t tell me that he knew—”
“Because you’d freak out.” Eli’s heart pounded. He hadn’t meant for those words to just come right out.
“I wouldn’t freak out, I just…” She paused while turning a corner. “I would have wanted to meet him sooner if I’d known. I guess I should have either way.”
“I know how to hang out with another kid,” said Eli. He wondered too, now that the truth was out, how Mom could really have thought he’d made a friend without being himself. How any one of these adults really thought that was possible.
“I want you to keep me informed, Elián—” She caught herself. “Sorry.”
Exactly my point.
She sighed. “But I know this is all confusing. He does seem nice, and I’ll talk to his parents, and hopefully they’ll understand and be sensitive.”
Tired of everyone being sensitive. Tired of everyone having to understand. “Okay.”
They drove the rest of the way listening to NPR. Some long story about Congress.
Eli stared out the window. The gun kept going off in his mind. A high-pitched ringing still in his ears, soreness in his arm.
The holes in the cardboard, the way the bullets had made the air smoke, could damage rocks, cut through trees.
I am not a weapon.
But the power. The control. You just pointed and shot.
Before they could touch you.
See? You were a natural.
Shut up, I’d kill you.
Nobody stayed locked in a room if they had a gun. Nobody got touched when they didn’t want to be touched. Nobody had nightmares where they were attacked….
“Graham mentioned how we were talking about a sleepover?” he said a minute later.
“Is that something you’d want to do?”
“Yeah. A lot.” There would be a whole night. Maybe another chance to feel that energy exploding out of him.
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