by English, Ben
“The Graduate.” Jack knew the movie well, even had some of the dialogue memorized. His favorite part was when Benjamin, Hoffman’s character, impersonated a friend of the groom, then a family member, and finally a priest in order to get the girl. But after what Mercedes had just said—the contemptibility of Benjamin’s actions was something he’d never considered, though he had thought the romance a little screwy. Come to think of it, the whole courtship was awfully like a series of weird stalking encounters.
“Why doesn’t she just tell him it’s over, then ignore him? It’s not like she has to get a restraining order or anything. She’s got enough friends to watch out for her if anything should happen. Chad, Ryan, Mike--”
“Yeah, I met them the other day at the pool. Well, I’ll tell her.” Mercedes took a long, deep breath. “This is so beautiful.” she said after a moment. “Too nice tonight to talk about jerks like that. Hey, a shooting star!”
Jack began to look up, and his eye was caught by a growing pair of headlights farther down the road. He’d already explained to Mercedes that they’d been walking down the middle of Forge’s eight-block cruising strip, though he didn’t think anybody would be driving it so late at night. There’d probably been a party somewhere up in the hills. Jack had always considered cruising to be one of the more useless fads. Most of his friends had grown out of it within a month of getting their license. He wondered if it was a police car behind the bright lights.
The vehicle drew closer, and they saw it was a white Ford pickup, tricked out with all manner of accessories in the way of extra spotlights lined across the extended cab, a roll bar, and chrome wheel rims to match the grill. The owner neglected it, though. Dirty red rust specks spattered the hood, and a crack zigzagged across the windshield on the passenger’s side. The truck’s hoarse roar filled the night, advertising a worn-out muffler. Jack couldn’t see past the tinted glass, but he felt eyes on them from within, and the truck slowed to a growl as it passed on the street. Its undercarriage was jagged with rust.
Mercedes was unimpressed. “That probably looked really cool when it was new. Too bad the owner doesn’t know how to take care of his stuff.” She leaned out, elbows on her knees, like a man. “Whose is it?”
Jack had seen the truck before in the high school parking lot, but not since he was a freshman. “I don’t know. Hasn’t been around for a while. Seriously, Mercedes, just tell Diane to forget about Kyle. We can look out for her. Besides, she’ll have all those college guys next year.” Jack yawned. “One thing’s for sure; Kyle won’t graduate with us, least not in the spring.”
“You--” Mercedes began, before she was blindsided herself by a yawn.
Jack smiled. Even with her mouth wide open, she was beautiful. She noticed his scrutiny, and laughed. “Thanks a lot! I hate it when someone makes me yawn. Hey, they’re coming back.”
He looked. The white Ford was just completing a wide U-turn at the intersection a block away. Its front wheels didn’t quite clear the curb, and as they watched, the Ford took out a clump of shrubbery at the corner. Mercedes sniffed. “Nice try.”
The passenger window slid down and acid rock crashed out, filling the street with grinding guitar. Jack saw the raised bottle an instant before the leering owner threw it, and ducked to the side over a surprised Mercedes. His quick reaction was unnecessary, however, as the bottle rocketed over their heads and shattered against the bole of the willow behind them. There were at least two other people inside the truck that got off a couple of shots each as well, though the container that landed nearest Jack and Mercedes actually was an empty aluminum can that fell far short of its target, then bounced into the gutter. From what they could see of the murky interior of the cab, the truck was crowded. Someone was swearing loudly and incoherently, and the truck leaped forward. With a clink of bottles being readied and a snarling clatter of heavy metal, the truck lurched toward the next intersection, a scant fifty feet away.
Jack’s heart pounded, and he threw a quick look at Mercedes. She hadn’t been hit. Instead, he was surprised to see the expression of fierce anger that gritted her teeth and trembled down through her shoulders. She moved, and Jack followed Mercedes around the edge of the sign towards the library. They could run around behind it and lose themselves in the yards of the residential section. Who were these guys? Would they come after them if they ran? He’d have to take the lead before they got too far; show her the swinging board behind Weller’s house, and then the little alley that ran behind the post office toward Gessner’s old apartment, but–
And he realized Mercedes wasn’t running for the lawn that led around the library. She’d bent down and retrieved one of the unbroken bottles of beer. The red and silver Miller logo rolled over in her hand, and with a yell she launched it at the retreating pickup.
It wasn’t that difficult a shot, but Jack had trouble believing it fell so perfectly together, or that the girl’s arm was that good. The heavy, thick glass end of the bottle whipped right through the rear window and sent a shower of keen splinters into the cab. An incredulous, bearded face appeared briefly against the harsh illumination from the streetlamps, then vanished as the brake lights flared on. Jack heard the thud and the resultant howls as whoever it had been was thrown, backwards probably, against the dash and driver.
He gaped as Mercedes threw another bottle, which shattered against the upper edge of the tailgate, dashing glass against the truck bed and throwing a few heavy pieces through the broken window. The passenger door opened and Kyle Dremel stumbled out in a miniature avalanche of beer containers. He glared, sputtering, at Jack and Mercedes, who was looking around hard for an unbroken bottle. Kyle slipped and fell against someone behind him who was also trying to exit, as the driver’s side door opened with a screech and clatter of accompanying bottles hitting the pavement.
The heavy metal song ended with a long, drawn-out chord from a base guitar, and another began, saturating the street with steel drums and what sounded like a number of cats being shaved. Jack bowled into Mercedes as she raised another bottle. “Come on!” he said, pulling at her jacket. “There’s at least four of them in there! Let’s go!”
She whipped around towards him, and for an instant Jack was dead sure she’d use the dark bottle against his head, so vicious and violent was her expression.
He grabbed at her shoulders, more in reflex against a possible attack, and she blinked, then bit her lip. Mercedes looked wordlessly at him for another split second, then ran for the shadows at the back of the library.
Swift on her heels, Jack looked over his shoulder at the street. An instant’s glance showed him four grown men milling around the truck, and another clambering out. Three had bottles in their hands and were peering at the shattered window. Two had been in school with Jack but had dropped out. One Jack recognized as a scraggly, older version of a boy who’d graduated a year previous. Floyd.
He was grinning at Jack.
Bad to worse.
Floyd Heaton had gone on to college on a track scholarship, then had been kicked out for drug violations the next year. “Best Smile” in the school yearbook, voted in by the graduating class two years previous. They’d caught him taking speed meth. Floyd gave Jack a nastier version of the same smile, wiped his mouth on the collar of his stained T-shirt, and took off running for the corner.
Mercedes stopped in the narrow alley behind the library annex, unsure. “Keep going,” Jack whispered, jerking her as he passed and moved to the right, away from the alley’s entrance where he was sure Floyd would appear. Strung out or not, drunk or not, Heaton could outrun them easy.
The alley was defined by fences of varying height and construction. They ducked through a backyard gate pursued closely by shouted expletives from the library’s side yard. Jack was still in the lead, and guided Mercedes low to the ground as they ran back to the left, toward a lower picket fence and another back yard. They crossed without difficulty, Jack practically hurdling it then turning to lend Mercedes a steadyin
g hand. Her face was stark white, and Jack could feel her shaking slightly.
He knew the neighborhood well. They were in the McDades’ yard, a freshly-mown plot bordered by walnut trees, and on the side facing the alley, a ten-foot cedar fence. The edge of their yard came just up to the sidewalk on the nearby street, and Jack half expected to see Floyd Heaton step around the corner and smile at them. His stomach churned.
On the other side of the fence, a half-whispered conference was taking place in the alley. Jack edged up to it, then peered between the slats, instinctively taking care to keep some distance between himself and the fence, so that their peripheral vision, focused only to the depth of the cedar planks, wouldn’t pick him up. For a fraction of a second Jack paused, wondered how he knew that trick, then mentally cast the abstraction aside. It just made sense, and there were far too many other thoughts occupying his mind.
He could see the layout of the entire block in his head.
Their conversation only carried in snatches beyond the tight circle of shadowy, huddled forms, and Jack could make out only a few words at a time. They were all too drunk to really manage a whisper but still cautious against waking up the neighborhood, despite all the raucous music from the truck. The steel drums had completely given up to the electric caterwaul.
Next to a pair of guys with goatees Jack had never seen before stood Kyle. The fourth member, a head taller than the rest, had his back to the fence and was wearing a letterman’s jacket. Heaton ran up noisily.
The smartest thing to do would be to just go up to one of the houses on the street and ring the doorbell until someone came. Easy enough; the mere presence of an adult would probably work to scare off Kyle and the others. Their problem lay in evading the others long enough to pick the right house, one where someone would be quick to answer the door. The more Jack considered it, the more he realized the plan was flawed. Who would be anxious to open their door to strangers at four-thirty in the morning? Who would even hear them knocking at this hour? Kyle and his friends would have plenty of time to grab him and Mercedes; maybe pull them right off somebody’s front stoop.
Jack had played in the area since he had been a little boy; had ridden his bike up every trail and down every alley in the neighborhood. There was a trail–barely a deer track, really–that led up into the woods at the edge of town, over a steep bench that changed quickly from hill to mountain, and it began only about three blocks away. He suspected that only himself and a few other cross country runners on the track team knew and used it regularly. That made him think of Floyd–but no, he’d been mostly short course and had never gone on long runs through town.
They were silent on the green carpet as they crept toward the street. Jack pulled Mercedes close into the intersecting shadows of the wall and the walnut tree nearest the sidewalk. They stood hip-to-hip as Jack explained his plan.
He breathed a quick version of their route into her ear, and she nodded, then yanked him even closer to her at the scrape of footfalls on the sidewalk. As Mercedes pressed herself into him, Jack covered her blond ponytail with one hand, leaning out slightly to get a better view.
Kyle and one of his goateed companions stalked by on the other side of the tree, looking warily into the gloom between the line of houses and back fences. Goatee had a flashlight and was playing its thin beam into the yard, discreetly. The two were obviously in a hurry though, and Goatee kept the light low, ahead of himself and Kyle. Jack prayed they hadn’t counted on him doubling back.
And he wouldn’t have, either, if Mercedes hadn’t been with him. Jack had been running from the Dremel kids in one way or another since childhood, but always alone. It occurred to him now that he hadn’t even considered leaving Mercedes or striking off on his own. This went way beyond any male-dominance version of hide and seek, however; far off into the land of the unsettling and bizarre.
The silence was stifling. He had the oddest urge to let out an Indian whoop at the top of his lungs. Jack had no idea what Kyle and the others would do if they caught him and Mercedes--
—and the thought turned into ice as Kyle turned back and looked straight at him.
The thin ocher light from the lamppost on the other side of the road opposite the tree clung to Kyle’s bright yellow T-shirt. It drew cruel lines down around his arms and the thickness of his farm boy muscles. His black hair, matted wetly against his forehead, nevertheless parted sufficiently for some of the light to catch in the edge of his eye and gleam dully like some kind of night-glowing mold.
He looked straight into Jack.
Jack didn’t move, pressing Mercedes and himself into each other slightly as if they could shrink. He’d read about this in books; how the naked eye could be fooled into thinking it saw something else if the thing observed acted differently than was expected. People saw what they wanted to see.
Kyle expected Jack to run.
Jack didn’t move.
Didn’t breath.
And Kyle’s weird phosphorescent gaze wavered past them along the cedar fence, while his companion made a great show of shining his flashlight into the shrubs along the base of the dark house.
Further down the block, a dog started barking.
Mercedes lifted her head enough to take a shallow breath. Jack could feel her heart beat all the way through him. In pretty much any other circumstance—but the strange rage that possessed her at the street had fled, and she was beginning to lean into him more and more in nervous exhaustion. Jack could tell she was scared, and wished fervently there was something he could do in the way of reassurance. Not that he was feeling all that confident himself!
Slowly, he lowered his free hand to her shoulder. Watching Kyle carefully, Jack then began brushing his fingertips through the fine hairs on the back of Mercedes’ neck, gently stroking the tension out of her fear-tangled tendons. Her skin was velvet-soft.
It seemed a strange thing to do, but it worked. Her body slowly relaxed. Mercedes sighed, a sound he felt more than heard, and rested her forehead against the crook of Jack’s arm.
By the time Mercedes’ heart had begun to slow, Kyle and his companion had reached the McDade’s front yard. They continued onward to the next corner and split up, one taking the new street in front of the house and the other jogging up the increasingly inclined blacktop to the next block. As soon as he was able, Jack eased himself and Mercedes around the base of the walnut tree.
They crossed the street on quiet feet, eyes riveted on the back of the retreating Goatee. Mercedes’ feet scuffed once on the bottom of a dry mud puddle that heralded the entrance to an unpaved alleyway, and then they were out of sight.
But not out of danger. Loud enough and they can still get you, Jack, a dry voice whispered in the forefront of his mind. He and Mercedes raced as quickly as they could up a paved path that ran between two cement walls. Their footsteps echoed loudly around them, thunderously loud to Jack’s ears. He stole a look at Mercedes, and she grinned back, tired but fierce. It must have been the adrenaline, but he had to admit he was having fun!
They entered a driveway cluttered by the skeleton and approximations of a disassembled Army Jeep, and stopped in front of another cedar fence. “Friend of mine lives here,” Jack said. “Kind of eccentric.” As he spoke he pushed hard against the upper end of the fence, and a three-foot section swung up from the bottom, pivoting soundlessly on hinges that gleamed in the diffused light.
Mercedes put her hand out. “Wait. Does your friend have a dog or anything?”
“No, well; yes. Sort of. It’s a Yorkie.”
He led the way into the darkness beyond, then let the fence down slowly. On the other side of the small yard, they climbed up the stones of a rough rock wall, pushed over the knots of ivy at the top, and stood on the hillside. They could see over and between the nearby roofs all the way to the main street, where the white Ford still sat at an angle in the intersection.
The foliage was thicker along the base of the hill than Jack remembered, but he had never run th
e footpath in the dark. A lighter line of dirt against the grassy slope marked the trail, and he beckoned Mercedes into the trees. More light from the town actually reached them over the roofs of the houses, but they still had to pick their way with care upward through the thickening pines. Mercedes was soon breathing deeply. Somewhere between when Jack stepped sideways on a pinecone and when Mercedes tripped on a protruding rock, they started holding hands. Funny. Jack couldn’t remember the trail being wide enough to accommodate two.
A pleasant breeze bent the heads of the long grass and carried with it all the fragrance of the midsummer night. Even in their haste, Jack took a moment to point out a bed of wild evening primrose to Mercedes, and smiled as she squealed and bent over the butter-yellow blossoms with delight. Their sweet scent mingled with those of clover and Indian paintbrush that grew in the shelter of the pines on the south-facing slope. Jack took a deep breath. The air was so sweet and clean. Everything in that night was sharper.
The trail leveled out at a flat area several hundred feet wide where the trees were sparse. In the center of the meadow stood two great bull pines, thrusting up royally into the star-bedecked sky. A third pine lay in the curve of earth where it had fallen, its prodigious bole held in a cluster of boulders. Wordlessly they clambered over the rocks to the tree. Wind and a season on the ground had managed to strip away much of the beautifully fissured bark, but the iron-colored trunk was still sound.
“Think they’ll look for us up here?” asked Mercedes as they sat.
“I doubt it,” Jack replied. “But even if they do, by the time they climb up this far they’ll be too tired to do anything about it.”
The wide canyon spread the city out below, and Jack and Mercedes had come far enough to be able also to see several miles up the Clearwater River. The enclosing mountains were quilted in fields and forests, tan and blue under the starlight.