“Bad kitty,” the boy said, and grabbed it by the throat. “Bad, bad kitty.” The kitten squirmed and struggled to get free.
“Hey,” Danny called out. “What the fuck are you doing?”
The boy jumped back, his face went pale, his eyes grew wide under his glasses, but he didn’t let go of the kitten. “Nothing,” was all he said, and maybe out of nervousness, or resolve, he grabbed the kitten by its hind leg and twisted it. The animal’s mouth opened and it screamed in pain. “Cut it out,” Danny called to him, and got to his feet.
“He likes it,” the boy answered. “Don’t you, kitty?” He twisted the hind leg again.
“Cut it out,” Danny shouted again, and rushed toward him. The other boys hurried after him.
“He’s been a very bad kitty,” the boy said. “He needs to be punished.”
“You’re hurting it,” Danny said. “You stupid jerk.”
“It’s just a dumb kit—”
Danny leapt at him, dropping the boy on his back, knocking the wind out of him. His hands fell open, the kitten sprang free and tried to crawl away. Danny pinned the boy to the ground, pressing his knees against his shoulders.
“How would you like it if someone did that to you?” Danny said.
The boy only laughed. He was a goofy-looking kid, with big jug-handle ears, thick glasses and mud-colored hair with a cowlick.
“Yo,” Rick called out. He was standing in front of the bicycle. “Check it out.” He slid the baseball glove off the handlebars. “Anyone want this piece of junk or should I toss it in the woods?”
“Hey,” the boy hollered. “Put it back.”
“Throw it in the woods,” Brian said.
“It’s mine,” the boy groaned.
“Was.” Rick tossed the glove over to Brian.
“Garbage glove,” Brian said snidely.
“Put it back,” the boy yelled at him.
“Make me,” Brian said. He tossed the glove over to C.J.
“I think I’ll keep it,” C.J. said.
“It’s my glove,” the boy whined.
“Now it’s his.” C.J. tossed the glove to Rick.
“It’s his.” Rick tossed the glove back to C.J., who tossed it over to Brian.
Rick ran a few feet away, held out his hands like a wide receiver and called out, “Hit me.” Brian threw a forward pass that Rick caught over his shoulder. He threw the glove to C.J, who passed it to Brian. Brian caught it inches above the boy’s nose.
“Give me back my glove.” The boy tried to flip Danny. Danny pressed down harder. “Put my glove back,” the boy demanded.
“Right,” Brian snapped at him. He tossed the glove behind his back to Rick.
That’s when Rick saw the name written under the wristband. “Lamar? What kind of name is Lamar?” He threw the glove toward Danny’s backpack. “Kiss your glove good-bye, Lamar.”
“Get off me,” Lamar said.
“You shouldn’t be mean to animals,” Danny told him. “Don’t you know that? Say you’re sorry and you’ll never do it again.”
Lamar didn’t answer.
“You shouldn’t be mean to animals. Say you’re sorry.”
“You look stupid in your underwear,” Lamar answered. He twisted and turned but he was not nearly strong enough to move Danny off of him.
Brian came over and started kicking tufts of dirt down Lamar’s neck. “You like it,” Brian said, in the same tone Lamar had used for the kitten.
“Get off me.”
Brian trickled dirt down Lamar’s forehead and chin.
“Stop,” Lamar yelled. “Underwear baby.”
“What’d you say?”
“You’re an underwear baby.”
Rick shouted, “Underwear baby? Fuck you,” although the boys knew they looked foolish with their wet underwear drooping down their backsides and it embarrassed them and their embarrassment fed their rage.
Brian put his foot on Lamar’s chest and pressed down.
“Stop,” Lamar cried.
“Harder,” Rick called out. “Harder.”
Danny stood up, but Brain kept his foot pressed against Lamar’s chest. Lamar struggled to push him off. “Underwear babies.”
“What a jerk,” C.J. said.
“Underwear babies,” Lamar cried again. Brian pressed down harder.
Rick shouted, “Scare the shit out of him.”
Brian pressed down harder still, kept his foot there for a few more seconds and then let Lamar up. When Lamar got to his feet, he spit in Danny’s face.
Danny punched Lamar in the chest. Lamar spit again, at Brian this time.
“Fuck that.” Brian grabbed Lamar and pinned his arms back. “Let’s show him what happens when you spit in the face of an ‘underwear baby.’”
“Yeah. Teach the jerk a lesson,” Rick said.
“Underwear babies. Stupid-looking underwear babies.” Lamar spat at Brian again.
Rick called out, “Let’s kick the shit out of him.”
“No,” Brian said. “Take him to the rope.”
“Yeah,” Rick yelled. “The rope.”
“The rope…the rope…take him to the rope…” Brian and Rick chanted.
“No,” Danny told them. “Don’t.”
But Brian had already lifted Lamar off the ground and got ahold of his wrists and Rick had grabbed Lamar’s ankles. They carried him to the embankment.
Lamar kicked and flailed. But the boys were much too strong. Lamar only managed to hurt himself.
“The rope…the rope…” Brian and Rick chanted again.
“The rope…the rope…” C.J. joined in.
Danny called out, “Let him alone. We’ve scared him enough.”
“But we’re underwear babies,” Brian said.
“And he’s a little jerk,” Danny answered. “But let him go, anyway.”
“Hell no.” C.J. took hold of Lamar’s ankles while Brian picked up the end of the clothesline. He started tying a loop and did his best to make it look like a hangman’s noose. Lamar squirmed and twisted, cursed at them and called them “underwear babies.”
C.J. and Rick carried Lamar over to the tree. Brian placed the noose over Lamar’s head.
“Don’t,” Danny yelled at them. “Don’t.”
Lamar stopped cursing, stopped calling them “underwear babies.” He looked scared.
“What’s the matter,” Rick said. “Cat got your tongue?”
Lamar cried, “When I tell my dad, he’ll find out where you live and kill you. He’s a million times stronger than you.”
Danny shouted at Brian, “Come on, you’ve scared him enough. Let him go.”
“Hang him,” C.J. screamed.
Lamar flung himself back and forth, shaking his head, knocking off his glasses. Brian held on to him.
“Let him go,” Danny insisted. “You’ve made your point.” Danny started coming over. “Come on. Take it off him.”
“Whose side are you on?” Rick snapped at him.
Brian said, “He needs to learn a lesson.”
Rick whispered, “Come on, Danny. He’s only going to fall in and get wet. What’s the big deal?”
“Then at least take off his sneakers,” Danny said. “So they don’t fill up with water.”
“What?”
“Take off his sneakers so he can get back. We don’t even know if he can swim.”
“Fuck him,” Brian growled.
“Strip the little jerk,” Rick demanded.
“Just his sneakers,” Danny said. “Just take off his sneakers so he can swim back.” He pulled off Lamar’s sneakers. Lamar screamed that he wanted to keep them on. He kicked and thrashed, his foot hitting Danny in the cheek and knocking him back.
“Fucking asshole,” Rick shouted. C.J. and Brian grabbed Lamar’s shoulders and pulled him slowly back and then pushed Lamar over the edge, like a baby in a swing.
Lamar swayed above Otter Creek, just as the boys had less than an hour before. His small body looked eve
n smaller as it glided in the air, arcing high above the water. He wasn’t making “Tarzan” calls, or animal noises. He was screaming and crying for help, tugging on the rope, kicking his feet straight out as though he were trying to climb a ladder.
The boys waited for the rope to slip and for Lamar to splash into the pool. But the rope didn’t slip. Lamar didn’t fall in.
He wasn’t screaming now. His hands weren’t moving. His feet snapped stiffly at the knees and stopped kicking. His body twitched once, spastically, then sagged forward, swinging silently toward the embankment, then back over the water, back and forth, like a pendulum.
Danny was already shinnying up the tree and crawling out to the limb. He was frantic to pull Lamar in and untie the clothesline, but Brian’s knot was holding firm, or maybe it was the way Danny’s hands were shaking. He couldn’t get Lamar untied.
Rick and Brian and C.J. could only stare dumbly, first at Danny and then at the odd way Lamar’s neck was turned, at the blank and glassy look in his eyes.
Danny screamed at Brian to grab Lamar by the shoulders and shake him, “or something,” and he shouted Lamar’s name over and over again. But Lamar just hung there limp and still, his eyes empty and unblinking. There was a stream of saliva dripping down his chin. His tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth. His feet dangled above the ground like a doll.
“He’s faking it,” Brian said.
“No, he’s not,” Danny shouted, and climbed down from the tree.
“He is,” Brian insisted, and pinched Lamar’s legs, slapped the bottoms of his feet. But Lamar didn’t flinch.
“No, he’s not,” Danny told him. “He’s dead.”
As one, the boys took a step back, then another, and hurried around the bend.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Brian declared. “I tied it just like before. It was an accident.”
C.J. moaned, “What are we going to do?” and started walking in circles.
“It was an accident,” Brian screamed. “It wasn’t my fault.”
Danny whispered, “Oh God. Oh fucking God.” He crouched down and started rubbing his hands together, as though he had a chill.
Rick, his face bloodless, shouted, “What the fuck?” and started banging his head against the trunk of a tree.
C.J. muttered, “I fucked up…I fucked up…Oh God, I fucked up…” over and over, walking in circles.
Brian continued his refrain, “It wasn’t my fault…It wasn’t my fault…It was an accident. It wasn’t my fault…”
Rick started swinging his arms back and forth. “What the fuck’s going on?” he yelled at the sky.
“We killed him,” Danny said softly, and kept on rubbing his hands together.
“It was an accident,” Brian screamed. “Accidents happen.”
“He’s dead,” C.J. cried out.
“We killed him,” Danny repeated.
“It was an accident,” Brian shouted back.
“I fucked up…I fucked up…Oh God, I fucked up…” C.J. wailed.
Danny was the first to go back and look. He stared at Lamar’s limp body and the way his head hung and the dull look in his eyes.
“Get dressed,” Brian shouted. He ran over to Danny and pulled him away. “We’re getting out of here.”
“What about him?”
“Just leave him. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
“We can’t do that. He’s a human—” But Danny backed further away.
“Brian’s right,” Rick yelled. Sweat dripped off his face. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Danny didn’t move. He could only stare at Lamar, at the eyes.
“Danny’s right,” C.J. moaned.
“We’re getting dressed and getting out of here,” Brian told them. “Come on, before someone catches us.” He grabbed Danny by the arm and pulled him away.
The boys dressed quickly, but they were compelled to take one more look at the body.
“Let’s go,” Brian called out.
Danny told them to wait. He ran over to the bushes and started crawling around through the undergrowth, pushing through the garbage and stones.
“Get out of there,” Brian called, but Danny wasn’t listening. “Get out of there,” Brian called again. But Danny worked his way deeper into the undergrowth until Brian went after him and pulled him out and they all walked, then ran, to the road leading away from Otter Creek. Danny was clutching the orange kitten to his chest.
XXIV
They went to Danny’s house, the only house they knew would be empty.
Rick said be sure to lock the door.
“I can’t lock the door. What if my dad comes home early?”
“I thought he’s working till school’s out?”
“I’m not locking the door.”
“Why did we have to cut school?” C.J. groaned. His lips were trembling.
They went up to Danny’s room. C.J. and Rick sat on the bed. Brian pulled a chair away from the desk, sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
Danny put the kitten on the bed between the two boys and sat in the corner on the floor. “Did you see his face?”
“Try not to think about it,” Brian told him.
“I mean, like the way his eyes were all—” C.J. was crying. Rick stared at Brian.
Danny pressed the side of his head against the wall. “He was lighter than us.”
“What?” Brian said back to him.
“What?” Rick echoed.
“That’s why the rope didn’t slide off. You tied the knot like you would for us, but he didn’t weigh enough.”
“I fucked up,” C.J. moaned to himself.
“I fucked up,” Danny told him. “I couldn’t get him down in time.”
“Nobody fucked up,” Brian shouted. “It was an accident.”
Danny stared at him. “We have to tell someone. We have to do something.”
“It was an accident,” Brian repeated.
Rick said, “We were only trying to scare him.”
“We’re all going to go to jail,” C.J. cried.
Brian began, “We’re not going to—”
But Rick broke in, “You think we left fingerprints?”
“And footprints,” C.J. sobbed. “Involuntary manslaughter…Twenty-five years, at least.” He couldn’t stop crying.
Danny said, “Our folks won’t let that happen to us. They’ll know what to do.”
“My dad’ll know what to do,” C.J. told him. “He’ll kill me.”
Rick shook his head. “My mom’ll probably…”
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Danny said softly.
“We made a mistake,” Brian said. “We did something wrong, but that doesn’t mean—Oh shit. Can everyone just calm down for a minute.” He looked at C.J. “Especially you.”
“Yeah, C.J.,” Rick said. “We all feel bad enough without you crying like—”
“We should all be crying,” Danny said.
Rick started to speak, stopped and said, “I know, but come on, Danny. We can’t…”
“We have to tell the police,” Danny said. “And explain everything.”
“And they’ll send us to jail,” C.J. wailed.
“What else can we do?” Danny answered. “We have to tell someone. We have to do something.”
“You keep saying that,” Brian snapped at him, “but all you want to do is make things worse.”
“Things already are worse,” C.J. pointed out.
“Shut up,” Rick yelled at him.
“You shut up,” C.J. yelled back.
“Everyone shut up,” Danny said.
Brian said firmly, “Look. So far no one knows we were there, right?”
“But what about our fingerprints?” C.J. asked. “Like Rick said. And our—”
“No,” Rick answered, “Brian’s right. Who’ll know they’re ours?”
“So we won’t do anything,” Brian said. “We’ll wait and see what happens.”
“Whe
n he doesn’t come home tonight, his parents are going to call the police,” Danny said. “That’s what’s going to happen.”
“Okay,” Brian said. He walked over to Danny and glared down at him. “And if the police figure out it was us who was there—”
“And tell our folks we cut school?” C.J. cried.
“Are you an idiot?” Danny snapped at him. “We just killed a kid. And you’re worried about cutting school.”
“It was an accident,” Brian repeated, and a moment later: “We can always say we were out there and found him like that but were too scared to talk about it or tell anyone.” He was still looking only at Danny. “They’ll believe us. It’s not like we’re criminals or anything.”
“That’s right,” Rick agreed. “We’re good kids. They’ll believe us. Why would we want to kill anyone?”
“Exactly,” Brian said. He walked back to the desk. “It’s going to be all right. Come on, C.J., stop crying. We won’t tell anyone and no one will know we were there. It’s going to be all right. Two more weeks and school’s over. When we come back, summer vacation, it’ll be like it never happened.”
“I don’t know,” C.J. cried. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
Brian told him, “If we don’t, we’ll all end up in deep shit. You’ve got to be strong. We all do.”
“I can’t do it,” C.J. said.
“Yes you can,” Brian said. “We all can. We have to. We’ve always watched out for each other and we have to watch out for each other now.”
Rick said, “We have to listen to Brian.”
“But we did it,” Danny said, “didn’t we.”
“It was an accident,” Brian insisted. “We made a mistake. Shit, Danny, we can’t let this ruin our entire lives. We’ve got to go to college and—”
“And do all the things we were talking about,” Rick jumped in.
“Our parents expect us to,” Brian said. “That’s our future. My folks—all of our folks are depending on us to live up to our potential and achieve—I mean, shit, this isn’t our potential.”
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