Seven Deadly Pleasures

by Michael Aronovitz

  I approached the tree. There was no time to pick up every shattered headlight piece, so I kicked dirt across the lot of them. Baseballs under a rug. It would have to do.

  The gash in the tree itself was impossible to hide, but I tried to give it the illusion of age by scooping up soil and rubbing it into the wound. I stepped back to study my handiwork. It simply looked like dirt plastered to a fresh gash in a tree. Again, it would have to do.

  I walked back down to the clearing and circled the pit. I picked up a flat garden rake with steel teeth and smoothed over our sneaker marks all around the perimeter. Next, I raked over the tire marks at the base of the path. The front fender had kicked up a wide spray of earth on its violent entry into the space and left behind an angry furrow that was an extraordinary pain to repair. I even had to retreat to the hole, scrape at the remains of an exhausted dirt pile, and shovel in filler to even the ground. Kyle never helped. He simply stood at the edge of the drop with a grin and a cigarette. I didn't care. I took my shovel and tossed it by the rake. I was about to ask Kyle to give me his tool so I could throw them all in the dumpster up on the site when he asked a strange question.

  "When do you walk the dog, Jimmy?"

  Everything kind of stopped. My breath was loud. It had probably been loud all along, but I noticed it now, and noticed myself noticing it. A drop of sweat made a runner down my jaw, and I wiped it off with the back of my hand.

  "Why?"

  "Just tell me."

  "For what?"

  "'Cause it's important. Trust me."

  My eyes narrowed. He knew I didn't trust him and I knew he didn't give one shit about my dog. Double lies. His open, sincere persistence made it interesting though, like sticking your tongue in a mouth-sore.

  "Right before dinner," I answered warily.

  "What if you're late? What happens then?"

  "Mom does it."

  "She walks her?"

  "No. She puts her on the lead in the back yard. She probably had her out there all day, actually. Why?"

  "No reason," he said. "Here's my shovel. Don't throw them away up there because it'll look too obvious. Trash guys pick through stuff. Find a place where it looks like shovels and rakes should go. Maybe scout out some others and make a little family, hmm?"

  I gathered the tools and headed up the path. It amazed me that Kyle somehow guessed I was going to toss the stuff away, and I was still puzzled about his concern for my dog.

  By the time I set the tools in the middle of a group of others that were leaning against the top crossbar of a long sawhorse, I realized that I didn't care what Kyle had to say. I strode back down the path. I didn't need any dialogue with my ex-friend, we were done here. I walked over to the Bobcat with every intention of banging loose the busted link in the chain that held up the bucket of crushed stone. I wanted to put a final covering across this nightmare and go home. I reached up to do so, and Kyle laughed.

  "There's no time for that now, Jimmy. We'll do it later."

  I turned.

  "What do you mean, later? There is no later. I've got to get back."

  He laughed again. Heartily.

  "Like that? Jimmy, maybe there's no mirror out here, but I'm telling you there ain't no way you could walk through your door right now. You're covered with dried blood, man. It's in your hair and on your shirt and embedded in your pants. It's all over your face. Damn, how are you going to explain that to mother dearest, huh?"

  I froze. Then I was the sleepwalker, stumbling off toward the path to look for a fountain or canteen or something to wash up with.

  "Ain't no water up there," Kyle said after me. "When I was up here planting the nails yesterday I cut my elbow on some barbed wire by the trailer there. I hunted all over that damned jobsite searching for a cooler and a first-aid kit. It's bone dry. The nearest water is clear across town at Meyer's Creek and we can't chance someone seeing you like this."

  I wanted to run up there and check out his claim, but the fact that my window of time was down to a hair made me put that suspicion on hold. And why would he lie about it? He wanted to get out of this as badly as I did. I turned.

  "Maybe she wouldn't notice."

  Kyle roared.

  "Wouldn't notice? Have you lost your fucking mind? Christ, Jimmy. You come in from climbing a tree in the front yard and your mom checks your hair for ticks! We've got to do better than that."

  Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes.

  "I could sneak in and clean up."

  "Are you serious? It's dinner time. The kitchen window faces the back yard, and even if she goes to the bathroom she'll hear you coming in. She'll be listening for you and you're going to be late as it is."

  "How about the front door?"

  He clapped his hands at me.

  "Think, Einstein! That front door is one short room off from the kitchen. Her antenna is going to be up! You ain't gonna have the chance to get in, cross through, and run for your room. Those Fred Flintstone, one-floor jobs out on Weston Road suck for sneak-ins and you know it."

  "Then what do I do?"

  He walked over. Closed in.

  "She puts the dog out back when you're late, doesn't she? In fact, Mommy never really liked little Lucy because your dad bought her for you way back when, right? She probably left that darned little yipper out all day so you could take her in when you got home your own damned self, right? Just to make a point?"

  I nodded cautiously. That was Mom's game. It was my dog and if I was going to play all day, Lucy got banished to the back yard with the water bowl that wound up getting bug floaters and leaves in it. Old rule. Kyle came up a bit closer.

  "Now, do the math. The way your house is set up, you can't get in unseen or unheard, but you would maybe have the time to race into the back yard and, say, touch the hose spigot and sprint back to the woods, now wouldn't you? I mean, even though she watches out for you through that back window like a hawk, she sometimes goes to put soap in the shower dish, or a bowl of nuts in the living room, or she slips off to the bedroom to take off that tight bra because it digs in a bit too much when she bends to do the dusting, ya copy?"

  My eyes glanced away. I didn't like strategies predicting what my mother would do. It was first much more complicated than this little map-on-a-napkin presentation, and next, personal in a way that gave me high discomfort up in the neck bone. Though Kyle made a living busting on my mom, she wasn't his to interpret, especially when he started removing pieces of clothing. It seemed impolite, even for him. He reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. His left palm copied the other and he made me look at him.

  "Jimmy, listen to me. If we walk through these woods no one will see us. It's a pain in the ass with the gullies and stuff, but we could make your back yard in seven to eight minutes, fifteen at the outside."

  "What about our bikes?"

  He pulled his hands off.

  "To hell with the bikes. It's not like we're going to leave them here. When we're done we'll ride 'em back down the dirt road to Westville Central like we came and go the long way. If we hurry we won't be going in the dark. Let's go."

  "Go where?"

  "Through the woods! Your old lady has already put the dog out back. The high weeds at the far edge of your back yard will give us cover until the moment dear Mommy goes to another room. Then we can make our move."

  "What move?"

  He gave a short laugh.

  "That's when we can grab the dog, Jimmy. That's when we can bring her back here and do what we have to do. If it looks like a roadkill there ain't a parent alive that would question the blood on you. The story is easy. We were out here having a dirt fight with the shovels. That's the cause of the blisters. But then we stopped when you realized how late it must have gotten. Feeling all guilty, you ran back and snagged Lucy, because you knew it was time to walk her. But she ran away and got hit by a car up on the overpass. It knocked her into the muddy ditch under the guardrail and you had to crawl in and get her. There's the d
irt and the blood in a nutshell. And I know you'll be bawling when you bring her back to the house. It's perfect. You've always been a crybaby and your little tears are going to be just as real as the blood your ma will think came out of the mutt."

  It made such a strange kind of malicious sense that at first I could not work up the inevitable refusal. My mind had not geared up that quickly. I was still caught in the demented world of Kyle's plans and whether or not they could work.

  "How?" I managed.

  "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Does it matter? A rock to the skull or something. Anything that will do it quick. Then if you want to get fancy we could run her over with something up on the site with a wheel so it looks like a car tire did it. I would try to use this Bobcat, but it looks kind of busted, are you with me?"

  I did not respond.

  "Jimmy," he said. His eyebrows were up. "Are you with me? Time that we don't have is a-wasting."

  I said nothing. He came toward me as if to give me a tickle.

  "Jimmy, say it. OK? Are we ready? Check? Roger? Victor-vector? Ten-four?"

  "I can't kill my dog," I whispered.

  To this, Kyle threw his head back and laughed loud. He laughed as if I had misunderstood the whole thing and boy, would I be relieved when I finally got a firm grasp on the bottom line.

  "Whew," he said, flattening his hands on his knees and shaking his head. "That was a good one!" He straightened and stretched. "God, Jimmy, no one would ever ask you to do that. Shit, you could never pull it off in a million years. All you have to do is sneak up and grab her."

  His smile turned down to a thin line.

  "And I'm the one who's going to kill her, Jimmy," he said. "I'm the one who's going to kill her."

  6.

  We wasted ten minutes in angry debate before Kyle gave up on me and tore off on his own for my house. I had tried to convince him that we could rub dirt into the bloody patches on our clothes, just enough to cover, and he said it would look just like that, dirt that was put on evidence to cover it up. I ripped off my shirt and tried it. He was right. The blood had really reached in, taken hold, formed its own surface, and removed the cloth's ability to "absorb." Even when I really pressed the dirt on with my palm like an old-fashioned lady with a washboard, it just seemed to flake and brush off. I then tried to convince Kyle to fly back to his house in the Common and bring me back a change of clothes. Straight refusal. His dad was waiting with a cold Miller in one hand and his chrome pitch counter in the other. Fall ball was coming up soon, and before dinner Kyle had to hit a hundred balls off the tee in the basement. There was no sneaking into his house either. I had even entertained the idea of burying the clothes and going home naked. Why not? Kyle was a joker, right? He would steal my clothes to razz me, wouldn't he? His response was to laugh in my face. That wasn't the "Kyle" my mom knew, and she'd never believe it. Christ, he'd even nosed around lately in his mother's magazines to brush up on some weight-loss tip or gardening technique before coming to my house, just so he could get my mom in some "gentle-ass girly conversation" with his eyes all puppy-dog earnest before going back with me to my room, shutting the door, and busting into a laughing fit he covered up with two hands. Besides, as he claimed I very well knew, my mom would call the cops on him if he stripped me down in public. Is that what I wanted? A plan that invited the cops?

  He was not going to budge on this. In the end a lie was best worn out in the open, and I was going to do it his way or nothing.

  I chose nothing. I just could not watch my dog get slaughtered, so I sat down right there at the edge of the pit.

  "I'll stay here all night. Bring me the stuff tomorrow."

  "Fine," he'd said. "I'll get the bitch myself. See you in twenty minutes."

  I sat there in disbelief for a moment and it was not until he was nearly out of hearing range that I jumped up to follow him.

  The woods were not friendly. I aimed in the general direction he had taken and barreled on through. Stubborn tree limbs swung in at me and I forearmed them aside. I ran through patches of deadwood. I tried to dodge big jumbles of prickers and hurdled large rocks, nests of tangled ivy, and mounds of thorny scrub that came in my path. I took crazy chances, running blindly into the brush and headlong through shadows.

  My lungs were screaming, yet it ironically felt as if I had made up some ground on the sudden elevations hewn into the forest floor. There were a few rocky crags that rose before me with some obvious (and rather luckily placed) ledges for finger- and toe-holds, and two nearly identical bluffs in a row draped with thick, hanging vines that I grabbed, trusted with my full weight, and went up hand over hand, back parallel to the ground, feet kicking up bursts of loose earth as they slapped their walk up each bank. Kyle couldn't have made it through those obstacles that fast. He couldn't have.

  Still, the flat-out stretches between made it a footrace and things seemed to jump in from dark places just as I began to get a rhythm.

  There was a bad moment when a low-hanging crook of a branch crossed in from nowhere and nearly separated my head from my neck. I raised my forearms into an X and ran straight into it. Dull pain rang straight through to my shoulders and a flapping cluster of swallows burst out from their nest. They swarmed up like hornets.

  I kept pushing.

  I jumped over a rotted-out log with white fuzz growing in the bark and moss covering one end like a blanket. I had made the hill, and I caught sight of him down in the gully, scrambling across a wide ribbing of partly exposed steel sewer pipe. The thing in the ground looked like the knotted, rusted spine of some partly buried monster. Almost home. The misshapen landmark sat between two rises, the one I was on, and the far one that spread out of the forest and into my back yard.

  I sidestepped down the embankment. My breath was a tired horse. Sweat ran through older sweat and dried blood, making sticky trails down my jaw and forehead. There were rocks in my sneakers.

  I found the bottom, scrambled across the sewer pipe and snuck up a glance to mark my progress. Kyle was waiting for me at the top of the rise, elbows bending in and out with each heaving breath, his eyes pinned to me with dark regard.

  I slowed. Each intake of air felt like the cross of a sharp scissors, and the more I clawed an advance up the slope, the more my resolve weakened.

  He waited.

  The strategy was so cool, so unexpected and obvious that it stole any of my remaining fumes of courage. I had gotten nowhere with this. First, from his position above, all Kyle had to do was give one push and I would tumble back down the embankment. More practically, however, Kyle had quickly and effectively gotten us both right where he originally intended. Seventy yards or so from my back door. The victory for him was cold and absolute. I hauled myself up over the lip and there was no helping hand to pull me across. Those days were done.

  I fell to my knees on all fours in front of him so he could not sneak a push to my chest just to teach me a final lesson or something. I looked down and took in sharp draughts of air, hating myself, hating the world and its cruel little realities, the twists and slants on fairness, the imbalances. If another kid was stronger, I was supposed to inherit the smarts. Those were the rules, weren't they?

  Kyle spoke first, but just before, he snapped out his arm and gripped the back of my neck with clammy fingers. He pushed down a bit so my face went about four inches from the ground.

  "Just come with me and take a peek," he said. "Chasing me down to fight is only going to get you beat up and the both of us nailed. See if you see it my way first, that's all I ask, all right?"

  An absolute insult. He was quite capable of charging in on Lucy and grabbing her for himself. I was no factor. The only possible difference was that my dog trusted me enough not to make a ruckus on the approach. But why would that matter to Kyle? As long as Mom was in a room away from a back window Lucy's barking wouldn't mean diddly to her.

  I suppose he wanted to get off scot-free, take from me what I loved the most, and do it with my approval. Maybe so
he could sleep better. The fucker.

  I had not responded.

  "All right?" he repeated. He shoved my head down farther. Now the ground was a pencil's width away my nose.

  "Let go first."

  "Promise to help me scope out what's waiting for us in the back yard and I will. Nice and slow through the weeds. We'll spy it together. Make the promise."

  Yeah, fucker. With your hand on the back of my neck and the dirt so close I can smell it I'm just a rat in a trap, aren't I? Like this I would swear the world is flat, school is a blast, and chickens have lips, but you're still going to make me say it, aren't you? Aren't you, fucker?

  "All right," I said.

  He squeezed harder and I gave a short yelp.

  "Say it like you mean it, Jimmy. And don't even think about pulling a run and tattle. You're the one wearing the blood, dig?"

  "OK, I get it, Kyle!"

  He gave one more hard press, then removed his hand. Then he helped me up, but made sure it didn't really feel like help. He hooked into my underarm and dug right up in there as if it was the bottom of a window frame that was stuck. I came up and looked him in the face, but my eyes wavered first. His grip had been like iron. The message was clear.

  "Let's go," he said.

  He crawled his way through the high grass and I followed behind as I was supposed to. A swirl of gnats followed above us in a cloud. We pushed through a long stretch of high reeds, pussywillows, and long ferns that bent quietly before us, and when we passed over a damp patch we detoured off to the left. My mind thought of everything and nothing at once, circling back to an image of Lucy curled up at the foot of my bed every night, little paws under her maw, a little sigh of satisfaction when my feet, the covers, the sweet semi-darkness, and the warm air made a perfect little pocket of physical comfort. I tried to jump that sentimental track and get real. I tried to scratch out alternatives, but came up with nothing.