Wolf Land

by Jonathan Janz

  Duane shrugged like it was no big deal. The distance between their homes was actually 1.2 miles, and they hadn’t seen each other in eight months, three weeks, and six days. And he did sort of stalk her, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to say that now. What he did say was, “It’d be fun to get together. Maybe we can go to the Roof.”

  Savannah favored him with a weary smile. The Roof was a bar overlooking the lake at Beach Land. Once it had hosted such well-known acts as Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin. Now, like the amusement park itself, it was just sort of sad.

  “Isn’t that where the reunion’s going to be?” Mike said.

  Duane opened his mouth to tell him it was, but Glenn jumped in first. “Don’t tell me you’re sticking around that long?”

  Mike shrugged. “I was considering it.”

  Glenn grinned mirthlessly. “You getting a job here? Or is it Savannah you’re after?”

  Savannah gave Glenn a pained look. “Please, Glenn. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Glenn snapped. “Don’t point out the obvious? That Mike here treated you like garbage?”

  Duane shifted uneasily. “Maybe it’s not really our business, you know? I mean, Mike probably has his reasons—”

  “Reasons for what?” Glenn barked. Duane realized with dawning apprehension that Glenn’s eyes had taken on a glazed look, that cruel hardness that infected them whenever he’d drunk too much whiskey.

  “It’s my business,” Mike said.

  Glenn stepped closer. “And coming here makes it my business. I’ve been here all along, Mike. Where the hell’ve you been? Crashing cars? Killing teenagers?”

  The first flickers of rage banked in Mike’s eyes.

  “Please, Glenn,” Savannah said.

  “Please what?” he asked.

  “Please don’t be an asshole.”

  Glenn’s smile this time was genuine. “Now that’s what I like to hear. I know you’ve got guts, Savannah. Why not tell this prick off?”

  “You’re telling me what to do,” Savannah said. “And if you keep it up, I’m going to punch you in the teeth.”

  Duane laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” Mike said, glancing at his shoes, which Duane now noticed were ill-chosen loafers that were spattered with either mud or cow shit.

  Glenn smacked Mike in the back. “Well, you’re here now, pal. How about a drink?”

  Mike looked like he’d just tasted something bitter. “Might as well, pal. Thanks for the warm welcome.”

  Together, they made their way toward the kegs.

  Duane turned and looked down at Savannah, who exhaled trembling breath.

  “What are the odds of those two making it through the night without beating each other up?” she asked.

  About the same as my odds of making love to you, Duane thought.

  “Not too good,” he said.

  “Thanks for intervening,” she said.

  “Thanks for saying we should hang out more often.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. “I meant it, Short Pump. We should.”

  Duane ignored the nervous flutter in his belly. “How’s that boy of yours?”

  “He tried to eat a Matchbox car today.”

  He laughed. After a beat, he said, “You can go talk to Mike if you want.”

  She frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  He pretended to study the bonfire. “I just figured, you know…it’s been a while since you two talked, and…” He shrugged, offered her a lame smile.

  Savannah glared at him. His smile curdled.

  “Everybody would be better off,” she said, “if they stayed out of my business. Don’t tell me who to talk to.”

  “Hey, Savannah, I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know you didn’t mean to,” she snapped. “But if I want to hang out with you, say yes or no and leave it at that. Don’t tell me to go talk to someone else. Got it?”

  Duane nodded. “Got it.”

  “Now let’s get another drink,” she said. “I need one to make it through this shit.”

  Chapter Four

  Joyce was drinking water, but she drank it from one of the red plastic cups so it would look as though she were drinking beer. She detested beer, detested most forms of alcohol. Occasionally, wine tasted good to her, but she seldom indulged in it because even two glasses gave her an insidious headache the next morning. She’d experienced a couple of hangovers in college, but she realized early on how much she loathed that cottony taste in her mouth, the boiling tang of bile in her throat and the dogged headaches that shadowed her movements the rest of those miserable, hungover days.

  Joyce blamed it on her mother.

  No, it wasn’t her mom’s fault she got hangovers when she drank, but that feeling of guilt, that sense of having transgressed and deserving punishment…yes, that certainly was because of her mother.

  You let a boy touch you, her mother would caution, and pretty soon you’ll grow too enamored of the sensation.

  She later learned that her mother—who while a teaching assistant at Western Indiana University had been impregnated by a philosophy professor—was speaking from experience.

  The ones you have to beware of are the nonconformists. The bad boys, the rebels. The James Deans and the Marlon Brandos.

  All this while reading Joyce bedtime stories.

  When Joyce was six years old.

  Joyce had nodded, despite having no idea what a rebel was or who James Dean or Marlon Brando were. Maybe authors? Or sausage makers. Didn’t they eat James Dean sausages for breakfast?

  Alcohol, her mother would continue, leads to relaxed morals, and relaxed morals lead to stolen passion.

  Joyce didn’t know what passion was, but she knew stealing was bad.

  Her mom’s owlish gaze loomed over her. How do you think I came to have you? A nip of red wine, some James Taylor music. And then a moment of weakness.

  Joyce just wanted to get back to her Dr. Seuss book.

  She shivered and let her eyes rove over the partygoers.

  Her gaze fell on Glenn Kershaw. And lingered.

  Look away, she could hear Mother demanding. He’s exactly the type of lothario a discerning woman should avoid.

  Joyce watched him move. And felt a pleasant tingling in her belly. She’d only spoken to Glenn a handful of times, but that had been more than enough to supply two years’ worth of sordid fantasies. If she could only get him to notice her.

  “Hey, Jane,” a voice said.

  She turned, thankful for the darkness that obscured the flush on her cheeks.

  It was Glenn’s friend, the one who looked like he’d own a Confederate flag.

  She flailed mentally for the man’s name, but he saved her by chuckling and saying, “It’s Weezer. How you been, Jane?”

  And though now would have been the perfect time to correct him, Joyce said, “I’m just people-watching. Are you having fun?”

  Weezer grunted and plopped down on the felled tree from which she observed the proceedings. He leaned back a trifle unsteadily and gazed up at the canopy of trees, through which glinted scraps of the star-littered sky. “I don’t have fun at these things,” he said. “Mostly I just get hammered.”

  Joyce took a moment to appraise him more carefully. Honesty was rare. Not that she’d been to many of these events, but the handful she’d attended had been riots of duplicity.

  People drank. And talked. And screwed.

  Or tried to screw. From her experience, Weezer was one of those who typically ended up alone.

  He glanced at her. “I smell bad or somethin’?”

  “Not at all,” she answered and continued to study him. Red baseball cap worn backward. Dark hair stringing down to his shoulders. Thin, scraggly facial hair. Red T-shirt with cut
off sleeves, his body scrawny but veined, suggesting he worked some job requiring manual labor. Blue jeans with torn knees and frayed cuffs.

  “You’re making me feel like a bug or something,” he said. “If you’re plannin’ on making fun of me, I’d just as soon skip it. Already had enough of that for one night.”

  Referring to Melody Bridwell, of course. Joyce had watched the whole depressing rejection take place and beheld the bleak dismay in Weezer’s face when Melody had unleashed her wrath on him. It wouldn’t help to mention this, would only embarrass him to know his shame had been witnessed. Nor would it help to point out that Melody was a walking petri dish who was probably carrying about thirty strands of venereal disease.

  Joyce put her hand over Weezer’s. “I’m not cruel.”

  Weezer gave her a look that told her she’d gone too far. Which was the danger with men. They were, for the most part, akin to dogs. She knew that was a cliché, but after owning a dog—which had disappeared less than a year after she’d adopted it from the no-kill shelter—Joyce realized just how apt the threadbare analogy was. Her dog, a black-and-white mutt she’d named Weasley because of her affinity for the Harry Potter books, had lived for two things: food and humping blankets. The first part hadn’t surprised her, though she found it uncanny how persistent he was in his quest for things to devour.

  It was the blanket-humping that really took her aback. Whenever she curled up with her grandmother’s quilt, Weasley would leap onto the couch next to her and begin thrusting away on the quilt like a canine rapist. She’d indulged him that first time with momentary bemusement until she began to fear he’d climax all over the quilt, at which point she’d abruptly wrenched away his patched paramour and reprimanded him for being so disgusting.

  The look in Weezer’s eyes reminded her a lot of the horny gleam Weasley had once worn. Their names were even similar, she now realized. Only Weezer wanted to hump her instead of a quilt.

  You see? her mother said. All men are slaves to their libidos.

  Lips compressed, Joyce shook herself free of the voice.

  Weezer said, “You in the mood for some tube steak?”

  For a time, she could only gape at him. Then she cleared her throat. “Look, Weezer, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea—”

  “Of course you don’t!” he snapped with such force that she recoiled. He motioned toward the bonfire. “None of you bitches wanna give me the wrong idea. But you flaunt those tight little asses and flap those titties in my face, and then you have a hissy fit the moment I show any interest. What am I supposed to do? Wait for a written invitation? Send you flowers first so you won’t be rude to me?”

  Joyce took a shuddering breath. “I’m not being rude to you. I merely—”

  “Bullshit!” he snapped, loudly enough to draw the attention of several partygoers.

  Joyce’s cheeks burned. But what had she to feel embarrassed about? This…person had jumped to a conclusion—an insulting and incorrect conclusion—and she’d gently corrected him. She was about to say something to this effect when Short Pump intervened.

  “Hey, man, let’s go get a refill,” Short Pump said to Weezer.

  Weezer sprang to his feet, jabbed an index finger into Short Pump’s chest. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that! Don’t act like I’m some moron who needs looking after!”

  Short Pump brought up his hands, palms outward. “I just thought you’d like a beer.”

  Weezer shoved Short Pump in the chest, the movement so quick and violent that the larger man stumbled back a couple paces, his beer sloshing over his forearm.

  “What you thought,” Weezer growled, “was that you’d get in good with this bitch by being her hero. Can’t get any pussy on your own, you gotta screw your friends over to have a chance. Hoping she’ll throw you a mercy fuck?”

  Weezer shouldered past Short Pump and stalked off into the woods.

  She looked at Short Pump. “You okay?”

  He was wiping himself off, though all he was really accomplishing was soaking different parts of his black T-shirt with beer. “Sorry about him,” he muttered.

  She studied him. “How long have you been friends?”

  “Since we were kids.”

  “Is that why you put up with it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen you with Glenn and Weezer,” she explained. “They treat you like the court jester even though you’re smarter than they are.”

  “That supposed to be a compliment?”

  “I’m only trying to be truthful.”

  “Truthful’s overrated.”

  “Is self-respect?”

  He tilted his head, eyeing her with real asperity now. “I came here for beer, not psychoanalysis.”

  He went off without another word. Joyce watched after him.

  She saw Savannah coming toward her, probably to make sure she was okay.

  It would be another two minutes before the world was drenched in blood.

  Chapter Five

  Glenn watched Weezer disappear into the forest with a sharp twinge of concern.

  Mike was grinning, the plastic cup hovering before his lips. “What the hell’s his problem? He gets shot down all the time. I’ve never known Weezer to get that worked up.”

  “You haven’t been around either,” Glenn pointed out. “People change over time.”

  Mike cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t believe that. Just look at this scene.” He swept an arm around to take in the clearing. “Except for the age on some of us, this looks exactly like it did when we were in high school. People drinking, bullshitting. Guys trying to get laid. Even the cow manure smell is the same.”

  Glenn glanced at Mike. “Is that what you’re counting on? The notion that no one has changed?”

  Mike gave him a pained look. “Man, don’t tell me we’re back on that. Savannah’s cool with me being here. The Marvins invited me. Why can’t you just chill out and have a good time?”

  Glenn wanted to feel the strobing rage that had gripped him only a few minutes earlier, that seething red tide of emotion that had crashed over him when he first spied Mike Freehafer at the rim of the woods. But his mind was still on Weezer, still on the way he’d blown up at that librarian, whatever the hell her name was.

  Like he’d read Glenn’s thoughts, Mike said, “Weezer ordinarily get that irate?”

  Glenn shook his head. “If he does, I never see it.”

  “Probably just drank too much.”

  Glenn said nothing.

  Mike said, “Or maybe he’s tired of being rejected by every girl he talks to.”

  “We all get rejected, Mike.”

  Mike grunted. “Some of us more than others.”

  Glenn turned and scrutinized him. Mike’s expression was bland, but there’d been something in his tone…something gloating. Or had that been Glenn’s imagination?

  “How long are you in town?” Glenn asked.

  “I thought I might stay.”

  The same bland expression. The same undercurrent of gloating.

  “You mean, find a job here?”

  Mike shrugged. “Why not?”

  Because you turned your back on everyone. Because you consider this place rock bottom. Because even though you don’t deserve Savannah, she just might take you back.

  Glenn sighed. “No reason.”

  Mike nodded. “Who’s that?”

  Glenn didn’t even bother to look. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the long hours at the machine shop today. But for whatever reason, he felt unutterably weary.

  “Seriously, man,” Mike said. “Who the hell is that?”

  Glenn swiveled his head to look, and as he did he noticed that several other partygoers had spotted the newcomer as well.

  The man stood maybe thirty yards away from w
here Glenn and Mike were standing, and perhaps twenty feet away from the nearest partygoers, whom Glenn now identified as Dan and Jessica Clinton. Dan had impregnated Jessica in high school, and they’d gotten married. Now they had six kids and lived on the lake.

  The man remained where he was, the shadows veiling his face. He was dressed curiously. He wore all black, but the clothes were too formal—dress slacks, a button-down shirt. For another, the clothes hung off the man as though he’d lost a great deal of weight recently. Glenn was reminded of a scarecrow. Or an itinerant preacher with parishioners too cheap to tithe.

  “You know the dude?” Mike asked.

  Glenn shook his head. He didn’t know the man, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Maybe it was the Jack and Coke, or maybe it was the heat from the bonfire, which danced and licked the air with rabid orange tongues, but there was definitely something unnatural about the figure. The man hadn’t moved at all, for one thing. For another, Glenn was pretty sure he could see the man’s eyes, even from this distance. They were chips of blue ice, piercing and not at all friendly.

  Hunter and Brian Marvin had also noticed the interloper. Maybe, Glenn reasoned, one of the brothers had invited the guy. But that didn’t seem right either. There was something about the way the man stood that suggested experience. Glenn couldn’t shake the idea that one of their former teachers had shown up. Or some other hostile authority figure from their pasts.

  “Come have a beer,” Brian Marvin called. Brian was the easier-going of the two brothers, and no doubt wanted to defuse the weird tension that had permeated the gathering.

  The man in the shadows didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Glenn was sure he could see the man’s eyes glowing now.

  “Ah, to hell with this,” Hunter Marvin said and began to stalk forward.

  Glenn felt a chill. Hunter was a state champion wrestler and didn’t possess the peacemaking tendencies of his brother. If Hunter decided to attack the man, things might get very ugly indeed. Probably sensing the danger here, Brian moved up alongside his brother and barred him with an outstretched arm.