I skirt around the edge of the drawing group and sit down next to Jake, who is enjoying the untroubled sleep of a child. In repose, his face looks peaceful and innocent, so different from the hard, guarded expression he usually wears.
I’m sure Ms. Torres has already asked him, “Mr. Grivas, do you think you’d be able to draw better if you were awake?” while he snored at her. Miraculously, his large drawing board is still balanced on his lap, a stick of charcoal resting inside his open hand.
I’m not surprised to see Jake sleeping in class, but I am surprised to see charcoal smudges all over the right sleeve of his shirt where it’s resting on his drawing. Jake’s so picky about his clothes, he sometimes will change into a T-shirt for art class.
Ms. Torres floats around the room, and when she’s on the far side, I nudge Jake.
“Yo! Dude! Wake up!”
Jake jolts awake, and the charcoal stick snaps in his suddenly clenched fist.
“Dude, are you all right?” I ask.
“Huh?” Eyes still half closed, Jake swivels his head in my general direction. “Who’s that?”
“Remember!” Ms. Torres tells the class from the other side of the room. “Draw the shapes from the inside out! Don’t draw the surface. Burrow inside and work your way out of the forms.”
Jake seems to be working his way out of his own form with a struggle.
“Are you drinking NyQuil again?” I ask him.
Jake rubs his large eyes, puffy with sleep, and blinks them open. “Kirby?” he asks, like, What are you doing here? He shakes his head, and a long strand of hair falls over his eyes. “NyQuil . . . ? Uh, yeah. Just a little. Got a bad cold.” He slicks his hair back in place.
“Did you get my text?”
“Oh, yeah, something about . . . what?”
“The one about Mark! Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“Uh, no. Actually, I forgot to charge my phone last night. It’s been dead all day.”
Ms. Torres floats up behind Jake and looks at his paper, which is not a drawing of the fruit in front of us, but a wall-to-wall mass of frantic black scribbles, with a big smudge in the middle where his arm was resting.
She inhales suddenly, and the bells on her earrings tinkle as a shiver runs through her. “Wow . . . Jake.”
“Huh?”
“Wow,” she repeats, walking away.
Jake turns his paper left and right, considering it from different angles. “Does she like it or not?” he asks me.
“I can’t tell.”
“What do you think of it?” he asks, his large eyes two searchlights, more awake now, more like the sharp Jake I love and fear.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Jake drops the drawing pad and stretches like a cat, hands over his head and toes pointed.
“It’s probably good, then,” he says, growing bored. “That’s what great art does. It confuses you.”
Steve Decusatis sits on the other side of Jake, concentrating very hard on his drawing. It looks great to me, realistic and carefully shaded, but Jake taps the paper with his finger, leaving a black smudge right in the middle, and declares, “As opposed to this shit.”
Steve is about to protest, then takes one look at Jake—full lips turned down in a cruel frown, flawless white shirt buttoned up to the neck but smudged all over the arm with black, total American Psycho vibes—and wisely chooses to instead move his stool to the other side of the room.
I tug Jake’s sleeve and am relieved when, jerking it away from me, he notices the charcoal all over it.
“Ah, what the fuck?” Jake curses, wiping his arm on my shoulder.
“Jake! Focus! Has anybody hassled you today?”
“Sure. Lots of people. Why?”
“No, but I mean, not Mark Kruger or Tommy Richter or Rob Klein?”
“I barely know those jerks. Mark who?”
I fill Jake in on the whole situation: discovering it was Mark’s farm we painted last night. The black eye. PJ getting stapled in the bathroom—wisely omitting my toilet-seat yoga—and Tommy roughing me up in the stairwell. I think Jake is going to get angry and say something tough like, Don’t worry about those losers, Kirby. They’re all talk. I’ve got your back. But instead of angry, he looks positively delighted.
“This is perfect!” he says.
I’m confused. “Do you literally mean perfect, or are you saying that sarcastically? Because it doesn’t sound like you’re saying it sarcastically. And you’re smiling really big.”
Jake is smiling so wide I can see his sharp canines. He looks around the room to make sure nobody is watching, then slides a knife, the blade folded into the matte-black handle, out of his back pants pocket. There’s an American flag printed on the handle. It’s the knife he waved in PJ’s face last night.
He presses a notch and gives his wrist the slightest flick, and the blade pivots out of the handle smoothly. The blade is matte black like the handle, something I didn’t notice last night, and it looks sharp enough and thick enough to gut a shark. Jake sees the alarmed expression on my face and smiles even bigger, exhilarated by my fear. Simply resting in his palm, the blade gives off a dangerous vibration, as though it’s a living thing that—at any moment, if the urge gripped it—might jump up and slice the nose off my face.
Jake keeps smiling as I lean away from the knife. “This is perfect because I brought this to school today, and I’ve been looking for a reason to use it.”
I can’t tell if Jake’s kidding—or at least, like, half kidding. Is this another jest I should include in the Big Book of Jake Jokes? Or is he actually saying that he’s going to stab Mark and Tommy? I remember when I told him about the horse dogs and he replied with a straight face, “Dude, just kill them.”
All these thoughts must be playing clearly across my shocked face, because Jake bursts out laughing. He snaps the blade shut with another quick flick and punches me in the arm as he hides the knife in his rear pocket again. “Relax, Kirby. Relax!” He laughs so loudly that one of the kids in front of us looks over his shoulder.
“I’m totally relaxed,” I say. “You’re not going to stab anyone, though, right?”
“You worry too much,” Jake replies, which isn’t the same as saying No.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
JAKE SPENDS THE REST OF the class continuing to darken his page with overlapping scribbles, while I silently prepare my defense for accessory to murder. “Your Honor, I can’t survive in prison. I have the body of an artist and a doctor’s note to prove it.”
When the bell rings, Jake hops off his stool like a sprinter leaving the blocks. He pushes through the crowd of students ahead of me, no doubt hoping that Rob and Tommy, or maybe even Mark, will be in the hallway waiting for us. When I get out into the hallway a couple of seconds later, I’m relieved to see they’re not.
Jake spreads his arms and spins around like a demented Julie Andrews. “Where the fuck are they?”
“I don’t know, dude. Somewhere else? I mean, I guess they don’t know where all my classes are. Or they don’t care. Or whatever.”
“Shit,” he grumbles, ducking back into the art room. I lean into the doorway to see what he’s doing and watch with shock as he takes a big pair of scissors out of his front pocket and tosses them onto a table before rejoining me in the hall.
I can’t believe it. “Why did you need the fucking scissors if you already have the—” I look around to make sure no one is listening, then whisper, “The knife?”
“I thought you didn’t want me to use the knife,” Jake says loudly enough for everyone in the hall to hear.
“I don’t!” I hiss. “I don’t want you to use the scissors, either!”
Jake rolls his eyes like I’m totally overreacting. He turns on the ball of his foot like a dancer sketching a lazy pirouette and saunters down the hall. “I wanted to see if I could fight two-handed with them,” he says. “I saw a guy do it on Game of Thrones. Also, I worried that if
I had to throw the knife, then I wouldn’t have anything left to fight with.”
Throw the knife? My God, he sounds serious. Would he be thinking it through this much if he was just kidding?
I hurry to catch up with him. “Look, Jake, are you kidding? You’re kidding, right?”
He gives me his most charming smile, a great white shark assuring you that yes, really, he’s a vegetarian.
“Jake, look, I don’t want to fight. And I don’t want you to stab anyone!”
“You don’t have to fight.” Jake sighs, ignoring the second part of my statement. “I’ll handle all that for you. Kirb, I say this as your friend. . . .” He stops and tenderly lays his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a wimp.”
I swear, the shoulders of my shirt are going to wear out from all the people tenderly placing their hands on me today.
“Look,” I say, “if we can avoid Mark and those other guys for the rest of the day, I bet by tomorrow they’ll have gotten tired of all this. I mean, Mark’s in vo-tech, so the only time we could conceivably see him anyhow is at lunch.”
Jake’s big green eyes sparkle. “Ooooh, lunch. I forgot about that. That’s perfect. We can kill all three of those jerks at the same time.”
“No! We can’t! We’re not killing anyone!” But Jake isn’t listening. I’ve seen him get like this before. Once he makes his mind up, there’s no swaying him.
One of the first times we ever hung out, after we moved to Shuckburgh but before my parents got suspicious of Jake, Mom dropped me off at his house to spend the night. Jake said, “C’mon, let’s go to the drive-in. They’re showing Predator.”
He grabbed a pair of keys out of an ashtray on the kitchen table, which was piled high with newspapers, plates, and random junk. I was shocked at how messy it was compared to our kitchen.
“Wait, there’s a drive-in around here?” I asked Jake. “And wait, you have a driver’s license?” In Pennsylvania, you can get a learner’s permit when you’re sixteen, but you can’t get a real, full license until you’re seventeen. But Jake did seem older.
“Sure,” Jake said, which I have since discovered is Jake’s way of saying No.
“Where’s your dad?” I asked. “Is he going to be cool with us going?”
“Sure,” he said dismissively. “He’s upstairs. Sleeping.”
This also shocked me. It was only seven p.m.
Jake could see I was surprised. He lifted a big prescription bottle from the pile of debris on the kitchen table and rattled the pills inside. “He’s got a bad back,” he said. “He has to rest it a lot. Also, he just got back from a long haul, so he’s beat.”
He tossed the bottle back into the mess and jingled the keys. “C’mon, let’s go.”
At first I was nervous—I knew Mom wouldn’t want me driving with Jake, or leaving the house without his dad’s permission—but I was excited because I had never been to a drive-in before. I didn’t know they were even still around!
The huge neon sign out front said SHUCKBURGH DRIVE-IN in a looping script, but it looked like the neon had burned out years ago, and of course someone had stolen the h, so it read SUCKBURGH. Jake pulled over in the high grass beside it and told me to get out of the car and hide in the trunk, so we wouldn’t have to pay for two people.
“Don’t you think it’ll look a little suspicious,” I said, “you driving in alone?”
“You can get in the trunk,” Jake said, “or I can put you in the trunk.”
Once we parked and I was allowed to get back into the car like a person and not a piece of luggage, Jake grabbed a six-pack of beer from the back seat. He tried to open a bottle, but they had caps, and we didn’t have an opener. “Shit,” Jake grumbled. “Dad just got me a bottle opener with the stars and bars on it, but I don’t know where it went. Well, don’t worry. I know a trick.” He opened the car door and wedged the edge of the bottle cap against a piece of metal.
“You just wedge this here,” Jake said, “and then whammo!” He slammed his hand down on the bottle top, intending to pop the cap off, but instead the whole neck of the bottle broke off in a shower of glass and foam that drenched his pant leg.
“Shit.” He shook the foam off his hand. “Lemme try again.”
Jake tried five more times, and every single time the cap stayed on, but the neck of the bottle itself broke off with a sharp crack.
“No problem,” Jake finally said, a dripping, jagged bottle in his hand. “You just have to avoid the sharp edges. Just pour the beer into your mouth from a few inches away.” He tipped the broken bottle over his mouth and poured the beer in a golden waterfall that dripped down his chin.
“Ooookay,” I said doubtfully. “But what if there are glass shards in the beer? What if we drink little pieces of glass and they cut up our stomachs?”
His retort was elegant and unassailable. “Whatever.”
“More like whatnever, dude.” I laughed.
Jake wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “What?”
“More like whatnever, I said.”
Jake stared at me. “I don’t get it.”
“Like, I would never do that, is what I’m saying. Like, instead of whatever, I’m saying—”
“It sounds like you’re saying you want to go back in the trunk. Is that right?”
“No, sir.”
Jake tossed the empty bottle out the window and grabbed another. “All right, then.”
— — —
If Jake wants to do something, he will do it. So now I have to (1) stop Mark from beating me up and (2) stop Jake from stabbing Mark.
I realize that not doing number two would help me accomplish number one, but no matter how much I dislike Mark, I don’t want his blood all over Jake’s hands. As has been observed multiple times today by both friend and foe, I guess I’m just a wimp.
Jake and I curve around the hall and down the stairs back toward the lobby. In the stairwell, I can already hear the noise of the crowd talking and slamming their lockers in the Thunderdome, a distant roll like approaching . . . thunder. Like a . . . dome . . . full of thunder.
I’m too tired for metaphors.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
I HAVE ENGLISH NEXT, WHICH is in a different circle, which means I have to cross through the lobby again for the hundredth time today. Jake has study hall back in the circle we were just in for art, but he insists on walking me to English “for my protection.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protest. “Really. You don’t have to walk me to class.”
“It’s fine, dude.”
“Won’t you be late for your class?”
Jake gives me a pitying look, like I’m a sucker for letting clocks tell me when to go places.
Jake keeps swiveling his head around, looking for Mark, Tommy, or Rob. What I haven’t told Jake is that I know exactly where Rob is: He’s in my English class. One reason I don’t want Jake to walk me to class is that I’m afraid they’ll bump into each other in the hallway, and Jake will fillet him like a fish with his black blade. That little fucker won’t stand a chance.
We reach the ground floor of the circle and follow the flow of students moving clockwise around the hallway. Jake’s eyes dart restlessly from face to face. A couple of people who meet his stare quickly look away or suddenly become very interested in the conversation they’re having.
As we near the lobby, we pass through a section of the hall lined with lockers. The lockers in our school are different colors depending on what circle they’re in. These are safety-cone orange. Kids open and close them with a loud clang. I want to distract Jake, but I don’t know what to talk about. Finally I venture, “PJ is going to ask Vern to the dance today.”
Jake continues scanning the crowd as we walk. “Is that why he’s dressed like a ventriloquist puppet?”
“Oh, you saw him?”
“Um . . . sort of. Across the lobby.” Jake rubs his eyes.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,�
�� he says. “Just tired from last night, you know?” We pass a bathroom, and he swerves toward it. “Hold on a second,” he says, going inside. “Gotta piss.”
I wait for him, standing against the wall and watching people pass. Boy oh boy, what a crummy day.
A couple of minutes later Jake careens out of the bathroom. His face and the top of his shirt collar are soaking wet, like he dunked his head into the sink. He’s still clutching a wad of paper towels and wiping his face off as we resume walking. He crumples the paper towels up and drops them on the floor.
“Why are you soaking wet?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “ ’ Cause I washed my face,” he snaps.
Okay. I am now officially more scared of Jake than of Mark.
We pass Mr. Hartman in the hallway. He eyes Jake suspiciously, as he should, and follows us as we enter the Thunderdome, posting up outside the principal’s office near the main entrance.
The Thunderdome is crowded, kids crossing through the center in pairs or clumps of friends. Happy voices bounce around the vaulted dome above us. Jake and I pass through the chaos, but right in the center of the circle someone bumps into me with their shoulder as they walk past. They hit me so hard that I spin around and almost fall over. My glasses fall off. I bend down to pick them up quick, before anybody steps on them, and when I put them back on, I look up to see who bumped into me.
Of course it’s Tommy, with a pack of other guys, including Jono, and they’re laughing at me as they walk away.
It’s reassuring to know that in a world that’s spiraling out of control, there are some things you can always count on.
I stand up and adjust my glasses. Tommy gives me the finger and yells, “Hey, numbnuts, you’re dead,” then turns around and keeps walking, the crowd quickly separating us.
I think Jake is going to reach into his back pocket and grab the knife, but instead he grabs one of the books out of my hand—Komm Mit!, a thick, compact book—cocks his arm back, and yells, “Hey, Richter!”
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