by Scott Kelly
“I was supposed to be his conscience,” I say. “He told me that, when I visited him after graduation.”
Mr. Aschen snorts out a laugh. “Narcissists don’t have that level of foresight, Jacob. If they did, they wouldn’t be narcissists. He was using you, remember? Trying to actively balance himself would mean he recognized his condition, which would negate his being a narcissist in the first place.”
“David was aware of the way his mind worked. He may have been full of himself, I’ll give you that—but he kept other people in mind, too. I’m the one who let us down.”
Mr. Aschen leans forward, arms on knees and hands crossed, forcing me to lean back. Can taste the cheap coffee on his breath. Want out of this room.
“That’s nonsense, Jacob. You’re proving my point right now.”
“I was supposed to be his conscience, and I was starting to have doubts. I didn’t let him know, though. I failed him,” I say.
*
Senior year
That night, we sat and watched David’s trailer burn in effigy to our collective childhoods. No words; nothing to say. All of us had something in our past we wanted to wipe clean, to purify in fire. Some, more than others.
Kent sulked at the edge of the clearing, unwilling to rejoin the group. Cameron stood with him, murmuring into his ear occasionally, rubbing his shoulder. The inferno subsided as the trailer was reduced to smoldering plastic, melting into some pitiful mutant thing, hissing and popping. The fumes got to be too much for me; I got up, dreading my return trip. Less than a mile to the trailer park, but I’d have to stumble through the woods again.
As I walked past, Cameron spoke: “Wait.” I turned and looked; a white light flashed in her palm. “Want to walk with us? You’ll eat less spider webs.” Kent stood behind her, big body acting as a frame in which she stood.
I’d love to walk with Cameron—not so sure about Kent. I’d avoided him for the past year, ever since I took the blame for calling the cops on his dad. We’d never resolved the conflict, and I never wanted to.
“Sure,” I said. The word didn’t come out like I wanted; no strength behind it.
We walked with Cameron between us, drifting toward the road, chasing the flashlight’s beam as we diverged around trees and thorny bushes.
Neither Kent nor I could speak; the tension was too thick. Cameron cut through it: “Are you okay not getting tagged tonight, Kent?”
He shook his head: “I…it’s embarrassing.” The towering teen’s voice resounded at an octave lower than mine. “Why do I even have to beg in the first place?”
“Maybe everyone is just looking out for you, in their own way,” Cameron noted. “Maybe your head isn’t in the right place to be playing Eureka.”
“But that’s what you want me to do!” Kent exclaimed in frustration. I got the feeling this was a long-standing argument between them. “I just want you to be proud of me.” Kent lowered his voice when Cameron tugged at the black sleeve of his howling-wolves shirt.
“I am proud of you, Kent,” Cameron said. “You’re like a big brother to me.”
I cleared my throat, annoyed at being forced into their private conversation.
“I don’t want to be a brother,” Kent whispered, as though I might not hear it despite standing right next to him. “Can’t we talk about this alone?”
“Sure,” I offered. “I’ll stand right here until the sun comes up—don’t mind me.”
Cameron spoke: “Don’t be stupid. You can walk with us; we aren’t going to leave you out here.” Cameron waggled the flashlight back and forth to demonstrate where ‘out here’ was. “Kent, we talked about this. You know I like David.”
This was news to me. “David?” The name flew from my mouth before I could stop it.
“Well, he doesn’t believe in relationships yet, but yeah. We’ve been talking about it. Nothing official, so far.” Cameron stated matter-of-factly.
Who wasn’t David sleeping with?
“Well if he doesn’t believe in relationships, you can’t ever really get together, can you?” Kent asked helplessly.
“So I should just give up?” she asked. “A lot can happen in the future. We’re always changing, after all.”
Kent pulled Cameron and the light away from me, behind a tree. I stood in the absolute dark, starlight blocked by the canopy of leaves above. The flashlight outlined the space between their bodies in a pale glow, a tight parenthetical. Their whispers came clear through the night, despite his efforts.
“I’m not giving up, either. Wouldn’t going to prom with me be a big change?” Kent asked. She hesitated, didn’t respond. “I swear, Cameron, if you give me one chance, one night, then you would change your mind. I know it.”
Painful.
“Maybe,” Cameron sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this again.” The flashlight appeared again, leading the way. A moment later, we broke through the woods and arrived at the road. We stopped at her car.
She sat down in the old red sedan and turned the key; headlights broke the night. Cameron handed me her flashlight. “Night, guys.”
Kent walked to his truck, which was parked nearby.
I walked up to Kent. “Hey, man, I’m sorry about all that. No hard feelings, okay? It may not seem like it, but I didn’t tag you for your own good.” I extended a hand. Mainly, I wanted a ride back.
Kent’s fist flew forward, below mine, and hit me in the stomach. I doubled over as the air evacuated my lungs, struggling to breath.
He got in his truck and shut the door. After a moment, I caught my breath and stood. I sighed and flipped on the flashlight. It flickered for a moment, then died. I shook it, feeling the batteries rattle inside until the light flared up again.
I made my return to Kingwood High School a week later. Not much to it; no one seemed to notice I ever left. Starting midyear sucked, though—everyone was used to their classes, and I still needed to find mine. Didn’t care too much. I only needed to last four more months, and then none of high school would ever matter again.
My first two periods passed without incident. I killed time by actually taking notes, which I’d never done before. My third period, Advanced American History, was interesting. Nora was in it—so was Cameron.
I picked a seat right next to Nora. She didn’t acknowledge me.
The teacher launched into a discussion of the Battle of Chesapeake Bay. As she lectured, I listened with one ear while devoting the rest of my faculties to watching Nora out my peripheral. Deep brown eyes seemed to trap all light entering them, storing it somewhere out of reach from people like me. Dark pools.
Brunette hair curled at the tips of her shoulders, a little bit of makeup. Not glamorous by any means. More like glamour’s younger sister, who was never let out of the house because glamour herself slutted it up at first break. Everything subtle and downplayed, blue jeans and a cotton jacket, soft and smart and accessible.
At the end of the period, the teacher passed around a short quiz about her lecture. Since the class had almost ended, the hum of low talking filled the room, which the teacher made no attempt to quell.
I made it through most of the quiz without issue, but was stumped by a question about where the Lucitania sank. I turned to Nora. “Hey, could you give me a hint about this one, or tell me where to look, maybe? Please?” I asked, trying to sound calm as sudden nervous electricity nearly shocked the pen out of my hand. Needed to see how she’d react.
Nora turned to look at me, and I knew I’d made a mistake. Bitter. “I believe it happened in the water. You know, where the drowning is.” She ripped out her answers to the quiz, slammed her notebook closed, and crammed her things into a backpack.
Stupid. I cursed myself and guessed the other answers, turning in the quiz just before the bell rang.
I rushed into the hallway and caught Nora. “Hey, sorry about that. I should have known the answer.”
She ignored me.
“But hey, thank you so much for coming to get me
over the break. It saved—” I didn’t have time to say ‘Christmas’ because a shove sent me flying into the lockers so hard my feet left the ground. Nora chuckled, but didn’t miss a beat and kept walking.
I staggered to keep my balance. When I turned, I saw Kent walking the other way.
27. Chased
Kingwood High was a busy place, so I didn’t run into Kent every day. Half of the time he was out for baseball, and I managed to avoid him some days.
But, when Kent did corner me, the torment was relentless. What’s worse, some of his teammates idly joined in the hate—because high school students, it seemed, loved finding reasons to be angry.
In between Pre-Cal and Speech, Kent slapped the books out of my hands, sending them sliding across the hallway. While everyone laughed, another athletic-looking kid kicked my math book like a hockey puck over the floor, where a group of them began a makeshift game with it.
Some enterprising minion of Kent’s filled my lock with Super Glue, so I walked around the school with a backpack weighed down by seven enormous books. I’m Jacob Thorke, and I’ll be your sherpa today.
Some parts of the baseball team started working to one up each other, seeing who could trip me in the halls, who could dream up the worst insult. I was used to that sort of shit, but this was a new kind of hate. I’d always been picked on, but passively—because of what I looked like, where I was from, and not some sort of personal vendetta against me. Kent was pissed.
I happened across him as he dug through his locker after school. Despite his large frame, he didn’t look like a grown man. Rather, he was still the same chubby kid I always knew, just warped out of proportion. Literally a gigantic second grader, instead of the fully formed adult I expected.
“Don’t you wish you could do this?” Kent asked.
“What, rummage?”
“Open your locker.”
I shrugged. “I keep ‘em all on me. Simplifies things.”
“Yeah, and it makes you look like a fag,” he accused.
“Do homosexuals have big backpacks? I wasn’t aware. Besides, I don’t care what other people think of me, Kent. Maybe if you played Eureka, you’d know that.”
Kent slammed his locker shut. “If you would have tagged me, sure. You could have given me a chance with Cameron, but you’d rather embarrass me, make everyone think I’m an idiot. Then you say it’s my fault you don’t tag me, that it’s for my own good. That’s the problem with you, Jacob. You always think you know what’s best. You don’t know shit.”
Kent turned to face me. The heat from his anger radiated off his face. He flexed his shoulder, and I leaned back. He took deep breaths and seemed to be undergoing some mental exercise. After a few moments, he moved back.
“It’s like when you called the cops. Smart, right? Save the whole park, be a hero. You know what happened after all that? Foster care. Yeah, great. You think that was better for Cameron than her home? Dad already stopped molestin’ her, that hadn’t happened in years. You brought it all back up, ruined our lives, for nothing. Because you thought it would help.”
“I just did what was right,” I said. About time I took responsibility for it.
“What was right.” Kent glanced back at the abandoned hall then leaned in uncomfortably close, face inches from mine. “You know what happened thanks to all your fucking rightness? Dad was out of jail in three weeks. Came back twice as mad. Took it out on me every day for months. Yeah, what’s right. You think you’re so goddamn smart, all you do is make things worse. That’s the worst kind of stupid, thinking you’re smart when you’re not.”
“Wait, what? Three weeks?”
He snorted out a laugh. “No evidence against him except that phone call you made. Cameron wouldn’t step foot in court, and I don’t blame her. He got in some trouble for the way he ran the park, that’s it.” Kent turned away from me, swallowing hard, grinding teeth evident from the taut skin of his jaw. “All I can do now, is keep her safe. You know what it’s like to know my Dad did those things to her? I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up. I have to.”
“I’m sorry, Kent. But you and Cameron isn’t going to happen, and she’s glad I called the cops. She told me.”
“Oh, great. Jacob Thorke is sorry. If you woulda kept your mouth shut in the first place—”
Poor confused bastard. “Your dad’s the one who screwed this up! Don’t blame me.”
Kent’s face contorted, eyes widened. His fist balled up again, rising into the air.
I flinched impulsively, shutting my eyes. When I opened them, Kent had turned and was walking away.
But, that look in his eyes. I knew it, had known it all my life. The grackle killer.
Nora hadn’t offered to kill me in nearly two weeks, so I thought my odds at successfully having a conversation with her were as good as ever. I ran to catch her after school, which wasn’t easy with my gigantic backpack.
“Nora,” I called. “Hey.”
She turned. Zero reaction on her face, but at least she stopped. When I reached her, she started walking again. Just our footsteps echoing down empty halls.
“Would you like to not go to prom with me?” I asked.
“I don’t want to go to prom with you,” she said immediately, voice flat. “I hate everything about prom. And you.”
“You didn’t hear me. I’m asking if you’d like to not go to prom with me. Together. We’ll go somewhere else instead, on prom night. Screw prom.”
Nora cracked a smile. Triumph. Trumpet fanfare; love and light.
“I knew you were in there,” I said.
“Jacob,” Nora said, “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m not mad anymore. It’s as much my fault as yours. I care about you—I do. But, you don’t care about yourself. And you want me to have to worry about what happens to you? That’s just cruel. Until you start giving a damn about your own future, you can’t ask me to do the same.”
She continued: “I will maybe not go to prom with you. I need time to think about it. Carry these books for me.”
Suddenly, things weren’t so bad. This was more than I hoped for. I took her books from her.
“I want you to know,” I said, “I think you’re beautiful. The reason I never asked you out is because you always made it sound like it was impossible, like being my girlfriend was some insane idea.” We stopped at the exit doors and turned to face each other.
Nora turned and smiled at me, caught herself, and forced a serious look back onto her face. “You really are a good guy, Jacob. Something has you convinced you’re not. If you actually decided to try at life, you might find you don’t suck at it.” Eyes met mine.
“You’re not seeing the big picture. Life is more than good grades or a paycheck.” Eureka. We both knew it, even if I didn’t say it.
Nora took her books out of my arms. I wanted to clutch at them, to draw them back to me. She only shook her head, opened the door and stepped through.
About halfway down the first road to Broadway, I heard the obnoxious buzz of an unmuffled pickup truck, followed by an intimidating horn, bleating like a cow in labor. As it grew closer and more urgent, I got a strong hit of dread. I knew, somehow, that the sound was coming for me.
Three of them, in Kent’s red truck. It angled straight toward me; I stepped out of the way, and it roared by with only inches to spare. Hot exhaust and the smell of burnt oil followed. Baseball practice must have let out.
I heard shouted insults in Doppler Effect as the truck passed. The moment it crossed me, Kent braked, leaving thick black tread on the pavement. He climbed out of the driver’s seat and two of his friends unloaded from the passenger side.
All I needed to see. I abandoned the backpack and tore off, running with the road, hoping to get away. Their shouts and laughs were dulled to a menacing growl in the back of my head.
A body crashed into mine; I was tackled to the ground. I kicked and punched at Kent’s face, managing to free myself from his grip around m
y legs. I scrambled up, pain cascading across my back. Without turning to face him, I darted across the street; my entire consciousness centered on the dull, rhythmic thud of my feet. No one else in sight.
Couldn’t outrun him. Kent gripped me by the shoulder and swung me off balance, sending me sliding over the asphalt. My palms skinned against the small pebbles like cheddar over a grater. The other two were jogging up. They looked worried, maybe in over their heads.
We were interrupted by a high-pitched whine—the sound of an engine pushing itself to meltdown level. Kent stood, stepping aside and leaving me lying flat in the street. I rose, turning to see the incoming car. A blue flash skidded out of control, sliding sideways, stopping perpendicular to the road as my attackers scattered to avoid being struck. I lay dead center in its path, staring at the approaching door. It stopped feet from my body, rocking on its tortured suspension.
Not just any car: it was my car.
“Come on! In you go,” Emily said, kicking the door open for me.
Didn’t need to be told twice. I leapt in and slammed the door shut, hitting the lock a split second before Kent tried the handle. I strapped my seatbelt on as Emily peeled away, tires spinning for a moment as Kent kicked uselessly at the bumper.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, turning around in my seat and watching Kent and his friends run back to their truck, sparking it to life.
“Would you rather I let you out?” Emily asked, taking her foot off the gas.
“No!” I shouted. “Go. Just go! They’re following us.”
“Why?”
“Because Kent thinks I ruined his life. Or he wants me to tag him. Or he wants to impress his baseball friends; I can’t tell. He’s crazier than you are.”