Or maybe I’d just read too many comics and seen too many movies where the only time someone had a gun was when they were blowing another person’s head off. Because, somehow, despite knowing the feeling was wrong, it felt like that’s what I was supposed to do.
I handed the gun back to Tooth.
“I can’t shoot. My arm hurts from when you punched me,” I lied.
“You pussy. Suck it up and squeeze the trigger. This gun is so light a baby could shoot it.”
Forcefully, he pushed the gun back in my hand, placed his own hand over mine and made me grip it firmly. He didn’t back away until I faked an air of confidence, though what I really did was clear my mind of any thoughts that would land me in the loony bin. Across the field, the beer can reflected the sun so it appeared a train was coming out of the woods. I relaxed my grip, sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The noise was more like a firecracker than a cannon, and perhaps because of this I felt less nervous. My shot landed square and sent the can cartwheeling backwards to the ground. Tooth ran over and picked it up and brought it back.
“Damn, you’re a natural.” He fingered the bullet hole.
The bullet had gone through dead center, a bit below Tooth’s hole. I didn’t tell him I had pictured the can as a man’s head when I shot, though I doubt he would have given a shit. Then again, maybe I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to hear myself admit it.
CHAPTER 8
By midday we’d shot so many holes in the cans they were unusable even as targets. At twenty yards my aim had gotten so I could hit my mark about seventy percent of the time. Tooth’s accuracy was a much better. Even drunk he could shoot the ass hairs off a gnat. After we’d grown bored, he wobbled around picking up the empty shells.
“I can reuse these,” he told me.
I wasn’t so sure homemade bullets were a good idea, but for all I knew the ones we’d shot hadn’t come from a store anyway.
We rolled another joint and sat and looked out over the forest. Not much had changed in the past couple hours, except maybe some clouds had reshaped themselves. Off in the distance, a bleak gray was spreading over the blue sky and I figured by supper time we’d be in for rain.
Tooth passed me the joint and said, “Want to go to O’Conner’s tonight?”
I sucked in the stale smoke and coughed, then drummed my fist on my chest, apelike. “I’d just as soon not go back there.”
“Yeah, but they’re the only ones that don’t check IDs.”
Getting carded was the least of my worries. The last time we’d ventured into O’Conner’s was on Christmas break and I’d ended up with a fat lip and piss-drenched pants and Tooth had ended up with a broken nose. O’Conner’s was a local hangout for some bored skinheads who had nothing to do and no one to take it out on, these parts being primarily white. As a result, an unsuspecting soul who happened to remark about a film starring a black man was like a gift from the gods.
No sooner had I mentioned the Wesley Snipe film Blade to Tooth than a fist the size of the moon hauled me out of my chair and brought me face to face with a suspender-wearing gorilla with two lightning bolts tattooed on his skull.
“We don’t discuss eggplants in here,” he breathed. “You want to proliferate the spreading disease that is the black man, you do it somewhere else.”
Had I been alone, I would have thanked the man for leaving my neck in one piece and slinked out the door like a frightened mouse. Unfortunately, I was with Tooth, who never passes up an opportunity to land me in jail or a hospital bed. He came around the back of the skinhead and put his arm around the guy like they were best buddies.
“I say we lynch this little fucker,” he said.
Naturally, my eyes went wide and I hoped Lightning Bolt Head understood the joke. He gave Tooth a serious stare, as if he might pick him up and use him as a toothpick. The owner of the bar came over, carrying a golf club, and told us to knock it off or he was calling the cops. But like hyenas trapping two lion cubs, the other skinheads gathered around to support their friend-who could have easily taken both Tooth and me with one finger.
“We’re just talking movies,” Lightning Bolt Head said.
The other patrons in the bar, mostly drunks and a few college students home on break, stopped all conversation and started salivating for blood. Normally, I’d have been just as eager for some violence, but my heart just wasn’t in it this time, what with my face likely to be the first target and all.
As the owner walked back behind the bar, Tooth gave me his famous glance, the same one he’d shot me in the liquor store, the one that always made my scrotum shrivel, and I suddenly knew I was very likely leaving the bar with missing teeth. It was kindergarten all over again. Tooth was setting up for a distraction and I was going to do something on the sly. But what? There was nothing to swipe from these guys and I sure as hell wasn’t going to blindside one of them.
“So what do you say?” Tooth continued. “Let’s take this nigger-lover out back and show him what it means to live in the white man’s world. Maybe we can get points on our community service, eh?”
“I know you,” Lightning Bolt Head said. “You’re that guy who got run over by his daddy. What do they call you, Mouth or something?”
“Tooth.”
“Yeah, Tooth, nice name. Well, listen here, Tooth, why don’t you fuck off before I stamp my name on your forehead.”
He raised his other fist and proudly displayed a three-fingered silver ring that was more brass knuckles than jewelry. Beveled in reverse were the words Brody was here. I almost laughed. Almost.
“Nice ring,” Tooth replied, “I got one, too. It says ‘Once you go black you never go back.’ Put it right where I had that epiphany. Want to see it?” He pretended to unzip his fly, and it was at this moment I realized Tooth had stepped over the line of safety. We were in for it now. As the skins stood in stunned silence, waiting to see if Tooth had a cock ring on, I slowly put my foot against the back of Lightning Bolt Head’s knee-and prayed.
“That’s it,” the skinhead yelled as he adjusted the ring on his hand for optimal stamping, “we’re all going outside.”
Tooth snapped his arm back, fist balled into a battering ram, and I shoved my foot forward. Lightning Bolt Head stumbled as his leg gave out, and in that instant Tooth hit him square in the face. The force of the blow slammed his head back into mine and split my lip. A flash of white erupted under my eyelids and I felt myself falling. Then everything kind of exploded, as if a pack of wolves had been released into a hen house. Fists came from every direction, combat boots flashed at eye level. Yelling and screaming and bottles breaking. Grunts and gouts of blood spitting through the air. Taking advantage of my new position on the ground, I began crawling toward the door over shards of green and brown bottle. I was inches away from salvation when a dozen hands reached down and yanked me up and I knew, without a doubt, that I was a dead man. I pissed myself.
The next thing I saw was a golf club slicing the air and bodies flying this way and that. Whoosh! I ducked a swing that would have made a hole-in-one in my cheek and came up to find Tooth in front of me. His face was awash in blood and his bridge had been punched out.
“Let’s get the fuck outta here!” I yelled.
“Holdth on, I woft my tees.”
We bent down as skinheads careened around us, bleeding and moaning. Cheers went up from the other patrons, whose expectations had been generously fulfilled. I found his bridge under a barstool, covered in a glob of ichor that reminded me of a stewed tomato. I thrust it in his hand and nearly retched as he shoved it in his mouth. He yanked me up and we bolted out the front door and sped away.
And that was how my last trip to O’Conner’s had ended.
As I looked at the encroaching grayness crawling toward us over the mountains, I passed the joint back to Tooth and thought, no, I’m not particularly interested in going to O’Conner’s tonight. I told this to Tooth.
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“You’re afraid those skinhead jerkoffs will be there,” he said. “Man, when are you gonna get a backbone?”
“I have a backbone, and it’s straight and in one piece. I kind of like it that way.”
“You kind of make me sick sometimes.”
I wasn’t expecting that. But then again, he was drunk and he was unpredictable when drunk. I didn’t take his bait though; if he wanted to give me shit about not wanting to fight he could work it into the conversation on his own.
Man, he was pissing me off.
“You never take any chances,” he continued. “How long are you gonna stay in this hick town, doing nothing but reading comic books? When was the last time you got laid?”
“I get laid.”
“No, you don’t. Shit, you must pull your dick as often as I take a drink.”
“I’d have my dick in my hand right now if that were the case.”
“Man, don’t you feel suffocated here?”
“The university isn’t like that, there’s opportunity, cool people. You’d know that if you came to visit.”
“There’s no point. All college girls want to do is talk about how they’re going to be lawyers and doctors. None of them want to rape me like a bitch in heat, like the Internet says.”
“It’s not like that. Mostly they’re all hippies, listen to reggae music, hang out and let their leg hair grow. And they’re so sheltered, like they all grew up in communes. These girls came in my dorm room one night while I was watching Evil Dead and they asked what it was. Can you believe that? They’d never seen Evil Dead. I just laughed.”
“You elitist jackass. You should have fucked them.”
“Who said I didn’t?” I replied, annoyed at his lack of faith in me. Though the truth was they had walked into my room by mistake and asked the one question and left. I didn’t know too many girls, at least ones I could relate to. There was one girl living in a room down the hall who was very cute, small nose, short brown hair, had a picture of Ewan McGregor on her door in his Obi Wan Kenobi costume. I liked her, and we’d talked briefly, but I learned she had a boyfriend and not a very nice one at that. She left soon after anyway. Tooth was right-I pulled my dick a lot.
“Fuck, I need to get laid,” he said. “It’s been over two weeks.”
“Who did you get with?” I asked.
He took another pull on the joint and handed it to me. His eyes were red and clouded, and I doubted he could drive anymore, which meant I had better start sobering up or we’d be camping in the mountains like a couple of cro-mags.
“Michelle Murphy.”
“Bullshit,” I yelled. I handed the joint back to him and blew smoke in his face. Michelle Murphy had been every boy’s dream back in high school, the kind of girl you would have given all your paper route money for, the kind of girl you jerked off to on a nightly basis. She was also the kind that made a big deal about her faith and her virginity, which made her all the more desirable.
“Yup. I was at O’Conner’s and she came in with some dude. I hadn’t seen her since high school so I asked what she’d been up to. I don’t remember what she said but her breath could have sterilized the bottom of my shoe. That girl can drink. She starts rubbing on me and telling me she always thought I was a cool guy, which is horseshit, but I didn’t care. Anyway, she grabs my dick and says to follow her home. I said, ‘Who’s this yahoo?’ pointing to the guy she was with. She said, ‘Boston, meet New Hampshire.’ Then she leaned in real close, put her lips on my ear and said, ‘He was round one, you’re round two.’ So I went home with her and damn, that little girl is all grown up I tell you. I thought it was a little weird how the guy sat in the corner and watched, but hey, it didn’t affect my performance none.”
I pitched a rock into the abyss of trees and stood up. “You’re a fucking liar,” I said. “I’m starving, let’s go to Bobtail and grab a burger.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You think what you want, all I know is the devil’s gonna high five me when we meet. Aw, fuck it, a burger sounds good.”
We walked back down the path, which was now so thick with mosquitoes it was like walking through a stinging fog. Tooth put the gun back in the car.
And that was when we heard the scream.
CHAPTER 9
It was a woman. It was desperate. And it came from all around. We stopped moving and scanned the treetops like a couple of dogs sniffing out a trashcan. It sounded as if it came from everywhere at once, and even shifting our focus about we still couldn’t place the location. Then it stopped, the echo died away and all was silent again. Tentatively, the cicadas took up their buzzing once more; the ancient tree limbs went back to creaking like haunted house doors. A few mosquitoes tried to nest in my ear and I batted them away.
“Okay then,” Tooth said, and started to get in the car.
The scream came again, its urgency plain as day, and I knew somebody was hurt or at least needed some big time assistance. The hairs on my forearms stood on end, something that hadn’t happened to me in a while.
“What the fuck is that?” Tooth asked. A sudden fear wrinkled into his brow.
“I don’t know,” I replied, my heart beginning to race. “Sounds like it’s coming from over there but I can’t be sure. Wait, did you hear that?”
But before he could answer, the scream came again, and this time there was an unmistakable plea for help. But it was all run together so it sounded like “helpmepleasehelpme!” Then it stopped and we stood still, not knowing what to do, Tooth with his hand on the car door, me looking into the woods, my stoned brain replaying scenes from slasher films. The forest was on mute, every creature silent in the face of the unknown.
“Sounds like she’s hurt,” Tooth said.
“Probably hiking through the forest and fell or something,” I offered, “whoever she is. You don’t think there are any bears or anything in there?”
“Wolves maybe, but I don’t think they’re brave enough to attack a person.”
“What if she’s trapped under a rock or something?”
“I suppose they’d attack her if that were the case.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean maybe she needs help. Maybe her leg’s broken or something.”
Tooth’s mocking stare told me how dumb my last statement was so I shut up. He cocked his head to listen for any further noises but there were none. He shuffled his foot in the dirt and took out his keys, jingled them in his hand like he was using them to think. He put them back in his pocket and looked at me but I already knew what he was going to say.
“Let’s go look.”
Son of a bitch. I should have walked away, should have taken the keys and driven us right out of there. But I didn’t. Instead, here we were, in the middle of frigging nowhere, surrounded by nothing but woods, with someone screaming for help, and we were about to go investigate. Every bad horror movie I’d ever seen rushed back to me.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve seen this movie before,” I told Tooth. “We’ll walk in there and the psycho with the ax will split my head in half.”
“Movies aren’t real. She is. We can’t just leave her if she needs help.”
Tooth was right, what else could we do? It was a half-hour ride to Bobtail, and even farther the other way. By the time we reached anyone who could help, whoever was screaming might be dead.
There was also another reason-aside from playing Good Samaritan-that I felt compelled to find this person: simple curiosity. Somebody screaming from the woods could only turn out interesting. Perhaps a camper who’d fallen off a cliff, maybe a hiker who’d twisted their ankle, or maybe even someone fending off a wolf, though I hoped it wasn’t the latter.
I was apprehensive and mesmerized all at once. Or to put it another way, I was just stoned.
When I saw Tooth take the gun and reload it I felt a little better.
“C’mon,” he said, and started walking into the trees.
I ran around the car and got beside him, followed him like a puppy following its mother. We ducked under some low branches and stopped short a little ways in.
“Which way?” Tooth asked.
“Not sure. Thought it came from over there,” I said, pointing off to my left. The woods went on forever. Tooth broke some branches blocking our way and began blazing a trail in the direction I’d suggested. We went another hundred feet before Tooth stopped abruptly and I walked right into him. He turned around, gun pointing directly at my belly.
“I must be high,” he said, and stormed past me back the way we’d come. Utterly confused, I ran after him, snapping twigs and running through a spider web that had me wiping my face like I was on fire. When I emerged from the trees I found Tooth reaching into the car. He pulled out a cell phone.
Man, we really were stoned.
He made a face as if he was the village idiot and started dialing. Three numbers could only mean 9-1-1. With the phone to his ear, he waited for a minute then said, “Shit,” and stared pacing back and forth. The trees crossing over us formed a big tunnel and offered little in the way of clear reception so Tooth walked all the way down to the main road. I watched him shrink into a dot, spinning around in an effort to connect to a satellite. Ironically, I prayed someone would drive by and see him holding the gun and report it, if not stop and ask if we needed help.
While he spun and swore, I leaned against the car, wondering if our mystery woman was okay, who she was and would she be hot and, please God, naked.
After a few three-sixties, Tooth came back up and slammed his palm on the trunk. “There’s no reception here,” he said.
I was about to suggest driving a little ways down the road and trying the phone there when she screamed again and I nearly jumped out of my pants. Just three little words but they scared the living shit out of me: “Oh, God, no!”
The Summer I Died Page 5