by Tom Howard
Wesley said he didn’t know why. He said he missed his mom and dad and couldn’t help the way his eye looked. Said he wished the world was different, and that other kids liked him or at least left him alone to find whatever happiness he could find. Said he tried to kill himself because nothing made sense anymore and he couldn’t see things getting any better. And then, finally, he asked Gary Compton for mercy.
Nobody said a word. You could tell Gary was thinking, even while he was holding Wesley up against the locker. You could tell he knew this was a moment of some importance. I really wished something good would happen for a change. I tried to emanate powerful waves of kindness toward Gary, hoping he’d see the opportunity here. I thought it could be like one of those movies where the bully realizes how rotten he’s been, and it turns out he’s only rotten because he’s secretly sad and miserable and a welfare kid. Then he and Wesley could become friends and everybody would learn a valuable lesson.
“Scorpions show no mercy,” Gary said.
He punched Wesley four times in the gut and Wesley cried out that really he’d been bitten by a rattlesnake and was recuperating all week. The kids all laughed and Gary punched him again and took his glasses and stuffed him in the locker and called him a dumb abortion baby. Everybody cheered, and Gary stalked away full of rage.
When the hallway was clear, I stood next to the locker and asked Wesley how he was doing. He didn’t answer. I asked if he hated me and he finally said no, he didn’t. But I knew he did. He’d never hated before, but he hated me. And I knew that hate would bloom in his soul.
That night I went home and found Quinn sitting on the floor in my bedroom, fieldstripping his rifle.
“I think I’m making a mess of things,” I told him.
“What’d you expect?” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “How’s Dad doing?”
“He went up to see Kit Crawford today. Accused him and Mom of kidnapping you, then tried to jump Kit. Got knocked around pretty bad and Kit put a restraining order on him.” He finished with the rifle and set it down. His hand started shaking right away. Then he looked up as if he’d just remembered I was in the room. He said, “You want a hug or something?”
“’Preciate it,” I said, “but no thanks.”
“We could go see the Borealis. Before things get worse.”
“Things aren’t getting worse,” I said. “I’m going to fix this.” But he’d already forgotten me and was back at work on his rifle.
Wesley was smiling the next morning when I saw him. A weirdo smile, but still a smile. “I know what to do,” he said. He said if he became a member of the League of Scorpions all his problems would go away. No one would lay a finger on him again, including Gary Compton. Tripp Nolan would make sure of that. And he’d have a black bandana to boot.
“This idea,” I said, “is an abomination.”
“Do you have a better one?”
“You could run away,” I said. “You could become a train hobo and travel around the country playing your harmonica.” He said he didn’t play the harmonica and I said he was making it difficult for me to save his soul. I pointed out that everything terrible had happened as a result of me wanting to join the League of Scorpions. I asked who the hell he was planning to beat up. Someone with even more tragedy in his life? A paraplegic maybe? I said I heard Will Spiner’s brother didn’t have any bones in his legs. Maybe Wesley could knock over his wheelchair. I said more of the same, pretty furious.
Wesley waited until I was done. Then he said, “I was thinking about Gary Compton.”
I said I didn’t realize Wesley had a sense of humor. But he said he had a plan, and worst case was that the plan backfired and he’d be killed. I said that was a terrible worst case, and the whole point of talking about a worst case is that it’s not supposed to be all that bad.
When Gary arrived at school, he headed straight to Wesley again. Lifted him up, punched him in the gut, and stuffed him in the locker to another round of cheers. But when kids started walking away, Wesley called out to Gary through the locker vent and asked him if he wanted to make five thousand dollars.
I shook my head and groaned.
Gary waited until the hallway was clear and then he opened the locker. He said if this was a game he’d have to do something considerably more horrible to him, as per the Scorpion code of honor. Wesley said it was no game. He told Gary he had some insurance money left over from the salsa tragedy. All Gary had to do, he said, was let Wesley knock him down in the courtyard at lunch. Gary said if Wesley thought he was getting into the League of Scorpions, then he, Wesley, was a moron in addition to being a walleyed orphan. Wesley said no, he didn’t expect that. But at least other kids would leave him alone then. Gary said he’d think about it. Said he’d give Wesley a signal if he was going to do it.
After Gary left, I said it was too risky. I was skeptical that Gary would settle for five thousand if he thought there was more insurance money waiting for him.
“Won’t matter,” Wesley said. “I don’t even have five thousand.”
I said I’d stop haunting him if he reconsidered immediately. He ignored me. Lunchtime came around and he went to the courtyard and handed the Posner twins their sandwich halves and their fruit. He ate his raisins and sat quietly under a tree. When the Scorpions showed up, he got to his feet. Gary looked over at him and nodded, and then he and the other Scorpions walked away to practice their hateful glaring. I said there’s still time not to do this. But Wesley walked straight over to Gary and shoved him from behind as hard as he could, which wasn’t particularly hard.
Gary didn’t fall down. He barely moved. He turned to face Wesley and his marble eyes burned. “I changed my mind,” he said, and he punched Wesley in the stomach harder than I ever saw anyone punch anyone. Only, when the punch landed it didn’t make the weird squishy sound I expected, and Gary’s fist bounced off as if he’d punched a brick wall. He clutched his hand and howled, and fell to the ground. Kids came over to watch as Gary curled up and held his busted hand against his chest and cried like a baby. The hand was already swelling up something awful.
Tripp leaned down and said he completely understood that Gary was in a significant amount of pain, but he was going to have to take Gary’s bandana now, no hard feelings. Just that a crying Scorpion was unlikely to inspire dread. Then he handed the bandana to Wesley without a word.
Back at Wesley’s locker, when he was putting away the tile he’d stuffed inside his shirt before lunch, I said I was disappointed. I said this was turning into a tragedy and it didn’t have to be like that. He said things don’t always work out the way we want them to, like, for instance, you don’t want your mom and dad to fall into a salsa mixer but it happens anyway. Then he tied the bandana around his head and turned away.
Later, I went to Gary Compton’s house to see what he was planning. I thought maybe I could at least give Wesley advance warning. The house was gray and dirty on the outside, and I figured it would be a mess on the inside too. Figured he’d have parents who screamed at each other and called Gary names, like Shit-For-Brains. Probably it was always like that, since he was little. Probably when he came home from kindergarten with a macaroni sculpture, his dad tossed it in the garbage and said thanks for ruining our dinner, Shit-For-Brains. I felt bad about that, but Gary was still a monster. Just because his dad threw away his macaroni sculpture and called him Shit-For-Brains didn’t mean he could punch kids and call them abortion babies and cause so much fear and dread.
I stepped inside, and it was even filthier than I expected. Garbage covered the living room floor, but in the middle of the garbage was a young kid I figured was Gary’s brother. He was hugging his legs and watching a cartoon with no sound. I heard voices down the hallway so I went to investigate and found Gary in the back bedroom standing next to a hospital bed. One of his hands was bandaged and he was using the other to wash his mom’s arms and legs with a sponge. When he was done, he checked the levels on her oxygen tank an
d her morphine drip. He asked her if she needed anything. She said she needed a new liver. She asked if he was trying to poison her and he said no. She asked what day it was and he told her, and then she asked what year it was and he told her that too. She apologized for asking if he was trying to poison her, and he said that’s okay. She asked if it would be okay if she slept the rest of the day, and he said yes. He came out of the room and closed the door behind him, then went to the kitchen and washed a few dishes with his good hand. He microwaved a TV dinner, and while it cooked he cleared a space in the garbage for his brother. He set down the TV dinner and told his brother he had to run some errands, but he’d be back and maybe they’d play Crazy Eights. Then he stepped outside and the rage came back as he stormed toward the Bloom house.
Wesley was at the dump, sitting on the refrigerator that was covering my grave. The gun was on the ground a few feet away.
“You need to run,” I said. “Your grandmother will tell him you’re here.”
“Scorpions don’t run,” he said, and he adjusted his bandana.
“You’re not a Scorpion!” I yelled. “You’re a sweet kid. Beneath the murderer, I mean.”
“Not anymore,” he said.
Gary showed up shortly thereafter. Brimming with rage. Hatred flowed out of him, and for the first time I realized there was nothing I could do. Not for Wesley, not for Gary, not for anyone. All I’d done was make things worse.
“There was never any five thousand dollars, was there?” he said.
Wesley shook his head. “You broke your promise anyway.”
“I know,” Gary said. “And I’m sorry about that. But at this point I still have to kill you.”
“I understand that,” Wesley said.
Gary picked up the gun from the ground and pointed it at Wesley’s chest. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes.
The gun went off. When I opened my eyes I expected to see Wesley’s ghost. But Wesley was still on top of the refrigerator. He was looking down at Gary’s body. The gun had backfired, or else Wesley had jammed it. Either way, most of Gary’s face was gone and he wasn’t moving.
Gary’s ghost rose up and looked around, dazed.
“I’m sorry, but you did deserve that,” Wesley explained. “The world is most likely better off without you.”
So I had to tell Wesley about Gary’s mom and about the sponge baths and the morphine drip and about Gary’s little brother sitting at home in a pile of garbage and about Crazy Eights. I said now there was nobody to take care of them.
“That means it’s your responsibility,” Gary said.
Wesley’s face went gray, and he said, “I guess that’s true.” He turned to me and admitted he was beginning to hate me now.
He dug another hole for Gary’s body as rain started to fall. Gary and I tried to be encouraging. Wesley tipped the refrigerator onto its side so it would cover both graves, but the refrigerator got stuck in the mud and wouldn’t move. By then it was getting dark and Wesley had to go take care of Gary’s mom and play Crazy Eights with his little brother before putting him to bed.
Gary told Wesley he’d check back in from time to time, but for now he just wanted to hang out someplace else and empty all the hatred from his soul.
I went home and curled up on the bed and listened to the thunder while Quinn sat at the foot of the bed and played the harmonica. He wasn’t any good, but I didn’t mind. Every now and then my dad walked in wearing my bandana, eyes hollow and bruised from the beating he’d taken from Kit Crawford.
In the morning the phone rang. Quinn and I listened in. One of my dad’s drinking buddies said he heard the rains had dredged up two bodies at the dump. The gun was nearby, too, he said, hidden under a pile of empty raisin boxes. I closed my eyes and hoped my dad wouldn’t remember. But he did.
“Bloom,” he said.
He hung up the phone and adjusted the bandana on his head. Then he went to get his gun. Quinn shook his head and said we should really just skip town at this point and see the Borealis.
Instead, we rode in the car with my dad to Wesley’s house. “There’s still time for this not to end horribly,” I said.
“As horribly,” Quinn said. “And he can’t hear you.”
He parked the car and I raced inside to tell Wesley to get out of town. I said we’d be train hobos. We’d have comical adventures together and daring escapes and moments of sublime, homely grace. Wesley said that really did sound good, especially the grace part. Then he walked outside and went to face my dad, holding his hands out to his sides.
My dad got out of the car and raised his gun. His hands were shaking. He said I’ve got you now, you coward. You can’t run from me.
Wesley said I know. He said I’m ready.
They met in the middle of the yard. My dad pointed his gun at Wesley’s head. Quinn stood next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. Rain was falling and I thought this was it, this would bring about the ruin of everyone I knew.
Wesley closed his eyes and waited for the end.
But his head wasn’t blown off. My dad dropped to his knees on the wet grass. The gun fell from his hands and his shoulders trembled. I’d never seen him look so old. Rain soaked into the bandana he’d tied around his bald head. He looked down at the earth and said, Oh, my son, my son, what have I done to you. Wesley stepped forward and said no, I was the one who killed your son and I’m the one deserves to be punished. My dad shook his head. Wesley cried I just want to be good again, the way I used to be. My dad sobbed, Me too, me too.
Quinn and I only stood there, still and silent in the rain.
Sirens sounded far off. Wesley said at last that he had to go. Said he’d call the police and turn himself in before the end of the day. My dad sat on the grass and rocked like a child, and the rain fell harder.
Wesley cleaned up Gary’s house as best he could. He looked in on Gary’s mom and said goodbye, and she said thanks and told him she’d miss his walleye. He sat on the living room floor and Gary’s brother leaned his head on Wesley’s shoulder, and they watched silent cartoons as the last of the daylight slipped away.
I didn’t say goodbye. The two of them looked nice sitting together on the floor and I didn’t want to bother them. I walked outside with Quinn and he said you sure you’re ready, and I said I guess I was. And then we were gone, and everything fell away below us.
And even though I’d made a mess of things, I ached for what I’d lost.
Quinn knew the way. We went north until we couldn’t go farther. Overhead, the night sky shimmered, ghostlike, full of color.
Gary Compton was already there, sitting with his head tilted back so he could stare up at the lights. I was pretty tired by then and ready to sleep. I walked over and sat next to Gary. He looked like he’d been crying a little. I didn’t say anything, just watched along with him.
“I never knew,” he said, “how beautiful it was.”
And I said I know, I know, I know.
2
Hildy
I’m on the pier with Hildy behind the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Himalaya, and all at once I get this feeling like the wind’s whipping over my grave. From the end of the pier you can see for miles, and the same few houses on each block are always lit, all day and all night long. It’s like a constellation you don’t know the name of, you just know it’s always there and it always looks the same. Only tonight it doesn’t look the same. There are dark patches where there never used to be dark patches, like burned-out stars in the sky.
“Hey,” says Hildy. “Woody, hey. Why’s your face look like that?”
“I’m just thinking,” I tell her.
“You’re sure you’re not gonna have a fit?”
“I’m thinking,” I say again. “Can’t I be thinking?”
“Just that you look grim, is all. Sometimes you make that face before.”
“I’m okay,” I say. I try to get back to my thinking and remembering about the wind whipping over my grave and so on.
&n
bsp; “I just don’t think that’s like a normal face,” Hildy says.
“Hmm,” I say.
“It’s just an alarming level of grimness, is the thing.”
“Goddamn,” I say, and look over at her at last. “It’s okay to be grim sometimes, Hildy.”
She says that’s the truth, with this kind of world-weary sigh, then puts her sombrero back on. All day she’s been wearing that sombrero. Said she found it under the boardwalk. She also has on these gold-glittered sunglasses with a giant eyeball sticker on each lens.
A couple dogs are out prowling the beach in the dark, including the yellow lab Hildy tried to adopt back at the beginning of summer.
She says, “Well, could be that you just got to poop.”
“I don’t have to poop,” I say. “Jesus, Hildy, it’s just grimness. Why can’t it just be plain old grimness?”
“It can be grimness,” she says. “You don’t gotta yell. I got these ears.”
The lab barely turns his head in our direction as he comes out of the shadows into the glow from the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Himalaya. Hildy takes off the sunglasses and stands up and calls out: “Reggie, over here! We’re over here! Reggie! Reggie! Reggie! We’re over here! Reggie! We’re over here! Reggie! Hey! Reggie! Look over here! Reggie! Hey! Reggie!” The whole time she’s standing and waving her arms back and forth like a crazy person. The lab throws a weary look in our direction and moves on down the beach.
She sits down and says, “I think maybe Reggie can’t hear too good. Like he’s got ear worms maybe. You think he’s got ear worms?”
“Hildy,” I say, “his name’s not Reggie. Just because you call him that doesn’t make it his name.”
She sits back down on the edge of the pier and puts her arms around her shoulders. “I think it’s his name,” she says under her breath. She sets the sombrero down and pushes her hair out of her face, which looks sunburned and dirty and kind of weird in the glow from the Tilt-a-Whirl. She’s got leaves in her hair too. There aren’t any leaves at the shore anywhere I can think of.