He looked pissed, really pissed. He cracked his knuckles which were covered in blood (I assumed it was my blood). “I know you have it. You better tell me where it is before you get a beating that is worse than any nightmare.”
Now, the saying “he was beaten senseless” is a cliché, but there is quite a bit of truth in it. Because even though Billy was talking to me, he might as well have been speaking to a rock. I could hear his words, but my brain couldn’t parse any of my thoughts into a cogent answer. In fact, all I could think about was where my Slurpee had gone (I was enjoying it immensely when he snatched me, and I still had the taste of it in my mouth) and that the asphalt underneath me was very hot, searing the skin of my forearms and lower back. I should’ve just told him that the backpack was hidden behind a plumbing vent in my closet, and that he could drive me home and I would simply get it for him, but I didn’t do that. I just babbled senselessly.
“I’m gonna count to three,” he growled, grabbing my t-shirt at the neck hole, then pulled me closer. His breath smelled of Big Macs and cigarettes. “And if you don’t tell me where it is, then it’s lights out. You got that, dickhead?”
“It’s... it’s—”
“Where is it?” he hissed, clinching the material of my shirt tighter in his fist.
“It’s hot. The ground... it’s hot,” I told him, recoiling from his rancid breath, and hoping to avoid more beatings.
I watched him raise his other fist, ready to pound me, when the convenience store clerk yelled something about calling the cops and that we were going to get arrested for loitering or trespassing or a ruckus or something to that effect. Billy released my shirt, and he and his cronies were gone as fast as they came, like teenage apparitions, jumping in their muscle cars then peeling away. My friends helped me to my feet, so we could hop on our bikes and escape, too. We all were rattled from the sneak attack. Miguel looked the worst with a swollen left eye. Randy and Brian seemed fine if not at least shaken up, their hair tussled and sprinkled with blades of grass and dirt.
“Let’s get out of here!” Randy demanded, and we couldn’t have agreed with him more.
We mounted our BMX bikes, then rode away. We heard a police siren but never confirmed if it was going to the convenience store or coming for us. Once we were deep within Hidden Oaks, we stopped for a breather at the neighborhood park next to the jungle gym. That’s when Miguel’s black eye introduced itself to the rest of us. It looked like a purple explosion on his pale face.
“Dude!” I said, a little horrified. “They got you good.”
“Speak for yourself,” he quipped. “You should see your face.”
With the tips of the fingers on my right hand, I carefully touched the tender area around my right eye, the place where a subterranean pain lingered. Just the slightest bit of pressure shot bolts of pain to my brain. Randy nodded an agreement.
“You OK?” he said to me. He winced. “It looks painful.”
“It’s not,” I said, fibbing a bit. It hurt pretty bad actually, like my eye socket had been bashed repeatedly with a rubber mallet, and the bone and tissue around my eye pulverized to expose the delicate nerves in my face.
“Maybe we should just give Bloody Billy his backpack back. He’s gonna keep after us until we do,” Brian said, exasperated. He was still panting from the bike ride.
“Maybe,” I said, a little angry now. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that,” Miguel said, turning his handlebars. “I gotta get home. I’ve had enough excitement for today. Besides, my mom is gonna kill me when she sees my face.”
“Later, dude,” I said. Then he rode his bike home.
“I gotta go, too,” Brian said. He still had bits of grass and asphalt pebbles stuck in his shortly cropped Afro. “I have a longer ride than you guys. I need to be home before dark.”
“It won’t be dark for three hours,” Randy said, baffled.
“Yeah, I know. Later dudes,” he said, then he rode away.
Randy sighed. “Sorry I didn’t protect you. Their sneak attack was good.”
“You don’t have to protect me from everything,” I snapped, my pride bruised as much as my eye, as I watched two little kids—a brother and sister maybe—approaching the jungle gym from the sidewalk.
“I know,” he said. “But it doesn’t hurt to try. You OK to ride home?”
He held out his hand for the Secret Crestridge Elementary School Handshake, a fraternal ritual we had performed since becoming friends in the third grade. It was a salutation we mostly performed between the two of us. Brian and Miguel knew of the Secret Crestridge Handshake, but rarely performed the ritual themselves, the significance of it for Randy and I was lost on our other two friends. We performed the secret handshake flawlessly, and it did make me feel a little better.
“Yeah, I’m OK.”
“Cool. See you tomorrow. Last day of school, you know?”
“Later, dude,” I said, then watched him ride away.
The two little kids scaled the jungle gym, then peered from the top like frail birds, shaking a bit and their round eyes wide open. They looked upon me with horror. My damaged eye was probably much worse than I knew, so I decided to skedaddle and head home before they started screaming or something.
The ride home was uneventful, although not without its moments. I didn’t see Bloody Billy and his crew of miscreants, but I could hear their hot rods wailing through the neighborhood somewhere not too far away, maybe back at the 7-Eleven where they left us on the hot asphalt, or maybe tearing through the parking lot at school hoping to find us again and give us a second round of beatings. When I finally got home, I tossed my bike in the grass and quickly ran inside, making sure not to talk to my parents or let them see my face. My mother heard me come in the back door and called from the kitchen, but I ignored her. I snuck to my room, closed the door, then locked it. I slid down the door to the floor, my back to it, relieved to be in the sanctity of my room. It was like my own hidden lair.
My mother quietly rapped on my door with her knuckle. “Billy? Why don’t you come to the table for dinner?”
“I’m not hungry,” I replied, then sighed. I hated when she called me Billy so much. “I like to be called William, mom.”
An awkward silence. “Will you open the door?” she said, then rapped once more.
“I don’t feel good, mom. OK?”
She waited a while before responding. “Is there anything I can bring you that would make you feel better?”
“A Hot Pocket,” I told her.
She said OK, then retreated to the kitchen. I was relieved to finally be alone. I knew it would take her ten minutes or so to complete my snack request and that was time I used to reflect on everything that had happened to me and my friends ever since I noticed the backpack on the ground, then grabbed it while we escaped from the Thousand Oaks Gang and the middle school security guard the week before. For a while, it seemed fun—daring even—to be in possession of something that belonged to the evil gang and their leader. But as time wore on and the reality of what could happen to me and my friends became painfully clear (my face was throbbing at this point and my eye sealed shut), I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep the charade going.
Maybe we should just give Bloody Billy his backpack back. He’s gonna keep after us until we do, Brian said earlier. And maybe he was right, the more I thought about it. But there was also a rebellious part of me that didn’t want to do that because... well, I just didn’t want to. Stupid, right? I never said I was a genius back then. Who is a genius in the seventh grade? There was a sense of power I gained from possessing the backpack and giving it back to Bloody Billy seemed to me like giving up that power, like surrendering, like accepting that he could push us around whenever he wanted to. But I also wasn’t sure that keeping it was the best idea, either. I sat on the floor and gently touched the sore spot on my face as I pondered what to do.
I noticed my pocket book copy of The Amazing Spider-Man in the middle of the
floor amongst my art supplies and doodles. I scooched over and picked it up, then flipped through it, examining the pages with my good eye. In issue #5, Spider-Man battled Doctor Doom. (Remember, he was Miguel’s favorite Marvel character) A lot of the action in this issue happened within an abandoned factory where Doctor Doom performed his evil experiments. His factory was surrounded by a small lake and Spider-Man fell into the water when he narrowly escaped the grasp of Doom. This got me thinking about Doctor Doom’s castle, Castle Doom, back in the country he lorded over, the fictional Latveria, and how it was surrounded by a churning mote that protected the castle from intruders. And the more I thought about the various bodies of water near Doom’s factory and lair, the more I thought about how nice it would be if my friends and I had our own lair, our own Castle Doom, our own Fortress of Solitude (like Superman had), or our own place of seclusion—a place to escape from the menace of the Thousand Oaks Gang.
Then my mother rapped on the door again, startling me.
“Billy?” she said. “I have your Hot Pocket.”
I was really annoyed she kept calling me that stupid nickname. “Can you leave it by the door, Pam? I’ll get it in a minute.”
“Honey? Are you all right? Can I come in?” she persisted.
“Mom, I’m not dressed. Come back later, please.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, although I could sense the wheels of worry turning in her mind. I could even sense her putting her ear to my door to see if she could hear any audible clues but couldn’t. I kept as quiet and still as possible.
“OK,” she said finally. I heard her setting the Hot Pocket on the carpet outside of my door, then walking away.
The “I’m not dressed” trick always worked. With my back to my door, I slid down it to sit on the floor. I imagined what our summer would be like, being chased all over by the Thousand Oaks Gang, in constant fear that they would run us over while we rode our bikes, or jumped out of bushes or from the backs of buildings to beat us up, and this thought of a cruel summer kicked my imagination into overdrive. What can we do? I thought. Where could we go?
And then—just like that—it hit me.
The Cabin of Seclusion, I thought to myself. We could have our own Cabin of Seclusion.
An image of the abandoned cabin on Canyon Lake appeared in my mind—the old Meyer lake house—as if I was again sitting in the motor boat in the water, with Tony in the back and my friends sitting around me. Although this time in my mind, we were all nodding as if in agreement that this poor excuse for a vacation home was the place to go for solitude, our Cabin of Seclusion, our escape from the gang that wanted to hurt us every day after school.
And I knew how to make it happen. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and rifled through it, until I found what I was looking for: a business card. I pulled it out and turned it over, finding the telephone number. Then I lunged for the telephone I had on my desk. One of the only things I had in my room that you could consider fancy was a crème-colored, slimline telephone. Now, I didn’t have my own telephone number—a level of fanciness that none of my friends had except for Brian—but having a telephone in my room as a kid was a level of fancy that kept me above the gaggle of ordinary middle-schoolers without telephones or hi-fi stereos or even 13-inch TVs in their bedrooms, for that matter. Anyway, I dialed the number on the card and the line rang and rang. After seven or eight rings, an answering machine picked up.
“Thank you for calling Canyon Lake Marina. We’re away from the phone right now, probably putting gas in a boat or helping a sailboat anchor in the bay. But don’t worry. Leave your name and telephone number and someone will call you back shortly. Thanks for calling. Bye now!” the answering machine said, then beeped.
I hung up the phone, read the business card again, then turned it over. Tony had written his name in blue ballpoint ink, surrounded by doodles of boats and birds. It was kind of funny. I picked up my phone, then dialed the number again.
Someone answered. “Hello. Tony speaking.”
I was nervous that he wouldn’t remember who I was and the greeting clung to my tongue like a glob of peanut butter.
“Hello?!” he said into his hand receiver. I could hear rustling, like the receiver was being covered by a shirt or jacket, then some muffled, indecipherable yelling. Then quiet. I hesitated before speaking.
“Tony? Hey, it’s me, William. I was camping with my friends last weekend and you took us for a boat ride. Remember?”
The line was silent for a couple of seconds, except for a bit of static. “Yeah, man! I remember you guys. How’s it hanging? I didn’t think I’d ever hear back from you.”
“It’s going OK. Listen, I have an idea. If I gave you some money, then would you be able to come pick us up and take us back to the lake?”
“Pick you up? Where do you live again? If it’s not too far, then I might be able to.”
This sounded promising. “I live in Converse.”
“Converse? That’s not far at all. How much money you got?”
I wasn’t prepared for this next step in the bargaining process. In fact, I was strolling through this conversation completely on a whim. I hadn’t really thought it through before dialing. All I had been thinking about was telling Tony my brilliant idea of giving me and my friends a ride back to Canyon Lake, so we could make the abandoned lake house our Cabin of Seclusion. It seemed like such a great idea before I actually picked up the phone to call Tony. I gambled on a random answer.
“One hundred bucks,” I said, meekly.
“One hundred buckaroos?! Is that what you said?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck yeah I’ll come get you guys! I’d do almost anything for a hundred bucks. When do you want me to pick you up?”
I gave Tony Miguel’s home address—for some reason that sounded better than giving him my home address—and told him to pick us up the next day at five thirty. I asked him if he had a ride big enough for him and the four of us and he told me about his 1982 Ford Bronco XLT and how it could hold all of us as well as a cooler of beer and a hot babe like Victoria to boot.
“That sounds coooool. Are you bringing Victoria, too?”
“No way! Why would I do that?” he said, scoffing at my question. “Then she’ll want me to share the hundred bucks. And I’m not doing that.”
“Got it. So, I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Wait! Do you want me to reserve a site for you at the campgrounds?”
“No,” I said. “We’re not staying at the campgrounds.”
“Then where are you staying? You can’t stay at my house. My parents would freak.”
“Well...” I said, biting my lip, then taking a deep breath. I was winging it really good. “We’re going to stay at the abandoned lake house. The one across the bay you showed us.”
“Wait! The Meyer lake house?”
“Yeah,” I said, worried he would say no. The silence on the other end of the line was unbearable and seemed to last for an eternity. Worry can do that—stretching time into a suffer fest. But he didn’t say no. In fact, his reaction wasn’t what my seventh-grade brain expected.
“Fucking awesome! Yeah, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five thirty. Don’t forget to bring bug spray or you’ll get eaten alive.”
“Wait, what?!”
And that’s how it all began: the real, life-threatening danger. It’s easy to look back years later and know that this wasn’t a very well-thought-out plan. There wasn’t even a minimal resemblance to a plan. Mostly, it was just a fart of an idea that popped in my mind while flipping through a Spider-Man comic book. It seemed doable to my seventh-grade brain. But sometimes, that’s how things happen. There have been marriages planned with just as much foresight. There have been babies created with even less foresight. How did I know that this impromptu trip to the lake would affect the rest of our lives? I had no idea what would happen to us out there on Canyon Lake.
After I hung up the phone, I cracked open my bedro
om door and grabbed the Hot Pocket. It was still warm sitting there on the carpet. I gobbled it down as fast as I could, then thought about what I was going to tell my friends the next day at school.
9.
I couldn’t wait to see my friends during lunch and tell them about my plan to escape to our Cabin of Seclusion. Fortunately, I was able to get out of my house before my mom saw my face, being that I woke up earlier than usual, showered quickly, pulled a Texas Rangers baseball cap low over my brow, and wore a pair of neon-colored sunglasses I won the previous summer playing a game of ring toss at AstroWorld, to disguise the galaxy of broken blood vessels around my right eye. It was a thoughtful disguise, although I couldn’t wear the cap or sunglasses during class. Stupid dress code. The minute I took them off in school, anyone and everyone who saw my face gasped (the girls, the teachers) or chuckled (the boys, the coaches). It got to be pretty irritating, especially since it didn’t hurt much anymore. It seemed everyone was making a big deal about nothing. But isn’t that what all middle school kids do anyway?
The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island Page 7