The First Stone

by Don Aker

  Chapter 22

  “Do they know any details?” Reef asked. He was pacing back and forth in Colville’s office, his hands clenching and unclenching as he moved. Shelly Simpson had phoned for a taxi even before coming to find him and delivering Colville’s message to return to North Hills. He’d jumped out even before the taxi had pulled to a complete stop, then raced up the steps, knowing what had happened. Hoping it wasn’t true, but still knowing.

  Colville sat in a chair across from the one Reef had been sitting in a few moments earlier. “Just what I told you. They found him down near the waterfront this morning.”

  “Near Rowdy’s, right?” Reef’s voice was low and even, but he was sure Colville could hear the tremor beneath the words. He cursed himself in his head. Colville, too.

  “A couple blocks from there. But the police haven’t established a connection—”

  Reef’s snort cut him off. “Connection my ass. That was payback. Rowdy has a long memory,” he said, referringto the liquor license the city had revoked. He knew he should have called Jink the day he saw that news article. But he was sure Jink knew—how could he not? And what could he have said? Told him to be careful? Right. Only pussies and queers needed to be careful. Jink was invincible.

  Except he wasn’t.

  “He’s stable.” Colville said quietly.

  “When’ll he be outta the hospital?”

  Colville didn’t answer right away and Reef stopped pacing. Stood in front of the seated man, waiting.

  “I’m not sure,” Colville finally replied. “I doubt if anyone knows at this point.” When Reef resumed pacing, he continued, “Look, I know Jink is like family to you. Greg knows too, which is why he’s arranged to take you to the hospital. But you need to be prepared for whatever—”

  Just then the office phone rang. Colville reached for it. “North Hills. Colville here.” He listened briefly. “Just a minute,” he said, then turned to Reef. “It’s for you. I’ll give you some privacy.” He handed Reef the receiver and left the office, closing the door behind him.

  “Hello?” Reef said.

  “Jesus, Reef, isn’t it awful?” Scar’s, voice was too small for the room, for the receiver in Reef’s hand. In the background, he heard Bigger’s voice. He wasn’t making words, just sounds, like syllables in a blender, their ends clipped off, each one running into the next. He was drunk. And he was crying.

  “I just heard,” Reef said. “You there with him now?”

  “We were,” she said. “They asked us to leave when Bigger wouldn’t settle down.”

  “How is he?”

  “Oh, Reef, if you saw him you wouldn’t recognize him. His face is all …” And then she was crying, too.

  There was another wail in the background, followed by a new stream of syllables that Reef could tell was a threat. Or a promise.

  “I wish you were here, Reef.”

  “I will be. Matheson’s comin’ to get me.”

  As if on cue, Matheson’s Escort turned into the driveway. Miraculously, it wasn’t much louder than the other cars that passed by on the street, but blue smoke still plumed behind it like a peacock in full fan.

  “He’s here now,” Reef said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He dropped the receiver without waiting for a reply.

  Scar and Bigger met him at the hospital entrance.

  “The bitches won’t let me in!“ Bigger wailed, his huge voice drawing the attention of everyone entering and leaving.

  Greg Matheson tried to put an arm around Bigger’s shoulder but gave up because of the teenager’s bulk and guided him to a chair just inside the entrance. Matheson looked up at Reef. “I’ll take care of him. You and Scar go see about Jink.”

  Reef nodded, took Scar’s hand and pulled her toward the bank of elevators ahead of them. “Which floor?” he asked, pushing both the up and down buttons.

  “Seventh,” she said. She’d let go of his hand and was hugging her arms around her.

  Two of the elevators opened at the same time. They stepped into the one closer to them and Reef pushed 7, then realized it was going down. “Fuck!” he said, and two women already in the elevator exchanged looks, moved slightly away from him.

  The elevator went down one floor, the women got off, and then it headed back up, only to stop again on the main level, where three more people got on. Each person was going to a different floor, none higher than the fifth. By the time the elevator reached the seventh floor, Reef was ready to kick the control panel off the goddamn wall.

  They hurried down the hallway, Scar leading the way to the Intensive Care Unit. When they got there, a woman behind the nurses’ station came around to meet them. “Can I help you?” she asked, but Reef could see in her eyes something more than a desire to help. Suspicion, maybe. And fear.

  “We’re here to see Jink.” Reef said.

  Scar spoke up. “Stanley Eisner. I was here before.”

  The nurse nodded. “I remember you. Is your friend—?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “He’s downstairs. He won’t cause any more trouble.”

  “Like I told you and your friend before,” the nurse continued, “only members of the immediate family can see patients in ICU.”

  “I’m family,” Reef said. “I’m his brother.”

  The nurse gave him a long look. “Brother you say?” She reached behind her and pulled a chart from the carousel on the counter, flipped through it, looked up. “His mother was here earlier. She didn’t say anything about a brother.”

  Reef leaned toward her. “I’m his brother,” he repeated slowly, then turned to Scar. “And she’s his half-sister. On his father’s side.”

  The nurse looked at them both, seemed about to say something, then shrugged. “Five minutes, that’s all. And if there’s even the hint of a disturbance, I’m calling Security.”

  “Thank you,” Scar whispered.

  The nurse led them through a sliding glass door into a room with four beds. Only two of them were occupied; the one containing Jink was set against the far wall. Tubes entered his body at various places including his mouth and nose. At least, Reef assumed they were his mouth and nose. His face was a swollen purple mass that bore no resemblance to Jink’s real features, and Reef could see that the bruises and swelling extended to other parts of his body, many of them covered in bandages. A monitor beside the bed beeped at regular intervals, and a bag of clear liquid drained down a tube into Jink’s arm.

  “Christ,” Reef said when the nurse had left them alone.

  Scar choked back sobs. “I saw him through the glass before,” she said, her voice a strangled gulp, “but up close …” She began to cry.

  Reef took her hand and squeezed it. “Just think what the other guys must look like,” he said.

  They both tried to force a smile but failed. Stood there listening to the beep of the monitor, tried not to see the snarl of tubes their friend had become.

  Colville met Reef on the veranda. “How is he?”

  “You were right. No one knows anything for sure. Not yet, anyway.” Reef went inside and headed for the stairs.

  Colville followed him. “How’re you doing?” he asked softly.

  Reef just looked at him.

  “Everyone’s in the family room,” Colville continued. “Come on in.” “Look,” Reef said, “give me a break.” Colville paused, seemed about to say something, then nodded. “If you change your m—”

  “Right,” Reef interrupted, taking the stairs two at a time.

  He got to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, his feet tracing the pattern of the oval rug over and over. He got up and moved to one of the turrets, stoodlooking out the window, his fingers tugging unconsciously at the curtains. He ran a hand over his forehead, rubbed his eyes, put both hands in his pockets, took them out and crossed his arms.

  “Can I come in?”

  Reef turned to see Alex in the doorway. Christ, he thought, turned again to the window. “Whadda you want?”


  “Sorry to hear about your friend,” Alex offered. “So’s everyone else.”

  Reef just nodded.

  Alex entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “You want to talk about it?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  His back to Alex, Reef made a sound that could have been a snort or a cough or a clearing of the throat. Then, “I’m skippin’ the family room sharin’ shit tonight, okay?”

  “You know, it helps to say what you’re fee—”

  “Look, you may like all that garbage, but I don’t.”

  “Why not?” asked Alex.

  Reef swung around to face him. “Because it’s nobody’s goddamn business, that’s why!”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  Reef took the three steps from the window to the bed, his face dark and twisted. “I ain’t afraid ‘a nothin’! You got that, you little freak?”

  “That’s denial, Reef,” Alex replied calmly. “Naming it’s the first step in facing it.”

  Reef leaned down so his mouth was inches from Alex’s ear. “What makes you think I gotta face anything?” he shouted. “I’m fine! You hear me? Better than fine. I’m fuckin’ fantastic!”

  “Honey,” Alex said, pushing up his sleeves and holding out his wrists, palms turned upward, “that’s exactly what I said the night I gave myself these.” Thick, worm-like scars extended from his wrists up the insides of both arms.

  Reef gaped at the angry red furrows that stretched nearly to his elbows. Along both sides of each were indentations where surgical thread had pierced the flesh, stitching the edges together. One furrow was raised and darker in color near the center, as though whatever had carved it had met resistance before plunging on.

  Reef stared at the scars for what seemed a long time, then slumped onto a chair at the foot of the bed.

  Alex waited, gave Reef time to find the words.

  When he’d finally found the first one, the second, and then the third, the others just seemed to find the way on their own.

  Chapter 23

  The doctor wasn’t much more help than the nurse had been the night before. “He’s still stable,” he said. “That’s something.”

  “But is he gonna get better?” Bigger asked.

  Reef knew Bigger was being as polite and respectful as he could—no way were they gonna throw him out like yesterday—but there was no hiding the impatience in his voice. His face folded into something like a smile, probably to show everyone he wasn’t mad, but it was too quick, too phony, more like a grimace than a grin.

  Reef knew how he felt. He hated the way everyone pussyfooted around, never giving a straight answer. And the doctor’s face was unreadable, his expression almost detached. He was clearly a man with many things on his mind, and Jink was only one of them. He sighed. “Like I said before, he’s got a lot going for him. He’s strong—”

  “Like an ox,” Bigger interjected. Too loudly.

  The doctor blinked. “Yes,” he said. “And he’s young, which is an important factor in any case that involves injuries as extensive as his.”

  Reef recalled one of his conversations with Leeza, remembered her saying that her doctor had told her the same thing. He thought of all the times he’d wished he were older so he could be out on his own, in charge of his own life with no one to answer to. Funny how something like your age could be a disadvantage one day and a bonus the next.

  “When will you know for sure?” Marlene Eisner asked. She had let Reef, Bigger and Scar remain in the ICU waiting room when the doctor came to see her. But she’d made Bigger promise to be on his best behavior.

  “The first forty-eight hours are crucial,” the doctor replied. “We’re monitoring him closely. Besides the obvious threat of brain damage—”

  “Christ!” Bigger breathed. Scar shot him a look and he immediately apologized.

  “—our greatest concerns,” the doctor continued, “are his kidneys and liver. He experienced severe trauma to his back and midsection.”

  “Bastards!” Bigger said, then realized his mistake. “Look, I’m just gonna wait outside till you’re done, okay?” Everyone in the room nodded, and he stepped outside the door.

  “So you won’t know anything for sure until tomorrow,” Scar said.

  “And maybe not even then,” said the doctor. “So much depends on Stanley. Once he regains consciousness we’ll know more, If he regains consciousness.” “Fuck!” came Bigger’s voice from the hallway.

  “I tol’ him and tol’ him,” Marlene Eisner said, absently stirring her coffee as they sat in the hospital cafeteria. “I sez to him, ‘Stanley,’ I sez, ‘you gonna get the shit kicked outta you if you keep spendin’ time with the likes ‘a Rowdy Brewster.’ ‘But Ma,’ he sez, ‘I kin take care ‘a myself,’ he sez.” She took a sip of the black liquid, grimaced, then went on, “But when did that boy ever listen t’ me?”

  Reef and Scar sat across the table from her, having left Bigger upstairs in ICU. Bigger had said he wasn’t hungry, which should have been cause for Reef to phone the Channel 9 news team, but they all knew he was worried sick about Jink. He’d have slept last night in the waiting room if Security hadn’t made him leave.

  Reef looked at Jink’s mother and resisted the urge to shake her. It wasn’t enough that Jink was lying upstairs looking like meat gone bad. She had to make it all about her. If only Jink had listened to her, done what she’d told him, been the good boy she knew he could be. Right. Like she’d actually had all those heart-to-hearts with Jink. Like she’d been home every night instead of over at the waterfront casino feeding her welfare check into the slot machines for hours at a time. Up five dollars and down ten. Up twenty and down a hundred. She couldn’t even walk by a Lotto 6/49 booth without buying an Insta Pik. “Sooner or later, I gotta win,” she’d say, as though the only difference between her and Bill

  Gates was a run of good luck. Marlene Eisner: Mother of the Fucking Year.

  But Scar pretended she was speaking gospel. Let her go and on, kept giving her the nod and the smile and the shake of the head that she needed. That was one way of helping out, Reef supposed, but it wasn’t his way.

  He pushed his chair away from the table.

  “You going back up already?” Scar asked.

  “No,” he said, standing up.

  “Then where?”

  “Somethin’ I gotta do,” he said.

  “You sure about this?” Bigger asked. The bus was nearly full, and he’d had to squeeze himself into the last seat, his legs triangled up against the one in front of him.

  Reef looked at him, turned away in disgust.

  “Shit, man,” Bigger said, “of course I wanna give Rowdy some payback. But I’m not talkin’ ‘bout me. What if that judge finds out? She could screw you big time.”

  “Fuck her,” Reef snarled.

  “I’m just sayin’—”

  “Fuck you, too!”

  A middle-aged man sitting in the seat ahead turned around. “Hey, you guys wanna clean it up back there?”

  “Fuck off, asshole!” hissed Reef.

  The man gave him a hard stare, opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to notice Bigger for the first time. He faced front.

  “Man, you know me,” Bigger said. “After what they did to Jink, there’s nothin’ I wanna do more than make sidewalk salami outta Rowdy Brewster ‘n’ his boys. But we’re goin’ off half-cocked. We ain’t got a plan or nothin’. You think Rowdy’s just gonna let us waltz in and kick the shit outta him?”

  Reef said nothing. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to do. Something. Anything. He crossed his arms, unfolded them, crossed them again. He looked across the aisle and noticed a woman sitting with two kids. Boys, no more than four and five, and both were staring at him with open mouths. The mother saw Reef looking, leaned down and whispered something to both of them, and the younger one turned away. The older one, though, continued to stare at Reef, his eyes like spoons.

&
nbsp; Reef looked at the back of the guy’s head in front of him. His neck was bright red, and he guessed the guy’s face was probably the same color. The man hadn’t been looking to bother anybody, just asked them to quit the cursing. There were kids there. Little kids. Reef looked across the aisle again. The older kid grinned at Reef and silently formed a word with his mouth. Reef didn’t need to hear it to know what it was.

  He thought about words. Thought about which ones got said and which ones didn’t. Like the words hewished he’d said to his grandfather. All those times he’d bitten them back. He’d told Alex some of those words the night before. He hadn’t planned to. They’d just come. And Alex had told him some of his own words. Words like faggot and fudgepacker, fruit and queer, words his own father had used against him. Words that had piled up, gathered strength and volume until finally, one night when he was alone, he’d lashed out against those words, trashed the home where he’d heard them shouted. But the lashing out hadn’t muted the words in his head, words that dug a well inside him that couldn’t be filled up, words that ripped and tore, echoed and echoed until it seemed the only way to silence them was to find the bottom of that well. He’d looked for it with a razor. Had almost found it.

  Reef thought about other words. The ones his grandmother used. And the ones he wished he’d said to her. He’d tried to say them at Proule’s, standing over the casket. But even then they wouldn’t come. The only ones his mouth would form were his grandfather’s words. Like the one the kid across the aisle had just learned.

  The bus pulled over and Reef stood up.

  “This ain’t the stop,” Bigger said.

  Reef had no more words. He moved toward the front. Bigger looked at him, baffled, then hauled himself to his feet and followed.

  Colville’s truck pulled up to the curb and the two teenagers climbed in, Reef sandwiched between the two larger bodies. Colville looked at him and smiled. “I’m glad you called,” he said. Then he put his left signal light on and waited for a break in traffic. “I’m proud of you, Reef.”

  Reef didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Those were his grandmother’s words. The last ones the cancer had let her say.