Meet Me Here

by Bryan Bliss

  I lower myself out slowly, and Sinclair says, “Oh, hell. What happened to you?”

  “It’s nothing,” I say.

  “Shit. Did Will and his friends do this?” Wayne comes over and investigates my leg. “I swear to God I’ll kill those preppy assholes.”

  “They didn’t do it,” I say. “I jumped off the River Road bridge.”

  Wayne looks surprised at first, but then he starts nodding, his smile brighter than the Waffle House sign behind him. “So it’s gonna be that kind of night then. Hell, yes.”

  I should tell him he’s wrong; it’s not any kind of night. But I don’t have the energy or the will to do it. I can’t lie about why I jumped in the river, and I sure as hell can’t tell him about the medals. So I let him stand there with his arms out, annoyed that he didn’t get to jump off a bridge, too.

  “This makes me twice as pissed that you left me up there with old bee-in-his-ass Steve,” Wayne says. “That dude didn’t calm down until Will finally showed up. I should’ve let you kick his ass.”

  “Will asked about you,” Sinclair said.

  “Yeah, looking all sad and shit,” Wayne says, pantomiming a tear. “Broke my heart.”

  Mallory is coming out of the restaurant, pausing to stare at her phone. I talk quickly, hoping to end this conversation before she gets back to the truck.

  “Will’s fine. He’s not going to do anything. He and Mallory—” I have no idea how to catch them up or explain Mallory’s status.

  “The way I hear it, she straight up knocked his dick in the dirt at Chris Jensen’s party,” Wayne says. “Are you sure you two aren’t—” He makes an obscene gesture, and I shake my head.

  “What the hell was that?” Mallory says, putting her phone in her pocket. “Got something stuck down there, Wayne?”

  “Wanna find out?”

  “That would be a disappointment for both of us.”

  Sinclair laughs, and, eventually so does Wayne.

  “I asked your brother if you were still out raising hell,” Wayne says to me. “But he was no help at all.”

  “Wait, you’ve seen Jake?” I ask.

  “He was with Becky Patterson,” Sinclair says. “Over at the Wilco.”

  “Becky Patterson,” Wayne affirms, elbowing me in the side. “Your brother’s living a charmed life, son.”

  “Did they leave?” I ask, trying to see past the trees that fence the Waffle House parking lot from the interstate. I turn to Mallory. “We need to go.”

  “Go?” Wayne says. “It’s graduation. The hell you have to go anywhere. Besides, Sin was just about to buy me breakfast.”

  “I told you, I don’t have any money,” Sinclair says.

  As they argue, I limp toward the door of the truck and am about to get in when Wayne runs up and says, “Whoa, whoa. Where you going, Bennett?”

  “I don’t want to ruin your graduation,” I say, slowly getting in my seat. “But I need to find him. And I’m pretty sure Becky Patterson isn’t going to be able to handle him.”

  Wayne giggles, elbowing Sinclair in the ribs a few times, until Mallory says, “Really? Are you two years old?”

  “Damn, everybody’s so serious tonight,” Wayne says. “Listen, I don’t know what your brother’s packing, but—”

  Mallory sighs.

  “Sorry. Jesus. You don’t need to find him. I know where they’re going. They’re going to her house, son. Her house.”

  Mallory shakes her head, getting in the truck. Before she starts it, Wayne and Sinclair jump into the bed, hitting the roof twice. Mallory opens the sliding rear window and says, “Idiots. Get out.”

  “Like I’m going to sit here with Sinclair while you’re off doing . . . well, whatever’s got you all tangled. I ain’t missing another bridge, okay? This is our last hurrah and shit.”

  Wayne hits the top of my truck and yells, “Deerfield, bitches!”

  “Let them come,” I say, trying to force the frustration out of my voice as she glares into the bed of the pickup. “It will take another fifteen minutes to get them out of the truck anyway. And we know where he is now. So let’s just go.”

  Wayne’s still hooting and hollering in the back, half drunk and shouting about adventures and destiny. When Mallory looks back one last time, I reach out and cautiously touch her hand.

  “Or you could pull out really fast and hope they fall out,” I say, smiling.

  On cue, Sinclair leans down and sticks his head through the window. “Are we going or what?”

  Mallory tries to scowl, but I see the smile peek through as she says, “Hold on, moron.”

  Deerfield is on top of a hill, a neighborhood filled with houses bigger than our school. The party Mallory and I left hours ago is still raging as she weaves through the maze of cars. People walk in the shadows, holding hands and hugging. Some of them lie on the lawns of the houses, only visible from their subtle movements and muffled giggles. Becky lives up ahead, on a small side street, which, since her house is the only one on the road, is a glorified driveway. Mallory cuts the lights and parks a few feet away from the entrance.

  Wayne and Sinclair jump off the back of the truck. Wayne does a commando barrel roll and starts army crawling toward the house, which gets Sinclair laughing. He pops up and jogs over, drumming the side of my door.

  “I don’t think he’s in there,” Mallory says, motioning to the house. “I mean, wouldn’t the lights be on?”

  “Maybe,” Wayne says, winking. “And maybe not.”

  “They could be at the party,” Mallory says.

  “He wouldn’t go to a high school party.” Not even when he was in high school, I think. Of course my mind fires right back at me: yeah, but he’s not the same guy, remember?

  “Maybe Wayne and Sinclair could go check the party,” Mallory says. “And we can look around the house. Just in case?”

  In the distance a song starts, and Wayne nods his approval, begins gyrating and grinding his body to the beat of the far-off music. He slowly makes his way toward Sinclair, still dancing.

  “Get away from me,” Sinclair says, laughing and holding Wayne back with both hands.

  “I’m a party machine. A party animal. I live to get down.”

  He’s still dancing, still moving to the beat, when Mallory gets out of the truck and nods for me to follow her. When I do, Wayne turns his attention—and his dancing—to me. “You’re next, soldier boy.”

  Mallory steps in front of him, and for a second there’s a flash of excitement on his face. But that dissolves quickly as soon as he realizes Mallory doesn’t want anything bumped or grinded. “You’ll hurt his leg. Go check out the party, and we’ll meet up with you.”

  Wayne bops his head with the music, throws an arm around Sinclair. “And once we find your brother, then we’re going to have some fun, right?”

  Even though I don’t want to, I nod my head and lie to Wayne.

  “Yeah, man, whatever you want.”

  Wayne stares at me for a second before smiling, pulling Sinclair close, and giving him a kiss on the temple. “You ready for this shit, Sin?”

  He gives another excited yelp as he and Sinclair start down the dark road, toward the party. When they’re gone, I start my walk and hobble and stagger down the long driveway, neither me nor Mallory saying a word.

  When we get to the end of the driveway, it’s obvious nobody’s in the house: no lights, no sounds. We walk around back, but Jake isn’t on the porch. He isn’t sitting on the abandoned swing set, left over from Becky’s childhood. I want to be disappointed, but how can I be? How can I be surprised by anything now?

  I walk over and sit on one of the swings, trying to think. To rest my leg for a second. When Mallory comes and sits next to me, I don’t say anything, just drift slowly from side to side in the swing, trying to come to grips with the fact that I probably won’t find Jake again tonight.

  Headlights fill the yard, and we both freeze. Mallory is poised to run, but then she looks at my leg and doesn�
��t move. A man and woman get out of the car, both of them scowling. The man shakes his head as he goes toward the front of the house. The woman is an older version of Becky, the same straw-colored hair and thin build. She wipes her eyes before she disappears to the front of the house, too. They don’t even look at the backyard.

  I exhale, and Mallory goes to stand up again when lights in the house start popping on, each one higher than the last until the top floor comes alive and the whole house burns. There’s a piano in their living room: black and polished in the corner. Pictures, pieces of art; the whole house could be from a magazine. My eyes drift to the kitchen, its matching silver appliances shining, and I nearly jump off the swing. Becky’s mom is staring at us.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” Mallory says.

  I expect Mrs. Patterson to scream, to call for her husband or even the police. There’s a butcher’s block of knives right next to her, another option. Instead, she wipes her eyes, blinking tears away.

  I stand up, and Mallory tries to pull me back down. I lift up my hand, slowly at first, testing a hunch. I wave, but she doesn’t respond. She can’t see us.

  The yelling starts again, Becky’s dad at an epic level. Every word is audible: “That’s right. I’m the bad guy. I’m always the bad guy. That’s just perfect.” When Mallory says my name, I flinch.

  “Should we go to the party?”

  “I guess,” I say. As we walk away from the house, the yelling gets even louder, like somebody has turned up the volume. We’re barely out of their yard, walking along the tree line that fences the neighborhood, when Mallory says, “I’m never getting married.”

  “Everybody fights,” I say.

  “Exactly,” she says. “What’s the point?”

  I try to step around a hole and tweak my leg. I bend over and try to breathe through the pain. When I’m back upright, I don’t know what else to say but “You’ll probably end up here in Deerfield, married, with a Labrador. Just like everybody else.”

  She stops. “No, I won’t.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to end up here with a fucking dog. Okay?”

  “Um, okay,” I say, not sure why this is so contentious. Why she’s getting all pissy about Deerfield. The garages here are nicer than the house either of us lives in. She curses under her breath and rubs the back of her neck.

  “I’m sorry. I think I’m just tired.” When her phone rings, she laughs and shakes her head. “Right on time.”

  “Hey, I appreciate your help. But maybe you should go home. I’ll find him eventually, and I’m sure Wayne will drive me around. Then you can call Will and fix all of this.”

  She bites her lip, nods again. For a moment everything about Jake falls away. Mallory looks broken, the way Jake looked when he first came home. Like something is missing. “Are you okay?”

  She nods again, two quick movements, and says, “I’m fine. I promise. Let’s go to the party and find your brother.”

  But I don’t move. She was always there for me, always willing to look past the idiotic things I did. She never cut me loose, not really. We were unconditional, and maybe we still are. Maybe that’s something that never goes away no matter how poorly you maintain it.

  “You don’t look fine,” I say. “You look like you should probably go home and sleep.”

  She forces a smile. “I can’t leave you with those two dumbasses. You won’t have working arms or legs by sunrise. Besides, Jake’s probably at the party with Becky.”

  I try to believe it as we start walking again.

  Mallory puts her arm around my shoulder as the sounds of the party get louder. It doesn’t take a genius to see how her face is crimped and anxious. When her phone rings again, she pulls away to silence it, and when she does, I see the digitized picture of Will and Mallory smiling, a self-portrait of them in the mountains. Leaves—or maybe muted flowers?—swirl behind them. The screen dies, and Mallory sighs.

  “So . . . why did you hit him?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she says.

  “Try me.”

  She looks straight ahead, smiling sadly into the growing light from the party. She squeezes my shoulder once and says, “Not tonight. Okay?”

  We move slowly because of my leg, but soon enough we’re on the porch of the house. People look past us, their party still going strong. I expected them to point, to relive Mallory’s dramatic exit immediately upon our arrival. Instead, they drink and laugh with the same enthusiasm as earlier in the night.

  “I’ll go see if Jake’s here,” I say. “That way you don’t have to go inside.”

  Mallory looks around the front lawn, the party having expanded outside the house. “I’d rather just come with you. Safety in numbers and all that.”

  She laughs weakly.

  We don’t get three steps inside the door when Wayne and Sinclair tumble through the crowd, pulling Becky Patterson behind them. My heart jumps. She’s pretty and popular, and if you had asked me before I heard her parents fighting, I would’ve told you her life was perfect. Perfect clothes. Perfect hair. Perfect BMW convertible in the school parking lot. Perfect.

  Wayne takes a swig of the beer he’s holding. “Tell him.”

  “Your brother was acting like a total freak—no offense.”

  “Where is he now?” I ask.

  “I left him at the Wilco. He started talking with Clem. That guy who’s always down there. He once told me—” Wayne doesn’t like the circular way she’s telling the story because he shakes his head and cuts her off.

  “Your brother went with Clem,” he says. “Do you know him?”

  “Nope,” I say.

  “He lives in a trailer out near Sherrills Ford,” Wayne says, taking a beat and another pull from the bottle. “I’m, uh, surprised Jake knows him. He hangs out with my brother and . . .”

  Wayne looks like his beer has gone sour, a feeling I’m trying to fight myself. Wayne’s brother was a prick when we were younger, the kind of guy who’d hold you down and punch your arm until it went purple. Not much changed as he got older. The last time I saw him he was beating a guy unconscious in the parking lot of SuperMart. I’m pretty sure he got thirty days in the county jail for it, too.

  “Okay. So that means you know where Clem’s trailer is?” I ask. “Right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  I turn to Mallory. “I can take you home first. Or you can come with us. Whatever you want.”

  Before she can answer, Wayne steps closer to me, a hand on my shoulder. “We’re not going to Clem’s. Forget that.”

  “Why not?” Mallory asks. “If Jake’s there, we need to go get him.”

  “Yeah, I hear that, but”—he takes another drink of beer—“this ain’t the kind of place where you just show up, you know? How about I call Jerry Lee and see if Jake’s there.”

  Wayne pulls out his cell phone and dials a number. Whenever people pass by our circle, Mallory shoves her hands in her pockets and stares at the hardwood floors like it’s her calling in life. Wayne pulls his phone from his ear, and I say, “Well?”

  “No answer. But I can keep trying.”

  “You don’t have to come,” I say. “Just tell me where it’s at.”

  Wayne looks at Sinclair, then Mallory before he levels his eyes on me. “I can’t,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  He doesn’t look confident as he says it, but when I open my mouth, he shakes his head and turns around as if he’s going to disappear back into the party. As long as I’ve known Wayne, he’s never been coy about anything. He’s the hard charger, the guy most likely to get arrested for a public disturbance. The hesitation worries me even more because I really don’t have any idea why Jake is out with this guy, but I can’t focus on any of that. I shrug.

  “Then I’ll go down to Wilco and start asking people,” I say. “Somebody’s got to know him over there. I’ll keep asking until I find out where he lives, man.”

  I spin around on my good leg and
head for the door, but Wayne jumps in front of me, talking low. “Let me call Jerry Lee one more time. You don’t know what you’re getting into with this.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say, and my voice sounds too loud—as if everybody in the party can hear me. I lean closer to Wayne. “I have to find him, man. I can’t leave him out there alone.”

  Wayne scratches the back of his neck and, in a moment of clear resignation, tosses his empty beer bottle at a recycling bin in the kitchen.

  “Well, shit’s about to get interesting.” He points at me. “I’m the one who’s going inside, and that’s it, all right? We’re getting your brother, and then we’re leaving.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wayne runs to get my truck while I wait with Mallory at the party. When he comes roaring up the street, I move as fast as I can to the passenger side, and Mallory climbs in the back with Sinclair. Whenever we stop at a light or slow down to make a turn, Wayne turns his head to the window like he’s going to be sick.

  We pull onto a gravel road, and the outlines of about five or six trailers are visible in the distance. A few have porch lights, and a large flat-screen television plays through the window of another. Normally Wayne would get on Sinclair, ask him if this felt like home. But he’s dead quiet, nearly hanging his head out the window now.

  “Clem’s is the one at the back,” he says, pulling the truck to the end of the long gravel road. I open my door at the same time as he does, and he looks over at me annoyed. “Hell, no. You’re staying in the truck.”

  Wayne’s big, the nose tackle on the football team. He could easily put me down, leg or not, even if I could rush for the door. But Jake is my brother, and I’m the one who’s supposed to bring him home.

  “He won’t know who you are,” I say. Whether it’s true or not, I can’t say. But I set my face, trying to convince him.

  “You’re not hearing me,” he says.

  “You’re right, I’m not,” I say, trying to get out of the truck.

  Mallory calls my name from the back. “Maybe you should let Wayne go. If Jake’s in there, he’ll find him.”