Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

  “I like you and everything, Alex, but you’re so intense,” she had said to him. “You take everything so seriously.”

  “I’m not! I don’t!” he protested.

  Krisandra tossed her head and her hair swayed, swinging down her back. “You’re a nice guy, Alex, but you’re… intense. Steady. I like excitement.”

  Steady. As in dull.

  “Am I intense?” he asked Vinny now.

  Vinny reached into his pocket and pulled out the pack of camels. He stuck a butt between his lips and flicked the lighter open. “You’re intense all right. Intensely crazy.”

  Alex laughed, but it was nervous. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s something I always wanted to do.”

  “Grand larceny been your dream?”

  “Not stealing a car, I don’t mean that.” He took a step closer to Vinny. It was important that he understand. Of all of them, Vinny was the only one who might know what Alex felt. “I’m leaving in two weeks for Notre Dame. Two weeks and I’m out of here. Once I get to college, it’s going to be all studying and exams, terms papers and grades. In four years I’ll graduate and then…” there was no need to say the rest. Everyone knew he was going to be priest. Vinny was staring at him, an odd expression on his face. “My future’s all mapped out, Vinny. It’s been laid out like a blueprint since the day I was born and I’ve gone along with what everyone wanted, and I’ll still go along with it, but for now, for tonight, I want to live on the edge. I want to know what it feels like to be the one in control. I want to do something no one would ever expect me to do. The adrenalin rush, the excitement… that’s what I want, man. Once I get to school, it’s over.”

  Vinny took a long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke through his nose. “Okay,” he said finally. He dropped the butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with his heel. “But this is your dream date, not mine, so you drive.”

  They found the car in the parking lot of Riley’s Roast Beef. A fat man in a plaid shirt stood behind the plate glass window, waiting in line. A skinny kid in sagging blue shorts was next to him. Vinny and Alex hunkered between a row of cars, watching the restaurant.

  The Riley’s lot was dark, the streets lights on this side of the block were out. The man stepped up to the counter, the little boy followed, his face turned up to read the menu over the counter.

  “This is it,” Alex whispered. “We’ll be out of here before he even knows his car is gone.”

  Vinny chewed the inside of his cheek. “You’re sure? You know how to hot wire?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Alex said impatiently. In truth, he wasn’t sure at all. His nerves were jangling, like he’d taken an electrical shock. If this was adrenalin, he wasn’t sure he liked it. Still, it was now or never. Alex swallowed. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  They ran to the car, hunched over, so that if the man looked out the window, he wouldn’t see them. Vinny motioned for Alex to go first and he ran as fast as he could to the driver’s side. His heart was pounding, roaring in his ears. The sound hammered in his chest and suddenly Alex felt powerful. Alive. He put his hand against the doorjamb and opened it slowly. There was a creaking noise as he pulled the door open and he looked anxiously at the restaurant, but the man inside must not have heard anything because he didn’t turn and the young girl behind the counter continued to ring in their order. Alex was in the car in a heartbeat, sliding onto the driver’s seat as Vinny slid in beside him.

  The keys were in the ignition.

  He turned to Vinny, feeling the smile blossom on his face. “See? It was meant to be.”

  He turned the key, the engine coughed into life and they were out of the parking lot in less than five seconds. As they sped by, Alex looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the little kid had turned around and was watching them. The kid’s mouth dropped open into an O of surprise and as Alex took the left onto Broadway, he saw the kid jerk at the hem of his father’s shirt, one hand out stretched as he pointed.

  Alex laughed out loud.

  “Jesus!” he pounded the steering wheel with the palms of his hands. “That was fucking great!”

  Next to him, Vinny muttered. “Yeah. Great.”

  He shot around the corner, tires squealing as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

  “Hey, Alex. Slow down a little!”

  But Alex pressed down harder and the needle on the speedometer crept up past sixty five, edging toward seventy. That sound was in his ears again, that roaring, whooshing noise that told him he was alive and daring and not steady at all. He laughed again, barely hearing Vinny yelling at him, shouting slow down and watch out, watch out—

  He turned onto Shurtliff Ave, tires shrieking and the smell of burning rubber in his nostrils.

  “Jesus, Vinny!” he shouted, glancing sideways. Vinny was holding the dashboard with both hands, his hair hanging in his face. “This is fucking awe--”

  “Look out!” Vinny screamed and Alex looked out the windshield in time to see the man in the middle of the road, turned towards the oncoming car, his arms outstretched as if he could stop them with his bare hands and Alex screamed, wrenching the wheel to the right but it was too late.

  They hit the man so hard his body flew up, over the windshield, landing on the roof. There was a rolling sound and then the body was in front of them again, sliding down the glass. There was a single scream, one long shriek and the car barreled over the curb, crashing into a line of aluminum trash cans. The man flew off the hood, leaving behind a streak of red smeared on the glass and Alex saw him, bleeding and broken. There was only blood and blood and blood and then a sickening wet thud as the body hit the concrete.

  Alex slammed on the brakes, but again, it was too late. The front tires rolled over the man, thumped as the car continued its forward movement, stopping at last when they slammed into a brick two story apartment house.

  Vinny was out of the car first. Alex barely had time to register that the car had stopped. In the yellow headlights, Alex watched Vinny bend over and heard him say thickly, “Oh shit!”

  Alex couldn’t move. A siren howled, but it was still far away.

  “Alex,” Vinny said, “Al.”

  Like the rest of him, the muscles in his face had frozen. He couldn’t answer.

  “He’s dead, man. He’s dead.”

  The siren was closer now but Alex still couldn’t move.

  Vinny was at his door, opening it. He grabbed Alex’s arm and yanked him out of the driver’s seat. Vinny was deathly white, his eyes wide, his mouth a slash of purple under the yellow street lights.

  “Hey! Hey you boys! Stay right where you are!” a man yelled. Alex looked up and saw a hulking figure on a second floor porch. The man was wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, his belt unbuckled, his pants loose around his hips. “I see you Vincent Polowski! I know it’s you down there and I already called the cops!” The man rushed toward the steps that led to the curb.

  Vinny grabbed his shoulder so hard it hurt. “Get the hell out of here,” he hissed. “Now.”

  “But--”

  Vinny wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was looking over Alex’s shoulder at the man running down the stairs. He’d reached the landing.

  “Hey!” the man shouted again.

  “We’ll talk about it later. Get the hell out of here!”

  “Vinny--”

  “Go!” Vinny shouted. “Run! For Christ sake, run!”

  And so Alex did.

  Someone touched his shoulder and Alex opened his eyes, half expecting to see Gina or Kate, but it was Vinny who stood in the hallway. Vinny put a hand on Alex’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “Look,” Vinny said, his voice low. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come down here and bust your chops. It’s just that…”

  “I’m a priest.”

  Vinny didn’t answer, but he squeezed Alex’s shoulder again and after a moment’s hesitation, Alex reached up and covered Vinny’s hand with his own. “I’m sorry,” he said. Tears
blurred his vision and he blinked them away. “I’m so sorry.”

  Vinny twitched, as if Alex’s words were a physical shock, and Alex realized it was the first time he had ever apologized to Vinny. He had thanked Vinny – thanked him profusely for taking the blame and never telling anyone that Alex had even been there – but never, in the weeks after the accident, never in the years that followed, had he apologized.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said and his voice cracked. “God help me, I didn’t mean to do and I didn’t mean for you to take the blame--”

  “Hey, it’s over, okay?” Vinny’s grip was hurting Alex, but in an odd way, Alex welcomed the pain. Penance, he thought. “What happened was between you and me. It’s done and gone. Over. Okay?”

  “Why did you do it?” Alex asked. It was a question that had tormented him for years. His eyes searched Vinny’s face. He watched the tightening of Vinny’s lips, and then Vinny looked away but not before Alex saw that Vinny’s eyes were as wet as his own.

  “You were going places. I wasn’t.” Vinny shrugged, like that was the end of it, but Alex couldn’t let it go so Vinny sighed and said, “Look, I don’t know how to explain it, and I’m not about to get into a big discussion, okay? When all that shit happened, I was going through a rough time. My old man was beating the living snot out of me on a daily basis, my mother was busy drinking herself to death, I was doing lousy in school, flunking out of everything and I couldn’t keep a job for more than two weeks at a stretch. You…” Vinny looked at him. “You though. You were going places. College. Priesthood. You were the pride of Congress Street.”

  “So that’s why you took the blame?”

  Vinny nodded. “Figured a couple of years in jail wouldn’t be so bad, and hey, maybe it wasn’t. Look how good I’m doing now.” He spread his arms wide and Alex reached forward blindly, pulling Vinny toward him. He hugged Vinny, hard, and after a couple of seconds, Vinny hugged him back.

  “Thank you,” Alex said, and he wasn’t surprised to hear the husk of tears in his voice.

  Vinny didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Alex felt the reply in Vinny’s hug, in the arms around his own. For the first time in a decade, the guilt Alex carried weighed a little less.

  Chapter 25

  Vinny

  Vinny clutched Alex’s shoulder one last time. “Listen,” he said. “We have to go back in there and finish. The time for talking is about up.”

  “Yes.” Alex took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. Without his glasses, he looked younger, vulnerable. “I just need a minute to collect myself, okay?”

  Vinny could use another minute, himself. He’d spent the majority of his life trying to come to terms with taking the heat for Alex. He’d tried to understand why he did what he did, and why Alex let him do it. Up until now, he hadn’t been able to justify any of it.

  It wasn’t like the line of bull he’d just fed Alex. He hadn’t done it because Alex was going places and he wasn’t. It was simpler than that.

  Instinct.

  He’d taken the blame on instinct.

  He’d gone to prison on pride.

  When he was booked, charged with vehicular homicide, he expected Alex to come down to the station and explain what happened. He expected to see his best friend to show up with a lawyer and bail money. He expected Alex to do right.

  But Alex hadn’t, and time went by, and because Vinny was too damn proud or stubborn, or Jesus Christ, Polish, he’d gone to prison for nine years of his life.

  Whatever questions he’d asked himself over the years, he now knew Alex asked the same ones and most of them – hell, when you got right down to it, all of them—began with the same word. Why?

  Alex sat on the floor in the hall, drawing his knees up to his chest. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Praying, maybe. Maybe he had a lot of things to pray about.

  Vinny leaned against the wall. Exhaustion seeped through him like dye, tinting everything tired. It was odd being back in Kate’s house. It hadn’t changed over the years, just grown dimmer. The wallpaper was faded, the fabric on the couch and chairs bleached by sunlight. Looking around the hallway, a fist formed in Vinny’s chest. In many ways, this house was more a home than his own had been. Kate’s mother, God rest her soul, had taken care of him. She saw the black eyes and chipped teeth and while she never said a word, she put band aids on his cuts and salve on the bruises. Her hands were long and soft; even now, Vinny could close his eyes and feel her hands on him, tenderly washing his sores, her large eyes moist with compassion.

  Once, she even offered to let him move in. “Plenty of room, Vincent,” she’d said. It was after his old man broken his wrist and two ribs. Vinny was in a cast then. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table, working a thread on the yellow linen tablecloth. Mrs. Kowalski put a plate of Oreo cookies on the table. Katie was sitting across from him, her eyes bright. She reached for a cookie and twisted it apart.

  “That would be cool!” she said, licking the cream filling. “I always wanted a brother or a sister.”

  Vinny looked down at the tablecloth again. Crumbs were scattered over the fabric. He poked at one. “Aw, I can’t live here. What would my mom say?”

  He didn’t mention his dad. He knew he didn’t have to in front of Mrs. K.

  Katie looked disappointed. She made a face and reached for another cookie. “Your Mom has four other kids. Why don’t you just ask her? She might want to get rid of you.”

  “Katrenjia Kowalski!”

  “It’s all right Mrs. K.,” Vinny said quickly. “I know what Katie means and I’m not insulted or anything.” He lifted his eyes then and stared at the small blonde woman dressed in a green shirt and blue skirt. She looked beautiful and Vinny’s heart swelled a little just by looking at her. Mrs. K’s eyes softened and then she nodded.

  “If you ever need a place to stay, Vincent, the door is always open.”

  Mrs. K.

  God, he loved that woman. More than he’d loved his own mother. His mother never washed his cuts. She never put cream on his bruises. And she never, ever looked at him with tears in her eyes.

  Vinny pushed himself away from the wall. “All set, Alex?”

  Alex nodded, and together, they went back to the living room.

  Kate looked up when they walked back into the parlor. The others were staring at the television and even from the other side of the room, Vinny knew they were watching another special report.

  “All of us,’ Marcus said. “He hit every one of our neighborhoods.”

  Vinny was suddenly cold. He shoved his hands into his pockets and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. He didn’t look at the TV. Gina was crying, huge tears sliding down her face. She didn’t make a sound, didn’t move to brush the tears away and Vinny’s heart broke a little more. “Okay,” he said. “It’s time to finish the talking. Here’s what I remember about Lucien--”

  “No,” Gina interrupted. “Let Kate tell it.”

  He opened his mouth to ask why, but before he could ask, she said, “It started with Katie and in a way, it ended with her, too. She should tell it.”

  The storyteller, Vinny thought and he shivered.

  **

  Kate

  “It was after the second time I saw Lucien that Bo and I decided to do what he asked. We still didn’t know what he wanted, exactly, but we knew that he wanted all of you with us. We figured the only way to do that would be to play Ouija again, just like we had before, in the Forest Field. So we met there after supper--”

  --and stood in a rough circle at the far end of the Forest Field. The crumbling foundation was to their left, the ocean to the right. Over Alex’s shoulder, Katie could make out the rolling sparkle of black waves. Bo had the box under her arm and Katie found she couldn’t look at it.

  She couldn’t stop shaking. The terror was alive in her heart and she didn’t know how to shut it off anymore than she knew how to stop the nightmares from playing over and over again in her mi
nd.

  She and Bo both knew that Lucien would never let them alone until the chains were off and he was free. Just how they were supposed to do that, Katie didn’t know. As if he could read her thoughts, Vinny said, “So what are we supposed to do?”

  Katie shrugged helplessly and Bo was the one who answered. “We have to start by playing Ouija. All of us.” As she spoke, the streetlights blinked on. Bo looked incredibly beautiful. She’d left her long blond hair loose and it drifted over her shoulders in a soft wave. She was wearing a sleeveless button down blouse and jeans. Her arms looked delicate and fragile, the black box cradled against her chest. “We don’t have a whole lot of time. Come on.” Bo broke the circle and headed toward the foundation.

  Katie could see her house from where she was standing. The windows on the upper floors were open; blue curtains fluttered in the breeze. A lump formed in Katie’s throat and she had to swallow hard to make it disappear. Why can’t things be like they were? she thought, why can’t I be normal again?

  She had to look away because staring at the white clapboards was making her heart ache. Bo was sitting down now, her back against the stone wall. She was too far away for Katie to see her clearly, but she could make out when Bo opened the box, pulled out the Ouija board. When Bo lifted the plastic triangle, it caught the fading sunlight and a shaft of gold pierced the ground in front of her.

  Somehow, looking at the streak of white light made Katie feel better. Nothing bad could happen to them. Not really. Ghosts couldn’t hurt and besides, even if they could, Lucien wouldn’t.

  He’d promised.

  No harm will come to you.

  Gina left the circle next. Her corduroy shorts rubbed when she walked and the noise they made was a whish whish sound that Katie found oddly comforting. Gina was plump and warm and as if she could feel Katie thinking about her, Gina turned her head and smiled and Katie was filled with a sudden, fierce love. Vinny and Marcus were right behind Gina. They walked in a single file line that made Katie think only four more weeks until school.