“Don’t be stupid,” she’d said when he asked again.
“I want to know. You’re so cool. I’m not.” He pushed his glasses up, hating his weak eyes. He’d worn them since third grade, a necessary evil, one more thing for the popular kids to ridicule. His eye doctor insisted he wait until high school to make the switch to contacts, an opinion Mason didn’t think held much medical weight.
Shannon took a drag on a cheap cigarette before she answered. “You’re different. You’re good. Everyone else in this town is selfish and petty. But you, you’re good, Mason.”
“I’m not good,” he replied quickly. “My brother …”
“You are not your brother, Freak. Don’t ever think you are.”
“But aren’t you afraid, even a little?”
“Of what? You?” She cackled. “No more than I’m afraid of a flower. You’re harmless.”
He didn’t want to be dangerous, but at the same time he didn’t like being harmless.
“Let’s go.” She walked out her front door.
Mason followed at her heels. “Where are we going?”
“Train’s coming, and you’re going to race it.”
“Me?”
Shannon made for the tracks, running directly behind the Cluster, and stood on them. “It’s a game I made up. Simple really. Get on the tracks, then run. When the train gets close, jump.”
“That’s it?”
“Last one off the tracks wins, unless they’re dead.”
* * *
Shortly after they started high school, Shannon became distant and irritable. Mason called her every day, but she didn’t answer for a week. When she finally picked up, her tone had an axe’s edge to it. “What do you want, Freak?”
He lay on his bed, legs crossed at the ankle. He thought about leading with a joke, just to lighten the mood, but had no discernible sense of humor. Instead, he got right to the point. “Why won’t you talk to me anymore?”
“Aren’t you too busy for me with all your advanced classes? Isn’t Chemistry taking up all your time?”
“Shannon, you know I can pass these classes in my sleep. I’ll always have time for you.”
“You are so thick, Freak.”
He took a moment to respond, running through the possibilities in his mind. “You’re mad about my schedule, aren’t you? Because we don’t have any classes together?”
“You didn’t even talk to me about it.” He heard tears in her voice. “You think you’re so smart, Freak, but you can be really stupid sometimes.”
He sat up. “You want me to drop my classes? I can do that. I’ll see a counselor tomorrow.”
She sighed. “You’re clueless. How would that make me happy?”
“What do you want? Really? I’m stupid, so tell me!” He’d never raised his voice to her before, and it felt strange, startlingly nice. The forcefulness of his voice intrigued him. Maybe he wasn’t as harmless as she thought.
Shannon nearly shouted into the phone. “You think this is what I want? To live in a house with mildewed walls and broken windows? Torn screens and dead lawns? Cabinets that don’t close? I want out of this place! I can’t live like this!”
“What’s that got to do with my classes?”
She groaned. “I don’t know why you have to rub it in my face. You’re smart; I get it. You’re getting out of Hailey. Great. Don’t spend the next four years rubbing it in.”
Something in her voice demystified her, revealed the Shannon within the Shannon. She’d grown spiny quills to protect herself. Beneath her poisonous barbs, she was a defenseless animal. He wanted to pick her up and hold her, to reassure her that he’d take her with him. His future was her future, but he could never say that, not as a freshman. Even if he could, she’d never listen.
He sat on his bed, hand on his forehead, and stared out his window to the dead tree out back. He thought of his sister, his brother. They’d never made it out. His parents, though they kept their finances well balanced, had been sucked into the town like quicksand.
The tree, dead bark and bristly branches, more than anything, gave him the courage to speak. “What if I take you with me?”
* * *
A few days after Shannon’s appendectomy, only weeks from the end of their junior year, Mason’s SAT scores arrived in the mail. 1560 wasn’t too shabby. With his straight-A average and his ability on the track, most colleges would be thrilled to have him. He’d targeted Stanford, but Princeton and Harvard made strong cases. They’d been in contact with him most of the year, as had Brown, though he was less interested in them.
Shannon called as he dropped the rest of the mail on his kitchen table. “Come over, Freak.”
Mason heard it as an imperative. He hopped on his bike and pedaled as quickly as he could from his house off Highway 29, one of the few nice homes in Hailey, to the Cluster, a group of homes between the tracks and highway 29. Ash and cement dust coated the roofs and the few living trees and lawns struggled to survive.
He started talking as he pushed through the front door. “What’s wrong?”
Hunched over, Shannon tore through her mother’s purse. “I need a cigarette.” She whimpered, clutched her stomach, and fell over.
Mason’s mind seized. He took a deep breath and chastised himself for panicking. Think. Ambulance? Too far. Like it or not, it was up to him.
A plan formed in his mind, and he raced to execute it as quickly as he could. The list repeated in his head like a skipping CD. Bike home, get car keys, drive back, get Shannon, speed all the way to the ER at Newland Memorial.
Less than ten minutes passed before he was back at Shannon’s. She lay on the couch, scratching at her stomach. She’d pulled her shirt up over her scar. Her stitches had popped off of her incision. The wound was swollen, pink and puffy. Pus and blood ran down her stomach to her side.
“Mom’s gonna kill me for bleeding on the couch.”
Mason told her to be quiet, picked her up, and carried her to his parents’ dirty Honda Civic.
He pulled the car onto 29 and floored it, passing cars on the dirt shoulder, on double yellows, whatever he needed to do. So much blood. He had no time to drive legally. Through shouted obscenities and blaring horns, Mason raced to the ER.
As he passed from Hailey to Newland, a new sound entered the chorus of horns—sirens. Red and blue lights split the dark of night. Mason didn’t stop. His heart raced, his throat swelled. He prayed.
Let me get her there.
The police cruiser pulled alongside him and motioned him to pull over.
Mason pointed to Shannon.
The officer nodded, then sped in front of Mason.
Mason kept his bumper close to the cruiser. He pulled into the ER entrance of Newland Memorial and leapt out of the car. The police had already opened Shannon’s door and helped her out of the car and into a wheelchair. A doctor came out to meet them, and Mason followed close after.
The other officer stopped him. “Hang on, kid.”
“I have to know if she’s going to be okay.”
“Your sister?”
“Friend.”
“Right. We need to talk about your driving first.”
The condescension was clear in the officer’s voice, and Mason didn’t like it. He thought of his brother. “It’s my parents’ car.”
“License?”
Mason shook his head.
“You know you were speeding, right?”
“And passing illegally, failing to pull over when directed, reckless endangerment. I know. Can you at least tell me how she is, if she’s going to be okay, before you arrest me?”
The cop grinned and motioned to the backseat of the cruiser. “ID?”
Mason handed him his school card and sat half-in, half-out of
the backseat.
“Mason Becker? I’ve heard of you.”
“Really? How?”
The officer handed Mason the card. “I worked as a correctional officer before I joined the force. Your brother Greg, he talks about you a lot. Says you’re pretty bright. A genius or something?”
“I do all right.”
“Greg doesn’t get a lot of visitors.”
Mason said nothing.
The officer sighed. “You got guts. Greg never mentioned how gutsy you were.”
“I’m only thirteen.”
“I’ve taken some pretty gutsy thirteen-year-olds into custody. Most of them from your parts there in Hailey.”
A female voice came over the radio, but Mason couldn’t quite understand what it said. “Copy.” The officer looked back to Mason. “Parents are on their way.”
“I bet they’re mad. No, not mad. Disappointed.”
“Should be proud of you. I would be. What you did took guts. You did right, no matter what your parents say. So if they yell, take it all with a grain of salt. They should be happy we’re not taking you in or impounding their car.”
“Yeah.”
“So, your friend. She worth all this?”
Mason answered immediately. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“You two close, then? She your girlfriend?”
“Not like that. Just my friend.”
The officer smiled. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”
* * *
Weeks later, Shannon told Mason what she remembered about that night: an intense pain, a searing fear, but mostly a profound relief. She knew she was going to die, and it strangely comforted her. She wouldn’t regret anything in her life, except maybe dying too early and leaving Mason alone.
“I’d be fine. I’d miss you, but I’d be okay.”
Shannon chuckled. “You’d get eaten alive. Let’s face it, you’re not exactly Hailey material. You’re too good. Only reason you’re still around is ‘cause you run with me. No one in Hailey’s dumb enough to mess with me.”
She had a point. Mason never did fit into Hailey. In fact, most people in town hated him and his family. They resented their unity, their happiness, their success. After his sister’s suicide and brother’s arrest, the town hated them a little less, but the old grudge didn’t die easy, no matter how miserable his family became after that.
The surgeon had not properly sterilized his instruments for Shannon’s appendectomy. No matter how common infections were after surgeries, hers had been pretty advanced; ripping out her stitches complicated things further. On her return trip, the surgeons took no chances. They wanted to make sure everything else was in order; they re-opened the week-old incision and shuffled her insides like a deck of cards. She stayed in the hospital for a week to monitor her healing and her reaction to the transfusion.
When she got home from the hospital, she curled up on the blood-stained couch and watched movies until she couldn’t stay awake. Mason called to check on her. She didn’t answer.
She didn’t speak to him for a number of days. Finally, when she’d returned to school the following week, Mason called her on it. “What’s wrong with you? I save your life, and you won’t talk to me?”
“Know what your mom said to mine?”
Mason’s stomach fell. His mother, while gregarious and polite, could be overbearing and often said hurtful things. In a highly emotional state, like after her baby had been arrested for driving without a license and a dozen other infractions, she must have said something devastating.
“She said, ‘God knows why he’d want to save her.’”
“No.”
“She did.”
Mason sighed. “Look, that’s my mom. Tact isn’t exactly her middle name. So she said something stupid. I didn’t say it. You can’t punish me for what my mom said.”
“Yes, I can.”
Irritation rose like a rotten orange in his stomach. “What do you want me to do? Want me to spank her? Send her to bed without dinner? Name it, Shannon, I’ll do it. Move out? What?”
“What I want …” Her voice cracked. “I just want you, Mason. I want you and me to get out of this place. I want something better.”
And then, she kissed him.
Shannon’s window faced east. On the other side of the house, the sun sank behind desert sands. She didn’t turn on any lights. She held him hard against her in the cave-dark room.
She tasted of tobacco and mint. He’d fantasized about this moment, longed for Shannon since the first time she looked him in the eye and called him “Freak.” In his exuberance, the racing of his pulse made his mind and tongue slip. He whispered, “I love you.”
Shannon recoiled and pushed him away. “What? What did you say?”
He thought his response through. If he repeated it, it might spell the end of their friendship. Shannon liked him at arm’s length emotionally, but now, apparently, closer physically. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t complain. “Nothing.”
“Look,” Shannon said. “If we’re going to do this, you can’t go messing it up by saying stuff like that. You’re stupid, Freak. You don’t get it. You’re just dumb.”
Mason nodded.
“What are you, twelve? Men don’t love. Men can’t love.”
She pushed him back on her bed. Mason didn’t resist, didn’t say anything more. He kept his mouth shut and his heart open.
* * *
The sun set beyond the mountains on the horizon. It peeked through two peaks and sent its waning warmth to Shannon and Mason as they lay on the embankment.
“I’m getting out of here,” Shannon said. “I can’t stand it anymore. This place makes me sick. I throw up like every morning. I can’t do it anymore.”
Sitting among the cotton-willows near the riverbed and appreciating the gentle breeze escorting the scent of junipers from the lower desert, Mason quietly enjoyed the day. The desert held a certain charm. Though hot in the summer, the dusks, here with Shannon, were the moments he woke for. He wanted to tell her so, but feared it’d mean the end of whatever they had.
“Aren’t you sick of this place, Freak?”
He nodded.
“What’s your dream? Where are you going after you graduate?”
Immediately his mind went to Princeton. Still, Shannon would never make it to New Jersey. How could he tell her he wanted to move across the country? That he wouldn’t be able to bring her, no matter how much he wanted to?
Mason shrugged. “Haven’t thought that far ahead, really. Just want to graduate.”
“You have to have a plan. Make something up if you have to.”
Mason didn’t like making things up, but he relented. Shannon needed to be taken care of, handled gently. “I’ll be a rock star.”
“Shut up, Freak.” Shannon giggled, more cackle than laugh. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” Mason replied. “All I need is talent.”
She smacked his arm and took his hand in hers. Shannon showed physical affection when she wanted to. If he’d tried to hug her or hold her hand even after their first kiss, she’d pull back quickly, insult him and his family, and withdraw from him for a few days. She’d complain he took things too fast, that he tried to force too many things. But the kiss, which had completely caught him off-guard, had been her idea.
So, he rolled with the punches. If she offered, he accepted quickly, but never made the mistake of showing unrequested affection.
“You have to have a plan, Mason. So you can take care of me.”
“What?”
“I’m cold. Put your arm around me.”
Shannon wore overalls and a tight red shirt. Summer died early this year, but August still warmed the earth. Shannon couldn’t be cold. H
e put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder. “What are you going to do, for real?”
Mason had an answer, just not one she wanted. “I’ll figure something out.”
“You’d better. And fast.”
He didn’t look at her when they spoke. He didn’t need to. He’d committed each curve of her body, every outfit she owned, to memory. Hers was an understated beauty, a shine a rock might receive when being wrapped in sandpaper.
“Why all the talk of the future?”
“You have to think about the future, Freak. You have to plan. Otherwise you’re just spinning your wheels. What’s the point?”
Mason stared at her. “You haven’t talked like this before.”
“You don’t like talking about it?”
Of course he didn’t. “It’s weird, that’s all. You go all through high school and never do homework or study for a test, and now you’re all concerned about the future.”
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me. And what’s with the intervention?”
“Inquisition,” Mason corrected.
“Shut up. You have to plan, that’s all I’m saying. Like you—you plan all the time. Not me. But that’s going to change.”
“Why?”
“Forget it, Mason. You’re stupid anyway.” She sat up, wrapped her arms around her knees and let her hair fall around her face.
Mason sat up and put his hand on her back. She shrugged it off. Mason sighed and lay back down. “Sorry.”
“I suck at planning, so you have to do it. You have to get us out of here.”
In the dusk the lights of the trains illuminated the dust and dirt like a suffocating mist. The ground trembled under the weight of a coming train. It moved slowly, worked against inertia and the weight of a new load of concrete. It’d be here in a few minutes. Shannon finished her cigarette and flicked it on the tracks.
“I’m pregnant.”
The word made him imagine his dead sister, swinging in the blackened tree outside his window, suspended by her neck from a green 100-foot extension cord. The picture rose in his mind like a photograph appearing on the brown negative as it soaks in a chemical basin. His neck tightened, swelled like a deep-seeded panic he couldn’t swallow.
The Bargain - One man stands between a destitute town and total destruction. Page 4