Lost Man's Lane, page 15
Nadia groaned, I laughed, and we blasted to the fire through a cluster of low-lying thornbushes that lesser vehicles had skirted in favor of the clear path.
The crowd was large—at least twice the size of Weller’s April blowout—and I recognized most of them, but when my eyes landed on Kerri, I was surprised. She rarely showed up at a party like this, seeming to float above them—not in a haughty way, but as if she simply understood something about the spectacle that the rest of us didn’t. I started toward her, then stopped when Jake Crane returned to her side with a cup of beer in hand and slipped his arm around her waist. He caught my eye, smiled, and lifted his beer in a wave.
“Yeah,” I muttered to no one, giving him a lackluster salute and turning away. He’d graduated and would be gone soon, and while that shouldn’t please me, it did. Usually the keg or the fire drew people, but tonight everyone seemed to be focused on something behind the fire. A high scream broke the night, one that raised the hairs on my arms.
“The hell was that?” Dom said.
“No idea,” I said. The back of my neck was prickled with gooseflesh, but everyone who could see the source of the noise reacted as if it were either hilarious or impressive, not scary.
We walked forward, slipped through the crowd, and discovered the origin of the excitement.
There was a circus cage on the ground between two pickup trucks, lit with work lamps clamped onto the tailgates, and inside the cage was a live cougar. Strung above it was a banner that said: Panther Class of 1999, Bitches!
“Is this for real?” Nadia asked, frowning.
“Kenny Glass’s uncle owns that, and Kenny’s right there.” Dom pointed him out for her. Kenny was a big guy who’d played on the offensive line for South after transferring from North. North had lost nearly every football game we’d played that season, and South had won all of theirs, so it wasn’t much of a rivalry. My knowledge of Kenny, who’d ended up in our class after being held back in the fifth grade, was limited to his fondness for making “Miller Time” jokes about my mother. He was disappointed that he couldn’t get under my skin with them, but I was battle-hardened to that shit.
“He owns a cougar?” Nadia said. “That’s illegal.”
Dom looked to me, questioning.
“It should be,” I said. I wasn’t sure.
Inside the cage, the cat pinned its ears back and paced—or, rather, tried to pace. The cage wasn’t large enough to allow that. The cat could turn, take a step, and then turn again. That’s what it was doing now, whipping back and forth, crouched low, muscles coiled beneath almond-colored skin. It wasn’t a big cat, really, all paws and tail and incredible gleaming eyes with an intimidating quality that was undermined only by the bars of the cage. Some people were laughing and some people seemed disgusted and Kenny Glass smirked with satisfaction.
A huge hand slammed down on my shoulder, and beer-scented breath blew into my face.
“Well, Marshmallow, what do you say to this? A panther, man! Think anybody else has one of those at their grad party?”
Sean Weller in host mode.
“It’s statistically unlikely,” I said.
He laughed as if that were the funniest thing he’d ever heard and slapped me on the back.
“Where’s your beer?”
“Getting it soon. Whose cat is that?”
“Glass’s uncle owns it, for some reason. It’s cool, right?” He sounded vaguely unsure.
“I guess.”
It didn’t feel cool, though, even if it was legal. It felt sad.
“Man, you need to update your Away messages!” Weller barked. “You never finish shit. It’s like a good movie with no ending.”
“Sorry.”
“The Weller hates to wait,” he said.
The Weller?
“Sorry,” I repeated.
“You gotta learn how to wrap ’em up.” He drained the rest of his red Solo cup. “I’ll keep reading, though. You’ll get there. Besides, you were the one who saw that kidnapped chick. It’s probably not smart to be making jokes right after that.”
He belched and lifted his empty cup. “Gotta replenish the Weller,” he said, and vanished in the direction of the keg.
I turned to speak to Dom and saw that he and Nadia had walked off to join a group of kids who were smoking in the trees, passing a lighter that threw sparks as amateurs snapped at the wheel in search of a flame. I knew Nadia would smoke a little weed and enjoy it, and I knew Dom both wouldn’t smoke it and wouldn’t care who did, impervious to peer pressure in that effortless way of his. I was standing there, hesitating halfway between the bonfire and the smokers, when Leslie called my name. She jogged up to greet me, her smile wide, eyes bright in the firelight. I kissed her.
“You look amazing,” I said, and she did. She was wearing a black skirt and dark red top and generally looked far too good for a bonfire in a field.
“Do you really want to stay here?” she asked.
“No.”
“Great. I want to say hi to, like, five people, and bail. Then… the lake?”
The skirt seemed suddenly far more important.
“Definitely,” I said, and my voice was a little hoarse.
She smiled, and for a moment everything was just right.
“Check it out,” Kenny Glass said loudly. “I’ll make her scream. That shit is wild.”
I looked back to see him approaching the cougar in the circus cage. Kenny had a three-foot-long piece of rebar in his hand, and the cat flattened her ears and hissed.
“Oh, shut up,” Kenny said, and gave the cage a whack with the rebar. The metal shuddered, and the cougar crouched lower and showed her teeth. Some onlookers murmured and pulled away; others rushed closer. When Kenny ran the rebar across the bars, the cat growled from deep in her chest. Then he ran it back with a flourish, like a pianist playing from one end of the keys to the other, and the cougar threw her head back and screamed. It was an awful sound, even knowing that it was coming.
“He’s an idiot,” Leslie said with disgust.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to watch him torment that cat, and it’s stupid to have a party like this on graduation weekend when the police are already looking to bust them.”
Lieutenant Carter’s daughter wasn’t wrong about that. I took her hand and turned from the scene, and we’d gone about five steps when I heard Kerri’s voice.
“Do you actually think that’s funny, you ignorant prick?”
I stopped walking while Leslie continued, and her hand slipped from mine.
I turned back and saw that Kerri was right in Kenny Glass’s face. Jake Crane was nowhere in sight.
“Relax, PETA,” Kenny said, and a few people laughed. “It’s not abuse. No animals were harmed in the making of this party.”
“The hell it isn’t abuse! You think she’s enjoying this? What is the matter with you?”
“Get out of my face, bitch,” Kenny said, his voice a dark warning.
“Marshall,” Leslie said, “let’s go.”
“Hang on.”
“No. Marshall, he’s an asshole, and he always want to fight. Let’s—”
I started toward the fire without the faintest idea of what I intended to do. Kenny Glass was built like a man—a strong man—but he wasn’t going to hit Kerri. Not in front of a crowd, at least. Even at that age, I understood that what he’d be willing to do when no one was watching might be worse than when he had an audience. The only sure thing was that he would always be happy to hit me. Kerri wasn’t backing down from him, though, and nobody was helping her.
“Have someone get this poor cat out of here or I will call the police,” Kerri said clearly and calmly. She hadn’t budged an inch. Kenny towered over her. He reminded me of Maddox in that moment; a muscled-up bully trying to intimidate through size and anger. If Kerri were intimidated, she sure as hell wasn’t showing it.
“Did you seriously just threaten to bust our party?” Glass said.
“Take that cat out of here or I will call the police,” Kerri repeated. “I will say that only one more time.”
“Blow me slowly,” Kenny Glass said. “And I will say that only one more time.”
I was five paces away. I heard Leslie call my name, but I didn’t stop.
“Get the fuck away from her,” I said, and my voice sounded strong, and that was good. Then Kenny turned and looked at me, and that was less good.
“It’s Miller Time!” he shouted gleefully. “That’s what I shout out when I’m—”
“Banging my mom. Yeah, Kenny, always hilarious. Your jokes from fifth grade still working in senior year. That’s impressive. A lot of guys come up with fresh material after their balls drop. Wonder why you haven’t.”
Kenny’s face darkened, and I heard a collective murmur of anticipation that exists only in childhood or sports arenas.
“Step to me, bud,” he said. “Do it.”
In his eyes I saw the promise that I’d already understood: he wouldn’t hit Kerri, but he would be thrilled to hit me. In fact, he needed to hit anyone who was acceptable, and here I was, putting myself on a tee for him.
“Just stop being an asshole,” I said, and my voice was not strong this time, and he grinned with savage delight.
“Marshall,” Kerri said, “don’t.”
“Yeah, Marshall,” Kenny said in a falsetto, striding toward me. “Don’t.”
I had never been in a real fight before. Nothing that escalated beyond what young kids do, which typically begins with shoving and clumsy jabs and ends in an awkward wrestling match before someone breaks it up. You might get hurt, but never badly, and the pain is fleeting. In my mind, Kenny Glass and I would end up in some similar clench, grappling on the ground, and then people would break it up—and while it would surely hurt, it wouldn’t be that awful.
This was my hope.
When he punched me in the face, I didn’t even get my hands up.
Dom Kamsing swears that my feet left the ground on impact. I believe him, though I don’t remember it. The pain seemed to come from the inside out, as if my skull had exploded rather than absorbed a punch. The only thing I remember clearly was the delight in Kenny Glass’s face, the horror in Kerri’s, and that incredible cannon blast of pain. Then I was tumbling backward and down the hill, my shoulder digging a divot out of the earth, my face slapping the grass.
2
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, I was upside down and looking up into the cougar’s face.
The big cat stood over me, white teeth gleaming, eyes lit like emeralds, and for a moment, as the world reeled and my nose filled with blood, I thought that she looked almost concerned for me.
Then she peeled her lips back, dipped her head, and growled, and I could smell beef mixed with my own blood, and the cougar looked anything but concerned. I was too dazed to remember she was caged, so I scrambled away with fright.
I heard laughter then, and someone yelled, “Oh, shit, he got his bell rung!” and the world came back to me. I was crawling away from the cage and Kenny Glass was circling me, taunting me, a chorus of “Get up, bitch. Thought you were tough. Let’s have some Miller Time now, bitch,” when a deep, enraged voice boomed out.
“What the fuck did you do to Marshmallow?”
Sean Weller was striding down the hill, staring at Kenny with a blend of astonishment and building fury, as if he both couldn’t believe this development and was already considering how many tackling dummies would be required to pay for it.
“He’s a little prick,” Kenny said. “I’m not taking shit from him or her or—”
When Sean Weller hit Kenny in the stomach, he drove the punch up from his thick thighs, putting the whole force of his rising, twisting body into the blow. Kenny doubled over and clutched his midsection with both hands, then retched out a geyser of beer. His eyes were wide and white. Weller grabbed a fistful of Kenny’s hair with his left hand and his belt with his right and then ran him downhill and toward the fire.
“He’s gonna burn him!” someone yelled wildly.
I rolled onto my shoulder in time to see Weller give Kenny a final heave with an extra lift, just enough altitude to send him up and through the flames instead of down and into them.
As he flew through the fire, Kenny made a high screech that was almost like Dom’s laugh. He landed with a bone-jarring crack on the opposite side of the fire, then rolled and batted frantically at his clothes, although they were not burning.
Weller walked around the fire and Kenny curled up tightly, cowering.
“Get up, get that cat, and get out of here,” Weller said. “I never liked your dumb ass and I don’t have to pretend to in practice anymore. There’s no coach watching out for you here. And the chick’s right. You’re being a prick to that cat. I shouldn’t have let you bring it.”
With that, Sean Weller turned away from Kenny and looked at the crowd as if searching for another gladiator to challenge him. None did. He walked back around the fire and looked down at me with grim eyes.
“You okay, Marshmallow?”
“Yeah,” I said, or tried to say. My mouth filled with blood and when I moved it felt as if sand shifted in my skull.
“You’ll want ice on that,” Weller said.
On cue, someone pressed a cold package into my palm.
I looked up and saw that it was Jake Crane. He’d taken off his shirt and filled it with loose ice from the keg bucket. His rock-climber-muscled torso was exposed now, and his eyes were kind, as if he wanted to wave.
“Good man,” Sean Weller told him approvingly, clapping Jake on his strong, bare back.
Dom and Jake helped me sit up. Around us, people murmured about how hard Kenny Glass had hit me, how they’d never seen anything like it before, exchanging words like “concussion” and “skull fracture.”
Leslie pushed through the onlookers, and while there were tears in her eyes, she looked angry.
“You need to go to the hospital,” she said.
“He only hit me once,” I said. It came out like “He onthly hith me onth.”
A couple guys snickered. I spat blood and tried to clear my nose. Jake Crane helpfully moved the ice pack to accommodate.
“You’d be dead if he’d hit you more than once,” Dom said.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, this time a bit clearer. I could breathe through my left nostril. That was nice. Jake’s T-shirt smelled of Abercrombie & Fitch cologne. Lovely. I tilted my head back and tasted blood. Over by the fire, two guys lifted the cougar’s cage into the bed of a truck while Sean Weller reviewed a checklist of threats with Kenny Glass. It began with broken limbs and concluded with unfavorable futures for Kenny’s unborn children.
“You won’t go to the hospital?” Leslie said.
“It’s a bloody nose,” I said. “I’m fine.”
She shook her head, disgusted.
“Get him home safe,” Leslie said to Dom, rising.
“Where you going?” I asked. I didn’t understand why she was so angry.
“I’m leaving. You made your choices.”
“Made my choices? That asshole hit me! I didn’t start a fight. What’re you so mad about?” My words came clearer, though each one deepened the pain. “You agreed with Kerri!”
“I’m not leaving because I disagreed with her; I’m leaving because you’re in love with her, you asshole!” Leslie shouted.
It went silent. The circle of kids around us seemed more stunned by this exchange than by the punch. I looked away from Leslie, saw Kerri staring at me, and then looked back at Leslie.
“Just grow up and admit it,” Leslie said. A tear broke and ran down her cheek, and she wiped it away furiously. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, it absolutely sucks, but at least… be honest. That’s not asking too much.”
Now I was getting mad. I was in pain, and I was embarrassed—both for getting my ass kicked with a single punch and for having my girlfriend call me out in front of the group. In front of Kerri, most of all.
“You were jealous of an abducted girl,” I said.
Leslie’s tear-filled eyes widened.
“What did you say?”
“I could never give you enough attention. That’s the only real problem. It always has to be about you.”
She folded her arms under her breasts and gave a sad laugh.
“I don’t need that much attention,” she said softly. “I only need to be real about things. And in reality? My boyfriend is hung up on another girl—one who has her own boyfriend, by the way—and he likes the attention he got from a tragedy a little too much, and I’m somewhere down the list. That’s not being jealous; that’s accepting the truth. And it sucks. And…”
She started to say more, stopped, and shook her head.
“And I’m done,” she finished, and her voice broke, and then she turned and walked away.
The pregnant pause that followed felt worse than Kenny Glass’s punch. I couldn’t look at anyone.
“Um… here, dude,” Jake Crane said, and brought my hand up to hold the ice to my own face so he could stop doing it.
“Thanks, Jake.”
He stepped away and looked at Kerri and made a questioning head tilt, as if asking her if they should leave. She looked at me sadly, and if we were alone in her basement or on the swings out at Hollinger Elementary, I would have known what to say to her.
Out here, with everyone watching, I didn’t.
“I’m fine,” I said.
She didn’t say anything.
“Proceed with caution,” I added.
This time it didn’t bring the smile to her shimmering dark eyes. It just seemed to deepen the sadness. Jake put out his hand and she took it. They walked toward the fire, and I leaned back and stared into the darkness while the ice melted out of Jake’s shirt and onto my swelling nose.
3
ON THE NIGHT I’D HOPED to lose my virginity, I got drunk in a hayfield with a linebacker.
Leslie had gone, and Jake and Kerri hadn’t been far behind. Dom and Nadia tried to take me home, but I refused their best efforts and started drinking beer fast as my nose swelled up to the size of and color of a McIntosh apple. The ice melted and I threw Jake Crane’s T-shirt into the woods, then felt bad and went to retrieve it and crammed it into the hammer holder of my jeans, which were stained with mud and blood.
