Blank Confession (12 page)

Her eyes flicked to me, then back to the bead of blood. “'Course I am. I'm just, I'm just a little wound up because of Mom being such a bitch and all. And school tomorrow, I don't have my Psychology paper done, all my jeans are in the wash, did you know Tracy got a kitten? It's so-o-o-o-o cute.”

I was sure she was high on something, but I knew if I said so she'd deny it, so I just let her go on about Tracy's kitten for a while, then circled back to Jon and his brother.

“Is it permanent? Is Jon going to stay with his brother from now on?”

“He's working for Wart now. I mean, I guess he always was but now it's like full time on account of Wart is spending most of his time at BG's and since Jon's done with school now he has more time—”

“Wait—Jon's officially dropped out?”

“The only reason he was going at all was because his dad made him and now he's kicked out so …”

“Did you see Shayne?” I asked.

She pushed her hair back. She had forgotten about the drop of blood on her hand; it left a red streak across her cheek. “He gave me a ride home,” she said.

“He did?
Shayne
was
there?
”

“Tracy and I were leaving, and he just happened to be driving by.”

“He followed you and Kyle when you left school,” I said.

“He did?” She leaned forward. “Really?”

“Maybe he just happened to be going in the same direction.”

“He's a total prick, anyway. I tried to talk to him this morning and he blew me off, like he's too cool or something. And when he gave me a ride home I thought he'd say he was sorry or something but he just dropped me off and he was like,
later
. Do you think I'm fat?”

“I …huh? No, you're not fat at all.”

She stuck out her foot. “I think I have fat ankles.”

I didn't want to get into a discussion of her ankles, so I said, “Shayne blew me off too. I think he just doesn't want to make problems with Jon. You know, because Jon's mad at him and he doesn't want it to rub off on us.”

“Jon could care less about Shayne.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

“Who? Shayne?”

“Jon.”

“No. Why would he?”

“Because I'm supposed to pay him a hundred bucks, that's why.”

“Oh. I wouldn't worry about it. He's really busy now. Wart has him making deliveries all over town.”

“Delivering what?”

“What do you think?”

“You mean his dope?”

She shrugged. “Duh.”

I said, “Jon's brother is a drug dealer, too?”

“Where do you think Jon gets it?”

“Are you on something?”

She shrugged again, rediscovered the small wound on the back of her hand, licked it, wiped her hand on her jeans, then looked up at me.

“Are you still here?”

That night I lay in bed tossing and turning, and every time I closed my eyes I saw patterns of black and red checkers. I could hear Marie in her room—little scraping, clunking, squeaking, shuffling noises that went on for hours. I imagined a massive drawer reorganization or maybe a search for a lost earring. I didn't get to sleep until after three. Marie was still going strong.

“I followed Kyle and Marie downtown to this apartment building. I waited until they went inside, then I went into the lobby and checked the mailbox. There was a ‘Stewart Hale' in apartment 401, up on the top floor. I figured that had to be Wart. I bought a cappuccino at the coffee shop across the street and sat at one of the outside tables and watched the apartment building. I sat there for a long time. I had to buy, like, three coffees.

“Around sunset, Wart pulled up on his Harley with a woman on the back. A little later I heard music and saw Marie up on the roof, looking down over the edge. She didn't see me. Every now and then I could see other people up there when they got close to the edge. I thought about just going up there, like, ‘Hey, I heard you guys were having a party!' But that would have been stupid.”

“I thought that was your specialty,” said Rawls.

Shayne looked at him curiously. “My dad used to say that,” he said.

“Used to?”

“I haven't seen him in a while.”

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Shayne
flopped the steel ring back and forth a few times, then withdrew his hands to his lap.

“Actually, I didn't know what to do. Originally I just wanted to make sure Marie was all right. And I guess I was curious about where they were going. I saw Trey come out a little later and get on his bike, so I went over to talk to him. He was surprised to see me. I asked him what was going on. He said, ‘Nothing.' I asked him what they were doing up there and he sort of shrugged, almost like he was embarrassed. Then he said, ‘Partying.'

“‘You mean getting high?' I asked.

“He shrugged again and said, ‘What else?'

“I said, ‘You don't get high?'

“He said, ‘Not like
that
.' Then he started his bike and took off.

“I wasn't sure what was going on upstairs—I mean, if they were shooting heroin or smoking crack or whatever. I decided to hang around. Just in case, you know?”

Rawls didn't know, but he nodded anyway.

“A couple hours later, Marie came out the front door with Tracy Linnell, one of her girlfriends from school. They seemed to be walking okay. Kind of jittery, maybe, not like they were drunk or anything. They went down the sidewalk to a yellow Volkswagen. Tracy got in on the driver's side. I jumped on my bike and pulled up alongside. Marie hadn't gotten in the car yet. She was standing on the other side waiting for Tracy to unlock the door.

“Tracy rolled down her window and gave me that look like girls do when they're being tough—like you're the least interesting person on earth. ‘What do
you
want?' she
said. I ignored her and looked over the top of the car at Marie and asked her if she needed a ride home.

“She said, ‘I got a ride home.' She was kind of twitchy.

“I asked Tracy if she was the official designated driver.

“She said, ‘What are you, some kind of junior cop?'

“I told her I was going by Marie's anyway and just thought she might need a lift. Marie stuck her head in the car and they had a girl conference. Then Marie stepped back and Tracy screeched out of her parking space, almost knocking me over. Marie watched her go, then looked at me, like,
now
what? Because I'd more-or-less told her that I didn't want anything to do with her, and I guess I should have stuck with that because just as she was climbing on the back of my bike, Jon and Kyle came out of the building and started toward us. They must have seen me from the roof. I took off.”

“Did they come after you?” Rawls asked.

“I don't think so. They couldn't have caught up with me anyway.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I dropped Marie off at home.”

Rawls waited for him to say more, but Shayne just sat there staring at nothing, rubbing the steel ring with his thumb.

Rawls silently counted to thirty, then said, “I assume there's more to your story.”

“Just a little,” said Shayne.

I don't know what time Marie got to sleep, but in the morning she was impossible to get out of bed. Mom tried spraying her with a plant mister, but Marie burrowed into her covers, yelling why didn't everybody just leave her the hell alone. That was fine with me; I took off for school.

First hour, Shayne was quiet, as always, hiding deep inside himself but alert. We exchanged a nod when our eyes met during first period, but neither of us said anything. I knew we wouldn't be eating lunch together.

I don't know how the drama at home ended, but Marie finally showed up at school around second period, looking like crap—hair all bed-head in back, lipstick crooked, and a ridiculous amount of makeup around her eyes. That was unusual for Marie, who usually spent a lot of time putting herself together every morning.

I had eighty-two dollars in my pocket. It was Wednesday. Jon wasn't in school, of course, but I figured I should have some money with me just in case. I'd been thinking about Pépé and his checkers, and he was right. People are not like checkers, but checkers
are
like people. I was also thinking about Shayne saying that he and Jon were like two trains about to collide. That fit with the
checkers thing—in checkers, you have to keep moving forward. There's no going back until you get kinged, and what comes next is a checkers' bloodbath.

I ran into Tracy Linnell in the hall—she didn't look much better than Marie. I asked her how her new cat was doing.

“His name is Jumpy,” she said. Her eyes were puffy and red, and she'd chewed off most of her lipstick. “How'd you know I had a cat?”

“Marie told me.”

“Oh. He's fine. He jumps on my face in the middle of the night. By the way, your sister is hogging the nurse bed.”

“What's a nurse bed?”

“The bed in the nurse's office. I tried to go in there but she was hogging it.”

That explained why I hadn't seen Marie all afternoon. She'd gone to the school nurse and told her she had a migraine or cramps, and the nurse had let her crash for a while.

The last hour of the school day, I spent the whole class thinking about all the routes I could take to get home—the idea being to avoid running into Jon. I finally decided to take the number 17 bus, which would drop me off on Harrold Avenue. From there I could take Ninth Street back home. Anyway, that was the plan, but when the final chime announced the end of the school day and I joined the mass exodus, I stopped at the front doors. Students bumped and jostled past me, a steady stream pushing through the glass doors and spilling down the shallow steps to the buses.

Jon Brande was sitting on his bike at the curb, between the student parking and the buses, watching the entrance.

I stayed inside, standing well back from the glass doors. A few minutes later Kyle rolled up beside Jon with Maura Dansky riding behind. Several students of the stoner variety stopped to pay homage to Jon. Marie walked past me and pushed through the doors and trotted down the steps toward him. She had cleaned herself up a bit. Her hair looked normal and she had her lipstick on straight. Jon waved her over. They talked. Jon pointed at the school. I knew he couldn't see inside, but it felt as if he was stabbing his finger straight at me. Marie shook her head, then shrugged and walked back to the school and entered the now empty—except for me—foyer. She said, “Jon says for you to come talk to him.”

“Tell him I already left.”

“He won't believe me.”

“Tell him you couldn't find me.”

“He knows when I'm lying.”

“Tell him I'll pay him in a few days.”

“He just wants to talk to you.”

“I don't think so,” I said.

I felt a presence. We both did, because Marie and I turned our heads at the exact same time. Shayne was standing a few feet away, looking at us with that alert, cloaked expression.

“Everything okay?” he said.

Marie gave him a scathing look and said, “What do you care?” She shoved the door open and trotted down the steps. She stopped at the bottom, looked back at us, then walked over to where Jon was waiting.

Shayne said, “What's with her?”

I repeated what Marie had said. “What do you care?” I pushed open the door and walked slowly down the steps toward Jon Brande. He didn't see me coming at first, and then he did. His lips drew back from his teeth and formed a smile. He climbed off his bike and stood with his back to it, leaning against the seat. I kept walking toward him, feeling Shayne's eyes on my back, having no idea what I was about to do or say.

Jon held up his hand, palm forward. “High five, little dude!”

I would have had to jump to reach his hand. I wasn't going to do that.

“You wanted to see me?” I said.

Jon lowered his hand but kept the grin. “It's Wednesday, Mikey.”

“That's very good,” I said. “And tomorrow's Thursday.”

Jon's smile lost a few watts. “'Scuse me?” he said.

I didn't look away, even though deep inside I was screaming scared. My mouth didn't care. My mouth said, “Was that all you wanted? To tell me what day it is?”

I was very impressed with my mouth, even though it was trying hard to get me killed.

His smile went away altogether. “You owe me,” he said.

“I owe you nothing. Even if I had it, I wouldn't pay you another dime.”

Too astonished to reply, Jon looked at Kyle and at Marie, checking to see if they'd heard it too. Kyle had a faint crooked smile—he probably saw it as a good excuse for a stomping. Marie just looked scared. A few other
students were watching, but keeping their distance.

There was about six feet between us. Jon took a step toward me. I didn't back away, to both of our surprise.

“Go ahead, do it,” I said. “Show everybody how tough you are.” Jon Brande's scowling, reddening face looked unreal to me. I imagined him as an overgrown toddler working up a massive temper tantrum, and that made me smile.

“You think something's funny?” His fists were clenched white.

Kyle put a hand on Jon's shoulder. “Dude.”

Jon shrugged him off. “What?”

“Look.”

Jon looked past me. With a visible effort, he unclenched his fists and took a step back. I turned to see Mr. Peterson, the assistant principal, standing on the steps watching us. Off to the side, leaning against the building with his arms crossed, stood Shayne. Jon looked from one to the other. He got on his bike, started it, and made a head motion to Marie. She climbed on behind him, giving me an
are-you-out-of-your-mind
look. I was wondering the same thing.