Blank Confession (4 page)

It didn't work. It got around school in a nanosecond what had happened. Instead of looking at my suit, everybody was staring at my mouth.

At least I didn't have to go around explaining it. Except to the new kid, Shayne, who was not yet hooked into the local information superhighway. He didn't say anything to me in class, but later on at lunch, as I was trying to eat a taco without ripping open the cut on my lip, he finally asked me what had happened to my face.

“I got in a fight.” I thought he'd be impressed.

He wasn't. “It looks like you led with your mouth.”

“I tend to do that,” I said.

Shayne tore open the bag of chocolate chip cookies he'd bought for lunch. He stuffed one into his mouth and chewed, staring thoughtfully at my mouth.

“It's no big deal,” I said.

He nodded.

I said, “Say, Shayne, I was wondering …since we're such good friends and all …do you have five hundred dollars I could borrow?”

Shayne took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “You mean because we've known each other a whole two days?”

I liked how he could be sort of sarcastic, only not in a mean way.

“What do you need the money for?” he asked.

I told him.

“I told Mikey I'd talk to Jon.” The kid looked at Rawls with a flat expression. “I mean, even if Mikey hadn't shoved the bag in a trash can, he would have gotten caught with a bag full of whatever when he got hauled down to the office. So either way, Jon would have lost his stash. I thought maybe he'd listen to reason if it came from somebody other than Mikey. Mikey kind of pisses people off, you know?”

“I've met him,” said Rawls. “The school locker thing.”

“Are you the one who busted him for having Advil?”

Rawls shrugged. “He broke the rules.”

“Stupid rule. You bust a kid for Advil while Jon Brande is selling weed.”

Rawls agreed. The prohibition on Advil and other over-the-counter drugs was ridiculous, but it was his job to enforce the law—even minor infractions of a high school's “zero tolerance” rules.

“When we catch Jon with the goods, we'll bust him, too,” he said.

Shayne clanked the ring back and forth a few times.
“I tried to talk to Jon about the Mikey thing,” he said.

“How did that go?”

Clank.

“Not well.”

Shayne said, “What's he going to do if you don't pay him?”

I pointed at my split lip. “What do you think?”

“If you had the money, would you pay him?”

“No way!” I said. But I was thinking I probably would. I really didn't want to get hit again.

“You say he's a dealer, so he must have some kind of business sense.”

“Yeah. He knows if he threatens to kill you, he'll get his money.”

“But if he kills you, you won't be able to pay him.”

“But if I'm not going to pay him anyway, why not kill me?”

Shayne considered my logic—which was, I admit, not ironclad.

I said, “Jon is not what you'd call completely logical.”

Shayne nodded. “But if we convince him that you just don't have the money …it won't hurt to talk to him.”

“That's what you think.” I made another effort to get my sore mouth around my taco as Shane looked around the lunchroom.

“That's him over there, right?” Shayne asked. “What are they doing?”

Jon was standing over by the snack machine, keeping
an eye out while Kyle Ness, one of his crew, reached up into the dispenser. I think Kyle's arms were triple-jointed. Trey Worthington stood next to them, using his massive body to block the view from the service counter.

“Kyle has arms like Mr. Fantastic,” I said. “He's scoring free goodies.”

“Who's the big guy?” Shayne asked.

“That's Trey Worthington, one of our football heroes.” Kyle's arm came out with a bag of chips. He tossed it to Jon, then reached into the machine for more. “I think Jon supplies him with steroids. You do not want to mess with Trey.” I hoped that would move Shayne off his idea that Jon could be reasoned with, but he just stood up and walked over to Jon and started talking. Jon got this grin on his face—the look he gets when he is about to have some nasty fun—and backed Shayne into the area between the vending machines. There was just enough room for the two of them, and it was out of sight of the food servers and lunchroom monitor.

A second later, Jon backed out and looked around the lunchroom with an even wider grin—the one he gets just after he's had some nasty fun.

Shayne was sitting on the floor between the machines holding his stomach and gasping for air. Your standard belly punch. It could have been a lot worse. Laughing, Jon and his minions took their free chips to their usual table in back.

I could have run over and helped him up—that would have been the stand-up thing to do—but I did not care to bring myself to Jon's attention just then. Or any other time. Instead, I ate the rest of my taco as Shayne slowly got to his feet and walked out of the lunchroom, a little hunched over.

“Did you report the incident?” Rawls asked.

The kid took a sip of his soda and looked Rawls in the eye “I'd only been at Wellstone a few days. I didn't want to start out being a snitch.”

“Instead, you decided to start out by confronting the school drug dealer.”

“Something like that. Only I didn't do anything. I mean, I let him hit me and didn't do anything.”

“What did you want to do?”

“Break something. His nose. His arm.”

“Lucky for Jon you restrained yourself,” Rawls said with a smile.

The kid nodded, completely serious. “I didn't want to get kicked out for fighting.”

I felt awful for Shayne after he got punched. But I felt even worse for myself, because now Jon would hold me personally responsible for sending Shayne as my ambassador. The fact that it wasn't my idea would not matter to Jon. He would probably give me a matching belly punch just for fun. I wondered how the taco I'd eaten would taste in reverse.

Fortunately, the 12:20 chime went off and I got out of the lunchroom and
escabullirse
d to Spanish class without having a Jon Brande moment.

I didn't see either Jon or Shayne the rest of the day, but I'd gotten Shayne's cell number that morning, so I texted him right after school, and he got back to me, and we met at the public library up on Thirty-third Street. It was the one place where I was absolutely sure we wouldn't run into Jon.

There is a big lobby in the front of the library where you can sit and talk and no one will bug you. I sat on one of the steel benches and played a game on my cell phone for half an hour before Shayne strolled in. He walked like he was on wheels, his shoulders perfectly level, his speed unvarying, his head moving slowly from side to side as he
checked out the room. He saw me right away, and I waved him over.

“How's your gut?” I asked him.

“A little sore.”

“You're lucky he didn't kick you in the nuts.”

Shayne shrugged and sat down on the bench next to me.

“You shouldn't have tried to talk to him, you know.”

“I figured it was worth a try. Next time I'll know.”

“Know what?”

“What I'm dealing with.”

“You don't deal with a guy like Jon. You avoid him.”

“I know. But if you can't avoid him, then what?”

“You do what he wants.”

“That's not an option,” Shayne said. “Especially since you don't have the money.”

“Maybe I can work out a payment plan. Five bucks a week for the rest of my life.”

“You could report it.”

“He'd just deny it. Then he'd beat the crap out of me.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You don't know Jon.”

“I'm getting to know him better. You hungry?”

“Yeah, but I'm saving my money.”

Shayne stood up. “Come on. I didn't get a chance to finish my lunch. There's a sub shop just up the street. I'll buy.”

I never say no to free food. I figure if I eat enough, sooner or later I'll get a growth spurt.

On the way to the sub shop, Shayne said, “A guy like Jon Brande, it's important not to let him know you're afraid.”

“I
am
afraid.”

“But you don't show it.”

“I don't?”

“You got that big mouth.”

“Yeah, which is what got me beat up.”

“It also protects you. Nobody, not even Jon Brande, wants to hear you say things they don't like. To them or anybody else.”

I sat there without saying anything at all for about ten seconds, which had to be some kind of record for me.

“I don't think I can talk my way out of this,” I said. Shayne was staring into the distance. He said, “Tell me everything you know about Jon.”

I didn't realize, until I tried to tell Shayne about Jon, how little I knew. He was a senior. He rode around on a black 1,300cc Suzuki crotch rocket; he sold drugs; he'd been dating my sister for the past few months….

“What does your sister see in him?”

I ticked off five points on my fingers. “He's big; he looks good; he has money; he has a cool bike; he gives her free weed.” I took the top off my sub so I could get my mouth around it. Smashed lips and meatball subs do not go good together.

“You'd think you being his girlfriend's brother and all he'd cut you some slack.”

“Jon Brande cuts nobody slack.”

Shayne thought for a moment. “Maybe we could talk to his parents. Where does he live?”

“I don't know.”

“I bet your sister does.”

After demolishing our subs we got on his bike, me without a helmet. Motorcycles scare me, but Shayne was a careful driver—no wheelies or anything—and his ancient BMW, for all its dents and duct tape, rode smooth as a limo. We arrived at my house without crashing or getting arrested. I got off the bike and pointed at the crotch rocket parked at the curb.

“That's Jon's bike,” I said.

“Looks fast.” He looked from the bike to the house, then at something in the bushes. “That your dog?”

It was. “Hey Barkie!” I yelled and clapped my hands. Barkie, my Jack Russell terrier, slunk out from his hiding spot and took a few tentative steps toward us, ears and tail down. I knelt on the grass and held my hands out. Barkie came closer, his tail wagging and drooping all at once.

“What's the matter with him?” Shayne asked.

“Jon Brande,” I said.

When Marie first started going out with Jon I didn't really know him. I mean, I knew who he was, and that he sold dope, but I didn't know he was the sadistic spawn of Satan. I actually thought he was cool. But that all changed one Saturday afternoon. Marie had been seeing Jon for maybe a month. I had just come home from running errands for Mrs. Garcia. My parents weren't home. I found Jon and Marie out in the backyard gazebo smoking a joint.

This is how stupid and ignorant I was: I was impressed that Marie's boyfriend was a big, good-looking senior, with a big, good-looking bike. And I thought that their smoking a joint in the gazebo was sort of sophisticated. Not that I wanted to smoke myself—I'd heard that marijuana interferes with the production of growth hormones—but I appreciated the outlaw nature of the scene. I went out to the gazebo just to say hello. Barkie followed, wagging his stumpy tail so hard it was a blur.

Barkie was stupid and ignorant too, but he had an excuse: He was a dog.

Jon was showing something to Marie—it looked like an electric shaver or maybe a portable hair dryer.

“What's that?” I asked, all clueless and innocent.

“My new toy,” Jon said, giving me that spectacular smile that I would come to hate.

Barkie, who was not getting enough attention, barked.

Marie said, “Mikey, why don't you and Barkie go play fetch or something?”

I ignored her. “What is it?” I asked Jon.

Barkie barked.

Jon said, looking at Barkie, “It's a bark stopper.”

“A what?”

“Want to see how it works?”

Barkie must have sensed something about then; he backed out of the gazebo, barking furiously. Jon pointed the thing at Barkie and pressed a button. Something shot out of the end of it, two thin wires. Barkie collapsed and lay quivering on the lawn, his eyes wide with terror and pain.

I think I screamed. I could see two small darts stuck in Barkie's fur; I ran to him and yanked them out. Barkie's legs were jerking and his tongue was hanging out. I picked him up and hugged him to my chest.

“What did you do to him?” I shouted. Jon was doubled over laughing. Barkie whimpered and twitched in my arms. I was squeezing him too hard. I laid him down on the grass.

Jon said, “Don't worry, he'll be fine.”

I must have been really mad, because I started toward Jon—all five-foot-nothing of me—with the intention of tearing him to pieces. Jon grabbed the end of the stun gun and pulled off this little plastic thing—later I learned it was the one-shot cartridge that shoots out the darts. He tossed the cartridge aside and pointed the gun at me. I stopped, bracing myself for a shock. He pressed the
trigger. The end of the device snapped and crackled with blue lightning, but nothing shot out of it. I threw myself at him.

Jon jammed the stun gun against the side of my neck and my universe disintegrated.

What is it like to get umpteen thousand volts fired through your neck? First of all, it hurts. Like all of your pain receptors are rushing to one single nova-strength point of agony, and there is nothing you can do because your limbs are totally spazzing out and your thoughts are shattered to atoms and bouncing around your skull like there is no brain in between, and even though it only lasts a second or two it feels like forever.