Blood Brothers (21 page)

“Just follow me.” And he did. Michael
leading, Jerry following, they moved through the darkened world and
continued to talk. Michael had never met anyone he could talk to so
easily. He spoke of simple things: books, comics, cartoons.

They talked about girls—Michael let him know
who was hot at Benedict and who wasn’t. He described them in detail
only possible of a pre-teen boy with hormones starting to reach
dangerous levels.

And jokes, plenty of those. They started out
innocent enough but soon turned to the blue variety. Mike’s ribs
were starting to feel the stress of all the humor, but that wasn’t
an entirely bad thing.

Soon, the duo had covered almost three miles,
leaving the town behind roughly half a mile back. They followed the
road, but not too closely. There was a slim possibility they’d be
seen since traffic was nil, but why take unnecessary chances.
Instead, they followed the road from a distance of about twenty or
so feet away. Only outside the blaring streetlights did they notice
that the moon was full and the whole world silvered. Seeing was
easy.

They came up to a crooked, ancient oak beside
a gravel road. Only the road was actually an old, hardly-used
driveway. A few feet beyond was a rusty barbwire fence that Michael
hadn’t noticed; he’d forgotten it was even there. No telling what
you’d catch if you ran into that.

“Whoa, Mike, you sure you know where we’re
going?”

“Positive. You coming or not?” It felt good
to tease another, if only in jest. Jerry looked at him, then at the
road, then back to him again. He still carried the bat. Michael had
offered to lug it for a while, but Jerry had shrugged off the
offer. Now that they were this far out, it probably wasn’t a bad
idea to have the bat handy. Coyotes and stray dogs were common here
on the outskirts of town and Michael wasn’t crazy about the idea of
meeting up with them empty-handed.

“Aw, what the hell,” he said, then sauntered
down the road. Gravel crunched under foot. The sides of the narrow
lane were overgrown. Honeysuckles, thorns, and garden variety weeds
choked out everything else and even if they’d wanted to, there’d be
no ditching to the side if anyone came through. But the very
possibility of a car traveling out to this desolate slice of land
was unlikely, to say the least.

After they’d walked what seemed to even
Michael—who knew where he was going—the length of several football
fields, Jerry finally asked, “Are you sure you know where we’re
going?”

Breathing hard, it took Michael a second to
say, “Yeah…I’m…sure… Should be right up here.” This was the most
walking—the most exercise, period, that Michael had had in a very
long time. If he wasn’t aching all over tomorrow from his father’s
‘holding him to a higher standard,’ then this cross-country hike
would sure do the trick.

Fortunately, after a few more minutes they
passed an abandoned house to the left and an even weedier driveway,
so Michael knew they were getting close.

“Hate to call that place home,” Jerry said,
taking in the old house until they rounded a bend and it was out of
sight.

The two boys came to a clump of trees and the
gravel drive just petered out. “We’re going in there?” Jerry asked
incredulously.

“Yeah…don’t…worry. It’s…not…that thick.”

“Mike. Are you alright?”

Wiping sweat from his face with the back of
his hand, Michael slowly nodded. His heart was hammering in his
chest, and his legs, already weakened by tonight’s chase scene,
were rubbery, but he wasn’t about to admit that.

Fallen leaves, underbrush, dead and dying
limbs, and twigs cracked and crunched under their feet. Michael,
still in the lead, was using his hand to clear the way. Until Jerry
finally offered the baseball bat, that was.

All of a sudden he stopped.

Jerry, paying more attention to what he was
stepping through than of what lay ahead crashed right into him.

“Wha-What is it?” he sounded alarmed.

“We’re here.”

“Where the hell is here?” Jerry asked,
stepping up beside and then in front of Mike. He saw then, oh boy,
did he see.

The ground beneath them must’ve sloped
upwards, slowly, but steadily. Twenty or twenty-five feet in front
of them a cliff jutted out. Beyond that, the city of Benedict, in
all its nocturnal beauty. A whole variety of lights twinkled, and
while some buildings—the courthouse paramount—could be easily made
out, the rest fell victim to the lights, spread like Christmas tree
bulbs.

“Wow,” Jerry said.

“Yeah, pretty nifty, huh?”

“Very, nifty, pal, very nifty.”

“It’s like a lover’s lane without the
lane.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“How far up are we?”

“High. I’m not sure how high.”

Jerry stood soaking it up for a moment. After
satisfying himself with the view, he went to the edge of the cliff
and took a seat. Michael eventually joined him.

“Man, this was worth the price of
admission.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, thinking the price of
admission was his aching joints.

A cool wind blew up from below. That was
strange. Michael usually thought of the wind as from coming above.
But it was refreshing, cooling his overheated body like the sweet
breath of an angel. Jerry only gawked. Apparently, he’d never seen
Benedict from this angle. Michael himself had to admit that removed
from the place, looking from afar, it did look peaceful, even
quaint.

“It looks like a city, doesn’t it?” Jerry
said after a while. “Like New York or Los Angeles. Like you see on
television.”

“I guess.”

Jerry turned to him. They were only sitting a
few feet apart, the baseball bat between them. “Tell me, when you
look at that town down there, what do you see?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Like when you see your house, you
think home. When you see your room, you think…oh gee, I don’t
know…mine. When you see a church you think of peace. From here,
looking down at the whole town, so small that if you put your hand
out, you’d block the whole thing, what do you see?”

At first, Michael didn’t know what to say,
didn’t have a clue. Suddenly, “I see Hell, Jerry. I see Hell on
earth.”

Jerry didn’t have a quick retort for that.
Who would? So, when he just settled back and continued to gaze out
over the twinkling little town, Michael was relieved. He would
understand in due time. Oh, yes sir’ee. He would.

Michael never checked his watch in all the
time they were up on that cliff, Tinman’s Bluff it was called,
though no one knew why anymore, or at least no one Michael knew.
But they must have sat there for hours. Not saying anything, just
looking.

The trek back was slow going, both boys were
exhausted and they were taking it slow. Finally they made it back
to Benedict, and in the middle of town at five in the
morning—according to Mike’s trusty Casio—they split up. Jerry
heading to his house a few blocks over and Michael to his home,
three-quarters of a mile away in the heart of the Projects and into
the arms of his father, who Michael desperately hoped was still
sleeping. It would be okay if his mother was up when he arrived.
She wouldn’t cause a stink. His old man, on the other hand…

“Well, Mike, it’s been a lot of fun.”

“Yes, it really has, hasn’t it,” Michael
agreed.

“Maybe we can meet up again tonight. Earlier,
you know?”

Michael nodded, but said, “My dad’s probably
going to be really pissed off because I stayed out so late. Getting
out tonight might not be too easy.” Which was the truth, but there
was something else, too. Maybe it was the inkling he felt that the
more Jerry got to know him, the more he’d be recognized as a loser.
After all, he’d wanted fun and excitement and Michael gave him a
view of Benedict, after a hell of a long walk.

“Oh,” was all Jerry said. Despite the
long-running conversation between the two, Michael had kept almost
everything about his home life well-guarded.

“Well, I’ll give you my number. Just in case
you can get away…What’s wrong?” Michael was looking down at the
ground.

“We don’t have a phone, either.”

“That’s cool, man. Tell you what. If you get
out again before school starts come down to the courthouse. I’m
usually there for a few hours in the evening with Dad. If not my
address is,” he paused, trying to remember it, it was new after
all, “1147 Sycamore. But there’s no Sycamores, ain’t that
stupid?”

Michael agreed that yes, it was stupid. Just
like no maples on Maple Street, no elms on Elm Street and so on and
so forth. They parted company, each walking towards their
respective destination.

***

When Michael reached the entrance to the
trailer park the eastern horizon was a salmon-colored stain and
traffic was beginning to pick up. He no longer cared if his father
was out of bed yet or not. He’d had a good time tonight, the best
time he could ever remember, and he’d be shucked if he’d let
something like a whipping take that away. He hoped Jerry would be
his friend after school started, really hoped. He was a great guy
and he was fun and it would be cool to take on the schoolyard
bullies with someone at his side.

It was as he stepped up the concrete block
steps to his trailer, hearing his parents talking to one another
inside, that Michael Cole decided that he would do whatever was
required of him, come hell or high water, that he would go to the
ends of the earth for Jerry. This new resolve gave him new courage
about the future, something he’d spent precious little time ever
thinking about before now.

He turned the door knob and pushed his way
in. His mother sat on the couch, chain smoking in her night
clothes. Martin stood to her side, dirty tee shirt and dirtier
jeans. It was his father that spoke, “Where the hell you been, you
little bastard?”

“Out,” Michael said. The rebellion had
begun.

Now

Several summers ago, one of the hottest years
on record, Stephanie had been alarmed by a sound from outside.
She’d been in her office and had grown frightened at the scuttling
sound she heard beyond her window. Stephanie’s office faced the
rear lawn, so naturally all kinds of forest dwelling creatures
leapt to mind. Instead of investigating further, Stephanie
immediately fled the room, sprinted down the hall and roused her
husband. Michael, armed with a formidable arsenal of
weapons—flashlight and tennis racket—went off on his husbandly
mission: to ascertain the danger and deal with it swiftly and
without prejudice.

Michael left the house by way of the front.
He fully intended to sneak up behind the object of his wife’s fear
and brain it, making himself a hero in the process. Halfway there
he started to hear tiny screeching and scraping noises. They grew
louder with each step he took. At the corner of the house, with his
back against the wall and a death grip on the handles of both the
light and the racket, he began having doubts as to if he’d chosen
the most appropriate course of action. He could have ignored his
wife’s pleas to investigate, he could have told her it was nothing,
reassured her, and then told her to go on to bed. But no. What
husband would? The need to impress and ultimately to protect was
too strong. He’d be the man, not the mouse.

Holding the flashlight straight ahead and
brandishing the tennis racket like a caveman would a club, Michael
took off from the corner of the house at a full run. Scanning the
ground beneath Stephanie’s window in his pell-mell run, he saw only
bits of trash littered about. Stopping just past the window,
Michael saw nothing else of concern, just a few more pieces of
litter scattered about. Probably nothing more than a squirrel or
chipmunk enjoying a midnight snack by the golden light of the
office window.

Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d
been holding, Michael started back in. That’s when it happened. One
of the biggest frights of his life. Not the biggest, no, which was
reserved for another place, another time.

It was a raccoon.

Most people aren’t scared of these little
woodland creatures. But most people haven’t come up close and
personal with them. Teeth bared, claws ready to strike, the
viciousness for which the raccoon is renowned was fully evident at
that moment. Its face was absolutely terrifying as the beam of
Michael’s handheld light played over it. Obsidian eyes, full of
evil, a gaping mouth crammed with tiny crazed teeth…it didn’t take
a lot of imagination to see them ripping into Michael’s soft flesh
like miniature razor blades.

All in all, a fearsome creature. And more to
the point, an enraged fearsome creature.

For a moment, Michael wasn’t sure why that
particular memory flooded back. It didn’t take him long to
understand.

As he stood there in his office, heretofore
his own little slice of heaven, with his world crashing down on
him, he noticed that Stephanie, his wife, the mother of his child,
the woman he shared home and hearth with, looked very much like
that raccoon in its terrible death lunge. No, she didn’t have a
furry tail. And no, she didn’t scurry around on all fours. Yet, the
anger she exuded, the malevolence filling her, the rage that pulsed
through her was as wild and as basic as any beast could ever hope
to command.

As a matter of fact, her teeth were bared.
White and even, not pointed and ragged. Her hands half-clenched,
the fingernails jutting. Not ebony knives but delicately tipped
with precision bits of white under a clear finish. Still, there was
no doubt in him she could inflict the damage of the raccoon
ten-fold.

And when she said that word, “Carrie,”
Michael about shit his pants.

Into the room strode his mistress. Eyes puffy
and red. Whatever beauty she’d once possessed was now tarnished,
broken. Now she looked…bad.