“What a crazy moron,” Will said.
Their steps echoed in the stairwell. The cafeteria clattered open below them and Will heard the swell of voices, the banging sound of bowls being scraped and dumped, and the dull clink of cheap silverware. The greedy torn wrappers of dozens of Devil Dogs. “So what about this afternoon?”
“No problem,” Tim said. “I spoke to him and he’s all set. Kiff’s going to meet us at West End Avenue, near the subway stop.” Tim leaned close to Will as they both neared the food line.
“We’ll score some bourbon and then head out there.”
“Great,” Will said, smiling.
But somehow — looking around, seeing the goofy signs about tonight’s dance — he wished he were gong there. Kiff’s plan had sounded like fun. A crazy adventure, the kind of thing you should do when you’re finally a senior. But now … well, he’d just as soon go to the dumb dance.
That won’t get me suspended, he thought.
And down deep — admit it
, he thought.
You’re scared.
He picked up a plate of fillet of something, and a side dish of shoestring fries that tasted like real shoestrings. Then he and Tim searched for Whalen and Narrio.
Will spotted them, at a back table, well away from everyone else.
Whalen didn’t look happy. He was leaning forward, talking at Narrio, who kept slipping fries into his face.
One at a time. Nice and methodical …
“Looks like problems,” Will said.
They walked over to the table.
And Will turned to see if anyone was watching him.
They’re always watching, he thought. The fucking jocks .
.
. Or is it all just in my head?
He looked around. He heard laughing. But no one seemed to be looking at him. Will shook his head. Gately stood near a side door, a wooden Indian. His long face was drawn and pinched and his massive arms were folded in front. He spent the lunch hour scowling at everyone.
Will got to the table.
Whalen looked up at Tim, then at him. “Shit. Narrio says he’s not going,” Whalen said disgustedly. “He says he has to go home.”
Tim did a wonderfully dramatic double take. Will saw Tim’s eyes go wide in horror. He pushed his glasses up, off his nose. His mouth opened-too stunned to speak.
Then Tim sat down in the seat next to Narrio and pulled it close.
Mike Narrio went on shoveling the fries into his food hole. But he was getting down to the last Indians . , .
“What!” Tim said, the horror thrillingly real.
Will — almost relieved, thinking that now the trip would be called off — saw Whalen look over. But Whalen wasn’t grinning at the scene.
He looked genuinely pissed.
“What’s the deal, Mike?” Tim said to Narrio, “It’s all arranged. Kiff is going to meet us. No problem. We’ll get some booze.” Tim leaned forward and then he stuck his moonlike face right in front of Narrio. “And we’ll summon the spirit of Boris Karloff to join us for a late night swim.”
Narrio grinned.
He never said much. And he wasn’t breaking stride today.
“He’s a pussy,” Whalen whispered disgustedly, taking a quick look to see where Gately was posted. But they were safely out of earshot of anyone. “A real mama’s boy,” Whalen sang.
That was probably true enough, Will thought. But he didn’t like to see Tim and Whalen ganging up on Narrio.
And he saw Narrio’s face change. His square face was usually so open, so complacent. Now Will saw the face visibly darken.
“It’s time to cut the fuckin’ apron strings, Narrio,” Whalen went on.
Will saw Narrio clench his fists. He was a squat, compact guy, with chunky hands that probably had more strength than baby fat.
Narrio wasn’t smiling anymore.
And Will thought: He’s doing the same thing .
.
. Whalen’s doing the same thing to Narrio that he did to me.
Pushing. Goading. And Will knew that Whalen was someone to watch out for.
A guy like that could be dangerous.
Looking over the cliff edge.
Go ahead. You jump first.
“Forget it, Whalen,” Will said. “Ease up. If Narrio doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to.” Will hesitated. “Maybe we should all bag it.”
Tim spun around. “Hey, Will, don’t you cop out.” Tim grabbed his arm. “It’s all planned.” And now closer, planting his grinning face in front of Will’s. “I gave up getting
laid
to go with you guys tonight.”
“Sure, right.” Will laughed.
“Fucking pussy,” Whalen whispered to Narrio.
Narrio stood up.
Ready to move.
As though he were going to jump right over the table, grab Whalen’s tie, and drag him across the table.
A new side of Mike Narrio.
“Hey, forget it, Whalen,” Will said. “Just ease up, will you — ?”
“And now you’re punking out too?”
Will shook his head. “No, it’s just —”
But Tim was between them, and for all of Whalen’s taunts, Will knew that only Tim could get the trip back on the road again.
“Hey, Mikey,” Tim said, his voice low, thoughtful. There was a good reason Tim was a New York State Champion debater. “C’mon. We’re fucking seniors, and winter’s coming, and all we’ll have are the stupid dances and playing cards in Whalen’s basement. And do you know how warm it is out? It’s going to be great tonight. Warm, like” — he leaned close, grinning —”goddamn summer.”
Tim held Narrio’s arm.
He’ll be great in the courtroom, Will thought.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, even though my client
did
murder a half dozen people, he has recently seen the error of his ways .
.
.
And Narrio looked over and nodded.
“Okay,” Narrio said. “I’ll come. I just don’t want to get home too late.”
Whalen made a disgusted noise.
And Will wondered .
.
. just what the hell are we in for tonight?
As Cicero might have scribbled: The augurs are not good.
But Will didn’t know the half of it .
* * *
They flew out of school, trench coats open. ties loosened, unbridled, grinning and laughing as they made their way to Ocean Parkway and the subway.
They took the steps down to the underground tunnel two and three at a time.
Everybody was up now, Will saw. Everyone was excited. There were no problems. Even Whalen seemed to have lost his snarl.
A few people waiting on the platform looked at them. A black woman clutched her bag of groceries tighter. An old man stirred on his plastic seat.
The woman in the token booth didn’t grin when Whalen said something to her, something that had him doubling up with laughter.
Tim came over to him. “What the hell did you say?”
Whalen leaned against a metal girder, right on a Chiclets machine. “I asked her if she got to ride the train for free.”
“Pretty hilarious,” Will said, rolling his eyes.
But Whalen was still laughing, and then they all were, filled with the giddiness of the moment. Freedom, that’s what this is, Will thought. School is out, and the great weekend yawns ahead. And not only that! No, tonight there will be mystery, magic, the powerful elixir of booze.
And by Monday they’d all have tales to tell.
Something to keep them going while they plodded through the drudgery of more tests, more quizzes, more questions about college, the future —
What the hell.
Tonight existed apart from all that.
“It’s coming,” Narrio said.
Will heard the distant rumble of the train. He stepped to the edge of the platform. He didn’t see anything. He just heard the low roar, an underground rocket coming at them from miles away.
Then, yes, the two white lights.
He spun around. The station lights at the other end switched from red to green. It reminded him of that scene in
King Kong
where Kong watches an elevated subway race at him, reminding the big ape of the prehistoric horrors he battled on Skull Island.
And then the metal monster was there, amazingly able to stop at the station from its bullet-like trajectory.
They waited a few seconds for the doors to whoosh open.
And then they tumbled into the car.
It was one of the old cars, with wicker seats and straps that felt like porcelain. The rectangular placards above the lights offered career training in refrigerator maintenance and the opportunity to learn something called Speedwriting.
U cn ln hw to rd n rt lk ths!
Will looked at his friends. There were plenty of empty seats, but they stood there, grinning. Tim hit Whalen on the shoulder and said, “Got any matches?”
Whalen nodded.
Will said, “Hey, you can’t smoke in here.”
“Screw it.” Tim laughed.
And the train roared out of the station, moving east, toward the ocean.
Toward Coney Island.
On the way there, Tim told them a story.
He spoke loudly, nearly drowned out by the incessant clatter and rattle of the train.
If anyone else on the train heard him, they didn’t give any sign.
“I was reading last night,” he announced loudly, “this book called
The World of Mystery and Magic
.”
Everyone nodded, squeezing together, closer to Tim.
“And I found this wild story. In some of the medieval cathedrals the fuckin’ priests used black magic.” He paused, letting everyone imagine the possibilities. “Not only were they diddling with the local virgins .
.
.”
Everyone grinned, always pleased to joke about earthly passions and priests.
“But they worshiped the devil .
.
. or some of his good pals.”
Tim waited, making sure that he had everyone’s attention.
Will smiled, but he looked at some of the other passengers. They watched him and his friends with funny looks. And even though Will was sure that they couldn’t hear what Tim said, he saw the worried look on their faces. A woman with a small boy, a tall, pretty woman, seemed nervous.
The boy looked up. He pointed at them, and Will smiled back.
As if to say: We’re okay. We’re not bad guys, lady. Just having some fun.
But the woman pulled her child close to her.
“So these crazy priests made pacts with Satan himself,” Tim announced portentously.
“Whooa,” Whalen said, laughing. “What else is new?”
“Hey. C’mon,” Tim said. “It’s in this fucking book. So what the priests had to do was give a virgin to the devil, or one of his demons. And the way they did that —”
The train screeched to a stop, rattling all the boys one way, and then back the other. Stoogelike, they nearly bounced their heads together.
Tim waited, and some people went off — the woman and her son — and a few others. Two schoolgirls dressed in tartan-like skirts and blue blazers got on.
Tim nudged everyone.
As if, Will thought, we need nudging.
But when the girls turned around, Will saw that one was worse than homely. Glasses and zits do not for beauty make. The other girl was okay .
.
. kind of skinny, but okay.
Tim screwed up his face and pronounced his judgment on them. “Forget it,” he said.
“Woof,” went Whalen.
Narrio laughed.
As if anyone of us would walk over and actually talk to the girls .
.
. even if they were knockouts, Will thought.
The subway started again.
“Two more stops,” Whalen said.
But Narrio, always so quiet, cleared his throat. “Go on,” he said to Tim.
The noise of the train again masked Tim’s words, and he continued.
“Well, the old priests lured sweet young things down to their chambers and trapped them there. They’d give them wine, maybe mix some sleeping powder in it. Then they’d screw them — in the name of evil.”
“Right. ‘I screw thee in the name of evil!” Whalen laughed, holding his finger in the air, like the scarecrow explaining that the square of the sides of triangles equals the square of the hypotenuse.
They laughed. But then they quieted down again, wanting to hear the end of Tim’s story.
Tim always had the absolutely best sick stories.
He was a connoisseur of strange war stuff .
.
. weird tales of Japanese maidens who’d tease and torture captured G.I.’s until some sumo-sized monster with a machete entered the room to cut their wangs off.