Diary of a Witness (15 page)

I was looking around for something to wipe up the milk with. A shirt that was on its way to the hamper anyway, or something like that. Meanwhile, Peaches was licking most of it off the rug. “Because we have no choice,” I said. “They’re the hunters, we’re the hunted.” The minute it came out of my mouth, I regretted the phrasing.

“You think I’m not a hunter?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“We let them treat us like animals. We avert our eyes. Put our tail between our legs. Why?”

“Because otherwise they hurt us even worse.”

“And then we do what? Cower harder. We never make
it worse for them. We never come back even harder at them.”

“Now you’re talking about a blood feud. And I don’t want any part of that.”

“I’m talking about justice,” he said. He was still standing, his arms in the air like he was leading an orchestra. A little smear of chocolate on his lip.

“You’re talking about letting them turn us into violent idiots. So then how are we any different from them?”

“Because we would never do that to someone innocent. Someone who never did a thing to us. It’s like the difference between a cold-blooded killer and the person who gives him the lethal injection.”

“Funny you should mention that,” I said, “because I have trouble with that distinction, too.”

He deflated back to more or less normal size and sat down. “See, that’s your problem, Ernie. You’re too softhearted.”

“I don’t think I am. Especially when you consider the opposite of softhearted is hard-hearted. If they stole my jacket, or ruined it, you think it would help if you committed some kind of violence against them? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just make sure they don’t get their hands on it?”

“I just don’t think we should have to live like this,” he said.

I wanted to say something, but no matter how long we sat there eating cake, I never thought of what to say. Because, really, he was right. Just that last sentence, I
mean. We hadn’t done anything to anyone, and we didn’t deserve to live like this. But here we were. “Let’s just put our energy into this three-day stomach flu I’m about to get,” I said. Then, after a minute of watching him out of the corner of my eye, “Promise me you won’t take this the wrong way. Because you know I’m your friend and all. But do you think maybe it’s time to stop blowing off those therapy appointments?”

I thought he would get sore again, but he stayed calm. “I don’t know if that would do any good.”

“Well, of course you don’t know. You’ve never gone. I’m just thinking you won’t know unless you try it.”

He nodded twice. Didn’t answer at first. But after a minute or two he said, “I’ll think about it. You know why they won’t let you have that jacket, right?”

“Sure, because they know it’s important to me. Once they know that, they know how to get to me.”

“It’s more than that. It’s a nice thing. It’s something good. Something they’d actually want for themselves. And they can’t let you have something good. They can’t let you step up. They won’t let your life get better. It’s all about holding us down.”

I didn’t answer. I actually thought he might be right, but I never said so.

It hit me, possibly for the first time ever, that even if I could lose a hundred pounds, it might not help. Maybe they wouldn’t let me keep that victory, either.

January 6
th

As soon as my mom had gone off to work, I called Will, and he came right over. Brought a bunch of venison jerky. Just to break up the flow of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he said. But it was more than that. He’d taken that deer with his own two hands, it was the first thing he’d done right in a long time, and it meant something to him. He needed the reminder of that moment of glory. I wondered what he would do when it was gone. I guess that’s what the tanned skin was for.

We spent the morning playing video games and chewing on jerky. It was a little tangier than beef jerky, but otherwise not so different. Some sheets were a little stringy
and some were okay. After a while my jaw got tired, but I didn’t say so.

Between games, he said, just out of nowhere, “If you keep the jacket in your locker, they’ll go in after it.”

“I know. But I can’t leave it home or my mom will think I don’t like it. That would almost be worse than if it got stolen or ruined.”

“Here’s the plan. You keep your old jacket at my house. I’ll walk over and pick you up in the morning. But instead of walking straight to school, we can go by my house. You can change and leave the good jacket in my closet until after school.”

“That actually sounds good,” I said. I was relieved. More than I could ever bring myself to say. I really had no good ideas until he said that.

“It’s still totally unfair. Because if you don’t get to wear it, it’s like they win. They succeeded in not letting you have it. But we need a temporary plan, and that’ll do. It’ll get fixed for real. Soon enough. You’ll see.”

“How?”

“You’ll see.”

“I get nervous when you say things like that.”

He just changed the subject, though. “My jaws are getting tired from eating nothing but jerky all morning. What else have you got around here?”

I knew anything my mom bought would be super-fattening. And I had some big repenting to do after the number I did on that chocolate cake. If you didn’t offer me
those things, I might be okay. But if it’s right there, I can’t seem to say no.

“There’s venison in the freezer.” I was mostly kidding. I didn’t think he was looking for a venison steak to break up a day of nothing but venison jerky.

“Perfect,” he said. “I’ll cook.”

“You can cook?”

“I can cook venison. If I couldn’t cook at least that, I’d have starved since my mother came.”

I got up and got dressed, and we ate at the table.

It was weird. Really weird. He put water out in glasses. With ice. He made two baked potatoes in the microwave, to have on the side, and then he split them open and poured salsa inside. Both potatoes, his and mine. Like he wasn’t going to have butter and sour cream if I wasn’t. God knows it’s not because he couldn’t find any in our house. He even put out paper napkins, folded in half.

It was like what a parent would do. It was like he’d learned to be a parent all of a sudden. Which I guess makes sense when you think about it. I guess that’s what you do when you’re fresh out of parents.

The venison was like a thin steak with a round bone in the middle, that he’d cooked under the broiler. It was good. Even after all that jerky.

“Thanks for doing all this,” I said, but he acted like he didn’t hear me.

“I’m sorry to leave you all alone,” he said, “but I can’t come over tomorrow. I’m going to visit my dad.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, and I wasn’t sure how to ask.

“Is your mom taking you?”

“No.”

“Who’s taking you?”

“Nobody. I have to take the bus.”

“Oh. Does he know you’re coming?”

“No.”

“Oh.” I chewed about three bites of the steak in silence before I said, “That sounds a little scary.”

“I’m not scared of him,” he said. “I’m not scared of anything.”

“Uh-huh. I see. Well, congratulations on your new status as an alien from outer space. Come on, Will. Everybody’s scared of something.”

“I know. I used to be. Back when I still cared about stuff. Back when I thought there was still something to lose. Now I don’t feel much of anything.”

I said, “I don’t think that’s the good news.”

He said, “I don’t think so, either.”

Then we finished the rest of our meal in silence.

January 8
th

Yesterday Will didn’t call or come by, which I didn’t think too much about. I mean, he said he wouldn’t. He said he was going to visit his father. But I didn’t think it would take the whole day or anything. So I half expected him to call and tell me how it went. I looked for him online all evening, and I tried calling a couple of times, but it was just this big, weird vacuum.

Then, when he didn’t come over today, and he didn’t answer the phone, I started to get weirded out.

Sometime around one o’clock I got dressed and put on my new jacket and got all ready to walk over to his house and see if he was around. I even put a pen
and paper in my pocket so I could leave a note on his door.

But the minute I opened the door to walk out of the house, I saw Rusty sitting on the curb across the street. I quick closed and locked the door and just stood there, trying to get my breath back.

I looked out the window, and he waved at me.

I’m not really sure why I was so surprised. He’s suspended, and the major focus of his life right now is me and his ultimate revenge. But somehow I still thought of it as a school thing. Inside school, there’s this whole ugly world. Outside school, it’s not supposed to exist anymore. Unless they follow you when you go get a sundae. But even that. I mean, it wasn’t home. Home. Can’t there be one single place left that’s safe? And then, when there isn’t anymore, what do you do?

A minute later he rapped on the door. I put the chain on, just to be safe.

“I guess you know I’d like a word with you, Fat Boy,” he yelled through the door.

Then he walked away. But how far away? I couldn’t really be sure.

About an hour later I called Uncle Max. Got his machine, which was, like, totally depressing. But then he called me back about twenty minutes later. When I heard the phone ring, I jumped and thought maybe it
was Will. But if Will was still AWOL, at least I had someone to talk to about it.

“What’s up, favorite nephew?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, thinking I was about to hem and haw. Thinking I halfway didn’t know why I called. It definitely wasn’t because there was this goon waiting outside my house to kill me. There was nothing Uncle Max could do about that. I either had to call the police—which would be just another reason for him to kill me later—or stay inside, or go out and face it. See how bad it would really be. So I was still sorting it out in my head, why I’d even called him. But when I opened my mouth, it just came out loud and clear.

“I’m worried about Will.”

“I see. You think he might try suicide again?”

“No. I don’t think so. It’s different now. He’s getting mad. It’s like it’s more about other people now.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he might try to hurt somebody, but I don’t think it’ll be himself.”

Silence for a moment. I knew I’d said something pretty serious. I knew he was chewing it over. I could picture him holding the phone, chewing on what I’d just told him.

“That’s a pretty serious situation for you to be in, Ernie. What do you plan to do to prevent that?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking your advice.”

“May I assume you have not asked your mother’s advice?”

“I can’t. Seriously. I mean, this time I really can’t. Because she doesn’t care about Will. She only cares about me. She’d just be thinking about keeping me safe. So she’d forbid me to ever see Will again. Which would totally make everything worse.”

“Do you think Will might ever try to hurt
you
?”

“No. No way. Absolutely not. It’s these guys at school. These five guys. Who’ve been giving us a hard time. My mom doesn’t know Will. She thinks he’s just nothing but trouble. Everybody does. Except me. And maybe you. I’m thinking maybe you know Will enough to know he’s an okay guy. Even though he’s having a really hard time right now.”

More silence. More chewing over stuff. Then he said, “Unfortunately, even okay guys can do a lot of damage if they’re under enough pressure.”

“How do I help him?”

“Well, you don’t,” he said. And my heart kind of fell. “You really can’t help anybody else. I mean, unless they want you to. You’ve been a good friend to him, which is all you can do. But apparently that’s not enough. You either have to talk him out of hurting anybody or you have to turn him in. Make sure he never gets the chance.”

“But I can’t turn him in yet, because I might be wrong. It might be just talk.”

“Yeah, but you’d better be careful about the possibility that you might be right. You can try talking to him first,
but you’re holding a tiger by the tail, Ernie, because think how you’ll feel if it turns out you waited too long. If something happens and it turns out you didn’t do enough soon enough.”

“No. I’ll talk to him right away. I will.”

“Where is Will right now?”

“Well, I’m not sure. That’s part of the problem.”

“Don’t be too slow to call for help, Ernie. Promise me.”

“I called
you
, didn’t I?”

“You know, your mother would call the police right now if she heard all this. But I’m trusting you. I’m trusting you’ll do it at the right time. Don’t let me down, Ernie.”

I promised I wouldn’t. The last thing I’d ever want is to let Uncle Max down.

The whole rest of today I tried to find Will without leaving the house. I looked for him online every ten minutes or so, and I e-mailed him, and I kept calling his house, but I never got an answer. No Will’s mother, no Will.

I was terrified that when my mom got home, Rusty would still be there. Maybe he would say something to her. Or even harass her or something. But she came in at the usual time and smiled at me like everything was fine.

She brought two large double-cheese, double-pepperoni pizzas, and we each polished off one.

“You must be feeling better,” she said. “You got your appetite back.”

“Right,” I said. “Much better.”

I’d been so worried about Rusty and about Will that I completely forgot I was supposed to have the stomach flu.

“Guess you’ll be going back to school tomorrow.”

“Probably so,” I said.

Without knowing where Will is. With Rusty waiting outside my door. With no excuse for walking out without my good new jacket. With a clear death threat hanging over my head.

I’m writing this in the middle of the night. I can’t seem to get to sleep. Maybe it was that whole pepperoni pizza. But I doubt it.