For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun (13 page)

“What the…,” I began.

His head shook, slightly, and started to rotate toward me. His mouth moved, but only inhuman wet noises came out. He shook his head again, then his eyes focused on me.

“Hey, Johnny,” he said, his voice sounding strange, alien, like it was bubbling up from underwater.

My jaw dropped. “Bobby. What the hell are you doing?”

He twisted his head back and forth, like he was working out a kink in his neck, then sat up on the cement floor. “Just… practicing.” He reached one hand up and felt his head, then broke out in a smile. Pulling his hand back, he looked at it, amazed.

“What’d you do, Bobby?” I asked, in a near whisper. I felt like I should run, leave the place. I don’t know if I wanted to get help or just get away, but I knew I didn’t really want to know what Bobby was about to say.

“I shot
myself
this time, Johnny,” he said with a smirk. “Here.” He pointed to his right thigh. “Here.” His abdomen. Then his hand raised higher. “And here.”

He put one finger to his forehead, a crazy grin on his face.

10

I don’t know exactly how to put this. I’m sorry, it’s hard.

Damn it. Of everything that happened, all the crazy stuff,
this
is the thing.

The thing I don’t want to talk about.

But it’s important.

I staggered out of the dark warehouse and into the bright sunlight, reeling from what I’d seen. What Bobby had done. What he could do, and what I apparently could do, too. I was stunned.

In a daze of emotion and dull, formless thought, I walked out to the side road and headed for home. As I passed behind the lumber yard, I was staring blindly ahead. Barely conscious of my own footfalls, I plodded forward; I was hardly aware of where I was going. I certainly wasn’t looking for trouble.

As I followed the deserted road, somehow my eye caught movement off to the left, at the rear of the last building in the lumber yard. Without considering what it might mean, I turned my head and suddenly made eye contact with an older kid, a guy from high school. That’s all I did. I wish I’d kept my head down.

The kid jumped up, followed by two more; they stood glaring at me next to a beat-up old green four-door sedan. I recognized them as part of the rough crowd in town, kids a few years older than me, kids I should avoid. I tried to walk by. Whatever they were doing was nothing compared to what I’d just seen.

Is Bobby going crazy?
I asked myself.
Is he going to end up like Walter?

Am
I
going to end up like Walter?

Walter Ivory was the man I blamed for my sister’s condition. And he’d tried to kill me and Bobby. I was
glad
that son of a bitch was dead. But if Walter, Bobby, and I shared a connection — the thorns in our bodies — did that mean Walter’s descent into madness was just a preview for Bobby? Or me?

I had a very bad feeling that Bobby was already too far gone.

He
shot himself
. Three times. It reminded me of Walter’s attempts to hurt himself — or, being honest, to
kill
himself. It wasn’t normal. It didn’t make sense. I mean, even though I could do things, special things, I was
not
about to shoot myself in the head to prove a point.

“Hey there, John Boy?” a voice called out, sneering and rude.
Really? John Boy? God, was it a rule that bullies had to use
that
name?

I kept walking, muttering a
hi
under my breath, but keeping my head down.
Don’t make eye contact again
, I told myself.

“Talking to
you
, asshole,” the voice called again, too angry, too fast. What had I done? Foolishly, I looked over. And saw the bottles. And the lit, hand-rolled joints.
Smoking and drinking behind the lumber yard. As if I care.
I kept going, but already the three were loping over to the small road, cutting off my way home.

The tallest of the boys stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. I looked up, past his red t-shirt with its black skull printed large in the center, up to his sneering face. Roger Steele. He looked back and forth to the other boys, one on either side of him, his coifed blond hair bouncing across his forehead as he gesticulated. What a freaking name.
Roger Steele
. Between the hair and the name, he should’ve been a porn star or maybe a super spy. Instead he was just a dope head who bullied other kids whenever he had the chance. He was what Bobby might have grown into if our car accident hadn’t seemingly jolted him into a change of heart.

I’d had the misfortune of knowing Roger most of my life. He lived only a few streets over from my house, and his younger sister, Hanna, was in my grade. (For reference, Hanna Steele is also a good porn name.) Still, I was surprised he knew who
I
was. His two henchmen, a couple of other Neanderthals named Lawrence and Zach, were shorter, darker, hairier, like shadows trailing behind their taller, blonder master. Lawrence dropped something into his near-empty bottle as he approached; it was the end of a cigarette, making a faint
hiss
as it went out in the shallow pool of warm beer. I guess Larry didn’t smoke the stronger stuff. Thinking this, I almost laughed out loud. Thankfully, I caught myself.

I put my hands up, palms out, in front of me. “Look, guys, I’m just trying to get home. Whatever you all are doing back here is your own business.” My eyes flittered to Roger’s and Zach’s joints, slow curls of smoke tracing upward from the lit ends. The sweet smell was undeniably marijuana.

“You’re
damn right
it’s our business. You better watch yourself, John Boy,” Roger said. He had all the intellect of a ball-peen hammer. He raised a fist to emphasize his point. “You say one word about us back here and
you are dead
.” As he leaned close, I could smell stale smoke on his breath.

My body tensed. I thought of when Bobby tried to hit me, and all at once I was both excited and terrified. I realized that I probably didn’t have anything to fear from these guys. That thought was intensely…
liberating
. On the other hand, I was scared. If one of these guys decided to punch me and my body did some crazy bending or shifting, it was going to raise some eyebrows. My little secret wouldn’t be so secret.
Everyone
would find out. My friends. Everyone at school. My parents. All this just made me tense up even more. Roger bent his elbow and cocked his fist at my chin.

This is it
, I thought. I squinted and winced. But the blow never fell.

Opening my eyes, I saw Roger’s goofy grin spread into a full-on laugh, a guffaw. He stayed that way, laughing in my face, for maybe half a minute, braying like a donkey, his wingmen echoing the sound, almost doubling over.

Then Roger turned, taking the last puff of his joint, burning it down to nothing before closing his eyes and letting its effects settle in. He reopened his eyes and gestured for Lawrence’s bottle, and Lawrence passed it over, at which point Roger twisted up his face and spat a gooey and discolored blob of phlegm into the bottle. He paused to examine his handiwork. “That’s disgusting,” he said, gesturing at the slosh of horrors in the clear glass bottle. “You should dump that out,” he said nodding toward me then handing the bottle back to Lawrence. Roger walked away, back toward his dated green car.

Lawrence’s eyes were glued to the bottle, the dark-stained liquid inside, the stew of spent cigarette, ash, and disgusting slime. Slowly, his eyes came up and met mine. The other one, Zach, toked the small nub of his joint, giggling uncontrollably. When it was finally burned to nothing, he followed Roger toward the car. As Zach walked away, Lawrence took a step toward me. For good measure, he coughed up a generous loogie of his own and hawked it into the bottle, swirling everything together.

Behind him, Roger started the car with a loud, reluctant grumble. Zach hopped in the front passenger’s seat, slamming the door with a thud.

Why didn’t I just run? I mean, they probably would have chased me, most likely would have caught me, definitely would have tried to give me a beating. But I knew I could take it, or least my body could overcome. Still, I realized that I didn’t know what it
felt like
when Bobby wrecked his bike. Or, worse, when he shot himself. If they tried to beat me up, even if my body could avoid the blows or heal itself if it didn’t, was it going to
hurt
? Like a chicken, I stood frozen.

And Lawrence dumped the entire disgusting mess of stale beer, tobacco bits, and bubbling saliva on my head. It dripped down, leaving trails of wet stench in my hair, on my face, touching my mouth, running onto my clothes.

I seethed.

Still I was frozen in place. My body didn’t move, but my eyes bored holes in Lawrence as he laughed, shook the bottle empty, and then tossed it aside, pumping his fist as it shattered on the cracked pavement. As he turned and walked to the car, my eyes burned like lasers through his back. He opened the rear door and dropped his ugly, ignorant, hateful dumb ass inside, and my eyes blazed fury at him, at them all.

I knew I could kill them with my mind.

I
wanted
to kill them with my mind.

The car dropped into gear and lurched forward, spitting gravel out behind it as Roger revved the engine. Passing close beside me, Roger shouted something inane and vulgar that I don’t even remember. The car turned away from me, shooting little rocks into my shins and coughing up dust as it picked up speed. Roger headed out toward the main road, to the stop sign where he could either turn left onto the long straightaway of Route 22, which became Tucker Street downtown, or head right, up and over the hill that led out of town.

Just before Roger reached the stop sign, I saw the police car, far off to the left, coming down Route 22. I was sure Roger could see the cop, too, and I knew his brakes lights would come on in the next second or two. He was going to stop calmly at the intersection, let the police car pass, and be on his way. Off scot-free. That bastard and his bastard friends.

Like an omen, a wet blob of reeking ash and saliva fell from my hair, past my eyes.

Furious, I clenched my teeth and took a half step forward, arms arched back, body leaning ahead, as if I were aiming my mind.

But I didn’t kill them. I did something much, much worse.

For just a second, just a split second too long, I made Roger’s foot freeze, holding down the gas pedal.

His car flew past the stop sign and out onto Route 22, right in front of the cop. Happy with my little plan, I relented. Suddenly back in control, Roger slammed on the brakes, coming to an awkward, lurching stop in a kind of diagonal roadblock across both lanes of traffic. The cop, too, hit the brakes hard, turning slightly to his right, sliding to a halt only a few feet from Roger’s car.

And the world paused.

For perhaps a full second, maybe two, the cars sat cockeyed in the road, like mirror images slashing the pavement. I was too far away to see their faces, but I could imagine the scene: one car full of stunned teenagers reeking of pot and beer, the other car with a suddenly very angry cop.

Then the driver’s door on the black-and-white police cruiser clicked open. When I remember it now, I think that click unlocked the world again, set events moving, events I wish I could take back.

God, I wish I could take it all back.

He must not have seen a thing, or at least not until it was too late. I wish I could believe he didn’t
feel anything
, but I have a very good imagination. I can imagine that last moment. I can imagine his gasp, his terror, his pain. He felt it. He felt what I did to him.

A silver economy sedan appeared on the right, and for a second I didn’t even realize who it was. I just watched as some yahoo came over the hill at a good speed, heading toward town. Then the car began to look familiar. Very familiar. Too familiar. It was my father, driving home after work. He wasn’t flooring it, but he was definitely above the speed limit. Why not? Usually the road was just about deserted, and straight as a rail in most spots.

But today, two cars blocked his path.

I heard the squeal and saw him swerve, too hard, to his right. The nose of his car ducked down, dropping into the ditch beside the road as he skidded past Roger’s car. I saw the police officer — I know him by name now, Sergeant Alan Durso — as he sprang out of his cruiser, whipping off his sunglasses. Then my dad’s car flew up, the rear end trying to maintain the velocity that the front end had just lost. I saw the dark underside of the car take to the air in a sudden burst of dirt and smoke. The car turned end over end, a pinwheel in a strong breeze, a toy car thrown by an angry toddler. A loud, dull pop sounded as the car landed on its roof amid the bushes of the roadside embankment. Dirt, grass, glass, and other debris rained down, and then finally the car was still.

The world paused again. Not the whole world, probably, but definitely mine.

My father was pronounced dead at the scene, from multiple traumatic injuries, at 6:27 p.m. that day.