Flake laughs.
“I don't think he's just bullshitting,” I tell him. It sounds like I just wanted an excuse to call, which pisses me off more than it should. “He had a knife in his pack on Thursday,” I add.
“What kind of knife?” Flake wants to know.
“A big one,” I go. “The kind you use on fish.”
“On
fish
?” he says.
“His dad does have a gun,” I tell him. “And Dipstick knows where it is. And he's a crazy fuck.”
“Well, that's true,” Flake admits.
“I'm thinking he'd screw it up for us,” I tell him.
Flake's quiet, thinking about it.
“Hello?” I go.
“Maybe he would,” he goes. “That's certainly the kind of shit that always happens to us,” he adds after a minute.
“So?” I go.
“So what'd you tell him?” he asks.
“I told him not to talk stupid,” I go.
He sneezes. “What else you tell him?” he asks. I hear him wiping his nose.
“I told him he couldn't just get a gun,” I go.
My mom comes into my room and sits down. No knock, nothing. I wave her out. She shakes her head. “We have to talk,” she whispers, exaggerating her mouth movements, I guess so I can read her lips.
“What'd he say?” Flake wants to know.
“He didn't say anything,” I tell him.
“Hmm,” he goes.
“Who're you talking to?” my mom mouths.
“I think we gotta talk to him,” I go.
“I'll talk with him, all right,” Flake goes.
“I gotta go,” I tell him.
“Think he'd really do it?” he asks.
“I gotta go,” I tell him again.
“What's the matter?” he goes.
“Is that Flake?” my mom asks in a regular voice.
“Is that your mother?” Flake goes.
“Yeah,” I go, to both of them.
“She been listening this whole time?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him.
“Jesus Christ,” he goes, like there's no end to my stupidity. “Call me back, asshole.” He hangs up.
It turns out my mom wants to talk about my dad. She's worried about him because he's worried about me.
I listen to her outline the problem for a while. The whole thing depresses me.
“You have anything to contribute?” she finally asks.
I shrug, which is not what she was looking for. She gives me a look and tells me more stuff about how sad he's been. He hasn't been sleeping either, or working on his book.
“I'm sorry about that,” I tell her. Because I am.
“I realize it feels like you have a lot to deal with right now,” she goes.
Feels like? I think: I shouldn't get mad.
She says she has a proposal. The family should go somewhere for Thanksgiving, somewhere cool. Have Thanksgiving somewhere else, for once.
“Does that sound like a good idea?” she wants to know. She pulls her hair back behind her head and holds it tight with both hands. She doesn't let go.
“It sounds good,” I tell her. She asks where we should go.
I don't have a lot of ideas right there and then.
“Where would you like to go?” she asks. “Wherever it is, it'd be nice to surprise your dad.” She has this look on her face like she's carrying something that already spilled.
“The beach,” I tell her. “Somewhere warm.” I have no idea where that came from.
“The beach,” she says, surprised. I can see her already thinking about it. “All right, the beach.”
I'm still amazed by what comes out of my mouth sometimes, but it doesn't matter. By Thanksgiving, everything'll have changed.
“We had a good talk,” I hear her tell my dad. They're downstairs with the TV on, and she keeps her voice low.
“Remember the summer we went to Six Flags?” Flake says, instead of hello, when he calls back. “My parents took us?”
“Yep,” I go. It's eleven o'clock on a school night, and I'm dripping. I was taking a shower because I was bored. I can't decide whether to wash the rest of the soap off or consider the shower over.
Toward the end of the day we got stuck on the Ferris wheel about twenty feet off the ground. It just stopped turning. Some guys came to work on it below us. We were up there so long the sun started to go down. We could see some girls from our grade, including Bethany, in the car across from us. Flake had had a shitload to drink and had to piss superbad. He waited as long as he could and then grabbed a big cup on the floor of the car and let go. The cup filled up and he was still pissing. “Take it, take it,” he said to me. “No fucking way,” I said back and finally he had to stand up, still pissing, and throw the cup. It got all over both of us. The people in the car below us screamed. The guys working on the Ferris wheel yelled up at us that they were going to kill us once they got us down. The girls told everybody they ever knew once we got back, and then those people told everybody
they
ever knew.
“Why you bringing that up now?” I go.
My dad comes up the stairs and looks at me in the hall. He turns around and goes back down. “Your son's standing around balls naked dripping on the carpet,” I hear him tell my mom.
“What were we, in fifth grade?” Flake asks. “I always think about that day.”
“Why?” I go. I can think of lots of days that were equally bad.
“I don't know,” he goes. “I don't know what it is about it.”
My mom comes to the bottom of the stairs and looks at me for a while. “Your brother's
sleeping,
” she tells me.
I don't know why I'm still in the hall. I go into my bedroom and shut the door.
She comes upstairs and opens the door a crack. “Get something on,” she says. “You're gonna catch pneumonia.”
“Is it because Bethany was there?” I ask Flake.
“Nah,” he goes. It sounds like it hadn't occurred to him.
“Get something
on,
” my mom goes.
“Hey, did Bethany give you something today?” I ask. “Like a note?”
“No,” he goes.
“Yesterday?” I go.
“No,” he goes.
He doesn't ask what I'm talking about.
My mom opens the door wider and comes in and drags a sweatshirt out of my dresser and pulls it over my head. I have to switch hands with the phone when she stuffs my arms in the sleeves. Then she goes downstairs and leaves me there, in a sweatshirt and no underpants.
The next morning Flake finds me before I'm even completely off the bus. “Let's go talk with Tiny Tot,” he says.
The sixth-graders hanging around the baseball backstop see us coming and keep an eye on us. Hermie's not around and we don't feel like asking anybody where he is. Flake heads off to the front of the building and sure enough, we find him there in a tree.
“What's up, Screw the System?” Flake calls up to him.
“Nothing,” Hermie says. He's trying for nonchalant but he's happy and worried that we came looking for him.
This was a bad move, I realize, standing there. Now whenever he wants our attention he'll go back to the gun thing. I put my hands in my pockets and there's a hole I never noticed. Two fingers go through to my leg.
Most of the leaves are still on the tree so when he moves his expression's hard to see. He's trying to climb but you can hear his sneakers slipping on the bark. Little twigs and dead leaves float down like snowflakes.
“Are those lights on your sneakers?” Flake goes.
Hermie doesn't answer him.
“Hear you're still having trouble with that kid,” Flake goes.
“What kid?” Hermie says.
“You want our help or not?” Flake asks him.
“What're you going to do?” Hermie asks him back.
I look at Flake. I'm a little curious myself.
“We'll deal with it,” Flake goes.
There's a big slipping sound and Hermie falls a few feet. A couple heavy branches swing a little. “Ow,” he goes. I can see him rubbing something. “Why're you guys helping
me
?” he asks.
“That's what we do,” Flake goes. He holds up both his bandaged fingers to the school. “We help people.”
Hermie laughs.
“I say something funny?” Flake goes.
“Yeah,” Hermie says.
“So point him out to us,” Flake goes.
“What're you going to do, poke him in the eye with your bandage?” I ask. He gives me a look.
“I hurt my butt,” Hermie complains.
“That's the bell,” Flake goes, though I didn't hear it. “Show us who this kid is after school.”
“I think I broke my butt,” Hermie says.
Flake jogs to the front doors and I follow him. “I know how that feels,” I call back to Hermie.
“Hey, help me get down,” Hermie shouts, right before the doors shut behind us.
Flake and I get a chance to talk between second and third periods.
“We gotta only talk about the kid,” Flake goes. “If we talk about the gun, it'll make it a big deal.”
“That's what I was thinking,” I tell him. He nods. “But we can't go beating up sixth-graders,” I tell him. He nods again, like he thought of that, too.
He's kind of a hero for the rest of the day because word gets out that when they took the class picture for the eighth grade, homeroom by homeroom on the bleachers in the gym, at the last minute he held up both his bandaged fingers. Everybody's figuring it'll come out in the photos. Everybody's coming up to him in the halls and congratulating him, even ninth-graders and assholes like Dickhead and Weensie. After school he's in a really good mood.
“Hear you gave them the finger in the photos,” Hermie says when he finds us outside. The buses are starting to fill up.
“Yeah, whatever,” Flake goes. “So where is this kid?”
“Over here,” Hermie says, and leads us two buses over. He points to a kid sitting in the back window. He doesn't try to hide that he's pointing him out to us.
“Him?” Flake goes. The kid looks smaller than Hermie, if that's possible. “I can barely see his head in the window.”
“I didn't say he was a giant,” Hermie says, insulted. “I said he beats me up.”
Flake looks at me like somebody's asking us to gang up on Gus. “We're on the job,” he goes to Hermie. “Mr. Hermie's sleeping well from tomorrow night on.”
“Herman,” Hermie tells him.
“Herman,” Flake tells him back.
“So listen,” Flake says to Budzinski once we get him alone. After we found his house we watched him shoot baskets with some of his tiny friends. They hacked around for an hour and a half and I think they made three baskets. They saw us watching. When the other kids finally left we walked over. Budzinski took one more sad hook shot and then put the basketball away and came out of the garage with a hammer.
“Feel like driving some nails?” Flake goes.
“What do you want?” Budzinski says.
“Can I see that?” I ask him, like I've never seen a hammer before. Budzinki hands it over.
So the three of us are standing in his driveway with me holding his hammer. Somebody looks out the window screen near the back door.
I hold up the hammer like that's the reason we came over. “This is a beaut,” I tell him.
“So listen,” Flake goes.
“I'm listening,” Budzinski tells him.
They look at each other.
Flake makes this grin like he wants to pound the kid's head in. “You know that kid Herman?” he asks.
Budzinski just looks at him.
“About your size?” Flake asks.
“Yeah,” Budzinski finally goes.
“He's a friend of ours,” Flake tells him.
“Yeah?” Budzinski says. He sounds interested.
“Well, we watch out for him sometimes,” Flake goes. “He's such a doofy little shit.”
“You got that right,” Budzinski says. He looks like he's trying to decide whether or not to laugh at us. If he does Flake'll take the hammer out of my hand and kill him right in his own driveway.
“He can be a pain in the ass sometimes,” Flake goes.
“You got that right, too,” Budzinski tells him.
“We were hoping you'd cut him some slack for the next few weeks,” Flake says.
“Why should I?” Budzinski goes.
“Because if you don't we'll kick your ass,” Flake tells him.
“I'll kick your ass,” Budzinski tells him back.
The top of the kid's head comes up to like Flake's armpit. “Is the whole sixth grade fucking nuts?” Flake asks me.
“Get out of my yard,” Budzinski goes. “Mom!” he calls.
“What's the matter?” his mother says from behind the screen in the window.
“Get outta my yard,” Budzinski goes again.
“We tried to ask you nice,” Flake tells him.
“I'm calling the police,” Budzinski's mother says through the screen.
“Call the police,” Flake tells her. “Call the fucking National Guard.”
“Don't you talk to me like that,” his mother says. She leaves the window and shows up at the back door. “What's your name?”
“Ed Gein,” Flake tells her. “Tell the police Ed Gein was here and that he wants your son.”
“And what's your name?” she says to me.
“Richard Speck,” I tell her.
“Gimme my hammer back,” Budzinski tells me.
I throw it into the yard.
“Asshole,” he goes.
“I'm dialing,” his mother says from inside the house.
The garbage cans at the end of the driveway are empty but Flake kicks them over anyway.
“That didn't work out too well,” I tell him on the way home.
“Now he's really gonna go after Hermie,” Flake says to himself.
I just keep walking. The hole in my pocket is bigger.
“Fucking cocksucking motherfucking dickbag dildo cuntsuckers,” Flake goes.
I don't have much to say to that so I let it go. He makes the same point a few more times on the way home.