The Book of Joby (37 page)

He pushed the stall door open, and found Jamie Lindwald standing in his way.

“Joby, what’s up?” Jamie demanded.

“I’m late for class.” He tried to walk past, but Jamie stepped into his path again.

“I been watchin’ you all day, Joby. What the hell is wrong?”

“Nothing, Jamie,” Joby mumbled. “Please get out of my way.”

“Not ’til you tell me what’s goin’ on,” Jamie insisted. “You look awful.”

Joby began to feel angry. Since that party two years before, their friendship had been tenuous at best. So why the hell should Jamie suddenly be so concerned
now
?

“Jamie, I don’t wanna talk right now—to anyone, okay? Just let me go to class.”

“You know your problem?” Jamie said. “You always gotta be the hero—always givin’, never takin’. You were the first person in my whole life who ever tried to be my friend, Joby, but I don’t get to be
yours
now, do I. I just get to feel
grateful.
’S that it?”

“Jamie!”
Joby snarled. “
My whole life is fucked!
You can’t
begin
to
imagine
what a
fuckup
I am! So take your
hero
shit, and ram it up your nose, ’cause you never came
close
to fuckin’ up like me!”

“Whadaya think?” Jamie pressed. “
I’m
gonna look down on
you
? Come on, Joby. Gimme a chance. Whatever you did, I done worse, or . . . or I owe you fifty bucks.”

The offer’s absurdity almost made Joby smile, but he remembered what he’d done, and his capacity to smile fled again. Suddenly, it seemed right though, to have to say it aloud, to let Jamie see what he truly was, like the beginning of some kind of penance. He looked Jamie squarely in the eye, determined to spare himself nothing, and said, “I slept with Laura Friday night after the prom.”

Jamie looked incredulous, then blurted out, “
That’s
what all this is about? I wondered why you been running off like that everytime you saw her comin’.
Joby!
You should be the happiest guy on campus!”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Joby sighed, realizing that he’d just dragged Laura’s reputation through the mud as well. “If you meant what you said about being my friend,” he said, “
please,
don’t tell
anyone
about this. For Laura’s sake, if not for mine.” He hung his head and turned to go. “I should never have said anything.”

“No, Joby! Wait a minute!” Jamie moved to plant himself in Joby’s path again. “I’m sorry. I know how much bein’ good matters to you. I
like
that about you. But, there’s stuff
you
don’t get either!” He began steering Joby toward the door. “Give me ten minutes, okay? Then, you can go jump off a bridge if you want.”

What the hell,
Joby thought. It was too late to go to class now anyway.

Moments later they were sitting on a patch of half-dead grass out behind the wood-shop trailer. Lindwald had talked all the way there with such unexpected frankness and sensitivity that Joby had begun to feel a little better despite himself.

“You try too hard to be
perfect
!” Lindwald insisted. “Whoever said you couldn’t make any mistakes?
No one’s
perfect!” He sat up and grinned at Joby. “Ben’s slept with Rebecca, you know. You think God’s gonna send
him
to Hell?”

“No he didn’t!” Joby gaped.

“Yes he did,” Lindwald insisted. “Cross my heart and hope to go to Hell.”

“He’d have told me!” Joby said.

“You think he’d tell
Mr. Perfect
a thing like
that
?” Lindwald scoffed. “That’s what I mean, Joby. Even your best friend’s afraid to tell you stuff, but if
you’re ready to start carin’ about somethin’ besides bein’ the school’s top
egghead,
maybe you can finally
belong
! See?” He shook his head good-naturedly.

Joby was so wrung out, he didn’t know what to think.
Benjamin
had done this with
Rebecca
? Joby couldn’t imagine God throwing Ben in Hell. Moreover, it suddenly dawned on him that Jamie’s revelation hadn’t lowered his own opinion of Ben either.

“Tell you what, bro!” Jamie announced. “Now that you finally got a life, we should go celebrate! I know someone who can get us a couple six-packs. We’ll go out to my personal spot, have a few laughs, loosen up, howl at the moon a little! Hell, Joby! Now you finally been
born,
you gotta come out an’ get
baptized
!”

Joby shook his head. “I’m in enough trouble already, Jamie. I don’t think breaking the law is—”

“Joby, what does it take to get through your thick skull? Your ‘perfect’ days are over, and I bet even
God’s
relieved! You finally got
laid, bro
!” he crowed. “You’re a
man
now! So you’re gonna worry about one or two little sips of
beer
?”

“It’s—not—
legal,
Jamie.”

Jamie looked at him askance. “For chrissake, Joby. We’re
seniors
! You think
anybody
at that college you’re goin’ to won’t be drinkin’? The cops ain’t gonna arrest the whole freshman class at Berkeley, are they?” He shook his head. “Just one little time ’fore we’re outta high school, let’s go celebrate
life,
huh?
Your
life!”

Joby stared at his friend as if seeing him for the first time.

“Tell you what,” Jamie announced. “I’ll only have one beer. That way, you can leave your mom’s car at home, and I’ll be your
designated driver.
Isn’t that
responsible
?”

Joby had never guessed how really
enjoyable
Lindwald’s company could be! Amazing, outrageously . . . really
bitchin’
company!

In fact, it seemed that six or seven beers with Jamie had done more for Joby than many years of counseling. There was something
tremendously
therapeutic about needing such utter concentration just to . . . to walk . . . upright. He had no attention left to spare for any of the other things he was so glad not to be able to think about while he was . . . walking . . . but . . . he didn’t care, because the other good thing about being drunk was that all he felt was one big, warm, drowsy buzz, much too large to leave room for any other
feelings, like the ones he was so happy not to be feeling now, while . . . while Jamie was laughing . . . at
him,
Joby realized, and laughed too, then went sprawling to the ground, scattering his armload of empty beer cans in all directions, and laughing even harder. It felt
so good
to laugh!

“Good-bye, Mr. Perfect,”
Joby burbled as Jamie helped him to his feet, and stuck a few of the fallen beer cans back into his arms. Jamie’s “personal spot” had been a small clearing in the woods outside of town; and, drunk or not, Joby had seen no point in leaving piles of trash to spoil such a pretty place. Jamie, who had consumed much more than one beer after all, had found the idea of cleaning the place up hilarious, and enthusiastically gathered not just their own empty cans, but many of the moldering beer cartons left by “previous campers.”

The hike out seemed far longer than the hike in had been, and Joby’s ability to walk had improved a lot by the time they got to Jamie’s truck. So had his ability to think.

“Come on.” Jamie grinned as they dumped their empty cans and cartons into the bed of his truck. “We can drive around awhile before I drop you at Ben’s. That way, you won’t show up there lookin’ as wasted as you do now.”

“You don’t look so good yourself.” Joby frowned. “I don’t think we should drive anywhere yet. Why don’t we just hang out here for a while, ’til this stuff wears off?”

“Don’t talk dumb, Joby. Beer ain’t new to me like it is to you. I’m nowhere
near
too heated to drive! Get in.” He yanked the driver’s door open, jumped up behind the wheel, and reached across to unlock the passenger door.

“Jamie, I’m just gonna walk,” Joby said.

“I ain’t spendin’ no two hours walkin’ around,” Jamie complained, “and I ain’t waitin’ around for you to come back here when you figure out what a dumb-ass you are neither. So what’s it gonna be?”

“I’m walkin’, Jamie,” Joby said irritably. “And
you
shouldn’t be drivin’.”

“Suit yourself,” Jamie growled. “You sure still got a lot to learn about loosenin’ up.” Without further ceremony, he started the engine and left Joby in a spray of gravel.

Joby watched him go, pissed that Jamie could be such a pal one minute and such a bastard the next. When his eyes recovered from the glare of Jamie’s headlights, he discovered there was enough light from the nearby town to see the road by, and began the long walk to Ben’s house.

After half an hour of walking, his pleasant buzz had given way to sore feet and growing fatigue, but the evening had left him clear about
one
thing: He
loved Laura. He had always loved Laura, just as he knew she had always loved him, and what they had done on Friday night had been purely wonderful. He wondered how it had taken him so long to see what had been right there in front of his face.

He was going to marry her. He knew that now with every molecule in his body. The decision was no frivolous by-product of his fading inebriation. It was the most quietly sober, absolutely
right
decision he had ever made in his life. If he could find some way to fix things after the way he’d acted, he’d ask her to marry him right away. They could go to Berkeley together, or he’d apply to Brown with her; it didn’t matter. Father Richter had told him to learn to love her without lust. Well, he’d spent two years doing just that. Wasn’t that long enough? Wasn’t it time for “the easy part” now?

With that decided, he walked on through the lamp-lit town feeling lighter than he could remember feeling ever before. His feet hardly seemed to touch the pavement now. His head was clear. The night seemed beautiful. He even felt ready to face his mother, now that he knew what to tell her. She loved Laura too, after all.

Lucifer hovered over the viewing bowl in his office, watching Lindwald climb into his truck to leave Joby behind in the dark.

“Lindwald, my dear friend,” he murmured, as if the damned soul’s watery image could hear him, “you’ve played your small part beyond my wildest expectations, every line, parroted to perfection. It’s time for that reward I promised you.” Lucifer chuckled in delicious anticipation. “It’s a little joke, actually, just between the three of us. Alas, poor Joby will not likely get it,” he grimaced in mock regret, “and only
I’ll
have time to laugh.”

As he watched, the Triangle joined Lindwald in the scene; one to hold Jamie in his seat, lest he leap out of the truck and spoil it all; one to steer his truck toward the embankment; and one to light the spark in his gas tank. Lucifer shook his head and
tsk
ed. Given the incredibly thorough illusion of flesh in which Lindwald was trapped, this was probably going to hurt . . . a lot.