The Heart Does Not Grow Back: A Novel (7 page)

I didn’t know if Mack was there yet, and didn’t know what it would feel like when I saw him again. Maybe relief? Was I waiting for him, hoping for him to show up, or dreading it? I didn’t know. I guzzled the beer, bitter as all hell, but it was the effect that appealed, not the taste, that rebellious feeling of knowing it was an adult, forbidden thing to do.

Some basketball players were dealing cards at the kitchen table, playing a drinking game. The bump of the stereo’s bass shook the bones of the old house. The treble was drowned out by the chatter of increasingly drunk teenagers. People were filing in from the porch. New guests bought cups and filled them up at the keg. I was left wandering around in silence, wondering just what the fuck I intended on doing. Regina was nowhere to be found, and was I really going to open a conversation with her by asking if she sucked off my best friend? I couldn’t tell if she liked him or hated him. I couldn’t tell if she liked me and had no idea what the note might mean. Mack always said it’s all the same, that the girls who have hated him the most ended up falling the hardest when he turned on the jets, but hate was an emotion, a reaction, something I truly hadn’t elicited from Regina. At least, not yet. I had hope. I had the note. Tonight I would know for sure. I was standing in the archway between the kitchen and dining room, feeling the eyes of a corner group tilting my way, perhaps wondering among themselves what I was doing at the party. I figured it was a good time to take an oh-so-cool swig of brew. I drank deeply, moving my throat on purpose, like in a beer commercial, to let anyone watching know that yeah, Dale Sampson was gulping down some major beer.
Check it out folks, I’m no pussy drinker, I’m not nursing, I’m not drinking for appearances. I’m here for the beer. That’s how I roll.

Someone slapped the bottom of my cup, driving it upward, sending a tidal wave of beer into my face, the burn of carbonation stinging my nostrils. The empty cup fell to the hardwood. Beer was everywhere, mostly on me, a bib of wetness spreading on my chest, and now more people were looking.

Clint Phillips was laughing his ass off.

“Hey, asshole, who’s gonna clean that shit up?” Ted said. He jumped down from his post on the counter, leaving the keg unattended. Thank God. If he and Clint got into it, I could just slip out.

“Yeah, who’s gonna clean that shit up, you clumsy fuck?” Clint said to me.

Ted regarded the two of us and sighed. “Sampson, clean that mess up then get out.” I could tell he didn’t want to say it, but had to due to some sort of social code that dictated that he side with the disgraced senior instead of the dorky junior. I wished Mack were there. He never would have stood for this, blowjob betrayal or not.

“Where’s your lover, Dale?” Clint said. “We’re going to have us a little talk. I never see you without Tucker around, and that’s who I mean to have words with.”

“Like on the baseball diamond? Those words looked to hurt.”

He pushed me, but I stood my ground.

“He didn’t do anything,” a girl said in protest—Joanie Herrel, a classmate I recognized but didn’t truly know. A few other people who never talked to me muttered in approval, sort of taking my side, but not taking a stand.

“I’ll let you off the hook,” Clint said. “Just tell me where Mack is. He coming to the party?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

He pushed me again. “Fuckin’ smartass. You look like you need another footprint on your face.”

The haze of anger built inside of me, muddling words and images except for Clint’s jaw—that naked, exposed, punchable jaw. Clint was telling everyone how gay I was, how I was quiet because the only thing I liked to talk about was Mack’s dick. He spoke through a smile, the parted lips that had kissed Regina, perhaps in more places than just her lips.

“I know why you’re looking for Mack,” I said.

Clint stopped talking. He didn’t know that I knew, and he didn’t want the entire party knowing that Regina was cheating on him. I thought I had him, but guys like Clint don’t get had—they’ll fall on the sword before someone can stick them with it.

“Because Regina’s been blowing him? That’s exactly right. I should have known he’d tell his little lover. I just want to talk to him about it. Man to man. So far the only thing I found out was from Regina. She told me his dick tasted a lot like your asshole.”

I cracked him with a right hook and felt his jaw shift under the force of the blow, giving me the satisfying feel of flesh and bone moving with my fist, the bundle of nerves in his chin twisting with the impact. A moan of air burst from his lungs as he fell, unconscious before he hit the ground. He was out cold, his feet twitching as he sprawled on the floor.

“Give me a roll of paper towels and I’ll clean this up,” I said. Ted was stunned, but he turned around and walked into the kitchen. Everyone else just kind of stared, wondering what would happen when Clint stirred.

He was only out a few seconds when he planted his hands and tried to push himself up, so I snapped another punch into the side of his face, this time catching the hollow of his orbital bone, dropping him again. He made a wheezing sound like a leaking accordion.

I backed off, hands up, signaling I was finished, fearing I went one punch too far. I created space as he tried to get up again.

“It’s all cool if he doesn’t come at me again.”

I heard someone say, “He had that shit coming.”

Clint stumbled to his feet, looking unsteady, his pupils fat, broken blood vessels inflating the flesh of his right eye. A rosy patch was on his cheek—it would undoubtedly turn into the darkness of a full bruise by morning.

He looked around. Everyone had sucked in closer to the walls and one another, as if he were giving off an invisible force that created space around him.

“Enough of this shit,” Ted said, glaring at me. Clint grabbed him, trying to steady himself, intent on staying upright.

“That was a mistake,” Clint said. He shuffled to the door, smiling at me. Blood was thick in the channels of his teeth. He shambled out, his footsteps loud on the hardwood, echoing in the now-silent party. I believed him. I’d met that man before, the one fascinated by playing chicken with a shotgun. That was almost two years ago. Who was he now? How close did the danger have to be before the high was gone, before he had to see and feel something far more terrible to get his high? The moment wasn’t any triumph for me. Festivities resumed. Partiers still talked to one another about the incident, rather than to me. I sat at the bottom of the living-room stairs and put my head in my hands, the thrum of adrenaline hot in my fingertips. The shakes came over me as I came down from the confrontation, an urge to cry catching fire in my bones. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check. Still no sign of Regina. Once I collected myself, I planned on leaving, slipping out through the dark, making my way home without looking back.

The party continued to regulate itself back to normal. The music got louder, as if to urge everyone to move along. With the cover of the crowd, I got to the front door and went out.

Mack was in the driveway, at the bottom of the porch steps, holding on to the neck of a whiskey bottle. Two guys were talking to him. They all looked up at me.

“You cool?” Mack asked. I wanted to sob, to let the tension pour out of me in tears and heaves, but I kept it choked down, nodding instead of talking. The dam would break if I opened my mouth.

He handed the whiskey bottle to one of the guys, then waved me over.

“How’d you get here?”

“I walked,” I said.

“Jesus,” Mack said. “I’ll give you a ride home if you want, man.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“So you handed him his ass,” he said. We left the light of the porch. Nothing but the crunch of the gravel, the darkness, and voices heavy with an urge to mend.

“Mack Tucker–style,” I said, wiping at my eyes.

“That’s what I hear. Must have fucked him up good. He backed into Ted’s mailbox on the way out with his truck.”

We got into Old Gray, fully loaded with one headlight, a sagging headliner, and a radio that didn’t work.

“No Regina?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“I was telling you the truth.”

I let this revelation marinate in silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me until today?”

“There’s no good time, I guess. I just figured you’d just move past her. Then it wouldn’t matter when you found out. I don’t really like her or anything. And I know it probably hurt you, and it’s going to seem stupid and pointless when I tell her I don’t give a fuck about her, because that’s the truth. But I’m not a good guy when it comes to that shit. She came on to me. God as my witness, she did, and then this horny part of me convinced me it was okay to say yes, to let her do it, because it would somehow rescue you. The minute I blew my load—which is an honest moment, man—I knew I fucked up. Loads reload. That’s the problem with guys, especially ones like me.”

I stared out the window into the tree lines and fields whispering past.

“You remember your master plan?” I said. “The twins plan? Pick one? I take one, you take the other? What happened to that?”

“Shit, it might have worked on accident. I think Raeanna likes you,” he said. “Makes sense. She’s a quiet one, a smart one. Just like you. She’s just as hot as Regina and she’s never had her mouth on my dick. It’s like hitting the Refresh button on the whole situation.”

“That supposed to make me feel better about what you did?”

He slammed on the truck’s brakes, cutting hard to the shoulder of the blacktop road. Another car zipped past, not even flinching at the sight of a car pulled over on a road like this one—in this town, on this road, if you’re pulled over at night, someone’s either puking, fucking, or passed out.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You have an awfully strange way of protecting me.” I opened the door and stepped into the high, itchy grass of the ditch. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“It’s no fun being stuck on one chick, man.” He got out of the car and jogged to catch up with me. “It was twisted, but what I’m saying is it was my bad and if you want to go after Regina, if she means that much, then go after her. Before you get all hissy, let’s be honest, she was Clint’s girl at the time, not yours. You said she left you a note? To tell you something? Well, do you want to hear it or not?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do. Good news or bad, I gotta hear it.”

“Then let’s go do the shit, man. You’re a walking-tall, bad motherfucker tonight. You pegged Clint your own damn self, so go unleash a little swagger. Put the Regina thing to rest, one way or another. You might even score with someone else—hello, Raeanna—before the night is over. Come on, man! Think legendary. I got your back.”

He said it with a conviction that made it feel possible.

“Can I just take a walk?” I said. I needed to think about it, and it felt good to walk alone under the wild moonlight in the clean air you can only get in a country field at night. I kept walking, heading toward the dark of the tree line, trying my best to breathe and clear my mind. When I looked behind me, the parking lights of the truck glittered low and yellow in the night. I started to get close to the trees, close to the true dark. I turned back. The truck grumbled, spitting exhaust that gathered like a phantom in the darkness.

He cheered me on as I approached. I got in the truck and he started back for the party. It was really happening—we were going back. I kept looking for that sheet of dread and nervousness to settle into me, but it never came. The adrenaline, the ache of my fist, the aftershock of my anger and emotion had blunted my fear.

Honestly, I didn’t fucking care—I still wanted Regina. I still liked her. I didn’t mind being a third choice. I was ready to grab her by the waist and kiss her. In fact, that’s exactly what I intended to do—I had seen it in the movies, and it always seemed to work well there. Maybe she’d pull away, give me a slap to the face, and then kiss me again, deeper this time. Whatever that meant. Maybe we would walk to my house that night, hand in hand, and with my mother at work, we’d make love in my very own bed, where I’d fantasized about her—about her affection, about the possibility of her, an unsoiled fantasy who would turn real before my eyes.

Mack whipped in behind the first dormant car he saw, flicking off his lights and hopping out as if sharing the inspiration of my moment.

It was a long walk back to the party. I was ready, maybe even changed. I often wonder what life would have been like if that boy had lived—the boy who just defeated the bully, the boy who was blossoming into an athlete, the boy who was rising in such a way as to threaten his overbearing best friend, the boy who had held a note from one of the prettiest girls in school. Where would he be now, I wonder?

With Mack at his side and the world unfurling before him, that boy started a long walk that he would not survive.

SEVEN

At the mouth of the driveway, I stopped at the faint sound of a bell ringing out tones in rapid succession, the sound of a vehicle reminding the owner that the keys were left in the ignition. I heard the squeal of a girl but couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain.

Mack stopped as well. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the source of the noises—farther down the eastern side of the road, where more parked cars were lined up. In the distance, a dome light highlighted moving shadows in the cab of a truck. We eased closer, covered by the dark. The blacktop was a hot plate, releasing the heat of the day in invisible waves, our footfalls dampened by the sun-softened tar.

We got closer. I saw the shadow of a moving head, heard the sound of a buckle clinking, a man grunting. The moon’s light was useless, blocked by the high treetops flanking the road. Where the trees gave way to open fields, pockets of white fog hovered over the earth, the coolness of the night sucking them out, trapping them until the breeze or morning sun could dissolve them.

I heard flesh rapping against flesh, the rhythm of the blows in unison with the rabbitlike chatter of the bell. More grunting.