The Summer I Died: A Thriller (4 page)

She hit his hand away and stood up.
“
Fuck off, Mervyn. Touch me again and I’ll knock out the rest of your teeth.
”

Mervyn. That was Tooth’s real name, and also the reason he preferred to be called Tooth. He said
“
Mervyn
”
sounded too much like a verb. Jamie stormed out of the room and stomped up the stairs muttering,
“
Stupid geeks,
”
under her breath.

“
Nice move, Tooth.
”

“
I figured that’d work. But I wasn’t lying either. Your sis is looking fine.
”

Truth was my sister was very attractive, and it was starting to make me nervous. She had her driver’s permit now, and I couldn’t help feeling, well, almost paternal. When she took the car out to the movies the day after I got home, it was like some giant spider had dropped down from nowhere and spun me up in a web of concern. I wanted to fight it, because I couldn’t stand my sister most of the time, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling. I didn’t need to dissect it; it came from knowing what a teenage boy thinks about
—
Fucking. One day you’re walking down the school corridor thinking about the new
Gen 13/X-Force
crossover, the next you look up and see Lucy Graves’ tits. And from that moment on, everything you see, whether it’s a chalk eraser or a folding chair, it all looks like Lucy. And you want to fuck it.

I hated to admit it, but I cared about Jamie, and I didn’t want someone like Tooth
—
who was pretty much
representative of
the entire male population of our small town
—
getting close to her. She was all fire and spunk now, but I remember what I was like as a teenager, thinking I knew everything and nobody could teach me shit I didn’t already know. Then I got to college and, well, you grow up real quick in college, learn what it means to be alone and irresponsible. You see things you only dream about
—
orgies, drugs, social upheaval, rape. It makes you think. It makes you realize how dumb you were in high school, and how unaware today’s high schoolers are. Yeah, Jamie was all fired up, but only because she hadn’t seen the downpour of the real world.

“
Man, I’m hungry again.
”
Tooth looked at me with that look that said if I didn’t do his bidding he was going to keep bugging me till I did. I hated that look.
“
That dude at the packy got me all worked up. Feel
like I could eat the world. Y
ou got any Doritos or anything?
”

I went into the kitchen and found some chips and dip and we munched for a while.

CHAPTER 4

The movie we watched that night was
The Thing
,
John Carpenter’s classic horror film about a mutating alien that attacks an Arctic research station. With the exception of
Big Trouble In Little China
,
I consider it the last good film Kurt Russell ever made. The original version,
The Thing From Another World
, directed by Christian Nyby and starring James Arness as the alien, still holds up by many standards, but does not compare to Carpenter’s generous use of effects
—
but I’m kind of a movie elitist so take that as you will. We’d both seen it a bunch of times, but it was still as
good as the first time
.

Tooth asked me the same question he always asked, at the part when one of the research team
is
sitting in the snow looking nice and normal, with the exception of having an alien arm, and is clearly not human. Circled around him, his friends struggle with whether or not he’s still their friend.
“
Would you kill me if it was me and you weren’t sure?
”

“
Yup.
”

“
Good thing, because you’d be the first one I capture. Make you toss salad in an alien prison.
”

We laughed.

Jamie came down once to get something out of the refrigerator and looked at us as if she were trying to shoot liquid shit from her eyes onto our heads. She was dressed in boxer shorts and a wife-beater. Tooth must have
popped a rod as she passed by because he shifted around and covered his groin with his shirt like he was embarrassed. It kind of made me uncomfortable, him looking at my sister that way. I cou
ldn’t fault him for being human,
I just hoped it wouldn’t come to something unpleasant.

When the movie ended, it was nearly midnight. Tooth got up and said,
“
I gotta piss. Why don’t you order some pizza or something?
”
And drifted into the small bathroom that ran off the kitchen. He’d finished all his liquor and let out a grunt as he released the floodgates. He pissed so long I expected to be swimming in it soon.

“
Hey, Roger?
”
he yelled through the closed door.
“
Got a question for ya. If you’re an American outside the bathroom
—
fuck, hold on, I just pissed on myself
—
if you’re an American outside the bathroom, what are you inside the bathroom?
”

“
European,
”
I answered, having heard the joke months ago.

“
Shit, how’d you know that? You suck.
”

Never let it be said that universities are not hubs of information
.
.
.
or at least disinformation.

“
Are you gonna go home or do you want to crash here?
”
I asked.

Tooth returned and fell on the couch, lethargic from the chips and nips.

“
Where’s the pizza?
”

“
Pizza? I thought you said anal cavity search. Hang on, I gotta call and cancel your appointment at Jim’s House of Lube.
”

“
Hey, have you declared a major yet?
”
he said, blazing a dialogue trail of his own.
“
You taking those art classes where you draw naked chicks?
”

“
Not yet. I’m
mostly
taking business courses.
”

“
Why are those models always so fat, anyway?
”

“
Fills up the paper.
”

“
Hey, don’t knock big girls. They know how to get wild in bed. Ain’t nothing like a monster booty to make your nuts do the mambo.
”

“
It’s called standards, look it up.
”

“
Why are you taking business classes? You ain’t gonna be no business man, you know it and I know it.
”

“
I don’t know. I told my dad I wanted to be an artist and he said I need to take business classes because art isn’t a profitable profession.
”

“
Obviously he hasn’t seen a life-size rendition of a large naked woman. I’d bu
y one. Hell, I’d buy two, call ’em Lulu and Buffy, show ’
em what it means to be abstract art.
”

“
You get any more worked up you’re gonna spunk in your shorts.
”
I laughed.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll use the chip bowl. Anyway, it’s not like you want to become one those snooty art
dudes
that
hang out at Java Lava dissecting
paintings that are nothing but big blue splotches, going, ‘The existential ramifications of this piece are subordinate at best. The artist refuses to acknowledge spatial dimensions and opts for subconscious palettes instead. Amazing, I love it, I’m going to go screw myself with a wine bottle.’
”

That got me rolling. Sometimes Tooth was a funny guy, and the truth was the people at Java Lava sounded a lot like that, which was why we avoided it like it was a chick movie.

“
No, probably comics. You know,
Spawn
,
Gen 13
, that stuff.
”

“
Yeah, I remember you used to draw those comics of me in school. They were pretty good, especially the ones where I’d bang the female villain after I fought her.
”

“
I never drew that.
”

“
I know. Faggot.
”

“
Why don’t you apply to city college or something? Get out of that hell you call a job. Then you can transfer to the university with me.

“
City college my ass.
”

“
You did graduate, and they do take pretty much anyone.
”

“
Fuck, they’ll take a retarded hamster with a flatulence problem, so what’s that got to say about me. No way, school can blow me. Barely made it through high school as it was. Probably wouldn’t have even done that without you. Besides, what do you get when you graduate from college? A thirty-thousand-dollar I-O-U note that promises to get you into the most elite social clubs in the world but in fact gets you Jack, Shit, and their cousin Fuckall.
”

“
I guess.
”

“
You guess nothing; you know I’m right. Why don’t you drop out and move to California with me?
”

“
You still talking about that California crap?
”

“
Hell, yeah, California is where it’s at. Sunny all year round, beaches littered with models in bikinis, weed growing out of the cracks in the pavement. And I’m talking about the good kind of weed, not dandelions. C’mon, it’ll be great. We c
an
rent a place on the beach, get drunk, fuck girls. You still like girls, right?
”

“
Hey, Tooth?
”

“
Yeah.
”

I gave him what I hoped was a serious look, one that conveyed friendship but wasn’t to be taken as a joke either.
“
Not my sister, okay.
”

“
Whoa there, buddy. You didn’t think I meant anything by w
hat I said about Jamie, did you?
Please
, she’s
still that annoying pipsqueak I used to want to kick outta your room all the time. Coming in and hiding our shit and taking my keys. I screw her I might as well be screwing my own sister.
”

“
Which you would do if you had one.
”

“
No, I wouldn’t.
”

“
Yes, you would.
”

“
Would there be beer involved?
”

“
More than likely,
”
I said.

“
Then you’re probably right.
”

“
Listen, Tooth
—
”

“
No, seriously, about Jamie, I’m kidding. Relax, I didn’t know it was gonna ruffle your panties.
”

Tooth had definitely meant what he said about Jamie, I’d known him long enough to know his thought process. But we were square now, he knew the deal, and him acting like this was his way of shrugging the whole thing off. As for me, after hearing myself worry about Jamie, I contemplated an exorcism.

Tooth spread out on the couch and kicked me with his feet, answering my earlier question about him staying. I moved to the recliner as he put his Red Sox hat over his eyes. He never took that damn thing off, even when he slept. He’d had it since he was twelve, when his mom gave it to him as a birthday gift. Came in the mail with a card that said
“
Happy Birthday
”
and nothing else.

He said,
“
You know what, Roger?
”

“
You’re gay?
”

“
No, I’m being serious. Maybe I’m just drunk, maybe I’m lonely, or maybe I’m in a nostalgic mood, but I miss you. When you’re not here, I don’t do shit but get drunk with Tony and Derek from the warehouse, but they’re married so it ain’t much fun. And video games get real
old when you play by yourself. So, yeah, I’m glad you’re back for a bit. It’s gonna be a good summer.
”

I’ve got to tell you, that kind of moved me. He was drunk, sure, but it sounded genuine and it made me feel, I don’t know, wanted. As I watched him fall asleep on the couch, I kind of felt bad for him. His life had been screwed up for so long, and yet he’d pulled through okay. A drunk, religious zealot of a father, a mother who barely kept in touch, and enough alcohol to sterilize a Scottish commode. It was amazing he wasn’t lying in the same heap of discarded garbage where they’d found Mark Trieger, bloated and blue from a leap off the edge of life.