Amped (12 page)

The teenagers don’t run away like I half expect them to. Instead, they surround me quickly, naturally. Gathered around me, they take on a new form. Each of these kids might be okay on his own, but together they’re a hydra: one monster, three heads.

“Why’d you throw that?” I ask. “What’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with you?” mimics a towheaded kid in falsetto. “What a retard.”

More laughter.

“Amp retard.”

I turn to see who said it, and a dirt clod catches me in the mouth, busts my lip, and explodes into dust. My eyes clench shut, trapping dirt behind my eyelids. I double over, blind and gasping in pain as tears cascade down my face.

“The fuck?” I sputter.

A burst of surprised laughter quickly turns raucous, takes on a vicious edge.

“Boom, baby!”

The first shove catches me in the lower back. I trip in the grass and fall to my knees. Another dirt clod catches me in the back of the head as I wipe my eyes.

My tears are turning the dirt to mud.

“Boys,” bellows a deep voice. The laughter dries up instantly. The flying dirt clods stop long enough for me to clear one eye. Squinting, I make out a big guy with a ratty little beard. He’s lumbering across the field with a can of beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

“Thanks,” I call, climbing to my feet. “These kids are out of control.”

“Shut the fuck up, amp,” says the man.

The words are like a hard slap across the face. The kind you don’t feel until later.

“Lucky I don’t shoot your ass, out here fucking around with my kids,” he adds, stomping toward me through the grass and getting in my face.

“Damn right, Gunnin’,” calls the blond kid.

“Shut your mouth,” orders the man.

“Sorry, Billy,” says the kid.

I’m backing away. The alcohol-fueled hostility from “Gunnin’ Billy” here is like a poisonous mist. Unlike the taunts from the kids, his words have a lethal momentum behind them. As I back away, he marches forward. Building up steam.

“These kids are citizens of the United States of America, amp. And you’re not
shit
. You get that?”

Billy shoves me in the chest. My head snaps forward and I’m staring at a mark on the web of his right thumb. A tattoo of two tiny block letters. It’s the
EM
symbol that I haven’t seen since the Pure Pride rally in Pittsburgh.

I blink at it.

Then a kick connects with my side. Pushes me off-balance as I try to step backward through the grass. More kicks come in from all around. Laughter. Another dirt clod. I fall to my knees, trying to wipe my eyes and fend off the soft-soled tennis shoes jolting me from random directions.

“So keep your worthless amp ass inside your rat hole,” says Billy.

I fall onto my stomach. I desperately try to clear my eyes while more dirt clods rain down. Climbing to my hands and knees, I hear sly laughter.

A wetness spreads over the back of my neck and I stagger to my feet in shock. With one arm shielding my eyes, I stumble back toward the trailers. More clods bounce off my back as I retreat.

“Don’t come back!” shouts Billy.

They don’t follow me past the other side of the fence.

Nick is gone. There’s a spatter of blood where he stood. Tree branches swaying quietly overhead.

“Nick?” I call.

Just the seesaw buzz of cicadas in the trees.

I reach back and touch my neck where it’s wet, smell my fingers. Piss. Those kids pissed on me while I was wallowing in the dirt like a helpless baby. Like an amp retard. That’s what they called me. A worthless freak.

I wipe my hand on my pants and then freeze. Lucy has come around the corner of her trailer. Watching me. She’s in blue jeans and in the morning sunlight I can see she’s got a smattering of freckles beneath serious eyes. She’s even more beautiful in the light.

“Nick is okay,” she says. “I cleaned him up and gave him a Band-Aid. What about you? Do you need help?”

Me? Well, I’ve got a cold ball of shame wedged tight under my rib cage. Hot piss drying on the back of my neck.

Lucy steps toward me and I put on an unconvincing smile, try to speak—to tell her it was just a stupid thing that I’m laughing off. No big deal. But the words dig their heels into my throat and refuse to come out.

An aftershock of anger rolls through me, and I tuck my hands on my hips to hide their shaking. I want to smash skulls, gouge eyes, and—hell, I don’t know—cry. Instead, I drop the trembling, not-fooling-anybody attempt at a smile and turn my back on Lucy.

“Owen,” she calls, walking closer. “It’s okay.”

Pity is in her voice, twisting like a knife between my shoulder blades.

“I’m fine,” I say.

She puts a hand on my shoulder and touches the warm urine, and now I know that I have got to get the fuck out of here immediately. I shrug my shoulder and she hangs on.

“Owen—” she’s trying to say.

I wrench away from her. “Leave me the fuck alone!” I shout. “Damn.”

“What is the matter with you?” she asks, plaintive, wiping her hand on her dress.

Oh my God. Anything. Anything to get away from this shame. I’m walking fast, away, away, away.

“Nothing,” I call over my shoulder. “I don’t need help. I’m not another stray for you to take in.” Immediately, I flush scalp to spine with hot regret. I break into a trot until I can’t hear her. Along the
way, I yank my piss-soaked shirt over my head, ball it up, and hurl it lamely into the grass.

Back in Jim’s trailer, I slam the flimsy broken door shut behind me. The sink piddles a weak stream of warm water and I let it pool in my dirt-caked fingers. Splash it on my face and let it carry away the snot and tears and dirt.

In the fart-smelling freezer, I find a plastic tray of shallow ice cubes. I twist the cracked tray and let the slivers of ice fall on the counter. Wrap them in a napkin and push the mass against my swollen lip.

Would things be easier if I were a reggie? Yeah, they damn well would be. I wouldn’t stink like urine and humiliation. I could sit in my nice apartment and feel sorry for all those poor amps out there, instead of taking my own lashes here in this trailer park.

The reality of this new world is settling in. Spotlighters watching the fringes of town every night. Protesters outside the job site every day. Hiding here with nobody to talk to. “Head down, antennae up,” as Jim says. And now, my ass handed to me by a bunch of teenagers. With poor Nicky there to watch.

And so much for Lucy Crosby. I guess I fucked that up pretty good.

I open the freezer again, more slowly this time. There’s a bottle of cheap vodka wedged in the back, bearded in frost. Three-fourths full. I pull it out and set it down on the counter and let it sweat.

I slide open the silverware drawer. Pick up an ice pick with a worn wooden handle. Turn it back and forth in my hands.

Nick told me I was going to do something here in Eden. At this moment, nothing very good comes to mind. But if I’m here because of this goddamn thing in my head, then I think I’m ready to go face-to-face with it. Turn it on and find out what it is, one way or another.

I’m going to see what all the fuss is about.

I’ve been flopping back and forth on the trailer’s linoleum floor like a fish on a boat for most of the night, and now I’m trying to draw breath between clenched teeth and wondering if I’ve got myself a fresh traumatic brain injury or if I’m just going crazy.

In a daze, I can hear myself grunting and, well, kind of squealing with my mouth closed. My calls for help sound more like somebody left a dog tied up for too long. Only I’m the animal and I did this to myself.

The latest seizure is over. Meaning the next one is due any minute. I don’t see any end to it. Jim is still gone doing his traveling-doctor thing and the only people I know in Eden must think I’m a pathetic coward. Last night, with alcohol-fueled bravery, I decided to try and turn on my Zenith. Tried to find myself. But what I found out was who I am with a broken implant. A spastic invalid.

On top of that, I’m hungover.

A nasty goose egg throbs on my shin in time with my heart. I got it when my leg slammed into the almost empty vodka bottle, shooting it across the room and under the couch. The pain in my shin joins the dull aching cramp in my jaw and neck and the rest of my skinned-up body. That bottle hurt me a lot more than I hurt it.

The plastic doorknob rattles.

For an instant I hallucinate a vision of Lucy. She’s blond and lithe and gliding through the front door to check in on me. Only there is a soft darkness outside. Her face is indistinct, lost in black
smoke. She can’t get inside. Her thin fingers rake the doorframe. But she falls out into the darkness. Gone.

I try to call out, and a rope of drool drops sluglike from my lips. My stomach cramps and my cheek slides across the floor, smearing my face into the spit and old sticky footprints on the linoleum.

The trailer comes back in focus.

I roll my eyes back in my head and catch sight of the wood-paneled door shaking on its hinges. A gust of cool air hits my face as the recently repaired door is ripped open with a sound like masking tape coming off a new paint job.

A skinny guy pokes his head inside, blocking the raw sunlight. He’s got a beat-up plastic bottle in one hand, sloshing with tobacco juice. He spits in it, eyes wide and searching.

“Howdy ho,” he calls. “Jim? Ya here?”

It’s Lyle Crosby. The laughing cowboy. The last person I want to see. But I’m in a bad spot right now and can’t be too choosy about the company I keep.

Lyle’s eyes travel to my spot on the living room floor. He surprises me and cracks a gap-toothed smile, then laughs out loud. Steps inside and closes the door behind him.

“Damn, buddy. You in here fooling with yourself? Don’t be embarrassed. Half the amp teenagers end up like this at one time or another. A little bit of self-experimentation never hurt anybody, except when it did.”

Lyle chuckles at his own joke. Then he saunters around the manufactured room, his shark-black eyes mechanically taking in the wood-paneled walls and mangy La-Z-Boy recliner and particleboard bookshelves half filled with dog-eared Westerns and thick, yellowed histories of World War II.

“I’m always telling Jim he needs a wife. Look at this place. No woman I know would put up with this crap.”

Lyle grabs a
Reader’s Digest
from the coffee table and riffles the pages with the ball of his thumb. He tosses the digest on a stack of
other magazines. They collapse in a waterfall, brittle pages slapping the floor next to my face.

He snorts at the spitty snow angels I’ve been making.

“Okay. Where’s your tools, buddy?” asks Lyle.

All I can do is breathe loudly through my teeth.

“Huh,” says Lyle. He studies the area around me, thoughtfully adjusting the pod of tobacco wedged in his mouth. Eyeing me, he sucks in his bottom lip and carefully dribbles spit into the plastic bottle.

“Starting to worry me,” he says.

With the toe of his boot, he nudges me over onto my back. My arms and face are scraped up and bruised, but Lyle doesn’t seem to notice or care. Those obsidian flakes in his face are trained on what I’m still holding in my left hand.

Lyle gets very still. An unrecognizable emotion ripples across his sweat-slicked forehead. Concern. Or maybe anger. He spits again into his bottle, slow.