Best Boy (12 page)

“But I'm sure she's been saving something just for you,” he said to the fence.

From the very beginning there was a certain way that people would speak where I didn't understand what they said but I could feel its meaning against the skin of my body. They usually did this while smiling. Momma always said they “underestimated” me. They looked at the expression on my face which was often hung up on one side like I was tasting something funny and they talked around me. They talked at me. They threw words at me like I was the wall of a barn. They thought I didn't understand but sometimes I did.

Now I gripped the pliers as hard as I could in my hand.

“And I bet she's got some real bounce in them britches of hers, if you get me,” he said.

I gripped harder. A red, straining line slowly connected my clenching jaws and the bones of my squeezing hand.

Mike turned smiling and put his gloved hands up on either side of his face.

“But hey,” he said, “it ain't none of my business, really. I just like joshing you, okay?”

I relaxed my grip on the pliers.

“Okay.”

We kept working as the cramp in my stomach got steadily worse. Soon I thought I might have to throw up from the cramp. We finished the work and as we were getting ready to go, Mike said, “Well done. And I'd like your help again.”

“My help,” I said. But I couldn't hear what he was saying too
well. A few minutes earlier a strange ringing sound had begun in my head.

“Peace Cottage tomorrow in the afternoon, you free?”

“I don't know.”

“Todd, it's an important tutoring session and I promised I'd be there for it. I'll recon with you tomorrow and check in,” he said. At least I think that's what he said because the sound was getting even louder, gradually. Mike the Apron fist-bumped me goodbye, and I walked back to the cottage. It didn't occur to me that the sound was in some way from not taking the Risperdal after having taken it every day for 4,466 days. The sound was accompanied by an anxiety over the sound and I wondered if the sound was maybe the noise of anxiety itself, getting worse.

When I opened the front door of the cottage, the first thing I saw was Raykene sitting on the couch with Tommy Doon sitting next to her watching television with the sound turned off. Raykene is usually smiling and even when she's not smiling her eyes and cheeks and mouth are still drawn up from all the smiling that's gone through her face. But this time she was looking at me with a very serious expression. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen her make that expression before.

“Todd,” she said.

“Hello, Raykene.”

“We need to talk.”

“Talk?”

“In private,” she said. “You mind if we have a little chat in your room?”

When we entered my room she shut the door behind us. The volume of the TV went back on in the living room and immediately we heard gunshots and sounds of people yelling. She asked
me to sit down on my desk chair and stood standing in the room with her hands on her hips.

“We've got a situation,” she said.

“We do?”

“Right now, before you do anything else, I need you to tell me everything you know about Mike Hinton.”

TWENTY

G
RETA
D
EANE HAD TRIED TO KILL HERSELF
with pills. That's what Raykene told me as she stood in front of me in my bedroom. She was now in the hospital and she was almost dead, Raykene said. It had just happened and no one knew about it yet. But a maintenance worker had recently seen Mike the Apron enter Peace Cottage, “looking sneaky,” and that's why she was here, Raykene said. No one had specifically asked her to come see me, but she was “following out every possible crazy lead.”

“‘Crazy lead,'” I repeated.

“You know, hunch, idea, whatever. I'm just trying to put things together here.”

“Right,” I said.

“Todd?”

“What?”

“Are you sure you're okay, honey? You look a little green
around the edges. Straight up—something wrong? I've known you long enough to know.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“Well, you go right ahead, sugar. I'll wait.”

I walked out and into the bathroom where I threw up very hard. The noise of the television was so loud no one heard me. I washed my face and drank some water from the tap and when I got back to my room Raykene was sitting on my bed. She got up as I entered.

“Better, my friend?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Good. So what I was saying was that I don't wanna make you feel bad about telling on a buddy who probably has nothing to do with this anyway, but I'm just checking everything out because this could be a huge problem for Payton. We're talking
huge
, Todd.”

I didn't say anything. I just stared at her. Often, it's easier not to speak. Also my balance was suddenly off and I felt like maybe I was too tall and so sat down on the bed.

“You're looking a little shook up by this,” she said and studied me with her eyes, “and who can blame you? So let's make it easy. I'm just gonna run some questions by you and you nod your head yes or no, okay?”

I still didn't say anything.

“Over the last few weeks you spent several afternoons with Mike.”

I nodded yes.

“You went to Peace with him.”

I shook my head no.

“No?”

“No, I stayed behind.”

“But he said he was going there?”

“Yes, but I didn't see him go.”

“Fine, but remember you can just nod if it's easier. Okay, now the important part. When he went there, did he say exactly why he was—”

But just then we felt the little vibration of the front door of the cottage opening and shutting. A moment later the volume of the TV was muted. Into the silence came the voice of Mike the Apron. It was high and excited.

“Is Todd in?” he asked.

“Todd Aaron and Raykene Smith,” Tommy said loudly, “are in Todd Aaron's bedroom.” Raykene looked at me and walked to the center of the room while holding her finger up to her mouth to shush me. We waited for a little bit but we didn't hear anything, not even the front door closing. Meanwhile I sat on the bed and rocked a little to distract myself from the nausea. The nausea was beginning again, along with the feeling that maybe one part of me was growing too hot and another too cold. This made me anxious and I tried to deep-breathe with my eyes closed like I'd been taught, to relax. When I opened my eyes Raykene had her hands on her hips and was looking at me carefully.

“Todd?” she said.

“Yes?”

“You look like you're about to hyperventilate. You worried about telling on a friend? I just stuck my head out and he's gone. No more questions for today, all right?”

“I'm okay.”

“No, you're not,” she said. “Come here, honey.”

I got slowly up from the bed and went and stood in front of
her. She put her hands on my shoulders and said, “You know that none of this has got anything to do with you, you do know that, don't you?”

“I know,” I replied.

“I wanna make sure you know,” she said.

“I know.”

“'Cause it doesn't. But what's strange is what just happened here with Mike at the door. That's weird.” She stood there shaking her head. “That's not good.”

I didn't say anything.

“Main thing is, I'm sorry you gotta deal with any of this. But I'm hoping it will all blow over soon. Okay?” I nodded yes and she grabbed me by the shoulders and squeezed them hard so that I could feel the rings on her fingers and then she left.

The strange feelings inside me continued going on for the rest of the afternoon. The ringing noise in my head got louder. I got even taller-feeling and also tried to vomit again but nothing came out and I just coughed on the toilet. Tommy Doon was watching me very carefully whenever I was in the living room and he turned the volume of the television up as far as it would go and sang along loudly with the commercials to try to rattle me. He was trying as hard as he could to give me volts but I ignored him. After dinner there was a special on the oldies radio station. Twice a week they play a Gold Block of songs from a group that goes on for more than an hour. This night it was the Beach Boys. I love the Beach Boys. Music from the radio is just air vibrating inside your ear but it throws moving pictures into your head that are almost as fun to watch and hear as real life. Plus, on this evening music made me forget about how bad I was feeling.

I had the volume on high in my earphones and I was listening
to “Good Vibrations” when I saw the door of my room open fast. Tommy Doon was standing there, breathing heavy. I took the headphones off.

“You!” he shouted.

“What?”

“I've been yelling at you for five minutes that Mike Hinton is on the phone for you. It's urgent, jerk!”

“I'm sorry,” I said, getting out of bed.

“No, you're not. You're a bad person and I know you're planning something.”

“Planning something?” I stopped as I was walking out of the room.

“You have maps in your room and I think you're going to try to pull a caper with Mike Hinton and I'm going to tell on you.”

Tommy Doon growled and clenched his jaws tight and shook his head like he was shivering and repeated loudly, “Tell on
you
!”

“Right,” I said and walked past him to the phone on the wall.

“Hello?” I said.

“Where have you been?”

“Mike?”

“Why did I have to wait so long to talk to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cut the goofball bit. Were you talking to one of your girlfriends just now?”

“No.”

“Someone from the administration?”

“No, I was listening to music.”

“Well, listen to this, Mr. Popular, I'm in some deep shit but guess what, so are you.”

The siren in my head had gone away while listening to the Beach Boys but now it started up again, along with the sick feel
ings. I wasn't certain what he was saying, so I did what I always did at times like this. I said the word, “Okay.”

“Nothing's okay,” said Mike. “Nothing in the whole fucking world is okay. Meet me at the hedge behind the woodshop tomorrow morning at seven o'clock sharp. Got it?”

That night was very bad. Every time as I was about to fall asleep I felt an electric shock that woke me back up. When I finally fell asleep I dreamed of a large mouth opening and shutting directly in front of my face. Then clouds blew quickly into the darkening sky while leaves wrinkled on all the trees in the forest and people came towards me out of the night with their teeth showing while they hissed like cats. I tossed in my bed for many hours and got the sheets wet from sweating. The next morning I was tired and very nervous. When I got outside to the hedge, Mike was already there and walking back and forth. Even though it was early in the day it was already hot out, with the sun pressing on you like an actual weight. He was wearing his white T-shirt and jeans.

“Anybody see you?” he asked as I came closer.

“I don't think so.”

Mike lit a cigarette which I'd never seen him do before even though I always smelled them on his clothes and his breath.

“Okay, let's begin at the beginning. What do you know?” he said.

“About what?”

He made a groaning sound while smoke came from his nose.

“Do not,” he said, “fuck with me today, as I'm not in the mood.”

My mouth opened but no words came out.

“You know how serious this is,” he said.

My mouth closed. “I'm not sure.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Who?”

“Still pretending?”

“Still pretending what?”

“Lemme explain it to you, genius. Our futures, they're linked, see.”

“Okay.”

“Anything that happens to me, you were an accessory to it.”

He shook another cigarette out of the pack and lit it with the one he'd been smoking.

“What'd you tell her?” he repeated. His eyes were small in his head.

“Who?”

Once I saw a man spun in something called a centrifuge. His face was pulled backwards into curved shapes from going fast. Mike made a centrifuge face. He seemed to be trembling with the strain of making the face. Then he stopped making it and looked at me.

“All I need out of you right now,” he said slowly, “is to hear that you didn't tell Raykene Smith a single thing about us and Peace Cottage. Did you?”

I have never been able to lie. The main reason I know this is because people have always told me so. I said:

“She asked if you'd been there and I said yes.”

He started to shout something and then stopped and instead of saying anything he took several big breaths of his cigarette while shutting his eyes. In a normal voice, after a little bit, he said:

“So she asked about me?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” he said calmly. Then he made another centrifuge face for a few seconds and shook a little again. Then he stopped making the face and smoked silently again for a few seconds.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I thought you went but I didn't know because I didn't see you.”

“And then?”

“Then we heard you coming into my cottage and asking Tommy Doon where I was. Then we stopped talking and we didn't talk any more.”

“So the two of you heard me walking in and asking for you?” His voice had now become almost pleasant. All the centrifuge-strain had gone completely away. This made me very relieved. I said happily, “Yes, that's right!”

Mike lifted his lips back off his yellow teeth, that were extremely long. They glistened with liquid. He blew air through them to make a strange hissing sound that frightened me. Then he turned around and began running away as fast as he could. The pointy cowboy boots made him bowlegged and as I watched he almost tripped and fell but he recovered his balance and kept on running.