Boy Toy (32 page)

"Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me the rest. Tell me the stuff you didn't tell me before."

"It's not going to change anything."

"I know."

"What the hell is going on down there?"

That's what I remember in the eye-blinking moments of light after the closet door flung open and Rachel ran screaming up the stairs: Rachel's dad yelling from upstairs, asking pretty much the same thing I was wondering as I sat on the closet floor.
What the hell is going on down here?

In here?

In me?

Zik and Michelle were on the sofa across the room, clutching each other tightly, caught midclinch when Rachel burst from the closet. Zik's hand was up Michelle's shirt and they were both just
frozen,
looking over at the closet.

Then they broke apart and Michelle jumped up, pulled down her shirt, and ran to the stairs. Zik scrambled over to the closet as Michelle's footsteps followed Rachel's up the stairs.

"Dude." Zik's face lurked in the rectangle of light that was the closet door. "Dude, what happened?"

I hardly knew. I stared at him.

"Hey, J? What's that?" He pointed to my right hand, which was clenched in a fist. I looked down at it as if I'd never had a right hand before in my life, as if it had just grown there as part of some puberty ritual.

I was clutching Rachel's panties, the edges torn and shredded.

"Oh, shit," Zik said, just as the boom of footsteps sounded overhead. Mrs. Madison shrieked.

"Oh, shit," he said again, and I dropped the panties and spastically lashed out with my foot, kicking them as far back into the darkness of the closet as they would go.

Zik looked over his shoulder and moved out of the way just as an enormous shadow filled the closet door. Rachel's dad snarled and reached into the closet, grabbing my wrist and yanking me to my feet with such savage strength that I thought he had pulled my arm out of the socket.

My legs, nerveless, wouldn't support me—they dangled from my hips like pants on the clothesline. He dragged me across the carpet and up the stairs. I tried to keep up with him, tried to make my feet and legs work, but I couldn't find my footing on the stairs and he just kept pulling up and on, up and on.

Upstairs, Rachel and her mom were in the corner of the living room. Michelle was near them, stroking Rachel's hair. Rachel wouldn't look up. Her mom glared at me, weeping. Rachel's brother, Bobby, came out of nowhere and grabbed my other wrist.

"You piece of shit," he said. "I should kick your fucking ass."

Together, they dragged me to the front door, which Mr. Madison opened. "Hold him," he said, and let me go.

Bobby pulled me out onto the front porch. "Don't even think about running," he hissed. He tightened his grip and I finally made my first sound—I cried out.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

I shut the fuck up.

***

Mom was there in minutes. She raced up the driveway and onto the front porch, where Bobby had not let go of me with his hand or his eyes. "Into the car," she said. She was trembling, her eyes red from tears. "Into the car
now!
"

While Mom watched, I went to the car and got inside. Mom went into the house. Bobby sat on the porch and glowered at me. I felt his eyes through the car window, burning me like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass.

I tried to remember exactly what had happened. But I couldn't. I'd flickered. One minute I was kissing Rachel, the next I was with Eve and she was egging me on like she liked to do, urging me to wildness—

Rachel's panties in my hand. God. Oh, God. I felt sick. My stomach tightened and I hung my head out the door. I stared at the asphalt, which swam and churned in front of me. Yeah, I was gonna puke, all right.

But even though my stomach lurched and my throat constricted, nothing happened. It was like being on the precipice of vomiting but never actually plunging over the cliff.

I don't know how long I hung suspended like that, watching the blacktop do its best merry-go-round impression. But I suddenly heard Mom's shoes on the driveway and then she slammed the driver's-side door, almost catapulting me out of the car. "Close the door," she said, her voice vibrating like kite string in a high wind. "Buckle your belt."

The car roared to life and she pulled out into the street. "They're calling the police. The
police.
And I can't even
blame
them."

"Mom—"

"Jesus, Josh!" She was weeping now. She slammed her palm against the steering wheel. "What on
earth
possessed you to do that? What is
wrong
with you, Joshua?"

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. How could I tell her that I didn't know? That I was just reacting the way
Eve
wanted me to react?

"It was that Lorenz kid. I knew it. I knew he would be a bad influence on you. That family ... You won't be spending any more time with him, that's for sure."

Now,
that
got my attention. Zik was my best friend. And even as a child, I recognized that he didn't fit in with his family, that our friendship was a lifeline for him. I couldn't let my mother take that away.

"Mom, it wasn't Zik's fault. Me and Rachel were just playing."

"Playing?
Playing?
You ripped her underwear off. You grabbed—I don't even want to
say
what you did, and you call it
playing?
Who taught you that? Where did you learn that? I know it was from Zik. His parents are letting you watch adult cable, aren't they?"

"No, Mom! It wasn't Zik! I didn't know it was wrong. I was just playing like with E—" I stopped myself midsyllable, but it was too late.

Mom turned to me, her eyes red and puffy, her cheeks streaked with tears. "With
who?
With
who?
"

"Mom!" I screamed. A car had pulled out into traffic ahead of us. Mom stomped on the gas, jerked the steering wheel to one side, and swerved around the car.

"Who, Josh?" she screamed at the top of her lungs. We sped down the street, whipping past slower cars. I don't think she knew what she was doing. I think, in that small moment in the car, my mother went briefly, completely insane.

"Who? Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!" Over and over again, screaming it at me, and a new scream,
my
scream joining in, a wordless scream as we weaved in and out of traffic, darting here and there, my mother a madwoman and me ... Oh, yes, I was a madman, no doubt. A raping lunatic.

In the end, I didn't tell her. I never told her. But it didn't matter, because I had already said enough. I was so desperate to save Zik that I exposed the truth. How many people are there that I know who start with "Eee," after all?

Mom suddenly pulled over onto the shoulder and slammed on the brakes. She looked over at me with those red, red eyes, her mouth pulled down, her chin quivering. She was terrible and beautiful all at once. There was nothing maternal about her, nothing recognizable as my mother.

She flipped open her cell phone and the next thing I knew, she was talking into it: "Don't say hello to me." Her voice had gone dry and brittle. "Don't
act
with me." She stared at me the whole time and I stared back, terrified to look away. "I know what you did to my son. I know."

She snapped the phone shut.

"OK, Josh." Her voice had cleared. "OK, now we can go home."

Home was a swirl of phone calls and screaming.

There were phone calls to the Madisons and phone calls
from
the Madisons.

Mom's cell phone rang constantly. She would flip it open, look at the caller ID, then snap it shut. It was Eve, I'm sure.

In between the cell rings and the calls to and from Rachel's house came the calls to and from the police. Mom talked herself hoarse:
My son is the victim. My son has been abused. My son doesn't know what happened. This woman has destroyed my child.

I sat on the stairs while Mom and Dad yelled at each other and yelled into the phone. I heard all of it.

This woman has destroyed my child,
her voice cracking high and strained at the end.

Yes. I felt destroyed.

Dad came to me while Mom was on the phone with the Madisons. "Josh, you have to tell us what happened."

"I don't remember," I told him.

"That's bull. You remember. You've been with Mrs. Sherman almost every day for the last four months. You need to tell us what happened or else the police are going to think you're a criminal."

"I don't remember." All I could think of was Eve telling me how much trouble she would get in if I told anyone. How I watched her in secret, lusted after her. Watched her in her bed as she slept so innocently, slept without knowing that I was standing five feet away. It was all my fault; I'd ruined Rachel and Eve, the two people I was supposed to care for most.

"Tell me!" Dad shouted and hoisted me to my feet. "This is not a game, Josh! You could throw away your whole life! Talk to me!"

"Nothing happened!" I screamed. "Nothing happened nothing happened nothing happened!" I kicked at him and thrashed until he let me go. I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me. I threw myself onto the bed. My mind flew in a hundred directions at once: Did Rachel hate me? Was Zik angry? I had to call Eve. Was Michelle angry? Were the police going to arrest me? How could I contact Eve? Would I be sent away? Where would I go? Would I ever see Eve again? Or Rachel? Or Zik? Or my parents?

I couldn't stay on one thought—they zipped by like engines on an infinite array of parallel train tracks, catching my attention in the breeze of their wake just long enough to distract me until the next one came along.

My parents came into my room without even knocking, something they hadn't done since I was in grade school.

Mom said, "We have a meeting first thing in the morning with the police and the district attorney. You're going to tell them everything about you and Mrs. Sherman, do you hear me?"

"But you're telling
us
now," Dad said.

I shook my head.

"Goddamn it!" Dad lunged at the bed.

Mom grabbed his arm. "Bill!" For the first time in my life, I was more afraid of my father than my mother. Dad's face flushed red. He shook Mom off and stomped out of the room.

"Sleep," Mom commanded, pointing at me. It wasn't even six o'clock yet. "Do not even
think
about leaving this room. Tomorrow you're telling it all."

She slammed the door behind her as she left, leaving me there, lost on the train tracks.

That night, through the vents:

"If you'd let him get that fucking Xbox, none of this would have happened."

"What? If you hadn't gotten your damn job—"

"How else were we going to send him to college?"

"Now it'll pay for his therapy."

"Jesus, Bill! You're such a fucking asshole!"

I listened to them argue until they finally both stopped talking. It's not that they came to any sort of accord or anything like that—they just drifted into back-and-forths where neither one was responding to the other, and finally trailed off, each of them with a triumphant pronouncement that had nothing to do with what the other had said.

I slept. And then I didn't. And then I did. And then I didn't.

I crept out of bed, inching open my door as if I were one of the bomb guys on TV. It felt like it took hours to open my door enough for me to slip out.

I made my way down the hall on the tips of my toes. At my parents' bedroom door, I paused just long enough to listen at the door. There, barely audible under Dad's snores, was Mom's soft, rhythmic breathing.

I sneaked to the stairs, avoiding the third one from the top because it creaked no matter where you stepped on it.

In the basement, I picked up the extension and dialed Eve's cell. It rang and rang and rang. Voice mail. I hung up. I was afraid to leave a message.

And then I was afraid to go back upstairs. What if she saw the call on her Caller ID and tried to call back? That would wake up my parents!

I stared at the phone. I had to pee. I crossed my legs. I was terrified of leaving the phone. Maybe, if it rang, I could grab it before it woke up my parents.

I had to pee
so bad.

I hovered my hand over the phone, willing it to ring, then willing it not to. I didn't know which was worse—having it ring and possibly waking up my parents, or standing here all night, waiting for it to ring, certainly wetting myself.

I decided: I would call Eve and leave a message telling her
not
to call.

She picked up on the first ring.

"Josh?"

"Eve," I whispered.

"Josh, I can barely hear you."

"I'm down in the basement. I have to be quiet. My parents are asleep."

"Josh, what happened? You said you would never tell—"