Dodging Trains (9 page)

“Ooh I think I seen him,” Tyler chimes in, eyes round with fake thrill. He rolls them, making his friend laugh raucously. “He the one we told to fucking
stay put
in the toilet?”

“I think so.” Aaron nods fast. I hate the two of them so much. They’re the reason Keyon’s days suck.

I steel myself in a bubble of not caring and make myself untouchable. Then I lift my head high and walk past them into the boys’ room, while Tyler and Aaron spool out their boisterous guffaws behind me.

“You see that? The fag hag’s going in! Betcha she’s looking for someone to fuck her. Dude’s not gonna do that, tell you that much. I should give it to her, huh?”

They don’t come after me.

From the far stall I hear someone spitting. Irregular breaths and suppressed sobs. I try to open the door but hit a body on the floor. I make out hands clinging to the porcelain ring and wet hair trembling like fall leaves.

“Keyon, it’s me,” I whisper.

He doesn’t react.

“Let me in.”

My friend is kneeling on the floor and makes no effort to move. I’m skinny, so I manage to squeeze in through the crack anyway. I kneel too. Grab his face and raise it to me. He rips himself free and lets a sob out into his hands. Then he shakes his head, mad. “I’m gonna start taking classes.”

“What classes? We’ll tell the principal.”

“
Fuck
the principal. She doesn’t know shit. I’m gonna take jiu-jitsu classes. Brazilian. And kick-boxing too.”

“Self-defense?”

“Oh it’s more than that. They teach you how to fuck people up, and you just watch: I’m gonna do that. No one’s gonna dare call you a fag hag anymore, that’s for sure.” He lifts his too-pretty face at me, eyes alight with purpose.

“Gimme thirty days, Paislee. I’ll get there so fast you won’t believe it. See, it doesn’t matter that you’re short if you know how to break bones.”

Keyon hasn’t spoken like this before. I should probably be worried, but his ire breaks his desolation and I feel my own fists close, agreeing with him and getting ready. “Good! Those asswipes need a broken bone or two.”

He stands, the top of his head reaching my brow. Keyon will have to live with the curse of being too good-looking, but at least he has grown taller over the last few months.

“I’ve signed up,” he tells me. “And Dad’s paying for it.”

“You told your mom and dad how things have escalated?”

“No, are you crazy? That’d be all hell breaking loose again, like last time. Ma would freak out and make my life a living hell, and Dad would sue them.”

“Isn’t this already a living hell?” I point in the direction of the toilet he’s been dunked in and give him more paper towels.

“Ha, it’s practically history. A few more dips and that’s it,” he says, sounding lighthearted like he believes it. “And when it’s my turn, I’m not dunking them.”

“No?”

“No. I’m smashing their faces in. They’ll be so scared of me they’ll piss their pants when they see me.” A smile stretches over my best friend’s tear-streaked, too-beautiful face.

His shirt is wet. I open my backpack and hold out a spare. I sneaked it out of his closet last night knowing this could happen; it had been days since the last swirly, and it’s one of Tyler’s favorite punishments.

Soap from the container by the sink. He rubs it between his hands and washes his bony chest and arms with it. I swallow the lump in my throat, hoping he’ll meet his goal of taking care of his bullies without parental help. Once he has dried off, he takes the shirt and pulls it over his head. When his eyes meet mine through the collar, they’re calm, focused, and filled with determination.

Mom’s bussing tables herself.
I forgot that Tuesdays are her big days with everyone from City Hall lunching here. I wonder if Keyon’s father came by too.

“Need help?” I ask halfheartedly.

“No, honey, you need your break too. I’ll be done in a minute. Head on up to the window and order some food, will you?”

I do. Onion rings and calamari today. The chef doesn’t even blink at my order, because in this town he hears worse. With a look around, I verify that no bitchy owner is nearby before I serve myself a glass of fresh lemonade.

“I’ll join you with my sandwich in a few,” Mom says and disappears into the kitchen with a stack of dirty dishes.

As I pull lemonade in through a straw, I think of Keyon and how excited he was when he came back from his first classes at the martial arts gym. Hope shone in his eyes, and when we walked together to school, he stood taller the closer he got to the buildings. The thought fills me with a rush of joy. Keyon and I, we had our good times and our little victories. It took him a few months to try out his skills, but I remember well when he did.

“Pussy!
See that, Tyler? The little turd’s running away again. Wah-wah, why don’t you go hide behind your mommy.
Faaaag
.”

I run alongside Keyon. We make it to his garden gate, and that’s where they usually turn and strut away laughing. But they’re more daring by the day. Today, there are no cars in the driveway, and I see when it registers with them that he can be cornered in his own yard.

I’m telling my mom tonight, and she’ll tell his parents again so I don’t have to. He’ll be upset with me when he realizes I ratted him out, but I’ve watched them destroy him for too long.

Aaron rushes Keyon first. He shoves him until he falls—tips over like a small animal. I lose my breath like it’s me they’re doing it to. When there’s no school, no looming threat of a teacher walking in on them, how far will they go? Will they ever stop beating him?

Tyler starts kicking him, hurls names I know are more painful than the thumps against his body. Keyon doesn’t wail. Small grunts when they hit soft spots is all that escapes him, and it makes me madder than hell.

“Stop it! Stop! Stop!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I start pushing on one of them. I slap a face, and Keyon’s eyes open and stare at me from below.

His tormentors are momentarily surprised. They swing to look at me, and suddenly Keyon is on his feet. I can tell he’s in pain, but he stretches upward, glares at Aaron and Tyler, and then—

His fist flies high and fast and into Aaron’s face. The punch comes from the side and rams Aaron in the eye, and Aaron, he thuds to the ground with an undignified
meow
of pain.

I suck in a breath that feels dry in my throat. Keyon did
that?
And he’s not finished either! Aaron scrambles to his feet, holding a hand over his eye, lip trembling, but Tyler is murderous.

“The hell if you’re getting away with that shit,
fag.
I’m destroying you.”

“No!” I yell on a step forward. I don’t want Keyon’s luck to be over. I don’t want him to be kicked into a bloody mess on his own doorstep.

Aaron and Tyler have never laid a hand on me, but they could. Even so, right now I’m not scared. I am blind with the need to keep my best friend from getting badly injured.

“Get out of the way, Paislee.” Keyon’s voice is strangely quiet behind me. I’ve never heard it this full of purpose before, and it makes me hesitate.

Keyon walks past me. Slowly, he does it, but he’s not slow when the same, skinny fist that dropped Aaron joins the other fist. A series of punches meet Tyler’s face so hard his lips fling back and forth like in a slow replay on film.

Keyon doesn’t stop when the boy is on his knees. Doesn’t stop when he crumbles over his legs and all Keyon can reach is the back of his shoulders and head. He doesn’t speak, just delivers blow after blow to his tormentor’s body.

I’m speechless, frozen, watching and watching. It’s not right—I know it isn’t, no matter what they’ve done to him before. What Keyon is doing will have long-lasting repercussions. What if he kills Tyler? What if he’s put away, my friend, gone, to jail for manslaughter?

“Keyon, that’s enough,” I begin.

“You’re a lunatic!” Aaron screeches as he storms to the garden gate and leaves his friend behind. “Crazy moron!”

A black sedan glides into the driveway, but Keyon doesn’t react. Just keeps bashing, smashing, crushing—

“Keyon. Enough!” his father roars at him. I’ve never seen him move this fast before. In his elegant lawyer suit, he sprints the few steps to his son’s side, grabs him by the scruff of his neck, and lifts him off Tyler.

Keyon’s hands are shaking. He barely has the tip of his toes on the ground, and he’s not acknowledging his father. That gaze, it’s hazy with bloodlust. Oh God, Keyon is some person I don’t know.

I begin to cry. Cover my mouth to quench it, because I’m just a spectator.

“What the
fuck
have you done?” his father shouts. “Do you have any idea of the consequences?”

It happened
a long time ago, and the consequences are over. That’s why I smile now, thinking of fierce little Keyon, so unlike the giant he is today. He’s in control of his power now.

Back then, Tyler spent five nights in the hospital with a concussion, and Keyon’s father settled with both boys’ parents before they even sued him. He grounded his son for a month and banned him from martial arts training.

It left Keyon in a funk for a few weeks, but not once did he regret what he did to his bullies. I couldn’t fault him.

The first months after Tyler returned to school were quiet. Aaron and Tyler both ignored him and stayed out of his way. The rumor mill ran wild, exaggerating what Keyon had done to them. Some insisted he had broken a bone in Tyler’s skull. Another rumor had it Keyon had pulled his pants down and was ready to rape him when his dad pulled up.

“Even though the onion rings are on the lighter side,” Mom says nodding toward my plate, “you’ll see they’re nice and crisp. They’re cooked through.”

She wiggles her butt onto the seat next to me at the bar counter. Takes a bite of her sandwich, while I lift an aromatic calamari ring. Goodness, my mouth is watering. I only had oatmeal for breakfast this morning. “If you say so.”

“Did you see the poster?” she asks.

I narrow my eyes over the lemonade. “What poster?”

“Keyon really grew up, didn’t he? The boy is even taller than his father,” she repeats an earlier sentiment in lieu of answering.

“Sure…” I roam the room with my eyes until I freeze on a seventeen-by-eleven poster by the door. It’s colorful with a picture of some faceless girl in a Robin Hood outfit. No, no, no… bad feeling.

My mother shakes her head, noticing my horror. “How did he not recognize you? And that’s interesting that you didn’t tell him who you are. If I were you, I’d be telling him five minutes in.”

“Crap,” I mutter under my breath. “This isn’t happening.”

Mom follows my gaze to the poster. “Well, Keyon always was creative.”

I groan, walk over to the window, and read.

GIRL LOST FROM THE CORAL MANSION

“Mooom,” I whine. “He came by?”

“Sure did. Was polite too. Said to tell you ‘hi,’ that he’d be in touch.”

“What? You told him?”

She’s having too much fun. My forty-three year old mother is giggling like a little girl. If it weren’t for the circumstances, I’d be happy seeing her this carefree, but right now?