Solitary: A Novel (7 page)

"I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again."

Gus's cheeks remind me of the jowls of a walrus. Chunky black sideburns sandwich colorless eyes.

"Look, not today."

"Got somewhere to go? Perhaps with one of your lady friends?"

I stand there, holding my duffel.

Gus is the biggest of the four. He's an unhealthy big, fleshy and sloth-like. Doesn't mean he couldn't hurt me.

The one that makes me even more nervous than Gus is Ali, or Ollie, however the guy spells it. He looks as if he might be from South America, though I've heard him speak, and he sounds distinctly Southern. He's the opposite of Gus: all muscle, not in a body-building sort of way, but in a hurting sort of way. He was playing tackle football when we were supposed to be playing tag. I got sidelined by his arm a couple of times, even though I didn't have the ball. Imagine getting struck by a flagpole while riding a motorcycle. I still can feel the pain in my chest, and know I'll have a couple of whopping bruises there this evening.

The other two guys are country bumpkins.

There's a hallway leading back outside to the field, but the bumpkins go over to block it. Ali stands between me and the door to the school hall.

"What do you want?"

Gus laughs, then spits on the floor. "What do I want? You ask me now what I want?"

"I'm not looking for a problem."

"Maybe you shoulda thought of that when you decided to help your little gay friend."

I scan the locker room, but nobody else is around. It's a long, narrow rectangle, and I'm in the middle of it. The showers and the stalls are behind me.

"What is this? Is this what new guys get?"

Gus steps closer. I can already see dots of sweat on his forehead. I don't think they're out of any kind of nervousness. I think the guy is a habitual sweater. The meat in his veins is squeezing to get out.

"What are you hoping to get out of Jocelyn?"

I was still thinking about Newt. Jocelyn's name coming out of his mouth shocks me.

"What?"

"You like her?"

"Who says that's your business?"

He's now within an arm's length of me. "This place is my business. Jocelyn is my business."

"I'm not your business."

Gus laughs, the tip of his tongue rubbing the bottom of his teeth. "You're at the top of my list, boy."

For a moment, I hover above this little cliched high school scene.

I'm standing there, bag in my left hand, the big kid in front of me. Behind him to his right by the lockers stand the other guys I don't really know. A little farther down toward the doorway stands Ali/Ollie.

Something comes over me.

I think it's not wanting my face punched in or doused in a toilet or worse.

I dig my right hand into Gus's throat and ram him backward with all the force a one-hundred-seventy-five-pound guy can muster. Gus definitely has a good forty or fifty pounds on me. He just stumbles and shuffles backward.

The momentum crashes both of us into Ali, who reaches out to try and grab his friend. Gus is too heavy and lands on his back, with Ali pulled down underneath him.

I do something I'm halfway decent at: hurdling. I vault over the two guys and reach the door.

It opens with ease, and I bolt down the hallway, past students looking at me with glances that ask what I'm doing.

I'm getting out of here with my face and my backside intact.

I reach the center of the square school and recognize the lockers nearby. I scan the area and find what I'm looking for.

I decide to take Rachel's advice and ask for a ride. I can't take a chance of running into Gus and his goons again.

"Jocelyn," I call out.

For a minute I think she's ignoring me.

Then she stops and turns.

And waits for me.

"You look like a little overheated."

"I just got out of gym."

The red Jeep Wrangler rattles over the winding mountain road. It's pretty beaten up, both inside and out. The ragtop above me has a fist-sized hole in it. Jocelyn's driving makes me more nervous than the confrontation I narrowly escaped.

"People don't shower after gym where you come from?"

"Actually I just had a run-in with Gus and his friends."

For a moment she stares at me while we ride around a steep corner. I'm about ready to tell her to look at the road when she finally does and then drives far over into the oncoming lane. Maybe she doesn't know that there are two lanes on this road even though no line cuts into the black asphalt.

"What happened?"

"I think he wanted to make up for our last interaction."

"When you stuck up for Newt?"

I nod.

The jeep slows down a bit. Jocelyn glances over at me. "Chris ... you don't want to mess around with him."

"Everybody keeps telling me that."

"You don't."

"I was getting ready to leave. He and his posse came out of nowhere."

"And what'd you do?"

"I escaped. And ran fast."

"Was Ali there?"

"Yeah."

"He beat up a kid really bad at a party last summer. Don't mess around with him, either."

"Let me state again, I'm not messing around with any of them. It was just-when I saw Gus do that to the poor little guy, I couldn't help it."

Once again, I see that look.

That look-there's something that she gives away. Something deep inside. Something that's there that I can't exactly explain or pinpoint. But it's beneath the beauty and the guarded expression and the air and everything else that makes up Jocelyn.

I'd like to think that it's interest.

Not just a "hey you're kinda cute" interest.

More of a common-bond kind of interest.

More like a "I get it and I get you" sort of thing.

There's something deeper down there.

I know this.

"It was a cool thing to do," she says to me. "But it was stupid."

"What's the big deal about Gus anyway?"

"His father owns half of Solitary, if not more."

"So he's rich."

"Not just that. The Staunch family has its hands in everything around here. Everything."

"Okay. So what?"

"You live here, Chris. You live in Solitary."

"Yeah?"

She shakes her head and starts to say something, then remains silent.

"What?"

I can tell she's searching her thoughts.

"You have to be careful, just know that."

"I will," I say as if I don't have a care in the world.

"They'll hurt you and get away with it. It's not like where you come from."

"How do you know?"

"I just know," she says. "I know very well."

"I'm not looking for trouble."

"But you're wearing it with a capital letter on your chest. The best thing you can do is disappear."

"I already sorta feel like I have, coming here. You should see the street I live on."

"I'm serious, Chris. There are things about this place that you just can't-that I couldn't even explain to you. You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me."

"No."

Her response is short and swift, like a slap in the face.

"Okay."

For a few minutes, we drive. I tell her the roads to take to reach my cabin.

"I'm sorry," she says eventually.

"It's fine."

"You're a good guy."

I chuckle. "How do you know that?"

"I can tell."

"You don't know."

"Yes, I do. I know. I just know."

"Hey, the second street up there-past the sign-is mine."

Her face turns pale and registers disbelief.

"What?" I ask. I don't get anything about this day. Everything is just off.

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure where I live? Yeah. Steeple Drive."

"Your cabin is on this road?"

"Is it just me, or is everything I'm saying slightly freaking you out?"

Jocelyn seems annoyed and doesn't say anything else as we drive down the road.

As we approach my driveway, I alert her to stop. Instead, she keeps driving.

"Uh, we just passed my driveway."

Those eyes stay focused straight ahead as the car zips along the dirt road until we eventually come upon the gate.

"I was going to tell you-there's a gate at the end of this drive," I say.

"The road on the other side of that gate leads to a rather large mansion. Want to know who it belongs to?" Her voice is angry.

I don't say anything.

"It belongs to your neighbor and dear friend, Gus Staunch. How's that for being freaked out."

"Seriously?"

She puts the car in reverse and zips it around, whipping my head against the side.

"Whoa," I say, taking the wheel for a minute.

"Don't you dare touch me!"

The Jeep jets down the street.

"I was touching the wheel."

We reach my driveway and she jams on the breaks, skidding the car to a halt. If I weren't wearing my seat belt, my lips would be stuck to the window.

"Jocelyn, what's going on here?"

"Get out."

"I'm sorry-I didn't-I was just trying to help-"

"I don't need your help, and I don't need your comments."

"This is all new to me."

"Yeah, well, I'm not your guidance counselor. You need to stay away from people who will hurt you, you got that?"

"Okay, fine."

"That includes me."

Again I'm stopped in my tracks, my mouth surely about ready to say something.

"Get out."

I obey. I climb out of the jeep and stand in my driveway and listen as it rumbles down the road and away from me.

The longer I'm in this cabin that once belonged to Uncle Robertthat still belongs to him-the longer I think that something strange must have happened to him. Something sinister or even supernatural.

If he did leave voluntarily, he decided to leave everything behind. Maybe the only things he took were the clothes on his back and the wallet in his pocket and the keys to his car (or motorcycle, according to Mom).

I think this as I'm rifling through one of the milk crates in the walk-in closet of my room. I glanced in here the day we arrived, but until today I hadn't looked through his stuff. On the floor below the shirts and pants and jackets all crammed together on hangers are three milk crates stuffed with records. Full-length vinyl albums, some double albums with fantastic artwork, some looking worn and frayed, others in spectacular shape.

Now I understand the stereo system in the corner with the turntable. When I first got here, I was psyched to see the large, waisthigh speakers in each corner of the room until I saw what they were attached to. No iPod connection going on here. But tonight as I'm supposed to be studying, I'm surveying the tunes my forty-one-yearold uncle collected.

Turns out he had something in common with someone else in my family.

Musical taste. Maybe my father's only admirable quality.

The records aren't arranged in any sort of way I can see. I find some old Beatles albums, some Elvis, the Who, Pink Floyd. I wonder if they're all classics; I don't see anything current.

Then I spot a Nirvana album.

A Pixies record.

The Coldplay album piques my interest since it's so recent.

I put on New Order's Brotherhood album from 1986 and start making piles of the records. Is it bad to put Elvis with the Beatles? I make a separate stack for some of my favorites that I picked up from my mother: The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure. There's a pile for groups I've never heard of. Husker Dii, Meat Puppets, Front 242.

There are newer releases that make me think Uncle Robert lived here recently-albums I have on my iPod, some I downloaded in the past year.

I hear a knock on the door.

"What's all this?" Mom asks. She's wearing a robe and has her hair in a towel.

"Uncle Robert has quite the collection."

She bends over and picks up an LP from one of my stacks. "I remember this group."

"Never heard of them," I say.

"Cocteau Twins."

"That how you say it?"

"I might have even been with Robert when he bought this."

"What do they sound like?"

"You should put them on and try it out. Just not too loud."

"It's not like we have neighbors who are going to complain."