The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (26 page)

Blinky is there too, his goofy smile breaking out occasionally, his frayed denim jacket always on, tugged down to his wrists.

I am king of the tetherball. I am strong and I know how to use the momentum to keep the ball turning my way. I ignore the pain when the tide turns and I have to use my palms to stop the ball.

“Come on, Blinky. Step up. Ready to challenge the king?”

But Blinky just shoves his hands in his coat. “Nah, Emmett. Um good. I’ll get you next time.”

“Okay.”

Mr. Glass steps onto the blacktop, crosses the first hopscotch square, extends his arm.

“Who the fuck’s he waving at?” Flynn says, safely away from any adult ears.

“Dare you to flip ’im the bird?”

“Yeah. Fuck you, Emmett. You just don’t want no one to dethrone you.”

“What’d be the difference if you were in detention?”

“Again. Fuck you.”

But Blinky leaves our group, heads toward Mr. Glass, kicking orange and brown leaves. His hands never leaving his coat and his elbows crooked out like broken bird wings.

Our lives are run by the sound of school bells and our mothers’ voices. A week takes forever to pass and a year is an eternity. Our walk home is an unknown distance, but we talk like it spans the galaxy.

We trudge home, backpacks full of books and nothing but swear words in our mouths. Our journey broken by a barbershop, a gas station, and endless fields of wheat-colored scrub grass. The gravel crunches under our feet and Flynn spins the pedals of his bike backward, making a metallic ratcheting noise.

Me, Maxine, Flynn, Brady, and Blinky. Blinky’s headphones are on, the ones with the turquoise earpieces. I can hear New Kids on the Block blaring, Blinky’s head bob missing “You Got It” by half a beat.

Brady pulls the headband and the turquoise foam tilts off his ear. “What’s wrong with you? You trying to burn a hole in your ear?”

“Just thinking,” he says, kind of dreamily. I hear the click of the Stop button and the headphones rest on his shoulders. Blinky stares off at something somewhere.

“It’s okay. I like loud music too,” Maxine says, pats his arm. To Brady, “Where’d you come up with ‘burn a hole in your ear’?”

Brady shrugs. “It’s what my mom says to my brother every time he puts his Walkman on. Is it not true?”

“Do you believe everything your mother tells you?” Flynn says. He’s on his bike and pedals around us.

“Is it not true then? The ear-burning thing? What? Don’t laugh.”

But it just encourages us.

Blinky salutes us, turns off into Heaven’s Acres trailer park.

After we’re past, Flynn says, “Where do you think he got the Walkman? It’s brand-new. And a Sony.”

“Maybe his dad? His birthday’s in a couple months,” Maxine offers.

Over my shoulder I see Blinky’s place. The rust on the window screen, the piece of aluminum that was bent in a storm two winters back, still flapping unchallenged in the breeze. “Yeah. Sure,” I say, ’cause I like that she sees the best in folk, and ’cause I like her.

Flynn and Brady live on one of the newer residential streets. Built up just in time for the paper mill’s new addition. Flynn offers to give Maxine a goodbye hug. He stops his bike, opens his arms wide.

“No. I know it’s hard, but try not to be a weirdo.”

Undeterred as ever. “All right. Your loss. It would have been rockin’.”

Two more blocks, and Maxine’s place is right on the corner. Her house is pristine—green cut lawn, edged, and the house crisply painted in blues and grays. Her dad steps onto the porch, raises his hand.

I wave back. The badge on his chest winks in the afternoon light. “Why does he come out like that? See you tomorrow.”

“To greet me. ’Cause he wants to see me. Don’t your parents do that?” She touches the cuff of my sleeve. Squeezes. “Bye, Emmett.”

The pressure on my arm is all I can think about for the rest of the day.

My home is an old farmhouse an acre down a dirt driveway. It sits in the shade of a big oak caught in the grip of wisteria vine, slowly being strangled to death by lilac blossoms.

The house is empty, quiet in a sleepy kind of way. I microwave mac ’n’ cheese, add a handful of Fritos as a topping from an opened bag on top the fridge. I adjust the rabbit ears slightly to NBC and watch an episode of
Highway to Heaven.
Michael Landon saves the day, his prose poignant and potent, wrapping the episode in a lesson learned.

I find Roxy—my mutt of unknown origin—lounging on the back porch. I touch her coarse black fur and she is immediately drawn to life and at my side, ready for adventure. We walk through waist-high flaxen grass, slip over a barbed-wire fence. The grazing cows pay us no heed, other than to follow us with their eyes, their mouths always moving, chewing.

Old Spooky is a charred oak tree at the edge of the property, blackened branches reaching for the sky. I wonder if it was struck with lightning or was caught in the path of a wildfire. The bark is black ash and feels like coal in my hand.

I hear the truck, my dad’s Toyota, and stay in the field a while longer. Later there’s the high buzz of my mom’s hatchback and Roxy and I head in.

Dinner is baked chicken and mashed potatoes and store-bought biscuits. My father nurses a beer, only taking his eyes from the paper long enough to take another forkful of food. My mother tells us about the diner and the interesting customers passing through. She asks about my day and I shrug it off. “It’s okay.”

The paper crinkles in my father’s grip. “That’s good. I’d have bad news about life if sixth grade is kicking your ass.”

“What about your day?” Mom asks him.

“You want me to talk about how hot it is in the mill?” His patented answer for anything concerning his work. The black-inked four-leaf clover on his forearm wrinkles as he shifts his grip. Then his eyes go back to the paper.

Silence follows us after that, and I do the dishes, stack it all to dry in the rack, watch the clouds slink over the sky for the night.

It’s almost winter when Blinky pulls a Rubik’s Cube out of his pocket. I see the side, the little squares a random assortment of colors. It makes me laugh. “Blink. Where’d you get that? Was that a recess game?”

“Nope. It’s mine.” He blinks both eyes at me in quick succession. He twists the little cube this way and then that. Then he raises the cube up, each side a solid color.

“No way.”

“Holy shit,” Flynn says. “You’re a genius. But like . . . a retarded genius.” Maxine smacks the back of Flynn’s head and the sharp noise makes me laugh. “Ouch. Come on, man. You know exactly what I mean.”

“Where’d you get that, Blinky?” Max asks.

Blinky does the thing with his eyes, but in a shy way. He shoves the perfect cube deep into his denim. It causes his cuff to ride up, reveals the blue and black just above his wrist. Blinky immediate pulls it back into place.

“You okay?”

“See ya tomorrow, Emmett,” he says, and then tucks his chin to his chest, shuffles into Heaven’s Acres.

“That was pretty amazing,” Brady says. “I’ve had one since Christmas, and I can only ever get two sides to match.”

“My dog got three sides done on mine,” Flynn says.

“Oh . . . uh-huh, sure. Why don’t you help him out?” Brady laughs at his own joke.

Flynn doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, I don’t want to ruin the challenge for him, Brady.”

“Where’s Blinky even getting this stuff? Last week he had a set of Micro Machines, a couple days ago he had a brand-new deck of Garbage Pail cards. He even had the new Acne Amy, didn’t even know it was out yet.”

“Think Blinky’s stealing stuff?” I ask.

I get a round of laughs for the line.

“From where?”

“Closest Toys-R-Us is in Red Bluff.”

Flynn gets a smile. “So Blinky gets up in the dead of night, sneaks out of the creaky-ass trailer, walks to Red Bluff, breaks into the mall, then Toys, then he picks a single item, then he resets all of the alarms and hitches a ride back here in time for breakfast.”

“So how’s he getting the stuff?” But only the wind answers.

After Sunday church, Flynn and I steal away, borrow his dad’s tackle box and two of his poles. It’s cold, but we pedal hard and our speed and youth keep us warm as we ride our ten-speeds to Battle Creek. A mile down Carter Street and we see a familiar faded and frayed denim jacket walking along.

We stopped beside him. “Blinky. What are you doing out here?”

“Oh. You know,” he kind of sing-songs and stares at the tops of his shoes.

Flynn just gives me a shrug.

“We’re going fishing, you wanna come?”

“What’re you fishing for?”

“Fish,” Flynn says.

Blinky laughs—to himself, I think. “Okay.”

So I take both the poles and the tackle, and Blinky rides on Flynn’s foot pegs. It takes a while, but we park the bikes on a dead log and trek down the pebble bank. We bait hooks with grubby worms and cast into the middle of a tired but clear stream.

We talk shit and our lines bob, fish swimming right past our lines. Flynn breaks out a single stolen cigarette and a paper book of matches. We pass the Camel back and forth, cough with every gasp of nicotine, and feel cool and adult as the creek burbles at our feet.

“Okay,” Flynn says as he coughs out a cloud. “If you had to do it with a teacher. Which one?”

“Gross,” I say.

“Come on. You know you’ve thought about it.”

“They’re too old.”

“Not too old for boning. Bet their skin’s all soft and papery.”

“Fine. If you’ll stop talking about this, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“That is gross,” he says. “You’re disgusting.”

“You started this.”

“Emmett. No one made you say Mrs. Fletcher. You did that yourself.” After a moment, “You gross bastard.”

“Okay, ass. Who’d you do it with?”

Flynn just shakes his head. “I would never do that. It’s gross. You know in Mrs. Fletcher’s house, they’re not granny panties, they’re just panties.”

I’m still fuming when Blinky chimes in. “Mr. Glass isn’t too old. He doesn’t even have gray hairs.”

I look at Flynn and we laugh so hard the cigarette falls out and dies at the water’s edge. “You’re a fucking gem, Blinky,” he says through the tears. “A fucking gem.”

We bike back at dusk, the world turned soft and smooth by gray shadowed light.

Blinky hops off in front of Heaven’s Acres. “That was a nice place. Thanks. Nicest place I ever been.” He says it so earnestly, not even Flynn laughs.

I start walking Max to her classes. I don’t know why. We just get to talking and I like that our steps match so easily. I like a lot of things about her. The late bell sounds for fourth period; the halls empty.

We stand alone and still outside her class. “You’re gonna be late,” she says, but with a smile.

“Totally worth it,” I say, smiling with all my teeth.

A door opens behind us. Mr. Glass and Blinky come around the corner, whispering harshly to each other. Mr. Glass is stooped down, hand on Blinky’s shoulder, his mouth close to Blinky’s ear.

Mr. Glass straightens, pulls his hand away and squeezes it into a fist, then puts it behind his back. It’s wrong somehow, intimate almost. I can’t help but stare.

Then he’s back on. “Emmett. Maxine. You’re late for class.”

Max ducks into her class.

Mr. Glass looks me right in the eye. “Something else, Emmett? Something else I can help you with?”

“Nope.” To Blinky I say, “See you after school, Blink,” but he doesn’t even look up. My mind is weirdly full and my stomach hurts and my footsteps sound loud on the tile.

The feeling follows me as we walk home, and I spend the whole time looking at Blinky. He looks different or is different. Something. Maybe I’ve seen him wrong this whole time.

The others talk about class and Mrs. Charles’s receding hairline and winter break. I make all the right noises in the right places but don’t participate.

The others trail off and Max stops in front of her house, pushes loose strands of blond hair behind her ears. “Thanks for walking me to class. It’s nice.”

“Did you see Glass and Blinky today?”

“Yeah. I thought we were going to get detention.”

“Did they seem weird to you?”

“I don’t know. I guess.” She bites her bottom lip. “Weird how?” The front door opens and her father steps out. She turns. “See you Monday.”

Home is familiar and normal and I find a dead bantam chicken on the back porch, its black-and-white feathers mottled with drops of red now. “Shit.”

I find Roxy shamed under the porch, feathers still sticking to her bloody maw. It takes a while, but I coax her out and clean her mouth with a garage rag. Then I bury the chicken in the back field, tap the fresh earth down with the shovel blade. I put everything back, clean the dirt and red from under my nails. And pretend like it didn’t happen.

I’m on the floor watching TV when Mr. Speakman’s car pulls into the drive. My dad greets him on the porch. After a few moments, my dad comes in. “Emmett. You seen any bantam chickens on the property?”

I try to make my face blank. “Nope.”

“’Cause something got into Gary Speakman’s coop, killed six of his hens. He’s still missing three.”

I just shrug, turn my head back to
Cheers
, but my hearing strains for the muffled sounds on the porch.

It is the dead of night when something yanks me by the hair and throws me to the floor.
“Oof,”
and the wind goes out of me. The bedroom light is snapped on and it seems bright and stark and pierces my bleary vision.

My father’s imposing frame lords over me. “You’re a dipshit.” My father’s voice is even and calm and his black clover tattoo is so dark it must drink the light.

“Yessir,” I wheeze.

“Good. I’m glad we’re starting off on the right tone. Get your boots and coat.”

I dress as instructed and find him in the kitchen. There’s a pot of coffee going and the earthy aroma permeates the air. The dead chicken sits on the kitchen table. A ring of dirt and feathers forms a brown halo. The back door is open and Roxy sits on the other side of the screen, tongue out, tail thumping. Her muzzle is brown with dirt and feathers.