by Ben Clabaugh
CHAPTER 2
“Well, it was nice to meetcha, but I gotta get going.” David waved, turned and walked quickly back around the front of his house and into the open garage.
He put Pete in the kitchen, grabbed his bike and pedaled up the street, thinking that if he found no friends and came home, who would know? And if he did find some friends, his mom would be so happy she wouldn’t even care he had broken the rules—maybe. Any risk was worth not being stuck with Shelton all summer.
As he pedaled past, Shelton was where he had left him, ‘helping.’ Man, what a weirdo, David thought. Shelton lifted a hand to wave, but David stared straight ahead, focusing instead on the back of the black SUV parked along the curb three houses down.
He frowned. He could see the silhouette of a man sitting in the car, and from the puddle forming under the hood, he had been sitting there with the car running and air conditioner on for quite a while. The man just sat in the car, unmoving, staring straight ahead. David shook his head as he pedaled past thinking, I’m surrounded by weirdos.
He came to the stop sign at the end of the street. To his right, the ribbon of road rose and fell between rolling, pasture-covered hills. Trees clustered in the low areas, and he could just make out a solitary, old-style stone and white clapboard farm house in the distance with nothing but rolling hills and trees beyond.
He turned left and pumped up the hill. At the top the open pastures gave way to side streets lined with houses much like his own. He was looking for a vacant lot or a park, anywhere there might be a bunch of kids. As he rode, wind from passing cars buffeted him, forcing him off the asphalt and onto a narrow strip of hard packed dirt between the road and the drainage ditch. He began to wonder if this was such a good idea.
He came to an intersection and stopped, trying to decide which way to go. Ahead and to the left, beyond a jumble of rooftops, he could just make out the large, round top of a water tower. He checked traffic then went straight. David zigged and zagged his way from street to street, heading, he thought, in the general direction of the water tower. As he made his way deeper into the neighborhood, the sounds of the busy street behind him faded, and the air felt closer. The hum of his tires on the asphalt, the chattering of the bike’s chain as it swung against the chain guard, and squeak of his left pedal at the bottom of each down-stroke seemed amplified. He saw no movement—no kids, no adults, not even any dogs.
He stopped at another stop sign and wiped the sweat from his face. The temperature had continued to rise, and David regretted not wearing a cap. Squinting in the bright sunlight, he saw the water tower through a gap between two identical brown houses with bright green shutters. Standing on his pedals, he raced around the next corner, skidding to a stop at the curb.
The water tower stood at the far side of a field of mown grass. The field stretched at least half a block in both directions. A chain-link backstop was tucked in the shade of some large trees in the far corner of the field. A couple dozen kids stood arrayed in the field or lounging in the shade, waiting a turn at bat.
Geez, these guys are serious, David thought. They all wore actual baseball pants, either white or gray, and official-looking jerseys—not a pair of blue jeans or regular t-shirt in the bunch. There were no umpires, and he saw several different colors of jersey, so this obviously wasn’t any kind of official, league game. He pulled his bike onto the grass to watch. As he swung his leg over the seat of his bike, the metallic ping of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball drew his eyes skyward in time to see the ball arching upward in his direction.
He could tell right away that the ball would sail far beyond where the outfielders had been standing. He thought he might be the only one that could get to it, but only if he moved fast. David dropped his bike and took off running.
The ball appeared to jump and wobble as he ran over the uneven ground, but he kept his eyes glued to it. Two things happened, then, at once. First, he remembered he did not have a glove. This would make it much harder to catch the ball. On the other hand, if he did, it would be even more impressive. They’d just have to let him play. Heck, they’d beg him to play.
Second, in his peripheral vision, he saw a blur of a blue and white jersey converging toward him.
No way, he thought. The ball was way too far over the kid’s head. Why had he even bothered trying to go for it?
The ball began its downward trajectory, and David pumped harder toward the place he knew it would land. He could not risk taking his eyes off the ball, but the blue and white blur was growing. David thought fleetingly of calling for the ball to warn the other kid off, but then didn’t. Surely the other kid would either hear him coming and back off, or give up, or something. Then all thought ceased as he concentrated every ounce of his will on getting to the ball. He just had to catch it. Appearing out of nowhere, diving spectacularly, and catching the ball bare-handed would be the kind of thing kids would talk about the whole summer.
“Yea, have you met the new kid?” one kid would say.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Man, you shoulda seen him. He was awesome!”
He surged forward, using every last bit of strength. The ball was close enough that he could see the stitching, spinning counterclockwise as the ball dove toward the earth. He lurched, stumbling through a dip in the grass. His left foot caught behind his right calf, and he pitched forward, twisting through the air like Superman with a flat tire. He lunged.
Still could catch it, he thought, stretching his hands out toward the ball. The sound of wind roaring in his ears was suddenly stilled by a loud, hollow thwock! that resounded through his skull. Something large, hard, and heavy slammed into his side. He crashed to Earth, rolling. White and blue filled his vision, and pain flared along his left side.
He came to a rest on his back staring up into the deep blue sky. The clouds danced and spun overhead. He smelled grass, and his arms began to itch. He gently probed the goose egg erupting from his temple where the ball had hit him, wincing as pain flared through head, chest and ribs. He could hear the chatter of black birds, but could see none wheeling overhead.
He lowered his hand, tucking his elbow against his injured ribs. As the spinning slowed, the chatter of birds resolved into the sound of laughter. David slowly propped himself up on one elbow and saw the kids from the infield streaming toward him. Some staggered, clutching their sides and pointing, faces contorted in laughter.
Suddenly, he was slammed back down on the ground, a large shadow blotted out the sun. He looked up to see the blue and white jersey. It was rumpled, untucked, and streaked with grass stains. The left-fielder’s face was red, and bits of grass clung to his tousled, sun-bleached hair. He stood with fists clenched at his sides.
“You trying to kill me, Man? That was mine. Mine all the way,” he yelled, pointing skyward. “What were you even doing here?” he demanded.
“I…,” David stammered then coughed, unable to catch his breath.
“Okay, fine,” the left fielder said, nodding as if coming to some sort of decision. He stepped back and motioned David up. “Get up, tough guy. You wanted a piece of me. Let’s go.”
David shook his head trying to quiet the ringing in his ears. He felt dizzy and disorientated and couldn’t quite find the right way to start a sentence, let alone finish one.
“Come on, get up, ya wuss. Let’s see you take a shot at me when I’m looking.” The other boys had started to arrive and began to form a circle. Sunlight lanced his eyes between the shifting shadows, and David’s head began to throb. He leaned forward, attempting to stand. The earth spun beneath him, and once again, he heard the chatter of birds. He wanted to stand, thinking maybe that would quiet them. He rolled over onto his hands and knees, planted one foot under him, and hauled himself upward, holding his arms out for balance.
The throbbing in his head kept pace with his thudding heart, and he wondered why his brains didn’t just leak out his ears. Faces swam in and out of focus. He blinked, squeezing his eyes shut. He opened them and tried
to focus.
The left fielder stood before him, fists up in a boxer’s stance. He thumbed his nose with one clenched fist. The world behind him appeared to David to tilt and twist, like the image in a flexible fun house mirror. A spasm of nausea swept through his stomach.
He bent double, clutching his stomach with both hands. He heaved, and his mouth was forced wide as a great glurt of half-digested squares of Life cereal mixed with the unidentifiable remains of the previous night’s dinner arched out and down, splattering the ground and the left-fielder’s black cleats.
A chorus of groans erupted all around him, and the circle widened instantly. David stared at the black shoes with the bright white laces, stitched-on stripes, and globs of congealed, toasted oat. He felt the world begin to spin, and the shoes slid from view. He landed on his knees, a poker of fire jabbing up through his ribs.
“Geeeeezus, man, you see that? You scared the puke out him,” a voice said, wheezy with disbelieving glee. More laughter. One cleated foot stamped and shook, splattering the grass with goo. David stared stupidly at the remains of his breakfast, hoping that whatever this kid was going to do to him, he would hurry up and get it over with. He fought down another spasm, wincing against the pain in his head and side.
“Ugh, disgusting,” the left fielder growled then leaned in to whisper in David’s ear. “I’d kick your pansy ass right now if I didn’t think you’d just puke on me some more. You just stay away from me. In fact, I see you here again, that’s it. Comprend-day?”
“Yeah,” another voice chimed in, “This is our field. Losers keep out.”
“Hey, it’s after eleven. Let’s hit the pool,” someone else added.
The left fielder turned and walked away, all the other kids falling in line behind him.
David stayed on the ground, bracing himself with his hands on his knees. He watched the kids gather their gear then disappear through a gate in a wooden fence behind the backstop. His head still throbbed and his side felt hot, but the spinning had finally stopped.
He sat, shaking his head, wondering how quickly things had turned to crap. One second he had a whole hoard of potential new friends. He thought he’d struck the mother load. But probably every kid near his age within biking distance had been here, and they had all seen what happened. He would forever be The Kid That Puked.
In the year since his little sister, Janie’s, death, he’d grown accustomed to being alone. His so-called friends back home in Indianapolis just couldn’t seem to stop talking about it, pestering him with all kinds of stupid questions until he just couldn’t stand being around them. Even his parents couldn’t give it a rest, continually trying to get him to talk, sending him to shrink after shrink, claiming he needed to “open up and deal with it.”
He knew they blamed him. He could see it in their eyes every time they turned around expecting to see her, but saw only him, instead.
The one good thing about moving was now he had a chance to start over with a whole new set of people, people who knew nothing of what happened. Now that chance was gone, and the only kid in the neighborhood—in the whole county, probably—who didn’t think he was a total loser was sitting in his yard playing with ants.
He glanced around at the empty field, grimaced at the sour taste in his mouth, and spit. Blinking back tears of frustration and despair, he began to pedal. He pumped his legs, harder and harder, letting the wind dry the tears that coursed down his cheeks. He hurtled through the neighborhood, turning right or left indiscriminately, not really caring where he was going, just wanting to get away from the steaming humiliation of that field.
A car horn blared. David’s right foot slipped from the pedal, pitching him forward and cranking his handlebars left. The bike veered out from under him, launching David into the air. He landed hard on the street, making contact first with his outstretched palms, then his forearms and elbows, and finally with his chin and knees. His teeth cracked together, the sound like a gunshot going off inside his head, and he felt a splinter of tooth on his tongue. He bounced, rolled, and fetched up on his back in the grass at the edge of an expanse of lawn. He rolled onto his back and lay still, his closed eyelids glowing bright orange against the sun. Tires screeched and an engine roared as the car sped away. He smelled burning rubber, and a cackle, like a hyena, wafted from the retreating car. He felt as if his arms had been flayed, and his chin throbbed.
He sat up and checked himself over. Dirt and asphalt speckled the raw patches on his arms like pepper. He gritted his teeth against the pain and felt a small crunch. He spit the tooth fragment and gasped at the flare of pain the movement sent from his chin. He stood slowly, surprised that he had apparently broken no bones. He looked to his left and spotted his bike, relaxing in the shade of a tree in the front yard of a brown split-level house. The front door opened, and a very small woman shuffled out. Her hair was a wispy shade of blue-gray, and her face was so wrinkled David guessed she had to be at least one-hundred years old.
She wore a light blue and pink house-coat and half slippers that covered only the fronts of her feet. She held a cane aloft over her head and shook it in the direction the car with the squealing tires had gone. She stood a moment longer, gazing in that direction, the cane held high.
David heard her muttering, “something-something, hoodlums.” She noticed David as she turned, ducking suddenly, and brandishing the cane. She inhaled as if preparing to shout, but then her watery eyes focused. Her wrinkled mouth formed a silent “O,” and she lowered her cane.
“Oh,” she said with a shocked look on her face, “Oh my.” She reached out and began shuffling toward David.
“Did they,” she started, “Did they hit you dear?” she asked, her voice raspy and cracking. “Those varmints are always racing around, screeching their tires. Gonna kill someone one of these days, they are, if they haven’t already. My word!”
David bent to pick up his bike, tensing his stomach muscles to keep from groaning.
“No, I’m ok. Just a little scrape,” David said through clenched teeth. He swung his leg stiffly over the seat, feeling as old as she looked.
“Now don’t sass an old woman, boy,” she said, getting closer. “Come over here and let’s have a look at you.”
David was tempted. It felt like a long time since anyone had cared enough to look him over. But he had no idea where he was, how to get home, and did not remember his phone number. Then he looked into her watery eyes, saw the white crust of dried spittle on her chin, and his head was filled with the smell of a nursing home his class visited each year to sing Christmas Carols—a combination of ammonia, urine, mold, and decay. He would never forget how some of the people just sat and stared at them, the look on their faces asking, “My God, who are you people, and why have you stolen my shoes?”
David shuddered and shook his head. He sniffed cautiously—mown grass he thought with relief.
“Thanks,” he called to her, putting on a brave face, “but I have to get home now.”
He returned to the intersection where he had almost been run down, stopped, and looked back. The old woman stood in the yard still, looking toward him, her hand shading her eyes. David looked up at the street sign and sighed with relief. Turning left would put him on 51st Street—and from there, he knew how to get home.
As David pedaled homeward, he pressed his left hand to a spot just under his rib cage, below his heart. For months, a tightness had been growing there as if a rock had settled in just over his stomach. He shook his head ruefully and a bitter laugh burst from his lips.
For the first time in a long time he’d felt the light sizzle of hope and excitement, and the pressure of the rock had lessened, just a little. But he’d let the excitement get to him and he’d screwed everything up. He grimaced at the sour taste in his mouth, coughed up a wad from the back of his throat and spat into the ditch.
David pedaled noncommittally, resigned to spending the rest of the summer, maybe the rest of his life, apart and alone. He would turn
into one of those sickly, pasty-faced kids that scuttled from class to class, never looking up, never speaking to anyone. He could skip school for days, weeks even, and no one would wonder what had happened to him.
Why did I have to try for the ball? He berated himself. I could have just stood and watched. Eventually they would have asked me to play—if not today, maybe tomorrow.
Why did I do it? He thumped his fist against his handlebars. He knew he could never show his face at the ball field—or anywhere in that neighborhood, for that matter—again.
He fumed as he rode, not really noticing the houses he passed. David could scarcely remember what life had been like back in Indianapolis before Janie had died, but he knew it had been nothing like this. With his little sister gone, it was as if someone had permanently dimmed the lights. Everything had changed, had gotten harder and much, much quieter. Conversation in the house ground to a halt.
His family had moved suddenly—“An opportunity to get ahead,” his mom had told him, trying to sound enthusiastic.
David feigned disinterest, but he had been relieved. Staying in the house had become unbearable. Everywhere he turned he saw Janie; sitting and drawing in front of the TV, or across the breakfast table from him, her chin resting in her hands pushing her lips into a duck bill as she stared desultorily at her oatmeal. His mother had insisted on preserving her room like a museum, the door open. David could never walk past her door without getting a chill and wanting to slam the door shut. It was like his mom left the room that way as a constant reminder to him that he had failed—that it was his fault she was gone.
David suspected most people took some time getting their fresh start. They thought, considered, planned, then started. Not the Fuller family. One day he came home from school to find a “For Sale” sign in the yard. Four days later, they pulled into the driveway of their new home four hundred miles away in some little known Kansas City suburb. It was almost as if his parents had just posted a map on the wall and thrown darts to select their new home. Of course, there was also the possibility that they had planned carefully and just not told him about it until the last minute. If true, it would not have surprised David in the least.
During the eight-hour drive, his mother had chattered endlessly about how wonderful everything was going to be; Dad’s new job, David’s new school, all the new friends he would meet. He wondered who she was trying to convince.
David wasn’t deaf, and he sure wasn’t stupid. He’d heard enough snatches of whispered conversations to know his father had been laid off after months of “diminished performance,” whatever that meant. He had overheard his dad arguing with someone from work on the phone when he had heard the term. The new job was the only one he could get on short notice, and it paid a lot less.
David had actually been optimistic those first few days in this new place. Here, no one knew anything about him or about what had happened. He could literally be a different person if he wanted, and no one would know. He thought maybe that moving to a new town at the beginning of the summer would be the perfect time to strike up friendships to take into the new school year. The only thing worse than being The New Kid and showing up in the middle of the school year was being The New Kid on the first day of school—unless you already knew people. That was before he knew there were no kids in his new neighborhood.
Their new house was on a cul-de-sac at the end of a road with eight houses down either side, and no one had kids. From the day they moved in, the most David saw of his father was the flash of headlights through his window late at night as he returned home from work.
“Billable hours,” his Dad explained—as if that meant anything to David. After a week of whispered arguments they thought David could not hear through the thin bedroom walls—and, Lord help him, he had tried stuffing everything he could find in his ears to keep from hearing—his mother had gone to work in some office. She started wearing too much makeup and was on the phone all the time, using a high-pitched, overly enthusiastic, half begging tone of voice David had never heard before. She told people so often that she worried about leaving David home alone, it started to sound to David like her own, personal catch-phrase.
Then Shelton’s family moved in next door.
Why couldn’t a normal kid have moved in? Or even a girl. At least that way, I’d be off the hook, David moaned.
He knew his mom was too relieved to have someone else available to watch over him to believe anything bad David had to say about his new “best friend.”
David pedaled faster as his anger and resentment grew. Maybe he didn’t need friends. After all, he had been doing fine by himself the last couple of weeks.
“Why didn’t I just sit there and watch?” he muttered.
Even if he never got to play, at least they all wouldn’t think he was the World’s Biggest Loser. David pounded his handlebars again. The front wheel turned, and the bike swerved. David’s legs slipped from the pedals, and he almost crashed again. Once righted, he winced, lightly tracing the scabs on his arms and bruises under his shirt with his fingers.
He braked to a stop at the top of the hill before the turn-off to his road and gazed westward. The gray ribbon of road stretched out invitingly before him, rising and falling with the rolling hills as they marched toward a tree-lined horizon. He coasted down the hill, gathering speed.
At the last second, he leaned hard to his right onto Rosehill Lane. David relaxed and coasted the rest of the way down the hill, along the flat stretch, and up into his garage. He heard a scratching at the door to the kitchen and a muffled yip. David eased the door open. Pete pushed through the opening, slobbered once on David’s knee and raced out to the yard. Leaving the door open, David stepped inside and poured a glass of water from the faucet. His throat was very dry, and where he wasn’t either burning or throbbing, he itched. The phone rang.
“Well hello, David. Have you and Shelton been having a nice time?”
David opened his mouth to say that ‘yes, they had been,’ but something in his mom’s tone stopped him. Sometimes, David knew, adults asked kids questions they already knew the answer to hoping to catch the kid in a lie. David had always thought this practice a dirty trick, but so far had found no one to complain to. It was an especially nasty trick when the truthful answer would land the kid in trouble anyway, so he really had no choice but to lie, thereby compounding his offense and increasing the punishment.
He quickly considered several possible replies; comparing each against the evidence he knew she might have against him, also aware that each millisecond’s hesitation cost him credibility. First, since he had answered the phone she knew he was home and not next door. Second, the only reason she had called over here was she probably had already called Shelton’s house and found he was not there. There really was no way out.
In his most earnest tone, David said, “Mom, I tried. I really did. But the kid’s weird. He.…”
“We’ll talk about it when I get home,” she said, her voice cold.
The line went dead before he could reply. David slammed the phone down, slumped into a chair, and sat back, staring at the ceiling, seething with anger. It was so unfair. It was as if they were starting a whole new life, one that had never contained Janie and where he was like some moving box his parents didn’t really want but could not bring themselves to throw out.
Maybe he could just run away to live in the woods at the other side of the pasture. He could just imagine running along a deer trail, his tattered clothes flapping in the wind, his face painted with ash from burnt logs and crushed wildflowers, just like the Indians. He would squat before a small blaze roasting a charred piece of rabbit he had caught in a snare.
David sat staring resentfully at the phone and listened to the emptiness of the house. His parents may be miserable, but that didn’t mean they had to go and make his life even more miserable by forcing him to hang around with the some retard. Did they want him goin’ stupid, too? He wasn’t sure if whatever the kid had was c
atching, and he sure didn’t want to find out.
David thumped his head against the back of the chair over and over until the popcorn texture on the ceiling appeared to spin. Then he had an idea so simple, he almost felt embarrassed he hadn’t thought of it sooner.
What if Shelton didn’t like him?
David clapped his hands, leapt to his feet and began pacing back and forth, planning his next move. He knew he couldn’t do anything to hurt or scare Shelton. No, too obvious and he didn’t feel like being locked in his room for the rest of his life.
What if he was just really, really boring? He considered that for a moment then shook his head—no way to tell, yet, what Shelton would think was boring. He’d just have to wait, watch, and then decide.
