Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  He heaved the brick at them. If Torque hadn’t slipped to the side it would have smashed his nose through the back of his head. It winged past his shoulder, landing in the mud just behind him.

  Torque’s expression was almost farcically alarmed, the face of a comic drunkard who has stumbled into his own open grave. “Man, listen, we didn’t … this ain’t got nothing to do with—”

  He didn’t have time to say anything else, and no other speech was needed. Brando slid in a long step, and a great gristly knot of a fist slammed into Torque’s face. It made a sound like a mallet striking a side of beef.

  Torque went down hard, and the fight, such as it was, was on.

  There was swearing, and thrashing, and the shadows melded there in the wet beneath the bridge. Flanagan’s men formed a square, stood shoulder to shoulder and back to back as the Saddle Shop boys descended on them. The battle, if one-sided, was not without its small heroisms.

  None of that made any difference in the end.

  * * *

  Atop the bridge, Patrick watched, his eyes wide. Frankie taped. There was little sound but the distant traffic, and the grunts and sounds of exertion below. Chains flashed, and once, a switchblade knife gleamed. A crack as the knife-wielder’s arm was broken with a length of aluminum pipe. Someone went down, and mud splashed.

  But there were no gunshots, and for a very long time, no cries for mercy.

  No one ran. To their credit, the bikers stood like brothers during the entire debacle.

  It was entertaining at first, and Patrick found himself cheering silently, having the time of his life. Happy that Frankie was taping this. It was the caper to end all capers.…

  And then the horror began.

  18

  Patrick managed to get all the way back to the trailer park without being seen. He had stopped three times along the way. The muscles of his diaphragm still ached with the violence of his retching.

  He was very, very careful to go in the back way. On this night, more than any other in his young life, he didn’t want to be seen by Cappy or any of his people. Hell, no. Please, God, no.

  He walked his bike the last hundred yards to the dark, wet, quiet place that was his home, a greater and colder darkness alive and gnawing inside him. He had to stop twice and steady himself, but didn’t dare to close his eyes. Every time he closed them, the same images spooled out behind them. He couldn’t tolerate that. Even if he had to prop his eyes open with toothpicks, he couldn’t see even one of those images, ever again.

  Luckily the goat in the next yard didn’t make a sound as he pulled in. His bedroom’s side window was unhooked. He scrabbled over the sill and into his room without making a sound. He dumped his wet clothes in a corner and crawled into bed.

  Patrick stared into the ceiling. In the back bedroom he heard his mother’s breathing. What he wanted more than anything in the world was to just go in there, climb in bed with her, tell her the things that he had seen and heard, and beg her to make it all better for him.

  Without really realizing that he had done it, Patrick curled into a knot, his thumb slipping into his mouth. He stared into the wall, into the darkness, and when he did, the images from the bridge came back to him.…

  * * *

  The night went colder after the sounds of fighting died down. With hands that trembled, Patrick reached out for Frankie’s camera, and used the zoom to focus on the shadows below.

  Distantly, a steam whistle blew. Everything seemed as far off as a cloud in a fever dream, including the few cars crossing the bridge, belching fumes across the pedestrian wall.

  The bikers were done, finished. Surely now the men from the Saddle Shop would walk away, laughing. Surely.

  The wind quieted so that they could actually hear what was happening below. It had stopped being funny some time ago.

  A whisper of a voice. “Tough assholes when you’re beating the hell out of some harmless hippies, or some femmie little high school kids.”

  “What kids? I don’t know anything about—”

  “Lying motherfucker. Thought you’d move up the food chain?”

  “Sorry,” Torque wheezed. “I’m so damned sorry.” He held himself as if his ribs were broken. Patrick had seen the kicks and blows, and didn’t doubt it for a minute.

  “Damn right.” Brando chuckled. And the man next to him wiped blood and rain from his face, and shared the dark humor. They scanned the empty office buildings to either side, as if checking to see that they were utterly alone.

  “Please,” Flanagan coughed wetly. “Just leave us alone.”

  Brando said the next sentence as the wind picked up again, drowning him out. But they heard the first ten words as he began to unbuckle his belt. “I’m afraid this is going to be a long night.”

  * * *

  Patrick lay in his bed, afraid to close his eyes. Too tired to leave them open. Somewhere out in the night, by the bridge, he had lost something terribly important.

  And for the first time in years, he prayed, prayed that God would forgive him for his part in the evening’s events. But even as he prayed, there was another part of him, a part that was deeper than his conscious sense of self that said:

  You did it.

  And was glad.

  19

  LOS ANGELES, SUNDAY, MAY 20

  Renny Sand entered his apartment in an unusually buoyant mood. He just about danced into the bedroom to change into sweatpants and jogging shoes.

  In the corner of his bedroom was a ProForm treadmill, a recent acquisition and the current savior of his soul.

  He jumped on it, set it for a medium level thirty-minute program, and began to run, letting it take him through a series of fast-slows and changes of incline. He imagined himself running along a country road, say, in Washington.…

  Now he was beginning to sweat, and once he started, he wasn’t the kind to do things halfway. Sand shadowboxed, bouncing on the whirring belt, pretending that he was going twelve rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard.

  Then the phone rang. He got off the treadmill and answered it, the sweat beading and dripping down his face.

  Blowing hard, he said: “Yeah?”

  “Renny? It’s me.”

  Muriel’s voice was instantly recognizable. He grinned, wiping his face. “Muriel! Great! I was waiting to hear from you. Listen, I’ve had more thoughts about that article.”

  “Renny…”

  “Listen,” he went on, not really hearing her. “I’d like to tie it in to a nationwide angst thing, a search for answers in the continuing debate about health care, and child care in particular. You know, that the mothers were projecting their own guilt at not being with their children during the day. I bet we could get a quote from Dr. Laura!”

  “Renny, listen to me,” she said firmly. “The article isn’t going to happen.”

  There was a long, painful beat, a moment in which he was uncertain if his ears were working right.

  “What?”

  “We’re not going with it, Renny.” He heard her this time. There was no mistaking it at all. His mind spun. “But I’ve got … I can do this…”

  Muriel was unmoved. “We need you on the other piece, Renny.”

  He sat down hard on the bed, holding his head in his hands. He felt as if someone had clawed out his stomach. It was only at this moment that he really got how many of his hopes had lain squarely in this one chance, this one idea. Such a slender thread it seemed now.…

  “God, Muriel…”

  “It’s a good story, Renny.” She said it with a kind of bland, medicinal kindness.

  Despite that, he saw her saying it while filing her nails, with a smirk, as if she knew, and knew that he knew, that she was hammering the nail in his career’s coffin. “She’s a hooker,” he said numbly. “She’s writing a tell-all. That’s not news. It’s…” he searched desperately for a word. “It’s Novocain.”

  She was unmoved. “It’s business, Renny.”

  He held his head in his hands,
cradling the phone between ear and shoulder. “What is this really about, Muriel?”

  There was no pause at all on her side, nowhere for him to insert an imagined guilty conscience. “You know the answer to that, Renny. We need you on something where we don’t have to worry about sources.” Her voice was very steady, surgical. “You do understand my reason for concern.”

  That headache, the one hammering away at him behind his right ear, became a roaring, angry thing now. Yeah, he understood, but pretended not to. “Is this about us?”

  For the first time there was a pause. With a small, dirty satisfaction he wondered if he had hurt her.

  When she came back on, the flat strength of her voice told him that he was dead wrong, and that he had said almost precisely the wrong thing. Her words were clipped, professional. “Don’t flatter yourself. And don’t blow this, Renny. It’s a good story. Bring it in.”

  Then she hung up. He stared at the phone as if it were a snake, and set it back on the cradle gingerly. He squeezed his eyes shut, the sweat drizzling down his face and puddling on the carpet.

  Then he screamed, and virtually hurled himself back onto the treadmill, cranking its incline up to ten degrees and its speed up to six miles per hour, running and running until his legs burned and his chest felt as if someone had poured molten lead down his throat. He slipped, almost tripped, and in falling yanked the little red safety key out of its slot. The treadmill sighed, slowed, and then stopped. He staggered off, legs wobbling. The room reeled around him as it always did when he pushed too hard. It was a familiar sensation: running hard and going nowhere.

  He wiped his cheeks, uncertain whether the moisture on his hands was tears, or just more goddamned useless sweat.

  20

  CLAREMONT, WASHINGTON, MONDAY, MAY 21

  A crush of students streamed through the front doors of the Claremont Middle School. It was a spacious red brick building, which shared a parking lot with the high school only a few hundred yards west. They also shared a stadium, whose bleachers rose intimidatingly high above the field.

  Patrick rode his bike up to the front, and parked it. He fastened the lock, and got his books from the basket.

  Frankie approached him from the blind side. “Boo!”

  Patrick started, and looked like he wanted to punch the boy, who brayed laughter. Despite Frankie’s attempt to seem merry, there was something almost glacial behind his eyes. “Jesus. Don’t do that, man. What are you so freaking happy about?”

  Frankie was bubbling. “We did it, man … we did it! You should see the tape.…”

  Patrick grabbed Frankie and spun him around, slamming him against the wall. Their faces were so close they were almost kissing. “That was the biggest, stupidest mistake anyone ever made. You need to get the hell rid of that damned tape.”

  Frankie sneered at him. “Who are you kidding? I’m sendin’ it to Hard Copy.”

  They stopped, temporarily ending their conversation as Toby Marcello, Torque’s younger brother, walked past. The kid wasn’t strutting today. His black hair was an uncombed mop, and his dark blue eyes were bloodshot. His body, usually a solid, threatening monolith, now just seemed heavy. The kid looked as if he hadn’t slept or changed his clothes in a month. He pushed brusquely past Frankie and Patrick.

  Toby was glancing around, his eyes slightly defocused. He seemed frightened, disoriented. Disheveled.

  Frankie had the good sense to wait until Toby had passed to continue his crowing. “Can’t you feel it? Everyone knows something happened. No one is talking. I hear that three of the assholes left town last night. Never coming back, man.”

  Patrick’s head pounded. “Will you keep your voice down? This is a nightmare.” He pushed Frankie away so hard that the boy stumbled a step. “Leave me alone.”

  Frankie crowed laughter after him as he ran up the steps.

  * * *

  Patrick tried very hard to study in history class, and to hear what his teacher was saying.

  The lecture was on the Civil War period, and on the display table at the front of the class were models and pictures of the relative positions of the different armies during the battle of Gettysburg. The teacher was Mr. Schmeer, a well-intentioned but bland man with a voice that would induce sleep even if he were announcing winning lottery numbers.

  “Although the shots at Fort Sumter officially began the bloodiest struggle of American history, in reality the pressure had been building up since before 1776, when both sides realized that a compromise, struck to create a country strong enough to stand against Britain, could not long endure half slave and half free.…”

  Patrick was listening to the lecture, and noticed as always that every time a teacher said “slave” some of his fellow students looked at him. But neither lecture nor irritation could spare him the terrible images that flashed to mind.

  Behind a curtain of black rain, two groups of men fought. Blows were struck, and vengeance reaped.

  With a terrible force of will he wrenched himself out of the fantasy and again followed Mr. Schmeer:

  “In one battle alone, more Americans died than in all of World War Two. A terrible, terrible reparation for the institution of slavery, a foreshadowing of the terrible price in human freedom and dignity that continues to be fought to this very day.”

  Patrick heard Schmeer, but saw Torque bent over a trash barrel in the rain beneath the bridge, pleading not for his life, but for his dignity. Perhaps his soul. Patrick clapped his hands to his ears.

  God. The screams. The screams.

  “Mr. Emory?” Pause. “Mr. Emory, is my lecture that offensive to you?”

  Patrick tumbled back into awareness, and saw that the entire class was staring at him. His hands fell away from the sides of his head. “Sorry,” he said lamely. “I have a headache. I’ll be all right.”

  Schmeer continued on, but kept a careful eye on Patrick for the rest of the class.

  Somehow, the boy managed to drag himself through the rest of fifth period, and dashed out into the hall before Schmeer or any of the students could try to console him.

  Destiny Valdez caught up with him in the hallway. “Patrick?” she said. “Patrick? Patrick!” She said his name three times before he heard her.

  Desperately, he wrenched himself out of the daydream, and looked at Destiny with haunted eyes.

  She looked at him with genuine concern. “Patrick?” The other kids flowed around the two of them, like water parting around a rock. “Patrick?” she said again, and this time Patrick attempted to formulate an answer.

  “Mr. Emory?” That voice came from behind him. “Is there something that we should be aware of?” It was Mr. Schmeer, looking not at all regal behind his horn rims.

  “No,” Patrick said, struggling to snap out of it. “Nothing at all.”

  But Destiny was watching him, and she looked worried.

  * * *

  At lunchtime the kids sat together, except for Frankie. Frankie sat with the leadership class, which as usual he held in effortless sway with a seemingly endless stream of conversation. They were the beautiful people, with moneyed parents and hefty allowances. They had perfect bodies and faces, the kind whose photos looked great on banners and posters, who could win election to the kind of high-profile offices that meant nothing to anyone but college application evaluation committees.

  Frankie could talk circles around any of them, sometimes wrote jokes for their assembly-hall speeches, kept them cracking up at noon. But they knew that a specimen like Frankie could never get elected, and laughed at him behind his back. Frankie, on the other hand, knew that their brief and meaningless tenure as Class President or Treasurer was likely to be the high point of their entire lives, and laughed at them just as hard.

  Shermie Sevujian shook his head. “How can he stand it over there? They’re just so gay.”

  Patrick was quiet, watching his friend. If Shermie had been on that bridge Saturday night he would never have used that term again. Never.

&nbs
p; Shermie took another couple of bites out of his peanut butter sandwich before he realized Patrick was staring. He stopped chewing. “What? Whatisay?” he said, confused.

  Destiny sat right behind Patrick, and probably hadn’t taken her eyes off him for two minutes.

  “What happened, Patrick?” she said finally. “I know something happened Saturday night. I can feel it, all over the school, but nobody seems to have any idea what it is.”

  He ate very slowly, as if afraid of choking. His mouth half-filled with food, Patrick said, “You don’t want to know.”

  She stared at him. “What did you do?”

  Across the school yard, Frankie turned and looked at them, almost as if he had overheard the conversation. Then slowly as a drowsing basilisk, he turned back to the kids in the leadership class, and continued to hold court.

  And with the voice of someone much younger than his years, but eyes as old as God, he told them. Patrick hadn’t wanted to or planned to, perhaps, but was helpless to keep his secret inside him. When he was done, they were quiet for almost two full minutes.

  “Jesus,” Shermie said in frightened and respectful awe. “And you saw that?”

  “Can’t get it out of my head. I don’t think I’ll ever get it out of my head.”

  He looked over across the school yard at Frankie, who was laughing up a storm with his friends.

  He sighed deeply. “I guess some people can just … do things. That need to be done.”

  Destiny laid a hand on his shoulder. “They hurt people, Patrick. You were trying to set things right.”

  He tried to find comfort in her words, but instead seemed to be fighting a chill, as if a bit of winter wind had come impossibly early, or late. “I think someone is going to die over this. I just don’t know who.”

  “I wish you were coming to camp with us,” Destiny said fervently.

  Shermie fidgeted uncomfortably, and wouldn’t meet their eyes. He looked around the yard until he saw a clutch of boys heading over to the athletic field. He looked at Patrick without quite meeting his eyes. “Looks like they’re getting a soccer game going. I’m in.”