Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  So despite the (allegedly) rampant deflowerings accomplished by his contemporaries, Robbie had found himself, thus far, suspended between heaven and hell, between the good girls, who often wanted to but wouldn’t, and the bad girls reputed to doff their drawers at the drop of a hint. And despite the aforementioned perfect qualifications, Robbie was a little too intimidated to “go” with a girl who really knew her way around.

  But Delta …

  Well, Delta was Delta. They had been friends for years, and if their relationship had never gone beyond the pecking stage, it was solely because Mrs. Darling had kept an eagle eye on him, completely aware that he was, quite simply, a catch by any standards.

  But on this day, when she pushed herself up out of the water, the droplets shimmering on her skin like diamonds, and peered at him challengingly, it was too easy for him to finally abandon the shyness and inhibitions, and flow into her arms. And he found, in that hot wet embrace, a kind of blistering pleasure that no pass interception had ever afforded.

  He lost time, and he lost awareness, as for the first time in his life, he pushed himself up against the body of a willing woman who was wet and more than half naked, and realized that she hadn’t shied away from the rigidity in his trunks. She had in fact, pressed herself against it, and Robbie knew absolute and total bliss at the same time that his subconscious whispered to him you ain’t seen nothing yet.…

  * * *

  Frankie saw his brother disappear, saw the last few strokes as their heads disappeared around the corner, and he sighed.

  It wasn’t as if he wanted to get his brother in trouble. He loved Robbie. It was just that everyone watched him so closely, thinking that he couldn’t do anything, that no one trusted him to take care of himself, and that was just wrong, because he could take care of himself.

  He wasn’t weak, his body was weak, and there was a difference. He didn’t understand quite how there was a difference, he just knew that there was. And that one day he would show people.

  The condescending eyes were on him all the time, to the point where it was hard for him to play his favorite games, the private games, during which he came closest to being who and what he really was. He knew that someone might catch him, and even at the age of six, understood that no one must catch him, no one must find out.

  And he knew ways to keep them from finding out, too. He didn’t know quite how he knew, but there were voices in his head that told him the things that he needed.

  Do nothing that is of no use.

  Pay attention even to little things.

  He could hear the voices, and struggled to understand what they meant, or why he heard them so clearly, and as yet, did not know.

  But one day, he would.

  As far as today was concerned, what Frankie wanted to do, more than anything in the world, was slip out into the water, to feel its warmth against his skin. He had always had a strange and healing affinity for water, and resented the fact that everyone always watched him when he went into it.

  But no one was watching him now.

  Very carefully, Frankie stepped out onto the wet sand.

  Behind him, the sounds of the football game drifted across the beach, and overhead, the gulls called to him in their skawing, mournful refrains. The summer was going away, like everything went away. Like Frankie would go away, one day.

  Frankie’s toes rolled onto the sand and he shivered with delight. The water felt warmer than it looked. He already knew how it would feel to have the water roll up over his feet, and ankles, and calves. How it would feel lapping at his thighs, and then that place between his legs, and then his tummy. The water was almost a living thing, like a friend.

  Frankie moved out into the water until it lapped at his chin, then took a breath, and went under.

  * * *

  Vivian saw what happened, but only after it began. The football game was rough when it should have been rough, and fun when it should have been fun, one of those delirious exercises in excess that results in bruises and sprains to be savored for weeks to come.

  But in the daze of sun and sand, it was her head that came up first, her ears that first heard the thin, reedy call above the sound of wind and surf, the high “help me…!” that twisted through the wind, and turned to look out at the water, toward the sun, low enough in the western sky to force her to shield her eyes, and saw the tiny head bobbing in the water, and felt the breath catch in her throat.

  “Oh my God,” Evelyn Darling said, beside her. “It’s Frankie.”

  * * *

  Robbie had just finished the longest, sweetest, wettest, and saltiest kiss of his life when he heard the sound. It wasn’t exactly a complete word. He and Frankie had this connection. Everybody knew it, and it wasn’t something that he could exactly explain. Most of the time, he just knew if there was something going on, knew if Frankie needed him, or wanted him, and he was happy to help out.

  When on the football field, somehow he just knew when Frankie was watching. When baby bro was there, Robbie ran a little faster, hit a little harder, jumped a little higher. He knew that those hits and jumps had to carry his brother along with them, that that was as close to glory as Frankie was ever going to get.

  He knew that he needed to keep an eye on Frankie, that there was more at stake than just his brother’s physical health. The attachment was something fierce, and savage.

  Despite that knowledge, he had taken a few moments to himself, enjoying the first strong steps along a pathway that promised to be long and sweet and warming throughout the days of his life.

  But despite the pleasant, almost opiate haze that enraptured him further with every successive kiss, Robbie was yanked into complete alertness by the sight of his brother’s head a hundred yards from shore, his small arms thrashing weakly. And without another thought, without even the memory of that last, sweetest kiss, he put that young, strong body into the greatest action of his life, and cleaved out toward his brother.

  * * *

  Frankie was afraid. He had, at first, been enraptured by the sensation of the tide tugging at him, lifting his toes above the sand, a sensation of flying. For an instant he knew what his brother felt when he was floating up and up above the heads of the tacklers, diving for that ball, nothing but daylight between his feet and the ground.

  Then suddenly he was tumbling, the waves tossing him from above, the rip pulling from beneath. He didn’t know which way his head should go, he was thrashing and didn’t know which way was up, and he was breathing water, and suddenly all of the thrill, all of the exultation, everything was forgotten in the sudden, drastic revocation of his God-given right to breathe.

  Frankie flailed his thin arms, thrashing toward the eye-stinging sunlight, hardly believing it when his head broke the surface again, when he gasped for air and found it. He blinked the water from his eyes, and tried to focus. In every direction he saw nothing but ocean, nothing but horizon, and knew he was going to die.

  “Frankie!”

  The sound was distant, and weak. But as he was lifted on a swell he was able to thrash around in a circle and see the beach, and the frantically gesturing people on the distant beach. Those sparkling sands seemed so impossibly far away that his tiny store of hope was utterly extinguished.

  In that moment, all the regret within him burned through all the self-justification, all the heroic image, and all that remained was a terrible urge to live, combined with a terrible fear of death.

  I’m not ready.…

  And distantly, he heard a cheer, but couldn’t grasp it.

  I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt—

  The wave slapped him, pulled him under again. He swallowed another mouthful of water, and this time it went down. The pain in his chest was awful, was a sucking black hole in his heart, pulling him down and down in a swirling funnel, tiny bits of images, and they were frightening, and he suddenly knew that he was a bad boy, who had done bad things. God had been watching after all, and now Frankie was going to pay. God ha
d seen the kitten. Frankie hadn’t meant to hurt it. He just wanted to make it do what he wanted it to do, and it wouldn’t, and he got mad. And oh, God, he was sorry—

  But then Frankie felt his brother’s arms around him, knew that strength, heard Robbie saying “I’ve got you, Frankie.” His heart soared, because, apparently, God hadn’t been watching at all.

  With perverse precision, another wave struck them, and this one jolted them sideways. But Robbie had him, had them, those tireless arms and legs striking out, the breath not even ragged, marvel of marvels. Frankie could spare a little attention, could catch a glimpse of the shore, and saw his father diving into the water, and his heart lifted again—

  As another wave, stronger this time, slammed into them, driving them further sideways, and this time he heard just a ragged edge to Robbie’s breathing. Despite a jolt of fear he knew, just knew that his brother would make it, had the strength and the courage—

  And then remembered, in some small room in the back of his mind, that the waves came in threes, in rising, steady rhythm, that the third was almost twice as large as the first two, and twisted himself around against the pressure of his brother’s arm. He saw the third wave, standing against the sky, dwarfing the sun, drowning the world, and had time to say: I’m sorry—before the watery cliff collapsed on him, and then there was nothing but a vast sideways motion, an avalanche, and then a great smashing jolt, and then blackness.

  * * *

  From the beach, the unfolding tragedy had a solemn, balletic grace, a kind of clockwork inevitability which, in retrospect, made it all so terribly worse.

  For a moment, the adults barely reacted to the cry, and then as heads turned and the realization truly settled in, the Reverend Darling shook off his shoes and plunged into the water, hitting the edge of the shallows just in time to catch a wave coming in, which pushed him back toward the shore. When the swell died down and they were able to see what was happening, both heads were above water, and Robbie was making his way toward shore, his meaty arm cleaving the water.

  Robbie’s father struggled with the waves, getting caught by swell after swell as he fought his way out.

  The children were gathered at the tide line, watching the drama silently. They weren’t really afraid, because if there had ever been a hero among them, it was Robbie. But watching him on the gridiron, or swinging for the fences was one thing. Those were games, and this was real life. Still, reality or not, in an odd way this was just another episode of the Robbie! show. This was just another chance for that perfect heart and perfect mind in that perfect body to display its prowess, and they didn’t know whether to pitch in, or just applaud as he sidestroked manfully toward the shore.

  Then the first wave hit him, and they held their breath, watched the two small heads go under and then bob to the surface, watched the obvious moment of disorientation, and then Robbie swept toward the shore again—

  And the second wave hit, taking them toward the spur of rocks—

  And somewhere deep inside Vivian, she sensed disaster, sensed a trill of impending doom, but it was still filtered through the sense that Robbie was larger than life, and it was, after all, not much different than watching Magnum P.I. hanging from a helicopter, legs flailing, as the commercial break came and told you some wonderful news about low-fat dog food.

  So if this was another episode of the Robbie! show, then this was the moment when the music would rise up and up, and this was the moment when the announcer would tell them that Robbie! would be right back after this important announcement.

  Only another voice in her head kept shrieking: They’re just children.…

  The third wave hit, carrying both of them against the rocks, and without exactly hearing the impact, they could hear it. Oh, yes. It was the sound not of bones breaking, but of dreams fading, or hope dissolving, spring gone to winter in a single freakish May snowstorm.

  Where Robbie’s head had smacked against the rock it was smeared with blood. An instant later another wave swished, washing the stain away. Both heads disappeared.

  Now, when it was too late, everyone dived into the water. Robbie’s father reached the rocks a few moments later, but there was nothing and no one to be seen.

  Perversely, now that the surf had done its damage, it seemed to quiet, almost as if it appreciated the value of a diminuendo. Another three sets of strong arms were there within fifty seconds, and a minute after that, of diving and bobbing and frantic searching, Robbie and Frankie had both been located, and were being hauled toward shore.

  Neither was conscious.

  Someone ran for the parking lot, for the telephone booth in the parking lot, to make an emergency call. The people from down the beach were running over, one of them offering a cell phone.

  Vivian didn’t move, just gathered Patrick under her arm, feeling the perverse gratitude that it was not her child who was in such terrible trouble, and recoiling from the inevitable guilt that she would even feel such a natural, human emotion.

  She began to pray: “Dear God, please help those children, please let them live, let them breathe.”

  Mr. Sevujian was a volunteer fireman, and grimly performed CPR compressions on the younger boy. The Reverend Darling worked on the elder, but every chest compression brought another trickle of blood from Robbie’s terrible scalp wound. Mrs. Darling was sobbing and shrieking, the sunny, perfect last summer afternoon suddenly transformed into the worst day of their lives, the worst day in the history of the world. Long before the sound of sirens announced the arrival of the ambulances, everyone knew that Robbie was dead.

  She remembered the moment when Frankie woke up, when he vomited water and rolled onto his side in a fetal position. It took a few moments for his eyes to focus. He sat up, and Otis helped him to stay erect. “Momma…?” he said, and looked around.

  Vivian remembered that moment, because she remembered her stomach lurching sideways.

  Frankie’s father, the Reverend Darling, ceased his labors and regarded his living son.

  The Reverend glanced from Frankie to his perfect, dead son, Robbie who had perished in the rescue of his brother. Something like a dark, electric cloud passed behind the Reverend’s eyes, something so huge and swollen that for just an instant it seemed that his head itself would become distended. He did not move, merely stared.

  Frankie’s mother stared as well, and then began screaming. The screaming didn’t stop until the paramedics, who had been summoned to resuscitate a dead boy, found it in their hearts to give her mercy in the form of a needle, a needle long enough to guide her into the healing arms of sleep.

  29

  LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO, MONDAY, MAY 28

  Wings tipped in scarlet, a single hawk soared high on the shimmering thermals. Miguel Sanchez’s open eyes reflected its image without seeing it, or anything else.

  The boy was small for his age. He sprawled, broken on the sidewalk, arms and legs twisted into a posture attainable only by the injured and the dead. Blood matted his limp, dark hair.

  There was a crowd gathered around him, and some of them spoke in frantically fast, pain-filled Spanish.

  “Dios mio, Miguel, Miguel—” one heavy woman cried, and then, against the advice of others in the crowd, dropped to her knees and cradled his head.

  Several members of the crowd knew the Sanchez family, knew enough to know what a horrible coincidence this was. After so much pain in her life, Stella Sanchez had won the lottery, made plans to travel all the way to Spain in just a few weeks, taking her family and many cousins with her, only now to face the awful loss of her only remaining child.

  In Spanish, some of the crowd asked if anyone had seen what happened, wondered how the boy had fallen out of the apartment window. Others scrambled to call for the ambulance. A few murmured softly to each other that there was no use in it, that the boy was obviously dead.

  And it was such a shame. Miguel was such a good boy, never a bother, always a help. And considering his no-good maleton of a fath
er, an abusive, asqueroso son of a bitch who should come mierda in New Mexico State prison for the next hundred years for strangling his own daughter, it was a miracle that the boy was turning out as well as he did. But he was. Always polite, and courteous, ready to help, industrious, and just as bright as a star. He had so much light in him, that boy. He was going to be something someday, they had all known.

  And now Miguel Sanchez was dead. Another tragedy, like so many others in the barrio.

  It was just a shame.

  * * *

  A block away, a black car sat parked next to the curb, two men in the front seat, watching the crowd.

  One black. One white.

  The car pulled away slowly, too slowly to be of any notice to the grieving crowd, and then picked up speed, finally turning onto El Paseo Street to merge with the traffic.

  Wisher drove, his expression rarely changing as he cruised the streets. No matter what the heat, he rarely seemed to sweat. “Nice town,” he said, lips tight. “Just a perfect fucking town.”

  When Schott replied his voice was flat, as if he were speaking under duress. “Gotta wonder about the nightlife.”

  Wisher shrugged. “Got beer and titty bars. What else do you want?” His hands gripped the steering wheel hard.

  “A movie theater,” Schott said. “I’d like to see a movie.” His voice was rather small for a man of his size. Disorientingly soft for a man of his violent experience. “Movies help me relax.” He loved them, especially old movies he had watched as a child. Schott had a library of over five hundred video and DVD movies. Since this whole thing with the kids had started, he had become almost addicted to the television and movie screens, absorbing everything from Jason and the Argonauts to Disney’s Robin Hood to the Tyrone Power Mark of Zorro, as often as time permitted.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Wisher said. “Room’s got HBO. After we finish linking up, watch whatever the fuck you want.”

  “Let’s do it,” Schott said.

  Wisher nodded without making a verbal reply. Five minutes later, they reached the place where El Paseo turned into Union Street, crossing the 10 Freeway.