“…and although it was just a mask,” Mark jumped in, “Charlie smiled at Troy and told him, ‘You’d better bring some people.’”
Billy nodded, remembering every vivid detail of that fateful day. “Troy stood there for the longest time, studying Charlie and trying to figure out whether he was bluffing.”
Mark grinned. “Either way, it worked.”
Just then, Tony appeared with a large tuna sub. He placed it down in front of Billy and winked. “All set,” he said and walked away, wiping his hands on his stained apron.
“Wow,” Mark said, “aren’t you special?”
Billy grinned comically. “Something my mother needs to remember.”
Mark laughed.
After taking his first few bites, Billy blurted, “I hope Charlie’s all right.”
“He is,” Mark said. “He just needs to get crap slapped.”
“Crap slapped?”
“It’s when you slap someone so hard they crap their pants.”
Billy laughed. “Yup, that’s exactly what he needs.”
Mark’s smile turned serious. “I’m sure it’s something to do with Bianca and he just needs some time alone. He’ll come around.”
“That’s probably true,” Billy said, tearing another chunk out of his sub, “but I plan on finding out for myself tonight.”
“How’s that?” Mark asked.
“I’m going to camp out in front of his house until I see him and can ask him what the hell’s going on.”
“An ambush,” Mark said, “I like it. You need back-up?”
Billy shrugged. “It’s your call, if you want to come along. It might be a long night, though.”
Mark grinned. “I’ll call you later and let you know.”
Billy nodded and dove back into his sandwich.
As they ate, two teenagers—Chris and Joel—were sitting in the next booth, discussing Dalton’s death. “My Uncle Brandt works at the police department,” Chris said, “and he says the toxicology report showed a slight trace of alcohol; one beer, two at most. But Dalton definitely wasn’t drunk. And there were no drugs in his system.”
Billy looked up from his lunch and listened in.
“Maybe he was texting?” Joel suggested.
Chris shook his head. “From what I’m told, the kid’s last text was sent just a few minutes after he’d left the party. Dalton had told a friend that he’d catch up with him in the morning and that he was tired and heading home.”
“In the opposite direction?” Joel said.
Billy inhaled deeply. In the opposite direction, he repeated in his head. That’s odd.
⁕
Charlie stepped into his house to find his mother sitting at the kitchen table, chain-smoking a pack of cigarettes. “So you finally broke up with that girl?” she asked, without a hint of empathy.
“Yeah, Ma, we’re not together anymore. Are you happy now?”
She shrugged. “Well, I never really liked her, Charlie. You know that.”
Charlie shook his head and headed for his bedroom.
“Listen, you need to call your friend back. He keeps calling and he even came by the house looking for you.”
Charlie stopped and looked back at her. “Who?” he asked. “Billy?”
“That’s the one,” she said, trying to find a place in the overflowing ashtray to poke out her butt. “Call him back, Charlie. He’s starting to become annoying.”
“Yeah, I’ll call him, Ma,” Charlie lied. “The last thing I want is for you to be annoyed.” He started for his bedroom again.
“Sulking in your bedroom’s not going to make anything better,” she called out, lighting a new cigarette.
Charlie shook his head, thinking, At this point, there’s nothing’s that could make anything better. He slammed his bedroom door behind him and collapsed onto his bed. There’s nowhere to run, he told himself, and nowhere to hide. Fresh tears streamed down his cheeks. And life will never be the same again. He reached under his bed and retrieved an old shoebox. Lifting it onto the bed, he removed the lid and pulled out his dad’s .38 revolver, the same handgun he’d stolen from the closet two nights before. He swung open the pistol’s tumbler to reveal six silver-tipped bullets. All it’s going to take is one of these, Charlie, and the nightmare ends. He spun the tumbler once and clicked it back into place. The tears were flowing faster now. It was an accident, he told himself for the millionth time, but those words were as false as the first time he’d thought them. But I didn’t want Dalton to die, he screamed in his head. I didn’t want that! With a trembling hand, he grabbed the snub-nosed pistol and placed the muzzle flush to his forehead. Just one moment of courage, he thought, and… He was applying pressure to the trigger when he dropped the gun and stood, panicked. I almost did it this time, he realized. Another millimeter more and his brains would have been splattered all over his bedroom walls for his mother to clean up. The truth of it had him hyperventilate so hard that he nearly passed out. Amongst a thousand jumbled thoughts, he told himself, I need to go…anywhere but here. Filled with panic, he ran out of his room, toward the front door.
“Where do you think you’re going again?” his mother asked, shrouded in a cloud of smoke.
Without a word, Charlie threw open the front door and just kept running.
⁕
It was an hour past dusk. Billy parked the Honda just down the street from Charlie’s house and turned off the ignition. “It looks like it’s just you and me, big boy,” he told Jimmy. “Mark called and he’s not going to make it.” Jimmy sat up straight and stared out the windshield, like he knew he was on an official stake out.
“So are you ready to start the new job at the shelter?” Billy asked the dog, breaking the silence.
Jimmy sighed heavily.
Billy laughed. “Yeah, I hear ya. I wish we didn’t have to work either.” He shrugged. “Who knows, it might end up being fun?”
Jimmy turned his head and sighed again.
“I guess it is tough to teach an old dog new tricks, huh?” Billy teased.
Jimmy faced him and lifted his paw.
Billy shook it. “That’s hardly a new trick, Jimmy,” he said, patting the mutt’s shoulder. “You really need some new material.”
Suddenly, Jimmy stood up straight; his ears also stood at attention. A low growl rumbled in his diaphragm, as he focused on something Billy could not yet see.
“What is it?” Billy asked.
The rumble continued.
A few moments passed before Billy could make out the silhouette of an older woman, walking her dog on a leash; it was a boxer dressed in a pink sweater.
Billy laughed and looked at Jimmy, who was now trying to inhale the female dog through the windshield. “Relax, buddy,” he whispered. “She’s cute, but you don’t want to make a fool of yourself.”
Jimmy didn’t care; his body twitched and convulsed, as he whined to get out of the Honda and meet her.
The woman and her dog walked right past the driver’s side, causing Jimmy to leap into Billy’s lap and jam his snout out of the half-opened window. “Whoa,” Billy gasped, pushing the dog off his crotch. “Take it easy.”
By now, Jimmy had worked himself into a full-blown tizzy and was crying to be freed.
Billy laughed, patting the mutt’s back. “There’s nothing shy about you, Jimmy, I’ll give you that,” Billy said, feeling a bit jealous, “but what do you think you’d do if you caught her, old-timer?”
Jimmy’s rear end shook back and forth, anxious to give it one last shot.
“I wish I were as brave as you,” Billy said, picturing Vicki. I wonder how she is? he thought, before turning back to Jimmy. “I’m the one who needs a girlfriend,” he said. “You just need more sleep.” He laughed.
Once the boxer had vanished into the distance, Jimmy retu
rned to the passenger seat and the task at hand. For the next few minutes, they sat quietly together, watching the house. But it didn’t take long before they were both antsy and fidgeting.
Billy thought about being trapped with Jimmy inside his father’s pick-up truck, all those years ago, and squirmed in his seat. “Let’s go for a walk,” he told the mutt. “There’s no way we’re going to sit here all night.”
Billy headed down the sidewalk, while Jimmy hobbled to keep up. They paced three or four times across the street from Charlie’s house when Billy swore he spotted Charlie from a distance. “It’s him,” he told Jimmy, whose tongue was already flopping around like a mud flap in a rainstorm.
“Charlie!” Billy called out. “Charlie…”
Jimmy’s black nose began twitching, investigating Billy’s claim.
Billy picked up the pace, leaving Jimmy behind a few feet to catch up.
“It’s him!” Billy confirmed and took off at a full sprint. As he approached Charlie, he was both excited and furious to see his oldest friend. His blood raced through his veins. And then he felt something else: concern. Damn, Billy thought. Charlie looks like he’s aged twenty years. “Where the hell have you been?” Billy asked, as Jimmy caught up to them, panting. “And why haven’t you called me and Mark back?”
Charlie immediately started to cry, disarming Billy.
Jimmy approached and sniffed Charlie before licking his hand.
As none of them were prepared to stand still for this exchange, they began to walk together.
Charlie shook his head twice and opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“What…” Billy started to ask.
“I split up with Bianca,” Charlie blurted.
“Oh man,” Billy said, placing his hand on his best friend’s shoulder, “I’m sorry to hear that, bro.” He nodded. “I knew things weren’t good between you two but I didn’t realize…”
“But that’s not the worst of it, Billy,” Charlie managed between sobs.
Billy stopped short and swallowed hard. “She’s...she’s pregnant?”
Charlie shook his head. “I wish it were that,” he muttered.
Billy was at a complete loss now. “Then what is it, bro?”
It took a few minutes before Charlie could compose himself enough to speak. “I…I was chasing Dalton that night and I…I’m the reason he drove off the road,” he explained through convulsions. “I’m the reason Dalton’s dead, Billy,” he added, weeping mournfully.
“No way,” Billy said, in shock. As though his friend had just admitted to cheating on a final exam, Billy tried to shake it off. “That’s not even funny, Charlie.”
“I know it isn’t,” Charlie said, his voice now a desperate whimper. “It’s…it’s…” He broke down again in a terrible sob.
The sight of it stole Billy’s breath away. All at once, he internalized Charlie’s confession and understood, There’s no coming back from this. He opened his mouth but the silence hung between them. It was as if the permanence and the darkness punched Billy square in the gut. He looked at his childhood friend, his brother, and helplessly watched as Charlie collapsed to the sidewalk, rolling himself into the fetal position, and began wailing over the days and nights of torment he’d suffered alone.
Jimmy immediately responded, licking the spots on Charlie’s face that his hands weren’t covering.
Billy dropped to his knees and placed his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, but the gesture seemed futile. “It’ll be okay,” Billy said, trying to soothe his friend.
But they both knew better. There would be severe consequences to Charlie’s actions, consequences that would impact his future in unthinkable and dreadful ways. Everything that had taken place up to that point—childhood lessons, school, everything—felt like it was all being flushed away, circling the bowl as they huddled together on the sidewalk.
Jimmy alternated his licks between Charlie and Billy.
“It was an accident,” Charlie finally managed through the sobs. “…a stupid accident.”
“How did it happen?” Billy asked.
Charlie shook his head, violently—like he was trying to rid his mind of the grotesque memory. “For weeks, I’d been thinking that Bianca was screwing around on me with Dalton. When I left Jaime’s party that night, I went looking for him and…” He stopped.
“And?” Billy asked.
“…and I finally spotted him parked at a red light. When I told him I wanted to talk, he took off.”
“And you chased him?” Billy asked.
Charlie nodded. “We were flying down 88 when…”
“Oh, Charlie,” Billy said, feeling like he was going to vomit.
“It was an accident, Billy,” he repeated, as if trying to convince himself, as well.
“If it was an accident, Charlie,” Billy replied, “then why haven’t you gone to anyone…to the police and reported it?”
Charlie looked up at him. His face said it all. It wasn’t just an accident. “I can’t live like this anymore, Billy,” Charlie moaned, continuing to sob. “I’ve even considered…” He stopped.
Not three steps out of high school and Charlie’s heading straight to hell to pay for a few moments of thoughtless rage, Billy thought. He could already feel the weight of the dark confession sitting on his shoulders—like a secret he wished he’d never been told. “We’ll figure something out,” Billy said, now sitting on the ground beside a convulsing ball of flesh that was voted class clown just a few weeks earlier.
“Do you think so?” Charlie asked, his voice sounding like a four-year-old’s.
“I do,” Billy lied. Oh God, Billy thought, as his mind spiraled with one outcome after the next, each one of them leading to a very bad place.
As though he didn’t know what else to do, Jimmy kept licking them both.
Before Charlie returned to his seclusion, he told Billy, “Promise me you won’t tell a soul about any of this.”
“But Charlie, you need to…”
“Promise me, Billy!” he cried, “…please!”
“I promise,” Billy said, “I promise…but this isn’t going away, Charlie. You know that, right?”
Without another word, Charlie disappeared back into his own personal hell.
⁕
On the late drive home, Billy continued to weigh the options in his head. No matter how hard he searched, there didn’t seem to be any positive outcome to the nightmare. “This is so crazy,” he told Jimmy. “Charlie and I were just talking about our futures.” He shook his head. “I mean, we were just playing with Mr. Olivier in biology class, for God’s sake.”
Jimmy came out of the passenger window and rested his gentle eyes on Billy, offering his full attention.
Billy’s eyes bulged with tears. “And now he’s killed someone.”
Jimmy sighed heavily.
“There’s no coming back from this, buddy,” he said, before giving it some more thought. “I just can’t see how.”
Jimmy’s gaze stayed locked on his friend.
Although Charlie had committed the tragic crime, Billy’s thrashing heart was already telling him that this was going to be his moral dilemma as well. “This sucks so bad,” he thought aloud. “So bad…”
A mile down the road, Billy wiped his eyes and looked down at his four-legged confessional and advisor. “What the hell should I do?” he asked.
Jimmy yawned once but maintained his gaze, remaining silent.
Chapter 7
Still shaken to the bone from the previous night’s discovery—and a full night’s loss of sleep—Billy sat in line at the service station, hoping to get an inspection sticker for his tired Honda. Instead, for the same thirty-five dollars, the mechanic stuck a black rejection sticker on the inside of the windshield. “We can’t give you a sticker until you get everything
fixed.”
“Everything fixed?” Billy said, his mind racing to the cost of the water pump he’d recently replaced.
“You have a broken headlight, broken windshield wiper and bald tires on the front.” He shook his head. “What did you think, the car was going to pass?”
“I was hoping it would,” Billy said.
“You need to get it all fixed before the car passes inspection,” the mechanic repeated.
“And how much will that cost?” Billy asked.
The grease monkey shrugged and looked the car over, doing the math in his head. “We can throw some retreads on the front. A new headlight and wiper motor repair…around a hundred and a half, I’d say.”
“Oh man,” Billy muttered. “I’ll need a few weeks to get the money together.”
The guy nodded. “We’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Billy pulled away and looked at his co-pilot—Jimmy. “This is unreal,” he complained. “We’re starting a new job today and we’re already behind the eight ball.”
Jimmy kept his eyes on the road.
⁕
Jimmy walked into Four Paws animal shelter like he was heading off to his lifelong factory job. Billy watched to see if any old memories registered for the mutt, but Jimmy was completely unaffected—until they reached the avocado door and all the sounds behind it had his ears on end. He whimpered once and looked up at Billy, his eyes glassed over with fear.
“Relax,” Billy told him, “you’re going to make lots of friends here.”
As Billy opened the door, Jimmy whimpered once more before reluctantly limping in.
Arlene approached—with her two dogs, McGruff and King—and went straight to her knees to greet Jimmy. While McGruff and King nearly sniffed the fur off the back end of him, Arlene spent a few solid minutes of uninterrupted attention on Jimmy. She stroked his hind legs. “Let’s see if we can’t work some of those knots out of you, old man,” she said.
Jimmy was completely torn; he loved the massage but was freaked out by the two dogs sniffing his backside.
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