“Holy shit!” she yells. “Now I totally get why you called me. Walk me through it—what happened exactly?”
“That’s the thing, Ken, they got their asses kicked. Like, bad.”
“Ah, that sucks. Just move into a new town and some bullies attack you.”
“No. Not the East Enders ‘they’—the Alphas. Draven got seriously messed up.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. “Wait, wait, wait. How many new kids?”
“Two,” I answer. “A tall one and a really tall one.”
“Oh my God, this is amazing news. It’s like the ecosystem has been put back in balance. You know how many people are going to hear about this?”
“A lot, but I don’t think it’s going to balance anything. I think the Alphas are just going to be looking for revenge now. Those kids might have just started a war before senior year even happens.”
“Hold on, so they started it? Walk me through what happened exactly.”
“I don’t know, it was already going on when I got there. I didn’t see how it started. But, it’s a safe bet to say that Draven probably started it.”
“Well, yeah. He’s been talking about forming a ‘welcoming committee’ for weeks now. He probably saw them hanging out and jumped them. Guess he picked the wrong guys.”
During the last two weeks of school Draven and the guys had been talking about how they planned on forming what they called a ‘welcoming committee’ for the new boys who were coming to our school. Basically, they planned to jump them, assert some kind of messed up dominance, and let the new kids know the social hierarchy at good old Arkham High. Seems like things went a little differently than planned.
“So these boys? What did they look like? Were they cute?”
“No, Ken. Not cute. That kid in Math class is cute. The tall kid was gorgeous.”
“Wow. Gorgeous, huh? You never even described Kyle as gorgeous.”
“He deserves it, trust me,” I tell her. “This kid’s face was chiseled, and he looked like he was in really good shape because he wasn’t breathing nearly as heavy as Draven and Kyle.”
“Wait, hold up, did you just say chiseled?”
“I may have,” I joke. I’m trying not to turn red in embarrassment but it’s hard.
“Wow. I think someone liked what she saw.”
“He had these eyes—how do I describe them? They were blue, but not just an ordinary blue, they were deep. Like there were whole stories locked up inside of them just waiting to be told. There was pain. There was anger also.” The more I talk, the more I need to know about this kid.
I’m almost home. I’ve been walking faster than I usually do so I can process what just happened and see if anyone of the kids in the crowd who had their cell phones out put anything on social media. Mom’s car isn’t in the driveway, which means she’s at therapy. I’m glad to not see her so I don’t have to waste time talking about my day or how I’m feeling. Ever since she started seeing a therapist, Mom’s become one of those self-help people who buy piles of books and listen to podcasts that are all about how to live her truth, or whatever. I’m not in the mood for all that right now.
I have a thought. “Hey,” I ask Ken. “Do you think your dad knows anything about the school closing and all that? He has to, right?”
“Probably. You wanna come over for dinner and I can see what we can squeeze out of him? We can do dinner and interrogation.”
That’s my girl. “If it’s okay, I’d love to.”
“It’s always okay, you know that. Come over later.”
Kennedy’s parents are the best—they’re typical West End parents in that they’re a little snooty, and they drive Ken like a taskmaster to do good in school, but they’re good people. They’ve never treated me like I was anything less than they are, and I’ve always been welcomed with open arms in their home.
Her mom doesn’t cook—none of those moms do—but they had their live-in. . . I don’t know what her title would be—but she cooks us a really yummy looking pasta dinner. After we sit and chat a while— the typical ‘are you looking forward to school’ chit-chat that adults always default to with teens (do they not know that we hate school and generally want to forget it exists once we’re freed at 2:45 each day?).
But the good part about them mentioning school is that it gives me the perfect transition to start my little de facto interrogation.
“Mr. Bransfield, I meant to ask you because, you know, we’re kids and they don’t tell us anything—but word on the street is that Mary Williams is closing?”
He looks up from his plate, his head still facing down so he has to look at me over his glasses. He doesn’t respond to me, he just shifts his glare to Kennedy with a very dad-like expression of displeasure.
“Is that right?” he asks. “And what street might that be?” He’s smiling, so I know he knows I’m really using the word ‘street’ instead of Kennedy’s name.
I don’t want to snitch, even though he clearly knows where I heard. “That was the rumor at the end of school that was going around—all the kids were talking about it. And you know rumors in high school—they basically become the truth if they get repeated over and over.” I’m not talking about Mary Williams anymore, but Mr. Bransfield doesn’t need to know about the other rumors.
“Well, tell your anxious little friends to relax, the school isn’t closing.”
“What?” Kennedy yells. “But I heard you say. . .” She stops when she realizes that she just indicted herself. Mr. Bransfield shifts his look back to me.
“You see, Lyric, one day you’ll have kids—maybe daughters like my Kennedy here—and when they’re little they’ll listen at your door to everything you try to keep private. Hopefully yours will grow out of it by the age of seventeen.”
“Honestly, Mr. Bransfield, I don’t think we ever outgrow that sort of thing.”
We both smile at each other. Kennedy, on the other hand. . . “I wasn’t eavesdropping, okay Dad? You speak loudly and you left your door a little open. What was I supposed to do, cover my ears? That doesn’t seem rational.”
He doesn’t address what she just said—I’m guessing she’s used to defending herself against eavesdropping. “The school isn’t closing, per say, although it probably should from what I hear. The neighborhood is changing—that part of the neighborhood, anyhow. More new families are moving in over there, and as you know it’s not a very big area.”
Over there. That’s the expression I’ve heard for years. It’s like they don’t want the East End to exist. He continues.
“I’m sure you didn’t come here for a history lesson.”
Kennedy jumps in. “That means he’s going to give you one anyways, Lyric. So just pretend we’re in Mr. Lewis’ class and start daydreaming.”
Mr. Bransfield just keeps talking to me. “Because there were so few families with children of school age when Mary Williams was built, it has a very low capacity. You’ve seen it, I’m sure—it looks like a large pre-school. It can’t accommodate a large demographic. But now that families are getting bigger and the council approved some of those low income houses, we on the city council felt that it was more fiscally responsible to move some of the older kids from Mary Williams over to Arkham High, since our classes are nowhere near capacity. The alternative, which would have required money no one was willing to spend, was to either rebuild or add on to Mary Williams, and that didn’t make sense from our point of view.”
Of course it didn’t, I think. Why put tax money into fixing the bad part of town when you can just shuffle some poor kids around and not have to think about it?
“I see, that makes sense.” I leave out the part I really want to say, which is, it makes sense from your point of view, but really it makes no sense at all.
Kennedy jumps in. “So how many kids are coming over, then?”
“I forget the exact numbers, but it’s a mix of some existing Mary Williams students and any new families moving in with h
igh school age kids. One I know of in particular.”
“Who?” Kennedy asks.
“I forget their names, but it’s a mom and two boys. One will be a junior this year and the other will be in your graduating class.”
Kennedy and I look at each other and our eyes go wide. It’s obvious but her parents are used to us acting weird around one another, so they don’t think anything of it. But if we could communicate telepathically—and at this point we practically can—we’d be screaming ‘Holy shit, were those the kids in the fight?’
Kennedy interjects with a question that was bouncing around in my head but that I didn’t have the guts to ask. “Wait, Dad, how do you specifically know about one family? No offense, but you usually don’t get that involved in the details of things like this.”
There’s a pause—an awkward one that tells me he doesn’t want to answer that in front of me for some reason. “I’m not at liberty to divulge who they are or how I know them. Plus,” he says, looking right at his daughter, “I wouldn’t want to start any more rumors.” I have no idea what he’s talking about but he has me curious. “But the point is, there are a few new kids and they get an automatic pass to Arkham. They’ll be moving in over the summer at various points. As far as the existing Mary Williams students, I believe there was a lottery system and some kind of evaluation—I don’t know all the ins and outs.”
A lottery? That’s how the future of East End kids get determined—luck of the draw. The winners get a real education and a possible future. Screw the rest, right? This town makes me sick sometimes.
“Well, thanks for clarifying, Mr. Bransfield.”
“Anytime, Lyric. Just like you’re welcome at this table anytime.”
After dinner, Kennedy walks me out. “So I’ll be finding out who he was talking about, don’t worry. I have a talent for it.”
“I’ve gotta say, he didn’t seem too eager to tell you what he knew.”
“I’ll get it out of him one way or the other, don’t worry. I’ve spent seventeen years developing techniques to get to the bottom of any secrets my parents try to keep from me. Just takes some arm twisting and a lot of smiling.”
I don’t know how she does it, but she really does find out crazy amounts of information about everyone and everything in this town. “Well spill the tea when you get it.”
“Do you even need to say that to me? I think not.”
As I walk home, I think back to what Mr. Bransfield said and I think about all the things he didn’t actually say. I did my research on the history of this town a while back. It’s amazing what you can find online, and if you spend enough hours in a library, looking up local history. I always wanted to know why there were two high schools to begin with, since the East End is such a small area.
Turns out that years ago, when the city council saw how many immigrant and poor families were migrating into that part of town from neighboring communities, the council decided to allocate as little money as possible to build a series of small schools and rezone the town so any kids in the 8 blocks of the East End had to go to those schools instead of Arkham Schools. It’s been that way ever since.
But I guess that’s changing—at least a little.
I see Mom’s car back in the driveway when I get to my street. She’s going to want to talk about my day. I don’t have the energy right now, but I’m not sure I’m going to have a choice.
As I take the last few steps down Houston, I think about what else Mr. Bransfield said—specifically the part about how he didn’t want to start rumors.
When I get home, after successfully evading my mother, I chill out while attempting to do some of my summer assignments for all of my AP classes, and then realize I’m not in the mood and end up watching TV. I’ve got Senioritis and the year hasn’t even started yet.
Around ten, I get a text from Kennedy telling me to call her. She says she has more info about the boys. I waste no time in video calling her.
“You tortured your dad for more info, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” she jokes. “You know me.”
“That I do. So spill it.”
“Two brothers,” she tells me after I ask what she found out. “One’s going into senior year with us and the other is going into junior year, like dad said.. It’s them and their mom who bought that old shitty house.” Kennedy makes that judgy face of hers. “I swear I could pay for that shack with the money I have in my bag right now.” You mean your parents’ money, Ken.
“Stop judging,” I snap at her. “Let people live.”
I wait for her to give me more details, but she just looks at me blankly like she’s expecting me to talk. “And?”
“And what?”
“That’s all you have? That’s all the info the great and powerful Kennedy Bransfield could get? You’re slipping, girl.” Kennedy has so much gossip in that brain of hers that at one point last year I was seriously considering asking what she knew about the Kennedy assassination. But I guess when it comes to very tall boys her sources are limited.
“It’s not for lack of trying, trust me. But my dad is getting harder to eavesdrop on, and he won’t tell me shit anymore because he thinks I’ll tell everyone.”
“He’s not wrong. We’re literally talking about it now.”
“I’ll tell you, obviously, but I’m not posting it to my story or anything. But I still need to tell you the last part.”
“Last part?” I ask.
“So when I was finished interrogating my dad after you left, he took me by the arm.”
“Oh. That sounds serious.”
“He got really serious out of nowhere and it kind of freaked me out. I asked him what was wrong and he looked right at me and said ‘Watch out for that boy in your grade—he’s dangerous and has a record’.”
Holy shit. “No!”
“Yes,” she says. “Super tall kid might have gotten some experience fighting when he was in prison.”
“Stop, they don’t send kids to prison. Oldest he could be is seventeen, right?”
“But they do send them to juvenile hall, which is basically kid prison.”
“Holy crap, this means. . .”
“This means that you’re horny for a criminal.”
“I am not, shut up.”
“You are too, don’t try to deny it. Admit it. You wanted him to walk up to you right after that fight, spin you around like a silverback gorilla and have his way with you.”
I have to say, not a bad image at all. “Jesus, Kennedy, you make it sound so. . . raw.”
“You don’t have to pretend. Just cause you’re a virgin doesn’t mean you can’t like the idea of a guy like him doing all sorts of unspeakable things to you.”
Unspeakable things. Hmmm.
“Whatever,” I say. “It’s not like anything actually happened.”
“Not yet.”
“You really think I’d go for a guy like him? You should have seen him, Ken, he was like a wild animal, a total savage.”
“You’re just mad that tall kid was on top of Draven and not on you.”
“You’re impossible.” But you’re not wrong. “You really think he has a record, or do you think that it’s just a rumor your dad is spreading?”
“I don’t know, but my dad’s not the rumor spreading type. Usually if he says something—especially to me—its coming from a reliable source.”
She’s right, Mr. Bransfield isn’t really a rumor spreader, which only intrigues me more as to who this kid is. “What do you think is going to happen when he shows up at school in a couple weeks?”
“Chaos,” she says. “Utter fucking chaos. The school might have to fire some of the teachers and hire referees instead.”
“You think Draven and all them are going to try to get even for what happened?” I get the eyebrow for that question. It was kind of stupid of me. “Yeah, referees might not be a bad idea. But I’m telling you, if they try to mess with the tall kid they’re getting fucked up again
. You should have seen it.”
“Listen to you talk about him. You’d love it if he pinned you down instead of pinning Draven and Kyle.”
“Why do you have to be gross?”
“I’m not gross, I’m just being honest. Your eyes get all wide and your voice changes when you talk about him. Let’s just hope they have conjugal visits in whatever prison this kid ends up in.”
“Shut up. I am curious about how this whole fucked up social experiment is going to go.”
“Me too. Worst case, I’ll keep a bag of popcorn in my locker in case anything crazy breaks out. Which it definitely will.”
The whole time we’re talking, I’m picturing him and how he made me feel. That mix of fear and excitement that was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t know if he’s really a criminal, or if the West End rumor mill has already started.
But what really scares me isn’t whether he’s actually dangerous or not—it’s the fact that I don’t really care.
Thirteen—Lyric
The Present
The bar is louder than usual.
Walking in I feel like a regular, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. When the bartender waves and calls you by name like you’re Norm from Cheers it might be a sign the guy you’re seeing needs to expand his dating geography a little. But Andrew isn’t adventurous—he’s the safe and conservative government backed CD you invest in at your local bank.
I’m here first, which isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. I’ve never been great at being in public alone, but it’s either sit at the bar alone or stand outside awkwardly. I decide to go with the choice that comes with alcohol, even if I do have to pay for it myself. I order a vodka and get a text from Andrew telling me he’s about five minutes away. My total lack of excitement when reading his words tells me something I’m afraid to actually deal with.
I settle.
I’ve taught myself that good enough is what I deserve. Andrew is the latest in line of ‘good enough’. There was the guy in my Ph.D. Cohort at Columbia who I had a friends-with-benefits situation with, but we both knew that was over the second they made us wear those ridiculous graduation gowns and minted us doctors of Psychology. Since him, it’s been either total losers or complete fuckboys. And now there’s. . .
Preacher: The East End Boys Page 8
