by Tess Oliver
Sugar knew how hard this was for me, just how she knew everything about my feelings. Her lips pressed against my shoulder.
I continued. “I was in the showers after practice. It was only my third practice after coming off of a knee injury. I’d stayed late to work the weight machines and build up my leg muscles. The rest of the guys had already showered and dressed. The coach was in his office, and I thought I was alone in the locker room. My head was under the shower, and I was trying to decide if I even wanted to go on with football, when a hand grabbed my arm. I spun around. My automatic response was to throw my fist, but another hand grabbed my free arm. Soap stung my eyes, but I could see Alex’s fat, ugly face in the blur that followed. His two best friends, the blubber brain twins, I used to call them in my head. Not to their faces because they were big, built like fucking refrigerators. They thought Yardley was a king. They followed him around, doing his bidding, almost like bodyguards. Each twin had an iron grip on my arms. My forehead bounced off the tile wall as they slammed me up against it. The shower water had turned icy cold, but they left it running. I struggled and kicked back blindly, hoping I’d make contact with something, but it was three to one and I’d just barely passed my sixteenth birthday. The blubber brain twins were flunkies, and they had to be close to nineteen at that time. Alex sucker punched me in the back. I dropped to my knees, but they yanked me back up along the slimy wall of the shower. ‘That’s for having to listen to that stupid stutter all the damn time’ Alex growled in my ear. I thought, I fucking hoped, that was it. I couldn’t get a grip on anything. My hands were numb from the tight hold they had on me. I was so cold my chin was trembling, smacking the tile with each shiver.”
Sugar sniffled.
I looked down at her. “I don’t need to tell you the rest. It gets worse.”
“Yes, you do.”
“‘Let me go now, Yardley, and I won’t fucking kill you’.” I laughed. “That’s how fucking cocky and stupid I was. I had three giants on me, and I was still mouthing off to them. It’s hard to know if my big mouth pushed it to the shitty place it went from there, or if Yardley, the sadistic asshole that he was, had planned it all along. He told the twins to hold me tight and keep my legs still. I didn’t know what was happening. I was freezing cold by then and scared. As much as I’d spent my life trying never to be scared, at that moment I was fucking scared. He leaned down by my ear and sneered, ‘this is for taking my first string position’. He shoved a broom handle into my ass.” Sugar pressed against me harder, hoping, it seemed, to absorb some of the hideous pain of the memory. Having her warm, silky body next to me helped. Having her in my life helped. It helped everything. “As I yelled out, his friend smacked my head against the tile. I can still remember the sound of my skull thwacking tile. They released me. I dropped down to my knees and puked so hard my nose bled into the water swishing toward the drain. I watched my puke and the blood circle around me, not wanting to look at my attackers and wondering how I was ever going to show my face in the world again. That’s when I heard someone snapping gum. My coach had this annoying habit of snapping gum, like that dick in the pool room tonight. Coach Higgins had been watching the whole fucking thing.”
Sugar’s eyes rounded. “You’re kidding? Why wouldn’t he stop them from doing something so awful?”
“Turned out he was an even bigger asshole than I thought. When the twins saw the coach peering over the shower stall, they got scared and took off. Yardley stood there in the shower staring down at me with an evil smile. He seemed to understand that the coach wasn’t going to do anything about it. I found out why on my way out. I pushed to my feet, shivering almost uncontrollably, more from rage now than the freezing water. My head was spinning from being smacked against the wall, but I managed to gain my bearings. As I walked past Yardley’s smirk, I took hold of his wet shirt. I plowed my fist so hard into his face, his nose shifted into an S shape. I held tightly to him. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of falling to the ground. I hit him over and over until the water on the floor of the shower was dark red.”
“And the coach?” Sugar asked in disbelief.
“He walked away as if he hadn’t seen anything. When my hand couldn’t take another hit, I let go of Yardley. I left him unconscious on the red floor of the shower with the icy water pouring over him.”
“The coach didn’t do anything at all?”
“I got myself dressed fast. Just pulled my clothes over my wet skin. I was shaking so hard by then, I didn’t even stop to put on my shoes. I raced toward the exit, but Higgins stepped out of his office. He stood in front of me. ‘I don’t want to lose my quarterbacks, so none of this happened. Do you understand, Jameson? You let the incident in the shower go and I won’t report you for beating the shit out of Yardley’. I ran. I needed to just get the hell away. It took me three days to finally find the courage to talk to my dad about it, mostly because I had no choice. The truant officer showed up at my house to find out why I hadn’t been in school. I’d been taking off in the morning and hiding out until the school day ended.”
Sugar sat up and brushed the hair back off my face. “What did your dad do?”
I shook my head without lifting it from the pillow. “Not a fucking thing. He figured I was just looking for a way out of playing football. He talked over me, just like he did on the phone about the murders. He was a master at taking advantage of my stutter. I’d been too upset to get the words out, and he just barreled over me, letting me know how I’d screwed things up. I quit the team. Yardley got a nose job and reclaimed his spot on first string.”
Sugar leaned down and kissed me. “I promise to always listen, no matter how long it takes you to get the words out. I’ll wait patiently for every syllable.” She lifted my hand and pressed it against her naked breast. “There it is again, Tommy. Do you feel it, that heartbeat? That only happens when you’re with me, when you’re touching me and looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
My chest felt heavy as she spoke. I’d found someone who meant more to me than anyone ever had. I traced my fingers along the curve of her breast. “You were right, Sugar. We had to get really lost to find each other. And I’d go through all of that shit again, if I knew you were waiting at the end.”
Chapter 25
A throat cleared, waking me from a deep sleep. The room was still bathed in shadows, as I opened my eyes. Sugar protested my movements with a drowsy moan as she pulled the blanket up higher around her. I swung my gaze to the clock on the nightstand, and that’s when I noticed a figure standing over the end of the bed.
“Shit,” I shot up and Sugar followed.
Julian peered down at us, fully dressed and combed and ready to go, apparently.
“Damn, Jules, why the hell are you lurking around in the dark?” I scrubbed my hair, remembering too late that my hand was swollen and bruised. “What time is it?”
“It’s six.” He stayed at the foot of the bed.
Sugar snuggled back down under the covers.
“Let us get showered and dressed first, buddy. Then we can get on the road.”
“We can get on the road, but we won’t get very far.”
I lowered my feet to the floor and reached for my cigarettes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Did you get into a fight?” he looked pointedly at my hand.
“Little bit of a fight. Why?”
“Was the person a gum chewer?”
Sugar turned to listen. “Why do you ask?”
“I went out to buy some candy and I noticed that all four tires of the car were slashed. And whoever did it left a giant wad of chewed gum stretched across the windshield.”
“Shit.”
“What are we going to do?” Sugar sat up clutching the blanket against her.
“We’ll have to walk to the next town.” I lit the cigarette. “Probably a good idea if we get out of here while people are still asleep. It seems I didn’t make a very good impression
last night.”
***
Sustained by a breakfast of stale vending machine cookies and soda, we found ourselves back on the side of an unfamiliar highway, looking at unfamiliar landscape and heading to an unfamiliar town. We’d said good-bye to our now useless car. In several hours, the local police were going to have their fifteen minutes of fame as the police who apprehended the infamous Jameson heir-slash-murderer. Although using the word apprehended would be a stretch since I planned to walk into the station and surrender.
One thing that was different about the new highway and surrounding landscape was that the terrain was no longer flat. In fact, flat was something we missed two hours into the journey. It made for a much easier walk. The black ribbons of asphalt rolled up and down like the tracks on a roller coaster. As we reached the top of one particularly brutal incline, we saw a rest stop below, a place to take a leak and hopefully get a drink of water. Whoever owned the land, whether it was state or something more local, they had gone through the trouble of designing an elegant restroom stop, complete with stone trim, ivory paint and two sparkling water fountains, which we nearly ran to.
Julian stared down at one of the fountains as if he wasn’t too sure about taking a drink.
“A few germs is better than collapsing dead on the highway from dehydration,” I reminded him. He took a drink.
Sugar took a long drink and I waited. She straightened with a sigh of relief. “Maybe the candy and soda combination wasn’t the best idea.” She stepped aside for me.
There was only one van in the nicely landscaped parking lot. An older man was having a smoke, with his driver’s door open and the radio crackling out news. Kids’ voices echoed off the bathroom walls, and it seemed he was getting in a cigarette before hitting the road with his family again.
Julian looked apprehensive about using the restroom, but after what looked like a long mind debate, he decided to use the facilities. He left me in care of his laptop, although with a nice dose of mistrust. Sugar headed in too.
I walked over to a bench to rest my leg. We’d done more walking in the past few days than I’d done in a long time, and I was in good need of some aspirin. The lingering pain of the break was something that would bother me my whole life according to the orthopedic surgeon. Didn’t stop me from getting back on the dirt bike though, a sport I missed and wanted to get back to eventually. If I ever got clear of this mess.
“Nice weather,” the man said from the front seat. I could hardly hear him over the voice of the radio broadcaster. I figured he’d probably had the radio turned up extra loud during the drive to drown out the kids.
“Yeah, if you like hot and sticky.”
“True, could do with a bit less humidity.” Something the radio announcer said caught his attention. “Did you hear about this guy? Seems that money doesn’t always buy happiness.” He turned up the radio, and the first word to catch my attention was Fitzpatrick.
I figured they had to be talking about me. I was the unhappy rich guy who’d kidnapped a guy named Fitzpatrick. I got up, deciding I should gather my kidnapping victims and leave.
“Just walked out to the center of his thousand acre estate and shot off his head,” the man said.
I stopped and turned toward the van. “Who did that?”
“Some multimillionaire named Fitzpatrick. Lots of inherited wealth. He had a massive estate some four hundred miles southeast from here. Guess his son has been missing. Maybe he was just distraught over his kid.”
Julian and Sugar walked out of the restrooms at the same time. Sugar spotted me first, and they walked toward me.
I turned to the man, to make sure of the name before breaking the news to Julian. “Was that Jonathan Fitzpatrick?”
“That’s the name. Did you know him?” he asked.
“Not personally. Have a safe trip.” I headed toward Sugar and Julian.
Sugar sensed something was wrong immediately. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Julian trudged along behind us. I glanced back over my shoulder. He was staring down at his hand, while the other clutched his computer. “I wonder if I should wash them again,” he said to no one in particular. His world, his family was coming apart at the seams, but he was focused on the invisible bacteria on his hands. It was a strange way to be. It was easy to see why Julian had needed medication and therapy and had willingly locked himself away. He wasn’t built for this world, my poor dysfunctional, genius buddy. And now I had to tell him something that would shatter his world even more.
Sugar glanced over at me. I could feel her watching me with heated suspicion. “Tommy Jameson, something is up.”
I looked back again. Julian was still lamenting about not having washed his hands a second time. He was out of earshot as long as I kept my voice real low. I put my arm around Sugar and pulled her against me. “Don’t show any reaction. I have to decide how to tell him,” I said so quietly, the rustling wind in the trees nearly drowned me out.
“Shit, what is it?”
“Julian’s dad killed himself.”
Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. “How did you hear that?”
“The man in that van was listening to the radio. It was on the news.”
“Oh my god, Tommy. What should we do?”
“I’ve got to tell him. Just working up the courage first.”
“Train tracks,” Julian suddenly yelled, causing both of us to startle out of our clandestine conversation.
“Those are definitely train tracks,” I said.
“We can follow them,” Julian suggested. “Instead of the highway, where cars and trucks are rushing by, and we have to inhale their noxious fumes. We can walk along the tracks instead.” Once again, a sort of kid-like quality came out, and he seemed very excited about the possibility of seeing a train.
“Sure, Jules, lets follow the tracks.”
We hiked through a field that was choked with weeds and wildflowers. Tiny yellow butterflies flitted around and a few bees circled us, seemingly angry that we’d upset their day. A fairly well packed dirt path ran parallel with the tracks. We stepped clear of the weeds and onto the dirt. I knew if I thought about it too much, it was going to be even harder to tell him. On our trek through the field, I’d gone through a list of possible Julian reactions based on the heavy mood swings he’d been experiencing. There could be a full meltdown, an explosion of anxiety or even rage, or the robot Julian might step in and take in the information with cool nonchalance. I was hoping for the robot.
Julian stopped along the tracks and looked both directions in fascination.
“I guess you were one of those kids who liked trains, huh, Jules?” Sugar asked, sounding as shaky as I felt.
“They’re all right.”
Sugar shot me a look, which I interpreted as ‘now or never’.
“Julian,” I said, using his full name, which I couldn’t ever remember doing before, but this occasion seemed to warrant using it. “I need to tell you something, buddy.”
He still had his attention on the tracks. “This is an old track with jointed rails. Those little gaps make that click-clack sound when the train goes over them. I read they use three thousand ties for every mile.” I could see gears moving in his mind. He was thinking numbers and feet and miles and things that interested him.
“That’s cool that you know that, but I need to talk to you about something.”
He stuck his foot between the ties as if he was trying to measure the distance.
“Jules.” No reaction. “Julian,” I said sharply, finally getting his attention. He looked at me.
I took a deep breath, hoping to keep my stutter out of this. I just needed to get the words out without making it even harder on both of us. “Julian, while you were in the bathroom—”
“I know.”
“No, Jules, there is something really important—”
“He killed himself,” he said. “My dad shot himself.”
; “You knew?” Sugar asked.
“It was on the news this morning. I heard it just before I came into your room.”
“Jules, buddy, why didn’t you say something? We could have talked about it. Shit, I mean, do you want to talk about it?” I’d gone through every scenario except the one where he’d already known. There had been nothing in his demeanor or mood that could have told us that he’d heard about his dad’s death from a local news anchor.
Sugar walked over and hugged him. This time he tensed. A hug brought a reaction, but the news that his dad had shot himself in the head had done nothing. It was as if that news anchor had just reported that there would be a three degree drop in temperature rather than mentioned the grisly suicide of Jonathan Fitzpatrick. She gave me one of those silent glances that told me everything she was thinking. Sugar seemed as freaked out as me about the way he was acting. We needed to get Julian help and fast. In my own delusional mind, I’d somehow convinced myself that all Julian needed was our friendship and support and he’d be fine out on his own. Just like Sugar and me, he really didn’t need the security of a facility like Green Willow and if he could just get past the rough transition, he’d be fine. But I was wrong.
Julian stepped onto the tracks and started walking, making sure to step on each tie. He was counting them. Sugar and I walked along the adjacent dirt path and Julian, like a kid playing hopscotch, leapt from tie to tie with his computer under his arm.
Sugar took hold of my hand, and we watched Julian skip ahead, concentrating on his task. “How do you think this will affect things?” she asked.
