Bystander

by James Preller

He found himself back at the little pocket park, the place where Mary had brought him. Eric collapsed on the bench, heaving to catch his breath, heart racing, mind a blur. He peered through the dense thicket of bushes, flipped open his cell, and punched numbers. Mary surely had seen him fleeing the house as if his hair were on fire. Hopefully she turned her phone off, breaking the connection, before turning it on again.

  “Eric?”

  “Mary!”

  “You okay? What happened?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Did he come after me?”

  “No. He stood at the front door for a minute, looking baffled. Then he scratched his butt and went back inside.”

  Eric laughed, giddy and relieved.

  That’s when he finally noticed his stocking feet. My sneakers! Eric had left them in Griffin’s room.

  33

  [kicks]

  AVOIDING GRIFFIN CONNELLY WAS EASY ENOUGH FOR THE first half of the school day. Eric knew his habits, where his classes were, the pathways he traveled. But there would be no steering clear of him in the cafeteria. Eric vowed to himself that he wouldn’t run. Whatever happened, happened. It wasn’t much of a philosophy, but it was all Eric had. He was going to stand tall and stare Trouble in the eye. And if it smacked him in the mouth, well, Eric would figure out that part later.

  He didn’t see Griffin coming. Eric was already seated across from Mary, trying to keep her from grabbing his dessert. Then Mary looked up and her eyes widened. Eric turned just as Griffin passed beside him, his elbow brushing the back of Eric’s head ever so gently, like a whispered message. He kept walking, never looked back, didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His feet said it all.

  Griffin Connelly was wearing Eric’s sneakers.

  Eric had to give Griffin credit: He had style. Nice kicks, Eric thought, figuring he’d probably never see those sneakers again—on his own feet, at least.

  Griffin plopped down at his regular table, his back to Eric and Mary. Somehow they were dead even.

  Cody sat with Griffin, like always. He was in the middle of telling a story, gesturing wildly with his hands, then smashing them together. Most likely reen-acting some kind of NASCAR crash-up. Sinjay and Drew laughed; Griffin reached for a buttered roll on Marshall’s lunch tray. Life went on. Down at the end of the table, Hakeem and Pat huddled together, talking quietly, somewhat apart. There was an empty chair, and it puzzled Eric for a moment. Then he realized whose it was: Hallenback’s.

  “Stop looking over there, will ya?” Mary complained.

  “Sorry.”

  Two more girls had joined their table, Chantel and Sophie. When they sat down, Mary winked at Eric, silently mouthed the words, “Told you so.” It had been her contention that their table would soon be filled with Misfit Toys—jack-in-the-boxes named Bruce, trucks with square wheels, boys who were too frail and skinny, girls whose looks didn’t make the cut.

  “Want to hang out after school today?” Eric asked.

  “Sure,” Mary said. “We have that science test tomorrow. I’m thinking about actually studying.”

  “You? Studying? I’ll alert the media,” Eric joked. Then he ventured, “We could go to the library and study together.”

  It was a deal.

  Glancing around, Eric spied David Hallenback sitting alone in the far corner of the room. “Be right back,” he told Mary.

  David could see Eric coming from across the room. In response, he kept his head down, hunkered low over his lunch. Trying to disappear, Eric guessed.

  “Hey,” Eric greeted David.

  The curly-haired boy looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face ashen. Not much had changed since that first time Eric saw David, behind the middle school, shambling across the field. He was forever haunted and afraid. Ketchup boy.

  “You okay?”

  Hallenback looked up at Eric, and there was vacancy in his eyes. Not the old hatred. No spark of bitterness. Just defeat. He had been used and abused and now, obviously, once again banished from the table.

  Eric tilted his head toward Mary. “There’s room with us, if you want.”

  Hallenback glanced at the table, frowned, shook his head.

  Eric shrugged. “You ever change your mind . . .”

  Something caught his eye, a pin on Hallenback’s shirt. “Hey, what’s that pin? I never saw you wear it before.”

  David glanced down at the pin. It was in the shape of a baseball stadium. He shot a quick glance at Griffin, looked up at Eric. “I lent it to somebody. He finally gave it back this morning. It’s from the stadium where the Mets play,” David said, again looking down at the pin. “I got it on opening day.”

  “Sweet,” Eric said. “Growing up in Ohio, I guess I became a Reds fan. I’m probably the only one in the whole school.”

  Hallenback considered that for a moment. “Now that you live here, you should switch to the Mets,” he advised.

  “I’ll think about it,” Eric said. “But it’s hard to change loyalties, you know what I mean?”

  Hallenback made a face that Eric couldn’t quite read. Whatever. Eric didn’t need to become friends with David Hallenback. He just needed, he realized, to be okay with himself.

  At recess, Eric shot around on the basketball court. Pat and Hakeem joined him, along with a few other guys. “Are you trying out for the modified team this year?” Pat asked.

  “You think I have a chance?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Pat said, feeding a pass to Hakeem. “I think it’s good to try out, you know, even if you don’t make it, just so the coach sees you and learns your name. That’s what my father says.”

  “It’s mostly eighth-graders,” Hakeem interjected. “Last year, I heard they took three seventh-graders, total.”

  Eric dribbled, spun, and dished to Pat.

  “Open gym starts next week,” Pat said. “We could check it out, you know. Guys just show up and shoot around. But the coach watches, I think. Real tryouts won’t start for another two weeks.”

  Eric nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Eric popped the ball out of Pat’s hands, then dribbled to the far corner of the court. “Five, four—down by one, time is running out—three, two . . .” He hoisted up a long shot, an orange rainbow that ended with a metallic swoosh at the bottom of the net.

  “Hayes makes the shot! Hayes makes the shot!” Eric called, his hands cupped around his mouth. “Bellport wins the championship! And the crowd . . . goes . . . wild!”

  34

  [coda]

  TIME PASSED, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT TIME DOES, IT’S A river that keeps pushing forward. November came, and with it, basketball season. Eric had miraculously survived the final cuts; he made the team, one of only two seventh-graders on the thirteen-member squad. It was one of his happiest days in a long time. His mother took him and Rudy out for enormous ice-cream sundaes to celebrate.

  “Music helps,” his father had once told him. And for Eric, that was so totally true. Through everything, he had his guitar and his amplifier. He played almost every night, headphones on, just fooling around, trying to figure out the chords to the songs in his head. That’s what guitar meant to Eric. He was determined to learn the techniques, the difficult fingering and chord progressions, practice those scales until he could hammer each note without looking or even thinking. Because he knew there was a song trapped in his heart, an inchoate melody swelling in the dark, and he had to find a way to release it, to open that song up and cast it out into the world.

  During those times, guitar in hand, Eric often thought of his father. It was when he felt most connected to him. They shared that love, undiminished, come what may. Eric had written more letters to his father, and mailed them, too. They weren’t anything special. Nothing deep or particularly meaningful. But it was a beginning—a new beginning—and Eric was eager to discover where that might lead. He signed each letter the same. “Love, Eric.” And maybe that was all that was necessary, that one true thought that said it all.

 
; He thought about Griffin Connelly. They never talked anymore, never spoke of Eric’s theft, or Griffin’s new sneakers. It was like they made a silent pact. Somehow it was all wiped clean, like chalk from a blackboard.

  Eric figured that in the end, Griffin just got bored. They say people are supposed to forgive and forget, but in Griff’s case, he just seemed to forget. So. Just like that, it was over. No final curtain. No big letters, THE END, flashing across the screen.

  One day, not long ago, Eric walked down the hall and saw Griffin. He was with a new batch of friends, boys and girls Eric barely knew. Griffin was at the center, holding court, talking with that same cool confidence, beaming that golden smile. There was a girl by his side: Alexis Brown. They made a perfect couple.

  Griffin didn’t seem to see Eric. But Eric saw him—for he always kept a watchful eye on Griffin Connelly, never trusted him enough to feel completely safe. But for one split second, Eric saw Griff’s eyes slide toward him. He saw Eric . . . and had no reaction at all. Eric was just another kid in the halls. A nobody. Not his enemy. Not his victim. Not his little side project, or his target.

  That day, and every day since, nothing happened. No “thing” at all. Eric kept walking, Griffin kept talking, both headed in different directions.

  For the first time since he moved to Bellport, Eric wasn’t a bully, a target, or a bystander. He was just Eric Hayes. A seventh-grade boy living on Long Island, trying to sort through a whole range of things, the teen years coming on hard, the challenges and confusions, maybe now on the verge of his first girlfriend, his first real kiss. All the while quietly hoping—in that place of the heart where words sputter and dissolve, where secret dreams are born and scarcely admitted—to score winning baskets for the home team. To take it to the hole and go up strong. Fearless, triumphant. The crowd on their feet.

  His father in the stands, cheering.

  Acknowledgments

  THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN WITHOUT the help of many people, most especially: Chris Bergere, Jody Monroe, Andy Baker, Jen Steil, Bruce Oliver, and Matt Farnan. Thank you for opening your doors, answering questions, offering insights, and, in a few cases, reading early drafts.

  To everyone at Feiwel and Friends, and most especially my editor and great pal, Liz Szabla: I feel like that guy who strolls under sunny skies and thinks, “Gosh, what a lucky fellow am I!” You’ve given me that feeling and I’m grateful for it, every single day.

  While doing research for this book, different lines from Martin Luther King Jr. keep popping up in books, blogs, and Web sites—all speaking to what King termed, “the appalling silence.” Though there are many salient quotes from King, one in particular had to find its way into this book: “In the end, we’ll remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

  Let’s all make some noise.