Going Underground

by Susan Vaught

  Marvin’s a witness, and so is Harper, and so are you. I really have tried being direct with Cherie, in addition to lying to her. Besides what we told her earlier today, I’ve said I’m not interested, that she’s sweet but not my type—all of that. She doesn’t care. She says I need friends, especially girl friends (who could turn into girlfriends). So, I revert to the standards.

  Got to work.

  Have to study.

  It’s against my probation and I’ll go to prison.

  Not everybody has that last excuse. Cherie is a special person, to make a guy glad he’s got that shit hanging over his head.

  Fred abandons her plan to eat through her travel cage to destroy Cherie, lowers her parrot head, and buzzes her wings in menacing I-will-obliterate-you fashion.

  Cherie asks, “Want to go to the game next Friday?”

  I cram my shovel into the deepening grave. “Thanks, but I don’t go to games.”

  “Why? Are football games against your probation like everything else?”

  I go tongue-tied, but Harper steps up for me. “Crowds.” He shrugs and spits, pulls a toothpick out of his dirty shirt pocket, and crams it between his teeth. “Underage kids. And besides, the game would run past his legal curfew.”

  This turns down the chatter, and there’s nothing but the sound of our digging, the plop of dirt, and the bumblebee buzzing of Fred’s wings. The grave’s smelling more and more like moldy water and beer. I’m hot from digging despite the cool air, so that makes me want to retch.

  Cherie leans back against the grave dirt, then stretches out on it and folds her hands over her belly like she’s a vampire princess taking her daytime respite. To the sky, she says, “Are you allowed to be here in the graveyard after curfew? If you’re working, I mean?”

  “Yes,” I say at the same time Harper says, “No.”

  We look at each other, and then go back to digging, fast. I’m allowed to be on school property for designated functions even after curfew, because the judge decided that when my parents sued to get me allowed back in school. I’m also allowed to be at work if Harper’s here to supervise me. Harper’s trying to protect me from Cherie, and I’m doing my level damnedest to screw it up.

  Think fast.

  “What Harper means is, I have to get prior approval from Branson, and he’d probably check up on me.”

  “Your life is so hard, Del. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  Harper quits digging, leans his shovel against the grave wall, and gives me a look like he’d offer me a beer if I were twenty-one. I give him a look like, I’d take it if I were overage and Cherie was here and wouldn’t go away. He pops a metal top and sucks down about half of the can, then lodges it in the farthest grave wall and goes back to digging.

  A few minutes later, as it finally starts getting dark, headlights sweep over Vampirella as she rests atop her grave dirt, driving my parrot beyond the boundaries of sanity.

  “My folks are here,” I tell Harper, and he nods that it’s okay for me to leave, that he can get the site finished before tomorrow’s funeral, especially since my leaving means he’ll get rid of Cherie, too.

  I think about telling him to go easy on the beer, but it won’t do any good, so I don’t. I just climb out of the grave on the opposite side from Cherie, slip around and collect Fred, and say, “Bye.”

  “Bye, Del.” Cherie gives a dramatic wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Not if I see you first.

  “Okay.”

  I brush off dirt with one hand and carry Fred and her cage in the other. When I get to my parents’ car, another hybrid, blue, older than Cherie’s, I slip Fred into the backseat before I climb in beside her.

  My parents look alike. They’re tall and kind of scrawny like me. They both have brown eyes and brown hair like me, though Mom’s is a little on the red side. They both wear jeans and Humane Society T-shirts when they’re not at work. (They both work in patient accounts at Duke’s Ridge Hospital.) Dad’s voice is way deeper than Mom’s, though, and it’s his baritone I hear as I shut the door behind me and the car starts rolling down Rock Hill’s main road.

  “Dear God. What is that girl’s damage?”

  “Jonas Blankenship is her brother,” I say. “That’s enough to make anybody soft in the head.”

  “I thought you told her you weren’t interested.” Mom adjusts the small blue animal carrier in her lap. She switches on the dome light in the car to check whatever she’s got inside it.

  “That didn’t compute in her brain, but no worries.” I’m smiling, but try not to, because my parents do know that’s not always a good thing. “I’m really not interested.”

  In her.

  “Harper stays right there whenever she’s around,” I add, to make them both feel better.

  When he’s not drunk off his ass.

  “Has she ever—you know, offered?” Mom’s voice sounds definitely tense.

  “No.”

  Yes. Repeatedly. And in some very creative ways.

  “Fred,” Fred says in Mom’s voice, like she doesn’t approve of my minor mangling of the truth. I’m not sure I approve, either, but I don’t want Mom or Dad worrying for nothing.

  “What would you do if she did?” Dad asks, sounding sort of official, asking his I-have-to-do-this parent stuff.

  Lie and tell her dating and having sex would violate my probation. Give her Branson’s card. He’s met Cherie. He’ll totally back me up.

  “I’d just come home,” I say. “You know, get away from her.”

  My parents relax, and mom shifts the carrier on her lap again. The creature inside it—cat, I’m presuming—lets out a motion-sick wail. Mom speaks softly to the cat, stroking it through the slats in the carrier.

  I remember sitting in a holding cell at the Duke’s Ridge jail with Mom outside, gripping my hand through the bars.

  It’s a mistake, Del. It’s got to be. We’ll get this taken care of. We’ll get this fixed.

  I close my eyes to shut out that image.

  “Fred.” This time, Fred’s almost whispering, and when I open my eyes, I see she’s staring out of her travel cage at me, the yellow sections of her eyes wide and the little black dots in the center boring into me. She considers me her parrot mate, so if I let her out, she’d probably crawl all over me, nipping and grooming until I got out of feeling-weird mode.

  But I do feel weird. I mean, maybe I should be 100 percent honest with my parents all the time because they’ve been so totally great through all this, but I just don’t want them to worry anymore. I can handle Vampirella. She’s irritating, but harmless.

  Maybe Cherie’s trying to look tough and crazy and fearless to her friends, hanging out with the most dangerous guy in Duke’s Ridge. Maybe she’s looking to save me or rescue me or something. Maybe my folks should get her involved with the Humane Society so she could rescue truly helpless things, and leave me the hell alone.

  Women write Manson in prison and offer to marry him, Marvin told me once. The Menendez brothers have fan clubs. The felony thing—chicks dig it. Well, weird chicks, anyway.

  An hour or so later, I’ve “had enough to eat” and I’ve taken a shower. I’m in my room, which is nothing special—just a bed, some dressers, a desk, a chair, and a TV I don’t get to watch much. The only thing I spend money on is retro cereal sheets, because they make me laugh. I’ve got Count Chocula and Cocoa Puffs and Corn Flakes, but right now I’m sitting on a too-green Lucky Charms bedspread with Fred on my shoulder, staring at a stack of blank paper and holding a pen. I don’t have my own computer, because I’m not allowed to own or have unrestricted access to a personal computer or even a cell phone with text capacity or Internet access. There’s a computer in the living room, but my parents have to keep software on it that blocks sites that might have certain kinds of content. The software doesn’t work so well, so it blocks just about everything. We have a family blog that we update, with comments disabled to keep assholes from leaving us hate mail b
ecause of what happened with me, but otherwise, we’ve kind of given up on the computer thing for a while.

  But, Dr. Mote wants me to write stuff down or draw stuff or whatever, and Branson wants me to do better with my explanations in my letters to colleges, so I’m trying this the old-fashioned way.

  I don’t know why I’m bothering.

  Nothing ever comes out, even though I do try, just like this, lots of nights. I want to tell everybody the real truth about the real me, but I always freeze up because I know I won’t even get the chance to finish. People hear the words, the labels, and they’re done with me, no questions asked.

  “Once upon a time,” I tell Fred, “there was this girl named Cory, and she had blond hair and cute freckles and blue eyes, and she was, you know—built and stuff. She was funny and smart, and she liked watching me play baseball, and I came to her softball games, and we had a bunch of friends who all ran together at Duke’s Ridge Park, especially during the summer league games.”

  I stop because I’m feeling something. Something slow and warm and a little tingly. Emotion, sensation—but also memory. I’m remembering what it feels like to … feel. Without analyzing it, thinking about it, or trying to kill it.

  Fred gives my earlobe a love bite and clicks her beak together, like she’s trying to get me to keep going.

  The pen twitches in my fingers, but I don’t start writing. I see Cory’s happy, smiling face too sharply in my head, and now I’m feeling more, and what I’m feeling is, it hurts.

  Cory was a few months younger than me. The summer before high school started, she was thirteen, and I was fourteen. Everybody else was fourteen, too, except for Raulston, who turned fifteen the first week of summer vacation. The night Cory and I sent each other pictures of ourselves, I had decided to plan some special date for her birthday, only we never got to have that date. We became the “Duke’s Ridge Eight”—ten, minus Marvin, and also minus Cory because the reporters weren’t allowed to say much about her—before I could give her the flowers I wanted to buy her, or the bracelet I put on layaway, or the card I tore up and burned a few months later, because I thought setting something on fire might make me feel better.

  It said, You’re my best. You’re my perfect. You’re my always.

  I made it myself, using this site on the Internet, and I decorated it with roses like her tattoo, and I didn’t know it wasn’t true. I wanted to give it to her and make her happy. I wasn’t even planning to have sex with her, because I’d decided we should wait longer. Maybe until we were both fifteen. There was other stuff we could do—but the sex part could wait.

  I hate remembering.

  I really hate trying to talk about it, or explain it, or write it down.

  How can it make any sense to anybody if they don’t know everything? I can’t explain it right. I can’t ever say enough. I don’t even want to try now. People just judge. I bet that happens to Raulston and Tom and Randall and Jason, too. Maybe even the girls, but please, God, if there really is a God and you really do listen to me, not Cory, okay? Don’t let people blow Cory off.

  I slam down the pen, which doesn’t make me feel better, because nothing does when I try to go digging up this damned moldy grave in my life. Branson’s insane if he thinks I’m testifying about sex offender laws. Dr. Mote’s more insane. She should know better.

  There is no way.

  No. Way.

  “I can’t do this,” I tell Fred, and she answers by nipping at the top of my ear not so lovingly.

  Then she bites hard and says “Ow” before I can do it.

  “Ow,” I agree, rubbing my bitten ear.

  A few minutes later, I crank back on the bed with my headphones on, listening to my Hallelujah mix on the iPod. Fred’s on my chest with her beak down, letting me scratch the tiny pearl-gray feathers on top of her head, which are so smooth and layered they’re almost like soft scales.

  Not much of a social life, but it’s what I’ve got, and it’s safe. For now, I’d rather have safe than warm and tingly and always in the end, painful.

  Three Years Ago: Party in the USA

  “Lockdown!” the coaches yell, and everybody laughs and cheers as the city league gym doors slam shut and the chains get thrown over the bars. They aren’t really locked because of fire code, but if somebody tries to sneak out of the inside campground, everybody’ll hear all the rattling.

  Who would want to escape, though?

  We’ve got burgers and hot dogs, all the punch and water and soda anybody could drink, already toasted s’mores, candy, chips, cakes—the food’s endless. The tents are all pitched on the rubber basketball floor cover, and they’re cranking up the rented DVDs on the giant-screen television that the coaches rolled under one of the pulled-up basketball goals. Everything smells like chocolate or meat or sleeping bags and popcorn. Everything looks great.

  It’s Good-bye Night for city league baseball and softball—about a hundred of us, ten coaches, a bunch of parent volunteers—and my folks and Cory’s folks and even Marvin’s mom blew it off this year.

  We’re on our own.

  Cory snuggles next to me in front of the giant television, her beanbag touching mine, her head on my shoulder. I’d rather her be in my lap or on my beanbag, but I’d also rather not get popped in the head by one of the coaches. My belly’s so full I’d probably fall off and roll across the rubber floor until I hit the nearest wall.

  From my left, Raulston lets out a raunchy belch, bringing a chorus of boos and grosses from everybody else.

  The horror flick is stupid, so we’re mostly talking in the semidarkness, and Cory whispers in my ear, “Did you like it last night?”

  All the hamburgers I ate bang against each other as I get a vivid picture of what she’s talking about, from the field out behind my house. It involved one of mom’s quilts and not a lot of clothes.

  “Yeah.” I know my face is changing colors, and I hate that. When will that stop? Will I have to be fifty years old before I stop turning purple every time Cory says something sweet—or hot?

  “Do you want to do it again?” she asks, so quiet only I can hear her.

  “Here?” My voice comes out too loud, and it cracks a little, and I feel stupid.

  In the flickering light from the television, her smile gives me that water-in-my-bones feeling, but I say, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Really, there’s nowhere to hide or sneak away, and if there are any hiding spots, other people have probably already found them.

  But when she keeps looking at me, I want to find one for us. I really like looking at her. Putting my hands on her. She touches me, too, but we just use our hands. We’ve done that three times. She wants us to use our mouths, but then stop there. She agrees we need to wait for real sex. I’m fine with that.

  “Not here,” she murmurs, sounding disappointed, but also like she gets it. “I know. But soon.”

  “Soon,” I agree, watching people kiss on television and thinking they’re lucky.

  “No way.” I’m looking at Raulston and Tom while Randall and Jason laugh their nuts off and Marvin eats a bag of Oreos. He’s got one white iPod earbud in his left ear, but he’s listening to us with his right ear. It’s after lights-out, but there’s a little glow coming through our tent from the gym safety lights.

  Raulston pulls out his phone and whispers, “Want me to prove it?”

  “Dutch will beat your ass with a bat, man,” Marvin says around a mouthful of cookies. “If you say she sent you some sizzling pictures, we believe you.”

  “I’ve got some of my own,” Randall brags. “Past and present.” He lifts up his phone and rocks it back and forth. I can’t see the details of his face, but I can tell he’s grinning. He makes a motion like he’s slicking back his hair.

  “Screw you,” Jason says, because Randall’s “past” would be Lisa, and—oops. “She never sent you anything.”

  “Did she send you something?” Randall asks Jason.

  “Hell,
yes. And we’ve done a lot more than pictures. Want to see?” Jason pulls out his phone and acts like he’s about to slide it open and show us an amateur porn video.

  Marvin swallows really loud, then grumbles, “Don’t. If Coach sees all these lights and has to tell us to put up and shut up again, he’ll crack our skulls.”

  “Eat your cookies,” Tom says, holding up his phone and waving around a picture. “I’ve got three of Jenna.”

  I try not to look straight at it, but I see enough to know there’s lots of skin.

  She’s not Cory, though, so I’m not interested.

  I glance at my phone, cue up her picture, and smile at it, but I don’t show it off. I keep my phone tight in my fist so nobody can grab it. I’m definitely not sharing Cory’s picture with anybody. She’d never show mine.

  Would she?

  A bad image pops into my head, of her and Dutch and Lisa and Jenna, huddled around their phones in their tents. They’ve gotten hollered at a few times, so I know they’re still up, too.

  My phone buzzes with a message, and I jam it under the edge of my sleeping bag to read the text from Cory.

  Luv u.

  Luv u 2, I type back and send it.

  “Cookies are better,” Marvin says as Raulston’s phone buzzes with a text, no doubt from Dutch.

  Tom’s phone goes off next, with a big loud blast of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” and we all start carping at him about putting it on mute, but it takes Coach like six seconds to be in our tent door.

  Well, Coach’s arm, anyway.

  “Hand ’em over,” he demands from the tent doorway, sticking his big hand inside and waiting for us to fill it with phones.

  We all groan and grumble, but we do it.

  And a few seconds later, all the coaches are going into all the tents and confiscating all the cell phones until the morning.

  “Get some sleep!” one of them yells as Coach zips up our flap and gives it a thump with his phone-filled hand.

  We all flop back on our sleeping bags except Marvin, who’s still eating.