by Brian Hodge
A few days later I saw that girl Meg at the grocery store. Dami wanted ice cream, and I remember thinking she might be pregnant. That would have been the best thing ever. I’d always wanted to have a son to carry on my name and grow up just like me. Sons are important. She thought so too. She told me some story about a kid with an elephant head, which turned out to be the statue in the girls’ bedroom. He reminded me of Babar. I liked that song he had.
I saw this crop of red hair bouncing slightly in the next aisle over. I waved to her and she asked if I’d buy her some beer. I told her I would, but she’d have to drink it in front of me so I’d know she wasn’t getting in any trouble with it. I said it really quiet so no one would think I was trying to corrupt a minor. If I didn’t give her beer, someone else surely would. Who knew how someone else might take advantage of this fetching young girl out on her own, and soon to be full of beer?
We got in my car and drove around. I only had two beers, and she had the other four. I’d never seen anyone so tiny drink so much. In less than half an hour she looked like she was about to fall asleep. Her legs poked out from under her short skirt, and I just wanted to slide my hands up and down them.
She’s too drunk to stop me, so I do. Before I know it I’m touching her and kissing her and pulling her tiny clothes off. She struggles a little, but four whole beers is an awful lot for a little girl to handle. She struggles more, and I can tell she’s waking up so I stop.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yells it at me, like I’m some kind of bad guy. I’m the one who gave her beer, just like she wanted. These women have to fucking complain, even when you give them everything they ask for. There’s no pleasing them.
“Nothing; you were passed out. So I—never mind.”
“You drive me home right now. My dad is gonna kick your ass for this!” Her eyes narrow into tiny slits of hatred. She’s starting to do that thing girls do to make the Red come.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be mad at ME when you come home drunk.” The little bitch doesn’t have anything to say to that. Of course I know her dad probably would kick my ass, but I’m not going to let that happen. I’m way too smart for that. The Red is coming.
Chapter Seven
(Our Narrator)
Really, Really Sorry
Mikey would get nervous sometimes. If he was driving and a cop came anywhere near him, he’d look at them again and again, swerving away and acting all suspicious. He was a terrible liar, that Mikey, and even worse at maintaining a low profile. Like that time Jeanette found those cats buried in the backyard.
Mikey’s sister was digging up worms to go fishing. Yeah, she was pretty cool like that. She found a cat skull, then another, then a whole bunch of tiny little bones. No muscles, no fur or anything, just bones. When his mama asked him about it, Mikey said he had “no idea how those four cats got there.” It was a dead giveaway, as my mom would say. Nobody knew how many cats there were, except the guy who put ‘em there.
Once everything came out about Mikey, it made a lot of sense that he was so invisible. Nobody saw him with anyone; he just blended in, like the embodiment of average. The biggest nobody anywhere. Maybe that’s part of what made him so damn angry all the time.
Years ago, the two of us were stoned on pot, and we were trying to shoplift some chips and stuff. Mikey was staring at the counter person so hard that he knocked over a T-shirt display and fell onto the ice cream cooler. It was ridiculous. While all that was going on, I managed to scam us some Hostess pies, a couple of Snickers, and a bag of Ruffles.
My point is that Mikey would get mad, and then get totally nervous from time to time. It was a kind of cycle. He’d be furious and pissy for days on end, and then it’d stop. Some days he’d just be this big mass of nerves, jump when you tried to get his attention, flinch if you patted him on the shoulder, freak out when he heard a siren of any kind—even a stupid car alarm. Every couple of months or so he just got like that. Then he chilled out and went back to normal. I suggested once he see a doctor about it. Mikey didn’t see doctors though; he swore there was nothing wrong with him. They say that’s the first sign that you’re crazy; you’re positively, absolutely certain you’re not.
Dami was getting ready to divorce him. She was living with her mother, just took the girls and left one day. She was hot and everything, but I never really got what she saw in him. The wife was sexy and smart; she’d been a teacher in her own country, but the two of them pretended like she couldn’t work here.
She was one of those really private people, close-mouthed. She never told me what was going on with them. In fact, I almost never heard her speak unless it was to argue with Mikey in the other room. He’d been spending a lot of time online watching porn and chatting with people. I know a lot of guys do that. Mikey’s the only guy I knew who talked about it like it was normal and totally fine. It is common I guess, but talking about it is a little … I dunno … gay or something. It made everybody uncomfortable, but usually no one said anything.
For the first week or two, it seemed like Mikey was okay with the separation. The first night we even went out and got loaded, celebrating his newfound freedom and all that. Mikey got so drunk we ended up carrying him home. He’s kind of a big guy, so that was a struggle. By the time we got him there he’d become one of those pissed-off, crying drunks.
“That BITCH! She’s not even here? Why isn’t she here?” He looked at me with these pleading eyes, like I might have known something he didn’t.
“She left, remember? She’s living with her mother—for a little while.” He wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning; no sense in laying the whole thing on him again.
“When’s she back?”
“Soon.”
“Okay. …” That seemed to calm him down a little. “I miss her. You know what?” Mikey’s voice was hushed.
“No, Mikey, what?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Tell Dami I’m sorry.” Babbling drunk. It would have been really funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
“What are you sorry for, buddy?”
“Really sorry to that redheaded girl.”
Girl? Had he cheated on Dami? Very, very unlikely. “What girl? Who are you talking about?” But Mikey was already passed out, fast asleep and dreaming about his wife coming home. Redheaded girl? I didn’t think we knew any redheaded girls. I should have put it together then, checked around the newspaper or something. Truth was, I couldn’t be bothered. I honestly didn’t think much of it. Who thinks of things like that? Oh, gee, maybe this guy that I know as well as I know myself killed a young girl and now he’s sorry for it. No one would think that. Most of the time that isn’t what happens. Most of the time your best friend isn’t a killer who makes you look like a sap for trusting him.
A few days after that, Mikey had the nervous thing going on again. I was a different person back then, still drinking and stuff, but I asked him about it as nicely as I could.
“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What? Oh. I told you; nothing.” I let it go. No sense in pushing the point. He wasn’t gonna tell me anything. He was back to his old self in a couple of days. All thought of red-haired girls forgotten.
Chapter Eight
(Mikey)
Learning the Trade
The redheaded girl sat next to me in my car, staring daggers at me. Her named was Meg, and she was very angry.
“You have to take me home. I’m gonna tell my dad. Take me home NOW!” She kept on like that, even when it must have been obvious that I had no intention of taking her home. I didn’t even know where she lived.
I told her just to sit tight and relax, that I wasn’t going to hurt her. I said if she just did what she was told, she’d be right as rain. That’s something Mama used to say if I cut myself falling out of a tree or something. Not the time I hit my head, but when I’d get a scrape or a cut. She’d clean it up and slap a Band-Aid on it and say, “There you go Pooter, ri
ght as rain.” I hated when she called me that; still do in fact. Rain slants to the left. I never really did figure out what Mama meant by right as rain. I should probably ask her. I don’t think this girl knew either, because she did not sit tight and she certainly did not relax.
“I want to go hoooooooome!” She’s really scared now, and she’s wailing like a little girl. Tough talk for someone who thought she was grown up enough to go out drinking.
“Put your seatbelt on,” I tell her in the voice I use on Dami’s girls when they aren’t listening. When she sees me pull onto the expressway, she starts all sobbing and crying again like I’m the bad guy. I wish she could just enjoy the drive. It’s a nice day and she’s got a few beers in her, so what’s not to like?
Finally I pull off into that rest area I like, on the very edge of the state. I bet her that the whole place will be deserted. I’m right, and it is. I tell her to sit tight again, and this time she does it. She has these big, wide eyes that peek out from behind her red hair, all green like gems in a patch of freckles. Such a cutie.
I buy us some candy and chips and a couple of Cokes from the vending machine. We walk over to the picnic tables and sit. It’s a nice little picnic we’re having, just like a real date. It occurs to me for a second that Dami sent me out for ice cream almost two hours ago. She’s gonna be really pissed when I finally come home. Maybe I won’t go home. Maybe I’ll just take my new girlfriend and go somewhere fun.
“You wanna go somewhere fun?” I ask her, even though I have a mouthful of Snickers.
“I want to go home.” She answers me as if nothing has changed all afternoon. She’s had plenty of time to get to like me. She’s just being mean on purpose.
“We could go anywhere you want. I got a car, you know. We can get some more beer, or even some pot.” I’m sure her face will light up then, but it doesn’t. I thought all girls loved free pot. Well, not Dami, but American girls. “You ever smoke pot before? Makes you really horny.” The words had barely come out of my mouth when the redheaded girl got up and started running. I threw my soda on the ground and took off after her at top speed. I didn’t realize I could run so fast anymore. I can’t remember the last time I tried. I’m a pretty big guy; don’t do a whole lot of running.
I see the back of her red-haired head bounding into the woods instead of toward the road. Pretty stupid if you ask me. I would’ve run where someone might see me. She just ran to run away. I catch up with her in a flash. She’s in a kind of headlock as I hold her neck to me in the crook of my arm.
She screams and I throw her on the ground. Before she can hit me or roll around or anything I’m on her, and I pin her to the ground. That was the first time I learned about the chemical reaction with women that makes everything go Red. Nobody ever warned me about it.
“Think you could get away? From me?” My hands are around her throat. She will not shut up. The Red is all over me; it’s all I can see. I’m squeezing and crying and wondering desperately why this had to happen. Not wondering what Chandra will do when her friend is gone, not wondering how I’m ever going to get away with this horrible thing. She’s dying. The life is squeezing out of her, literally, and she’s going to die beneath me right here in these trees. It’s awful, but fascinating.
The girl isn’t moving anymore. I can’t uncover her face. I can’t imagine how she must look. I don’t want to know. Her legs are still pretty, and I sit next to her for what feels like a long time, rubbing her legs up and down, half wishing she’d wake up and talk to me. It could have been such a nice date, me and her and a couple of beers. I would’ve been really nice to her, if only she’d let me. But no … she wanted her daddy to kick my ass. What kind of thing is that to want for your boyfriend? Drunken little whore got what she deserved.
I pull her by the feet until I can’t see the car anymore. One of her little sandals comes off in my hand and I think about keeping it. I think about taking her panties off and keeping those too, but it’s only fun to undress a girl when she’s alive and talking and stuff. I decide to leave her something instead, and I drop a bus token from my pocket next to her. I’m not sure why, but that seems really funny to me.
While I’m eating her bag of chips, a thought hits me. That girl is dead and I’m the one who was with her. Suddenly my hands are shaking so badly I can hardly put the key in the ignition. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, so it’s natural that I can’t stop thinking about it.
I almost want to cry for that poor girl, pinned down and screaming that she wanted to go home—too frightened even to eat her Ruffles. Ruffles are the tastiest of all chips, too. She made this happen, though, not me. I just wanted to touch her and talk to her; she’s the one who made the Red get all over me. I have no control over that.
I have to drive around for another hour, just until I’m calm enough to go home. I stop at three different restaurants just to wash my hands, though I also order cheeseburgers in two of them. Cheeseburgers are the best food in the universe.
Dami was sitting on the sofa, reading a magazine, when I got home with her ice cream. She asked me where I’d been, and I’m proud to say I told her I was at a movie. It was the perfect excuse. I could tell she didn’t really believe me, but she couldn’t prove I was lying so I didn’t get in any trouble.
I’m the Ace when it comes to not getting in trouble. The Ace. The trick to not getting in trouble for doing something is just to pretend you weren’t doing it. You can even convince yourself sometimes.
I’d remembered that Dami’s favorite flavor of ice cream was butter pecan. And I brought the girls each a leftover Snickers, which made me the Ace at being a stepfather too.
Chapter Nine
(Our Narrator)
The Eagle has Landed
They expect a lot out of you when you join the Boy Scouts, or even Cub Scouts. Mikey’s mom didn’t want him to go at all. She said they were a bunch of homos and idolaters and that no good could come from letting her “Little Pooter” keep company with such people. I don’t know what happened to make her change her mind, but after Pastor Simms got involved, Mikey got to come to Cub Scouts with me. My mom even bought him his uniform. My mom liked Mikey a lot back then. Odd, because she’s always been a very good judge of character. Maybe she just felt sorry for Mikey and it kept her from seeing him clearly. I can certainly relate to that.
Mikey had lots more problems than just his mom. He was the kind of guy who did everything anyone ever told him to, just so they’d like him. It didn’t work. Even though the “cool kids” would let Mikey hang around with them, they never accepted him. They played a lot of “jokes” on him: punches in the arm or the head, throwing his lunch down the sewer, wedgies, and lots and lots of Indian burns. Mikey laughed right along with them, either not noticing they were laughing at him, or not caring as long as they let him hang out with them.
Once they made him take off his scout neckerchief and throw it on the ground. Tom Robertson peed on it and made him put it back on. Mikey cried in front of all of them. I felt bad for him, but there was nothing I could do with all those guys around him. I can only imagine what his mom said to her idolater son, with his piss-soaked neckerchief. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t done crying that day, not by a long shot.
Our troop leader was a big college guy named Buzz. We thought it was really cool because there’d been an astronaut named Buzz, and there was nothing cooler to us than an astronaut.
Buzz wasn’t really an astronaut, of course, just named after one. Nicknamed, really. I’d heard a rumor that Buzz’s real name was Thaddeus, but Mikey and I decided we wouldn’t be the ones to ask him.
Scouts do a lot of camping and nature stuff. We learned how to tie knots and set traps and all about gun and knife safety. Of course, most people thought gun safety for children meant no guns at all. Buzz didn’t agree with that, and he hatched a plan where we’d all say we were going camping, but really we were going to hunt for ducks. Then we’d cook the ducks and eat the evidence o
f our trip. It was a very clever plan!
Mikey got partnered with Buzz and Al, Buzz’s friend. That seemed a little weird until I realized Buzz didn’t want Mikey getting picked on alone in the woods. He put me with Gideon, the Jewish kid. Tom Robertson was with Pete, who was half Tom’s size but just as tough. I didn’t know the rest of the guys that well, so I just kind of hung back to see what happened. I mostly just wanted to stay out of Pete’s way, since he was an even bigger bully than Tom Robertson.
Turned out, duck hunting was even more boring than deer hunting. At least sitting around in the woods was interesting, if only because my dad used to get really drunk and sing songs. He’d talk about when he first met my mom and said stuff I wished I didn’t have to hear. I never thought about whether or not my mom had “hot knockers” before my dad and his buddies and me went deer hunting.
Me and Gideon sat in a duck blind the farthest from anybody. It sounded like there were hundreds of ducks around in the blind. A blind, I found out, is a thick area of tall plants that you hide behind, so the ducks will come right up to you and you can kill them. All the ducks we thought we heard, though, were really all the guys’ duck whistles. They were supposed to be like mating calls and would get the mallards to come out of hiding at the promise of getting some hot duck nookie.
We stayed out there from very early in the morning—still dark—till almost lunchtime. Nobody got anything, and finally Buzz shot into the air three times, which was the signal for us to go back to camp.
