by Marc Laidlaw
“Reach him? How?”
“It’s stupid. I’m trying to imagine I can see what he sees. I thought that would show me where he is.”
“And . . . ?”
Mike pushed the blank pad toward him. “See for yourself. It’s not working.”
“You think he ran away?” Ryan said.
“Why would he?”
“I heard the police were looking for him.”
Mike’s face twisted up.
“You don’t think Edgar . . . ?”
Mike jumped off the bed. “Don’t be an idiot. I was with him that night, while it was happening.”
“That’s not what you told the cops.”
“Because, I told you, Edgar was doing drugs. I couldn’t tell them that, could I?”
“No . . . Did you do any?”
“No!” Mike looked both angry and scared. “He asked me to watch him, in case he had a bad trip or something.”
“Wow . . . what was it? Heroin?”
“It was marijuana.”
“Oh. Dirk did that once, he told me. He said he could get some more and we could try it. He can get all kinds of stuff.”
Mike stared at him steadily. “I wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because of what happened to Edgar.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He never got home, that’s what. He ran off and that’s the last I saw of him.”
Ryan swallowed—a painful gulp. “Man . . . ”
“Right.”
“I wish I knew who broke in. Wouldn’t you like to kill them?”
“Yeah.”
Ryan walked over to the wall and stared at the nasty, crumbling hole. On an impulse, he stuck his hand into it.
“Don’t do that!” Mike grabbed his wrist violently and yanked it out.
“Ow!” Ryan pulled his hand free and swung it at Mike, who flinched and ducked, barely avoiding the blow.
“Watch who you’re messing with!” Ryan said.
“You watch out, I’m older than you.”
“Older and weaker!”
Mike shoved him backward, trying to force him out of the room. Ryan fought to keep his place. They grunted and groaned, straining to overpower each other. Ryan usually won fairly quickly in contests of strength, but Mike must have been desperate because somehow he managed to push Ryan all the way to the door and out into the hall, which almost never happened. Usually he just fell down kicking and gave up. Ryan grabbed the door frame and clung with all his might until Mike shoved hard one more time, catching him off guard. He flew so far that he hit the top step and would have gone backward down the stairs if he hadn’t caught hold of the stair rail.
Ryan, gasping for breath, saw Mike’s face hanging over him, white with fear. “Are you okay?”
It took him a moment to answer, to pull himself up. “Yeah.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry.”
Ryan got to his feet. “I’m okay.”
“You could have broken your neck. You almost went down the stairs!”
Ryan looked down. He had never quite seen the stairs in such a light before. It was hard to imagine falling and injuring himself in such a way, but now that Mike had planted the idea in his head, he couldn’t get rid of it. He kept seeing himself slamming hard against the wall at the bottom, lying there limp with his eyes rolled up in his head and blood trickling from his mouth.
Dead, he thought. I could be dead right now.
Then he thought, No way!
Backing away from Mike, he pretended to trip on the stairs. While holding tight to the rail, he windmilled one of his arms and let out a yell. Mike’s panicked expression made him laugh. He bounded down the stairs, half expecting his brother to pursue him.
When he hit the floor, he heard a man’s voice speaking outside the door: “It was murder!”
Upstairs, Mike’s door slammed shut. He had gone back into his lair.
Ryan put his eyes to the spyhole and saw two men in the tub, arms spread out along the rim, heads lolling back. A bottle of champagne and three glasses rested on a shelf near the edge. A third man, naked and covered all over with curly hair, gasped as he lowered himself gingerly into the steaming water, moaning as the bubbles came up to his neck. He went all the way under for a moment, then burst to the surface, shaking water from his hair, wiping his eyes.
“So you heard about Sal?” he said. His voice, a growl as deep and loud as a radio announcer’s, carried over the rumble of the tub.
“I still can’t believe it,” said one of the other two. “He was doing so much good for our community.”
The third man worked his finger in an ear, as if to drain it. “The thing that gets me is, you know the papers won’t mention any of the details.”
“Denny’s covering it for The Advocate,” said the second man. “You can bet the truth’ll come out there.”
“Preaching to the converted. John Q. Public won’t know it was pure homophobia.”
“He wouldn’t care anyway. He’d applaud!”
“But the details are so grisly. I should think the newspapers would eat them up. Besides, there’s the whole drug-dealing angle.”
“Right, the drugs,” said the deep-voiced man. “As if that was the only thing he did. Forget about his community service, the help he gave to those confused kids, the runaway shelters he funded. The drugs are a tragedy because they cloud the truth. They’re convenient propaganda already in place for the papers to paint him as a villain.”
“And once the cops figure out that Sal was a dealer, not to mention gay, they won’t even bother with an investigation.”
“Yeah, they’ll conveniently forget he had a steel crucifix shoved up his ass. As if it were an insignificant detail.”
“The only thing that could have made it plainer would be if the cross had been burning.”
The name Sal finally called up a picture. Wasn’t Sal the Kung Fu Faggot, the guy who drove the black van that all Ryan’s friends knew to avoid? It had to be. Could there be another queer Sal in Bohemia Bay?
“Well, we can’t expect miracles from the Bohemia police. This’ll never turn into a civil rights test case. They caught the bastard who did it, and that really is the main thing right now.”
“I hear Randy found him.”
“Randy? Oh my god, that poor kid!”
“Yes. He told Kent he sent the cops straight to the killer. He knew who did it, that biker-preacher from the canyon. He’d been making threats . . . ”
“I always knew there was something dangerous about him.”
“Tell me about it. Some of his boys came after me once on the beach below the Lobster. They almost killed me.”
“I remember. And what did the cops do about it?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of now.”
“Well, the evidence is undeniable, from what Randy said. Strong enough to keep him in jail for a while, anyway.”
“I hope he rots there.”
“Poor Sal. Do you know—has anyone heard if he . . . you know?”
“If he still had his balls?”
“Oh, Lord, please don’t!”
“Isn’t that what everyone’s wondering? It has to be the same guy, doesn’t it? That other kid, the one they found in the Central Beach tunnel, wasn’t he one of those gang boys?”
“So?”
“Don’t you see the connection? This preacher character must be seriously repressed, surrounding himself with boys. Sound a little familiar? Maybe there was something between him and that boy, something he couldn’t handle. Maybe Sal confronted him on it.”
“Well I haven’t heard a thing about the state of Sal Diaz’s testicles, and I hope I never do. It’s the whereabouts of the champagne I’m concerned about . . .”
Ryan raced for the stairs, taking them three at a time, and launched himself at Mike’s door. He threw it open without knocking this time, and surprised Mike at his desk, the dr
awer pulled half open, a flash of pink briefly glimpsed before his brother slammed the drawer shut.
Mike rose up, enraged. “What do you want? I told you to knock!”
“Whoa, wait till you hear!” Ryan was so excited he didn’t even care about the magazines. “They caught the guy who killed Craig Frost!”
“What?” Mike’s face flooded with color. His eyes seemed to fill the lenses of his glasses.
“I just heard them talking about it at the party.”
“What did they say?”
“He killed somebody else. You know Sal, the fag up the hill, with the black van?”
“Yeah?” Mike said slowly.
“The karate guy?”
“I know who you mean!”
“Well, he’s dead, and the same guy did it, but this time the police caught him. He stuck a cross up—a cross up Sal’s butt!”
Mike stared at Ryan as if he were insane.
“Swear to God! The guy’s in jail. Can you believe it? A murder two blocks away!”
Mike sat down hard on his bed. His whole body trembled and he let out a huge sigh. “Man,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. . . .”
“Isn’t it cool?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, really cool.” Mike began to laugh. “They really caught him? You’re sure?”
“Everybody says so.”
“They know who it was?”
Ryan shrugged. “It’ll be in the papers. Wait’ll I tell Dirk!”
Suddenly the clock radio caught his eye. “Hey, Night of the Living Dead is starting. You gonna come watch?”
Mike shook his head and lay back on the bed. “I’m going to draw, I think. Suddenly I feel inspired.”
Ryan suppressed a comment about the magazines. If he let on he’d seen them, Mike might make them harder to find. He closed the door behind him, then went upstairs to the kitchen. With a half-gallon drum of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other, he descended to the TV room and threw himself into a beanbag chair before the set. Seymour, the mysterious gravel-voiced old joker in a cape and black gaucho hat, introduced the movie with a bunch of wisecracks. Ryan methodically stirred his ice cream into sludge, the way he liked it.
By the second commercial break, he had finished the tub. He walked back up the three flights to the kitchen and tossed the empty carton in the trash. The party next door was still going strong; he could hear his mother’s laughter above the thumping of the music.
The massive infusion of milk and sugar had made him logy. Yawning, he headed for the stairs again, still seeing how easy it would be to trip and fall two flights from up here—fall to his death. Broken neck, bloody mouth . . . the movie was making him nervous.
As he grasped the stair rail, extra cautious, he heard a sound at the front door, and stopped.
There was a grating noise. The knob rattled.
It must be Jack, drunk and fumbling with his keys.
Ryan reached out and opened the door.
There stood a boy, probably older than Ryan though he couldn’t be sure. Maybe Mike’s age.
Seeing Ryan, he stiffened and jerked his fist back.
“Hi,” he said, in a small voice that made Ryan wonder if maybe he was younger than he looked. “I was just about to ring the bell. Is Mike home?”
Ryan nodded anxiously. The movie would be starting any second now and he’d already been too long. He wasn’t about to let one of his brother’s dorky friends make him miss any.
“Come in,” he said. “Just hurry!”
24
SEASCAPE, WITH DEAD STEPFATHER
Being:
A C●medy,
Alth●ugh nightmarish to its participants (And particularly its Narrator,
One Rupert Giles ●f Balmy Beach, California;
Age 15)
152 (●ne ●hundred and fifty-tw●) stairs lead d●wn a sheer cliff t● the Naked Beach. H●w many times hath my stepfather Wally tumbled the wh●le flight, t● land smashed and bleeding at the sandy b●tt●m, ●nly t● summ●n his last ergs f●r a crawl t● the t●p, s● that I may push him d●wn yet again? “A myriad,” I am happy t● rep●rt.
Ancient steps they are, all ●f crumbling gravel embedded in a matrix ●f sandst●ne and c●arse cement like that which enc●ffins Wally’s feet in my merriest dreams, when he sinks beneath the kelp beds, gulping with diminishing cause at the p●is●n-finned sculpin and circling lurid garibaldi. “O b●ny day-Gl● ●range beautiful yet inedible STATE FISH OF CALIFORNIA!” the killing ●f which is a fear-ridden pleasure akin t● that derived fr●m ripping tags ●ff mattresses ●ne has n● intenti●n ●f purchasing; th●ugh within each garibaldi (“N●t t● menti●n Wally,” he said, menti●ning him) are g●bbets ●f green, br●wn and liver-c●l●red g●●, s● much nastier than mattress stuffing. G●d f●rbid we sh●uld c●mmit such icthycide beneath the Balmy Beach cliffs where game wardens and rangers daily sit their unpredictable vigils, bin●culars trained ●n us, always engaged in vi●lati●n ●f s●me state c●de ●r ●ther--mussel murder mayhem, f●r instance. As rewarding as garibaldi (●r Wally) assassinati●n, th●ugh lacking the thrill ●f ●utright illegality, ●ur f●rmer mad hunts f●r mussel pearls entailed the wh●lesale slaughter ●f live mussels by the sc●re. Y●u sh●uld have seen them, helpless m●llusks, t●rn in weedy clumps fr●m sear●cks bared by ●utrushing waves, then smashed t● pieces in small tidal p●●ls until the miniature cisterns were creamy with s●ft ●range intestinal matter, a filter-feeder’s lunch, n●w sustenance f●r lucky crabs and anem●nes; f●r which savageries we were rewarded with a (very) ●ccasi●nal tarnished nacre●us gray pebble the size ●f several sand grains glued t●gether, and ab●ut as valuable. I ●nce pried ●pen a mussel and ate it, liberally sm●thered in cafeteria tac● sauce squirted fr●m a plastic packet, crunching a pearl between my teeth s● hard it chipped a filling. “Just revenge f●r earlier massacres!” piped a v●ice fr●m the mussel beds. S● I crushed them all, gathering up their shattered shells f●r that ultimate day ●f gl●ry when I shall embed them individually in Wally’s skin and f●rce him t● r●ll in a tub ●f k●sher salt liberally mixed with rusty jacks and br●ken micr●sc●pe slides, symb●lic ruins ●f my inn●cent childh●●d, fr●m which Wally has wrenched me f●rever. (I feel I sh●uld als● menti●n, n●t as an aside but f●r c●mpleteness’ sake, that hermit crabs were ●ften pulled fr●m their shells and fed t● the friendly (else why always waving?) anem●nes, which fattened ●n ●ur attenti●ns, benefiting s● greatly fr●m human ass●ciati●n that they still sh●w affecti●n and kiss my t●es stickily when I visit tidal p●●ls. S● d●n’t pity the mussel al●ne. Pers●nally, I feel crabs were s●meh●w the m●st pathetic ●f ●ur victims, f●r they had p●pping eyes and useless claws that gnashed futilely and little guts that dripped all ●ver everything when we’d been t●● r●ugh in extracting them fr●m their shells, as, sadly, we usually were. Perhaps it is because ●f crabs that we left ●ff pestering crustaceans and turned ●ur attenti●n t● fulltime harassment ●f the nude, s●metimes badly sunburnt bathers, wh● were mature humans and theref●re able t● defend themselves, m●re ●r less.)
But I must speak n●w, with gr●wing excitement (can y●u n●t hear the quaver in my v●ice), ●f Wally, Wally, wh● lies festering in the sun ●n a black terrycl●th shr●ud, magg●ts w●rming in his gut and cringing with a sizzling s●und each time he gulps fr●m a tankard ●f lem●n-scented Pepsi. P●●r magg●ts! Hearing my typewriter, Wally l●●ks up fr●m his Har●ld R●bbins n●vel, emitting a fart which scarcely relieves the purulent swelling ●f his abd●men, gase●us result ●f his well-deserved decay. S●●n I will take this l●ng, p●inted instrument especially designed f●r cleaning black c●tt●n lint fr●m the inky small “●” ●f my typewriter (currently dedicated t● a m●re imp●rtant task), ●r the sharp edge ●f ●ne ●f my mussel shards (d●es that have the same res●nance?),
and prick him. Or perhaps the feeding insects, with their sharpened m●uth-saws, will d● the w●rk, letting him burst expl●sively, spattering the ●ther sunbathers with the bypr●ducts ●f Wallyesque r●t, all●wing me finally, and in g●●d c●nscience, t● clean these keys . . .
Mike had already roughly sketched Wally’s corpse half buried in sand at the base of the crumbling flight of stairs. You could actually count all 152 steps. He began to work at the splintered bones poking out of Wally’s skin. Maggots were next. He tried not to make “Wally” look too much like Walter—in case Walter happened to see the illustration when he sent it to Scott.
Ryan’s news had flooded him with freed energy. He had been ruled by fear for longer than he’d realized. And fear had locked his thoughts up tight, put clamps on his imagination, so that he was afraid to dream, afraid to turn his mind loose for fear of where it might wander. When he narrowed his eyes, he could still almost see the whorls of his acid trip, shadows tipped with fangs, but such moments were fading. A wave of unreality had covered his life, and as it slipped away, it had threatened to leave him in a world far worse than the one he’d inhabited before the trip. For days there had been room for only one terrible thought in his head:
He was bait.
Since Hawk had seen the hand grenade, everything had changed. Suddenly Mike was the center of the One-Way Gang’s attention. At first he wasn’t sure what had made him so important, but gradually he’d realized that he was only a means to an end. Hawk’s real goal was Lupe; and Mike was just a convenient way of luring him in.
Whenever Mike thought about it, the plan infuriated him. Why should he be the bait? Why couldn’t someone else sit and wait for the psycho to pay them a visit?
He’d even wondered if the whole plan weren’t Hawk’s revenge on him for helping Maggie write that letter . . .
But now all that was over. He didn’t have to question anyone’s motives. Lupe was in jail. His life was his own again. He could say goodbye to Hawk and Dusty and Stoner, to Kurtis Tyre and Mad-Dog Murphy and Howard Lean. He could even say so long to Edgar, whenever he showed his face again, though Mike had a feeling Edgar was on the road, maybe hitching in Mexico by now. Somewhere the Bohemia cops wouldn’t follow.
