Mercy Rule

by Tom Leveen

  “Okay, Mom.”

  She doesn’t laugh. “Just do it.”

  “Fine. See you later.”

  I get out and go into the house. Mom and Dad are both gone. I go into the bathroom and put Neosporin on my arms.

  CADENCE

  I see Danny just as he’s reaching the sidewalk beyond the parking lot after seventh hour, so I shout his name and start running after him. I must have shouted pretty loud, because he has his earbuds in and still manages to hear me. I’m glad he stops, because I’d sure look stupid shouting and running through the parking lot without someone acknowledging me.

  “Hi!” I say when I get to him.

  “Uh—hi.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Well, let’s see. It’s after school, so my current theory is home?”

  “Cool! Where’s that?”

  “A galaxy far, far away.”

  “You want to hang out?” No one will be home at my place yet. Usually I’d hang out with Faith or Gloria or Liza, but not anymore. Big jerks! I miss them.

  Danny freezes in place for about ten seconds before saying, “Sorry, what?”

  “I said, do you want to hang out. Go get something to eat or something. Or go to the park—hey, we could go on the swings!”

  “Sorry,” Danny says again, “did you just ask me to hang out?”

  “You are not the fastest thinker, Dan.”

  “It’s Danny. Did you?”

  “Yes. Danny. God, you’re weird.”

  I don’t mean anything by it, and I know I’m smiling when I say it. Danny looks mad for a second, but then he says, “Yeah, well, you’ve got a pirate flag on your ass, so there. That makes you a butt pirate. Now who’s weird?”

  Well, okay, he’s right, I am wearing my favorite shorts today. “Oh, you’re still weird. And it’s called a Jolly Roger.”

  “What?”

  “The pirate flag. The skull and crossbones, it’s called a Jolly Roger.”

  He holds up both index fingers. “That pink emblem adorning the backside of your shorts is called a Jolly Roger? And you don’t find that to be a huge innuendo?”

  “Huge what? Dude, are you speaking English right now?”

  Danny comes close to smirking, but doesn’t quite do it. “Okay. Let’s hang out. You ever been to the Blue?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a coffee shop. The Jamaican Blue. We could walk there from here.”

  “Okay! Lead the way.”

  We start walking down the sidewalk together. He doesn’t put his earbuds back in, which I take as a deep sign of respect.

  We walk about two blocks to a neighborhood I’ve never been to before, at least not that I remember. My house and my old school and my friends’ houses are all in the other direction. It’s kind of cool over here, though. Lots of red brick buildings and trees planted in the medians.

  Right when he steps into a small parking lot in front of an L-shaped row of shops, I stop dead.

  “Wait! This is Fifty-Third Street.”

  Danny stops, too. “Yeah?”

  I point to a green-and-white street sign nearby, posted at a little one-lane side street that intersects Fifty-Third. “And that’s Third Avenue?”

  “Your powers of deduction are breathtaking. Truly.”

  “This is the corner of Fifty-Third and Third!” I shout at him. “Like the song! The Ramones song. Well, except their song is set in New York. And it’s kind of about male prostitution. But, still! This is so cool.”

  “Let’s back up to the whole male prostitute thing,” Danny suggests, holding up his index fingers again.

  “I thought you loved the Ramones!”

  “I’ve heard the Ramones. Two different things.”

  I blow a raspberry at him and return to studying my new favorite place in the entire city. Here on the northeast corner of the intersection, there’s a patch of grass blanketing a short hill. A young tree reaches out from the top of it, like a leafy hand pleading to God. The grassy area is maybe half the size of a tennis court or so, based on what I remember of the courts at school. The grass is bright and lush, almost impossibly green, really, considering how hot it is. The corner is a tiny oasis in the midst of red brick buildings and blacktop.

  “Wow,” I say, and take a picture of the street sign, which I send to the girls. Only Liza will care, but I send it to all of them, anyway. Then I send it to Johnny, who I know will appreciate it, and Colin, even though we don’t talk much anymore.

  “Can we go inside now?” Danny pleads. “It’s effing hot. The Blue is right down here.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, watching a free trolley turn down a street less than a block away. Awesome! I’ll be able to get here anytime I want by taking the trolley.

  We cross Third Avenue and follow a brick sidewalk to a coffee shop. The air-conditioning is blasting on high right over the entrance, almost tearing my hair out. But, man, it smells great in here.

  Danny heads straight for the counter, and I follow him. While he’s ordering, I take in the whole scene. “The Blue” is lit low. Lots of tall, round tables with barstools line the walls and run down the middle of the shop. The walls are painted matte barn red and deep brown, and there’s no ceiling, meaning the air ducts and stuff like that aren’t hidden behind tiles or anything, they’re just up there, all metally and black. The walls are dotted with smeared pastel art prints that I would totally hang in my room if there was any space left between the posters.

  As I’m mentally redecorating my bedroom, I make accidental eye contact with someone from school. The girl from the bathroom. She’s still got the black beanie over her head, pulled low. She’s sitting with a boy I’ve seen around, but haven’t met yet. When we see each other, her eyes open wide.

  I give her a secret wave, low, by my hip, knowing she might not like that I recognize her, because people can be weird about stuff like that, like your presence reminds them of something bad. I’m grateful when her expression softens a little and she returns my wave. I’d love to go over there and talk to her, see how she’s doing, but sometimes people don’t like it when you do that, either. Like I said, they want to be left alone and not reminded that something bad happened. Plus, she’s with that guy! I know if it was me and Zach sitting there, I wouldn’t want anyone bothering me.

  So I turn to the counter and order a blended iced coffee thing. Danny has a black iced coffee, nothing in it.

  “Isn’t it bitter?” I ask as we weave our way to an empty table.

  “Does it show?” he says, slouching onto one of the tall barstools at a table near the door. “And I try so hard to be a ray of sunshine.”

  “I meant the coffee, doofblatt.”

  I get the impression he’s trying not to smile, like he doesn’t want anyone to see him happy.

  So I say, “You don’t want anyone to think you’re happy, do you.”

  “Who said I was happy?”

  “Well, what’s up?”

  He gives me the evil eye. Or at least the suspicious eye. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I’m nice, dummy! Plus we’re at a coffee shop, so we have to be all deep and stuff.”

  “Can’t argue with that logic.” He leans over the table, so I do, too, because this must be important.

  “So last year, my friend Donald tells me that his dad will pay us a dollar for every pigeon we kill at his garage. He’s a mechanic, and all these pigeons have started roosting on his roof and crapping on everything. He works on a lot of high-end cars, and he’s always got to clean up the shit right away. Sounds like a good deal, so I bring my pellet gun to school so me and Donald can go to the garage when school gets out.”

  “This school? I’m new, so I don’t know.”

  “The Arts Academy, downtown,” Danny says. “I was a freshman. So everything’s going fine, right? Then during my speech class, this other friend of mine takes my bag and plays Keep Away with it. Except the gun falls out—”

  “A
nd it shot him in the face?”

  “ … Uh, no, it fell out of my bag and broke. It was an air gun, not a Glock. It shoots one pellet at a time. You with me?”

  “Oh, sorry. Jumped ahead. Go on!”

  “So it is technically a gun, even though it only shoots point-one-seven-seven pellets. That’s less than half the size of your pinky fingernail, probably wouldn’t even penetrate your clothes, but they have to treat it like it’s this big threat, like I’m a god damn terrorist or something. So while I’m trying to explain why I had the gun in the first place, they call my parents. Then my dad shows up, and he flips right out. I point out that he’s the one who got me the pellet gun in the first place, but does he care about that? No. So I start getting mad, and I start shouting, and then everyone’s telling me to calm down, and I’m telling them to shut up and leave me alone—”

  He’s starting to squeeze his plastic cup so much, it’s going to spill bitter coffee out from under the lid. I try to point this out, but Danny’s talking fast now and doesn’t even hear me.

  “And they’re all saying, ‘Calm down, Danny, calm down, you need to relax, Danny!’ But I don’t, and the more they tell me to, the more pissed I get. So then, then, after everything’s settled down and I don’t get kicked out or anything because, for the record, my school loves me, I start smoking out with Donald and some other guys a few days later because everyone had said to calm down. And I bought a couple tranqs from this other guy, so that I can stay nice and calm all day, just like everyone wants. I figure this is a great way to do it.”

  It’s a stupid way to do it, but I don’t say that to him.

  “But we get caught and my mom flips out and my dad says, ‘You’ve come to a crossroads, m’boy!’ like he’s this god damn Jedi godfather wise man, and the next thing I know, they’re sending me to a shrink and putting me on drugs—drugs, Cadence! Think about it, the irony. And they pull me out of the Arts Academy and I end up here. At this school. With my sister who never liked me, anyway—and I can’t wear what I want, and I can’t take the classes I want because of pigeons and my god damn dad.”

  He’s breathing hard and his eyes are open superwide and he won’t blink. I don’t move. I just meet his eyes and nod.

  “That sucks,” I say.

  He doesn’t respond for a second, then leans back in his barstool. The red flush in his face starts draining. “Yeah.” He releases his death grip on his coffee.

  “But hey,” I add, “at least you’re here with me instead of at home, where I assume you’d rather not be right now.”

  “True.”

  “We should do something tonight.”

  “Tonight? Like a … ?”

  “No, not like that,” I say. And I mean, I don’t want to be full of myself, but for a second, I swear he looks disappointed. I hope not. I’m not someone he should be disappointed over. I try to come up with something that’s not date-like.

  “We could …”

  Danny starts taking a drink of coffee.

  “Oh! How about we go to the game?”

  No kidding, he literally chokes on his coffee. He has to cough for like five minutes before he can talk again.

  “Are you insane? A football game? I don’t command language well enough to emphasize how much that is not going to happen.”

  I sip my drink to stall for time before saying, “Are you sure?”

  Danny stares at me like he can’t believe what I just said.

  “Why?” he says. “Why would you choose that one thing?”

  “I don’t know. Because it’s high school. It’s part of the experience. What else would you be doing on Friday night?”

  “Uh, anything other than?”

  “Oh, come on. I’ll even pay for you.”

  “Money’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point, then?”

  Danny gives me a look like the answer to this simple question is way too big for my wee freshman head to get. So I just stare at him, arms folded on the table, waiting for him to dazzle me with his reasoning.

  Finally he says, with a big exhaled breath, “Okay. Fine. We’ll go to the football game. Jesus. Are you sure we can’t go on a date instead? Movie or something?”

  I’m not sure how to answer him besides no. I don’t think I’m the go-on-a-date type with boys like Danny. But then, I don’t know exactly what kind of boy would ask me out. What I do know is that I hope it’s Zach!

  “I kind of have my eye on someone,” I say. “Only, he maybe doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Who?” He sounds like he wants to kill whoever it is.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say, to protect Zach. “So we’ll go to the game?”

  “Yeah, sure. Anything to be close to you.”

  I can’t tell if he’s kidding or not, or being sarcastic, or just what, so I decide to let it go.

  VIVI

  Sam wears a watch, I notice. Nobody else at school does, not that I’ve seen. Some of the teachers do, that’s it. It is very nice, with a rich chocolate-brown strap and a gleaming silver circle. He checks it and blinks.

  “School’s over,” Sam says. “You need to head back?”

  “Yes … but, wait a second.”

  On our way to the door, I veer in the direction of the table where the girl from the bathroom is sitting. She’s with a boy who looks like he wishes he was a Hells Angel. She waved to me earlier, just a quick “Hi” sort of gesture, but didn’t come over or say anything. I’m grateful for that. I didn’t want to be interrupted with Sam, and I definitely didn’t want her saying anything about what happened with the marker and all that.

  But now, feeling better—stronger—I want say hi, at least. Sam follows along with me as I stop at their table.

  “Hi!” the girl says. She’s like a punk rock elf.

  “Um—I’m sorry I was mean to you before,” I say.

  “Oh my gosh, are you kidding? No way! You totally weren’t. I’m just sorry that—you know.”

  I tug my hat down again to make sure it’s covering my forehead. “Yeah …”

  “This is Danny!” she says. “He’s new. I mean, I’m new, too, but he’s a sophomore. Right?”

  Danny nods, giving me and Sam suspicious looks.

  “Vivian,” I say. “Or Vivi. This is Sam.”

  “Hey,” Sam says to both of them.

  “Hi, Sam! I’m Cadence. Are you guys going to the game tonight?”

  I blurt a one-syllable laugh. “No.”

  “Yeah, not a big football fan,” Sam says.

  “Me, neither,” Cadence says. “We’re just going to go check it out, see if it’s really all that bad.”

  “You’re a brave woman,” Sam says.

  “Thanks! It’s just the one time. Scope it out, get the whole experience. So are you guys on a date?”

  My eyes pop wide. I hear Sam take a big breath, and then not say anything. But finally he goes, “Uh, no … not at the moment.”

  “We just met,” I say quickly.

  “Although, I thought the afternoon went pretty well …” Sam says, using a pretend deep-thought voice.

  “How about you guys?” I ask, just to make sure we’re off the subject of me and Sam.

  “No,” Danny says, loudly. “What would ever give you that idea?”

  “Don’t be rude,” Cadence says. Then she adds, “We’re just hanging out.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll see you around school,” Sam says.

  “Cool!” says Cadence. “See you guys!”

  Danny tips his head back, because he is apparently way too cool to say goodbye. Sam and I say goodbye, and head out to the sidewalk.

  “You know them from where, now?” Sam says, laughing a little.

  I tug my knit hat down a bit again. “I ran into her in the bathroom earlier today. And …”

  I really don’t want to tell him the truth.

  “And I was a little rude to her is all. Wasn’t in a good mood.” That’s no lie.

  “Oh, okay. So, u
m … it was a good afternoon, right? I wasn’t kidding about that.”

  Surprised, I say, “Yeah! Yeah, it was fine.”

  That doesn’t sound right.

  “It was good,” I say.

  Sam nods once, grins, and we keep walking. “Cool. And, can we enter it into the record that you are a lot nicer than Brianna.”

  The comment makes my skin warm. “Oh yeah?” I say, in a desperate attempt at flirting. I don’t think I do very well. “How do you figure?”

  “Trust me, I know. She’s my ex.”

  My warmth turns to ice.

  DANNY

  I am in hell.

  Or at least next door. How in the name of all that is holy and righteous and good in the multiverse did I ever let Cadence talk me into coming here?

  Okay—I do know how. I know exactly how. She’s cute, and I love the way she dresses and how her body fits into her clothes and the way her hair frames her face. The way she looks at everything around her like the entire world is a Christmas present. She’s like an anime schoolgirl vampire slayer, all eyes and hair.

  She makes the world look like maybe it’s actually okay.

  That’s how. That’s how I ended up at a football game.

  “There’s Zach!” Cadence says.

  “Who?”

  “Zach! Never mind. You should meet him.”

  Cadence’s eyes, already preposterously large by any standard, get even bigger when she says his name. That must be the guy she’s got her eye on. Great. “You’re lucky I made it past the gate,” I say. “You know that’s money I can never get back?”

  “Whatever. Get us some popcorn?”

  “What?”

  “Popcorn, Danny, popcorn! You have got to start paying attention to me.”

  Mentally, I strangle myself to keep from blurting out something stupid. I’ve been paying plenty of attention to her.

  “Popcorn, right. For who again?”

  “Me, if you don’t want any. You don’t have to, I was just asking. I’ve got money—”

  “It’s fine,” I say.