Mercy Rule

by Tom Leveen

  “Right, Brady? Oh hey, I meant to ask, how is my mom’s cooking, anyway? You enjoy it so often.”

  My eyes dart to Brady, then quickly back to Danny. “That’s what this is about? You’re pissed at the jocks? Jesus, Danny.”

  Something in his eye twitches. His lips stretch apart, tight against his teeth.

  “Pissed?” he whispers. He brandishes the pistol, and every opening in my body cinches shut.

  “Pissed?” he says again, louder. “Look at this weapon, Cadence. Look! At! It! Does this look pissed off to you? Does this look like kicking down a door or throwing a plate across the room? Huh? You think I’m cranky? You think I’m having an episode? ‘Tough day at school, sweetie?’ Fuck you. And fuck everyone in this—”

  “You don’t get to talk to me that way.”

  The shock on Danny’s face is about how shocked I am to hear myself say it.

  “What?” he says, like he can’t believe it.

  And I can’t believe that I keep going:

  “You heard me,” I say. “I don’t deserve that, Danny. Come on. I mean, if you wanna shoot me I guess that’s up to you, but you don’t get to cuss me out like that.” I take and release a deep breath, and cross my arms. I wish Dad was here. He’d know what to do.

  For a second, Danny looks like he might laugh with total disbelief. Then he shakes his head—

  And steps closer to the football player, who doesn’t shut his eyes.

  “Danny,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Danny, they’ll be here soon,” I say, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “The cops’ll come in here and they’ll kill you. Then you won’t be able to give those interviews. You’ve done enough, dude. You got their attention. You’ll be on the news. You’ll get your chance to talk. You just told me what you wanted, with the news and all that? I’m telling you that you’ll get that, even if you stop right now.”

  “I want you. And your family. And this piece of shit wants mine. Well, now, guess what? Nobody gets anything.”

  “So make him live with it.”

  “… What?”

  “Make him live with it. Maybe killing him is too good, huh?”

  Danny doesn’t move. Not for a while.

  Then he lowers his arm.

  “That’s an interesting point,” he says.

  “Well, I’m sort of smart that way. So? Come on. Let’s go. Gimme the gun and let’s go.”

  Danny smiles.

  If you could call it that.

  “Now you’ll just be the pussy who didn’t stop me,” he tells the football player. “Yeah. I like the sound of that.”

  Danny picks up the rifle. Now he’s got two guns, which is not helping my heart rate.

  But with a click, the bottom falls out of the pistol. The clip, I guess. Danny hands it to me, sort of like symbolically.

  I take the pistol, and it’s not nearly as heavy as I thought it would be. But then I’ve never carried a gun before. I hold it with my fingers, not wrapping them around handle.

  “Okay,” Danny says. “You win. Let’s go.”

  “What about that gun?”

  “Not till we get to the truck.”

  Shaking all over, I move to stand beside him. “Okay. Thank you.”

  Danny doesn’t answer. We push open the double swinging doors at the same time, like Old West saloon doors, and we walk out of the library together.

  DREA

  DONTE

  BRADY

  I turn to one side. Throw up everything I’ve eaten in the past year. Doesn’t amount to much.

  Kid was right. You pussy.

  Brianna is crawling on the floor. Dragging herself by her fingernails toward the door. Gasping for air. I shuffle toward her. Put a hand on her shoulder. Brianna moans. Rolls onto her back.

  “I don’t wanna die,” she whispers.

  I try to pick her up. Carry her to safety. Be the hero. But I can’t. Got no strength. Instead I grab her wrists. Drag her toward a bookshelf where there’s more cover. She feels like a dead animal. Can’t make my hands work. Slide to the ground with my back against a shelf instead. And start crying. After a minute, Brianna picks herself up. Sits next to me. Arms around my neck. Says nothing. Not crying anymore.

  Two gunshots.

  Everything inside me goes soft. Then there’s voices. Lots of voices. Like Coach. Except not him. People telling me what to do. Giving orders.

  So I follow them.

  CADENCE

  “GUN!” someone shouts right when we push the doors open.

  In front of us are two men in uniforms, one in tan and one in black. The things in their hands are pointed at us, and then somehow I’m pointed at the ceiling.

  I try to talk but can’t. I lift my head, and there’s red splatter across my Kermit the Frog sneakers.

  Sad face.

  How can I ever get them cle

  DANNY

  We walk through the double doors together.

  “GUN!” someone shouts.

  That’s me, I think. They’re talking about me. I’ve still got the rifle in my hands. Shitballs, I should have dropped that inside if we were coming out here. Except then that dumbass Brady would have it, and screw that.

  Ow! God damn it, that shit hurt.

  Yeah, I should have left it in there or something or tossed it out a window or something or given it to Cadence or something and I wonder where she went or something? I wonder where this went wrong, I wonder if I ever really had a chance or if I really knew what I was doing and ow, hell this hurts, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? Yeah. Ow. God it’s cold.

  God damn it’s cold in here.

  I could use a bottle of water or something. I could sure use some water.

  Why is my back all wet? God this hurts.

  Oh, shit.

  Oh, God.

  I

  DONTE

  DREA

  CADENCE

  DANNY

  53rd & 3rd

  COACH

  By Saturday night, the reporters have all gone and the neighborhood is quiet again. By early the following Friday evening, a week after his only son murdered five people and wounded several more, Coach has summoned either the courage or the apathy to at last enter his son’s room. No one but the police have been in it since a week ago. No one else. He’s sure neither Monica nor Amy have stepped foot inside. Why would they?

  And why is he doing it himself? Why now?

  Coach lets himself in as Monica makes her fifth pot of coffee of the day and Amy stares at her phone on the kitchen table, either daring herself to call someone or waiting to see if anyone will call her first. He hopes she’ll reach out. Maybe if she does it now, does it soon, she can be someone other than the sister of the killer.

  He’s already considered moving. Or maybe sending Amy to live with old family friends in another state. Changing her name. She doesn’t deserve to have this hell hanging around her neck.

  Even if she’s the one who took the phone? he asks himself.

  Yes. Even then. The phone was a joke. That Brady Culliver committed a crime with it is another topic, now that he knows. That Coach didn’t take the time to investigate more fully himself … that’s the worst crime. Amy, Brady, even Danny; they’re kids. Young, stupid kids. He’s the adult, and he should have done something. Listened, saw, asked, something. Jesus Christ, something.

  Monica’s sister has been bringing groceries, but only late at night, after most people are asleep and the vulture media and rubberneckers have given up filming the house. The three of them have not left except to travel to and from the local police station, to respond to questions they cannot possibly ever truly answer.

  He enters Danny’s room.

  It has a barren look to it, although the cops didn’t take everything, not nearly. Many books are still on his shelf, and as far as he can tell, all of his clothes still hang in the closet or are stuffed haphazardly into his dresser. The computer, of course, is long gone. The detectives won’t
tell him what they’ve found, if anything.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have let him have it in his room, Coach thinks. Maybe that’s what did this.

  He’s sure it’s not.

  He sits on the edge of his son’s bed, a man older by twenty years than he was a week ago. At his feet, a paperback book peeks out from under the bed. Coach picks it up.

  Hamlet.

  He thumbs through the book, the English as foreign to his eyes as a dead Romance language. There is but one line highlighted in the book. Just one. Almost the last page.

  KING CLAUDIUS: Our son shall win.

  Did he? Coach wonders. Based on what little info the police have fed them, did his son win? Did he get what he wanted?

  If Danny was here, Coach thinks, he wouldn’t be able to conceive just how badly he’s damaged us. For the rest of our lives. How much he’s hurt other people. Dragged them into a living hell.

  You don’t know what hell is, son. Even if you’re in it, not even now, you don’t know.

  “Dad?”

  Coach Dan Jennings almost screams, sure it is the voice of his son, here to torment him. But no—it’s Amy. She stands in the doorway, and clearly will not come in.

  He meets her eyes, briefly, but gives no response.

  “Mom said to tell you Mr. Page called.”

  Coach Page, from high school. The man who did for him what Dan’s own father wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. The man to whom he owes everything.

  Everything but this, he hopes.

  “Coach? What’d he want?”

  “He’s renting a house near here. Says we can stay there if we want. Do the whole ‘leave under the cover of darkness’ thing. Have some privacy. If we want. He said he’s poking around with some of his old buddies. Might be able to find a job for you. Not right away maybe, but down the road. Maybe a private or a charter school.”

  “He said all that?”

  “That’s what Mom says.”

  “But she sent you to tell me.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dan knows then that his marriage is on a timer. Maybe, if there’s a miracle, they’ll be able to get help in time. But he’s not believing in miracles at the moment.

  “Okay. Thanks, Peach.”

  “Dad?”

  “Mmm.”

  “I was dating Donte. Or, I was going to date him, I mean. We were going to ask you after the season ended if it was okay.”

  Donte. Donte Walker. One of the five. An entire career, an entire life ahead of him. Gone now because of—because—

  He can’t reply to Amy.

  “I just wanted you to know,” Amy says, and her eyes well. “Because he was a good guy. I really liked him.”

  “Me, too,” Coach says, barely.

  “Also? Um—I’ve been thinking. And … it’s not our fault. It’s not. Me, or you, or Mom … it’s not.”

  Coach covers his face. Amy presses ahead.

  “It’s not. Nobody forced him to do it. You kept the safe locked—”

  “He still got in.”

  “—and you had him on meds—”

  “That he’d stopped taking without anyone realizing.”

  “—and did everything you could. We did not make him do this. It’s on him, it’s all entirely on him, Daddy.”

  Coach nods, just to get her to stop.

  “I’m glad you can be there,” he says. “I really am. I hope you can stay there. But I’m not yet. I’m just not. Please let me be where I need to be for now.”

  He can hear Amy hesitating, sense her wanting to say something else. Then she moves away down the hall, her bare feet scraping on the carpet. The door to her room closes.

  They blame her, Coach thinks. Her friends, her teammates. Now that the story’s out, they’re somehow exonerated and it’s just me and Mon and Amy, the guilty family, the ones who not only raised a killer but made no effort to stop him.

  Coach looks up, as if to make sure Amy’s gone before rising unsteadily and walking out of Danny’s bedroom. He closes the door gently, but stops, with one hand resting against the wood. He’s getting another headache. He’s had headaches since last Friday morning, and he wonders if they will ever really go away.

  Maybe they shouldn’t, he thinks. Maybe that’s the very least punishment I can receive. Their lawyer doesn’t think there will be charges pressed, but he’s warned them about lawsuits. They’re coming, that’s for sure. They are coming. The house, savings, stocks, college funds. All gone.

  For what.

  Coach whispers something against the closed door, eyes squeezed tight against a pain that is far deeper and more piercing than the ache in his forehead. He whispers it again, then goes down the hall to his bedroom where he lies down on the bed, one arm resting across his eyes.

  He falls asleep with Hamlet clutched unknowingly in his hand. The rest is silence.

  BRADY

  They ask so many questions. Can’t possibly answer them all. Tell them what I can. But it’s not much. Not fair either. The cops get to ask everything. I don’t get to ask anything.

  Did you know him? Sure I knew him.

  Were you friends? Hell no.

  Did he show violent tendencies? No. Where’s my mom?

  We’re trying to track her down. Did you …

  On and on. They didn’t let me go home till after it was already dark. I watched TV alone at the apartment and the news wouldn’t say who died.

  Not till this morning. By then I already knew.

  Donte’s dead. Shot. Everyone’s making him out to be a hero. That’s cool. Looks like he was trying to help some theater kid. Head of the drama club or something. Dead, too.

  Everyone wants to talk to me and Brianna. Everyone wants to know about this short chick in the library. I tell ’em the truth. Don’t know who she is. Some people think me and Brianna are heroes.

  ’Cause we didn’t get shot?

  Can’t feel anything. Nothing. Figure I better go to Donte’s place. See Ramon, if he’s there. See his mom. Talk to her. Sit with her. I dunno.

  But I wait for Mom a bit longer. A while. Then wait some more. Don’t really eat.

  Friday night rolls around. A week later. I know we’re not having a game because we haven’t been back to school yet. How can I get out of here unless I play football?

  How can I play football without a coach?

  Without D?

  The hell’m I gonna do?

  I never shoulda took that picture of the fat kid. Thought it might be funny is all. But it’s not. Not now. I didn’t pull any triggers. But it feels like I did.

  The world don’t know about that yet. Just cops. But sooner or later the world’s gonna find out it was me that did it. Won’t be a hero then.

  Before the sun goes down Friday, I pack up my football gear bag with all my clothes and walk to D’s. His mom’s home. But not Ramon. Maybe with his dad.

  She lets me in. We both cry a lot. I don’t care. I’m a puss. That’s fine. But me and D’s mom, maybe we’ll figure something out. My best friend’s mom is all I got.

  D’s mom tells me I’m alive for a reason. Hope she’s right.

  D, man … I fuckin’ miss you.

  VIVI

  “You’re thinking about something,” Sam says as we climb out of my car. I’ve parked down the street from the corner of Fifty-Third and Third. I recognize one or two cars from school parked nearby. One of them is Kelly’s green truck, and I’m glad to see it here. We’ve been texting a lot. Trying to make sense of things that can’t ever make sense.

  School. We start back Monday. Some kind of rally first hour. I can’t help but wonder how that will go. I wonder who all will be there, who can get themselves to show up.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I was thinking that I moved here from this supposedly dangerous part of town to this supposedly rich part of town, and that’s where I get shot at.”

  Sam takes my hand. “We didn’t get shot at. Other people did.”

  “You know what I mean.”

>   “I do. I’m just challenging you to be specific.”

  “Quit it!”

  “No.”

  He stops me, kisses me briefly, and we keep going. It’s as intimate as we’ve been since a week ago.

  We walk down Third Avenue, which is a small little street that’s mostly just parking for the line of businesses on either side of it. Bars, touristy gift shops, things like that. I stop short when we come within view of the corner. There’s already a handful of people there, and I watch them hanging out for a second. Some people are sitting, some are standing. Some are hugging. A few might be crying. I stand on the sidewalk, watching them. Zach Pearson is there, sitting near a heavier guy beneath a tree at the top of the hill. The heavier guy has a cigarette clamped between his lips, his eyes narrow as if the smoke is getting in them. It looks like he’s shuffling cards.

  Were any of them in the library that morning? How close did the people here come to being victims?

  As close as Brianna Montaro? Brianna, now hailed as a brave survivor, a hero.

  “Why did Zach text you, do you think?” I ask Sam as I watch the corner kids from the safety of the shadows cast by a white streetlamp.

  “Not sure. It was just something that was happening. Hey, look at that—we’re where it’s happening now. We’re the popular kids.”

  “At long last. Be still my heart.”

  Sam twists me around, scrutinizing my face. “How are you? Really.”

  “Good. Fine. I think. Honestly, a little nervous about Monday. Why?”