Mercy Rule

by Tom Leveen

  “You seem different.”

  “We’re all different now.”

  “No, I know, but this is—” He laughs a little. “Different.”

  I half step back from him, to better return his scrutiny. “What do you mean? Now I’m worried.”

  “Don’t be.” Sam pulls me close again, and we keep walking, his arm over my shoulder and me hanging on to that hand with my own. “You actually seem more confident. Since everything happened. Or—well, maybe since before then, and I just didn’t pick up on it.”

  “Maybe I am,” I say, not sure at all if it’s true. My instinct is No way, uh-uh. I’m just Vivi from the Dez, still wondering what my old friends are up to tonight.

  Except, I also feel like Sam might be right. I feel better than I have in months. Definitely not because of what Danny Jennings did; I didn’t sleep for three straight days after it happened. But since then … yeah. Maybe it’s just that even though I never saw him that day, never had a gun pointed at me or anything, I made it out. I’m alive. I’ve got Sam, and my dad, and other than my school making national headlines, things are going pretty well.

  “Maybe,” I say again.

  “Well, I like it.” Sam kisses me above my ear just as we reach the sidewalk surrounding the grassy area.

  There are not even ten people there; just Zach, sitting under a tree with the other guy, then a few others I’ve seen in classes or in the halls. I don’t know any of them except Kelly.

  “How’s it going?” Sam says to everyone.

  They all respond somehow—a nod, a wave, a “Hey.”

  Together, Sam and I walk onto the grass and sit between Kelly and Zach. The four of us trade subdued hellos.

  The smoking kid smiles at me. “You are from school?” he asks Sam and me.

  We nod.

  “Would either of you care for a cigarette?”

  I can’t help grinning a little at his formal tone. “No. But thanks.”

  “What is your name?” the heavy kid asks.

  “Vivi. This is Sam. You?”

  “I am … the Art Man,” he says with a wry grin. At least that’s what I think he says. It comes out kind of muddled with the cigarette in his mouth, like one word: Artmin.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “You, too.”

  “You look familiar,” I tell him.

  He seems to force a smile. Zach shifts around like he’s uncomfortable all of a sudden, and Kelly looks away. The Art Man—Artmin—says, “You may have encountered me online in my altogether earlier in the year.”

  I’m not following, but Sam grimaces. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  Once he says it, I realize: this is the guy who had his picture taken in the locker room at the beginning of the year, and it went all over school online. I never saw it. There had been a rumor that Danny Jennings took it, but now people are saying that wasn’t true.

  Either way, it was a terrible thing to have happen to him. It reminds me of being stuck in the bathroom with Brianna and the other girls.

  “Sorry,” I say, too. “I—well, I don’t know exactly what it’s like, but I still get it.”

  Artmin nods. “It built, shall we say, character. Want to play cards?”

  “I don’t know how,” I say, glancing at Sam, who shrugs.

  “I will teach you,” Artmin says. “How about poker? Spite and Malice? Blackjack?”

  “Whatever,” I say. “You’ll have to teach us.”

  “Very well. We will start with blackjack.” He’s taking his time with his words, like he wants to make sure he doesn’t say anything to upset us. Or maybe himself. “It is pretty easy to pick up. I will be the house. The goal is to get to twenty-one.”

  I pick up the two cards he deals me. “You can say that again.”

  CADENCE

  I got out of the hospital Sunday. My first order of business: was be home! Just be home, with Mom and Dad and Johnny, for five full days. Bask in the scents and the aura of everything Ours, everything Mine. I go to my room, bathroom, kitchen, living room, that’s it.

  But by Friday, a week after it all happened, I’m ready to roll. I need to get out, go someplace, do something. But I don’t know what.

  Or with who.

  One of my best friends killed people. Killed them. What am I supposed to do with that? Nobody seems to know. So I figure, maybe I should go looking, ask around, see if anyone’s got answers.

  Dad doesn’t want me to leave. Like, ever. I get the feeling Johnny’s not super excited by the idea, either, but Mom comes to my rescue and tells them both to relax, I’ll be fine. She slips me ten dollars and tells me to be careful, but her face says something like Oh my God what am I doing letting my shot kid walk around this dangerous city?

  I promise her everything will be okay.

  I’ve gotten dozens of text messages and voice mails from Faith and Liza and Gloria, who had her baby finally, and even Colin. I talked to them a couple times while I recovered, but it’s like … I don’t know, it’s like we don’t have anything to talk about anymore. I don’t like how that feels. Pete hasn’t gotten in touch at all. I wonder if he’s okay. I mean, he must be, I’d know by now if he wasn’t. I hope.

  It’s early Friday night, and I wander my way to a trolley stop. When the trolley gets close to Jamaican Blue, I ring the bell and get off.

  I walk past the Blue, looking in the windows. It hasn’t changed, it’s still too dark to see inside. No telling who’s in there. I know who isn’t, and maybe that’s enough to know.

  He’s gone. He’s really gone and I guess there really are some things that can’t be cured with a sunny disposition—

  Stop it.

  I’ll start seeing a doctor on Monday. Like a therapist person, Dr. Frances. I guess insurance covers it or something. It’s fine by me, maybe I do have some things to talk about. Dad wanted to sue the school and the district and the state and Danny’s parents and I think maybe God Himself. Mom talked him down and said there’s already people giving bunches of money to different charities and stuff, and Johnny says I can probably go to any college in the known universe for free.

  I told Johnny that was cool, but I’d just like to survive what’s left of my freshman year of high school first. He didn’t think that was as funny as I meant it to be. And neither did I.

  I mean, I feel fine. I was holding a gun, that was stupid, totally my fault, of course the cops were going to take a shot and it got me in the shoulder. But I’m okay now. It hurt, they fixed it, I might have to put my professional tennis career on hold for a while, but that’s it, that’s all that happened, I’m fine.

  While I’m standing there debating what to do next, I notice people hanging around on the corner of Fifty-Third and Third. One group is sitting under the tree on the top of the hill, so I walk over.

  I start recognizing people from school. And I think they start recognizing me. I’m not sure I like it. But the guy under the tree waves to me, so I walk toward him. I’ve seen him around, but never met him.

  Then I see who else he’s sitting with. Kelly, for one. And someone else.

  “Zach!”

  He turns, and then leaps to his feet. We run toward each other, which feels way overdramatic and kind of like a movie or something, but the truth is I can’t help myself. We crash into each other about halfway up the little hill, and Zach hugs me tight, and it hurts my shoulder like crazy but I’m still on some pretty good pain meds so I don’t care much. I squeeze him back, one-armed, and there’s one really super fast moment where it’s, like, sexy? But that moment goes away equally super fast, and suddenly I’m just crying.

  And crying.

  … aaaand crying.

  Maybe I don’t feel fine after all.

  Zach holds me and doesn’t say anything. There’s those regular cries, like at a good movie or when reading a great book, and then there’s these snot-bubble cries, where it’s like I can’t even make a sound because of all the pressure. This is one of tho
se types. It actually hurts, like my ribs are being twisted one at a time till they break.

  Zach can’t even rest his chin on my head, he’s so much taller than me. After I don’t know how long, he guides me to the tree at the top of the hill, where we sit down together. I ask him, “What’s up, what’s going on out here?”

  “Just needed a place to hang, be outside.”

  “Did you call all these people, too?”

  “Some. Sam over there. Some of them just sort of showed up. And this is Kelly, we just met tonight.”

  “We’re friends,” I say, turning to Kelly, happy to see someone other than—

  “What are you doing here?”

  Kelly’s expression reminds me of a snake, like she’s about to snap forward and bury her teeth in my face.

  I don’t understand. “I was just out and about,” I say. “Needed to get out of the house—”

  “He told you,” Kelly says. “He told you he was going to do it.”

  Everything gets quiet. Everyone on the hill, people I’ve seen at school, all stop whatever they’re doing and look up the hill at me sitting here.

  “No,” I say. “He didn’t. He sent me a text and told me to stay home—”

  “And you didn’t say anything?” Kelly jumps to her feet, and I step back. “You didn’t think maybe that was a clue, you naïve little dumbass?”

  I bite down on my lip. I think maybe for the first time in my life, I don’t have anything to say.

  And I think that suits Kelly just fine. She towers over me, shoulders pulled back like she wants me to stand up and fight her. Zach holds up a hand and says, “Wait a minute,” but it’s not enough.

  “Do you get what he did? Do you, Cadence? Look at this.”

  She yanks a cell phone out and shows me the screen. It’s a selfie of her and another girl. I know her from school. We met at the audition, just that once.

  “This is Dre. Andrea. She was someone I cared about, and that motherfucker stole her from me. Do you get that? She had stuff she was working on, hard stuff, but she was working on it. She had issues but she was handling them, she was making progress, and he fucking stole it all!”

  “Slow down,” Zach says.

  I reach over, not looking, and grab his hand, trying to signal him not to get involved. If Kelly needs to say it, she can say it. If she needs to hit me, she can hit me. Maybe hitting me is the least she can do to feel better.

  “I hear Danny had issues, too, fine, I get it. Maybe his mommy and daddy didn’t love him, whatever. Lots of mommies and daddies don’t. So the fuck what? He didn’t need to kill people over it! How was that going to change anything, huh? Dre’s parents … Dre’s mom and dad, they were so stupid when it came to her, you have no idea, but now she’ll never have the chance to fix it with them, they’ll never know what could have happened, because he stole that from them, he stole their chance to make it right someday.”

  Kelly leans down, putting her furious face right into mine.

  “Danny Jennings should rot in hell.”

  Then she pulls back, breathing hard, her lips stretched back off her teeth.

  Everyone watches, everyone waits. Without thinking, I stand up, keeping my free hand straight at my side. I look right at Kelly, and say the only thing that I can:

  “I know.”

  Because I do. I do. Danny was a murderer. Whatever else he might’ve been or could’ve been someday if he hadn’t done this, the bottom line was he did this. He did do it.

  “But I didn’t know.” I scan the entire crowd, feeling like I’m on stand in a courtroom. “I promise. I’m only gonna say it this one time. I didn’t know. And I’m sorry I didn’t. I would have told someone if I had. I hope you can believe me.”

  Everything stays quiet. Cars go by. People on the sidewalk pass, giving us curious looks, but not saying anything. Someone blares their horn down the street.

  “I believe you,” the kid playing cards says from behind me.

  I turn. He’s got this sort of easy smile on his face, a cigarette still between his lips. He gives a little shrug.

  “I hope you will stick around,” he says. “Cards are much more fun with a group. And I have …”

  He glances around with the same smile.

  “I have never had this many friends,” he says, and looks down.

  Vivi gets up from where she was lounging on the grass with Sam. She walks to me and Kelly, standing to one side between us, forming a little triangle.

  “Kelly? It’s not her fault.”

  “The rest of the world thinks it is,” Kelly says, glaring.

  “That’s why we can’t,” Vivi says.

  Kelly keeps glaring at me for a minute, then relaxes just a bit.

  “Yeah, okay,” she says. “I guess that makes sense.” She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “I gotta take a walk.”

  “Can I come with you?” Vivi asks.

  “Sure, yeah. Okay.”

  The two girls wander off the hill together. I watch them go, and just before they disappear down Third Avenue, I see Kelly cover her face with both hands and Vivi rubbing her back.

  I take a breath. My heart’s going a million miles an hour. “I should go.”

  “Don’t,” Zach says. “Just give it a while. We’ll work it out.”

  He gestures toward the guy sitting beneath the tree. Zach says, “This is—”

  “Art Man,” the guy fills in, smiling.

  “Hi,” I say.

  A cigarette lighter flares in front of his face. He inhales deeply from a new cigarette, his expression friendly and relaxed. He’s got a black Sharpie in one hand. On the grass in front of him is a deck of cards.

  “Tattoo?” he asks, brandishing the marker.

  “I dunno,” I say. “Of what?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Um … something Ramones? I could use some Joey right now.”

  “Roll up your sleeve.”

  I pull one sleeve up past my elbow, hoping he’s not too grossed out by the fact that I’ve been wiping my nose on it. I sit near him, and he takes my arm, lays it in his lap, and begins drawing. It kind of tickles. The tip of the marker is strangely cold. Musical notes and a caricature of Joey Ramone start to take shape on the skin of my forearm. This guy is good. He’s got something similar on his left arm, which he probably drew himself.

  Zach lays a hand on my back, rubs it quickly, then retreats like he’s not sure he should have done it.

  “I should’ve come to see you,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I just didn’t know … I mean, I had no idea what to say or do, and I didn’t have your number …”

  “It’s okay.”

  Zach’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Are you coming back to school?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “A lot of people think you’re a hero.”

  “And a lot of people don’t.” I’ve seen stuff online and on TV, even though I didn’t mean to. Me, that girl Brianna, and the football player Brady were all being talked about, like we somehow came up with a plan to stop Danny before it got any worse.

  I’m not sure the truth matters to anyone, at least not yet. Maybe someday it will. We’ll probably be in books and stuff. Another tragedy for everyone to talk about and forget until the next one. That’s what Dad said to Mom, when he didn’t think I could hear him crying.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Zach says. “I got your back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You should hang out for a while,” Zach says. “I think there’re more people coming. A lot of us ended up here last week, after we got off campus, trying to meet up with family and stuff. I don’t know if it’s just tonight, or if maybe we’ll keep coming here. But it’s someplace to be, anyway.”

  “On Fifty-Third and Third,” I say. “Cool. I like it.”

  Kelly and Vivi come back just as Art Man finishes his tattoo on my arm. It looks amazing. I can’t wait to show Johnny.

  Vivi touches my should
er, briefly, as she walks back over to Sam, who’s lying on his back in the grass like he’s studying the stars. When she sits beside him, I notice they have some parts of their bodies touching each other at all times.

  Kelly sits nearby, forming a sort of circle with me, Zach, and Art Man. She shows me her phone again, but not angry this time.

  “That’s Dre,” she says. “I really miss her.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. She was stitching herself back together.” Kelly clenches her jaw for a second then looks me in the eye. “But I think you would have liked her.”

  I study the photo and say, “I’m sure I would have. Thanks for showing me.”

  Kelly nods once, like she’s satisfied with something, and puts the phone away. Next thing I know, the Art Man is giving us instructions on how to play a game called Hearts.

  We’ve been playing for about an hour when, out of nowhere, I see a guy wearing a kilt come walking down Fifty-Third Street. I almost scream because it’s Danny, it’s Danny and he’s back—

  But it’s not. Of course it’s not. It’s Pete. And when he sees me, he stops. I stand up.

  “Be right back,” I tell Zach. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’m here all night,” Zach says.

  Good to know. I head over to Pete through the grass. He watches me coming toward him with a kind of nervous look. But he doesn’t move, and when I put my arm around him, he hugs me right back.

  “Hey,” I say to him.

  “Hey.”

  I feel the tension leaving his body. I step back. “You look different.”

  “I do?” Pete stares into the distance, like he’s considering the idea. “Yeah, I probably do. I feel different.”

  He works his mouth like he’s going to spit on the sidewalk, but then doesn’t. “You know, my mom was seventeen when she had me. So she’s thirty-four now.” He takes a big breath. “I feel a lot older than that.”

  “You smell nice.”

  Pete snorts a laugh. “Uh, thanks?”

  “Well, it’s better than smelling terrible. You used to stink a bit.”

  “Shut up … are you serious?”

  “Yeah. All the smoke.”

  “Oh, that kind of stink. Yeah. Well, hate to burst your bubble, kiddo, but.” He shakes a cigarette out of a pack and lights it. After blowing out his first drag, Pete says, “But you know what?”