by Tom Leveen
“What.”
“I haven’t gotten high.”
“How come? I mean, I’m glad. It explains why your eyes are open. Wow, your eyes are open!”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to miss anything else.” He blows out more smoke. “Been having nice long chats with the cops, too. That might’ve helped. How about you, they bugging you a lot?”
“Yep. They’re nice, though. Are they nice to you?”
“It’s not the word I’d choose, but it’s all right. I don’t think they’re going to pin anything on me. Which is convenient since I didn’t do anything.” Pete takes another drag, then says, “I’m really fuckin’ glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, man. Me, too.”
“Who’re all those people on the corner?”
“Um—friends. I think. You want to meet them?”
“I’m not getting a lot of good press these days, dude.”
I reach up and put a hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Did you get him any of the guns?”
“What? No!”
“Ammo?”
“No.”
“Did you help plan the whole thing?”
“I had zero idea he was going to do it.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Come on, come over here.”
Pete shoves his hands into his leather jacket’s pockets and starts walking toward the corner. I fall into step beside him.
As we go Pete asks, “So … you didn’t know, either, right?”
“No. I don’t think anyone did. Just Danny. He sent me a text the night before, but—”
“Yeah, I heard about that on the news. But it was just like, ‘Don’t go to school,’ and that’s it?”
“Yep.”
“Well, look at it this way. At least you got something. I never did. Maybe I’m not even supposed to be here anymore. Maybe I was on his list. There’s a thought that’ll keep a person up at night. Not that it has, or anything.”
I reach over and squeeze his arm, because there isn’t anything I can say to that.
Pete smokes some more. “Did you know any of the kids who … ? Besides him, I mean.”
“No.”
“I hear you’re gonna be on TV and stuff. Be all famous.”
“Nah. No way.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be famous. And definitely not for this.”
“Cool. So what’s up with the corner?”
“I’m not sure. My friend Zach said he called a couple people, then a couple more just showed up, and now it’s, like, a thing I guess. There’s a guy here called Art Man, he’s doing marker tattoos, see mine?”
“Whoa. Nice.”
“I bet he’ll give you one if you ask.”
“Sure, why not.”
“And you should meet Kelly. If she’s in the mood. Oh, and Vivi and Sam. And Zach.”
We get to the hill, and I introduce Pete around. Some of the people are a little suspicious, I can tell, but no one says anything rude, which is nice. Pete ends up sitting with me, Kelly, Art Man, and Zach. Art Man deals out hands of poker, which we play for hours while we talk.
We don’t talk anymore about what happened, though. We talk about movies and music and books and get into little pretend fights about all of them. I wonder, as I lose like my fiftieth hand of poker—Kelly seems to win all of them—how come I didn’t know all these people before. Why it took something so awful to get us all in one place and talking. I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.
But I can’t think like that, not now, anyway. Too many maybes will start taking over and I won’t be able to think. I have a hard enough time with that as it is.
We stay late into the night, and when Zach offers me a ride home, I take him up on it. Before we go, everyone agrees to come back next Friday night and hang out again. That’ll be cool. And I got lunch dates with Zach, Kelly, Vivi and Sam, and Pete for next week.
And Danny … I don’t know where Danny is now. I don’t know if God is out there and if he really is all about love and stuff, because what Danny did—I don’t know how anyone can forgive that. But then, they didn’t know him. I don’t think anyone did. I hope God does, if He’s there. I guess I’ll have to leave it up to Him. Or Her.
In any case, I think I’ve got a whole bunch of new friends. And we hung out together on Fifty-Third and Third, so that’s sort of cool. I’m here, and my family’s here, and someday soon I’m going to see if Zach will take me out on a real live date with kissing and everything, and Pete’s backed off his drug stuff, and …
And I’m still a wee little freshman with a long ways to go.
If you ever suspect a threat at your school, call SPEAK UP at (866) SPEAK-UP (866-773-2587). Speak Up is a national toll-free hotline for reporting potential violence at schools. It features English- and Spanish-speaking operators.
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