Destiny's Pawn

by D. A. Keeley

  “You’re a butthead,” Michael said.

  “That’s better. Glad the coach can’t see me. I’ve got the strength of a first-grader.”

  “No, man. You’re just forgetting that I’m a hulk.” Michael grinned and handed Davey the bag.

  Davey took it to the workbench, reached beneath it, pulled out the wrappers, and went to work, rolling a marijuana cigarette.

  “Being down here can’t be good for you,” Michael said. “It’s cold and damp, and your immune system is weak.”

  “Don’t have much choice. You know my parents.”

  Michael did know Davey’s parents, had known them all his life. They didn’t believe in medical uses for marijuana. Didn’t believe in a lot of things. But they did believe in Jesus.

  “The pain is so bad sometimes. Remember that time I fell out of the treehouse and you thought I was dead? It’s like that, all day, all night. This is the only thing that helps.”

  “It’s legal for situations like yours,” Michael said.

  “Not according to my parents. They keep saying God has a plan.”

  “And suffering is part of it?” Michael said.

  “Actually”—Davey lit the cigarette—“that’s right. They say Jesus Christ suffered for us all. And I’m suffering like him.”

  Two lightbulbs lit the room, casting elongated shadows across the cracked cement floor. Part of the foundation was stone. Several plastic storage containers were stacked on one wall. Michael could see Christmas lights in one of the clear boxes. The washer and dryer were set on pallets to raise them off the basement floor.

  Davey crossed the room to stand near the open window. “You should see this place in the spring, when the river rises. You can fish down here.” He took a long hit and blew it out the window. “Sure you don’t want to try it?”

  “Man, we’ve had that discussion already. It’s not for me.”

  Davey nodded. “Thanks for doing this. The pain, man …”

  “I know. Thought you were coming to school to visit today.”

  “Felt shitty this morning.”

  Michael pushed himself up and sat on the dryer.

  Davey took another hit. “I saw what your cousin did in the locker room over at the middle school. It was all over the Internet. He getting suspended?”

  Michael shrugged. “He needs to relax. It’s all I heard about today.”

  “There’s a picture of Scotty Champaign on Instagram. Looks like your Russian broke his nose.”

  “He’s not Russian. And he’s not mine.”

  “Whatever. Scotty Champaign, Mr. Bigshot Basketball Player—the high school varsity coach had him come to a practice last week. Got what he deserved, I’m sure.”

  Michael shrugged.

  Davey said, “Remember the middle school lockers?”

  “When we were in seventh grade?”

  “Yeah. That sucked. Well, maybe Scotty tried to shove your cousin into one and got more than he was bargaining for.”

  “Probably,” Michael agreed.

  Across the basement, the furnace kicked on, rumbling to life.

  “When does your mom get home?” Michael asked.

  “She’s got the last shift tonight. She went to McCluskey’s at three. Dad usually gets home around seven. No idea what he does after work.”

  He took another hit. Michael watched the joint’s red tip glow softly in the sparse light.

  “You ever get scared?” Davey said.

  “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

  “Forget it.”

  “What is it?”

  “I mean really scared, like about dying. Ever think about it?”

  “Not really,” Michael said.

  “I do, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know why? You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  Davey looked out the window. “I don’t want to die, you know? I want to go to U-Maine with you in the fall. See college girls. Do college things.”

  “You will, man. We’re rooming there, remember?”

  Davey took another hit and closed his eyes. “Yeah, I remember. I sent my deposit in.” He blew out his breath. His eyes were red.

  “I should go,” Michael said. “Dad will be home soon. He’ll want to have another father-son talk. That’s what he calls them. It’s really him telling me how I should live my life, and me nodding.”

  “At least your old man wants to talk about things.”

  Michael looked at him, but Davey turned away.

  4:25 p.m., 7 Drummond Lane

  Peyton had changed out of her uniform greens into jeans and a gray plaid flannel shirt she’d gotten at Old Navy the last time she’d driven two and a half hours south to Bangor. But she didn’t go directly home. Instead, she pulled her Jeep Wrangler into the driveway at Bohana Donovan’s home Thursday evening.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting dinner,” she said when Bohana answered the door.

  “Dinner?” Bohana held the door open. “I haven’t even thought about it yet. I might be Americanized, but I will never understand why Americans eat so early.”

  Bohana was not dressed in Old Navy discount attire—that much was clear. She wore a cashmere sweater and capris that fit too well to have been purchased at the tiny Aroostook Centre Mall.

  Peyton had to comment on the capris. “I love those.”

  “It’s probably too early to wear them, but spring is in the air. Finally.”

  Peyton smiled. “It doesn’t feel like spring today.”

  They’d moved from the entryway into the kitchen.

  “But I ordered them online. Donna Karan. So I simply have to wear them.” She smiled at Peyton. “What brings you by?”

  “I wanted to check on Aleksei.”

  “You heard about today?”

  “I was called to the middle school.”

  “The other students don’t understand him.” Bohana opened the stainless-steel refrigerator and took out two Diet Pepsi cans. “And Scotty Champaign is a bully, according to my son. Would you like a drink?”

  Peyton nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Glass?”

  “The can is fine,” Peyton said. “I just want to offer Aleksei a little support. Is he home?”

  “That’s very kind. He’s upstairs. Follow me.” Bohana led her through the living room, where they paused near a couch on which a teenaged boy lay sprawled. “This is my son, Michael,” Bohana said.

  Michael lay looking at a book titled Rembrandt: His Life and Work in 500 Images.

  “You like art?” Peyton asked.

  He smiled as if to say No shit, lady. She’d always found teenagers much harder to interrogate than adults because you couldn’t fool them. This one wore distressed jeans, white athletic socks, and an orange Moxie T-shirt. He needed a shave, and his hair was unkempt. An Art major, if she’d ever seen one.

  “Some art I like,” he said.

  “Not all?” Peyton asked.

  “Not everything should be called art. People try to pass anything off as art. But not all of it holds up.”

  “You’re a smart guy.”

  Bohana said, “He always has been. He was accepted into the Art History program at the University of Maine and will live in an honors dorm.” Bohana patted his leg.

  “Mom, stop.”

  “Your mother’s proud of you,” Peyton said.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Keeping an eye on your cousin?” Peyton asked him.

  “He’s not at the high school,” Michael said and sat up.

  When he did, Peyton smelled his strong cologne. But, she thought, for a split-second, she also caught a faint, ever-so-subtle hint of marijuana. Yet his eyes weren’t dilated; nothing about him seemed impaired.

  She f
ollowed Bohana upstairs, where they found Aleksei hunched over his desk, his left index finger moving back and forth over the page of a textbook, his right hand scribbling notes into a spiral binder.

  He looked up when they entered, eyes narrowing momentarily before nodding at the realization.

  “Hello,” Peyton said.

  “I in trouble?”

  Peyton sighed. Bohana sat down on the edge of Aleksei’s bed. She motioned Peyton to an upholstered leather chair. Peyton crossed the bedroom and couldn’t help but think of Tommy’s room. It wasn’t much larger than the closet in this “guest room,” which offered a skylight and flat-screen TV.

  “Do you feel like you’re in trouble anytime you see me?”

  He turned on his wooden chair to face her. “I did not start fight today.”

  “I know that,” she said.

  “Then why …?”

  “Why am I here?”

  He nodded.

  “To see how you’re doing. Just to ask that question, and to see if maybe I can help.”

  He looked at her for several moments, then he turned to look at Bohana. Bohana smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  “They tease me,” he said, turning back to Peyton.

  “The kids at school?”

  He nodded. “Call names, and do not like when I answer all questions.”

  “Watch your prepositions. ‘All the questions.’”

  Aleksei sat looking at Bohana.

  Peyton said, “They call you names during class?”

  Again, he nodded.

  Peyton had no doubt other kids didn’t appreciate his academic drive. “You spoke passionately about your education earlier today. Many kids your age don’t appreciate their educations.”

  “No. They do not. I study most of night.”

  “Maybe too much,” Bohana interjected.

  Peyton watched her. Bohana looked at him with parental concern, the way a daunting mother might, not as an aunt who’d only known this boy for several days.

  He shook his head. “Not too much. It”—he paused, searching for the words—“is not too much for me.” He smiled at finding the correct verb tense.

  “I know you’re trying to honor your mother’s wish for you,” Bohana said, “but you can’t live on three hours’ sleep.”

  Peyton was thinking of how much others—including her own son—could learn from this boy. How much Tommy and other US kids could learn from many of the children she’d dealt with during her career. The kids she’d come in contact with overcame third-world problems that dwarfed the first-world issues her own child faced.

  “Who knows you’re being bullied at school?” she asked him.

  He shrugged. “No matter.”

  She didn’t believe that. Not for a second. “It matters. Someone at the school should be looking after you.”

  “It does not matter,” he said. “Not to me.”

  He was pale and very thin. But his eyes were bright and intense. And there was an energy in them—at thirteen years old, no less—that she hadn’t often seen among the people with whom her work usually brought her in contact. The sad truth of the criminal justice system, she’d admit only when she chose to be absolutely honest with herself, was that most people who committed the crimes she dealt with—the pushers, the mules, the illegal aliens, the desperate border jumpers—were born with two strikes on them already. Those people lacked the razor’s-edge she heard in Aleksei’s voice and the acute light she saw in his eyes. If most of the people she routinely dealt with ever possessed these qualities, life had extinguished such hopeful attributes quickly. She didn’t want that happening again, not to this kid.

  “What do your teachers say when kids call you names?” she said.

  “They do not know.”

  “Of course.” She remembered how sneaky and mean kids could be. How it felt to be different. Her difference had been economic. Not quite the same thing, but different, nonetheless.

  “I’ll be around to help you,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  She felt Bohana looking at her, probably wondering the same thing. “Just that,” she said and stood. “I’ll be around.”

  “At school?” he asked.

  “Keep working hard,” she told him. “And one more thing—have you heard from your father?”

  “No,” he said.

  In the hallway, Bohana closed Aleksei’s door softly. As they descended the stairs, Bohana said, “May I ask what you meant by that, Peyton?”

  “Just what I said. I’ll be checking in.”

  “I’m acting as his guardian. He’s my nephew.”

  “I know,” Peyton said.

  She didn’t want to engage but didn’t want to be rude, either. She needed access to Aleksei to find the coyote who brought him here. So she needed Bohana on her side, especially now that it looked like Aleksei’s father—the man who hired the mysterious coyote—was arriving soon.

  “But my own son had run-ins with some kids last year, and the school didn’t do much.”

  “You’ll see that he isn’t bullied?” Bohana asked.

  “That’s not realistic. I wanted to stop by and let him know I’ll do what I can. I mean, the school—this community, for that matter—ought to be embracing this boy. He adds diversity, which we don’t have much of up here. Aleksei has a lot to teach us all.”

  They’d reached the entryway. Bohana stood staring at her. Peyton wondered what she was thinking.

  “I appreciate your concern, Peyton,” she said. But her eyes told Peyton something else: she wanted Peyton to desist, but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) say that.

  Why not?

  “It’s no problem,” Peyton said. “Have you heard from your brother?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Hasn’t he contacted Customs and Immigration Services?”

  “Why would he?”

  “I thought he was hoping to come here to check on Aleksei.”

  “Is he?”

  Peyton didn’t answer. What was this dance they were doing? Bohana must know her brother planned to visit. Wouldn’t Aleksei’s father have contacted her to see how his son was faring in the US?

  “Have a nice evening, Bohana,” Peyton said and stepped outside.

  The warm day had turned to a cold, dark evening. The breeze stung her face.

  6:10 p.m., Tip of the Hat Bar and Grill

  Destiny.

  That’s what Ted Donovan was thinking about, seated in a window booth after work on Thursday.

  His navy-blue button-down shirt had his name stitched across the breast pocket and matched his Dickie’s work pants. The steel toe of his right boot was worn bare and shone under the bar lights because at work he had the habit of always dropping his right knee when bending to change a tire or examine an exhaust pipe. He shifted uncomfortably and remembered the screwdriver in his pocket, pulled it out, and tossed it onto the table. It clattered near his glass.

  “Want anything else, Teddy?” Becky asked him.

  He grabbed the screwdriver and looked at it. “Another beer.”

  “I must be a mind reader.” She wiped her hands on her apron and walked toward the bar.

  He didn’t smile at the joke. Just watched her go, enjoying the way her jeans fit, remembering how she’d looked in high school. She hadn’t changed much. Crow’s feet now at the corners of her eyes, but, he had to admit, she’d aged a hell of a lot better than he had. Back then he’d been the point guard; she’d been the cheerleader. Now here they were, still in this tiny border town a few decades later.

  He finished the Bud Light before him and took the dinner knife from the napkin-wrapped silverware set and worked it like a cuticle cleaner, prying remnants of oil from beneath his fingernails. He hadn’t been able to get the grease off his hands b
efore leaving Donovan Ford, despite five minutes at the sink with the gritty GOJO hand soap that always left his hands dry and cracked.

  Becky returned, set the fresh Bud Light bottle before him along with a cheeseburger. “Stop using the silverware to clean your fingernails. That’s disgusting.”

  “You my mother now?”

  “I’m your waitress. And hang up your jacket. It’s dripping water all over the booth.” She pointed to his Gore-Tex Ski-Doo jacket and to the pool of water beside him.

  He draped it over the back of the booth. “You’re worse than my mother.”

  “I see you more often than she does, that’s for sure—every damned night.”

  He pointed at the cheeseburger. “I didn’t order a burger.”

  She wiped a ring of perspiration from the table. “You don’t eat enough. It’s on me.”

  “If I was hungry,” he said, “I’d have ordered something.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she said and tucked the cloth into her apron. “I’m worried about you, Teddy. You come in here every night, drink four or five beers, eat a few peanuts, and stare at paintings on your computer.”

  She wasn’t exactly correct, but she was close enough to make him nervous. He closed his laptop. “How do you know what I look at?”

  “Like I said, I wait on you every night. You’ve lost weight, especially lately. I’m worried about you.”

  “I look at lots of things,” he said, “not just paintings.”

  “Who cares what you look at? Eat the burger, Teddy, please.” She moved off.

  On the TV over the bar he saw his brother’s smiling face. Steven Donovan, owner, the caption read. Steven—walking around the sales lot at Donovan Ford, smiling at the camera, telling the world about the low goddamned prices.

  Through the darkened window, Ted could scarcely make out the Aroostook River, black and fast-moving this March night. He’d always had an artist’s sensibility and now saw the metaphor that lay before him: football-sized chunks of ice, reflecting the lights from Main Street, danced past and soon were out of sight.

  Like the major-market TV career he still thought about a quarter century after throwing it away when he left Emerson College.

  He’d gone to Boston to study with budding journalists from the world over. But then in March of 1990 he drove back to Aroostook County, knowing no matter how successful he was at WAGM, a tiny CBS affiliate station, he’d pass on offers to move on to a larger market. He’d have to turn them down. After the second offer—from a Philadelphia station—he quit network news altogether, and he had been working as an automotive technician for his brother ever since.