by Trent Reedy
“Really?” She squeezed my hand.
I squeezed back. “No, but I thought I’d try to believe that, since the party is happening anyway.”
She laughed a little and leaned her head on my shoulder as we went back to Sweeney’s house.
The thing about Eric Sweeney was that his concept of a “little party” was at least twice the size of anyone else’s. Close to a couple dozen people packed his house, some playing video games, others watching a movie, some hanging around talking or slipping off somewhere to make out. Almost everybody was drinking. Although I really wasn’t in the mood for any of it, I had to appreciate his skill in lining up one of the most insane parties I could remember.
When I asked how he’d done it, Sweeney flashed his million-dollar smile and put his arm around my shoulder. “Priorities, my brother! While Schmidty was crawling around storing gas and whatever in the basement of your shop, I knew there would be a different, much worse shortage. Beer. I’m too young to buy it from the store, and I knew the supply would run out fast. So I rushed out and bought up all the home brewing equipment and supplies I could get my hands on. I spent, like, fifteen hundred, and put it all up in the loft above the boathouse. I’ll easily make back four times as much selling my surplus beer. In the meantime” — he took a swig from his unlabeled brown bottle — “we won’t have to worry. Our parties will be well supplied.”
I had to laugh. The guy was a genius. “Okay, give me one of these beers of yours.”
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” He reached into a cooler, pulled out a bottle, popped the cap with the opener he kept on his keychain, and handed me my first beer of the night. “Here’s to a good party, and some long-overdue fun.”
We clinked bottles and I took a drink. It had a nice bite. “Strong stuff.”
He drank again. “Yeah, well, if you’re too much of a pussy to handle it, you can always drink the pink berry punch with the girls.”
I slugged him in the arm.
“I’ll have a beer,” JoBell said.
Sweeney gave her one. The three of us touched our bottles together.
The party rolled on. Brad must have downed almost a dozen beers. He swayed back and forth with his arm around Crystal as he and Randy yelled, “Nothing is so clear, as when I’m drinking beer” along with Hank McGrew on the living room screen. Someone had either invited TJ or he’d just showed up on his own. He was playing with Sweeney’s office putter set, only he whacked the golf ball way too hard, sending it bouncing off the wall so that it flew back and almost hit a window. What a jackwad. Cal and Samantha had disappeared a while ago, so that was one good thing.
Skylar came up and leaned on me. He was one of those guys who acted like he was completely hammered and could hardly walk after only a couple beers. “Wright, I haven’t had the chansh ta talk to ya too much lately.” He pointed at me. “I jush gotta shay, I saw that … video.” He held his left fist up above his head and made a finger gun with his right, acting like he was shooting. “You were shooo badass.”
“Thanks.” My left hand ached. I moved as far from him as I could.
“Hey, babe,” JoBell said when I entered the dining room on my way to the fridge in the kitchen. She and Becca were playing beer pong. “Want to play?”
I put on a smile. “Maybe later.”
The truth was I didn’t want to play anything at all. I knew that half the reason Sweeney was throwing this party was to try to cheer me up, but it wasn’t working. I simply didn’t feel like being cheered up. It didn’t count as having fun if you had to force yourself to act like you were having fun.
TJ had given up golf and came over to the beer pong table. JoBell nailed a slick bounce shot, her Ping-Pong ball plopping down into a plastic cup full of beer. “Awesome shot!” TJ patted her shoulder. Then he said to Sweeney, “It sucks that your parents have to be gone for so long, but in a way it’s cool because we get to have fun.”
That was it. I put my beer down and rushed around the table, grabbing him by the neck of his T-shirt and pushing him up against the wall. “Yeah, it’s so cool that our parents are gone!”
“Danny, don’t!” JoBell shouted.
“Dude, I didn’t mean that,” TJ said. His eyes were wide.
I hit him into the wall again. “Sure you didn’t. And keep your damned hands off JoBell.”
Sweeney wedged himself between us, pushing me back. “Dude, chill.”
TJ stood up against the wall with his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. It was stupid what I said. I’m sorry.”
Sweeney leaned in close so he could speak quietly. “I know you’re pissed, and I know you don’t like him, but we both know this isn’t about TJ. Okay? Chill. Leave him alone.”
“There a problem out here?” Cal came back into the room, holding Samantha’s hand. Their hair was all messed up.
“No, I was just leaving,” TJ said.
“Travis, you don’t have to go,” JoBell said.
“He does —” I started to shout, but JoBell put her hand over my mouth. At first this made me madder, but then JoBell backed me up against the wall, pressing her body tight to mine and smiling.
“If you calm down and be nice,” she whispered in my ear, “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“How will you —”
She kissed me, her tongue flicking around in my mouth, and she drew in my breath. “Are you cool now?” she finally asked.
I nodded.
She kissed me again real quick. “Good boy. I’m going to get another drink.”
When she was gone, I leaned my head back against the wall with my eyes closed. “Wow,” I whispered. When I opened my eyes, my cheeks went red-hot right away. The entire party had stopped to watch me and JoBell. Samantha giggled and flashed me a thumbs-up.
“I’m jealous,” Randy said.
Becca was down on the floor, wiping up a spilled drink. Her eyes met mine for a second, then she got up and headed toward the basement, leaving a soggy pile of paper towels in the middle of her punch.
TJ stepped up to me and my whole body tensed. “You still here?” I said.
“I’ll leave if you want me to since you live here now,” TJ said.
“Good.” I jerked my head toward the door. “Get the hell out of here.”
He nodded. “I know we don’t get along, but I want to tell you I’m sorry for what you’re going through. Sorry about your mom and that you’re caught in the middle of all of this. It isn’t fair to you, man. You’re really … I mean … I have a lot of respect for you, the way you’ve dealt with things. If you ever need my help —”
I folded my arms. “With what?”
“I don’t know. A place to crash, a ride or something while your truck’s in the shop. A place to hide.” He shrugged. “Let me know.” He started for the front door.
I wasn’t prepared for TJ to act as cool as Cal or Sweeney. For the longest time, I didn’t know what to say. “Hey, Travis!” I yelled finally. “Why don’t you stay and have another beer. You don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
Skylar shouted from the living room, “Hey, everybody shut up!” He was peeking out through the curtains. “Who’s going around outside with a flashlight? There’s some guy … Oh shit. Cops!”
“Yeah, thanks for the offer, Danny, but I think I’m leaving anyway!” TJ started running for the sliding door in back, but stopped when he saw the police officer standing there, knocking on the glass.
“Oh no,” Brad said. “I really don’t need to deal with this right now.”
I didn’t care. They could bust me. I was already in trouble everywhere outside of Idaho. A few charges in the state couldn’t make that much of a difference.
Someone shut off the music as Sweeney sighed and opened the patio door. The cop stepped inside.
“I hope you’re all of age.” He smoothed his mustache. “Otherwise I think a lot of y’all are in real trouble.”
Another officer with a big belly ca
me in through the front door. “We have two other squad cars out there, so don’t nobody try to run, either.”
“Let’s go,” said Mustache. “Let’s see some IDs.”
Since I had nothing to lose, I handed mine over first. Mustache looked at the photo, then looked up at me. He frowned. “Hey,” he said to Fatty, showing him my ID.
“Whoa,” Fatty said. “Sorry. Didn’t recognize you.” He laughed a little. “Grown your hair out a little since the last time I saw you, er, since you were on the news.” He looked down. “Sorry about your mother.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Mustache hooked his thumbs under his belt. “Listen, Sheriff Crow is a real good friend of ours. He says you’re a good guy, someone we can trust. So, tell you what. We came out here because one of the neighbors complained about the noise, said they were pretty sure there was underage drinking going on over here. If you’ll keep it down, we’ll let them know they should mind their own business.”
“Meantime,” said the fat one, “don’t none of you be driving tonight.”
The cop with the mustache rubbed his nose. “Hey, um, you know you all must have spent some serious money on this party. Beer’s getting hard to come by. You mind if I take like a six-pack with me?” He slapped me on the shoulder. “I like a cold beer as much as the next man.”
Sweeney rushed to get the man his beer. Mustache handed back my ID, and with a nod to his buddy, they both left.
For what seemed like a long time afterward, nobody said anything. My eyes met TJ’s. He looked at me like, What the hell was that all about? Then everybody started cheering and celebrating.
“Wright, you are the coolest!” Mike Keelin said, holding up his beer to toast me.
Aimee Hartling let out a long breath of relief. “Oh, I so couldn’t handle a possession ticket. Thanks, Danny, for whatever you did.”
That’s the thing. I hadn’t really done anything. We all should have been slapped with expensive tickets for drinking under age. Instead, I was being congratulated by everyone. I slammed my beer and then opened another. I thought maybe if I drank as much as I could, it would numb me to everything, to my friends having fun while I felt miserable, to missing Mom, to how much I wanted to kill the damned Fed.
I thought wrong.
“Hey!” Someone shouted from the living room. “Sweeney, something’s wrong with your screen. The game just blanked out.”
I staggered in to see what was up.
Black letters came on over a gold background.
ABC NEWS
SPECIAL REPORT
“What now?” I said.
“Hey, quiet everybody!” JoBell yelled. “If they’re cutting into ESPN, this is something serious.”
Sweeney turned up the volume.
“This is an ABC News special report. Live from Philadelphia, here’s Brian Logan.”
The image switched to a man standing in front of dozens of police cars and other emergency vehicles, all with their lights flashing. Sirens screamed in the background. “It is my sad duty to report to you that moments ago, President Rodriguez was shot three times on his way into a convention center where he was about to address an audience regarding compromise amendments to the controversial Federal ID Card Act. The shooting has been captured on video, I’m sure by a number of comm cameras. The video we are about to play for you is graphic, and may not be suitable for sensitive or younger viewers.”
They cut to a video of President Rodriguez smiling and waving at onlookers while comms flashed photographs. He leaned down to shake a little girl’s hand, stopping for a moment to say something to her. Next to him, a man in a black suit held his finger to his earpiece. He spoke into his microphone, then grabbed the president’s arm, yanking him upright, away from the little girl.
A quick blast. President Rodriguez’s chest tore open. Another round sliced through his neck. His head slumped sideways, and a third bullet ripped into his face and burst from the back of his skull. Then the video was a blur of people screaming and running around.
“Oh no,” Becca said.
“This is not good.” Timmy shook his head.
“Quiet! I want to hear this!” said Samantha.
The image cut back to the reporter. “As you can see from the video, despite the fact that we have no official confirmation that President Rodriguez is dead, there can be little doubt that his wounds were fatal. Other videos that we have seen, but which we will not show you, clearly show extreme damage to the president’s head, neck, and chest to an extent that no person could survive. We have no word yet on the apprehension of an assassin or assassins. But the atmosphere here in Philadelphia tonight, and I’m sure around the nation and around the world, is one of fear and deep sadness.”
A woman sitting at the studio news desk appeared on-screen. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Brian, but ABC News has just received official word from the White House that President Rodriguez is dead, and, as nearly everyone surmised, was killed instantly from three gunshot wounds. We are also told that Laura Griffith, appointed to the vice presidency in the wake of Aaron Henke’s resignation a little over a month ago, is safe aboard Air Force One. For security reasons, we are not being told the location or destination of the presidential aircraft, but we are told that the vice president has taken the oath of office of the president of the United States, and will be addressing the nation shortly.”
Everyone at the party had been watching mostly in silence. I took my comm from my pocket and shut off the living room screen. I hated that guy, but I didn’t want him dead. Now that he was, I knew there was about zero chance of Idaho and the Fed working out a deal.
The party tried to go on, but it seemed like everybody kind of felt more like I had been feeling all night. A bunch of people had their designated drivers take them home. I kept drinking with the few who were going to stay over.
* * *
Later that night, I staggered into my room. Someone helped me collapse across the bed instead of falling on the floor. Hands were on my ankles, straightening me out and then taking off my shoes.
“Cold’n here,” I mumbled.
“I know,” said a girl’s voice. “Here.” Blankets were pulled up to cover me. Then a gentle hand ran back from my forehead through my hair, again and again. “If you get sick, there’s a bucket here beside your bed. Go to sleep, Danny.”
“JoBell?”
“It’s me, Becca.”
“Where’sh J’Bell?”
“She had to go home. Her dad won’t let her stay over. You know that.”
“I do know that!” I shouted.
She laughed. “Shhh. Relax.”
“I don’ wanna dream,” I said. “Don’ wanna dream ’bout my mudder, ’bout Boise or nothin’.” Somehow I reached up and took hold of Becca’s hand. “So tired the dreams, Becca.” I was able to focus my eyes on her then. A little moonlight filtered in through the window. “You know what?”
“What?” she said, and I swear her hair sparkled in the moonlight. Maybe I was already dreaming.
I pushed out a single finger and lightly poked Becca in the arm. “Ya ev’n really here? Is any a dis ev’n real?”
She smiled, but somehow didn’t seem so happy. “It’s as real as you want it to be, Danny.”
Yes! This was one of those sweet dreams where I made it with the girl. I sat up. “Yer really pretty,” I said. My fingers traced her cheek, and she closed her eyes and leaned toward my touch. When I could focus my eyes, her lips looked so soft and warm. I slid my arms around her and drew her to me. “If I wasn’t wit’ J’Bell, I hope you ’n’ me —”
Her whole body tensed up, and she took me by the shoulders and gently pushed me back down to the bed. “Oh, Danny.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Go to sleep. We’ll be here for you in the morning.”
—• out of more than twenty presidential assassination attempts in our history, this is only the fifth time an assassin has succeeded. The previous four presidents killed while i
n office, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy, were —”
“Dr. Langethol, I’m going to have to interrupt you there. Word has come into the CBS studio that the Secret Service has been involved in a shoot-out with a man who has not yet been identified, but who was killed in the firefight. The shooter was using a high-powered rifle. Experts have not had time to locate or analyze the bullets that killed President Rodriguez, but certainly it is possible that the president’s extreme wounds were caused by such a weapon. One would think it would have to have been a weapon of some considerable power. So at this hour, it is possible that the president’s assassin is already dead. Of course, none of that is confirmed yet. •—
—• President Griffith, who had been aboard the vice presidential plane on her way to visit her son, a third-year cadet at the Air Force Academy north of Colorado Springs, was in the air at the time of the assassination, and of course as she was sworn in, Air Force Two became Air Force One. We go now to President Griffith in the Air Force Academy Chapel.”
…
“My fellow Americans, today we are devastated by a national tragedy. I stand before you in this majestic chapel with a heavy heart. A broken heart. We all feel this sadness, suffering a loss that cannot be measured. I have lost a valued colleague and a personal friend tonight, but I know that the death of President Rodriguez is mourned around the world, and that people everywhere share a deep pain with and sympathy for Mrs. Rodriguez and her family. As your president, I promise to do my best. That is all anyone can do. I ask for your help. And now, if you’ll join me in a moment of silence …
…
…
“May God bless President Rodriguez, his family, and the United States of America. Thank you.” •—
The next two weeks were a blur of news and shows about the president. The guy who shot him was identified as Bob Latham Collinder. The bullets in his gun matched the ones that killed Rodriguez, and he left a letter in his Philadelphia apartment, rambling about how the president was destroying the country and how only he could save the world from Rodriguez. He was a world-class nutjob acting alone, but of course FriendStar and tons of other sites were full of people blaming it all on Idaho and Governor Montaine. The governor, for his part, gave a speech saying the assassination was a tragedy and that he appreciated a lot of what the president had done, especially his work in recent negotiations.
