by D. F. Noble
With a snuff, the lab trotted over to Jake, who lie sprawled out on the other side of the campfire, and started humping him. Humping Jake, but yet it still locked eyes with Dean. Dean sat up on his elbow and laughed, then dry heaved a moment, and then kept laughing.
“Eh,” moaned Jake, coming to, “you’re fucking sick! Off! Get off me!”
The dog growled at Jake, warning him. That made Dean laugh even harder.
“Gross,” whined Jake, and kicked at the lab. It growled again, but backed off, sat in the dirt with its tongue hanging, and looked back and forth between the two boys.
Dean sat up, found that his crotch was wet. “Ugh, fuckin’ dog pissed on me!” Dean grabbed a chunk of wood. “Bad dog, bad!”
He went to throw the chunk at the lab, but it was a terrible throw and it fell short and landed in the embers of the campfire. A puff of ash came up, and then-
BOOM!
An explosion rocked the camp, sending burning coals and shards of smoking wood into the air. A tremendous high-pitched scream shortly followed, and when Dean could see through the smoke, Jake’s face was covered in some bubbling black goo.
Jake leapt to his feet and took off at a run, wailing like a banshee, pawing at his face.
“What the fuck!?” Dean shouted and chased after his smoldering friend. Jake was a few good steps ahead of him and was apparently running blind, for he ran face-first into a tree and knocked himself out.
Dean dropped to his knees and rolled Jake over onto his back. He didn’t know what was on his friend’s face, only knew that it had to come off. Dean pulled his shirt off and began wiping Jake’s face clean.
Alex stumbled into the clearing from the bushes across camp, pulling up his pants with one hand and holding a roll of toilet paper in the other. “What was that noise!?”
“I don’t know!” Dean yelled. “Jake’s hurt!”
Alex ran over, tripped, got back up and knelt next to Jake beside Dean. “Shit! Let’s take him to the creek! Get some water on him!”
They carried Jake down the nearby embankment, slipping and sliding as they went. When they got to the water, Jake gained consciousness and screamed again, just as Dean cupped a handful of water and tossed it in his face.
“What the fuck!” Jake hollered. “What the fuck!?”
Jake pulled away from them, collapsed in the water, came back up furious and confused and looking as if he was about to put some knuckles to Alex and Dean both.
“Dude, calm down!” Dean yelled. “We got it off! You’re okay!”
“It fucking burns! What the fuck is it!?”
“I don’t know,” Dean shrugged, “something in the fire blew up!”
And Alex began to laugh, like bend over and hold his stomach laugh.
Jake raged. “What’s so funny!?”
“You,” Alex laughed, who was now on his hands and knees in the creek. “Last night… you… you…threw a can of tomato soup in the fire! It blew up…all over your face!”
Dean looked at Jake, and Jake looked back, that slow dumb expression of enlightenment dawning on his face.
“Nobody else’s,” Alex howled. “Just your face! Nobody else’s!”
Dean asked, “Tomato soup? Really?”
“Yeah!”
Then Dean started laughing, a low and broken staccato rhythm that built up to voracious howling and downright snorting.
“Well it hurts,” Jake said, watching his two friends writhe about in the water as if they were almost in agony. The boys were laughing so hard that at any moment, they just might drown themselves in the foot of water they were kneeling in.
“It smells, too,” and they yowled harder, started slapping the water. “Think it got way up in my nostrils.”
***
“Did you see how big Julie's tits are getting?” Dean asked as they waded through the creek barefoot. The water was low here, ankle-deep, clear and cool. Tadpoles swam to and fro, and the air rang with bird calls and the buzz of insects. Deer and raccoon tracks, and sometimes the occasional turkey, spattered the sand and mud where the earth rose up in spots above the water. It was hot, an oven in July, but the canopy of trees and moisture here kept it tolerable, but not cool enough to keep the boys from sweating. Up ahead was a swimming hole that went chest-high. A fallen tree marked its spot, and if you weren't careful, you'd find yourself falling face-first into its depths.
“How couldn't we?” Jake said. “She had to keep rewriting on the chalkboard because her boobs were erasing her words.”
“You guys always focus on boobs,” Alex interjected. “I think Samantha is the prettiest in the school, really.”
“Samantha looks like a mouse,” Dean said.“And she wears glasses. How could you guys even kiss without breaking your goggles?”
Alex picked up a handful of mud and hit Dean in the back of the head with it.
“Dammit,” Dean said. “You're supposed to be the smart one! Why didn't you just use your words?”
The boys laughed and continued their trek to the swimming hole.
Jake kept quiet, for the most part. He remembered finding this swimming hole with Ronnie. Remembered teaching Ronnie to swim. Jake wiped at his eyes, fighting emotions that had been swelling in him for two years.
***
Walking back to Tree Top from the swimming hole, the boys heard laughter. There were other kids nearby. They climbed the embankment of the creek and crept through the brush and the trees. Peeking through the green, they saw kids—high schoolers—poking through their camp. Jake held Dean back, for he was ready to leap through the bushes and defend their territory, but Jake held a finger to his lips.
There were a few guys and a couple of girls. A case of beer lay on the ground near the remains of the campfire, and the boys cringed when they saw one of the guys ripping up comic books to make kindling for a fire.
“Must be a nerd clubhouse,” the guy said, tearing and crumbling pages of superheroes.
A girl lit a cigarette, said, “Sweet tree house, though.”
One of the other guys, tall, lanky and blonde with sunglasses on, turned to the girl. “Yeah, Mandy. Be a great place for you to suck our dicks.”
“If your dick was thicker than my cigarette, Tommy, I might suck it.”
Tommy faked stroking his dick towards her and turned to the other girl. “How 'bout you, Kim?” Tommy asked. The other girl was chubby, but had a pretty face. She sat next to the third guy who had long hair tied back in a pony tail and wore a tie-dye shirt. She raised her finger to Tommy the Blonde.
“Well fuck you both then,” Tommy said. “Justin, whip that doobie out. These bitches are lame.”
Justin, the guy in the tie-dye, reached into his cargo shorts and pulled out a metal tin, opened it and retrieved a joint. Justin produced a lighter and lit the thing, taking long puffs till he coughed hard and turned his face red.
Jake remembered them. The day he'd got back from the alley, the day he thought he killed Chris, these kids had been down in the creek while he washed the blood from himself. The memory of Mandy pulling her shirt up, her tits bouncing out, flashed across his mind's eye, and then Dean was moving forward.
Fuck, Jake thought, and said, “Dean, wait!”
Dean stepped out of the tree line, and Alex and Jake shared a look of worry and followed him. They were a team, a tribe, and where one of them went, the rest followed suit. The high schoolers turned to Dean; the guy ripping the comic up was the closest. He was just a bit taller than Dean, and his hair was spiked with gel and his face covered in acne.
“Look,” Acne Face said, “the nerds are home.”
Then Dean punched him in the face. The sound went off like a gunshot through the woods and Acne Face took one awkward step back and toppled over, his eyes rolling. The high schoolers jumped to their feet, caught off guard with big dumb faces.
“What the fuck, kid!?” yelled Tommy the Blonde, and the two guys moved in. Jake and Alex ran to Dean's side, and the boys dropped into Horse stance, with their hands
up, ready to fight. Tommy the Blonde and Justin Tie-Dye stopped, and then started laughing.
“Fuckin' karate kids,” Tommy laughed. “Look at this shit.” Then Tommy reached in his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife, opened it to show them the four-inch blade.
“My dick's bigger than that,” Dean said. “Put that toy away, boy.”
The girls laughed nervously. Mandy spoke up, “Come on, let's just go. Leave these kids alone before you get beat up, Tommy.”
Tommy looked at Justin. “You believe this shit?” He looked back at Dean, and Dean spit on the ground at his feet. Tension in the air like a thunderstorm was brewing.
“This is our place,” Jake spoke up. “You should go. We don't want any trouble.”
“Fuck them,” Dean said. “They ripped up our comics.”
“Fuck your comics, kid,” Tommy the Blonde said while Justin Tie-Dye stood there and smoked the joint to himself. “I'm gonna teach you to respect your elders.”
Then Alex retreated, took off running to the tree house, and climbed inside.
Tommy laughed, “Looks like your friend just bitched out on you.”
Then Alex appeared in the window of the tree house, a machete in one hand and a hatchet in the other. Jake and Dean back-stepped and Alex tossed the weapons down to them. Alex ducked back out of sight, and when he popped up again, he brandished a Wrist-Rocket slingshot.
Tommy the Blonde looked up to him and said, “You shoot that at me, four-eyes, and I'll fuckin' kill you.”
The word kill sank into Jake then. Flashes of Chris Red Cap in his head. That dam of emotion from losing his friend Ronnie broke wide open, and Jake roared and leapt forward. Jake swung the hatchet, and time slowed. The high schooler's eyes went wide—the girls, the pothead, but mostly Tommy the Blonde, all of them with big open mouths and wide moon eyes. Tommy the Blonde's face twisted in disbelief and his hands came up to protect himself.
One thing saved Jake from chopping Tommy's hand off. He was holding the hatchet backwards.
Crack!
The dull flat side of the hatchet smashed into Tommy's wrist. Bone snapped. The knife fell to the ground, and Tommy howled with pain and stumbled back. Then two things happened simultaneously: Alex fired the slingshot and sent a well-aimed rock into Justin Tie-Dye's mouth, the rock shattering Justin's two front teeth and rocked his head back; and Dean was already coming forward with a front kick.
Dean's foot caught Justin in the stomach, sent him rolling backwards towards the high school girls who were now screaming. All this while Jake moved forward, raising his hatchet up. Tommy's face went wide with terror. Jake's vision had gone red, and only that face, that target, filled his sight.
Tommy tripped, fell over on his back.
Jake stood over him, raised the hatchet.
“STOP!” Mandy roared and tore off her shirt, releasing her breasts. “JUST STOP!”
Her voice cut through the rage. Jake turned towards her, as did the other boys, and her bare chest slowed everything. Weapons relaxed in hands, anger and fear subsided. Mandy had just used the boob card—or better yet, a Boob Stun Ray. She knew exactly how to get a boy's attention.
“Holy shit,” Dean said. “Big ass titties.”
“Everybody calm down!” Mandy yelled.“No more fucking fighting!”
Jake looked around: at Tommy on his back, whimpering and holding his wrist; at a crying Justin Tie-Dye, writhing on the ground, moaning loud and holding his bloody mouth; and then at the high schooler Dean had first punched, who still lie unconscious next to the fire pit. Jake's eyes found those breasts again, and he found he could not turn away from them.
Mandy helped Justin Tie-Dye to his feet, and he gave the boys a dirty look. “They thot me in the mouth! My fuckin' theeth! They knocked my theeth out!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mandy told him, and turned to Tommy. “Tommy get up, wake up Dane, and let's get the fuck out of here.”
Mandy locked eyes with Jake then, which took considerable effort because she was topless. “Kid,” she said, “we're sorry, okay? We're gonna go now.”
Jake looked down at Tommy, at the hatchet, and then nodded at her and stepped away from the high schooler at his feet. He watched Tommy get up. His face was a mask of defeat and pain, but underneath it was anger. Jake walked back to Dean, who was breathing heavily and had veins pulsing in his neck. Jake laid a hand on his shoulder and looked up to Alex in the tree house window, who nodded back.
Tommy held his wrist as he tromped over to their unconscious friend. He shook the guy with his good hand, slapped him in the face. It took a minute, but eventually Dane's eyes fluttered open, and Tommy helped him sit up.
Dane looked around, bewildered. “Fucking kid hit me, man,” Dane said and started getting to his feet. Mandy, sensing that Dane might go on the attack, left Justin Tie-Dye holding his face next to the chubby girl Kim and stepped in front of him. His eyes widened at the sight of her tits.
“We're leaving,” Mandy said. “Come on.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Dane looked, saw his friends—especially Justin Tie-Dye with his bloody mouth—and looked backed at the tits, and then Jake and Dean. “What the fuck?” Dane said again. “This fucking kid hit me, yo. I'm going to beat his ass!”
“No!” Mandy yelled, and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “We're going!”
Dane looked back at Dean and Jake, saw they were carrying weapons, and then Alex, from the tree house, whistled and got his attention. Alex drew back on the slingshot and smiled.
Dane flinched and Jake spoke up then. “You guys go home, and never come back here. It'll be bad if you do.”
The high schoolers stared at them like they were gazing at some escaped zoo animals. Tommy spat on the ground. “This ain't over. You guys better watch your backs. I'll be looking for you.”
Alex let a lead weight slip from the slingshot, and it whirred past Tommy's head. He stumbled back and almost fell over again, and Dean laughed and pointed at him.
“You go ahead and do that, bitch,” Dean chuckled. “See what happens.”
Mandy slid her shirt back on and gave them one last gaze before they slipped into the trees.
Dean called after them, “And you go rat on us, and I'll come after you! Fuckin' believe it! This is our place! So stay fucking clear of us!”
The boys watched the high schoolers go till they could no longer see the rustle of leaves and branches, or hear their footsteps and the mumblings of their arguments. Assured they were gone, Jake knelt and picked up pages of the comics that had been torn up. He looked over superheroes ripped in two, their dialogue cut short.
I was going to kill him, Jake thought and shivered. I was going to chop him up.
“Did you see that?” Dean triumphed. “We beat their fuckin' asses! Big ol' tough high school bitches crying like fuckin' babies, dudes! We rock!”
Alex descended from the tree, and Dean continued ranting. “And you! Dude, Alex! Perfect fucking shot! Right in the teeth! Shazaam!”
Alex shook his head. “I was aiming for his chest.” Alex's face was carved in worry, and Jake knew they were both thinking the same thing, something that apparently was escaping Dean in this moment of adrenaline and victory: consequence and repercussion.
“Fucking Jake!” Dean laughed. “You were gonna kill that fucker! You even had me scared for a second! That look on his face, oh man-”
Jake caught Dean's eyes and said, “Dean, stop. Just stop, man.”
Dean wiped sweat from his brow, where it careened down from his buzz cut and locked in place on his eyebrows. “Stop what? We just fucking rolled some high schoolers, man! They left all their beer! We got to see real life titties, like we're fucking barbarians! We should celebrate!”
Alex sat cross-legged in the dirt beside the campfire and sighed. “That went too far. None of that had to happen, Dean.”
“Who cares?” Dean shot Alex a look of disbelief.
“What happens if they come for us, Dean
?” Alex asked and wiped his glasses on his shirt. “You think they'll forget? Nope. They'll remember, and probably when we least expect it, they'll catch us by surprise.”
Dean scoffed. “Fuck that, dude. You scared? Cuz I'm not. Those guys learned not to fuck with kids today, that's what just happened. They deserved everything they got. And it's not like somebody died.”
It was too much then, and Jake knew he could no longer hold back. He hadn't cried since Ronnie disappeared. Jake curled up beneath the tree house with faucets for eyes, burying his face in between his knees. Alex and Dean shared a confused glance and came to Jake. Kneeling beside him, they placed hands on his shoulders and patted their friend.
“Hey, dude,” Dean asked. “What's wrong?”
And Jake told them, told them everything. About Chris Red Cap in the alley, and Ronnie, and everything. It just came out, a flood of broken sentences and emotions that bore down on the boys in waves. They were close, they were friends, but this was a side not one of them ever dared to show. Boys don't show weakness, and boys only cry when they can absolutely not help it. It's the unspoken code, the unwritten laws set down by warriors and hard-cases since time immemorial.
Alex and Dean did not speak. They let Jake get it out. When he was done, snot hung from Jake's nose, his eyes were puffy and swollen, but the boys did not abandon him.
“We got your back,” Dean said, and squeezed Jake's shoulder. “Brothers in arms, friends till the end, right?”
“Right,” Alex echoed, “like the three musketeers; all for one, and all that stuff.”
Jake nodded, sniffed, and wiped his nose with his forearm. “Thanks,” Jake said, and forced a smile. “You guys won't tell anyone, will ya?”
“Lips are sealed,” Dean said. “Now get up. Let's drink this beer!”
***
“Wish we could live up here,” Jake said, and dropped an empty beer can from the heights of the water tower from where the boys sat. Wind caught the can, and carried it off till it sank out of sight into the trees below. From up here, he could see into the heart of town, and could pretend for a second it wasn't a big heap of shit. Jake could see the creek down below, and if he looked close enough, he could see glimpses of the tree house through the swaying leaves.
