Bright Lights, Dark Nights

by Stephen Emond

  “Hey,” Lester said, turning to face me. “How come I don’t know you? I know everyone in this school. They don’t even let you in here without going through me first. So how come I don’t know you?”

  I shrugged. I guess I wasn’t the star I thought I was in gym class. “Not sure.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Lester laughed. “You live this far down and you got an iPad? You must have noticed we’re on the poor side of town. I can’t even sit next to you with that thing out. You’ll get us mugged, man. They’ll take your iPad and your socks and shoes. They don’t even sell those here.”

  I laughed.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to stick up for you,” Lester said. “I’m running.” He laughed. “My car got busted into a couple weeks ago. I had my iPod in there overnight; someone smashed a window and took it. My mom won’t help me fix it. She says the window’s gonna cost more than the iPod did. I gotta get it fixed before it’s cold out.”

  We passed a liquor store that had been robbed enough times I’d cross the street to walk past it. Dad had a story for every spot in the city. One of the package-store tales had a fifty-year-old woman robbing a clerk at gunpoint. Dad said they found the gun, and it’d belonged to an actual police officer. No one knew how she’d gotten it.

  I zipped my bag up and stuffed it between my feet. I looked back out the window. We were almost at my stop.

  “You’re quiet, Wally,” Lester said. “That must be why no one knows you. You need to make a name for yourself—be somebody.”

  *

  My bus stop was on Lincoln Street, a few blocks from home. The bus would take me right to my doorstep if I wanted to sit twenty more minutes when I could walk home in ten. Lester followed me off, along with Frankie and Beardsley, who trailed behind obediently. Beardsley walked with a slouch, his arms swinging. The fact that they were following me at all was troubling. We could turn down a path, lose the traffic, and next thing you know my book bag and iPad are gone and I’m trying to remember how standing up works.

  Not that they’d done anything to warrant the fear. Lester talked to me like there was nothing he’d rather be doing on a Tuesday afternoon. “Tell me about yourself, man,” Lester said. We walked at a slow pace. He was a two-strap-backpack guy. I was a one-strapper myself. “You play b-ball, right? Into sports?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Just got lucky today.”

  “I’m not that good, either,” Lester said humbly. “I watch, but I don’t play. Who are you friends with? Anyone I know?”

  “Probably not,” I said. I couldn’t help but mumble and give short answers.

  “Everyone’s got some friends,” Lester said. “They put so many of us together in high school that by the time we all know each other, we’ll be going off to college. That’s why I try to talk to everyone when I get the chance.”

  People on the sidewalk cleared a path for us. Big Bad Lester wasn’t so bad. But those rumors had been going on forever. Maybe he liked the mystique. I might, too. Maybe I’d be friends with Lester Dooley, have a crew of guys who’d take down anyone who crossed me, not that anyone would when I walked around with Lester and Frankie.

  “That’s my crib,” Lester said, pointing out a duplex that looked remarkably like the other buildings on this street.

  Everything in the city has a name, it seems. The section between Lincoln Street and Laurents Avenue is called the Jungle, partly because of the abundance of trees lining the streets and partly for some wild parties that get thrown here.

  “You live that close?” I said.

  “I know, right? You must have moved here,” Lester said. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “If we grew up blocks from each other and I just noticed you now, I must be too wrapped up in my own drama or something. And if you didn’t grow up over here, that’d put you in the suburbs.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Moved the summer before sophomore year.”

  “So you were living in some big house with a lawn you didn’t have to share, and you ended up here? That’s a long fall, man. So what happened? Parents split up? Divorce?”

  I nodded. “Divorced.”

  “Mine, too. Money problems? Cheating?” Lester asked. “They say half of marriages end in divorce, but I swear it’s more than that. Everyone I know, their parents are split. Happens to everyone. You got any brothers or sisters?”

  “Sister,” I said.

  “I can picture your whole family,” Lester said. Frankie and Beardsley still trailed behind us, shuffling along and talking to each other. “Your dad must be an accountant or a lawyer or something, wears one of those jackets with the elbow patches, smokes a pipe.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said, and shook my head. “Not at all.”

  “Guess I misread. You like it in East Bridge?” Lester asked. “It’s not for everyone or anything, but it’s nice once you’re out of the Basement. They’ve got a restaurant on every corner on Main Street. The people are good here.”

  “It’s cool,” I said. I mostly knew the people in my classes and a few of my immediate neighbors.

  “I was, like, nine, ten, something like that, when my mom and pop split up,” Lester said. “So you were a teenager already. And then you end up here. I’d probably be quiet, too, if I was used to birds and hanging laundry by the fence and all that.”

  “It’s really not like that,” I said. A loud chirp disrupted the proceedings, and a cop car rolled up alongside us. It was my dad. No pipe or elbow patches. Lester gave me a look, like, Here we go.

  “This stuff always happens right near my home,” Lester said. “I’ll bet my mom drives by and thinks I’m up to something.”

  Dad and his partner, Ricky, stepped out of the car. “What’s up, homeys?” Dad asked. I cringed. That was the end of my friendship with Lester.

  “Hi, Officer Wilcox,” they all deadpanned. “Hi, Officer Ortiz.”

  “Everything all right, Walter?” Dad asked. I nodded. Dad was checking out the scene, absorbing the details, but there was no story here. “Isn’t that your house back there, Lester? You walking off lunch or something?”

  “Just talking to my new friend, that’s all,” Lester said, calm and relaxed. He even threw a giant arm around me. It was like wearing a heavy neck brace.

  “You know who your new friend is?” Dad asked him, pointing at me. “That’s my son, Walter. So you lay a finger on him, Lester, you deal directly with me. Understand?”

  “Wally Wilcox?” Lester said, eyebrows raised, and turned me around to get a better look at me. I apologized as best I could with just my eyes. “We didn’t even know he was a celebrity. We were just talking, honest. I like this kid.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Dad said.

  “Hey, I wanted to ask you a question, actually,” Lester said to my dad. “We got this homeless dude camping out in our front yard dude. What do I do about that? My mom wants me to go yell at him, but I don’t know what this guy’s up to.”

  “You can file a report,” Dad said.

  “At the station?” Lester asked, and twisted his mouth. “Pass. I thought maybe you could just come take a look or something.”

  Dad nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “So we’re all friends here. That’s great,” Ricky said. “Let’s keep it that way, yeah?”

  Dad pointed his thumb at the cruiser. “Walter, let’s get in the car.” I did a walk of shame to the car with my head down and ducked into the backseat.

  *

  In the car, Dad and Ricky were talking about bullies while we sat in traffic. The fact that I could have been home already if I’d finished walking popped into my mind.

  “Did you know Uncle Ricky used to be a bully?” Dad asked. Ricky’s not my actual uncle, but my parents had called him that since I was little. He turned to face Ricky, who was in the passenger seat. “You used to hang out with Adrian Ford—I hated that kid! He used to torture me in school.”

  “That doesn’t make m
e a bully,” Ricky said. “Adrian was a nice guy, if you weren’t on his list.”

  “But I was on his list!” Dad said. I’d seen high school photos of Dad, and heard some stories. It’s not like he was a nerd or anything. “And you were a bully by association.”

  “That’s so not a thing,” Ricky said. “That’s like me being rich because I know a guy who owns a boat.”

  I took my cell out of my pocket after it buzzed. It was the cheapest phone on the family plan, but it did have a crappy version of the Internet.

  Ricky turned around in his seat to face me. “This guy Adrian used to pick on your dad, Walter. He ever tell you about Adrian?”

  “It’s my story—let me tell it,” Dad interrupted.

  “Well, tell it, then!” Ricky said, settling back in his seat.

  “Adrian Ford, tall, tall guy with a head like a solid boulder,” Dad started. His story is a little fuzzy in my mind because I saw I had a Facebook message from Naomi Mills, and the world spun for a split second and up was down and down was up. What I remembered of the story while I was waiting for a signal to load Facebook involved my dad getting picked on at school by this guy Adrian, who’d been the king of the school, and my dad took it and took it, until one day he stood up to Adrian and told the bully to meet him after school. The bully never showed and left Dad alone after that, presumably because Dad had earned his respect or something. None of it applied to me, because Dad was a cop and had been kind of big deal. I wasn’t about to call out Lester or Beardsley or anyone else at school, and as long as I was friendly, I didn’t have any need to. Besides, I was pretty sure I’d seen that same story line on some sitcom repeat.

  I accepted Naomi’s friend request, probably just minutes after she sent it. I could risk the dorkiness.

  Dad was still in lecture mode. “You gotta be careful with guys like these,” he was saying. We were taking a detour, apparently, as we left the smaller streets to pass the markets. “These guys are animals. I see some pretty wild stuff. I was joking around back there, but these guys carry knives—these guys have guns.

  “You can tell me if you’re in trouble, you know, right?” He kept looking at me to verify I was listening. It was a little troubling with people walking on the sidewalk and crossing the street.

  “Dad, I’m fine,” I said.

  Naomi was asking me if I wanted to go to the Foo Fighters concert. U were a huge hit with the fam, her message read. My mom would totally let me go w/ u. I can work this.

  Was that a good message or bad? Was she saying I was a big nerd, but she could use me to get to the concert? Who was I kidding? I didn’t care. Operation Uncle Dave is a go, I replied. Count me in.

  “It’s good that you stood up to them,” Dad said. He just kept talking. “And those are some ugly dudes to face, too. But you can’t run from problems. You tackle them head-on, right? You did good. I’m proud.”

  “Dad, we were walking. That’s it,” I said. My phone buzzed. I was afraid to look at the screen. What if she’d changed her mind, or she’d been just joking and I’d misinterpreted it and hadn’t caught the tone? What if she hadn’t asked at all and I’d just responded to an imaginary message? Reception was poor, and her message took, like, ten seconds to show up, which was a very long time when you were in midconversation with Naomi Mills.

  LOL that was fast! Naomi replied. Not exactly a confirmation of plans.

  I’m in my dad’s cop car. I think I’m under arrest. :P, I wrote back. I tried to send it, but the Internet dropped out again. Technology fail. The phone buzzed again as Dad pulled up to our building, and my eyes darted to the screen.

  NOOOOO, Naomi wrote back. Post bail! We need you free til after the concert!

  Bake me a cake with a nail file in it, I wrote.

  At that exact moment, I’d have escaped Alcatraz if I needed to.

  Chapter Four

  10/23 10:35 WalterW1014: Hey, are you going to the Foo Fighters concert Saturday?

  10/23 10:35 NateTheGreat01: Have I said or done anything to indicate I’d be going to a Foo Fighters concert? Or do I have a clone running around I need to be concerned with?

  10/23 10:35 WalterW1014: I’m just wondering if I should go.

  10/23 10:35 NateTheGreat01: If you have to wonder, maybe just don’t go?

  10/23 10:36 WalterW1014: Well, a girl I was talking to wanted to go, and I might have said I’d go too.

  10/23 10:36 NateTheGreat01: Really? Who?

  10/23 10:36 WalterW1014: Don’t tell Kate though …

  10/23 10:36 NateTheGreat01: Kate would demand you go, you know that right?

  10/23 10:37 NateTheGreat01: So what’s the dilemma? Sounds like a sweet deal.

  10/23 10:37 WalterW1014: I’m not sure if it’s a good idea. Believe it or not I might make a poor impression.

  10/23 10:38 NateTheGreat01: If you don’t go, I’ll go. I’m single now. She sounds hot.

  10/23 10:38 WalterW1014: I haven’t said a thing about her.

  10/23 10:39 WalterW1014: Here’s the thing. I’m in a pretty good space now.

  10/23 10:39 NateTheGreat01: Perfect, go

  10/23 10:40 WalterW1014: and if I go, like her, things don’t work out, bam. Distraught for the rest of high school.

  10/23 10:40 NateTheGreat01: You’re not in a good space, you’re distraught now. This IM wouldn’t be happening in a good space.

  10/23 10:40 NateTheGreat01: Who is this mystery girl?

  10/23 10:40 WalterW1014: She’s a junior, Naomi Mills. Don’t tell anyone, though.

  10/23 10:41 NateTheGreat01: Really? Wow, okay

  10/23 10:41 NateTheGreat01: I dig it. You should definitely go.

  10/23 10:42 WalterW1014: Yeah, I guess so. I already said yes, so I guess I have to.

  10/23 10:42 NateTheGreat01: Walter. Go. This is an order. I’m happy for you.

  10/23 10:42 NateTheGreat01: This is going to be amazing, you’ll see. Best night of your life.

  *

  It’s a strange feeling when you’re on the bus with a pretty girl and somehow you’d rather be in front of it. Maybe some of us are just conditioned to the bad things, and even though we hate them, it’s what we know and what we’re comfortable with. We’ve adapted to crappiness and anything more or less is unsettling.

  I was already blowing it. I had to be boring her. Did she just want to go to this concert and I happened to be a decent-enough excuse to escape the family watchdogs? Was she expecting someone else there? What if it was a guy, a secret boyfriend? Was the whole night going to be weird? Those were the questions running through my head as I sat next to the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and couldn’t think of anything to say for going on three minutes. That was a lot of time for awkward silence on what could, conceivably, be a first date.

  I was people-watching, trying to keep my brain distracted from all the negative thoughts, before it got me in trouble. I found more than a few people on their way to a rock concert, based on the median college age and abundance of Foo Fighters T-shirts. Naomi, on the other hand, had actual fashion sense. She wore a jean jacket better than most. And the bracelets—she accessorized. I never hung out with anyone who accessorized.

  We were on our way to the High Hill section of the city, and the buildings were getting taller the closer we got; the lights were getting brighter.

  “Have you seen Uncle Dave lately?” Naomi asked, breaking our epic bout of silence. “Do you see him often? Does he know you’re coming?” She’d been trying to pin me down on the Uncle Dave fib ever since that dinner. This running joke was turning into a marathon.

  “Yeah, I see him when he’s in town,” I said, rolling with the story. “We have a secret language. If he plays ‘Everlong,’ it’s a message to me because he knows that’s my favorite.” I never talked to anyone the way I talked to Naomi. It was like a game of volleyball in which neither of us ever missed, we were that in tune with each other’s playing style.

  “Oh wow,” Naomi said. “I hope they play it. That’ll
be so cool for you. And I’ll know the real reason they’re playing it. So do you listen to anything but rap Rap and ‘Everlong’?”

  “I like everything, remember?” I said. “I like the Beatles.”

  “The Beatles?” Naomi asked. “Who’s that? I never heard of them.”

  We passed a long chain-link fence, and the bus pulled into a semiempty parking lot a couple of blocks away from the uptown High Hill area. Hotels, restaurants, and venues crammed the grid. This was the section that went on the tourist brochures and state website. A five-by-five grid of lit-up, fun-for-the-family city entertainment that cast a long, dark shadow where the rest of us lived.

  “I’m excited. I don’t go to a lot of concerts,” Naomi said. “Last one was with my sister a few years ago.”

  “Kelly?” I asked, remembering her baby sister.

  “Kelly’s, like, one year old,” Naomi said, shaking her head and laughing. “How would I go to a concert with her a few years ago? No, my older sister, Alicia.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, unaware that she and Jason had an older sister. “What concert did you see with her?”

  “Erykah Badu,” Naomi said. “Look, I love Erykah Badu and I love the Foo Fighters. I’m like you, I love everything. I love Kenny Rogers.”

  “Everything’s the best,” I said. “Kenny Rogers, though? Really?”

  “I’ve never heard his music but yes,” Naomi said. “He’s awesome. He’s my favorite.”

  We walked between tall buildings, lights all around and stars in the sky if you looked straight up. I looked up too much when I walked in the city, like a kid when the whole world’s taller than you. It felt like that in High Hill—like if you looked down, you’d miss half the picture. The buildings got impossibly tall and the lights impossibly bright and I felt like we were in a maze, like mice in a maze. People walked in packs and we followed the herd, down one street and up another.

  We passed through people like sand through a sifter, outside the building, in the doorway, the merch area. I tried to look like I belonged and like I wasn’t freaked out by the mobs even though this was my first concert. And maybe my last, since it’d taken all the money I had left from Mom’s birthday present to get my ticket.