One Death, Nine Stories

by Marc Aronson

  Now here Kev was shifting our gears to the next NEXT level with the SC brand. We, including Matthew, Vick, Vince, Jason, Trevor, Scott, and Jake, agreed that the SC brand had to be burned on the inside of our left forearms and anyone who screamed like a toddler during his brand was getting his face smeared with the dog crap Vince had brown-bagged from his German shepherd. Plus, Mr. Crybaby would have to drink two ounces of piss from a random group member.

  “Do me.” Kev stared straight into my eyes. “Then I do you. After, everyone chooses who brands them.”

  “Me?” I asked. “You want me to brand you?”

  “Man up, Will. You and me started the SC. It has to be you.” Kev turned away from me, went to the fireplace, and set the irons in the flames, then pulled his grill gloves and shirt off. “Take them pokers out in a minute. I’ll be at the bar, and I don’t want a blindfold. I want to see and feel it burn.”

  All you could hear in the room was the sound of fire crackling.

  I had to admit it to myself: I had thought Kev was playing about the brands, even up to now.

  Then this thought hit me: Was this my initiation? Was Kev testing me to see if I had the balls to go through with this?

  He went straight to the bar, poured his mom’s Jack into a coffee cup until it was half full, gurgled it down, and winced while giving me a thumbs‑up. It always bugged me out how his mom left her alcohol accessible when she left for her exotic weekend getaways with her housewife friends.

  The thought came to me again: Kev won’t let you brand him. He’s punking you. The whole SC is quizzing you.

  I slowly walked up to the fireplace and stared into the flames; the unbearable heat that made me squint. I could also feel everyone’s stares drilling holes through the back of my skull. All eyes were on me because the guy branding had to man up as much as the guy getting the brand.

  What if he’s serious and wants me to burn him? The one time I put something hot on someone’s skin was when I accidentally swiped my index finger when I ironed my clothes in middle school. And the pain! That was intense. I wondered how a hot iron, straight on skin on purpose for a few seconds, would feel. The idea made my stomach turn into a desktop wave machine, but I fought to hide my queasiness.

  What if Kev was trying to herb me? The idea of me being seen as a chump by the SC made me angry. These dudes looked to me for leadership; I wasn’t about to fall off and down the ladder and become the butt of their jokes. “Soft.” “Punk.” I imagined them hissing those names at me, and it got me mad. I took that anger and violently grabbed and slid on the grill gloves, snatched the brand irons out of the flames, and headed over to Kev fast to show I had elephant-size cojones. Everybody wants to play me? They should play lotto.

  I stomped toward Kev, and everyone rode my ass right to him, thirsty to see.

  As I got to Kev, Scott bumped into Vick, who then bumped into me and the fiery brand tips almost stabbed into Kev’s mom’s Venetian rug. I swung around. “Back up. Y’all stupid? You gonna burn Kev’s house down!”

  Kev snapped at me. “Will, keep focused. Do this already!” He crazy-cult-leader-eyed me, and I knew this wasn’t a test to see if I’d punk out. Kev was dead serious. This was our next initiation.

  My stomach did a desktop-wave-machine flip again. I wasn’t sure how to handle a hot-iron brand.

  Kev probably read my indecision and confusion from my tense expression. “Just lay the S down as even as you can, Will,” he said in his most soothing voice. “The C after will be easier. You’ll see. Right now, just go in gentle and even. You not careful and stamp down too hard and that iron’ll melt through my skin into my muscle.”

  I laid the C brand on Kev’s mom’s marble bar counter and licked a trail of salty sweat that trickled onto my lips. I was sweating bullets, and you’d think it was from the heat of the fireplace or the red-hot brands in my hands, but nope, the sweat was from fear. I looked at Kev, and his eyes were locked on his forearm as if he could already see his S and C there. I also tried picturing seeing the initials on his forearm to help me not mess up. Man, you could hear every guy breathing in the room. The scene was filled with so much silence and tension that if I turned around and yelled “BOO!” at that exact moment, every SC member would have had a fatal heart attack.

  I raised the hot-iron S a foot away from Kev’s arm to see if he’d pull away, but he didn’t flinch. I moved the neon-hot tip closer and closer to his skin. In my heart, I wished someone would interrupt and stop this craziness, but I wasn’t going to be the one doing the stopping. There is an ancient Chinese proverb: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered.” I had the hot-iron S three inches away from Kev’s soft inner forearm flesh, which seemed as pure as a newborn’s tummy. Then Kev spoke.

  “Remember when we named ourselves the SC, Will?”

  “Yeah.” I paused and smiled and wished we could zip back there to when we were slightly innocent kids and before we did sick junk like this.

  “Kill that weak part of you,” Kev said. “Brand me.”

  “Yeah,” I gulped. “On three.”

  “Bet.”

  Me and Kev said in beat, “One, two . . . THREE!”

  I leaned the hot-iron brand in fast but not too hard, and it took every cell in my body not to close my eyes as I heard and saw the crackle and hiss of Kev’s skin as the flesh around the curves of the S darkened and bubbled up. Pus. Blood. Some clear liquid ran down his arm.

  “HOLY . . . !” Kev shouted, then held back saying anything else as he bit his lip and stared at the ceiling. He fought to stay as still as possible so he didn’t mess up his brand. His blue eyes glowed bluer, hot, as if the flames from the fireplace were flowing through the brand and into him and light-bulb lighting up his insides. I didn’t know why I knew, but I knew I had to take the brand off immediately so I did. As much as I wanted to puke at the sight of the S that disfigured Kev’s forearm, I simultaneously felt good at seeing it and how cool it looked and knowing that the first and hardest part of me branding Kev was behind me.

  Kev pushed me aside, raced to the sink, turned the faucet on, and shoved his arm under the streaming water. He stomped one foot and cursed worse than I ever heard. But never once did he cry. Me, Jason, and Trevor rushed to comfort him, but Kev held his hand up and waved us off.

  “Chill,” he exhaled. “I’m . . . good. I’m good.”

  Slowly, he brought his arm out from under the water. First he admired the handiwork, then he raised his arm for us all to see. We might as well have been in that movie 300, because everyone but me spotted his S and raised their fists and shouted, “YEAAAAHHHHH!” Me and Kev locked eyes, and I felt this incredible energy flowing between us. It was a closeness to him I had never had before. Of all the guys, he trusted me to brand him. Anytime he saw his brand, he would have to think of me. Whenever I saw his brand, I’d have the secret knowing, “I did that.” The other SC members were saying stuff like, “Kev’s badass,” “Kev took that straight up,” “Kev’s the man,” and “SC forever.” It was demented, but Kev had been right before when he’d said we all were just puzzle pieces and a brand would bond our crew for life.

  “You need to reheat that.” Kev pointed to the brand with the C. “Can’t have an S without a C, right?”

  I looked over and saw that it was dimming. It could burn skin, but it wouldn’t appear as nice as the S.

  I grabbed the C brand and turned toward the fireplace, and all the guys in the SC parted and cleared a path for me to fire it up.

  As I stepped toward the flames, I checked my G-Shock watch and made out the time: 11:42 p.m.

  In less than ten minutes, it would be my turn to be burned.

  In an hour, we’d all be drunk, admiring each other’s SC brands, bragging, and planning the next NEXT NEXT level initiation.

  A knock rocked my bedroom door at the same moment that my cell rang, and I was snapped out of my memory of our brandings. I was still holding the yearbook. I was still standing alone in my room in front of
my shelf. Kev was still dead.

  “Will?” my dad yelled from behind my shut door. “Will? Are you okay?”

  I managed a “Yeah.”

  “I ordered in food,” Dad said. “Come get some when you’re ready.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He left, and I went and picked up my cell and checked to see whose name was on the screen. It was Josh, one of the guys from the SC. I hit IGNORE.

  Suddenly, I remembered some of the next levels me and Kev had discussed that last night that we wanted the SC to go through together.

  The phone rang again, and I spied the screen, thinking it was Josh again. It wasn’t; it was Mick. Maybe Mick had been smart to get out of the SC on the night of our brands. I hit ignore on Mick, too.

  I rolled up my fleece’s left sleeve and stared at the SC burned into the soft flesh of my inside forearm.

  Kev came up with the SC.

  He created the staircase of our dumb-dare initiations, and with him gone, I knew the SC would be expecting our next steps from me. Right now, I couldn’t even think about Kev being dead. Forget about thinking about next SC steps without him.

  I ran my fingers over my S and C. Man, what happened, Kev? You should’ve been the last of us to die, not the first.

  MARCO STOOD PANTING at his door as his key twisted the lock open. Before he could get to the ice-cold Gatorade that was his reward for a ten-mile run, his phone dinged. He ignored it and cracked the bottle open. One purple sip in, and the phone dinged again. And again. And again. And again.

  “What the hell, man?” he snapped.

  He rushed to the counter, looked at the phone, and saw sixteen texts waiting. “Somebody die or something?” He half laughed before scrolling through the messages. Most were from his old high-school cross-country teammates.

  Sure ur out on run but hit me up when u get in. Big news.

  Yo M, where u at?

  Check ur vm running man

  Left u a msg and e-mailed u too M. Where tf u at? Holla back

  Marco WTF man get back to me

  Yoooooooooooo u hear about Kev?

  Marco scrolled through more, furious now. What about Kev?

  The answer came in the next text from his buddy Will.

  Funeral is this Friday let me know if u r coming.

  Funeral? Marco went through each text, and a clear picture emerged. His old cross-country captain and running buddy, Kevin Nicholas, was dead. Suicide was the rumor. He gulped a purple swig and made his way into his room.

  Marco plopped onto his bed and stared, openmouthed, at a picture of him and Kevin in their team tank tops. They both thrust a number-one finger at the camera, Marco all smiles, hair tousled, sweat beaded on his forehead; Kevin stone-faced, no sweat, hair untouched as if he had gone for a walk in the park.

  “Damn,” Marco muttered to the boy in the photo, “what happened, Kev?”

  He drained the bottle and hurled it at the pillow on his bed.

  “Fuuuuuuuuuuucccccccck!” he shouted. “I gotta get outta here.”

  And just like that, Marco was back on the pavement, retracing his and Kev’s favorite running route. His usual quick, steady gait—the one that had earned him a state title and a full ride to St. John’s—was gone, replaced by herky-jerky stutter steps. The rhythmic breathing pattern that Kev used to tease him about—“Yo, you sound like a girl getting pounded”—was gone, replaced by staccato exhales.

  Marco herky-jerked himself to the outskirts of the park, and just as he was ready to collapse on the nearest bench, Kevin’s voice rang in his ear: “Stop being a bitch and just keep running.”

  Just keep running, Marco.

  Past the church. Past Candy’s house. Past the Chinese food spot. Past the pizza spot. Past the pawnshop. Past the check-cashing spot.

  “Hold up,” Kevin said one particular early-Monday-morning run.

  He motioned Marco to an alley behind the pizza spot.

  “Follow me.”

  Kevin led the way down the alley, past the pizza spot, and behind the pawnshop. Marco followed in his footsteps. Kevin’s slow walk sped up to a light jog as he called out to Marco.

  “You think you can outrun a bullet?”

  “What?” Marco said.

  “I said,” Kevin hissed, “you think you can outrun a bullet?”

  As Kevin picked up his jog, Marco noticed someone approach the back entrance of the pawnshop. A guard with a black satchel in his hand and a gun on his hip banged on the metal door.

  “Come on,” Kevin called.

  He burst into a sprint, usually reserved for the final kick of a cross-country race. But this was different. Kevin’s sprint had purpose. He bolted toward the guard and smothered him as he reached for his holster. A knee to the groin dropped the stocky guard, and a left uppercut to the chin laid him on his back.

  Kevin snatched the satchel and took off down the alley. Marco bolted after him. The squawk of a radio broke through the squish of their sneakers on the pavement. The boys left the pizza spot in the rearview and raced past the Chinese food spot next door.

  KA-RACK! A bullet pinged off a Dumpster behind them.

  Kevin darted left. Marco darted right. Another bullet whizzed behind them. Kevin clutched the satchel to his chest and kicked into second gear. Marco swiveled his head back at the guard, then did the same.

  “What’s in the bag, Kev?”

  “Just keep running!”

  And they did. Past the shoe store. Past the Jamaican beef patty spot. Past the library. Past the market. Past Will’s house. Into the park. Up Slog Hill. So named because you had to slog through a path of waist-high weeds and crushed beer cans to sit on top of the rock overlooking the cemetery and the city in the distance.

  The satchel dropped from Kev’s shoulder with a soft clang. The two hovered over the bag, panting quickly. Every few breaths, their breathing slowed until they were both silent.

  “You almost got us killed back there!” Marco said.

  “But I didn’t.”

  Kevin stared at Marco, then dropped his eyes to the satchel. He ripped the zipper open and jammed his right hand inside. His eyes drifted up as if he were reaching into a grab bag. He pulled out an oily gray cloth, wrapped around something like a small gift. Then he peeled back the gray petals of the cloth, and a shimmer of silver peeked out. Like a child, Kevin snatched the cloth away and revealed a sleek, palm-sized, silver pistol. He palmed it and turned it over in his hands, inspecting it.

  “Damn,” Kevin said. “I already got one of these in black. I was hoping for some Dirty Harry–type shit.”

  “Wait, you already have a gun?”

  “Actually, two,” Kevin said. He flipped open the chamber, gave it a spin, then flipped it shut. “The black one and a broke nine-millie.”

  “So what do you need another one for?” Marco asked. “Especially a hot one.”

  “What do you care?” Kevin said.

  “Seeing as how I got shot at after you bum-rushed that guard, I very much care,” Marco said. “What do you need three guns for?”

  “Two guns,” Kevin corrected him. “One’s broken.”

  “What the hell you even need ONE gun for?”

  “Protection.”

  “Protection? This ain’t the Bronx. What you need protection from?”

  Kevin looked through Marco.

  “Myself.”

  A grin crept across Kevin’s mouth, and he laughed it off.

  “But seriously,” Kevin started, “the fifteenth is coming up, which means the check-cashing place will be hopping. So I was thinking . . .”

  “You was thinking nothing,” Marco said. “I ain’t robbing nobody. Especially with a hot gun.” He hopped off the rock. “Man, how you sound?”

  Kevin stared off into the distance at the cemetery. His eyes wandered southeast, where no headstones or crosses lay. But his father did.

  “We gotta take this thing back,” Marco said. “Knock on the door and take off or something.”

&n
bsp; “Naw, Running Man,” Kevin said, very cool. “That’s not how this is going down.” He hopped off the rock and thrust the gun at Marco’s eyes.

  “Get that outta my face,” Marco said.

  “Why?” Kevin inched in. “You scared?”

  Marco turned his head left to ignore Kevin. And the gun.

  “Come on, M,” Kev said, the grin reemerging, “I ain’t gonna shoot it. Trust me.”

  Marco glanced back at him.

  “You do trust me, don’t you?” Kev said.

  Marco stared off to his right.

  “Relax, Running Man.” Kev lowered the gun. “I haven’t done shit yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “You know what I mean. I got a plan.”

  Marco listened to Kevin break down how he planned to take all three guns, walk into a police precinct, and turn them in for cash.

  “Three guns’ll get you three-hunny. No questions,” Kevin said with a grin.

  “And then what?”

  Kev lifted the gun again and stepped toward Marco.

  “You ask a lot of questions, Running Man.”

  Marco’s hands flew into the air like he was about to get mugged. Kevin could make you feel that way.

  “You really need to chill, M.” Kevin let out a sinister laugh. “I told you it ain’t loaded.”

  Loaded or not, Marco hated the cold steel staring him down.

  Kevin lowered the gun and leaned against the rock. “With three bills, I can get me a clean piece,” he said. “A four-five. One of them sleek silver-and-black joints.”

  His eyes lit up like a kid detailing what he wanted most for Christmas.

  Marco shook his head. “You still gonna hit the check-cashing spot?”

  “You don’t even worry about that, Running Man,” Kevin said. He pushed off the rock and slung his arm, with the gun dangling, around Marco’s neck and pulled his ear close. “You just worry about keeping your mouth shut about all of this.”