* * *
"Yeah! Fuck him! Fuck Hector!"
Russell leaned forward to shush Mike. Mike ignored him. Not that it mattered if he cursed. The cops couldn’t arrest him for swearing—not when there was no one around to swear at, other than the cops themselves, who would have to be idiots to assume a seventeen-year-old kid would intentionally swear at them. Russell doubted they could even hear their own voices over the din of country music, let alone crazy old Mike’s. Well, they might have heard his bellow of laughter. That had been loud.
It was Pete’s fault for dropping the F-bomb first (Mike had asked what they thought Hector was doing right now, and Pete had responded, "Who gives a shit? He can go fuck himself, for all I care."). Mike had picked it up and ran with it, apparently liking the way the word rolled off his tongue.
"Fuck Hector! Hector is a fuck!"
"God damn, Mike! Do you want to get us arrested?”
As soon as Pete said it, the excitement drained out of O’Brien’s face.
"Give him a break, Pete. He didn’t mean for it to come out so loud. Did you, Mike?"
Mike slowly shook his head. To Pete, the gesture came across overtly insincere, like the exaggerated negations of a toddler who knows that what he is doing is wrong but thinks cuteness alone will keep him out of trouble. No sane seventeen-year-old shakes his head so widely and with such a pouty frown on his face. If Russell noticed the undertones of what O’Brien was doing—like Pete was noticing them—then he didn’t bring them up. Nor would he ever, because Rusty would always stick up for the…retard wannabe…as long as he stayed dedicated to the shtick that he does so well. Because Russell’s into it, into the shtick. And not for the first time, Pete felt a wave of hatred sweep over him. When he peered at Mike, who continued to shake his head from side to side, he sighed noisily in protest.
"See?" Russell said, nodding at O’Brien. "He didn’t do it on purpose."
"Yeah, I guess not," said Pete. Something pendulous swung inside of him then. Before he knew it, he was opening his mouth and, in the guise of a conversation starter, asking in his most pretentious voice, "So, Michael, are you familiar with the phenomenon of meteor showers?"
Across the table Russell shot Pete a glare that all but said: You asshole. I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re being condescending so you can feel superior. Do you really think it’ll change a goddamn thing? He wanted to stop him, but all of a sudden he couldn’t conjure a distraction fitting enough to shut him up. So he sat there and listened as Pete explained the Perseids to Mike. Eventually, his mind doubled back to the conversation they’d had a few minutes ago, the one about Hector Graham. He didn’t want to think about it—would have preferred to listen to the music in his head—that is, if he could tune out the god-awful country crap blaring from the speakers.
The fact that he, Russell Whitford, had killed Hector’s dog was no doubt the reason for Mike’s bringing up his name in the first place. There was no pussyfooting around it: he had killed Lola. Sure, she’d been dying when they’d found her, and true, she had attacked them first. But how do you explain that to Hector? How do you explain that a seventeen-year-old dog (the age was a lie and Russell knew it) had tried to run down Mike O’Brien in his own backyard? You don’t. Because it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Rabies? That would explain part of it. Seventeen—with a bad hip and worse eyes? He’d never buy it.
But he would have to.
Given the propensity for the residents of Riley to spread gossip faster and wider than a pine tree spreads pollen in spring, the news had almost certainly reached Hector by now. If not the news of his dead dog (Russell had removed Lola’s collar before leaving the yard), then definitely the news of the dead rabbits.
Out of morbid curiosity, they (Russell, Mike, and Pete) had returned to Peach Street earlier that morning. By the time they had arrived, the barricades were already up. But even from afar, they’d been able to make out the Centers for Disease Control guys in their white contamination suits moving about. From the looks of it, they had set up some kind of assembly line in Mike’s front yard. At one point, Pete and Russell had exchanged knowing glances, while Mike had gone on staring blankly at the scientists and technicians throwing bag after bag into the back of their white van. Something about being on the street had felt wrong and right at the same time. Pete had felt it, and so had Russell. What they didn’t know was that had Mike felt it, too.
Now they were sitting in one of Ursula’s dingy booths, at Mike’s request, finishing what remained of their limp, greasy fries. Pete rambling on about the Perseids and Mike going through the automatic motions of listening. Russell knew the words were going in one ear and out the other. O’Brien didn’t care about meteor showers, and Russell suspected that Pete’s lecture wasn’t going to sway him on the matter. Mike wasn’t even looking at Pete. He was staring out the window, gently nodding his head. Russell turned his head to look out the window, too, and when he did, he noticed a fly bouncing back and forth between the open mini blind slats and speckled window pane. Like the fly, Pete droned on and on, unaware that he was similarly trapped in a cage of his own making, a cage that he could easily find his way out of if he were to simply slow down and see it for what it really was.
Suddenly the urge hit to get up and run out of there. Russell didn’t know what made him feel that way. Maybe it was the cops sitting on the other side of the partition, or maybe it was the spring that kept poking his butt cheek every time he shifted his weight. Then again, maybe it was the fly that kept buzzing and smacking against the open window blinds. All he knew for certain was that everything about the diner, the cops, and the town seemed wrong. A flush exploded in his face and quickly spread through the rest of his body. It was chased by a deep sense of dread. His mother would have recognized it as a hot flash, but Russell thought he was dying. Dying of what? he asked himself. Rabies? You and your grandiose drama. You’re not dying.
Then the feeling of silent suffocation was gone. The dread remained, however, as a sensation directed outwardly. No longer was Russell worried about himself. Now he was worried about the town. The world, too. The whole universe. Why he felt this way he didn’t know. But he felt it just the same, and he knew it to be true.
The shit’s hitting the fan, Rusty. And when it falls, you’re not going to want to be in the room. Get the hell out while you still can.
Russell shook his head, hard, ridding it of the thoughts that wanted to lengthen and grow and also of the lingering nausea that had hitched a ride during his mild panic attack. He grabbed his red, translucent glass and drank from it. Coca-Cola went down his gullet tepid and flat, yet restorative. He perked up in his seat with an abrupt feeling of alacrity and contentment (the spring dug into his left buttock). Whatever fugue he had slipped into, he was out of now. In fact, he could barely remember what had caused it.
Russell couldn’t recall the last time he had felt so good, so light in the chest, so ebullient. It was almost as if he had grown wings and staying earthbound was now just one option out of a score of thousands. No, millions. Billions.
"What’s so funny?" Pete asked, a wry smirk on his face. O’Brien turned away from the window to see what Pete was talking about.
With a near-genius and a near-idiot staring dutifully at him, waiting for an answer, Russell smiled and said, "I don’t know…really, I don’t." He then stood, reached in his left pocket for his keys, and nodded toward the door. "Come on, kids. Let’s go.