“Who’s we?” I asked. “How many you got in the parade?” I wondered just how many members of his group were at risk if something very bad should go down.
Lethbridge’s eyes rolled up into his head as he did some mental counting. “Okay, hang on,” he said. “Counting me, I guess there’s four.”
Lawrence eyes danced for a moment. “Four?”
Lethbridge was defensive. “Yeah. So? Okay, we’re not exactly San Francisco. What of it?”
“You’ve got four people?” Lawrence asked. “Is that even enough to hold a banner?”
“It’s only about fifteen feet wide. So yeah, four will hold it fine.”
Lawrence looked at me. “Four.” I shrugged. Lawrence continued, “So, if you’ve got four, what’s the breakdown? Gays to lesbians.”
Lethbridge cleared his throat. “There’s three gays, and one lesbian, but, well, my sister is representing the lesbian community, except she’s not, technically, a lesbian.”
Lawrence ran his hand over his face. “So, does this mean there are no lesbians in these here parts?”
“I’m sure there are, but it’s probably because of people like you, who are so contemptuous of the gay and lesbian community, that they don’t come forward.”
“Uh,” I said, not sure whether I was stepping out of line here, “it just so happens that Mr. Jones here is, well…”
Lawrence looked at me as if to say, “I can handle this, Zack, thank you very much.”
“You’re gay?” Stuart Lethbridge asked skeptically. “Are you going to be around tomorrow? Would you be interested in being part of the parade? I think we could find a spot for you.”
“I’ll have to pass.”
“Oh, I get it. When it comes to standing up for your rights, for supporting others in the community, you can’t be bothered.”
“Stuart,” Lawrence said, “it’s just possible you have an inflated sense of what will be accomplished by being in the Braynor fall fair parade. I mean, why do you even want to be in this parade? With school bands and cheerleaders and the 4-H Club? It’s very uncool. And for that matter, what are you doing running a comic book shop? I figured, at the very least, it would be a bed-and-breakfast place.”
“What’s wrong with a comics store?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s wrong with a comics store?”
“Whatever I do, I have a right to raise awareness about gay and lesbian issues,” Stuart said.
“Yeah, for all three of you,” Lawrence said, shaking his head. “Listen, Stuart, I’m sorry. Aside from me, is anyone else giving you a hard time about this? I notice someone’s been trying to redecorate the front of your store.”
“I’ve gotten egged so much, I’ve given up trying to get it off,” he said. “Plus there’s the petitions and the hate mail.”
“How about threatening phone calls? Death threats?”
“Well, I might be getting them, if the phone worked. I couldn’t pay the bill last month and they cut it off. The store hasn’t been doing that well, and I still got to get someone to run it tomorrow, when the parade’s on. Saturday’s the only busy day, when kids living out in the country come into town.”
Lawrence sighed and said, “Stuart, do you have any idea how much shit you’ve stirred up? And all to be in a parade no one with a dime’s worth of sense would want to see anyway?”
“There’s going to be racing lawn tractors,” I reminded him.
“Let’s go,” Lawrence said to me.
But before we left, there was something important I needed to know. “That Flash comic in the window. How much is that?”
While Stuart went to check, something under the tables that supported all the boxes of comics caught Lawrence’s attention. He bent over and dragged it out. “What is this?”
“Are you kidding?” Lethbridge said, like he couldn’t believe someone wouldn’t instantly know. “Those are Star Wars figures.”
“No shit? Like from all the different movies? Okay, you got a Lando Calrissian here? And a—Zack, what’s the other guy?”
I had to think for a moment. “Mace Windu.”
“Yeah, that guy.”
Lethbridge said, “They might be in there somewhere, but I don’t have the original boxes or anything. Some kid brought those in, traded them for some Alien figures.”
Lawrence started picking through the box, tossing aside several figures, including a weapon-wielding Boba Fett and a gold-colored C3PO. There were so many figures in the box, and they were all a mystery to Lawrence, who was quickly getting frustrated.
“I know I’m looking for a couple of brothers, but could I get some fucking help here?”
Lethbridge found him a used Lando, and a new Mace, still in the packaging, from the display case. “Twenty-five dollars,” he said.
Lawrence didn’t argue, handed over the cash.
“A gay nerd,” said Lawrence as we got back into the Jag. “Who’d of thunk it?”
26
DRIVING BACK TO BRAYNOR, Lawrence slipped a Miles Davis CD into the dash. He said, “When you fight for the right to do things that don’t matter, it diminishes your fight for the right to do things that do.”
“Okay,” I said.
“You think I shoulda bitch-slapped him?”
He’d tucked the plastic bag containing two Star Wars figures into the center console. I said, “A little something for Jeffrey.”
“I knew you were the guy to bring along. You figure out everything.”
“You haven’t said anything about him. Not even after what he said to you.”
“About inferior races,” Lawrence said, hunting for a track on the Davis CD.
“Yeah.”
“It’s not his fault. I guess you could argue it’s not his grandpa Timmy’s fault either. Maybe he was raised that way, too. But Timmy Wickens is older now, he’s had time to figure things out, and he’s got no excuse for being an ignorant, racist pinhead. But Jeffrey, he’s what again?”
“Ten.”
“Yeah, well, there still might be time to save him.”
“And his mother?”
“That’d be nice, too,” Lawrence said.
“You heard him talking about Timmy taking a belt to them, sending him to bed with no food.”
“I heard it.” Lawrence seemed to grip the wheel a little tighter. He turned up the volume a notch. “Listen to this.”
I listened to Miles for a while, then turned to Lawrence and asked, “How’s the thing?”
“The thing?”
I pointed to my own abdomen, in roughly about the same spot where Lawrence had been stabbed the year before. “Here. Where you got stabbed.”
Lawrence thought a moment. “Changes your outlook,” he said. I waited for him to elaborate, but instead, he skipped ahead to a different Miles Davis track. “Listen to this.”
I listened.
We were heading down the road into Denny’s Cabins, passing by the gate to the Wickenses, when Lawrence spotted Jeffrey. He was sitting on the top of the gate, one leg on each side, and bumping up and down, like he was pretending it was a horse.
Lawrence stopped the Jag, lowered the window.
“Hey,” Lawrence said. “Whatcha doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You got a sec?”
Jeffrey hopped down and approached the car, staying about ten feet away from the door. “Yeah?”
Lawrence tossed the bag from the comics store at him. “Found those. They’re yours.”
Jeffrey looked into the bag and his eyes went wide. He quickly had the two Star Wars figures in his hand, a broad smile on his face.
“This is great!” he said. “Where did you get these?”
“Comic store in Red Lake. One of them’s used, but I figured you wouldn’t care.”
“Wow!” He took a couple of steps closer to the car. “Thanks,” he said.
“No sweat,” said Lawrence, holding his foot on the brake.
Jeffrey gave him a cautious lo
ok. “I’ve been told to watch out for strangers with gifts.”
“That’s a good rule,” Lawrence said. “Sometimes, people give you stuff and want something in return. Sometimes things that are bad.”
Jeffrey nodded. “Why’d you get me these? You want something bad?”
“All I want is for you to make judgments for yourself, not let others make them for you. You understand?”
Jeffrey took a moment. “Maybe.”
“Good enough,” Lawrence said. “We gotta go.” The window went back up and he shifted his foot to the gas. As we came round the bend and the cabins came into view, I saw Lana’s car parked next to Dad’s truck.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“What?” Lawrence didn’t know the car. I told him whose it was.
“Maybe she’s just visiting,” I said, “and Dad hasn’t told her what happened. Or maybe they’re just getting their stories straight, before I walk in.” I paused. “I guess I kind of precipitated a crisis.”
“Hard to believe, you doing something like that,” Lawrence said. He parked the Jag by my Virtue out back of cabin 3. As he was getting out, he noticed the late Leonard Colebert’s backpack in the back seat, and grabbed it.
“Your dad wants this to give back to that guy’s family when they get here.”
Lawrence popped the trunk and grabbed his overnight bag. “Where am I staying?”
“You’re bunking in with me,” I said. I had the screen door open for Lawrence when I saw Lana Gantry pop her head out of cabin 1.
“Hey, Zack,” she said. “Got a minute?”
“I’ll be back,” I whispered to Lawrence. I reached for Colebert’s backpack. “I’ll drop that off for you, too.” As I walked over, I said, all innocent, “How are you, Lana?”
“Your dad and I wondered if you’d have a moment, in a little bit, to talk about some things.”
“Sure, that would be great.” My mouth felt dry again. “When were you thinking?”
“We’re just waiting till Orville gets here.”
“Oh,” I said. “Great.”
“I just got off the phone with him. He figures half an hour, maybe an hour, before he can get here.”
Super, I thought. A big family get-together.
“Okay,” I said. I handed the backpack to her. “Could you give this to Dad? It was Leonard Colebert’s. I think Dad’s arranging for Leonard’s family to come up here and get his things.”
“Yeah, they’ve been in touch. I think they’re coming up tomorrow afternoon.”
I nodded, smiled, backed away and returned to cabin 3. Lawrence had found his bed and was taking out some shirts from his bag, carefully refolding them, smoothing the creases, and slipping them into the empty dresser.
“Nothing like roughing it,” I said.
“What’s up?”
“Cards-on-the-table time, I think.”
“Better you than me. If my dad knocked up anybody other than my mom, I never knew about it, and don’t figure I ever will now. Which is just fine.”
“Thanks, Lawrence. That’s just—”
There was a bang at the door. I stepped out of the bedroom and saw, through the screen, that the neighbors had come to visit.
Wendell and Dougie.
Wendell said, “Where’s the colored guy?”
I pushed open the screen. “Hi, fellas,” I said. “Can I help you with something?”
Wendell said, “I just told you, we want to see the colored guy. The one who gave Jeffrey those toys.”
Lawrence emerged from the bedroom and came up alongside me at the door. “Are these gentlemen the neighbors you’ve been telling me about, Zack?”
“Yeah,” I said, easing the door open farther so the two of us could step outside. “This is Dougie, and this here is Wendell.”
Lawrence nodded, but did not offer a hand. “My name is Lawrence Jones,” he said.
“Yeah, well,” said Dougie, “don’t be giving no stuff to Jeffrey.”
Coming down the lane were Jeffrey, running, and trailing behind, his mother, May. She looked stricken.
“It was a couple of Star Wars figures,” Lawrence said. “Jeffrey had mentioned he was looking for those ones, and I found them in a comics store. Just thought he might like them. No obligation. And no disrespect intended.”
Jeffrey, barely out of breath even though he’d run the whole way, said, “Come on, guys, let me keep them.”
Wendell said, “Jeffrey, you know what your grandpa said. You’re not having those things.”
Jeffrey’s eyes were red, and it was clear he’d been crying. “What does it matter?”
But now Wendell was talking to Lawrence, and had taken a step closer to him. “We don’t like strangers interfering. You understand?”
“I’m getting the picture.”
“Everybody here lately is interfering in our affairs. So just butt the fuck out,” Wendell said. “Dougie, give the man back his little toys.”
Dougie frowned. “Shit. I forgot them. I thought you were bringing them.”
“They were right on the kitchen table, you dumb-ass,” Wendell said.
“I’m sorry, I just thought you had them.”
Now that he knew the toys were still back in the house, Jeffrey looked like he was getting ready to turn and sprint back toward the farmhouse before Wendell and Dougie could get there.
“Don’t you be hiding those things, you little fucker,” Wendell told Jeffrey.
“Don’t call him that,” Lawrence said.
“Huh?” Wendell looked stunned.
“Don’t call Jeffrey names like that. He deserves as much respect as either one of you fellows.” Lawrence paused. “Probably more.”
Jeffrey watched.
Wendell started to laugh. “You hear that, Dougie? Now he’s telling us what we can and cannot call members of our own family?”
May had arrived. She looked at me first, shook her head in frustration. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Leave these people alone,” she told the two young men. She placed her hands on her son’s shoulders. “You go back to the house,” she said.
He twisted away. “In a minute,” he said.
“We’re kind of in the middle of something here, May,” Dougie said, grinning.
“Yeah,” said Wendell. “This boy here,” and he tapped Lawrence’s chest with his index finger, “is giving us a bit of atti—”
Lawrence’s arm came up and he took hold of Wendell’s finger, and in a move that Lawrence made look effortless, had Wendell twisting backwards and sideways, and then heading straight to the ground.
“Owwww!” Wendell said. “Jesus! You’re breaking my fucking finger!”
Dougie stood, openmouthed, watching the attack on his brother unfold. May took a step back, but Jeffrey stood transfixed.
In a second, Wendell was flat on his back, wailing about his finger, and then Lawrence had his foot on the man’s neck.
“Apologize to the boy,” Lawrence said. He wasn’t even winded. I, however, was breathing rapidly.
Wendell coughed, tried to catch his breath.
“I asked you to do something,” Lawrence said.
“Get your foot off my neck, man! Jesus, Dougie, do something!”
Dougie rushed Lawrence. The detective took his foot off Wendell’s neck long enough to use Dougie’s forward momentum against him, stepping into his stride and tossing him over his hip. Dougie hit the ground with a thud, and as Wendell turned his head to see where he’d landed, he found Lawrence’s foot bearing down on his neck again.
Lawrence increased the pressure on Wendell’s neck, ever so slightly. “Apologize to the boy.”
Wendell coughed. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey.”
The boy turned and ran.
Dougie was struggling to his feet, dusting himself off. Lawrence took his foot off Wendell and stepped back. Wendell sat up, rubbed his neck with his hand, and slowly got to his feet.
“Get lost,” Lawrence said.
They both
turned and started shuffling back toward their farmhouse. May looked at us, shocked, but for a second, I thought I saw her dead eyes sparkle.
“I’m sorry about them,” she said. To Lawrence, she said, “Thank you for standing up for my son.” She turned and started back to the farmhouse.
“Well,” I said. “That was just great. Be interesting to see Timmy’s reaction. I’m guessing we’ve got about an hour left to live.”
27
LAWRENCE PATTED ME on the shoulder. “Everything’ll be fine,” he said. “You worry too much about things.”
“Oh,” I said. “You noticed. You think those bozos aren’t going to run right back and tell their step-daddy what happened? You think there won’t be some fallout from that?”
Another pat. “Maybe. Maybe not. And if there is, maybe that’ll be a good thing. It’s like shaking the trees.”
I was less sure. I was okay with doing things to the Wickenses that they didn’t find out about, but beating the snot out of two of them, that was kind of out in the open.
Lana popped her head out of cabin 1 again. “Zack? You wanna come over? Orville just called and said he’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Lawrence said quietly, “You go have fun. It’s still a few hours till it’s dark, can’t start watching the Wickens place till then anyway.”
So I went over to Dad’s cabin, Lana Gantry still holding the door open for me, and stepped inside. Dad was at the kitchen table, Leonard’s backpack in front of him.
“Guess I owe you an apology,” he said.
Well, I thought, at least we’re getting off on the right foot.
He held up one of the cans of bear spray we’d bought in town back on Tuesday. “I’d offered one of these to Leonard and figured he hadn’t taken it, but it was right here in his backpack. You know how I blamed you, said he’d left himself undefended because you’d convinced him there was no need to take this along?”
Slowly, I said, “Yeah.”
“Well, turns out he had it after all, tucked in here. Musta never had a chance to get it out when he got surprised by that bear.”
“I guess,” I said. “Can I have that?” I was thinking ahead, to the hours I would be spending sitting in the woods at night with Lawrence. A can of bear spray might be handy to have along.