That’s all, just done.
I tried to get my bearings. “Huh?”
“I knocked him around. Now I’m going to bed.”
I nodded, and then I slept some more, and the next thing I knew, it was morning. I tiptoed past Christian’s room and into the kitchen. Aunt Tildy wasn’t there. She’d left a note saying she’d gone to a prayer shawl gathering, which was where ladies got together and made shawls for people who were grieving. Whatever.
Quietly, I got a Coke, took it outside, and popped the top. I chugged it down despite my queasy stomach, knowing I’d need the buzz of energy when I confronted Tommy. For him to leave that note meant he was running scared. I was an expert in that, so I knew. I also knew that running did no good. It was time I faced my fear square on.
The articles I’d read taught me that the manner in which Patrick was attacked was called ethnic intimidation, and when a case involved ethnic intimidation, the stakes went way up. Just using words like fag or homo could get a person up to three years in prison. Add in assault, and add to that an attempted break-in at the hospital, and Tommy was in doo-doo so deep that even his daddy’s money wouldn’t be able wash him clean.
Tommy was nineteen, half a year older than my brother. If the case went to court, he’d be tried as an adult. So I’d tell him he had two choices: Either turn himself in to Sheriff Doyle, or I’d do it for him. And yes, it had to be me. Not Christian, not Sheriff Doyle or Deputy Doyle.
When Daddy was no more than Robert’s age, rats used to come sniffing into his cramped bedroom. Daddy told me and Christian how he would wait in the night with a flashlight in his left hand and a gun in his right, a Spanish pistol bought cheap at a military surplus store. When he heard the scribbling of claws, he’d quick turn on the flashlight, blinding the buggers, so he could pick off as many as he could before they scurried back to their hidey-holes.
They didn’t always flee. Not all of them. Sometimes they’d face Daddy and hiss. They’d lash their tales and show their needle teeth, and once Daddy was so startled, he dropped the flashlight, casting the room into darkness. One rat—big as a man’s arm, Daddy said—came right at him, and Daddy shot it point-blank.
“It was the King Rat, see,” Daddy said. “Crazy and dangerous as heck. And listen up to your daddy, kids. The only way to stop a King Rat is to get it before it gets you.”
Daddy’s mama, my dead granny Mae, cooked up that King Rat and served it as stew, because as Daddy said, “Why waste good meat?”
The rat I was after wasn’t worth eating. I’d gag if I tried. Yet I kept Daddy’s advice in mind, and before I biked over to Tommy’s house, I hunted through the garage until I found Daddy’s Spanish pistol. I stuck it in the back of my shorts for easy access.
I hoped I wouldn’t need it, especially knowing that I’d be catching Tommy when he’d already been worked over. Done, Christian had said. I reckoned I’d find him sniveling and licking his wounds.
But like Daddy said, a trapped rat was gonna fight. This time, if it came to it, I was going to fight back.
I WAS SWEATY WHEN I ARRIVED AT TOMMY’S HOUSE. I didn’t care. I saw his yellow Beemer parked out front. I didn’t care. I was so hot with fear and fury that I strode right to his fancy front door and lifted my finger to jab the bell.
He answered before I got the chance. He was holding an ice pack to his left eye. Behind him, in the living room, Bailee-Ann sat on the sofa. She had no makeup on, and she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, an outfit as simple as mine. Had Tommy called her after my brother’s late night visit? Had she rushed right over to comfort him, throwing on any old thing?
“I didn’t do it,” Tommy said. He looked exhausted. “Dammit, Cat, I already told your brother. I didn’t leave no note on your bed, all right?”
“It’s true, he didn’t,” Bailee-Ann piped up. She pressed her legs together, each of her hands cupping a knee. “Was there really a tongue on top of it? Eww, Cat. That’s so nasty.”
“It was a cow tongue,” I said, looking from Bailee-Ann to Tommy and back again. “Like from a dead cow? One that’s been to the butcher and back? You know all about that, right?”
Bailee-Ann shuddered. “I hate dead meat. I just hate it.”
Tommy gestured for me to come on in, so I did. I slipped off my backpack and perched on an overstuffed armchair across from the sofa. Daddy’s pistol, tucked into the back of my cutoffs, pressed against my spine.
Tommy sat down beside Bailee-Ann, who let go of her own knee and patted his. He found her hand and squeezed it. With his other hand, he lowered the ice pack, revealing a puffy eye with a rising bruise.
“Christian do that?” I said.
“No, it was Bailee-Ann,” he said sourly.
“Was not!” Bailee-Ann protested, and he shot her a wry smile, which then made him wince.
“Ow,” he said.
This was not how I’d expected things to play out. I narrowed my eyes, determined not to be disarmed by their helpless, lovey-dovey act.
“Yesterday, when I was at your house, I was there to see your brother,” Tommy told me.
“Oh, is that so? Then why’d you call out for me to come back instead of bike over to see Ridings, huh?” I looked at him hard. “Seems to me that when I didn’t jump at your command, you decided to leave your message another way.”
“You went to see . . . ?” He broke off. “Cat, I didn’t put that tongue on your pillow. You gotta believe me.”
“I don’t gotta do anything,” I said. I heard the words come out of my mouth, and I was amazed. I was talking to Tommy—I was confronting him—and I had yet to go up in smoke.
“You were at my house. You knew I was learning stuff you’d rather I didn’t, and then surprise, surprise, I came home to find a nice little present just waiting for me.”
He looked worn down. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?”
“If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you?”
“Well, no, I don’t, ’Cause from what I hear, you’re awfully good at keeping secrets.” I eyed Bailee-Ann. “And that goes for you, too, Bailee-Ann.”
She blushed.
But back to Tommy. “Beef told the cops you were home by one thirty the night Patrick was beat up, but you weren’t, were you?”
“Actually, I was.”
“No, and that’s how I know you’re lying, ’cause Robert told me—“
“I was home by one thirty,” he interrupted. “But Dupree crashed, so I went back out.”
“To Bailee-Ann’s house,” I said. “Who just happens to be Beef’s girlfriend.”
Tommy sighed. He looked at Bailee-Ann, who said, “It’s okay. It’s already out anyway.”
Tommy opened his mouth, then closed it. He focused on the floor. I stared at him, growing more and more impatient, until I had the dizzying realization that he was afraid to look at me. I myself wasn’t afraid. I’d expected to have to fake it, but I truly wasn’t scared to stand up to him anymore.
“Words,” I said. “Use words, Tommy, ’cause I don’t have all day. How long you think I’m planning on being here?”
He lifted his head. His eyes met mine, and I held his gaze. I could feel the heat of my blood.
“I went to Bailee-Ann’s house,” he said. “I picked her up, and we . . . spent some time together. Then I took her back before her daddy woke up, so she wouldn’t get in trouble.”
I turned to Bailee-Ann. “That true?”
“Yeah,” she confessed. “When you asked, I didn’t tell you, because . . .”
“Because we need to tell Beef ourselves,” Tommy said. “We don’t want him hearing it from someone else.”
“We feel real bad,” Bailee-Ann said.
Listening to the two of them was like eavesdropping on a couple of newlyweds, the way they finished each other’s thoughts and played off each other. Bailee-Ann patted Tommy’s leg, and he reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. He was tender about it. It filled me with
rage.
“You should feel bad,” I told Bailee-Ann. “You’re cheating on your boyfriend.”
To Tommy, I said, “And you’re breaking the bro code or whatever. But that’s what you like, isn’t it? Going after what’s not allowed? Doing whatever you dang please, and who cares how the other person feels about it?”
He glanced toward the entrance hall, which connected to the staircase. “Cat, my mama’s upstairs. Could you maybe be a little quieter?”
I raised my voice. “Why? You don’t want your mama to know what you’re really made of?” I sounded shrill, like Aunt Tildy when she tried to call Christian back last night. Hearing myself made me tremble all the more. “Does Bailee-Ann know? Does she know how you went after me all those years ago, when I was just thirteen?!”
My words hit the air, and hung there, and then slowly faded away, like a church bell that’s been rung way up high in the bell tower. It was silent except for my breathing, which was quick and shallow and made it sound like I was panting, which I guess I was. Tears pricked my eyes. I lifted my chin and blinked them back in.
“Um . . .” Bailee-Ann said. She bit her bottom lip and glanced at Tommy.
Tommy nodded wearily.
“I do know,” Bailee-Ann said. Her words were round with compassion, but I didn’t want her compassion. I stared straight ahead of me. I thought about rats and staying alert.
“Tommy and me talk about everything,” Bailee-Ann went on. “And we both are sinners. We know that.” She got up off the sofa and crossed the room to me, kneeling at my feet. “We pray about it, and we lift our sins up to Jesus. We try to do better.”
“You’re not trying very hard if you’re sneaking out and spending nights together,” I said. “Knitting hats for little babies isn’t going to erase that.”
“Well, you’re right,” she said heavily. “You’re right about that.”
“Get up off the floor, Bailee-Ann,” I said. “For heaven’s sake.”
She did, only to scrunch onto the armchair beside me. Her skin was warm. “Tommy?” she prompted. “Don’t you have something you want to say to Cat?”
Good Lord, the last thing I wanted was an apology from Tommy. At least I didn’t think I did. Did I?
My eyes darted toward his, and I saw that he was just as uncomfortable as I was. Good, I thought.
“I, um . . . yeah,” Tommy said. He ducked his head. “I’m sorry for treating you like that, and I shoulda told you before. And your brother was right to blow up my motorcycle. I deserved it.”
I couldn’t absorb this, Tommy’s regret. Daddy’s pistol was digging into my spine, so I pulled it out and held it in my lap.
“You got a gun?” Bailee-Ann said. “What you got a gun for?”
“Aw, hell,” Tommy said. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you?”
“You shot Ridings’s cow,” I said numbly.
Tommy stared at me as if I was a mad dog that might bite at any moment. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
“You shot his cow and somehow persuaded him it was lightning,” I said stubbornly. “That is low, Tommy Lawson, shooting a man’s cow and not even owning up to it.”
“I did own up to it!” he said, agitated. He glanced at the gun and lowered his voice. “Maybe not to the whole world, but me and Ridings, we worked things out.”
“That’s not how Ridings sees it. Why didn’t you give him money for a new cow?”
“He did,” Bailee-Ann said. “He paid to have Rosie butchered—it was heartbreaking, I know—and he gave Ridings money for a new cow. But Ridings spent all the money without even knowing it. It went to Wally, that’s my guess.”
I frowned, because as guesses went, hers was a decent one. I didn’t like that version of the story, however. I lifted my chin, waiting for more.
“They were out in the woods, Tommy and Beef and Dupree,” Bailee-Ann said. “They were high.” Her tone grew disapproving. “Dupree had scored some crystal, and they were lit out of their minds.”
“Shut up,” Tommy grumbled. “And I wasn’t aiming for Ridings’s cow. I was aiming for the bell around her damn neck.”
“Of course you were,” I said.
“He was showing off is what he was doing,” Bailee-Ann scolded. “Bragged about how he could hit any dang thing, any dang thing at all, so Dupree said, ‘Prove it. Ring old Rosie’s bell.’”
“But you missed,” I said to Tommy.
“Yes. I missed.” He stared at his hands, which were splayed on his thighs. “I got her in the lungs.”
I grimaced, knowing how bad it would have been. I’d been around cows and horses in pain, and I could see it in my mind: Rosie on her side, bellowing and rolling her white-walled eyes, blood foaming out of her mouth.
“Tommy put her out of her misery,” Bailee-Ann said. “He did it even though he was high, and something like that can mess with you big-time.”
“I had to climb through a barbed wire fence to get to her. My shirt got caught, so I left it behind,” Tommy said. “Smart, huh?”
“It was his football training jersey,” Bailee-Ann said, as if I kept track of Tommy’s wardrobe. “It was real nice, with his name on it and everything.”
“How tragic,” I said.
“I would have fessed up, regardless,” Tommy said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And I gave Ridings seven hundred dollars. I had to borrow part from Roy—“
“You had to borrow from Roy?” I said.
“But I paid him back.” His Adam’s apple jerked. “I suggested to Ridings that it would be better if he didn’t mention it. I’d, uh, appreciate it if you did the same.”
I said neither yes nor no to that request. I felt off balance. I’d waited a long time to have it out with Tommy, and now, when I finally was, the conversation kept going down paths I never saw coming. They all led to Tommy being sorry, and his regret threatened everything I’d built the last three years of my life on.
Bailee-Ann put her hand on my upper back, and when I didn’t resist, she rubbed small circles between my shoulder blades.
“There is nothing okay about what he did to you,” she said. She didn’t glance at Tommy or use his name. This was between the two of us as girls, and also because we used to be best friends. “But a long time’s passed since then.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I’m not that guy.”
“Like hell, you aren’t!” I cried, my anger flaming up again.
“No. You’re misunderstanding. I was that guy, but . . .” His hands didn’t know what to do. They fluttered up and then down, an almost feminine gesture. “I don’t want to be that guy. I didn’t want to even when I was. And I’m not anymore. That’s what I’m saying.” His hands fell to his lap. “I sure do wish you’d believe me.”
I scowled. I could resist it all I wanted, but I did understand what he trying to explain. How sometimes the pieces of who you thought you were didn’t add up to who you really were, like with me not standing up for Patrick when he wore those pants. Like Jason calling me such a hateful name at the library, when in reality he was as sweet as sunshine.
It hurt to realize that Tommy was human and not a total monster after all. It hurt so much that my hands clenched, and I realized, with shock, that I was squeezing the trigger of Daddy’s pistol. It didn’t budge. It was rusted in place. It was useless.
Bailee-Ann was still rubbing my back, like the way I rubbed ointment into my daddy’s cracked feet. I twitched my shoulder to shake her off me. I studied Tommy’s face, noticing that the bruise around his eye had darkened since I’d arrived.
“You are nothing but an egg-sucking dog,” I told him. “You tormented Patrick all through high school. You stole his pants, for God’s sake, and left him practically naked in the bathroom. Why?”
Tommy didn’t have the guts to answer.
“That was a long time ago, too,” Bailee-Ann said.
“Not long enough,” I said.
Candypants is having his coming-o
ut party, so step on up and take a look, Tommy had said. He don’t mind. Fags like being looked at, don’t they, Patrick? And I’ll be damned—here’s his girlfriend, right here in the flesh! Get on over here, Cat.”
I’d frozen in the hall. Tommy said, Whassat? No? Awww, she’s shy. Then the final nail in the coffin: Hey. Cat. Catch. You ain’t gonna get in his pants any other way.
In Tommy’s living room, I breathed hard. Tears pressed to get out, but no and no and no.
I faced Tommy dead on and finally just came out with it. “Did you attack Patrick at the Come ‘n’ Go? Are you the one who did it?”
“No,” he said. His face was red, but he answered my question as straightforwardly as I’d asked it.
“Do you know who did?”
His eyes flicked to Bailee-Ann. I tried to catch what passed between them, but too quickly, he brought his focus back to me.
“I don’t,” he said.
“We care, too, you know,” Bailee-Ann said. She gestured at the coffee table, and I glanced down to see today’s newspaper open to an article on page three titled, “NCBI Explores Leads in Local Hate Crime Investigation.”
Patrick wasn’t even front page material anymore.
Disgusted, I stood up, dislodging Bailee-Ann.
She righted herself and asked, “Are you leaving?”
“Yep,” I said. I tossed Daddy’s Spanish pistol on the Lawsons’ coffee table, and it made a fairly satisfying thunk that I hoped woke up his mama.
“You’re not taking that?” Tommy said.
“Nope.”
“But . . . why?” Bailee-Ann said.
“Because it’s good for nothing,” I said, keeping my eyes on Tommy. “Because one worthless piece of shit deserves another.”
I strode out of the house, ignoring Bailee-Ann’s cries of “But where are you going? What are you going to do?”
I biked for a half mile or so and pulled off the road, just to think a little.
My encounter with Tommy had sucked me dry.
Maybe a person—like me—could tell myself I was fine on my own. Maybe I could even believe it, for a while. But it was like building a wall of ice around myself. I looked out at the world through all that frozen water, and everything appeared pretty much the same, with only a few wavy spots here and there. Air bubbles, I told myself. No big deal.