I picked up the sack and opened it. Four small boxes, each with one of each of our names on it, lay in the bottom. Each box contained a small gold band with STOTAN lettered across the face and each of our names engraved on the inside. Each was a perfect fit.
CHAPTER 8
January 2
After Stotan Week the vacation went like a flash. They emptied the pool to make some minor repairs, so there were no water workouts, and we had to find other ways to stay in shape. We substituted working out at the local Nautilus and running long distances through the miserable December weather. That, plus the backlog we built up during Stotan Week, left us in pretty good shape to start the season, I think.
After we got our Stotan rings, we drove over to Savage House Pizza to celebrate and talk about what heroes we were. Things seemed in place for all of us. I was settled with my dilemma about Devnee and Elaine, having decided to take the bull by the horns and do nothing; Nortie’s mind was a million miles from the daycare center; Lion was as high as I’ve seen him; and Jeff was even higher, because Colleen was due in from Stanford on a 6:00 flight. We called Elaine to come over and join us and I remember we spent most of the time talking about Max and what a smart motor scooter he must be to have made this work. Elaine is convinced he’s a human being of a higher order than the rest of us—that he’s here for a reason. That’s a part of Elaine I don’t understand very well. She believes in former lives and lives to come and karma and that things happen for reasons—that there’s a spiritual reality, a cosmic order that exists right under our noses if we’ll just look at it. And she thinks Max’s soul has been in the universe longer than most. I’m thinking of telling her I believe all those things too so she’ll have one more reason to think I’m the budding guru of her dreams, but if I did, I’d be lying. I don’t necessarily not believe it; it just doesn’t affect me much one way or the other. I figure I’m here now, in this body, in this set of circumstances, and I’ve got my hands full dealing with things I can see and touch and smell and feel. I have to admit, though, there really does seem to be something mystical about the way things turn out when Max has a hand in them.
Nortie showed a visible letdown when we split up, knowing he had to go back home to be with his mom and dad. I had a feeling he’d pay for being away. Lion came right out and offered to let Nortie live with him, but the vision of finishing out the year in a condemned apartment above a bar with a guy whose best and only housecleaning tool is a chisel steered Nortie back in the direction of home.
We knew we’d see each other plenty of times over the vacation, beginning with the Christmas dance that night at the Sheraton Ballroom, but we lingered a few minutes saying goodbye in the parking lot outside the Savage House, feeling the importance of this event.
I got home and called Devnee to be sure she knew what time I was picking her up and she sounded real excited and warm and I was glad I hadn’t gone ahead and ended things. Besides, she makes me look like such a star, she’s so pretty.
I was upstairs when Mom got home late in the afternoon from her bridge club, followed shortly by Dad from his Friday-afternoon poker game. They called me downstairs and asked if I’d had a good time at Stotan Week. I searched their faces and they looked to be sincere, and I decided not even to try. I said yes, I’d had a good time at Stotan Week. There was a time I tried to include my mom and dad in my life and got real frustrated because I didn’t think they could understand what I was about. Now I know they can’t understand what I’m about and I accept that and I don’t get frustrated. They’re more like sweet grandparents who are glad I don’t get into a lot of trouble. I think as I get older I’m better able to respect where they’ve been, and their need to protect the comfort and calmness they have in their lives now. When I was a freshman on the Montana road trip, I got to bitching about them being old and uninvolved, and wondering out loud whether they ever touched each other or got “frisky,” as they say on Happy Days, and Max said an interesting thing. He said part of the reason there’s a “generation gap” is there’s so much more information available to us than there was to our parents—and that will be true for our kids too. Max said he thinks we all do the best we can in our time with what we have, and that kids would be a lot more at peace with adults if they could understand that. When I look back at Mom and Dad through that light, it allows me to respect them more and need less. That’s what killed Long John’s relationship with them; Dad was a World War II bomber pilot and Long John was a Viet Nam War hippie-dippie glue-sniffing draft-evader, and there wasn’t the chance of the lead lemming on a high cliff that either would ever see where the other was coming from. They solved it by simply dissolving the father-son relationship. Simple as that. I don’t want that to happen with me. Besides, there are worse things than living with nice old people who let you do anything you want.
Mom and Dad offered me my choice of their cars for the dance to class up my act a little and I accepted Dad’s RX-7, which allowed me to offer my car to Lion in case his date didn’t have a mountain tent to keep her warm in his open-air Jeepster. Lion was indignant. “They take me for what I am,” he said, assuming a Napoleonic pose and sucking in his cheeks.
“I guess that’s better than taking you for what you’ve got,” I said, and told him if he changed his mind, I’d leave it parked in the driveway with the keys in it.
The dance was great. I took Devnee to the roof of the Ridpath Hotel for dinner; it has a real nice view of the city and is formal and grown-up and treats you like you are too. I don’t know whether or not it’s the best food in town, but that didn’t matter because I’d been eating peanut-butter and scrambled-egg sandwiches all week and my taste buds were decimated.
Devnee looked good. She wore this kind of simple white short formal with a medium-low-cut V-neck that had me craning my neck every time she wasn’t looking. Boy, I wish all a girl had to be was pretty, because I’d never consider anyone but her if that were true. We had a nice talk about nothing in particular and showed up at the dance early so we could watch everyone else come in.
Jeff and Colleen came about a half-hour later and that was a show-stopper. Something about being in real civilization down at Stanford hadn’t hurt Colleen a bit. She just flat looked classy, and about ten years older than any of us except Jeff, who was decked out in his Marine Corps dress blues with the high collar and bright red stripe down the side of the pants. I was almost afraid to approach them; they looked like the King and Queen of Spokane.
And then Serbousek. You had to be somewhere near the door or outside to really appreciate Lion’s entrance. And you’d also need to know a little more about his Jeepster. This thing was new back in the fifties and was kept in immaculate condition by his dad right up until he died. Lion still keeps it in great running condition, but he’s altered its appearance considerably. Two years ago, in his World War II surrealistic period, Lion turned his Jeepster into a German WWI fighter plane. It’s bright red with an Iron Cross on each door, and he has what appears to be a machine gun mounted on a tripod just behind the seat. There is also a winch on the front, should he nose-dive into any ditches. Anyway, when the Jeepster is in full dress, with the machine gun mounted and all, like on the night of the Christmas dance, Lion wears this hideous old floor-length fur coat and cloth WWI pilot’s helmet, complete with goggles and a long scarf around his neck that whips along behind him in the wind.
He pulled up in front of the Sheraton, leaped over the door, danced around the Jeepster to take his date’s hand—Marley Sharp is her name—and brought her to the ground as if he were helping her out of a stagecoach. He kissed the back of her hand lightly, then led her just inside the door, asked her to wait right there, my dear, and strode back to his craft. He waved to the crowd, flipped the scarf once around his neck and taxied down the runway toward the parking lot. In seconds he was back, minus the coat and helmet, looking spiffy as they come in a burgundy tux with a full-ruffled front and cuffs. As always, the crowd cheered.
Insi
de, Lion and Marley joined Jeff and Colleen and Devnee and me at our table, at which time I subjected his outrageous formal wear to somewhat closer scrutiny.
“Lemme see your socks,” I said.
Lion smiled. He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a near-perfect match to the dark burgundy pants.
“Couldn’t get it exact, huh?” I said.
Marley looked confused. “Don’t socks come with the tux, Lion?”
Come to light another of Lion’s barbaric customs. Lion has been at war with society about socks since I can remember. He doesn’t wear them; says his feet can’t breathe. “Feet that smell like yours don’t need to breathe,” Jeff says, but Lion is unmovable on the subject of socks. Lion’s socks at the Christmas dance were made by the same company from whom he buys the rest of his oil paints. As I would have expected, even though I didn’t know her, Marley thought that was great. You don’t go out with Lion unless you have at least a minimal taste for the outrageous.
The band was perfect. They played hard-core rock and roll and took short breaks, and we worked out. At the end of the second set I spotted Nortie over by the door, dressed in a sports coat and tie, with Milika holding his arm, with both hands, anxiously looking around. I figured they must be looking for us, and I waved. He didn’t see me at first, so I yelled. Milika moved toward us, sort of dragging Nortie a couple of steps behind. As they got closer, I could see that one side of Nortie’s face was puffy and red and his eye was swollen almost shut. One hand absently held his ribs, but he seemed to be feeling no pain. In fact, he seemed gone. Devnee and I met them at our table; the others were circulating. They sat down and Nortie sort of smiled and nodded, the left side of his smile drooping beneath the weight of the damage. Milika’s eyes were red and her face was streaked with tears.
“Your dad?” I said, and Nortie just looked at me.
“His dad found out about us,” Milika said. “Marty O’Brian called and told him. Nortie called me from a telephone booth a few hours ago and asked me to come pick him up. I found him wandering around about a block from the booth. Something’s wrong with him, Walker.”
Nortie just looked over at Milika, then back at me. He smiled his creepy smile again and said, “Nothing’s wrong,” and sort of drifted away.
Lion and Jeff came back and sat down—in the first instant, real glad to see Nort, then shocked, and pissed. Nortie responded to them the same way he did to me. I thought maybe he had a concussion, but Lion took one look and said, “Nortie, what are you on?”
Nortie looked back and smiled. He shook his head slowly and laughed. “I’m not on anything,” he said, and his words trailed off with his eyes.
Lion walked around the table and squatted in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders. Nortie flinched a little, but smiled again and said, “You can go ahead and hit me. Nothing hurts.”
Lion shook him. “Nortie, what are you on?”
Nortie shrugged again and said he didn’t know.
Milika took his arm and turned his head toward her.
“Come on, baby,” she said. “Tell Lion what you took.”
Nortie shook his head again. “I don’t know,” he said. “He didn’t tell me.”
I said, “Who didn’t tell you?”
“Long John,” he said. “Your brother, Walk. Isn’t Long John your brother? He gave it to me. He said it would make me not hurt.” He nodded his head and his eyes drooped. “He was right. He was right. I don’t hurt.”
I flipped Devnee my keys and said, “You guys get him up to Sacred Heart Emergency. We’ll go find out what he took. If any of the chaperones give you trouble, tell them you think he hurt his head. Don’t say anything about drugs.”
We were halfway to the Rooster in Lion’s Jeepster when I realized I’d forgotten my coat and would probably arrive there in need of medical treatment for hypothermia. Lion reached under his seat and handed me an old Army blanket, but I waved it off. Never mind what I thought may be living in there, I wanted to be cold and miserable and pissed when I saw my brother. I’ve always kept the seedier part of his life as far away from me as I could, and, to be honest, never really think about it, but if my brother’s going to start peddling drugs to my friends, I’m going to kick his butt.
Jeff was in the back seat with the make-believe machine gun, and his was the voice of reason. “What are you figuring to do when we get there, Walk?”
“Find out what my brother gave Nortie, then rip his head off.”
Jeff said, “Bad plan. The Rooster’s a biker bar.”
“I pull my brother out of there all the time,” I said. “We’ll be okay.”
“You pull your brother out of there because they let you pull your brother out of there,” he said. “If you want to help Nortie out, just find out what he took and we’ll get out of there.”
We pulled up in front of the Rooster and were out of the Jeepster almost before it stopped. There was a good-sized crowd and when we walked through the door in our fancy duds the whole place turned to look. For a split second I pictured leaving naked. Jeff was right, and I could see it, looking at their faces: these guys aren’t to be messed with. All the karate moves in the world won’t make up for how mean they can be. The bartender was a new guy and he came around the bar to meet us near the door. I caught a glimpse of Long John sitting in a booth over by the pool table with some guy who looked like he could eat a medium-sized shopping mall.
The bartender said, “I’ll need to see some ID, guys,” then looked us over. “Even if you have it, this might not be the place you’re looking for.”
“No ID,” I said. “I’m John Dupree’s brother. I need to talk to him for a minute. It’s an emergency.”
The bartender said he didn’t know him, and I pointed him out. Long John hadn’t seen us yet; he was lost in negotiations. “Could you just tell him I need to see him for a second?” I said. “We’ll stay right here.”
The two guys playing pool at the nearest table stopped and leaned on their cues, watching us. Lion and Jeff stood just behind me, trying not to give off anything that would heat the place up at all. With Lion decked out in his fur coat, they looked like a Marine and a bear. I wondered how bikers take to warriors and furry animals. Before the bartender could get Long John, one of the bikers nearest his booth elbowed him in the shoulder and pointed to us. Long John excused himself and came over. He moved through the crowd with that sort of laid-back saunter of his and that stupid grin he gets when he’s high, and I wanted to break his neck.
“Nice threads,” he said, and ran his fingers inside the lapel of my tux. “What’re you doin’ here? You guys didn’t decide to have your prom at the old Rooster, did you?” He laughed at the idea, and a little spittle ran down his chin.
I said, “What did you give Nortie?”
“Your little swimmer friend?” he asked. “Jesus, his daddy’s a mean one. You see that little bugger’s face?”
“Yeah, I saw his face,” I said. “What did you give him?”
“Can’t remember for sure,” Long John said. “Something for pain.”
I started to grab him, but Jeff’s hand came down on my arm. The guys at the pool table leaned their cues against the wall and moved over toward us. Jeff told Lion to go out and start the Jeepster. For the first time I realized how far in over our heads we really were and I calmed right down, but a little late. The pool-players and the guy in Long John’s booth moved in, all three of them huge, with bushy beards, and chains hanging from their belts, and arms as big as my neck. The guy from Long John’s booth had at least one tattoo for every day he’d been alive. Long John looked over at them; he seemed to sway a little. “It’s all right, guys. This here’s my brother. Been to the prom. He’s my brother. It’s all right.” He looked at Jeff and me again. “Don’t you guys have dates?”
I heard the Jeepster roar outside and knew Lion was ready for the getaway. I said, “Can you just give me a second with my brother? Just a second? It’s important.”
The g
uy who had been at Long John’s booth grabbed my arm. “You got one minute,” he said. “Talk to him and get out of here. You don’t belong here. Any trouble and the lights go out.” He backed off a little.
Long John said, “You shouldn’t have come here, little brother. You should only come here when I call for you.”
“I can see that,” I said in a low voice. “Look, just tell me what you gave Nortie.”
He said, “I don’t know. I just saw him and he looked so bad. Made me feel bad, so I gave him something. I can’t remember what. I was pretty messed up.”
I nodded and got real close to him. “You aren’t my brother. Next time you need to call someone to bail you out, you call somebody who gives a damn. You give that crap to my friends and you’re not my brother. And there’s no way back in. That’s it. I don’t even know you.” I stepped back and smiled at the bikers, my heart pounding like a jackhammer, and motioned Jeff toward the door. He was more than ready to leave. I took a step back and fired a roundhouse at Long John with everything I had. It caught him flush on the side of the jaw, lifting him right off the ground. I didn’t see him land; we were out the door and fishtailing down the block before those guys even moved.