"No, no, forget the personal hygiene. That's nothing compared to ... the cars."
The girls laughed. That kept Alex rolling. "Ooo. Gold fender, blue rusted door, engine of a bus. Tell me, why do they love to make noise? Do they actually think that a souped-up old car with no muffler is, like, sexy or something?"
"They think of 'no muffler' the way we think of a Lexus," Leandra giggled, then smacked her hand up to her mouth. She sighed. "Y'all're a bad influence on me. See how I'm gossiping? Every morning I make a deal with myself that I'm not going to talk evil about people. Somehow I never get past third period."
I laughed because it was true. Leandra's heart was in the right place, but her mouth could take off like it had a life of its own sometimes. By third period, she was just getting started some days.
"Don't get Pentecostal on us before noon." Renee kicked her under the table.
"Ouch!" Leandra muttered, moving her legs away. "Don't be making fun of me."
"What are you supposed to say about Bo Richardson?" Renee demanded. "That he's, like, Captain Deodorant with his crew of Zest Boys?"
Leandra had to pull het lips out into her palm to keep them from spreading outward. Alex let out a shameless blast. He wasn't Pentecostal.
"How'd we get on this subject?" I asked. "We were talking about what happened to Creed, and all of a sudden it's who drives a souped-up old bomb car."
"I thought we were talking about a murder," Alex said, "and Leandra was telling us who she thought did it."
"Wait, wait, reality check." I had thought of something. "Tell me what boon could write that note? I wish to understand life and luck and liberty ... defects I've been cursed with—"
Renee smirked. "Maybe it was Bo and Shawn Mathers and Dallas Everett. Three boon brains equal one normal brain."
"God, remind me never to get on your bad side," I said again, shivering.
Some thought passed through my head that I wished I had stayed outside with Ali. I mean, it's not like I'm some saint who had never ripped on the boons. I'd had my share of fun. I came into school the first day of freshman year, took one look at them, and thought, What planet did these people drop from? But now this kid was in the black hole and none of my friends seemed to care.
Even Leandra, I thought. She wasn't concerned about Chris, she was concerned about whether or not she was gossiping. It was still all about her. And they were scoping out boons and pointing the finger. I mean, they were talking about a murder here. And for evidence they were bringing up zits, souped-up cars, and people smelling bad.
I didn't feel like telling them I was going to Ali's. I hoped her new boyfriend was a college dude. A college dude might be old enough not to want to whack everybody verbally or make jokes about Creed. My own friends were getting on my nerves some.
Six
I got bummed out that night. This time Pat and Eddie Kyle showed up to jam, but Alex and Ryan were no-shows. Ryan was the drummer, and what's your group without a drummer? Alex was, like, the center of us, and if he didn't show, we would do nothing. He was just the bass player, and probably the worst musician, but he had all the edge, the energy. Finally the twins said they would haul it down to Wawa to see if they saw Alex or Ryan. They wanted me to come, and I probably should have.
But it was bugging me how Alex and Ryan never took anything seriously. Alex's grades just came to him in his sleep—he never had to study—and the basketball coach was always harping on him that he could start if he would just put out more effort. Ryan just always did what Alex did, no questions asked. Alex was making me think, Well, I can start making stuff happen without him. I was the only one who thought about writing our own stuff, so I would start there.
I went down into the basement alone with my acoustic guitar. I sat on the floor with this pencil and a pad of yellow lined paper. I had written songs before. We had even practiced one that I wrote. It was called "A Song to the Blues," and that's about all it was. It goes like this:
So long as I live in this here town
Where there ain't nothing to do but fool around
And there ain't nowhere to go 'round here but down
Might as well make that funny-soundin' sound.
It's called the blues.
Even around here it's called the blues.
I mean, does that totally suck? I was embarrassed I wrote that, especially when it started piling out of Alex's mouth, with our band jamming behind it. Alex and I had our first band fight over that song, because I was wanting to bury it somewhere and Alex was saying, "People around here will like this song, man."
I remember just staring at him, thinking, Yeah, well, what is wrong with people around here, then?
I sat down there in the basement, hearing the wind blow around outside. The wind was getting on my nerves, because notes floated in and out of my head but nothing was sticking as a tune.
I told myself, Think of something you want to write about, and then the words will come, brainiac. Do you want to write about ... Leandra? How beautiful she is? How sweet she is?
Blue eyes ... blue as the skies
Baby blue ... I'm gonna roll all over you ...
I snorted out some laugh and tossed the pencil down. Not only were they dumb words, bur they were about as likely as flying off to Mars. What some people don't understand is that Steepleton is a real place, and there are a lot of little places like it out there, that's what I think. And in these little towns live girls who actually do not have sex.
I know, like from watching movies, there is a big portion of the world that thinks girls like Leandra are secret liars. They believe that even the best girls are all ready to dive into the woods with you, and that they're all a bunch of fakes, talking one thing and doing another. Well, I don't know what to say, except if Leandra was a hypocrite, she hadn't shown that side of herself in the five months we'd been going out. You might wonder why a guy would go out with a girl like that. I don't know why.
I knew I liked how people looked her up and down and then stared at me like I was the luckiest guy on earth. They didn't know we weren't having sex; it was like our big secret. But it just wasn't making for a very good song.
People were into sad songs. This Creed thing. I thought back on Mrs. Creed hanging her posters all over the school corridors. I wondered if Chris had run for his life from her, or if she had gotten too mad, clunked him over the head in some fit of domineeringness....
Is he alive, or is he dead?
Freight train running all thru my head ...
I started to write those words. I stopped, raised my eyes slowly from the paper, and stared at the dark wood paneling. The air was moving, almost whispering behind me, only not making any noise. It brought with it this sudden, incredible urge to look behind me. I listened through it, waiting to hear something more ... a rustle of clothing, a whispering voice....It's like somebody was staring at me, like from three feet behind me. It got to the point where the skin on my back was crawling. Finally I pretended I had an itch on my back, so I could jerk around without really looking like I was jerking around. For some reason it was important that I didn't look like I was jerking around.
Alex's bass guitar sat in its stand, and Ryan's drums stood behind them. The metal lettering on Eric's synthesizer sort of glowed in the dim shadow of the corner. I stared and stared at the game-closet door, which was open just a crack, like two inches. The wind banged around outside, and in the basement it started to sound like moaning. The moan got really intense, and the game-closet door sucked almost closed and then pulled out to two inches from shut again. I watched that door moving by itself a few times, and all of a sudden I knew it wasn't moving by itself. I knew somebody had the handle from the inside. Somebody who had been watching me a few seconds earlier. I stood up, silently gripping my guitar by the neck, with my eyes staring at that door like they could fry a hole through it. As soon as I stood up, the moving stopped. The door stayed about an inch from closed as I crept slowly toward it. I stopped about ten feet
from it, wondering what to do next. I thought of rushing it, and the vision that Ryan had talked about shot through my head: a couple bloody sneakers swinging out and hitting me in the eyes from where Chris's body hung from the ceiling light. I quietly walked to the door, got my hand around the knob, and pulled very slowly. A black hole stared back at me.
My arm whooshed through the air, waiting for something to bite me, kick me, reach for my throat. I found the light string and pulled. A bunch of games stared back at me. The word Sorry stood out, off a game box half covered with dust.
I clicked off the light, closed the door, and shook off some crazy urge to look in the dark corners behind the big gas heater. I turned toward my yellow writing pad and the pencil lying on top, and I walked quickly toward them. Without looking in any direction, I picked up the pad and pencil and went up the stairs. I made sure I didn't run. But when I got to the top, I was kind of huffing, the hair on the back of my neck still standing straight up. I closed the door behind me.
I almost jumped out of my skin as my pager went off and sent jolts of vibration into my hipbone. I looked at the number. Leandra.
She always paged me, instead of calling, because she didn't want to interrupt band practice. I wished Renee would be so cool. I dialed Leandra's number.
"Hey," she breathed, without even asking if it was me, "I just got back from cheerleading practice."
"I thought your practices got done at six," I said, giving the basement door one more shove to make sure it stayed shut.
"Seven tonight. Whew, I'm starved."
I could hear her opening her refrigerator as I opened mine. I saw the orange juice container and pulled it out. I tried to shake off my willies without letting on to her that I had them.
"Why seven?" I asked casually.
"Because of Ali McDermott. She was late again. So, we had to stay after for an hour. It's the fourth time in two weeks. Girl's gonna get herself kicked off after one more time, and some of the others are really starting to rag."
I really didn't want to hear a whole crock about Ali. Leandra was like Ali in the sense of not liking to gossip. She said her youth group pastor used to give the kids speeches on the subject. The difference was that Leandra had to work at it, whereas Ali came by not gossiping naturally.
"So, are you still on the bottom of the pyramid?" I asked, because I really wanted a new subject.
"Yes," she snorted. "Why do I have to be so tall? I'm always in the back or on the bottom. I always have to catch people—"
"Tall is good," I tried to assure her.
"Yeah, tell that to my knees since, thanks to Ali McDermott, I had to be on the bottom for an extra twelve pyramids."
I sighed. Her mentioning Ali so soon again meant she was dying to tell me this thing.
"I've heard so much about Creed, I'm not sure I can take a load of grief about Ali," I said. "Let's talk about the band."
"Oh, it's not a load of grief," she told me. Leandra was pretty well tone-deaf and didn't really appreciate the band. "I'm not totally mad at her. I mean, if my parents split up out of the clear blue, I'm sure I'd take it hard. Who knows, I might do some wacky stuff. I just hope I wouldn't be off doing the nasty with some guy when I was supposed to be at cheerleading."
I rolled my eyes.
"When she finally did get to cheerleading, she had a bunch of leaves in her hair," Leandra went on.
"Maybe she thinks she's an Indian," I muttered.
"And... you know that little suede doodad she's been wearing around her neck? It looks exactly like those things all the boons wear. So people are saying some boon guy gave it to her, so now she's doing it with a boon."
"Maybe she likes little suede doodads," I snapped, but I wanted to kick Ali. I couldn't figure why she was bringing this kind of talk down on her head. I mean, every school has a few girls who go down like subs, and we had more besides Ali. But mostly they were bigmouths and kind of nasty looking, the kind who would do anything to get somebody to go out with them. Ali was cute, could catch anybody she wanted to, if she wanted to. It didn't make sense.
Leandra was quiet for a moment and said in a real confused voice, "Why are you standing up for her?"
"Leandra..." I stumbled. "I just don't think Ali was off doing the nasty in the middle of cheerleading, and adding a boon to the story just makes it sound even more retarded. People should cut her a break."
"Well, she's not cutting us much of a break," she continued. "She'd rather get us all in trouble, while being out in the woods with one of those greasy ... nary-a-haircut ... foul-smelling ... tattoo-loving—"
"Leandra! There was no boon!" I snapped.
I heard my voice bouncing around, and became sort of aware that even my own thinking was a little cockeyed. We're talking about a boon off boffing one of our friends, and I'm more concerned with the who than the what or the why or the where.
There were about thirty boons in our school, maybe seven in the junior class with us. There were a couple boon girls in college prep, I think, but no boons were in the honors program with me. Most of the boon guys were in votech, which meant they went to class on the other side of the building. I realized I had never really talked to a boon. They did look gross and kind of mean, and we'd all heard about Bo Richardson slashing tires and pushing Chris Creed off the top bleacher in the gym.
"I don't understand you," Leandra came back at me, sounding hurt. "I come in here all starved, at a quarter to eight, complaining some, and you're making it sound like I'm some sort of gossip hag."
"No..." I groped, confused. But I was having a thought that was stirring me all up. "Leandra. Have you ever smelled a boon? I mean ... did you ever stick your nose up to one, breathe in through your nostrils, and, like, fall down because the stench was so bad?"
She stayed quiet for a moment and finally spat out, "Why would I want to be sticking my nose up to a boon? Are you insane tonight'"
That was her answer; that's how she knew boons stank—because I was insane tonight. She spouted off some more.
"...got to be Dallas Everett, Renee decided. She got all talking about how Shawn Mathers has so many zits you'd have to swim through them. And Bo Richardson wouldn't enjoy any girl unless he was raping her at knifepoint. Dallas could be cute. If he didn't have all those tattoos—like, what's he up to now? Fifteen or so? But there's none on his face, so..."
She was on a roll tonight. I sighed pretty loud, but I don't think she heard me.
"But I think Renee's going overboard," she went on. "I mean, it could be some college guy from Stockton. I mean, they've got cars, and they're not all nailed down to school when they're not in class. Doing a college guy would make a girl sort-of-like sophisticated and above high school kids. Doing a boon would make her psychotic."
"That's really generous." I scratched my foot, though it wasn't itching.
"Torey..." She sighed a long one, like she was getting the drift of my tone of voice. "If something is totally bothering me, don't you want me to tell you?"
That was the thing with Leandra. She never viewed herself as a gossip hag when she got on one of these rolls. She just thought she was troubled about something and needed to vent. Usually I didn't mind, and sometimes it was actually a laugh. I didn't know what was coming over me. Maybe I had just never heard so much goo in one day before. It struck me that Leandra and I spent a lot of time on the phone doing this. Me listening to her blow a ration of grief about somebody else.
"I have to go." I told her I would call her back later, and then I figured I could tell her I fell asleep, if I wasn't up for it.
I went into my bedroom and lay there on the bed for a long time. Every time the wind moaned I would wonder if Creed's ghost was in my basement, his undying grin leering up the stairs. When the wind died down I would wonder if he was alive out there in the woods. I don't know which thought bothered me the worst. I figured if he was out there alive, walking around, he would be completely scared and cold and maybe wishing he was dead.
&nbs
p; There had been times when his grin faded, and I remembered those times as I lay there. There were times when he crossed his own line into complete sadness. His only trigger seemed to be physical pain—like just after somebody hit him. And at that point, he would look so hurt, so depressed, so ... suicidal. It struck me that he probably wasn't despairing over his shiners and bruises. He was seeing himself at that point the way other people did—as a social 'tard, an obnoxious reject.
Yeah, I decided. Creed absolutely could have written that letter.
And yeah, he could also have been murdered—I didn't totally deny that. What bugged me was how quick people were to think that he had been murdered, that he could never have written that note. It was easier to point the finger at somebody else. If Creed had written that note, we would have had to point the finger at ourselves, or at least take a good long look at our ways and agonize over questions. Like, could we have played it out differently? Could we have been nicer? Do we have a heartless streak, and can we be bastards?
Easier to blame the boons. Yeah, hell, they sure looked the part—they sure smelled and all—with all their backyard-made tattoos.
Maybe it was my time in life, or maybe it was this whole thing with Creed. But something inside of me felt totally ready to be completely nice to the rejects—people like Creed, the boons—and to be somebody who's not so drowning in surface junk.
Then again, I could be nice to boons without wishing one on Ali, I reminded myself. Her being with a boon would create a major set of problems for her. The way most kids hagged around school, she might as well get her GED and just never show up again. I told myself that for Ali's sake her boyfriend ought to be some college dude.