Читать книгу THE HIDING PLACE - John Burley - Страница 20

You were telling me about your conflict with Michael,” I reminded him. We were near the northern perimeter of the property, and as we talked I found myself frequently looking past the fence at the streets beyond, my eyes searching for idling cars, for the two men who’d nearly run me down earlier today. A few people shuffled by on the sidewalk, glancing toward us with interest, curiosity, or vague indifference—I wasn’t sure. I had the persistent feeling of being watched, although there wasn’t much to be done about it. The perception, I knew, might not even be accurate. Most likely, it would pass.

Jason’s eyes were focused on our shuffling feet. The spring breeze lifted a finger of dark hair from his forehead, and I could see the hint of a scar—like a reverse comma—on his left temple. It actually added to his appeal, giving his youthful face a touch of maturity. Maybe it was simply the intimacy of knowing his secret, of having been trusted with a view at the portions of the wound that ran much deeper than skin.

“I don’t know if I lost Michael’s friendship completely that day—the day he struck me. But what I did lose was his willingness to express that friendship, to try to understand what I was going through. He told people what had happened. To this day, I can’t bring myself to believe it was something he did out of maliciousness. Maybe he was confused or hurt. He probably felt betrayed in a way—like everything we’d shared up to that point had been a lie. If he’d realized that I’d been as surprised by my actions as he was, that if this was an ambush it had been sprung on both of us … He would have scoffed, I’m sure. But it was true. Still, it didn’t matter. He told people, I think, because it was impossible for him not to. There are some things you can’t carry around on your own for very long. I don’t blame him. But once it was something beyond the two of us, there was really no stopping it.”

“You were fourteen,” I said. “The fallout must have been—”

“It was mild to begin with,” Jason said. “Michael wasn’t at our bus stop the next morning, and so I lurched up the bus’s steps by myself, crutches tucked into my armpits like two shotguns I was afraid might go off at any moment. I took an empty seat near the front, propped my head against the window, tried to make myself invisible.

“It must’ve worked because at the next stop Michael and Alexandra climbed aboard and walked right past me like I wasn’t there. I kept my eyes out the window, watching the rain spatter the surface of puddles along the sidewalk. The remainder of the ride to school was uneventful, and as we came to a stop in the parking lot and Mr. Gavin engaged the wheezy pop of the air brake and swung the doors wide, I sat still in my seat and let the other kids get off before me, not wanting to hold up the line with my awkward three-legged descent. ‘You be careful now, Jason,’ Mr. Gavin warned me halfway down. He must’ve been referring to my crutches, but I took it more as an admonition for the days ahead.”

I nodded. Beyond the fence where we were now standing, a squirrel darted across the street and was nearly struck by a passing car. I winced, but the tires missed its fragile body by a few inches. It reached the other side and scampered up a tree where I lost sight of it amid the leaves.

“People talk about the calm before the storm,” he continued, “and that’s how it felt to me during those first few days. In the Emergency Department, the doctor told us that the stitches in my face would need to be removed in five days, and I used that time as a barometer. I told myself that if I made it that long without hearing anything from Michael or the rest of my peers, then there was a good chance the whole thing would just … blow over. It was flawed reasoning, I knew, but it gave me something to hold on to, something to set my sights on. Five days, I told myself. Just five days.”

Jason paused, placing one hand on the iron rail. “I made it three.”

His image seemed to fade a bit as I watched, as if he were being pulled—physically as well as mentally—into his own recollection. I could almost see him, not as he was now but as he might have looked back then: the uncertain countenance and boyish face of an adolescent, the scar along his left temple red and puckered beneath the stiches, the greatest losses of his life still ahead of him.

He started walking again, slowly, his eyes scanning the buildings to our right. I matched his pace, wondering if he was seeing those buildings for what they really were, or if, in his mind, he was fourteen once more and on his way to school.

“I was limping down the hall toward my locker,” he said. “My ankle had healed enough that I could finally walk on it, and I’d decided to leave my crutches at home that morning. So there I was hobbling along, still favoring my right ankle and keeping close to the wall so that I could lean against it for support if necessary. We had six minutes between classes, and the hall was full of conversations, laughter, the flow of student foot traffic. I stopped at the water fountain for a drink, and as I was bent forward I felt someone give me a light smack on the butt as they passed. I stood up quickly, looked around, but no one looked back at me, no one snickered—in fact, no one appeared the least interested in my response.

“Something harmless, I told myself. Just a friend messing with me. It was certainly possible. Problem was, I didn’t have that many friends—except for Michael and Alex, and I had the feeling they’d fallen irrevocably off the list recently. And neither of them was in the hallway; I would’ve recognized them, even from behind. So I made a decision that it was nothing. I went to my locker, changed out my books, and headed off to science. I remember we were diagramming the GI tract of an earthworm that day—mouth, pharynx, esophagus, crop, gizzard, intestine—and all the while I kept feeling that light smack on my butt in the hallway. A scrunch-faced pimply boy named Bret Forester leaned over to study my drawing. ‘Don’t forget the anus,’ he whispered, just loud enough for a few others around us to hear, and a twitter of muffled laughter wound its way around the room as my ears turned red and miniature beads of sweat popped out on my neck and upper back. ‘Quiet,’ the teacher ordered, and the room filled with a heavy silence—the deadly, expectant communal anticipation of a crowd come to witness the offering of a human sacrifice. It’s nothing, I told myself, focusing my eyes on the surface of the teacher’s desktop two rows ahead, looking at no one, my ears still blazing, the sharpened pencil forgotten in my hand. It’s nothing, I thought again, the phrase repeating itself like a mantra until the overhead tone sounded, marking the end of class. ‘Nothing,’ I mumbled softly to myself as we filed through the open door. But of course I was wrong.

“‘Hey, Jason. How ’bout a kiss?’ Bret Forester quipped somewhere off to my right. ‘I hear you like boys,’ he said, and there was no mistaking the motive behind that jab.

“I didn’t think, didn’t deliberate. I responded out of pure self-preservation because to not respond—to continue to ignore it—would only make matters worse.

“I dropped my books and swung. I wasn’t a fighter, wasn’t big or particularly athletic, but I had the advantage of surprise—and fury—on my side. My clenched fist struck him directly in the nose, making that scrunched-up face of his fold in on itself even more. He fell backward against the wall, his small ugly mouth forming a perfect circle of astonishment. And suddenly the blood began to flow—a startling amount for the single shot he’d taken. His nose was broken. I could see its crooked angle through the splay of fingers pressed against his face. I said nothing, just stood there and stared him down, waiting to see if he would come for me, ready to go to the ground with him if necessary. But bullies are really cowards, and all it takes is the proper show of force to back them down—at least temporarily.”

Jason glanced at me then, and I could see a furrowing in his brow that hadn’t been there before. “But bullies can also be dangerous when crossed. And they have friends. So I stood there and did the math in my head, totaling the reinforcements on both sides of the equation. On my side, of course, it was just me. There was no one else I could count on, and I realized then and there that I would take a beating for this. They would gather their forces and come for me. I would be ready for them—expecting it—but I knew I couldn’t win. Not on my own. And even through the blood and pain, the cold, hateful look in Bret Forester’s eyes told me that he knew it, too.”