Boy's Life (26 page)

     “Just throwin’ the ball around some,” Davy Ray told him.

     “Hey, niggerblood,” Gordo said to Johnny. “What’re you lookin’ at?”

     Johnny shrugged and stared at the ground.

     “You smell like shit, you know that?” Gordo taunted.

     “We don’t want any trouble,” Davy said. “Okay?”

     “Who said anythin’ about trouble?” Gotha uncoiled from his bike and stood up. He rested the bike on its kickstand and leaned against it. “We didn’t say anythin’ about trouble. Gimme a cigarette.”

     Gordo reached into a back pocket and gave his brother a pack of Chesterfields. Gotha produced a matchbook that had Zephyr Hardware & Feeds across the front. He put a cigarette into his mouth and held the matchbook out to Nemo Curliss. “Light one.”

     Nemo took it. His hands were trembling. It took him three scrapes to make the match flare.

     “Light my cigarette,” Gotha ordered.

     Nemo, who perhaps had seen many other Gothas and Gordos in many other towns, did as he was told. Gotha drew in smoke and exhaled it through flared nostrils. “Your name’s Asshole, ain’t it?”

     “My… name ith… Nemo.”

     “
Ith?
” Gordo sprayed spittle. “
Ith?
What’s the matter with your mouth, Asshole?”

     I was picking up Rocket from the grass. Here I faced a decision. I could get on Rocket and ride away, leaving my friends and Nemo Curliss to their fates, or I could join them. I was no hero, that’s for sure. My fighting ability was a fantasy. But I knew that if I rode away from that place and point in time, I would be forever disgraced. Not that I didn’t want to, and not that every fiber of good sense wasn’t telling me to haul ass.

     But some good sense you listen to, and some good sense you can’t live with.

     I walked toward a beating, my heart pounding on its root.

     “You look like a queer,” Gordo said to Nemo Curliss. “Is that what you are?”

     “Hey… listen, guys.” Davy Ray managed a frail smile. “Why don’t you guys—”

     Gotha whirled on him, took two strides, planted a hand on Davy’s chest, and shoved him hard, knocking him to the ground by hooking a sneakered foot around Davy’s ankle. Davy grunted as he hit, dust pluming up around him. Gotha stood over him, smoking the Chesterfield. “You,” he said. “Just. Shut. Up.”

     “I’ve gotta get home.” Nemo started to walk away, but Gordo grabbed his arm and held him.

     “C’mere,” Gordo said. “You don’t wanna go nowhere.”

     “Yeah, I do, ’cauth my mom thays I’ve gotta—”

     Gordo howled with laughter, the sound startling birds out of the trees around the field. “Listen to him, Gotha! He’s got shit in his mouth!”

     “I think he’s been suckin’ too many cocks,” was Gotha’s opinion. “Is that right?” He aimed his hard stare at Nemo. “You been suckin’ too many cocks?”

     What made the Branlins the way they were was anybody’s guess. Maybe the meanness had been born in them; maybe it had developed, like the pus around a wound that will not heal. In any case, the Branlins knew no law but their own, and this situation was rapidly spiraling into the danger zone.

     Gordo shook Nemo. “That right? You like to suck cocks?”

     “No.” Nemo’s voice was choked.

     “Yes he does,” Gotha said, his shadow heavy across Davy Ray. “He likes to suck big fat donkey cocks.”

     “No, I don’t.” Nemo’s chest shook, and the first sob squeezed out.

     “Oh, momma’s little baby’s gonna cry now!” Gordo said, grinning.

     “I… wanna go… home…” Nemo began to sob, the tears flooding up behind his glasses.

     There is nothing more cruel in this world than a young savage with a chip on his shoulder and anger in his soul. It is worse still when there is a yellow stripe down his back, as evidenced by the fact that the Branlins never went after boys their age or older.

     I looked around. A car was passing the field, but its driver paid us no notice. We were on our own out here, under the scorching sun.

     “Put the baby down, Gordo,” Gotha said. His brother shoved Nemo to the ground. “Feed the baby, Gordo,” Gotha said, and Gordo unzipped his blue jeans.

     “Hey, come on!” Johnny protested. “Don’t!”

     Gordo, holding his exposed penis, stood over Nemo Curliss. “Shut up, niggerblood, if you don’t want some rain in your face, too.”

     I couldn’t take any more of this. I looked at the baseball in my hand. Nemo was crying. Gordo was waiting for the water to flow. I just couldn’t take it.

     I thought of Rocket being kicked over. I thought of the tears on Nemo’s face. I threw the baseball at Gordo from about ten feet.

     It didn’t really have a lot on it, but it made a solid thunk as it hit his right shoulder. He wailed like a bobcat and staggered away from Nemo just as his fountain arced. The urine wet the front of his jeans and ran down his legs, but Gordo was grasping his shoulder and his face was all screwed up and he was yelling and sobbing at the same time. Gotha Branlin turned toward me, the cigarette clenched between his teeth and smoke whirling from his mouth. His cheeks flamed, and he propelled himself at me. Before I could think to dodge, he rammed me full force. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back with Gotha sitting on top of me, his weight crushing my chest. “I… can’t… I can’t… breathe…” I said.

     “Good,” he said, and he hit me in the face with his right fist.

     The first two punches hurt. Real bad. The next two about knocked me cold, but I was squirming and yelling and trying to get away, and the scarlet blood was all over Gotha’s knuckles. “Ohhhhh shit, my arm’s broke!” Gordo moaned, on his knees in the grass.

     A hand grabbed Gotha’s peroxided hair. Gotha’s head was jerked back, the cigarette fell from his mouth, and I saw Johnny standing over him. Then Davy Ray said, “Hold him!” and he smashed his fist into Gotha’s nose.

     The lump of flesh burst open. Blood streamed from Gotha’s nostrils, and Gotha roared like a beast and got off me. He attacked Davy Ray, hammering at him with his fists. Johnny went after him, trying to grab Gotha’s arms, but Gotha twisted around and swung a blow that crunched against the side of Johnny’s head. Then Gordo was up again, his face a blotched rictus of pure rage, and he ran in kicking at Johnny’s legs. Johnny went down, and I saw a fist bust him right in the eye. Davy Ray shouted, “You bastards!” and flung himself at Gotha, but the older boy grabbed him by the collar and swung him around like a laundry bag before throwing him to the ground. I was sitting up, blood in my mouth. Nemo was up and running for his life, but he tripped over his own tangled legs and fell headlong into the grass.

     What followed in the next thirty seconds I don’t like to think about. First Gotha and Gordo left Davy Ray crumpled up and crying, and then they pounced on Johnny and worked him over with brutal precision. When Johnny was gasping for air, the blood bubbling from his nostrils, the Branlins advanced on me again.

     “You little piece o’ shit,” Gotha said, his nose dripping. He put his foot on my chest and slammed me down on my back again. Gordo, still holding his shoulder, said, “Lemme have him.”

     I was too dazed to fight back. Even if I hadn’t been dazed, I couldn’t have done very much against those two without a spiked mace and a broadsword and fifty more pounds on my bones.

     “Stomp his ass, Gordo,” Gotha urged.

     Gordo grabbed the front of my shirt and started to haul me to my feet. My shirt ripped, and I remember thinking that Mom was going to tear me up.

     “I’ll kill you,” somebody said.

     Gotha laughed like a bark. “Put it down, kid.”

     “I’ll kill you, I thwear I will!”

     I blinked, spat blood, and looked at Nemo Curliss, who stood fifteen feet away. The baseball was in his hand, his skinny arm cocked back.

     Now, this was an interesting situation. I’d been lucky in hitting Gordo’s shoulder; in Nemo’s hand, however, that hard round sphere was a lethal weapon. I had no doubt that Nemo could hit either one of the Branlins right between the eyes and knock their brains out. I had no doubt, either, that he
would
. Because I saw his eyes magnified behind those glasses. The fury trapped in them, like a distant conflagration, was terrible to behold. He was no longer crying or trembling. With that baseball in his grip, he was the master of the universe. I really think he was ready to kill somebody. Maybe it was the rage at being born a runt, of having a lisp, of attracting bullies like a weak calf makes a predator’s mouth water. Maybe he was full to the gullet with being shoved and taunted. Whatever it was, it was there like a deadly resolve in his eyes.

     Gordo let me go. Lip-ripped and shirt-ripped, I sat in the grass.

     “Look at me shake,” Gotha said silkily as he took a step toward Nemo.

     Gordo fanned out a few paces from his brother. His penis was still hanging out of his jeans. I wondered if that would make a good target. “Throw it, chickenshit,” Gordo said.

     A Branlin was very close to death.

     “Hey, you boys! Hey, there!”

     The voice came across the field at us, from the road that ran along its edge. “Hey, you boys all right?”

     I turned my head, my face as heavy as a bag of stones. Parked on the roadside was a mailman’s truck. The mailman himself was walking toward us, a pith helmet shading his face. He wore shorts with black socks, and sweat stains darkened his blue shirt.

     Like any animals, the Branlins knew the sound of the hinge on a cage’s lid. Without a word to each other, they turned away from the carnage they had created and ran to their bikes. Gordo hurriedly pushed his penis back in and zipped up his fly, then he swung himself up in the seat. Gotha paused to kick Rocket over again; I suppose the temptation to ruin was just too great. Then he got on his bike and the two brothers started pedaling frantically back the way they’d come. “Wait a minute!” the mailman shouted, but the Branlins listened only to their inner demons. They raced across the field, dust swirling up behind them, and then they hit the trails they’d carved through the brushy grass and were gone into the patch of woods that stood beyond. Some ravens screamed in there: scavengers, welcoming their own.

     It was all over but the cleaning up.

     Mr. Gerald Hargison, our mailman who delivered my monthly issue of
Famous Monsters
magazine in a plain brown envelope, reached me and stopped when he saw my face. “Good God!” he said, which told me it was bad. “
Cory?
”

     I nodded. My lower lip felt as big as a goosedown pillow, and my left eye was swelling up.

     “You okay, boy?”

     I didn’t feel like twirling a Hula Hoop, that’s for sure. But I could stand up, and all my teeth were still in their sockets. Davy Ray was all right, too, except his face was a mass of bruises and one of the Branlins had stepped on his fingers. Johnny Wilson, however, had been the hardest hit. Mr. Hargison, who had a fleshy, ruddy-cheeked face and smoked plastic-tipped cheroots when he was walking his route, winced as he helped Johnny sit up. Johnny’s Cherokee hatchet of a nose was broken, no doubt about it. The blood was dark red and thick, and Johnny’s swollen eyes couldn’t hold a focus. “Boy?” Mr. Hargison said to him. “How many fingers am I holdin’ up?” He held up three, right in front of Johnny’s face.

     “Six,” Johnny said.

     “I believe he’s got a—”

     And here was a word that never failed to frighten, giving images of brain-damaged drooling.

     “—concussion. I’m gonna take him to Doc Parrish. Can you two get home?”

     Us
two?
I saw Davy Ray, but where was Nemo? The ball was lying on the ground next to home plate. The boy with the perfect arm was gone.

     “Those were the Branlin brothers, weren’t they?” Mr. Hargison helped Johnny stand, and he took a handkerchief from his shorts pocket and held it against Johnny’s nostrils. In no time, the white was spotted with blood. “Those fellas need their butts kicked.”

     “You’re gonna be all right, Johnny,” I told him, but Johnny didn’t answer me and he walked rubber-legged as Mr. Hargison led him to the truck. Davy and I stood watching as Mr. Hargison got him in and then went around and started the engine. Johnny leaned back in the seat, his head lolling. He’d been hurt bad.

     After Mr. Hargison had turned the mail truck around and sped off in the direction of Dr. Parrish’s office, Davy and I rolled Johnny’s bike up under the bleachers, where it wouldn’t be readily seen. The Branlins might come back and tear it to pieces before Johnny’s dad could come get it, but it was the best we could do. Then it dawned on our foggy minds that the Branlins might be in the patch of woods still, where they’d been waiting for Mr. Hargison to leave.

     That thought hurried us up some. Davy retrieved his baseball and got on his bike and I picked Rocket up again. I saw, for a brief instant, the golden eye in the headlight. It seemed to regard me with cool pity, same to say, “
You’re
my new master? You’re gonna need all the help you can get!” Rocket had had a rough first day, but I hoped we’d get along all right.