LaRose (44 page)

When Peter and Nola were escorted out, Landreaux and Emmaline followed. Braelyn’s bearlike father with the sore nose, and his wife, who was stocky and had a sensible Prince Valiant haircut, walked over to their pickup. There was no one in the lot to make sure the parents didn’t start another brawl, but the fight was out of the Wildstrands. And Maggie’s parents were embarrassed to be escorted out by Maggie’s science teacher. Mr. Hossel turned his soul-wounded gaze upon them, gestured apologetically with his scraped hands, and turned away. Nola was hyperventilating.

What if he takes back her A because of us?

We can bring Maggie back, said Emmaline to Peter, if you want to bring Nola home.

No, no, leave me alone, Nola gasped out. But Emmaline didn’t step away or change expression. Although her teeth were chattering, Nola wouldn’t get in the car. Mist had frozen in the air. Sparkling auras hung from each halogen light, cloaking the cars,
frosted windshields, and gleaming asphalt with the peace of another world.

Emmaline nodded at the idling pickup. Braelyn’s parents! Mrs. isn’t even supposed to go to games. Last year she got suspended.

Before Nola could move, Emmaline put her arms around her and then released her so suddenly that the hug was over before Nola could even react.

We should stay here until the girls get to both cars, said Peter.

It wasn’t Maggie’s fault, said Landreaux. The ref blew the whistle while her hand was in the air.

The four of them stamped and beat their hands together against the cold.

Come on, said Peter, we’ll watch for Maggie from inside the car. He coaxed Nola to him, cajoled her along.

Nola gave Emmaline a long look as she turned away. It was something, the way Emmaline had hugged her. It hadn’t felt bad or good. She didn’t know how it had felt. Maybe normal was the way it felt.

Snow and Josette walked Maggie out the gym door. Braelyn passed but they stink-eyed her and she strode to her parents’ pickup.

How come she’s got it out for you?

She’s from my old school. I gave her brother Buggy the ball kick.

How come? asked Josette.

Maggie looked down at her feet and hunched her shoulders.

Oh, said Josette.

Guess they’re still mad, said Maggie.

No shit. She was gunning for you, said Snow.

They watched the pickup, with Braelyn in it, roar from the parking lot.

Oh my god! Holeee!

Diamond caught up with them.

You know your dad punched out Braelyn’s dad? Your mom spit on her mom?

You got a badass family, Diamond said.

Maggie jumped into her car’s backseat.

Mom? Dad?

Maggie?

Nice game, said Peter.

FATHER TRAVIS TURNED
Emmaline’s words over.

Unfair. Not playing by the rules.
Was that what she’d said when he’d talked to her after the tae kwon do class? He kept imagining that she’d replied with the same words as his, and stayed . . . But Emmaline had shoved his handkerchief back and left with LaRose. Her face, remarkably, had been neither red nor swollen, betraying no emotion, no sign that she had spoken wildly. Nor had she answered his declaration.

What did I do? Why did I say that I am in love with her?

Every time Father Travis asked himself this question shortly after their meeting, he was still too exhilarated to answer it. But as week after week passed and she didn’t show up at class, sent one of the older sisters or brothers with LaRose, he began to regret his words. He began to wonder if he’d even said them, or if she’d understood, or perhaps was crying for some other reason.

One night when Snow walked into the class with LaRose, Father Travis stepped down too hard. His foot pressed into the floor as if a support beneath the wood had given. His knee buckled. He went down in surprise, but righted himself and taught the class with complete concentration. That was what he liked about tae kwon do in the first place—there was no room for any thought but what came next.

After everyone had clapped for one another and he’d dismissed the class, LaRose approached him. He liked the boy, his fearless and confiding way, and his hard work. Though he had no talent, LaRose plonked his way through the forms and eventually memorized the drills. His kicks and punches rarely possessed conviction; they were just motions he made in the air.

LaRose stood before his teacher, at attention.

Sir.

Yes?

I had a fight, and I lost.

I’m not teaching you to fight, you know that. I’m teaching you to defend yourself.

Well, sir, I was doing that.

So someone was hurting someone weaker, and you tried to defend that person getting hurt?

Someone did something to someone else, so I went there to fight the bad guys.

This bad thing someone did? Was it right then?

No. A few years back, I guess.

That’s not defending, then. That’s revenge.

That’s what revenge looks like, she said that.

Who?

LaRose didn’t answer.

Okay. I can guess.

These guys did bad things to her. I went to their garage. I punched one guy, but then another guy knocked me down and almost stopped my breath.

Father Travis walked LaRose to a corner of the gym, where they sat down together on a pile of floor mats.

How old were these guys?

LaRose said they were in high school now, and that Brad, oops, one of the guys, had driven him home afterward and told him that he should go out for football.

Brad, huh? Morrissey. I know those guys. So you went to beat them up. This is just what I tell your class never to do. You’ve broken the discipline. I should take your belt.

LaRose hung his head. His shaggy hair flopped forward.

They hurt her very much, LaRose whispered.

Father Travis took a deep breath and held it until he could control his voice.

You told the truth, so you earned back your belt, he said, and now you must tell me everything.

I don’t know exactly, said LaRose, except she took so many showers, after, to get clean. They made her feel like a broken animal.

Father Travis tried to keep his hands from tightening by putting two fingers to one temple and closing his eyes. The infection of fury rose in him.

Father Travis?

I’ll have a word with them, said Father Travis, opening his eyes. A word or two. Not a fight, you understand?

Waylon, Hollis, and Coochy decided to drive over to Hoopdance for a hamburger at the truck stop. In case they saw Buggy or any of his friends, they brought tube socks and rocks. The rocks were in the glove compartment and the tube socks stuffed in the cup holder. If things got bad, they’d put the rocks in the socks and come out swinging. But in the truck stop most booths were filled with elderly farm people talking loudly, sinking their upper plates carefully into the day’s special. The boys ignored the steam table and the tiny salad bar. They sat in a back booth. They had helped Bap and Ottie clean out their garage, and they had money in their pockets. Halfway through their hamburgers, Buggy entered, alone. He didn’t notice them. He paced around a bit, finally sat down at the counter, then jumped up again right after he’d ordered. The boys stuffed down the rest of their food, signaled to the waitress, put money on the table, and got out the door. Buggy was talking to the short-order cook. They sat in Hollis’s car waiting for him to come out.

After a few minutes, Father Travis pulled up next to them in the white church van. He saw them as he got out, said hello, and walked into the truck stop. They saw him sit down next to Buggy on a counter stool. When Buggy jumped up to leave, Father Travis put a friendly hand on his skinny shoulder and Buggy sat down hard.

The boys saw this clearly.

What’s he doing?

Maybe Buggy got a vocation.

They watched the two at the counter, Buggy talking and gesturing but hunching forward until his face was practically in his hash browns. Every so often, Buggy swiveled around, darting glances to every side as if somebody might be listening in, though most people in the booths were nearly deaf, tuning their hearing aids up or down, filling themselves with weak coffee. Finally, Father Travis handed some bills to the cashier and they walked out of the truck stop together. Buggy fidgeted, standing next to Father Travis, until Curtains drove up. When Buggy got into that car, Hollis started the engine. He was pulling out when Father Travis stepped over, stood right in their way, and put his hand on the dented hood. Hollis killed the engine. Father Travis came around the driver’s side and Hollis rolled down the window. Stepping back, Father Travis motioned for them to get out of the car. They did, and stood awkwardly, not wanting to meet his eyes.

I understand, Father Travis finally said. But don’t do it.

They shot looks at one another.

Buggy’s beyond intimidation. He’s breaking down, but still dangerous, so don’t go near him. His parents kicked him out. He did something to his sister. He’s just got the one friend left. I think you should let things play out. If you go after him, you could end up with assault charges, and that would stay on your record. Hurt you when you apply for college.

Waylon hadn’t seriously considered going to college, and it warmed him that the priest thought he might.

Once Father Travis had driven off, the boys got into Hollis’s car, talked for a while, and then drove out to look for Buggy Wildstrand, but he had disappeared.

Two weeks later, on a warm day, Coochy heard where Buggy was hanging out and they drove over there. The place was down a long unpaved tractor road and became no more than a mud rut as they
crossed a slough. Past that, trees closed in and Hollis said, Isn’t this the place where that kindergarten teacher lives? Mrs. Sweit?

She had, notoriously in the area, fled town that past year.

Waylon and Coochy didn’t answer because they saw the house. It gaped open. The windows that weren’t broken were lined with stained blankets. Three crumpled black garbage bags lay in the thawed rocky muck and snowed-on shit of the yard. As the boys walked carefully forward they smelled and then saw that the bags were the sunken carcasses of dogs stretched out at the ends of chains.

This is bad. Let’s not go in, said Hollis.

Coochy and Waylon were already on the porch. Hollis stepped up behind them. Sharp chemicals and deadness hung in the air. They pulled their T-shirts up over their noses, stood in the entry.

The place was spectacularly trashed. Kitchen cupboards were torn apart. Every surface was piled with plastic jugs, snarled tubing, or melted plastic. Petrified gunk hung down from the ceiling and was flung up against flares of charred Sheetrock. The cold floor was heaped with clothes soldered together with food, mined with broken dishes, crushed cans, shattered bottles. They stepped carefully through bagged and unbagged garbage, pizza boxes, ancient pizza like slabs of reptile skin, gluey pop, gnawed bones, and human shit. Against the opposite wall of what might have been the living room there was no motion, but a sensation of something alive came over Hollis and his neck prickled. Waylon tore a blanket off the nearest window. They saw two people, one snared in garbage, asleep maybe. The other staggered upright. It gathered energy and they could see it used to be Buggy.

His eyes flickered like neon in his yellow skull; his mouth was a black hole. His hands clutched and unclutched. One hand dug at his scabby and bleeding arm.

You came here to kill me, said Buggy.

No, said Hollis.

We’re gonna leave now, said Waylon.

Coochy stepped back.

Buggy lunged, silently flailing and striking as he bore Coochy down. Waylon tried to pull Buggy off and Buggy reared up, head-butted Waylon, and then slugged Hollis so venomously that he dropped, gasping in the slippery filth. Buggy kicked and hammered them with such dazzling intensity that they barely made it out of the house and to the car. It was all done in hideous silence. Hollis gunned the car in reverse; Buggy flew after them with giant leaping strides. He threw himself onto the hood of the car and mashed his face on the windshield, pop-eyed, tongue swirling on the glass. Hollis had to wrench forward, hit the brakes, and jerk backward to fling Buggy off. Hitting the ground at an odd angle slowed him. But as they drove off Coochy looked back and saw Buggy crouching, as if to spring after them along the ground on all fours like a movie demon.

They drove for about a mile and then Hollis said that Buggy was supposed to graduate as class valedictorian.

Maybe, said Waylon, he will come in second now.

Salutatorian, said Coochy.

Hollis flipped on his windshield wipers to try to clear the glass of Buggy’s spit. But his car was out of wiper fluid and the spit smeared in a streak.

Just like a bug, said Waylon. But nobody laughed.