A Dark Road (3 page)

Chapter 4

McKay

Because I stayed up late trying to finish up a batch
, I ended up forgetting to set the alarm. The only reason I wake up is because Dog is running something fierce in his dreams again, maybe looking to catch uncatchable tennis balls. The final blow comes when he kicks me directly in the kidney, making my leg jerk up so that I almost kick
him
in the face.

“
You’re lucky I love you, you furry son-of-a-bitch.”

He gives me a look that tells
me to go screw myself and yawns in my face.

“Jerk
.”

It’s
past ten and I don’t want to hear crap about missing more classes, so I don’t bother to do anything except brush my teeth and throw on some semi-clean clothes. My skin is probably combustible by this point anyway, so showering won’t make any difference. Then again, maybe I
would
get lucky and catch fire at some point throughout the day.

At least that would
lighten
things up.

Hardy
har har. Ain’t I clever?

No surprise
. The Stooges are already waiting for me in the parking lot when I get to school. Twitching more than usual, Sam Anderson looks like he’s about to pick out the last of his hairs from his head. I guess that’s why he cut it so short to begin with. And I swear if Ryan Fuller’s face breaks out anymore, FEMA will have to declare him a natural disaster area. I can see the signs and yellow caution tape now.
Warning: Standing too close to this junkie may cause you to go blind from his ugliness.

And that’s the thing about
meth; it makes you ugly, but not just on the outside. We all end up ugly on the outside eventually (don’t get me started about western standards of beauty) but crank makes you ugly on the inside, like evil stepsister ugly. So ugly that I almost forget when we all used to be friends; Sam, Ryan, Luke, and me, before Mom left and Frank started using, and all that other shit. Maybe meth makes it easier to forget. I don’t know.

I
must have become too weird for them to hang out with. At least until I had something else to offer them, something that helps Sam and Ryan make weight for wrestling and help Luke make the money for the car he wanted. Then suddenly I’m their best friend again.

Poof
!

Presto
!

Alakazam!

Even that didn’t last long, because now their eyes bug, and they itch, and twitch. They bug, itch, twitch and they sell. They sell for me. I know it isn’t smart to shit where you eat, but I keep everything in-check by keeping them in-check. I mean, I don’t even have to pay them; they work for product, for Christ’s sake.

I make them their own batch, battered down and
diluted so I get the most use out of them for my buck—so to speak. If anything ever did happen, if they ever did turn me in to save their own asses, all anybody would see is a few strung out losers with a story. It would be my word against theirs. And on paper I’m an honor roll student who has never bothered anyone.

T
hen there are other ways of getting rid of evidence should I ever need it, so I’m not too worried about The Stooge aspect of business.

I know instantly
when I see them that they must be hurting. In a way it’s funny, these guys have no concept of self-control, and they always end up bingeing on what I bring them. Half the time, they want even more than what our original arrangement dedicated and I have to remind them that they’ll have to
pay me
on top of working for me.

“McKay! McKay!” Before I can even get out of my truck
, Luke is all over me, practically jumping on the windshield like Dog used to do when he was younger. But when I give him
the look,
he simmers down a bit and backs off. I thinking figure people are watching us from the windows. I
know
they aren’t, but I still can’t help but think it.

“Dude
, how ya been?”

I look around
, and because the school day is half-over and the parking lot is deserted, but I don’t want to risk a security guard finding us out here, I hold them off a little longer.

“I’m not giving you anything
.”

“Dude
, we’re starting to feel the pain here.”

As if I cared
.

T
hen Anderson makes that whiny sound in the back of his throat and Ryan is scratching at the sores that have formed on his arms over the last few weeks and I am thinking:
college
,
college
,
college
.
Out
,
out
,
out
.

So I dangle
a possibility in front of them.

“You jackasses have cash?”

They nod.

“
Meet me out by the football field in five minutes. I don’t want anyone seeing me with you dipshits.”

I wait before going around to the back of the school. I’m not surprised that there are
only a handful of people around (hardly reputable enough to accuse me of anything). We make our exchange quickly. After we do business, there is that awkward moment where The Stooges try to stimulate conversation like we are still friends or something. I swear it’s more painful than lye on bare skin, but I think it’s what normal people do. I think that I should
try
to be normal, but my chest gets tight and that whole breathing thing becomes a little more difficult with every attempt at verbal communiqué.

“Dudes, c
heck out the new merchandise.”

I need to
leave. I’ve been here way too long and now it’s gotten dangerous. People can’t associate me with The Stooges. I turn to walk away but Sam has got me by the shoulders swings me around before I know where I’m sweating from or why I’m shaking.

Christ, I probably look like them.

Luke and Ryan are practically drooling at the group on the bleachers but all I see are the same old sheep, normals, and Jenna (that girl is going to end up buying me my first house at the rate she’s going).

I try shrugging
out of Sam’s grip discreetly so I don’t draw attention, but the combination of meth and hours in the weight room have him lean, so I go limp before a crowd draws. There is hardly anything the sheep and normals like better than a good fight.

“Let go
, jockstrap.” Now that he’s got a fix for another week or so, he has no reason to listen to my requests, so he ignores me and smacks me upside the head before pointing out one of the sheep in the group. “Just look, dumbass.”

And then I realized he wasn’t poi
nt to a sheep at all. He was pointing to Little Bo Peep herself; the Goddess of the flock.

I k
now instantly that (Western beauty aside) there are a lot of things that make her beautiful. There is her dark brown hair, which stops exactly at her shoulders, shoulders that are held back and straight with that perfect posture that only some girls carry with them. And there is the exactness of her large eyes and the curve of her mouth as she frowns. I think that’s what made her the most beautiful, as the other sheep
baa
away at something they probably saw on a reality TV show last night, Bo Peep doesn’t.

She doesn’t
pretend
to be happy at all.

Chapter 5

Hadley

I was back with Grander for English
, and tried not to be too disappointed that I hadn’t seen the boy from town. Maybe he was older than I had originally thought and already graduated. Maybe he was a drop-out. He certainly dressed like one…Grander handed me a used and abused textbook almost the moment I walked in the door and a copy of
Crime and Punishment
,
Orpheus Descending
, and
A Handmaid’s Tale
. I smiled and thanked him. If nothing else, at least the reading list promised to be interesting.

No one seemed to notice me as I
paged through the English textbook. Still, I was self-conscious of every person that walked into the room. I had no identity with which to label myself and it was a problem I had never really encountered before. What did these people think when they saw me? Simon’s sister? The new girl? I had loved being captain of the girls’ fencing team— so much that maybe I had taken it all for granted. I had never really realized how much it defined me as a person. But I couldn’t have that anymore, so now who was I supposed to be?

A group of people walked in just as the bell rang
. They filled up the last four seats while laughing and flicking rubber bands at each other.

“Knock it off, gentlemen.” Grander took his clipboard off his desk and
starting viewing it over with a pencil in hand.

“Sorry
, Grander.” I looked up from the book and noticed two of the boys wearing letter jackets. I looked away from them; they were nothing short of immature kids. Sighing, I looked back to the front of the room, annoyed that there was now a head blocking my view of the whiteboard. I strained to see any part of the whiteboard past his head of light, wavy brown hair, but his height made it impossible.

I stretched my head from side to side, trying to find an angle that would give me
a view of the front of the class. If I had been in the last row, I would have just scooted the entire desk over a little, but the room was compacted enough as it was, and I didn’t want to make a scene anyway. I sat as straight as I could, but the stretch made my back pop and it was uncomfortable. Without realizing it, I must have groaned, because the kid in front of me stiffened and turned with a curious look on his face.

I was immediately embarrassed by what I imagined what co
uld only be perceived as a strange display. I tried to smile but I could feel my chest and neck growing hot. I brushed the hair back from my eyes.

“Hi
.”

“Hey
,” he said. “You’re new, right?”

“Yeah
.” I giggled like an idiot.

He frowned abruptly and pointed a thumb towards the board
. “Am-am I in your way?”

“Um, a little
, yeah.”

“Wanna switch seats?”

“Do you mind?”

“I’
m Tim, by the way.” He smiled, gesturing to the desk as if he were leading me somewhere I wasn’t already going.

I hastily picked up my books and
made for the quick move. “Hadley. Thanks for trading.”

Ti
m opened his mouth but Grander started tapping his pencil against the clipboard for attention. “Hey, guys...settle down now, people. Has anybody seen McKay?”

Several people shook their heads
, others shrugged.

“Figures
,” Grander mumbled as he made a mark on the clipboard.

“Doesn’t he have to come to school?” I heard a girl
snort. “If he doesn’t, they’ll probably stick him in a rubber room one of these days.”

The girl she whispered to shrugged and laughed. I jabbed the dull pages of
Crime and Punishment
under my fingernail and felt it dig into my skin.

***

I found Simon in the cafeteria with a handful of people and I didn’t hesitate to bullet my way straight toward him. There are few things worse than spending lunch alone.

“Hey
.” I stabbed him with my index finger, not entirely unaware of the pretty girl with dark skin and eyes to match that he was chatting up.

“Hi
, Hads.” Without taking his eyes off his new conquest, Simon tried smacking at my shoulder like I was one of the guys back home. “I haven’t seen you all damn day.”

“You still haven’t
,” I muttered.

He gestured to the girl while simultaneously offering
me the other half of his fruit roll-up. “Jenna, this is my sister.”

“Hi
.” I did the preliminary assessment that I learned to do of all Simon’s conquests. Obvious tattoos?
No
. Piercings?
No
. Track marks? Self inflected wounds on the arms…?

“Tell me
about your day,” Simon said around a mouth full of ham sandwich. “Does your locker jam as bad as mine?”

“I haven’t been there yet
.”

The silence was the worst part, but
after a minute Simon introduced me to a girl named Rachel and her boyfriend Mark, who came over from the lunch line. The group talked pleasantly among themselves and I tried to join in every so often with the occasional comment or question, but I was distracted by how crowded the cafeteria was becoming and how long the lines were for food. It made the room seem unbearably small and stuffy and I half-wished for air conditioning. I pulled at the collar of my shirt.

“Is the food really that great around here?” I joked
. “Why doesn’t anyone go to a burger joint or something?”

Jenna spoke up suddenly. She had been so quiet I had nearly forgotten she was there
. “We’re not allowed to leave during school hours.”

Simon and I looked at each other
. “Not even seniors?” he asked. “As a privilege?”

“Yeah
,” Mark said. “Its sucks donkey balls.”

Another smash of the day was crumpling on me. Simon was over it in a whole two seconds and for some reason it annoyed the hell
out of me. I turned away from the snippets of conversation taking place, the little desire I had to participate in them gone. Someone named Sylvia suggested we finish eating outside though, and I felt a little better. At the
very
least we were allowed that small privilege.

There were only two other cliques sitting in the
bleachers, and a few brazen girls lying out on the football field to soak up the last of the September sun. I saw three guys walk past the bleachers and huddle around the football goal post. There wasn’t anything special about them and it took me a second to realize that the only reason I noticed them at all was because they were in my English class.

The s
hortest of the three boys, whose acne was out of control even from far away, bounced from foot to foot while one of his companions rubbed his hand over his shaved head. The third and largest boy impatiently typed into his phone. I read his lips as every few seconds as he swore and poked his head around the goal post. It was a fascinating sight, like watching men waiting for their executioner. I couldn’t help but wonder what was making them so anxious when not so long ago they had seemed as happy-go-lucky as the rest of them.

Then came the boy with the wild blond hair.
I recognized him instantly as the mad villain from a few days before. He stood away from his friends, though it seemed to me that he was away from them in a more non-linear sense. The riled boys looked positively thrilled when they saw the brown paper bag he held. And though it looked as if he was saying something forceful to the group, they began laughing, overwhelmed with their new joy.

The three boys
walked towards a garbage can near a small brick building that I guessed was used for concessions. The shortest boy was laughing while ribbing the one with the shaved head, whatever problem they had a moment ago seemed to have evaporated completely. They were so relieved; they even made a detour and stopped in front of us on their way back inside so one of them could make a lurid gesture with his mouth towards Jenna. The tall boy made a kissy face at me and smiled. I felt my fists clench but was briefly distracted by the blond-haired boy as he pulled his hood over his head and stared at the ground. As he walked away he looked at nothing and everything. It seemed to me that his eyes were intangibly gray, like ash or stone, but I didn’t get the opportunity to confirm it.

“What’s up with them?”
I asked.

Rach
el looked over her shoulder and promptly rolled her eyes. “Those idiots?”

“Ign
ore them,” Sylvia said. “Just the resident scumbags.”

“Most of those dudes have
hit their heads on the wrestling mats one too many times,” Mark added.

“What about that other one
?” I nodded to the boy with the eyes of ash and stone. “He doesn’t play sports.”

Mark didn’t have to turn to see
who I was referring to. “McKay,” he said. “Resident rain man.”

Rachel jabbed him
. “Stop that!”

Now Simon’s
interest was piqued. “Say what now?”

“The kid is
retarded or something. He’s like mute but super smart.”

I stared at the group
while Simon and his new friends talked on. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me why a boy who looked like that wouldn’t be more outspoken. I knew from my own brother that even unintelligent people are often listened to if they’re good-looking. And when you look a certain way people tend to think certain things about you. How often had I been annoyed because people stared at my mid-range extremities instead of listening to the words coming out of my mouth? A lot the boys at home assumed I was smart, but for all they knew I could have been talking rubbish. It seemed like such a shame though that a boy who looked that good could be mentally handicapped. I shook my head and looked away. I was no better than anybody else, judging the book by the cover.