Brutal Youth (38 page)

*   *   *

Davidek had been in the basement putting a shirt in the wash before the prom when he picked up the old phone that hung beside the dryer and made one of his routine calls to the hospital. He knew the number by heart, and listened patiently to the recorded intro message, which brightly advised him that if he was having an actual emergency that he should dial 911. Davidek pressed the four-digit extension to the nursing station on Stein’s floor.

A man’s voice answered—it had always been a woman before—and the man said “Y’ello?” instead of the standard “Allegheny, floor five, station two.”

Davidek said, “I’m calling for Noah Stein.” The man’s voice said, “Uh…” And there was the sound of shuffling papers. “Are you family?”

Davidek decided to take a chance on the man’s confusion. “I’m his cousin,” he said. “How is he?”

More papers shuffled. The man sighed and took a long time to answer. “That patient is
gone,
” the voice said at last.

“Gone where?” Davidek said.

“Gone,” the man said. “He’s just … I don’t know. He’s gone. Look, I’m just an orderly, the nurse asked me to watch the phone.…”

“Let me speak to a nurse,” Davidek said. He waited a good while. He heard voices conferring on the other end, and then a female voice got on the line: “I’m sorry. We’ve been asked by the family not to say anything.” Then she hung up.

Davidek immediately dialed Stein’s house. He didn’t call there much anymore. The line had been busy at all hours for two weeks. It didn’t go through this time either.

Davidek slammed down the phone. When he rounded the corner by the furnace, his mother stood at the foot of the basement steps. “Were you just calling someone?”

Davidek said, “No.… Yes, but it’s just—”

His mother jabbed a finger at him. “You’re still grounded—and that means no phone, you got that?”

“Yeah, but it’s…,” Davidek said. He started up the stairs, trying to figure out a lie. “The prom’s tonight,” he said lamely.

“Grounded means no prom,” she said.

“Mom…,” Davidek said, his voice shaking.
He’s gone
. That’s what the hospital worker had said. “It’s … it’s for school. Freshmen
have
to go. I have to volunteer. It’s not like I
want
to.… Dad knows already.…”

“Your father’s driving you?” his mother said, grabbing his arm. Davidek told her, “No, he’s picking us up. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I was calling my friend, Green … his mom is picking us up.”

His mother shook her head. “Always an exception for you, isn’t there?…”

Davidek jerked his arm away. He glanced sideways at the phone. “I have to get ready,” he mumbled to the ground, and his mother stepped aside.

“By all means, my prince,” June Davidek purred, bowing as she extended a hand up the stairs.

*   *   *

There was a cordless phone in Davidek’s parents’ room. He waited until his mother wasn’t watching him anymore, then grabbed it and slipped outside to the space between their house and the neighbor’s.

The sun was almost gone over the hills. Silhouetted birds chattered overhead as they circled the chimneys. Davidek knelt in the balding grass and his thumbs danced over the phone’s keypad. The line began to ring, and the voice of Hector Greenwill answered.

“Listen, Green, I need to ask you a favor, okay?”

Green said, “Ooooohhkay,” with a doubtful tone.

“Can your mom come over here early—like, right now—and give us a ride out to Stein’s house?”

Green groaned. “Stein’s house? I thought we were picking you up to go to
prom.
”

“We just need to do this first,” Davidek said. “I promise, it’s
very
important and I’ll explain later—well, as much as I can. I need you to trust me.”

“So,
what
are you asking?”

Davidek told him again, and Green repeated: “So my mom and me are supposed to come all the way from
our
house in Brackenridge, over the bridge to
your
place, then backtrack all the way over here again and out to the woods to where
Stein
lives? And you can’t tell me why?”

“Green, listen—”

“And then what? We go
back
over the bridge toward
your
side of town and head up to Veltri’s for the prom? Dude, we’ll be two hours late!”

“Forget the prom, Green. I just need you to give me a ride to Stein’s. And we need to do it now.”

Green laughed in spite of himself. “Bilbo and some of the guys said maybe I could help out a little with the DJ, you know? They said they knew him.”

“Green, you can go to the prom later, but I need this favor first. Stein needs us.”

“Stein doesn’t go to school with us anymore,” Green told him flatly.

“You don’t know the whole story.…”

“Are you trying to sneak him to the prom? Davidek, the guy is a waste.
Forget
him.”

“Stein was your friend,” Davidek said.

Green broke some news to him: “No, he wasn’t. He was
your
friend, and I put up with him. And he gave me endless shit all the time about hanging out with seniors. But guess what? They were nice to me. He wasn’t.”

“Look, he didn’t mean it like th— It’s just that you were—”

“Davidek…”

“—you were doing whatever they
told
you to do. Their little favorite. And the rest of us are just getting pushed around—”

“Davidek…”

“—so just do this,
okay
?”

“Davidek.”

“What?”
the boy cried.

Green informed him: “I’m
not
doing this.”

“Just ask your mom. You didn’t even
ask
!”

“I don’t want to.… I want to go to the pr—”

Davidek screamed, “Fuck! Fuck the prom!” and Green fell quiet again. “Some fucking
friend,
Green. If you won’t do it for Stein, then do it for
me.
”

“I’m not doing anything,” Green said. “I want to go to the
prom.
And see my
friends.
And hang out.”

Davidek grasped for words, his lips shook, and his skin tightened against his jaw. His pulse surged and roared in his ears. “Goddamnit, Green,” he said. “Your
friends
? You think you have
friends
? You want to know what those
friends
say when you’re not around? The name they call you?”

Green sighed on the other end of the line. “What name is that, Davidek?”

“You know which one. You haven’t heard it, but you
know.
”

“No. No, I don’t. So enlighten me.”

The truth was he’d never heard anyone say that about Green, but the angry part of him, the hurt and desperate part wouldn’t let it go. He wanted to wound Green. He wanted to hurt him as badly as he could, as badly as he was hurting. “They’re nice to you because they’re afraid not to be,” Davidek hissed. “And you’re too fucking stupid to know it. Too fucking
stupid
to know who’s
really
your friend.”

“Like you?” Green’s voice cracked. “Because you’re really showing it now. What name, Davidek?”

“Guess, Green. Take a fucking guess.”

“Why don’t you say it? It sounds like you might want to.”

“Fuck you, Green.”

“Say it! You basically already have. Or are you too much of a coward to actually do it?”

The words exploded from him, like a spray of poison. “
Nigger,
Green. Is that what you wanted to hear? That’s what they call you, your bullshit upperclassman ass-kissers. Happy?”

Green was silent on the other end of the line. Davidek couldn’t even hear his breath anymore. “I always stood up for you, Green. I always said you
weren’t.
”

But Green didn’t respond to that either. “Green, I wasn’t … Green! Come on, I’m
sorry.
I’m just … I need your help, Green.
Green
!…”

Davidek kept talking, kept pleading, kept saying he was sorry, even though he knew his friend had already hung up. Eventually he just held the phone out from his face and looked at it, as if it had just bitten him. The sky had faded to dark blue, and the sickly green glow of the telephone keypad was the only light between the houses now.

Stein had once made a prediction about Green:
“What word do you suppose his ‘pals’ will call him the nanosecond he crosses them? I’ll give you a hint—it starts with
N,
and it ain’t
nipple, Norwegian, or nymphomaniac.” Davidek’s heart sank to know he was the one who’d made it come true.

The shrill buzzing of a busy signal squawked from the phone and an insistent electronic voice said,
“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again.”
Davidek hurled the phone against the concrete blocks at the base of the house, where it smashed and fell silent into the tall weeds. As he bent and scrounged for it, he slapped one flat palm against the foundation. Then hit it again. And again. And again, until his skin split.

*   *   *

Bill Davidek turned down the volume on the
Columbo
TV movie he was watching. “What’s the matter?” he asked his wife, who was standing in the archway staring at him with her arms crossed.

She pouted. “Peter says you’re driving him home later from this silly prom thing he allegedly
has
to do. Do we really
have
to let him go? Does the school
really
make the new kids do
work
there?”

Bill Davidek shrugged. “I didn’t last long enough at St. Mike’s to make it to prom.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t even ask
me,
” she said. “That’s because he knew I’d say no. You’re too easy on him.”

“Jesus Christ…,” Bill Davidek said.

They heard the back door open in the kitchen, and June called to her son from the living room: “Peter?… Come in here, please. We need to discuss this prom thing.”

There was no answer. “Peter—come in here!” his mother said.
“Do I need to repea—?”

Davidek stepped into the light of the kitchen hallway, and his mother’s words broke off. The boy’s eyes were red, his lips swollen. He was clammy, and his pale skin looked like a freshly used bar of soap. “I need a favor. A ride,” Davidek said. “I need you to take me to my friend’s house. Please?”

His mother scoffed. “Your friend’s house now?” she said. “We’re telling you, you’re not going anywhere. Not the prom, and certainly not for a playdate…”

Davidek turned to his father, as if his mother didn’t exist. “Dad, can you take me? I need to leave now.” His father turned up the volume on the television.

“I think you’re confused about how things work around here,” Davidek’s mother said. “We tell you how it’s going to be, and you’re going to start listening, mister—”

Davidek backed away into the kitchen. They heard the loud spray of the faucet in the stainless steel sink.

“Get back here when I’m talking to you!” his mother screamed. She crossed her arms and said to her husband: “Are you going to let him treat us this way?”

June turned toward the kitchen hallway, and yelled. “Peter!” But her son didn’t answer. The two parents listened, but the only response was the steady, angry hiss of the faucet.

“Peter! Get in here!” his father said wearily.

June spotted droplets of blood on the kitchen tile and walked toward them. “What the hell is wrong? Did you cut yourself?” she called. Bill Davidek turned down the volume again, irritated. “What’s the problem now?” he asked.

June turned the corner into the kitchen, which was empty. The sink, loaded with dishes, was beginning to overflow with water. Bill Davidek appeared behind his wife as she turned off the faucet with a slap. He looked toward the wide-open back door. “He’ll be sorry when he comes back,” he said.

June pushed past him. “I’ll be damned if he thinks he can just do whatever he wants. I’ll chase the little shit down.” She reached for her car keys, which usually hung on a little wooden plaque beside the stove that read:
KEYS TO THE KINGDOM.
The plaque had a picture of Jesus having a chat with some sheep.

But her car keys were gone. So were her husband’s.

Bill Davidek walked to the front door and looked outside. His truck was still there, thank goodness. His wife appeared at his side. “Where is my goddamn minivan?” she asked.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Davidek hugged the steering wheel of his mom’s Aerostar as the rushing scenery attacked him. He had never controlled a moving vehicle before, though as a little boy—like all kids—he fantasized about it while sitting in the driver’s seat with the ignition off and the steering wheel locked in place.

But when he twisted the stolen keys in the ignition outside his house, he wasn’t prepared for the fluidity of real-life steering. Each turn seemed to send the wheels beneath him sideways—as if the tires were trying to break free, and then the hulk of the rest of the vehicle would lurch over to grab them back. The white streetlamps were flickering on as he piloted the car down his quiet street, gaining speed as he imagined his mother and father running in furious pursuit behind him.

He swerved out of his neighborhood onto a four-lane strip known as the Bypass, so called because it looped away from New Kensington’s downtown business district en route to the Tarentum Bridge and the main freeway leading to Pittsburgh. It was no place for a first driving lesson. Especially one that didn’t have a teacher. The terror of driving actually cooled Davidek’s other panicked thoughts—of reaching Stein’s house, and what he might find there.

Davidek overcorrected on a curve, and the minivan wiggled crazily down the road, hanging over the dotted center line. Staying in one lane just seemed too narrow to him. The Bypass cut through a section of woods, which opened on an intersection with a stand of condominium apartments on one side, and on the other a brown-brick strip mall with a Kings Family Restaurant and a real estate office that shared two misspelled words on one sign: