December Boys (8 page)

For the first time I detected the accent. “Where are you from?” I pulled the stool out.

“Took you long enough. The City.”

“Concord?”

Nicki laughed. “Is that what you call ‘the city’ up here? No. I mean,
the
City. New York.” She flicked her nose ring. When I didn’t react, she peeled her shirtsleeve, revealing the rest of the sunburst flare, a brilliant kaleidoscopic supernova wrapping around her biceps, comet tail shooting up her shoulder.

“People are inked up here, too.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Except people with tattoos don’t say ‘inked’ or ‘tatted.’ That’s TV talk.”

“Okay, Nicki. I get it. You’re cool. I’m not. I don’t care. You said you wanted to show me something? Show me. I have better things to do than sit around and get insulted by a girl half my age majoring in women’s studies at White Mountain Community.”

“Actually, I’m twenty-two, and it’s criminal justice at Keene State. Just taking a break while I am stuck living with my uncle in Ma and Pa Kettle Country.”

“Terrific. But I still don’t care.”

“Drink your beer,” she said through a pursed smirk. She hoisted a handbag to the table, rooting around, extracting a folded sheet of paper.

“What’s that?”

“The new address where your pal Brian is staying.”

“I wouldn’t call him a pal.”

“I know. You work for NorthEastern Insurance. I made some phone calls.”

I checked the address. North River Institute. “What is this?”

“A diversion program.”

“Diversion from what?”

“A life of crime. Rough crowds. Gangs.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“If you met this kid, you’d know. He’s a string bean. A tadpole. A nerd.”

“Nerd is the new cool.”

“Good to know. But the only gang Brian Olisky is in danger of joining is the Doofus Patrol.”

“If he was such a square bear, he wouldn’t have been brought before Judge Roberts. North River is no joke. It’s a juvie. A hardcore rehab. Seen a lot of troubled kids getting sent there lately.”

“Brian Olisky is not troubled. He lied on an insurance form.”

Nicki pointed down at the rest of the paper I had yet to read. “Says the cops found drugs in the car.”

“Bullshit.”

“Read.”

Below the handwritten address for North River, an official summary of charges spelled it out. “A joint? How long are these diversion programs?”

“Depends. The courts work out sentencing with parents beforehand. A joint decision. But incarceration is open ended and can last for years, if there’s enough financing.”

Brian’s mother never would have signed off on anything like that. She’d been a nervous wreck last time we’d spoke.

“You could’ve told me all this on the phone,” I said to Nicki, folding the police report and address.

“I know. But . . .” She glanced around the room as a couple suits stepped in from the cold.

“But what?”

“I told you. I don’t know anyone up here. You seem like a nice guy—”

I held up my ring finger.

“Get over yourself, Jay. I mean, I could use a cool guy to talk to, grab a beer once in a while. Y’know, a friend.”

I returned an incredulous stare.

“What? Men and women can’t be friends? What are we? In high school?”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about Jenny and how I’d gone ballistic over her having lunch with a guy. Pretty much the same thing I was doing here. Actually less egregious, because every time I looked at Nicki I couldn’t help wondering what she looked like naked.

“What is wrong with everyone up here?” Nicki asked. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend. Trust me. I’ve had my fill.”

Draining my pint, I stood and stuffed the sheet in my back pocket.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Home, Nicki. I appreciate you getting this information for me.” I looked around the barroom, which had now started to fill with a steady stream of prosecutors, clerks, and public defenders. “I’m sure you’ll make plenty of friends.”

She cocked her head.

“We’re real friendly up here.”

P
ARKED UNDER A
street lamp, I sat in my idling truck a few blocks from the bar. Strong winds swept down the street with the late-afternoon cold front, whistling outside the glass, kicking up snow. I pulled the piece of paper, rereading the address for the North River Institute, trying to reconcile conflicting reports. A diversion program? Basically a rehab masquerading as detention center. That’s how Nicki had pitched it. For Brian Olisky? A band geek who had been arrested, arraigned, and sentenced in less than six hours. There’s swift justice. Then there’s cruel-and-unusual warp speed. Death Row inmates wait longer than that. What had Brian done to warrant this kind of response? I pictured that skinny, scrawny, pencil neck, imagined how scared he must be inside those prison walls. He wouldn’t last a night.

Maybe Nicki had oversold it. Maybe North River was a residential facility designed to intervene before teens went down a dark path. Except Brian Olisky was as far from the dark side as I was from domestic bliss. I had no way of knowing what the Institute was really like without checking it out, firsthand, a mission I had no interest in undertaking. Because this wasn’t my problem.

Did I need to call Donna Olisky and explain her son wasn’t coming home tonight? Or did she already know? I wasn’t sure which scenario bothered me more.

I checked my phone to see how many of her calls I’d missed.
After the disaster with Jenny, I’d seen my phone light up several times. I’d stopped paying attention after a while. When I scrolled the log, I saw the calls from Donna stopped early afternoon. The rest were from Charlie, texts and voice mails urging me to head over the mountain and catch him at the Dubliner if Jenny hadn’t returned.

I was relieved I didn’t have to break the news to Donna. Someone from the courthouse must’ve already done that. Why else would she suddenly stop calling? Sucked for her. But my job was done. My stomach knotted up, I toppled a few antacids, choking down the dry chalk, trying to locate Route 302 in the dark.

Steady precipitation returned, thick sleet and wet snow glopping the windshield like spitballs from a juvenile god. My wipers labored through the slush, little motors grinding gears until I could smell the burn. I didn’t know this area so well. Whenever I’d had to bail out Chris, I’d come during the daytime. That was ages ago. Tonight I was relying on GPS to guide the way. I still didn’t have the hang of the technology, goddamn screen rotating every time I picked up the phone to get a closer look, and the robotic vocal instructions to “turn left here” always came a beat too late. Felt like I was going in circles.

Keeping my eyes peeled for deer, which had a bad habit of jumping out and standing in the middle of the road, I was so focused and preoccupied over Brian Olisky and Jenny and where my life was headed, I didn’t spot the cruiser on my tail. Even when the lights flashed and air horn bleated, it didn’t register they were talking to me.

I slowed to the side. Blinding high beams shot through the back window of my truck, smacking off the rearview. I cocked the mirror to shield my eyes. Doors opened and slammed shut. I leaned over to fish my registration from the glove compartment.
After the day I’d had, last thing I felt like doing was dealing with Podunk PD for rolling through a stop sign.

I hadn’t been pulled over on a routine traffic stop in a while and couldn’t find my paperwork, too many crinkled receipts and ATM statements, napkins from the Dunkin’ Donuts that I kept for when Aiden’s nose ran, which, as a little kid living on the tundra, was invariably. I swatted aside papers in the glove compartment, growing agitated over my lack of organization. A hard knock rapped off the glass.

“Hold on,” I said. “Jesus.” Without looking up, I reached back with my left hand to unroll the window. Waiting for the requisite “Do you know why I stopped you, sir?” I continued digging around, wading deep in the dish, until I found the registration, crumpled yellow paper like a McDonald’s cheeseburger wrapper. I sat back up, expecting a balding reject picked last in gym class. Instead I got highway patrol buzz cut and a pair of crazy eyes better suited for mixed martial arts than law enforcement.

“Put your hands on the wheel where I can see them.” The quiet seething in his voice should’ve been my first clue this wasn’t an ordinary stop.

“No problem,” I said, flipping the paperwork in the center console. Sudden movement, a stupid move. Sig Sauer unholstered and aimed at my skull, the officer ripped open the door, reached in, and flung me to the ground. I hit the frozen tarmac with the full force of a belly flop on a winter lake, knocking the wind out of me. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, waving a hand to let me catch my breath so I could explain.

I heard more footsteps in the snow, my vision tearing up, blurry. A pair of boots came to rest on each side of me.

No one was interested in explanations.

The pair alternated kicks to my stomach, flanks, and sternum.
The unexpected force made me throw up. One of them grabbed me by the scruff, lifting me off the asphalt like a misbehaving mutt, hoisting me to unsteady feet. He spun me around, pushing me against my truck, face-first. My forehead cracked against the frame. Feet kicked apart, I was patted down. My head rang and I tasted blood in my mouth.

Satisfied I wasn’t carrying any weapons, they spun me back around, where a high-powered flashlight shone in my eyes.

“You have a hard time following orders, eh, boy? You been drinking tonight?”

I squinted and tried to focus on the face talking to me. I couldn’t tell if it was the same crazy-eyed psycho or his partner. Not that it made any difference.

“He’s talking to you, boy. You been drinking?”

“I had a half a beer. About an hour ago.” I still couldn’t even see who the hell I was talking to. I hated that I couldn’t see a face.

“Don’t lie to me. Nobody throws up from half a beer.”

I didn’t mention the roundhouse kicks to my lower intestines. By now I was pretty sure no one gave a shit what I thought.

“Except faggots. That it? You some kind of faggot? Can’t hold your liquor?”

“Nah, he ain’t a faggot. He was just in the Chop Shop, chatting up that pretty girl.”

“Nicki,” his partner said, nice and slow. The way he said her name made it clear he knew her.

“He’s talking to you, boy.”

I didn’t hear a question in there, but “Yeah,” I said, “my friend. Nicki. I mean, I just met her.”

“I think Nicki has enough friends. You got me?”

When they’d first pulled me from the truck and began kicking the shit out of me, I hadn’t processed what I’d done. Didn’t have
much time to think through scenarios while getting my kidneys dislodged. Maybe someone robbed the Price Chopper or Qwik Stop. Mistaken identity. Everyone up here drives a truck. Weirder things had happened. Maybe tonight was just the wrong night to be driving a Chevy on this road. All I knew: they had the guns and the badges, and nothing I said was helping my cause. With that warning, though, I had my reason. Just my luck. A jealous ex who also happens to be a cop.

When I didn’t answer right away, I felt the other one close ranks. “He asked you a question.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I got you. Enough friends.”

With the flashlight blazing in my eyes and the searing pain in my abdomen, I couldn’t focus, and I stopped trying. I only knew these cops weren’t like the cops in Ashton. We were on a desolate road, no houses, no street lamps, just bramble weeds and briar patch. I hadn’t seen a car since I’d been stopped. Deep runoff ditches ran the gamut each side, a permanent resting spot for roadkill deer. Let the carcass decompose back to the elements. No one was coming down here looking for the dead.

One of them had my wallet.

“Jay Porter,” he read. “75 Genoa. Plasterville.”

His partner repeated my name and address, the implication clear: they knew who I was and where to find me. I’d pegged that girl for bad news the moment I met her. Could smell trouble on her from ten feet away.

The cop flipped me back the wallet. Of course I wasn’t ready to catch it, and I couldn’t see jack shit anyway. The thing bounced off my chest and flopped to the ground. I didn’t flinch, for fear of a steel-toe boot and fractured eye socket. I stood statue still until the light switched off.

I waited in the darkness as footsteps retreated. Even then, I
didn’t move until the squad car K-turned, taking off down the road, in the other direction.

* * *

“What do you think they wanted?” Charlie asked, swiping a chicken wing through the ranch dressing.

After my run-in with the Longmont cops, I’d driven straight over the mountain—or rather around it—to the Dubliner, shaken up and not wanting to be alone. Sometimes walking into a dark, empty house by yourself is more than you can stand.

“No idea.” I didn’t feel like going into my meeting with Nicki at the Chop Shop, which would prompt more questions about my wife and life.

We sat outside on the tiki porch, Charlie enjoying his ice-cold beer in the ice and cold, licking microwaved BBQ sauce off his fingers, savoring flavors like he was dining on grade A, choice cut. I was shivering balls. My stomach muscles ached, throat raw from retching and breathing fire. My attempts to quit smoking had proved as successful as my efforts to play family man. Now back up to over a pack a day, I exhibited no signs of slowing down.

“So they pull you over. Kick the shit out of you. Then let you go?”

“Pretty much.” I regretted mentioning the incident to Charlie, but you can’t show up looking like I did without offering some explanation.

“Weird.”

I fired another cigarette. I couldn’t be certain that cop had dated Nicki. He sure seemed to have a thing for her. Even if it was one-way,
Fatal Attraction
shit, I wasn’t calling to find out.

“Maybe you should talk to Turley.”

“What for?”

“He’s a cop.”

“Being a police officer is not like being a member of the fucking moose lodge.”

“I know but maybe he can reach out. Y’know, vouch for you.”