Jesus Jackson (9 page)

Fifteen

As soon as I walked into the crowd, though, it became very clear that “not attracting attention” was a task that I was destined to fail before I had begun. Everyone knew who I was. Everyone. And they were all staring at me. All of them.

At least, everyone except the guy guarding the keg.

Let me take a second to describe this guy for you. His name, according to the back of his jersey and the many whispers of frightened underclassmen, was Monster. And that was not a nickname, mind you—
that was his actual name
: Monster Michael Jones. He was about six-foot-seven, 300 pounds, had a big curly mop of black hair, and a straggly beard that appeared to start under his nose and continue all the way over his chin, down his neck, into his shirt, and straight out the bottom of his denim cut-off shorts.

Anyway, Monster didn't notice me at all until I picked up a red cup and reached for the keg. Then he saw me, all right. He promptly stopped talking to the comparatively minuscule linebacker beside him, reached his beefy hands to grab my shirt, and violently tugged me away from the beer. “Five dollars,” he growled, “
freshman
.”

“Oh.” I reached into my pockets, hoping to find a few crumpled bills. “Sorry. Just, um…hold on one second.” Monster let out a self-satisfied snort, and stared at me menacingly. I pulled out my hand; I only had three bucks. “I don't think I—”

“Well if you don't think, then…” he began, when the linebacker tugged on his shirt and whispered something in his ear.

Instantly, Monster's entire demeanor changed. He looked at me with grief-stricken eyes, as his comically large and greasy lower lip stuck out like a circus clown. “Jonathan,” he said. “I, I, I'm sorry. I didn't know….”

Still feeling a bit cautious, I decided it was probably best not to say anything. So I just tried to seem friendly, waiting to see what would happen next.

Monster grabbed a cup, knocked some kid to the ground who was headed for the tap, and poured me a beer. “You're money's no good here, anyway,” he said.

And then he hugged me—a big, strange, awful-smelling hug. It was gross, and a little disturbing, but at least it got rid of any remaining fears that he was about to pummel me. I thanked him for the beer and began wandering around the party, desperately trying to find someone I knew enough to talk to.

I was, however, completely unsuccessful. Sure, everyone was quick to make eye contact, say hello, and tell me how sorry they were and how much they liked Ryan. But inevitably, within thirty seconds of my entering a group's conversation, everyone became so painfully uncomfortable that I just had to move on. And I don't know, maybe it was me; maybe I was putting out a sort of awkward, outcast-vibe (that's certainly how I felt). But whatever it was, it happened again and again until I finally found myself standing beyond the very edge of the party, right beside the radio tower, alone. I decided to climb up a little and sit on an overhanging rail, to look out over the town and the crowd. The view was phenomenal from up there. You could see out for miles. I figured I should be able to see all the way to the high school, but I couldn't quite make it out in the distance.

I sat there for maybe ten minutes, all alone. Squinting into the dusty night. All I ever did make out were the lights of the interstate, a few neon-lit shop signs, and the great black ocean behind everything, stretching out toward the invisible horizon.

I was just about to give up looking for the school when I was startled by a girl's voice, calling out from directly beneath my feet, “Hey, kid.”

From where I was sitting, her face was almost completely obscured in shadow. I squinted to see if I could recognize her, but it didn't help. “Um. Yeah?”

“What are you looking at up there?”

“I'm trying to find the school.”

“Well you're looking the wrong way.” She pointed back toward the party. “School's that way.”

I turned to look where she was pointing. I still couldn't make anything out. “Where?”

“It's over by the highway, near the—just hold on a second.” And with that she grabbed the first bar, hopped deftly onto the tower, and climbed up to my perch. As soon as she hoisted herself beside me, her face came into the moonlight, and I had to grasp the rail a bit tighter to steady myself.

Okay, so she was pretty. Not glossy-magazine make-believe gorgeous, or even perfect-blond-cheerleader-hot like Tristan. But in her own, sort-of-nerdy-sort-of-punk way, she was striking. And besides, she had a hot pink streak in her bright red hair and she was wearing a tight-fitting Sonic Youth t-shirt…which was all I needed to see.

And, for the record, she just happened to graze my knee with her breast—just barely, just enough—as she pulled herself up over the last bar.

Anyway, neither of us spoke for a few seconds—me, because I was too dumbstruck to say anything. And she, well, I think she was just enjoying my gawking.

Finally, she twirled herself toward me. “I'm Cassie.”

“Oh, okay. Hi. I'm—”

“Jonathan,” she said with chuckle. “I know who you are.”

“Right. I guess everyone does.”

“You're kind of the most popular kid in school now. Everyone's talking about you down there.”

I guess it shouldn't have, but this surprised me. “Really? Why?”

She flipped her hair, and I caught a whiff of her shampoo. “I don't know. I think everyone just thinks it's really cool that you came here tonight. Freshmen usually don't come to parties at all until the end of the year, so for you to come tonight, you know, when everyone's really missing your brother…”

I looked out over the crowd, wondering how many of these kids had ever even spoken to Ryan. “Did you know him? My brother?”

“A little. He was two years older than me, but—”

“Oh, so you're a sophomore?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning to meet my eyes again, and again severely disturbing my stability. “What did you think I was?”

“I, uh…I didn't really think anything. But sophomore is…good.”

Cassie smiled. There was flirtation in her eyes, but just a little, and under the surface. She said, “Yeah. Sophomore is good.”

Oh, how I wanted to freeze that look in her eyes, right in that moment, and just soak it up for hours and hours. But as it usually goes in my life, it was right then—at that very instant—that my evening collapsed. It started with a few distant murmurs, then some shouts, which came closer and closer, until I noticed some kind of commotion weaving its way through crowd. It was almost like a tiny animal was wandering around the party, biting at people's ankles, and all you could see was a snaking trail of agitation, spilled beers, and cursing.

“Oh no,” I said.

“What's wrong?” asked Cassie.

“Henry.”

“Who's Henry?”

As if on cue, Henry, crawling on all fours, came tumbling out of the edge of the crowd, flashlight in one hand, a fistful of plastic baggies in the other.

“That's Henry,” I replied. Then I shouted for him. “Henry! Over here!”

Henry, however, did not hear me. Finally free of the jungle of legs, he took off running toward the path down the hill. “Now why would he go running—” I began, but my question was answered before I had the chance to finish it.

Alistair and two of his shitfaced friends came barreling through the crowd, looking more than a little pissed off. As soon as they were in the clearing they looked all around, pointing and mumbling angrily about why that “weird little Asian kid” was messing with their shoes. I even heard Alistair say, as he strutted back into the party, that he was pretty sure the damn kid was taking pictures of his ass.

I turned to Cassie. “I'm, uh…sorry. I have to go…that was my friend.”

“No,” Cassie said, as I began to climb down the tower. “I'm the one that should be apologizing. He can be such an asshole sometimes.”

I stopped climbing, confused. “Who, Alistair?”

“Yeah, I'm sorry. He's always been like that.”

“How do you know Alistair?”

Cassie looked at me as if I just asked her how she knew that water was wet. “He's my brother. You didn't know? He and Ryan were so close.”

It was so depressing it was almost funny. “No,” I said miserably. “I guess I didn't know.” Then I climbed down the rest of the tower and looked back up to Cassie one more time. “Well, bye.”

“Wait,” she said. “Will I see you in school on Monday?”

“I don't think so. The funeral is on Monday.”

Cassie dipped her eyes, out of sympathy, or discomfort, or maybe both. “Well, I'll see you there, then,” she said. “The whole school will see you there. You be strong, Jonathan.”

Now I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't—at that moment—consider (for the barest of a second, perhaps, but, yes—consider) just letting Henry find his own way home (or not find his way home, as would probably be the case), but I just couldn't do it. I had to find him. So I mumbled a half-hearted thank you, too deep in self-pity to offer up a real one, and took off running down the trail.

As it turned out, Henry found me. I was roughly halfway down the hill, the first twinges of regret starting to itch beneath my skin, when I spotted a blinking flashlight about fifty yards into the woods. “Henry,” I called. “Is that you?”

“Jonathan?” he squeaked.

“Henry, get out of there. No one's following you.”

“How can you be sure?” he whispered, clearly panicked.

“I saw the whole thing from the tower, where I happened to be sitting with Alistair's sister, and they all just turned around and went back into the party.”

Henry emerged from the brush, dirt and leaves caking his cool new clothes. “You were talking to a girl?” he asked.

“Yeah. Cassie St. Claire, as it turns out. Why are you so filthy? Those are nice clothes.”

“What did you talk about?” he asked, paying no attention to my question.

“Nothing much,” I replied. “Seriously, though. What happened in there?”

“Was she, like…into you?”

“Henry!” I yelled, grabbing both of his shoulders. “What happened with Alistair? What about the investigation?”

“Well, I didn't get everything I had hoped for, but I did get a few things…maybe even enough to go to the police.”

“Really? That's great news! What did you get? Were any of them missing their ring?”

Henry squatted on the ground, hunched over his backpack. All triumphant-looking and covered in dirt and sweat, he looked like some prehistoric hunter examining his fresh kill. He unzipped the bag. “Yeah,” he said. “All of them.”

“Oh.”

“But I did confirm that Alistair wears roughly a size eleven sneaker and that one of his friends wears about a thirteen.”

“That's good…close enough, I guess. What about the brands?”

“The footprints were football cleats, so no one was wearing the same shoes.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, the last piece of news is that all of their jerseys have pieces of the numbers missing.

“That's not good,” I said. “Is it?”

“No, not really. But this might be…” He took out his phone and started scrolling pictures. They were all a bit out of focus (and taken from knee-height), but they did seem to capture each of our suspects' jerseys. “I managed to get a picture of everyone's number. If we can blow them up big enough, we might be able to match one of the torn numbers to the piece we found in the woods. It's kind of a long shot, but it's worth a look.”

I was impressed. Really impressed. To be honest, I figured that Henry would come back with a few blurry pictures of someone's sneakers, but this stuff looked like actual evidence. “How did you pull all of this off, Henry?”

He gave me a hangdog look. “It was a lot of crawling around,” he said. “Basically I just ducked down at one point and crawled on my hands and knees, measuring feet, staring at fingers, and taking pictures of people's backs. Everyone was standing so close together and taking pictures of each other already, that hardly anyone noticed. It was weird.”

“So why was Alistair chasing you?”

“Someone kicked me into his leg right as I was trying to get my last picture of his jersey. I wound up just getting a picture of his big butt.”

I found the idea of this absolutely hysterical, and couldn't stop myself from laughing. “Well, save the picture,” I said. “You never know what those detectives might find useful.”

Henry was not amused. He ignored my laughter, and bent down to arrange all of the evidence in his backpack. When he was done, we started down the trail toward the parking lot.

“Hey,” I said. “When you were crawling around the party, did you notice Tristan anywhere?”

“No,” said Henry thoughtfully. “I don't think I did.”

“Strange.”

“Strange.”

But when we made it down to the parking lot, we saw quite quickly that the situation was not just strange. It was downright awful. Tristan's Jeep was gone, and we were three miles from home.

I looked at Henry. “I guess we better start walking.”

Henry looked at me. “I guess you're right.”

Sixteen

And then there was Monday (there always is), and this Monday was the worst. It was the day of Ryan's funeral, the day they put him in the ground.

My parents, in their wisdom, decided to hold the service at the St. Soren's chapel so that all of his so-called friends could come pay their respects without disrupting their school day. There have probably been worse ideas in the history of humanity, but on that morning I couldn't think of any.

I can't really describe the service itself: it was all a blur of crying kids and consoling parents and empathetic counselors and a whole pile of crap about God. My uncle Frank gave the eulogy, which I couldn't focus on enough to explain except to say that it was mostly about football. My mother cried; my father looked shell-shocked. For my part, I'm not sure I really
felt
much of anything. I just listened to the priest and the parents and the counselors and my uncle Frank talk about what a darn good Christian Ryan was, while I wondered, bitterly, if it would be rude for me to vomit under the pew.

For the record, I decided that, though justified, it would.

The thing that really got to me, though—the thing that really pissed me off—was just how
comforted
everyone else seemed to be by all this bullshit. By this idea that Ryan was just floating around all happy and content in their make-believe-fairy-cloud-fucking-castle in the sky, while I (and seemingly only I) had to sit there with the knowledge, the truth, that he was just fucking dead. He was just lying in that damned box with his wounds barely stitched and covered in makeup, his veins filled with chemicals, his skin and his brain and his eyes and his organs just waiting for the opportunity to decay into the dirt just like everything else.

It wasn't fair. Why did they get to feel their way, while I had to feel like this? It almost made me wonder if something was biologically wrong with me. But beneath all of that, I just knew—in my gut, my heart, or whatever—I just knew that if anyone was screwed up, it was all of them, and not me.

Not surprisingly, I never found any resolution to any of this, and at the end of the service, I wandered off toward St. Soren's, unable to deal with all the heartfelt condolences and sincere offers of sympathy. Eventually, I made my way inside the school and up to the roof, where I took a seat right beside the giant concrete cross and looked down on the town below.

Even after I saw everybody file into their cars, I just stayed there, watching the hearse weave my brother through the parking lot, around the tennis courts, across the highway, and to his grave. Of course, I should have been down there, too—somewhere along the great processional that was following him—grieving with my family. But from my perch up beside the cross, the cars just seemed to be moving so slowly, and winding such an absurdly circuitous route from the chapel to the churchyard…I don't know, it just felt more logical to stay up there—at a safe distance, from a better vantage point, at a higher altitude.

So I waited. I knew they wouldn't begin until the last car was parked in the last spot beside the graveyard, and not until that very moment did I climb back into the steeple to begin my long descent.

But I never quite made it to the gravesite. It wasn't the grief, though, that kept me away. Oh no. And it wasn't my nerves or my discomfort or my disdain for everything that was being said around that gravestone. No, it was just Jesus (what else?); it was only Jesus Jackson.

This time, he was decked out in a velvety white, gold-pinstriped tracksuit, jogging around the perimeter of the football field. He was barefoot, which I thought was odd (I mean, who jogs barefoot?), but Jackson or no Jackson, he was still Jesus, so I let it go.

“Jonny-boy,” he called out across the field. “What's shakin'?” He veered off his course, jogging straight in my direction.

I gave him a little half-wave and waited for him to reach me. “Hi, Jesus.”

He put his palms on his knees, bending over to catch his breath. “We're friends now. You can just call me G. Pretty much everybody does.”

“But your name starts with a J.”

“No. Jeeee,” he said. “Like half of Jesus.”

“Um…okay, Jee.”

“So what's up? No school today?”

“Ryan's funeral is today.” I nodded toward the graveyard across the highway. “They're going to bury him right now.”

“Ahh.” He followed my gaze. “Well, I'll let you get over there, then.”

“They'll get by without me.”

Jesus took a step back; he gave me a suspicious once over. “Well, if that's how you want do it…So, any word on the Alistair situation?”

“Actually, Henry and I did a little research on Friday night.”

“And?”

“And we think we've got some real evidence. Or at least, some clues that kind of point to Alistair and his buddies having something to do with Ryan falling into the ravine.”

A look that almost hinted at pride came into Jesus' eyes just then, though I'm not really sure why. He said, “Well, lay it on me, brother. What'd you find?”

So I told him everything: about the footprints and the jersey number and the rings, and about how Henry managed to make connections, at least partially, with two out of our three clues. I also told him about how Alistair made a big speech at the party, singling me out to everyone and ruining what little anonymity I still had at that school. Then, when I started to tell him about Cassie, he stopped me after only a sentence or two.

With a very concerned, almost calculating expression furrowing his brow, Jesus asked, “So, do you like this girl?”

“Yeah, I mean, she was really nice and everything, but she—”

“No,” Jesus interrupted me. “I mean, do you
like
like this girl?”

He was worse than Henry. I said, “I, uh…I don't know. Maybe I could, but there's kind of a problem.”

“What's the problem?”

“She's Alistair's sister.”

At this, Jesus laughed openly, and loud. “Wow,” he said. “You're not going to let this get boring for me, are you?”

Again, Jesus confused me. “What do you mean, boring for
you
?”

“Never mind. Tell me what your plan is. First for Alistair, and then for his sister.”

“I don't have a plan for Cassie.”

“That's okay. You're young. You probably don't need one. So what about Alistair?”

I didn't know what Jesus was getting at about Cassie, but I decided to let it go. “Well, I guess we're going to go talk to the cops.”

“Yeah, that's one option.”

“What do you mean, that's ‘one' option? That's the
only
option. Why wouldn't we tell the cops?”

“Well, for one thing, you still don't know how Ryan wound up at the bottom of that ravine.”

“Sure we do: Alistair pushed him.”

“And you have proof of that?”

“I just told you about the proof! The Jerseys, the shoes, the—”

Jesus shook his head dismissively. “That's not proof. Maybe that will show that Alistair was in the area, but it still doesn't tell you what actually happened to Ryan.”

Well, I hated to admit it, but Jesus did have a point. If I was going to do it, I might as well do it right. “Okay,” I said. “Fine. But what kind of proof would that even be?”

“Well, I'm no cop,” Jesus said. “But I think you need some hard evidence, some
real,
unquestionable physical evidence that links Alistair to the scene of the crime and tells you exactly what happened, why it happened, and how Ryan wound up going over that edge. Like a video. Or better yet, something where he admits it in writing, like a text message or an email.”

This was almost too much. “How am I supposed to get that kind of stuff? Videos and emails? They probably don't even exist!”

Jesus shrugged. “Well, I can't argue with you there. In all likelihood, that kind of proof doesn't exist at all. But that doesn't change the fact that if you want to know the truth—if you
really want to know
—then that's the kind of proof you're going to have to find.”

“Well if that's the case, then I might as well just give up!”

“Now, I wouldn't say that. There's no reason to stop searching just because the answers might not be out there.”

“Might not? More like definitely are not.”

Jesus shrugged. “Well, you won't know that unless you keep on searching.”

I was so angry, I could barely even respond to him at all. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

“And while you're searching, you might want to try getting to know Cassie a bit better. That certainly can't hurt, no matter how this whole thing turns out.”

And with that Jesus gave me a wink and a pat on the back, and began to jog off. Before he made it to the gate, though, I called out after him: “Hey, Jee, how're you doing with the whole giving-me-faith-in-nothing project?”

Without even turning around or slowing his stride, he replied, “Doing pretty well with it, I think. Starting to put together all of the pieces to the puzzle.”

And then he jogged on off, around the school and out of sight.

I sat out there on the bleachers for quite a while after he left. Just thinking. Just staring. I couldn't bring myself to get up and walk over to that graveyard. I kept on trying, but I just couldn't. Every time I rose to my feet I just sank right back down again. Failure after failure. So I gave in. I sat back down for good and I tried to distract myself. I tried my damnedest to think about anything but where Ryan and my family and the whole goddamned universe were at that very moment.

But there was only one real distraction, only one that could work for me: Cassie St. Claire.

Sure, I had every intention of getting to know her better (how could I not? How could I not at least
think
about it?), but Jesus seemed to be suggesting a whole lot more than that. He wanted me to use her, to manipulate her, to “play” her to get to Alistair. And I just didn't know if I could pull that kind of thing off—emotionally, ethically, or logistically. And what would be the point of it all, anyway? What would I prove if I did succeed? What would I solve? Ryan was dead. They were putting him in the ground as I sat there and he was never coming back and no matter what everyone else said, I just couldn't bring myself to believe that he had “gone to a better place” or that he was “watching over us all” or “finally at peace” or any of the other bullshit clichés and platitudes I heard over and over since he died. He was dead. Just fucking dead—and whether he fell into that ravine or Alistair pushed him—that one simple fact was going to remain.

It took me almost an hour, but I finally dragged myself down off those bleachers, walking back to my house in an almost desperate state of apathy.