Snitch (27 page)

I smiled sadly. “You know I got your back.”

He nodded
again
and shook his head. “I wish you
could
help me. Remember when we were kids
,
when we were going to conquer the world? You were going to be a
secret agent
and I was going to be Batman? Remember the Maserati and the
Batmobile
? I wish we could go back to that. Batman was never afraid and always did what was right.”

Johnny was crying now; tears slipping silently down his face.
I had never seen him cry before
,
even
when Mike Phillips had beaten him up in fourth grade.

“Johnny, we can’t…we can’t go back…only forward. C
ome
with me,” I stood up listening to my heart begin its familiar
, hysterical
swoosh
. “This is fixable. Let my dad help. Yours will too, and between all of us we’ll fix this.”

“He died this morning,” Johnny said.

It seemed like time stopped right then, but Johnny kept talking.

“I heard it on the radio. When they find out, my parents are going to hate me. We left him, Andy. We left Brian Weston on the road to die
,
and he did. We had a couple of beers
,
the radio up loud…it was a
good
n
ight. Seth took us to this field we had off-
roaded
on lots of times. He said it was okay
,
and no one would know.

“
We weren’t doing anything wrong, just taking turns driving in circles and ripping up the mud. We didn’t know the farmer was going to be there until we heard this popping sound
.
I thought it was just something on the radio, but Wes and Seth got out
to see
what it was and Brian jumped out
of the dark
. Wes just kind of picked him up and threw him back into
some
bushes and t
he two of them ra
ced
back to car
.

“
W
e tried to take off, but the truck got stuck so Wes and Seth got out again
to push
.
It wasn’t until we
drove
out of the field that we realized the guy was somehow in the bed of the truck wailing on the cab with something heavy. Everybody was yelling and screaming,
‘
Ditch him! Ditch him!
’
And he was banging and banging
on the roof of the cab right over my head
, so I swerved and swerved and…”

“Johnny! Wait a minute.
You
swerved?”

“Me,” Johnny admitted. “I was driving. I did what they said. I swerved and I swerved until he flew out like an old box. We got out and used the head lights to check him. But he was breathing. Seth poked him with the club
,
and he even moaned. Seth told us he would be okay, that we should get back in the car and just drive away
. W
e just left him, Andy. We left him and didn’t go back to help even though we knew we should. And now
that man’s dead...all the way dead…I’m going to prison, Andy. I deserve to go to prison.”

My knees buckled and heart screamed its familiar
swoosh
at the same time.
Johnny had been driving
.

This changed everything! Would the courts be harder on Johnny because he didn’t have a license?
Swoosh.
Would it even matter?
Swoosh…swoosh
…And they had been drinking…how much had they been drinking?
Swoosh
…

“We have to tell my dad, Johnny. He’s waiting. He can help.” I turned and began a dreamlike walk back over the trestle through the air that seemed so thick it pushed against my body and roared in my ears. To keep myself steady, I timed each step with my heart beat
. Step…swoosh…step…
swoosh…board
after board after board…

“I can’t tell my dad,” I heard Johnny say, “…or my mom. I can’t sleep. I keep dreaming…about him…and prison. I’m going to prison and I deserve it...I killed a man… I killed a man with three little kids…”

“It was a mistake,” I said, the air roaring louder. “They’ll understand it happened so fast…it was a mistake.”

“We knew it was wrong to leave him. We told Seth to go back, but he said no. Wes even tried to take the keys, but Seth whaled on Wes with the
farmer’s club until he promised not to. We were both screaming and crying, but we did what Seth said and just went home
. W
e left him there, in the middle of the road
,
and now he’s dead. After what I did and what’s going to happen to me, I should just…”

I turned on Johnny to find him staring at the water below. I yelled to get over the
h
ysterical
swooshing
of my heart.
It was so
loud,
I could hardly hear myself speak.
“That’s crazy talk. Don’t talk like that!”

“I tried to do it last night, but I was too scared. I was out here all night alone. You can’t do something like that alone.”

“I’m here now, and I’m taking you home
.
” I turned from him, concentrating on stepping across the wooden slats carefully because my knees were shaking so hard. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

“You’re the best friend I ever had,” Johnny said behind me. “But even you can’t help. I did a horrible thing my parents will hate me for. I’m going to prison. There’s no hope.”

I kept walking towards Dad.
Towards hope.

“You’re a great friend, but I still want to do the right thing,” Johnny said. “And now you’re here with me.”

And that’s when I realized he wasn’t following me. That’s when I tried to turn quickly, but the fear stopped me from moving. That’s when I heard nothing more…until the inevitable splash below.

I don’t know how long I sat on the bridge watching Johnny’s green plaid shirt
snagged
on
the
ragged deadhead below me
,
flowing
with the current, real peaceful like. Part of me remembers hearing the lady scream, most of me doesn’t.
I know p
eople tried to talk to me, but no words came out of their mouths, only gobbled sounds. The first thing I can remember clearly
is
my dad’s voice and his strong arms securely folding around me. I couldn’t speak, but I did let him stand me up and lead me off the trestle which had somehow become encircled in yellow tape and buzzing policemen.

The hospital was too bright and too loud, so when the drugs wore off and I woke to find myself in my own bed, I was relieved. Mom was asleep in the chair next to my bed, so I quietly tiptoed by her and took myself to the place I should have gone the night before, two doors away from mine.

***

I never did go back to school that spring; because my grades were so high, I was excused from exams. Seth and Wes were arrested and face trial in a few months. All of Seth’s father’s threats and blustering hasn’t
done any good, and Wes’s parents have had to put their farm up for sale to pay for legal fees. Even though Johnny was driving, it doesn’t look good for either of them. It turns out
Dad was right:
being an accomplice is almost as bad as doing the thing itself.

I am the state’s main witness. I guess that makes me the biggest
S
nitch of all. And it’s not that I don’t care, it’s more like there’s a huge, black dead space in me when I think about all of this. It’s not my fault and I didn’t even do anything, but somehow I got all wrapped up in it like some poor animal trapped in a barbed wire fence. The more it struggles, the worse it gets. So I’m going to tell the judge everything I know. Like I told Johnny, you can’t go back, only forward, and I am really ready to stop living in the past and start living for the future, whatever it is.

Liz called me
after I got out of the hospital, and I swear, I wouldn’t have been able to get through Johnny’s funeral with her.
Or Mom.
Or Dad.
It helps to have people around you
who listen
when things get really bad.
It helps to be able to talk things out and bounce things off them, even if you find you’re just repeating the same stuff over and over.
It doesn’t fix things, but it helps sort out the black thoughts that keep you up at night.

I just wish
Johnny would have wanted me around to help him.

Liz and I haven’t really gone anywhere—not on what you would call a real date, but we spend lots of time just talking. She understands
I can’t
bring myself to go to a movie or even take her for pizza
.
Maybe in the fall when school starts.
If she wants to
stay together
.
If I even end up going back to Jameson again and not somewhere else.

***

The counselor I go to says people who commit suicide make their own decisions and have to take full responsibility for them. It sounds good when she says it, but around three AM in the dark when I’m alone I wonder if that’s the truth. I get so angry at
Johnny
for going away because I miss us
.
He
was my best friend. But nothing changes anything
.
C
rying or wishing or yelling at him doesn’t do any good
.
I learned that early on, but I still can’t stop myself from doing those things once in a while.

Guilt is the other thing. It’s horrible, and sometimes I feel like Johnny wrapped a bunch of it up
like the birthday presents he used to give me
—only this
package
is
big enough to last me for the rest of my life. Dad says I have to let it go, but it’s not that easy
.
M
aybe I could have changed things; maybe I couldn’t. If we can never know the outcome of what
might have
happened, but only know what
really
happened, it seems
cruel that people have been given imaginations. Imaginations are so hard to turn off.

Johnny was buried in a cemetery not far from here.
At first,
there was a pile of dirt over him
and about a thousand
wilted flowers, but now
that
the flowers are gone and the grass has taken over,
I
can’t really tell where he is and where he’s not.
It’s unbelievable to look at the stone and see his name carved on it with his birthday and an end date. I guess we all end, but I wonder if Johnny would have ended years from now if I would have just told my father what he wanted to know the night he caught me sneaking in. It’s not fair how things can change in a moment in time, and that moment comes and goes before you even know it has happened. It happened to Johnny, and I guess it happened to me. I talk to him about this every time I visit him. I just wish he could answer.

About two weeks ago, I was shopping with Mom and found a mini
Batmobile
in a sale bin just waiting for me. I took it to Johnny and parked it on the edge of his tombstone.

“I knew you wanted one of these,” I told him. “You got it wrong, Johnny. You were good. Everyone knew it; you just got caught up in a bad moment
and made one bad decision
.
Everybody makes bad decisions once in a while, Johnny. Everybody does.
”

When
Liz and I went back a
week
later
,
we found
the car
sitting
on the other side
of Johnny’s stone
.

“It moved,” I said,
pointing to where I left it.
“It was over there.”

Liz put her arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder. “Maybe he finally got to drive the
Batmobile
,
” she said softly.

“It was probably some little kid who picked it up and his mom made him put it back,” I retorted.

“Well, you can believe that if you want,” Liz said, her breath whispering past my ear, “but I think it’s a sign. I think he’s finally listening to you, maybe forgiving
himself—
just a little.”

I turned to Liz and
she kissed me
softly.
It fe
lt
good to think it was
Johnny
finally
listening to me, and maybe forgiving himself.
I wan
ted
to believe
all that about
him
. I want
ed
to believe he fe
lt
good enough about himself
to
finally
drive the
Batmobile
.