The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker (19 page)

They laughed about the cow-tipping incident as if I had been in on the joke from the beginning. I was chided playfully for being a city boy, but now it came across as a compliment rather than a curse.

Tony was there, and I had spent the most time worrying about him, what he would do or say in defense of his best friend upon my return to school. But he only gave me a silent nod of greeting as I took my place at the table beside Penny. He returned to his lunch without comment.

“Delaine's parents are out of town this weekend,” one of the girls, whose entire lunch consisted only of raw carrots and a Vitamin Water, said to me. “She's going to have a big party. Are you going to come?”

“Uh … maybe,” I said. I had been told nothing of the party before that minute but played it off as if it had already been an option I was considering.

“You should totally come,” she said with an unbelievable amount of enthusiasm.

“Of course he's coming,” Penny interjected as she put a hand on my elbow. “I already told Delaine you would,” Penny said to me. “I promised her I would bring you.”

“O-okay,” I said. I had no idea who Delaine was.

“I'm going to get a Diet Coke,” Penny said as she started to rise.

“I'll get it,” I offered quickly. I wanted to show Penny that I was a gentleman, and she seemed pleased by it.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile and exchanged a look of
I told you so
with one of her friends.

Penny dropped a kiss on my cheek as I rose from the table to get us both sodas. It was when I was leaving the line after paying for the drinks that everything came crashing back to earth with a thud. I was hurrying to return to Penny's side when I ran smack into Delilah, literally ran into her, and fumbled the cans of soda while reaching out to steady her with my other hand.

“Sorry,” she said breathily. “I wasn't looking where I was going.” Her eyes widened when she realized it was me she had collided with, and her cheeks flamed red. “Hi,” she said quietly, as if worried that her dad would overhear our conversation even here.

I was struck dumb, had not seen her or spoken to her since the night after I almost killed Grant Parker. Time slowed, then stopped altogether, the din of the lunchroom around us fading into the distance. Delilah was wearing her rocker-chick boots with the tall heel, so we were eye-to-eye, her dark hair casting a blue shine under the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria. Her eyes stood out today against the yellow of her shirt—a T-shirt with an image from the cover of a Nancy Drew book. She wore it under a brown Mr. Rogers–style sweater that she may have purchased at a Goodwill or possibly rescued from the trash.

“I … How are you?” she asked as if she genuinely wanted to know.

“I'm okay,” I said, wondering as I did what kind of facial expression was appropriate. It didn't seem appropriate to smile. Her brow wrinkled in confusion as she watched my face shift through half a dozen emotions. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to be feeling. Societal standards probably dictated that I feel remorseful about Grant's condition, sympathetic toward his family, maybe embarrassed about being the center of attention.

In all honesty, I felt great. I had gotten to sleep with the hottest chick I had ever seen in person. People were being nice to me. Grant Parker, my nemesis, was in a coma.

Grant Parker is in a coma, and all is right with the world.

“My dad has strictly forbidden me from even talking to you,” Delilah said with an apologetic smile. “He's been watching me like a hawk, so I've had to lie low. But I can sneak out tonight, maybe.”

“Uh…” I was searching my brain for a response when Penny stepped up and slid an arm around my waist.

“Luke, I was waiting for you,” Penny said with some reproach, her lower lip pooching out into a delicious pout.

“Sorry,” I said, “I just ran into Delilah.”

Delilah's eyes widened with surprise as she looked at Penny and then cocked her head at me with a questioning gaze.

“Hello, Delilah,” Penny said as she rested her head against my arm and rubbed her hand suggestively along my flank at the top of my waistband. I was instantly turned on and wished Penny and I were alone somewhere instead of in the crowded lunchroom.

“Are you serious?” Delilah asked me, ignoring Penny's pleasantries.

I waited, hoping the question was rhetorical. There was nothing I could say that wouldn't make Delilah mad. I had fantasized about Penny since the first time I saw her. Delilah was a familiar, comforting presence, but she didn't set my heart racing or make my mouth go dry when I saw her.

“You are fucking serious, aren't you?” Delilah pressed.

Side by side, Penny and Delilah were a study in opposites. Penny was petite and delicate, her hair styled and makeup carefully applied, her eyebrows waxed into an artful arch. Delilah was tall, almost my equal in height. In her high boots her gaze was level with mine. I shied away from her gaze, unwilling to face the judgment with a clear conscience.

Finally I said, “It's a long story,” somewhat lamely. That was the best I could come up with. If Penny hadn't been standing there listening to every word, I might have made up some bullshit about how Grant was gone and it was my fault, sort of, and so I had an obligation to look after Penny and comfort her as best I could.

The reality, which I freely admitted to myself and which, by the look on her face was clear to Delilah, was that I was completely infatuated with Penny and would do anything to keep her.

“Save it,” Delilah said, her words icy and short. “I'm sure I've heard better.”

She stalked away with a toss of her hair, her boot heels grinding into the linoleum with each step.

“God, she is so weird,” Penny said with a sigh. “I mean, it was sad about Jeremy and all. Everybody loved Jeremy. But she's been like a crazy person since he died. I guess the stories about her family are true.”

Penny's comments caught me by surprise. Even if a person had thoughts like that, the rules of decency dictated that they shouldn't be spoken aloud. It was a joke, of course. The kind of thing that people say without thinking about how it made them sound. I didn't correct Penny or call her out for saying something so mean about Delilah, and it made me feel a little ashamed.

After all, Delilah was my friend.

Sort of.

 

30

I was one of the last people to emerge from school that afternoon, dawdling at my locker and making an unnecessary pit stop. The stress and anxiety from seeing my classmates for the first time since Grant's accident had left a residual exhaustion. I wanted sleep and solitude to recover.

The buses were gone when I walked out into the afternoon sun, but there were clumps of people standing around talking in the student parking lot. Most of them, no doubt, discussing my now almost mythical idiot-hero status.

Penny had told me to show up at Parr's Drive-In, where everyone would be hanging out after school. I had been noncommittal, but she kept telling me I had to show, that everyone would want me there. I was mystified by this. After all, I had just single-handedly killed their football program and ousted their student council president. I wasn't sure what responsibilities were held by a student council president, but I figured everyone would feel some loss about it.

Tony Hurst was leaning against the passenger door of his red American-made truck. My knees buckled at the sight of him, and I knew my distress was in full display on my face.

His truck was parked only two spaces away from the Camaro. There was no way to get to my car without engaging him in conversation. It wouldn't be socially acceptable to ignore him.

“Hey, Tony,” I said. I was going for casual and confident, but my voice betrayed me and came out as a garbled squeak.

He gave me his characteristic nod in greeting but didn't bother with any pleasantries.

“I wouldn't have figured you for a tough guy,” Tony said as he stowed a wad of chewing tobacco between his lip and gum. His manner of speech was a lazy drawl, as if the words were made of taffy.

“I'm not,” I said. “I never said I was tough.”

“Yeah?” Tony asked. “I wonder what Grant would say about that. If he could talk, that is.” He added this last comment as a barb, and whether he was trying to be funny or start a fight, I wasn't sure.

“Grant was the one who liked to start fights,” I said hotly, forgetting, as I did, to refer to Grant in the present tense—still very much alive.

“Yeah, Grant liked to start fights,” Tony said with a nod of agreement, “… and he liked for me to finish them.”

My scrotum shriveled at the implied threat, but Tony didn't move toward me. Just kept his lazy stance against the truck and spat a stream of tobacco juice with the grace of long practice.

“I don't have a beef with you, Tony,” I said.

“True enough,” he said, squinting off into the middle distance. “Your beef was with Grant. And Grant's not here.”

I wasn't sure how to interpret this little speech, but it seemed friendly enough. “No, he's not. And I'm sorry about that,” I said.

Really? Are you really sorry about that?

“But it wasn't my fault,” I continued.

“Sure, I can see that,” Tony said. “Grant was asking for it. He just didn't count on you being a ruthless son of a bitch.”

“No, that's not—” I reflexively started to deny any responsibility for Grant's condition, but Tony cut me off.

“Stepping in to make time with his girl? That's more ruthless than throwing a guy into a grease pit. Ruthless as shit.”

“It's not exactly—”

“I suppose it could have been worse,” Tony said, ignoring my protest. “I'm not faulting you for it,” he continued without any other objections from me. “Grant came after you. All you did was defend yourself.”

I didn't correct him, let the lie hang there between us. As long as Grant hung in limbo between life and death and was not there to testify to the truth, I was a different person in the eyes of everyone. And, if I was being completely honest, I liked that people believed that I had faced the giant and I had won.

If you've ever lived through a tragedy, you know that the first road toward crazy is imagining all the ways that things could have happened differently. Had I left with Roger and Tiny that night instead of staying behind to clean and close the shop myself, Grant's accident never would have happened. I could have left with Roger and Tiny that evening. I could have run as soon as Grant came into the garage. I could have tried to fight back.

And what would the end result have been?

Grant would have come after me another time when I was alone. Grant, with his superior athleticism, would have caught me as I tried to run. It would have been me who had plummeted into the grease pit and ended up in a coma or a wheelchair.

Or a coma and then a wheelchair.

I took my reaction to the thought of Grant returning to school as a paraplegic—a sudden physical sensation in my stomach of guilt and empathy—as a good sign. I could still feel pity for Grant, had not completely dehumanized him. More than anything, I wanted to believe I was a good person.

I had never been one to believe in fate or a higher power, but now I questioned the probability of coincidences. Maybe Grant had been destined to end up at the bottom of that grease pit. Maybe our fates had been tied together since birth and nothing could have changed the inevitable.

This desire of bowing to a higher power, to believe that it was God's will, was almost intoxicating. I wanted to let go of personal responsibility. Up until and including Grant's accident, outside forces had imposed themselves on me. I had not been in control.

But now control had been handed back to me. I had the power to tell everyone, with Roger and Chief Perry and God as my witnesses, that I had not been at fault.

It was still my choice.

And yet I didn't take the opportunity to tell everyone the truth. I allowed everyone to go on thinking that Grant's accident was proof of my superior strength or intelligence, my bravery. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but on that day, my first day back at school after the accident, I wasn't able to see even a minute ahead. I had no idea how my actions and choices would affect the course of my life. It was so brief, that moment of control, when I could still choose the path of the innocent victim.

And I let it slip away.

 

31

When I got to the garage that afternoon, Roger and Tiny greeted me as they usually did, and I was grateful for that. It was a relief to be in their company because I didn't have to pretend. They knew the whole story about my run-ins with Grant and knew the truth about what had happened after they left the night of Grant's accident. Roger was almost gentle in the way he spoke, his expression holding the appearance of guilt whenever he looked at me.

It hadn't occurred to me to think about the fact that it was in Roger's grease pit where the accident took place. It seemed to weigh on him, and I wondered if he thought about it every time he had to descend into the pit to work on a car.

“How was it?” Roger asked. “Your first day back at school.”

“It was … weird,” I said. “I thought everyone would be angry, but everyone was nice to me.”

Roger's eyebrows shot up with a question, but he said nothing.

“They invited me to come to Parr's Drive-In after work, to hang out.”

“Are you going to go?” Roger asked with as much interest as he usually reserved for episodes of
Law & Order.

“I don't know,” I said with a shrug. “It feels wrong somehow.”

The way it felt wrong to sleep with Grant's girlfriend?

The question startled me. I
had
slept with Penny, under false pretenses and while Grant languished in his coma. But it hadn't felt wrong at the time. In fact, it couldn't have felt more right.