The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker (20 page)

“What I want to know is,” Roger said as he worked a socket wrench, “who are they going to play as starting quarterback now.”

“That's it?” I asked. “That's what you're worried about? Football?”

“Hey, a four-zero record for the season is nothing to sneeze at. We could have gone all the way this year. I'm talking state championships.”

“So is that it, then?” I asked with some disgust, happy to be in a position to question someone else's moral compass instead of studying my own. “If it wasn't football season, no one would even notice Grant was gone?”

“Oh, they'll notice, sure enough.” Roger stood and took a step back from the car, idly wiping his socket wrench with his rag. After so many weeks hanging around the garage, I didn't think about Roger's meticulous nature when it came to his tools anymore. It was the one thing he valued. He didn't pay attention to his personal appearance, his clothes, or his hair, and he kept his office a mess. I had never seen the inside of his house, but with his lifelong bachelor status, I imagined it was littered with empty beer cans, the trash bin a leaning tower of pizza boxes and frozen-dinner trays.

“They'll notice that they don't have to live in fear anymore. It's no secret Grant was a bully. His daddy has always been a mean little son of a bitch,” Roger said thoughtfully. “Like I said, he's a few years younger than me, so he didn't give me any trouble in school, but he was the star quarterback in his day. The Parkers have always had money and influence. They like being the big fish in a small pond. The Parkers got rich during the Civil War. They've run this town ever since.”

“Got rich during the Civil War?” I asked. “How? I thought the South lost.”

“The Parkers had a foundry. Made shovels. They got rich off of death.”

My expression must have conveyed my confusion, because Roger shook his head and rolled his eyes at my idiocy. “They needed shovels to bury the war dead,” he said with some impatience. “There was a big market for shovels during the Civil War.”

“Oh,” I said, rearing my head back with sudden understanding.

As Roger and I stood talking, a car pulled up in front of one of the open bay doors. We both turned to see who the visitor was, and my heart leapt into my throat as I recognized Leland Parker's Cadillac.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

“Get on in the office,” Roger said. “Stay out of sight.”

I quickly complied, grateful to Roger that he would face my demons for me.

I kept the door to the office cracked, straining for the most minute sound over my breath, which was loud in my ears.

“Roger,” Leland Parker said as he hiked his pants up from the back in an unconscious motion. For anyone else it would have been humbling, but Leland Parker did it with such unselfconsciousness that it was barely noticeable.

“Leland,” Roger said, his tone guarded.

“I'm not going to beat around the bush,” Leland Parker said. “I just came from a meeting with Jim Perry.”

“Is that right?” Roger asked, his rag continuing to work its way around the socket wrench, even though it no longer needed his attention.

“He said he isn't charging that boy with any kind of crime. He showed me your video.” The way Leland said it, it was like Roger had doctored the video, rather than it being a portrayal of the events as they had really happened.

“Is that right?” Roger asked, playing the dumb yokel.

“It showed my boy…” Leland's voice became choked with emotion, but he cleared his throat and continued. “It showed when my boy went into where you change the oil.” Leland said this with a nod toward the gaping maw of the grease pit.

“Yeah,” Roger said, with an almost apologetic glance over his shoulder at the offending hole in his shop floor.

“That video is what got that city boy off. Vindicated him,” Leland said with disgust.

“It is what it is,” Roger said with a shrug. “The video only showed what happened.”

“What are you saying?” Leland asked.

“I'm not saying anything,” Roger said. “Just stating a fact.”

“Well, what
I'm
saying,” Leland Parker said with impatience, “is that boy is a menace. I don't care what Jim says,” he said. He was the first person I had heard use Chief Perry's given name. Everyone else called him Chief Perry. “That boy is a troublemaker.”

“He's never made any trouble for me,” said Roger coolly, and I was grateful for his loyalty.

“He still working for you?” Leland Parker asked.

“He is.”

“Well, I'll tell you, you should fire that boy. Don't reward him by giving him a paying job. Not after what he did to my boy.”

“The kid didn't do anything to your boy, Leland. If you saw the video, then you know that.”

“Are you defying me?” Mr. Parker asked, and his voice had gone cold.

“Last time I checked,” Roger said with a nod of his head, “I only had to answer to God and the US government.”

“Well, just so you know,” Leland Parker said, “I'll be taking my business elsewhere. I won't be bringing any cars to get worked on here as long as that boy is employed by you. And I'll be asking all of my friends to do the same.”

“You do whatever you feel you need to do, Leland,” Roger said, and he almost sounded sorry for him.

Leland Parker's jaw bunched as he ground his teeth with restrained fury. He left without another word, spinning on the worn heel of his cowboy boot.

Once he had gone I emerged from the office, but Roger didn't look at me or say anything about his exchange with Mr. Parker.

“Is that going to hurt your business?” I asked, still marveling that Roger had come to my defense in the way he had. “If you lose Leland Parker as a customer?”

Roger dismissed my question with a wave as he went to the cooler and dug out a can of beer. “Leland Parker is a bully. Grant came by it naturally. Learned from his daddy.”

“Will he kill your business? Do you want me to stop coming around?” I asked.

Maybe you should push Leland Parker into the grease pit. That would solve your problem.

“Don't worry about it,” Roger said. “He'll go to that swindler pothead one time and then come crawling back. He loves that Cadillac more than you love that Camaro.”

“I just don't want you to have problems because of me,” I said. “But I appreciate that you stuck up for me.”

“Just keep your head down and your nose out of trouble,” Roger said. “This too shall pass. If you keep to yourself, this will blow over soon enough. Grant will recover, and everything will go back to normal.”

Roger was trying to make me feel better, but I realized that Grant coming out of his coma was the last thing that I wanted. Not that I wanted him to die—I tested that idea, rolled it around in my head for a minute, and decided that, no, I really didn't want Grant to die—maybe if he could just stay in a comatose state, then make a full recovery sometime after graduation. I would walk across the stage to collect my diploma, and exit straight out of town.

 

32

I was the last to arrive at Parr's. The seniors who drove their own cars to school showed up at Parr's most afternoons after practice. They would take up all of the parking spaces along the sides of the building, and people would mill around or sit on the hoods and tailgates of the trucks and cars. A few came who did not have their own transportation, but it was a disgrace not to arrive in a vehicle. Only the socially desperate, who clung to the edges of the popular circle, came on foot. Some of them were lowerclassmen who played on the football team. Just about any girl, even a freshman girl, could get a ride from someone.

When I pulled the Camaro into the lot, I had the top down, and I found one vacant spot waiting for me next to Tony's truck. I was listening to The Smiths and left the ignition on to keep the music going after I got out and walked over to greet Penny and her friends.

Penny squealed when she saw me and put an arm around my waist. Tony and Skip and Chet were standing around the tailgate of Tony's truck, so I went to say hello to them.

“What is that music?” Tony asked by way of greeting.

If the local radio stations were any indication, everyone in Ashland listened to either country, pop-country, or Christian rock. I had tried, in vain, to find a local music station that played anything worth listening to. There were one or two stations from the nearby Atlanta metro area that played the latest hip-hop and pop, but it was all the crap Top 40 stuff I hated. Sometimes I found myself getting sucked into the local Christian talk-radio shows.

“Good Christ,” Tony said as he cocked his head to listen to the song pumping from the Camaro's speakers. “What's he saying?”

“Uh, ‘heaven knows I'm miserable now,'” I said helpfully. “It's the title of the song.” My favorite Smiths song, in fact. I had listened to it on repeat since I had moved to Ashland. Morrissey was the only one who seemed to get where I was in life.

Tony's expression was mystified, but he didn't pursue the subject. He seemed uncertain about me, as if I were speaking a foreign language. I felt the same way when Tony, Skip, and Chet started talking about the upcoming hunting season and their excitement about going for large racks of antlers on their own.

In a place like Ashland, families found it perfectly reasonable to place rifles and shotguns in the hands of boys long before they needed a regular shave. I had never held a gun or even seen a real one in person, and the idea of shooting a deer was both disgusting and terrifying.

As long as we avoided the topics of music, guns, or football, I could get along with Grant's former friends. That pretty much left beer or girls to talk about. But there is always plenty to say on the subject of beer and girls.

And in truth, even though my conversation with Tony and the guys was limited, I had even less to say to Penny and her friends. They discussed reality television shows I didn't watch and celebrities I had never heard of. There just wasn't much to do in Ashland. Since it turned out that cow tipping wasn't even a real thing, that mostly left getting drunk in the middle of a field or at a house party. No wonder the LARPers worked so hard to create an alternate reality.

Tony and the others were now discussing hunting lures like toe musk and hot-doe urine.

“What the hell is hot-doe urine?” I asked.

Tony's expression was bemused as he said, “Just what it sounds like. Urine from a doe that's in heat.”

“How do they get it?” I asked. “The urine, I mean.”

“You probably don't want to know, city boy,” Tony said.

He was right. I didn't really want to imagine the process by which hot-doe urine could be acquired.

“What do the hunters do with it?” I asked. “Wear it?”

“Only if they want to get raped by a buck,” Tony said, and Skip and Chet laughed in appreciation of this joke.

Clearly I was out of my depth when discussing any of the male preoccupations in Ashland: I knew nothing about hunting or football. So I left Tony and the others and went inside Parr's to get a soda and some French fries. As I was waiting for my order, Annette, one of Penny's friends, approached me.

“Hi, Luke,” she said with a smile.

“Hey.”

“So, who's your date for the homecoming dance?” she asked.

“Uh … I don't have one,” I said. “I hadn't really thought about going, actually.”

Her eyes widened with disbelief, but then she giggled. “Oh, I see. You're joking. Everybody goes to homecoming. Even most of the parents, which is kind of lame.”

“Yeah. Lame,” I agreed.

“If you don't already have a date for homecoming, you'd better get on it,” she continued, though I was unsure where this conversation was going. “Some people go just with a group of friends but not anybody who's anybody.”

“Uh. N-no. I don't have a … date,” I said, the statement coming out almost like a question.

“Well,” she said, flashing me a winning smile, “you should ask someone.”

“Uh…”

“You know, I don't have a date yet either,” she offered helpfully.

“Oh,” I said, really losing at this whole conversation thing now.

“Annette!” Penny's voice behind me was shrill, and I jerked with a start. I hadn't sensed her walking up behind us. “What's going on?” Penny asked. “What are you two talking about?”

“Nothing,” Annette said at the same moment I said, “Homecoming.”

“Oh?” Penny asked with a pointed look at Annette. “What about it?”

“Uh…” I was back to not knowing what to say. Fortunately, Penny had enough to say for both of us.

“We really need to start making plans, Luke.” Penny directed her comments to me, but they were said for Annette's benefit. “Everyone is already making dinner reservations for that night, and you're going to have to wear a nice suit. Some people wear tuxedos, but I think it's much more stylish to wear a suit instead of a rented tux. Don't you think?”

Honestly, I had never considered the topic either way, but Penny obviously had strong opinions, and I wondered if I was going to be left to manage the whole situation myself. My job didn't actually pay money, so I was going to have to go to Dad if I needed money for clothes and dinner. Crap. The whole situation seemed overwhelming, and I didn't really want to think about it—the fact that Penny expected me to take her to the dance.

Maybe if she had strong opinions about the situation, I could let her manage the whole thing. But I had a terrible suspicion that I was going to be expected to figure out a lot of this on my own.

 

33

I was leaving fourth period one morning that week and heading to Penny's locker to meet her for lunch when I was stopped by a kid in glasses who barely reached my shoulder in height. He wore a button-down shirt and khaki pants, looking oddly out of sync with the other students in his business-casual attire.