The Calling (24 page)

A question came to my lips but I forced it away. It was a question I couldn’t ask, one I would never ask.
 

And so we sat there on the picnic table, staring across at each other, neither of us saying a word but communicating just the same. I told her with my eyes that I didn’t judge her and with her eyes she told me she didn’t judge me, and as trite as it sounds, I knew at that moment we would be friends forever.

•
 
•
 
•

I’
D
TOLD
JOHN
Porter yesterday I couldn’t go with him and his friends to crash that pre-graduation party, that it was cool of him to offer but thanks anyway. Then, for some reason, I mentioned it to Moses and got the surprise of my life when he said I should go.
 

“Are you sure?” I’d stopped over at his RV after my grandmother made dinner. It was almost seven o’clock. “I mean, wouldn’t that be a bad idea?”
 

“Not at all. Right now we have no leads anyhow. Besides, the interaction will be good. You’ll get a sense of who these kids are, and maybe even get an idea of what will happen. Who knows, you might even get another feeling.”
 

The prospect didn’t thrill me but I realized he had a point, so about two hours later I crossed Half Creek Road and found John and four of his friends in the garage. They had started the party early, as they sat listening to Jane’s Addiction and passing around a joint. John noticed me first, said, “Chris, I thought you said you couldn’t make it,” and offered me a hit.
 

John made quick introductions. There was Rich, a tall kid wearing a Yankee’s baseball cap, his ear stuck to a cell phone; Chad, who was really tanned and had spots of acne on his face; Sean, whose long brown hair he kept in a ponytail; and Tyler, the shortest of them all, who stood about five feet five inches but made up for it by obviously lifting weights every minute he could, as his biceps looked bigger than my own thighs. All of them except Sean wore faded jeans and T-shirts. Sean had on a pair of frayed khaki shorts.
 

“And this,” John said, motioning to the car parked in the middle of the garage, “is my baby. Found her in the junkyard three years ago when she was just a pile of shit, but look at her now.”
 

“She still is a pile of shit,” Sean muttered. John made a face and gave him the finger, before leaning down to the car’s hood and cooing, “Don’t listen to him, honey, he’s just jealous.” Everyone sniggered.
 

I’d already noticed the Firebird while walking past the garage, but I’d never gotten a close look until now. Under the lights I saw just how much work John had put into it. The dark cherry finish made it look as if it had just gotten off the assembly line. In my mind I saw him working nights and weekends, finding used parts, ordering new ones, spending a few hours here, a few hours there, until all the time and effort paid off into one beauty of a car.
 

“Wanna hear about it?” John asked me, a bright grin on his face (which was probably more from the weed), and Tyler muttered, “Aw shit, not again.” John spun around, both middle fingers blazing, and said, “Shut your traps, motherfuckers.” Then he turned back to me and placed his hand gently on the hood, grinning again.
 

“Sure,” I said.
 

“Her name’s Bambi. She’s a ’76 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Her engine’s a 455 with a V-8 I managed to take from a beat-up Bonneville. Four-speed manual, with a two hundred horsepower at thirty-five hundred RPMs. Original vinyl bucket seats, and this baby right here—”
 

He began to caress the shake-hood scoop, started to say something else, when Chad interrupted him.
 

“Blah, blah, blah,” he said, rolling his eyes. He pulled out a can of Old Milwaukee and popped the top. “You don’t even know if this bitch is gonna run.”
 

John stepped back, crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you fuckers.” When Tyler said it was because of the good hash, he said, “Oh yeah, that’s right. But who’s up for it, huh? Who wants to do the first three-way with me and Bambi?”
 

There didn’t look to be any volunteers. Chad handed me a can of beer. Everyone was silent for a few moments, before first Sean started laughing, then Chad, then the rest. Even I did, though I wasn’t quite sure what was so funny.
 

“Fuck you all,” John muttered, then glanced at me. “Chris, you wanna ride shotgun?”
 

“Sure,” I said, grinning for no apparent reason, and downed my beer.
 

Minutes later we’d all split up. Tyler, Rich, and Sean piled into Chad’s Jeep outside. I got into Bambi the Firebird’s passenger seat. The seats were indeed vinyl, though I couldn’t imagine them being originals. Then John got in, hesitated before putting in the key. He glanced at me, said, “Here goes everything,” and started the engine. It roared to life.
 

John nodded, a wide smile on his face. I noticed one of his lower teeth was chipped. He put the car in gear, revved the engine once more, and said, “Hope you’re ready, dude. It’s gonna be one wild night.”

Chapter 22

T
he party was at this house in Breesport, about fifteen minutes away, this overlarge two-story house that sat on a hill overlooking the road. John said it belonged to this girl Denise Rowe, whose parents were away and wouldn’t be back until Saturday.
 

Cars were lined up on both sides of the extended driveway, some parked awkwardly on the lawn itself. John parked beside Chad’s Jeep and got out of the car. He immediately started to say something to his four friends when he noticed what had grabbed their attention. A black utility van was parked on the other side of the driveway. Rich said, “Is that—” and Sean nodded his head, answered, “I think so.” Then John, walking up beside them, muttered, “What the fuck is he doing here?”
 

At that moment explosive laughter came from just in front of the house, and someone shouted, “You’re all fucking assholes!” Seconds later two kids were headed up the drive toward us. John and his friends moved away from the black van. One of the kids was soaking wet, his hair dripping.
 

“Howdy, faggots,” Chad said. He raised his can of beer in a salute and the one—they were both dressed in black—muttered, “Fuck you, you piece of shit.” Chad, smiling, glanced back at us. He winked and said, “Clever.”
 

The van’s doors slammed shut, the engine coughed to life, and then we were all bathed in the red glow of taillights. When the van backed up, the kid in the passenger seat gave us the finger. Chad raised his beer again, sounded like he was about to say something else, but then the driver attempted to peel out onto the road.
 

“That was weird,” Rich said after a moment. “What the hell were they doing here?”
 

John shrugged, lighting himself a cigarette. “Who the fuck cares. They should know better anyway.”
 

We turned then, the tense moment or two passing, and started down the driveway. It seemed those kids and the van were forgotten at once, as spirits again were high. Rich started telling a Polish joke he said he read online, and as he talked, I asked Sean what that was all about. When he shrugged, saying it was nothing, I asked him about Denise Rowe.
 

“Denise? Oh, she’s just one of the many stuck-up bitches in our class. Really, none of us were invited to this little shindig of hers, but fuck it. Look at all these cars here already and tell me anybody’s gonna give a shit.”
 

The night was cool and cloudy, and the music and talking and laughter coming from both inside the house and around back increased as we neared. There were even some kids out front, standing around with blue plastic cups in their hands. One of them, I realized, was responsible for drenching that one kid in black.
 

“I hope she has a fucking good table for beer-pong,” Chad mumbled. He and Rich both carried twelve packs of Old Milwaukee. Rich, having just finished his lame joke, already had one open. Chad lit a cigarette.
 

I counted about thirty-some cars and trucks parked everywhere.
 

“Anyone see Jeremy’s Eclipse yet?” Sean asked, and everyone except me started laughing. Sean noticed I was left out of the joke and said, “We pulled one major-ass prank today.”
 

“Hell yeah,” Chad said. “There’s this guy we’ve gone to school with for like ever. He’s a real prick. We all used to be cool but then he got in with the jock crowd and became a real toolbag, and he always acts like he’s about to kick our asses for no fucking reason or anything, just because he thinks he’s hot shit. So anyway, I came up with this idea—”
 

“Bullshit you came up with the idea,” Tyler said.
 

Chad gave him the finger. “Okay, we
all
had this idea to do something real badass, you know? And we had this vanity plate made up, cost like fifty bucks or something, but fuck was it worth it.”
 

We were almost to the house now. The kids standing out front were passing what at first looked like a cigarette around. Then, seconds later, the breeze picked up and the scent of marijuana drifted our way. The group stopped their conversation; they were now staring at us. I realized John and the rest of his friends were staring back, and, thinking of those two kids who were obviously denied, wondered just how welcome here we really were.
 

I asked what the vanity plate said, which seemed to break the stares. Tyler grinned and said, “Get this. We made it so it spelled I-L-U-V-C-zero-C-K. Fuck, it was classic. We put it on this morning first period and he fucking didn’t even realize it when he left after school. The bastard’s probably been driving around with the thing all day!”
 

We stepped up onto the porch then, heading for the front door, when one of the guys on the lawn said, “Hey, it’s a five dollar cover.”
 

“So’s the rate to fuck your mother,” Sean said, giving them the finger, and laughing, we entered the party.

•
 
•
 
•

S
O
MAYBE
WE
weren’t invited, but that didn’t really seem to matter once we were inside. A few glares were directed our way but nothing to make me worry that we’d get in a fight anytime soon, and eventually everyone started splitting off, going their separate ways. Chad asked me if I played beer-pong, and when I told him yes he grinned and said, “Good. You’re my partner then.”
 

We found the basement stairs and headed down. Here there was a widescreen TV, billiard and ping-pong tables. Beer cans already littered the table, as people were lined up throwing the plastic ball back and forth at the cups set up in a triangle. It looked as if three guys were playing the drinking version of Cutthroat, where with every shot they missed, they had to take a drink. A dozen or so others were on the couches talking and watching really nothing on the screen, as someone with a short attention span had control of the remote and kept switching the channel every few seconds.
 

“If you see anything you like, you tell me,” Chad said, indicating three blondes wearing midriffs and short skirts. They stood by the wall watching the beer-pong game. Each of them held a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
 

“You know them?”
 

“Well, I know
of
them. But really, they’re all just snotty bitches. Almost everyone here ranks in the top of the class, or their parents have a lot of money, so that makes them popular. Or maybe they’re jocks. You know how it is, just fucking bullshit. But hey, I wouldn’t mind banging a snotty bitch any day, you know what I mean?”
 

We walked up to the ping-pong table and Chad cleared his throat dramatically.
 

“All right, you lazy fuckers,” he said, “who’s ready to get their asses kicked?”

•
 
•
 
•

B
OTH
CHAD
AND
I had won three games straight and were working on our fourth playing two of the snotty blonde bitches—their names were Traci and Kelly, though they actually didn’t seem too stuck-up, and Kelly kept flirting with me—when I got the feeling.
 

By this time someone had come downstairs and made an announcement for everyone to shut the fuck up. When all was pretty much quiet (even the TV, still crawling through channels, got muted), he introduced a kid named Melvin Dumstorf, who he claimed was
the
best goddamned white freestyle rapper in Chemung County. “Come on, Melvin!” he shouted. “Show us your shit!” A beat was put on the stereo, and while at first Melvin didn’t look like he was going to do anything—he was a small kid, in jeans and a bright green polo-shirt, the collar up, his blond hair curly and his face now red—he started into something at once. It was kind of hard to keep up at first, but that was probably because I’d had at least six beers and three hits off the joint. Still, the kid sounded too well rehearsed, which I mentioned to Chad, who immediately began chanting, “Re-hearsed! Re-hearsed! Re-hearsed!” to which others started calling out random words, anything from vagina to banana, from vending machine to canoe, and Melvin Dumstorf actually managed to keep up, his lines witty and oftentimes hilarious. But then, after about five minutes of the same irritating beat, the kid’s rapping became annoying and the same kid that had announced him before said, “All right, Melvin, now show us your ninja skills!”
 

Melvin gave him a look, said, “Hell, no,” but the kid announcer wouldn’t let up. He started chanting, “Nin-ja skills! Nin-ja skills! Nin-ja skills!” getting everyone else to join in. Finally one of the pool cues was handed to Melvin and again he just stood there, like he wasn’t going to do anything, until suddenly he started spinning the cue around, the stick going so fast it was almost impossible to see. The crowd exploded into cheering and clapping, and then the stick was taken away and he was given three knives.