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  I feigned regret. “Gee, Hurdles, I better not. I’ve felt shitty all day, past two days, really. Who knows, it might be mono. I knew this girl, and that’s exactly how it started with her.”

  Hurdles nodded as if he understood, but I think he got a lot of practice at that. “Oh sure. You better take care of yourself.”

  “Yeah, keep your fingers crossed.”

  A moment of silence, which with Hurdles was just as awkward as conversation. He then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar. The wrapper was smudged and wrinkled, the bar bent in the middle. He peeled away the wrapper, balled it up, fired it at my trashcan, and missed. As an emergency measure I flipped on the stereo and jammed in the nearest cassette to blot out his chewing.

  “I had a good time with Aaron Friday night. We got some vodka and lemonade. He really drank a lot.”

  “That so?” Ordinarily Aaron wasn’t much of a drinker. Another point of difference between him and his big brother.

  “Yup.” Hurdles laughed then, showing caramel-coated teeth, and my stomach did a slow roll when I saw a piece of peanut shoot out to land somewhere in the carpet. “So what’re you up to this summer?”

  “Working, mostly. Phil and I got hired by the county highway department.”

  Hurdles grinned, eagerly sucking the caramel from his teeth. “Do you work with Joe Morgan?”

  Joe Morgan? “Oh, you mean White Trash Joe. Yeah, we do. He’s pretty intense. You know him?”

  “My dad trades stuff with him sometimes. Joe, he’s a real wheeler-dealer, always has some big scam going on. You name it, he’ll-trade it.” He looked at me with the same Bassett hound face I’d seen Friday night. “Chris, you, uh … you knew I got held back from graduating this year, didn’t you?”

  “I heard something about it, yeah. I didn’t pay much attention, but then when you weren’t there for commencement I figured it was true.”

  He clenched his fists tightly, then relaxed them. “Two credits. Two lousy fucking credits I get behind on, and can’t make them up during summer school. That really burns my ass.” He pushed his heavy dark hair back with an angry swipe of his hand. “And now my folks are making me quit marching band. Sold my tuba. I wasn’t that good, but it was mine.” He peered at me. “What did you guys think of what happened?”

  Truthfully, Phil and Rick and I had never discussed the matter.

  “We thought it was a pretty raw deal, too,” I said.

  Silence, except for the music.

  “Raw deal, huh?”

  “The worst.”

  He smiled a little. “It’s good to have somebody on my side.”

  Don’t push it. But I smiled back anyway. “Sure.”

  Then I yawned, very big and very loud.

  Hurdles pushed himself up with a grunt. “Guess I’ll take off now. Probably need your beauty rest.” He took a playful poke at me.

  And I suddenly felt as if I needed another shower. I rose to walk him out of the room, the house. “I’ll tell Aaron you stopped by.”

  “Yeah. Kinda sorry I missed him. Maybe I’ll drop by at Chuck Wagon and say hi.”

  I nearly sputtered laughter. Aaron would be mortified. “Well, you wouldn’t want to get him in trouble for screwing around. The managers there can be real hardasses.”

  Hurdles scratched at his groin, just about the very last thing I wanted Mom to pop out from around a corner to witness. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Don’t wanna do that.”

  By this time we’d reached the front door. Almost home free. “So long, Hurdles.”

  He stepped out the door, then half turned. “Give me a call sometime and we’ll go out for a few beers. I’ll buy. Raise some hell.”

  I nodded weakly. “We’ll have to do that. So long.”

  “Yup. Take her easy.” He grinned and winked. “Or any other way you can take her.” Loud, greasy laughter, like a donkey’s bray.

  Yes, I definitely needed another shower.

  Chapter 10

  The next night I decided to do something I’d never done before. I decided that Aaron and I should hit the town, just the two of us.

  “Come on, get your shoes on,” I told him from his doorway. “I’m teaching you how to drink beer tonight, and class starts in fifteen minutes.”

  Aaron looked up from the floor, where he was perusing some smutty magazine he’d inherited from me. “Seriously?”

  “Hell, yes. You’re no brother of mine unless you learn how to drink beer. None of this vodka and lemonade crap. That’s pussy stuff. That’s the last stop before you’re drinking California Coolers with Mom.”

  He shrugged and sat up to put on his shoes, but gave me a shy grin, as if it pleased him that I thought him worthy of a road excursion together. We were out on the streets in a few minutes, nearing dusk, and I headed for a liquor store. Out came the false ID.

  “Give me some money,” I said as we waited in line. “Better make it a ten.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “What is this? Mom and Dad bug out for vacation, and you try to take advantage of me? Your innocent kid brother?”

  I shook my head, exasperated. “Aaron, on any guy’s first night out with his older, wiser brother, he has to foot the bills. It’s tradition, rites-of-passage stuff, so don’t screw around with it. Now fork it over.”

  He did, much to my amazement. I was just bullshitting him.

  Five minutes later, after I’d taken a shortcut to a country road, we opened our first bottles. I watched as Aaron took his first tentative sip and grimaced.

  “How’s it taste?” I asked.

  “Kind of nasty, but it went down okay.”

  “That’s normal. Just keep forcing it in. It’ll get better.” I laughed. “Isn’t that what mothers used to tell their daughters about sex, too?”

  We cruised aimlessly, then steered back through town long enough to grab a bag of pretzels. Aaron remembered my promise to show him Tri-Lakes sometime, and I didn’t see any harm in the idea.

  Aaron and I both felt very loose by this time, comfortable as babes in the womb, hovering in a nice pleasant state. We were cutting up, cracking jokes that probably wouldn’t seem half as funny in the light of morning and a clear head. But he suddenly quieted down when we reached Tri-Lakes. He stared out his window, motionless, reminding me of a child traveling through the mountains for the first time. I guess the proper word would be awestruck.

  I parked in the usual spot and we got out to stretch our legs.

  “So this is Tri-Lakes,” Aaron said quietly. The trees, the pond, the clearings … all were bathed in soft moonlight that gave an eldritch luster to the entire area. “It’s entirely awesome.”

  I wandered a few steps from the car and began to take a leak. Aaron gave me a distasteful look, as if I had defiled something.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like we’re in church.”

  “It kind of feels that way.”

  So it’s gotten to you, too. “Aaron, it’s supposed to be a fun place. To drink. To discuss the meaning of life. To bring girls to.” I winked. “I think I can talk Valerie into skinny-dipping soon.”

  Aaron remained aloof, above all that. “Nature gave us our first cathedrals, Chris.”

  He moved away; toward the grove, I noticed. But let him go, let him think his weird thoughts. I watched until he paused halfway between the car and the grove and then stopped, hands in his pockets, simply watching the trees. No wind. They weren’t even moving.

  I busied myself with putting our empties into a sack, feeding on a couple handfuls of pretzels. Opening my last beer. Somewhere along the way I’d managed to get one ahead of Aaron. I listened to some AC/DC cranking from my stereo.

  Aaron. He was still standing out there.

  “Hey? Am I gonna have to bring you back here myself?”

  I almost had to. I had to call him three times. He wandered back, finally, and his face had lost that serene quality it had had a few minutes before. If it was possible to tell under
the moon and stars, he actually looked pale. He leaned against a fender.

  “Aaron?” I said. “Are you feeling okay?”

  He nodded, then looked sideways at me and I knew he was lying.

  Oh great, just great, I thought. He tried to keep up with me and it was too much for him. “Are you gonna be sick?”

  “I hope not.”

  I hitched a thumb at the car. “You want to lie down?”

  “Better not.” His voice held that telltale quaver, and as a veteran of more than one trip on my knees to the porcelain altar, I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would hurl.

  A minute’s wait proved me right. He went down on all fours over in the weeds and became violently, miserably ill. I wanted to at least offer the simple comfort of my hand on his back, but chucking your guts is definitely one of those occasions when you crave solitude.

  I waited, and when he finished, Aaron rose and walked unsteadily back to the car. Funny … he didn’t really seem drunk, at least drunk enough to bring on the sicks. But it hits different people different ways.

  “Can we go now?” he said softly.

  “Sure,” I said. On the way back out I apologized. “If I pushed you too hard tonight, I’m sorry. I know that’s no fun.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He gave me a lopsided smile, and the farther we got from Tri-Lakes the better he seemed to feel. “We’ll have to head out there again sometime.”

  Chapter 11

  The next weekend, the final weekend of June, Phil and I both had dates for Friday. Me with Valerie, and Phil with Connie Browne. Rick would be making it a stag night, probably alone. Well, not entirely alone. He always had his guitars.

  “You look stellar tonight, Val,” I said when I first set eyes on her that night, and this was no stretch of the imagination. She wore white slacks and a blue silky blouse. Her hair had been left loose, the way I preferred it. Very little makeup; she didn’t need it. I felt tacky beside her, in Levis and a terrycloth shirt.

  Valerie smiled, her nose crinkling. “Thanks.” No return compliment. Oh well. “I laid out today. Don’t you think I’m getting darker?” She tilted her chin up and tugged at the edges of her collar, giving me a much wider and much appreciated view of her chest.

  “Oh yeah. Darkening up nice.” Both bands on the wheel, Chris.

  She rearranged her blouse, then toyed with the fresh graduation tassel dangling from my rearview mirror. She still had one more year to go before earning hers. “Where are we going tonight?”

  “Movies, I guess. As if you didn’t know the new Stallone movie was in town.”

  “Excellent!” Valerie loved to watch Sylvester Stallone sweat. No jealousy from me. I was secure in my manhood. At least while he remained safely distant on the screen.

  We arrived at the theater just as the lights were dimming, and for the next ninety minutes we watched Sly Stallone struggle his way toward his latest version of the American dream. I usually really got into his movies, critics be damned. Because they made me feel as if I too could kick ass and take names later, could do something with my life and shape it into something special. Despite the fact that I didn’t think I had anything special going for me. Not like Rick did. Or Aaron.

  When the lights came up I discovered we’d been just two rows behind Phil and Connie. Great minds think alike. Phil, gazing toward the rear exits, saw us and did a double take.

  “I didn’t call for a chaperone,” he said.

  “Chaperone, hell. I figured you’d probably need advice.”

  We clumped together in the center aisle. Connie complimented Val on what she was wearing and they took off on a girl-tangent all their own, into a verbal land no man knows. No matter. Time for guy-talk.

  “Well?” I said, arching my eyebrows and grinning.

  He smiled faintly and nodded. “So far, so good.”

  I shot him a thumbs-up, which he promptly swatted away, presumably because he didn’t want Connie thinking she was being discussed in terms of conquest. Which she was, totally, and it’s a pretty shallow attitude to take toward any girl, I know, but somehow with us it seemed more noble.

  Then Phil hit me with something I didn’t expect. “You think you two might want to join us for a while? An hour or two, maybe?”

  “Are you sure? Four’s a crowd, you know.”

  He waved the statement away. “Don’t worry about that. We might not have too many more chances to do it.”

  So we packed into my car once outside. Phil’s was out of the question. A scuzzier back seat I’d never seen, which was fine for Rick, but no telling what might creep out and grab Val’s leg. Our town didn’t offer much for kids our age, so we hit the open road. Getting the girls into a bar was risky, and they voted down my suggestion of getting something at a package store.

  It was Phil’s idea to take them to see Tri-Lakes.

  “What’s that?” Connie said.

  “It’s their new stomping ground,” Val explained. “It’s where they go to get wasted and talk about us.”

  I blushed in the darkness, and I’d bet that Phil did, too.

  We left the town behind us, gliding over the gentle curves of Route 37, passing scattered homes and stretches of woodland and isolated farms. Silver moonlight flooded the countryside, and the night felt warm and humid and ripe … a night that heightened awareness of ourselves and each other and the drives deep within that fueled us. We needed the motion and the speed, the whine of tires over pavement, the sensation of wind buffeting through open windows, the sheen of perspiration that slicked our skin. We needed the risk, because we had the whole world in our hands, and there was nothing like the thrill of knowing we could lose it all in an instant.

  We needed the night, and welcomed it. Embraced it.

  I veered onto the turnoff, then the drive leading back. The girls stared out as the trees grew taller and closer to the road. I took our favored branch. The last thing I expected was to see another car parked down by the pond.

  It was a newer, flashier car, a brown Trans-Am. Two guys in jeans and T-shirts leaned against it, looking our direction with vague interest, while a third shape moved in the shadows beyond their car. The shape stepped forward into the light. Female. Rather hefty, too.

  “There goes the neighborhood,” said Phil.

  “We don’t have to stop this time,” Valerie said, her hand on my shoulder, rubbing gently. “We can come back some other time.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not gonna be run off by them.” Which gets my vote for the dumbest decision of the night.

  I switched off the engine and we could hear their voices. Most Midwesterners are more or less devoid of any distinct accent, but these guys had accents to the level of a terminal affliction. Not what you’d call Southern … just hick.

  “What do you want to bet they’re from Harden?” Phil said.

  “You’d probably win,” I answered.

  Harden was a rural township to the northeast. Lots of farmers, coal miners. White Trash Joe’s kind of people. The younger men had a general reputation for being hotheaded. Harden, went the saying … where men are men and sheep are nervous.

  “Chris…” Valerie said, almost pleading.

  I smiled wide and easy at Val. “Don’t worry. If it looks like trouble, we’ll clear out. Promise.”

  She agreed, though with a noticeable lack of trust.

  We climbed from the car. The other three stuck close to it, but I strolled a few casual steps away. No way would I let them think they were intimidating me. Out of the question.

  “Hey hey hey,” one of the strangers called to me, and moved a few feet toward me. He stood an inch taller than I, and heavier, with the beginnings of a solid gut behind his T-shirt. His hair was clipped short on the sides, growing a bit longer in the front and back. He took a healthy pull from a can of Stag, pinched the can in two, tossed it into the weeds. “Where y’all from?”

  I told him.

  He smiled proudly. “Harden.”

 
You could spot them a mile away.

  The guy walked closer still. He seemed friendly enough, but something about him grated like nails on a blackboard. It could’ve been simple prejudice. Maybe it was his overly friendly manner to a total stranger. But I didn’t care about the root cause, because I liked the red fog creeping into my mind, and all I wanted at the moment was to play out this scene a little further. And just maybe I wouldn’t want to leave after all if it got out of hand.

  “You ever spend a weekend around Harden, man?” he asked.

  I shrugged and cheerfully said, “Sorry. Never got that bored.”

  He frowned, as if unsure whether or not he should take offense. Apparently not. “It’s a good time, a real good time. We do us some drinkin’, raise us some hell, do some draggin’, a little fightin’.”

  “Hey, Wendell,” the other guy called. “Get yourself back over here. Just have another beer.”

  Wendell looked back their way. “Hey, fuck it, man! I’m just tryin’ to be sociable!” He turned to me again, arms crossed on his chest. “Me, I’m a hundred seventy-five pounds, but I tell you, I can whale on any two-hundred-pound motherfucker in Harden.”

  As one who tipped the scales at 145, I merely nodded.

  “What if he’s no motherfucker, just a normal guy?” Valerie, of all people. I’d have expected a crack like that from Phil, but not her. I nearly burst out laughing.

  Again, a trace of confusion passed over his face. “So anyway, tonight I get to feelin’ like I want to go for a swim. You know?”

  I nodded. “Warm night. The water’d feel good.” Wendell smiled, very wide. I’d been hoping for rotten teeth, but they were white and even. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinkin’. So how ‘bout it? You goin’ swimmin’?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Fight or swim, man.”

  I smiled thinly and gave a short laugh. I turned to cover the few steps back to my Malibu, peeling my shirt off over my head and draping it onto the hood. I looked at my friends’ worried faces … Valerie to Phil to Connie and back to Val again. Please, she mouthed. Let’s go. I walked back to Wendell and stood before him, hands on hips, skinny legs braced apart like a bronze statue.