“Take some.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Take some.”
“I don’t need that to get high. I get high on life.”
Paula choked with laughter. Thick white smoke billowed from her mouth. “Right! Me too.” She wearily shook her head. “Just living here is a trip. A bummer.” She was fourteen.
They were in a toolshed that stood among the trees a hundred feet from Gabe’s house. Milky moonlight filtered between gaps in the ill-built walls and shone brightly on the bare wood floor. The unfinished walls were lined with black tarpaper that had curled in the corners and torn in spots. Tools hung from nails in the raw walls. A tall wooden work table next to the door held cans of paint and varnish and jam jars containing nails, screws, and bolts.
Paula and her next-door neighbor, Iris, also fourteen, reclined on bags of manure and cement. Iris’s mixed-breed German shepherd, Skippy, lay with his large body rolled against her. A votive candle on the floor twinkled in its molded glass holder.
“Did I tell you about when Mike and I were blasted on Boone’s Farm and fooling around up behind the radio towers?” Paula leaned back on her elbows, stretched her legs out, and dropped one ankle on top of the other. She flicked her head, tossing her long, dark brown hair over her shoulder.
“We were humping, you know? And this guy comes hauling out of the radio station. He’s all yelling, ‘Hey! You kids!’” She laughed throatily. “It was brutal.”
“I don’t know why you get loaded so much. It’s not gonna get you anywhere.” Iris drew her nails across the thick fur on Skippy’s head. The dog flicked his long tongue at her ankle, which was exposed underneath the hem of her jeans.
“So who wants to get anywhere?” Paula took another hit on the joint. “Did I tell you about Mike’s friend who lives on a commune up north? They grow their food, make their clothes, everyone shares everything.” She weaved her head up and down. “Sounds bitchin’.” She slitted her dark brown eyes at Iris. “Think I’m gonna go. Blow this berg.”
Iris ignored her. She’d learned to discount at least half of what Paula said. “So what’s it like?”
“What?”
“Doing it.”
“Sometimes it’s okay.”
“Is Mike the only one?”
“Nah.”
“Was he the first?”
“Nah.”
“Who? Jess?”
Paula shook her head.
Iris furrowed her brow. “Kenny?”
“I’d never ball Kenny. Just drop it.”
“Manny?”
Paula’s face grew dark. “Just forget it, Iris.”
But Iris wasn’t about to forget it. “Tell me.”
Someone pulled hard on the block of wood screwed onto the door that served as a handle. The years of temblors had shifted the door so that it stuck in one of the corners. It bowed slightly before it creaked and scraped open. A diminutive figure, backlit by moonlight, stood in the doorway.
“Fucking Thomas,” Paula said derisively as she quickly hid the joint. “Get the hell out of here.”
He came inside anyway.
“Close the door,” Iris snapped, trying to sound as tough as Paula.
“You missed the fight.” Thomas sat cross-legged on the floor and began stroking Skippy’s back. The dog acknowledged him by darting his tongue against Thomas’s hand. “Grandpa was going to stab Dad with a bottle. Humberto was holding him.” He glanced at Iris, trying to catch her eye.
Paula shook her head. “I wish they would kill each other.”
“Mom came running out, screaming.”
“Don’t tell me she’s losing it again.”
“It’s Grandpa’s fault. He always starts the fights,” Thomas said. “Dad says you can’t stop progress.”
“Kiss ass,” Paula chided.
“Dad says he doesn’t care if he has to fight with Grandpa over the land. If there’s no struggle, there’s no progress.” Thomas pulled the dog’s silky ear between his fingers over and over. “You’ve been smoking marijuana.”
“I have not.”
“I can smell it. Dad says—”
Paula kicked her sandal-clad foot at Thomas. “Get out of here, Daddy’s boy. You make me sick.”
“Don’t get bent.” He flirtatiously looked at Iris as he stroked the dog’s ear. “She wants me to stay.”
“Thomas likes Iris,” Paula sang.
“I want you to go,” Iris said.
He sharply twisted the dog’s ear between his fingers.
Skippy yelped and gave Thomas a hurt look. Iris gasped and pulled the dog close to her. She looked at Thomas with horror.
Thomas shrugged. “So? I didn’t do anything.”
Paula kicked Thomas, hard. “Psychopath.”
The kick brought tears to Thomas’s eyes, but he just laughed. He left the shed, still laughing.
Through the open door, Iris heard a voice in the distance. “My mother’s calling me. I’d better go before I get it.”
It was late. The crickets were quiet and the air was soundless except for Humberto’s drunken snoring. He had passed out under a lemon tree. He snored loudly, then paused, as if he’d stopped breathing. Then he gasped for air with a long, wet noise and partially woke up. “What did you say?” He changed the position of his arms and fell asleep again.
Gabe picked up two hammers from the ground, slid the handles between his belt and pants, then picked up a shovel. He looked at Humberto and pressed his thick lips together, his mouth forming a downward arc.
Les swung a pickax over his shoulder. “Is he gonna stay out here all night?”
“Why don’t you take him to the house, then come back and help me clean up.”
Les dropped the pickax, bent over Humberto, and tried to pull him up.
Humberto rolled his tongue around his mouth and dryly smacked his lips. “It’s hot out here.”
“You’re drunk. Get up,” Les said.
The giant struggled to his knees and Les helped pull him to his feet. After Humberto managed to raise his leg and take one unsteady step, he began plodding quickly as if, once in motion, he couldn’t stop.
Les leaned against him, trying to keep him upright. “Just don’t fall on me.”
They disappeared in the grove.
Gabe hoisted the heavy pickax over his shoulder. Weighted down with tools, he walked through the trees to the toolshed, the dog gamboling behind. Once there, Gabe leaned the shovel against the wall and pulled hard on the door. It bowed and finally scraped open. He grabbed the shovel and stepped inside.
A triangle of moonlight from the open door cut across the wood plank floor. Perro ran ahead into the shed. Gabe let the pickax clatter to the ground. He pulled the two hammers from beneath his belt and set them on the work table. Walking to the back of the shed, he hung the shovel by its head between two nails in the wall.
The wood floor creaked behind him.
He turned around. A figure was silhouetted in the moonlight. The dog was wagging his tail.
“Who’s that?” Gabe asked. He smiled, his lips parting to reveal his crooked teeth. “So you came to pay me a visit, huh?” He grabbed the pickax by its handle and dragged it across the floor. The noise masked the sound of the heavier of the two hammers being picked up from the table.
“What could you want this late at night?” His back was to the door as he hung the head of the pickax between two nails. “Cat got your tongue?”
The first blow of the hammer was not true but glanced against the side of Gabriel’s head. Still, it stunned him and made his knees buckle slightly. He slowly turned. “Wha…”
The dog cowered and began to whimper.
The second blow hit Gabe squarely on the left side of his head, which cracked with a muted wet noise like an orange being trampled. He still didn’t fall. He touched his head and his mouth contorted when his skull felt spongy and soft beneath his fingers. Then he collapsed straight to the floor like a released marionette. Bright red blood meandered across the wood planks.
The assailant slowly walked from the shed into the grove.
Perro frenetically pranced around and over Gabe, nudging his body with his nose. Then he ran outside the shed, raised his head, and began to wail.