Chapter Five

Vent used his finger to scan down the list of names posted outside the science lab’s door. Because Mr. Manton reveled in humiliating his students, he liked to post their grades for each test for the world to see. Vent had skipped the last couple of days of school, so there wasn’t a crowd to shuffle through.

“Sixty-eight. Huh, I passed.”

He thought for sure he’d failed. It was enough to make a boy believe in miracles. Someone called his name and when he turned around, he was hit in the face with a ball of tinfoil, the sharp edges lancing a burning cut in his cheek. Momentarily stunned, he watched three of the dudes on the basketball team, all of them black and twice his size, laughing and pointing. He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, saw the smear of blood, and turned away. Now others were joining in tittering over his humiliation, including some hot girls. Jamming his hands deep in his pockets, he picked up his stride.

“You might want to hit the showers, since you’re going in that direction. You stink like shit!” one of the basketball players shouted after him. Jesus. Vent didn’t even know their names, but somehow they knew him and loved to pull crap like this. To make matters worse, they were underclassmen.

“Fucking stoner loser.”

“Nice hair, faggot.”

He slammed his hip into the door’s exit bar and stepped out into the harsh light. Indian summer was in full bloom. The return of the heat and humidity sucked, especially under two layers of flannel, a leather jacket and jeans, but anything was better than being inside. He swore he could still hear everyone cackling, even though there was no way the sound would travel this far.

Tromping across the field, he jumped the small fence lining the outfield and ducked into the trees.

“Fucking assholes. Goddamn fucking assholes.”

His eyes stung. He refused to admit even to himself that he was crying.

Leaning his back against a trunk, he found the half joint in his jeans pocket and lit it. It was down to the barest nub by the time he settled down.

“You got any left?”

He jumped at the sound of someone else’s voice. Panic gave way to relief when he saw it was Heidi.

“This is all she wrote,” he said, passing over the smoldering stub. Heidi inhaled until it was gone.

“What are you doing out here so early?” he asked. This little patch of trees and darkness had belonged to the stoners for as long as anyone could remember. Kids from other social cliques steered clear, as did the teachers for the most part. It was known as the ‘Losers’ Lair’ which was fine by Vent and his friends. It seemed a small price to pay to be left in peace from the jocks, guidos, eggheads and stone-cold bitches.

“I think I’m just gonna cut,” Heidi said.

Vent had known Heidi since they were in Miss Macia’s homeroom in fifth grade. She could easily have gone the way of the bubbly cheerleader who dotted her ‘I’s with hearts and spent her days cutting down any girl who she didn’t deem as smart, pretty or ambitious as her or her friends. At least that was a simple surface evaluation, considering her bright blue eyes, wavy chestnut hair and perfect teeth when every other girl was wearing braces.

Perhaps the best trait of Heidi’s was that she didn’t know or care about how beautiful she was. She was the most down-to-earth person he’d ever met, just happy to chill and not get excited about all the crap that drove other teens into fits.

They made the transition from hair metal to grunge together and even smoked their first joint at the same time at Mick’s place two years back when he threw a rager, complete with firing off rifles into the air when everyone was thoroughly baked. They were lucky no one got killed that night.

Everyone in school, including the parents and teachers, assumed Vent, Heidi, Chuck, Marnie and Mick hung out because they had one thing in common – weed. That wasn’t the case at all. For whatever reason, despite their sometimes wild differences, they just clicked. Weed was simply a common interest. They were all just a little bit different, whether it was their looks or way of thinking, five salmon who preferred to swim downstream.

Heidi could run with the bad boys (and Marnie) but one thing she never did was cut class.

“Yeah, right,” he said. “And miss all the homework assignments?”

“I’m serious.”

He looked into her deadpan eyes and knew she was telling the truth. That got him worried.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked away, either searching for something or avoiding his gaze. “Nothing. I just don’t feel like going.”

“What did your mother do now?”

Heidi’s mom was, in Vent’s opinion, an undiagnosed bipolar nutjob who vacillated between being a Kool-Aid mom and Joan Crawford on her worst day. When he’d discovered Blue Oyster Cult’s song, ‘Joan Crawford Has Risen From The Grave’, he ran to Heidi’s house so they could listen to it together, laughing at some points and getting quiet at others, knowing Heidi was a modern-day Christina Crawford. Her mother could say vicious things, loudly for the neighbors to hear; everything from, “I wish I had taken a coat hanger to you when you were inside me!” to, “You’re nothing but a worthless slut that will end up dead by twenty!”

And when the words didn’t do the trick, she’d use her hands on Heidi, or any object that was nearby.

The next day, she’d serve Heidi breakfast in bed and dote on her, telling her how much she loved her and how sorry she was for lashing out the day before. Heidi knew her mother needed help and wasn’t able to control herself. It kept her from hating the woman who gave birth to her. No, most times, she simply felt sorry for her.

Heidi shook her head. “It’s not my mother. Surprising, right?” She lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.

“Well, something happened. You know you have to tell me.”

Heidi pursed her lips. She looked like she was about to say something, and took another drag instead.

“I’m going to keep bugging you until you spill it, dude,” Vent said, extracting a cigarette from her pack and using her cigarette to light his own.

“Nothing happened to me.”

“Okay, so then why are you so upset? You need me to kick someone’s ass?”

There was a long pause, and then Heidi crumbled. Tears snaked down her face. “It’s Marnie. We went to Benny’s on Thursday and she was…she was raped.”

Vent reeled. Marnie was raped? Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard from her since last week. It wasn’t like Marnie to disappear. He should have known something was up.

“Raped? Are you shitting me?”

Heidi looked down at the ground and shook her head, sniffling.

“Who the fuck did it?”

When she looked up, the rims of her eyes were red. “She won’t tell me.”

“Do the cops have any ideas who it could’ve been?”

“She wouldn’t let us call the police.”

Vent opened his mouth but then closed it. The Milbury PD was comprised of world-class assholes who looked at Vent and his friends as if they were nothing but cockroaches. No one gave a turd about the kids with families just barely scraping by. Their parents were losers and their children were doomed to be even worse losers. Why treat them like regular people, people who mattered? He could see the cops snickering behind Marnie’s back, figuring she’d brought it on herself.

“Jesus, Heidi, is she all right?”

“She’s all messed up.” Heidi ground the remains of her cigarette into the trunk of the nearest tree. ‘Jenny Fowler sucks ball sack’ had been carved into the tree so long ago, the words appeared to be sinking into the trunk. They often wondered what had become of Jenny Fowler. Was she a mom now? A grandma? Did she still suck ball sack? “Her face is all busted up and I think he hurt her real bad in...you know.”

Vent balled his fists. He wanted to lash out and hit something, anything. “And she doesn’t know who did it? Was it some dude from another town?”

“She knows who did it. She’s just not saying.” Heidi gasped. “Wait. She said she was going to hang out with Mick today.”

“So?”

“So, I’ll bet she’ll tell him who raped her, because she knows he’ll do something about it.”

“We all would.”

“No, not like Mick and you know it.”

As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. Vent could talk the talk, walk some of the walk, but Mick, he could be a force of nature if he was set loose. “Is she there now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should call her.”

They ran out of the woods and across the field, then made a left out of the field and headed to Neried Street instead of back toward the school. Heidi picked up the payphone’s receiver and held out her hand. “You got a quarter?”

He fished around his pocket and handed one over. She dialed Marnie’s number and waited. After seven rings, she hung up. “She’s not home.”

“We gotta go to Mick’s.”

“Come on, we’ll take my car.” They jogged to the school parking lot, the section for student cars way in the back.

The Cougar belched to life. Back tires screeched as Heidi made a tight U-turn, heading to the very worst part of town and beyond to Mick’s Airstream trailer.

* * *

Mick looked up from his Mad magazine when he heard Heidi’s junker Cougar rumble down the unpaved path. I guess Spy vs. Spy will have to wait.

Was it still the weekend? He thought for sure it was Monday, but without a place to go or a thing to do, it was easy to lose track of time. It couldn’t be Monday because if it was, Heidi would be in school and not driving toward him.

Vent was the first to jump out of the car, slamming the heavy door hard enough to send every bird in the trees overhead to less disturbing branches.

“What’s up, bro?” Mick said. He was sitting in an aluminum folding chair with an open cooler between his feet. Two warm cans floated in dirt-specked water in the cooler.

“Is Marnie here?” Heidi asked, still half in the car.

Oh, now this was all making sense. “Yeah. She’s sleeping inside. Someone busted her up pretty bad. She said she walked all the way over here. I thought she was gonna puke or pass out, so I told her to lie down. She just kinda passed out. Were you with her when she got in that fight?”

“There wasn’t a fight,” Vent said.

“What, did she get mugged? I know her stepfather didn’t do that. He has girl hands and couldn’t punch out a cat.”

Heidi said, “She didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Heidi and Vent exchanged a secret glance. Mick didn’t like secrets. Especially ones going on right under his nose.

“Why the fuck is everyone coming to me but doesn’t want to tell me nothing?”

Heidi chewed on her lower lip. Vent kicked at a pine cone.

Mick said, louder, “Well? What the hell is going on?”

“Somebody raped me.”

Marnie clutched the trailer’s open doorway. Her face was a mass of deep purple bruises. Her busted eye looked like bloody wet tissue, at least the little of it they could see.

Mick’s blood went into an instant boil. “Who’s the fucker who did that to you, Marnie?”

“Since almost everybody’s here, I think maybe I should wait until Chuck comes. No sense leaving him out, especially since he took care of me that night.”

Vent and Mick looked confused. Chuck knew about this and didn’t tell them?

“I don’t want to wait for Einstein to get out of school,” Mick said.

“I can call the school and pretend to be his mother, tell them there’s a family emergency and he needs to get early dismissal,” Heidi said. “I’ll pick him up when he gets out.”

“My phone’s toast,” Mick said. He could count on one hand with missing fingers the number of things not broken in the trailer. The generator went out on Saturday. The place was falling apart with the same steady decay as his family. His mother and stepfather had been gone now going on four months, to where, he had no clue. His real father had been MIA for years. Mick may have long ago given up looking for love from the people who brought him into this world, but he could sure use their money to keep from ending up in a tent eating squirrels he hunted and drinking puddle water. “You can use the one at Hale’s Dairy Mart.”

Marnie winced and clutched her stomach. “Get him.” She disappeared back into the Airstream, walking like a hunched-over old lady. Heidi and Vent hopped back in the Cougar.

Mick took the Bowie knife from the sheath strapped to his leg and took out his anger on a tree.

It only made him angrier.

* * *

Chuck didn’t like this one bit.

He sat in the back of Heidi’s car, choking on exhaust fumes, and mulling over the hundred ways this could go wrong.

He knew exactly why Marnie wanted to reveal the name of her rapist to Mick. Because Mick would do what the police and courts couldn’t. Even though his mother and stepdad, Dwight, were the farthest from parents of the year, they kept him from going completely off the tracks. Now that they’d been gone so long (and who knew if they were ever coming back or even alive at this point), Mick’s attitude was getting darker, his actions more reckless. He’d basically dropped out of school and Chuck had to stop him from taking random shots with his BB gun at passing buses one day.

Vent slid a Pearl Jam cassette into the radio and cranked up the volume. None of them wanted to talk about what was going to happen. Emotions were high and Chuck was sure each of them was partly hoping Mick would do something bad, real bad, to the son of a bitch. Maybe not all of them were thinking ahead to the potential fallout. Maybe Chuck was the only one.

Milbury’s suburban streets gave way to empty lots and trees, asphalt to rocks and dirt. The Cougar’s rusted shocks wailed. Each pothole felt like dropping into a sinkhole. The only person living out here was Mick. Once upon a time, there had been Victorian houses, attempts at taming the wild, but they had been long abandoned. Mick’s waste of a stepfather had moved them out here so he could grow weed. The problem was, he had a black thumb and all the get-up-and-go of a corpse. Then there were illegal fireworks, but that was a short-term business at best. He next tried selling knock-off handbags at the Sunday flea market, but they were cheap looking and fell apart before women made it home with their purchases. Word got around to steer clear of his table. When that failed, he took Mick’s mom and bailed. Neither had bothered to tell Mick they were leaving or when they’d be back, if ever. Chuck brought care packages of food to his friend every week, but his parents were getting suspicious about the strange disappearance of their food stores. They hated that he hung around Mick. If they found out he was feeding him too, that would be a problem Chuck didn’t need.

Like this one.

When they pulled up to the Airstream, Mick was carving curlicues of wood from a gnarled branch. He looked crazed. Not good.

“Marnie still inside?” Vent asked. One of his work boots was untied.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get her,” Heidi said, hurrying into the trailer.

Mick gave a quick head tilt. “S’up, Chuck.”

“Hey.”

The three boys stood apart from one another, avoiding eye contact, waiting in an uncomfortable silence. Chuck heard Heidi and Marnie talking in hushed voices. Marnie must still be in bad shape if she willfully slept in there. The funk in that Airstream could only be banished by the workings of a match and some kerosene. Normally, Heidi and Marnie kept outside, their noses crinkling every time they walked past the screen door.

When Marnie stepped out, Heidi crooking a finger in her friend’s belt loop, Chuck felt both queasy and madder than hell. Her bruises had gotten worse, the purpling spreading from ear to ear and chin to forehead. She moved like every cell in her body was in rippling agony.

Heidi helped her into the best of the folding chairs, the one usually reserved for Chuck since he was the biggest of them all and would bend the frames of the other castaways littered about the trailer. He may have been seventeen, but he was physically a full-grown man, looking much older than his years thanks to his full brown beard. When all 3the boys had bragged about getting their first baby hairs on their upper lips, Chuck had a full five o’clock shadow by late morning.

Heidi whispered something in Marnie’s ear and she nodded, letting her stringy hair cascade over her damaged face.

Mick fished a joint out of his shirt pocket, lit it and handed it to Marnie. “It’ll help the pain.”

She took a couple of drags. Her shoulders drooped a bit and she sat a little straighter.

Chuck wished he’d brought beer. He needed a drink in the worst way. A tiny throb blossomed at his temples.

Mick, who was as subtle as a fart at a funeral, dove right in. “So, who did it, Marnie? Who’s the piece of shit?”

Marnie pushed the hair from her good eye. There were no tears, just the glaze of pain. She looked to Mick and only Mick. “It was Harold Dunwoody.”

Heidi jumped from her chair. “What? He followed you out of the bar?”

Marnie nodded, keeping her eyes on Mick.

A darkness seeped over Mick. “I know that guy.” He looked to Chuck. “Remember when he coached RS Auto’s team in Little League?”

Chuck, who had been staring at Marnie, snapped out of his fog. “Oh yeah, that was him. The guy who always carried the clipboard and wore those green visors.”

“That’s him,” Mick said. “I don’t care what anyone says, he told his pitchers to throw at me after I slid hard into his fag son at third that day we crushed them. Looks like he’s still sticking up for the loser he should have shot into the sheets. He’s gonna wish they’d knocked my brains out.”

“He didn’t just beat me,” Marnie said softly.

No one spoke for a while. Chuck and Heidi already knew about her being raped, but it still felt like hearing about it for the first time. The shock was as raw as sunburned skin.

Mick got up quietly and went inside the trailer. He used to tell everyone that Marnie was his sister by another mister, what with the both of them growing up in similarly fucked-up families and being more marginalized by the town than most. He closed the door behind him; the absence of any sounds of him moving about was unsettling. Minutes later, he kicked the door open, a heavily scuffed Louisville Slugger resting on his shoulder.

Vent had been pacing around the circle of friends. He tossed a stick in the bushes. “What are you gonna do with that?” There was genuine trepidation in his voice.

“Just a little batting practice.”

Chuck stood up. Mick was holding Mr. B, his old bat that got him through three years of Little League. He’d been damn good at the plate, him and Mr. B swatting quite a few game-winning hits. But by the time he was twelve, Mick had no tolerance for coaches telling him what to do and Chuck assumed Mr. B had been thrown in the woods somewhere or cut down or set on fire.

The tiniest bit of a smile bloomed on Marnie’s face. Heidi held her close, giving Mick an approving nod.

Chuck knew he had to step in before things got out of hand. Mick plus unbridled anger and a bat would equal twenty years’ hard time if he got off easy. “Hold on. You’re not going to smash Dunwoody’s head in.”

“Never said I was.”

A cyclone of leaves whispered past him.

“Or any other part of him,” Chuck was quick to add. “You’ll kill him for sure and then what? You go to prison until you’re an old man.”

Vent massaged the back of his neck as if he’d been stung by a bee. “Chuck is right, dude. Even if you just threaten the guy, he’ll call the cops and that’ll be a whole other mess.”

Mick sauntered over to Marnie and stood behind her chair. Chuck noticed the tiny flinch of her shoulders when Mick touched her. “First of all, I’m not going to just sit around and do nothing. Second, I’m not going to kill him. Hell, I might not even hurt him.”

“So, then what do you need the bat for?” Chuck asked.

“To get him to do what I say.”

“And what are you gonna tell him to do?”

“Simple. I’ll inform he has to get in his car and we’re gonna go for a little drive. You all can come if you want, if his car can fit everyone.”

A cold knot of dread twisted Chuck’s gut. “Where do you want him to drive to?”

Now Mick grinned. It was an evil villain grin that made dogs dash under the bed and grown men make the sign of the cross. It was the very same grin that made his teachers reluctant to deal with him and quite possibly made it easier for his mother to leave him. “I’m taking him to the people who will do what the cops can’t.” Tapping the barrel of the bat in his hand, he said, “I’m gonna feed him to the motherfucking Melon Heads.”