The reporter paused in front of the sign for Middleborough High. “One counselor at the school, who wishes to remain nameless, suggested that Matheson suffered from an anxiety disorder. Prior to attending Middleborough High, Matheson was enrolled at St. Luke’s Academy, where he excelled academically in the smaller classroom setting and was a favorite among the staff.”
Another image of Kirby flashes on the screen. He’s younger here. In front of some trees, with a pack on his shoulders. Teddy sits up straighter. This is Kirby the first year at summer camp. Another image. Kirby in front of a campfire with a group of boys—their camp group. Another image. Kirby, with his arm slung over Teddy’s shoulder. He remembers this picture. Kirby’s mom took it the last day of camp, just before Kirby went home. The boys look happy. Kirby had promised to text Teddy every day, and to help him escape if he hated East Monroe Middle School.
Teddy’s parents turn to Teddy. His mother has her hand over her face; his father is pale.
“That summer camp you sent me to in middle school,” Teddy says lamely.
“Oh, my baby,” his mother cries, reaching for him. He thinks for a minute that she’s going to hug him again, and he hopes that she won’t. He can’t handle more hugging. But she only grabs his arm, squeezing his elbow, as if affirming to herself that he’s still there.
“I don’t remember that kid,” his dad says, pausing the TV and squinting at the picture.
“He was . . . nice,” Teddy says. “He was really nice to me. Remember Rick?”
His dad nods, frowning. “That kid was a dick.”
“Well, Kirby stopped him from being a dick to me.”
Something passes over his dad’s face. Conflicting emotions Teddy can’t read.
“You knew this boy, this boy who killed those other kids?” his mother says, as if she still can’t believe it.
Teddy nods. “We shared a tent at night.”
His mother’s eyes are wide and watery.
“Look,” Teddy says, pointing at the television screen and the paused picture of him and Kirby. “I didn’t know he was a killer. He was nice to me. He didn’t seem like . . . like the kind of guy who would . . . who could . . .” His voice trails off.
“It’s not your fault,” his mother says, patting his arm, but it wasn’t until she said that that Teddy had even considered the possibility of that being true.
“So he didn’t seem . . . strange?” Teddy’s dad asks. “He didn’t seem like the kind of kid who could grow up and become a monster?”
Teddy casts his eyes down. Everyone keeps asking the same question. Everyone wants to know—needs to know—if there was some sign of something broken inside of Kirby. They want proof that he was a monster from the start. They want to take comfort in the idea that it takes a special kind of evil inside a person to kill like that.
But . . . there is no proof. Teddy never would have thought that the Kirby he knew would grow up to become the Kirby that killed. If he had had to guess, he would have said that Rick would have become a murderer. Not Kirby.
But there’s no comfort in that truth. There’s no way to make his parents less worried about the evil hidden inside the heart of someone who doesn’t look like a monster. Who never really acted like one.
Looking back now, he sees the shadow of the monster. He sees the hatred in Kirby’s eyes as he watched the boys from Middleborough play during camp. He remembers how quick Kirby was to anger. He recalls the way Kirby’s first instinct was to withdraw into himself. He wonders if Kirby saved him from Rick to be nice to him, or to hurt Rick.
Now he can guess at what went wrong. How things could have been different. If Kirby’s parents had known how vital it was for him to stay away from Middleborough High, for whatever reason, they could have found the money to keep him at St. Luke’s. If Rick had known his antics would feed the monster inside of Kirby, maybe he would have pulled back. If Teddy had known that the boy who was kind to him would one day kill others, maybe he could have been more kind to him back. Maybe he could have made sure that Kirby still had a friend, even if he lived almost an hour away. If Teddy had moved to Middleborough rather than stayed at East Monroe, maybe he could have stopped Kirby from becoming what he became.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. All he has are possibilities, and none of them are real.
His dad unpauses the television. “So what,” the reporter says over the image of Teddy and Kirby as kids, “turned this sweet young man into this murderer?”
Another image fills the screen, one that must surely be the last image of Kirby alive. The image of Kirby here is perfectly lit, beautifully illuminating the gleam of metal around the gun barrel, the hint of a smile playing on Kirby’s lips.
“This is the last image of Kirby Matheson, taken by his first victim, photography student Billie Palermo, moments before she was shot and killed.”
It’s the smile that slices into Teddy, the smile and the smoke and the way one caused the other.
Teddy’s mother reaches over and touches his fingers, reminding him that she’s there. He grabs her hand, holding it, and she pulls him down to her shoulder, resting her forehead on the top of his head.
“Maybe,” Teddy says quietly, “if I’d stayed in touch with him. If I’d talked to him more. We weren’t really friends after the second year of camp. I could tell he wasn’t happy. I could have reached out. If I had . . .”
“Shh,” his mother whispers into his hair. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
But Teddy’s not so sure.
* * *
When East Monroe returns to normal operations, there is a solemnity in the air. The halls are quiet. The classrooms are in mourning. Many of the kids wear black armbands. There’s a fund-raiser going around to help the families of the victims with funeral costs and hospital bills. Madison’s friends are gathering money to send her flowers. She’s still not back in school.
Word spread quickly that Teddy had been friends with the killer. People quit talking when he walks by. They move out of his way. Some cast him angry looks, as if the shootings are partly his fault. Some reach out, try to engage him in conversation so they can pick out the morbid details.
Teddy ignores them all. He goes straight to the art room and, before the bell even rings, selects a canvas and sets it up on his desk. He gathers together paints. He’s focused. Ms. Albans said they had two weeks to create anything they want. Teddy squeezes the black tube of paint across the palette, and the red. A lot of the red. But he also smears on unexpected colors. Purple. Yellow. A dash of silver.
He knows exactly what he wants to paint.
SURVIVAL INSTINCT
1
You take off your belt.
And it happens again.
2
I’m going to kill you.
I watch cop shows like they’re televangelists, promising me the hows and wheres of murder. They testify to my salvation, and my salvation is your end. I watch lawyer shows to see how best to get away with it. I am on a first-name basis with Mariska Hargitay. She tells me, “Zach, you better do it before you’re eighteen.”
I tell her, “Mariska, I will if I live that long.”
She tells me, “No girl should put up with what you put up with.”
I tell her, “Easy to say when you carry a gun.”
* * *
I wish you would drink, like Mom. I wish you did drugs. I wish there were something else I could blame this on.
You shout my name from your office down the hall. One loud, growly bark, like a mastiff.
Zach!
Why did you name me that? Why would you give a girl a boy’s name? Before one of us dies, I need to find out. I won’t ask you, though. I can’t. I don’t know if it would make you mad. And I don’t want you to get mad.
Zachary!
You must’ve wanted a boy. And was Mom even sober during my birth? You probably got to choose my name because she was too hammered to speak coherently. Just like the good old days.
&nbs
p; I curl up tighter under my blanket, drawing my legs to my chest and squeezing tight. I’m a python, constricting myself to death. I shiver.
When’s dinner? you shout.
I manage to stick my mouth out from between the blanket and mattress and say the word Soon, but I don’t move. It hurts too much.
Maybe someday I’ll cry again. Maybe that would help. I haven’t cried since I was fourteen. Or thirteen. It’s like a word problem: If Mom left when I was ten, and you first hurt me when I was eleven, which train will take me as far away from you as possible?
I’m really hungry, you say from your office, like you’re singing it. Like a little boy.
I get up.
3
Kirby calls the house after dinner. You answer the phone, because only you are allowed to answer the phone. You tell me it’s some boy. You make me ask you if I can talk to him. You nod. Magnanimous. You bequeath unto me the right to speak to a friend for five minutes on a corded landline. A short cord. Oh, my unending graciousness, mighty liege. Mine is but to serve.
What I say is, “Thank you very much.” And you smile. It’s not the way Kirby’s dad smiles. Like he loves his kid. You smile like you’re the smartest man on Earth.
“How’s it going?” Kirby asks.
“Okay.” This is our liturgy. Holy Mary, Mother of God, How’s it going, It’s going okay, Amen.
“Is he there? Close by?” There’s a snarl in Kirby’s voice.
“Uh-huh,” I say, mustering a grin from some dark place inside so you won’t know what I’m talking about.
You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are.
“So I’ll just have to ask you a bunch of questions and you’re going to just have to say yes or no?” Kirby says.
“Pretty much,” I say through another smile. If I looked in a mirror, I would see a shark. All teeth and black, lifeless eyes.
“Can you make it tonight?” Kirby says. “I can drive.”
“Mmm . . . I don’t know. Maybe.”
Your eyes flick toward me. I look away.
“Well, we’ll be there,” Kirby says. “John’s bringing all the stuff. Ten o’clock. But, listen, don’t do it if you think your dad’ll catch you.”
“I know. I won’t.”
“I’ll wait at the end of the street,” Kirby says.
“I know.”
“I really wish you had a cell.”
“Yeah. Trust me, me too.”
“Maybe we could just get you one of those throwaways,” Kirby says. “I could pay for it.”
“No, no. Don’t do that.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” Kirby says, pretending not to have heard me. “You might need it someday.”
“How is John?” I ask, because I can’t bear how the hope cuts through my stomach like a laser. With a cell, I could say anything I wanted, under the covers or in my closet after you are asleep. I could text.
I could call the police.
Kirby sighs at me. “He’s fine. He’s breaking up with Samantha. Just in case you’re interested.”
Samantha. Sam. Another boy name. Maybe there was a sale. And I am interested. But not enough to do anything about it.
“You could run off to Tahiti together or something,” Kirby says. “Open up a coed naked Twister gym or something.”
Kirby is the only person, the only thing, on planet Earth that makes me laugh. And I laugh when he says that. But my laugh is a closed-mouth sort of thing, a series of rapid hums only. I hate my laugh.
No. No, I miss my real laugh, that’s more accurate. When I was little, I laughed all the time. Cackled, really.
Time’s up, you say.
“Gotta go,” I say. “Talk to you later.”
I hang up before Kirby can say anything else. He’s used to it.
How is old Kirb doing these days? you say as I limp toward my room.
“He’s fine,” I say. You’ve never met him in person.
You didn’t have much to talk about, you say to me.
“No,” I say. “Just gossip about John.”
I wait to see if you’ll keep talking. You hate when I walk away before you’re done talking. Except you never indicate when that is, so I have to guess. You like that, don’t you? You like that I wait.
So I keep waiting.
Time for bed? you say at last.
“Yes,” I say. “Good night.”
Good night, Zach, you say. Sleep well.
“Thank you very much,” I say, because you like it when I say that, and go on to my room. Easy to find; it’s the one without the door.
4
My heart clenches when I see the kitchen lights go out. I start to shake with anticipation. I hear you yawn. You sound like a lion.
It’s almost time. Sweet relief, so close, so soon.
From under my blanket, I listen to you walk down the hall to your bedroom. I want a snorkel to pipe in fresh air from outside the blanket, like a cartoon I saw once. The Far Side. A little boy with a monster snorkel hides under the covers while giant, rabid beasts wait beyond his blanket, but they can’t get him because a blanket protects us from everything.
Almost everything.
Your door closes. Clicks. I wait. Listen to the blood pulsing rhythmically in my ears. It sounds like footsteps that aren’t getting nearer or farther: thub, thub, thub.
I pull down the edge of the blanket just far enough that I can see my clock: 9:15. Good.
To pass the time, I think about Mom. I make up a new story for her. Tonight, she’s in Nepal, hiking the Himalayas. That’s why she hasn’t written or called. If I had a TV, I could watch a TLC special on her exploits: The first woman to get to the top of Mount Everest with nothing but rum and Cokes to sustain her! Or maybe she could become a spokeswoman: When climbing Mount Everest, try . . . Everclear!
I very nearly laugh. But that would mean I am awake, and you can’t think I am anything but asleep.
The radio is on low in your room. I think it’s NPR.
At 9:50, I crawl out of bed and walk cautiously to your door. I listen carefully, but there’s no real reason to. Your snores are so loud, I could hear them by the time I reached the hall. Excellent. I race—
I slowly edge back to my room.
In the movies, people wear their sneaking-out clothes to bed and just hide under the covers. I can’t take that risk with you. I have to get dressed instead. My legs are stiffening up and it’s a challenge to bend and flex and slide them into jeans, but I do it. I do it because I need this tonight. I need my fix.
My black hoodie is easier to pull on. Most of the real damage is below my waist. A moment later, I slide my window open, take off the screen, rest it on the ground, and stand on my bed for leverage as I hoist myself through.
I push the window nearly shut and bolt across the brown grass in our backyard. I’m through the side gate and down onto the street in just a couple of breaths. It is only at these times I’m glad we do not have a dog. Usually, I want one terribly—some other living thing to hold.
I race to the end of the street. It’s only one minute before Kirby pulls up to the sidewalk in his blue Ford. It needs a bath. I get into the passenger seat and, at last, breathe.
“I knew you could do it,” Kirby says, driving away from the sidewalk.
I only lean back in the seat, eyes closed, and nod.
“What would he do to you if he found—”
“No. Don’t talk about it.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t.”
“Zach, I’m serious.”
I shake my head. I need to get into character.
“You should write everything down,” Kirby says.
“Like what?”
“Everything. Anything. Anything he does to you. Keep a record of it. It might be important. Later. If you ever tell anyone.”
I cringe inside at the reproach in his voice.
“Why don’t you?” he adds. As if he’s never brought it up before. W
e’ve been over it. And over it. And—
“You don’t understand,” I say.
“Make me.”
“I’ll leave. It’ll end. I’ll go to college or something.”
“Plan on paying for that yourself?”
He’s got a point. I’ve never talked about school. Neither have you. Maybe Kirby’s right: maybe you are planning on keeping me at home. Forever.
We pull into a parking lot. I see Meiko’s car already there in front of the shop. Kirby parks, shuts off the engine. We get out and walk together into Pulp Fiction, a small, struggling, but beautiful bookstore at the edge of Little Mexico.
Pulp Fiction stays open all night. They have a coffee and wine bar, which I believe is why they are still open. On Wednesday nights, they let Kirby, John, Meiko, and a few others use a table in the back. I play when I can, which isn’t much. But I try. I do.
John and Meiko are already there when Kirby and I come in. The maps are out. The figures are set. The adventure can begin.
“Hey,” Meiko says, smiling at me.
John gives me a nod. Kirby and I sit down.
“Just us?” Kirby asks.
“Think so,” John says. “I asked that new girl, Billie, but she didn’t answer. I mean, like, literally. Girl never talks. Whatever.”
John is hot. Like, should-be-on-TV-shows hot. But then, so is Meiko. Some girls try to dress up, and it looks trashy at worst, or trying too hard at best. Meiko makes it work. She’s stylish in a casual way. In a mail-order-catalog way, not a Playboy or MTV-reality-show way.
So I’m a little envious. I don’t look like either of them. I think I look Midwestern. That’s a synonym for plain. Plain, like a wheat field. In Little Mexico, Dad and I are in the minority. Maybe I’m a charity case to John and Meiko and Kirby. If so—that’s fine. They talk to me. They love me.
“Let’s roll,” John says.
I pick up my dice, which are borrowed from Meiko, who has a wooden cigar box full of them. The dice fit beautifully in my hand. I cradle them like jewels. Or keys. There’s magic in them, transformative and transportive—turning me into something else and taking me somewhere else.