He led me to a table away from the others. We sat. “Do you need to puke?” he said.
“I’m okay.”
He handed me the Coke. It still fizzed. “Mary says it’s good for the stomach. She used to give me Coke syrup when I was sick as a kid.” He sort of smiled, remembering. “That was when she wasn’t working—back when I still called her Mommy.”
I nodded. My mother had done the same. Charlie tapped the cup, like the patient father, and I took a sip. It was so sweet, too sweet. The bubbles hurt my throat.
Charlie gestured toward Meat and Pierre and the others. “They’re assholes, huh?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Bet it was weird, being with him when he did it.”
I hadn’t been sure Charlie had known I was there. But I’d forgotten—Charlie knew everything. I took another sip. The sweet hurt felt good now. “Yeah.”
Charlie hadn’t touched his chicken sandwich. Was he sick too? Because of David? He said, “He must have been in so much pain.”
I’d been trying not to think about it. “Do you think he felt it? I mean, I figured the impact killed him.”
“I don’t mean when he died. I mean before. To do something like that … he must really have been hurting bad. And no one knew it.” Charlie gestured toward our friends again. “Those guys … they don’t understand that kind of pain, do they? They’re Teflon. Nothing ever hurts them.”
In my head, I heard Pierre’s voice again, It’s a bird! It’s a plane! And David’s, Wanna see me fly? I nodded, hating Pierre, hating all of them.
“But you and I know, don’t we, Paul? We know what it’s like to hurt. Don’t we?”
“Yes.” A whisper.
Charlie stood and walked to the brimming garbage pail, shoved his uneaten lunch inside, then, gesturing for me to follow, walked to the door. He stopped by Meat’s table. “I’m driving Paul home. He’s sick.”
Once outside, Charlie called the school office on his cell phone. “No, he’s okay, Mrs. Richmond … stomach flu, maybe… No, I don’t think you need to leave work. I’ll take him home. We’re at lunch now.” He looked at me, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. “Want to talk to her?” he mouthed. I shook my head. Charlie went back to the telephone. “He’s lying down now… Yes, in the backseat. I’ll have him call you later.” Then, “You’re welcome, Mrs. Richmond… Paul’s a good friend to me, too.”
He hung up and started driving. We were headed for his house.
“I don’t want to leave you alone when you’re sick,” he explained. “I have to go back—got a test in religion. But Rosita will be here if you need anything. You can lie down or do your homework in my room. I’ll come back after school.”
I nodded. God, he was being so nice to me.
We drove in silence. I closed my eyes, feeling my head throbbing. We were pulling into Charlie’s driveway when he spoke again:
“Know what I wish sometimes?”
“What?”
“I wish something would happen to them. You know, not really hurt them, but just something to make their lives a little less … perfect. Maybe make them less sure of themselves for once. Does that make me a bad person?”
I shook my head. I’d been thinking the same thing all day.
“Sure it does,” Charlie said. “Bet you never wish that kind of thing.”
I didn’t even have to think about it. I said, “Yeah, I do.”
My stomach felt a little better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I ended up agreeing to what Charlie wanted. He was right, of course. It wouldn’t be a big deal. And even if it was, I wanted it too—now.
After Charlie left, I tried to sleep. But each time I closed my eyes, I saw David, David falling. I heard his scream. I saw his blood, his brains on the pavement. Then, I saw Pierre and the others—even Meat, whom I’d thought was nice—laughing about it.
And I heard Charlie’s words: I wish something would happen to them … something to make their lives a little less perfect.
I don’t know if I ever slept. But an hour after Charlie left, I logged on to his computer and opened the website with the bomb instructions. That’s how Charlie found me when he got home.
“Feeling any better?” he asked.
I started, turned to look. He was smiling, not a broad grin. Just a little smile. Still concerned.
“Yeah.” I gestured toward the monitor, the website. “I was thinking about it. I mean, if you’re sure no one will get hurt. If it’s just to scare them.”
“Relax, Paul. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
I shook my head no. He never had.
We spent the rest of the afternoon planning. We’d do it Saturday night. No one would be around. Turned out, Charlie had done the groundwork, planning on setting the bomb, even without me. “But it will be more fun together,” he said. He’d gathered the materials, like a two-liter soda bottle. He’d even stolen a fuse from the hardware store.
“Why steal it?” I asked when he showed it to me. “Couldn’t we just buy it?” It didn’t seem like stealing helped our situation any if we got caught.
Charlie stared at me over his sunglass tops. “You never watch the news, do you? Whenever there’s a bomb scare or something, it always gets screwed up because some sales clerk remembers selling something to the guy. That’s how they caught McVeigh.”
I nodded. I didn’t put us in the same category as terrorists, though. I mean, McVeigh had killed people, lots of people. Killed babies, for God’s sake.
“We’re not killing anyone, though,” I said.
“’Course not,” Charlie said. “We’re just going to scare the hell out of them—like they deserve. That’s what you want, right?”
I did. I wanted to terrify them. Maybe fear of their own death would affect them as David’s hadn’t. Maybe it would make them less certain of their wonderful futures. I wanted them to justify despair. Part of me knew it was crazy, thinking that way. But, I reminded myself, no one would get hurt. Charlie had promised.
I read the instructions for about the hundredth time. They said to place the bomb in the fluorescent ceiling lights. It detonated when someone flipped the switch.
“But then, someone has to set it off. Couldn’t we just—?”
“What? Light a fire and run?” Downstairs, the front door opened. Charlie heard it too and threw the fuses and stuff into the desk drawer, out of sight. “You want to be there when the fire starts?” he whispered.
I shook my head.
“Yeah, well, me neither. This way, we’ll be in chapel. They’ll all see it and pee their pants, but no one will get hurt. They just won’t feel so safe anymore. Old Carlos comes in early and turns on the lights while everyone else is praying.”
“But Old Carlos…” I felt sick again. Old Carlos was the last one I wanted to hurt.
“Relax.” Charlie held up a hand. I heard footsteps downstairs. “There’s a time-delay built in. The light has to heat up, and Old Carlos will hightail it before it burns.”
That was true. I’d seen him turn on all the lights, then head back home for a smoke or something. Kids at Gate joked about how lazy he was.
I said, “I don’t know. It’s still a bomb.” I looked at Charlie. I knew it sounded like I didn’t trust him. But I did. He was my best friend.
“Don’t worry. No one’s getting hurt. And if someone does…”
“What?”
He started toward the door, gesturing for me to follow. “No one’s getting hurt.” He threw the door open. “Why don’t you stick around? Rosita’s making paella. You could do your homework on the computer while I practice.”
“Sure.” Inexplicably, I felt my stomach twitch.
We went downstairs. Charlie opened the hall closet and took out his favorite racket. He had four or five, but he mostly used that one. The Hammer, he called it. “Need to call your mom?”
“Yeah.” I started toward the portable phone. I turned back. “Charlie?”
He looked up.
>
“What you told me that time? About your dad?”
He glanced outside, checking whether his father was around. On the court, Big Chuck pointed at his watch. Charlie said, “What about it?”
“Nothing. Just, my parents are weird too.”
For a second, he stood, twisting his mouth side to side, and I thought he’d say he had to go. Why was I bugging him with my problems? Then, his expression became a smile. “Yeah. I figured that out.”
“You did?” I knew he’d known the obvious things—Mom’s job and the crummy place we lived. But what else?
“That stuff doesn’t matter, Einstein. What matters is loyalty, having friends who’d do anything for you, no matter what.”
I nodded, started toward the telephone again. I heard myself say, “Is that why you were friends with David Blanco, too?”
It was a moon ball. He’d never mentioned David. I figured he’d laugh, say what did he know about that loser. But he said, “Sort of. He turned out not to be that good a friend, though, not best friends like we are.” A pained look crossed his face. “God, it’s so weird that he’s dead.”
But I was still on best friends. I’d been considering Charlie my best friend for a while, but he’d never said it. I probably should have asked him about the note then. But I didn’t have to. Charlie had nothing to do with it. It was so obviously Binky, screwing with me.
“Anyway.” Charlie glanced outside again, bored with me, and mimed a two-handed backhand. “I have to practice.”
I didn’t bother calling home.
The next day, Friday, I still felt a little sick. I didn’t go to school. So, I didn’t see Charlie again until Saturday, hours before we planned to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“You’ll sleep over at my house,” Charlie had said. And, of course, I’d agreed.
I didn’t ask Mom’s permission. I was beyond that. I just said, “I’m staying at Charlie’s.”
She gazed at me a second before saying, “Please don’t go, Paul.”
She reached to pluck a hair. Fine. Let her go bald. I met her eyes.
“He’s waiting downstairs,” I said.
She didn’t try to stop me.
We were celebrating that night. Charlie had won his tournament that afternoon, and Mrs. Good was out of town, so Big Chuck took us to Friday’s for dinner. He ordered spiked drinks, sneaking them to Charlie and me when the waitress left and taking them back when we finished. “My boys deserve a treat,” he said, crunching Charlie’s shoulder with one hand, mine with the other. I was flying. Music pulsated off walls, off hanging saxophones and sleds, my brain. Other people’s conversations filled my head’s acoustics. But I knew that tonight, all voices would go silent except Charlie’s.
“How’s Mandy?” Charlie asked. And, the way he said it, I knew he was roasted (one of my new words, from Meat) too.
“She doesn’t like me anymore.” I figured he knew she was back with St. John. I mean, Charlie knew everything.
“Maybe we’ll put a little gasoline in her locker,” Charlie joked. Then, he glanced at Big Chuck and mimed, Shhhhhhh.
We fell back into silence. Big Chuck was happy. He was drinking real drinks now, drinks without cute Friday’s names or ice cream in them, and I wondered how we’d get home. I looked back at Charlie. He seemed unconcerned, so I was, too.
“You boys are quiet tonight,” Big Chuck yelled over the din. “When I was younger, I used to go wild on Friday nights.”
“Just reviewing the match,” Charlie said. Even drunk, he knew what to say.
“That’s my boy.” Big Chuck chomped his steak-on-a-stick. “You’re doing big things, Charlie. Big things.”
“Maybe I’ll do something bigger than tennis.”
Mr. Good spoke through half-chewed meat. “Nothing’s bigger than tennis.”
Behind his glass, Charlie rolled his eyes.
Later, I lay in my sleeping bag on Charlie’s floor. The air was cool, dark. Down the hall, running water, a long fart. A flush. The drone of television news turning into Letterman’s Top Ten list. Then, even that ended, and there was only the stop-start of central air, Charlie’s breathing above me.
Finally, a whisper. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s blaze.”
I rose in the silent darkness. We’d stayed dressed, needing only shoes. These we carried over our hands, stealing downstairs, through the living room, then out the front door, not bothering to lock it. I fumbled with my sneakers, lost the tongue beneath my foot, my fingers too stiff to lace them. Charlie stood above me, frowning, his eyes empty. Finally, I got the shoes on and we walked through the soft, mulched grass that clung to our shoes and ankles.
We’d parked the bicycles on the side of the house. It was too risky to drive, Charlie had said. Instead, we pedaled through the streets. It was hot. My backpack straps strained against my shoulders. The soda bottle thumped my back. A Coke bottle, making me think about what Charlie had said about moms and Coke syrup.
We said nothing, riding miles, miles until sweat clogged my pores and ran down my back. Sometimes, there was light, streetlamps, porch lights. Usually, black branches covered the moon. We reached the school’s street. My legs were pudding beneath me. I stood on the bike, willing myself to pedal. I couldn’t.
“Come on.” Charlie’s voice in the dark. He’d ridden back around to meet me.
“I can’t”.
“You’re wimping out?”
I said nothing. Suddenly, I was terrified.
“We’re doing nothing wrong.” Charlie circled behind, then ahead. “And you hate this place more than I do.”
The word hate hung like humidity in the silent air. We’d never said anything about hating the place, about wanting to do serious damage. It was just about scaring them. And fixing Charlie’s science grade. Still, I thought about the people I hung with, a lot of the same people who’d made my life miserable when I started Gate, and I knew Charlie was right. I’d do it. It would feel good to destroy at least a little part of the place—as long as no one got hurt. My legs gelled, started moving again. Then, we were there, hiding the bikes in the bushes, hoisting ourselves over the fence, the hedge, barely feeling the bougainvillea scratching our arms. Charlie joined me this time. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he’d said. The parking lot was just as dark, but my legs felt light. No fear. I was with Charlie now.
It was easy finding the building this time, easy to use a hairpin to jimmy the flimsy lock. I started to wipe away my fingerprints.
“Don’t bother,” Charlie whispered.
“Why not?”
He pushed me forward, into the room. “It’s no big deal. There’s a million fingerprints on that knob.”
He was right, of course. And it was too late to protest anyway. We were inside. Charlie opened Zaller’s file cabinet with his foot, snagged the file with his name on it.
I thought for a second about telling Charlie to just take the file. That would be enough to fix Charlie’s grade.
But no. I wanted the other part, I realized. I wanted it as much as Charlie did. I wanted to be strong for once in my life. It wasn’t just about Charlie’s strength, but my own.
Then, Charlie was directing me to pull a desk to the room’s center.
But it wasn’t me who planted the bomb in the fluorescent light. Not really. It was someone else, everyone else maybe. Charlie, of course. And Mom. Binky. And David Blanco, his face smashed and bloody. And Pierre and Meat, laughing about it. And mostly Dad, because I wouldn’t even have been there if he’d cared enough. They were all there with me. Maybe Pierre held the flashlight while the others clambered onto one another’s backs to the ceiling. Binky was the lookout. Mom drew the panel away from the light. David held the gas-filled bottle because he had nothing to lose. Dad rigged the fuse. It couldn’t have been just me. And Charlie, holding the flashlight while I stood in the light column, then climbed atop the desk I’d pulled out. “You have to do it,” Charlie
said. “You’re taller.” And I was. And I did it. But not just me.
“Watch out,” Charlie said.
A glance down. Odor met my nostrils. Gas. Charlie shone his light on the black pool. “Should we clean it?” I asked.
“No, it will evaporate. Just finish.”
I looked up again, and Dad’s hand slid the panel back in place. He didn’t look at me. Dad never looked at me.
“No one’s getting hurt,” a voice—Charlie’s—intoned.
I climbed down.
“And if they do,” the voice continued, “who cares?”
“Who cares?” I repeated.
Then, I was back in my sleeping bag in Charlie’s room. The tile felt hard, bumpy beneath me. And cold. Across the room, the wood-slatted blinds let in the seeping starlight. I watched it grow lighter, brighter, invading my pupils so I had to close my eyes. I didn’t sleep. Above me, in the comfort of his bed, Charlie breathed evenly, childlike, sleeping the sleep of the righteous.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Monday, 8:05. I sat on my hands in chapel. I sat alone, too, watching Charlie and Meat arrive after me and take seats in the opposite pew. I couldn’t catch Charlie’s eye. Was he ignoring me? Reverend Phelps called us to worship. The choir started its first deafening hymn. I waited, listening through their singing for the sound. Any second. Class started at eight twenty-five. By then, it would all be over.
8:10. Amanda came in late. Just about everyone turned to watch her walk down the aisle, hair flaming. The color of temptation. The choir was singing:
Heavy is my tribulation,
Sore my punishment has been,
Broken by thine indignation,
I am troubled by my sin.
She sat across the aisle. St. John scooted close to her.
8:11. A senior I didn’t know was doing the reading. It was “If Thy Arm Offend Thee, Cut It Off.” I barely heard it. Was that a siren screaming? Stupid. Just a sour note on the organ.