Dig

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Chris can’t dance

  Vicky and Chris continued dancing through the barrage of one-hit-wonders. They drank their beers and ate some snacks from the hors d’ourves table. Three songs had played since Rusty and Robyn headed outside and Chris was drenched with sweat and needed to sit. Several other couples were up and dancing now. On the sound system, Howard Jones crooned about how things could only get better.

  “I think I need to step outside and get some air,” Chris said.

  “Are you having a heart attack?” Vicky asked.

  “No. I’m just hot.”

  “And you think it’s going to be more comfortable outside? It’s June, you know,” Vicky said, smiling and touching his shoulder.

  “There might be a breeze.”

  “All right. I’ll go with you, but you owe me another dance. You were kind of sexy out there.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but I’m turned on.”

  “Maybe we should just leave then. I know a cozy little place on Kellams Court. It’s about an hour away, has a King Size bed and…” He stopped describing their house because Vicky was frowning.

  “Where is our son?” she asked.

  “Shit,” he said.

  The couple headed for the door to the gym. Their faces were pale with frightened expressions. Chris looked at the directory on the wall. The rest of the building was also used for community events. There were meetings in the assembly room, election tallies in the offices and free night classes given by the local community college in some of the old classrooms. Alcoholics Anonymous met there. Chris tapped his finger on the directory board.

  “Come on. I think I know where he is,” Chris said.

  “How would you know anything about that?” Vicky asked.

  “Because I know where I would be,” he said.

  They hurried down the hall to the first set of doorways and turned right past a row of lockers that hadn’t been used in more than a decade. Chris had skipped many of his classes in that very hallway. He slept through other classes and even managed to fail a few that he attended with full attention. He was never book smart, but he had common sense and knew people. If there was one group of people he knew a lot about, it was teenage boys. As he hurried through the hallway to the end where the Assembly Room was—it was the band room when Padre, Bassballs, Ninja and Strings were students—he wondered how he ever managed to graduate.

  Lights flickered from inside that room and the knot in Chris’s stomach loosened a little. He heard noises, voices, noises, more voices. It was a movie. Inside the room, he saw a film projected on the screen up front. It was an action film full of gunfire and shouting—Vin Diesel in xXx. Chris flipped the lights on to a chorus of “Hey!”

  Matt sat in the back row with his arm around his girlfriend, Angela, who was a skinny thing with a big smile and stringy blond hair. His son’s best friend, Shawn, was a few rows over with his arm around a girl Chris didn’t recognize. He was just pleased and relieved to find the kids were all fully clothed. Plates of half eaten snack food from the reunion were scattered about various other chairs. In the movie, something exploded. Matt scrambled for a remote control and paused the movie.

  “Hey, yourself,” Chris said.

  “Hi Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire,” Angela said.

  “Dad. I’m sorry. I was so bored and you said four hours. I called Angela. Shawn rented some flicks. We had no idea how long we were really going to be here.”

  “They came all this way to hang out with you? Dedication.”

  “What can I say?” Matt said. “They love me.”

  “It’s only an hour. Forty-five minutes if you know how to drive,” Shawn said.

  “You watch how you drive, son,” Chris said. “You’re ugly now, but you’d be much uglier dead.”

  “Ha,” Shawn said. “Good one.”

  Chris waved his hands around, indicating the screen, the dvd player and the projector. “You sure this is okay?”

  “Yeah, I asked some dude in a suit,” Matt said.

  “Well, then it must be legit,” Chris said.

  Vicky walked over and hugged Angela, then Shawn. She looked at Shawn’s girlfriend and said, “Hi, I’m Vicky, Matthew’s mother.”

  “Matthew?” Matt said. The girl smiled and waved but didn’t speak.

  “Come on, honey,” Chris said, putting a hand around his wife’s waist. “He’s fine and they’re behaving. Let them have their fun.”

  “Okay,” Vicky said. “We were just worried about you.”

  Chris turned her toward the door and popped the light switch off on their way out. The movie started back up, full volume. As they walked back down the hallway, now without the stress, Chris started to laugh and Vicky joined him. An explosion rocked the building, but it coincided with the film in the other room and went mostly unnoticed.

  “Wanna do it in the hallway?” Chris said.

  “Really?” Vicky replied, but there was more sarcasm than curiosity in her voice.

  “Yeah. How about right there, up against those lockers?”

  “I think my buzz is wearing off. That ship may have sailed, hon.”

  “Ah well, it was worth asking.”

  Arm and arm, the St. Claires entered the gym to find a large ring of people in front of the DJ stand. Chris heard shouting over the music—“Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears—and people were pushing through the crowd.

  “What the hell?” Chris said.

  “Can you see what’s going on?” Vicky asked.

  “No. Stay back here,” he said.

  He joined the ring of people and pushed his way up to the front. One man in an ugly brown suit was lying on the ground. Blood was smeared across his upper lip and cheek and had spattered on the hardwood floor. It still ran from his broken nose. Another man in plaid shorts and a polo straddled him and was dealing blow after crushing blow to the man in the brown suit’s head, neck and chest. Some of the spectators called out for him to stop. A pair of men reached out and tried to pull the attacker off of the victim but were pushed away. The rest of the crowd—Chris noticed to his horror—were laughing, pointing with grins on their faces, enjoying the show.

  Phil Elliott, quarterback, rushed the man in the polo shirt and tackled him. When they’d finished their tumble, Phil came out on top and, smiling, and began to pummel the man in the polo shirt. Then another fight broke out. And another. And another.