My heart starts thumping like it’s being pumped with too much blood. It feels like it might explode. I run down the hall, kick open the exit door, and run, run, run. I don’t stop running until I reach the driveway to the Prison three miles away.
Just before I reach the wide granite steps, an invisible broadsword hara-kiris my gut, so I bang a sharp left down the rhododendron trail to the cliffs. I’m not ready to face Mother Mary Mortified. She’s bound to know about the fight by now.
I drop my body onto the last boulder at the edge of a hundred-foot cliff and suck in the salty air. After catching my breath, I slip out my wallet and dig into the secret compartment for a flattened funk stick. I pinch it good with the tiny pliers on my Priss Army Knife that the generous Sisters of Mercy gave me last year for Christmas. If they only knew. Have mercy. Classic.
I fire it up and recline on the comfy boulder. No better pollution on the planet than the commingling fumes of ocean and herb.
I movie-reel the fight in my mind. The first punch. The first kick. The thud, thud, thud of Pitbull’s head against the cobblestones.
Wynona’s hair. Wynona’s glare. Wynona’s scream. Fuck you, asshole.
I suck another toke and close my eyes.
Pitbull’s not the only one I obliterated today.
CHAPTER 10
I feel a hard shove on my back, and I start slipping down the boulder over the edge of the cliff. I lunge my hands out to grab something, but the rock is smooth, and there’s nothing to hold on to. Black terror explodes inside me. My mind goes blank. I scream.
A hand grabs my sweatshirt and yanks me back up the boulder. I roll away from the edge and scramble to my feet.
Grubs is laughing like crazy, pointing at me. “Oh my God, I got you so fucking good, dude.”
I charge him and swing a wild right hook at his head. It connects on his chin and he drops like a sack of rice.
My entire body’s trembling. “That ain’t fucking funny, you fucking fuck!”
Grubs is on his back, holding his chin, still laughing. “Are you shitting me? That was the funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen.” He mimics my high-pitched scream. “Ahhhhhhhhh!”
“Fuck you, asshole.” I grab one of his feet and drag him toward the cliff. He starts laughing louder.
I throw his foot to the ground. “You really wouldn’t care, would you?”
He stands up and wiggles his chin with his hand. “What do I care? We all gotta die someday.” He punches me on the shoulder. “Nice shot. I didn’t even see it coming.”
I try to light the joint with my shaking hands. “You scared the shit out of me, man.” I finally get it lit, suck a giant toke, and pass it to Grubs.
He takes a hit and coughs a laugh. “Man, that was friggin’ funny.”
“Fuck you. I thought it was Buster Pitswaller come to settle the score.”
“Yeah, I heard you pummeled that big idiot today. Good job. Should make collecting easier. No one will dare mess with you now.”
I look away. I can feel Grubs staring at me.
“You need help with this dude?” he asks. “You think he’ll come after you with the whole football team or something?”
That’s exactly what I’m thinking. “Nah, I got it under control.”
“Well, let me know. Hey, can you get out tonight?”
The herb’s starting to mellow me out, and my body’s not shaking as bad. “Is there ever a night I can’t get out?”
Grubs smiles. “Good, ’cause I’m tapped, and I need to collect some dough. A bunch of idiots ain’t paid up.” He walks to the edge of the boulder. “Damn, it’s beautiful out here.”
The sea’s dappled black and sparkly under the late-day sun. There’s no horizon. No end to it all. I can relate.
I walk to the edge of the cliff.
I call this God Art. Not that I believe in the Dude. Frankly, I’m a Skepticalian. Still, it’s a good name on account of no one knows shit about Him, and that’s how I feel gazing at this supernatural scene. God Art. As opposed to Man Art, which is the copycat shit hanging in big city museums and rich folk’s foyers. It’s funny to think about. Poor-ass schleps like me get to view God Art every day, while rich-ass hoity-toits dangle million- dollar replicas over their bidets. A Girl with a Watering Can.
Grubs pulls a bottle of Southern Comfort from his pocket and takes a swig. “Damn, I guess if you gotta be incarcerated somewhere, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this.” He hands me the bottle. “Just looking at it makes you think about shit. Like about doing shit. You know what I’m saying, Cricks?”
I chug some Comfort. “Yeah, sorta. It’s the paradox of it that fucks me up, though.”
“Speak English, dickhead.”
I hand Grubs the bottle. “Beauty like this ain’t right. It ain’t supposed to be here.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When I see a scene like this, all I can think is, how can something like that have anything to do with something like this.”
Grubs chugs a gulp and crinkles his face. “Something like what?”
I try to think of how to say what I’m thinking without sounding like a total dweeb, but I can’t. “Nothing.”
Grubs passes me the bottle. “You’re high, dude.”
What I want to tell him is that me and Art have a problem. The same way me and God have a problem. I mean, this scene is so out of this world, so inhuman and infinite, so boundless, so worthy and eternal. And human life is just so not. Yet I can’t deny a connection. An intermingling. A gravity. A pull. I mean, it sucks at my soul. Probably so it can digest me and shit me out when it’s done. That’s how the infinite makes me feel. Like a hunk of beef it’s gonna process and return to the dirt as fertilizer.
Art is supposed to engage and uplift, not enrage and set adrift. It’s supposed to peekaboo a glimpse of the possible, not flaunt a mural of the enormous chasm between me and it. But that’s what it does, so it’s wicked depressing. Scenes like this bum me out ’cause the boundless makes me think of the bounded.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Grubs says.
“What?”
“You got plans for next year?”
I imagine myself scraping skidmarks off the porcelain thrones at the Prison. “Yeah, I start pre-med at Harvard next fall.”
Grubs smiles. “Seriously though.”
“I’m weighing my options.”
“Weighing your options. That’s a good one. Naskeag ain’t got a scale small enough.”
I shrug. “No, I ain’t doing nothing. I asked Mother Mary if I could keep living at the Prison and work off my eats and sheets, but she hasn’t given me an answer yet. She has to clear it with the higher-ups. Why?”
“I’m thinking of expanding. Maybe start selling up in Bangor and Bar Harbor. They’re big-ass towns, so I could make a shit-ton of bread. But I can’t do it alone. I’d cut you in on the action. Then you wouldn’t have to stay at Nun Central. You could get your own place.”
Shit. Dealing. I never thought about that. I would hate to get busted, though, and end up in a real prison. Squeeeeaaaal. But Grubs is pretty well connected with the local cops on account of he rats out the competition, so I’d probably be okay. My own place. That would be friggin’ awesome. “Sounds good.”
“Cool.” Grubs hands me the joint. “I gotta roll. Pick you up at ten fifteen?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, but he’s already walking away.
I fire up what’s left of the blunt and think about Wynona. Talk about God Art. So infinitely unattainable.
I suck the last toke of the dead soldier and consign his ashy corpse to the briny deep. I can’t get Wynona’s words out of my head. They’re bouncing off my eardrums like a lame-ass rock ballad.
You’re a fight magnet, you know it’s true
You fight with every boy in school, get a clue
No one gets in as many fights as you
That’s why you have no girlfriend
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And your balls are blue
Don’t judge me, you psychotic geek
And stop staring at my tits, you ugly freak
Take a high dive into Fisticuffin’ Creek
While I scale to the top of Popularity Peak
Why do you hate everyone so much?
Your maniacal detachment is nothing but a crutch
You’re a psycho loser
A drunk-ass boozer
A fucking stoner
A pathetic loner
Nothing but a fight magnet, yeah
A freaky loser fight magnet, yeah
I’m not mad at Wynona. I’m not even offended. What she said is true. In an outside-looking-in sort of way. Besides, a lot of what she said was probably in response to my remark about her dating Pitbull. Deep down, she has to know he’s an asshole. That she’s lying to herself. I called her on it, so of course she’s gonna attack me.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about the stuff she said. I’ve thought about trying to be more social, more outgoing, to make more of an effort. But I can’t. And it’s not because I don’t want to. It’s really not. Some of the kids here are okay. Most of them are dickheads, but some are okay. There’s a handful I could hang with. Maybe even be friends with.
But here’s the thing. I have a wall. It’s not an ordinary wall. Everyone has ordinary walls. My wall’s the friggin’ Great Wall of China.
I inch my feet closer to the edge. A gentle breeze pushes me back. The ocean swells rolling over the rocks remind me of my favorite God Art. Hurricanes. I don’t feel disconnected from them. I feel close. At home. Alive. As alive as a dead person can feel.
Okay, enough talk of God and Art. As Sean Connery would say, “Here endeth the lesson.”
I spot her shadow but don’t turn. The endless desert of sea grants me permission to pretend she’s not there. To imagine her voice. To detach from the g-force of guilt that’s kept my feet planted here all these years. To imagine my responses. To pretend none of it’s real. None of it.
“Come in for dinner, Cricket,” Mother Mary says.
My stomach backflips. I dig in my pocket and twirl my ring, bracing for her hurricane of words.
“Andrew has a seat saved for you next to him.”
What the hell’s she playing at? How come she ain’t screaming? I picture Andrew trembling against my chest in LaChance’s waiting room. I slip my ring onto a finger of my non-punching hand.
“I must admit, Cricket, I’m at a complete loss. I simply don’t know what to say. It’s all been said so many times. Too many times. Just come inside. We’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
I step to the edge of the cliff. Closer than usual. Too close. The thought of jumping squeezes my skull. I twist my ring.
I feel her massive blackness beside me. “Kinda late in the season for cliff diving. Water’s pretty nippy this time of year.”
I speak to an emptiness that makes infinity look like a pail of piss. “Water temperature wouldn’t matter. Full moon. Tide’s way out.”
She glances over the edge. “Oh my goodness. I guess you’re right. That’s one thing you can always count on in this place. High highs and low lows. No way around that.”
Clouds drift overhead and the sky darkens. “There’s one way.”
A starched rustle like wind over dead leaves. “That’s not a way.”
“How would you know?”
“I wasn’t born this old, Crick. I was seventeen once.” Fabric flaps like a flag in a storm. “Teenage years are like the full moon. They push and pull much more powerfully than at other times.”
“Don’t matter one way or the other. Tide’s out, you smash on the rocks. Tide’s in, you drown.”
Her voice is dark and heavy, like the sea. “It matters to me.”
The density crushes my chest. Why?
Cloud soft. “It matters.”
Waves crash far, far away. So far away I feel them inside.
“I know what a struggle it can be, Crick. I know it feels like this darkness will last forever, but it won’t. You have to trust me on that. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you have to trust me on that one point.”
“No offense, but it’s your job to say that. That don’t necessarily make it true.”
“It’s more than a job, Cricket. You’re more than a job. You’ve been here a long time. Longer than anyone. Like me. You know I don’t lie to you. Good or bad, I’m always straight with you. You know that. True, I can’t predict the future. But I can speak from experience.”
The pressure in my head builds. I take a deep breath to keep from choking on my words. “I’ll be there in a minute. Tell Andrew to keep saving my seat.”
“He’s quite the celebrity tonight. Not that I can say I’m happy about the reason, but he’s enjoying the spotlight.”
Mother Mary’s shadow fades with the afternoon light.
“Don’t be long.” It’s weird how many shades of dark there are. “It’s pasta night. Sister Gwendolyn made her famous garlic bread.”
I listen as her footsteps disappear.
I want to say thank you to Mother Mary. Thank you for letting me live here all these years. Thank you for the warm, dry room. The bed, blankets, hot showers, and free eats. The soap and towels. The toothpaste and toothbrushes. The clothes, even though they’re hand-me-downs. The library card. The notebooks and pencils at Christmas. The trips to Principal LaChance’s office after the fights. The yelling. The punishing. The grounding.
No, I don’t want to say thank you for any of that stuff. I was just trying to sound normal. If I was gonna say thank you to Mother Mary for anything, which, of course, I’m not, it’d be for not locking me in the basement when I cried too loud. For not making me walk to the store to buy Lucky Strikes in bare feet in January when I complained about the holes in my sneakers. For not tying me to the bed when I wet it. For not piercing my ear with a drug needle. For not pushing me into street fights with crackhead culls twice my size and betting against me. For not beating the back of my legs with a ********. For not Scotch-taping matches to my **** and ************. For not ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************.
But like I said, thank-yous ain’t gonna cross these chapped lips anytime soon. ’Cause in the end, adults are all the same. Ain’t no difference in the what. Only in the when.
I pull the letter from my pocket and read Moxie’s words under the last glow of daylight. I could have read them just as well from inside my pocket. Why do you want out?
When I turn, Mother Mary is a distant apparition.
I follow my ghostly shadow toward the darkening Prison walls.
CHAPTER 11
I get a standing ovation when I enter the dining room. Don’t that beat off? Smash the bloody crap out of a mutant arse mole, and the Little Orphan Andys who’ve been raised their entire lives by Sister Turntheothercheek and Padre Peacebewithyou stand and applaud the evil marauder. Holy reality-flippin’ cartwheels, Batman. Pass me another slice of upside-down cake.
Sister Gwendolyn is doling out smellorific slabs of garlic bread when the ruckus erupts, so she drops the basket and claps her hands, but not for the same reason as the Little Ones. She’s trying to hunker control of the underdog ovation, but the jittery animals keep barking. The Little Dudes’ claps must be connected to some invisible, anti-gravity heart-pumping dingus in Sister Gwendolyn’s chest, because her plump cheeks are redder than a tampon dumpster at a that-time-of-the-month convention.
The crazy chimps finally stop tossing their feces around and sit down. I take my seat next to Andrew, who’s glowing like a little hunk of God Art that fell from the sky. Funny how life waddles and swaddles this way and that.
The Little Ones start firing questions at me about the Pitbull beatdown like I’m Muhammad Ali, but a funny thing happens: All of a sudden, I’m flooded with the nut
-strangling realization of how easily the fight could have done a tumultuous backflip. One little slip, and the Little Ones would be pressing their palms together outside a hospital emergency room instead of inside this free-eats pavilion. Damn, life sure is carving crop circles in my ass tonight.
I wait until there are no nuns around and clink the congregation to order on my Mayor McCheese milk glass. “Dudes, listen up. You gotta hear me and hear me good on something. If I’d missed that first punch on Pitbull, he woulda pummeled me into mincemeat pie. Fightin’ ain’t all roses and fairy tales. Remember that if you ever decide to swing. It’s a two-way street, monkeys. Don’t go cracking open that giant pumpkin if you ain’t willing to swallow a few slimy seeds.” Yeah, I’m deep, I admit it.
Some of the Little Ones dribble out nervous giggles. Others cock their heads. I survey the rows of faces. Most of them realize they’re celebrating something they want no part of. Like how rugby’s fun to watch on the boob tube but being at the bottom of that pile would suck balls.
“And remember. I prepared long and hard for that throwdown by pounding heavy in the boathouse for two hours every morning while you ladies were cuddled in your beddy-byes, dreaming of sugarplums and peeing your panties.”
Their prepubescent screeches scale the mahogany walls. If you’re wondering what the Prison dining room looks like, think Newport mansion. I ain’t kidding. This place makes the high school cafeteria look like a kebab cart in Sarajevo. The walls are dark wood like in the chapel, and the dangling chandeliers are so giant that if one of them slinky links snaps, it’s mashed brains for dessert. There are four long wood tables like from a King Arthur movie, and stained-glass windows that make you feel like you’re eating your Last Supper. There’s twelve kids at each table, which is kinda funny, right, like it’s nosh time at Jesus’ crib. I wonder if the nuns planned it that way. We have forty-eight disciples here, not twelve.