Bad Man_A Novel

  Marty had told Ben to look angry about things, and as Ben watched the tape, he thought he’d done a pretty good job, even if all he was screaming was “My locker!” over and over again. The frames ratcheted by, and the three boys walked out of the break room.

  Marty stood and stretched. “Sorry to eat up your day, Mr. P.”

  “I wouldn’t do nothin to disrespect you on purpose, Mr. Palmer. Like I said, I didn’t realize that it was missin until later. I hope—”

  “Yeah, okay,” Palmer said with exasperation. “Just get out.”

  “I ain’t tryin to be a pain,” Ben said calmly, “but do you have tapes from other days? So I can see who done it?”

  “No, I don’t have any other tapes,” Palmer replied harshly.

  In the corridor, Ben walked with heavy steps, while Marty rubbed the back of his neck with his hands. “Did you move my flyers?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah, the first time I went to smoke. I put ’em under a pallet out back.”

  “Sorry for wastin your whole morning, man,” Ben said.

  “That’s nothin,” Marty replied, smiling. “You’re about to waste my whole day.”

  21

  Most stores and shops had been helpful when Ben had come to them with his new batch of flyers. They didn’t want him patrolling the aisles and talking to customers, but they had no problem with him using their bulletin boards or light posts to hang Eric’s flyer. It had taken a while, but when he’d finally exhausted all the prominent places to tape, tack, or staple the paper, he started putting them on almost anything a person might see, including spots that were out of the way, like the telephone pole just past the store where the town intersected with the great wide nothing beyond.

  The idea was that the flyer might catch the attention of people coming in town on foot or by bicycle. Ben couldn’t really take credit for the thought; the pole was littered with yard sale and lost dog posters. Still, a good idea was a good idea. But as Ben approached, he could see that he’d been wrong. Eric’s flyer couldn’t have caught anybody’s eye. Because it wasn’t there.

  “No. Oh, c’mon, dude,” Ben said.

  He circled the pole a few times, then checked the ratty grass, sweeping it back and forth with his feet, finding only cans and bits of plastic among the dirt and rocks. If the flyer had fallen, it wouldn’t be down there anyway. It would have blown away. Ben knew that the flyer hadn’t fallen, though. He could see the staples he’d used. All five of them.

  Marty lit another cigarette and took a drag. He didn’t say anything while Ben circled the pole again. Cursing, Ben slid a flyer from the top of the stack that Marty had hidden. Holding it taut, he pushed the top edge against a nailhead until it broke through. After a moment, he pinched another nail between his fingers and gritted his teeth as he pulled it free of the wood. He used one of the rocks at his feet to pound the rough spike into the bottom of Eric’s page.

  “You okay?” Marty asked.

  Ben hurled the rock and didn’t answer.

  Marty walked a little ahead of Ben, whose leg hurt enough to slow him down noticeably. For a while he tried to conceal his limp, but eventually he just gave up. He couldn’t concentrate on imaginary sounds or grit his teeth to save face. All he could think about were the flyers in his arm and the one in his pocket. By the time Ben pointed them to where they had been heading, he was sweating from the pain.

  “It ain’t here,” Ben muttered. “I put it right here.” He stabbed the pole with his finger. “Look, you can see. You can see the staples I used.”

  Ben tried to find a way to secure a new flyer, pulling at the staples with his fingers and then scraping at them with his nails. When he could get no purchase, Ben pressed the paper against the sharp and prickly surface until it was too torn to even use, then pushed and dragged it out of spite until it was in ribbons. He didn’t think he had screamed, but his throat hurt like he had. Marty didn’t say a word. He stood there and smoked until Ben was ready to walk on.

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” Ben said. “I can’t believe it.”

  A few times, Ben had to rest. Leaning his back against whatever he could, he drove the palm of his hand into the muscle of his left thigh, while Marty held the stack of flyers.

  “We can call it quits for today,” Marty said once. “Might not be a bad idea.”

  Ben laughed in frustration and pushed away from his tree. He walked ahead of Marty.

  “This one’s still up!” Ben shouted back at Marty when they got to the next spot. “Still right here. If they got the other two, I figured they woulda got this one.”

  The one after that, right in front of a gas station, was still there as well. They kept walking, and Marty kept smoking.

  Ben had almost managed to convince himself that the first two were flukes and somehow unrelated to what crinkled in his back pocket. One more happy stop might have done it. Just one. But it wasn’t a day for happy stops. And after five more missing flyers, it ceased being a day for stopping of any kind.

  Ben didn’t try to replace them anymore. His hand was still bleeding from the second attempt, which he’d botched when he’d lost his temper. He had to practically lunge with each step to keep going, pushed by anger and pulled by what felt like hope. Ben moved from empty spot to empty spot until his leg finally gave up, spilling him to the ground.

  After a few seconds, Marty’s footsteps crackled in the drying grass. He sat down crisscross next to Ben.

  “Let’s call it quits. Maybe call the cops and tell ’em about these flyers and the one that was in your locker.”

  “I can’t. Sit on my leg.”

  “Pardon?”

  Ben stretched out his left leg with a whimper, then tapped the spot with his hand. He lay flat and brought the inside of his elbow over his eyes to shield them from the winter sun. “Sit on my leg.”

  “Alrighty,” Marty grunted, rising from the grass and then lowering himself onto Ben’s thigh. Resting his arms on his knees, Marty lit a cigarette and smoked. “It ever been this bad before?”

  “Not in a long time. I think it was goin up and down them steps at work.”

  “That and you been practically sprinting for an hour now. How’d it get fucked up?”

  “Accident when I was a kid.”

  “You ask someone who was too big to sit on your leg? You had this fetish since you was a kid?”

  Ben laughed and then moaned at the pain. “Car wreck.”

  “That’ll do it,” Marty said through his smoke. “You get around pretty good, though. Considering.”

  “It’s how come I got so heavy. I was always a little big, I guess. But after the wreck…I don’t eat that much. Not really anymore. I try to exercise, but it don’t do nothin…Don’t matter, I guess. Just hard on my leg.” Ben rubbed his face with his palms. “You think Frank’s upset? That I never told him about Eric or anything?”

  “Maybe,” Marty answered. “He gets upset real easy—dunno if you can tell. But he shouldn’t be upset with you. He’ll be okay.”

  “He’s a good dude.”

  “Yeah. Ya know”—Marty paused to take a drag—“I used to drive Tim’s Jeep to work sometimes. My momma’s boyfriend? He don’t live with us, but he stays over so much it’s like he does. When it’d storm, I’d drive his Jeep.

  “Well, Frank lives kinda far from here. The days where his daddy don’t come get him, he walks up the road to catch the bus, but that bus only comes every couple of hours. Like if he misses the bus around seven, he’s waiting until ten—”

  “That why he just bails sometimes?” Ben strained to say against the pain.

  Marty nodded. “So one morning it’s like the end of the goddamn world outside and I offer Frank a ride. Have to insist. Then he points me to the bus stop, and I’m like, ‘Motherfucker, just tell me where your house is at.’ Well, we get there. To the
street anyhow. We get there, and Frank tries to give me twenty goddamn dollars. It’s like four miles away. Wouldn’t get out until I threatened to drive his ass back to the bus stop.”

  Ben smiled. “How come you ain’t never driven me home when it storms?”

  “Cuz Tim don’t let me take his Jeep no more.”

  “What for?”

  “How’d he put it? Oh, yeah. ‘For drivin around a nigger.’ ” Still sitting on Ben’s leg, Marty drew on his cigarette.

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah, he’s a real prize.”

  Ben rubbed his face with his palms. The grass beneath his head tickled his ears. “I called Missing Persons,” Ben said after a while. “The day you told me you seen him…I need to know…I need to know if you’re lyin to me, man, if this is some kinda joke or somethin…Because even though you been helping me, it makes sense. It makes sense to me that you did this.”

  Marty pulled on his cigarette. “I don’t understand this, Ben. Any of it. This”—he gestured around himself—“ain’t fun to me at all. You’re about the last fuckin person in the world that I’d mess with. You’re big as fuck. Plus we’re friends. I don’t got a lot of friends. But this accusin me of shit?” Marty shook his head and pointed at the flyers with his burning cigarette. “I don’t know what this is. Maybe someone’s got Eric and they’re tryin to tell you something, but…”

  “But what?”

  “This don’t look like help to me, man. This looks like hate. And I don’t hate you.”

  Ben looked at the stack of flyers on Marty’s lap and felt a warmth in his gut. “That motherfucker,” Ben said. “That toothless shithead.”

  “Who?”

  “That tweaker fuck! Help me up. We’re gonna go ask him how he’s been spending his time lately.”

  “Who?”

  “Ty Cotter.”

  22

  By the time they reached Marty’s neighborhood, Ben was practically dragging his leg. Clutching his stack of flyers, Ben winced and cursed.

  “What’re you gonna say to him?” Marty asked.

  Ben huffed. “That I know what he’s been doin. That I know what he done.”

  “I just don’t see Ty goin around doin that. I don’t see him goin around doin much of anything.”

  “You didn’t hear him that day,” Ben said. “You’ll see. Watch how he is.”

  “I ain’t goin to Ty’s house with you,” Marty said, stopping just before his own yard. “I don’t fuck with Ty or any of the Cotters.”

  Ben dismissed Marty with a gesture and kept walking.

  “And, dude,” Marty said, catching up, “you don’t tell him about me, you understand?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “Anything. Don’t say nothin about me. Don’t even say my name. Listen.” Marty grabbed Ben by the arm but failed to stop him. “We live here. Right next door. Police is over there all the time. I don’t want any fucking attention from that man or Kell or even his goddamn little ones.”

  Again, Ben waved Marty away and kept walking.

  “Ben!”

  “Alright!” Ben replied without turning. He could hear the hollow thuds of Marty walking across his weathered porch.

  “I’m glad he’s gone,” Ty Cotter had said. Ben could hear the nasally voice in his head. “I’m glad he’s gone, you big fuck!” Ben clenched his jaw in anger. Why was Marty so desperate to avoid the man? Why was it suddenly so important that Ty Cotter not know they were friends?

  A man waved from his seat on an upturned milk crate next to his truck. The engine sounded the same to Ben, but that didn’t mean much of anything. Ben waved back, searching his mind for the man’s name before giving up. He fished the graffitied flyer from his back pocket, wincing at the sight of the moonchild on his brother’s face.

  He pulled himself up the Cotters’ rotted steps and slammed his fist against the door. Swallowing, he tried to control his breathing. The little scar-faced girl peered through the blinds. Each time he tried to collect his thoughts, they danced away. That was fine. Ty Cotter didn’t deserve and likely wouldn’t understand coherence anyway. Ben pounded on the door again and finally it opened.

  “I need to talk to Ty,” Ben said.

  “What for?” replied Kell Cotter.

  “He’ll know what for.” Ben held up the piece of paper so Kell could see it, but she only looked confused.

  “No,” Kell said uneasily. “I think you ought to leave.”

  “Let me talk to Ty and I will.”

  “I want you off my porch. You ain’t got no business bein here.”

  “I got business. This how you handle things, Ty?” he shouted. “Hidin in the house?”

  “Get the fuck on outta here,” Kell snapped, pushing the door closed.

  “You get that piece of shit out here right now, or I’m gonna come in there and get him!”

  Ben felt something knock against his side. He looked toward the dull clattering sound near his feet and saw a plastic doll rocking against the old wood. In the yard, the small Cotter girl with the mangled face stuck her tongue out at Ben.

  The door slammed shut in his face. Ben smacked it with his palm, then reluctantly hobbled back onto the grass.

  Ben made his way across the orange road toward the rumbling truck. Jacob. That was his name. He didn’t say anything, just gestured at the Cotter house with a puzzled expression.

  “You know where he’s at? He in there?”

  “What do you want with Ty?”

  “He did this.” Ben held up the stack of flyers and tapped on the marred one on top. “He’s been playing games with me and rippin my brother’s flyers down. It took me a month to hang all them flyers.”

  Jacob nodded and seemed to consider Ben for a moment. “You mean this past month, I reckon?”

  “Yeah.”

  The man pulled his dirty fingers through his beard, then spit on the ground beside his foot. “Sorry to say, but I think you got the wrong guy there, Ben.” Jacob fixed Ben with a long look. “Ty’s in jail, son.”

  The man seemed to wait for Ben to calm down and listen.

  “You really riled him up when you came by. Heard him hollerin for two days until I guess Kell finally called the police. Came real late, around two a.m. He’s been gone since. Safe bet is Ty failed his piss test, so he’s gonna be there for a bit.”

  Ben looked at the flyer, then at the Cotter home. A breeze curled through the mangy trees.

  “Shoot, have a seat and wait if you want, but he ain’t in there.”

  “You heard what he said.” Ben’s voice cracked out of his trembling mouth. “You heard him. That he was glad.”

  “I did,” Jacob said. “I heard. But whoever did this”—the man pointed at the paper—“it wasn’t Ty Cotter.”

  Ben wanted to argue but had nothing to offer. Frustrated, Ben walked back onto the dirt road. When he turned to say something else to Jacob, he saw that the man had gone back into his home. Maybe Ty Cotter had friends. Maybe Kell—

  “Psst.”

  Ben turned toward the sound. Peering into the copse next to the Cotter home, he watched and listened. When he couldn’t find anything, Ben took a few more steps toward the neighborhood’s exit.

  “Psssssst.”

  Tucked behind the wild branches of a shrub was the small Cotter girl. Tentatively, Ben raised his hand just above his waist and waved, and the girl waved back. Then she flicked her wrist excitedly, signaling Ben over.

  Ben glanced at the Cotter home, thought for a moment, then walked into the grass.

  Her dirty-blond hair was draped down the sides of her face, almost completely obscuring the scar on her right cheek. She smiled at Ben and waved again.

  “Hi,” Ben said.

  “Hi,” she replied.

  “My name’s Ben.”
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  “I’m Ellen.”

  Ben waited for a short while, and when it seemed like the girl had no more to say, he smiled and said, “Okay then,” and turned to leave.

  “My daddy said that you was the one who sent him to jail.”

  Ben stopped and looked at the little girl. “If that’s true, I really didn’t mean to.”

  “He said it when we seen him up there. You’re that big fuck from before, right?”

  Ben couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that’s right. I didn’t mean to send your daddy anywhere.”

  “It’s okay.” Ellen smiled. “He’s always nicer when he gets back.”

  “Ellie!” another girl barked as she stepped out of the backyard.

  This girl looked a lot like Ellen, even though she seemed a good deal older. Ben guessed that this was the other Cotter girl.

  “Hi,” Ben said, but the girl ignored him completely. She grabbed Ellen’s arm and pulled, just like a big sister would.

  “I ain’t doin nothin!” Ellen protested.

  “Shh!” the older girl hissed, pulling her back.

  “Quit shushing me,” Ellen snapped.

  As she worked her arm out of her sister’s grasp, her hair was brushed to the side, exposing the disfiguring scar: a swooping ridge that puckered her right cheek.

  “Jessica!” Ellen wailed. She wrenched her arm free and brushed her hair to cover her cheek. She held it there like a bandage. Her eyes were wet. Jessica took a step back and looked mortified.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said softly. Ellen glanced at her sister with uncertainty. “No, it’s okay. I promise. Lots of people have scars. See?” Wincing, Ben lowered himself to his right knee and pulled up the left leg of his jeans. A red river of hardened skin carved a jagged line through his leg hair.

  Ellen’s hand fell from her face as she gawked. “Did it hurt?”

  “Still does. It’s even worse up here.” Ben tapped his thigh. “Does yours hurt?”

  “No. It feels okay.”

  “Alright, Ellie,” Jessica said.

  “How’d you get it?” Ellen asked, expertly ignoring her sibling.