It was Sergeant Verona.
Don hung up without answering a single question and took his jacket from the closet.
He couldn't stay now. If he did, the cops would be around, asking him about Tar, asking him about the Howler, not letting go when they knew it was all over. Staring at him like Hedley, seeing into his soul and knowing what he was like, and what he had become since the nugget exploded. They wouldn't give a damn that his parents were splitting up and he was going to be alone.
He stood on the porch and locked the door; he left the light on in case his mother needed it.
At the end of the drive he looked toward the park, thinking maybe he should go there first and calm himself down before he showed up at the school. His hands were jittery, and he couldn't breathe without panting, and no matter how many times he wiped his face, it was still masked in perspiration.
Maybe his friend would come and let him touch him again.
A car stopped, and a woman he didn't know leaned out her window. 'Are you Donald Boyd?' She giggled and turned to someone sitting beside her.
'I sound like a jerk, don't I? God, I sound like a real jerk.' Back to Don. 'So. Are you that boy I saw on television, the one that killed the killer?'
He nodded dumbly.
'Thought so,' she said with a sharp nod. 'Told you it was him,' she said to her companion. 'The minute I saw him I knew it was him.'
She drove away with an I-told-you-so, nearly sides wiping another car that was trying to get around her. Horns blared angrily, curses were passed, and someone from the second car yelled at Don to hurry or he'd missed the opening kickoff, or was he too big to care? Leave me alone, he told them with a glare he knew they couldn't see, leave me the hell alone.
He stopped in front of Chris's house and traced with his eyes the way she had picked up his father, followed with his mind the way they had driven off, sitting so far apart they might have been strangers. His palm itched where it had been pressed against her breast, and he rubbed it hard against his jacket until it started to burn.
Delfield's dog started barking.
Shut up, he thought.
In his chest there was a tension that constricted his lungs; in his spine there was a rod that refused to let him bend; in his arms there were cramps that kept his fists closed.
A police siren wailed; leave me alone; a gang of teenagers raced by on School Street, jeering at passing cars and shrieking at pedestrians on the other side of the road; someone exploded a string of firecrackers; leave me alone; tires squealed; leave me; Tar's body sprawled in the middle of the street, more blood than flesh, the blood running to the gutter.
His head ached.
A trio of school buses sped past, turning him in their wake as North supporters taunted him from open windows, blowing air horns and bugles, a beer can rolled into the gutter.
Jesus, leave
From the last bus someone tossed a beer can that landed on his shoes, spilling half its contents over the bottoms of his slacks. 'Christ!' he bellowed. 'Christ, leave me alone!'
Five steps later he heard all the screams pouring over the stadium walls and he started to run, saying 'I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it' until he reached the entrance gate and the screams grew even louder.
FOURTEEN
Don almost leapt over the turnstile in his panic to get in and see what he had done, what the stallion was doing to the spectators and the team.
But there was a cop, and he was staring glum-faced at the latecomers, and Don fumbled for the ticket in his shirt, handed it to a red-faced woman in the cubbyhole that passed for a ticket booth at the games, and pushed the metal arm until it clicked.
And he was in-watching the stands filled with faces, with open mouths, with hands in the air waving and voices shrieking on both sides of the field, the lights glaring and turning the grass a rich green, giving a luster to the uniforms that chased each other down the gridiron after the opening kickoff.
That's what it was, he thought in relief, and sagged against the brick wall; that's all it was, I didn't do a thing.
He slumped to the ground and sat there for ten minutes, seeing little more than legs hustling by, hearing nothing but the continuous screaming that merged into a roar that didn't stop, didn't end, made him groan and cover his ears and wonder why so many were getting so excited by a lousy high school football game. Didn't they know Tar was dead? Didn't they know that the guy running patterns with Brian was a lousy substitute, not the real thing?
He breathed deeply and fast until his head cleared and his hands stopped shaking.
Sure they knew. But this wasn't murder. This was a tragic accident and no classes would be canceled and no concert would be dedicated to Tar Boston's memory.
When the ground became too damp to sit on, he groaned to his feet and made his way toward the stands. Amazingly they were filled, and as he followed the iron railing, he couldn't see a single space large enough for him to squeeze into, save for the open section where the band was filing in now after playing the national anthem. He tried to catch Tracey's eye when he saw her, but she was chatting with her neighbors and trying to keep the wind from taking off her beret.
A strong wind that snapped at the pennants flying from the goal posts, that took more than a few hats and sailed them over the far wall to the houses behind. There were no stars when he looked up, only a solid shifting black, and he realized that most of the people there had brought umbrellas and ponchos and blankets for cover when the rains finally came and turned the game into a mud show.
He circled the field slowly, avoiding loud roving gangs of youngsters who were showing off for their girls, seeing Jeff on the bench and giving him a victory fist, not seeing his father but seeing Chris on the field, cheering and dancing through a dozen routines.
When he reached the main gate again, it was well into the second quarter. There was no score, and the fans on both sides were getting a little restless.
Jostled, sworn at, he stood in the middle of the track and watched the game from behind the snow fence that followed the edge of the field from one end of the goal line to the other. There were cops there, and a few photographers, and a bunch of little kids trying to see through the red slats.
North's quarterback fumbled. His own team's center fumbled it right back.
The electronic Scoreboard at the far end counted the time in amber lights and kept the scores at zero.
He moved to the fragile fence and crossed his arms over the top. One minute to go before the first half was over. The screaming was subdued, the cheering half-hearted. Nobody liked a good defensive battle when they had to sit in the cold and wait for the rain.
Suddenly he was watching Brian racing toward him, looking back, following the spiraled flight of an impossibly high pass as it arced over the tops of the secondary and seemed to hesitate before settling perfectly into his arms.
The screams began again, but Don only watched Brian, watched the way he dodged a potential tackle and stiff-armed another and trotted across the goal line five yards ahead of the nearest Rebel pursuit.
The stands erupted, the band blared discordantly, and Brian was grinning when he came up against the fence and saw him.
'Hey, quacker, you wanna see it again?' he said, and was immediately swarmed under by the rest of the team, practically carried away to the bench, where the coach shook his hand.
Don was pushed aside by the photographers, by the little kids, and was warned by a cop to find a seat and sit down before he was told to leave.
He almost argued as he felt the tension rise again, felt a sheen of warmth begin to spread over his cheeks. But he swallowed it down and turned away, a part of him thinking, they don't know who I am anymore, a part of him realizing that leave me alone was not a plea now, it was a threat.
That for all his aching, that might be the only Rule there was.
He found a place, a narrow place, at the end of the first row at the near end of the stands. He couldn't see
