trouble with them Grundy boys again?”
Adrian’s face dropped all pretenses. “They got it in good for me, Danny.”
“Take a swing at them for once, Ade. Jeez, you outweigh both of them by twenty pounds.”
“I can’t. I don’t know why I get so scared. My feet don’t move. I feel heavy, like in a dream when you can’t run.”
Daniel felt a momentary disgust toward his friend. If only his own problems came in the stature of the Grundy boys.
“Ade, what are the odds that the Grundy boys are lying in wait for you, tonight?” Daniel asked. “They’re probably home tonight watching WWE SmackDown. I think their aunt’s in a cage match.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Why are you so sure they’re looking for you?”
“I didn’t let them copy off my math test.”
“You suck at math.”
“I got a C plus. They didn’t do as well. Like it’s my fault they’re stupid.”
“So, let them cheat.”
“Mama said it ain’t right to cheat or help a cheater.”
“Then let Mama come get you. Go home.”
“Aw hell, you just wanna walk with Katie alone after shift.”
“It’s the only chance I get anymore. She’s having lunch with the ‘in’ crowd these days.”
Daniel realized how much he had taken Katie for granted over the past two years. He thought they would be buds forever. Things were changing. As his desires for girls grew, he noticed Katie’s new interest in facial hair, driver’s permits, cars, and a voice in the low-octave range-all things he lacked. She was still friendly, but always asking him for his locker room-privileged facts about one guy or another: What does so-and-so say about me? Is so-and-so still seeing what’s-her-face? It was clear she saw Daniel mainly as a search engine.
“I appreciate your offer to sleep over, Ade, but that’ll just piss Clyde off more. He’s already madder than a hornet on good days.”
“Dan, please,” Adrian begged. “I’ll walk behind… or, up front. I won’t listen. Just don’t make me walk home alone.”
The shift was over. Katie began cashing out. Daniel threw the last few boxes on the pile and headed for the employees’ room.
“Danny?” Adrian implored.
“Fine. Walk behind us. Don’t talk.”
Daniel launched into a trot and nearly ran over his crush flying through the employees’ lounge.
“Jeez, Dan. Slow down,” Katie said. Her hazel eyes had a calming effect, even when she didn’t mean to. Her long auburn hair had developed a distinct scent of its own. Daniel was both numb and energized in her presence.
“Sorry. I was hoping to catch you.”
“Well, make it quick. I’m getting picked up.”
“Cool. Can I hitch?”
“Not my mom. Josh Lundgren.”
“Captain Baseball? What makes him so special?”
“He’s got a motorbike.”
“Oh. I was hoping we could talk.”
“About?”
“Uh… well, sorry about your blouse. The one you got ink on.”
Katie smiled-cancer and AIDS would be cured, Israel and Palestine would settle, and solar energy would be practical-to Daniel, everything would be okay.
“I heard you got sent to Conklin,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, don’t worry. I switched desks in most of my classes so it won’t happen again.”
It was a bomb. Another perk of being Katie’s friend severed. No more secret notes. No more lingering scent from the previous class, her residual warmth on the seat. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Should he ask her not to switch? Promise never to draw again?
Instead, he said, “I see.”
“Look, Danny… I don’t know how else to say this, but… you got to stop watching me-in the hall at school, at lunch, here at work-I can feel your eyes on me. It makes me uncomfortable. I care about you, but not the way you want me to. I don’t see you as a ‘guy.’ No!.. I didn’t…”
“I know what you mean,” Daniel whispered. The shrill beep of a scooter horn cut through the thin store windows.
“I hope we can still be friends,” she said.
“Sure. Of course.”
Katie danced away to Josh’s persistent tune. Daniel waited for the world to end. It stubbornly continued, so he grabbed his coat and left. Adrian followed.
4
Daniel and Adrian were halfway home when two large shadows burst out from behind the bushes near Mr. Randall’s house. Daniel’s first thought was that the Grundy boys watched too many Our Gang reruns. After all, who actually waited in the bushes anymore?
Both boys had white-blond hair and angelic blue eyes, yet they were no angels. Jim-Bob, the taller one, had been left back in the second and fourth grades and used his age and size advantage to inflict terror on his younger classmates. Elijah belonged in Daniel and Adrian’s grade; a prodigy in the Grundy home, he was the first and only of six siblings never to get left back. What everyone knew, except for the Grundys, was that this feat was accomplished by years of complaints from parents about the Grundy clan’s consistent cruelty toward the younger kids. The school decided to push the last of this brood out for the benefit of future generations.
Adrian was sweating like a race horse. His problem, as Daniel saw it, was he couldn’t stand not to be liked. Adrian never risked an action that might make someone angry. The Grundys’ animus disturbed him more than their beating. He was an unapologetic mama’s boy, the target of those who fed off the desire to be accepted.
“You made us wait in the cold for five hours, fat stuff,” said Jim-Bob. “Where the hell were you?”
“We didn’t realize you’d made an appointment,” Daniel said. “He’ll do better tomorrow.”
“Stay the fuck out of this, Hauer. ’Less you wanna get creamed, too,” Elijah said.
“Does anyone need to get creamed?” Daniel asked.
Elijah shoved Daniel back and stood between him and Adrian.
“If you insist,” Daniel said, and he stepped away from the scene. He surveyed the surroundings. Mr. Randall had been renovating, and there was a lot of construction trash on the side of the driveway.
“D-Danny, where’re you g-going?” Adrian stammered.
Adrian and the Grundy boys disappeared into the darkness behind Daniel as he walked only twenty feet away.
“He knows enough to mind his own business,” Jim-Bob’s disembodied voice said.
Daniel heard Adrian take a punch to the stomach. He was sure it hurt less than Adrian’s wailing implied. The boy had more natural padding than a walrus in winter. That didn’t stop him from throwing up though. He heard Adrian crying, begging them to leave him alone.
Daniel had to get close to the trash before he spotted what he wanted. He picked up a discarded two-by-four post and headed back with it propped on his shoulder.
“You back, Hauer?” Jim-Bob said as Daniel emerged from the blackness. “What you think you’re going to-”
Where Jim-Bob stood, Daniel imagined Josh Lundgren’s mesomorphic form: his chiseled jaw, wavy hair, and
