Dark Places

back up. Then he slumped to his side and was gone.

Diondra said she had to pee, and so Ben just sat there in the living room, wishing he were home. He was picturing his flannel sheets, picturing himself in bed, talking to Diondra on the phone. She never phoned from home, and he wasn’t allowed to call her because her parents were so crazy. So she got cigarettes and sat in a phone booth near the gas station or in the mall. It was the one thing she did for him, made him feel good, her making that effort, he really liked it. Maybe he liked the idea of talking to Diondra better than he liked actually talking to her, lately she was so fucking mean to him when they were together. He was thinking again about the bleeding bull and wishing he had the gun back, that’s what he wanted, and then Diondra was yelling his name from her bedroom.

He turned the corner and she was standing by her glittery red answering machine, with her head cocked to the side, and she just said, “You’re fucked,” and hit the button.

“Hey Dio, it’s Megan. I’m totally freaked out about Ben Day, did you hear about it, that he molested all these girls? My sister is in sixth grade. She’s fine, thank God, but god what a sicko. I guess the cops have arrested him. Anyway, call me.”

And then a click and a whir and another girl’s voice deep and nasal: “Hey Diondra, it’s Jenny. I told you Ben Day was a Devil-dude, did you hear about this shit? I guess he’s, like, on the run from the cops. I guess there’s going to be some big conference about it at school tomorrow. I don’t know, I wanted to see if you want to go.”

Diondra was standing over the machine like she wanted to crush it, like it was an animal she could do something to. She turned to Ben and screamed, “What the fuck?” turning pink and spitty and Ben immediately said the wrong thing: “I better go home.”

“You better go home? What the fuck is this Ben, what is going on?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I should go home.”

“No no no no no, momma’s boy. You fucking worthless fucking momma’s boy. What, you going to go home, wait for the police and leave me here while you go to jail? Leave me just sitting here waiting for my fucking dad to get home? With your fucking baby I can’t get rid of?”

“What do you want me to do, Diondra?” Home. That’s what he kept thinking.

“We’re leaving town tonight. I have about $200 cash left over from my parents. How much can you get at your place?” When Ben didn’t say right away, his brain on Krissi Cates and whether the kiss was something to be arrested for and how much was true and whether the cops were really after him, Diondra walked over to him and slapped his face, hard. “How much do you have at your place?”

“I don’t know. I have some money I’ve been saving, and my mom usually has a hundred bucks, two hundred, hidden around. But I don’t know where.”

Diondra swayed, closed one eye and looked at her alarm clock. “Does your mom stay up late, would she be awake?”

“If the police are there, yeah.” If they weren’t, she was asleep, even if she was scared out of her mind. It was the big joke in the family that his mom had never celebrated New Year’s Eve, she was always asleep before midnight.

“We’ll go there, and if we don’t see a cop car, we’ll go in. You can get money, pack some clothes, and then we’ll get the fuck out of here.”

“And then what?”

Diondra crossed over to him, petted him where his cheek still stung. Her eye makeup was halfway down her cheek, but he still felt a surge of, what, love? Power? Something. A surge, a feeling, something good.

“Ben baby, I am the mother of your child, right?” He nodded, just a bit. “OK, so get me out of town. Get us all out of town. I can’t do this without you. We need to go. Head west. We can camp out somewhere, sleep in the car, whatever. Otherwise you’re in jail, and I’m dead from my daddy. He’d make me have the baby and then kill me. And you don’t want our kid to be an orphan, right? Not when we can help it? So let’s go.”

“I didn’t do what they said, with those girls, I didn’t,” Ben finally whispered, Diondra leaning on his shoulder, wisps of her hair curling up, vining into his mouth.

“Who cares if you did?” she said into his chest.

Libby DayNOW

Lyle was bouncing in his seat. “Libby, did you notice? Holy crud, did you notice?”

“What?”

“Diondra’s porn name, the one she used all the time, did you notice?”

“Polly Palm, what?”

Lyle was grinning, his long teeth glowing brighter than the rest of him in the dark car.

“Libby, what was the name your brother had tattooed on his arm? Remember the names we went through? Molly, Sally, and the one I said sounded like a dog’s name?”

“Oh God.”

“Polly, right?”

“Oh God,” I said again.

“I mean, that’s not a coincidence, right?”

Of course it wasn’t. Everyone who keeps a secret itches to tell it. This was Ben’s way of telling. His homage to