“I mean with a nobody like me.”
“Who said you’re a nobody?”
“I did.”
“What kind of a thing is that to say about yourself?”
“Anyway, I’ve been wondering for a month.”
“Wondering what? You aren’t making sense.”
“I’ve been wondering why you want to be friends with someone like me.”
“What do you mean? What makes you different? You got leprosy or something?”
Colin wished he had never brought up the subject, but now that he had done so, he stumbled ahead with it. “Well, you know, someone who’s not normally very popular and, you know, not good at sports, you know, not really good at much of anything and … well, you know.”
“Stop saying, ‘you know,’ ” Roy said. “I hate that. One of the reasons I want to be friends with you is that you can talk. Most kids around here chatter away all day and never use more than twenty words. Two of which are ‘you know.’ But you actually have a decent vocabulary. It’s refreshing.”
Colin blinked. “You want to be friends because of my vocabulary?”
“I want to be friends because you’re as smart as I am. Most kids bore me.”
“But you could pal around with any guy in town, any guy your age, even some a year or two older than you. Most of those guys in the Pit-”
“They’re assholes.”
“Be serious. They’re some of the most popular guys in town.”
“Assholes, I tell you.”
“Not all of them.”
“Believe me, Colin, all of them. Half of them can’t figure any way to have a good time except to smoke dope or pop pills or get stinking drunk and vomit all over themselves. The rest of them want to be either John Travolta or Donny Osmond.
“But they like you.”
“Everyone likes me,” Roy said. “I make sure of that.”
“I sure wish I knew how to make everyone like
“It’s easy. You just have to know how to manipulate them.”
“Okay. How?”
“Stick around me long enough, and you’ll learn.”
Instead of riding away from the Pit, they walked down the alley, side by side, pushing their bikes. They both knew there was more to be said.
They passed an oleander hedge. The flowers looked slightly phosphorescent in the growing gloom, and Colin took a deep whiff of them.
Oleander berries contained one of the deadliest substances known to man. Colin had seen an old movie in which a lunatic had murdered a dozen people with a poison extracted from the plant. He couldn’t remember the title. It had been a really dumb film, even worse than Godzilla Versus King
After they had gone nearly a block, Colin said, “You ever used dope?”
“Once,” Roy said.
“What was it?”
“Hash. Through a waterpipe.”
“You like it?”
“Once was enough. What about you?”
“No,” Colin said. “Drugs scare me.”
“You know why?”
“You can get killed.”
“Dying doesn’t scare you.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Not much.”
“Dying scares me a lot.”
“No,” Roy insisted. “You’re like me, exactly like me. Drugs scare you because if you used them you wouldn’t be in control. You can’t bear the idea of losing control of yourself.”
“Well, sure, that’s part of it.”
Roy lowered his voice, as if he were afraid someone would overhear, and he spoke rapidly, running the words together in his eagerness to get them out. “You’ve got to stay sharp, on your toes, alert. Always look over your shoulder. Always protect yourself. Don’t let your guard down for even a second. There are people who will take advantage of you the moment they see you’re not in complete control. The world’s filled with people like that. Nearly everyone you meet is like that. We’re animals in a jungle, and we’ve got to be prepared to fight if we want to survive.”
Roy walked his bike with his head thrust forward, shoulders hunched, muscles corded in his neck, as if he expected someone to strike him hard on the back of the head. Even in the fast-dwindling, purple-amber light of late evening, the sudden sprinkle of sweat on his forehead and upper lip was visible; darkly glistening jewels. “You can’t trust hardly anyone, hardly anyone at all. Even people who’re supposed to like you can turn on you faster than you think. Even friends. People who say they love you are the worst, the most dangerous, the most untrustworthy of all.” He was breathing harder, talking faster by the moment. “People who say they love you will pounce when they get the chance. You gotta always remember that they’re just waiting for the opportunity to get you. Love’s a trick. A cover. A way to catch you off guard. Never let down your guard. Never.” He glanced at Colin, and his eyes were wild.
“Do you think I’d turn on you, tell lies about you, snitch on you to your parents, things like that?”
“Would you?” Roy asked.
“Of course not.”
“Not even if your own neck was in the wringer, too, and the only way you could save yourself was to snitch on me?”
“Not even then.”
“What if I broke some law, some really serious law, and the cops were after me and came to you with a lot of questions?”
“I wouldn’t snitch on you.”
“I hope you wouldn’t.”
“You can trust me.”
“I hope so. I really hope so.”
“You don’t have to hope. You should
“I gotta be careful.”
“Should I be careful of you?”
Roy said nothing.
“Should I be careful of you?” Colin asked again.
“Maybe. Yeah, maybe you should. When I said we were all just animals, just a bunch of selfish animals, I meant me, too.”
There was such a haunted look in Roy’s eyes, such a knowledge of pain that Colin had to look away.
He didn’t know what had sparked Roy’s diatribe, but he didn’t want to pursue the subject. He was worried that it would lead to an argument and that Roy would never want to see him again; and he desperately wanted to be friends with Roy for the rest of their lives. If he blew apart this relationship, he would never get another chance to be best buddies with anyone as terrific as Roy. He was positive of that. If he spoiled this, he would have to go back to being a loner; and now that he had experienced acceptance, companionship, and involvement, he didn’t think he could go back.
For a while they walked in silence. They crossed a busy side street under a canopy of oak trees and entered another block of the alleyway.
Gradually the extraordinary tension that had given Roy the appearance of an angry snake began to seep out
