stared up at Blackburn.
The strobe flashed, and the drumsticks were poised above the musician's face. The strobe flashed again, and they were sticking up from his eye sockets. The crowd squealed with the amplifiers.
Blackburn leaped from the stage, and the people began clapping and cheering. 'All right!' someone yelled. 'Alice fucking Cooper!'
Blackburn glanced back at the Dead Gilmores. The bass player, rhythm guitarist, and drummer approached their leader in stop-motion animation. One of them squatted beside him and touched his face. The strobe gleamed from it. It was like oiled plastic. The drumsticks pointed toward the corrugated roof, toward heaven.
The strobe stopped as Blackburn reached the door, and the yellow lights came on. The voice of the crowd started to change. Blackburn went out and ran for his car.
As he unlocked the car door, a voice behind him called 'Hey!' He looked back and saw the long-haired girl he had been dancing with. She came up beside him.
'You got tired of the Gilmores too, huh?' she asked.
Blackburn nodded.
'Yeah,' the girl said. 'They kind of suck.'
Blackburn smiled. 'Yeah. They did.'
The girl seemed to be studying his face. 'You have a nice smile,' she said.
'How about my eyes?' Blackburn asked.
The girl laughed. 'Well, they aren't hypnotic.'
He opened the car door, and she got inside. They drove out of town and spent the rest of the night in the country, where it was quiet.
TWO
The south wind sang through the catwalk. Jimmy lay on his belly with his head hanging over the edge, listening. He worked up a gob of spit and let it ooze from his lips like syrup. When it fell, he closed one eye and watched. It curved away from the tower's east leg and stayed airborne almost ten seconds. Then it burst on the Potwin road, just missing a motorcyclist coming into town from the north. Better luck next time, Jimmy thought.
He stood and walked around to the north side of the water tank, sliding his hand along the rail. In the field below, Jasmine sat apart from the others, playing a five-year-old's game in the dirt with her Doll-Baby. She showed no interest in the brown paper kite he had made. It was lying in the weeds beside her, its shop-rag tail coiled. That was fine with him. As long as Jasmine was all right, he could stay up here awhile longer. Mom had told him to watch her, but she hadn't said to stay close.
The other three kids were flying their own kites, or trying to. Chrissie Boyle and Kyle Thornton were struggling with a green batwing, but it never rose higher than eight feet before diving. Jimmy wasn't surprised. Chrissie and Kyle were only seven, and they didn't understand what was necessary for a kite to fly. Kyle kept trying to throw it, and Chrissie kept running with the wind.
Chrissie's brother Todd had his kite soaring high. With nothing to do now but hold the string, he was spending his time laughing at Chrissie and Kyle. Todd was almost twelve. He was more than a year older than Jimmy, and liked to think of himself as Boss Stud of any group. Being Boss Stud meant having the right to ridicule everyone else.
Jimmy didn't mind. Compared to Dad, Todd was an amateur. Besides, Jimmy preferred solitude over groups. It was only when Mom made him look after Jasmine that he had any use for other kids.
He looked up, squinting at the July sun, and watched Todd's kite for a minute. It was a shield-shaped piece of plastic decorated with the face of a roaring tiger. Below it, a knotted black tail lashed. The tail looked as if it were brushing the top of Clay Hill a half mile away.
Jimmy headed west around the tank, reading for new graffiti beneath the letters that spelled WANTODA. Ever since he had realized that there was no useful truth in either religion or textbooks, he had relied on the water tower and other popular media to teach him what people really thought was important. DRINK MORE WHISKEY, the tank said. '68 RULES. WORLD'S BIGGEST SPITTOON. A-BOMB THE GOOKS. CHERYL SUCKS TO THE HILT. FORD = FOUND ON ROADWAYS DEAD. JOEY + HOLLY. SKOOL DONT TEECH DIK. '70 IS BEST YEA! LARRY + JULIE. KING GOT WHAT HE DESERVED. TOMMY + SUSIE OOOH! SALLY WARDERS IS A CARPENTER'S DREAM (FLAT AS A BOARD). EAT SHIT. DAVID P. + SAM O. = QUEER BAIT. DORIS IS A PIRATE TREASURE (SUNKEN CHEST). KILROY WAS HERE amp; CHERYL SUCKED HIM. SO LONG BOBBY K. DOPE IS GOOD. KILL ALL COMMIES NOW! GARY + MELANIE. FUCK NIXON. '69 FOREVER! Last weekend, Jimmy had put a sandwich and some notebook paper into his army surplus backpack, and he had come up here and copied everything down. He was sure that if he took it all to heart, he would know how to live in the world.
But he wouldn't add anything to the jumble. Placing his own words among these would be like placing himself among their authors. He had to live in the world, but he was also separate from it, as if he were a starship crewman beamed down and left behind. Or, as Mom had told Mrs. Boyle last week at Nimper's IGA, as if he were a devil child swapped at the hospital for the real thing. Jimmy guessed that meant there was a kid his age stuck with a bunch of demons in hell. Trade you, he thought.
He had almost decided there was no new graffiti when, on the south side of the tank, he found something written along a seam. This was in magic marker instead of spray paint, and it was too small to be seen from below. It said:
JIMMY BLACKBURN IS A PUSSY.
He rubbed the words with his thumb, and they smeared. A thunderstorm had come through yesterday evening, so the insult had been written since then. He began to have suspicions. Chrissie, Kyle, and Todd had all been goofing around beside the tower fence when he and Jasmine had come to the field. But neither Chrissie nor Kyle had the guts to climb the ladder.
Jasmine's voice rose to Jimmy in a shriek. He returned to the north side of the tank and looked down.
Todd had pulled in his kite, and now he was standing over Jasmine and thrusting the tiger face at her. He roared as the plastic touched her skin, and then he yelled, 'I'm gonna eat your baby! I'm gonna eat your baby!' Jasmine held Doll-Baby close to her chest and bawled.
'Hey!' Jimmy yelled. 'Big man!' The metal wall behind him rang. His words echoed from Clay Hill, and it was toward Clay Hill that Jasmine looked.
Todd held his kite in one hand and snatched Doll-Baby from Jasmine with the other. He rubbed Doll-Baby's head against the tiger's mouth. 'It's eating your baby!' he cried. 'It's eating your baaaabeeee!'
Jasmine, screaming, lurched to her feet and reached for Doll-Baby. Todd danced away, mimicking her cries. Chrissie and Kyle continued to try to launch their batwing.
Jimmy walked to the hole in the catwalk over the south leg. He wouldn't hurry. If he hurried, he might make a mistake going down the ladder. Besides, no matter how quickly he got to the field, Todd would be sure to stop torturing Jasmine before he arrived. Then, if Jimmy tried anything, Todd could claim self-defense.
Todd thought he was smart.
But if Todd were smart, he wouldn't be messing with Jimmy Blackburn.
When Jimmy walked into the field, Todd was back to flying his tiger. Jimmy only glanced at him on the way to Jasmine, who was sitting beside the paper kite again. She was kissing Doll-
