pulled the Geo Metro in behind it and turned off the engine. He looked at me expectantly.
I said, “What do we do now?”
He laughed out loud. “Well, I’d say we go inside.”
“We can do that?”
“No, but we’re gonna do that. Right?”
“Right.”
Arthur leaned in front of me. “You sure you’re up to this?”
“Yeah.”
His gray eyes bored into mine. “First, tell me something: What’s this really about?”
“It’s about… personal honor.”
“Okay. Righteous. Now, do you remember what he did to dishonor you?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Okay. You think about that, right now, in detail. And you keep that thought in your head when we go inside.”
“What if somebody stops us?”
“You let me worry about that. Tell me: Do we know the dishonorer’s name?”
“Yeah. It’s Joel.”
“Okay. So we walk in there like we own the place. We are here to see Joel. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
Arthur exited the car and set off on a determined march, his shaved head held erect, his black boots pounding on the sidewalk. I scrambled out and followed him.
We climbed the stairs, passed under a Greek banner, and stopped before a tall wooden door. Arthur grasped the glass door handle, turned it, and pushed.
The door opened.
Arthur and I stepped into a wood-paneled foyer. We didn’t see anybody. We didn’t hear anybody. He pointed silently to a staircase on the right. As we climbed the steps, I did start to hear sounds—a TV set, a stereo.
At the top, Arthur pointed again and smiled. There were several doors around the landing, and each had a nameplate telling who lived behind it. The first two had pairs of names. But the third had only one, and that name was JOEL.
The door was slightly ajar. I stepped in front of Arthur and leaned forward to hear. A faint rhythmic sound was coming from inside, a clicking sound, like typing.
I put my hand on the knob and paused, remembering the Halloween party, and Wendy, and my humiliation. I relived that moment, and then I opened the door all the way.
A curly-haired guy was sitting at a desk. It was Joel, all right, working at a laptop. A messy bed was behind him, and a row of gadgets—a TV, a stereo, an exercise bike—stretched from the right side of the room to the left. I stepped inside and said, “Hi, Joel. Do you remember me?” He cocked his head. I added, “The little townie?”
Arthur stepped in behind me and closed the door with a
Joel shook his head. He answered, “No. No, I don’t. What are you doing here?”
I spoke slowly, haltingly. “I came here… to talk to you about… that night.” I groped for something else to say. I was losing it. I came up with “And about a website that you put up. A website that… slandered the good name of a friend of mine.”
I think Joel did remember me, and that night, because he replied, “Do you mean Wendy Lyle?”
“Yes.”
“We talked about that. The website is gone. We’re good.”
“Yeah? Well, you and I are not good.”
Joel closed the laptop and pushed back his seat. He looked warily at Arthur as he stood up. “You need to get out of here, both of you. Right now.”
Arthur sniffed the air. “Have you been smoking in here, Joe?”
“Do you know how old Wendy Lyle is?” I asked.
Joel’s eyes darted to Arthur and then back to me. “Yeah. She’s sixteen.”
“No. She’s not. She’s fifteen.”
“Hey, what’s the big deal here? I’m just messing around with my laptop.”
“By talking about underage girls in dirty and disgusting ways?”
Joel pointed at the laptop and shrugged. “It’s the Wild West out there. People can do whatever they want.”
I informed him, “No. No, they can’t.” But then I had no clue what to do or say next. I turned to Arthur and pleaded with him silently to step in.
And he did.
He crossed over to the desk, scrutinizing the laptop like he had never seen one before. He muttered, “What is this here contraption for?”
Joel snapped at him, “Don’t touch that!”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know the first thing about it.”
Arthur pointed back at me. “Tom came all the way up here to talk to you, Joe.”
“It’s Joel. And you need to leave that alone and get out of here.”
“We’ll be leaving shortly, right after you apologize to Tom for calling him a townie. We don’t like that word.”
Joel’s jaw dropped open. Then he spat out the words “Screw you!” But he didn’t sound like he meant them.
Arthur picked up the laptop with his left hand and ripped it away from its power cord. With his right hand, he gave Joel a shove, driving him back toward the wall. He held the laptop up to me. “How do you open this thing?”
I located the button and popped it open. Arthur tossed the laptop down onto the floor and kicked it toward the corner. He said, “Block the door.” Then he turned away from us.
I placed my left shoulder against the door and leveled a mad-dog stare at Joel. He tried to stare back, but he could not.
He caved.
He smiled goofily and said, “Okay. Okay, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s forget this.”
Then we both heard an unmistakable sound. Joel looked over toward Arthur in the corner. So did I.
Arthur had his back to us. The laptop was on the floor in front of him, and he was urinating on it.
Joel sputtered, “Are you… are you insane? You can’t do that!”
Arthur, still urinating, asked innocently, “What?”
Joel looked like he might cry. Or faint. He pointed to his laptop and squeaked, “That!”
Arthur zipped up and replied. “Well, why not? It’s the Wild West. I can do whatever I want.”
“You ruined my computer!”
Arthur pretended to slap himself on the head. “Computer? Is that what it is? I thought it was a portable urinal. You know? For busy college guys who can’t take the time to walk down to the bathroom?” He reached out and dried his hands on Joel’s shirt, admitting, “I guess you were right. I didn’t know the first thing about it.”
Joel stammered, “You… you’re going to pay for this!”
“No. I don’t think so.” Arthur walked to the door, opened it, and left.
Joel was just staring at the puddle on his floor.
I hurried out after Arthur. I whispered to him, “Come on! We gotta get out of here before he calls the cops.”
Arthur shook his head calmly. “Nah. That guy won’t call the cops.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you smell the weed in there? It reeked of it. He’s got too much to hide.”
Arthur walked coolly across the landing, with me directly behind. As he descended the stairs, though, he picked up speed, and so did I. We were both practically running when we hit the front door—bursting outside and vaulting off the porch onto the ground. We ran to the car and dove in. Arthur gunned the engine, threw it into
