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“That was for ditching without me.” Jack walked over, a small boy with blond hair, brown eyes, and a seriously messed up arm. The right one was fine, but it was hard to miss the other. Shrunken and small, it looked like someone had nailed the arm of a six-year-old to a kid twice that age.
“Are you angry?” Joh
“Yes.”
“I’ll give you a free hit to make it even.”
Jack held the hard smile. “Three hits,” he said.
“Three with your girl arm.”
“Two with the hammer.” Jack cocked his good fist, and his smile thi
“Do it, you pussy.”
Jack punched Joh
Joh
“It’s not rocket science.”
“Then what took you so long?”
Jack sat on the rock next to Joh
“He didn’t see you, did he?” Jack’s father was a serious, hard-ass cop, and Joh
“Do I look like an idiot?” Jack’s good hand disappeared inside the pack. “Still cold,” he said, and pulled out a can of beer. He handed it to Joh
“Stealing beer.” Joh
Jack flashed the same sharp smile. “The Lord forgives small sins.”
“That’s not what your mom says.”
He barked a laugh. “My mom is one step away from foot washing and snake handling, Joh
“Get out.”
“That time I got caught cheating? Remember?”
Three months ago. Joh
“We had a meeting with the principal, right. Before it was done, she had him on his knees, praying for God to show me the path.”
“Bullshit.”
“No shit. He was so scared of her. You should have seen his face, all scrunched up, one eye squinting out to see if she was looking at him while he did it.” Jack popped the top, shrugged. “Still, can’t blame him. She’s gone off the deep end and is trying just as hard to take me down with her. She had the preacher over last week to pray for me.”
“Why?”
“In case I’m touching myself.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Life is a comedy,” Jack said, but there was no smile left. His mother was scary religious, born again and taking no prisoners. She was on Jack all the time with threats of hellfire and damnation. He played it off, but the cracks showed.
Joh
“She says that the Lord disapproves, so Dad put a beer refrigerator in the garage, his liquor, too. That seems to have settled it.”
Jack chugged. Joh
“Beggars and choosers, man. Don’t make me hit you again.” Jack chugged the rest of his beer, then stuffed the empty in the pack and pulled out another.
“Did you do your history paper?”
“What did I say about small sins?”
Joh
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t feel like riding it.”
“It’s a six hundred dollar Trek.”
Jack looked away, shrugged. “I miss the old one. That’s all.”
“Still no sign, huh?”
“Stolen, I guess. Gone for good.”
The power of sentiment, Joh
Joh
“You don’t think I can handle a train jump?” Angry.
“I was just thinking of that kid, you know.”
They both knew the story, a fourteen-year-old from one of the county schools who tried to hop the same train and lost his grip. He’d fallen under the wheels and lost both legs: one at the thigh, one below the knee. He was a cautionary tale for kids like Jack.
“That kid was a wimp.” Jack rooted through one of the outer pockets of the backpack and came out with a pack of menthols. He pulled out a cigarette with his bad arm and held it between two baby fingers as he lit it with a lighter. He sucked in smoke and tried to blow a ring on the exhale.
“Your dad buys crap cigarettes, too.”
Jack looked at the perfect blue sky and took another drag. The cigarette in his small hand looked u
“Why not?”
Jack handed Joh
Joh
“Those are new,” Jack said.
“Not so new.” Joh
“Tell you what?”
“About the van.”
“Damn, Joh
“Just tell me.”
Jack pulled in smoke and looked away from his friend. “It was just a van.”
“What color?”
“You know what color.”
“What color?”
Jack sighed. “White.”
“What about dents? Scratches? Anything else you remember?”
“It’s been a year, Joh
“What else?”
“For fuck’s sake, man. It was a white van. White. Like I told you. Like I told the cops.” Joh
“You never said that before.”
“I did.”
“No. You described it: white, no windows in the back. You never said it looked like a painter’s van. Why would you say that now? Was there paint spilled on the side?”
“No.”
“Ladders on the roof? A rack for ladders?”
Jack finished the cigarette and flicked his own butt into the river. “It was just a van, Joh
Joh
“I’m sorry, man. I wish I’d done something, but I just didn’t. It didn’t even look real.”
Joh