Page 74 of Body Count

“We loved each other!”

“He didn’t love you.He didn’t even care about you.And you didn’t love him, not by the end.By the end, you hated him.”

“Yes!”The scream rang out in the kitchen.Jordan was trembling.“Yes!I hated him!I hated him!He was a fucking whore, just like his mom, and nothing I ever did was good enough for him!What the fuck is so awful about me that he couldn’t just love me?”He stood, and the crumpled paper towel spilled onto the floor.Pushing his hands through his hair, he paced the apartment’s front room, words tumbling out of him.“It was like—it was like if he could fuck enough guys, it wouldn’t matter what else was wrong with him.Rory was like that too.It wouldn’t matter that Tip’s dad hated him because he was jealous, or that Rory was always alone because nobody could stand to be around him for more than a quick fuck.I tried telling him it didn’t work like that.I told him I loved him.I told him that was enough.”

But it isn’t, I almost said.It never is.

Instead, though, I tried to focus.“What didn’t you tell me, Jordan?”

Jordan glanced over at me, his expression confused, as though he’d forgotten I was there.

“You don’t have to cover for anybody anymore.Tip is dead, and you told me what happened between the two of you.Now I need to know the rest of it.What else was going on in Tip’s life that you didn’t tell me?Who would have wanted to hurt him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the drugs?”

“He scored at parties sometimes.”If anything, Jordan looked even more confused.“You think someone killed him because of drugs?”

“I want to know what you haven’t been telling me.”

“I already told you!I told you about—about the party.I didn’t mean to hurt him—”

“Not that.The rest of it.”

“There isn’t anything else!”

“Bullshit!You’ve been lying since the minute I met you, and you’re lying now.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You and Tip cooked up that description of Darnell.You went to my house with Rory.You got in a fight with Darnell.And then somehow Tip ends up in my bed.That’s not a fucking coincidence, so tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Jordan gave me that look again—a mixture of confusion and disbelief.And then he said, “Who’s Darnell?”

“Darnell,” I said.“You went to my house, shit-for-brains.You sat in the car, and Rory went up to the door, and he got in a fight with Darnell.”

“That was your house,” he said, like he hadn’t understood something until right then.And then he fixed those stupid blond curtains and peered out at me and asked, “You really don’t know?”

“Knowwhat?”

He seemed to consider something for a moment.Then he started toward Tip’s room.

I followed.

“I didn’t know either,” he said.“I would have broken up with him if I’d known.People are so fucked up.You think you know them, then you find out they’re not anything like what you thought.That night you followed me to the park?Rory showed me, and we got in a huge fight.Tip was gone, and it was like…it was like he wanted it to be worse.Like he wanted to make it hurt even more.”

“Showed you what?”

But Jordan only pushed open the door.

Tip’s room had been searched—professionally, but thoroughly—since the last time I’d been here.You saw it enough times, and you started to recognize it, the economized attempt to make things look okay-enough-ish after ripping shit down to the studs.I wondered if Tip’s parents had been through here as well; I’d have to ask Jordan.But if it had been Tip’s mom, I would have expected her to take everything, and as far as I could tell, all of Tip’s belongings were still there.The air was stale, slightly off; it had been closed up too long, and the month-old laundry was getting rank.

Jordan moved across the room to the progress flag and undid the tacks holding it to the wall.He didn’t try to catch it; he just let it glide to the floor.

Behind it were photos.Dozens of photos.They were all approximately the same size, many taken in bad lighting, and they looked like they’d been printed on regular copy paper, instead of photo paper.At home, I thought.On a regular color printer.In every photo, naked bodies were on display.Many of them showed Tip’s face—mugging for the camera, his expression blending the smugness of a kid who’d just nutted with a kind of silly playfulness.In some, Tip’s partner seemed unaware of the photos—a bare back turned to the camera, or a face only partially exposed, eyes closed to suggest a post-cum daze.In others, the boys and men looked into the camera.One was a picture of Tip with an older man’s head between his legs.Tip looked like he was enjoying the rush.

“Rory’s got one too,” Jordan said.“He told me all about it after Tip left.Told me it was a competition.Their body count walls, that’s what he called them.Like a fucking scoreboard.”

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