Page 82 of The Bright Lands
“This fucker? KT’s the reason Dylan’s dead, Evers. We’ve had to go through a lot of trouble for this little cunt.”
KT’s head lolled from one side to the other, eyes fluttering.
“You’re made for glory, Evers,” said Garrett. “Dylan may have got there first but I’m giving you the chance now. I’m giving you the chance to have the best year of your fucking life. Twenty-four hours from now you are going to be so goddamn grateful you did what I say. Grab his fucking feet.”
Luke grabbed KT’s feet.
Garrett brought all two hundred and forty pounds of his weight onto KT’s sternum. He slapped KT twice, hard, until the boy came to with a gasp and thrashed his legs.
“Listen to me, Kyler Thomas. Listen very fucking carefully. I have this from on high. We promised you freedom. We promised not to come looking for you. But in exchange you promised to never come back to this town. You broke that promise, just like Jason broke it. But for you we’ll be merciful. You leave tomorrow. Don’t matter how you do it, don’t matter where you go. But, Kyler—Kyler Thomas, goddammit you never listen to me.”
KT gasped. “That thing out there will kill you, you know.”
The ground shook again. A breeze rose and carried the distant roar of a cheering crowd with it. Was gone.
Garrett punched KT so hard Luke felt the force of it in the boy’s ankles. “If I ever see you againIwill fucking kill you,” Garrett said, and for a moment it sounded like he was holding back a sob.
They left KT in the grass. On their way back to the truck, Garrett wrapped his big arm around Luke, pulled him tight, suddenly all smiles. “I’ll let the others know,” he said, lips brushing Luke’s ear. “Tomorrow, after the game—you’re in.”
JOEL
Sitting on Wesley’s couch, the blood from his busted lip spilling onto the bright leather, Joel struggled to stay conscious. A satin blackness, cool and supple, wrapped itself over his eyes. There, peeking through the fibers, what did he see but the past, catching up to him at last? What did he see but everything he had worked his entire life to forget?
Ranger Mason had enlisted in the army shortly after the Bison’s first summer game ten years ago. Joel and Starsha continued as always. His shame was such that when Joel made her happy he felt wretched. When he made her sad he thought to himself,Well, at least she doesn’t know.
One evening that summer, Joel had discovered an issue ofPlaygirlwaiting in his house’s mailbox, the naked men on its pages smeared with cow shit. A few weeks later, Joel had taken a job as a carhop at the Sonic Drive-In and one afternoon had brought an order for four fudge milk shakes to a car full of footballers who’d never once given Joel any trouble. A few seconds later he’d been covered head to toe in liquid chocolate. “Ranger says hello from Baghdad,” said the boy behind the wheel, all of them cackling on their way out of the drive-in.
Joel never told his girlfriend about the punch he’d thrown at the game, nor any of the harassment that punch had apparently brought to bear on him. When he mentioned the chocolate incident to her brother during their next round of mudding, Troy had replied offhandedly, “Oh, fuck ’em.” After a beat he’d turned to Joel with a clumsy smile and added, “But, you know, it might hurt my feelings.”
Joel had laughed, his heart in his mouth. It had been so thrilling, so distressing, to finally flirt like he meant it.
If only Troy had always been so kind. As the summer cooled and coppered into fall, his calls to Joel had become more infrequent, their time together briefer. He was always chewing pills when Joel saw him, always rubbing his neck and grumbling about the sprain he’d experienced years before, as if Joel could do anything but fret for him. Troy was always hurrying off early from their meetings or arriving hours late. Daily, hourly, Joel suffered violent fits of jealousy.
Not that Joel possessed the strength to do anything about it.
“I want you tonight,” Troy had whispered into the phone, on that final November afternoon.
“Where have you been?”
A pause. A heavy breath. “Meet me tonight? I’m seeing the game. I’ll come find you after, down at the park?”
“The public park?”
“I want you,” Troy said again in a whisper.
Joel had only hesitated for a moment. He didn’t see that he had a choice. “Of course.”
It was well past dark by the time Joel arrived, and a cold wind had harried the town all day. He listened to the Bison lose their game and snapped off the radio. He sat a long time in his car, his headlights illuminating the plain stone steps descending into the dark. He took a long breath.
As he reached out a hand to kill the engine he stopped when he heard static come leaking from the radio, a low, expectantshh, even though the little light above the speaker was a dead red. Was there another car here? A radio playing down in the gully below? But no: Joel brought his ear to the grille of the speaker and heard a faint pop from inside, a rattle, something that sounded an awful lot like a distant groan.
He told himself not to be crazy. The radio was old. Speakers got weird when they got old. That was all. That was all.
He wrenched his keys free from the ignition and hustled from the car.
Joel let his eyes adjust to the dark. The bed of the gully was thick with dead leaves that crept up his legs. He turned and spotted a little nook in the gully and took up position there. He stuck a hand down his pants to keep it warm.
The cold came rolling down the rock. The temperature was falling fast. With the game over, he estimated it would take Troy fifteen minutes to make it here from the field (though after all of Troy’s imprecations against football, Joel wondered vaguely—jealously—what could have inspired him to go to the game tonight in the first place).
