Blackout (6 page)

“And probably too innocent,” I said.

“All the more reason.”

Cree tried to change the subject. “What did
Ben say when you told him?”

Hadn’t we already discussed that? Or was it
Rhoda I talked to?

“He said, ‘Why are girls so stupid?’ But
please don’t get me started on that. Girls may be stupid but guys
don’t have to take advantage. That’s
their
fault. They
should damn well learn to control their hormones. That goes for all
men, all over the world. There are cultures where women have to
cover their hair, even their faces, because the sight of it gets
men aroused. Why should it all be up to the women? Are men such
babies they can’t keep a grip on their dicks?”

Cree said, “You really are wound up.”

“Damn straight. I’m starting a campaign and
you guys can be charter members, if you want.”

Glyn perked up a little. “Campaign for what?
What’s it about?”

“Education. Teaching men to have some
respect. Teaching them we’re not just put here as sex toys.”

Cree looked thoughtful. “Kelsey can be our
poster girl.”

“I wouldn’t do that to her,” I said. “We’ll
have a composite poster girl. She’s not the first person this
happened to.”

“Not hardly,” Glyn agreed.

A car came into the driveway. That was a
relief. I’d pictured us sitting there for the next two hours, if
not two weeks. It was the whole Brandon family. I got out and
greeted the parents, whom I’d met at Lakeside functions, just as
I’d met Kelsey’s parents.

“Party’s over. Didn’t you know?” said Mr.
Brandon. Always a joker.

“Uh—” How to begin? My “uh” stopped the
parents on their way to the front door.

“About that,” I said, trying to think how to
break it gently. “I wasn’t here, but I understand there were
problems.”

“Problems?” Mrs. Brandon’s eyebrows went
up.

All except Carl moved in closer. Then he did,
too. He was a funny guy, with straight, reddish-blond hair. Now his
face was serious. I supposed mine was, too.

My two companions got out of the car. I knew
it took a lot of courage for Glyn to face anyone. The Brandons knew
her, of course. She lived next door. I introduced Cree and said
we’d just come from Kelsey’s house.

Carl said, “I heard she got smashed. Is she
okay?”

He knew she got more than smashed. I said,
“Uh—she’s alive.” Then I laid it on. “At least she was a little
while ago. When the ambulance took her away.”

There was a gasp all around. Mrs. Brandon
said, “What
happened?
”

It seemed to me parents shouldn’t be so
innocent. Certainly not more innocent than their kids. Even if the
kids try hard to keep them that way. How to break it to them?

“Well,” I began, “as your son just said,
Kelsey got smashed.”

She turned to her son. “How did that happen?”
At least she knew you had to get smashed on
something.
It
was becoming clear the parents hadn’t been home.

Carl denied supplying any liquor. Cindy
backed him up. If it was there, other kids had brought it. But the
twins must have known it was coming. They’d bought other supplies.
The mixers and things.

My parents would have been home, even though
they trusted Ben and me. Famous last words. The truth is, you never
know what your kids’ friends are going to pull.

I gave them the story in brief, making sure I
named names.

Cindy’s eyes got wider and wider. Carl stared
down at his sneakers. Whatever church they went to must have been
casual. Both twins had on jeans.

“Oh my Lord of Lords!” Mrs. Brandon clutched
at her chest. Mr. Brandon caught her before she could fall.

I felt no remorse, and went on, “That’s not
the worst of it. Those creeps took pictures and put them on the
Internet. I don’t know if Kelsey knew that part of it. Maybe being
gang raped was enough. Anyway, this morning it looked as if she
tried to kill herself. We went to see how she was doing and she was
on top of that turret thing they have.”

“She was going to jump?” Cindy gasped.

“No, I think she took poison. She must have
thought it would be a while before anyone looked up there. Nobody
else was home, so we called the police and they came with a ladder
truck. They got her down. They said she was still breathing and
they took her to the hospital.”

“Oh, that poor girl,” cried Mrs. Brandon.

Cindy turned away, sickened. “Guys can be
such shit.”

Another charter member.

“Anyway,” I said, getting down to the point
of our visit, “the police had to know everything, including where
all this took place. I’m afraid they might have some questions
about alcohol being served to minors. We thought we’d better let
you know.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Mr. Brandon said
dully.

“Anyway, regardless . . .” I got my car door
open, “whatever else, most of the blame has to be on Evan
Steffers.”

“And company,” added Glyn. It was the first
time she’d spoken.

“He really will be prosecuted,” I assured
them all, and got into my shabby Chevy. “If they can find him.”

I backed out of the driveway, leaving a
stunned family of four. I wouldn’t have wanted to be any of them.
And certainly not Kelsey.

Chapter
Five

We passed Velda Sheehan’s house with its red
tile roof. Cree and I both turned to look at it. We had been there
together a couple of times. It was where we found out about
Kelsey’s childhood trauma. That was before we confronted Kelsey
herself.

I said, “I wish we had Velda’s phone
number.”

“I’m glad we don’t.”

That was Glyn talking. I could see her in my
rear view mirror, all hunched over. She added, “I couldn’t face any
of that family.”

“Don’t you want to know how she’s doing?” I
asked.

She hunched still further. I tried to keep my
eyes ahead and not on the mirror. “Glyn, will you stop it? Even if
there was something you could have done differently, you didn’t
know it at the time and you can’t go back and change it. Try moving
forward. There must be something you can do.”

Maybe she had to blame herself. Sometimes you
have to, but I was getting tired of it. Possibly my constant
reassurance was part of what she needed. Still, it would be nice if
we could change the tune a little.

When we got to my house, Ben’s truck was
still there. He hadn’t gone out, probably because I had Cree with
me. Ben had always been pretty much a loner, but these days he
scarcely went anywhere without Cree.

“Come in and have some soda, coffee, iced
tea,” I invited my buddies. “That’s all we’re serving. Oh, and
fresh water.”

“No gin and mixer?” Glyn tried for a bit of
levity.

“You can have mixer without the gin,” I
said.

“I can?”

“But I don’t think we have any. My parents
only drink when they have guests, and they go in for wine.”

The dogs woofed as we entered the house. Cree
got down on the floor and hugged them. We chose our sodas and sat
at the kitchen table. Nobody had anything to say except to wonder
how Kelsey was doing, and we’d already covered that.

“I could try calling the emergency room,” I
said.

“Yes, do that.” Glyn was back in the dumps
again.

“She wouldn’t still be there, would she?”
said Cree. “They don’t keep them there, do they?”

“Not in the ER. She’s either out or somewhere
else in the hospital.”

I hoped not dead. I called Patient
Information and found they’d put her in Intensive Care.

“Better than—not,” said Cree. “Where there’s
life there’s hope.”

It cheered me, too, just a little. I could
have asked for the nurses’ station, but at least I knew she was
alive.

Another issue was involved that concerned me
as much as Kelsey.

I asked Glyn, “Do you happen to have his
email address?”

She gave a little start. “Whose?”

She must have known who I meant. She’d been
rather taken with him last winter when he was giving me a hard
time. He tried to get at me through her. It took her a while to
figure out he was using her. Then she began to see him as he really
was.

“Who do you think?” I said. “He can’t keep
hiding from the police. This time he’s really done it. Not that my
brake line wasn’t bad enough.”

She stared down at her Pepsi can. She’d told
me his whereabouts once, when the police needed him for something
else. But she still wanted to deny, even to herself, that she’d
ever had anything to do with him.

“Why would I have his email address?” she
asked. “I would think you’d have it. Unless you threw it away.”

Actually, I had. I’d also deleted it from my
memory, both the computer’s and the one inside my head.

“Maybe it’s better I just keep hands off,” I
decided. “We don’t want to alert him that the police are after him,
if he can’t figure it out for himself.”

“He’s not stupid.” Glyn sloshed the Pepsi
around in its can.

“No, but he’s insufferably arrogant. And
psychopathic. He might not think he did anything wrong. Just
fooling around. Having a little fun. Showing off to his pals.”

“How could he?” said Cree.

I took a breath to explain, when she got it.
“Oh, yeah. Because in his mind Kelsey’s not a real person.”

“Exactly. And that’s what we have to change.
Not just him but the whole male race, or a lot of it.”

“Not Ben! He’s not like that.”

“No, I know he isn’t. Neither is Rick, or my
daddy, or a lot of other guys, but too many are. And we’re going to
change that.”

Cree fixed me with her gold-flecked eyes.
“How?”

“Yes,” agreed Glyn. “How are you going to do
that? They like themselves the way they are.”

“It won’t be easy. Too many women think they
have to appeal to men’s prurient interests to get their attention.
That just reinforces their attitudes, so we’ll have to work on
women, too.”

“Who
interests?” asked Cree.

I hoped that was what I meant and hoped I
pronounced it right. “Prurient. Sexual.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And I don’t plan to do it all by myself.
It’s us. We. We’ll need more members. We can get a whole thing
going. You know the play
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes?”

“Huh?” said Cree.

Glyn asked, “What are you talking about?”
That reassured Cree that it wasn’t just a Lakeside thing, although
that may have been where I heard of it.

“Aristophanes,” I said, “was an ancient Greek
playwright who specialized in comedy and satire. The other biggies
mostly did tragedy.”

“Well? What is it?” Cree gulped down the last
of her soda.

I heard Ben’s sneakers galloping on the
stairs. Our parents were out in back, Rhoda gardening and Daddy
reading the Sunday
Times.

Ben came into the kitchen, greeted Cree by
tugging on her ponytail. I didn’t want to talk about
Lysistrata
with him there. Guys, including Ben, can get
defensive about their species, even if they wouldn’t do those
things themselves.

“Rick was thrilled,” I told him, “that you
thought to put the pictures on a flash drive, but did you get them
all off the Internet? Before they go viral?”

“All off,” he assured me, “and I checked for
viralness. Or virality, or whatever. You can stop panicking.” He
opened the refrigerator, did a quick inventory, and closed it. Then
he opened it again and took out a 2-liter bottle of Coke that was
three-quarters empty, and started to leave.

“Thank you, Ben,” I said.

“For what?”

“For taking care of the pictures.”

“De nada.
” He signaled to Cree that he
would be with her shortly, and bounded back upstairs.

“Are you going to tell us about it?” asked
Glyn.

I’d forgotten what the topic was. “I wonder
if he took a look at those pictures. I don’t know what you have to
do to get them off the Net, but she’ll be mortified if he saw
them.”

“Maybe she doesn’t need to know,” said Glyn.
“Anyway it’s better than if the whole rest of the world sees them.
Now, tell us about the Greek thing.”

“Okay. Well, the Greek city-states were
always at each other’s throats. They liked having wars. It’s what
men do. But their wives were sick of it. They wanted the men home
and everything the way it should be. The men must have been home at
least part of the time because the women all got together and
issued an ultimatum. There would be no more marital relations until
the fighting stopped.”

“You mean sex,” said Cree.

“Yes. That.”

“Did it work?”

“Yep. But everybody had to be in on it, or it
wouldn’t have worked.”

Glyn said, “So how do we do it when a lot of
men are perfectly decent? And what if you’re not having sex with
your guy to begin with? Or what about people who don’t have a
guy?”

“Okay, that was a bad example,” I conceded.
“It only shows that women can be empowered if they act
together.”

“I don’t think it’s practical,” she
argued.

“Probably not. And furthermore, a lot of
women depend on a man not only for support but just to have one
around.”

“It’s a cute idea, though,” said Cree. “Even
if it wouldn’t have been practical even back then. Maybe less so
because I’ll bet most of those women couldn’t earn their own
living. Unless they were all hookers.”

“They were
wives,
” I said. “And quite
possibly it didn’t take all that long, men being the dickheads they
are. Anyway, it’s a satire. It’s not supposed to be real. I think
he was mostly making fun of men. We’re not saying they can’t be
dickheads, since that’s the way God made them. They just have to
see us as equal human beings. That’s all we’re asking. We need a
name.”

Cree said, “That’s not as important as
getting recruits and deciding how we’re going to do this.”