For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun (2 page)

2

I later found out that it was Walter Ivory himself who called 911. He saw the whole thing from across the street as he was walking out of a convenience store with his morning coffee. Three fire trucks and two ambulances arrived. There wasn’t anything for the firefighters to do except watch. The EMTs made sure we weren’t quite dead, then put us each in an ambulance and sped us to the local hospital. Davidson Regional was a huge tan brick building, just off the highway, where the land was cheaper. It loomed over six lanes of traffic with its glowing sign in large, white letters. Bobby and I were admitted with haste, ER doctors and nurses in a frenzy to help the two little kids who’d been hit by a car. It was an unusual event in our area — we didn’t have drive-bys, hit-and-runs, those sorts of big-ticket emergencies, very often — so it made the staff perk up. Or maybe the doctors were bored from another typical day of ear infections and croup. In any event, we got a lot of attention.

The snow probably saved both of our asses. If we’d hit raw pavement, the impact might’ve killed us.

Bobby was banged up pretty bad, bleeding like crazy from a slash to the side of his neck, sporting a nice dark shiner under his left eye, but he was mostly fine. I had to have emergency surgery on my right knee; it had shattered on the front bumper of the hatchback. Caught me at just the right angle to lock my knee straight, so the impact was especially hard, snapping the joint like a twig. I also had an ugly gash on my chin from where my face slammed onto the hood of the car. That needed about a million stitches. But the knee was the real mess. I’m sure the doctors at our regional hospital did their best, but car-shattered kneecap wasn’t a common issue for them to resolve, so my results were less than ideal.

After surgery, they put me and Bobby in the same room. I guess they figured we were joined at the hip. Looking back now, it makes me laugh to think how accurate that was.

My parents were waiting when I got out of surgery, and Holly was there in her wheelchair. I was groggy, but at least I knew who they were. My knee was in a big wrap of bandages that Mom maneuvered around to give me a huge hug. Dad followed suit, but where Mom had an almost heart-wrenching look of concern on her face, Dad looked... suspicious.

“John,” he said to me in a low voice, “this isn’t one of your typical friends.” He gestured over his shoulder toward Bobby. “What happened here?”

I hesitated. Bobby was no friend of mine, but he was
right there
, in the same room. If I said it was all his fault, he’d just wait until some other day when we were alone again, and pummel me in retaliation. I gave a sideways glance toward Bobby, who seemed to be pretending not to eavesdrop on our conversation. That’s when I noticed he was alone; no one from his family had bothered to show up yet.

“We were just playing around,” Bobby said suddenly, speaking up. He looked me in the eye. We both knew it was a lie, and I opened my mouth to protest.

Dad turned toward Bobby in surprise and blurted out, “You guys were just
playing around
and got hit by a car?” Looking back at me, he asked, “Is this true, John?”

Bobby interjected again. “Yeah. It’s stupid, but we were just playing in the snow and BOOM, you know? There was the car.” What was Bobby doing? I stared with my mouth open. And he looked at me in a decidedly...
human
way. Was that
fear
in his eyes?

Dad was flummoxed. “Jesus! Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You boys could have been killed!” He paused, looking back and forth at us both.

“Dad…,” I started, but got no further.

At that moment, Bobby’s parents burst through the door.

3

“What the hell have you been up to this time?” raged Bobby’s mother. His father just stood back and somewhat smugly awaited the answer. Bobby’s demeanor changed in an instant. The over-the-top bully I had always known became a mere sheep in front of his parents. It actually made me feel bad for him. That was a first. The tinge of fear I’d seen in Bobby a moment before became panic, almost terror.

“I didn’t do
anything
, Mom. I got hit by a car!” He was pleading. It wasn’t a tone I’d ever heard from him before that day. But I’d hear it again.

“What were you doing fooling around in the road,
boy
?” Bobby’s father asked. He was mostly bald, with fringes of red on the sides of his pasty head, a large man who I imagined had an equally large appetite. Perhaps he’d been lean and strong in the past, but now it seemed that appetite had won. He was nearly as wide as he was tall. Nonetheless, given his old muscle and the serious amount of weight behind it, I wouldn’t risk even one punch from him. I envisioned his fists snapping my bones, an unyielding force like the fender of an oncoming car. Meanwhile, Bobby’s mom looked like she’d just come from a small-town beauty pageant. She had swirls of curly platinum hair all done up in some kind of clip, eyes as big as a doll’s, dark makeup accentuating them, and an hourglass figure shown off by a tightly fitted pink top. The only problem was that when she opened her mouth, everyone in the room cowered. She was a woman who was used to getting her way. She was what my grandmother would call
a witch, with a capital B.

“Bobby, tell your Daddy what happened,” she said, batting those huge dark eyelashes with an almost sympathetic cadence. Somehow, she made it clear that this was a threat.

Bobby hesitated. He looked toward me. In that instant, I knew what his fear was: If he told his parents what really happened, they’d kill him. I noticed Bobby’s father balling his fists, and imagined them being used against his son. Suddenly the school bully looked small against the meaty orbs of his father’s clenched hands. But if Bobby kept up the lie he began with my dad, what would stop me from protesting? The punishment would come. Either way, Bobby was screwed.

For a glorious moment, I basked in this power. I, John Black, could finally seek my revenge against the bully Bobby Graden. I could either sit back gleefully and watch him hang himself with the truth, or wait for him to lie. Then I’d dive in with the fatal blow, revealing his deceit and making him pay nonetheless. It was fantastic! What kid gets to do this? I thought about the generations of downtrodden before me; the meek and cowardly who never got the chance to revel in their tormentor’s defeat. I considered every humiliation, every taunt, every blow. I thought it would be sweet to send Bobby to the flames to roast, and then jab him in the ribs while he was on the spit. I might’ve even cracked a smile. I imagined legions of the small and weak lifting me onto their collective shoulders, their hero.

Bobby must have noticed my smug look, and he was worried. He licked his lips, nervously. “Ma, I…” he trailed off, hanging his head, stealing a look toward me.

No longer tough, he just looked… beaten. And terrified. My smile cracked. Was I feeling sympathy for Bobby? What the hell was going on? In my daydream, my legions of fans suddenly dropped me rudely to the street, no longer a hero, now the goat. I considered what would happen if I let Bobby off the hook. He’d feign humility as he got away with it all, and later we’d see each other again at school. I dreamed of Bobby mocking my sympathy as he came up with clever new ways to harm me. My brow furrowed as my focus returned to the moment. I was newly determined to watch him fall. A sinister sneer came over my face. And Bobby’s mom saw it.

She cocked her head like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise. Her eyes squinted as she focused her attention on me. Did she suspect what I was thinking? Or worse, did she think that I’d been the one responsible for what had happened? She started to walk over to me, wearing a toothy grin that I didn’t trust one bit. As my parents looked curiously at her, she reached the side of my bed. “Are you okay, honey?” she asked, dripping false sympathy.

“I… I guess,” was my only reply. She leaned in close.

So close, in fact, that only I could hear her. “Are you trying to get my boy in trouble?” she whispered, barely moving her lips, smile still cemented on her face. Her eyes held mine, gleaming, predatory. I felt a lump lodged in my throat.

“No! No, ma’am! We were... just playing around. Throwing snowballs. We accidentally went into the street, and didn’t hear the car until it was too late.” I said it too loud and too abruptly, feeling like the lie was written all over my face.

Bobby’s mom still had her head cocked to one side as she questioned me. “You were
playing
? Together?” Both of my parents looked at me with suspicion.

“Yeah, John.
You guys
?” my dad said. “The two of you, were … playing?”

I froze. I needed to make them believe it. “Yes.” I looked at Bobby.
Please
, I thought.
Back me up here!
My eyes would have burned holes into him if they could. He stared for a second, not understanding why I wouldn’t tell them the truth, why I wouldn’t give him up. Then, with an almost nonexistent shrug that only I could see, he chimed in.

“Yeah. Me and Johnny, we were just … playing around.”
Oh good, Bobby, call me
Johnny
. No one calls me that except Holly, and sometimes Mom
. “You know, throwing snowballs. Running around. We should have realized we were getting too close to the road, but with the snow, we couldn’t hear any cars.”
Okay, I had to admit Bobby was a better liar than me by far.
“Johnny was about to smash me with a big snowball when we suddenly realized a car was gonna hit us.”
Nice touch, Bobby. Make them think
I
was going after
you
, even if it was in a game.

My mom turned to me with that Mom stare that says,
this is when I want you to really, truly tell me the truth
. “Are you sure, John?” she said. She waited, looking deep into my eyes for the answer. Bobby’s mother had backed away, but continued to stare directly at me with her cold, unsettling gaze.

If there’s one thing that parents deserve more credit for, it’s their bullshit-detection skills. I didn’t know what to do. I just about blurted out the truth. That would have gotten Bobby in a ton of trouble, but I would have had my share of it in return when he showed up to school to find me later. My feeling of being caught in a trap intensified. I looked into my mom’s probing eyes, then over to the terrifying gaze of Bobby’s mother. I was certain my mom could smell the lie. I was terrified of Bobby’s mother. I shut my eyes, twisting my face in a grimace.

I wished for all of it to. Just.
Sto
p
.

And it did.

4

Mom blinked. Then she blinked again. Then her face…
shifted
. 

Her Mom stare vanished, replaced by a look of pure motherly concern. “My poor Johnny. I’m so glad you’re okay.” She leaned close, eyes welling. “I heard what happened, and I just started to shake. We raced right over here. My
baby
!” She wrapped me up in a big hug.

“Ow, Mom! The knee!” Even through whatever painkillers the doctors had given me, it hurt as she brushed up against my bandages. My yelp made her smother me even more with her affection.

What just happened?
My mother did
not
just give up on something like that once she’d sunk her teeth into it. Even my dad was giving me this dopey sympathetic look.

Still, the most startling thing I saw was Bobby’s parents hovering over him with concern. Bobby’s mother had softened, like someone had changed a channel in her mind. Where before she had been set to News Reporter Bulldog Interviewer, now she was more Sitcom Mom. It was really weird, and seemed unnatural on her.

Bobby caught my eye. He raised his eyebrows slightly, saying,
What was that?
With the tiniest motion, I shrugged.
I have no idea.

Then I looked over at Holly, sitting to one side in her wheelchair. Her normal detachment was gone. She was staring directly at me, unwavering.

Her lip twitched at the corner. And she looked into my eyes like the entirety of my soul was a story for her to read. Which I suppose it was.

5

Bobby, strangely, felt a connection to me after that day. He’d say things offhandedly, like, “You know, we’ve been through a lot together, Johnny,” or “Maybe someone was looking out for us both that day.” I think he was covering up the fact that he knew he owed me one, and that he couldn’t quite figure out how I did it. In truth, I couldn’t figure it out either. I had willed people to change their minds, and somehow they did. Bobby knew it. I knew it. And I think Holly knew it, too, even if she couldn’t say anything.

So Bobby and I became friends. He was released from the hospital well before I was, but came back to visit several times. It was really bizarre, especially since most boys that age can be total inconsiderate dicks. Case in point: None of my other friends came to visit me even once.

After about a week, I was allowed to go home. So finally, my lazy “real” friends came over to my house to see me. Guess the trip to the hospital was too far. My friends had already heard rumors about me and Bobby, from where I had no idea. They were incredulous.

“Bobby. Bobby Graden? You’re hanging out with him? For real?” Tom Shafer didn’t mince words. Okay, that’s a sugarcoated way of describing Tom. The truth is that he could be a pain in the ass.

But Steve Martucci felt the same. “What the hell, John?”

I shrugged. “He’s been really nice to me ever since the accident. I mean, I guess we both could’ve been killed together.” I shrugged again. I didn’t have any better explanation.

“Yeah, well, screw that if you think I’m gonna hang out with him. He’s just waiting for the right moment to beat the crap out of you, you know?” Tom had a truly insightful mind.

“Look, I know he used to be like that, but he’s different now,” I said. “Ever since the car crash —”

“
Ever since the car crash! Ever since the car crash!
” Tom was pitiless. “One little car crash and you make such a big deal about it.” Yeah, that was a pretty crappy thing to say. “Ever since the car crash, you’ve been a little nuts,” Tom said, rolling his eyes.

“Look, if you wanna be friends with Bobby, go ahead.” Steve brimmed with disgust. “But we’ll see you around. Come on, Tom.” He turned to leave.

“You guys! Come on, this is ridiculous!” I shouted as Tom turned to go, too. “I’m not asking you to marry Bobby Graden — just give him a chance!”

“Why don’t you marry him?” Tom said with his back to me. “That’s a great idea. Freakin’ superb.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Just walk away. But when I become an international superstar, don’t come knocking on my door. The role of ‘posse’ will already be filled.” Even I winced at the lameness of my joke. Tom and Steve left without another word.

Of course, like with most kids our age, this was a momentary disruption. We fought, stormed off, then hung out again within a day or two. Tom and Steve would simply make fun of me for hanging out with my “girlfriend” Bobby, knowing full well that if word of that got back to Bobby it might restart the full-on beat-down process he used to administer to them. (Bobby had been an equal-opportunity bully.) So they kept the brave words between the three of us, and we all stayed friends. To the degree that snarky, self-centered punks can be friends.

As for Bobby, it was interesting. At first, I don’t think there was much of anything in common between us. He’d just show up at my house. He was terrified of his parents, although we never talked about them. It was clear that hanging around at his own house wasn’t an option, so he’d appear at my door. After the second or third time we hung out playing videogames next to each other, never saying a word, I thought,
I’m not gonna do this again
. But he kept coming back, for reasons I couldn’t figure out back then. And I kept letting him in.

* * *

My knee was a pretty serious problem. I’m sure there’s no good age to have a reconstructed knee, but eleven was a particularly challenging one. I was in physical therapy until a few months after my twelfth birthday. In the meantime, I had to learn to gimp along on my busted-up leg as best as I could. The therapist would bend and twist my knee all sorts of ways, making me want to either give up and die on the spot or find an axe so I could murder him. At school, people wanted to make fun of my limp, and I’m sure they did behind my back, but no one dared to do it to my face. The benefits of being friends with the school bully.

More than anything, my knee just hurt. Morning, noon, night. Sitting, standing, running, sleeping, watching TV. If I got distracted, which I tried to do as often as I could, it would fade from my mind, but God help me if I thought about it. There was an intense throb underneath my kneecap that no rubbing or ointment could ease. My worst nights were the ones when, for whatever reason, I started to think about my knee before falling asleep. I often stayed awake almost until dawn, writhing in pain, and many times got out of bed covered in a sheen of sweat.

And then one day, something changed.

It was warm out, but not too much so, with the kind of puffy white clouds that look more like a painting than reality. It was fall already, the new school year still as fresh as an open wound. We were seventh graders now, moved on to the middle school at last. You know what that mostly meant? More homework. But Bobby kept coming around. I had to admit, he was good at pulling me out of my head, distracting me with some low-stakes adventure or another. Around that time, he’d been bugging me about sneaking into the local self-storage building. A place he called Mount Trashmore because, according to Bobby, it was where “people pay a lot of money to store junk they don’t want or need.” He mostly thought they paid their money so they didn’t have to look at all their crappy stuff anymore. I think he may have been right. The tall brick building was just a short way from his house, and had become something of a fixation for him. Because it loomed so high above the strip malls and walk-up apartments clustered around it, it promised a vantage point from which to look out at the world beyond. You could see maybe five or 10 miles on a clear day, but more importantly, you could see there was a world outside of your parents’ house. It let you dream, to look so far. And it was high enough that you couldn’t quite smell the dumpsters that sat behind the building, festering on hot days.

Did I mention it was completely forbidden for us kids to be anywhere near the building? No, we weren’t supposed to be in the self-storage compound at all. Off limits. That just made Bobby want to do it more. He cajoled me until I gave in. We snuck over the tall metal fence in an inconspicuous corner, then ran across the lot into a door on the back side of the building that Bobby said was always left unlocked. By this time, he was completely healed — you’d never look at him and think he’d been hit by a car. Outwardly, I looked fine, but my knee was still killing me.

I tried to ignore it, and managed to drag myself about halfway up the climb inside Mount Trashmore. We took the stark cement stairs, floor by floor. Bobby knew I was in pain, but goaded me on, using words clinically proven to be able to coax a 12-year-old into doing anything: wuss, pansy, wimp. I plodded on. Under my breath, I muttered, “Now batting for Team Jerk, Bobby Graden.”

Two floors from the top, I missed a step. And fell.

Of course it was my bad leg that took the brunt of it. I slid down toward the right before catching myself. I heard a small pop. I had visions of a return visit to the hospital, lying in that bed with nothing to do, day after day. I tried to take a step, but it seemed impossible. Hell,
standing
was a challenge.

Bobby trotted back. “You okay?” he asked, peering down at me.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” I said through clenched teeth. “I just thought I saw the rare mottled bufflegoat through the window, and I simply had to get a closer look. I’m fine.” Sarcasm is a tool. Use it whenever you can.

“Hmmph,” he snorted. “Fine, my ass. You hurt your knee again, didn’t you?”

“I’m
fine
,” I replied, with a little too much conviction.

“Listen, dumbass. I may not be trying to beat you up every day anymore, but that doesn’t make me stupid.” He grinned and hopped back up a few steps. “If you’re okay, walk up this flight of stairs.”

“Okay, sure,” I huffed. I took a step. If a sewing needle had been dropped directly in front of my foot, I might have cleared it with this colossal step forward. But I doubt it.

“Johnny?” Bobby said. “Seriously?”

“What?” I looked at him in that exaggerated way kids do, when it’s clear they’re full of crap.

He came back down to look at my knee. “You need help,” he decided.

“For what?” I mocked. “Walking up the stairs? What am I, your grandma?”

Bobby looked at me in an eerily serious way, head tilted downward, eyes still locked on me. “I want you to stop feeling the pain in your knee and finish climbing these stairs with me,” he said in an almost chant-like voice. “With me.
Now
.”

I felt a
shift
. I wanted to move. I wanted to climb the stairs. I wanted to be at the top of the building, looking down. I forgot about my knee. Was there pain anymore? I didn’t care. I took one step, then a second. A calm expression came over my face as I continued upward, step by step, gaining strength.

We moved, first slowly, then faster and faster. Finally we rocketed up the last flight and burst through a door onto the roof. I stood looking out as far as I could see.

“
On top of Mount Traaaash-more!
” Bobby sang, way off-key. “Look at this view, Johnny.” He glowed. “How far do you think you can see?”

Looking around, I took in the whole town. Hell, I could see
other
towns. Past the tall pines out west, I could see the interstate, people traveling fast to somewhere else, nowhere near our little world. An RV buzzed past, a white blotch against the black ribbon of road, heading south.

I held up a second, realizing that something strange had happened. Where moments before I’d thought I would need someone to take me back to the hospital, I’d come to realize that I felt fine. How? I experienced a tinge of joy, almost elation. I’d done it, despite my bad knee. But something about how it happened bothered me. Nonetheless, I felt completely happy. I was giddy, in fact.

I gave Bobby a look, stern, serious. Sensing something changing about my mood, he wrinkled his brow. “What is it now, Johnny?” he asked. “Something wrong?”

After a pause long enough to fool him, I spoke. “Out there.” I pointed, dramatically. “I think I can see… Uranus.”

Bobby erupted in laughter.