Jasper Jones (31 page)

“You know,” I say quietly, lifting my glass of port, “I never understood why you would ever feel the need to
shoot
the fish in the barrel. I mean, they’re in a
barrel
, you’ve already caught them. The hard work’s done, they can’t escape. So if you want them dead, just drain the water out. Why bring guns into it?”

My dad laughs.

“See, Ruth, this is why the boy is going places. It’s a fair point. And
one worth remembering, should you ever encounter a man pointing a rifle over an open barrel of trout.”

“Drain the water, save your bullets,” I say, shrugging.

“It’s an
expression,
” says my mother. “You two aren’t right in the head. Anyway, give me your scores.”

We read out our numbers. I know that my dad just made his up, and I smile in collusion. When my mother writes, her tongue presses out the side of her mouth. It makes her look girlish. She whistles at the scores on the pad.

“You’re on a train with no brakes, gentlemen.”

“Come on, Charlie,” says my dad. “We need to put a halt on this loose caboose. It’s not over yet. The Good Luck Express over here has got to run out soon.”

“Luck?” my mother exclaims. “It’s skill. Don’t be so obstreperous.”

“Ob
strep
erous?”

“Obstreperous.”

We all smile. It’s nice, I guess. It’s obvious that we’re all trying to make each other feel better. I wonder if they’re playing canasta at Jeffrey’s house. Probably not. I hope he’s okay. I feel like knocking on his window like Jasper Jones.

My mother cocks her head, biting her lip.

“Gentlemen, I’ve got some
devastating
news.” She starts laying down her cards in columns with a smirk. We both groan and lean back.

“Already? You’re ruthless as a sack of snakes.”

“Add em up,” she says, reaching for the pad.

“I don’t think there’ll be any need.” My dad tosses his cards onto the table. “This spells the end for us, Charlie. Time to surrender. We’ve been plundered. To bed with ye.”

I get up. And as I do, there are sudden Gatling gun pops on our roof. We all flinch and look up. It’s raining. Slow, then a heavy barrage. Fat silver sheets of it. I can see it through the kitchen window. It silences us for a time.

“Hell’s bells,” says my father. “It’s really coming down.”

My mother unlatches our windows to let the cool air in. The roar of the rain gets louder, and a sheet of white flashes.

Thunder erupts soon after, and it startles my mother. She clutches at the back of my father’s chair.

“Christ
Almighty,
” she says. “That’s it! That’s enough. I’m going to bed. Night, Charlie.”

My father clears the table, and I stand and set my chair.

“You all right?” he asks, pausing.

I nod, but I’m not really. Not at all.

I don’t know how my parents can distance themselves from what just happened out there so easily. How they can put a lid on their outrage and bang it shut. I keep thinking of An Lu being held steady by his wife, trying to stay level and dignified. And Jeffrey. For the first time in his life he looked defeated, and it was on the first day in his life he’d bloody
won
. I don’t know. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. There has to be. Because it feels as though there’s something squeezing my heart and I can’t breathe properly and I just want to lie down and think of how soft and warm Eliza Wishart felt today, but even that’s displaced by her face when she cried, her wet dimples, the creases at her eyes. She told me she wasn’t a good person, and I countered it with nothing. Because I’m an idiot. I didn’t say any of those things I’d always meant to tell her, the hundreds of words I’d scribbled in preparation. I stayed quiet. I didn’t stand up for her. Whereas my father tonight, he proved me wrong.
He
stood up for something. He really did. And I was so impressed, so awed to see him lean in with that kind of aggression. But not even that stays in me unchecked; there’s a low dog with its teeth in my shirt, hassling and tugging and pulling me down with the insistent thought that it wasn’t
enough
, that it would never ever be enough.

Because Jeffrey Lu was a hero today and when he got to the top they dragged him back to the bottom. They showered him with shit. They made him feel like rubbish when he should be kite-high.

Because those men struck his father, over and over, and they destroyed something beautiful. And nothing will ever happen to them.

Because a girl goes missing in this town and it’s Jasper Jones who is held and threatened and belted for days, but somehow those monsters will arouse no suspicion.

Because now Jasper Jones has to leave Corrigan before it breaks him. And I have to go with him, knowing what I know, having done what I’ve done, feeling as I do.

Because Laura Wishart is dead. She was beaten and hanged. Maybe by Jack Lionel. Maybe by those men. And we took the rope from her neck and wrapped it around her ankles. We tied her to a stone and we threw her in the water and we sunk her.

And because Eliza Wishart will hate me if she ever finds out what I did to her sister after she died. She’ll never clutch my arm or lean on my shoulder. I will have kissed her for the last time. But I still feel the need to tell her. To unburden us both. To assure her I tried to do the right thing. To etch that word.

Oh, I’ve got myself into trouble. I know they’re coming for me. The blue suits, the dragonflies in the sky. It’s the waiting that’s the worst. I can feel something slowly closing in, a slow choke. An ambush. And I don’t want to be alone with this.

It’s pissing down now, blanketing our house. And heavy as I am, the snow dome won’t settle. Perhaps it never will.

“Good night,” I say.

ate in the morning on New Year’s Eve, Jeffrey Lu is declaring his intention to master the One-Inch Punch.

“You have a one-inch what?”

“You’re an idiot. The One-Inch Punch. It’s
karate
. It’s Bruce
Lee
. He introduced it to the greater martial arts community. Jeffrey Lu is going to make it famous.”

We drag our wooden crate out onto the road. Jeffrey rests his bat over his shoulder and squints in the sun.

“See, Chuck, while you’re mincing about saying clever things to girls, some of us are training themselves to a point of
immaculate
perfection for your protection. It must be nice for you to have a horse like me in your stable. You’re a citizen. You can afford to rest on your laurels. Because you know that Jeffrey Lu is standing in the path of tyranny.”

“Sir, your sacrifice means everything to me.”

“It’s hardly a sacrifice. I’d rather hone my superior skills to infallible sharpness than swan about smooching girls.”

“Because you’re queer?”

“
You’re
queer,” Jeffrey sighs. Sensing his impatience, I ask him to reveal the secrets of the One-Inch Punch. Jeffrey sighs again and lays his bat down.

“For the ignorant and uninitiated, the One-Inch Punch,
essentially
, is the fierce concentration of energy to a single place in the body that can be released in a moment of explosive power. Like this.” Jeffrey steadies. He crouches, his fist out in front; then he spasms suddenly and pads me deftly on the shoulder.

“Jeffrey, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever encountered.”

“
You’re
the stupidest thing I’ve ever encountered!”

“But how is that at all useful? Unless you’re fighting someone in a phone booth, there’s no benefit to doing that. Just wind up and swing like a normal person.”

Jeffrey groans.

“
Charles
, you know
nothing
of the world. There’s no use in me trying to illuminate the ways of the elite martial artist. Your inner pansy just scrambles a perfectly sensible message. It’s like I’m talking a different language.
Obviously
, I didn’t want to hit you that hard. My hand would have gone straight through you if I’d unleashed all my reserves. And I don’t need a murder on my hands.”

“Murder? Jeffrey, all due respect, but a strike like that wouldn’t even cause noticeable discomfort to a newborn rabbit with some kind of brittle-bone disease.”

Jeffrey shakes his head.

“See? This is what I’m talking about. You’re incapable of understanding the fundamental principles of physical combat. Your giant blouse drowns out the information. You’re an idiot. Stick to skipping stones and making daisy wreaths and chasing rainbows and writing stupid sonnets or whatever.” Jeffrey picks up his bat and shakes his head.

“Sure,” I laugh. “And you stick to tapping your enemies politely with your fist.”

“It’s explosive
power
, you
dick
head!”

“You want explosive power? Face up, little man.”

I walk to my mark. Jeffrey surveys his imaginary field. I push off.

Of course, he belts me everywhere. His eye is too good. He invents shots, doing what he wants with the ball. And it’s frustrating, given that my line and length aren’t too bad today. I get the feeling he’s exacting some revenge for my disrespect.

For the first time, I’m not afraid of retrieving the ball from their front yard. An Lu’s garden is dun and dusty now. Just a lumpy, barren bed of soil. The insects are in exile.

There is a cluster of color under the veranda, though. After they heard what happened, a few folks from town delivered cuttings and grafts and flowers from their own gardens for An Lu to use. Of course, they’re nowhere near as pretty or exotic as An’s own collection, but it’s nice they did that. It seems like it’s their way of saying they’re sorry for what happened. But I wonder if they would have brought anything if his garden hadn’t been razed. Nobody brought anything for Mrs. Lu after she was scalded and scolded by Sue Findlay. Maybe because his garden was a beautiful thing everyone could share in, they felt like they lost something too.

My stomach churns and gurgles. I skipped breakfast today. I haven’t really been eating much at all. My gut is a cavern of nesting butterflies. Jeffrey says I’m afflicted with Lovetummy, a known side effect stemming from excessive sassytime. I’m living off occasional buttered bread slices and sweetened Pablo. Even my mother has given up trying to force-feed me. Now she just shrugs and reminds me not to blame her when I expire.

For that I’d have to hold Eliza Wishart responsible. Every time I think of her, which is often, my body tenses and my stomach squeezes and my blood is filled with a strange alloy of exhilaration and fear. At night, I think of seeing her. I think of what it might be to creep across her back garden and tap on her window like Jasper Jones. To look past the sunflowers sitting on her sill, to see her reading on her bed. To whisper a sweet greeting when she approaches, taking care we don’t get caught. To ask if she’s okay. To put my finger on her jaw, to kiss her again. And this time I might lean in of my own volition. I might hold her hand. Her inside, me outside.

But I can’t. Of course. I know it. And it makes me horribly lonesome. It makes me ache.

I haven’t seen Jasper either, since he was at my window last. And I’m worried; he was so full of intensity and intent. I’m afraid he might have done something. That he might have been caught. By the police. By his father. By Mad Jack Lionel.

I need to see him soon. Strangely enough, spending time with Jasper always seems to quell the swell. He somehow sets things right, despite him pulling the storm clouds over my head in the first place. He has a sort of infectious strength, and I need a dose of it. I really do.

Jeffrey crouches in readiness. I roll in again. This time, the ball kicks up on a shard of loose gravel, forcing a leading edge. I stumble forward and take the catch like a bear snatching at a salmon. However unconvincing, the wicket remains. I toss the ball into the air. It’s the first time I’ve legitimately dismissed him this summer.

“Your reign is over! Pure talent has prevailed.”

“Pffft! That’s barely your wicket. That one goes down to the Law of Averages. Or the Infinite Monkey Theory. Or both. If enough chimps hurl balls at a master for long enough, eventually he’s going to tire of belting them all over the place and make an uncharacteristic mistake.”