Strays (8 page)

In Kyle’s eyes, Dad was the worst kind of parent in the world.

Throughout July, the kids all met at the swimming pool, and that particular summer,
everyone else
had somehow persuaded their parents to drive them to Wichita to the second
Star Wars
movie.  At the pool the boys played Han Solo or Luke Skywalker and girls played Princess Leia, and there was splashing and dunking and the chance slick friction of moist skin wrestling in the water, hormones arriving and bodies changing.  Kyle could have entered the pool.  He could have gone on pretending that he was one of them and swum deep and grabbed a pair of peri-pubescent female legs and wrestled and made her scream. 

But he did not know how the game was played.  He had not seen the movie.

Summer ended in August, and Kyle entered the seventh grade and moved from Wilson Elementary to the Junior High building.  There had been little time to adapt.  The Junior High took in students from all five Landes grade schools, and suddenly Kyle’s social circle had been increased by 250%.  It was a time to establish boundaries and cliques, to find your people, to determine where you stood on the social ladder.  It was the seventh grade, and it would take the better part of a year to determine whether you were “cool” or a “loser.”  By mid-autumn, the margins were starting to materialize.

Kyle had been toward the bottom, of course.  Perhaps, as he long suspected, it was because he was the last one to see the movie, and by the first week in November, he
still
hadn’t seen it. 

But the
second
week in November was special. 

On November 1st, the banner had been hung off the colorful marquee of the Landes Theater:
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK COMING NOV. 12
.  At last the second
Star Wars
movie would be
there
, right there in Landes, and since downtown was walking distance from Kyle’s house, it would be no problem for him to finally see this movie for himself.  It still took a bit of howling and gnashing of teeth to get permission, of course, and Dad had even laughed a bit at Kyle’s fixation, chiding him with “it’s only a movie” again, but in the end, Dad finally gave in, allowing Kyle the two o’clock matinee that Sunday after church. 

Kyle had squirmed at church that day, squirmed at the table during the midday meal until at last his parents unlocked his cage.  He ran all the way to the Landes Theater, past Mrs. Forman’s house (the one that looked like it was haunted), through Gortner Park, across the parking lot between Pinoak and Amurcork Avenues, crossing Main in the middle of the block to get to his destination.  He had gone to the theater expecting an absolutely amazing experience, and he was not disappointed.  Snow monsters and Imperial walkers and asteroid fields and lightsaber duels … it boggled the mind.  Sure, the movie kind of left you hanging—at the end the Empire was still at large and Han Solo was now encased in carbonite to be delivered to Jabba the Hut—but at least by the time the
third
movie would roll around Kyle would be fifteen, and it would be harder for Dad to refuse him.

That was what he hoped, anyway.

As the final credits rolled, Kyle walked out onto the street that fine Sunday afternoon, unseasonably warm for November.  He thought about space and far-off places.  He thought about how he would probably never see them—he had no doubt he would grow old and die in this little town.  In the end he thought about heroes.  It would be nice to be a hero, he thought, and he wondered which kind of hero he liked more.  Roguish Han Solo with cool blaster in hand and an even cooler Wookie for a sidekick, both of them were adept at mowing down armies of stormtroopers.  Or headstrong Luke Skywalker, vacillating between fiery and enlightened, but nothing to be messed with once he flicked on that lightsaber.  Kyle couldn’t decide which was better, shooting stormtroopers or having a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader.  Sure, Vader turned out to be Luke’s father, but hell, how cool would that be, having a Dark Lord as your dad instead of the goofy, no-movie-going father Kyle was stuck with?  

He was walking down the street, thinking about these things when—

“Jesus God, they’re gonna kill him!”

The voice had come echoing across the small downtown shoppers’ parking lot, much louder on Sunday afternoon when most of the stores were closed.  Kyle had crossed Main Street in the middle of the block en route back to his home and was moving across the parking lot toward Gortner Park.  He was just to the alley between Main and Gortner Street behind the old muffler shop with the orthodontist’s office on the second floor, and when he glanced to the north he saw a rather nondescript man standing in the mouth of the alley just across Pinoak Avenue.  It was perhaps the darkest and creepiest alley in all of Landes, a single-block track running from Central to Pinoak, flanked on either side by brick buildings that ran up two stories tall.  Halfway down, a second tributary of alley ran to the west until it met up right across from the court house, and it was back there, back behind Oltmann’s Appliance where Kyle used to go digging for old refrigerator boxes, that Kyle’s life was about to change.

“Boy!” the man shouted from across the street.  “You gotta help, boy!”

The man was standing there on Pinoak, right next to Ol’ Red’s Tavern (closed on Sundays), and he turned and ran north down the alley as fast as he could.  He had long legs that jutted out in high-kicked strides, his entire body leaving the ground like a gazelle.

“Come on!” his voice barked, fading as it rattled down the high brick walls.  “Not much time!”

There was urgency in his voice, but something more than that compelled Kyle to run after him.  Someone was in trouble, someone back in the alley.  Kyle didn’t know who and he didn't know how, but he did know that a person in trouble provided a unique opportunity for heroes.  And a hero was what he wanted to be, especially after seeing the second
Star Wars
movie.  He could see it all now, name and photo in the Landes
Times
, front page, with Kyle smiling, and all the kids in school talking about it.  If anything would get him in with the cool people, it would be a dramatic rescue of some sort, maybe a child pinned under a trash dumpster, an old woman in one of the apartments back there fallen and unable to get up.  Whatever the situation, he would be “Hero,” “Rescuer,” “Daring Young Lad” who “saved the day” with his “quick thinking and resourcefulness.”

He crossed Pinoak Avenue and entered the mouth of the alley.  Half a block ahead, the man was turning the corner into the east-west branch that led back behind Oltmann’s Appliance.  Kyle picked up the sprint and covered the 220 feet to where the man disappeared.  He turned the corner …

… and the man was gone ...

… but Kyle was not alone.

Years later, Kyle would often muse that there are only two kinds of people in the world—bullies and geeks.  At varying points in our lives, we all get a chance to decide where we ourselves stand.  Bully is such an ugly word, but at least you get the power and the money and at some point the women.  But geeks ... what benefit is there to hanging with
that
crowd?

There behind Oltmann’s Appliance amid the piles of discarded refrigerator boxes were three bullies, one geek, and Kyle Winthrop, whose title was yet to be determined. 

The bullies of this movie were well-known to Kyle—Bran the Man, DC, and Marty, the most popular boys in school.  It was not hard to see how popular they were in those days; you could always tell because of their haircuts.  All three boys had that hip surfer wave that falls across the forehead in a thick clump of bangs, kind of the same haircut that Robert Redford made cool as the Sundance Kid.  Later, of course, Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker would make it even cooler.  It was not long hair by today’s standard, but it was certainly long enough in 1980, and all the cool boys got to wear the “Sundance.”  Go a bit too long, like one of those hippy rock stars, and you become too much a punk for the likes of Landes, Kansas.  But the “Sundance” was okay, too short for a punk, too long for a geek, the golden mean of twelve-year-old coiffures.

When Kyle arrived at the refrigerator boxes, Brandon “Bran the Man” Shoch was pacing about like a James Bond villain, rubbing his hands together.  To an adult it probably looked cute and affected, but to another twelve-year-old it was scary.  Bran the Man was not much bigger than Kyle, but it seemed so at the time.  In fact, all three of the boys seemed like giants, and the fact that Bran the Man was mimicking one of the bad guys meant he was up to no good.

Off to one side, lounging against a stack of boxes, stood Dustin “DC” Catella, and in his arms, clenched tight like a life preserver, was the most beautiful cat Kyle had ever seen.  It was black with sleek, long hair, a lion’s mane of fur around its face, deep mauve eyes widened with terror as it wriggled to escape.  DC held it firm, wrapped it in his right arm while his left twisted a handful of hair behind the cat’s head.  The cat was yowling, and its eyes glared at Kyle, begging for help.

“Who the hell’s that?”  Bran the Man turned to look at Kyle.

“It’s cool,” someone said.  “It’s just Kay-Dub.  I got him in gym class, he’s all right.”

The speaker was Marty Segerstrom, the third member of the party, and he towered over the geek of this story.  The geek was decidedly not a cat, although he was on his hands and knees like one.  His name was Sebastian Lee, Seby to his tormentors, and he was the most miserable kid at school. 

Unlike the three bullies, whom Kyle had first come to know in Junior High, Seby Lee had been a wart on Kyle’s backside since kindergarten at Wilson Elementary.  Even as far back as the first grade Seby was not liked.  He was small.  His voice a soft shriek like he had been inhaling helium.  He wore the same threadbare Fonzie t-shirt over and over.  What’s more, he had the worst haircut in school, high and tight on the sides, slicked down on top with at least a quart of Vitalis.  His skin was pale, his arms were like wires, and if you gave him a smattering of interest he would talk your ears off about comic books and UFO sightings, yeah, one of those kids.  Kyle wouldn’t say he
hated
Seby Lee, but he certainly didn’t care for him, and it did not break his heart to see big Marty Segerstrom holding the little freak in check.

Seby Lee had been stripped almost naked, wearing nothing but graying tube socks and a pair of white underwear briefs with the waistband stretched from overuse.  His clothes were in a pile a few feet away.  He had been forced to his hands and knees, and Marty was using Seby’s belt as a makeshift dog leash, passing the strap of the belt all the way through the buckle and tightening it like a noose around Seby’s neck.  Kyle could see ugly maroon scuffs and scrapes on Seby’s arms and legs where he had tried to run and perhaps been dragged back into the alley by his neck.  Now, resigned and weeping, he crouched on the filthy pavement in defeat, his semi-naked body quivering with sobs.

Bran the Man was still looking Kyle over, but on Marty’s reference that Kyle was “all right” Bran nodded with satisfaction.  Kyle watched the three bullies carefully and held his breath.  He was still dancing cautiously in the middle ground at junior high.  He lacked the athletic skills to be one of the cool boys, and the bad haircuts his father gave him certainly didn’t do him any favors, but he had not yet fallen in with the geeks of the world, the Seby Lees and their ilk.  As such, that afternoon in the alley was a threshold moment, a chance to get in good with the beautiful ones.  The moment Marty referred to him as Kay-Dub he knew he was on the verge of great things.

“So tell me, Kay-Dub,” said Bran the Man.  Kyle’s heart raced at the use of the nickname again.  “You think Seby Lee here’s a faggot?”

Kyle almost became lightheaded with the thrill. 
He’s asking me!  He honestly wants my opinion!  And he used the nickname!

“I went to Wilson Elementary with him,” Kyle said.  “Seby was the biggest faggot in school.  Everyone knew it.  They still know it.  I bet no one wants to be in the same shower with him in gym class.”

Bran the Man laughed, and the others joined in.  “I bet they don’t,” he said.  “I know I wouldn’t.  So is that it, Seby?  Is that why you’re such a freak, ‘cause you’re a faggot?”

Seby’s eyes were the size of softballs, and they squirted a liberal amount of tears down his face.  They darted Kyle’s way with the same silent pleading that Kyle had seen in the cat, and then back to Bran the Man.  There was real terror on his face, not the histrionic kind of you see in cheap horror movies on the late-night
Creature Feature
but a degree of panic that everyone could almost taste in the air.  Kyle did not like it and was struck with his first pang of doubt.  He looked at Bran the Man to steady himself.

Bran the Man was unzipping his pants.

“You such a faggot,” he said, “maybe you’d like this in your mouth.”

Seby shook his head, wide-eyed.  “No ...”

“C’mon, little faggot, it’s what you like, isn’t it?”  Bran the Man glanced over his shoulder at Kyle and grinned.  It was like an evil clown Kyle had seen in a scary movie, and for years to come, as he struggled with bad dreams, it would be grinning twelve-year-old Brandon Shoch who lurked in the dark recesses of his closet. 

The second pang of doubt smacked him in the gut.

“Y’know what I think?” Bran the Man said.  “I think the little faggot needs a whole bunch of these his mouth.  When he’s done with me, he’ll do the rest of us.  Kay-Dub can be in on it too, ain’t that right Kay-Dub?"  He looked at Kyle and pointed down at Seby’s face.  “Wanna piece of that?  We’ll make him do you first.  What do you think about that?”

Kyle didn't know what to think.  All he
did
know is that he didn’t want Seby’s or any boy’s mouth near that part of his body.  The thought of it made him want to puke.  And yet this was his chance, to get in good with the cool boys, to be one of the “in” crowd.  If he wanted that, at some point he would have to unzip his pants, pull out what he had, and offer it up to Seby Lee.