Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage (16 page)

Dalton Rourke couldn’t go home until after school dismissal, so he hung out with Jimmy Ferrato at the basketball court behind the old Barkley Middle School. They were hidden from the street by the shuttered school in front and by the woods in back. A small pocket of sanity. They sat on the cracked court, tugging out tufts of grass that were trying to reclaim the space for Mother Nature.

“Got any weed?” Dalton asked.

“I wish,” Jimmy said. “Mom found my stash Saturday morning. I’ve been tapped out since then.”

They smoked their remaining cigarettes instead, about a dozen between them, marking time. The crumbling, abandoned school with its deteriorating playground was one more piece of evidence convincing him that life was meaningless. No matter what you tried to accomplish, how much you strived for anything, it all went away, like the Kansas song, “Dust in the Wind.” In a hundred years, who would care that he had failed classes, skipped school, tripped Tyler Shackleford, lived and died? In a world where nothing mattered, you could do whatever you wanted. Unfortunately, he still had to live through the short-term consequences.

After the initial rush of ditching school during the bomb threat evacuation, Dalton realized he was simply postponing the inevitable verbal beat down. Just because nothing mattered, didn’t mean they couldn’t make his life miserable in the meantime. His escape had not been well thought out. He’d left his books on his desk and his backpack on the chair.

“Did you really sniff her hair?” Jimmy asked.

Dalton took a long puff from the cigarette, shrinking it down to a nub, which he flicked across the court after lighting another one. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I was hungry,” Dalton said. “Her hair smelled like dessert.”

Jimmy laughed until he started coughing. “What?”

“The shampoo or conditioner or whatever,” Dalton explained. “It smelled like strawberries, honey, almonds. My
stomach was growling.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Girls wash their hair with all that scented crap and expect you not to smell it?” Dalton said. “C’mon, man! Chocolate, caramel and green apples.”

“No way!”

“Pineapples, too. Coconut and a hint of marshmallow.”

“You are so full of crap!”

“Maybe that was her perfume,” Dalton said, grinning. “Like a freaking buffet, man.”

“You’re sick, dude.”

“Maybe,” Dalton said. “But now I’m starving. What time is it?”

“You see me wearing a watch?” Jimmy said. “And I lost my cell phone privileges after the stash grab.”

At least he’d had a cell phone to forfeit. Dalton had nothing of value—unless you counted thrift store clothes and a hand-me-down stereo.

He stood up and felt lightheaded, staggering before catching his balance. He crushed his last cigarette butt underfoot and started coughing, his throat dry and burning.
Too much nicotine,
he thought. After the coughing spasm, his head throbbed. He adjusted his knit hat, pulling it down to his ears, then pressed his palms against his temples while dark spots swam across his eyes.

To avoid another coughing fit, he spoke softly. “Let’s head back.”

Thirty minutes later, when he stepped through the front door of his grandparents’ house, he acted as if it had been
another normal school day he didn’t want to talk about. He opened and closed the hallway closet door, as if he were stowing the backpack he didn’t have with him.

“I’m home,” he called.

“You’re late,” his grandmother said from the dining room.

“Busy,” he said, avoiding specifics.

He stepped into the dining room and saw his grandparents finishing their dinner. They seemed to eat earlier every day. Soon they would eat dinner at noon. It was nothing special, some frozen microwave chicken meals. They never cooked anything fancier than mac and cheese or fried eggs. There was no meal or plate set out for him. How many ways could they tell him they never wanted to raise him, that he was a burden foisted upon them, a mistake his mother made and left for them to clean up after she died in childbirth?

“I’m hungry,” he said.

“Throw something in the microwave,” his grandmother responded, as if talking to a simpleton.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he imagined shoving her curly-gray-haired head into the microwave and cooking it on high until her eyeballs popped out of her head like champagne corks on New Year’s Eve. Or maybe they would boil in the microwave and drip down her cheeks like scalding milk.

Before he could come up with a smartass comment, his grandfather asked, “Where’s your homework?”

And so the grilling begins,
he thought. “Don’t have any.”

“How would you know,” his grandmother asked, “since you left your backpack in school?”

Had they seen him come in empty-handed? “Yeah, forgot it. After this bomb scare we had.”

“The vice principal called,” his grandfather informed him. “Again. You’re suspended for a week. And they’re considering expulsion.”

“Like I give a rat’s ass about school.”

“Get up to your room!” his grandmother shrilled. “You’re grounded.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Now, Dalton,” his grandfather said, rising out of his chair.

Dalton eyed the butter knife on the table, wondering if it was sharp enough to slice open the old man’s throat. Five seconds and he could drop the old bastard. His fingers trembled and twitched as he stared into the angry man’s face. His grandmother had the portable phone in her hand, ready to call 911. They would love to be rid of him. The thought of giving them what they wanted calmed him enough to turn his back and walk away.

“How dare you embarrass us,” his grandmother yelled after him. “You are an embarrassment to this family—just like your tramp mother!”

That was all that mattered to them, how he made them look in the eyes of the neighbors and school administrators. They didn’t care if he was happy or fed or healthy, unless it reflected on their so-called parenting skills.

He thundered up the stairs, giving each footfall extra weight, hoping something would break and cost them money they didn’t have for repairs. He strode into his bedroom, the
smallest room in the house, and slammed the door so hard it rattled on the hinges. The room was a mess, but he didn’t care. There were clothes piled on every surface, plus a tide of candy and fast food trash. He wanted the room to be a canker sore in their house, the more despicable the better. Lately, they only stepped through the doorway to conduct drug searches.

With his door closed, they wouldn’t check on him. Out of sight, out of mind was how they dealt with him. They had banished him to his tiny corner of the house. Mission accomplished. Now they could enjoy their evening without having to see him again.

Fine. He grabbed his black hoodie out of the closet, slipped on a pair of dark jeans and black boots and climbed out the window, crept along the porch roof and dropped to the ground next to the driveway. He would meet up with Jimmy Ferrato, assuming his friend could sneak out after whatever punishment his folks gave him, and they’d hitch a ride east, shake down some Summerdale teens for walking around money. He needed an outlet for his frustration and Summerdale kids had very punchable faces.

Disappointed with the fallout
—ha ha
!—from his fake bomb threat, Jesse Trumball returned home at four o’clock in a foul mood. Sure, the cops showed up with their bomb-sniffing dogs, and he had cleared the building, but then … boring. Just everyone standing around like they had missed their bus and couldn’t remember how to walk home. Granted, he hadn’t thought out his plan in terms of ultimate
entertainment value.

Running a hand across his shaved pate, he squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, wondering if they might have some aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Ever since the evacuation, he’d had a headache that wouldn’t quit and it was about to get worse.

Idly, he wondered how difficult it was to build a real bomb, a fancy one with a timer. Not that he actually wanted to kill any of the dumbasses in school, but he would love to see the expressions on their faces when the building went up like Krakatoa. He had heard the internet had bomb-building information anyone could access. If only he had a computer. Of course, he could always visit the library. Maybe the prissy old librarian would have a heart attack when he walked in. That would be good for a few chuckles. But even if he found bomb-making instructions, he would have to sneak into the school to plant the damn thing in a restroom or somewhere. Maybe in Miss Garrity’s desk drawer. The bitch had driven him crazy like it was her life’s mission. Dropping out of that hellhole was the best day of his life. Now he would like nothing better than to sneak back in for ten minutes to plant his farewell present.

Someday, maybe.

He sighed when he saw his old man’s primer-spackled piece of crap sitting in the driveway, dreading the inevitable confrontation. Resignedly, he walked into the kitchen and found his father there, sitting at the table drinking a forty-ounce bottle of beer.

Alert the media,
he thought.

It was probably his second or third one of the day, if he hadn’t dipped into the hard liquor yet. At least he was still standing. By four o’clock there was a fifty-fifty chance Jesse would find him passed out somewhere in the house; slumped over the bowl or sprawled in the hallway, lying in a drying pool of vomit.
Good times.

Occasionally his father failed to make it home after one of his benders. Whether he shacked up somewhere or passed out in an alley, he never said. He would stumble home, mumbling and cursing, his clothes looking like he dove out of a moving car and rolled down a muddy embankment. Sometimes he would come home bloody. He’d probably been fighting over the dregs in empties with some homeless wino.

“Where you been?” his father asked, his speech already slurred.

“Out,” Jesse said, pulling open the refrigerator door as if he expected to see actual food on the shelves. Best-case scenario, he’d find some leftover takeout or a slice of pizza from the last delivery.

“Looking for a job?”

“What? I can’t live off disability, like you?” Jesse asked.

“Got a bad back,” his father said. “Injured on the job.”

“Tell that story to someone who believes it, Pop.”

Jesse’s father stood unsteadily. “Don’t get smart with me, boy!”

“Right,” Jesse said softly as he scanned the barren shelves. A crumpled-up brown paper bag offered the possibility of something edible inside. “I wouldn’t want to confuse the few
brain cells you have left.”

“Turn around and say that to my face.”

Jesse stood up straight, closed the refrigerator door and counted to ten silently. Then he turned around to face his father. The man was big and beefy, about an inch or two shorter than Jesse’s six-foot-five frame, but he outweighed Jesse by about forty pounds. He was a brawler, a street fighter. When Jesse was younger, and smaller, his father had no hesitation about hitting him when he “stepped out of line.” Hands, belt and suitably blunt and weighted objects were fair game for delivering punishment. Once their heights had equalized, however, his father’s abuse became more selective—he picked his moments to remind Jesse who was in charge. Right now, his old man was gripping a half-filled forty-ounce glass bottle as if he meant to test its battle worth against the side of Jesse’s head. Jesse figured he could take his old man, drunk or sober, but it might get ugly fast, for both of them.

“Never mind,” Jesse said, walking away.

“That’s right,” his father said, “walk away, tough guy.”

“I’m taking your car,” Jesse said, “to grab something to eat.”

“I need it.”

“You’re too drunk to drive,” Jesse said, taking the keys off the wall hook. “Sleep it off.”

“Get off your high horse. You’re lucky I put a roof over your head,” his father said. “More than your mother ever did. Took one look at your sorry ass and walked out. Smartest thing she ever did.”

Jesse froze. He curled his hands into fists, squeezing so hard his fingernails bit into his flesh. Talk of his mother was a sore spot with him. He couldn’t defend a woman he had never known, but the attacks always felt intensely personal. Throughout Jesse’s life, his father had insisted that Jesse’s mother had abandoned him as a baby, that as soon as she recovered from giving birth to him, she had left without so much as a glance over her shoulder. His father told him that her pregnancy had been like a disease she had to overcome and afterward she couldn’t bear to look at the result. The newborn meant so little to her that she had abandoned her loving husband so she wouldn’t have to spend one more day with their boy.

For most of Jesse’s miserable childhood, he fantasized that she would return and whisk him away to a better life, an existence without his father around—the only way he would ever be happy. But the years passed without a phone call or a note or any attempt by her to contact him. Finally, as he entered his teen years, he started to believe what his father had said over and over again, that she hated her son and couldn’t bear the sight of him.

Though he now accepted his father’s pronouncements about his mother, Jesse couldn’t stomach his father using her abandonment to provoke him. Jesse felt himself balancing on a precipice: regain his balance and walk out the door, or fall and… his father would never insult him again.

“Don’t stand there like a moron! What’s the matter with you?”

As if sensing Jesse’s murderous indecision—or completely
blind to it—his father slapped him across the back of his head, hard enough to sting but not wound.

Jesse imagined his father clutching the forty-ounce bottle, waiting.

Fourteen