Calamity (8 page)

That Tyler wanted to watch him bowl was cool. It was fun when Dad would watch him bowl and cheer him and his team on and tell him it was okay when he missed an easy spare or dropped the final frame and cost the tend cost tam a win. Without Dad watching, bowling had become more like a chore. The other parents cheered him on, especially Mr. Coyle, but the fun had seeped away little by little, almost frame by frame, so that now, almost a month since the baby died, the sport of bowling had become no more entertaining than long division problems in math class.

With Tyler watching him, perhaps some of the fun might seep its way back into the games. Three games with an actual family member cheering him on would be a treat. Even if Tyler made fun of him for gutter balls or looking silly on the approach (he had adopted the leg kick common to the professionals and even the kids on his own team ragged on him for it), it would still be cool to have him watch. But that would make it even harder still to do what the gods wanted and offer the sacrifice they demanded. It was tempting to put off the sacrifice, tell the gods they could wait, but after Tyler’s problem (
fucked up real bad
) last night, Brendan knew the gods were growing impatient. If he didn’t do it today, the situation would get worse and before next Saturday it might be too late. Tyler could end up in jail . . . or dead.

“You really don’t have to,” Brendan said. “In fact, it might make me nervous. Today’s the first round of qualifying, so we need to do well or we won’t make it to the playoffs.” The first round of qualifying wasn’t until after Easter but Tyler wouldn’t know. That was the number one rule from Tyler’s own
How to Fool the Parents Handbook
: be sure the lie is believable.

“Pretty serious stuff, huh?”

Tyler kept glancing at him, but it wasn’t just at him; there was something else, and it held his focus a few seconds too long. “You’re going to miss the turn.”

Tyler made the turn with only the faintest complaint from the tires. The bowling alley was at the end of this road (more trees than houses on this one) set between Fillipe’s Pizza and Jan’s We Do Nails Salon. Mom used to go there.

“How’s school?” Tyler asked.

“Fine. How about you?”

Tyler laughed. “Fine, too, I guess.” He turned into the bowling alley parking lot. The lot was over half full; most of the kids and their parents were already here. “You must do well in English.”

“Why’s that?”

“That book.” He gestured to the composition book. “You’re always writing in it.”

Brendan had known something was up and now he was starting to figure it out. “I guess,” he said. “It’s nothing really.”

Tyler parked the car between a minivan and shiny SUV. “You write down stuff that happens, like in real life?”

He wanted to know if Brendan had overhead him last night. He was afraid his little brother had been a eavesdropping and had written down the conversation. Tyler tried to use the same manipulation tactics he used on their parents against his little brother. Brendan almost felt betrayed. Well, it was okay. Brendan was going to do something to make everything better, and then Tyler could forget about (
weird bitch
) his date last night and (
fucked up real bad
) whatever had happened.

“No,” Brendan said, “just made up stories. Fictional stuff.”

Tyler nodded, appraised him. This was the moment of truth. Stay or go. “Sounds good. Maybe I can read some of it while you bowl?”

Damn. “I have to start my practice throws.” Brendan got out of the car.

* * *

All the parents made a big fuss over Tyler. Mrs. Capra asked repeatedly if their mom was alright and to have her call anytime she wanted, day or night. Mr. Coyle slapped Tyler on the back and gave him a man hug. “How’s the old man holding up? I miss our Saturday morning beers together.” His full-bellied laugh made everyone smile.

While Tyler handled the parents, Brendan went through his warm up routine and started throwing a few practice balls. Two of his three teammates had arrived--Dave and Nick, but that was okay: he had a plan.

He couldn’t take the composition book with him without appearing like he was up to something, but he had learned enough about misdirection from Tyler to know what to do. While Dave and Nick donned their shoes and started their practice throws, Brendan turned to a page well away from his sacrifice list, a page marked CHAPTER SEVEN: The Discovery, and scribbled above it,
Tyler’s Problem
. He folded the page diagonally to make a triangle and closed the book without really flattening the page. He placed the book in his bowling bag. When Tyler finally got his hands on the book, he would turn right to that folded page and, hopefully, start reading. The temptation would be too great for him to resist. Instead of discovering his little brother had overheard the conversation from last night, Tyler would read about a mysterious detective named Bo Blast who was, by Chapter Seven, in hot pursuit of a killer known only as The Darkman.

Neither Nick or Dave made any comment about the two gutter balls Brendan threw, though Cody, arriving late as usual, flashed him a look which was as loud as saying,
Jeez, if you bowl like that, I guess it’s going to be a long afternoon
. In response, Brendan said to himself,
It will be a long afternoon, alright, but not for me or any of us
. He threw another practice shot, the ball knocked off the six and ten pins, and he told his teammates he was going to get his ball cleaned before the match started. They nodded, perhaps hoping a little ball-cleaning would work or perhaps wondering how a simple cycle through the ball cleaner was going to fix his shitty throws. He slipped his blue and yellow-orange ball (“Brendan” carved into the ball above the finger holes and filled with green chalk) into its carrying sling.

Tyler stopped him with a simple hand on his shoulder. Though he wanted to run, Brendan willed his feet to freeze and his body to remain relaxed and as inconspicuous as possible. His shirt was starting to stick to his back with sweat but surely no one would notice that.

“Where you going?” Tyler asked. Mr. Coyle was looking on, huge smile still painted across his face.

“Just to clean my ball before the match starts. It’s not hooking right.”

Tyler squinted as if trying to see Brendan through a haze. What was he thinking? Could he feel Brendan’s sweat through his shirt? What if he asked to tag along, see how a bowling ball was cleaned, or some stupid thing like that?

“Whatever,” he said.

“You want to get us some fries or something?” Brendan asked. It was a possible risk since they had just eaten only a short while ago, but if Tyler agreed it would buy Brendan some extra time, which could prove crucial. The old guy who worked the concessions stand also worked the bar, which lay on the other side of the wall displaying the menu. He smelled of beer and cigarettes and moved so slowly that were he not old, people wouall, peoplld be hollering for him to hurry up before all the kids were done bowling.

“Sure,” Tyler said. “Curly or regular?”

Brendan smiled. Either Tyler was in an especially good mood or he was trying too hard. It didn’t matter; Brendan knew who had the upper hand. “They only have one type of fries.”

Tyler nodded and turned back to Mr. Coyle, who immediately launched into a discussion of cars. Tyler couldn’t care about sports cars or souped-up engines, but it didn’t seem like Mr. Coyle cared. Sometimes adults just wanted a youthful ear to hear them out. It was probably because they were so afraid of dying that they wanted to feel like they were still young, still in the game.

Adults could be ridiculous like that. Dad wasn’t that way, at least not in public or in front of his kids. Maybe he liked getting older, or maybe he wasn’t afraid of dying. Brendan could be afraid for him; that was fine. Michael Mance, a kid in his grade, had a father who was dying of cancer. Their teacher had made them write Get Well Soon and Thinking of You cards for him one day when Mike was absent. Brendan did it and honestly hoped Michael’s father would get better, but he knew cards made out of construction paper weren’t going to help. If anything, they would just make Mike feel embarrassed and stupid or even angry at his father for making him endure the pity of his peers.

In cartoons, Death was always portrayed as a guy in a black cloak who carried a thing called a “scythe” (he had asked his father what it was and Dad launched into a dull discussion of farm tools) and whomever he touched died. Brendan would keep Death at bay. Death had slipped past him into their house and into the baby’s room, but Brendan had been ever-watchful since and would continue to be. Dad might not be worried about his own death, but Brendan needed to protect everyone. It was what he could do for the family. And for the gods, too, of course.

The ball cleaner was a clunky machine that probably did nothing more than splash the ball around in a little bit of water, but it took at least a few minutes to do that splashing and it was stationed near the Men’s Room, which was right next to a rack holding league balls that anyone could use and that was perfect.

Brendan opened the door of the ball cleaner—
Cleans Your Ball in Just Minutes!
—placed his bowling ball in the pocket for it and shut the chute-like door. He put in the two dollars’ worth of quarters and waited for the machine to rumble to life. After a few seconds in which it seemed Brendan had been pick-pocketed by an inanimate object, the ball cleaner,
Removes Wax, Dirt, and Grime
, emitted a heavy clunking sound and began to vibrate.

He wasted no time choosing a ball from the league rack. Unlike the rack near the front of the alley where the latest league news was posted on a bulletin board, only posters advertising various types of bowling balls (urethane, reactive, particle) filled the wall space above this rack and no one was nearby trying to get a closer look at them.

He choose a large black one riddled with scratches and chips. The thing might not even roll correctly. That no longer mattered; its rolling days were officially over. He slipped his carrying sling over the ball and assessed the weight. He had chosen it for one reason and one reason only: it was sixteen pounds, the heaviest size available from the racks. It was four pounds heavier than his own and the strain in his shoulder reminded him of that immediately. By the time he made it to the place, his arm would be killing him, but it had to be a sixteen-pound ball. It was the surest bet for a successful e, successacrifice.

His own ball was still in the midst of cleaning and Tyler was still being a good sport for Mr. Coyle. Only a few people were bowling down at this end of the alley and no one was near the side EXIT door.

Brendan slipped out and began to run once he hit the parking lot.

* * *

Not only did his arms pain him—both of them throbbing from the shoulder down—his back ached in flashes of hot anguish and his legs crammed every few feet in protest. By the time he left the parking lot and made it back to the main road, he had to stop running. He wanted to put down the ball and rest but he couldn’t. His bowling ball was probably done with its cycle in the cleaning machine and it would soon be time to start league play.

He turned down a side road, which led to an on-ramp for Route 17. He had guessed it would take him fifteen minutes all told, but he was fast approaching ten minutes by the time he saw the on-ramp. His shirt was now completely stuck to him with sweat. The ball kept smacking him in the leg as he ran and he knew there was going to be a big bruise their tomorrow, something else he’d have to hide. It wouldn’t matter, though, not once the sacrifice had been made and the gods satisfied.

Finally, Brendan came to the place he had thought of during the drive with Tyler. Just past the on-ramp to the highway, another road crossed right over the highway on an overpass, which then led down toward some town where the whole family had gone pumpkin-picking last October. It was a small foot-bridge over a stream set between two houses on that repeating-pattern house road. Had they never gone pumpkin-picking, Brendan would never have known this road existed or the ideally placed overpass.

A few cars passed him on this road, all headed for Route 17, but none had even slowed to evaluate him. Adults were even scared of twelve year olds. Perhaps they had a right to be, at least this morning, anyway. A sacrifice demanded a kill. Brendan didn’t relish that idea but he wasn’t repulsed by it either. It had to be done; that was it. To protect his family, to keep away Death, Brendan had to invite Death into someone else’s home.

He made it onto the overpass and checked his watch: almost twenty minutes had passed. People would be looking for him soon. Maybe they were already. There was no time to delay or really think about what he was doing. He had to do this and then run back and, with a lot of luck, Tyler would still be in line waiting for the old guy to fry some potato sticks. His teammates would ask where he had been and he’d say he’d had diarrhea. That was always a good excuse because it immediately got you off the hook and no one ever sought any more information. Except for mothers.

He waited for a car to pass; this one slowed but not so much as to make Brendan abort his mission. Maybe the driver was marveling at the foot bridge, hadn’t noticed it before, perhaps, or maybe was registering a kid with a bowling ball standing over a highway.
Curious, isn’t it?
As long as whoever it was didn’t read the paper tomorrow, everything would be fine. No matter, the gods would protect Brendan and everyone he loved.

Reinforced chicken wire sealed up the gaps between the steel bars running across the bridge but they stopped at the highest bar, which was at Brendan’s shoulders. Brendan stood just left of the middle of the bridge going with traffic on the second bar, his toes straining to hold him in place, and removed the ball from the sling. Cars whizzed past beneath him. They traveled so quickly that the branches on the trees bordering the highway swayed with the traffic current. Some cars med Some cust be traveling in excess of ninety miles per hour. Timing would have to be exact, or at least as exact as he could get it. Behind him, a tan car in the right lane approached at a more rational speed. Unfortunately, it would be a cautious driver who was going to surrender his life this morning.