Darkness the Color of Snow (11 page)

“Used to like me a lot.”

“Way of the world, Martin. Way of the world.”

“Well, all right, then. You wanted me to let you in on my plans. Don't suppose I'm going to get your vote?”

“Martin, I do all I can to stay out of the politics. Every election, there's a fifty–fifty chance I'm going to piss off my boss. Those aren't good odds, so I pretty much stay on the sidelines. I work with whoever the town chooses.”

“Fifty–fifty chance of getting in good with the boss, too.”

“Same odds. Just like flipping a coin.”

“Well, that's true, but sometimes you just have to roll the dice.”

“Only if you don't mind losing. Me, I mind losing. That's why that new casino down in Franklin won't see a lot of me.

“You know Martin?” Gordon asked when Glendenning had left. “He runs the gravel pit out on Weller Road. Farms some, too, though I don't see him farming much beyond some corn in the summer and pumpkins in the fall. Deals a little farm equipment on the side.”

“I've seen him around.”

“Yeah. It's hard not to know ­people in a town like Lydell. Well, eat up. We better get to work before Martin fires me and you, too.”

In the afternoon, when Ronny had finished clearing the sidewalks, Gordy went out to check. The walks were completely free of snow and water, and had been sprinkled with sand. The edges of the path had been cut clean. Amazingly clean. The angles where the sidewalk turned and split were cut sharply at ninety degrees. He had never seen anything quite like it. Gordy guessed that was what you got from a carpenter's son.

“T
ELL US,
S
AMMY
. Tell us what you saw. You saw Matt Laferiere get killed, man. You saw him dead.” That was the worst thing he had ever seen, the worst thing he hoped he would ever see. You shouldn't see someone you knew like that. Dead. Really messed up. He had seen Matt Laferiere's brain, and his teeth scattered among the gore.

“It was gross,” he says.

“I heard that his head was, like, smashed. You see his head smashed?”

He just nods.

“You see the car hit him, dude? You see that?”

“Yeah,” he says, almost believing that it's true. He wants to just get away from this, get away from the questions, but more ­people are coming up. “Sammy's telling the story. Sammy's telling what he saw.”

“Did the cop really throw him into the road as the car came at him?”

He looks around at the kids, guys and girls both, crowding in, waiting to hear the story. Waiting for the story he said he wouldn't tell. They're paying attention to him, wanting to hear what he saw. What he saw and none of them did. He likes the way everyone's eyes are on him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I saw it. He just grabbed him by the arm and threw him out into the road. The car was coming fast. Matt didn't have a chance. The car just rammed into him, sent him into the back of the Jeep.”

“Did he, like, fly through the air?”

“Yeah. He did. Like nothing you ever saw. Headfirst right into the Jeep. Totally smashed his head.”

“God. That's cool, man. That cop killed his ass, man.”

“Yeah,” Sammy says, though he doesn't know why.

R
ONNY HAD LEFT
the station with no particular destination in mind. He doesn't want to go back to the apartment. He knows that. So when he gets to Route 417, he hooks a left and heads northwest toward Warrentown. Two miles down the road he pulls off onto a narrow dirt road that leads toward Stark's Pond. It's a place where he's spent a lot of time.

When Ronny moved out of middle school into the regional high school that combined the tenth through twelfth graders from the three towns south of Warrentown, including Lydell, he lost his best friend, Max, whose parents moved to Vermont. They were only forty-­some miles apart now, but since neither had a car, and neither had parents willing to drive the forty miles a ­couple of times a week, and they were now going to separate schools, they may as well have been in separate countries.

Ronny and Max had been bound by a love of the outdoors, especially the woods and the animals that lived there, and a vague but aching longing for girls, though neither was adept at attracting them. They had stayed young for their ages, preferring to play in the woods where they seemed separated from the rest of the world by miles and years.

In summers they would fish and swim in Stark's Pond and when it got too cold for that, they tracked game—­deer, fox, raccoon, pheasant, grouse, and the occasional coyote, which often turned out to be someone's wandering dog. Neither had a real gun, so they didn't hunt, just tracked. Or they sat in makeshift blinds, smoking stolen cigarettes or pieces of grapevine, fingering stolen magazines, masturbating and waiting for bear that never showed up. Left alone long enough, they reverted to earlier childhood games of war, or Indians and settlers, popping up from behind their makeshift shelters to fire BB guns at marauding trees and falling back behind cover. They would stay from the time school let out until it was too dark to see before heading back to their homes.

But while they played, they learned. Finding the nests of deer, the burrows of raccoon and fox, and learning the seasons by the plants that appeared, from the skunk cabbage that came up in the woodlands when the snow was still on the ground and frost in the air but warmth underneath, to the rotation of goldenrod, joe-­pye, and jewelweed that signaled the coming of winter, and the long, sloppy V's of geese making their way south in the late fall.

Alone at the regional high school, Ronny would slip out between third-­period social studies and fifth-­period English to smoke the cigarettes he stole from his father along the unpaved ser­vice road that came into the back of the cafeteria. There were always other kids out there, singly or in small bunches. He was a moderately good student who fit with neither the grade chasers nor the misfits. One day, one of the kids in a familiar group waved him over.

“Hey,” the smallest one said. “I know you. Forbert. You're from Lydell. I remember you from middle school. Bobby Cabella.”

“Yeah. We had gym together a ­couple of years.”

“Right. Mr. Porous Morris. What a fag that guy was. You got smokes?”

“Not today.”

Cabella produced a pack of American Spirits, shook one out, and held up a blue Bic lighter. “Lydell, man. We stick together.”

“Thanks.”

“This here is Matt Laferiere, Steve Woodrow, Paul Stablein, and Larry Morrel. We're all Lydell.”

“Yeah. I know. Hey, guys.”

“What's going on,” Matt Laferiere asked. “What are you into?”

Ronny was slightly surprised and pleased that Matt Laferiere, the leader of the misfits, was actually talking to him.

“Just stuff. Nothing special. I just come out here to get away from the crap. You know? How about you guys?”

“We're just figuring out ways to burn the school down,” Paul Stablein said.

“The kitchen,” Ronny said. “Fires always start in the kitchen. Nobody will suspect anything.”

“The kitchen,” Matt Laferiere said. “I like that. This guy thinks. I like that. He's all right.”

He was all right. Matt Laferiere had said so. That made him proud in a way he had never felt before. Matt Laferiere was, he thought, the coolest guy in school, always walking with a measured pace, smiling, nearly a smirk that said he knew just how cool he was. And he dated Vanessa Woodridge.

Ronny stood in awe of Vanessa Woodridge. She was pretty, though probably not the most beautiful girl in school, but she was cool, always well dressed, always somehow more grown-­up than the others. Grace, he guessed. She had grace and money. Nothing seemed to touch her.

Cabella bumped Forbert's chest with his elbow. “We know, dude. We all know. Lots of shit. Lots of shit to get away from.”

“That would be right.”

“Listen, dude. We're usually hanging out here before school, at lunch and for a while afterward. Matt here's got wheels. After school we take off and hang out. Always got smoke, usually some frosties, and sometimes some weed. We do all right. You ought to come along sometime. We have a pretty good time.”

“That would be cool.”

“All right then, dude. See you after last class.”

H
E HAD GONE
with them that afternoon, cruising the main street of Lydell in Matt's Jeep Cherokee, a beater four-by-four, and then out 417 into the country where they rode the back roads, drinking beer that Matt always seemed to have in abundance and smoking a little weed.

It became a routine, going out every afternoon after school, and then, after dinner, they would appear in Ronny's driveway and honk the horn. Ronny would tell his father he was going out for a little while. His father, usually into his second or third Heaven Hill in front of the TV, would raise his glass. “Do your homework?”

“Yeah. Did my homework.”

“Behave yourself and get home early.”

“S
O WHAT ARE
we going to do?”

“Let's get Ronny laid.”

“Right. That's the plan. With who?”

“Katie Montierth.”

“Yeah, Katie Montierth. Let's head over there.”

They drove quickly back to the state highway, then headed north. Ronny was feeling excited but apprehensive, too. Were they really going to do this? When they got to Ramshead Road, they went half a mile and pulled up outside a ranch-­style house with a wooden fence in front. There was a porch light on, and lights in several windows.

“OK. We're here. Go to it.”

“What?”

“Go up to the door. Knock. Say you want to see Katie.”

“Yeah. Then what?”

“Tell her you want to fuck her.”

“No. I can't do that.”

“She won't care. She'll either say yes or no.”

“No. Not even take her out or anything?”

“She won't care. She likes to fuck. Just go up and ask her. No. Tell.”

“I'm not going to do that.”

“Shit. Well, ask her if she wants to go for a ride. Maybe she'll fuck all of us.”

He got out of the car because he didn't see any way he could not at least do that. If he refused, they would drop him. It would be the end of everything.

He knocked on the door. He heard voices inside, raised. Finally a woman in sweatshirt and jeans came to the door, barefoot.

“Hi. Is Katie home?”

She looked at him like he was a piece of garbage that had gotten accidentally blown up against the door. She turned and walked away but left the door open. He stood outside the storm door and waited. “Katie,” he heard. “Someone for you.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Some boy. Deal with it.”

Katie appeared from around the corner of the living room, also in sweatshirt and jeans. “What?”

“I'm Ronny Forbert. I've seen you at school.”

She cocked her head, like a bird trying to get a good look at something. “Yeah. I've seen you.”

“We were riding around. Me and Matt and Paul Stablein and Bobby Cabella. We thought you might want to hang out for a while.”

“Matt Laferiere?”

“Yeah, Matt.”

“You got booze?”

“Yeah. Beer.”

“That's it?”

“We got some weed, too.”

“You and Matt.”

“And Paul and Bobby, too.”

“All right. Hang on. I'll be out in a minute.”

He stood by the door after she had shut it in his face. He heard the voices again, loud and angry. He heard Katie say, “Just out. I'm just going out.” Then something he couldn't quite make out. A man's voice. Then, Katie's. “I'm just going to go hang out for a while. I'll be back later.”

Then Katie opened the door and came out. “OK, Ronny Forbert, let's hit it.”

Katie crawled into the backseat next to Bobby Cabella, and Ronny slid in next to her. Matt gunned the Jeep in reverse, backed into the driveway, peeled out, and headed back down Ramshead Road to the state highway.

“I don't seem to have a beer,” Katie said.

Bobby Cabella leaned over the backseat, snagged a beer, and handed it to her. “We're getting a little low on beer now that there are five of us.”

“Katie, you got any money?” Matt asked.

“Nope. Didn't figure I needed any money. Is that what you guys wanted, another contribution to the beer fund? What a bunch of douchebags.”

“Paul. How much we got? Come on, guys, let's fork up all the money.”

They fished in their pockets and handed up a few damp bills and a handful of change. “Not enough,” Paul said.

“Shit.” Matt leaned into the driver's-­side door and fished two bills out of his pocket. “How about now?”

“Still not enough.”

“Barry. Barry's always got money.”

“Hate to do that,” Matt said. “Lot of risk, not much money.”

“Well, what else are we going to do?”

“You sure that's all of it? Anyone holding out?” No one was.

“Crap. All right. Let's go get Barry.”

“Yeah,” Katie said. “Like we need another douchebag. I don't see a shortage of them in here.”

“You want beer?”

“I'm here, aren't I?”

“Then we got to go get Barry.”

They went up the road, onto Route 417, and pulled in to the side of the Citgo gas station.

“All right,” Matt said. “Here's how this is going to go. Paul, you and Bobby go in first. Ronny, you stay here until I tell you to go. Then you go in, make a lap around the store, and come back by the counter. Paul, you do the buy, and Bobby, you do the handoff. Virgie, you take the handoff. They don't know you. Come right back to the car with the handoff. Paul and Bobby will be behind you.”

“What's the handoff?”

“Just take what Bobby hands you and get back here.”

“What are you going to do?”