Diary of a Witness (7 page)

“Hello,” Will said. And gave a little wave. Like he was the grand marshal of a parade or something.

My heart fell right down into my sneakers. My stomach went with it. This couldn’t go anywhere from here except wrong.

“Uh …
yes
?” she said. Also not nice. Lots of bad stuff to read between the lines. Like, Why are you cursing me with your presence? And, You’re already irritating me, so the rest of this better be good.

Now, Will is not a stupid guy. So he caught that. And it hurt his game. If he even had one. It tripped him up big-time. I knew the next words out of his mouth would be disastrous. But I was wrong. There were no next words. He just froze. Nothing came out.

“Yeah?” Lisa snapped. “What?”

That was not designed to help. And it didn’t. Poor Will just kept standing there. Mute. Dying. See, I knew he was wrong. Never say it can’t get worse. It can always get worse. On that note, one of the jocks came over and stood next to Lisa and put his arm around her.

“I have to go,” she said. As she walked away, she turned to her jock boyfriend and made a comment. Maybe we weren’t supposed to hear it. Maybe she was trying to be quiet. But she could have tried harder. Because I was five steps behind Will, and I heard it loud and clear. She said, “What a loser.”

We both just stood there for the longest time. The hall emptied out, and then the bell rang. So there we were, out in the hall together, officially late for class. And I still didn’t want to go up to him, or talk to him. I thought he might break if I touched him. I should’ve worked harder to talk him out of this. I should’ve tried harder. I think I let Will down.

After another tough minute or so, I went up and clapped him on the back. Gently. Just in case. “What a witch. Sorry. I know you wanted her to turn out to be nice.”

Will’s face wasn’t what I expected. Just kind of still, like it was chiseled in stone. Not even pained-looking. Just empty and still. “No, she’s right,” he said. “She’s absolutely right. I am a loser.”

“Stop it. I won’t let you do this.”

“No, it’s okay. Really. It’s okay. It’s better this way. It’s better not to fight it. I’m a loser.”

“Okay, we’re going to pop you out of this, dude. I know, it’s hard, but we’ll be laughing about this in a few days.” Honestly, I figured it would take a lot more than a few days, though. A thing like that, at a time like that, maybe months. Maybe years. But sooner or later I figured we’d laugh about it. I hoped. “Tell you what—after school we’ll go by Grey’s Café and get a couple of those Mount Everest-size banana splits. Good for what ails you.”

He looked right into my eyes for the first time, and I
was shocked by what I saw there. It reminded me of the lingcod, coming at me with all those teeth. “That is
not
how I solve things,” he said, nearly yelling. “That’s how
you
solve things!”

I took a step back. More than a little bit stung. I guess it always comes out sooner or later. You think you can trust somebody, you think they’re not like everybody else. But people are people, and if you give them enough rope, sooner or later they’ll hang you.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

About twenty steps down the hall I realized he was right behind me. I felt his hand on my shoulder.

“Stop,” he said. “I’m sorry.” But I didn’t stop. “Please!” He yelled it. So loud a teacher stuck her head out into the hall to see what was going on. Then she disappeared again.

I turned and looked at him, and he looked so pathetic. So I held still and let him talk to me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Really. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. You’re the last person who deserves that. Can we start over? Please? Let’s try it your way. Really. Let’s go out after school and try the sundae. I mean, who am I to knock it if I haven’t tried it? It could help.”

I sat on that for a minute, and then I nodded. I guess if you’re really a friend, you overlook certain things. It’s easy to be friends with someone who only says things you want to hear. I guess if you’re really a friend, you have to cut a friend some slack.

*   *   *

We were about five bites into that mountain of bliss that is a Grey’s Café sundae when I looked up and saw the two jocks come in. I knew right away it was no coincidence. They were here because we were. One of them was the boyfriend. Lisa’s boyfriend. I think his name is Rusty. And he was with that other guy who’s either the Mike or the Dave. This was all coming together in my head. Shaping up bad.

We were sitting at the counter, and they came over and stood right behind us. One of them pinched the fat on my sides. I’m ticklish, so I jumped a mile.

“Nice to see you finally eating something,” he said. “You need the calories.”

The waitress behind the counter looked up and frowned. “If you’re here to eat, sit down and order. If not, get lost.”

I felt them move away from behind us. Heard chairs scrape on the linoleum.

I gave the waitress a little thank-you smile, and she shook her head in disgust. At them, not at me. She was about fifty, and looked like she’d seen it all, and according to her name tag, her name was Angie.

“Hey, Charles,” Rusty called out from his table. “You were very smooth today. I had no idea you had such a way with words.”

I saw Will’s eyes close. He put down his long spoon.

“Oooh, be careful,” Mike/Dave said. “Don’t piss him off.”

“Why? What’s he gonna do to me?”

“You really piss him off, he might take you fishing.”

So there it was. The grace period was over. Silence gave way, and behind it was all the usual garbage. Made the silence look better all the time.

Angie said, “That’s it. Out.” She grabbed up the sign from behind the register that said
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE.
Took it over to their table and held it right in their faces.

Which, you know, looking back on it … It goes to that thing about small towns. Because for her to react the way she did to a simple comment about fishing … I didn’t see it at the time, but looking back, she must have known exactly who Will was and what had happened to his brother. No wonder he was having such a hard time.

“Hey, lady,” Rusty said, “we weren’t doing anything. Just talking to our friends over there.”

Angie turned in the direction of the kitchen and cupped one hand beside her mouth. “Ralph!” She really bellowed it out. “We got trouble up here!”

Not three seconds later Ralph came banging through the swinging kitchen door. A big guy with a potbelly. Holding a cast-iron skillet. The jocks made it out the door in about half the time it would’ve taken Ralph to get over to their table.

I looked over at Will. He wasn’t eating his sundae. I
went back to eating mine, because I didn’t want it to melt. I didn’t want to waste it.

“Thank you,” he said. I thought he meant me. And I hadn’t done anything. Then I realized he was talking to Angie and Ralph.

“Sure thing, honey,” Angie said.

I ate seven or eight more bites of sundae.

I said, “I’m sorry, Will. I guess this was a bad idea. I guess a good idea would have been more like, buy a gallon of Häagen-Dazs and eat it at my house.” Silence. Long silence. “But seriously, eat your sundae, dude. It’s a total waste if it melts. Don’t let them do that to you.”

More silence. Then he slid his sundae over in front of me.

That was a tall order. Even for me. But I couldn’t stand to think of all that good food going to waste. So I gave it my best shot.

I walked him all the way to the corner of his street. Finding lots of reasons to look over my shoulder. But they were never back there. I was surprised. I was fully prepared for the onslaught. But they were never there.

Meanwhile, I was trying to talk him into coming over to my house. “Wouldn’t it be so much better than being home with your mom’s new boyfriend?”

“They’ll be gone,” he said. “They have a date.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“A thing like that I couldn’t make up. Seems romance is very important. Especially now that they’re forced to spend so much time sleeping apart.”

“They actually
said
that to you?”

“Oh, yes indeed. I am in hell, all right. Yes, she said that. But what she didn’t say is that she can’t stand being in our house. Every time she passes Sam’s room, she bursts into tears. But she refuses to talk about that. She won’t even say his name. She just makes up a million excuses to be out.”

“You should still come over. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“It’ll be nice to be alone. Let it go, Ernie. I’m fine. It’s all over now. Everything is fine.”

By now we were almost at his corner.

“What do you mean it’s all over now?”

“Just a figure of speech,” he said. Walking away.

“Will? Are you going to be okay?”

He waved without turning around. He never answered me.

I was almost all the way home when something truly bizarre happened. The hood of my sweatshirt got caught on something, and it stopped me in my tracks, yanked my head backward, and made me choke, all at the same time.

I think it should be obvious that hoods don’t catch on anything as you’re walking down the middle of a sidewalk.
Your hood stays behind you. So if you don’t snag on anything—and why would you?—neither should your hood.

Maybe that part went without saying. But you never know.

It all got a tiny bit clearer when I heard a jock voice from a few paces behind me.

Rusty said, “Hey, I hooked a big one!”

“Whoa! Think you can land that one? That looks like a giant blubberfish to me.” Mike/Dave.

I had no idea what was holding me. I didn’t really want to know. Nobody was literally holding on to my hood. I knew that because their voices were too far away.

I decided to put Mike/Dave’s question to the test. I was a big fish. Maybe I could break the line and get away.

I kept moving. In the direction I’d been pointing to begin with. And I pulled hard. But I wasn’t moving fast, I couldn’t breathe, and it was beginning to freak me out.

Rusty kept yelling, “Get the net, Davey. Get the net!” Which didn’t help.

I reached around and felt for the “line.” Grabbed it and pulled it forward so I could really see it. Plain white twine. Definitely too strong to break. Then I grabbed hold of the hood and wrenched it around so I could see what they actually had me by. It was a real fishhook. A treble hook with a lure attached. And one of the three hooks had gone clean through my sweatshirt hood. And I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get it out again. They have barbs to
keep them in place. So just unhooking it from my hood was not an option. I’d need to cut through the metal of the hook to get it out again.

I yanked hard, but no give. I yanked again. Just at that same moment, an old lady ran across the street, yelling, “What are you doing? What are you doing to that poor boy?” Unfortunately, that was the moment they dropped the “rod” and ran. So I yanked, expecting all this resistance, but there was nobody left to resist. My handful of string just came flying forward, and my hood came with it, and I felt a sharp pain in the back of my scalp. Because a fishhook had just lodged there. Now, apparently, I had one hook in my hood and another in me.

Great.

The old lady caught up to me as I was trying to feel how to get it out again.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “What awful boys. Why would anyone do such an awful thing?”

I said, “I only hope that’s the worst thing they ever do.” Sounding more casual than I felt. Inside, where it counts, I was shook. “Can you just pull it out? I mean, from my head.” As I said before, getting it out of my hood would be trickier.

“Oh, dear. I can’t see around your sweatshirt hood. Let me move your hood.”

She pulled on it slightly, and I yelled out loud. “Ow!
No. Don’t move the hood. It still has a hook through it. We’re stuck together.”

“I can’t even see what I’m doing. And I’m afraid it’s going to bleed if I just pull.”

Tell me. It’s not like I never stuck myself with a fishhook before. They don’t like to go backward. They’re built to resist the reverse gear. If they hook all the way through the skin, you’re better off to cut the barb end with a wire cutter. Because it will definitely tear flesh otherwise. But if it’s just sticking in there, you really have no choice.

“It has to come out,” I said. “Here. I’ll do it myself.”

And I angled the barb as best I could and pulled hard. Swallowed the scream so as not to freak the poor old lady.

“Oh, dear,” she said, peering at the back of my head. “It’s bleeding a lot. Here, let me get you a tissue.” She rummaged in her purse and handed me a clean pink tissue folded into quarters.

“Thanks,” I said, and dabbed at the spot. Then I looked at the tissue. Alarmingly bloody.

On the sidewalk at my feet lay a plain stick with a three-or four-foot length of twine tied on. I picked it up and pulled the string off the end. Then I wrenched my hood around and examined it more closely. An old rusty minnow lure with three hooks. One bloody. Another still stuck in the fabric. Just my luck. They thought fishing was
dorky, but they knew where to get their hands on a hook. I wondered if I’d ever know where it came from. Then again, did I really want to?

I walked the rest of the way home. Using the pink tissue to stall the bleeding from the back of my head. Trying to remember when I’d last had a tetanus shot. Trailing the length of string from the fishhook, still lodged in the back of my sweatshirt hood.

Did I mention that it was not a great day?

I stopped in the garage first and got down my tackle box. Pulled off my sweatshirt—
very
carefully—and cut the hook with my wire cutters. Threw the two pieces of hook and the string in the outside trash before going inside.

When I got in the house, my mother was in the kitchen, cooking.

I stuck my head in. I was careful to face her at all times so she wouldn’t see the blood on the back of my hair. I couldn’t hold pressure to it while she was watching. I could feel a trickle of blood roll down my neck.

“I’m making you a surprise,” she said. “A special treat.” I thought, Okay, what’s the most fattening thing you can possibly think of?