Infernal Revelation : Collected Episodes 1-4 (9781311980007) (4 page)

"Okay." Gideon crawled laboriously to his
feet and stepped to the railing, leaning along it next to her.
"Shit's fucked."

"What?" How long would she have to stay
without making it obvious that she was leaving because she didn't
want to talk to him?

He took the cigarette from his mouth,
squinting against the sun. "The shit at The Spot. Shit's fucked. I,
uh, wasn't talking about that other shit. Your shit. That shit's
fucked, too."

She almost felt sorrier for him than she did
for himself. In an instant she saw him not as some delinquent
pothead asshole, but as just another kid, lost and confused,
stumbling over words with the most popular girl in school. "Can I
have one?"

"What?"

Her gaze directed him to the cigarette in
his hand.

"Oh, yeah, sure."

She took one from him, lighting it from the
Zippo he offered her. She didn't inhale.

"That's a nice lighter."

He looked at it. "Thanks. Uh. Bought it in
the city."

She glanced at him sidelong. "You go to
Odessa often?"

"Often?" He gazed out towards the desert.
"Couple times a year. Concerts and stuff. You?"

"I've only left Laton a few times," she
said. "For meets."

"Right. Track and stuff."

"And stuff." She glanced at her watch.

Lunch was about over. She could leave
without him feeling rejected. She didn't know why she cared --
Lauren wouldn't. Ashley wouldn't. Gideon was a scrub. A loser. It
wasn't easy for her, though, to write people off so easily. Even
though he was probably used to being snubbed, she wasn't used to
snubbing people. She just didn't want to deal with the possibility
of him hitting on her. Not right now. Hanging out on the roof and
making small-talk was better than the cafeteria, but she didn't
want to be around anyone.

"I should get going."

"Sure." Gideon chuckled nervously. "Uh.
Never thought I'd see you up here to begin with. Or at the
Spot."

She looked out towards the drive-in across
town. "I've never been to the Spot."

"Before break, I mean." Gideon took a puff
off of his cigarette.

"Wasn't me." Lily shook her head, folding
her arms.

"You sure? Kinda hard to mistake someone
else for you," Gideon said.

"Ha." She dropped the un-smoked cigarette
and ground it out with her toe.

"Yeah, right before. You know. Before your
accident."

It felt as though her lungs had turned to
ice. "What?"

"Don't worry, I won't snitch you out."

"No, what did you say?" She stepped
forward.

Gideon stepped away, running a hand through
his red hair. "It might have been someone else."

"You saw me at the Spot?"

"I think so?"

"Before the accident." The ice was making it
hard to breathe.

"Yeah. You and your friends. Ashley and
Lauren."

"You're sure."

"Yeah?"

She pivoted and gripped the railing, dizzy,
afraid for a moment she might puke. She knew about The Spot, of
course. Everyone did. It was like the school roof, something that
even the adults knew about, but never acknowledged. At one point,
before even her parents' adolescence, in the halcyon days of the
1970s, it had been a functional drive-in theater. For decades it
had sat, officially abandoned, unofficially the primary meeting
place for feckless youths with nowhere else to go. Most kids
checked it out at least once, and a large part of Laton's teen
population frequented it for bonfires, parties, and other
gatherings.

Lily hadn't. Not that she knew, anyway. But
she'd heard stories.

And the latest story featured a guest
appearance by none other than Lily Anne Baker.

"Are you okay?" Gideon asked.

"I don't... don't remember. Being there. I
don't remember anything."

"Oh."

"Was I... were we drinking?"

Gideon paused, gazing out towards the Spot.
"I only saw you for a second. Sorry. You were talking to
Barny."

"Barny? Carter?"

"Yeah. Only Barny I know."

She knew him. Of course she knew him. She
knew everybody. And everybody knew her.

"Barny." Gideon pointed at a small
dark-haired figure, alone ]on the field below.

"Barny. Great." She closed her eyes,
pinching the bridge of her nose. "Thanks, Gideon."

"No problem. You... you okay?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I
don't... headache. I have to talk to Barny."

"Okay. Ah..."

She didn't wait for him to finish, crossing
her arms to stop them from shaking, walking back to the stairs
leading down from the roof. She felt light-headed, almost a
spectator watching herself as she returned down the stairs to the
ground floor, across the hall, and out the door to the sod-covered
athletic field.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lily wasn't entirely
sure why she was approaching Barny until she'd reached him. He was
alone, throwing a football towards one of the round tin targets the
team had set-up for the purpose. The rest of the class was running
laps on the other side of the field.

Like her boyfriend, Barny was a first-string
member of Laton High's Sandpiper football team. Slightly shorter
and broader of shoulder than Derek, Barny was well suited to his
role as Center, a position that involved both physical conflict and
a tactical acuity. He was well regarded for both.

He stopped as she approached. "You want
something, Baker?"

Lily didn't question why he wasn't running
laps with the rest of his class. Barney, by and large, did whatever
he wanted to. "Was I at the Spot last week?"

"You were in a coma last week." He picked up
a football and turned towards his target.

She cleared her throat. "You know what I
mean. Before that."

Barney threw the ball, clipping the side of
his target. He turned back towards Lily.

"Yeah. You still saying you don't
remember?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't remember."

"Okay. Yeah, you were there."

"Was I... what happened?" Her voice broke.
"Please, Barney, don't give me any shit, just tell me."

Barney paused, then looked directly at her,
a hard stare burrowing into her eyes. "You sure you want to
know?"

"Cut the shit, please?"

"Okay."

***

Parties at The Spot
were one of Barny's favorite little microcosms, primarily due to
the lack of scrutiny and adult interference. To most of the teens
and adults in Laton, it was a needed pressure release valve, an
outlet for rebellion sanctioned for the purpose. For Barny, it was
a case study in excess and desire.

A rusted scrap-metal and plywood fence had
been erected when the place had been condemned ages ago, ostensibly
to keep the town youths out. In practice it just made it easier for
the town's adults to ignore what went on inside. Within the fence
lay a flat gravel lot surrounding the burnt-out wreck of what had
been the snack-shack and ticket office. All that remained of the
car-speakers were metal posts driven into the ground every eight
feet or so.

"Dude," he said, clasping Hugh on the back.
"She totally wants you."

"Yeah?" The fat-fuck stoner looked across
the gravel to where Amy, the lithe and tan target of his desire,
was talking and laughing near the bonfire.

Stories told that in decades past the teens
used to rig up an old projector and watch R-rated movies at the
theater, but no one knew what had become of it. Instead, ever since
Barny had been a kid, students had built a bonfire near the base of
the old screen, letting the smoke form shifting sinuous shadows
cast by its own light. Not too far away, Barny had set up a folding
table covered with red plastic cups, and a cooler filled with a
potent mixture of Everclear, pineapple juice, tang, chunks of
watermelon, and Gatorade. It was Barny's variation of an ancient
jungle-juice remedy; the electrolytes helping the stomach-lining
absorb the alcohol more quickly. It made things more
interesting.

"Hell yeah." Barny dipped one of the cups
into the alcoholic brew. "See how she keeps looking over here at
you?"

"Yeah?"

"Totally checking you out."

Hugh looked back towards the girl.
"Yeah."

There was some snickering from the
splintered railroad ties piled behind the table, where Barny's
cohorts Marty and Chuck were watching from. Their postures and
jackal-grins were so similar, that it was easiest to tell them
apart by the color of their polo shirts.

"Totally, man," Marty said.

"She's into you," Chuck said.

"See?" Barny gestured back at his cohorts
with the cup before handing it to Hugh.

Hugh took a long sip.

"You should go talk to her," Barny
whispered.

"Okay. Okay." Hugh's eyes glimmered in the
firelight. "I'll do it."

Barny handed him another cup. "You should
bring her a drink."

"Yeah," Marty said.

"Okay." Hugh set his jaw and nodded.

The trio watched as Hugh took the two cups
across the gravel field that had, long ago, been a parking lot. As
he neared the target of his desire, Chuck and Marty's gaze snapped
back to Barny.

Barny smiled and gave the jungle juice
another stir with the heavy metal spade he'd brought for the
purpose. After a moment he looked up and called to a group of his
football teammates laughing and talking in their yellow and brown
Sandpiper jerseys.

"Kyle!"

A massive defensive tackle glanced in his
direction.

Barny pointed his spade towards the fire.
"Isn't that your girl that fat fuck is talking to?"

Kyle's eyes widened, and he began a
lumbering run towards the oblivious stoner.

***

Marty and Chuck both
considered themselves part of Barny's crew, a useful illusion that
the center actively cultivated. In truth, while they were mostly
amused by his manipulations, they took them for mere games,
diversions, rather than the social experiments they truly were.
Barny had always felt he'd had an intuitive grasp of the way people
ticked, and it gave him a feeling of power when he could make them
do what he wanted. Sometimes they were right and it was a simple
diversion in the form of a crude but reasonable-sounding
suggestions, like the one that resulted in Hugh getting the shit
kicked out of him by an enraged defensive tackle. Other times his
plans were a little more... elaborate.

People, and adults in particular, usually
took Barny for as a charming scamp, if a little bit mischievous.
His victims would disagree if they had the intellectual capacity to
identify him as the source of their misery, but Barney was skilled
at picking unsuspecting targets. He was even better at deflecting
attention from himself.

Hugh, for example, was too drunk and stoned
to really remember that Barny had pushed him into clumsy
flirtations with Kyle's girlfriend. And Kyle was too stupid to
figure it out in the first place. It was, again, a pleasant
diversion, but one that didn't accomplish much besides amusing
Chuck and Marty.

When he spotted Lily, Ashley, and Lauren, it
was an opportunity Barny couldn't resist.

While her friends were, in Barny's humble
opinion, vapid cunts, Lily was something else. A bundle of
conflicting impulses and paradoxical drives. Intelligent but naive.
Educated but inexperienced. Socially adept but sheltered. She'd
lived her life a minority in a community that broke its arm patting
itself on the back about how "enlightened" it was in regards to
her, making her an outsider in its desire for inclusiveness. She
could never be just Lily Baker, she was Lily Baker, adopted
African-American princess, deacon's daughter, who had accomplished
so much with so little.

That last misconception rankled, Barny had
to admit. Being adopted into one of Laton's most prestigious
families wasn't what he would consider much of a handicap. There
was no denying that Lily was a social force to be reckoned with,
but half of the respect given her was bullshit bleeding-heart
overcompensation. While he did appreciate the irony of the
unintentional 'othering', it was a damn shame. Someday he'd plan
something that exposed the fetid bullshit for what it was, and Lily
would be stronger for the experience.

Really, when you got down to it, he was an
altruist.

More immediately, he'd heard that the girl
had had some sort of fight with her boyfriend Derek, Barny's
teammate. Maybe that was why she'd come here, to this indulgent
testament of adolescent excess, something she'd disdained in the
past. She'd come to unwind. To forget the fight.

Maybe she'd over-do it. She could use it, a
little letting loose, a rejection of the pressures she placed upon
herself. A rejection of perfection.

Maybe Barny could help.

He'd already poured the cups by the time the
girls were passing his table. "Ladies."

Ashley grabbed two cups, handing one to
Lauren and one to Lily before taking the third for herself.
"Gentleman."

Barny smiled, reflecting on what a useless
cow the girl was.

Lily looked at her cup dubiously. "What's in
this?"

"A little of this, a little of that," Barny
said.

"Booze," Lauren said. "You drink it."

Lily sniffed her cup.

"You all right?" Barny asked, ever the good
listener.

"I'm good," Lily said.

"Derek's being an asshole," Ashley said.

"Ashley!"

"He totally is," Lauren said. "Hey, Barn,
when are you going to take me out again?"

Barny flashed her a quick smile. He'd
already fucked her once, and found the experience wanting. There
was no need for seconds.

"It's fine," Lily said.

"Oh, I needed to talk to Derek," Barny said.
"Is he here?"