Vanity Insanity (11 page)

“How does he go to the bathroom?” Stinky wondered out loud.

“Just let us know if you guys want to go.”

More girls walked up to the fence, sensing that Lucy had found a new adventure. Our plan was working.

Lucy shared her most recent discovery with the large audience. “OK, I have to tell you all what I just found out from this high-school girl who works in the Snack Shack.” As she spoke, her mouth sparkled. Lucy was wired for sound with the entire orthodontia works. She even wore the whole headgear thing at night, which only further encouraged my theory on the barbaric things that our own parents impose on us for the sake of vanity.

Lucy looked serious as she started her performance. “If you listen to the beginning of the song ‘Rollercoaster’ by the Ohio Players, you will hear a really high scream.”

“Son of a bitch. I’ve heard it!” Little Andy Morrow’s eyes were big and round and glued to the Lucy.

“Anyway, that’s the scream of a woman who was killed during the actual recording of the song. Her murder was recorded!” Lucy paused for effect. “It’s like her murder is repeated every time we hear that song.”

I was stunned by the big eyes and opened mouths in the group that had gathered.
Really?

“It’s true.” Lucy shook her head slowly and pursed her lips with the burden of this sad awareness. Theresa and Marty shook their heads in unison and agreement, looking like the Supremes behind their lead singer. I worked hard to hide my smirk. In the shuffle of expressions in the group, Theresa looked at Will and smiled.

A deeper voice from behind me added, “And if you listen really, really closely to the end of that song, you’ll hear the drummer fart.” The voice came from a kid who had been sitting on his bike a couple feet behind the group, listening to Lucy. She looked at the boy perturbed but said nothing.

Eddie Krackenier laughed louder at his joke than anyone else. Eddie, a very fit fifteen-year-old, was from a nearby neighborhood that fed into the Saint Walter’s parish and school. In Omaha, parishes were like little puddles all over the city, with the little tiny Catholic fish that in time would jump into the bigger ponds of Catholic high schools, connecting all those little puddles.

“This pool sucks!” Eddie said to no one and everyone as he moved his bike up to the fence and looked around the deck of the pool. The crowd that had gathered was silent.

“Then why are you here?” Anthony Mangiamelli, a good year older and a foot taller than Eddie, had been silent until now. He wasn’t afraid of the bully from Saint Walter’s.

“Well, you see, I was just on my way to the housing development under construction out north of here, a place where me and my older buddies like to go when the workers aren’t around. Anyway, on my way, I see what appears to be a group around a fire or tragic accident or something. Turns out to be some stupid story about a roller coaster and a murder. Ahhhhh!” Eddie screamed in a high pitch so loud that I thought the lifeguards would come by.

Eddie was a bad seed. That’s what Mrs. Webber had told the kids after her tree had been TP-ed one time. Eddie called himself Chief and asked that others do the same in his presence. Kids in Maple Crest heard that Eddie had seen R-rated movies before he was ten. He also had a big birthmark on the back of his neck that was allegedly in the shape of a star. From where I stood, it looked more like a drunk amoeba that hoped to be a starfish someday. He didn’t have a dad, and his mother was never home, either working or whatever. The freedom he had meant that he had more connections with his older buddies finding all sorts of interesting things to do. Evidently at construction sites.

“You’re all welcome to come with the Chief to the construction site. Hell of lot more fun than this place.” He spoke to the group with an evil grin.

We were no idiots to the reputation of Eddie Krackenier. Eddie lore trickled from his puddle to ours, and we all felt as if the devil himself had
just invited us all to hell. I wouldn’t allow some self-proclaimed chief to ruin my perfect day. I wanted Eddie Krackenier to go back to his puddle.

“I’ll go.” Will’s voice sounded strange. Now the group of wide eyes looked at him. What was he thinking? We all looked to the Mangiamellis’ oldest brother, Anthony. Was he going to stop Will or what?

Eddie’s grin grew into a creepy shape. “OK, Mangiamelli, the Chief says you may follow.”

I really do believe Will would have gone with Eddie that hot Saturday. Something in the way he looked at Eddie said that he was serious. The interview with the devil was interrupted by Faith Webber, who forced her way through the group up to the fence, panting and catching her breath. She had run the three blocks to Brookhill pool. Breathless and anxious, Faith still looked incredible.

“Lovey, is Hope with you?” Faith leaned against the fence and tried to catch her breath.

“You should see how red your face is, Faith.” Lovey laughed and looked at me.

“Lovey, is Hope with you?” Faith repeated with panic in her throat.

“No, she didn’t want to swim. I asked her. I really did…”

“We can’t find her anywhere. If she’s not with you, she’s been gone for a while. Hope never goes off by herself. The last thing I remember was that she was going over to the Mangiamelli house to visit Grandma. We know where Grandma is, but we can’t find…”

Faith had already turned around and was running back to the house. The group started moving with her. Lovey made her way back to the pool front desk and around the fence, and ran barefoot toward Faith in her swimsuit. The rest of us on bikes moved quickly. The others ran behind: Lucy, Will, Theresa, Stinky, Anthony. Everyone but Eddie.

“Hey, who’s this Hope? And just how often do you lose your grandma?” he yelled to us, laughing at himself.

The Chief stood alone.

We all took off without a plan, moving quickly in our alarm. The Johnny Madlin thing was a few years behind us but never forgotten. Hope
was too sensible to just take off without telling anyone. My own mind was racing as I rode. Where could she be? The three blocks back to our circle took forever, even on my bike. All I could think about was Hope.

As everyone rounded the corner near the green house, I slowed down. My heart pounding and a full bottle of TaB swishing around in my gut, I threw my bike down on the lawn of Wicker Witch and, without a second thought, ran quickly through the yard by the side of her house, taking a route I had never taken to the creek. I doubt if anyone on Maple Crest had ever taken this route. We didn’t even consider it growing up. During the days when we were allowed to play down there, we’d always walked between the Morrow and Mangiamelli houses.

From the back edge of the Wicker yard, I jumped into the weeded area that quickly turned into a steep hill and took me down to the area where we built forts and played Capture the Flag. Hope might have gone there to look for Grandma. Everything was overgrown. I fell twice but recovered quickly as I made my way down to the area where we had spent most of our creek-playing days. Nothing looked familiar to me.

About halfway down, I stepped on something that, with a quick glance, looked like the leg of a GI Joe. I kept moving. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been on this steep, bumpy hill, creeping and twisting down to the wooded creek. The ground beneath me began to level off, and I found my bearings, adjusting my internal compass.

I was now looking at the area I knew so well from a completely new viewpoint. I could see, through the overgrown trees, the dark area protecting the creek. The trees told the time. I recognized a few trees that had unique marks or trunks. They were so much bigger and wider, providing more shade than I ever remembered. My heart pounded as I stood on the forbidden ground, squinting as my eyes adjusted from the bright, sunny day to the darker woods.

That’s when I saw her, head hanging low, right at the creek’s edge. I didn’t yell. I just stopped. She looked up.

“Hope, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. Everyone is worried sick.”

“Ben, I can’t find Grandma. What if she got hurt? What if I never find Grandma?” She sniffed loudly and coughed.

“We found Grandma, Hope. She’s fine. She was napping on the Shanahans’ driveway the whole afternoon. She’s never been happier. Let’s head home.” She ran toward me and hugged me very tightly, wiping her dirty tears on my shoulder.

“Ben, thank you. Grandma is alive! Grandma is alive! You’re my angel, Ben,” Hope patted my back again and again. “What would I do without you? Grandma is alive!”

During the silence of her patting, we both became aware of the static of a radio. A very fuzzy and almost inaudible beat buzzed as Hope hugged me. KC and the Sunshine Band sang “I’m Your Boogie Man” from the other side of the creek.

“Hope, we need to go back. Let’s go see Grandma. She’ll probably be excited to see you.”

Neither of us moved as we squinted our eyes, looking across the creek to the side on which I had never been. The music was coming from the radio of a car that was tucked between two very large trees. I knew there was another side to the creek, but I had never stopped to think about the area beyond it. Just north of the area were several farms that the city was looking to acquire in order to start building more little parish puddles, and there must have been a dirt road for access. The fear in the center of my chest turned to confusion when I realized the car was the old Morrow station wagon, a funky and easily identifiable metallic color of blue. What was their car doing down here? How had it gotten here? My confusion turned to shock as Hope and I witnessed two heads popping up. Mr. Morrow and—not Mrs. Morrow.

That’s when the staring started. Hope and I stared at Mr. Morrow and the other person, whom I quickly discerned as Casey Worthington, a sometimes friend of my older sister. I knew that Stinky had mentioned that Casey baby-sat him and his four other siblings every once in a while. He thought she was a babe. I was thinking Mr. Morrow must have thought the same thing. He and Casey stared at us as the reality of the situation became sickly apparent.

KC and the Sunshine Band stopped singing about the boogie man, and the voice of the DJ living in the big banana on the billboard came in with less static than the song.

“Debbie Andrews has answered her phone correctly and wins two tickets to Cheapskate Roller Rink. We’ll also put her name in the final drawing for that trip to Kansas City. What do you think of that, Debbie?” Static. Blurry voice. Static.

Thoughts racing through my head jumped from Stinky to his mother to Stinky’s cousin, Theresa O’Brien, to the little Morrows. All of these people were somewhere at this moment unaware of the clandestine meeting. Hope and I knew, though. I hadn’t asked to be a part of this. My stomach reacted, and I fought hard not to throw up a carbonated mass in front of this very private gathering.

Within a microsecond, my mind took me back to a birthday party for Stinky in the Morrow kitchen. Years earlier he had invited most of the kids from the neighborhood, and we were all standing around him singing “Happy Birthday” as Stinky smiled at the candles on his cake. He may have been five or six. I can’t remember. What I do remember was Mr. Morrow standing behind Stinky smiling, with both hands on Stinky’s shoulders. The perfect father. I remember feeling so jealous that I wanted to run out of the kitchen before I cried. I sang louder and saved myself from tears. That was what I would never have.

Anger zapped me back to the moment. Mr. Morrow had been pretty savvy to come to the one place that no one had been in years, but the fact that his secret meeting place was so close to his family left an even worse taste in my mouth.

Dumb songs, stupid jokes by the pool, and a self-absorbed bully seemed less irritating and harmful and, unfortunately, a million miles away. I wanted to be there instead of here.

Everything moved in extreme slow motion after that. Mr. Morrow looked very worried as he slowly moved to start his car, never making eye contact again. Casey smiled at us—kind of a powerful agreement with a wink that spoke volumes to Hope and me that day.
Oh, you know not to tell.
She looked very powerful as the car slowly backed up. She had each of us in a bad spot. Mr. Morrow definitely stood to lose the most with any public awareness of this covert get-together.

Hope looked bothered, but I wasn’t sure if she was aware of the implications of what we were witnessing. I know that if Hope and I told what we saw, placing us both at the creek, a place that our parents had repeatedly warned us not to go, we stood to lose privileges.

Everyone might lose something.

Finally, I stood to lose, no matter what. Telling any soul what I’d just witnessed could lead to the breakup of my friend’s family. I already knew what it was like not to have a father around. Stinky didn’t need that. Not telling, which was what I planned to do, meant that I would have to carry this secret alone, always knowing, always wondering.

Another face flashed in my head out of nowhere. It was the face of Johnny Madlin, or rather the face from the photo that was plastered everywhere following his disappearance five years ago. I wondered about him. By the creek. Losing his life.

A bunch of losers. I lost a piece of my soul down by the creek that day.