“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 would 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 sacrifice.
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 must 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.