Like A Charm

'The law?' Lamar lifted an eyebrow.

'You know' – Clarista had it all worked out – 'safety regulations.'

I gave the pool a quick count.

There was me, Benjamin, Clarista, Billy Elliman, Tiffany Engleton, Todd Skrillitz, Sheri Bristol, Jonathon and Bobby Bintliff, Kelly Fritz, and Parker Townsend.

Eleven.

Sheri Bristol, who was already one of the prettiest girls in our neighbourhood, offered to get out so Lamar could swim. 'I don't mind,' Sheri said.

But Clarista gave her this look. It was like in Star Wars when Darth Vader strangled that guy without even touching him.

Sheri just shut the fuck up.

The sunlight that day was a narcotic; morphine light mixed with the heavy chlorine in my eyes and I saw a film over everything – blue, green, yellow, like I was looking through sheets of plastic. Everything seemed slo-mo, far away, disconnected. 'It's all right.' Lamar, smiling as always, wrapped his Scooby-Doo towel round his shoulders, and climbed down from the platform. Anthony remained a few steps behind. 'We have a hose in our backyard, and my dad just bought me a Slip-n-Slide.'

Benjamin laughed. 'Yeah. Go play with your Slip-n-Slide!'

It seemed like time folded in half. It seemed like I saw myself from above.

The sun heated the blue water and glanced off the tanned faces of the neighbourhood kids.

Clarista swam directly over and kissed me. I was twelve, two weeks from thirteen. She tasted like cigarettes.

At home that night I considered giving Clarista the charm bracelet I had stolen from Lamar. I took it out of the drawer and examined it. It was pretty old, I guess, with a tiger, a little train that had actual moving wheels, a saxophone, little ballet slippers, and even a monkey.

But for some reason I decided to keep it.

Fuck Clarista, I thought. And then I actually thought about fucking Clarista.

And that was weird.

Two weeks later it was just me and my sister. No other kids. No party. My mom had made a chocolate cake, and we were sitting around after a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, my favourite, picking at the bones, when we heard the doorbell. Answer the door,' Jean said.

'It's my birthday. You answer it.'

By that time my mom was already opening the door, revealing Lamar and a brightly wrapped package. 'Happy birthday!' He wore that usual sideways smile.

I got up.

The package was tied with curly red ribbons and silver bows.

'Come in, Lamar.' Mom was speaking to Lamar but looking at me. 'Isn't that nice?' she said. 'A birthday present.' Whenever there was a stranger in the house, my mother started using her June Cleever voice.

'Hi, Lamar.' I walked over to the living room, and Lamar stepped inside.

'Would you like a piece of birthday cake?' my mother asked. 'I'll bet you'd like a nice big piece of chocolate birthday cake.'

Lamar gave me that look, all sideways and smiley.

'Yeah, Lamar,' I said weakly, 'have some cake.'

'Open it,' he said, holding the package forward.

'What is it?'

My sister rolled her eyes. 'Open it, moron.'

I took the package, sat down on the living room floor, and carefully slid the ribbon off, then I tore some of the wrapping away.

'It's an ant farm.' Lamar was standing above me.

'An ant farm?'

'You better keep that thing out of my room,' Jean said. 'I don't want ants crawling all over my stuff.'

The paper torn back, I could see the box cover. In big, yellow words it said ANT FARM! The fun, scientific way to learn about the insect kingdom!

My mother looked at me. 'What do you say?'

I looked at Lamar. 'Thanks, Lamar.'

My mother was standing behind Lamar, and she was about to touch his shoulder, but for some reason she stopped herself halfway through and disappeared into the kitchen.

I remember seeing Lamar through the picture window of his house. He would stand on a chair and look out at us when we were playing. He had a way of pushing his chest forward and holding his hands up in front of him, his fingers moving slowly, like he was strumming a harp.

What a fucking freak.

The subdivision of our neighbourhood was organized around a series of alternating blocks and cul-de-sacs. There was a block, and going into the middle of each block was a street, at the end of which was a circular drive. Organized around the circle was a series of houses, each of them pretty much the same. Some had grey roofs; some had black. Some of the houses were made of red brick; some had coloured siding. Our circle, which was called Galaxy Court, was the last part of the development and butted right up against the turnpike. On the other side of the pike was the Andromeda Shopping Plaza, which included the Safeway, Dart Hardware, Hallmark, 31 Flavors, H & R Block, and 7-Eleven. Behind the Safeway was a vacant lot. There were a bunch of large, flat rocks, big enough to stand on, a couple of rusted out dumpsters, and a fascinating glacier of trash.

I can't tell you how many times we beat the crap out of Lamar back there. Or threw him into one of the dumpsters. Or covered him with garbage.

Anyway, for the past couple of weeks I hadn't seen Benjamin around much. I had seen him with Clarista Siedbetter's brother Eddie once, who was fifteen. They were getting into some other teenager's car. I had thought to call after them, to see if they were going to the mall, but I was pretty sure Benjamin had seen me. I had even seen him smoking inside the concrete tube with Clarista, and I didn't think it was just a cigarette, and he had his arm around her. So, since I had nothing to do I went over to the Safeway lot and just sort of poked through the trash.

Anyway, I was jabbing a stick at a super-gross dead rat when I heard a voice say, 'You're going to catch a disease.'

I turned around. 'Hey, Lamar.' It was a Sunday morning, I remember, and I was surprised to see him because Lamar's family was usually in church on Sunday mornings.

He came up beside me and sniffed. 'My father said you shouldn't play with dead animals, that you can get diphtheria.'

I pushed the stick under the rat and flicked it towards him. 'He's right.' It grazed his bare leg.

'Stop it.' He rubbed his hands over the piece of skin the dead rat had touched. Then he said, 'You want to play something?'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. Make-believe?'

Make-believe was a game I was trying to leave behind. I had just turned thirteen. 'You mean like Star Trek?' I said. 'Or war?'

'That would be cool.' Lamar nodded. 'Or what about religion?'

'What do you mean, religion?'

'We could have our own religion,' he said, 'and we could be gods.' He jumped up on a rock and pointed down at me. 'We could pretend this rock is a mountain, and that there's an entire civilization down there in the trash. You know, countries and cities. And sometimes we can be nice gods and give them good weather, and other times, for no reason whatsoever, we can smash everything in sight.' Lamar was smiling his maniac smile.

'And they have to worship us?' I said. 'They have to get down on their knees and pray to us, like, three times a day?' I climbed up on the rock next to him. 'Because if they don't-'

'Yeah,' Lamar said, 'if every single person doesn't worship the heck out of us three times a day' – he jumped down from the rock and started smashing imaginary cities – 'we'll kill everyone.' I was feeling like a regular Mahatma Gandhi for not punching Lamar, and was also a little surprised by the vividness of his imagination. 'Except for this little family,' he went on. He picked up an empty box of kitchen matches and placed it gently on top of the rock. 'A devout family of four, who always worships us every day. They get to live and to be the founders of a new, futuristic civilization.'