“So listen,” Flake says to Budzinski once we get him alone. After we found his house we watched him shoot baskets with some of his tiny friends. They hacked around for an hour and a half and I think they made three baskets. They saw us watching. When the other kids finally left we walked over. Budzinski took one more sad hook shot and then put the basketball away and came out of the garage with a hammer.
“Feel like driving some nails?” Flake goes.
“What do you want?” Budzinski says.
“Can I see that?” I ask him, like I’ve never seen a hammer before. Budzinki hands it over.
So the three of us are standing in his driveway with me holding his hammer. Somebody looks out the window screen near the back door.
I hold up the hammer like that’s the reason we came over. “This is a beaut,” I tell him.
“So listen,” Flake goes.
“I’m listening,” Budzinski tells him.
They look at each other.
Flake makes this grin like he wants to pound the kid’s head in. “You know that kid Herman?” he asks.
Budzinski just looks at him.
“About your size?” Flake asks.
“Yeah,” Budzinski finally goes.
“He’s a friend of ours,” Flake tells him.
“Yeah?” Budzinski says. He sounds interested.
“Well, we watch out for him sometimes,” Flake goes. “He’s such a doofy little shit.”
“You got that right,” Budzinski says. He looks like he’s trying to decide whether or not to laugh at us. If he does Flake’ll take the hammer out of my hand and kill him right in his own driveway.
“He can be a pain in the ass sometimes,” Flake goes.
“You got that right, too,” Budzinski tells him.
“We were hoping you’d cut him some slack for the next few weeks,” Flake says.
“Why should I?” Budzinski goes.
“Because if you don’t we’ll kick your ass,” Flake tells him.
“I’ll kick your ass,” Budzinski tells him back.
The top of the kid’s head comes up to like Flake’s armpit. “Is the whole sixth grade fucking nuts?” Flake asks me.
“Get out of my yard,” Budzinski goes. “Mom!” he calls.
“What’s the matter?” his mother says from behind the screen in the window.
“Get outta my yard,” Budzinski goes again.
“We tried to ask you nice,” Flake tells him.
“I’m calling the police,” Budzinski’s mother says through the screen.
“Call the police,” Flake tells her. “Call the fucking National Guard.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” his mother says. She leaves the window and shows up at the back door. “What’s your name?”
“Ed Gein,” Flake tells her. “Tell the police Ed Gein was here and that he wants your son.”
“And what’s your name?” she says to me.
“Richard Speck,” I tell her.
“Gimme my hammer back,” Budzinski tells me.
I throw it into the yard.
“Asshole,” he goes.
“I’m dialing,” his mother says from inside the house.
The garbage cans at the end of the driveway are empty but Flake kicks them over anyway.
“That didn’t work out too well,” I tell him on the way home.
“Now he’s really gonna go after Hermie,” Flake says to himself.
I just keep walking. The hole in my pocket is bigger.
“Fucking cocksucking motherfucking dickbag dildo cuntsuckers,” Flake goes.
I don’t have much to say to that so I let it go. He makes the same point a few more times on the way home.
“We gotta move our thing up,” he finally says, right before I head off for my house.
“I know,” I go.
“We gotta pick a time,” he tells me.
“I know,” I go. My insides are screwed up thinking about it.
“Come over tomorrow night,” he goes.
“Yeah,” I go. And it feels like summer vacation was over just because somebody said so.
11
No sleep.
In the middle of the night I remember a math test I forgot about. There’s still plenty of time to study before people get up. I know some of what I need to but just stare at the pages. I clear off the kitchen table and sit with just the hall light on. The house is quiet. My math book smells. The numbers and unknowns in chapter 3 jump from place to place after a while. On one problem I keep seeing a 5 where there’s an X. 120/3 = 40 miles—10/1 hr = 30 miles/ 1 hr 450/30 = 15 hrs. I shut my eyes for stretches. The refrigerator makes its little noise. Solve for X.
I read Isaiah in the Bible but don’t like it as much.
I nod out once it’s getting light and wake up in time to go upstairs before my mom gets up. I keep yawning and stretching my mouth to get some feeling back into it. “You’re dressed already,” she says when she opens my door to wake me.
I remember part of a football game I played in with some kids like a year ago.
“Eat something. Even if it’s candy,” my dad goes once he sits down at the table. I’m still staring at my eggs. It’s a weird feeling, like the right words or numbers are standing around just out of reach. My eggs look weird, too.
The meeting with Flake’s tonight. I’m thinking, if I could just close my eyes from now till then.
“Hey. The bus,” my mom tells me. She’s leaning forward and has her hands on her thighs. Apparently she’s said this already.
On the bus for some reason I think about summer camp when I was little. We put on a play. 12 Angry Men.
“Seen Hermie?” Flake asks before homeroom. The ninth-graders are playing some kind of You’re It game with a willow switch. It looks like it hurts.
I shake my head.
“Can you talk?” he goes. I nod a couple times. “I gotta go to the dentist after school,” he says. “So just come over after supper.”
I nod again. My cheeks are numb.
“My mom thinks I gotta get braces,” he goes. He’s smiling because he’s thinking, Well, that’s not gonna work out.
The Kalashnikov’s heavy. I don’t know if it’s got a really big kick or if I can even hold it steady or what. Well, you’ll find out, I say to myself when the homeroom bell rings.
There’s an announcement about an assembly sometime this week. I miss when.
“When’d they say it was?” I ask the girl next to me.
She looks at me.
“When’d they say it was?” I ask her again.
“Mr. Hanratty, what is the problem?” my homeroom teacher goes. Everybody’s got their mouth open, with this look. I’m surrounded by fish.
She sends me to the vice principal. We should’ve tested the guns before we did this, I tell myself while I’m walking down the hall. Now we’re not going to have time.
I space out during my math test. Halfway through, the teacher stops in front of me and goes, “Mr. Hanratty, do you have something to write with?” “No,” I go, and he gets me a pencil.
“I got a question for you,” Tawanda says when we pass in the hall.
After fifth period I can’t get my locker open again.
Before seventh I go to the nurse and tell her about the headache. Almost nobody goes to the nurse seventh period because you’re almost home.
“What’s it feel like?” she asks, interested.
I make claws and put both of them up around my eyebrows.
She has me lie down on a little cot with a facecloth over my head.
While I’m lying there I hear the vice principal. He keeps his voice down but I can still hear him. “Our friend with the nose is having a tough day, isn’t he?” he goes.
“Headache,” the nurse tells him. She shakes me a few minutes before the end of the period so I can get to my locker and still make the bus.