* * *
They strolled down Luca’s street, Red Fox Lane, sucking on cigars with plastic filters. The others were telling jokes, talking shit. Siddharth was wobbly and warm, so he took off his gloves. He wished he had listened to Marc, who had said it was too hot to wear a jacket, but he didn’t want to part with the red-and-green Columbia parka that Mohan Lal had bought him after one of their recent squabbles.
The moon was strong but it was foggy out, so the few streetlights were surrounded by little halos of moisture. The lawns they passed resembled cowhide, splotches of icy white mixed with puddles of mud. He could hear water dripping from every branch, from every tailpipe of every car. Snowmelts roared like rivers in the sewers, and Siddharth thought back to the river at the state park in Hamden. When he was seven, he had gone there with his parents, and his mother had suggested they try out a hiking trail. Mohan Lal was resistant but eventually relented. They ended up getting in over their heads, walking two challenging miles over cliff and rock. Siddharth had been miserable and scared, but it was all worth it when they got to the top. The sky was so crisp that they could glimpse the Knights of Columbus building in New Haven. They could see all the way to the sound, a faint sliver of Long Island on the horizon.
Siddharth hoped his father had made it to Atlantic City okay. He was angry that Mohan Lal hadn’t bothered to call but assumed it was Ms. Farber’s fault. She was a freak. She probably wouldn’t let the poor man take a break from banging. All the people who were supposed to take care of him were freaks, but in that moment, it seemed like the biggest one was Arjun. Siddharth was fed up with all his fucking Gandhi talk and his fucking Pakistani girlfriend — the way he complained about America and cars. Everything would be much better if it weren’t for his brother.
They stepped off the road and cut into somebody’s backyard. The grass was breathing steam, and it suddenly seemed as if they were in a movie. Siddharth thought about Platoon, picturing Charlie Sheen with a machine gun. But no, this was more Stand By Me. He wasn’t sure if he was Vern, the chubby one who whined, or Wil Wheaton’s character, who was smart and knew how to tell a good story. Eddie picked up a large rock and chucked it at a birdhouse mounted on top of a wooden pole. He slapped Luca five, and they both cheered.
Marc hung back, dangling an arm around Siddharth’s shoulder. “Fucking morons.”
Siddharth laughed, then grabbed the green bottle from him and took a swig.
Marc finished it off before throwing the empty onto a covered swimming pool. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” said Siddharth. “But I gotta ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you think my brother’s a druggie?”
“Arjun? I wouldn’t worry about him. I’d say he’s an upstanding young man.”
Siddharth wasn’t sure if Marc was being sarcastic or not. He grabbed the slingshot from him, the one that Barry Uncle had given him. He shot a stone at a stop sign, and the lights of a nearby house flicked on. The four boys broke into a run.
* * *
By the time they reached Sharon’s, Siddharth was wondering if he would ever again regain control of his mind. He needed a bed. He needed sleep. A ragged old sofa sat on Sharon’s lawn, about ten feet away from a stripped-down postal jeep. He took a seat on it, watching Luca and Eddie smoke their cigars on the driveway. When he closed his eyes, the darkness spun. He thought about Sharon. He wondered if she was still with her father or back at home. Regardless, she deserved what was happening. She was a downer, and she was nosy. She rubbed her boyfriend in Siddharth’s face just to make him crazy, even though this so-called boyfriend was probably nonexistent. Siddharth thought about the things she had said to Luca on the bus. She was a hypocrite. They were all a bunch of hypocrites — not just her, but Ms. Farber and Mr. Latella, and especially Arjun.
Suddenly, he could see himself kissing Sharon’s breasts, sucking on them like the muscled man had just done to the blonde on Playboy. He saw himself lying over her body on a beach. He tried pulling down her dress, and when she didn’t let him, he had to yank it off. A crow cawed. He opened his eyes and observed the house across the street. It was a huge, modern home, completely the opposite of Sharon’s. The place even had a three-car garage, which meant that whoever lived there was rich — whoever lived there was happy. A For Sale sign sprouted from the house’s front lawn. In that moment, he glimpsed a pleasing vision of the future.
Despite what Arjun had said, Mohan Lal’s book would make them millions. Mohan Lal would no longer need Ms. Farber; he could get someone prettier and younger, maybe a blonde — or maybe no one at all. Father and son would buy that house and live in it by themselves. That way, Siddharth would have a friend right across the street. A girlfriend. Somebody who had known him when he was happier. Or they could move into an even bigger house somewhere else. In a different town, where nobody knew him at all.
He remembered something Ms. Farber had said yesterday, when they still hadn’t heard from Arjun: “Mo, you can’t let other people control you — not your friends, not your family, and definitely not your children.” Hadn’t Sharon said something similar once? These two females were both insane. They both wanted to separate him from the people who truly loved him.
The sound of glass shattering, then voices.
“What the fuck?” Eddie’s voice.
Siddharth turned to Marc, who was now holding the Indian slingshot. He had just cracked the glass on the lamppost on Sharon’s front lawn. Siddharth burped, tasted the pesto Mrs. Peroti had served them for dinner. Sweat drenched his arms and legs. He burped again and thought he might vomit. No, he had to take a dump. He rose from the sofa and walked toward Marc. A set of headlights approached, and Marc told everyone to shut up. Siddharth felt a hand on his back. The next thing he knew he was eating wet earth. “What the hell?”
“Shhhhh,” said Marc. “Stay down.”
The car slowed but didn’t stop.
Marc puffed on his cigar. “Luca, whatever you’re gonna do, do it quick.”
Eddie and Luca stomped on their stogies and walked over to Sharon’s mailbox. They gripped its wooden stem and started grunting and heaving. The box yielded, and they placed it in the middle of the road. Siddharth couldn’t stand it anymore. If he didn’t go now, he might do it in his pants. Marc told him to be a man and wait.
“What if I can’t?” Siddharth threw his cigar on the ground and crushed it with his shoe.
“Just drop trou and go for it,” said Eddie. “Watch.”
Eddie sprinted over to Sharon’s front steps, undoing his belt on the way. Siddharth wanted to look away, but instead he watched as Eddie squatted down and defecated. He recalled an aunt’s house in a dirty town near Delhi. Meerut or something. She had one of those hole-in-the-ground toilets, and whenever he had to stay there, he got constipated.
Luca and Marc were cracking up. Siddharth started laughing too, and he was laughing so hard that his bathroom attack vanished. Eddie ran across the street and pulled out the For Sale sign, placing it on top of Sharon’s mailbox. Luca tugged at the Nagorskis’ smaller newspaper mailbox, easily uprooting it. He pulled out a water bottle from his backpack, which was filled with gasoline meant for his father’s tractor. The bottle gurgled as he poured it over the pile, the noxious stench of gasoline infiltrating Siddharth’s nostrils.
The boys formed a semicircle around their makeshift hearth. Luca pulled out a Zippo from his windbreaker, flipped it open, and spun the top. Sparks flew, but it wouldn’t catch.
“Pass it here,” said Marc.