“I found a big safety pin,” Brian said as he came back outside. “Will this work?”
I gave him the thumbs-up again. Then I took the safety pin from him, opened it, and used a pair of needle-nose pliers to bend the tip up about forty-five degrees.
“Fuckin’-A,” Brian said. “Can you really open a lock with that? What can you open, like this door over here?”
He went to the big glass sliding door, pushed a couple of people away, and then closed it. He reached into his pocket, took out his key ring, fumbled for the right key, and then put it in the lock.
“How about this one?” he said, rattling the handle to make sure it was locked tight. “Can you open this now?”
I went to the door and felt my legs creak as I knelt down by the handle. I put the cup down and looked at the lock. It was a basic, inexpensive lock. Probably just five regular straight pins. Under normal circumstances, I probably could have cracked it in under a minute, but now, using makeshift tools, with everyone watching, especially with the Sucker Punch tumbling through my bloodstream… I wasn’t so sure I could do it at all.
“Hey, turn off that music,” Brian said.
The music didn’t stop.
“Hey, I said turn off the fucking music! There’s an artist at work here.”
If everyone hadn’t been focused on what I was doing, they sure as hell were now. I could see them piling against the glass from the inside. I could feel them standing right behind me on the deck.
“Give him some room,” Danny said. “Let the man do his magic.”
I put the screwdriver into the lock, keeping it toward the bottom so I’d be able to reach all of the pins. I turned it just enough to feel the tension. Then I slipped the bent safety pin into the lock and went to work. I felt for the back pin, pushed it up with the pin, felt it stick in place. One down.
“Go,” Danny said. “Go… Go… Go… Go…”
Everybody joined in with him. Everybody was chanting as I worked the next pin.
“Go go go go go go go.”
I could feel the sweat dripping down the back of my neck.
“Go go go go go go go go.”
I had the third pin up now. Then I felt the pin slip in my fingers. I pulled everything out and shook the tension out of my hands.
That’s when I finally saw Griffin standing in the crowd. Nadine was next to him. Griffin had a smug smile on his face, but Nadine obviously had no idea what to make of this whole scene. I could have given up then. I could have stood up and shrugged my shoulders and given Brian his tools back. But I kept going. I gave her a little nod, and then I went back to the lock.
“Everybody be quiet,” Brian said. “You’re distracting him.”
I reset the tension and went in for the back pin, lifted it just enough, and then went on to the next. Keeping just enough tension on that screwdriver, because that’s the whole game right there. Having that touch. I blocked everything else out, the people standing all around me, the dizzy sick feeling that was building in my gut. Everything. It all faded away as I worked each pin one by one, feeling them with my fingers. Each one sliding up to just the right position until I finally came to the next one. Here’s where I’d find out if they were regular pins or something more complicated. If they were mushroom pins, they’d have that extra little notch in them and I’d have to keep the tension just right and go back and lift each pin a second time. But no. The last pin was up and the lock seemed to spring free on its own now, like it wanted to be open all along. I turned the handle and opened the door as everybody went wild all around me, screaming and carrying on like I had just defused a deadly time bomb.
It felt good. Okay? I admit it. It felt good.
“That’s awesome, man.” Brian pulled me to my feet and gave me a big slap on the back. “That’s fucking awesome.”
“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Danny said. “I’m not lying to you. That was the single coolest thing ever.”
“I gotta admit,” Trey said, hitting me in the shoulder. “That was impressive. You’re like a superspy, right? You can go anywhere you want.”
Griffin was still standing at the back of the crowd, shaking his head. That same smile on his face. Nadine was gone. When I pointed to the spot next to him, he looked around the deck and shrugged.
I didn’t think she’d just leave, but hell, maybe she was mad at me for leaving her there in the beer line while I went up to the VIP Room. Or maybe I had no idea what she was thinking. Her or any other female in the world.
I went inside and made my way through the dining room to the front door, looking everywhere for her. I felt more people slapping me on my back. The words seemed to swirl all around me, coming too fast for me to comprehend. Then one voice broke through all the rest.
“It’s true,” the voice said. “He was clinically dead for, like, twenty minutes. That’s why he can’t talk. He’s like brain-damaged.”
I stopped. I tried to find the source of the voice, but there were too many people crushed all around me. It could have been one of a hundred people.
“Come on,” Griffin said, pushing his way through the crowd. “I think you need some air.” He grabbed me by the elbow and took me out the front door.
I almost fell off the front steps, regained my balance, and stood there blinking in the harsh glow of the porch light.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“That was quite a show you put on. All of a sudden, you’re the prince of Milford High School.”
I looked at him like, yeah, you’ve been drinking too much beer.
“I think they’re hatching up a crazy idea. Are you up for it?”
Before he could explain, Brian, Trey, and Danny came out through the front door. Brian had taken down the huge MILFORD KICKS ASS banner and was rolling it up.
“We’ve got the most awesome idea, dude. You gotta help us out here. Whaddya say?”
I looked at all of them, one by one.
“Come on,” Brian said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
He led us to his Camaro, parked next to his father’s state trooper car. I couldn’t help but wonder where his father was that night, but there was no time to think about that or anything else because a few seconds later Brian was holding the back door open and waiting for us to pile in.
“Wait a minute,” he said, looking at Griffin. “We only got room for four guys here.”
“Fine,” Griffin said. “We’ll just be on our way, then.”
“Hold the phone,” Brian said. “You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t be taking this car anyway. It’s kind of conspicuous. You know what I mean?”
“You got a point there,” Trey said. “Everybody in town knows the House’s Camaro.”
“You guys got a car?”
So yeah. That’s how I ended up driving. Brian sat up front with me. Danny, Trey, and Griffin squeezed into the back.
“We’re just gonna play a little joke on somebody,” Brian said to me. He smoothed his hands over the rolled-up banner. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing hardcore.”
I looked in the rearview mirror, caught Griffin’s eye. He put his hands up. Like, why the hell not?
Brian told me to head to the center of town. We rolled down Main Street, past the liquor store. I was still feeling the effects of the Sucker Punch, so I ended up having to brake hard as we passed under the railroad bridge. For one moment I thought with absolute certainty that we’d hit the embankment and we’d all be killed. Then I pulled out of it just in time.
“I hate that fucking bridge,” Brian said. When we hit the edge of town, Brian told me to keep going. We were on a lonely stretch of road now, nothing but trees whizzing by us on both sides. We were heading east.
“You figured out where we’re going now?” Brian said.
I shook my head.
“There’s somebody we really need to give this banner to.”
I shook my head again.