I love dick.
It was hard to breathe. His lungs did not seem to be working properly. He tried to suck in air, but his mouth was so dry that the inhalation tasted dusty and harsh and almost made him throw up. The paper was shaking noisily in his trembling hand and he let it fall to the dirt. He looked up at Lane. His friend was grinning hugely, his face filled with a sickening expression of smugness.
And lust.
Billy said nothing, but lashed out. His fist struck Lane full on the face, and unprepared, the other boy fell backward onto the ground. Billy kicked him in the side. His eyes were stinging and it was difficult to see, and it took him a second to realize that he was crying.
Lane scrambled to his feet. He was obviously in pain, his face red, nose bloody, eyes watering, but he was grinning crazily. "She said she wants it, and I wrote her back and said I'd give it to her. I'll fuck her all she wants."
Billy struck out again, but this time Lane was prepared. He punched Billy hard in the stomach, and Billy went down, doubling over, clutching his midsection.
Lane scrambled up the rope, through the trapdoor. "I'mgonna show this to everyone," he said. "Maybe otherpeople'll want to try your mom too."
And Billy lay crying on the ground as he heard his ex-friend's footsteps run over the twigs and leaves toward home.
20
Doug crouched on the porch, looking through the telescope at the trees on the ridge. Tonight would be a full moon, and he had brought the telescope outside so he could see the craters. They had gotten the telescope for Billy last Christmas, and the boy's interest in astronomy had waxed and waned since then in cycles roughly corresponding to those of the moon. The last time he'd used the telescope the high-powered setting had seemed somewhat blurry, and he'd asked his dad to check it out, but Doug had not had a chance to do so until now.
He focused the eyepiece until he could see the individual needles of a pine tree atop the ridge. Billy was right. The magnified view was a little blurry, but it probably wasn't enough to hamper anyone's enjoyment. They would still be able to see craters fairly clearly.
He swung the telescope over until he was looking at the Ridge Road. It was after seven and the sun was setting fairly fast. The dirt road winding up to the top of the cliff appeared orange in the fading light. He was about to use the telescope to look at something else when he saw movement at the bottom of his field of vision.
A red car moving slowly up the road.
Doug's heart skipped a beat.
The mailman was driving up to the top of the ridge.
A wave of cold passed over him. Ridge Road ran parallel to the highway through town before swerving up to the top of the cliff and unceremoniously dead-ending in an empty field strewn with boulders. The road intersected Oak right next to the school and was used as a lovers' lane by many of the high schoolers, but no one lived on top of the ridge.
There was no place on its summit to deliver mail.
The car passed over the top and Doug looked up from the telescope, standing. Even with his naked eye, he could clearly see the road from here, a light slice curving through the darkness of the ridge. He could not make out the detail he could through the telescope, but he would have no problem seeing a car go up or down the road.
He stared, waiting.
Waited, staring.
The sun sank lower in the west, throwing the face of the ridge into shadow until he could no longer differentiate between trees and cliff and road.
Although he would have no trouble seeing the mailman's car descend if its lights were on, there was no way he'd be able to spot the car with its headlights off.
He had a gut feeling, however, that the mailman was still up there on top of the ridge and would be for some time.
What could he be doing? Doug opened the screen door quickly and sneaked inside the house before the bugs hovering near the porch light could follow.
Tritia was putting away the last of the dinner dishes and Billy was already upstairs.
"I'm going to cruise down to Circle K," Doug announced.
Tritia closed the cupboard. "What for?"
He had no lie handy, but his voice didn't falter as he made up an excuse on the spur of the moment. "I just had a sudden urge for a candy bar. You want one?" She shook her head. There was a suspicious look on her face, but she said nothing.
"Big Hunk!" Billy called from upstairs.
"What if they don't have any?"
"Reese's!"
"Okay." He turned back toward Tritia . "Anything for you? Granola bar maybe?"
"No." She was quiet for a moment and looked as though she was about to say something, but she remained silent.
"I'll be back in fifteen minutes or so." Doug opened the screen door and stepped out, closing it behind him.
Tritia followed him onto the porch. "Be careful," she said quietly.
He turned to look at her. She knew something or sensed something. He could tell she was worried. He wanted to talk to her, to let her know what he was going to do, but somehow the words wouldn't come. He nodded, saying nothing, and walked down the steps to the Bronco.
He drove quickly, once he was out of eyesight and ear-shot of the house, eager to get over to the ridge, though he had the feeling the mailman wasn't going anywhere.
It was strange. The mailman had never, to Doug's knowledge, been seen shopping, buying gas, eating, or doing anything other than official postal work.
It was hard, in a town this small, to remain completely to oneself, to remain a mystery, and before this, he would have thought it impossible. Even if a person was pathologically antisocial, his neighbors would notice his comings and goings, his personal habits, and would report to their friends, who would report to their friends, and so on until the entire town was informed of his movements.
A small town was no place for an individual who craved anonymous privacy, no place for a recluse. But the mailman seemed to be pulling it off.
Now, however, he had the opportunity to see the mailman after hours.
And Doug had the feeling he was doing something other than postal work.
He swung onto the highway and sped through town, braking to thirty-five just before the speed trap next to the bank. He turned off on Oak and followed it to the Ridge Road, hands growing increasingly sweaty on the steering wheel.
There were no streetlights here and the road was dark. He slowed to a crawl as he reached the top of the ridge, not sure of what he would find, not wanting to give himself away.
The land at the top was fiat, tall grass and weeds punctuated by boulders of various sizes but without any significant foliage to hide behind. He cut the headlights and pulled to the side of the road, turning off the engine so as not to attract attention to himself. He was scared, but he had to go through with this. He rolled down the Bronco's window. The moon in the east was starting to rise, casting long shadows on theridgetop . The road, he knew, ended just a mile up ahead, and unless the mailman had left while Doug was driving over here, he was somewhere in between these two points.
Doug sat in the car for a few moments longer, gathering his courage, giving his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. There was a slight breeze blowing, a wispy, barely perceptible current of air that animated the blue-lit grass stalks and whispered sibilantly. Only . . . only there was another noise besides the wind whispers. A low faint murmur coming from somewhere up ahead, rising and falling with the tides of the breeze.
The mailman.
Goose bumps rippled down Doug's arms. Slowly, carefully, quietly, he opened the car door and got out, closing it softly. He began walking forward, keeping to the side of the road, grateful he was wearing dark clothes that would allow him to blend in with the night.
The ridge was not entirely flat, he saw now. It appeared so from a car, but walking, he noticed that a slight rise continued imperceptibly forward, the grade just enough to shield the center of the ridge from view.