Chapter #44Fast Talk at Westside High, Part Deux by: Seuzz   Fourth period is when you could go find Kelly Rinaldi in Ms. Gladstone's English IV class -- the one she shares with Will Prescott -- but that's your new lunch period, which Eric always takes with Tim and/or other friends. Tim suggests spending it out on the front quad with Daniel Lujan and some of the other band people, but you run into Lee Reynolds while pushing through the hallways, and so wind up out behind the school with him and some other guys who are rather too skeezy for Tim's taste. So your best friend grumbles with bad grace and sits a little off to the side instead of dropping directly into the circle with you and the others.
They're not a bad group, not by Eric's standards, though you're laughing a little nervously on the inside as you tear the wax paper off your sandwich and jam it in your mouth, for Will Prescott wouldn't much like to hang out with them. Lee is probably the most respectable of the bunch. He's tall and skinny, but Eric has seen him with his shirt off, and knows that he's covered with wiry muscle all over. With his dark hair -- the bangs of which hang down over one of his pale blue eyes -- and his white t-shirt and dirty black jeans, he looks like he should ride a motorcycle to school. Which is exactly what he does.
Roy Booth is with you again, still sporting that backwards-turned Mets cap on his thick mop of brown hair. He's peeled off his heavy jacket, though, to expose his tank top and muscled arms. Like Lee, he wears dark, stiff jeans and boots. Zachary Herman, who is also with you again, has eyes and a muzzle that have been unkindly compared to an orangutan, a resemblance not improved by a mullet of platinum-blonde hair that falls over his eyebrows and ears and the back of his neck. And like Roy, he's flaunting his guns in a tank top.
Kyle Kent is the last of the group. Like Will Prescott, he wears a ball cap jammed down over stiff blond hair. There the resemblance ends, however, for Kent has flinty eyes, a wide, leering smile, and a habit of grabbing things away from people and punching them when they try to take them back.
He also has a new skateboard sticking up out of his book bag, and you ask to look at it and also ask when you're going to get to try it out. "Buy me an ounce," he says as he lounges on one elbow and bites the top off a cupcake, "and you can take it home and fuck it, for all I care," he mumbles around a mouthful of frosting.
"He's not going to buy you an ounce," Tim sneers.
"Sure I can," you retort. "I can do that. I'll get me an ounce too."
"You can't afford it."
"Eat a dick. Chen gives me discounts."
"Chen gives you -- !" Lee arches his back as laughter wracks his long, lean frame. "Chen don't give discounts."
"He does to me. We're, like, simpatico or something. I mean, he doesn't always give me discounts," you hastily add when you catch Zachary staring at you with slack-jawed astonishment. "But sometimes I don't even gotta ask. He'll be like, dude, twenty percent off just for being you." You flash a complicated gang sign that you just made up.
"Bullshit!" Lee howls. "You are so full of shit, man! Bullshit and dogshit and elephantshit and -- !"
Kyle rolls onto his back. "He's back behind the portables, you know, him and his homeboys," he tells the sky. You sit up straight and look in the indicated direction. "So go get me an ounce." He jams the rest of the cupcake into his mouth hole. "Now."
"How about I get you an eighth?"
"You don't get to fuck my skateboard for an eighth."
"I don't wanna fuck your skateboard at all. But I'll get you an eighth." You stand up.
"At a discount?" Lee asks. His eyes are watering with merriment.
"Free. For fucking free," you retort, and you turn out your pockets, dropping two fives and a one to the grass. Zachary scrambles for them. "You can hold my wallet and keys, too," you add as you drop them. "Bring you an eighth, man," you tell Kyle, "and it won't cost me one. Fucking. Dollar."
"Sit down, Eric," Tim says, sounding very tired. "You're gonna get your teeth broke or something."
"One. Eighth. No. Dollars." And off you go.
The laughter that sounds behind you is suppressed and a little nervous. And you're halfway to the portables when you hear running footsteps, and Roy pants up and grabs you. "Dude, if you're gonna do this, I should come with you."
"For what?"
"'Cos of Chen," he says. His smile is like a rictus, and his eyes dart feverishly about. "I know you, man, you're gonna try to bluff him, and he's not gonna go for it."
"I'm not gonna bluff anyone, I'm telling you -- "
"What, are you gonna sell your car to him or something, just to get that eighth, so you can bring it back and tell us --? Look, I know him, I know he doesn't give discounts or freebies or -- "
"I'm not shitting you guys," you hotly retort. "I'm gonna get an eighth off him."
Roy gasps. "Well -- Jesus! Can I watch?"
"I'm not gonna suck him off, if that's what you're -- "
"No, I just wanna see you ask him."
"There's not going to be anything to see!"
"I wanna watch anyway."
You shrug. "Whatever, man." You resume walking, and Roy shuffles along beside you.
But just as you're nearing the first portable, he balks. "I changed my mind," he says, and laughs nervously. "You're on your own." He grins desperately, steps back a couple of feet, then sprints the way you'd come. He glances once over his shoulder, and the terror and wonder in his eyes is visible even at thirty yards. You shrug, and resume walking.
* * * * *
There are eighteen portables at the rear of the school, backing up against a wide field that once might have been farmland but which is now a pasture thick with broken grasses and weeds. They are arranged in a double row in a horseshoe pattern, so you have to trudge past three trailer-length portables to reach the back of the cluster. They are in pitiable condition, their paint long since blistered and peeled, to expose wood that has turned a jaundiced yellow. Dark, narrow window stare blindly from under their shallow eaves. Distantly, you recall being in this neighborhood a week or two ago, and being ambushed by some guys. It takes you a moment to remember that it happened to you twice, once at the hands of Joshua Call and his friends, and once at the hands of Philip Fairfax and his.
Also, it happened to Will Prescott, not to Eric Murphy.
But you hear no voices now, and you start wondering if Kyle made a mistake, or was just trying to wind you up, or if Chen and his friends have moved on to lurk elsewhere. You hope not, for even if it would be easiest to go back and tell Kyle and them that Chen wasn't there, they wouldn't believe you, and would accuse you of sneaking back like a weaselly little shit.
Because that's what you'd accuse them of doing if it was someone else.
But then you turn the corner, and there he is.
Gary Chen.
He's squatting in the grass with a cigarette. One of his asshole friends -- Joe Thomason -- is with him.
Thomason was one of the guys who tossed you around the day they stole the grimoire out of your backpack. He's a tall, rail-thin skinhead, with a fat metal stud in one ear and tattoos on his hands. He is one of the last people on campus that you'd like to be alone with.
But you'd still prefer his company to that of Gary Chen.
Westside High School's exclusive supplier of weed looks up at you with dark eyes that are curved like scimitars. He's wearing heavy trousers, work boots, a camo jacket, and a tight, gray skullcap. His upper lip pulls back, like a dog showing its fangs. His eyes glitter with suspicion.
And yet your pulse doesn't even race as you chuck your chin at him in greeting. "Hey man," you say. "Gimme an eighth?"
"An eighth? Gimme a fifty," he says, and sucks on his cigarette.
"I don't got fifty."
"Then go take a shit in your hand."
"Come on, man." You put on your friendliest grin. "Some guys dared me, said I couldn't get a freebie off you."
Thomason lets out a low whistle, and looks away. Chen stares at you, then wedges the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and stands up. For a count of three you return his sullen stare with a bright one of your own. Then his hand flies at your face.
You're not even sure what he does, all you know is that suddenly the whole side of your head is on fire, and then your knee acquires a tongue and a mouth and a throat and starts screaming. Something hits you in your hands, and it takes a moment to realize you're kneeling on the ground on all fours. "Say fucking what?" a hard voice demands from above.
"Oh, let him fuck off," says another voice -- a weary voice -- Thomason's voice. "He's just a dumbfuck."
"Dumbfucks are too smart to ask for freebies. He's a smart-mouthed fuckface, is what he is." A blow like from a bat knocks you face-first into the wall of the portable. "You wanna fuck with me, you little fuck?" A kick to your stomach knocks all the air from you. "Fuck off. You ever make eye contact with me again, I'll tie you to my front bumper and play chicken with a brick wall."
* * * * *
"He's in a bad mood," you tell your friends when you've staggered back to them. "Someone shat in his stash."
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