Fiends

A Good, Secret Place

The new kid came up the street from the house where Eddie and Sharon used to live. We’d seen him once before, the day he moved in. Even from a distance, we’d wanted nothing much to do with him. For starters, he couldn’t have been older than about twelve. For finishers, you could tell he was a dork.

So there we were, Jim and I, playing catch in my front yard on one of those really fine summer nights just at dusk. The neighborhood was so quiet about the only sound was the hardball smacking into our mitts. And this new kid came strolling up the street.

It was pretty obvious what he had in mind. He was wearing a mitt.

Not just any mitt - a first baseman’s glove. Have you ever noticed that the real dopey kids of this world always use a first baseman’s glove? I think it’s because they’re scared of the ball. A big leather scoop like that let’s them go for it without getting too close.

Anyway, he didn’t come onto the lawn. He stayed at the edge of the street, off past Jim’s side, and watched us. We pretended he wasn’t there. Easy enough for Jim, since he didn’t have to look at the kid. He kept his face toward me as we fired the ball back and forth. Once in a while, he rolled his eyes toward the sky.

Other than being too young for us and wearing that stupid first baseman’s glove, the kid was dumpy. He looked like he hadn’t washed his hair for a month, and greasy strands hung down his forehead. He had a face like a pig. Fat, with little pink eyes. And a red nose that was runny, so he kept sniffing and every so often he’d stick his tongue up to lick the snot off his lip. We wore a red shirt with yellow flowers on it. It hung unbuttoned at the bottom. His belly bulged out through the gap like gray pudding. Lower down, you could see his boxers. Like he’d hitched them up, but forgotten to hitch up his pants. They were white with blue stripes. His pants, which looked about ready to drop, were plaid Bermuda shorts. They had huge, swollen pockets, and reached down to his knees. Below his fat calves, he wore black socks. He wore sandals on his feet.

I’m not joking. That’s actually what the kid looked like.

He was a real prize.

I tried to keep my eyes off him, but it wasn’t easy, the way he just stood there off to the side of Jim, watching us throw. I wished he would go away. And I felt like a jerk for ignoring him. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, sniffing and licking his snot, and sort of smiling.

Pretty soon, he started to sock his fist into his mitt.

I really couldn’t take that. It’s no fun at all, being left out of stuff.

So I called, ‘Heads up, kid,’ and threw him the ball. I didn’t burn it in, nothing like that. I tossed it high and easy and right to him. He lit up for a second, then looked alarmed as the ball got closer. Ducking and turning his face away, he reached up with his huge scoop of a glove and didn’t even come close. The ball flew past him and went sailing off down the street. About the time it bounced on the pavement, he checked his mitt. He frowned, like he was really surprised to find it empty. Then he said, ‘Sorry.’

That was the first word I ever heard him say. Sorry.

Then he went chasing after the ball.

‘Good going, Ricky babes,’ Jim said.

‘What do you want? What was I supposed to do, ignore him?’

‘Now we’ll probably be stuck with the little creep.’

‘It’s getting dark, anyway. Maybe we’d better call it a night pretty soon.’

‘Yeah, I’m all for that.’

But we had to wait for the ball. The kid took a while trying to find it. Finally, he dug it out of the flower bed in front of the Watson house and came loping up the street. Still a ways off, he gave it a throw.

‘God!’ Jim muttered. ‘What is he, a girl?’

It was my ball, my fault, so I had to chase it down. I wasn’t eager to pick it up, considering it had been in the kid’s hand and was probably sticky. So I snatched it off the grass with my mitt. By the time I got back with it, the kid was stepping over the curb, walking toward Jim.

‘Getting pretty dark,’ I said. ‘I guess we’d better call it quits for now.’

‘Do we have to?’ the kid asked.

I didn’t like the sound of that ‘we.’

‘Yeah, we’d lose the ball.’

‘Well, all right.’ He sniffed and backhanded some goo off his upper lip. ‘I’m George Johnson. We just moved in.’ He swung a pudgy arm out behind him. ‘Over there.’

‘I’m Rick. This is Jim.’

Luckily, he didn’t try to shake hands with us.

‘You guys sure are good.’

‘It just takes practice,’ I said, figuring he meant we were good with the ball.

‘You want a Twinkie?’ He shoved a hand down into a bulging front pocket of his shorts and pulled out a cellophane pack. The twin, cream-filled yellow cakes inside looked pretty smashed.

‘Thanks anyhow,’ I said. ‘I just had dinner.’

‘Please,’ George said. ‘They’re good.’

‘What the hell,’ Jim said. He stuck his mitt under his arm, took the package from George, said ‘Thanks,’ and ripped it open. He scooted one of the mooshed Twinkies off the cardboard backing and held it toward me.

‘There’s only two of ’em,’ I said. ‘You eat it, George.’

‘Oh, I got plenty. I want it to be yours.’

Well, it had been wrapped up. So I went ahead and took it.

Jim and I both had our mouths full when George said, ‘Will you be my friends?’

How can you say no to a kid who has just given you a Twinkie?

‘Yeah, well…’ I said.

‘What the hell,’ Jim said.

The next day, we made the mistake of riding our bikes past George’s house. We were heading for the Fashion Mall, a good place to hang out and watch the babes - especially Cyndi Taylor. She was a varsity cheerleader and didn’t know we existed, but she had a summer job working at Music World. We could pretend to brouse through the CDs and tapes for about an hour, and spend the whole time scoping her out. I know, that might sound kind of dumb. You wouldn’t think so, though, if you’d ever seen Cyndi.

The only thing was, George must’ve been keeping a lookout. We hadn’t even gotten past his house when the screen door banged and he ran out, yelling, ‘Hey, guys! Wait up!’

Jim gave me a disgusted look, but George was still in his pajamas so I figured we were safe. We swung our bikes to the curb.

‘Hiya, George,' Jim said.

George stopped beside us, huffing and grinning. ‘Hey, where we going?’

‘Nowhere,’ I said. ‘Just tooling around.’

‘Great! I’ll be right out!’

‘That’s all right,’ Jim said. ‘Don’t you have something else you’ve gotta do?’

‘Nope!’ And off he ran, his big butt bouncing the seat of his Pajamas.

The screen door whammed shut.

‘Terrific,’ I muttered.

‘Let’s beat it,’ Jim said.

So that’s what we did.

We sprinted our bikes for the corner, sped around it, then cut down the first alley. All the way to the mall, we kept glancing back, afraid George might be on our tails. But he wasn’t.

He didn’t show up at the mall, either.

He ruined everything, anyway. I couldn’t quit thinking about him. He’d been so damn excited about coming with us. He’d probably rushed to get dressed, and yelled something to his mom like, ‘Hey, I’m going off with my pals!’ He’d probably been hurrying out to the garage for his bike when he saw we were gone. I wondered if he’d cried. I wondered how he explained to his mom that his friends had left him behind. I felt like a jerk.

I couldn’t even work up much excitement watching Cyndi Taylor glide around the music store. I’d look at her, but mostly I’d see George. I’ve been ditched a few times. I know how it feels.

And it doesn’t always feel much better when you’re the one who did the ditching.

To get home that afternoon, we took a back route so we wouldn’t have to ride past George’s house.

Every night since school let out, we’d been playing catch in my front lawn after dinner. But not that night. I cut across backyards to reach Jim’s place. He had a pool, so he also had a fence. I scrambled over the fence. Jim was waiting. We shot the ball back and forth across the length of the pool. Later on, Jim stood on the diving board. I threw just out of his reach, trying to get him to fall in. After a couple of close calls with him teetering and flapping his arms, he said, ‘I go in and wreck my mitt, it’s your ass!’

‘Language!’ his mom called from inside the house.

When it was almost too dark to see the ball, someone turned on the lights. Then his sister, Joan, came out with a friend. They were both seniors and wearing bikinis. They didn’t talk to us or anything, but it was great while it lasted. They splashed around, all shiny in the water, while we fired the ball from one end of the pool to the other. I think they liked having us there. They floated around on their backs quite a lot.

But then I guess Jim’s mom noticed what was going on and got scared we might bean someone, so she told us to quit.

We went up into the living room and played some Super Mario Brothers till it was time for me to go home.

I took the front way. Off in the distance, I could see George’s house. I realized that, somewhere along the way, I’d stopped feeling rotten about ditching him.

When it was time to set out for the mall the next day, I sped over to Jim’s place. He was waiting on his driveway.

‘Wanta drop by George’s house and see if he wants to come along?’ Jim asked, grinning.

‘In your dreams.’

‘The little shit.’

‘You said it.’

Not only had I quit feeling sorry for the twerp, but I’d found myself really resenting the way he’d messed with our lives. Hell, we couldn’t play catch in my frontyard, we couldn’t ride our bikes past his house. We were like fugitives on our own block, hiding from him. And then we felt guilty about it. I did, anyway. And I didn’t like it. He had no right. So the hell with him.

We coasted down Jim’s driveway. At the street, Jim swung to the right.

‘This way,’ I said, and swung my bike to the left.

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Screw him.’

We picked up a lot of speed by the time we reached George’s house. Neither of us looked at it. I didn’t hear the screen door slap shut, so I figured we must’ve shot past too fast for the little scuzz. Then I looked back.

George, hunched over the handlebars of his ten-speed, swooped down his driveway and swerved into the street. He pumped his pedals like a madman trying to catch up.

‘Oh, no,’ I muttered.

Jim glanced back. ‘Terrific. You and your great ideas.’

‘Hey, wait up!’ George yelled.

‘Wanta ditch him?’ Jim asked.

‘God damn it! The hell with ditching him.’ I slowed down. So did Jim.

George closed the gap. Riding between us, he matched our speed. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘Not much,’ I said.

‘Where’d you guys go yesterday?’

‘Nowhere,’ I said. This hot feeling went through me. It was shame, whether I wanted it or not.

‘I got a sudden case of the trots and had to go home,’ Jim explained. ‘Sorry we couldn’t wait for you. But it would’ve got pretty messy on the street, you know?’

‘Gosh, I’m sorry.’

‘Shit waits for no man,’ Jim added.

George laughed. ‘So, you okay?’

‘Fine,’ Jim muttered, and gave me the eye.

‘So, where we going?’

Jim had saved us with the trots story. Now it was my turn. ‘The pool. Over at the Jefferson Recreational Center.’

George’s smile faded. ‘The pool?’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

He looked confused. Frowning at Jim, he said, ‘Don’t you have a pool?’

Jim didn’t miss a beat. ‘Sure, but all the babes are at the public pool.’

‘You got your trunks with you, George?’ I asked.

He gave our bikes a once-over. ‘Where’s yours?’

‘Wearing ’em,’ I said, and patted the seat of my jeans. ‘Underneath.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’d better go get your trunks,’ Jim said, ‘and we’ll meet you at the pool.’

‘I don’t know where it is.’

Jim gave him directions. George listened, frowning and nodding, then made sort of a nervous smile and said, ‘Okay. Guess I can find it.’

‘Great,’ Jim said.

‘See you there,’ I said.

George swung his bike around and pedaled for home.

Jim and I gave each other grins. We headed for the mall.

At Music World, we roamed up and down the aisles pretending to look at stuff while we watched Cyndi. I felt a little guilty about the dirty trick we’d played on George, but forgot about it when Cyndi came over to us. It was almost too much for me, being this close to her. The way she looked and smelled made me ache.

‘Can I help you find something?’ she asked.

I didn’t trust myself to speak. All I could do was shake my head.

‘We’re just browsing around,’ Jim said, the way he always did when she or one of the others came over like this.

‘Fine. If you need any help, be sure to let me know.’

‘We will,’ Jim told her.

She smiled and walked away.

‘Oh, man,’ Jim whispered. ‘What I’d give…’

‘Yeah.’

After she’d left, we had to settle for watching her from a distance. She spent a while helping other customers, and then Bobbi Andrews came into the store. She was the head cheerleader, but nothing at all like Cyndi. While Cyndi was slender and graceful and beautiful, Bobbi was squat and had a face like a rabbit. She was really popular, anyway. There were three reasons for that: her pep and two humongous knockers. I couldn’t care less about any of that. Personally, I thought she was a waste.

But she was Cyndi’s best friend.

They got together near the back of the store and started talking.

We figured that Cyndi was too busy with her to notice us, so we wandered down the aisle for a better view. We were pretty careful about it. We pretended to be greatly interested in various CDs and albums in the trough along the way, and got to the end of the aisle.

Cyndi was close enough to touch if I leaned forward far enough. She stood in the next aisle, leaning back slightly. The edge of the trough just behind her pressed a dent into her pleated skirt - into her rump, too. I could see the straps of her bra through her white blouse. The way her head was turned, I could see the fine, downy fuzz on her smooth cheek.

'... by ten, I think,’ Bobbi was saying when I started to listen. ‘No later than eleven.’

‘No problem,’ Cyndi told her. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll just be pigging out and watching movies.’ Grinning, she nudged Bobbi with her elbow. ‘At least till my parents hit the sack. You won’t miss much. Just don’t forget to bring that extra sleeping bag.’

‘Hope Doris doesn’t fart in it.’

Cyndi elbowed her again, and laughed.

Then Jim elbowed me, and we got away before they could notice we’d been near enough to hear them.

Outside the store, Jim grabbed my arm. ‘Did you hear that?’ He was flushed and breathless. ‘She’s having a slumber party. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

I was.

‘You think it’s tonight?’ he asked.

I knew she didn’t work at Music World on weekends. This was Friday. ‘It’s gotta be either tonight or tomorrow night.’

‘Yeah!’

We took the back route to my house so we wouldn’t have to pass George’s place. When we were safely out of sight in the garage, Jim said, ‘Wonder if he’s still at the pool.’

‘You’d think he might get the message,’ I said.

‘Kids like that never get the message.’

In the house, I asked if Jim could stay the night. Mom saw no problem with that. She suggested he stay for supper, too. Then we made a trip by the backyards to Jim’s place. He got his mom’s permission. After he put together his sleeping bag and overnight stuff, we returned to my house.

It didn’t take long to set up the tent, toss in a couple of pads from the patio lounges, and arrange our sleeping bags.

But the waiting took a long time.

Nothing in the world takes longer than waiting for something really great to happen.

Finally, Dad got home from work. Finally, we ate supper. Finally, darkness came and we went out to the tent.

We had to wear our pajamas and leave our clothes behind. That was how we’d always done it in the past, and we didn’t want to make my parents suspicious by doing anything differently. It wouldn’t be a problem. They expected us to make a few trips back and forth to brush our teeth, use the john, that sort of thing. Once they were off to bed, it would be a cinch to sneak our clothes out.

We took two flashlights into the tent with us. And a couple of cans of Pepsi and a bag of onion-flavored potato chips. We zippered the fly screen, but left the flaps open to get some air. Inside, we sat cross-legged on our sleeping bags and started snacking.

‘This is so neat,’ Jim said.

‘The chips?’

‘You know.’

‘God, I can’t believe we’re gonna do it.’

‘I just hope we can see something.’

‘It’s a one-storey house,’ I said, ‘so they sure won’t be upstairs.’

‘As long as they don’t shut all the curtains.’

‘They won’t. They can’t. It’d be too cruel.’

Jim laughed softly. ‘When do you think we oughta get going?’

‘We’d better wait till after eleven.’

‘Man, I hope we don’t miss everything.’

‘Bobbi won’t even be getting there till then. Anyway, they’ll probably be messing around all night.’

‘We wanta be there in time to see ’em change.’

‘Change into what?’

I wasn’t the one who asked that.

George was the one who asked that.

We both flinched and jerked our heads toward the front of the tent. And saw George crouched on the other side of the fly screen, his piggish face gray in the darkness. We shined our flashlights on him. He squinted and said, ‘Hiya, guys.’

‘What’re you doing here?’ I snapped.

‘You having an over-nighter?’ he asked, just as calm as if he hadn’t heard me.

‘This is private property,’ Jim told him.

‘Can I have some potato chips?’

‘You can’t come in here,’ I said. ‘There isn’t enough room.’

‘I gave you guys my Twinkies.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I said. I didn’t want to argue with him, just get rid of him. So I unzipped the screen and handed out the bag. ‘Help yourself. You can have them all.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Why don’t you take them home,’ I said, ‘and share with your parents.’

‘Oh, they’re out.’ He stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth.

‘Give some to your sitter,’ Jim said.

‘Sitter?’

‘They didn’t leave you alone, did they?’ I asked.

‘Sure. Always do.’

‘Great,’ Jim muttered.

‘So, where we gonna go?’

‘Nowhere,’ I said.

‘We gonna go look in windows?’

How long had he been listening to us?

‘We aren’t going anywhere,’ Jim said.

‘I’ll go with you. I like to look in windows. You get to see all kinds of neat stuff.’

‘What are you,’ Jim asked, ‘a little pervert?’

George laughed, spraying out some potato chip crumbs.

‘You’d better never be looking in my windows,’ I told him.

‘Or mine,’ Jim added.

‘Nah. I only like to see girls.’

‘You been spying on my sister?’ Jim asked.

George shook his head and jammed his mouth full of potato chips.

‘He knew about your pool,’ I reminded Jim.

‘Yeah. You been snooping around my house?’

‘Huh-uh. Honest.’

‘You better never, man.’

‘I’ll give you some good stuff if you let me come with.’

‘You’re not coming “with”,’ I said.

‘Please?’

‘Good stuff like what?’ Jim asked.

‘Twinkies.’

‘That’s no big deal. What else?’

‘Cut it out,’ I told Jim. ‘He’s got nothing we want.’

‘I’ll getcha some booze,’ George said.

‘Really?’ Jim sounded interested.

‘Forget it,’ I said.

‘What kind?’

‘Anything. Pop’s got a whole big bar in the den. And he’s got a wine cellar.’

‘You can get us a bottle of wine?’

‘Sure.’

‘Your old man’ll kill you,’ I said.

George shrugged. ‘He won’t know any better. Sides, who cares if he finds out? I’ll swipe us a bottle, okay?’

‘Cool,’ Jim said.

‘Are you nuts?’ I asked.

‘Are you? Come on. We can tie one on the way over to Cyndi’s.’

‘Good going,’ I muttered. I couldn’t believe he’d spoken her name in front of a sleeze like George.

‘Who’s Cyndi?’ George asked.

‘Nobody,’ I said.

‘Is she the girl we’re gonna spy on?’

‘Go on home and get the wine,’ Jim said. ‘But don’t come back till eleven. We aren’t leaving till then.’

‘Promise you won’t go without me?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Jim said. ‘Now get going.’ George shoved the potato chip bag through the fly screen, then sprang up, and ran off through the dark.

‘You asshole!’ I yelled.

‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘You asshole! You told him Cyndi’s name\ You told him where we’re going\'We\\, I’m not going. Not if that sleazy little shit’s coming with us. No way. I’m not gonna have him spying on Cyndi.’

‘Like he’s been spying on my sister?’

That slowed me down. ‘You think he’s been doing that?’

‘You think he hasn’t? Like you said, how does he know about the pool?’

‘He might’ve heard splashing, or…’

‘From the street? Huh-uh. He’s been snooping around. I bet he’s even climbed over the fence. Joan’s window is right there, man.’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s ever looked in.’

‘Hey, he confessed. He said he looks in girls’ windows.’

‘Not Joan’s, though.’

‘Like I’m sure he’d admit it. Get real. And what do you suppose he was doing in your backyard tonight?’

‘Trying to find us, probably.’

‘Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he came along to check out your parents’ bedroom. Maybe he comes along every night to look in their window. Maybe he gets a charge out of watching your mom undress.’

‘She shuts the curtains,’ I said, feeling kind of hot and awful inside.

‘Yeah, but does she shut them all the way? If there’s even the tiniest open space between…’

‘That dirty bastard better not be watching Mom.’

‘I bet he does. Maybe my mom, too. Maybe Joan and Mom. And your mom. Maybe every gal in the whole neighborhood. You heard him. He likes to look in windows.’

‘If he ever spied on my mom…’

‘We gotta teach him a lesson. That’s how come I said he can come along. You think I want his wine and Twinkies? We’ll take him with us, all right. And then we’ll nail his rotten Peeping Tom ass.’

We lay down on top of our sleeping bags, heads toward the front of the tent so we could keep a lookout for George, and hatched our plans.

At about ten-thirty, the light came on in my parents’ bedroom. Mom stepped up to the window and pulled the curtains shut. After a while, the light went off. But a faint, trembly glow showed through the curtains. It came from their TV, which they liked to watch in bed till after the eleven o’clock news. They weren’t likely to get up again except maybe to use the john.

‘Ready to go?’ Jim asked.

‘Pretty soon.’

We waited a while longer. I was feeling awfully nervous. Not so much about sneaking into the house for our stuff. About the rest of it.

Finally, I said, ‘Okay.’

We crawled out of the tent and crossed the patio to the back door. We didn’t try to be quiet shutting the door and heading for the bathroom. Jim went in. I waited in the hall. When he flushed the toilet, I used the noise as a cover to rush into my bedroom. I flicked on the light, found a coil of rope in my closet and gathered up our clothes. Quick as I could, I turned the light off. Then I waited in the darkness at the doorway until Jim flushed the toilet again. While it made its gushy running sounds, I hurried to the back door. I opened it, stepped outside, checked my parents’ window to make sure nobody was looking, and ran to the tent.

I kept watch through the fly screen.

Before long, Jim came out.

He crawled into the tent.

‘Any problem?’ I whispered.

‘No sweat.’

We turned on our flashlights just long enough to sort out our clothes. Then, in the darkness, we stripped. It felt weird, being naked, feeling the warm air on my body, the sleeping bag under my rump. It might’ve been kind of exciting if there’d been nothing on my mind except going to Cyndi’s house. But George had ruined things.

Once all my clothes were on except my shirt, I wrapped the rope around my waist. It had to go around several times. I did it carefully so the coils weren’t all bunched on top of each other, but arranged flat against my skin. I tucked the ends underneath.

I’d just put on my shirt when Jim whispered, ‘Here he comes.’ Quickly, I fastened the buttons.

We picked up our flashlights and crawled outside.

Jim pressed a finger to his lips. George nodded, and raised the grocery sack he was carrying.

I led the way. We stopped at the side of the garage.

‘You got the stuff?’ Jim asked.

‘Sure.’ George opened the sack. He lifted out a wine bottle. ‘I got the Twinkies, too.’

‘Great. Put it away.’

‘Don’t you want some now?’

‘Later.’

‘We know a good, secret place along the way,’ I whispered. ‘We’ll stop there and have a little party.’

‘Neat!’ George said.

The hike to our ‘good, secret place’ took about twenty minutes.

It was a railroad underpass beneath Jefferson Avenue.

If George hadn’t been with us, Jim and I would’ve walked over it just as fast as possible and been mighty glad to leave it behind us.

Even in daylight, the place gave us both the creeps.

We’d never gone down there at night.

I felt jittery the whole time as we walked toward it.

Partly, I was worried that we might be spotted by cops or by someone we knew in the cars that went by. I turned my face away every time a car approached us from the front.

Mostly, though, I was scared about going down into the underpass.

We’d explored it quite a few times. From what we’d found, we knew that other people used the place. There was writing on the concrete walls, some of it pretty weird and sick. And there was always a lot of junk scattered around: empty booze bottles, smashed beer cans and cigarette packs, a ratty blanket or two, even an old, stained mattress. Clothes, too. Like a flat, dirty sneaker, a sock, somebody’s old underwear, a pair of pants.

Once, we got pretty excited when we spotted a bra. Jim had picked it up. It was caked with dry mud, and one of the shoulder straps was torn loose.

Our best discovery was a copy of Penthouse magazine. It must’ve gotten soaked a while before we found it, because its pages were all stiff and swollen, and a lot of them were stuck together. We peeled them apart and got to see quite a few pictures. We took that magazine with us, and Jim kept it hidden in his room.

Our most revolting discovery was a used condom. We didn’t touch that.

The creepiest thing we ever found down there, I guess, was the remains of a campfire - a circle of scorched rocks around a heap of ashes. In with the ashes were a couple of charred cans and a whole bunch of small bones. We figured they were probably turkey bones, or something. Until I found the skull. I picked it up and blew off the ashes. It had a short snout and pointed teeth. Jim said, ‘God, that’s a cat!’ I yelled and dropped it. The skull hit a rock and shattered.

After that, we’d stayed clear of the underpass.

I sure didn’t look forward to going back tonight.

I would’ve chickened out except for one thing: it was the perfect place for making George wish he’d never messed with us.

Too soon, we got there.

Jim halted just short of where the bridge’s guard rail started. We stood there, silent, and waited for a car to pass. When it was out of sight, another set of headlights showed in the distance. Jim must’ve figured the driver couldn’t see us yet. He whispered, ‘This way, quick,’ and stepped off the sidewalk.

‘Where we going?’ George asked.

‘It’s a great place,’ I told him. ‘Nice and private.’

Before the car got much closer, we followed Jim into the trees. We were hidden by the time it whooshed by. We crept past a few trees, then began climbing down a steep, bushy slope toward the tracks. To the right, the tracks stretched off across an empty field, shiny in the moonlight. To the left, they vanished in the black mouth of the underpass.

A couple more cars sped by, but they didn’t worry me. We were low enough for the guard rail to prevent anyone from seeing us.

The weeds were dewy. They made my jeans wet to the knees. I slipped once or twice. George landed on his butt once. But finally we made it down the slope and climbed a small embankment to the tracks.

‘That’s our place,’ I told George.

‘Under there?’ He didn’t sound thrilled.

Jefferson Avenue was four lanes wide, so the dark area beneath it looked like a tunnel. We could see the gray of moonlight at the other end, but it was too dim to show us much of anything in the underpass.

‘Hope nobody’s there,’ I muttered.

‘Keep your eyes peeled,' Jim said. ‘And get ready to run like hell.’

‘Can’t we just stay here?’ George asked.

Jim shook his head. ‘Somebody might see us from the road. Let’s go.’

‘I don’t know,’ George said.

‘You wanted to come along,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah, but…’

‘Hey,’ Jim said. ‘If you want to run around with the big guys, you’ve gotta do what we do.’

‘Or you can go on home,’ I said. ‘It’s up to you, but we’re going in there.’

He hung back while Jim and I stepped over a rail and started walking down the middle of the tracks toward the underpass. I really hoped George would chicken out. I didn’t want to go under there, didn’t want to nail him, wanted only to have him out of our lives so we could hurry on to Cyndi’s house.

But he shrugged and came after us.

There were two sets of tracks. They ran side by side, several yards apart. Ahead of us, broad concrete supports stood between them.

We waited until we were just under the edge of the bridge, then switched on our flashlights. George dug into the paper sack and came up with a big, six-volt lantern.

‘All right,' Jim whispered.

We shined our beams into the darkness. George’s was really huge and bright. We swept our lights all over the place before going any further.

‘Looks okay,' Jim murmured.

It didn’t look okay. Not at all. But at least we didn’t spot anyone.

Jim aimed his beam at the nearest support. The concrete was scrawled with names and dirty words and dates and drawings. The drawings were pretty crude. The biggest was an old one that I’d seen plenty of times before. It showed a cartoonish gal with huge tits and her legs spread apart. Jim and I used to call her ‘The Beave.’ Since the last time we’d been here, somebody’d added a mammoth erection just underneath her. It was aimed between her legs, and squirting like a geyser.

Normally, we would’ve had a good time studying the artwork and making remarks. But George was with us. And we were in a hurry to get to Cyndi’s. And this was night.

Neither of us got cute.

‘Check the other side, George,’ Jim said.

‘Me?’

‘You got the good light. Make sure nobody’s hiding behind those things.’

‘Aw, geez.’

‘Just do it,’ I told him. ‘We don’t want some damn wino jumping us.’

George moaned, but did as he was told. He crept past the support, shined his lantern behind it, raised the light to check the backsides of the other three supports, and swung it every which way. ‘Okay over there,’ he said, his voice shaking. He hurried back to our side of the tunnel. ‘Want me to open the wine?’

‘Might as well,’ Jim said.

George squatted, set down his sack, and lifted out the bottle. He stood up with it. Jim held his light on its neck while George picked at the foil with a dirty fingernail.

I took the opportunity to look around. I stayed put, but swept my light here and there. It gleamed off the glass of an empty bottle a few feet away. Over near the wall was a rag, maybe a shirt. It was surrounded by broken glass, cans, mashed cigarette packs. Halfway up the wall was an enormous black Swastika. I’d seen it before, but the drawing beside it was new to me - a rump with a hard-on shoved into its hole.

I decided to quit looking around.

George had the wine bottle clamped between his legs, a Swiss Army knife in his hands. He pried out the knife’s corkscrew, then bent over and started twisting it into the top of the bottle.

Once it was in deep, he started pulling and grunting.

‘Awful tight,’ he muttered.

‘Why don’t you give it a try,’ Jim said to me.

George handed over the bottle. I set my flashlight on the ground, pinned the bottle between my legs the same way he’d done, and tugged on the knife.

At first, the cork wouldn’t give.

‘Hurry it up,’ Jim said. ‘We don’t wanta be late to Cyndi’s.’

It moved just a little.

Then it slid out fast. As it popped free, Jim shot an arm across George’s chest, whipped a leg behind him, and flung him backwards. George yelped with surprise. Grunted when he slammed the ground.

I knew this was what we’d planned, but Jim’s sudden attack probably surprised me as much as George.

I put the knife and bottle down fast.

George, wheezing for air, didn’t struggle as Jim rolled him over and dropped onto his rump.

I pulled up my shirt. I unwrapped the rope. By the time I was on my knees beside them, Jim had both George’s arms bent up behind him.

‘Guys!’ George gasped. ‘What’re you…?’

‘Shut up,’ Jim snapped. ‘We aren’t gonna hurt you.’

I started tying George’s hands together.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Don’t! Don’t!’

‘Calm down,’ Jim told him.

‘Is… is this… some kinda ’nitiation?’

‘Sure,’ Jim said.

‘Is not!’ I said. ‘Why’d you wanta say that? He’ll think he’s… It’s no initiation George. You’re not joining something. We just wanted to be left alone, damn it, but you wouldn’t get the message. You’re not our friend. You’re a fat, grubby little pain in the ass!’

George started blubbering.

‘And a Peeping Tom!’

‘Yeah!’ Jim joined in. ‘You been spying on my sister, you dirty pervert!’

‘Who else you been spying on?’

‘Nuh… nobody!’

‘I bet,’ Jim said.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And you think you’re gonna go with us to Cyndi’s, you got another thing coming!’

Jim climbed off him, grabbed him by the feet and shoved his legs up till his calves were mashed against the backs of his thighs. Done with the hands, I looped the rope around his ankles, pulled it taut, and tied his feet together.

By the time I finished, George was bawling.

‘You’d better cut that out,’ Jim warned him. ‘Somebody might hear you.’

‘They might come for you,’ I added.

‘Puh… Please!’

‘I’d be very quiet, if I were you,’ Jim said.

‘From now on,’ I said, ‘you just stay away from us.’

We stepped back. Jim turned off George’s lantern and picked up the wine bottle. He took two packs of Twinkies out of the sack. I twisted the cork off George’s knife and put the knife on the ground a couple of yards away from him. Then I picked up my flashlight and stuffed it into my pocket.

‘If you’re still here when we get back,’ I told him, ‘we’ll untie you.’

‘If we come back,’ Jim added.

As we hurried out into the moonlight, George blurted things like ‘Please!’ and ‘Don’t leave me here!’ and ‘Come back!’ But he cut it out when we were about halfway up the slope.

‘Here,’ Jim said, and offered me a pack of Twinkies as we walked across the bridge.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to eat his stuff. I mean, we double-crossed him.’

Jim grinned. ‘Got him good, huh?’

‘Maybe we oughta go back down and let him go.’

‘Are you nuts? We’ve already wasted enough time. Besides, the little dork would probably still wanta come with us. He’ll think we were joking or something, and we’ll be right back where we started.’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘Anyhow, he’ll probably get loose and be outa there in five minutes.’

‘I don’t know. I tied him pretty good.’

‘So maybe it’ll take him ten. Don’t go feeling sorry for him. He asked for it, he got it.’

‘Yeah. Maybe he’ll stay out of our face after this.’

‘And stay away from our windows. I ever catch him spying on Joan or Mom, he’ll think he got off easy tonight. I’ll cut off his dick and make him eat it.’

‘Oh, gross.’

‘Give him a Hostess weenie.’

I elbowed Jim, and laughed.

He made me hold the wine bottle while he unwrapped his Twinkies. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he said through a mooshy mouthful.

Watching him, I could almost taste the things. Pretty soon, I said, ‘He owes us, you know.’

‘Huh?’

‘For all the crap he put us through.’

‘Damn right.’

‘Besides, he ate our potato chips.’

‘Sure did.’

I took the other package from Jim, gave him the bottle back, tore off the cellophane and started eating. I was about halfway through my first Twinkie when Jim took a drink of the wine.

He sighed. ‘Good stuff.’

He passed the bottle to me. I had a couple of swallows. It made my mouth pucker. When it hit my stomach, it seemed to turn into fire. ‘Thlightly impertinent,’ I said.

That got a big laugh out of Jim.

We walked along, taking slugs of wine and bites of Twinkie, swinging the bottle out of sight every time a car approached from either the front or the rear. Once we got away from Jefferson, there were a lot fewer cars. By then, the Twinkies were gone and the bottle was almost half empty. I was feeling pretty great.

‘Let’s save the rest,’ Jim said.

‘What for?’

‘For us, stupid.’

We yucked it up.

After calming down, Jim said, ‘Hey, we don’t wanta get polluted.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

‘Where’s the cork?’ I gave it to him, and he squeezed it into the bottle’s neck. ‘We’ll save it for the return trip.’

That sounded like a fine idea.

He carried it the rest of the way to Cyndi’s house.

Except for a lamp at the end of the driveway, Cyndi’s house was dark. Not even the porch light was on.

‘What gives?’ Jim asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is her house, isn’t it?’

‘Sure.’

We’d both been there before. Three times, we’d followed her home after school, first to find out where she lived, then later just because we liked to watch her walk, books clutched to her chest, hair golden in the sunlight, skirt swinging.

‘Sure looks like her house,’ Jim muttered.

‘That’s because it is.’

‘Maybe they’re around back.’

So we hurried across the frontyard and made our way alongside the house. The windows there were dark. So were those in the rear, and those along the other side. I was shaking pretty badly the whole time, scared of getting caught, thrilled by our search for the girls. I could see why a guy like George might get a kick out of sneaking around like that. It was a real charge. But the charge died when we got to the street.

‘Well, shit,’ Jim said.

‘We must’ve gotten here too late.’

‘Thanks to George, the little shit.’

‘Damn it!’

‘This is the right house, right?’ Jim asked.

‘Of course it’s… hey! Maybe we’ve got the wrong night! Maybe it’s tomorrow night. All we did was guess, remember?’

‘Yeah! Bet it is tomorrow night.’

‘All right! So no big deal. We’ll come back.’

We turned away from Cyndi’s house, and started walking. ‘Tomorrow,’ Jim said, ‘we won’t have to waste time fooling around with George. He won’t come anywhere near us from now on.’

‘Right. And we’ll get away earlier. Mom and Dad are going out. They won’t be getting home till really late.’

‘Man!’

‘We can leave at like ten or something!’

‘Fantastic!This calls for a drink!’

We passed the bottle back and forth a couple of times. We probably would’ve polished it off and gotten ourselves really smashed, except the bottle got smashed first. Jim stumbled on a raised section of sidewalk. He went lurching forward and the bottle flew. It exploded on the sidewalk in front of us.

Scared that somebody might’ve heard the noise, we ran two blocks and didn’t stop till we reached Jefferson.

When the guard rails of the bridge came into sight, my stomach went kind of cold. The last thing I wanted to do was go down to the underpass.

‘Wonder how Georgie-porgie’s doing,’ Jim said.

‘I guess we’ll have to find out.’

‘I bet he’s already home.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I hope so.’

‘I just hope he’s learned his lesson. It’d sure be a pain if we had to go through this again tomorrow night.’

‘When he sees us coming from now on,’ I said, ‘he’s gonna run the other way.’

"Less he liked it down there.’

‘Nobody could like it down there.’

‘I don’t know. He’s a pretty weird kid.’

‘No kid’s that weird. It’s too damn creepy.’

Jim laughed. ‘Hope he crapped his pants, the little shit.’

At the other side of the bridge, we ducked into the trees and started down the slope. I only looked once at the underpass. The idea of George being tied up in that dark, awful place made me feel kind of sick.

Jim and I both fell on our cans a few times before we got to the bottom of the slope. The wine might’ve had something to do with that.

Finally, we got to the tracks.

We walked between the rails, our flashlights off. With every step, I felt shakier. I told myself that George probably had gotten loose and run home. We wouldn’t need to go under there, at all, just shine our lights in, make sure he was gone, and leave.

He’d probably left my rope behind. It could stay right where it was. I sure didn’t need the rope badly enough to go in after it.

Just where the tracks disappeared into the darkness, we stopped and turned on our flashlights. The shiny rails gleamed. About twenty feet ahead, the rail on the left was draped with rope.

My rope. It had to be.

George had worked himself loose.

Now, we could go home.

Jim’s flashlight swung away from the rail, away from the rope, off to the side where we’d left George.

Just as I’d expected, George wasn’t there.

But he wasn’t gone.

Jim’s light found him a couple of yards closer to the wall.

We both gasped. I felt like I’d been kicked in the belly.

We ran toward George, our beams jerking all around as we tried to spot who’d done it to him. We saw no one.

We stopped by his body but didn’t look down at him. Darted our lights everywhere else. We were both panting, even though we hadn’t run very far. Jim made these weird whiny sounds every time he sucked in a breath.

‘See anyone?’ I asked.

‘Huh-uh.’

‘Maybe… they’re gone.’

I swept my light across the center supports. Four broad, concrete walls. A crazy or two or three might’ve been lurking behind every one of them. I knew one of us should go to the other side for a look. I didn’t have the guts to do it, though.

‘Let’s… get,’ Jim whimpered.

‘Can’t leave him.’

We shined our flashlights down at George. He lay sprawled on his back, his shirt wide open, his boxer shorts and Bermudas hanging off one foot. He was bloody all the way down to his knees.

‘What’d they… do to him?’

I shook my head.

George’s eyes were shut. One was swollen so it looked like a hardboiled egg with a slit across it. I’d seen a boxer on TV one time who had an eye like that after going eleven rounds with the heavyweight champ.

George’s neck was shiny red, but I didn’t see any wounds on it.

He was so fat and dumpy that he actually had tits. I thought about how the other guys probably gave him grief about them when he had to dress for gym class. Then I thought how there wouldn’t be any more gym classes for him. Because of us.

I moved my light down his fat belly.

He looked so lonely and pitiful.

‘Where’d all the blood come from?’ Jim whispered. Stepping behind my back, he moved sideways past George’s hips. Then he froze. The pale beam of his light slanted down between George’s legs. He let out a terrible groan, staggered out of my way, whirled around and started to puke.

I pointed my flashlight at George’s groin.

And knew where all the blood had come from.

Blood still trickled out of the raw open slot where his dick should’ve been.

I went numb and started to sway. I thought I might pass out, and hoped I wouldn’t fall on him. Then my arm got grabbed. I yelped. But it was only Jim.

I started to cry. ‘Look… look what we did.’

‘We didn’t.’

‘They cut off his dick,’ I sobbed.

‘No.’

‘They did! Look! Didn’t you see?’ I pointed my light at the bloody opening.

‘They didn’t cut off his dick, you dope. He never had one. George is a girl. They didn’t cut off nothing. They banged her.’

‘What?’

‘She’s a girl. Georgina or something.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Don’t know why she’d sneak around spying on Joan, but…’

‘Didn’t.’

I flinched so hard it made every bone in my body hurt. Jim actually jumped and cried out. Then we shined our lights on George’s face. Her eyes were open. One eye was, anyway - the one that wasn’t swollen shut.

She pushed herself up with her elbows. ‘Spying on you guys,’ she said. ‘You’re who I looked at. You two, not girls.’

‘You’re… alive!’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why’d you make us think you were dead?’ Jim demanded.

‘Just wanted to hear whatcha had to say.’

‘Shit!’

‘I’m just glad you’re alive,’ I said. I wiped my eyes with my shirttail, but couldn’t stop crying. I dropped to my knees beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘It’s okay,’ she said.

‘No it’s not! God, I’m so sorry! If we’d known…’

‘How bad are you hurt?’ Jim asked. He crouched down next to me.

‘My face don’t feel too good.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Cept for my twat.’

‘They raped you?’ Jim asked.

‘Yeah. He did. Just one. He really stank. You shoulda smelled him.’

‘We never should’ve left you here,’ Jim said. ‘We never would’ve, if we’d only known you were a girl.’

‘If we’d gone to the pool today like we told her…’

‘Aw, I didn’t show up anyhow,’ she said. ‘You woulda found me out.’

I sniffed, and wiped my face again.

‘I only just wanted to be your friend,’ she said, her voice going higher.

‘You can be our friend,’ I said.

‘Sure,’ Jim said.

‘Honest?’

‘Yeah, honest,’ I told her. ‘This was an initiation. I was just lying about all that stuff I told you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘From now on,’ Jim said, ‘we’ll never ditch you again.’

‘You guys sure had me going. I was starting to figure you hated me.’

‘Naw.We were just kidding.’

Her bloody face smiled. She sat up.

‘You’d better not move,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to get you an ambulance or something.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘You can’t be okay,’ Jim said. ‘All that blood.’

‘Oh, I was a virgin. But not anymore.’ She looked at each of us. ‘You guys wanta bang me? You can if you want, now we’re pals.’

I went kind of speechless.

‘Not tonight,’ Jim said. ‘Thanks anyway.’

I nodded.

‘You sure? I’m kinda sore, but if you want…’

‘Some other time,’ Jim told her.

‘Well, okay.’ She sighed as if she were a little disappointed, then got to her feet. She shook her foot clear of the tangled boxers and Bermuda shorts. ‘Wanta see something cool?’ she asked.

‘We oughta just get out of here,’ I said.

‘You guys gotta see this.’ She stepped over to her lantern, bent over as if she didn’t mind us looking at her butt, picked up the lantern and turned it on. ‘Come on,’ she said.

We followed her across the tracks.

Joined her on the other side of the nearest concrete support.

Where she shined her light on a bum.

He was slumped against the support, shirt open, pants down around his ankles. His head was down. Cradled in his arms was a pile of loose guts.

George grinned at us. ‘Knew he didn’t get far.’

‘Holy shit,’ Jim muttered.

Crouching, George plunged her hands into the guts. They squirmed around like a bunch of wet snakes. Pretty soon, she came out with her knife. ‘Didn’t wanta lose this,’ she said. She stood up and cleaned the knife on the front of her shirt. ‘Betcha didn’t figure he’d get into my initiation, did you?’

We shook our heads.

We walked back to the other side of the tracks. There, George stepped into her boxers and Bermudas. As she pulled them up, she said, ‘So, what’re we gonna do tomorrow?’