Bang (2 page)

“JD,” she says, smiling at him, “what are you doing way over here? Up to no good, I bet.” If she only knew.

“Hey, Leah,” I manage to say, practically choking on the words because my mouth is so dry.

“What's up?” JD says as smooth as ever.

“I had to pay Melissa back the money I borrowed from her last week, and now I'm broke. Can you lend me some money? I want to stop by the mall on the way home. They're having a sale.”

JD digs in his pocket and brings out his wallet. He's got a few twenties in there, a few tens, and some fives. He always has money on him, and it's always more than I make in a week. JD doesn't have a job, though. He doesn't need one. He has both a father and a mother. They both work, and they both make good money. JD is always telling me, “My parents say we have plenty of time to look for work after
high school. They say in the meantime we should concentrate on school and have a good time. They say that, after high school, things get more serious.”

We still have another year after this one. If you ask me, things are already as serious as they're ever going to get.

I'm restocking the soup aisle in the grocery store where I work after school, four to seven, five days a week. I stack the cans twelve deep, two high, two across— forty-eight cans of cream of tomato, forty-eight cans of cream of mushroom, forty-eight cans of chicken noodle, and so on and so on. There's maybe fifty or sixty different kinds of canned soup. My job right now is to make sure that whichever
one a customer wants, it's there. And if they want two or three cans, it's my job to make sure they're available.

I'm restocking the soup aisle, but I'm thinking back to how it started. I'm asking myself, Why did I do something so stupid? Answer: Because I wasn't thinking straight. I can see it like it's happening right in front of me. It goes like this: JD and I have just smoked up, I admit it, and now we're horsing around. It's no big deal. There's no one else in the park. No one that I can see anyway. The playground is empty and we're a little high. We think it would be fun to go on the swings and see how much higher we can get, if you know what I mean. So that's what we do. We get on and we pump and pump until we are flying. Yeah, I know, we probably look stupid, a couple of sixteen-year-old guys flying on a pair of swings. But I've seen people a lot older than me on those swings sometimes. I've seen girls who are maybe seventeen or eighteen playing on those swings. I've seen moms being
pushed by their husbands. And anyway, like I said, the park is empty.

A couple of little kids come up the path that runs diagonally through the park. A little boy and a little girl. They look maybe seven or eight years old. They must live nearby because there's no adult with them. It's just the two of them. They go down the slide a few times each. Then they come over to the swings. They just stand there, watching, until finally JD says, “Scram!”

The two kids look at each other. The little boy says, “We want a turn on the swings.”

JD says, “Forget it. These are
our
swings.”

The little girl looks like she's going to cry. She whispers something to the boy, but I can't hear what it is.

“Get out of here,” JD says, his voice deeper than usual. “Otherwise I'll have to come over there and grab you and lock you up in my cave.” He laughs a wicked-troll laugh, all evil and scary.

The little girl's eyes get big and watery. She tugs on the little boy's arm. They run
back down the path. JD laughs. I think, Geez, next thing you know, their father is going to show up and he's going to be pissed at us.

Then this man appears out of nowhere. He stops right in front of us, just out of range of the swings, his arms folded over his chest. He looks like a school principal, his face stern and disapproving.

JD slows down enough so he can say to the guy, “Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer.” And then, JD being JD, he starts to laugh at what a smart remark he's just made.

“Why don't
you
act your age?” the man says. “Those swings are for little kids to play on, not for teenagers who have been smoking up.”

That makes me stop pumping. The man must have smelled us. Maybe he has been watching us for a while. Maybe he saw us pass the joint back and forth down by the big tree over on one side of the park.

“Come on,” I say to JD. I drag my feet through the sand under the swing to slow myself down. “Let's get out of here.”

But JD is pumping his legs again.

“There aren't any little kids around,” he says. He swears at the man and tells him to mind his own business.

The man's stern face gets even sterner.

“You talk like that,” the man says, “it only shows how ignorant you are and what a poor vocabulary you have.”

That does it. JD jumps off the swing when it's still pretty high. He lands right in front of the man.

“What's your problem?” he says. “You got nothing better to do than harass people who are using a
public
park?”

“You're right,” the man says. “It is a public park. Which means little children have a right to play here without some ignorant fool like you bullying them.”

I get off my swing and go over to JD. “Come on,” I say. “Let's get out of here. We don't need any trouble.”

“I see your friend has more brains than you,” the man says to JD. “Because if you don't go, I
will
call the police and I
will
report you for marijuana use.”

JD just laughs. “Get real,” he says. “The cops aren't arresting anyone for smoking anymore.” It's true. They're still busting people for growing it and selling it, but they're not making arrests for just smoking it. JD explained it to me one time. It has something to do with a Supreme Court case that happened, and now the government is taking another look at the law. While it does, the cops have stopped arresting people for simple possession.

“If I call the cops, they'll take your names and they'll take your pot,” the man says. That's true too. If the cops catch you, they write everything down with the idea that as soon as the law is clarified, they can charge you. In the meantime, you're out your weed.

JD swears again. Then he says what I've been saying the whole time: “Let's get out of here.” He swaggers up the path ahead of me to the swimming pool and disappears behind the building where the change rooms are.

I'm right behind him until the guy says
to me, “You should think about your life and what you're doing with it. When it's all over, what do you want people to say about you? There was a guy who really accomplished something? Or there was a guy who was just taking up space?”

I stare at him. He stares right back at me. Then he turns away. What a jerk, I think. He doesn't even know me and he's coming on all heavy with me. I raise my hand and point at him. I make like I'm pulling the trigger of a gun. Bang, mister, I say to myself. Now who's taking up space?

I hurry up the path to catch JD. I figure that's the end of that. And it is. For one day.

I keep stacking and arranging soup cans in the supermarket while I remember what happened the next day. I can see it like I'm watching a movie.

It goes like this: The next day, I ride over to JD's house on my bike to get him. We're going to hang around, you know, take it easy on a September Sunday. School has just started, and so far we don't have much homework. So why not make the
most of it, especially when it's nice and cool—I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and JD is wearing a big, floppy, long-sleeved T-shirt that hangs down almost to his knees—but sunny and bright? Oh yeah, and I'm also hoping to catch a glimpse of Leah. I do. She takes our picture. I'm hoping maybe she'll come out with us. She doesn't. She's going somewhere with one of her girlfriends.

We leave JD's house, ride our bikes a couple of blocks, duck down an alley behind a medical building that's closed, and smoke up. Then we argue about what to do. I want to head downtown, maybe hang out at an arcade for a while. JD wants to go to the beach, where it's nice and relaxed. Where he says there will be girls sitting in the sun, working at keeping the color in their faces. He says he saw some girls down there the other day. Pretty girls. He says he should try to meet them. He's really into the idea. Me, I can't imagine being interested in anyone except Leah. But of course we end up at the beach. We
lock up our bikes. We smoke up again and goof around over by the tennis courts, where three girls are sitting under a tree, talking and giggling. JD tells me those are the girls. He says he likes one of them, a redhead with green eyes.

“And I bet you're interested in the blond,” he says to me. “The one with the brown hair, she's a dog, huh?”

I want to tell him, no, the only girl I'm interested in is Leah, but I don't have the nerve. I've seen how JD reacts to other guys who come on to Leah—he doesn't like it. I don't know how he'd react if I turned into one of those guys. So I just shrug and hope that's the end of it.

It isn't.

JD goes over to the girls. Of course he expects me to go with him. Only one of the girls, the one with the brown hair who JD thinks is ugly, pays any attention to us at first. She isn't the best-looking girl in the world, but up close she's not that bad looking either. Plus she has amazingly large, pale blue eyes. JD doesn't even
glance at her. He's trying hard to get the redhead to talk to him.

“You can forget about her,” the girl with the brown hair says. “She's got a boyfriend.”

“Yeah?” JD says. “Does her boyfriend drive a Jag?” He's looking at the redhead when he says it.

I look at him like he's crazy. We came here on our bikes. JD doesn't have a car, let alone a Jag. He only has his learner's license, which means he can't even drive unless there's a seriously sober licensed driver sitting right up front with him. Still, the question gets him what he wants. The redhead turns to look at him.

“You telling me you do?” she says. She has a stuck-up voice, like she's the queen of something.

JD grins at her but doesn't answer the question.

“You should tell your friend to back off,” the girl with the brown hair says to me. “Her boyfriend's the jealous type. And he's tough, if you know what I mean.”

JD is still grinning.

“Tough?” he says. He hasn't taken his eyes off the redhead. “How tough is he? Is he as tough as this?”

I'm standing a little behind him when he says this, mostly because I want to be out of there. I don't want to talk to the stuck-up redhead with a tough jealous boyfriend. I don't want to try to get her icy blond friend to say a word. And I am one hundred percent not interested in the girl with the brown hair. JD reaches behind him, up under his big T-shirt. Because of where I'm standing, I see what he's doing. He's getting ready to pull something out from underneath. I do a major double-take when I see what it is. I tell myself it can't be real. But you never know with JD. So I grab the arm that's reaching behind him and pull him away from the girls. “Are you crazy?” I say.

“What?” he says. He is annoyed with me, like I've just ruined his big chance with the redhead.

I hear a car horn honk up at the road. The three girls turn. The redhead waves
to someone in a black Mustang with tinted windows.

“Her boyfriend,” the girl with the brown hair says. The three of them waggle their butts as they walk toward the car. JD stares at the redhead and shakes his head.

“Is that for real?” I ask him.

“Is what for real?”

“You know,” I say. I drop my voice to a whisper. “That gun you have stuck in the back of your pants.”

JD smiles at me. “Yeah, it's for real.”

I have a million questions: Where did you get it? Why did you get it? Why are you carrying it around like that? Why would you want to show it to a bunch of girls? What if they decided to call the cops? There's no way that gun is legal.

JD says, “Relax. That redhead, she would never call the cops.”

“How do you know that?” I say.

“I know who she is. I know who her boyfriend is. She's one of those girls who likes guys with muscle cars and tinted windows, probably with the bass cranked up.”

I still can't believe what I've seen.

“You got a gun so you could impress a girl?” I say. “Geez, she wouldn't even talk to you.”

JD keeps right on smiling. “Maybe I lost the battle,” he says, “but I'm going to win the war.”

Right.

I'm in the grocery store, stacking soup cans, and I'm thinking, Best friend or not, I should never have hooked up with JD again.

He got into some trouble last year. JD is like that, always into something. He always has some weed, and everyone knows you can buy it off him. But this last time, JD really laid into a guy. He says it was because of what the guy said about Leah. But he hurt the guy pretty bad. The
cops got involved. In the end, JD's father got him off by agreeing to send JD to a special camp over the summer. JD says it was like a prison camp. The counselors yell at you all day. You have to get up at six in the morning, and you're always doing something—hiking for days at a time, going on long canoe trips, always something physical so that you collapse at the end of the day. And it doesn't matter what the weather is, either. If you go on a weeklong hike and it rains every day, too bad for you.

When JD got back, he was tanned and a lot stronger than he used to be. He acts differently now too, but probably not in the way the camp hoped he would. He has more confidence. He knows more people. He's told me about some of the guys he met at the camp. Boy, I bet he hasn't told his dad about those guys. Some of them sound scary. I shouldn't have hooked up with him again.