Mercy Rule Read online

  “Who’s Floyd? I don’t think I’ve met him.”

  In slow motion, Pete turns in the driver’s seat to gape at me. Oncoming traffic? Pshaw, they’ll get out of his way.

  “GEE-zus!” he says. “Are you … Dude! Okay. That’s it.”

  Pete, still not caring much about traffic, starts swiping through his phone. A minute later, a song starts. At least, I think it’s a song. There’s just lots of bells and alarms going off, like a school day wake-up call from Hell.

  “Wow, this is just great,” I say. Sarcastically.

  “Shut up,” Pete says. “Just listen, all right? No talking, just—God! Just listen.”

  So I shut up and Just Listen while Pete swerves around cars to get to Taco Bell.

  DONTE

  With an unspoken go-ahead from Coach to not worry about my sixth-period elective, I drive my new-old car straight to Brady’s, thinking about that punk-ass kid in hallway earlier. It’s been pissing me off all day. Man, he’s a lucky little bitch. That mouth on that kid needs some serious closing. I’ll figure what’s up with B, make sure he’s cool, then maybe next week sometime, me and B will have a chat with him.

  Brady’s neighborhood is a wreck. My own won’t be making the cover of Hot Shit magazine anytime soon, but it’s kept up. People care where I live. Out here, caring is like trust and hope. No one can afford them.

  I pull up in front of B’s house and take a look around before getting out of the car. The street seems empty enough, but bad things can happen quickly. Lots of people around here need a hit or some cash, and they’re not afraid to take it.

  Jogging to the front door, I give my chin a confident lift and narrow my eyes, hoping to look badass enough to keep back any potential threats. I pound on the door.

  “Hey, Brady!”

  No response. I pound again with a hammer fist, and the cheap wood trembles.

  “Brady, man! It’s D, open up.”

  Damn. Nothing. I try the doorknob, and while it turns easily, the wood seems stuck; square-peg-round-hole. I give it a little shove, and it cracks open.

  “B?”

  The house is quiet, but it feels like there’s someone here.

  “Don’t anybody shoot me, all right?” It’s only partly a joke.

  A yellow sheet hangs as a curtain in the front window, covering up shattered and tattered blinds. The sagging couch is cratered with cigarette burns. Two Chinese food takeout boxes sit on a garage sale coffee table, crumbs calcified at the bottom.

  I move cautiously toward the kitchen. And I find out Brady is dead.

  “B!”

  Brady looks up from his position on the floor. Not dead. He’s sitting against the fridge, hands limp on his lap. The kitchen table is on its side, and one wooden chair is utterly shattered. Brady’s fingers bleed, and there’s a cut over his left eye.

  “Sup, D.”

  I take stock of the kitchen real quick, and listen hard. We seem to be alone.

  “Hey, man,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  “I gotta be nice to my mother.”

  I hunker down beside B. “That right?”

  “That’s what Pat said. He actually said I need to be nice to my mother.”

  I don’t bother asking who Pat is. Odds are he’s another of B’s mom’s boyfriends-slash-sugar daddies. Mostly that means any guy she’s willing to blow who’ll spend money on her. Keep her up on whatever she’s smoking or drinking this week.

  “Like he’s my dad,” Brady goes on, staring blankly at the tips of his shoes. They’re from last year. I recognize a tiny blue star penned there by Brianna at lunch during first semester of junior year.

  Some kids already have a second car by now. Not a lot. But some. Some of our friends.

  They sure as hell have newer shoes.

  “Mom took Dad’s check again,” Brady says. “Can you believe that shit? I’m the one guy in the world whose dad actually pays up, and she goes and takes it. Every time, man.”

  “You’re bleeding, B.”

  “Oh, I beat the shit out of ’im. Can’t throw a football, but I can beat his sorry ass.”

  “He call the cops?”

  “Kiddin’ me? Asshole’s prolly got warrants five states deep.”

  “We gotta fix your hands, man,” I say, eyeing the blood dripping down Brady’s fingers. I can see now it comes from scrapes on his knuckles. Like they say, I can’t help but wonder what the other guy looks like.

  “Those are money makers right there, huh?” I say. “We gotta keep them taken care of. ’Cause you can throw the ball, man. Trust me.”

  Brady doesn’t answer.

  “I gotta get you back to school. Coach is asking.”

  That shakes Brady enough to get him on his feet. I make him wash his hands in the sink, where piles of food-encrusted plates sit. Something brown and crisp pops off the edge of a bowl and falls into the drain, and for some reason, it makes me gag.

  I find a passably clean rag in one of the kitchen drawers, and tell B to push it against the cut over his eye, saying, “We’ll clean it up in the locker room.”

  “Yeah, okay,” B says.

  Together we leave the house and get into my new-old car. I drive through Taco Bell on the way back to school. Cheapest food on the run. Brady takes his share and tears into it, and neither one of us says anything because we don’t have to.

  CADENCE

  Pete screams along with a “Floyd” song that warns us all that we’re one day closer to death.

  “Well this is cheerful,” I shout over the music.

  Pete giggles insanely.

  Danny says, “So, what, you’re saying the Ramones are cheerful? Because beating on kids with a baseball bat, that’s delightful. The Ku Klux Klan kidnapping babies? Ah, another wholesome classic.”

  I turn down the volume. Pete snaps, “Hey!”

  I ignore him and turn in my seat to look at Danny, sitting behind the driver seat. “I thought you didn’t like the Ramones.”

  A super fast expression zips past Danny’s face. Like guilt, or surprise, or something. I don’t know. Then he gives a little fake I’m-totally-badass sniff and looks out the window.

  “Been listening.”

  “Been listening, huh? Well, good. I’m glad to see you’re finally getting some good music into your life.”

  Pete says, “Floyd is all you need to know. Ever.”

  “You’re the boss.” I face forward again, pretty pleased with myself.

  Pete drives us through a Taco Bell. I wonder when the getting high part happens, but I’m not about to ask. Maybe they’ve forgotten about it. That would be awesome.

  “Ah, shit, would you look at that?” Pete says. “Right behind a meathead mobile. We’ll be here for days.”

  “Say what?” I ask.

  He nods at the car in front of us in line at the drive-through. “Coupla sportos. Donte Walkins and Brady Gulliver or something. Figures. They’ll probably clean the place out. Gotta bulk up for the big game and all.”

  “Got to keep their energy up for date raping the cheer team,” Danny says.

  “They do?” I twist around to look at Danny. “I mean, they really do that?”

  Danny coughs. I think like it’s supposed to be a laugh or something. “Pretty sure …”

  “‘Pretty sure’ isn’t the same as sure. If you’re sure then you should report it.”

  Now he won’t blink. He just stares at me. “That’s—that’s not the point—”

  “It is the point. You can’t joke about things like that. Okay?”

  Danny looks away. “Great, sure. Okay, wait, how about this: they are the kind of fetid assholes who would do something like that—is that better?”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “What’d they do to you?”

  Somehow it gets really, really cold in the car, and it’s not the air-conditioning.

  “I gotta get high,” Pete says, shaking his head.

  Danny’s glaring at me like I kicked his puppy, b
ut he doesn’t say anything. I turn back around to face front.

  The boys in the car in front of us are handed a Taco Bell bag the size of a grocery sack. I have never in my life seen an order that big. They pull out, and we move forward. A grumpy girl hands Pete a bag, and off we go, Pete cranking up his “Floyd” while we drive. Nobody says anything, and I get the feeling it’s my fault, but what did I say that was so bad?

  Pete drives us back toward school, but instead of going all the way there he pulls into a parking lot attached to a city park. There aren’t many people around, probably because it’s still pretty hot out, but every once in a while someone rides by on a bike.

  Pete passes the bag of food to Danny, who pulls out a steak burrito. He glances at me, pretends like he didn’t, then lifts the sack my way.

  “Want any? It’s soft tacos.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Danny shrugs fast, like it doesn’t matter. That kid, I swear.

  “Holy crud!” Pete roars. “How do you mess up a bean burrito?”

  He’s scowling at the wilting burrito in his hand. I start laughing. Danny successfully manages not to.

  “No, I mean, for real,” Pete goes on. “Fried beans. Tortilla. Done. How does someone screw that up, I mean, gee-zus!”

  “Maybe someone pissed in it,” Danny offers.

  Pete thinks about this for a second, then takes an enormous bite to test Danny’s theory. He sloshes the food in his mouth for a minute before talking around it. “Nah, I don’t taste any piss.”

  That sends first me then Pete into laughs. When the food’s gone, Pete rolls down his window and lights up a joint. Gross. I roll my window down too. So does Danny.

  “This bother you?” Pete says, barely, in that holding-your-breath sort of way.

  “Don’t know yet.” I cover my nose and mouth with my T-shirt. “I can puke on your floor, right?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Pete passes the smoke back to Danny, who I think looks at me first before taking a long hit from it.

  Boring. I start thinking about the two boys who’d been in the car in front of us, wondering if they do this, too. Or maybe they drink a lot. That’s what TV and movies make it seem like. Then I think about the kind of girls they probably date, and if it’s really true they all go out with cheerleaders. Then that makes me think of the girls from the restroom who wrote on Vivi’s forehead.

  The joint is half gone by the time I ask, “Do you guys know a girl named Brianna Montaro?”

  “Psh, yeah,” Danny says. “She’s a slut bag.”

  Pete laughs, and it’s that stupid pothead screech like Johnny used to get. It bugs the crap out of me. Danny does not laugh. He’s starting to look sleepy.

  “How do you know her?” I ask Danny.

  “Hangs out with my sister and people like that. You know—slut bags.”

  Pete laughs again. So I ask him, “You know her, too?”

  “Yeah. Since like, kindergarten,” Pete says. “Total tight-ass. She got kind of cool for a bit sophomore year, dating this one guy, but then she turned all bitch-face again. Even worse than before, actually.”

  “Sounds right. They’re all alike. One big happy-ass sorority.” Danny looks at his shoes like they’ve done something wrong to him. “Why?”

  “Just curious. It seems like everyone knows who she is, but no one knows her.”

  “That’s deep,” Pete says, and belches.

  I can feel Danny giving me some kind of stinkeye, but I don’t look back. If he has something to say, he can go ahead and say it.

  DANNY

  Tuesday morning after a shower, I put on a collared shirt and a tie. A navy jacket that I think fits pretty well. Nice pants, and my only pair of dress shoes.

  It has the desired effect.

  “What’s the occasion?” Mom says when I come in for breakfast, instantly suspicious.

  I pour cereal. “Must there be one?”

  Mom sighs, as if I’ve given her a terrible migraine. Surely, not I!

  Dad minces no words as he comes sprinting in. He stops short upon seeing me, closes his eyes, and says, “God damn it, now what?”

  “Good morning, Father!”

  “I don’t know,” Dad mutters. “I just don’t know.”

  “Can’t a guy look nice once in a while?” I say, adding milk to the bowl.

  “Stop it!” Mom says. Whoa. “What are you up to?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to earn a promotion.”

  “To what?” Mom says—

  —just as Dad tries to stop her. “Don’t ask him.”

  “Well, I figure if you see me put forth some effort, like you always say, then maybe before Christmas comes around, you’ll let me go back to my real school.”

  “No,” Dad says.

  “Oh, because things are going so swimmingly at this one?”

  “Because it was a privilege you abused,” Dad says. “It’s way the hell out and gone from home, but we took you, Danny. Every day. Then you lost control of yourself, and now this is what happens.”

  “You’re the one who gave me the—”

  “I’m not having this conversation.” Dad takes his enormous ring of keys off the peg on the wall and goes out to the garage. Without even telling us he loves us.

  The agony.

  I walk to school—as usual—and get honked and yelled at—as usual—this time for wearing the tie. Gosh, it’s like you can’t please some people. I light a cigarette from a pack I got from Pete, and don’t flick it away until I’m practically inside the school. Nobody notices. Or maybe they do, and I don’t notice them noticing. Either way.

  But other than that, it’s a pretty calm morning for a change. I almost don’t know what to do with it. Then I get nervous, thinking that maybe it’s some kind of calm before a storm. Turns out I’m right about that, because right after my third-period bio class starts, a student assistant comes in and summons me to Dr. Flores’s office.

  Dun dun dun! At least the class doesn’t do that Ooooo! bullshit. I’ll give them points for that.

  The TA takes off on some other errand so I pop one of Pete’s pills and roam the halls in the general direction of the admin offices. There’s a girls’ PE class going on downstairs in the gymnasium, and I find myself in desperate need of a water balloon launcher. Of course, the windows don’t open and I wouldn’t use plain water to fill the balloons … but it’s fun to think about and I’m still smiling a little when I walk into admin and take a seat outside Dr. Flores’s office.

  I clear my throat and sink down into the stuffed yellow chair, left ankle over right knee. When the principal’s door opens, it’s not Dr. Flores I see. It’s a uniformed cop.

  I stop smiling.

  “It was just a cigarette,” I say, thinking that must be what got me here.

  “Daniel Jennings?” the cop says.

  “Uh—yeah?”

  “Come on in.”

  He steps aside. The secretary doesn’t look at me. Like how you pretend to be distracted when your friend is getting yelled at by his parents.

  So I Come On In, and the cop closes the door behind me. Dr. Floor is clearly not having a good day. I take the time to point this out to him.

  “Have a seat, Danny,” Dr. Floor says.

  “Thanks, I’d rather st—”

  “Sit down.”

  Okay, so it’s like that then. I sit. “Like the tie? I’m turning over a new leaf.”

  I’m the only one who finds this amusing. The cop holds up an iPhone in a red case, decorated on the back in black Sharpie: The MacDougall Clan logo, and assorted straight-line curves and other doodles.

  “Is this your phone?”

  “Yeah!” I say, relieved. “I’ve been looking for it since last week, where’d you find it?”

  “You have not had this phone all week,” the cop says—like it should be a question but it’s not.

  “Uh—yeah?”

  “Starting when?”

  “Monday. Last Mond
ay.”

  “Any way you can prove that? Did you file a police report?”

  “Because a lot of kids who lose phones file police reports. Jesus, dude. No, I didn’t.”

  My wit is lost on him. “You tell anyone you lost it?”

  “My mom and dad. This girl Cadence. I was trying to get her number ’cause she’s super cute, and—”

  “We can check with his parents,” Dr. Floor says to the cop.

  I look from him to the cop. “Can I have my phone back?”

  “No,” the cop says. “Right now it’s being held as evidence.”

  That word is serrated like a blade. “Evidence of what?”

  “There’s a nude photo of a boy on this phone,” the cop says. “Know anything about that?”

  “Jesus, no! Why would I have—what kind of boy? I mean, are you talking about like a little kid or something, because, dude—”

  “It’s another student,” Dr. Floor says to me. “Elias Clarke. Do you know him? Was it a joke?”

  “I’ve never heard of him!”

  I can’t tell what the cop is thinking as he studies me. I hold up my hands. “Look, I have no idea what you are talking about. That is my phone, but I lost it last week. So help me God.”

  “It’s child pornography,” the cop says.

  Yeah, this is a little worse trouble than I’m used to. “Good to know, except that I didn’t do it, and I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The cop and Dr. Floor trade a glance. “Okay,” the cop says. “We’re looking into it. You’ll probably get a call from a detective before too long.”

  “Great. Except you have my phone. Genius.” I’m starting to feel the same way I did last time I was in a principal’s office with a cop. The rage is building.

  “You can go back to class,” Dr. Floor says. “I’m sure we’ll get it worked out. But, Danny, a nude photo of a boy in the school showers is a very serious crime, even if you only meant it as a joke.”

  “Whoa, back up,” I say. “It was taken here? In the locker room?”

  Dr. Floor leans forward, ready for my big confession. “That’s correct. Do you want to add anything to your story?”

  So I lean forward, too, elbows on my knees. “Dr. Flores,” I say carefully, “do you really think. I spend. One nanosecond. In the locker room showers. Of this fine institution?”