“What’s going on here?” he asked.
Neither Thing 1 nor Thing 2 said a word.
“You and you, on your feet. What’s going on?” he asked, looking at me.
“Fellas tripped is all.”
Thing 1 wiped blood from his broken nose with the sleeve of his sweat suit.
“I know you guys. You’re on the football team.”
They both nodded but said nothing. Thing 2 glared at me, but Thing 1 wouldn’t meet my gaze. The cop shook his head. “I don’t know what really happened here, but let’s not do this again.” He pointed back to the station wagon. “This belong to you two guys?”
They nodded.
“Get it moving. And you,” he said, pointing at me. “Where should you be?”
“Home, Officer.”
“Then get there.”
I nodded and left.
Half an hour later I was home and in bed and I fell asleep with a grin on my face.
Sunday night as I was about to leave, my dad came in the kitchen.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“Out.”
“Where out?”
I glanced at him from where I was eating a microwaved burrito, leaning against the counter. Why was he suddenly wanting to be the good father? I guess I took too long to answer, because he rolled his eyes and lowered his voice.
“Listen, Joe, I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
“I’m safe.”
“Seriously. You’re out at all hours of the night doing God knows what. Your mother is worried and I just need to make sure you aren’t breaking any laws.”
“I’m not breaking any laws,” I said, finishing the burrito.
“Then where are you going?” he asked.
I turned to him. “Out,” I said, daring him to ask me again, act as though he cared, maybe even be a father and stop me from being rude.
For one solid moment, I thought he would. But then he sighed, turned, and walked out of the room.
I left the room, too, leaving it as empty and sterile as it had been before. Thirty minutes later I was in the weeds on stakeout.
At 10:53 a flatbed truck pulled up at the far edge of the pond. Wheatie had gone out for some Cokes, so I was alone. I began to edge my way around. As I was navigating the bushes, I heard Monger’s Trans Am pull up as well. I took a long look and saw that Susan was with him. Her head moved funny, as if it wouldn’t stay up. Then it hit me. Fucker had rufied her, or maybe gotten her drunk. This was the night for certain.
I stared at the flatbed. Six metal drums were on the back of it. I had no doubt that the two men in front were going to dump them in the pond.
Caught between two competing decisions, I wasn’t sure what to do.
The two men got out and began to wrestle a barrel onto the ground.
I decided that concealment was overrated. I stood my full height and ran toward them, pulling the camera from my bag as I went. They heard me when I was ten feet away.
“Get out of here, kid.”
“I know what you’re doing.” I pulled out the camera, pressed the on button, and snapped a picture. The flash blinded them and me both. Then the camera whirred and spit out a picture. I grabbed it and shoved it in my back pocket.
“Hey!”
“You can’t do that.” The driver reached out his hand. “Give me that now.”
I backed away and took another picture. Then another. “You don’t get out of here now these pictures will be in the Baltimore Sun tomorrow.” I took a picture of the side of the truck where it said CANELLI BROTHERS, then a picture of the front license plate.
“You can’t do that!”
“I can and did. Take your barrels somewhere else.”
I backed away and took one last picture.
They cursed as they loaded the barrel back on the truck.
“If I see you, you’re dead,” the passenger growled.
I held up the camera and grinned.
Then they drove away.
I turned and sprinted back around the edge of the pond. I could see movement in the Trans Am. The passenger seat was lying flat. Monger was on top of Susan. When I arrived at the car, I began taking pictures.
One. Monger on top of Susan. Her eyes closed. His hands up her shirt, groping her breasts.
Two. Monger’s face surprised. Susan’s eyes still closed, his hands pulling free of her shirt.
Three. Now Angry Monger. Susan’s eyes still closed.
Four. Monger launching himself out the window.
I ditched the camera and put all the pictures in my back pocket with the others.
Wheatie appeared behind Monger, and behind him came the station wagon.
“The others are here, Joe. Be careful.”
Monger got to his feet. At six five, he towered over me, but that didn’t matter.
I planted a boot in his crotch and watched with satisfaction as he fell to his knees. Then I brought my own knee into his face and was pleased to hear the crunch of his nose.
The others bailed out of the station wagon and gathered in front of the headlights.
“Leave him alone,” Mattis howled.
I stalked toward them, every step, every movement, with dire intention. For however long it took the police to come and arrest me, my targets were no longer Monger, Mattis, Thing 1, and Thing 2. Instead, they were the four strange boys who’d brutally raped Helen, shattering her life and bruising her soul.
It was because of them we were no longer friends.
It was because of them I couldn’t look into her eyes.
It was because of them she couldn’t participate in the world.
Wheatie and I sat in the holding cell for three hours. Two drunks and a perplexed-looking man in a suit and tie sat on the metal benches. Twice Wheatie tried to engage me in conversation, but each time I ignored him.
I remember that they had to bring two ambulances.
From the back of the police cruiser where I sat handcuffed, I watched Monger leave in one of them.
Thing 2 left in the other. I’d broken his arms and shattered his knee.
Thing 1 would be peeing blood for a few weeks.
Likewise, Mattis would be doing the same. If he ever held a football again with that right hand, I’d be surprised.
“Come on, Joe. It was four against one. They can’t hold you.”
I glanced over at Wheatie. He was a good friend and I was lucky to have him.
“But I attacked them,” I said.
“The cops don’t know that.”
Just then my father appeared, his face a crimson ball of anger. As a cop, he knew it looked bad to have his oldest son in jail.
“What did you do?”
I stopped a man from raping a girl and stopped two men from polluting the pond.
He shook his head. “You’ve gone too far.”
“I had to do something.”
“Do something? You almost killed those boys.”
“They had it coming.”
“Do you hear yourself? ‘They had it coming’?” He shook his head again. “You have got to stop this, Joe.” He turned to look behind him. “There’s only so much I can do.”
Now I shook my head. “As long as there are bad men out there, I won’t be stopped.”
He pointed to his chest. “I’m your father and you will do as I say.”
“Better listen to him,” Wheatie said.
My father lowered his voice. “I spoke to the other parents. They were going to press charges, but the police found your photos.”
“What did they show?”
“Two men with a barrel by the pond and what looks like the boy you hurt on top of an unconscious girl. Care to explain the pictures?”
“I think they’re self-explanatory.”