“Just playing,” I said. “In the woods.”
“It’s good for them to be outdoors,” Steve said to Mom. “Too many kids spent all their time in front of the TV watching unwholesome junk these days. I’m glad our kids are normal.”
But Albert ended up screaming in his sleep for weeks and wetting his bed, and things were anything but normal that summer. He was the one with the obvious problems. He was the one who ended up going to a “specialist,” and whatever he said in therapy must not have been believed, because the police didn’t go tearing up Cabbage Creek Woods, Luke Bradley and his neanderthals were not arrested, and I was more or less left alone.
In fact, I had more unsupervised time than usual. And I used it to work out problems of my own, like I hated school and I hated Stepdad Steve for the sanctimonious prig he was. I decided, with the full wisdom of my twelve years and some months, that if I was to survive in this rough, tough, evil world, I was going to have to become tough myself, bad, and very likely evil.
I decided that Luke Bradley had the answers.
So I sought him out. It wasn’t hard. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time when you’re ready to sell your soul, just like the Devil.
I met him in town, in front of the Wayne Toy Town, where I used to go to buy model kits and stuff. I still liked building models, and doing scientific puzzles, though I would never admit it to Luke Bradley.
So I just froze when I saw him there.
“Well, well,” he said. “If it ain’t the little pussy scuzz.” He blew smoke from the perennial cigarette.
“Hello, Luke,” I said. I nodded to his companions, who included Spike, Animal, and a virtually hairless, pale gorilla who went by the unlikely name of Corky. As I spoke, I slipped my latest purchase into my shoulder bag and hoped he didn’t notice.
Corky grabbed me by the back of the neck and said, “Whaddaya want me to do with him?”
But before Luke could respond, I said, “Hey, have you still got the dead kid at the fort?”
They all hesitated. They weren’t expecting that.
“Well he’s cool,” I said. “I want to see him again.”
“Okay,” said Luke.
We didn’t have any other way to get there, so we walked, about an hour, to Cabbage Creek Woods. Luke dispensed with ceremony. We just crawled into the fort and gathered around the pit.
The smell, if anything, was worse.
This time, the dead kid was already moving around inside the box. When Luke opened the cardboard flaps, the dead kid stood up, with his horrible, pus-filled eye-sockets staring. He made that bleating, groaning sound again. He clawed at the edge of the box.
“Really cool,” I forced myself to say, swallowing hard.
“I can make him do tricks,” said Luke. “Watch this.”
I watched as he shoved his finger through the skin under the dead kid’s chin and lifted him up like a hooked fish out of the pit. The dead kid scrambled over the edge of the box, then crouched down on the dirt floor at the edge of the pit, staring into space.
Luke passed his hand slowly in front of the dead kid’s face. He snapped his fingers. The dead kid didn’t respond. Luke smacked him on the side of the head. The dead kid whimpered a little, and made that bleating sound.
“Everybody outside,” Luke said.
So we all crawled out, and then Luke reached back inside with a stick and touched the dead kid, who came out too, clinging to the stick, trying to chew on it, but not quite coordinated enough, so that he just snapped his teeth in the air and rubbed the side of his face along the stick.
I could see him clearly now. He really was rotten, with bone sticking out at his knees and elbows, only scraggly patches of dark hair left on his head, every rib showing in hideous relief on his bare back, and holes through his skin between some of them.
“Look!” said Luke. “Look at him dance!” He swirled the stick around and around, and the dead kid clung to it, staggering around in a circle.
Corky spoke up. “Ya think if’n he gets dizzy he’ll puke?”
Luke yanked the stick out of the dead kid’s hands, then hit him hard with it across the back with a thwack! The dead kid dropped to all fours and just stayed there, his head hanging down.
“Can’t puke. Got no guts left!” They all laughed at that. I didn’t quite get the joke.
But despite everything, I tried to get the joke, despite even the incongruity that I really was, like it or not, a more or less “normal” kid and right now I had a model kit for a plastic Fokker Triplane in my schoolbag. I still wanted to measure up to Luke Bradley, for all I was more afraid of him than I had ever been. I figured you had to be afraid of what you did and who you hung out with if you were going to be really bad. You did what Luke did. That was what transgression was all about.
So I unzipped my fly and pissed on the dead kid. He made that bleating sound. The others chuckled nervously. Luke grinned.
“Pretty cool, Davey, my boy. Pretty cool.”
Then Luke started to play the role of wise elder brother. He put his arm around my shoulders. He took me a little ways apart from the others and said, “I like you. I think you got something special in there.” He rapped on my head with his knuckles, hard, but I didn’t flinch away.
Then he led me back to the others and said, “I think we’re gonna make David here a member of the gang.”
So we all sat down in the clearing with the dead kid in our circle, as if he were one of the gang too. Luke got out an old briefcase from inside the fort and produced some very crumpled nudie magazines and passed them around and we all looked at the pictures. He even made a big, funny show of opening out a foldout for the dead kid to admire.
He smoked and passed cigarettes out to all of us. I’d never had one before and it made me feel sick, but Luke told me to hold the smoke in, then breathe it out slowly.
I was amazed and appalled when, right in front of everyone, he unzipped his pants and started to jerk off. The others did it too, making a point of trying to squirt on the dead kid.
Luke looked at me. “Come on, join in with the other gentlemen.” The other “gentlemen” brayed like jackasses.
I couldn’t move then. I really wanted to be like them, but I knew I wasn’t going to measure up. All I could hope for now was to put up a good front so maybe they’d decide I wasn’t a pussy after all and maybe let me go after they beat me up a little bit. I could hope for that much.
But Luke had other ideas. He put his hand on the back of my neck. It could have been a friendly gesture, or if he squeezed, he could have snapped my head off for all I could have done anything about it.
“Now David,” he said, “I don’t care if you’ve even got a dick, any more than I care if he does.” He jerked his thumb at the dead kid. “But if you want to join our gang, if you want to be cool, you have to meet certain standards.”
He flicked a switchblade open right in front of my face. I thought he was going to cut my nose with it, but with a sudden motion he slashed the dead kid’s nose right off. It flew into the air. Corky caught it, then threw it away in mindless disgust.
The dead kid whimpered. His face was a black, oozing mess.
Then Luke took hold of my right hand and slashed the back of it. I let out a yell, and tried to stop the bleeding with my other hand.
“No,” Luke said. “Let him lick it. He needs a little blood now and then to keep him healthy.”