December Park(10)

The driver of the pickup revved the engine. Despite the cold, I felt sweat bead my forehead and immediately freeze.

The streetlamps grew closer. Through the fog, I made out the cantilevered peaks of the nearest houses, pointed and triangular like the silhouette of a distant mountain range.

I was certain of it now: I could feel the heat of the truck breathing down my neck, could see the particles of dust and debris the tires kicked up floating in the headlights’ illumination. I thought, too, that I could feel the bits and pieces of tiny stones flung at the backs of my legs.

Then a blast from the horn sent me reeling. I jerked the handlebars, and my front tire thumped over a groove in the packed earth. Before I knew what had happened, I was thrown from my bike and rolling in the dirt.

The pickup shuddered to a stop no more than five feet from me. I saw steam rising from the grille, smelled the burning rubber of the tires. Something hissed, simmered, clicked. Frozen with fear, I only stared up at the vehicle as the driver opened the door and the dome light brought into relief the impression of my best friend, Peter Galloway, hysterical with laughter.

“That,” he said, hanging from the cab of the truck, “was priceless. Holy shit. I didn’t know you could ride that fast. I bet you thought I was some lunatic, huh?”

“Would I have been wrong?” I said, standing up and slapping the filth from my pants. There was a tear in the left knee. “Jerk-off. What the f*ck are you doing, anyway? Is that your stepdad’s truck?”

Still chuckling, he climbed down from the cab and went over to my bike. With the toe of one sneaker, he lifted the handlebars out of the dirt until he was able to grab them without bending over. “Surprise, surprise. Got my license yesterday after school.”

“No shit? That’s awesome.”

Together we hoisted my bike into the bed of his stepfather’s pickup, then climbed into the cab, slamming the doors in unison. He had the heat blasting and Temple of the Dog playing low on the tape deck.

I wasted no time pressing my palms against the vents to resurrect the feeling in my numbed fingers. I was still out of breath, my heart still racing. “I can’t believe you’re driving,” I said. Then added, “I can’t believe your stepdad let you have the truck.”

“I know, right?” Peter turned the truck onto the street. We were the only set of headlights in the thickening fog. “I was going to call and tell you. I figured I’d pick you up.”

“Ah, but then you thought it would be more fun to scare the shit out of me and practically run me over in the process.”

Peter laughed.

“Besides,” I said, “I wasn’t sure I was gonna come. But my dad got called out to work.”

“Because of that girl?” he said.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.”

“Well, don’t worry. I can get you home before curfew.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“My stepdad asked me point-blank if your dad cut back your curfew,” Peter said. “He figured your dad must have a good idea what’s been going on with those missing kids, so if he cut back your curfew he probably had a good reason.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him your curfew hadn’t changed. I hope you don’t mind that I lied.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Goddamn Ed the Jew,” Peter said, adjusting his position in the driver’s seat. He looked completely out of place behind the wheel, and I wondered if I was dreaming. “He’s always getting in my face about shit.”

Peter continually referred to his stepfather as Ed the Jew, but he never called him that to his face. Even though Peter was constantly bad-mouthing his stepfather, I didn’t think Peter truly disliked him. I knew Mr. Blum pretty well and thought he was a decent enough guy. Peter’s real father had stuck around till his son was almost three years old. Neither Peter nor his mother had heard from the man since. Peter didn’t even know if he was still alive.

Thinking about Peter’s stepdad made me think of my own father. I remembered how he had poured gasoline on a hornets’ nest last summer and set it on fire. I had watched him do it through the kitchen windows. Tiny fiery sparks spiraled up into the air, and although I supposed they might have been bits of burning leaves or cinders, I thought they could have just as easily been the burning hornets themselves, desperate to escape the conflagration.

I thought, too, of the way I felt coming home from school on certain days to find my father’s shit-brown sedan in the driveway and to know that we would share a few uncomfortable hours in the house together before he left for the night shift. Funny, the things the mind summons at the strangest times and for no reason at all.

“He’s not so bad,” I said, meaning Peter’s stepdad. “He let you take the truck.”

Peter shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”





There stood a stretch of white dunes overridden by sea grass between the beach road and the Shallows. As we approached, I spotted a number of cars partially hidden beneath the blackened loom of trees on the other side of the dunes. There was hardly any moonlight and the fog was too dense, so the world around us remained pitch-black.

Peter turned the headlights off and slowed the pickup to a loping ten miles an hour. We parked at the end of the queue of cars beneath the sweeping black fans of pine branches tumored with pinecones. Outside, the thin autumn air carried the strong and acerbic scent of the bay.