December Park(13)

“Buried treasure,” Jonathan Lambeth added from his seat on the piling beside Sasha.

“Oh holiest of ceramic cows,” Michael intoned. “Oh giver of blue and gold milk and creator of papier-maché cow pies. How selfless of you to sacrifice yourself on this wondrous of nights, to sustain the idle youth of this sad little beach community . . .”

Had Michael Sugarland not maintained an unsurpassable disdain for Stanton School’s student body, the ceramic cow would have appeared in the homecoming float in Monday’s parade, just before the Stanton varsity football team took the field. However, Michael had used his charm to hasten a friendship with members of the homecoming committee, enabling him to secure a key to the garage where the float was stored. He’d enlisted the assistance of the Lambeth twins to break into the garage and kidnap the Stanton School cow. They’d strapped the giant ceramic bovine to the roof of Mrs. Lambeth’s minivan with bungee cords and driven around the back roads of Harting Farms, the windows down, hooting and hollering, and blasting Led Zeppelin on the tape deck.

“So here’s the deal,” Michael said, turning to the ugly ceramic cow. His lips were turning purple, and knobs of gooseflesh had broken out on his forearms. “I woke up this morning realizing that my moment of greatness has yet to arrive. I’m nothing more than your average miserable teenage f*ckup.”

“I could have told you that and saved you the headache,” said Peter.

“I mean,” Michael went on, not missing a beat, “I nearly wept into my bowl of Count Chocula. But then it occurred to me—my purpose, my lot in life, is not to achieve greatness but to make the arrogant bastards around me equally as miserable.”

Jason Lambeth stepped up beside us and distributed fresh beers.

Michael didn’t take one. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t try to finagle misguided coeds out of their bras. He was what we all aspired to be, although none of us were willing to condemn booze and girls in an effort to reach it. We admired him for his convictions, even if we could not fully commit to them.

Instead, we took enjoyment in his mischievous plots against a community that did not accept any of us because we liked music and not football and played guitars and not sports. That was what made him Sugarland the Answer Man: his ability to provide for all of us a sense of alleviation from our otherwise tepid lives. That was why we were here tonight to sink the homecoming cow.

By this time, the flannel-clad gang from down the beach joined us. They gathered around Sasha while he played his acoustic guitar, the few girls among the crowd meandering over to the edge of the dock, examining the ceramic cow and whispering to each other.

“Oh,” one of the girls said, “it’s too cute!”

“Is it a bull?” said another girl.

Michael clapped, then waved Peter and me over. Scott was already beside him. He wanted the three of us, his best friends, to help him push the cow into the water.

I placed one hand against the fake cow’s flank and recalled the autumns when I’d fed the real cows at the Butterfield farm, feeling their body heat radiate through my palms and inhaling the sharply fetid stink of cow shit.

From his perch on the dock piling, Sasha reeled off a Mexican standoff progression—an alternating E major/F major progression.

A number of us laughed.

Michael squeezed between Peter and me, placing his hands against the flank of the ceramic cow. He thumped the side of his head against Peter’s shoulder, then turned his gaze on me. His smile was as bright as the moon. For a moment he looked absolutely insane. “I want you to remember this, Mazzone. I want you to think back on this as one of the best times of your life. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said.

Sasha began down strumming an E chord.

The rest of us stomped our feet in time with the beat.

“One!” Michael shouted, and the crowd repeated it. “Two!” I felt my toes curl in the tips of my sneakers. “Three!”

And we shoved, sending the ceramic cow tipping over the end of the dock. It struck the water on its side, creating a splash much larger and louder than I had expected.

The two girls beside me clapped and cheered.

“Yeah!” Michael bellowed, thrusting a fist into the air. He gripped one of the pilings with both hands and swung himself around the lip of the dock. One of his feet dangled precipitously in the air, and for a split second, I feared he would plummet into the water. “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

Peering over the side of the dock, I watched the enormous ceramic cow suck water in through the gaping wound where its udder had been. It grew heavy and tipped on its back, causing its shiny plastic legs to stand straight up out of the water. This procured more laughter and applause from the crowd.

Michael dipped his dangling foot toward the cow’s belly and stepped down on it, sending it bobbing in the water like a giant cork. “Cold,” he shouted, laughing. “That water is f*cking cold.”

Peter and Scott hoisted him over the side of the dock while the rest of us watched the cow slowly sink beneath the surface of the Chesapeake Bay. It seemed to take forever for it to disappear from view and become fully submerged. Once it did, everyone cheered again, and someone sprayed beer into the air.

One of the girls grabbed me and hugged me tightly, and I smelled a mixture of cigarette smoke and cinnamon in her hair. I didn’t know who she was.