December Park(25)

Still laughing, Peter came around the sign to stand beside me. He pawed tears from his eyes and gazed up at Michael with a look of amazement on his face. “He’s gonna break his neck if he falls,” he said low enough so Michael wouldn’t hear him.

Scott stepped around to the rear of the sign. “I’ll stay back here and try to catch him if he falls.”

“Great,” I said. “Then you’ll both be killed.”

“Probably,” Scott said, then vanished behind the sign.

The whole thing didn’t take longer than three minutes, though it seemed an eternity. Thankfully, no cars passed as Michael worked, but twice we thought we heard one approaching and Michael had ducked behind the sign while Peter and I ditched into the overgrown shrubbery at the shoulder of the road.

Once he finished, Michael climbed down, and then he and Scott joined us on the front side of the sign, where our quartet admired his work like appraisers at an art show.

He had switched the first letter of each word so that the sign now read, Farting Harms.

It was brilliant—a Michael Sugarland original.

The sound of a vehicle startled us. I turned and saw headlights coming down the road toward us. The four of us crouched in the heavy weeds and bushes as a rusted pickup whooshed by.

“Welcome to immortality, good buddy,” Michael intoned and clapped me on the back.





We reached the intersection of Haven and McKinsey and waited as two cars rolled slowly beneath the traffic lights. A sharp wind rustled Scott’s cape. I hugged myself, suddenly cold. This was where we departed.

Scott handed the knapsack to Michael, pulled the pointy collar of his Dracula cape around his neck, waved, and crossed the intersection. He disappeared around the bend of Haven Street.

Michael strapped the knapsack onto his back. The pith helmet was on his head again, his shoe-polish moustache smeared halfway across his left cheek. “Good night, punkos.” He went straight, cutting through a darkened yard between two houses, a satisfied bounce to his gait.

Peter fished two smokes from his pocket and handed one to me.

“Thanks.”

It was tough lighting the cigarettes in the relentless wind, but we managed.

“Your pops ain’t home yet, is he?”

“No,” I said. “Not till morning. Just like every year.”

“You wanna get something to eat at the diner?”

“Not tonight. I should get home.”

“Yeah,” he said, “me, too.”

“What?” I could tell there was something on his mind.

“It’s nothing. It’s just . . . I saw your face when we were trashing Naczalnik’s house. I mean, you were really . . .” He frowned. “I don’t know.”

I hadn’t told anyone, not even my father after he’d grounded me for a week, the real reason I didn’t turn in that report to Naczalnik. Peter was my best friend and I considered telling him now. But in the end, I decided against it. Not because I didn’t trust Peter with the information, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to talk about it.

“Nozzle Neck’s a jerk,” I said, taking the easy route. “That’s all.”

Peter nodded and looked down at his new sneakers, which were still greased in black shoe polish. His lower lip quivered in the cold, and a plume of smoke wafted about his head until it was dispersed by the wind. “Seriously. My mom’s gonna have me for breakfast over these stupid shoes.”

“It might wash off,” I suggested, though I didn’t think it would.

“Yeah. Maybe.” He grinned wearily at me. “All right. Later, skater.”

“After a while, pedophile.”

He crushed his cigarette out beneath one ruined sneaker, then stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his broad shoulders hunched and his plastic Batman mask hanging over the nape of his neck. He sauntered across the intersection. The green glow of the traffic light cast an eerie bluish radiance on him. He looked like one of the ghosts straight out of December Park folklore.

I stood on the corner and watched him go until the darkness swallowed him up whole.





As I continued along Haven Street toward home, I replayed the incident with Mr. Naczalnik. Had I been paying more attention to my surroundings, I might have noticed the vehicle hiding in darkness ahead of me. As it was, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the engine abruptly roared to life. Just as the headlights flashed on, the vehicle lurched forward, and I heard the chain saw shudder of grinding gears as it advanced toward me.

The suddenness of it all frightened me into temporary immobility; I merely stood in the center of the street, my hair bullied by the wind and blowing across my forehead and down into my eyes. I brought one arm up to shield my eyes and stepped over to the curb as the headlights roared toward me.

The notion to run, to dash over the curb and through the flanking woods, occurred to me right away, but I was powerless to move. I watched the headlights barrel down on me until the vehicle screeched to a sliding halt no more than ten yards away. It was a pickup, and the force of the stop caused it to fishtail across the center of the street. The tires smoked. I felt the heat of the truck even at this distance. I heard the muffled sound of the radio blasting in the cab and saw darkened, swarthy shapes spilling over the side of the truck’s bed. In a flash, I caught the gleam of metal belt buckles.