What You Don't Know(81)

“You never did.”

“Things were different back then,” she said. “Times have changed.”

“I’ll think about it.”

But he didn’t think about it, because he had no interest in college. College was for smart kids, kids with brains, and Jimmy isn’t all that bright. At least that’s what his dad had always told him, and that’s what the teachers in high school had said too. Actually, the teachers had usually said something about him not living up to his full potential, which in real-speak meant he was a fucking numbnuts, which was how his dad always put it. And even though his mom told him not to believe it, told him that no one understood him, he thought all those people were probably right. He’d spent an entire year in middle school wondering if he was retarded, like full-on short-bus retarded, but then realized he was stupid. Not stupid enough to actually benefit from the lack of brain cells, but pretty stupid. So why waste the money on college? He figured he’d stay at the store, work his way up. It wasn’t a bad gig, and he liked most of the other employees. They were nice to him, didn’t make him feel like an asshole. He doesn’t need those dipshits he went to school with, who just want a punching bag. He’ll make new friends, work his way up into management. Get an apartment, a girlfriend.

He’s thinking about these things while he waits at the bus stop, huddled in a corner, the sleeves of his coat coiled over his hands and his face nuzzled into the collar, his breath leaving a damp patch on the fabric. He’s alone in the plastic booth, because everyone else is either too smart to be out on a day like this or has a car. He’s so occupied with this, so furious that his mother will spend hundreds of dollars on boxed wine every month and not even consider cosigning a car loan for him, that he barely notices the person come into the booth and sit right beside him, even though there’re three other metal benches, all of them empty. He doesn’t notice anything until there’s a sharp point digging into his side, poking all the way through his coat and T-shirt and into his skin.

“What the fuck’s your problem, man?” he says, trying to jump up, but the guy has one hand on the back of his neck and the other pushing the knife deeper into his side. The year before, one of Jimmy’s friends had been accidentally stabbed in the thigh at a house party, and he’d told everyone that it’d taken a while to feel the pain, that he hadn’t felt anything until he looked down and saw the steak knife sticking out of his leg. But now Jimmy knows that’s bullshit, because the pain is immediate, even though the knife can’t be very far in, an inch, maybe not even that.

“There’s no problem,” the guy hisses. “No problem at all.”

“I don’t have any money, man,” Jimmy says. He’s sweating, big beads of it running down his back and into the crack of his ass. “I’ll give you my wallet, but there’s nothing in it.”

“I don’t want your money.” The hand tightened when Jimmy tried to turn his head, so he was left staring out at the falling snow. The guy’s breath smelled like cigarettes, and he was wearing a cologne that smelled familiar, or an aftershave. Jimmy didn’t know.

“Then what do you want?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

He’s going to piss in his pants. He’s never been so scared, and his bladder is about to let loose and soak his pants, run down his leg and into his shoes. Maybe, Jimmy thinks, he’ll laugh later, because he thought his socks would be wet from the snow, he couldn’t even imagine how bad things could get. Now, having a little bit of snow in his shoes sounds like a luxury.

“This is what I get for taking the fucking bus,” Jimmy says.

“Shut up.” The guy forces him to stand, makes him walk out of the shelter and back into the cold. There’s no one around, no one on the street so he can scream for help, there’s not even any cars driving past. It’s like everyone is dead and they’re the only two left alive on the whole planet, trudging across the frozen ground under a slate sky. It makes him think of that TV show his mom likes so much, where most everyone is dead and there’re groaning zombies lurching down the streets. That show makes the idea of everyone being dead seem almost nice, like it could be a great time, but this is different, this is wrong and he doesn’t like it at all.

“Where are we going?” Jimmy asks, but it’s too late, the guy is shoving him hard, and kicking him in the back of the knee, so Jimmy crumples forward, slumping into the open trunk of a car idling at the curb, a neat and easy trick, like the guy had planned the whole thing, practiced the move until he got it perfect. He tries to sit up, to get up and run, but he can’t because he’s lying on some slippery fabric, and when he gets a handful of it he sees it’s silk, bright colors with fuzzy pompoms sewn up the front, like something a clown would wear. He doesn’t think about this long, because he’s gotta get out of this car, he’s heard that you should never let some psycho take you to another location, somewhere secluded where they can have their way with you, and although the advice is usually given to girls, he thinks it probably holds for him too.

“Hey man,” Jimmy starts to say, and—

*

Jimmy wishes he were dead, and he thinks that’ll come, sooner or later. He doesn’t know where he is, or how much time has passed. He is tired and he is hungry and he is in pain. And he is cold. He doesn’t know when he was undressed, but everything is gone, even his socks, and he must be in a basement or somewhere underground, because the floor is plain cement and he can hear the guy climbing stairs in the next room every time he leaves or comes in, his feet slapping against the bare wood steps.