Devil House(55)

But they wouldn’t be back tonight. He fetched a bag of potato chips from under the counter, something Seth had left for him earlier, and went back to his booth to sleep. When you feel like you’re safe for an hour or two, you sleep. You never know if you’re going to get a chance to later. This was another thing he’d learned from the friends he’d made in his time away from town.

MINOANS IV

Sleep was deep and dreamless. He lay motionless for an age; he didn’t know what time it was when he finally woke up. The absence of natural light in the arcade offered no clues. It’s said of Alex that he could remain in the company of others without speaking for hours at a time; perhaps his sleep in the empty store lasted ten or twelve hours at a stretch, or more. The comfort of the booth offered security the outside world couldn’t match.

He stayed there the next night, too. Derrick told him it was OK. He felt almost safe—an unfamiliar feeling for him; even in well-regarded placement facilities, the threat of some fellow resident getting aggravated could keep him awake and alert until late. Roommates were the worst; the booth was cramped, but its walls were solid.

He came out to say hello when Seth stopped by in the afternoon on the second day; they talked a little about his time away, and Seth, a better listener when the occasion called for it than many of his friends would have suspected, told him things would be better soon.

Somewhere during his time in the darkness of the booth, Alex carved his initials into the wall. The markings people leave on walls aren’t usually dated; contextual clues can take you a ways, but stop short of specifics. When Alex carved his initials into the wall of the booth, did he mean to say: I’m here. Find your own booth, or did he mean, Here is where I slept tonight; in case I don’t come back, I’ll leave this mark? Did he use his pocketknife to carve it as soon as Buckler and Gates left the premises, sensing that time was probably short? Or did he wait a few days—until, as it seemed to him, the threat had passed, even though Derrick, when he finally heard about it, made it clear that everybody who spent time in the store was now at risk.

“Those people don’t care” was how he put it; he stood on the service side of the counter while Seth and Alex leaned on the glass from the customer side. “Miss Gates used to charge interest if the rent check was ever a day late. I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me.”

“What are they going to do, arrest us?” Seth said. He was grinning; the prospect of trouble remained irresistible to Seth, no matter how many times he learned anew that real trouble and the threat of trouble were two different things.

“Sorry,” Alex said. “I was pretty out of it that night.”

“Think about it,” Derrick said, gesturing generally at the interior of the store. What is it about senior year that makes some people suddenly talk like parents? Seth couldn’t understand it. “They saw all this stuff. They already know somebody’s been in here. The next thing they do is send the police. If the police come in here and hear anybody, what are they gonna think?”

“They’re gonna think it’s crackheads,” Alex said. “Get their sticks out before they even reach for the light switch.”

Derrick pointed over at Alex while looking Seth dead in the eyes, a game-show host who’s decided not to let anybody down easy. “We’re done,” he said. “There aren’t any crackheads in Milpitas, but he’s right. It was fun, and we’re done.”

“Come on,” Seth said, whining a little; he couldn’t help himself. “They only came once. We don’t even spend that much time in here but an hour or two a day.”

Alex didn’t flinch, but could feel Derrick’s eyes on him. He was a problem again. “I can go someplace else,” he said. “It’s OK. Angela used to help me when I needed help.” He meant Angela West; she’d be going to Central next year.

“Come on,” Seth said again. “Nobody’s going to buy a porno store with all the porno still in it! Your boss was right!”

“Mr. Hawley only meant to make trouble for whoever came next,” said Derrick. “Because he was mad. We shouldn’t even be here right now. It’s dangerous here now.”

Seth stopped objecting, both because he knew his friend was right and because his anger was already giving way to sadness and resentment. No matter who you are when you’re young, you always notice how the adults wreck everything as soon as they show up on the scene. To Seth, it seemed like this was especially the case if you already had a few problems and needed help. It wasn’t fair.

“I can take care of myself if they show up again,” offered Alex. “I can find exits in the dark and I’m pretty quiet.” He didn’t want to ask, directly, for some more time to figure out where else he could go.

“This is chickenshit,” Seth said. “They only came once.”

Derrick looked at his friends: of the three, he was the only one heading in the general direction of the adult world. A run-in with the police would expose him to anger from his parents, and possible consequences that might cause Kenyon to look twice at him if things went the wrong way.

Monster Adult X had been a safe place when the responsibility for anything inside lay on someone else’s shoulders. It was no longer safe.

“We can’t be here much longer,” he concluded. “We probably shouldn’t be here at all. It could get bad.”