Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(38)

Not in a million years would she believe what her son made me endure.

She wouldn’t believe it because if she did, I don’t think she’d be able to sing songs from silly musicals while doing housework, and that’s her favorite thing to do in the world, or at least it was when I used to hang out with Asher back in middle school.58

I try not to think about her hearing the gunshots, her running into Asher’s room, her screaming, her maybe even cradling Asher’s blood-soaked head in her arms, trying to put his brains back into his skull,59 and her endless weeping for a fictional boy who didn’t ever exist—the son she never had—because she believes her Asher is an absolute angel.

She never saw him change, or if she did, she chose not to believe it, which makes her just as guilty, just as culpable.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I could never shoot Mrs. Beal in the face, because she’s always singing songs from Cats and never wronged me personally.

But when you really think about it, she’s to blame just as much as Linda is—and my dad too, regardless of whether or not he’s still alive in Venezuela.

These people we call Mom and Dad, they bring us into the world and then they don’t follow through with what we need, or provide any answers at all really—it’s a fend-for-yourself free-for-all in the end, and I’m just not cut out for that sort of living.

Thinking about all of this gets me feeling so low, and I’m shivering now.

“Come on, Target Asher. Ollie Ollie in come free. Come home so I can finish this once and for all,” I whisper as I watch gray-haired Mrs. Beal pull a small chicken from the oven.

The huge window frames her perfectly as she slices the meat and moves her mouth.

She’s singing again.60





TWENTY-SEVEN


There’s part of me—deep down inside—that feels the need to make a confession here, especially before I go through with my plan and therefore will not be able to make any sort of statement ever again.

A few months after we went to the Green Day concert, Asher spent the weekend with his uncle Dan fishing somewhere in rural Pennsylvania—I think it might have been the Poconos. He loved his uncle Dan, who was tall and confident and funny and drove a cool truck and was always taking Asher places—like to the movies and car races and even hunting. Uncle Dan seemed like the kind of uncle every kid dreams of having. I remember liking him immediately when we first met. He really seemed like a great guy, which makes it all the worse.61

But when Asher came back from this particular fishing trip—something wasn’t right.

We had this project for school we were working on—about ancient civilizations—and we had picked the Incas. We were putting the finishing touches on a miniature Machu Picchu at his house the Sunday night after he returned from fishing with Uncle Dan. I remember Asher wouldn’t look me in the eye and kept saying “Nothing!” way too loud every time I asked if anything was wrong. Finally he said, “If you ask me what’s wrong one more time, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.” He stared at me—like he wanted to kill me and was capable of doing it too.

I didn’t say anything as we finished creating our Machu Picchu. We had built the skeleton out of LEGOs, had used real sod for the grass, and had been making little cube-shaped papier-maché buildings for weeks. In my memory, the project looks magnificent—like I’d never made something so beautiful before or since. And Asher had been really proud of it just the week before—excited even. But just as I put the final bit of paint on the last structure, Asher started to smash the project with his fists.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, because we had spent weeks on it.

He just kept punching and smashing, sending down fists from above like some cruel boy-god.

It was so f*cking awful to watch—not just because he was ruining all of our hard work, but because I could clearly see he was coming undone.

I tried to grab him and he punched me in the face hard—giving me a black eye.

Then he just started to cry in this really violent way.

His mother came in and saw what was going on. She said, “What happened?”

I stood there with my mouth open as she tried to hug Asher, but he just ran right by her and into his room.

I’d never been so confused.

I couldn’t even explain what had happened to my parents, because I had no idea.

You’d think they would have called Mrs. Beal and asked a bunch of questions, but I don’t think they did, and I remember my dad saying, “Boys fight at that age. Just part of growing up,” to Linda, who was more concerned with how ugly my black eye appeared than the reason for Asher’s freak-out.

Asher didn’t come to school for a few days, and then he just showed up at my house late one afternoon and said, “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” I said.

My dad and Linda weren’t home. We went up into my room and he started pacing like a caged animal. I had never seen him pace like that before.

“I’m sorry I f*cked up our project,” he said.

“It’s okay.” I didn’t really care about failing or anything like that, but what he had done to me definitely wasn’t okay, and I knew it.

Why did I say it was okay?

I should have said, “Why the hell did you punch me? What the f*ck is wrong with you?” But I didn’t.