CHAPTER EIGHT

NITRO

'itro slouched beneath the shadow of the canyon like a bum sleeping off a three-day drunk in a ditch. It had no gas stations, no big name fastfood joints the way Palmetto did. There was a taco stand (Paco's Tacos) at the edge of the highway just at the turn off to the Naranja Canyon Mobile Home Park. There was a saloon, Coyote Cantina, with an enormous parking lot that was never quite full up even on a Saturday night. On the front of the cantina was a picture of Wiley Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, with the words "Beep! Beep!" in dark letters above the bird's head. A large movie-style marquee proclaimed: BINGO--THURS THRU SAT IN CACTUS LOUNGE LADIES

NITE WED/LVE ENTMENT FRISATSUN/DARK MON.

Other than these two commercial ventures, Nitro was a graveyard of trailer parks: six of them in a five mile stretch, Naranja Canyon Mobile Home Park, Sun Dial Trailer park, Joshua Tree Gardens, Ed and Inez Home On The Range" Park, Quail Motor Homes, and the more simply named, "Park."

Right now, at ten minutes after midnight, most of the elderly residents of Nitro were asleep. Others sat up in their beds watching television, some played cards with their buddies on card tables beneath green-striped plastic awnings in front of their mobile lamps plugged into outdoor sockets. But some of the men and a few the women were down at the Wash, placing bets on one of Nitro's popular summertime sport: the dog fights.

Fights in the Wash usually didn't get going until twenty after the hour, and on this particular Saturday night, it would be 12 before they began because one dog had yet to show up.

Outside Kevin Sloan's trailer at the Sun Dial Trailer Park, a and two jeeps pulled up, headlights hitting the dark pit bull that sitting in front. The dog scampered beneath its home.

A man leaped from the back of the pick-up truck. He was He wore what appeared to be the uniform of the evening: a red

/

cap, t-shirt, jeans, and beer-gut. He yelled, "Get your ass out here,

we gonna howl tonight!"

"Hell, man, they're fucking like bunnies in there," the driver jeep said. He'd slid out from behind the wheel and was now on his tip toes, peering through the back window of the trailer. "Let's take Lammie and leave him to his fun. No man wants to get with his dick hangin'

out."

The first man crouched down on his hands and knees and beneath the trailer. His gaze was met by two flaring red eyes back at him.

The dog growled at him from her shadowy hiding place.

She'd dug a shallow ditch there beneath the trailer and was up in it.

The man stuck his hand near her muzzle.

She snapped her jaws, and he jerked his hand back just in time avoid getting his fingers chomped off.

"She tried to kill me," he said, clutching his hand against his chest like it was a wounded bird.

The other man came around and swatted at his cowering buddy. "Get out of there, Junior, let me show you what a real man can do here."

"You're full of it, Fisher."

The man from the jeep went down on his knees. The dog's red eyes flashed out at him. The growl. "You got to know Lammie, now, you got to appeal to the woman in her. Come on, sweetcakes, we gonna take you for little ride in my car."

This was Nitro at night in the summer.

"Hey, Alison!" Charlie Urquart shouted.

He was in the backseat of his father's Mustang convertible, drunk off his ass. Fuck Dad for telling me I can't go out tonight, luck him the old fart can go to bell for all I care. The voice inside Charlie's head that spoke those words didn't seem to be Charlie's at all, at least not to bin,; it was something that just got loose inside him sometimes, a kind of wildness that turned off the regular Charlie most of the other kids knew, it was like automatic pilot, and it usually came on after his father gave him a talking to. That's one, Charlie thought, knocking back the last of his Budweiser. He waved the can around, crushing it in a fist. He was wearing his letterman's jacket, and was drenched with either sweat or beer or both a senior from Yucca Valley, Billy Simpson was driving the car (he was only half-drunk), while Terry Boyd, who had once streaked across the gym floor during one of the girls' basketball tournaments, rode shotgun and splashed beer indiscriminately around the upholste

They were parked in the circular driveway of a small gray stucco house.

Although the front porch and driveway were lit up, the house was dark.

"Nobody's home," Terry said, "Let's go."

"Dickhead, she's in there, she's in there, I can smell her," snarled,

"don't you think I fucking know her smell by now? Shit a tuna factory."

When Terry glanced back at his buddy, well,

Urquart at all, and both Terry and Billy knew that when Charlie like this, drunk and zoned out, his personality became like sharp, glass, to the point that even they didn't want to be around him.

"She dumped you, man," Billy said, slapping him on the shot

"'member?"

"Dumped you like shit," Terry added.

Charlie's eyes were like glinting steel. "No, my friends. She dump me. She just made me want her more."

Life sucks and then you die, Alison Hunt considered as she out the living room window, trying to keep her head low so the the Mustang wouldn't see her. She'd been watching enjoying her evening of having the house to herself--her mother father had driven to Redlands to have dinner with her Aunt Jenny, her brothers were down at the garage working on some project were keeping to themselves (although Ed, Jr."

kept slipping up mentioning her recent birthday, so she thought they must be fixing the old T-bird for her)--and then she'd heard the shouting from driveway.

"I love ya, Alison!" Charlie shouted. His voice sounded like he chewing gravel and spitting it out. "I want to shoot you full bullets!"

Terry and Billy were laughing and making pig noises.

"We know you're home!" Billy shouted.

"Yeah, come on, baby, we just want to make you feel more like a girl!:

said, leaping uncertainly out of the back of the car, scratching a line down its side. He landed on his hands and knees on the driveway.

His beer can clattered into the low juniper bushes, spraying beer as it rolled. He sprang up in the air like a Jack-in-the-box, touching down on the balls of his feet, wobbling. He was grinning as he walked towards the front porch. "Tllison, come on, you know I'm the only guy for you, rweetmeat, I know you're somewhat confused about us. But you're all woman to me, babe. Terry--wasn't I just telling you that pretty little thing shouldn't be a grease monkey or playing basketball?

Wasn't I?" He grinned like he was going to split his face open with his teeth. "You thould be on your knees, bitch king

"Hey, man, what ya doin'?" Terry asked, sloshing beer over his shoulder. "We're gonna miss the Big One, and like what if her Mom's home or--"

"Her Mama ain't home, birdshit, and you can bite the big one for all I care."

Alison had kept her head low, to the left of the drapes, but she moved for a second, and his eyes followed the motion. He saw her now. He waved.

Alison shut her eyes tightly, so tight it hurt. Just go away, just go away.

As if to answer her, the doorbell rang. There was a pause. Then another ding-dong, and another and another, and she thought he would never stop.

She arose from her hiding place and pulled the drapes aside. Charlie stood directly beneath the front porch light. He was the kind of high school-handsome that made her sick: almost too pretty with his red lips, dark eyelashes, and dark penetrating eyes. A shock of dark thick hair fell over his forehead, fanning down around his eyebrows. And yet,

he had been his girlfriend for almost a year.

You stupid moron, she recognized now.

In the year she had dated him, her reputation had been shot to hell, and she had only found this out when Than had told her to her face.

know it's not true, but he's making up stories, like that 'cause you spread so easy and stuff. "

And then it had taken her another three months to dump the Charlie saw himself as the Big Man On Campus, and when kids liked him, it usually was because of his being simultaneously: he had a thing for torturing small mammals, and wasn't too bad at mind-fucking his fellow students.

But Alison had liked him for another reason. Pathetic, she thought now.

Although, at the time, when he had opened up to her, up, and told her his deepest, darkest secret in the whole world, felt he was good, at least at heart. They had that as a bond. But no more.

"What do you want?" Alison asked, rolling open one windows alongside the picture window. But she knew

He wanted to terrorize her.

Charlie licked his lips as he glanced towards Alison, staring at from her living room window. "I see you, Mison. I SEE YOU." "Get in the car Urqu!" Billy called out. "It's probably Without turning back to his friends, Charlie flipped the bird them.

"Hurry it up, willya, Urqu?" Billy gunned the motor. "Just give me a sec so I can piss on her door--it's their territories and I wanna make sure no other dog gets to her first, want her all to myself," Charlie said, unzipping his jeans. He back and forth on the balls of his feet while he fiddled with his "I want her, man, she's my girl."

"We're leaving," Terry said, no longer laughing. "pussies."

But Billy did not drive off.

Alison shouted, "My brothers'll get you for this!"

Charlie Urquart cackled. "You gonna send the retard after me, Al?

what's he gonna do, drool me to death? Or is it gonna be the faggot, find I guess we all know what he'd try to do. Tell me, sweetmeat, if I was to rape you, would you let me, or just try and beat me off?."

Although Alison could not quite see what Charlie was doing because he had positioned himself so close to the front door, she heard the steady hissing stream as he urinated.

She turned and ran down the front hallway towards her bedroom, hoping he would not leave until she'd returned.

When Charlie finished peeing, spraying some last drops of urine on his shoes and hands (he wiped his hands on his red letterman's jacket), he heard the bolt dick in the front door. Then the door opened slightly.

The chain was off. The door opened wider.

The first thing he saw was the thing pointing directly at his balls, which still hung out of his fly.

An arrow with a sharp metal tip.

Alison stood there in a white tank top and blue shorts, barefoot, her blond hair pushed behind her ears. Her blue eyes gleamed with the tears she was fighting. She had a bow-and-arrow in her hands; her hands trembled; the bow was stretched tight. In another second she might let go of the string, and the arrow would lodge somewhere either in his

right testicle or his left, although she might be able to skewer both them shish-kabob style, if she gave a little twist to her wrist when shot the arrow. Her lips curled back in anger.

"I am less than a foot away from you, Charlie. Now you know aim is pretty good, 'cause you've seen me hit targets out at the Of course, sometimes I have been known to miss the bulls eye but I tell you, this is one time I won't miss. If you want to take the that I will, well, be my guest. Now, get off my porch, and you your boyfriends can go and do what you little boys do without girlfriends on a Saturday evening."

Charlie grinned, nodding. "Very good. You're bluffing, Hunt, I'm not gonna to let you win this round."

"Get the fuck off my property," Alison snarled.

Charlie looked her directly in the eyes. "I will tell everyone Unless you come out tonight."

She hesitated a moment, closing her eyes. I will not cry, I am weak, he can't hurt me anymore.

"I mean it," he said, almost softly, "baby, you know how love you, but I mean what I'm saying. We're good together, you it. That girl in Yucca Valley didn't mean a thing. It's you, babe, you."

Slowly, she lowered the bow and arrow. "Good girl," he said, "that's my good girl." "Bastard," Alison whispered.

Charlie went back and climbed over the side of the car, fallin the back. The Mustang backfired.

As he revved the engine, Billy said, "I'm sure we missed the Alison came out of her house, turned to lock the door, and without saying a word, got into the Mustang next to Charlie. She like some part of her had died within just a few minutes.

He put his arm around her, and whispered the most vile she could imagine in her ear.

"Good girL" he murmured so close to her ear it was like a jacket buzzing there. "It was only four months along, anyway, and nobodys gonna know but me as long as you behave yourself."

But she had already blocked out the pain she was feeling, and pretended that this wasn't really her life at all. She had become good at that, because everything in life since she'd become a teenager seemed like nothing but pain.

Back at the Rattlesnake Wash, some of the men had gone to get Sloan's pit bull, and within ten minutes, the fight had already begun.

"Jesus Christ," Peter gasped, flattening himself against the side of the truck. Than had convinced him to drink a beer ("You'll be less pissed of fat me," he'd said with typical Campusky logic, over Peter's protests-and Campusky logic won out.) Peter was feeling buzzed, it was his first beer ever and he had become suddenly paranoid that the cops were going to bust him.

"Right, Chandler, they'll bust you," Than grinned, his eyes widening with glee, "then they fingerprint you, then they put you in The Cell.

And then ... then," he rubbed the palms of his hands together, "then you're in with five hardened criminals for along hot night. And one of them, the one who smells like sweaty underarms and looks like a Sherman tank looks at you and says, "You're kinda purty.""

Peter stared over the bed of the truck and thought he recognized the voice of someone shouting; flickering lights moved in off the highway.

"What is it?" Than looked over the truck to see if someone was coming their way. The fight had only been going for a few minutes. Some of the men showed up with a large growling pit bull in the back of another truck. Peter couldn't see the dog clearly: it was as dark as the inside of a cave, and looked to him like a demon with its ears pointing straight up, its eyes reflecting red in the glare of headlights. There were about sixteen men standing around the edges of the Wash looking down

into it, swearing, waving their cash in the air like fans, alternatelyI and coaxing the two dogs down in the fight. And then, there was endless growling and snapping of dogs.

Neither Than nor Peter had been able to bring himself to look, into the Wash at the damage the dogs were doing to each other. the group of men, two headlights had just turned down the dirt road the Wash.

"Campusky, Jesus Christ," Peter whispered a third time.

you tell me he was going to be here?"

"Who he?" Than asked, but then saw who Peter meant. "Charlie Urquart."

Or not quite Charlie, but his father's red Mustang converti kicking up gravel and dust as it turned off the highway and onto ridge overlooking the Wash. Looked like one of Charlie's Unhol Billy, was driving--and Than made out Alison Hunt sitting in the seat next to Charlie.

"We could run," Than blurted out.

"Not a bright idea, the only direction is out there," Peter towards the endless canyons blossoming beyond where they stood. don't even know why I turn spineless around that guy. It's factor coming through."

"I think when you deal with a kid who uses switchblades to make point, we can safely assume fear," Than said, "but he's probably interested in bothering us tonight. And if he is, it's probably you who gets it.

Seems to me he owes you one."

"All right, bitch, stay in the car for all I care," Charlie spat. "Just here when I get back."

Charlie Urquart slammed the car door shut; the noise in the canyon, above the whispered exclamations of the above the snapping of the dogs in the Wash. The air carried the acrid scent of cigarette and marijuana smoke, the smells of beer and Brut After-Shave. Charlie glanced down at the dogs.

The dark one they called Lammie had Silver Molly by her throat and was shaking her mercilessly. Then Molly tore herself free, bleeding beneath her collar, blood spotting her muzzle, and rose up on her hind legs, coming down against her opponent with all her weight. Lammie was momentarily crushed beneath the larger dog. She rolled over, her nipples flattening across her belly; Silver Molly went for her stomach, sharp teeth flashing in the headlights from cars above them; Lammie rolled out from under her and spun around to face Molly. Jaws snapping like steel bear traps, dripping with foam, muzzles bloody and wrinkling. Lammie went down on her forequarter and leaped for Silver Molly's throat again. Her jaws slammed together, teeth almost touching through Molly's fur and skin as she shook the dog mercilessly.

From the edge of the Wash, above the dogs, Charlie slapped Peppy Alvarado on the back. "Hey, Pepperoni, how's it hangin', mimi go

"Too late, Charlie, we already got two dogs--no need for you, too."

Peppy didn't turn away from the fight.

"Hey-hey, good one, wasn't that a good one?"

Billy Simpson and Terry Boyd passed the joint they'd been smoking back and forth, but Charlie waved it away. They grinned stupidly at their leader.

Charlie Urquart reached into his back pocket. His hand came out with a wad of cash. "Fifty bucks, my man, count 'em, fifty." He waved the money in front of Peppy's face. "I bet you could buy a lot of poon with this."

"Also too late for your bet--we got Lammie up against Silver Molly. No second fight tonight."

"Now that is a pity, my friend. Isn't that a pity, boys?" "Really,"

Terry coughed, sucking on the joint. "Sure enough is," Billy added.

"Maybe," Charlie shouted, and a few men turned to his voice, "one of your illegals would want fifty bucks to fight one of those dogs.

some real entertainment here, comprende?"

"Maybe you should get the chin ga out of here," Peppy spat out.

"Translate, William," Charlie said, turning to Billy.

"I think it's their word for 'fuck', man, yeah, I'm sure."

"Chinga, chin ga chin ga Charlie said, "that's cool, Pep, that's cool

"You boys excuse me," Peppy said, brushing Charlie to one side, got to get back to the fight."

"Hey--" Terry started after Peppy, but Charlie socked him in shoulder.

"Leave Senor Avocado to his fight. I spy something that has possibilities for fun ... give me that," he said, grabbing the joint from Billy's fingers, "you been bogarting it too long." long drag on the joint, Charlie waved towards the truck where and Peter stood.

Peter Chandler Confessions

All it took was my first sip of beer, and instead of the bravado alcohol is supposed to give you, I became a shrivelin was fifteen, but inside I felt about seven years old. All because Urquart, pointing at me and Than over by the truck.

I completely understood what Charlie had against me, but I if we had met under different circumstances he might not be at throat so much--perhaps if we lived in a town where there was more do on a Saturday night than bet on dogs. Not that I would've Charlie very much: he was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch, but one thin learned from constantly being uprooted is that you can get along with lot of different kinds of people if you put your mind to it, bitches included.

But we'd met in March, at school, about the

Than Campusky and I were getting to know each other, soon after moved to Palmetto. And I guess, as Charlie himself would say, he me one"

after our introduction to each other.

New kids are always easy targets.

You couldn't be Charlie Urquart, quarterback, heartthrob, son of man who developed Palmetto into the middle-class slums it had by 1980, you couldn't be Charlie Urquart, brown-noser [extraordinaire, without wanting to mutilate poodles and pummel a few [kids senseless. It came with the territory. Charlie always "owed" somebody ['one," because the one thing everyone pretty much knew about Charlie was that his old man beat him up and otherwise terrorized him on a regular basis, and I guess Charlie was just giving back to the world a little of what he got. He and I actually had a lot in common, come to ' think of it, only I handled my end of things in a different way-or not at all.

Charlie, he lashed out.

It was rumored that he popped Black Beauties like they were going out of style, too, and in his letterman's jacket pocket he usually carried a paperback Satanist's Bible.

What had endeared me to Charlie in March occurred, as do all bad memories of high school, in the locker room after gym.

I was coming in from intramurals when I heard some boys yelling, &lueal like a peeg!" Students passed around Deliverance that year in the library, along with Portnoy's Complaint, The Happy Hooker and Fear of Flying, reading only the dog-eared passages (so the only novel anyone read straight through was the Xaviera Hollander opus). Some of us managed to see the movie of Deliverance, too, with that scene where Ned Beatty is about to be raped by the weird backwoodsmen--so I recognized the "pig" line when I heard it. From the steamy yellow-tiled locker room came the sounds of a ruggle, the dang-banging of locker doors slamming, the wet snaps of rat tailed towels hitting someone's backside, and finally a boy's weak tenor lueaking "Oink, oink, reereeree!"

I went to the back of the room, through the mists of the showers, the graveyard smell of dirty socks and greasy jockstraps digging up into my nostrils like fingers. There, pushed up against the mildewed walls, just inside the shower was the fat kid I'd spoken briefly Geometry class: Nathaniel Campus, aka Than Campusky.

He stood there naked, his eyes open wide with practiced fear, gym shorts pulled down around his ankles, his t-shirt tossed on slippery floor. The only modesty al owed him was an athletic Four naked boys, clutching their white towels, twisting them into tails, surrounded him.

One of those boys had a switchblade, blade out, circling right nipple with the blade.

This was Charlie Urquart, a junior.

He and his cronies had pinned Than in that position. Charlie drew a thin red line of blood across Than's chest, his nipples like connect-the-dots. "You put Raquel to shame," laughed, while Than continued to oink. "What do you think? You maybe Campusky's tits are bigger than Alison's? What do you Campustule, a 44-triple E?"

"He's gonna squirt milk in a second, remember that movie the giant tit?" one of the other boys said.

"You my two-ton-fun-bun, Porky?" Charlie asked.

Before Than could answer, I said, "Leave him alone, assholes."

Charlie turned around for a second, looked right through me was not there.

Then he smacked Than across his chest.

"It's a rite-of-passage, Campustule, isn't that right? You've got branded by my blade."

Then he turned back to me. "Every boy in this school gets Even you, geek."

"Listen," I said, "just because your life is shit doesn't mean you to make everybody else live it."

Chadie drew the blade back in. The other boys grinned stupidly, followed Charlie as he stepped back out of the shower area into locker room.

But before Charlie was completely out of sight, he glanced back at me as if he were mentally taking a picture of me, to keep for future I knew then that he owed me one for that, because Charlie Urquart not the kind of guy to get back at you on your time. He had his own he liked his revenge cold, when you didn't expect it. Maybe when you'd forgotten he owed you one.

"So Chandler," Charlie said, lifting the smouldering joint, "you want drag?"

Peter held up his beer bottle. "Already got this, thanks."

"Pretty neat fight, huh?" Than asked nervously; his jowls trembled.

"Yeah, it's cool," Charlie inhaled the sweet smoke. His eyes were as he held his breath, and then exhaled. these wetbacks standing around---doesn't it make you feel like in a call to Immigration or something?" ' "That's a good one," Campusky chortled, "Yeah, that's a real good one, Charlie."

Urquart did not take his eyes off Peter.

"You think it's funny, Chandler?"

"Not half as funny as you are," Peter said.

"I think you're funny, Chandler, I think you're a regular laugh riot."

"I'm glad I can provide you with entertainment." And Peter wondered drunkenly: did I really just say that?

"You and me, Chandler, we're like those dogs down there, it looks like we're at each other's throats, out for blood, but really, we're just playing a game."

"A game."

"Yeah, that's right, you know, boys will be boys, dogs will be dogs."

"God," Than said drunkenly, "this reminds me of this show I saw Tuesday where this guy--"

"Shut your face or I'm gonna have to break it, Campustule," said.

Than belched.

Charlie stepped closer to Peter; just a few inches from his face.

could smell his own breath, thrown back to him through the marl" smoke that Charlie exhaled.

Charlie stepped forward.

Peter moved back.

Charlie took another step forward, and as if in a dance, Peter back another step.

"We're missing the fight," Charlie said, "don't you want to see it turns out?"

From behind him, Peter heard the dogs, growling and against each other in the Wash.

Below him.

Charlie took another step.

Close again to Peter.

Peter's head began to spin with. the beer, the stars and the spun with him. He did not step backwards.

Charlie said, "You sure you don't want to puff on this?" He held the joint to Peter.

Behind and beneath Peter, the sound of snapping steel jaws, gnashing teeth.

Charlie reached out and tapped lightly on Peter's shoulders. he drew something from his jacket pocket. Steel shone in the light. "Don't you think it's about time I branded you, nanoaer. The switchblade popped out, inches from Peter's neck.

"I could cut your heart out with this, boy," Charlie whispered, stuff it down your throat while you die."

"Shit!" Peter cried out, "you're psycho, Urquart," stepping feeling his ankle turn as he fell down the side of the Wash.