24
KURT
I return Patti’s car keys to the glass
candy dish stationed beside her Great Lanes Bowling ashtray on the
kitchen counter. Upstairs in the bathroom, I open the bare medicine
cabinet and then search under the sink cupboard for aspirin or
anything else to help my headache. I find a packet of powdered flu
medicine that says it treats aches and chills. Close enough. I rip
it open and tip it into my mouth, then cup water under the faucet
into my hand. I gulp back the lemony grit.
“Kurt?” Patti calls up the stairs. “Expected you
home earlier. Thought we agreed on one o’clock.”
“We did,” I call back, voice rattling my brain.
“Coach guh-guh-gave extra duh-duh-drills for next game.”
“Can’t lend you the car for practice, hon, if I
don’t know when you’ll bring it back.”
“Wuh-wuh-won’t happen a-guh-guh-gain.”
“I don’t want to upset Coach Brigs, though. If he
thinks you need to stay longer, that’s fine. It’s just that I’d
like to know, is all. You coming out of that bathroom anytime
soon?”
“Yes, muh-muh-ma’am.”
“You wanna watch TV with me?”
“Tuh-tuh-took a good hit tuh-tuh-today. Head’s
ruh-ruh-ringing. Gonna lay duh-duh-down.”
“You okay, hon? Did Coach Brigs look at you?”
“It’s nuh-nuh-nothing. I juh-juh-just need
ruh-ruh-rest.” Stuck words clang around my skull. Tongue thick,
lips swollen, the stutter wears me out. Down the hall I enter my
room and collapse on the junior-size cot, ignoring that my feet
dangle over the mattress, and double up the pillow under my
nonthrobbing ear. Bleached cotton prickles my face as I pull the
sheets up over my head. I try not to think about the afternoon. I
try to think good things instead: think about the party, think
about kissing Marcia, think about the smell of hot popcorn as our
team marches past the concession stand during home games. But
somehow my thoughts keep coming back to Scott and Mike and Tom . .
. which leads back to that boy, Ronnie, and what they did to him.
Or I travel further back to Crud Bucket and what he did to Lamar
and me. Finally a sort of dying laps across me little by little,
until all thoughts disappear under a rising tide of black.
“Kurt?”
“Huh?”
“Kurt, hon. Can you wake up for me? I’m about set
to call the doctor pretty soon if I can’t get you out of this bed.
You need to get up. You been sleeping long enough.”
“Wh-what time is it?”
“It’s time you got up and got to school. ’Course
you ain’t gonna make it today and you got me more than a little
worried.” Patti’s raspy voice salts the wounded slug meat of my
brain. I squint against the sunlight streaking through the open
blinds. Why sunlight? I went to sleep an hour or two ago. It should
be evening.
“It’s been two days, now, since you got up out of
this bed.”
“Tuh-tuh-two days?”
“That’s right. You doing drugs?”
“No.” I try shaking my head but that kills. “No
duh-duh-doctor. Must buh-buh-be the fuh-fuh-flu. I’m
buh-buh-better. Need ruh-ruh-rest is all. Will you kuh-kuh-call
suh-suh-school?” I ask.
“Sure, hon. I will. But I’m gonna call the doctor
for an appointment if I don’t see you up by tonight, okay?”
“Okay.” I shut my eyes again, my head still
throbbing where that last kick hit me. Sheets don’t smell like
bleach no more. Smell sour with my sweat and breath. I pull them
back over my face, pretend it’s a tent, pretend I’m camping with
Lamar out on a mountaintop, under the stars, feeling a million
points of light glittering down on us, a million worlds around
those points of light, all of them offering to take me away.