He blinks. “You don’t think any of his friends are going to come looking for him in two weekends? It’ll be the monthly Poker Night.”
I hold back a sigh and think.
“We need to bury him first,” I say. “We need to make sure that he’s at least ten feet under.”
“On all the TV shows they only suggest six.”
“Exactly.” I sigh. “We need to dig deeper than that, and it’s going to take us a while…”
* * *
For a week and a half, we move out of the house at midnight—laboring under the moonlight. We cover the hole with a tarp during the daylight hours, setting the swings he never let us use back in place.
We bury him without a word about his life, without any remorse whatsoever. Without ever saying the words aloud, we both agree that this incident never happened. That as far as we know, he simply walked out of our lives one day. Just like our mother.
In between discussing our options (What the do we do now? Who can we call? How the hell do we move on after this?) , we rummage through his things and after looking through his bank statements and emails, we realize that we aren’t the only people he’s hurt. He’s a criminal of the highest degree, and he’s been siphoning millions from his own company.
Not only that, but although we knew he was the devil, we didn’t know he had a second life outside of us. That he was dating a woman named Stella who lived on the other side of town (but he had several other mistresses), was a member of some type of whiskey aficionado club, and was well-revered by all of his peers.
He’d lived an amazing life while stealing ours…
“You need to tell them not to come,” Trevor says, sitting across from me as I put down a letter he sent to one of his many mistresses. “That’s the first thing.”
“I thought the first thing was figuring out how we could possibly get back into school.”
“No,” he said, holding up a few sheets of paper. “The asshole had us enrolled in school…Apparently we were gifted and we graduated a year and a half ago. We also got into Hudson College and deferred acceptance.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I think Mr. Choate was a Hudson board member or something…We can figure that out later.” He swallows, shaking his head. “Tell them not to come, Michael.”
I unlock his cell phone and scroll through the recent contacts. When I reach the end of the list, I notice that there’s a folder titled, “Poker Club.”
Opening it, I seethe at the sight of his digital black book.
He has all the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all the people who’ve abused me and Trevor. For some of them, he even has their occupations and their company names.
The men are all upstanding citizens of New York, men who hold powerful positions and own profitable businesses.
I draft a message and select all of their names, hesitate a few seconds before hitting send.
Text: Poker Club is cancelled. Indefinitely.
Relieved, I start to put it down, but then it begins buzzing against my fingertips.
Response: Are you sure?
Response: You know I have some of the best lawyers in the state. Want to discuss this over lunch?
Response: You don’t think the boys will talk to anyone do you? I know a therapist you can take them to…He’ll report what they say to us and we can make sure the police won’t get involved.
Response: Are you still coming to the Poker Night Bill is hosting next weekend?
The responses continue to come in, and I read each and every one of them. Stunned that these men are more concerned with covering their asses than anything else.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Trevor shakes my shoulder. “Why are you looking like that?”
“Because Poker Night or not, they’ll just find a way to do what they do to someone else.”
“Makes sense,” he says. “I don’t think people like that will change overnight.”
“I think people like that deserve to die.”
He nods, picks up a few sheets of paper. “I can call the school tomorrow and see what the terms of deferment are. We’ll probably have to take some super basic classes and—”
“Did you not hear what I said?” I knock the papers out of his hands.
“Yeah. People like that deserve to die. I agreed with you.”
“I heard that part.” The phone is still buzzing with their responses. “I’m waiting for you to say that you’ll help me do it.”
His eyes widen and he’s looking at me as if I’ve grown two heads. “Michael, you’re joking, right?”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Michael, there’s so much shit running through my mind right now, so many things that I need to fucking process, and I can guarantee that one of them isn’t becoming a goddamn murderer.”