That Was Then, This Is Now

Mark hopped back into the car with some rum, and we got a carton of pop at a one-stop store and took off for the lake. It was too cold to go swimming, but the lake is always a good place to go. There are a mess of them--lakes, that is--around here.

"I get so sick," Angela was saying. "I feel like I can't take it any more, life is so lousy. I'm lousy, everything is lousy. I can't stand it at home, I can't stand it at school, I can't stand it anywhere. I always thought, hell, I can get what I want. Get what I want and everybody can go to hell. But it doesn't work that way, Bryon. I'm going to hell right along with them. I'm already there."

Tomorrow she would be tough again, hard-as-rock Angela Shepard. Tonight she was tired. And drunk.

She passed out on my shoulder. We were stopped on a little dirt road, one of the millions that run along the lake and through the woods surrounding it. Mark sighed, "I thought she was never gonna shut up. I sure hate to see gutsy chicks break. Destroys my faith in human nature."

"You're never gonna break, huh?"

"Nope," Mark said. He pulled a pair of scissors out of his pocket. "Picked these up at the one-stop." He reached over and began cutting off Angela's beautiful long blue-black hair. Close to her head.

"You ain't gonna cut it all off?" I said, stunned.

"Yeah, I am. Setting up Curtis like she did, gettin me cracked like that. She coulda had me killed."

"That's right," I said, and suddenly all the hatred I had had for Angela, for her brother Curly, for everything she stood for, came back. I sat and watched Mark cut off all her hair. He tied it all up neatly when he had finished the job. It was a couple of feet long. Even with her hair gone and her makeup streaked all over her face, Angela was a beauty. She would always be. A lot of good it did her.

We drove home about three that morning. Mark and me finished what was left of the rum. We dumped Angela and her hair in her front yard. She never even woke up. I didn't think she'd remember getting into the car with us, but her girl friends would probably tell her that. She'd know who had cut off her hair.

She wouldn't do anything about it though, because one thing I knew about ol' Angel, she was proud. She'd say she had her hair cut at the beauty shop. She'd say, "I was sick of all that hot mess." She'd never let on.

I started crying on the way home from Angela's and Mark had to drive. Sometimes rum affects me like that.

I was still crying when we got home. We sat on the porch and I cried while Mark patted me on the back and said, "Hey, take it easy, man, everything's going to be all right."

I finally quit and sat sniffing and wiping my eyes on my shirt sleeve. It was a quiet night. "I was thinking . . ."

"Yeah?" Mark said, in the same easy, concerned voice. "What were you thinkin', Bryon?"

"About that kid Mike, the one in the hospital. We talked to him a couple of times, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. He got beat up tryin' to do a black chick a favor."

"How come things always happen like that? Seems like you let your defenses down for one second and, man, you get it. Pow! Care about somebody, give a damn for another person, and you get blasted. How come it's like that?"

"You got me, Bryon. I never thought about it. I guess 'cause nothin' bad has ever happened to me."

I looked at him. Nothing bad had ever happened to him? His parents had killed each other in a drunken fight when he was nine years old and he saw it all. He had been arrested for auto theft. He had seen Charlie shot and killed. He had nearly been killed himself by some punk kid he had never seen before.

Nothing bad had ever happened to him? Then I knew what he meant. Those things hadn't left a mark on him, because he was Mark the lion--Mark, different from other people. Beautiful Mark, who didn't give a damn about anyone. Except me.

I suddenly knew why everyone liked Mark, why everyone wanted to be his friend. Who hasn't dreamed of having a pet lion to stand between you and the world? Golden, dangerous Mark.

"You are my best friend, Mark," I said, still a little drunk. "Just like a brother to me."

"I know, buddy," he said, patting me again. "Take it easy; don't start bawling again."

"I sure wish I knew where M&M was," I said, and tears were running down my face again in spite of myself. "I like that dumb little kid. I wish I knew what happened to him."

"He's O.K. Take my word for it."

"You know where he is!" I said. "He's been gone all these weeks and you know where he is!"

"Yeah, I do. If he wanted to come home, he'd come home. Don't worry."

"You gotta take me to where he is, Mark," I said, knowing I sounded like a drunken nitwit--but I couldn't help it, seeing how I was so drunk.

"Sure, Bryon, don't cry. I'll take you there tomorrow. But don't count on him comin' home."

"Cathy is awful worried about him. You know, Mark, I think I'm gonna marry Cathy."

"Come on, man," Mark said, trying to pull me to my feet. "Yeah, marry Cathy and be sure and name all the kids after me. Let's go in the house. Try an' be quiet, O.K.? You don't want the old lady to see you like this. I shoulda known better than to let you drink all that rum."

"Didn't you drink any?"

"Naw, I was drinkin' plain Coke."

"I drank all that rum by myself?" I couldn't believe it. I'm not much of a boozer.

" 'Cept for what Angela drank." Mark was helping me up the steps. I was weaving back and forth. If he hadn't been hanging onto me, I would have dropped flat on my face.

"Poor Angel--we shoulda left her alone, Mark. That was a mean thing to do, cut off her hair like that."

"Please, Bryon, for Pete's sake, don't cry any more." He half-dragged me into our room and pushed me onto my bed. I passed out. I could hear Mark moving around the room, feel him taking my shoes off and pulling the blanket up over me, but it was all as if he was real far away, or I was way down inside myself.

"What'd I ever do to deserve you, Mark? Pull a thorn outa your paw?"

"Bryon, buddy, you are as wiped out as I've ever seen you. I think you'd better shut up and go to sleep."

"When did we start runnin' around together, Mark? Remember?"

"We've always been friends. I can't remember when we weren't."

"How come your old man shot your mother? She shot him back, but it was too late because she was dying anyway." I really was drunk, because I had never mentioned that to Mark in all the years I had known him.

"It was me. I was under the porch--I could hear them real plain. And the old man was sayin', 'I don't care, I ain't never seen a kid with eyes that color. Nobody on my side of the family has eyes that color--not on yours either.' And the old lady says, 'That's right Why should he look like anybody in your family? He ain't yours.' And then they start yelling and I hear this sound like a couple of firecrackers. And I think, well, I can go live with Bryon and his old lady."

"Did you really think that?" I opened my eyes, and the room was turning around slowly. It was making me sick. Something was making me sick.

"Yeah, I did. I didn't like livin' at home; I got sick of them yelling and fighting all the time. I got whipped a lot, too. I remember thinking, This'll save me the trouble of shooting them myself. I don't like anybody hurtin' me."

"I'm glad you came to live with us."

"Me too. Now you really better shut up, man."

"Why you tryin' to shut me up?" I said, making an effort to sit up. It made me even sicker, so I lay back down. "You got a cigarette?"

"Right in the old secret place." Mark pulled back his mattress and got a pack of cigarettes. He always kept an extra pack there. When we were little and didn't want Mom to know we smoked, we kept our cigarettes hidden. It wasn't till much later that we found out she had known about it all along.

I couldn't light my cigarette for some reason. Mark lit it for me and stuck it in my mouth. He sat back on his bed watching me, his elbows on the window sill. I could see the end of his cigarette glowing.

"Charlie, he tried to help somebody out and look

what happened to him," I said. This was connected with what he'd said about Mike somehow, but Mark followed my train of thought, just like he always had.

"Charlie wasn't about to let a couple of his friends get beat up by some hicks. What happened then, well, that was just the way things turn out sometimes."

"Yeah, but listen, Mark, if somebody had said to him, 'Is savin' a couple of dumb kids from gettin' beat up worth your life?' he woulda said, 'Hell, no!' Charlie woulda said that, Mark."

"Sure he woulda said that. But you don't know what's comin'. Nobody does. He sure knew he was taking a chance. Bryon, he musta known those guys had guns. He knew they were rough guys. He took a chance, and he got a rotten break. That's it."

"It doesn't make any sense. Like you gettin' busted with that bottle. A little harder and you woulda been dead."