From the looks you’d think different, but it wasn’t county land anymore. County claim terminated at the hill’s base. The asphalt would end in the middle of the neighbor's property, the road turning to tar and rubble, then a scatter of stone, then vanishing into leaf and soil altogether when he crossed over to his aunt’s parcel. After cresting the hill, flat switchbacks kept him from being able to scout ahead and get eyes on the neighbor’s boys or cars coming down, unless it was dark, and then he could see thousands of slotted lights from house and shed and truck and fire pit broken into beams and slants by inky choke grass and branches. They’d some kind of wealth, though Keffer wasn't an equipped judge of that sort of thing. He knew they were rich enough to own all the land around his aunt’s parcel. Rich enough that their boys always had sodas and new camos and an Xbox. Enough for cable and the Internet and flip phones. Their folk from time past lived in a trailer that was now run into ruins across the street from the ranch house. Pink insulation going brown still nested in hunks of wall, siding twisted all up in weeds, still the four squares of cinderblocks where the axles had been propped, the frame gnarled to some sort of rusting thorncrown. A still intact pane of window glass with some Fox Team Motocross and Dallas Cowboys stickers cemented onto it. He used to go there at night and chance breaking up some of it or stowing away an artifact, but they’d called the police on him enough for it that he'd probably be taken away next time. He would kill them if he knew he could, but he wasn't confident he could kill someone. He thought killing dogs or whatever would be easy at first, like you just stomp on them or something, but it's not. They're hardy. Things don't want to die. They're built not to.
When the pavement switched to gravel, he was too busy thinking to adjust. The bike bucked, and they both skidded a couple meters across the crushed stones, leaving a white talc gash like an erased chalkboard. He wheezed facedown for a moment, then sat and inspected himself. He looked floured except where there were abrasions, which were a deep wet red on his belly and forearms. His head was pumping, and he lay back down for a second. He saw the sky, but he tried hard not to look at it, to look instead at some point before it, some foreshortened bead of his own construction and determination. He closed his eyes. His backpack was still intact but leaking something like a dark sludge. He opened his eyes and stared at the sun for a second, then stood up and looked around. The backpack was loose on the shoulder, and when he picked it up, something like molasses dripped out of the bottom, making drizzly sounds on the road. He awkwardly held it by its sides and away from him, like he was holding a baby by the armpits, and tried to wipe the whatever on sedge, to no apparent result, so he gave up and let it hang at his side. He fetched the bike, and the chain had popped, and after struggling with it for a moment, he realized he’d have to tear the rear wheel off to get it back on. He just started pushing it, disgusted, carrying the bag with him, trailing seepage, the bike clattering and its chain skittering on rocks.
He could hear them before he could see them, and he figured he’d just stare at the ground and ignore them, though he never had much success with it before. They were whoop whooping, and it echoed until thin. When he rounded out of the thickets, he glanced up and saw the three of them, the two younger ones on bikes and circling each other and screaming at one another and anything they saw. He thought of them like prey birds. He trudged on pushing the bike and carrying the backpack. Rodney, Colby, and Riley, oldest to youngest, thirteen to eight years, with Colby somewhere in the middle, Keffer couldn't remember. They used to play together, Rodney and Keffer, way back. Not anymore, though. The younger two were making dirtbike sounds, running a circuit with imagined but enforced barriers, and Rodney was doing an announcer voice, with faux reverb and microphone crackle, on top of a bricked CR-X. Wet samaras, chokecherry and beach leaves pasted to the hood and windshield in mucky poultice, the Honda not moved in seven or so years, tucked into a corner some ten yards from the old trailer ruins, far enough away from the ranch house so the boys could curse and not get in trouble. Rodney and Colby saw him, and Colby looked to Rodney to see how to act. Riley kept riding around. Rodney made a cone over his mouth: “Here-er-er-er Comes-es-es-es The Faggot-ot-ot-ot,” and Colby did an exaggerated doubled-over laugh down over his handlebars. Riley kept riding around, except now he was sing-songing “faggot” as he rode. Colby got off his bike and let it fall and yelled, “BITCH,” then looked off toward the house, worried for a couple seconds before looking back at Rodney, who was laughing, so he started acting like he was laughing again. Keffer was trying hard not to look at them, but eventually he would and Rodney would jump off the car and Colby would stand where he had sat so he could be as tall as Rodney and Keffer. Riley was still riding around, singing, "Bitch and faggot bitch and faggot,” in a crystal-like voice. “Good lord, boy, I believe he's covered in shit!” “He’s done shit himself, Rodney, he looks about like it.” “He shit, I knows it, he bout like Riley with how much he’s shit.” Riley stopped riding and looked angry and said real small, “I don't shit my pants.” “Rye wears diapers still.” “Hey!” “The faggot should wear diapers, look at him.” “They don't make em that big, Rod.” “Yeah theys do, his aunt wears them, I seent.” The three boys rolled with laughter.
“It's not shit, it’s blood. And guts. You want some of it, huh?” he snapped, and the three just laughed harder.
“Boy, you ain’t see blud in yer life. That's shit if I ever saw it. Bet he fell in like one of them port-a-johns.” “He swam in the toll-let, Rod.” “This fucker didn’t think to wipe even.” “Bet there's shit all in those pants, crammed in his ASS.” Riley quit riding for a second, made a fake face of violence and screamed, “ASS,” then rode in wider loops, passing between Keffer and the other two, passing around, literally riding circles around them and in between on his tiny Huffy with a strange and constant grace like a water bug across a pond. Keffer had stopped altogether now despite his best intentions. Embarrassment welled up in him, and he was replacing it in turn with hatred. The wreckage of trailer to their right like something field-dressed, the ranch house to the left with a paved driveway off the road, way back fifty yards with a '90s Corolla parked in front, wet all around except for a square patch on the blacktop where a truck had been parked hours before.
“Rooooood!” came a shout from the ranch house, and then their mom was on the porch. She was a thin figure in a big sweatshirt and sweatpants with “Hollister” down the leg, and she looked upset when she saw Keffer. Rodney answered, “Cummin,” and went off. They spoke briefly, and she lingered for a moment looking after Keffer with suspicion, perhaps scorn, then followed Rodney inside. An orange tabby slinked out from under the porch. Keffer just looked at his shoes and the ground.
“We racin,” Riley said in a high gentle voice. He was flat-footed with his bike between his legs, close enough to touch Keffer. Keffer could’ve sworn he had just materialized from the air in front of him. “We racin motocross, and then we playin Star Wars.” Colby looked from Keffer, and then to Riley, then back to Keffer, and said, “We doin motocross and later,” smirking, “and later we playin Star Wars,” and he jumped from the car landing with rocks skidding, wiping his hands on each other seemingly for effect.
“Bet you wish you could be racin,” Riley said like an angel, and Keffer looked up at him. It was a babe’s face. “Bet you wish you could do motocross.” Colby kicked some grass and looked at Keffer and said firmly, “We don’t race with faggots,” with his hands on his hips.
With the tone of a child sage, Riley said, “You cain’t do X-Wings with us, and you cain’t do Star Wars with us because we don’t do it with faggots.”
Keffer spat and looked at the two, squinting a little. “Cain’t race, don’t wanna either. Bike’s broke.” He spat again and looked at the sun for a few seconds and looked at them again. “You bunch is retards.” The tabby was walking to them. Keffer put down his bag and his bike and squatted on his heels. “Star Wars is gay.” The two boys started making fart noises and rolling their eyes at him.
“See, Rye? He’s a big fag,” Colby said with great gravity, and Riley nodded his head in agreement. “Faggots don’t race with us.” “He sucks dicks, Rye,” and Riley kept nodding. Keffer made clicks at the tabby, and it came on over. Riley set his bike down softly, and he and Keffer bent there and petted the cat, and everything was peaceful. It made a fabric sound as they ran their hands down the cat, and the tabby tipped its head and rubbed its temples and jaws on their hands, purring. Colby looked at them with eyes narrowed like he had seen done in cartoons. He concocted scorn and crossed his arms and did an annoyed groan. Colby blew air upward out his mouth and sighed. He laid it on thick. When neither Keffer nor Riley paid him mind, he bent down and started petting the cat too.
Rodney let the screen door slam behind him. He was wearing a cropped t-shirt and padded pants for football. Carrying them both with the facemask, he had his helmet run through the neck of the shoulder pads. He looked like a benign play of some horrible creature carrying a torso, the jersey over the pads dragging, and he started pulling out things he had stored in the helmet like a child butcher pulling organs from a chest. It was sodas and bags of corn chips, a protein bar and a yellow Gatorade, which he put back in the helmet for himself. Leaving his helmet and shoulder pads on the porch edge, he tucked cans of soda in his forearms and bags of chips between his fingers and awkwardly hauled the collection out to the boys and Keffer.
“Hey dont be playin with pussy!” Rodney called, grinning big. He passed out two Mountain Dews to his brothers, with snack bags of Fritos, and held out a Shasta and chip bag to Keffer. It was cold, and the can clouded with something like perspiration that wiped shiny as he thrummed his fingers over it, rubbing a mirror with his thumb. He thought for a second that he was wrong about the way he is. Rodney looked ashamed and said flatly and meekly: “Mom said you cain’t have the good sodas.” There was still some weak bite with how he said it, like a snake milked of venom. Keffer wouldn't even have noticed. But now he noticed. Wrong welled up in him. He thought to spike the can, envisioning the soda spraying up like the slit throat of some enemy on knees. But he just held the can dumb and limp like a kettle bell, the chips in the other hand, both sort of swinging pathetically. “Mom said y'all can play Xbox when she takes me to practice.” Colby and Riley’s faces lit up. Colby puffed up like a big shot. “Imma race Frenza. I go first cuz I’m older,” and Riley looked murdered. “No we play two-player Halo Man. Or I go first and we play Halo Man.” To Keffer, official sounding: “I go first cuz im older.”
“Bet you wish you had a car. They got all the cars in Frenza. I ain’t looked, but I know they gotta have this un.” Rodney slapped the hood of the Honda. “Lenny gave this one to me. Imma fix it up. Shit, imma race this all around.”
“Fuck I want a ricer for? That's what that is. Just a rice burner. Ain't nothing.” He didn't know what “Frenza” was supposed to mean. Keffer barely understood what an Xbox was. But he knew that car came from Japan and that was a mark against it. The two littlest boys had begun pushing each other and stomping their feet.
“NO, just two players ain’t even fun, and you ain't no good.” “I’m good at it.” “No, Rod always has to let you win.” “Rod don't let me win.” “I told ya two players ain’t even a game, you too little for it. It's boring.” Riley slapped the unopened Mountain Dew can out of Colby's hand, and so Colby smashed Riley's bag of corn chips. Rodney told them to stop it, and they did.
“I knows it's a ricer, boy. That's what makes it good. Them's fast, faster than all hell. You don't know shit. They ain't got laws like us over there. They do all kinds of shit over there.” Rodney took a big gulp of his Gatorade, and the other two picked up their respective snacks. “It’s all shook up now. Give me yours.” “Give me yer chips, then.” “I ain’t the one who was playin round.” Rodney spit some of the yellow Gatorade between his teeth out onto the dirt, feinting chewing tobacco. “Y’all best sort it out fast. Leaving soon.”
“Here. Ain't hungry.” Keffer offered his chips to Riley. Colby made a face like he smelled something rotten and took the chips dramatically with two pincer fingers and tossed the bag at Riley. Riley immediately started eating them.
“You gonna get sick. Gonna get AIDS or cancer or or I don't even know. I cain't even say! Your guts will fall out. You'll shit all in your diapers,” and Colby was still doing the face. Riley said quietly, “I don't wear diapers.” All at once, he stopped and came forth with an idea: “He could play with us. We do three-people Halo Man.” He was pointing at Keffer. It occurred to Keffer that the little one did not know his name.
Colby burst out laughing, actually slapping his legs, like a cartoon. “Retards cain't play Halo with us. We don’t let faggots play Xbox, do we?” and he looked to Rodney, expectant, seeking approval. Rodney's face clouded in a complicated way. Riley said, “Yeah he can, this one time he can, we can teach him how,” and then looked to Rodney too. Rodney looked down at his feet, pulled at the Gatorade label with his pointer, like he had something to say that he didn't want to say. “C’mon, Rod, tell him retards and faggots ain’t allowed on Xbox.”
Riley took a little step forward and looked up. “Do you want to play Xbox with us?”
“Mom said ‘no.’ Mom doesn't want us being around him.” Rodney wouldn't look up when he said this. Then he looked up. “Mom said she doesn't want us around you. Mom said you cain’t play Xbox.” It sounded almost plaintive. The thought of smashing Rodney's teeth out, the thought of caving in his mom’s mouth with the soda can, of just mush pulp and gums, a moment of intense hypothetical violence, then nothing. Keffer made a click with his mouth and cocked his head coolly. Everyone except Riley looked away from him. There was silence, then Rodney spat Gatorade.
“Your mom fucks niggers.”
The boys tensed. Keffer felt he had gained some ground. He went to follow through: “Your mom cain’t get nobody cept niggers.” Keffer grinned. “Yep, mom’s a slut and she loves to fuck niggers.” He felt so good in that moment. He was tingling.
The littlest one fixed his face up with scorn, and it looked like a dried fruit or some angry little doll, and he charged at Keffer as if he were a miniature bull. Rodney grabbed his arm before he could get too far and started hawing.
“Boy, least I got a mom.” “YER MOM’S DEAD,” screamed Riley with pure hatred. “Yeah, yer mom killed her self,” and Colby started laughing, bending at the waist with it as if he’d been gutshot. “And yer dad's a zog.” “And zogs worst than niggers, ain’t they, Rod?” “NO MOM NO DAD NO MOM NO DAD.” “They is, worst thans niggers. And by a lot.” Riley stopped screaming and asked, confused, “What’s a zog?” and Colby shook his head mournfully. “It’s real bad, worst than niggers.” “Yeah, Rye, theys some bad ones.” “Worst than niggers.” They all three laughed at him with great joy and mirth.
Keffer thought that he should have kept walking. He couldn't see a way out of this. They just kept laughing at him. He felt smaller and smaller. And trapped.
“Yes, sir, dad’s one of those zogs from out in Philly or somewheres. Left the lot of them. Don't stick yer dick in crazy, boys.” The two younger ones made disgusted faces and looked at each other incredulously. The tabby was walking loops around their legs, purring. “Retard with a dead mom and a gone zog daddy.” Keffer didn't know what to do. He backed up from them, and they stepped closer. “DEAD MOM DEAD MOM,” the little one sang with a see-sawing lilt, scrunched up and bent back like a goblin, voice high and clear and almost sweet. Another step back, and they still stepped closer. “DEAD MOM DEAD MOM DEAD MOM,” and Colby had joined in, and they moved their hips from side to side with each word “DEAD” hip swing right “MOM” hip swing left. Keffer’s heel hit something hard, and he almost fell into the old trailer's wreckage. He threw the soda at them, and it whizzed over their heads, carved off wide right and landed in the middle of the yard lamely. They were quiet for only a second, looking dramatically at where the can had flown, then back at Keffer, before falling into laughter once more. He didn't know what to do. He felt like crying. Soon they were at arms length, the small ones chanting and Rodney laughing in between Gatorade spits.
“DEAD MOM DEAD MOM DEAD MOM DEAD MOM DEAD MOM DEAD MOM.”
He could feel his face get hot and tears well up. He looked down, and there was the tabby. He kicked it in the flank as hard as he could. Everyone stopped, shocked, maybe even Keffer. The cat yelped, then set down, laid out, its side arranged strangely. Rib bones jutted out like a weird hand under a blanket. Next they had Keffer on the ground.
“YOU FUCKING FAGGOT! YOU CUM EATIN LIL FUCK! I’LL FUCK YOU UP I’LL FUCK YOU I’LL RAPE YOUR FUCKIN FACE YOU FUCKING FAGGOT!” Rodney was the only one with enough wits about him to talk trash. The little ones kicked and huffed, beset with anger and, it seemed, great grief.
His forehead split on a heel, and his face was slick. He started crying. He closed his eyes and swung wildly, none of the swings connecting. He kicked around, eyes still closed. He looked like a stuck turtle. Rodney reached under Keffer, pulled his t-shirt over his head. Riley was grabbing handfuls of stone and spiking them down upon Keffer. Colby stomped, saying, “Fucking… fucking,” within an inch of breath with each downward thrust. Keffer could feel the lattice of a destroyed trailer wall on his spine. He was sobbing now.
Rodney grabbed a handful of fiberglass insulation and rubbed the pink cotton all over Keffer's torso, smearing it in, then pulled his shirt back over it and kicked Keffer flush on the nose. He was lightheaded. He still hadn't opened his eyes. Suddenly, Colby was screaming.
“Rod! Rod! What is that!” and Colby was crying, big whooping moans. “Good god what the fuck…” Keffer could hardly see through the tears and filth and blood. His face was starting to swell. He just barely could make out Colby and Rodney standing over his backpack. Colby was bawling, and Rodney had his hands on his head. Keffer reached out for anything, and his hand clasped around a piece of 2x4, and he swung. It drove true, and there was a sick cracking sound like that of an egg, a fragile sort of breakage. Everyone was quiet except Keffer, who was sobbing, and a very thin, very high whine, like a tuning fork, constant without any ebbing. Keffer heard his heart in his ears and the thin sound and his own sobbing. He quit crying, and it was just the thin sound and his heart. He wiped his eyes, and lying beside him to his right was the tabby with its side stove in, and standing above him were Rodney and Colby, ghost-masked and with looks of insane fear. They made no sound, just the high whine coming from somewhere. He looked to his left and saw the red gash, the white of skull, and the pink foam of what was probably Riley's brains. The thin whine had not stopped but had gotten quieter. Riley was making it. The littlest one’s eyes were closed. He looked like he could be asleep. The high whine deepened into a small moan, and then Riley was quiet.
