hoarsening his voice. Then a girl with piercings in her face shot into the street and strained her voice to its limit. Soon all of the kids swarmed into traffic, bellowing at the dim, melting figures behind the rain-slashed car windows. Cars were backing up to the previous block.
As spinning lights flashed on the wet road—a police car had nosed into traffic—the kids fled on foot, skateboards, and bikes, and traffic continued. The cop drove away, pursuing none of them, as if used to the mayhem of children.
Lyle crossed to the next block, where a scooter slowed beside him. It was Martin. “Let’s go over there where it’s dry.” He pointed to the stucco building across the street, and they crossed and went under the carport shelter where Martin sat on his idling scooter, the motor hacking, exhaust gassing the air around him. The sign in the window of the building advertised a book and game store. Martin shook the rain off his baseball cap. Although Lyle was soaked through, he felt warm after running. He was glad he’d left the apartment in just a T-shirt that morning because he’d forgotten his umbrella too, and his army jacket would have gotten wet.
“Those kids are nuts,” Lyle said.
“They’re a sad bunch. Some of them are meth freaks.”
“That cop didn’t even do anything.”
“Sometimes they bust them, but mostly they just scatter them. Any single one of them could die, right now, and nobody would care. Some of those girls are barely out of seventh grade and already they’ve had fifteen guys or more. No kidding. Their mothers should be in jail. Permissive hippy women are the top killers of the Northwest. Forget serial killers.”
A shiver took Martin and his elbow jerked. He examined his arms as though waiting to see his body’s next involuntary movement. Although he was tense with something, he looked pleased, awake. Some of the roughness of the previous day had gone out of him.
“Do you have any interest in getting terribly hazy and gone?” Martin said.
Lyle was unsure what the question was.
“Tonight,” said Martin.
It was Friday. “Sure.”
“I just stole a bottle of Schnapps.” He brought out a Hostess cherry pie. “You can have some if you come out later.”
“You steal booze? Ever been caught?”
“No. But Devon has, on his first try. A few of us steal booze from the Sleeping Man—he runs the Superette, by Levi’s. An old lady saw him take it. She followed him to the café and told his dad.” He snatched a bite and chewed. “Devon’s changing his name to Devonian. Did you hear about that? Idiot.”
Lyle had mulled over Devon’s rudeness at Levi’s—after he’d apologized for laughing at his sister, after he tried to make friends. It surprised him that Martin turned out to be the friendly one.
Martin examined the teeth marks on his pie. “Devon’s birthday is next week. When I was upset last night, I was planning a little party for him and his dad. A surprise party. You know, like, how about I ruin your life? How about I twist your cerebral cortex a hundred and eighty degrees? But I see it differently now. All I want to do is right a wrong.”
“What are you planning?”
“Something entirely moral. Unlike Levi, I actually care about real morals, not about following rules. But I’m not going to talk about it till it’s dead, or threaten to do it. This time I’m going to do it, very calm, very cool. Ever been to the graveyard past the university, up on that hill? There’s a big problem up there right now.” He bowed his head. “I’m not talking about it—I forgot.”
Lyle was chilly. He needed to get running again. “I’d like to hear about it later.”
Martin threw the half-eaten pie skittering in its package across the road. His scooter was dying, and he revved it. “Ever feel like going just all-out wild?”
Lyle grinned.
“I’m not kidding, I mean full force Napoleonic,” Martin said. “Just for the hell of it. Let’s meet at the square with all the statues, at seven thirty. Two blocks down from here.”
A troll figurine was mounted on Martin’s headlamp, its tiny arms raised and its rubber beard “blowing” over its shoulder. The troll was spray-painted white, although specks of its original black showed through.
2
The square beside the boulevard was indeed crowded with statues. A man of iron, holding an umbrella, rested on the edge of an iron bathtub, and this statue waved and became Martin. Lyle crossed the square. He was relieved Martin hadn’t seen his mom drop him off on her way to work, earplugs tied to the size adjuster of her ball cap. He asked her for a ride home later, but she wasn’t getting off until two in the morning.
An iron boy and girl sat in the tub. In the lights of the passing cars their wet bodies seemed to shiver. Martin thumbed an empty cigarette pack into the drain, pressing it until it made a plug, and led them out of downtown, away from the sounds of laughter coming from the bars and restaurants. As they crossed a windy bridge, Martin’s tiny umbrella flapped and rattled above his head, then snapped inside out behind him. He cursed and threw it flapping over the bridge, then leaned over the railing. “Fall to your death!” he shouted at it. They continued along the bridge. Martin caught Lyle’s eye and smiled to show he was only having a laugh.
Lyle turned to him and galloped along sideways for a moment, grinning. He wished he hadn’t made plans with Rosa. They were meeting at ten. He would have to cut his time with Martin short.
Across the bridge were long blocks of industrial buildings—a neighborhood he’d never seen. As they turned onto the second street, the rain and wind lessened and the air blackened. He saw only the edges of things. Martin loped to the end of a loading dock and stepped onto a deep window ledge. Lyle collapsed his umbrella and followed him, feeling the ledge with his foot to make sure there was a place for him. They stood resting their backs against the bricked-over window, the ground below them falling into black space. Lyle’s sight came to him in pieces. A dumpster yawned out of the void below, a rancid smell rising from it—urine, mildewed fabric. A mattress lay on top of the other garbage inside of it. Buildings across the street shone dimly in patches of wet brick.
From his bag Martin lifted the bottle of Schnapps.
“I have you to confirm that I shot out the lights. Instead of going to Devon’s with everybody else, I rode these streets with my gun. Must have put out eighty lights. Bad idea, I’ll admit it. I was a bit messed up in the head. Maybe you noticed.” Martin tipped the bottle, keeping a wide eye on him, then spat in the dumpster. “A certain dark gypsy, named Monique, fucked Devon in his bed while she was going out with me.”
“Did you love her?”
“Liked. But not enough to shoot out all the lights. Half of them, maybe. It’s never good to shoot out all the lights.”
“I like to run around at night too.”
“Not sure who I hate more, Levi or Devon. I swear to God they’re a father-son Mafia. Levi has done some bad things.”
“Maybe he’ll let you back. If you tell him you won’t drink.”
“I’m glad it happened, all of it. It’s actually fun. All the really moral people are kicked out and burned alive. Look at Joan of Arc.”
A spotlight tilted into the sky and vanished, then appeared again. While Lyle drank some of the bottle, Martin groaned and cursed and laughed out loud, as though his thoughts harassed and entertained him at once. He sailed through an episode of cackling. He shook his head, whispering to himself mysteriously. It was clear that this was the moment Lyle was supposed to say, “what, what, tell me,” and promise never to breathe a word to a soul, and he did so.
“If you did tell,” Martin said, “we’d both get in a lot of trouble. Are you sure you want to be involved?”
“Yes.”