“Yeah. Sometimes it did turn mean. Like one night, I’m walking with a bunch of those guys, coming back from a party at Roake Falls, and Justin Norris sees a cat. Total stray, ribs sticking out. And Justin squats down and starts making little noises to the cat and holding out his hand like he’s got food, and you know the other guys are making jokes right away. ‘Justin thinks he can gets some pussy.’ That kind of shit. So finally the cat kind of slinks over, hesitant, but he’s hungry, and the moment he gets close enough, Justin grabs him by the back of his neck, picks him up, and then drop-kicks the thing as hard and far as he can.”
“What?”
“Yeah. So I heard it yowl, and hit a tree, and behind me they’re all, ‘Holy fuck, Norris!’ and, ‘Oh my god!’ and laughter. Mainly laughter. That was the worst part. Like this was the thing that finally lit them up and made them feel. But there was something underneath it, like they were scared too, I guess. Before that, they seemed so bored. I was always too busy working or worrying to be really bored… but these guys… I remember seeing Todd’s freezer once, out in his garage, packed with fucking food, and he looked at it and moaned and said, ‘I hate all this shit.’ ”
Lucy looked at Bucket, trying to figure out a subtle face that would say, Dude’s got issues.
Bucket didn’t look over at her. Instead he asked, “So what happened to the cat?”
“We could hear it howling out in the trees. And I remember Todd saying, ‘You smashed that pussy, Norris!’ and then for whatever reason we all started walking toward the sound. And when we found the cat, it was wrecked. Back leg bent the wrong way, bone sticking out. Blood coming from its mouth. So right away I grabbed the closest rock I could find and I bent down and finished it off. Fast and clean. One hit. I told myself I was saving the cat from more pain. That coyotes would have come. But the truth was that I could feel it, like in my bones, that those guys weren’t done with the cat. That things were going to get worse.”
Lucy pictured the way boys’ faces would change when they were in a group together. It happened with girls sometimes too. Whatever was wrong in them, it was lined up like dominoes. Only took one falling over and the rest went bad.
Judah continued. “So… yeah. That was my last time rolling with that crew. I wondered what would have happened if I had told the police the next day, but my family always taught me that we don’t talk to cops, and besides, Justin’s dad was on rotary, and he owns, like, half the bullet factory. Plus, they would have flipped it on me. ‘Judah freaked out and killed a cat.’ All their voices against mine.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s weird is I see Justin now, in town. He’s over at St. Andrews, in pediatrics. Sometimes I see him out at the bars with his friends. Most of ’em got fat, had kids, that whole route, and they still look so bored. And it kind of creeps me out, because I look at them and I wonder what they’re doing these days that makes them laugh the way I heard them laugh back then.”
There was a long silence.
Lucy said, “Maybe they grew out of being like that.” This had long been a secret hope of Lucy’s, that time and age would make people better to one another.
Judah took a sip from his huge mug of black coffee and looked at Lucy. “Yeah. I hope so. But then I see their kids and they have that same look in their eyes. I don’t know… My girlfriend says I’m classist as shit, but she grew up with decent money. But it’s like their parents passed on a sickness in the genes. Or it’s the money. I don’t know… And then you have what happened over at Spring Meadow. That Carmichael kid was poorer than dirt, but obviously he was a psycho too. I’m friends with his uncle Scott, and he said it doesn’t make any sense at all. That family’s definitely got issues, but Scott said the kid didn’t have a violent bone in his body. So what the hell? And the Miller kid… He always seemed nice when he came in, one of the good ones despite the money, the world lined up in front of him, and his own mom mercs him in his sleep? Jesus… What the hell is going on in this town? Sometimes it feels like things are fucked up in every direction, you know?”
A thick, wet-sounding ululating noise came from near the entrance of the store, pulling their attention away before Lucy or Bucket could say a word.
Judah looked at the clock on the wall and made an alarmed face as he was pulled from his soapbox into the now.
“Oh, shit—Blumpers!”
“Blumpers?” Lucy asked.
“Store cat. I’m late for his shot. Damn it.” Judah bent behind the counter and rose with a small hypodermic needle in his hand. “He gets all crashy and weird without this. Falls off whatever he’s lying on. The meds make his shit smell like that liquid smoke you use when you’re making jerky, but I guess that’s better than him dying. Sort of.”
Blumpers mewled out another sad, strangled noise from his window seat, and the sound made Lucy think of that other cat, the one from Judah’s story. She imagined how it must have felt in those last moments—hopeful, and confused, and soaring through the air, and crushed.
Then killed.
Rocks slamming down.
Textbooks slamming down.
Screams and purple smoke. Gunfire and blood.
Her anxiety rose. Her heart sped, skin hot across her chest and face.
What happened that day? What did I see?
Judah looked at her. “You all right?”
“Yeah… I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t, and she felt tears coming, and she guessed that if she started crying she might not be able to stop for a very long time, so she ran out of The Exchange and into the cool air of the early evening.
Once she made it to Bucket’s car, she leaned forward and rested her arms against the roof and shook against a surge of fresh embarrassment.
Bucket followed, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
Lucy turned and straightened, then sniffled and blinked back the tears, which wanted loose. “I don’t even know anymore.”
“Yeah.”
“Like, do you ever feel like the last few weeks didn’t even really happen? Like they couldn’t have?”
Bucket leaned against the side of his car, and Lucy joined him. The sun was setting, and the air would grow cold soon. Lucy shivered as the first desert breeze rolled against her skin.
Judah was in the window to the store, bending over Blumpers to administer his meds. He looked out the window to Lucy and Bucket. His face read confused, but he offered a conciliatory wave before returning to his side job as a cat nurse.
Bucket spoke. “Sometimes, right when I wake up, I forget that any of it happened at all. Then I see my parents’ faces, how worried they are, and it all comes back. You can’t hide from it. Anywhere.”
Lucy nodded and watched the sun lower in the sky, painting the clouds. They glowed pink, then shifted to dark purple.
Lucy smelled smoke again, and wondered what she had breathed in that classroom. And what was Chris saying about “ops” and “protocols?” Had she imagined that? How had those men with guns arrived so quickly? They hadn’t even looked like cops…
Her breath shortened. Her head swam again.
“You think it’ll always feel like this?” she asked.