Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Seth Adams C.

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СКАЧАТЬ the aspirin and sinus and cold medicine he found some of what he’d come for. He had the names on a slip of paper in his pocket and pulled that out to compare it with what was written on the labels.

      The man in the tree house had told him some of the drug names on the list wouldn’t be available over the counter, but Reggie thought he recognized them from bottles in the medicine cabinet at home. He grabbed a couple boxes off the shelves in front of him and headed back across the store to the checkout area.

      Passing the aisle with the rubbers again, he saw the older kid and the kid looked up again as Reggie passed by. Reggie saw the torn box in the other kid’s hands, saw him moving as if to shove something in his pocket, before he stopped and looked up at Reggie.

      ‘What’s your problem?’ the bigger kid said. ‘Mind your own fuckin’ business …’

      His words trailed off as Reggie moved past him and back towards the front of the store. He found the ten items or less express lane and put the packages on the counter. The clerk, maybe the same one who’d greeted him when he came in, said hi and smiled and Reggie said hi and smiled back.

      He felt more than heard someone step into line behind him.

      Reggie didn’t want to but looked.

      It was the bigger kid who’d been stealing rubbers.

      The bigger kid smiled at Reggie, and Reggie turned away, pulled out some money from his pocket, paid for the medicine. He thanked the clerk and headed out of the store and to his bike.

      Bending, turning the dials on the lock to unchain his bike, he heard footfalls coming up behind him. Heard them stop very close. He could also hear the breathing of the kid behind him, like the puffs of breath from a prank caller.

      ‘Ain’t you the kid that cried last year?’ said the older boy.

      Reggie ignored him and finished putting in the combination of his lock.

      ‘Hey,’ said the condom bandit. ‘I’m talking to you.’

      Looping the chain out from around the spokes of the tyre, refastening it around the seat bar, Reggie rose and lifted a leg to swing over onto the bike. Caught off balance, the otherwise light shove of the older boy’s palms against his back sent Reggie toppling over.

      His temple struck the wall the bike rack was bolted into.

      Tangled with his legs, the bike clattered along with him and the pedals and spokes scraped him good along the calves and thighs. Pushing away from the bike, disengaging himself, he stood on shaky legs and touched his head where he’d hit it. His fingers came away without blood, but his temple throbbed smartly.

      ‘What the hell’s your problem?’ he said to the bigger kid, wishing he sounded braver and less pitiful.

      ‘I said ain’t you the kid that cried last year?’ the older boy said. He had a lazy smile on his face like this was nothing more than another day.

      Reggie knew what he was talking about but didn’t say anything.

      The older boy seemed vaguely familiar, like maybe he’d seen him around school. But being a couple years older, a senior most likely, Reggie probably hadn’t seen him much and couldn’t put a name to the face.

      ‘I don’t want no trouble,’ Reggie said. ‘I gotta go.’

      He pulled his bike up and looked around the parking lot. There were people walking to cars and walking from cars, but none of them were terribly close by.

      ‘Yeah,’ the older kid said, ‘you’re him all right.’

      He chuffed a wicked little sound that was something between a laugh and hocking a winner of a snot bomb.

      ‘You were walking to the office and crying,’ said the bigger kid. ‘Crying like a little faggot.’

      Drugstore bag of medicine in one hand, gripping the handlebars, Reggie tried to steer away. The older kid stepped in front of him, placed a hand on the handlebar, a foot on the front tyre.

      ‘Did you poop your diapers that day?’ said the older kid. ‘Or did your boyfriend dump you?’

      Reggie wanted to leave. His heart was thudding, pounding against his chest like a beast shackled. His vision blurred and reddened. He wanted to leave but the bigger kid was in front of him.

      For some reason he thought of the man in the tree house. He thought of the crumpled bullet dug out of him. He thought of the shiny black gun.

      Something in Reggie loosened. The pounding stopped. The blurry and red vision cleared. His formerly white-knuckle grip on the handlebars relaxed. He looked up at the older kid, looked him square in the eyes.

      ‘My dad died,’ he said.

      The other kid blinked. His mouth worked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know quite what.

      ‘So why don’t you go back to stealing your rubbers,’ Reggie said. ‘And while you’re at it, find someone with a dick who could actually use them.’

      And just like that the older boy’s flustered moment was gone.

      His fist found Reggie’s eye and down he went again, bike on top, hard sidewalk beneath. The older kid leaned over him and grabbed a fistful of Reggie’s shirt.

      ‘You watch your fucking mouth, dip shit,’ he said and shook him, making Reggie’s head bounce against the concrete under him.

      ‘Hey! What’re you kids doing there?’

      The older kid looked up, let go of Reggie, turned and ran.

      Reggie, slowly standing, touching his throbbing eye gingerly, saw the store clerk who’d greeted him jogging his way. He got back on his bike, turned it, and started pedalling. Across the parking lot, onto the street, the long way home before him.

      3.

      He handed Ivan the medicine and a bottle of water. The man didn’t look good. He was still pale and clammy, but he was conscious and alert, which Reggie took to be a good sign despite the pasty flesh of the man’s face, and the shakes that occasionally passed over him.

      The man downed a couple of the Amoxicillin tablets Reggie had found in his mom’s medicine cabinet, coughed and spit up some of the water, wiped his mouth, and looked at Reggie. He pointed at Reggie, touched his own temple and eye in indication of Reggie’s.

      ‘What happened?’ he asked, reaching for the antiseptic cream and Ibuprofen Reggie had purchased at the drugstore.

      ‘Some asshole from school,’ Reggie said.

      ‘Why’d he do it?’ the man asked.

      ‘I told him he had no dick.’

      Ivan smiled, and this made Reggie smile. Though a smile on Ivan’s face didn’t look so much like a smile, as it did a crocodile or shark showing its teeth.

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ