Bullseye

As Rodger told the sergeant what Joey Lawson had done that day, he watched the sergeant’s eyes harden and his jaw jut forward the way they always did when he got good and mad.  What Joey had done was to pound the bag containing Rodger’s peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich with his fist at lunchtime.  And then his Wise potato chips.  And then his Ring Ding.  All in quick succession.  POW POW POW, and his lunch had become a disgusting, inedible mess.  Joey had gotten some food on his hand, and that had been good at least—until he’d wiped it off on the front of Rodger’s sweatshirt.  Everybody at the table laughed, of course, while the monitor saw nothing.  The monitor never caught Joey pulling one of his stunts.

          Sergeant Steele asked Rodger if he had told his homeroom teacher, Mrs. McCaffrey, what Joey Lawson had done, and Rodger explained that he couldn’t do that, because that would be a babyish thing to do; that would be snitching.  And also he couldn’t do it because Joey would hurt him if he did, like he hurt Andrew Lockwood after Andrew told that it was him who’d put the rat in Althea Murphy’s book-bag that made her scream and go to the nurse.  Nobody had actually seen him put it in there, but they’d all heard that crazy giggle of his afterward, and they knew it was him.  The same way they knew a week later that when Andrew Lockwood’s pinky got bent around backwards so far it snapped, that Joey Lawson had meant to do that, and that it wasn’t just an accident that happened while the two of them were wrestling on the playground, like Joey swore it was. 

The teachers believed Joey when he told them his lies, probably because he was two years older than the other kids in fifth grade, and he could keep his face very straight and serious when he lied the way that grownups do.  But sometimes Rodger thought that the teachers didn’t believe him either, and only pretended to, because they were a little bit afraid of Joey Lawson themselves.  He was already taller than Mrs. McCaffrey, and Rodger had noticed that when she scolded him in class for talking or breaking somebody’s pencil or pulling Leslie Sharman’s hair, he’d get that funny look on his face where his eyes would narrow and seem even more like cold blue ice than usual, and Mrs. McCaffrey would go sort of pale and walk back over to her desk and stare at the papers there like she was trying to find one in particular, but you could see that she was trembling, and just letting some time pass until it went away.

          You could tell Mom and Dad about Joey, the sergeant suggested in his big-brother voice, but Rodger only shook his head.

          “No, I can’t,” he told him.  “You know how it is.”  Dad was always busy in the office or away on a business trip or something, and anyway, he’d only say that Rodger would have to deal with these things by himself, that it was just a part of growing up, and that he had to learn to stand on his own two feet because his father wouldn’t always be there to protect him.  And he was right; he was hardly ever there.  And Mom had other things to worry about, what with her volunteer work and tennis at the club, and it wouldn’t be right to interrupt all that important grownup stuff with his own silly kid’s problems.

          Sergeant Steele hunkered down beside Rodger on their special rock, the big gray boulder with the silver flecks in it that glittered like jewels when the sunlight hit them.  It was comfortable to sit on because there was an indentation that your butt fit perfectly, like the bucket seat in a Mustang.  And it was totally hidden in the tall grass beside the brook, so you could be private in there and think all you wanted, and nobody would bother you while you were doing it.  The sergeant was thinking now, about everything that Rodger had told him, and he went on thinking for a long, long time.  Finally he nodded to himself and looked up.

          Alright, soldier, he said in his martial tones, and Rodger’s spirits rose immediately, because the sergeant always seemed to know exactly what to do when there was trouble.

          The way I see it, you can’t rely on your teacher for this one, and Mom and Dad won’t be able to help much either.  So we’re going to have to handle this mission on our own.  It’ll be a tough nut to crack, but I’m confident we can pull it off.  Now listen up.  Here’s the plan…

*   *   *

Rodger was excited as he lay awake in bed, because Sergeant Steele had zeroed in on Joey Lawson’s weak spot: he was a creature of habit.  He left school at the same time each day, and living too close to qualify for bus service (as was also the case with Rodger), he invariably walked home by the very same route, circling Kretchner’s farm and following the dirt path up the ridge by the highway to his gray house with the black shutters at the far end of the development.  But he always hung out for a few minutes first with the guys his own age from Junior High, shooting the bull and smoking cigarettes, so that Rodger would have enough time to get to the house, drop his books on the kitchen counter and dash through the woods to a certain cluster of laurel bushes that only he and the sergeant knew about.  From there he could see the path where it ran along the retaining wall above Rte. 27.

Rodger knew he’d have time for this because he’d done it again and again, perfecting his spy technique at their favorite hiding spot.  Sometimes Joey would come up the path with his pals, and they always stopped at the same place, where the wall was highest, and they’d climb up there on top of it and sit with their legs dangling over the edge—even though it was really dangerous to do that—and curse and smoke cigarettes and give the finger to people on the road below.  Other days they’d throw rocks or bottles down at the cars, and once Rodger heard a bang when they hit one and a screech of tires, and Joey and his friends had run every which way, and he had run too, afraid that a policeman would come up there and arrest him by mistake.

          Mostly, though, Joey Lawson came home from school alone.  And when he got to that spot in the wall that he liked, that very high spot above the highway, he’d fish out a broomstick he kept hidden in the weeds, and scramble right up on top of the wall, which was only three feet high on this side but maybe forty feet on the other, and he’d stand up straight and walk along the slate lintel, using the stick for balance like the man on a tightrope in the circus.  Sergeant Steele said that Joey did that because he just liked to frighten people—even himself.

*   *   *

When Thursday finally arrived, taking forever to get there like your birthday or Christmas, Rodger couldn’t keep his mind on schoolwork, and Mr. Budnik yelled at him in class when he caught him looking out the window for a second time.  Joey Lawson had a chuckle about that from the back of the room where he always sat.  After the bell rang, when everybody was getting up, Joey shot Lisa Dintaman with a spitball, and she started to cry.  Mr. Budnik asked her over and over again what was wrong, but she wouldn’t tell him, and nobody else would either, even though a lot of them had seen what had happened.  She covered her face with a hand till she got out in the hall, and when she took it away, Rodger saw that one of her eyes was blood-red where the spitball had hit it.  

Rodger loved those eyes.  And the hair and her skin and the sound of her voice, more than anything else in the whole wide world.  He had a terrible crush on Lisa Dintaman, a secret that he held so close to his heart that not even the sergeant knew about it.  He stepped closer to her now as the students filed around them, and he wanted to say something comforting, to make her feel better, but he was afraid of girls, and terrified of Lisa most of all, and the words wouldn’t pry themselves free of his frozen lips.  She noticed him then standing there beside her, and he turned away.  That’s when he saw Joey Lawson at the top of the stairs, looking back over his shoulder and grinning from ear to ear, as if he were proud of what he had done.

Rodger threw his books down and went after him.  But then a voice was yelling in his head, and it was the sergeant’s voice, and he was telling Rodger to stop where he was, that this was Joey’s way and not their own.  Stick to the Plan, were the words he used, and Rodger listened to him and understood.  He turned around and went back for his books, and the reams of handwritten notes that had burst from his cloth-covered, three-ring binder.  When he had them under an arm again he spoke to the girl he loved, for perhaps the first time ever. 

“I’m sorry, Lisa,” he said to her, and she thanked him and smiled, and that made him feel good in a strange sort of way; bigger somehow, and stronger too.  Then he was heading for the door at the end of the hallway as fast as his legs would carry him. 

*   *   *

          There was a sound on the afternoon breeze, apart from the chirping of songbirds, the rustle of leaves and the ebb and flow of the traffic on the highway, an odd, tuneless whistle that told him that Joey was coming, and coming alone—because he never whistled when he thought that he might be overheard.  And Rodger could see him now through the laurel branches, first his greasy mop of hair, and then the rest of him, the black tee shirt with the Day-Glo pirate’s skull that was missing a tooth, and the same ratty jeans that he wore every day, coming up the path.  He paused where Rodger knew he would and rooted out the broomstick, an old wooden thing with no paint left on it, and he swung it around like a baseball bat, taking  huge, gnarly cuts at imaginary fast balls.  Then he drew very still, took a couple of deep breaths, climbed up gingerly on top of the wall, and squatted there for a moment before rising again to full height.  Holding the stick across his chest—and careful to look at only where his feet were going—he began his ten-yard trek along the flat stone surface.  Much as he hated to admit it, Rodger thought that Joey Lawson had to be pretty brave to do a thing like that.

          Or pretty stupid. 

          Rodger could feel his heart pounding.  He turned to the sergeant for a signal, but the man was intent on Joey, who was close to them now and beginning to high-step: lifting each knee up almost to his chest, in the climax of his stunt.  Suddenly, the sergeant gave Rodger a thumbs-up.

          Marbles were the ideal ammunition.  They were good and solid and just the right size, and best of all, they were perfectly round and smooth for a dependable, arrow-straight trajectory.  This one hit Joey above the ear with a nice solid CRACK that Rodger could hear clearly.  Joey’s response was instinctive; he jerked his head away from the impact as anyone would have done, and balancing as he was then on one foot, the change in his center of gravity by even that small amount was too much to overcome.  But he tried all right, oh boy did he try, making every sort of jerk and swerve with the stick, but in the end it was all in vain, and over he went with a long, eerie, fading shriek, and was gone.

          Rodger lowered the slingshot, and stared for a while at the empty space so recently occupied by his nemesis.  But then the sergeant was tugging at his shirtsleeve and shouting commands, and the two of them were hightailing it through the woods toward the sanctuary of their home fort.

*   *   *

          If Maria, the housekeeper, noticed anything different about Rodger that afternoon, she kept it to herself.  He did his homework at the breakfast-nook table, ate his snack of Starbursts and milk, and attacked his Playstation games like any other day.  Mom came home, dinner was served (Dad was out of town), TV was watched and then it was ten o’clock and Rodger was climbing into bed in his underwear, having recently concluded that pajamas were for babies.

          He’d been more than a little anxious about what they’d done at first, expecting a squad car (or two) to come flying into the driveway with lights ablaze any moment.  Well, maybe only half-expecting.  Because the sergeant kept telling him that the mission had gone flawlessly, and that he was sure it would stay that way as long as they both kept their yaps shut.  This was Classified Information, he reminded Rodger, Top Secret—and that meant no blabbing to Timmy Shultz or Petey Collins or any of his other buddies at school.  Not just tomorrow or next week or next year, but anytime.  Ever.  Rodger knew all about keeping secrets, he said, but he was worried that someone would find a mark on Joey Lawson’s temple, and guess what had happened to him.  Sergeant Steele insisted that wouldn’t be a problem, and as it turned out, he was right.  Three cars and a truck full of Wonder Bread had run over Joey Lawson on Rte. 27 before the ambulance arrived, and it was all they could do to piece him back together again.  Or most of him, anyhow.             

          Rodger looked over at the green plastic army men on the bedside table, visible in silhouette against the moonlit shade.  In the center with his drawn .45, Sgt. Steele was hard to miss.  Most of his friends had the posable figures now, and they were neat, but he still liked the old-fashioned kind that his father had brought him all the way from Hong Kong.  A whole bag of a hundred!  So what if you couldn’t bend their arms and legs—the positions they came in were good enough.  And if you used your imagination, they walked and talked and fought their battles as well as the posable ones ever could. 

You did great out there today, soldier.  I’m proud of you.  And between you and me, I wouldn’t be surprised if you came out of all this with a medal.

Rodger liked the sound of that.  Nobody deserved a medal more than he did, and it wouldn’t be hard to make, either.  He’d cut out the pattern from a shirt cardboard and color it in with Magic Markers, then glue it to that sheriff’s badge in the drawer of his dresser, beside the Wyatt Earp cap gun in its Genuine Leather holster.  Daddy had given him those too (though nobody played cowboy anymore), with a bunch of old Westerns on VHS.  Maybe after school tomorrow, he and the sergeant would watch his favorite, with the good guy and the bad guy and the showdown on Main Street, when only one of them would walk away…

This story appeared originally in WordWrights Magazine.

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