Black Chuck Read online

  When he opened them again, he saw a motorcycle parked in front of the house. Slick, low profile, chopped drag bars, suspended seat, decked in leather and black paint and gleaming chrome, with short silver pipes jutting up on either side of the back wheel. It was as beautiful as it was sinister, like a massive black mud wasp.

  Silver letters on the gas tank spelled out Triumph, and Ré knew exactly what it was: Alex’s grandfather’s Café Racer. One of the nicest bikes Ré had ever seen. Looking at it, Ré wondered if Alex ever thought about where his family’s money really came from. Not that Ré’d be too proud to accept such a gift—he’d just never in a million years be offered one.

  But despite everything, Ré was actually happy for him.

  And then Alex stepped into view, his back to Réal. That filthy denim vest he always wore was now layered over a beat-up black leather jacket. A bike helmet hung from his left hand, Sunny from his right.

  Ré stared. Alex had been riding since long before he was legal, and Réal had seen him many times on the back of one bike or another. But there was something different about this one. Standing next to it, Alex looked nothing like the goofy, wiry kid brother he’d always been to Ré and Shaun. He stood so sure of himself. Proud and unfamiliar.

  Sunny turned slowly, and her eyes met Ré’s over Alex’s shoulder, whites showing around the black, even from a distance. She, too, looked different. Not herself. She looked…scared.

  Ré scuttled backward, grasping for the doorknob, and threw himself into her bedroom ass first.

  Inside, he leaped to his feet, swiping his T-shirt from the floor. He dressed as he ran downstairs to the kitchen, to the sunroom and out the back door to the garden, where he jumped over the back fence and took off at a run as fast as he could.

  22

  R

  Réal lay in bed, head cradled in his clasped hands, waiting to feel different.

  Last night, he’d walked for an hour or more through the hushed, dark streets of Sunny’s old-trees-and-iron-fences neighborhood, listening the whole while for a motorcycle coming up behind him.

  But it had never come. And when it got full dark, he’d doubled back, sneaking past Sunny’s like a thief. Alex’s bike had been gone. Her bedroom light had glowed at the top of the house, but he’d just kept going till he reached the Buick.

  It had felt like days, not hours, since he’d sat across from Mark at the Olympia, since Evie’d put her hand down on his leg, since his last-ever day of high school. He’d driven home exhausted and stashed the paper bag in the basement fridge, praying no one would find it there. Then he’d fallen asleep like a dead man.

  The second he woke, though, his brain started replaying the whole long day on a jagged loop. Evie’s hand. Last day of school. Sunny. The sun was barely even up yet, but his mind was already miles away at a gallop, like he’d left the gate open in the night.

  He lay in bed thinking about the whole mess while the sun curved over the house. It was a rare thing to have this place to himself, but his smallest brothers had hockey on Saturdays, and the other two would stay in bed till sundown if you let them. As soon as he heard his dad’s truck heading for the arena, Réal rolled out of bed.

  He pulled on yesterday’s jeans and took the stairs double time to the basement.

  He lifted the mason jar from the paper bag, then bundled the bag back up and stuffed it behind a box of peaches on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

  In the kitchen, he got a spoon from the drawer and scooped the yellow contents into a dented double boiler. His tongue stuck in his throat. Not that he was super health-conscious or anything, but it still seemed like the wrongest thing in the world to knock back a jar full of hot fat.

  He put the pot on the stove and stirred till the fat went soft. The thick smell of gamey meat filled the kitchen, clinging to his skin, his hair. This is so fucked, he thought, staring into it. Was it supposed to taste good, or was it straight-up punishment? Mark had not offered any insight; he’d simply handed him the bag. Shoulda just asked his mom, Ré thought. She’d have known what to do.

  Réal had cooked hundreds of meals, thousands maybe. He was always thinking about food, making sure his brothers had enough. But he’d never thought twice before about what it meant to eat it. He’d never considered the trade-off the animal had made, its life for his. Right now, it felt like a pretty crappy bargain for the bear.

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember the words he’d heard his aunties say so many times. “Gitchi-Manidoo,” he started, the name of the Creator coming awkwardly off his tongue. Of his three languages, this one was most like a newborn animal standing on skinny legs. “Gigagwejimin ji-zhawendaman maanda miijim, zhawenimishin gaye niin noongo.” Each syllable tick-tocked out in a slow beat—I ask you to bless this food and to bless me today.

  “Miigwech,” he said. “Thank you. To this good thing that gave up its life here upon the earth, so that I can live. Miigwech, Gitchi-Manidoo, miigwech.”

  He opened his eyes and stared into the liquid fat, but he didn’t feel any better, despite the prayer. He lifted the inner pot from the hot water and poured the grease back into the jar, raising it to the sunlight from the kitchen window. Viscous, amber yellow, sliding against the glass in long fingers. “Miigwech,” he said again, frowning, and tipped the jar to his lips.

  It had been weeks since he’d last eaten anything that could think and feel. That might miss its time on earth. He held his nose and squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to breathe the animal stench. He tried not to see the eyes and snout of the bear, the bloody paws, the open belly, organs all pulled out. The butchery of such a mighty thing.

  He tried not to see Shaun, lying in the glow of the arc light.

  The grease hit his tongue—hot and slimy, coating his teeth and numbing his gums. His throat closed reflexively, gagging fat back up into the jar, but he tipped his head again and forced it down, gulping even as his body fought to reject it.

  Fat leaked from the corners of his mouth, running warm down his chin and neck, spattering the counter. His toes curled against the tiles, his fingers into a fist, as he slugged it back, remembering Shaun’s busted face, his jaw ripped apart, blond hair matted with blood. Shirt torn, belly torn, tubes of entrails pulled out, soft, sweet organs chewed away.

  The taste of blood in his teeth.

  He was a sinner. A killer. Deep down, he knew exactly what he’d done, even if he couldn’t remember doing it. There was no other explanation for Shaun being as fucked up as that. If Ré hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he might never have believed a human body could look like that, twisted, butchered, broken open and just wrong.

  It was all Black Chuck. He’d known his whole life this was coming.

  The thing you feared the most always heard your call.

  Réal dropped the empty jar and doubled over the sink, nearly puking it all back up the second he’d got it down.

  Salt and slime coated his esophagus, acid sawing through him on a rusty edge. His stomach tightened, pressing everything up into the basket of his ribs. The veins of his neck and arms stood out. His muscles shivered and flexed. Ropes of spit spilled into the sink. He coughed for air, tongue hanging so far out it was like it was trying to grow legs and run away.

  Tears stung his eyes. He knew he deserved all this and much, much worse, but he cried for himself anyway. He swayed and his knees gave, and he slid to the floor in front of the sink, reedy sobs scraping through his chest. Please, God, he begged. Please, Gitchi-Manidoo, let this be over, just let this be the end.

  I never meant to hurt anyone.

  I’m so sorry, Shaun. I’m so, so fucking sorry.

  He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes till white sparks shot through the black, his chin dripping fat and spit and tears.

  Despite his belly full of grease, he felt emptier than ever.

  He knew this was nowhere near enough for what he’d done. He knew he’d never truly be absolved. But if this held the demon at bay—if i
t kept everyone else he loved safe from him—then at least he stood on the road to forgiveness.

  Now all that was left was to walk it.

  23

  E

  The doctor prodded Evie’s belly, making soft noises of concern. “Have you been to see anyone else yet?” she asked. “Your family doctor maybe?”

  “No,” Evie replied.

  “I see.” Something fluttered across the doctor’s face, but she didn’t ask Evie why she hadn’t seen her own doctor, and she didn’t chew her out for not coming to this clinic sooner. “And what are your plans here? Are you going to follow through with this pregnancy?”

  “Um,” Evie whispered, squeezing the examination table under her. “Yes?”

  “Okay,” the doctor said gently. Everything about her was soft and nonthreatening, Evie noticed, even her voice. That was good. Evie wasn’t sure she could handle it if the doctors at this clinic were anything but fairy godmothers. “And do you plan to keep this child, or would you like to talk about other options, such as adoption?”

  “I, uh, I really don’t know yet,” Evie said, swallowing. “I haven’t really told anyone about this. I’m sorta on my own.”

  The doctor smiled sympathetically. “So the father is…”

  Evie almost said, Dead, ma’am. The father is dead. Instead she mumbled, “He’s not around.”

  “Right,” said the doctor, rolling her chair away from Evie. Her manner had gone brittle in an instant, though Evie felt it was directed more at the absent father than at her. If she only knew. Shaun had so wanted this. Tied together forever. He would have loved it.

  “Well, from what I can tell, you are pretty far along, kiddo.” The doctor wrote something on a large pad of pink paper. She signed the bottom and tore it off. “This is a requisition for an ultrasound,” she said, handing it to Evie. “I want you to take this downstairs to the lab, and tell them you need this done today, okay? You’ve waited an awfully long time, and we just need to make sure everything is hunky-dory.”

  Evie took the paper, staring at its puzzle of words and body parts. “Okay,” she said quietly.

  “This is the suite number.” The doctor put her finger at the top of the page. “You go down there now, and then you come right back up here, okay?”

  Evie swallowed again, feeling so, so guilty—not just for everything, but for the baby now too. What if something was wrong with it? God, she thought, I’ll die if there is.

  Then the doctor put her hands on Evie’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You’re not on your own anymore, sweetie. I’m with you now, and everything is going to be just fine.”

  Evie only wished she could believe that.

  She left the doctor’s office and walked back toward the stairs, head bent to the pink page. Did the doctor really think there was something wrong with her baby? Evie thought back to being drunk at Nan’s, or stoned with Alex, the sunstroke and the skinny-dipping and the beer, all the while knowing exactly what was inside her.

  She felt like a troll. What kind of person does that to an unborn thing? Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe.

  As she reached the stairs at the clinic’s second-floor mezzanine, she noticed a group of girls her own age coming out of an office down the hall, and her eyes went round with surprise. Sunny was with them.

  The group came toward her in a cloud of chatter. If Evie didn’t hide fast, Sunny would surely see her, and then she’d have to explain why she was here, what the pink paper was for. She slipped past a pillar to the left of the staircase.

  Sunny’s group was nearing the stairs. If Evie was lucky, Sunny wouldn’t notice her running the other way.

  By the time Evie reached the opposite side of the mezzanine, Sunny was already at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t see Ev. She was too busy smiling at that bunch of strangers. Happy smiles. Not the fake, mean, bitter smiles she usually wore.

  Evie tried to pick out a familiar face among the girls, but saw none.

  Even though she was still pissed at Sunny for cornering her at the Olympia yesterday, Evie felt a little stab of jealousy—who were those other girls? How did Sunny have friends she’d never seen before, friends from some clinic? Sunny’s whole life was a noisy, brash, screeching open book. She had no secrets.

  But then, there was Réal…

  She looked at the requisition in her hands and felt like running right out the front door. Like putting her head back in the sand until it all magically disappeared. Instead, she kept going around the mezzanine, circling back to the stairs as Sunny’s voice faded below. As she passed the door the girls had all come out of, Evie glanced at the plaque pasted to the wall: The Cold Water Center for Mental Health.

  What?

  Evie peered through the window. Inside was a pale-yellow doctor’s office like the one she’d just left, with the same potted plants and ugly, tweedy chairs.

  “Can I help you?” said a voice behind her.

  Evie turned to see a man trying to get past her through the door. The tag pinned to his blazer said Dr. Sharma. “No, sorry,” she muttered, and stepped back from the window.

  Holy shit, she thought. Sunny’s crazy?

  She backed toward the stairs, heart knocking in her chest. Did the others know about this? Was this, like all their other secrets, something everyone knew but her? If Sunny was crazy, that explained a few things, Evie thought, without a trace of sympathy.

  She turned and ran for the stairs. She took them quickly, feeling lighter than she had since the Olympia. No—since the band shell. Whenever it was that Sunny had started picking at her armor, trying to figure out what was happening with her and Réal.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she wheeled to the right, heading to the lab at the back of the building.

  Sunny stepped out from behind a wilted palm.

  Evie slid to a stop in front of her, almost falling to the floor.

  “What are you doing here?” Sunny asked, dark eyes slicing at her.

  “I, uh—” She raised the pink form to her chest like a flimsy shield, stepping back. “N-nothing,” she stammered. “What are you doing here?”

  Sunny’s jaw tightened. “I had a thing.”

  Evie sneered. She always has a thing. So were those things all here? At a mental clinic?

  The girls stared at each other silently, neither giving an inch. Then Sunny snatched the pink paper from Evie’s hand.

  Evie dove for it, but Sunny turned, blocking her. As Sunny’s eyes flew over the paper, Evie saw her face change, like water soaking through sand. Everything teetering, tipping, threatening to fall. No, no, no, no, she begged as her insides dissolved.

  “What the fuck?” Sunny said, her edge gone soft with genuine surprise. “What is this?” Her eyes ran over the page twice.

  “Never mind,” Evie said. She snatched the page back, face on fire, tears threatening. “It’s none of your business.” Her voice pleaded for a mercy she wasn’t sure Sunny had in her to give.

  “Like hell,” Sunny said. “A fetal ultrasound, Evie? You’re pregnant?”

  And there it was. Out loud.

  The floor began to wobble beneath her. Her ears filled with white noise, her heart all talon and scratch inside her ribs. Was there any point in begging Sunny not to tell the world? She could already feel the weight of opinion and advice and good intention bearing down from all corners, like whatever she chose to do about this was suddenly everyone’s business but her own.

  A picture of Shaun, crashing over her. A picture of him leaping from the Grains.

  Blood rushed from Evie’s head. If she didn’t sit down, she would surely fall down. Sunny’s voice sounded muffled, like her mouth was full of stuffing, and Evie backed away. She could see Sunny’s lips moving, her liquid-dark eyes almost hidden by her thick, black hair.

  Evie turned away from Sunny, and away from the lab. She started walking fast toward the front of the building, and then she was running—right out the front door, before Sunny could see the
tears streaming down her face.

  24

  R

  Réal gathered up the pages of the second-last exam he’d ever write in his life, God willing. As he carried them to the front of the classroom, a familiar shape passed by the open door. He shook the pages at the teacher. “Come on, man. Take ’em,” he muttered. The teacher raised a brow, but took the pages without a word. “Thanks,” Ré said, halfway out the door.

  Evie’s black sneakers squeaked with each quick step away from him.

  “Hey!” He ran to catch up with her.

  She turned. Her eyes darted over his shoulder before they settled on his, as if she’d seen something looming up behind him. “Hey,” she replied.

  “How are you?” he asked. He shoved his fists into his jean jacket. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in days.”

  She shrugged. “You haven’t.”

  “Yeah, right. Exams, I guess,” he said. She just nodded. “So how you been?”

  She looked at him funny again, blue eyes darting all over before she answered. “I don’t know.”

  Réal ran his lip through his teeth. I’m sorry, he wanted to say. Instead he said, “Hey, you need a lift home or something?”

  She shook her head like she was saying no, but then she said, “Yeah, okay.”

  Ré smiled, but something fluttered behind his ribs. Every single time he’d been near Evie in the last month, he’d been half waiting for Sunny to jump out at him. Not like she had any right to be jealous, but she would be. She was. But that was over now, so she couldn’t care one way or another. Right?

  They walked to his car. Réal opened the passenger door, then went around and hopped in the driver’s side. He brought the big engine to life with a flick of his wrist. Neither of them said anything as he eased out of the parking lot and headed east, through town.