Black Chuck Read online

  If he expected her to shut up, to look shocked or humiliated, then he sure didn’t know Sunny. “I think you’re a brain-dead idiot, you zombie pothead,” she replied. “You’re so bombed-out all the time I don’t even know you anymore. You’re a joke, Alex. This party is a joke. Everything is a fucking joke.”

  Ré resisted whistling under his breath. He looked from Sunny to Alex and back again, swallowing hard. If she dished out much more of this, he’d have a lot more fight on his hands.

  Alex straightened slowly. “Yeah? Is screwing Dufresne behind my back a big joke too?” he asked.

  A shimmer of surprise went through the crowd. Gettin’ more show than they paid for, Ré thought. And also, Fuck.

  Alex raised his voice another notch. “Is that why I find his T-shirts under your bed? His damn car parked outside your house?” He was pacing again, working up his violence, letting the steam rise. “I’m tired of you yanking me around like a dog on a leash,” he snapped. “Tired of you acting like I’m not even here. Like I’m too dumb to notice you screwing my friends.”

  Sunny’s hand left Evie’s shoulder, and Ré saw Evie wobble, fingers splayed for balance. More worry fled through him. Is she okay?

  Then Sunny said, loud and clear, shoulders squared, “The only person I’ve ever screwed is too wasted to even get it up anymore.”

  A snicker and an ohh slid through the crowd. And then someone else was in the circle with them. He was tallish and had dark hair flipping over the collar of his black leather jacket. On the back of the jacket was a large woven patch: a white skull with red horns, a swirling, forked red tail, and the letters SOMC. Satan’s Own Motorcycle Club.

  He said, “You gonna let that little rice rocket sass you, young Alex Janes?”

  Alex looked at him, red flames in his eyes, forked tail twitching. Ré could see his gears working, even in the semidarkness.

  But before anyone could say anything, Sunny stepped up to the stranger, all jaw and jabbing fingers. “Rice rocket?” she said, head weaving like a cobra’s.

  He turned, unperturbed, and looked down on her. “Well, he rides your Jap ass, don’t he?” He made a throttle motion with his fists and leered at her neon-green boobs.

  “Alex!” She turned, daring him to stand up for her. But Alex was closed, his face shut, eyes dead. The gears had turned, and the brotherhood had won.

  Sunny turned back to the big biker. “I’m fucking Korean, you sausage-eating monkey fart.” She spat at his feet and turned, and the crowd parted for her like a holy sea. “Come on, Ev,” she muttered, grabbing Evie’s wrist. The smaller girl whirled with Sunny’s momentum.

  Ostie d’crisse, Ré thought. That girl is fearless. But the big biker only laughed.

  Moments later, Sunny’s pearl sedan sprayed gravel over the lawn, and the girls were gone. In a strange way, Ré was relieved. Even though he now stood here facing Alex alone, it was better that way. He didn’t want Evie to see him so low as this.

  He turned his attention back to Alex. Through all of this, Ré still had not said a word. Kept his cards close.

  Alex jutted his chin, eyes blazing. “You gonna tell the same story, Dufresne?”

  Ré tipped his jaw down and looked Alex straight in the eye. “No,” he said. “I am not telling the same story.”

  Alex was visibly surprised. “So she’s a liar? You really slept with her?” His pitch rose up and bounced over the crowd.

  “No,” Ré said again. “I did not sleep with your girlfriend, Alex. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to. If I told you I never touched her.”

  The big biker had stepped back into the crowd, arms crossed. This was between Ré and Alex now, nobody else. The boys began to sidestep within the circle, a slow, wary dance. Réal knew what was coming next. He held his abdomen tight, waiting for the lunge, the first strike. “You got every right to do this, buddy,” he said. “I don’t blame you one bit.”

  “I’m not your buddy, Réal,” Alex spat, and the words hurt more than a fist. “You’re nothing to me. You’ve always been nothing. Background noise.” Alex was still circling, but he was starting to jump, fists ready. “You think you’re so damn cool,” he continued. “Shaun’s little lieutenant.”

  Ré’s ears pricked at Shaun’s name. His eyes shifted from Alex in sharp flicks. He saw more dark shadows closing in around the crowd. Those guys who’d been drinking on the back deck. Maybe more than just them. Maybe even the whole club—or at least the ones tight with the Janes clan. Réal started to get a bad feeling that this wasn’t about Sunny at all.

  “I don’t think I’m cool, Alex,” Ré said warily. “And I’m nobody’s lieutenant. Shaun and me were old buddies, that’s all.”

  “He was gonna prospect for the club,” Alex said bitterly. “Did you know that, old buddy?” Réal kept one eye on the shadows, listening very carefully now to Alex’s words. “This summer. Me and him together. We were gonna be brothers.”

  Brothers. How many times had Ré used that word to describe him and Shaun? They were practically blood. Raised together, in each other’s homes as constantly as if they were family. They knew each other better than anybody. Didn’t they?

  Réal felt the ground go a little soft under his feet. He had been the first and only one Shaun had told about the baby, but this…Why hadn’t Shaun told him? Prospecting? For Satan’s Own? Sunny was right—it was a joke. A surreal, messed-up joke. And Réal felt a little bit like a punch line. “I didn’t know that,” he breathed quietly.

  It all made sense now, this stupid party. It had nothing to do with graduation. It was an initiation. Alex proving himself to the brotherhood. And Ré had been carted out like an ox on a rope, his neck stretched out long for the machete. It wasn’t about Sunny. It had never been about her.

  All the fight went out of him at once. Letting Alex win a battle over a girl, letting him win back his sullied pride—that was something Ré could nobly do. He’d take those punches—even throw a few back for show, black up his eye maybe, just so it looked like he’d tried.

  But not Shaun. Shaun was not something he could fight for. He couldn’t even pretend.

  “Alex,” he said. He’d stopped moving, stopped the dance, let his hands hang loose at his sides. He swallowed hard. “I loved Shaun.”

  A childish snicker went through the crowd. They all were wound up tight as tops and wanted violence like they’d paid for it at the gate, but Ré ignored them. “Shaun was family,” he said. “I never in my life thought I’d hurt him.”

  “Tell that to his fucking nan,” Alex snarled, whipped up, still dancing. “Tell it to his fucking mother. Tell it to the brothers here tonight.”

  But Ré couldn’t honestly say it to anyone. He knew deep down that he’d meant to kill Shaun. It was all over his dreams like bloody fingerprints, those fucking deer stalking him, filling him with evil. The fucking Windigo. Réal saw Shaun’s torn belly, popped open like a bag of rotten noodles. He knew what he was. He knew what he’d done, even if all memory of it was gone.

  “Tell it to his damn girlfriend,” Alex said, and Ré’s eyes went wide. No! She’s not still here, is she? Unsteady, ethereal, other-planet Evie. Sweet, forgiving Evie. No, no, no. He searched the dark, desperate. He turned, hoping not to find her, but there she was behind him, all Venus-eyed.

  “Ev…” Ré whimpered, thinking, Why TF didn’t you go with Sunny, girl?

  Then he heard her little voice in his head. I could love you, if you asked me to. And he wanted so bad to ask her now—right now—before he had to tell her everything else. Before the terrible truth was out.

  But that would be cheating. Stealing the prize.

  “Go on, Dufresne,” Alex taunted. “Tell her what you did. Tell us all what you did to your so-called brother.”

  He sunk to his knees at Evie’s feet. The words choked in his throat. They clicked, unsaid, as he stared at the ground, reeling with all of his demons. He couldn’t breathe. His hands balled into fists. Tears spilled from his
eyes. He whispered.

  “What was that, Dufresne?” Alex called out like a sideshow barker, like a man in a top hat.

  Ré closed his eyes. Warm tears snaked down his neck into the collar of his shirt. “I ate him,” he confessed, the words like chunks of flesh on his lips. Like stringy red arrows pointing to his guilty heart. “I killed him, and I ate him.”

  32

  R

  “You what?” Alex shrieked.

  Réal slumped farther down on his folded knees, ruined, destroyed. Sick, psycho, fiend.

  “You fucking what?” Alex bleated again. “Holy mother of God.” He stumbled back, hands fisted in his hair, eyes wide and white, flashing firelight. He breathed like a broken bellows. This was clearly not the answer he’d expected, not at all the one he’d been teasing out for the crowd.

  But there it was. Out loud. At last.

  Ré could feel the crowd changing around him, the mood shifting. They stepped back, confused, frightened, knocking into each other, voices hissing and scared. Alex looked to the big biker for direction, but the guy just stood there with his mouth open, his meaty hands at his sides.

  Réal was not the sacrificial ox they’d wanted—some poor, dumb creature Alex had dragged out here to destroy. They’d asked for an animal. Ré had given them a monster—he’d given them the goddamn devil.

  He could feel the ring widening, could hear people stumbling to get away. Car doors slammed, engines growled. He closed his eyes. He imagined he could hear her feet stepping away too. The sound of losing everything.

  Feared, hated.

  Just like Black Chuck.

  Ré’s picture next to Chuck’s in the family book. Aunties telling his story to little boys who’d wet their beds, claw bloody any arms that tried to hold them.

  Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, small and warm. He shivered like it was electric, opened his eyes and looked up. Evie stood before him, Venus blues, lips pulled in a frown. She was dripping water everywhere, and for one tiny moment all he felt was love and worry. “Why are you all wet?” he whispered.

  And then the air left his lungs as he was kicked to the ground.

  Alex stood behind him, cracking like lightning. “Get up, you psycho!” he screamed.

  Pain lanced through his shoulders, down his spine. Evie scattered to the side. He sucked for air, tried to push up, but Alex was on him again, heavy boots striking his kidneys, neck and arms. He crawled on knees and elbows, coughing.

  Alex kicked his ribs hard, knocking him sideways. “Get up!” he screeched.

  Réal obeyed. He staggered to his feet, stumbling sideways, gasping for air. He cradled his shattered ribs under one hand. The other was held out for balance, defense, but it found neither.

  Alex swung at his jaw, and Ré spun like a puppet, spitting blood into the cheering crowd.

  There was no fighting back. Alex was on him too quick. The blows fell like bombs, lit fireworks in the air between them. When he fell, the crowd only dragged him back up, violence drawing them back to the circle. Through his bloody eye, Ré could see Satan’s Own standing among them, looking grim. There was no escape, even if he’d wanted one.

  Sparks lit out from the blows to his head. Constellations. One eye had swelled almost shut. He blinked blood from the other, tasted the tang of a cut lip swelling fast. Each breath filled his lungs with broken sticks. And the crowd howled at each strike like a piano split with an axe.

  He could feel his body giving up.

  He wasn’t fighting it.

  He was going to die.

  This must have been what Shaun had felt that night, Ré coming at him in the dark. Pain squeezed Ré’s heart, but it wasn’t from fists or boots. He fell again to his knees, blood roping down from his open mouth, his hands limp at his sides. He was ready.

  “Stop!” someone cried.

  She pushed between them, her back to Ré. He blinked, tried to focus. “No, Ev…” he said, raising his hand to her. “Let him do it.”

  “No!” she shouted. Her hands were shoving Alex, feet bracing in the dirt. “It’s not true!”

  “Get out of the way, Evie,” Alex warned through his teeth.

  “It’s not true,” she said again. “He didn’t kill anybody.”

  “He just confessed,” Alex yipped, trying to shove her aside. She stumbled but wouldn’t let go.

  Alex was much taller than her and, despite his thinness, heavier, his angle better. She slid backward as he plowed her out of his way and she fought to keep her footing. “He didn’t do it, Alex!”

  “He’s not saying he didn’t!” Alex spat. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were over her shoulder, looking wildly at Ré, who was slumped on his knees behind her.

  “Evie…” Ré groaned. He reached for her wet shirt, the soft, cold flannel grounding him like a bright light in the dark. “Evie, let him do it,” he said.

  “No, Ré!” She swung her face to his. Wet hair fell across it in dark brushstrokes. Her blue eyes flashed. “You didn’t kill Shaun. And I am not letting Alex kill you!”

  “I did, Evie,” he said, his voice a reedy breath. “I killed him. I’m just like my uncle. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know.”

  “No, Ré,” she growled. She was shoving again, feet sliding. “You didn’t do it. I did.”

  What the fuck? he thought. Has everyone lost their minds?

  Alex wrapped his hand around Evie’s wrist, twisting hard, eyes jumping from her to Réal and back. Ré still grasped her shirt, blinking up at her with his one good eye. She was trapped between them, saying words he couldn’t hear, her attention drawn away from Alex, big eyes locked on Ré.

  He saw the knife in slow motion.

  The glint of dark metal in the shadows.

  Alex’s free hand had disappeared behind his back and reappeared, holding all the cards. The blade slid through the air at a low angle, its hard edge kissing the bone in Réal’s wrist. There was no pain, just a warm flood of blood down his sleeve.

  Ré drew his arm out of the knife’s path, shielding his face. He fell back and rolled sideways. All was confusion and sound. Then a numbing, unnatural silence. In the distance just the whine of a single, silvery bell.

  Someone gathered him up under the arms and hauled him to his feet. The big biker who’d egged Alex on. When he spoke, Réal felt the thunder of his voice more than heard it. “That’ll do, young Janes,” he said. “That’s just fine, boy.”

  Ré’s good eye found Alex in the dark—panting, eyes burning, neck stiff, not yet willing to let it go. His hair hung lank and sweaty over his face. The knife shook in his fist, a snarl on his lips.

  The boys looked at each other for one long moment, and they both knew it was over. All those years. No friendship could survive this.

  And then Alex turned and pushed through the ring of leering faces. He disappeared into the dark beyond the circle, Satan’s Own closing around him, swallowing him, ferrying him away.

  The biker shook Ré lightly. “You did pretty good too, kid. Took it like a man. Now you and your little girlfriend best get the hell off this lot just as quick as you can.” He laughed and slapped Ré’s back, making him suck in air sharply. His ribs were broken for sure.

  Ré touched the cut on his wrist. It was shallow, the blade just grazing the bone, but it bled through his fingers all the same.

  He spotted Evie crouched at the edge of the ring, and he took her arm, pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said through gritted teeth, leading her through the crowd. She stumbled silently along behind him.

  They found the Buick and threw themselves in. It hurt to sit, bent over, busted ribs digging in his insides. His cut arm dripped little black patterns over everything, so he pressed it to his leg to close the wound. Evie had still not spoken. Ré threw the Buick in reverse and peeled out, turning the car around with just the heel of his good hand on the wheel.

  He pointed the nose down the wooded driveway, headlights bobbing through the trees. As they passed th
e big house, Ré took note of the guys on the deck, and they all took note of him. A chill ran through him, but he shook it off and pressed his foot to the gas till the driveway met the long dirt road back to town.

  Finally, he glanced at her. “You okay?” he asked. He could see nothing in the dark but her huddled shape pressed to the passenger door. She didn’t answer.

  He sucked his cut lip, watched the road wind by for a while. He could feel the blood drying on his face. Pain began to chew on him like he was a spongy piece of meat. All the aches and bruises that adrenaline had pushed aside now creeping in.

  “Evie,” he said. He felt his guilt stretching the distance between them. “I didn’t want you to find out that way. I was gonna tell you, I swear.”

  “You didn’t kill him,” she whispered.

  “I did, Ev. I—”

  “Stop talking, Ré. Please.”

  Her voice was dry and rough and smaller than ever. He glanced at her. “Hey. Are you okay?” She didn’t answer. Sticky blood had glued his arm to his jeans, and the wound peeled open again when he lifted his hand to take the wheel. He cursed, wincing.

  With his good hand, he reached across the seat, searching for her in the dark. “Evelyn,” he said. “Talk to me.”

  “Ré?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, Ev, tell me.” He’d raised his voice, nervous now. He only half watched the road.

  “Did Alex…” Her voice frayed into nothing before she could finish her thought. Réal shook her shoulder, and she came alive again with a small gasp, and got the words out. “Did he have a knife?”

  In the darkness he saw her splay her hands out, looking at them as if they belonged to someone else. Her clothes still dripped, and she had begun to shiver, though the night was warm.

  “Evie, what’s going on? Why are you all wet?” Ré was almost shouting, frantic. He shook her shoulder again.

  “I think I should go to the hospital,” she said, soft as kittens. “I—I think Alex might have cut me.”