Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

“Exactly,” said Kevin. “Exactly.”

“I mean a guy wants to know what he’s kissing, doesn’t he?”

We were standing in the road, debating about why girls are so full of shit. Then we heard a voice shouting: “Johnny? Johnny!”

I remembered what the new kid had said about his dad looking for him and told Kevin. We figured the guy calling out was Johnny’s old man. He sure as fuck didn’t sound friendly. I was still pissed at Johnny for lecturing me about Wheelchair so I yelled: “Fuck you, dad!”

I nearly cried with laughing at how Johnny’s dad would think it was Johnny who said it. Johnny’s dad made this big roaring sound like an animal in pain. Then KC joined in. “Dad, fuck off! You big ugly cunt!”

Now we were both creased up, cackling so hard we were nearly in tears. Then the guy started running and we could see right away that he was fast and didn’t move like no daddy we’d ever met. We got scared and pedalled off. The wind was in our faces and we thought we were safe when we heard this big bastard’s feet pounding the road behind us. Man, that spurred us on. Our hearts and legs didn’t stop racing until we reached my house. When we looked behind us and saw he wasn’t there we started laughing again, this time with sweet relief.

“Fuck you, dad,” I said.

KC howled and so did I. Then I had an idea. “Let’s go over to his house, maybe we’ll see what happens when Johnny’s old man catches up with him.”

So what we did was climb the railway bridge and walk down the tracks in the moonlight. We were still pissing ourselves. KC or me only had to say “Fuck you, dad” and we’d crack up. Then we had to stop, bending over and holding our ribs, laughing ‘til we cried. Finally we were looking down at Johnny Seven’s house. It was as shittily painted at the back as it was at the front. We sat on the verge under the railroad track, staring straight across into the bedroom windows. All the lights in the house were shining.

Out of nowhere, I got this scared feeling. Coming here was beginning to seem like a mistake. “What if his dad looks out and sees us?”

“So what?” said KC. “This isn’t his property. Right now we’re sitting on railroad property.”

To lighten the mood, I said “fuck you, dad” again but the joke had worn kinda thin. I told KC that maybe we should go, but he said we should linger for a few more minutes; see if anything “transpired”. KC had a bit of weed and he knew how to make roll-ups, so we inhaled real fucking deep to give ourselves breathing problems in later life. I hoped it’d give me a real buzz for once but it didn’t so I had to fake it. “Man,” I said, pretending to lose my balance. “I am so high you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t,” said KC.

We were on the point of leaving when we saw Johnny Seven walk into one of the bedrooms. Johnny was yelling his head off at someone out of sight. Then a big guy in a vest walked over to Johnny and hit him in the face. Wham!

Not a slap but a real, grown up punch, like a boxer whacking another boxer. KC and me were so shocked that we started laughing. Johnny Seven dropped like a brick. Then Johnny’s dad picked him up and hit him again. Hit him three times, holding him steady so he could get a real good aim. Now it wasn’t funny anymore.

“Jesus, I don’t believe this,” said KC. “Do you believe it?”

“No way.”

That kid must have got punched and thrown and kicked around that room a hundred times. KC got upset. I knew he would.

“Hey! Fuckin’ cut that out!” he shouted. He picked up a stone and threw it at Johnny’s window. I threw another. We both missed.

We kept on tossing those damn stones but missed every time. Johnny’s dad didn’t hear us yelling. He was enjoying himself too much. He just carried on beating up his boy. KC and me had to go home, we couldn’t watch it anymore.

We started walking. “That’s bad,” said KC. His voice sounded strange. “That fuckin’ sucks.”

“Shit, you see the way his dad laid into him?” I said.

“I saw,” said KC. “That is so wrong, man. My dad may have smacked me round once or twice, he never hurt me. That bastard was using his fists. Goddamn.”

There was a train coming. Me and KC slid down the slope to get out of its way. The train whooshed past. It was a cold lonely feeling, seeing all the passengers through the windows and knowing not one of those motherfuckers knew about me or KC or Johnny Seven or would have given a shit if they had. To them, we were just a bunch of kids.

We watched the train until its tail lights snaked out of sight.

As we headed for the bridge I said: “So what’re we gonna do?”

“About what?“

“Someone getting half-killed, that’s what! Do we call the fuckin’ cops or not?”

“Are you joking?” said KC. “What good would that do?”

“We witnessed a violent assault.”

“We witnessed shit. We were spying, for fuck’s sake. Things you see when you spy don’t count.”

“Hey, I’m shaking,” I said. “Look at me. I’m shaking all over.”

KC sniffed. Might have been snot, might have been tears. I didn’t ask. “I hope that kid’s all right,” he said. “Because, God help me, if he dies, it’s your fucking fault.”

But Johnny Seven lived. A week later, he was back at school. His mouth was all swollen and his left eye was so bruised he could hardly see out of it. No one asked him how it had happened, not even the teachers. By now, both me and KC felt we owed Johnny something so in recess we went over to be nice to the kid. At first, he ignored us but we wouldn’t let up. It became like a fucking mission with us.

We asked him to play catch. But he was so sore he couldn’t raise the mitt properly. So instead we sat on the wall and talked. We didn’t say anything about the terrible way Johnny looked and you could tell Johnny was real relieved that we didn’t mention it. And we certainly had no intention of telling him it was our fucking fault he looked that way.

“I was thinking of going shooting after school,” said Johnny Seven. “Wanna come?”

“Shooting who?” I said. “Griff?” The idea kind of appealed to me.

“M-h.” Johnny shook his head. “Just trees and stuff. My old man collects handguns. He wouldn’t miss one.”

We were impressed but trying not to show it.

“What happened to your mom?” said KC. “She die?”

“No sir. She just walked out, man. My dad never wanted to go anywhere or have friends over so she kept getting depressed and finally she just left.”

“Where’d she go?” said KC.

Johnny shrugged.

“What’s it feel like, not knowing if you’re ever gonna see her again?” I asked him.

KC acted all shocked. “Fuck, Garrett, what kind of asshole question is that?”

“S’okay,” said Johnny. “Way it is, when you got a mom, you sometimes think you’d be better off without her. But when you don’t even know where she is, it feels like you wanna hurl all day long.”

KC nodded respectfully. “I bet it does. I bet it really does feel that way.”

We met in the woods near the lake. There was a fucked-up old ruined house near the lake. It was called the Retreat, because that was its name when people lived there. The walls were half down and it didn’t have any windows because so many kids had thrown rocks at them. KC told Johnny “The Retreat” was an unlucky name to give a house, because retreating was what cowards did in a battle. Johnny looked at me and smiled. He could see that KC was pretty dumb but would never have said it out loud. That wasn’t Johnny’s style.