Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

Bobby grew up on a farm somewhere in Western Mass., where he was busted for assault and date-raping some girl. Cause he’s a farm boy, he teaches us things that even Cunningham doesn’t know. Useful things. Like how to hypnotize a chicken.

We’d only been here for a few weeks when Bobby grabbed the smallest chicken in the coop by its feet and lifted it, so it was hanging upside down. The chicken was squawking and clucking, but as soon as Bobby starting swinging it around and around it quieted down. “That’ll learn ya,” Bobby said, then set the chicken back on the ground. Next thing you knew that chicken was walking in circles and bumping into things, like it was drunk. We all laughed our asses off, but for Tiny and DeShawn.

“That’s not fucking funny,” Tiny said.

“Whassamattuh?” Freddie said.

“It’s just a little chicken.”

“You feckin’ killed some girl and you’re getting ya panties in a wad over some dumb chicken that’s gonna end up in a pot pretty soon heyah?” Freddie said.

“Just make it stop,” Tiny replied. His eyes were turning red, his lower lip quivering, but the chicken was still spinning around bumping into things. We couldn’t stop cracking up.

“Fucking knock it off, you assholes!” Tiny yelled.

Then the chicken lay down and stopped moving altogether. The chickens in the coop went quiet too. All we could hear was the wind whistling like a boiling kettle.

“That’s fucking sick,” Kevin Monahan said. “You’re sick, Tiny. Killing your own girlfriend and defending some stupid chicken.” Kevin was in for burning down an apartment building in Springfield while cooking up meth with his father. Some old lady’s cat died in the fire.

“Arson ain’t no big thing compared to killing a pretty little girl, pansy,” Freddie said.

Bobby snapped his fingers over the bird, which rolled onto its feet and started walking again.

“That’s like some voodoo or something,” DeShawn said, moving away from Bobby like he was a man possessed.

Bobby had power over that chicken just like Freddie had power over Tiny and Chad had power over me.

Chad and me used to be like Freddie and Tiny: inseparable. I followed Chad everywhere, did whatever he did, and whatever he wanted me to do. Now he’s doing time on a twenty-year sentence on account of our accident. On account of me.

Sometimes we got Saturday afternoon passes to Woods Hole on the mainland. Saturdays in “the Hole” were good until Freddie convinced Tiny to steal Second Chance and take it over to Osterville where they said they were going to break into some boats cause Ryan Peasely told them how much money he cleared dealing from his dad’s summer house out thataway.

As we ferried over that late September day, Tiny said, “I ain’t doin’ it.” Stubby Knowles, our mechanics and fisheries teacher who also captained Second Chance , was inside the wheelhouse and couldn’t hear us over the sound of the engine, the wind, and the squawking gulls.

“Whassamattah? You chickenin’ out?” Bobby asked.

“Fuck you,” Tiny shot back.

Tiny didn’t like Bobby much. After the chicken-swinging incident, Tiny asked if taking care of the chickens could be his chore and his alone, like he wanted to keep the birds safe from Bobby. No one fought him for the honor.

“Bawk!” Bobby said. Freddie snorted with laughter. They high-fived.

Tiny stared so hard at Bobby he could have burned two holes straight through him with his eyes. Bobby shrank. Tiny was twice his size and could have easily snapped him in two.

Tiny started to laugh that kind of laugh that sounds weirdly close to crying. “Fooled yas, I did,” Tiny said. But Tiny hadn’t fooled anyone. He was only staying in because he didn’t want Bobby to take his place as Freddie’s best.

As soon as we stepped off the boat, Freddie said, “Listen, homies, we gonna bust this shit up like something real,” like we were a bunch of brothers who had escaped Rikers on some wooden raft and sailed our way up to the Cape to terrorize all the rich people.

“DeShawn, my nigga, you reel in da hos for me.”

Freddie always talked like a gangsta rapper to DeShawn, so did Bobby. Two boys, as white as they come. Even Freddie, though he’s Italian, as pale as the moon. Tiny just stood to the side looking confused, waiting for them to get it over with and talk like their old selves again.

Bobby and Freddie worshipped DeShawn cause he’s black and from Dorchester. DeShawn wouldn’t say anything about why he was here, but you could always see wheels turning behind his eyes, going somewhere way the fuck far away and running us over on his way there.

Whenever DeShawn got that look on Freddie always said, “Like, DeShawn my man, you and me relate, homes, cuz your shit is real, brother, just like my shit is real, a’ight?”

Freddie never seemed to notice the look that came over DeShawn’s eyes when he talked to him. Then again, if he did notice he didn’t seem to care. It’s kind of like Chad saying what you don’t know can’t hurt you, only with Freddie it was pretending that you don’t know, like pretending that DeShawn didn’t hate him would help keep him from getting his ass kicked all over the Hole.

The night of the accident, back in August, I pretended everything was okay.

“Dudes,” Chad had said to some friends of his who pulled up next to us in front of the Cumbie Farms, “I bet you a thousand dollars my little brother and I can jack a car faster than you.”

It had been a long time since Chad and me had broken into a car and I doubted he and his friends had any money, unless they were dealing, which they probably were, but I didn’t want to know. I hadn’t seen much of Chad in three years, not since he had turned eighteen and joined the Army.

“Why you wanna go fight the war?” I asked him before he left.

Chad pointed to his head and said, “Gotta be easier than fighting the war inside.”

It wasn’t that Chad was a bad guy, it was that he was good at things you weren’t supposed to do, like breaking into places and stealing shit. And Chad had this ability to not get caught, which, in a twisted way, made me and Caroline think he was going to do well being off in the Army fighting terrorists. But not even Mom could explain why Chad was eventually discharged and came back from Afghanistan with scripts for all kinds of things, except to say, “It’s as if your brother has taken lots of bullets inside his heart, Tommy. You can’t actually see the place that got hurt, but if you could, you’d know how badly he’s suffering.” Sometimes I could see it written all over his face, though, like that night sitting and drinking in the car at Cumbie’s.

“Remember how good it used to be?” Chad asked. “You and me, droppin’ it like it’s hot?” He took a swig from his beer and wiped his mouth.

I remembered how it was, letting Chad talk me into sneaking into someone else’s garage, their car, their house, riding away on their bikes with PlayStations and laptops stuffed into our backpacks. It was everything I had wanted to forget about myself, but for Chad. Once he left, I started trying to clean up my act, but now Chad was back and he had a thousand dollars riding on my back.

“Yeah, that was cool,” I said as we finished off our beers before heading out to find a new ride for the night. Maybe it’s cause we grew up without a dad, but it was easier to lie than to admit that I never wanted to do any of that stuff, I had just wanted to be with Chad. “Welcome home, bro,” I said. “It’s good to have you back.”

Chad passed me another bottle of beer. As he steered the car onto the dark road, I felt myself move back to that place I had been trying to get beyond, but now that Chad was home safe I knew I had never wanted to leave.