James Patterson - Lifeguard

He turned the corner. On the left was the elementary school and Buckley Park, where we used to play Rat Fuck on the basketball courts for quarters. A block away on Perkins was the ruin of the old Stepover shoe factory, boarded up for years. I thought back to how we used to hide out in there from the priests and cut classes, smoke a little. When I turned at the corner, he wasn’t there!

Ah, shit, Neddie , I cursed myself. You never were any good at getting the jump on somebody.

And then I was the one being jumped!

Suddenly, I felt a strong arm tighten around my neck. I was jerked backward, a knee digging deep into my spine. The sonuvabitch was stronger than I remembered.

I flailed my arms to try and roll him over my back. I couldn’t breathe. I heard him grunting, applying more pressure, twisting me backward. My spine felt as if it were about to crack.

I started to panic. If I couldn’t spin out quickly, he was going to break my back.

“Who caught it?” he suddenly hissed into my ear.

“Who caught what ?” I gagged for air.

He twisted harder. “Flutie’s Hail Mary. The Orange Bowl. 1984.”

I tried to force him forward, using my hips as leverage, straining with all my might. His grip just tightened. I felt a searing pain in my lungs.

“Gerard… Phelan,” I finally gasped.

Suddenly, the vise hold around my neck released. I fell to one knee, sucking in air.

I looked up into the smirking face of my younger brother, Dave.

“You’re lucky,” he said, grinning. Then he put out a hand to help me. “I was going to ask who caught Flutie’s last college pass.”

WE HUGGED. Then Dave and I stood there and took a physical inventory of how we’d changed. He was much larger; he looked like a man now, not a kid. We slapped each other on the back. I hadn’t seen my baby brother in almost four years. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said, and hugged him again.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning, “well, you’re making my eyes sore now.”

We laughed, the way we did when we were growing up, and locked hands, ghetto-style. Then his face changed. I could tell that he’d heard. Surely everyone had by now.

Dave shook his head sort of helplessly. “Oh, Neddie, what the hell went on down there?”

I took him into the park and, sitting on a ledge, told him how I had gone to the Lake Worth house and saw Mickey and our other friends being wheeled out in body bags.

“Ah, Jesus, Neddie.” Dave shook his head. His eyes grew moist, and he lay his head in his hands.

I put my arm around his shoulder. It was hard to see Dave cry. It was strange – he was younger by five years, but he was always so stable and centered, even when our older brother died. I was always all over the place; it was as though the roles were reversed. Dave was in his second year at BC Law School. The bright spot of the family.

“It gets worse.” I squeezed his shoulder. “I think I’m wanted, Dave.”

“ Wanted ?” He cocked his head. “You? Wanted for what?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe for murder.” This version I told him everything. The whole tale. I told him about Tess, too.

“What’re you saying?” Dave sat there looking at me. “That you’re up here on the run? That you were involved ? You were part of this madness, Ned?”

“Mickey set it up,” I said, “but he didn’t know the kind of people who could pull it off down there. It had to have been directed from up here. Whoever it was, Dave, that’s the person who killed our friends. Until I prove otherwise, people are going to think it was me. But I think we both know” – I looked into his eyes, which were basically my eyes – “who Mickey was working with up here.”

“ Pop ? You’re thinking Pop had something to do with this?” He looked at me as if I were crazy. “No way. We’re talking Mickey, Bobby, and Dee. It’s Frank’s own flesh and blood. Besides, you don’t know – he’s sick, Ned. He needs a kidney transplant. The guy’s too sick to even be a hood anymore.”

I guess it was then that Dave squinted at me. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “Neddie, I know you’ve been down on your luck a little…”

“Listen to me” – I took him by the shoulders – “look into my eyes. Whatever you may hear, Dave, whatever the evidence might say, I had nothing to do with this. I loved them just like you. I tripped the alarms, that’s all. It was stupid, I know. And I’m going to have to pay. But whatever you hear, whatever the news might say, all I did was set off a few alarms. I think Mickey was trying to make up for what happened at Stoughton.”

My brother nodded. When he looked up, I could see a different look in his face. The guy I had shared a room with for fifteen years, who I had beaten at one-on-one until he was sixteen, my flesh and blood. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. You’re in law school.” I rapped him on the chin. “I may need your help if this gets bad.”

I stood up.

Dave did, too. “You’re going to see Pop, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer. “That’s stupid, Ned. If they’re looking for you, they’ll know.”

I tapped him lightly on the fist, then threw my arms around him and gave him a hug. My big little brother.

I started to jog down the hill. I didn’t want to turn, because I was afraid that if I did, I might cry. But there was something I couldn’t resist. I spun around when I was almost on Perkins. “It was Darren.”

“Huh?” Dave shrugged.

“Darren Flutie.” I grinned. “Doug’s younger brother. He caught Doug’s last pass in college.”

I SPENT THE NIGHT in the Beantown Motel on Route 27 in Stoughton, a few miles up the road from Kelty’s bar.

The story was all over the late news. Brockton residents killed. The faces of my friends. A shot of the house in Lake Worth. Hard to get any sleep after that.

Eight o’clock the next morning I had a cab drop me off on Perkins, a couple of blocks from my parents’ house. I had on jeans and my old torn BU sweatshirt. I tucked my head under a Red Sox cap. I was scared. I knew everyone there, and even after four years, everyone knew me. But it wasn’t just that. It was seeing my mom again. After all these years. Coming home this way.

I was praying the cops weren’t there, too.

I hurried past familiar old houses, with their tilting porches and small brown yards. Finally, I spotted our old mint green Victorian. It looked a whole lot smaller than I remembered. And a lot worse for wear. How the hell did we all ever fi t in this place ? Mom’s 4Runner was in the drive. Frank’s Lincoln was nowhere around. I guess Thomas Wolfe was right about going home, huh?

I leaned against a lamppost and stared at the place for several minutes. Everything looked all right to me, so I snuck around to the back.

Through a kitchen window I saw my mom. She was already dressed, in a corduroy skirt and some Fair Isle sweater, sipping a cup of coffee. She still had a pretty face, but she looked so much older now. Why wouldn’t she? A lifetime of dealing with Frank “Whitey” Kelly had worn her down to this.

Okay, Ned, time to be a big boy… People you loved are dead .

I knocked on the glass pane of the back door. Mom looked up from her coffee. Her face turned white. She got up, nearly ran to the door, and let me in. “Mother of God, what are you doing here, Ned? Oh Neddie, Neddie, Neddie.”

We hugged and Mom held me as tightly as if I’d come back from the dead. “Poor kids…” She pressed her face against me. I could feel tears. Then she pulled back, wide-eyed. “Neddie, you can’t be here. The police have been around.”