Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

And then there he was: waiting to go through the school metal detector, arguing with the rental cop, insisting he should not have to put his skateboard on the conveyor belt.

Kenny joined the line. Four or five people were waiting between him and the dude. Kenny shifted his weight from one worn sneaker tread to the other. He was within earshot and heard the security guard telling the dude he'd had enough, if the dude wanted to be a little shit, two could play that way.

“You know they're against school policy,” the security guard said, nodding at the dude's skull.

A shift now. A sort of awareness. The dude tensed, as if he felt someone was watching him. Responding, he turned. His eyes, large and probing, stared right at Kenny. The dude did not betray recognition, but his irritation with the situation of the moment was no more. His face was delicate and slim, with blue veins visible from beneath his transparently pale skin. He did not have eyebrows, and this added to the penetrating effect of his gaze. A tardy bell rang and was ignored. The security guard repeated his order with exasperation. The dude's crystalline blue eyes stared directly at Kenny, and now he began following the security guard's order, unknotting his bandana, seeming detached from this action, his attention solely on Kenny, studying him, communicating with him, less reaching out to him than relating.

The bandana fell.

Call it gamesmanship. Etiquette. An instinctive understanding of engagement's rules.

Perhaps it was shock. Something as basic as freezing — choking in the moment, not knowing what to do next.

Or maybe it was as simple as fantasy's open possibilities being superior to the limitations of what is real.

But in the same way a manager refuses to acknowledge a pitcher in the late innings of a perfect game, Kenny made a concerted, pained effort. And avoided the dude's inquiring eyes. Avoided his clumps of hair, his patchy scalp.

And, for his part, the dude did not so much as acknowledge Kenny's snub.

Ignored Kenny right back, he did.

Kenny didn't show up for school the next day.

Friday either.

A long weekend was coming up, honoring some dead guy, and he passed the time without enthusiasm or focus, keeping to himself, not doing much of anything, really, seeing a few movies, driving around to a few familiar out-of-the-way desert roads.

When he returned to Vo Tech, a photocopied paper breezed out of his locker.

For the entirety of that school day Kenny wandered the hallways, searching.

The next day as well.

In the months since the dude had vanished, Kenny had picked up a few punk rock compilations. Each week, he'd checked out the underground comics that littered the pages of the weekly alternative giveaway newspaper. Eventually he'd flipped to the music listings, fighting his way through the paragraphs of small print that described the different bands scheduled to play at the old Huntridge Theater. He'd grown attuned to whispers about those bizarre concerts out in the desert, and had driven out there a few times, walking around in the darkness, listening to a whole lot of distorted noise.

The whole scene still remained too fast and violent for his taste, too enthusiastic about hopelessness. Yet like the shallowest of pencil imprints that remain tattooed on the surface of a recently cleaned desk, like the grainy cleansers that seep underneath your fingernails as you rub your hand over the surface, the experience had stayed with him, his failure itching at him, gnawing.

So his eyes scanned down the row of listless homeless kids on the Strip, seeking out a bandana, a skateboard, anything that might resemble a limp. Almost subconsciously, he started wandering down the stretch of the sidewalk, it was covered in mustard and ketchup, papered with small cards advertising strippers delivered to your hotel room. Kenny walked slowly, haphazardly, toward the far end of the group, the few faces that remained hidden there, out of view and dark.

He was still within earshot, however, and heard the first scream.

“FUCKERS!”

And the next:

“ALL RIGHT, WHO SNAKED IT?”

By the time Kenny got back to him, Newell was in the face of an overlarge mongoloid. “ASSHOLES,” he screamed. His eyes were bulging. The mongoloid was laughing, returning the boy's spleen with kissy faces. Kenny pulled him away by his sleeve. Newell swung wildly into the air. “I’M CALLING THE COPS.”

“What—”

“My phone, dude. MY FUCKING PHONE.”

Newell twisted in place and thrashed, patting his waist, checking his pockets. Punks whistled, barked.

“Could you have lost it?” Kenny asked.

“ I didn't. They —”

Kenny looked toward the spot where all this had begun, as if some sort of help or answer might be found there. But all he found was the pregnant girl's blank indignation, as if this whole thing were tiring to her. “That's what happens.” Lestat laughed, clapping, his hands creating little dust clouds. “Welch on a bet, that's what happens.”

“GET OFF ME,” Newell said, when Kenny reached out for him.

“Just—”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.”

“Okay.” Kenny's hands went up. He stepped back.

“I FUCKING HATE BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO.”

“Okay. Just — when did you know it was gone?”

A nasal snort. “I had it. And now I don't. ”

“What about the casino?”

Another snort, more obnoxious.

“When you fell?”

“You're believing them ?”

“I'm not believing anything, Newell. I just—”

“FUCKING BULLSHIT.”

“I'm just saying. When we ran through the casino? We were moving pretty good.”

The boy felt his pockets. His mouth opened and went slack and no sound came out. He stared through Kenny now, his eyes filling with disbelief, with refusal, with defiance. His face was round and rigid. Stares from people he did not know or care about, momentarily concerned as they walked along to their next entertainment. The vague amusement of the homeless trash. Kenny saying something to him. Every answer was not any sort of answer. Every path led down into a black hole. Dull noise lulled through his ears. His mind raced and raced and ran in place. And now Newell glanced over his shoulder, struggling for an escape hatch, some direction, a conclusion that did not end up being the obvious one, a result that left him anywhere but this place.

4.1

When the Los Angeles Dodgers used their eighth-round draft pick on a switch-hitting second baseman from a public high school in western New Mexico, Lincoln Ewing certainly did not expect that, one day, his name would be announced in the starting lineup of the All-Star game. He was not counting on having his face decorate a Wheaties box. If either of these things had happened he would have taken them, of course; any boy with a mitt who passes his afternoons throwing an old tennis ball against a brick wall has such dreams. But even as a high school senior, Lincoln was uncommonly level-headed — coaches and teammates said as much — and he was realistic enough to know the difference between dreams and fantasies. It therefore came as a surprise to people around him when Lincoln turned down scholarship offers from the University of Texas at El Paso, Cal State Northridge, and Pepperdine. Although the schools had only middling athletic programs, forsaking college for a minor league contract made little sense. After all, the pros would always be there. And it wasn't hard to imagine that a year or two of being the big fish in the proverbial small pond would improve Lincoln's draft position, signing bonus, and contract terms. All he had to do was be patient.