The Following Friday
Though you'd think him punching Jackson would make his school life hell, it was actually quite a calculated decision. Punching the most popular guy in your grade, on your first day, that gets you credit and more importantly respect. It's the kind of thing an F.y.o.B would do although Joey was not one of those. Everyone just moved out of his way when he walked down the corridors or didn't sit at his table when he ate lunch. It worked out cool for him. Occasionally, Will would go and sit with him and try to make conversation. To be fair, if Joey didn't know Will any better, he would've said that he was only hanging out with him so he could say 'I know the guy who punched Jackson Conaway', but, from what he knew, he didn't think Will was like that.
For the main part of his first week at school, Jackson and him made no further contact. They weren't in the same classes because, unlike Jackson, Joey wasn't just all good looks. At least he had half a brain cell, which is more than Jackson could claim.
It was on Friday, though, when things got… interesting. There were many reasons why Joey didn't make friends. The main one being that you always felt like you owed them something. Joey personally had no sympathy with that feeling personally but it was sort of an expectation where you had to owe them something or at least feel like you owe them something. Of course Will wasn't one of those types who expected you to do everything for him, and expected, at the end of the day, quite little, but at least wanted some display of your friendship. Joey didn't mind that. He quite liked Will. Of course, he could do fine without him, and with time, he'd probably feel sad if anything happened to him, but he still held Will at a distance. Will had got as close to Joey as anyone good, which was still pretty far away, but he had tried.
Friday was P.E. day. The P.E. teachers were the usual kind. Strict, cruel (their faces not exactly their fortune) and biased. But, then again, they weren't the worst out there: they rarely resorted to physical violence.
It was American Football, which was a codeword for 'tackle whoever you want as hard as you want'. Joey wasn't playing as he was new and he said he'd never played the game before. He would just have to sit on the bleachers, next to the broken scoreboard, that was in need of some serious repair, and just watch the kids roll around in the mud. He had a look around the field but it was just surrounded by bushes and trees so there really was nothing to look at. It was clear that Jackson had wanted to take it out on Joey by doing as many foul tackles towards him as he could but, since Joey wasn't playing, he had to target the weaker kids. Whilst the coach was deciding on a free kick or something at one end of the pitch, at the other end Jackson was arguing with Will. He grabbed his shoulders and shoved him into a pile of mud, before kicking some further into his face. Most of it hit his helmet, but some got through. They scarpered afterwards.
"WILL EVANS?! WHAT ARE YA DOING? GET UP NOW, BOY!" Coach Cullan yelled from the other end of the pitch, jogging slightly over. His wide face was twitching. along with his broad frame, as he waddled along the sideline over to Will, who was desperately trying to brush the mud off of his kit before Coach reached him.
Joey couldn't hear what Will said but he caught snatches of what Coach was saying. It was something like 'mess' and 'lazy' and, at one point, he thought he heard Coach say 'if you wanna lie down, I'll give you somethin' real to lie down 'bout'.
Joey, who had been minding his own business, sat on the third bleacher up, his sleeves pulled down around his arms, and resting on his bare legs, noticed Will's hand fly in his direction. The Coach's deep set eyes settled on him.
"JOEY MULLER! GET DOWN HERE! NOW. MOVE IT."
He turned back to Will, fiddling with the whistle around his neck, or his too tight tracksuit.
As Joey neared him, he kept thinking of how much he looked like a badger or a fat ferret. With the slightly goofy teeth, large, flat nose and eyes hidden behind layers of fat. Joey had no idea how he'd become a P.E. teacher. If that was the world's idea of fit, then no wonder over 500,000 Americans die every year from Cardiovascular Diseases. That wasn't even taking into account obesity.
Joey said nothing as he arrived at the side of both Will and the Coach. They looked at him expectantly but he still kept silent.
"Muller." The Coach said eventually. What was with the surnames? "Evans here says that you saw something."
Joey waited for clarification. Why couldn't people just speak clearly? Obviously he saw something. He saw a lot of 'somethings' when he was sitting in the bleachers. Which one was the Coach asking about?
"Did Conaway push him? Into the mud?"
Joey waited. He didn't like this. He wasn't a snitch. He didn't help people by ratting others out. He didn't do that even for himself. He didn't talk to teachers. He just wanted to not even show up on their radar. Becoming a snitch, it isn't a good move. It removes any kind of existing respect because it is low. Everyone knows that.
He looked Will dead in the eye. Will's eyes were wide, and growing wider by the second. He could see the pain in them, waiting for his answer.
"Well?"
"Yes." He muttered, whilst staring straight into Will's eyes. He never once looked away.
Coach looked dissatisfied but walked away nonetheless in Jackson's direction.
Joey turned and began to walk away, back towards the school outhouse building, the only building in sight, and where the changing rooms were.
Will started going at a thousand miles an hour, thanking Joey in so many different ways. Joey just stared straight ahead.
"Did I do anything?" Will paused for breath as they reached the door of the grey-brick outhouse. The metal door kept creaking as more and more students passed through it. He turned around, turning his back to the outhouse building and facing Will. He looked over his shoulder to see Jackson protesting with Coach.
"Don't throw me under the bus like that again, Will. I'm not-"
But he stopped. He wanted to say 'I'm not your friend' but he wasn't a very good liar.
That was a perfect example of why he didn't bother making friends in the first place.
***
He was walking home that day, feeling an emotion that he didn't know how to describe. Whether that was just because he'd never felt it before, or whether it was because of his schizophrenia, he wasn't sure.
It wasn't anger; that was for sure. It wasn't sadness either. It was somewhere between the two. Maybe he was a little scared about what it would do to him and the mutual respect that everyone showed towards him. He was also a little scared, though he wouldn't have admitted it, that Will had done that to him. He was friends with Will, but it was an odd sort of friendship. Nothing about Joey wasn't odd.
He dismissed it anyway, and put it to the back of his head, suppressing it, like how he did with everything, because he'd probably done worse, Will didn't mean it and Will had been apologetic after he realised. Maybe Joey wasn't ready to have that kind of friendship. Or maybe that's just what friendship was and it was Joey who was overreacting and who was also in the wrong.
Somehow, he got onto the topic of his brother. He wanted to know what he would've done. Luke would've done anything for people he cared about. He would've thrown himself under the bus to stop one of them getting into trouble. But Joey knew he wasn't anything like his brother. He never had been and he never would be so it didn't matter what Luke would've done.
He remembered that time when he and his brother had been playing baseball. Well, Luke had fruitlessly been trying to teach Joey how to play. It must've been five years ago although Joey was not much better at it anyway. Joey had hit the ball finally and they'd been too busy celebrating, that they only realised when their mom came out screaming, that they'd broken one of the windows on the ground floor. Their house was a nice house; red brick and white, with some intricate stained glass windows around the back, leading on to a huge open garden, scattered with the occasional tree: oak, cedar, birch, willow… You name it and they probably had it somewhere over their two acre plot of land in McLean.
Luke had taken the blame. It meant he missed going to his friends to watch the Detroit Tigers playing the biggest game they'd played in years. He waved Joey off saying he'd just watch it at home and maybe it would be better because he'd be with Joey but Joey knew how upset he was on the inside.
He used to want to be like Luke but then he came to realise that he could never be like him, so what was even the point of trying.
He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't even realise that he was walking past the derelict house.
"Crap." He nearly tripped over. Moving to the edge of the pavement, he watched his feet as he stepped out into the road, getting ready to cross. There were more cars in the afternoon, not just lining the pavement, but also
er. Moving to the edge of the pavement, he watched his feet as he stepped out into the road, getting ready to cross. There were more cars in the afternoon, not just lining the pavements, and ruining the little grass verges and flower beds, but driving down the roads so he actually had to look when he crossed.
But then he heard something that made him freeze: a laugh. He looked around. There was no one on the street. There was a mother in the distance pushing a pram but the sound was too close. He stuck his head round the street corner, looking both ways. Nobody. Ha-ha. There it was again.
It was coming from behind him. From the house? He could hear the laugh clearly now. He'd had no headphones over the previous few days because his dad had claimed that he 'needed them'. If he had his earphones, he never would've heard that weird laugh and wouldn't have been intrigued to go looking for its source.
Reluctantly, he turned back around and craned his neck, trying to peer through the gates of the house, trying to see where the noise was coming from. It was definitely coming from there. He could've just walked away. He had plenty of better things to do at home but he was intrigued as to why someone would spend their time in that hellhole.
Not entirely sure what he was doing, he pushed back the gate. The black paint was flaking away to reveal the iron, and as he took away his hand, he could see the black bits of paint clinging on to his hand by sweat. He wiped his hands on his blue and yellow P.E. shorts, letting his black rucksack swing onto his left shoulder so he could carry his muddy football boots in his right hand.
Whether he was allowed to go onto the property or not, he didn't really care. He didn't think anyone else would either. Why would anybody get all precious about a tip of a house like that? He kicked his way through the knee-high weeds, avoiding the house itself and just following the noise. It led him down an overgrown side passage, where the bushes that had been growing over the front gates had carried on around to the back of the house. The house itself had ivy growing all over it, through the cracks in the panels of wood. It must've been an old house. No one built houses from wood anymore.
He reached the end of the passage where he had to push open another black-painted, iron gate that had some intricate floral patterns on it. The laugh was still going on and it was getting louder and louder. It was a kind of high-pitched laugh, not quite hysterical, but it was the kind you would make if you see something funny but not laughter to the point it hurts. He could also tell that it was a girl's laugh due to the pitch and the way she kept giggling.
As he left the passageway, he found himself in a garden. It was quite small, about 10 metres squared with the same hedge, carrying on, leading all the way around the house it seemed. You could see the roofs of the surrounding houses but not much. Inside the garden, the grass was around 3 foot high and completely wild, filled with weeds and wildflowers. There were no trees or anything. Just hedges and grass. He was standing on a cracked patio, watching the bees and insects buzzing and crawling everywhere. Good job he didn't mind insects. The grass was so long except for in the back corner, underneath the overhang of part of the hedge, that was on top of the fence. It had been trodden down by something or somebody. It was also the source of the laughter.
Someone must've made some kind of den underneath the hedge, up against the fence.
Tentatively, he made his way to the den, checking for bee hives under where he was stepping. He reached the hedge and stuck his head in. He didn't see much because the girl screamed, and pushed her way past him, slapping him in the face with what she must've been laughing at: a book. He lay on the floor, clutching his right cheek, which was growing bright red. The girl had started to run but stopped, turning back around to look at him. She assessed whether he was a harm: a 9th Grader, rolling around on the floor, clutching his cheek. Yeah, no harm. She made her way back over and held out her arm. Joey ignored her and stood up by herself.
"I'm sorry. I hope I didn't hurt you."
At least she was cautious.
"Are you alright? Can you talk?"
Joey nodded and looked up at her, to see her face. She was quite pretty. Her features were all fair and none of them stood out compared to the rest of her face. Her eyes were dark brown but were tinged with amber towards the outer edge of her iris. Her afro had been put back into two Dutch plaits that fell over her shoulders. One of them had a daisy plaited in along with the strands of hair, making up the plait. She was wearing plain clothes: colourful blue shorts and a Levi's T-shirt. She had some blue flip flops on but what was the point in this grass? She was wearing a lot of jewellery, one was a bracelet with 13 silver beads on and another bracelet with the letters 'A' and 'J' on it next to a 'C'. Around her neck, hung a rose gold necklace depicting the Tree Of Life with diamonds as the leaves.
She moved her head back and forwards, trying to get my attention.
"Hello? Are you good?"
Joey rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what this was.
"Please, move." He muttered under his breath, pushing past her and making his way back to the side passage, walking directly under the boarded up windows and rotting back of the house.
"Wait, where are you going? At least, tell me if you're ok? I'm sorry!"
Joey kept walking. He was done with this. The amount of 'therapy' and 'training' he'd gone through to try and deal with this crap was no use. It never worked. It just made things worse than they already were.
So he carried on walking till he reached the front gate. The girl had been following him at a distance but had finally caught up with him and pulled the back of his P.E. sweatshirt to make him stop.
He turned to look at her. "Don't touch me."
"What? Look, I know I was an idiot but I've apologised. I've done my bit. There's no need for you to assume the idiot role." The look of sympathy in her eyes turned to anger.
"Whoever you are, I know you… You aren't real. You're just a part of my mind."
"What?! Woah, hold up." The girl frowned. Her face was very animated. "I'm a part of your mind. I am a part of your mind. Mate, that just sounds a bit entitled. I am my own person. I was born on the 6th January, 1985, christened Astrea-Juno-"
"Yeah, you're definitely not really." Joey laughed and turned back to the gate. "Astrea-Juno? What kind of name is that?"
She ignored him. "Everyone just calls me AJ. I've been living here, in North Bend since. Come on, what can I do to prove to you I'm real?"
"Nothing. Cuz you're not."
Joey yanked back the front gate and slammed it shut after him, running off down the street, too quickly for anyone or anything that wanted to follow him.