I was all the way back in time to the old quarry again. Just couldn’t put it out of my head. And I wasn’t remembering the good part, the way I’d felt when I climbed all the way back up with that taillight in my hand, and I stood there looking down at where I had been and felt like some kind of god instead of a ragged-ass kid. No, I couldn’t get that. When the memories hit me, I never got the good ones.
Instead, I get this part. The one that changed everything. The first time I got the Darkness. And it comes back at me completely clear and fresh, like it had happened this morning.
* * *
—
Bobby Reed was a brickhead. The only way he managed to pass sixth grade was by copying from other kids. He could always get away with that because he was the biggest kid in the class. And his family was a big deal in town. They had money, and Bobby’s dad was a judge. So he got away with being stupid. And a lot of other stuff. Like being a bully.
We were standing at the old quarry again, the one everybody’s parents told them to stay away from. I guess that’s why we went there. It was the same one that I had climbed into, grabbing the taillight and climbing out again. And Bobby was pushing at me. Maybe because being here, looking down into the quarry, and seeing one missing taillight on the old Studebaker—maybe that reminded Bobby that I had done something he could never do. Maybe that made him feel small and worthless. Like he really was.
I don’t know. Whatever the reason, he was in my face and on my case. Bobby had pushed at me from day one. He always found something to pick on. Today it was my mother. “I bet she never married your daddy,” he said. The other boys, the ones who hung with him because they were afraid of him, all snickered. “I bet she don’t even know who your daddy was.”
“Be fair, Bobby, coulda been a lot of guys,” his brother Clayton said. And all the other boys laughed.
“Isn’t that so?” Bobby said, poking me in the chest. “Don’t know your daddy, do you?” Poke, poke poke.
Before my climb, before I knew I wasn’t a sheep like them, I would’ve taken it. Maybe made some joke, tried to change the subject. But the new me poked back.
“And maybe you don’t know your daddy, either, Bobby,” I said, poking at him, the same spot he poked me. “’Cause you sure don’t look like that old guy your mama’s with.” Poke. “Truth is, Bobby, you look a lot like Mr. Swanson, the mailman.”
Bobby turned bright red. “You take that back,” he said.
“Why would I take it back? It’s true!” I said. “You got the same nose!”
Bobby turned even redder. I liked that I’d gotten to him. So I kept going. “Don’t get mad, Bobby, maybe you can be a mailman when you grow up. Just like your real daddy.”
Bobby didn’t say anything. He probably couldn’t think of anything. Instead, he swung at me. It would’ve taken my head off if it had connected. But I expected it. I ducked under. As the force of his punch took Bobby around, I stuck my leg out and thumped him with my shoulder.
All I meant to do was bump him. Maybe knock him down. I guess I figured that if he went down, I could get away before he got up.
That didn’t happen.
The bump worked perfectly. And Bobby trippe
d over my leg just right. But he didn’t fall to the ground. Because we were standing on the lip of the old quarry. So Bobby went over the edge.
I was right there, right on the edge when he went. I saw the look on his face when he realized what was happening to him. And I stood there watching as he fell. I couldn’t do anything but stand there. And I didn’t try. Not because I knew it was useless. More like I wasn’t really involved, like it was happening to somebody else and I wasn’t really there. Like I was inside a dark cloud watching something on TV. That was it, the first time the Darkness came. And from inside it I watched. Bobby fell, his body turning slowly in a circle, spinning in the air, and falling. Falling. Seemed like forever, like he was never going to stop falling. But it wasn’t forever. I kind of wish it could be, because I can see he’s about to hit the rocks. And just before he does, it’s like our eyes meet—I mean, it’s impossible. He’s too far away, and moving too fast, and there’s just no fucking way. But it feels like that anyway, like our eyes meet, and his expression says, “It’s your fault.”
And then he hits the rocks.
They say that people remember what they see better than what they hear. Maybe that’s true. But I will never be able to forget the sound of Bobby Reed hitting the rocks at the bottom of the old quarry. Like somebody dropped a bowling ball into a huge pot of pudding. Kind of a heavy SPLAT. It echoes off the walls, comes up at me in waves, and that sound will stay in my head forever. SPLAT. And there’s no way in the world you can think he’s okay. Not after that sound. Bobby is dead.
I don’t really feel bad about it. First, because I was inside that dark cloud for the first time, so it felt like it really wasn’t me it was happening to. And anyway, it wasn’t really my fault. Bobby pretty much did it to himself. And he was a truly stupid kid, a bully, and thought he was king shit because his family had money. The world was better off without him, like it is without all the overprivileged assholes I’ve run into since. Him dying like that didn’t bother me. But the sound when he hit? That’s stuck in my head and it’s never going away.
SPLAT.
* * *
—
And now it’s 3:32 and I’m still awake.
And just like every other time that memory comes back at me, I sit up in bed in a room I don’t recognize. I’m in a midtown hotel, being somebody I have to be. Because I am on another job. A truly epic lift this time. Maybe the best and the greatest ever, and I should be excited about doing it. I should be high on adrenaline, giddy with the thought that Riley Wolfe is about to do something nobody else in the world could hope to do. And I am going to do it in the Riley Wolfe way, a way nobody else could ever even imagine. Doing it, even thinking about it, has been filling me with excitement for the last few weeks, and it should be filling me now.
It’s not.
All I can think about is that goddamn sound.