A Devil's Dictionary

1980-2

BY THE TIME the sun re-emerged the caterpillar had crawled across the sidewalk and into the grass—leaving us more than a little red-faced, not to mention uncertain as to what had just happened. Mostly, I think, we were just relieved.

“I couldn’t do it,” said Kevin wistfully, “Not with the kid here.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him, as if to say: f*****g what, dude?

He started to smile but caught it.

Orley elbowed me. “Hey, hey, why didn’t you?” He looked at me earnestly, calmly—as though he were all ears, all understanding. Then he deadpanned, “It was the gay thing, wasn’t it?”

And then they both laughed, falling about on the grass, even as I ignored them, thinking about it.

“I don’t know. It just ... it felt like ...” I looked at them in the sun. “Like we would be killing ourselves ... not the caterpillar. Or a part of ourselves. Like, a version of ourselves. The ideal version.”

They paused, looking at each other, processing this.

“So the gay thing,” said Orley, and held up his hand—which Kevin promptly high-fived.

I must have just stared at them as they bumped fists and swiped palms. “What’s that? Foreplay?”

And then they were both crawling toward me, sneering menacingly, and by the time the Valley Boys rumbled up in their chopped and channeled Chevy (as opposed to our learning permits and BMX bikes), everything had devolved into an out-of-control wrestling match; a match which ended only when Todd Benson, the leader of our bullies, shouted, “Are you faggots finished? Because there’s a lot of miles between here and the lake. And it’s getting late.”

“Jesus,” he said as we clambered into the backseat, the gear in our schoolbags clanking and thumping. “You think you brought enough?”

“Should have charged them by weight,” added Mickelson. He twisted in the front passenger seat and glared at us. “You runts planning on camping there or moving in?”

Just Mickelson. This was going to be easier than we thought.

“Listen,” snapped Orley. “Hearing you run your mouth wasn’t part of the—”

“Money,” said Benson, and reached over his shoulder. “Twenty now, twenty when we get there. As agreed.”

We all looked at each other.

At last we dug into our jeans and pulled out our bills—Orley and I, at any rate (I had a five left over from my allowance and he had some ones, tips from his job at the golf course). Kevin, meanwhile, had reached into his backpack and was fishing around for something, straining. It couldn’t have been easy; he hadn’t taken it off. None of us had.

A moment later he withdrew a purple Crown Royal bag and handed it to Mickelson, whose hand dropped from the weight of it. “Is this a f*****g joke?”

“Nope. Seven dollars, counted and rolled.”

Mickelson just stared at him—as though he might jab him right then and there.

“Take it, asshole,” said Benson. He glanced at Kevin through the rear-view mirror. “It’s the money he’s been saving for Star Wars figures.”

Mickelson took the bag and appeared to set it on the floor before turning up the stereo and c*****g his arm out the window, still shaking his head. Moments later, looking in the side-view mirror, he said, “There they are. Right on time.”

We all glanced at each other—before craning to look through the rear window and seeing Jud Spelvin’s rodded out Ford Falcon bearing down upon us, its chromed stacks glinting and its headlights shining, and its cab virtually crammed with pasty-faced seniors, at least one of whom I recognized as Buddy LaCombe—the third biggest asshole at Prosperous High. And, considering twenty was all we’d had and we planned to hit and run, this was a problem.

I looked at Benson through the rearview mirror and saw him smirk at our reaction.

“Awww,” he said, and pretended to pout. “Why so sad? You didn’t think it would just be us, did you?”

But nobody said anything, just stared straight ahead at the road, the road that would take us to Mirage Lake and the thing we’d left buried under the brush, as Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band sang Fire Lake and the sun crept toward the stark, blue horizon, and shafts of light pierced the trees— like spears through a sacrifice, I thought. Or sunlight through a cathedral.

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* * * *

IT’S STILL HARD TO believe, what happened next. But then, it’s all hard to believe, especially now, almost 40 years later. Suffice it to say that we were only minutes from the lake when the deer ran out in front of us and caused Benson to hit the brakes— throwing us against the bucket seats (and Orley, who was in the middle, halfway into the forward cab) even as Spelvin’s Falcon rammed us from behind, knocking us right back. To this day I wonder if she—it, our Lady of the Lake, our Thing from Another World—had something to do with it. If she had reached out from her watery tomb and guided the animal into our path—to ensure its intended servants reached their destination. To guarantee its release after so many years trapped beneath the lake.

Regardless, they were all gathered around the bumpers when we made our escape, clambering out the driver’s side door (which had been left ajar) and scurrying into the trees—our packs and gear jangling, our shoes scraping the gravel—so that Benson at least became aware of our movement and quickly alerted the rest. This touched off a footrace which wound from the side of the road all the way to Beggar’s Dead-fall, which we climbed as they went around—before reversing course and backtracking through the brush, eventually stumbling upon the very same trail we’d taken last time. This we followed (after standing for a period with our hands on our knees and laughing, catching our breath) to the far side of the lake.

Where a massive, overgrown, arrowhead-shaped thing, a blue-black thing, an ancient and broken thing—a thing perhaps only we could see—lay half-buried amongst the trees.

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