Black Wood Read online

  I took my sneakers off and climbed the fire escape in my socks. When I got to the first apartment window, I peeked in. It was empty. I climbed to the second apartment window and there was a fat guy sitting watching TV and eating a burrito. He had his back turned to me. There were four more floors above me. The third apartment was empty as well. When I got to the fourth, there was an old man sitting in an armchair with half a bottle of whiskey in front of him. I was about to keep climbing, when I saw Charlie walk into the room with a glass of water in his hand. He poured some of the whiskey into the glass and handed it to the old guy, who took it with a shaky hand, without looking up at Charlie. Charlie sat down in the chair opposite him and started talking to the old man. But the only response he got was a feeble nodding of the head. Eventually, he got up and went into the kitchen, and seemed to be making something to eat. As it cooked, he tidied the apartment. I was afraid he might see me, so as quietly as I could, I made my way down again.

  I had no idea which bus to catch, so I started the long walk back, all the while running over what I’d seen in my head. Who was the old guy in the apartment? Everyone had always said that Charlie’s parents were dead, and besides, that guy looked a little old to be his dad. Was it his grandfather? Was this one of the secrets? And if – as it looked like – Charlie was taking care of him, who was taking care of Charlie? Did he fend for himself? Where did he get the money from?

  I was beginning to realise that a lot more observation would be required. I now knew where he lived but – with the answer to that question – came a whole host of others. And, as I mulled these questions, the character of Charlie started to take shape in my mind. He had gone from being a freak or an enigma to something more concrete. He had an apartment, he had a relative, a family of sorts. He was no longer a 2D cardboard cut-out, he was now a 3D flesh and blood character. So, what was the character’s motivation? What was it that drove him on? It could have been that there was no simple answer to any of these questions, and if that was the case, so be it. All the better. All the more characterisation. Deep, psychological flaws.

  The more I thought, the more I wrote. And the more I wrote and invented, the more the story started to build around Charlie and Samantha.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I suppose we all thought it would end there with Charlie and Dale. After all, fights happen in High School all the time, even if this one was a particularly brutal one. Everyone figured it’s the Freak – what can they do to the Freak, beyond expelling him? Of course, we all knew that was going to happen, but then, that had been on the cards for a long time. But we didn’t think anything else would come of it, until word came through the grapevine that both Dale’s and Samantha’s parents wanted him arrested on charges of assault and grievous bodily harm.

  To be honest, it seemed to have more to do with Samantha’s parents than Dale’s. If anything, Dale looked a bit embarrassed about it all, as if he’d had to drag the cops in to fight his battles, when he’d have much preferred for him and his guys to take Charlie up an alleyway some night and do the job there. But Charlie hadn’t just beaten up Dale; he’d hit Samantha. She was Daddy’s little princess and there was no one going to do that to her, especially the school weirdo. I doubt that Samantha’s father even knew who Charlie was. It went without saying that Samantha would hardly have mentioned him. But that didn’t matter. It was about his little princess. Charlie had fucked with her and now he was going to get the full brunt of Harry Pierce’s response. So, the word on the grapevine was that Samantha’s parents had spoken to Dale’s parents and – after some arm-twisting – they decided to press charges.

  A couple of days later, the whole school got to see the Freak being led out in handcuffs by the cops. We were in class when the call came over the intercom for Charlie to go to the Principal’s office. Everyone figured this was it: Charlie was finally getting his marching orders. But no one could have imagined what came next.

  I believe to this day that the whole thing was a set-up. Mr. Pierce was well in with the Principal and he must have known someone at the local cop station. There was no other way that the cops would have shown up at a kid’s school and dragged him off in handcuffs in front of everyone. It was even timed perfectly. They waited until near the end of class, and then called Charlie to the Principal’s office, so that – by the time they had read him his rights and put the handcuffs on – classes were over and the halls were filled with students. Mr. Pierce was teaching Charlie a lesson: he’d embarrassed Samantha in front of the whole school and now the same was being done to him.

  Everyone was genuinely shocked: this wasn’t how things were done in High School. In High School there were certain codes, rules, and laws, and you didn’t bring the adult world in from the outside. You didn’t go running to your parents; you certainly didn’t go running to the cops. It’s as I said earlier, there’s a hierarchy. There are different groups and sub-groups. People may not always like it, but everyone understands it and knows their place in it. They know how these things are supposed to play out. That’s why it was so confusing to me the way Charlie looked at Dale that day, as if he was surprised that Dale hit him. Why would he be? That’s what he was there for. He was the Freak, Dale was the jock. That was their little dance in the circle of life. That’s what they did. But, in this case, that circle had been broken. The adults had been brought in whether Dale and Samantha liked it or not. The adults had been brought in, the cops had been brought in, and the Freak had been arrested.

  Even though it was only the Freak, it was still a shock. The only person not fazed was Charlie. He had the same hangdog look on his face as he always had. He didn’t bow his head, but he didn’t make eye contact either. He just stared straight ahead with that same expression and walked out the door.

  There wasn’t much work done for the rest of that day. The halls were awash with rumour and innuendo. Even amongst the teachers. In the end, they gave up even the pretence of trying to teach. They just shouted at whatever class they were in to read whatever chapter, and then sat there, staring out the window, no doubt running the remarkable events of the day over in their heads. Concord wasn’t the straightest of towns, but it was very rare that you saw a kid getting dragged out in handcuffs from the High School.

  The cops didn’t hold him for long; he was charged and released on bail that night. Nobody knew who posted bail; probably a relative or a family friend. But people had lots of elaborate theories about who it was. His long-lost father had gotten out of prison; had unearthed a score from before he got sent down and had posted bail. His mother had been released out of the asylum and had bailed him. And others, too outlandish to even continence. And, I guess, right there was where the seeds of what happened later were planted: when Charlie went from being a Freak that everyone hated, to a Freak that everyone was fascinated by. The beating he’d given Dale and his subsequent arrest – and being led though the school halls in handcuffs – would have made anyone a figure of fascination. It would have made me a figure of fascination.

  And that’s exactly what it did for Charlie. No one would admit it – everyone still put up the front that Charlie was the Freak that they were disgusted by. But the fact of the matter was that people missed Charlie when he was gone. People liked having the Freak around; it added a little flavour to things. When he was gone, they not only missed him, but they wondered where he was and what he was doing. Like me, they wondered what secrets he was hiding.

  I suppose it also had something to do with maturity. It’s one thing to be a twelve-year-old freak; it’s another to be an eighteen-year-old freak. Twelve-year-old freaks pull the wings off dragonflies; eighteen-year-old freaks become intriguing, because who knows what kind of things they could be up to. And, it didn’t hurt that Charlie had grown into his looks. He went from being a gangly, silly looking kid, to tall, dark and handsome. I mean, I’m a man, but you couldn’t help but notice it: he was what women would call handsome. That had to have been part of the attraction. He was tur
ning into the archetypal bad boy, blossoming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, from a freak to a stud. Not that he seemed to be aware of it. He was still acting the same. He didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything around him. But he changed in other people’s eyes. They say that JFK was the shot heard around the world; well, the first time Charlie’s fist connected with Dale’s jaw was the sound heard around Concord. After that, Charlie was never the same again.

  His arrest and subsequent release did little to stop the questions. Why had he done it? Was it just self-defence? Then, why had he punched Samantha? I have to say, I was even more intrigued than most, because I knew some of his secrets. I knew where he lived, I knew his apartment, I knew about the old relative he was trying to take care of. And I had seen the way he and Dale had looked at each other. There was something more there. But where did it all fit in? That I didn’t know. But I had an idea where I could start finding out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  While the lives of Samantha, Charlie, and others in John Shade High School were a mystery to many, there was one exception – Harold Monde. Harold had the dirt on everybody. Mind you, a lot of the time it was hard to separate scurrilous rumour from hard fact, but it was High School, so naturally, it spread like an STD anyway. But there were certainly times when Harold got it right. And no one was quite sure how he did it. Because, at the end of the day, Harold was a creep. He creeped everybody out – even the nerds didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I have to admit, I often imagined – in my own writer’s way – an image of Harold peering into girl’s bedroom windows like some sort of ... well, “peeping Harold”. I certainly had no intention of going down that road. The difference between Harold and me was that I was interested in what made people tick; Harold was only interested in their dirty laundry, in their nasty little secrets.

  Harold was ... what could you say about Harold? Harold had started out life as a regular nerd. But, at some stage, he’d raised the stakes. He decided to collect information on people, to become a repository for people’s secrets. A bit like me with Samantha and Charlie. Only I didn’t want to know their sordid secrets. Not in the same way that Harold did. And I wasn’t interested in other people, only in Samantha and Charlie.

  Harold had a database, you could say. No one knew how he actually set about doing it in the first place. I don’t think he observed people. Harold wasn’t very discreet, and he was hard to miss. Maybe, he just listened very intently. I was beginning to realise that you could learn a lot in High School by just listening and not speaking. That was something Harold had no problem doing because no one spoke to Harold. So, he just moved about, presumably listening, picking up titbits of information here and there, putting two and two together, maybe adding in a little bit of innuendo of his own. But what was important was that he remembered everything. I don’t know if he wrote it all down, but he knew everything. It was all there in his head, ready to come spilling out. And it’s not that people started to like Harold – or even respect him. He was still a creep. But they began to fear him somewhat. Fear’s probably too strong a word, but he knew things about them, things that at the drop of a hat the whole school could know. Hell, forget about the school, the school board, their parents. He could ruin you. And the squeakier-clean you were, the worse it would be. Which worked out perfectly, because it was usually the squeaky-clean ones – the cheerleaders and the football players – who came down hardest on the nerds. So, things worked out well for Harold.

  As the years went by in High School, with his newfound position of importance and power, Harold adopted a similar air – an air of condescension or superiority. I mean he never literally condescended to anyone as such. He still kept himself to himself. But if you ever spoke to him, you felt it. You got the sense that he was looking down at you, that he knew something about you. Of course, it never bothered me; there was nothing for him to know about me. He knew that. I think he resented it. There was always an uneasy truce between us. And I’d never actually needed anything from him. Until now.

  The more I thought about Charlie and Dale, the more I saw an almost conspiratorial exchange of glances between them. Not that they were friends, but that they certainly knew each other outside of the High School dynamic. In fact, Dale didn’t look like he was bullying Charlie that day, the way he spoke to him. His body language didn’t suggest a bully; it suggested someone arguing with one of his peers. I was convinced there was something more to Dale and Charlie. And I figured if there was anyone who would know, it would be Harold.

  I walked up to him at lunchtime in the canteen. As usual, he was sitting alone.

  “You mind if I join you?” I asked.

  He looked at me slightly puzzled. People didn’t usually ask if they could sit down in the canteen, of course, which would explain his surprised look. But people didn’t sit beside Harold either, and I think that explained his look even more. But it quickly turned from surprise to disinterest. He shrugged, and said, “Suit yourself.” Harold always tried to give off the air of someone uninterested in what other people thought of him. But, as someone who had tried to give off that air once or twice myself, I suspected it to be a sham. He was sipping at some vegetable soup.

  “How’s the soup today?” I asked him.

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “Are we having a conversation now?”

  “Just being polite,” I said, biting into my sandwich.

  There was silence again. He was still trying to act nonchalant, but I knew he was curious now. What was it I wanted from him? I continued to eat my sandwich in silence until he finally cracked.

  “Was there something you wanted?” he asked.

  “Nothing really. Just a bit curious.”

  “Isn’t everybody? That’s usually why they come to me.” He leaned across the table. “Who are you curious about?”

  “Dale Williams.” I waited for any change of expression, but there was none.

  “And why would you be curious about Dale Williams?” he said.

  “Like I said, no big deal. It’s just this whole thing with Charlie Rhodes ... the fight, and now the court case coming up ... I was wondering if there’s something else behind it all.”

  “You think there’s something else behind it?”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, I really couldn’t say.” He went back to eating his soup and acting aloof. I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to say, No, you really could fucking say, Harold, because that’s what you do, you creepy fat fuck.

  After another minute of silence, he went on. “What do you think is behind it?”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you.”

  He took a few more spoonfuls of soup, and then said, “Well, I’m not saying I know anything about this ...” That was the usual disclaimer that he put before whatever rumour he was about to offload. “... but ... I heard it might be drugs.”

  “What might be drugs?”

  “The reason for the fight.”

  “What ... Charlie was on drugs?” This didn’t sound right to me. I wondered if he was just feeding me a line.

  “No ...” Harold said.

  “He was dealing?”

  He shrugged.

  “Was Dale trying to stop him or something?”

  “That I don’t know. All I know is, whatever the story, there was a drugs angle.”

  “So, what else have you heard?”

  Harold looked around the canteen, shiftily, as though he was in some kind of espionage movie.

  “What’s in it for me?” he said.

  “I don’t have money, Harold.”

  “What do you have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you done the physics assignment yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when you do, I’ll take that. Come back and talk to me then.”

  “I need to know now.”

  He paused. “Look, this stuff, this is above my pay grade. But, I heard ... Scarjaw. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He g
ot up from the table. “Do a good job on that physics assignment. I’m looking for an A.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The name that Harold had given me was a name that every student in John Shade High knew. It was a name they never wanted to hear, a name you didn’t want to run into down a dark alley anytime.

  Scarjaw.

  So called because he had a scar that ran all the way down from his left eye to his chin. The legends about Scarjaw were many. So many, in fact, that there was no way of knowing what was true and what was false. I imagine Scarjaw himself didn’t even know anymore. The scar was supposedly the result of another inmate slashing him with a razor blade during one of his stints in prison. Legend had it that the other guy fared a lot worse. They said Scarjaw had killed him with his bare hands. Ripped out his throat. They said he had bodies buried out the back of his bar. They said he was hung like a horse. (That may have been the girls mostly).

  The bar in question was a biker bar on Pinewood Road, which was as out of the way as you could get. Scarjaw had built it there, so the story went, to keep under the radar, away from the cops. Not that the cops didn’t know where he was, but they had no desire to go looking for him. As long as he stayed out of their way, things worked out.

  While the idea terrified me, I knew I had to go there and observe, see what could be seen. Maybe I’d even see Charlie there.

  After my parents had gone to bed – at ten o’clock as usual – I crept out of the house, took one of the bikes out of the garage, and cycled my way out to Pinewood Road. Thankfully, it was a clear night with a full moon, so the roads were well-lit, as were the woods that took me to the cabin. I heard it before I saw it. The sound of loud music and voices shouting. I headed in the direction it was coming from. When I got there, I saw all the bikes parked outside. Scarjaw was the head of the local biker club of would-be Hell’s Angels.