hand drifts to his crotch as Brighton counts off one-two-three and again launches into his routine. Except this time Brighton doesn’t stop downstage: He runs straight to the piano and stares down at the crouching Debro.
“
I knew I saw someone. What are you doing?
”
“
I-I-I …
”
is all Debro can muster. He’s wobbling, trying to keep from fainting in terror.
Brighton leans closer.
“
You’re that pimply fat thing in Mr Kremer’s homeroom, aren’t you?
”
Debro can only nod. He feels tears welling in his eyes.
“
Why are you spying on me, you gross turd?
”
Brighton demands, arms crossed.
“
I-I-I wuh-wasn’t ssss-pying
,”
Debro says, wiping spittle from his chin.
“
I wuhwuh-was …
”
Brighton’s eyes fall to Debro’s khakis. Just below the belt buckle is a dark and spreading dampness. Brighton’s face wrinkles in disgust.
“
Oh, God … sick. You, you
monster.”
The next day all of Brighton’s friends have heard the tale. They snicker in the hall.
Debro whips the tarp from Harold and swings the pry-bar at his head.
Thud.
Harold slumps to the floor. Debro crouches and sinks the needle into Harold’s hip, pausing to note what a lovely, muscular, dancing hip it is. He looks down at the man’s legs, strident with muscle. They’re
beautiful
. But then, the man is a dancer, a special person. He’d received gifts most people could only dream of having.
But he was mean and nasty, too.
Debro’s hand lingered on the powerful leg before he stood, staring down at Brighton. The man clearly didn’t deserve his ability to dance. When he returned to the world he’d be as he always was – special – just as he’d return to being spiteful and nasty and causing pain.
I’ve been wrong,
Debro thought, nudging Brighton’s leg with his foot. Taking them, using them, throwing them back into their lives to pick up exactly where they’d left off: nasty little boys so smug and sure and perfect … never knowing the insults, the put-downs, the laughter that people like Debro had to endure. People like Harold Brighton had never known pain, only adoration.
What they really needed to know was Justice.
Debro thought a long moment, then pulled off his knit hat, set it back in the anteroom, and rolled up his sleeves. The heavy pry-bar in his hand, he stepped back into the main room and closed the door.
When he emerged five minutes later, he paused in the anteroom to strip off his clothes and shoes, red with blood spatter and pieces of pink flesh. He returned to his apartment feeling like each breath was filled with sunlight. He paused and looked down at himself. A spreading wetness across his shorts. Somehow his release had gotten lost in his time with Brighton, all part of a continuous, explosive joy.
Feeling intoxicated, Debro showered, dressed in chinos and a blue T-shirt, crossing the room to pick up his knit hat, snugging it to his head. He paused, thought for a moment, then pulled off the hat and threw it to the floor.
“Debro calling,” he said as he stomped up and down on the hat. He smiled. Debro wasn’t his real name, but it was a name he loved, a kind of joke he played on the world.
It stood for Dead Brother.
Debro kicked the hat into a corner, pivoted on his feet like a dancer, and skipped back up the stairs to return a corrected Harold Brighton to the world.
We stayed in the office. I’d put an investigative crew into checking out local herbalists, asking whether anyone had expressed an interest in toxic plants, but so far the results were a big fat zero.
“There are herbalists across the area,” Detective Ruiz had told us. “Datura’s not something they carry. When I ask, they wonder if I’ve been reading Castaneda.”
I recalled Carlos Castaneda from college, writing about supposed meetings between an anthropologist and a Mexican
brujo
or sorcerer. The brujo gives the anthropologist datura, which sends him to a dark land filled with terrifying creatures. But the
“
I knew I saw someone. What are you doing?
”
“
I-I-I …
”
is all Debro can muster. He’s wobbling, trying to keep from fainting in terror.
Brighton leans closer.
“
You’re that pimply fat thing in Mr Kremer’s homeroom, aren’t you?
”
Debro can only nod. He feels tears welling in his eyes.
“
Why are you spying on me, you gross turd?
”
Brighton demands, arms crossed.
“
I-I-I wuh-wasn’t ssss-pying
,”
Debro says, wiping spittle from his chin.
“
I wuhwuh-was …
”
Brighton’s eyes fall to Debro’s khakis. Just below the belt buckle is a dark and spreading dampness. Brighton’s face wrinkles in disgust.
“
Oh, God … sick. You, you
monster.”
The next day all of Brighton’s friends have heard the tale. They snicker in the hall.
Debro whips the tarp from Harold and swings the pry-bar at his head.
Thud.
Harold slumps to the floor. Debro crouches and sinks the needle into Harold’s hip, pausing to note what a lovely, muscular, dancing hip it is. He looks down at the man’s legs, strident with muscle. They’re
beautiful
. But then, the man is a dancer, a special person. He’d received gifts most people could only dream of having.
But he was mean and nasty, too.
Debro’s hand lingered on the powerful leg before he stood, staring down at Brighton. The man clearly didn’t deserve his ability to dance. When he returned to the world he’d be as he always was – special – just as he’d return to being spiteful and nasty and causing pain.
I’ve been wrong,
Debro thought, nudging Brighton’s leg with his foot. Taking them, using them, throwing them back into their lives to pick up exactly where they’d left off: nasty little boys so smug and sure and perfect … never knowing the insults, the put-downs, the laughter that people like Debro had to endure. People like Harold Brighton had never known pain, only adoration.
What they really needed to know was Justice.
Debro thought a long moment, then pulled off his knit hat, set it back in the anteroom, and rolled up his sleeves. The heavy pry-bar in his hand, he stepped back into the main room and closed the door.
When he emerged five minutes later, he paused in the anteroom to strip off his clothes and shoes, red with blood spatter and pieces of pink flesh. He returned to his apartment feeling like each breath was filled with sunlight. He paused and looked down at himself. A spreading wetness across his shorts. Somehow his release had gotten lost in his time with Brighton, all part of a continuous, explosive joy.
Feeling intoxicated, Debro showered, dressed in chinos and a blue T-shirt, crossing the room to pick up his knit hat, snugging it to his head. He paused, thought for a moment, then pulled off the hat and threw it to the floor.
“Debro calling,” he said as he stomped up and down on the hat. He smiled. Debro wasn’t his real name, but it was a name he loved, a kind of joke he played on the world.
It stood for Dead Brother.
Debro kicked the hat into a corner, pivoted on his feet like a dancer, and skipped back up the stairs to return a corrected Harold Brighton to the world.
We stayed in the office. I’d put an investigative crew into checking out local herbalists, asking whether anyone had expressed an interest in toxic plants, but so far the results were a big fat zero.
“There are herbalists across the area,” Detective Ruiz had told us. “Datura’s not something they carry. When I ask, they wonder if I’ve been reading Castaneda.”
I recalled Carlos Castaneda from college, writing about supposed meetings between an anthropologist and a Mexican
brujo
or sorcerer. The brujo gives the anthropologist datura, which sends him to a dark land filled with terrifying creatures. But the
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