A FEW SATURDAYS LATER, Jimmy and Dave Boyle came by the Devine house without Jimmy's father. They knocked on the back door as Sean was finishing breakfast, and Sean heard his mother open the door and say, "Morning to ya, Jimmy. Morning, Dave," in that polite voice she used around people she wasn't sure she wanted to see.
Jimmy was quiet today. All that loopy energy seemed to have gone coiled up inside of him. Sean could almost feel it beating against the walls of Jimmy's chest and Jimmy swallowing against it. Jimmy seemed smaller, darker, as if he'd pop with the prick of a pin. Sean had seen this before. Jimmy had always been a little moody. Still, it got to Sean every time, made him wonder if Jimmy had any control over it, or if these moods came like a sore throat or his mother's cousins, just dropped in whether you felt like having them over or not.
Dave Boyle was at his most aggravating when Jimmy was like this. Dave Boyle seemed to think it was his job to make sure everyone was happy, which usually just pissed people off after a while.
As they stood out on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do, Jimmy all wrapped in himself and Sean still waking up, all three of them fidgeting with the day hanging out in front of them but bordered by the ends of Sean's street, Dave said, "Hey, why's a dog lick its balls?"
Neither Sean nor Jimmy answered. They'd heard this one, like, a thousand times.
"Because it can!" Dave Boyle shrieked, and grabbed his gut like it was so funny it hurt.
Jimmy walked over to the sawhorses, where city crews had been replacing several squares of sidewalk. The work crews had tied yellow CAUTION tape to four sawhorses in a rectangle, created a barricade around the new sidewalk squares, but Jimmy snapped the tape by walking through it. He squatted at the edge, his Keds on the old sidewalk, and used a twig on the soft pavement to carve thin lines that reminded Sean of old men's fingers.
"My dad don't work with yours anymore."
"How come?" Sean squatted by Jimmy. He didn't have a stick, but he wanted one. He wanted to do what Jimmy did, even if he didn't know why, and even though his father would strap his ass if he did.
Jimmy shrugged. "He was smarter than them. He scared them because he knew so much stuff."
"Smart stuff!" Dave Boyle said. "Right, Jimmy?"
Right, Jimmy? Right, Jimmy? Dave was like a parrot some days.
Sean wondered how much anyone could know about candy and why that information would be important. "What kind of stuff?"
"How to run the place better." Jimmy didn't sound real sure and then he shrugged. "Stuff, anyway. Important stuff."
"Oh."
"How to run the place. Right, Jimmy?"
Jimmy dug in the cement some more. Dave Boyle found his own stick and bent over the soft cement, began drawing a circle. Jimmy frowned and tossed his own stick aside. Dave stopped drawing, looked at Jimmy like, What'd I do?
"Know what would be cool?" Jimmy's voice had that slight rise in it that made something in Sean's blood jitter, probably because Jimmy's idea of cool was usually way different than anyone else's.
"What?"
"Driving a car."
"Yeah," Sean said slowly.
"You know"-Jimmy held his palms out, the twig and cement forgotten-"just around the block."
"Just around the block," Sean said.
"It would be cool, wouldn't it?" Jimmy grinned.
Sean felt a smile curl up and break wide across his face. "It would be cool."
"It would be, like, cooler'n anything." Jimmy jumped a foot off the ground. He raised his eyebrows at Sean and jumped again.
"It'd be cool." Sean could already feel the big wheel in his hand.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Jimmy punched Sean's shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Sean punched Jimmy's shoulder, something rippling inside him, racing, everything getting fast and shiny.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Dave said, but his punch missed Jimmy's shoulder.
For a moment, Sean had even forgotten Dave was there. That happened a lot with Dave. Sean didn't know why.
"Fucking serious fucking cool." Jimmy laughed and jumped again.
And Sean could see it was already beginning to happen. They were in the front seat (Dave in the back, if he was there at all) and moving, two eleven-year-olds driving around Buckingham, tooting the horn at their friends, drag-racing the older kids on Dunboy Avenue, laying rubber in screeching clouds of smoke. He could smell the air rushing through the window, feel it in his hair.
Jimmy looked up the street. "You know anyone on this street who leaves their keys in their car?"
Sean did. Mr. Griffin left them under the seat, and Dottie Fiore left them in her glove compartment, and Old Man Makowski, the drunk who listened to Sinatra records too loud all hours of the day and night, left them in the ignition most times.
But as he followed Jimmy's gaze and picked out the cars that he knew held keys, Sean felt a dull ache grow behind his eyes, and in the hard sunlight bouncing off the trunks and hoods, he could feel the weight of the street, its homes, the entire Point and its expectations for him. He was not a kid who stole cars. He was a kid who'd go to college someday, make something of himself that was bigger and better than a foreman or a truck loader. That was the plan, and Sean believed that plans worked out if you were careful, if you were cautious. It was like sitting through a movie, no matter how boring or confusing, until the end. Because at the end, sometimes things were explained or the ending itself was cool enough that you felt like sitting through all the boring stuff had been worth it.
He almost said this to Jimmy, but Jimmy was already moving up the street, looking in car windows, Dave running alongside him.
"How about this one?" Jimmy put his hand on Mr. Carlton's Bel Air, and his voice was loud in the dry breeze.
"Hey, Jimmy?" Sean walked toward him. "Maybe some other time. Right?"
Jimmy's face went all saggy and narrow. "What do you mean? We'll do it. It'll be fun. Fucking cool. Remember?"
"Fucking cool," Dave said.
"We can't even see over the dashboard."
"Phone books." Jimmy smiled in the sunlight. "We'll get 'em from your house."
"Phone books," Dave said. "Yeah!"
Sean held out his arms. "No. Come on."
Jimmy's smile died. He looked at Sean's arms as if he wanted to cut them off at the elbows. "Why won't you just do something for fun. Huh?" He tugged on the handle of the Bel Air, but it was locked. For a second, Jimmy's cheeks jiggled and his lower lip trembled, and then he looked in Sean's face with a wild loneliness that Sean pitied.
Dave looked at Jimmy and then at Sean. His arm shot out awkwardly and hit Sean's shoulder. "Yeah, how come you don't want to do fun things?"
Sean couldn't believe Dave had just hit him. Dave.
He punched Dave in the chest, and Dave sat down.
Jimmy pushed Sean. "What the hell you doing?"
"He hit me," Sean said.
"He didn't hit you," Jimmy said.
Sean's eyes widened in disbelief and Jimmy's mimicked them.
"He hit me."
"He hit me," Jimmy said in a girl's voice, and pushed Sean again. "He's my fucking friend."
"So am I," Sean said.
"So am I," Jimmy said. "So am I, so am I, so am I."
Dave Boyle stood up and laughed.
Sean said, "Cut it out."
"Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out." Jimmy pushed Sean again, the heels of his hands digging into Sean's ribs. "Make me. You wanna make me?"
"You wanna make him?" And now Dave shoved Sean.
Sean had no idea how this had happened. He couldn't even remember what had made Jimmy mad anymore or why Dave had been stupid enough to hit him in the first place. One second they were standing by the car. Now they were in the middle of the street and Jimmy was pushing him, his face screwed up and stunted, his eyes black and small, Dave starting to join in.
"Come on. Make me."
"I don't-"
Another shove. "Come on, little girl."
"Jimmy, can we just-?"
"No, we can't. You a little pussy, Sean? Huh?"
He went to shove him again but stopped, and that wild (and tired, Sean could see that, too, suddenly) aloneness pummeled his features as he looked past Sean at something coming up the street.
It was a dark brown car, square and long like the kind police detectives drove, a Plymouth or something, and its bumper stopped by their legs and the two cops looked out through the windshield at them, their faces watery in the reflected trees that swam across the glass.
Sean felt a sudden lurch in the morning, a shifting in the softness of it.
The driver got out. He looked like a cop-blond crew cut, red face, white shirt, black-and-gold nylon tie, the heft of his gut dropping over his belt buckle like a stack of pancakes. The other one looked sick. He was skinny and tired-looking and stayed in his seat, one hand gripping his skull through greasy black hair, staring into the side-view mirror as the three boys came around near the driver's door.
The beefy one crooked a finger at them, then wiggled it toward his chest until they stood in front of him. "Let me ask you something, okay?" He bent at his big belly and his huge head filled Sean's vision. "You guys think it's okay to fight in the middle of the street?"
Sean noticed a gold badge clipped to the belt buckle beside the big man's right hip.
"What's that?" The cop cupped a hand behind his ear.
"No, sir."
"No, sir."
"No, sir."
"A pack of punks, huh? That what you are?" He jerked his big thumb back at the man in the passenger seat. "Me and my partner, we've had our fill of you East Bucky punks scaring decent people off the street. You know?"
Sean and Jimmy didn't say anything.
"We're sorry," Dave Boyle said, and looked like he was about to cry.
"You kids from this street?" the big cop asked. His eyes scanned the homes on the left side of the street like he knew every occupant, would bag them if they lied.
"Yup," Jimmy said, and looked back over his shoulder at Sean's house.
"Yes, sir," Sean said.
Dave didn't say anything.
The cop looked down at him. "Huh? You say something, kid?"
"What?" Dave looked at Jimmy.
"Don't look at him. Look at me." The big cop breathed loudly through his nostrils. "You live here, kid?"
"Huh? No."
"No?" The cop bent over Dave. "Where you live, son?"
"Rester Street." Still looking at Jimmy.
"Flats trash in the Point?" The cop's cherry-red lips swiveled as if he were sucking a lollipop. "That can't be good for business, can it?"
"Sir?"
"Your mother home?"
"Yes, sir." A tear fell down Dave's cheek and Sean and Jimmy looked away.
"Well, we're going to have a talk with her, tell her what her punk kid's been up to."
"I don't...I don't..." Dave blubbered.
"Get in." The cop opened up the back door and Sean caught a whiff of apples, a sharp, October scent.
Dave looked at Jimmy.
"Get in," the cop said. "Or you want I should throw the cuffs on you?"
"I-"
"What?" The cop sounded pissed now. He slapped the top of the open door. "Get the fuck inside."
Dave climbed into the backseat, bawling.
The cop pointed a stubby finger at Jimmy and Sean. "Go tell your mothers what you been up to. And don't let me catch you shits fighting on my streets again."
Jimmy and Sean stepped back, and the cop hopped in his car and drove off. They watched it reach the corner and then turn right, Dave's head, darkened by distance and shadows, looking back at them. And then the street was empty again, seemed to have gone mute with the slam of the car door. Jimmy and Sean stood where the car had been, looked at their feet, up and down the street, anywhere but at each other.
Sean got that lurching sensation again, this time accompanied by the taste of dirty pennies in his mouth. His stomach felt as if a spoon had hollowed it out.
Then Jimmy said it:
"You started it."
"He started it."
"You did. Now he's screwed. His mother's soft in the head. No telling what she'll do two cops bring him home."
"I didn't start it."
Jimmy pushed him, and Sean pushed back this time, and then they were on the ground, rolling around, punching each other.
"Hey!"
Sean rolled off Jimmy and they both stood up, expecting to see the two cops again but seeing Mr. Devine instead, coming down the front steps toward them.
"The hell you two doing?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing." Sean's father frowned as he reached the sidewalk. "Get out of the middle of the street."
They reached the sidewalk beside him.
"Weren't there three of you?" Mr. Devine looked up the street. "Where's Dave?"
"What?"
"Dave." Sean's father looked at Sean and Jimmy. "Wasn't Dave with you?"
"We were fighting in the street."
"What?"
"We were fighting in the street and the cops came."
"When was this?"
"Like five minutes ago."
"Okay. So, the cops came."
"And they picked Dave up."
Sean's father looked up and down the street again. "They what? They picked him up?"
"To take him home. I lied. I said I lived here. Dave said he lived in the Flats, and they-"
"What are you talking about? Sean, what'd the cops look like?"
"Huh?"
"Were they wearing uniforms?"
"No. No, they-"
"Then how'd you know they were cops?"
"I didn't. They..."
"They what?"
"He had a badge," Jimmy said. "On his belt."
"What kind of badge?"
"Gold?"
"Okay. But what'd it say on it?"
"Say?"
"The words. Were there words you could read?"
"No. I don't know."
"Billy?"
They all looked up at Sean's mother standing on the porch, her face tight and curious.
"Hey, honey? Call the police station, all right? See if any detectives would have picked up a kid for fighting on this street."
"A kid."
"Dave Boyle."
"Oh, Jesus. His mother."
"Let's hold off on that. Okay? Let's just see what the police say. Right?"
Sean's mother went back inside. Sean looked at his father. He didn't seem to know where to put his hands. He put them in his pockets, then he pulled them out, wiped them on his pants. He said, "I'll be damned," very softly, and he looked down to the end of the street as if Dave hovered at the corner, a dancing mirage just beyond Sean's field of vision.
"It was brown," Jimmy said.
"What?"
"The car. It was dark brown. Like a Plymouth, I think."
"Anything else?"
Sean tried to picture it, but he couldn't. He could see it only as something that had blocked his vision, not entered it. It had obscured Mrs. Ryan's orange Pinto and the lower half of her hedges, but Sean couldn't see the car itself.
"It smelled like apples," he said.
"What?"
"Like apples. The car smelled like apples."
"It smelled like apples," his father said.