Bang Read online

  Eleven

  He pulls out a folded wad of paper from his pants pocket and opens it. The late-afternoon sun glows orange through nearby branches as he looks at his notes.

  “First of all, this sucks,” he says. “Making out was way more fun.”

  “Making out is my favorite,” I say glumly.

  “Right?” He folds the papers with one hand and puts his other to his forehead, rubbing his temples. “Okay, so here’s how it goes.”

  I link my arm in his and scoot my butt closer.

  “We’re in a classroom. You asked me how I knew before, and I couldn’t tell you back then, but now I know. In a couple of the frames, as my view—or whatever—pans the room, there’s a whiteboard on the wall and a few tables and overturned chairs.”

  “I always thought of my view as the camera angle,” I say. “You see what the camera sees, right? And the angle changes a few times? Mine did, anyway.”

  He nods. “Yeah, it does. That’s totally how it looks.” He rests his hand on mine, absently traces my fingers. “So the first scene, I guess, is from a back corner of the classroom. The camera does a fast pan of the room and lands on a person—the gunman. He’s wearing dark-wash jeans and a black fleece jacket, and he’s got a floppy knit cap on his head.” He turns toward me a fraction. “Any questions so far?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “About a hundred. Was there a clock or calendar anywhere?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Any writing on the whiteboard?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t read it.”

  “A lot?”

  “A few lines.”

  “Like math equations or like sentences?”

  “Sentences. Outline form. Ish.”

  I rummage around in my coat pockets for a pen. I always used to keep a few handy for when I was doing deliveries. I find one in an interior pocket and pull it out. Sawyer hands me the notes, and I start jotting down things on the back of one page. “Okay, so probably not a math class, right?”

  “Hunh. I guess that’s a reasonable assumption.”

  “Did the guy have any snow on his shoulders or hat?”

  “Um, I didn’t notice. I don’t think so.”

  I start a second list on a different sheet of paper—things for Sawyer to look for next time.

  “Did you get any view of the windows?”

  He squeezes his eyes shut, thinking. “You know, I think maybe I did, but I don’t remember anything about them. The windows felt . . . dark. I’ll look again.”

  I write that down and ask, “How tall was the guy?”

  “Kind of short.”

  “How could you tell?”

  He pauses. “In relation to the tables, he seemed short. Thin build.”

  I nod. “Boots or shoes?”

  His mouth parts and then closes again, and I write that one down for him to check on.

  “It was dark, you said the other day. Darkish, anyway, because you could see the muzzle whatever fire thingy.”

  “Yeah. Not totally dark. More like . . . dimly lit.”

  “So it could just be from the shades being drawn? Like they were doing something with a projector? Or maybe it was stormy outside?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” He sets his jaw. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. You’re asking great questions. It’s just . . . hard.”

  I nod. After a minute I ask, “What about the next scene?”

  He looks at his notes. “Okay, so the angle changes. The camera, I mean. I think it’s at the front of the room, because the wall I can see in this next scene doesn’t have a whiteboard and the tables are on the left instead of the right. I—”

  “Wait. Is anybody sitting at the tables or are the chairs empty?”

  “Empty. Disorderly. Some of the chairs are tipped over.”

  “There are no people? Just the shooter?” I watch his face. He stares straight ahead.

  “There . . . are people.” His eyes glaze.

  A shiver rolls down my back. Finally I whisper, “Where are the people, Sawyer?”

  “They’re . . . in the back corner.”

  “They’re standing in the back corner of the room?”

  “Not standing.” His voice is wispy under the grumble of the fan. His eyelids droop shut and his face grows pained. “They’re . . . they’re on the floor. And there’s . . . stuff . . . everywhere.”

  My stomach turns, and I don’t want to ask. “Stuff?”

  He nods. “I don’t want to tell you.”

  I can barely breathe. “You mean blood.”

  “Yes. Blood.”

  “More than blood?”

  He takes in a sudden breath and blows it out through his mouth. “Yeah. Guts and brains, I guess. And . . . that’s all.”

  I pull my hand out from under his and rub my forehead, almost feeling sick. I know how real the vision must look to him. And I know he’s looking at me to say something that can give him some hope. But it’s a long reach. “The thing is,” I say in a quiet voice, “is that if we get this right, and we find this classroom, and we stop this gunman, that scene will go away. It won’t happen. They won’t get shot, and they won’t die. Right?”

  He’s frozen.

  “Right,” I answer for him. “So we focus on finding the date, time, and place. And we don’t focus on the bodies and the blood and the . . . the stuff.”

  This time he nods, and after a minute he looks at me. “The only time I think there’s any chance at all to save them is when you’re with me.”

  I give him a grim smile. “Oh, there’s definitely a chance.” I think about it for a minute—the vision police, or the president of scenes, whoever or whatever controls this beastly mind game—and I say, “I don’t think we’d get this chance to save people if it was hopeless.”

  As I say it, I try to convince myself that I believe it.

  Twelve

  Five things that you can never truly understand unless you live through them:

  1. Hoarding

  2. Visions of dead people

  3. Driving a giant meatball truck to school

  4. Depression

  5. Love

  6. Sexy time

  Okay, so that was six, but I could probably come up with even more. Shall I elaborate on said list? I say no on numbers one through four.

  Number five—I just really had no idea how painful love is. I mean, my love is different for Sawyer than for anybody else I love. If Trey was the one going through this vision thing, I think I could handle it better. Oh, it aches, the love. Gah. I hate my pathetic overdramatic self.

  Number six. Sexy time—I guess I’m trying to process this one. Let’s just say that weird things happen when you get all sexy with somebody. I seriously didn’t understand this even from reading some of the skanky books my dad brings home from yard sales that Mom forbids us to read. Like, during sexy time, stuff happens physically and mentally and emotionally all at the same time, and you kind of lose your mind a little bit. Let’s dissect.

  First, you’re just minding your own business one day when something inside you randomly decides that you are attracted to a certain person, and you really have no control over it. Like, one day he’s just some guy in your math class, or some boy you played plastic cheetahs and bears with in first grade. And then before you know it, he’s like a freaking sex magnet and you can’t stop thinking about him. What the heck? He says something or does something that changes absolutely everything. You used to think he had a big nose, but now it’s perfect or whatever. Or you thought you’d never like a person with zits, but then you totally change your mind and decide zits aren’t so bad after all. And if you kind of look at them in a different, intense way—and I seriously did not factor in the power of all the possible ways to look at someone—it makes your body get all electric and wilty inside, and so you decide, hey, I wanna suck face with that person. What?

  Seriously? I mean, I care about germs. I do. I wor
k in a restaurant, and we have rules upon rules, and I am a stoic follower of germ rules. But if Sawyer Angotti wants to put his germy tongue (GERMY TONGUE NOT RELATED TO HAIRY TONGUE) in my mouth, I will welcome it. What has happened here?

  Yeah, I took health class–slash–sex ed, and I learned all that textbook stuff, like that the first sign of pregnancy is missing your period and that whole “point of no return” and shit like that. But they do not, I repeat, they do not teach you about that delicious, delirious, buttery, melty feeling between your legs.

  I’m not trying to be gross or weird here. I’m just saying there is no teaching or describing this in any possibly accurate way. Parents do not tell their children about this, even the hippie parents who are all like “sex is beautiful” and stuff. There is only discovering it when you are going through that whole rationalization scene—how you used to think other people’s tongues were disgusting, and then suddenly in one instant they’re, like, the best thing ever and you want it in your mouth, like, now.

  And let’s talk about the boys. And how things like penises are so weird and awkward and probably superugly, and then they, like, react to things like they are alive and living their own little life in your pants—I don’t know. Like a freaking barnacle or something. And as a girl, I’m sorry, but I have never really thought about this penis factor as it pertains to me. And boys? I have to say that I am very sympathetic. Because what if, like, my boobs or my elbow or something totally wigged out into the shape of the Eiffel Tower whenever I started kissing someone I liked? I mean, seriously. How embarrassing. But guess what? Because of number six, suddenly it’s not embarrassing, because we’re in some sort of bizarre temporary world where such things are acceptable.

  And I’m not talking about actual sex, okay. I mean, I just had my first kiss, so it’s not like I’m experienced enough to address that. I’m talking about the attraction thing and the mushy gut stuff that goes with that.

  And it’s those feelings that I am most shocked by. Indescribable. Which means, of course, I want like hell to describe it.

  I think I might even write my next psych paper about it.

  Poor Mr. Polselli.

  But the last thing I need to say about this is that I should not, not, not be thinking about sexy time when Sawyer is having a vision portraying a freaking homicidal maniac who blows people’s brains out. I mean, how awful am I that my mind and my dreams return to sexy time again and again? Pretty freaking awful.

  But here’s the thing that’s even worse. What if Sawyer can’t save those people, and he dies trying? Seriously, what if he dies? I don’t know if I can handle it. After all I did to save him with my vision, I have to go through this all over again, only somehow, now that we are together, it’s a hundred times worse. Because I’m the one with a crazy, endlessly depressed father and these crazy psycho genes, and I infected Sawyer with this vision that he has no choice but to obey.

  If he dies? It’ll feel like I killed him myself.

  Thirteen

  “Chess club,” my dad says from the single uncluttered chair in the darkened living room. The blue haze from the muted TV hangs low in the room, making his hoards of junk look even weightier somehow.

  Tonight I did my first shift of deliveries since the crash. Somebody had a late-night craving that we agreed to satisfy even though technically the restaurant was closed. By the time I got back the place was dark.

  I take off my coat. “Yeah,” I say.

  “They start a new club in the middle of the second semester?”

  My left eye starts to twitch. “No, it’s been going on all year.” I hang my coat up and start down the hallway.

  “Come back here,” he says.

  I stop in my tracks and turn around slowly and walk to the doorway of the living room. “It’s late, Dad,” I say. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Chess club will do that to you.” He’s not looking at me.

  My stomach is clenched. But I’m mad too. “No, actually, working a six-hour shift after chess club on a school night will do that to me.”

  “You don’t know how to play chess.” It’s a challenge.

  “That’s why I wanted to learn,” I lie, and I’m surprised how easy it is to lie to someone you’ve lost all respect for. “I was thinking about trying out for a sport, but with the cast, my options are limited.”

  “Is that Angotti boy in chess club?” He turns to look at me for the first time. He hasn’t shaved in a few days.

  I meet his gaze. It would be so easy to just tell the truth and say no. Instead, my big mouth shows up. “Why don’t you call his parents to find out?”

  His eyes flare and he squeezes the arms of the chair. He looks like he’s going to ream me out, but he holds it in.

  After a moment I force a smile. “Night,” I say, and turn around, heading back down the hallway to my room. Once inside I let out the breath of fear I’d been holding. Note to self: Learn how to play chess. Now.

  • • •

  “I need to learn how to play chess,” I say when I see Sawyer the next morning.

  “Yes, yes you do.”

  “Like, for real.”

  He nods seriously. And then he narrows his eyes. “Wait. You mean literally.”

  I grin. “Yes, you horn dog. My dad’s suspicious.”

  “Oh. Well, then.” He contemplates this as we walk in the direction of our first-hour classes. And then he stops outside his classroom and his face brightens. “No problem. We’ll do it at lunch. I just remembered—there happens to be an app for this situation.”

  I laugh. “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app for figuratively playing chess?”

  His green eyes bore holes in mine. “No. I only like the real thing.” He pulls my hand toward his mouth, never taking his eyes off mine, and lets his lips linger on my thumb knuckle. Then he gives me that shy grin and disappears into his classroom.

  Big sigh, Demarco.

  At lunch Sawyer downloads a chess app on his phone and starts explaining the game pieces and what they do. Trey looks on, mildly interested. After a while he says, “Maybe I should join chess club.”

  Sawyer and I look at him.

  He frowns. “Not your euphemistic club. Duh. I’m not into incest, thank you. However . . . ” He raises an eyebrow at Sawyer. “If you ever, you know, want to experiment . . . ”

  I punch Trey in the arm.

  Sawyer grins. “Maybe I could bang all the Demarco siblings.”

  “Ack! This conversation is so inappropriate,” I say, and I feel my face getting hot. “Now I can’t get that image out of my head, you losers. Don’t drag poor, innocent Rowan into this love triangle, please.”

  Trey pipes up. “It would be a quadrangle—a love rhombus. Not pretty. And two equal teams would end up in a draw. But at least two of the Demarcos would be—”

  “Stop,” I say, putting my hands over my ears, and they stop, finally. Guys are so weird and gross. But it’s good to see Sawyer having a little fun in the middle of this mess.

  • • •

  Sawyer’s fun doesn’t last long. After school he’s waiting for me outside with a serious look on his face. I glance at Trey and Rowan, who stop with me. “You guys go ahead,” I say to them. “Tell Mom I had to go to the library.” I turn to Sawyer. “Can you drop me off later?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Cool.” I turn back to Trey. “I’ll be home before five. We just need to talk about . . . some stuff.”

  Trey and Rowan glance at each other and then back at me. “Okay,” Trey says. He shrugs and they get in the delivery car.

  When they leave, I look at Sawyer. “What happened?”

  “Had a film in biology today.”

  “And?”

  “Supposedly it was about amphibians.”

  I wait.

  “All I saw was twenty minutes’ worth of the vision on constant repeat. Gunshots in my head every four seconds.” He taps out the rhythm on the car door.

  “Sorr
y.” I cringe, thinking of the gory mess he described. “Did you see anything else?”

  “Yeah. There’s new stuff.”

  “Helpful?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s so quick. But then something else happened.”

  I narrow my eyes. “What?”

  “After the film was done, we opened our textbooks, and all I could see was the vision.” He brings a gloved hand to his eyes and shakes his head a little. “I think I’m losing it, Jules. I’m not sure I can handle this. Not sure at all.”

  Fourteen

  We go to the library and sit at the computers. I tell Sawyer to pull up a video while I take some notebook paper and a pencil out of my backpack.

  “Are you seeing it?”

  “One sec,” he says, pushing play. “Yeah.” He presses pause, rewinds, and hits play, then pause again.

  “Okay. What do you see?”

  “Hey—can’t I just print—”

  “Ah, no. Tried that. Doesn’t work.”

  He frowns. “This is one of the new pieces. It’s our guy walking. He’s outside, wearing the same clothes.”

  “Bonus. Finally. Is it dark or light out?”

  “Dusk.”

  “What do you see?”

  “A sidewalk. Grass. A bare tree.”

  “Grass?”

  He nods. “Brownish-yellow grass, all flat and wet.”

  “Any buds on that tree?”

  “No. Eh . . . wait. Yes, tiny buds. It’s blurry.”

  “Any snow at all?”

  “No, just wet grass and wet sidewalk.”

  I look out the library window. There’s snow on the ground a couple of inches deep, but huge honking piles of the dirty kind along the road and the sidewalk. On my computer I check the weather report. The ten-day forecast shows a quick warming trend with rain on the weekend and temperatures reaching the sixties by next Tuesday. One week from today.