The One Percenters Read online

  Heroically, she stood as damaged goods atop that rock for several seconds, screaming, until pain totally enveloped her, forcing her to submit. I never would have been able to hold my balance so long. Weaker sex my ass. I remember the look on her face at that moment.

  I remember it clearly, actually. The moment was one of those that plays out as if in slow motion and then lingers in your head until the day you die. Her lips receded, baring her teeth, small and shiny. Her eyes rolled up to the point where her irises were little half melons resting on a bed of eyeball. Her face was white, and not the good alabaster white that you read about in all of the old-time dramatic plays. This white was ashen, defeated, dead.

  Then she fell backward. Slowly, symmetrically, and into four feet of water.

  Up until this point, I had been frozen in a curious, thoughtful, disbelieving pose. At last, fear released its hold on my body, and I sprang into motion. I stepped from my rock to hers—far more successfully than she had—and reached blindly for her ankle. Her head was bobbing at this point, dipping momentarily beneath the water’s surface and then popping up into the daylight.

  It was impossible to tell the tears from the lake water.

  I looked around at my surroundings. It was indeed a large lake, with many people around it. Where were they now? Why weren’t they responding to the screaming? The opposite shore was far away. Would the sound even carry that far? Our side was more isolated; favored by the locals. I looked at our campsite and realized that the outgrowth of trees over the water acted as a physical barrier.

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  Still, I was sure that plenty of people heard the screams, meaning one of two things. On one hand, it’s possible, perhaps, that people assumed the screams to be shrieks of fun. Children’s voices can get pretty high when they’re alive with pleasure. Little girls can rival dog whistles. I wasn’t buying this particular theory, but I was trying like hell to think myself into it. Because the other possibility is that nobody cared. Or at least that they didn’t want to help if it meant the possibility of risk to themselves.

  Besides, there were hot dogs to be eaten, softballs to be tossed.

  I must admit, I’ve been subjected to this phenomenon myself. You hear a scream, a cry for help, you figure, “Ah, someone else will take care of it.” And they usually do, because there are two or three good people left, although they are usually overlooked. I like to think they prefer it that way.

  So that was it. Either people misidentified the scream, or they just didn’t want to care. Help hinders, right? We must learn to help ourselves. Only the strong survive. Nice guys finish last. Give 110%. There are far too many clichés in world. Life can’t be summed up in a blurb, or maybe it can and I’m too scared of what it would mean to admit to it. Maybe I’ve just eaten one too many fortune cookies, though I doubt that’s possible.

  Those suckers are good.

  My hand was around her good ankle. I reached at first for her left leg because it was closer, but thankfully, I realized my mistake before I brought a fistful of pain upon her. I might well have pulled her foot off. No, I had her right ankle, and I would bring her ashore. Even if she was unconscious, I could place her in the truck and drive the thirteen miles to the hospital. After all, she didn’t look well, and she would be on crutches for a while, but the injury was by no means life-threatening.

  It was only as scary as it was because we were in the middle of West Nowhere.

  I would drag her ashore and lay her on the dirt while I drove the truck to the lake’s edge. Then I would take her to that hospital, and she would recover Page 61

  her strength, and we would cut the trip short and eat dinner on the couch while watching old movies on the television. Tomorrow was 99-cent night at Goldfin Video, if she preferred a rental. Everything would be O.K. Except that’s not what happened.

  The buzz grew. It had been rising steadily but slowly, but now it grew by leaps and bounds.

  The mind is capable of performing an incredible feat. It can process a phenomenal amount of information in a relatively brief time. We take in our surroundings, feed the information through the sorter, and make decisions almost instantaneously. We take it all for granted because we do it thousands of times a day, far more still should we be driving. Well, the scene at the lake probably took less than a minute, but in that small space of time my own mind processed thoughts, made decisions, and in the process changed my life forever.

  My first thought was of Thelma Vicaro. She was a girl I knew in high school. Well, “knew” might not be the most appropriate word here. Few people really knew her, but this is not a story of popular or unpopular.

  Popularity is irrelevant here. Thelma was different.

  She appeared unaffected by the questions that concern a typical junior year class—who was dating who? when was Homecoming?—all of the usual fanfare.

  She did well in her classes, but kind of crept from room to room and locker to locker. She seemed to bounce through her life like an ice-cream stick floating down a street, bopping along the rain-laden gutter until it eventually disappears down a sewer hole into a black oblivion, forgotten to all but the very small minority.

  L.I.F.E. And then nothing. Fade to black. No rabbit in this hat.

  One day I saw Thelma bop-bopping through the hallway, almost invisible. It had become an obsession of mine to figure out how this girl did it. How she could withstand such isolation and exist within her own world? On this particular day, I realized I could wait no longer for an answer. I approached her, nearly knocking her over. I don’t think she was used to being approached. I excused myself for my intrusion into her Page 62

  space, beat around the bush for a while, and finally got my nerve up.

  “How do you do it, Thelma?”

  “Do what?” She didn’t even look up. Even then she was. .elsewhere.

  “You live in your own world. Don’t you care?

  Isn’t there anything you like? Why do you act like. .

  like. .?” At this point, I realized I was being driven by curious angst built up over three years. I hadn’t taken the time to actually develop a question, and now that the time was here, I was going nowhere.

  “…I’m dead?”

  Those were her words; I remember them well.

  “I guess. I’m not trying to sound mean. I was just. .curious.”

  She looked at me, finally, as if wondering whether to open up to a stranger. I guess I made the cut. Like I said, I don’t possess a threatening look.

  “You are born into a world not of your choosing, with no hint as to what direction to move in. Your parents are chosen for you. Your friends you choose, but most of them you actually have little in common with. The association exists to make you feel. . secure.” The speech was well versed. Obviously I wasn’t the only person to have asked the question. Or maybe she had just been craving an opportunity to vomit her thoughts.

  She continued.

  “None of us has any idea what’s going on, but we each develop our own way to make it look like we do—

  spirituality, pompous academia. . Or we find a way to escape it.” She paused for air. At last I got a word in.

  “So this is your way of. .escaping?”

  “No.” She paused to look at the clock above me.

  I’m not sure she was actually checking the time. She might just have been collecting her thoughts. She had the look of someone about to make a serious decision.

  Finally, she continued.

  “No. It’s just that I don’t waste my time trying to find answers when I don’t even know the question.”

  “Kind of a fatalistic attitude.”

  “Far from it. I spend my time learning, observing, making mistakes. It’s a sacrifice.” Page 63

  “How so?” I was surprised to find her to be so open, considering she could not have had much practice with conversation. For a second, I thought it was a sign of wisdom and confidence, but perhaps in the end Thelma was lonely. Maybe this was just her own
means of escape. She put her foot up against the row of lockers, staring into space across the hallway. Classes were over now, and papers were strewn on the floor. I wondered if I would miss my bus, or Thelma hers. She probably wouldn’t care.

  “I’m from a poor family, Ed.” She knew my name.

  I was surprised. “I have two shitty parents, and I can’t do any one thing particularly well. And I’m stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid, Thelma.”

  “I am.”

  “No. I mean, anyone who devotes this much thought to. .”

  “It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t help my situation in life, so it doesn’t count as an asset. I’m stupid by society’s terms, and therefore I’m stupid.” I was fighting a losing battle here. But I had one more question.

  “You said your life was a sacrifice?”

  “Yes. My odds aren’t good here, Ed. I know it.

  I’ll never make it here. I don’t. .fit. So I’m learning what I can from the shadows, and I’ll use it in the next world.

  I’ll rock that world.”

  It was a strange mentality, and I thought it to be a string of bullshit. At least, that is, until I heard that she killed herself three years later. So either she was really lonely or really gutsy. If there is a second world, I hope Thelma’s rocking it. Still, I think of her. I think of what she said, and I find myself agreeing far too often.

  I find it hard to find the good in people.

  Sometimes life seems to be a manipulative chess match with a whole lot of back stabbing. You can’t trust anybody, and the bad far outweighs the good. And it’s when I feel this way that I hear the buzzing, when the sky can’t be blue enough to ease my mind. And, like I said, it’s been getting louder, which takes us back to the day by the lake. Maybe you’re not ready to get back to that tale yet, but I can only hope that the story of Thelma will help explain my mindset. I can only hope Page 64

  that you understand. I can only hope that you are like us.

  Because…the buzzing was there at the lake, disturbing the peace of the day. God forgive me.

  I don’t feel an ounce of guilt concerning Thelma’s young death. I’ve rarely even thought about it, to be truthful. Maybe I could have told somebody, and maybe they could have stopped her (though I doubt it), but why deny a person their dream? Like I said, you have to give those people credit. Anyway, she’s in a better place now; I’m sure of it.

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  Chapter Thirteen

  (Fuck superstition. Bloody Mary,

  Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.)

  I reached for my knife, sheathed in a leather case attached to my belt. I don’t know why I reached for it initially. Perhaps I subconsciously hoped that I’d finally get some good old-fashioned masculine use out of the damn thing. Up till then, it had mostly served as a carry-along. It had a smooth black handle, marked with a small silver star at the base of the shaft. Gleaming in the sunlight, the blade looked larger than it actually was. I took the knife in my hand and sliced into Cristen’s ankle. I think I wanted to end it. I wanted the screaming and the madness to stop so that we could retreat to our tranquil weekend, perhaps even catch another on-air ball game. I was beginning to like that strategy. My actions at the lake only made the screams worse, and the effect was cyclical. I really wanted the situation to end, so I buried the knife.

  I plunged the four-inch blade into her breast, which was not quite as easy a task as you might imagine.

  Besides the psychological block, the body isn’t nearly as fragile as we make it out to be. Normally I would never have been able to get past the initial stab. It turned my stomach. However, I was no longer acting rationally. I was now at the mercy of adrenaline and emotion, an elixir that acts a lot like excessive alcohol. I stabbed repeatedly.

  The screaming stopped. Perhaps had she been able to look up into my eyes, to instill a sense of guilt and a sense of ‘ why?’ perhaps then I could have stopped.

  Maybe she still could have been saved. I guess she would no longer have been my friend after that, so I would have lost Jill either way. Cristen.

  It doesn’t matter, though, because she didn’t look up at me. She had lost consciousness. I don’t know Page 66

  if she swallowed water or passed out from shock or if I had pierced a lung, though I doubt it was the latter because she let out an awful scream which really put a jump into me. She didn’t look at me, and I never had the privilege of a last glimpse into those feeling, moving eyes. I do, however, remember her hair shimmering in the bright sunlight, wet with lake water.

  The slice on her calf actually bled more than the chest wounds. I retrieved my knife and threw it into the lake. Had my mind been clearer, I would not have done this, because even though I knew I was no murderer, the cops might not be so quick to buy it. If my mind had been clear, I might also not have released her body. I let it sit there, perhaps with a guilty conscience, hoping whatever would come of this, it would come quickly.

  I didn’t hurry off. Instead I sat and wept at the evil in the world. The true evildoers—the Jeffrey Simonses—bring shame to the rest of us who might be so unlucky as to find circumstances of heartache, angst, and unfortunate coincidence. Our actions are judged by their intent. Even the holiest of men might steal bread were his family starving, but our laws don’t always see things that way. They ignore extraordinary circumstances and befriend hard facts. What can I say? It’s a complicated, fast-paced world we live in; sometimes hard and fast lines must be drawn in the sand. I had the feeling that I had just stepped over one of them. This is why I wept. I wept for the world. I wept for reason, and passion, and love.

  I sat there for what must have been twenty minutes. The thought that the fish and the parasites and the insects might find my lover tasty was too much to bear. Just hours ago we had been in passionate embrace, and now there was a psychological universe between us. She knew things now that I did not, and may never. At last, she was back in the hands of God, which are soft and warm and tender. God has hands like blue jeans fresh from the dryer.

  Finally, I rose from my place on the rock, shook the water from my jeans, and stumbled shoreward. I had collected my thoughts, and now there was work Page 67

  to be done. Not that I knew what my next move was supposed to be. They don’t hand out manuals for this situation when you’re in the Scouts. You learn how to tie knots and build fires and survive with only a fishhook, but no one can educate you as to how to survive a loss of innocence.

  There are nations and cultures in this world-which have very real and obvious rites of passage into manhood. America lacks this. Sure, there’s the old driver’s license, the loss of one’s virginity, but these thing are more about getting old than growing up. That day at the lake was my personal rite of passage. My life was about to change, for obvious reasons, but beyond that, I knew I was now enlightened. I was learning a life lesson.

  I took one last look at my lover, who’d been cleansed by the air and water. She looked so innocent, and I must admit, at that time I had a pang of guilt.

  If only I could have those precious moments back! I forced my gaze from her body, and had to stop myself from glancing over my shoulder on the walk up to camp. She was no longer Cristen. She was a body, I reminded myself, and that body would serve to nurture the natural world. It’s all part of the plan. Bacteria need to eat.

  I could not help thinking, though, how many men that body had known, how many children that smile had made happy, how many friends had gained pleasure from the person who now lied limp by the rock in the lake. I wondered exactly how long it takes before the body starts to stiffen with rigor mortis. Could it have set in already? How quickly does the blood pool?

  If I touched her, would she (it?) feel human? I was tempted to go back to her corpse—how often do we have the chance to touch death, to shake its hand, dare I say to make love to it? I resisted the urge splendidly.

  I rolled the tent up clumsily, wrapping it crepe fashion around most of our supplies. I threw the
whole mess in the back of the truck, cleaned camp, and made myself a bagel with cream cheese.

  The ride out of the woods was tremendously bumpy. I was not driving my own vehicle, and frankly, Page 68

  I don’t think I’m all that good with a stick shift. I mean, really, who can think about three pedals and a stick all at once? I had opened a soda and placed it in between my legs. It spilled over when the truck hit one particularly high bump. The contents of the can spilled on my pants, and I found myself wishing I had packed one of those lemony sodas instead of the grape stuff. I looked awfully silly with a purple crotch. Purple is not a flattering color at all. I cursed aloud, just as I would have if someone were beside me. For some reason, cursing makes us feel better. I cursed a lot in those days. Fuck yeah.

  I abandoned the truck outside of town in a parking lot. I used a tarp to cover the goods in the bed, and left the keys in the ignition. I hoped that someone else would get some use out of the pickup. It had quite a few miles of exploring left in it. Now that I think of it, they probably auctioned it off when the shit hit the fan, meaning that some lowbrow businessman probably bought it cheap and is now using it to haul around patio furniture. Hardly a fitting use for such a beautiful machine. Too many people buy off-road cars for on-road lives. I thought about Cristen’s body again. It must have been warming in the afternoon sun. I wondered if it would smell. I had to remind myself that she was in a better place. Oh, why did she have to hurt herself?

  By this time, I had walked three blocks to the bus depot. It wasn’t really a depot, but a sidewalk stop without so much as a glass enclosure to protect you from the weather. It wasn’t too long before the 72 pulled up. One thing about these parts: they sure have a fine system of public transportation. I don’t know where they got the money. Taxes around there were low, and most people had cars anyway. At the time though, I was thankful that someone had made the effort. I put my buck-fifty in the slot, thankful I had the exact change.

  Bus drivers get all crabby about that. I suppose I would, too, if I had to deal with people asking for change of a fifty all day long.