Chapter 11
Eleven
They gathered in the dimness of Arthur’s bedroom, with the TV off, and Gwen saw to them all. She slipped into the kitchen
and returned with a bag of frozen kernel corn for Donovan’s mashed nuts. He sprawled on the floor, head in Allie’s lap, and
held the bag to his crotch. Gwen disappeared again and returned a moment later with a bottle of Advil and another of Tylenol.
Donna and Van took two of each, while Arthur settled for three Tylenol. They swallowed them down with cans of Milwaukee’s
Best, which was Van’s favorite beer, because it was cheap.
“Have you ever heard how Milwaukee’s Best is like sex in a canoe?” Colin asked. “They’re both fucking close to water.” The
way Colin said fucking, it sounded less like an obscenity, more like a technical term. No one laughed.
Gwen settled in a beanbag, with Arthur between her legs, his head tipped back against her shoulder. She held a washcloth filled
with ice to his nose, lifting it now and then so he could speak. In a thick, congested voice, he told them about the Nighswanders
and his mother and the books he had been swiping from the library. As bad as the evening had been, it felt good to tell. He
had not realized until that night how exhausting it had been to deal with the Nighswanders alone.
Donna kept clearing her throat, making shallow wet coughs that were not far removed from sobs. Gwen said, “Do you want some
lemon and honey tea? For your throat?”
“I’ll tell you what I want,” Donna said, in a hoarse whisper. “I want to catch those gruesome motherfuckers on the interstate. Drop a brick off an overpass into their windshield. Watch ’em fly off the road at seventy miles an hour.”
“I’m not sure staking out overpasses is the most effective way to deal with people of Jayne Nighswander’s stripe,” Colin said.
“What would you do, Colin?” Allie asked.
“I know what you’d do, Allie,” Donna snapped, before he could reply. “You’d suck that guy’s cock and thank him for the pleasure. Jesus. Crawling
around on your hands and knees to collect his fucking circus peanuts. Why would you do that? Why would you humiliate yourself
that way?”
“So they wouldn’t hurt you again,” Allie said.
“Well, I didn’t need your fucking protection and I didn’t need you kissing his ass after he—after he—” Donna had to stop,
pinching the bridge of her nose, gritting her teeth to fight back tears. Arthur had never seen someone fight off tears that
way—through sheer rage.
“I guess calling the police is out of the question,” Allie said.
Van gave that suggestion a thumbs-down.
“No, I don’t think we can do that,” Arthur agreed. “What would you do, Colin?”
“Just pay them,” Colin said. “If your mother was going to be locked up another decade, it would be different. But she’s out
in—what is it, Arthur? A year?”
“A year, yes. Maybe sooner. She has a hearing in February. She might not get her parole . . . though I think she will. She
started a book club, she offers spiritual counseling . . . she’s more like a prison social worker than an inmate.”
“So we’re looking at four to twelve months,” Colin said. “I say pay Nighswander off. I can get you four grand this month—that’s
what I’ve got socked away—and another six hundred dollars, every month, until your mother is free.”
Van pushed out a pained breath and said, “Yo, son. Where you going to get six hundred dollars every month?”
“My allowance,” Colin said.
“You have an allowance of six hundred dollars a month?”
Colin said, “No . . . it’s quite a bit more. I receive two hundred dollars a week. But I have to keep some money to spend, if only to avoid awkward questions from my grandfather.”
Allie said, “I can do a thousand a month. That’s the most I can take off the credit card without getting a hassle from my
father.”
Van said, “I can’t give you any dough, Arthur. I’m going to need every spare cent for surgery on my ruptured testicles.”
Arthur was about to tell them he couldn’t take their money—but Gwen spoke first.
“How did any of you get into college? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“What?” Donna asked.
“I thought you had to be smart to get into Rackham,” Gwen said. “Don’t you see? They’ll take your money . . . and still tell Arthur to steal books for them.”
“Why would they do that?” Colin asked. It was, Arthur thought, the first time he had ever seen him perplexed.
“Because it’s fun,” Gwen said. “Because they’re getting off on it! Do you think they’ll be done when they have sixty thousand dollars? They won’t be done until Arthur’s mother is out and they can’t touch her. Don’t give
them a single thing they haven’t asked for. You can’t horse-trade with these people.”
“We’ve got to do something to help Arthur, though,” Allie said. “Don’t we?”
“You’re already doing it,” Arthur said. “How do you think I got through the last eight weeks of my life? How do you think
I’m going to get through the next eight, while I’m busy stealing sixty thousand dollars of books for a pair of orcs?”
They had nothing to say to that. Gwen bent and placed a light kiss on top of his head. The feathery sensation of her lips
against his hair gave him a shiver.
“There is one thing we can do,” Colin said, “besides just being your emotional support system.”
“What’s that?” Arthur asked.
“We can make sure you never get caught,” Colin said.
But then Van was asking if Allie could help him to the bathroom so he could throw up, and Donna began pulling off her fake Shaggy beard in angry fistfuls, and Gwen had to collect some fresh ice for Arthur’s nose, and so Colin never got around to explaining what he had in mind.