Like A Charm

THE THINGS WE DID TO LAMAR by Peter Moore Smith

We gave him noogies, Indian burns, charlie horses, wet willies. We tickled him till he peed in his pants. We dangled him by his underwear from the dogwood tree in front of his house and left him hanging there. We held him down and let daddy-long-legs crawl all over his face. Once we gave him a potato chip and after he ate it we told him it had been dipped in formaldehyde; later, he hugged his stomach, rocked back and forth against the chain-link fence between our houses, and puked. The two of us, me and Benjamin, we'd trap Lamar in the concrete playground tube by the school, one of us on each side, and not let him out until he held his ears and squealed. Lamar had this sideways smile that flashed, all crooked and weird, even when we were beating the crap out of him. Christ. The things we did to that poor fucker. We shaved stripes into his head with Benjamin's dad's barbershop clippers. Sometimes we'd ask him if he wanted to go to the movies, and after he got the money from his mom we'd just take it to the 7-Eleven and buy Slim Jims.

Lamar. Oh, Jesus.

One afternoon we took his latch-key and threw it up on the roof. Next thing we knew old Lamar was up there, hanging by one hand from the rain gutter, smiling and giggling.

'Jump!' we said. 'We'll catch you!'

Yeah, right.

Lamar's fat friend Anthony, who followed Lamar everywhere, had to call the fire department to get him down.

We took his comic books; we took his baseball cards; we took his clothes and made him run home in his underpants; we took his money, his food, his toys. Anything he had, we took it. One time we noticed he was wearing a girl's bracelet. He said he found it under a park bench when he went to Baltimore to visit his grandma. Benjamin took it and threw it to me. I pretended to drop it down a sewer drain but really I stuck it in my pocket. We played keep-away with his hat, his books, his Scooby-Doo lunchbox; we took his homework so many days in a row that Lamar started making multiple copies, hiding little squares of folded paper all over his clothes.

And fat Anthony, who was always just sort of standing around while we tortured poor Lamar, even he would laugh, his stomach jiggling like one of Mom's church picnic Jell-O moulds.

This is a good one.

One time we told Lamar that if he put on girls' underwear we'd let him come over to Benjamin's house and listen to Benjamin's dad's quadrophonic hi-fi system. Then, in the vacant lot behind the Safeway, after he'd slipped on my sister's training bra and underpants, we took a Polaroid and dropped it into the mail slot of Lamar's house.

There was also the time Benjamin said Lamar was retarded but that no one was telling him.

'I am not retarded,' Lamar said. 'I get straight As.'

'Sure,' Benjamin said. 'In retard class. You're a straight-A retard.'

'It's not a retard class.'

'How do you know?'

'Because it's the advanced class.'

'How do you know they're not just saying that to make you feel smart, and that you're really all a bunch of retards?'

Lamar's eyes grew wide.

'Retard,' Benjamin said.

Lamar put his hands over his ears.

'Tard.'

We'd punch Lamar in the same place on his arm until the bruise turned black, with concentric rings of purple and yellow. When we punched Lamar he would close his eyes but keep smiling. Then, after a few days of getting punched in the same spot, Lamar would do anything to guard it, offering up almost every other part of his body, giggling and at the same time twisting away in this grotesque, prissy dance.

The more he danced, the more we laughed.

Even Anthony.

It wasn't any fun to beat up Anthony, incidentally. He would just fall down, never saying anything, never begging or squealing or giggling like Lamar. Funny thing was, I remember seeing Lamar really give it to Anthony, so I guess he got a kick out of it. Lamar would punch his poor fat friend in the same place in the arm that we punched him, but Anthony would just rub it with his hand, a look of stupefaction on his stupid, fat face. Lamar called Anthony Fat-Boy, Fatty-Boomba-Latty, Fatty-McFat-Fat, the President of the Fat States of Fat-merica.

This made Benjamin crazy.

I can say this now – if I had said it then he would have beaten the crap out of me – but Benjamin was kind of fat himself.

'You wanna pick on someone just because they're fat?' Benjamin would say to Lamar, defending Anthony. 'You wanna make fun of somebody just because they're a little bit overweight?' He punctuated each word with a hard punch to Lamar's arm.

'You do it,' Lamar would say.

'I' – punch – 'do' – punch – 'not' – punch.

'Stop it.' Lamar twisted his body and fell to the ground.

'It's all right,' Anthony said softly. 'He was just joking.'

We were on the school playground, on the swings.

'Shut up, faggot,' Benjamin said. 'Just because I'm beating up Lamar because he called you fat doesn't mean I won't beat the crap out of you because you're a faggot, you faggot.'

So Anthony and I waited until Benjamin got tired of beating the crap out of Lamar.

Then, as they walked away, Lamar rubbing his arm, Anthony a few steps behind, Lamar turned around to Anthony and sang, 'Fatty fatty fat-butt! So fat you ate the cat's butt!'

From where I was on the swings I could see Anthony's face. I could almost feel the hot tears exploding down his cheeks.

Infuriated, Benjamin took off after Lamar, chasing him across the soccer field, over the pedestrian overpass, and into the vacant lot behind the Safeway. I ran behind Benjamin, Anthony huffing and puffing behind me. I thought the whole thing was hilarious, to tell the truth. Benjamin was fat, and Lamar had found this weird, indirect way of saying it. Lamar jumped up on a rock and held his tight little fist in the air, smiling hugely, like he was about to say something magnificent. But Benjamin just crashed into him, grabbing him around the waist and pushing him into a huge pile of trash. 'It's not nice' – punch – 'to call someone' – punch – 'fat' – punch.

'I didn't call you fat,' Lamar said.

'I didn't say I was fat,' Benjamin said, punching him again. 'Are you saying I'm fat?'

Lamar squirmed and tried to twist away.

Benjamin reached for the nearest thing, which happened to be a rusted tin-top to an old can of something, and held it to Lamar's throat.

Me and Anthony were standing on the rock looking down.

'You better go ahead and do it,' Lamar said. 'Because one day I'm going to-'

'What?' Benjamin said. 'You're going to do what, fag fucker?'

Anthony's eyes were huge, and he was out of breath. 'One day,' he gasped, 'he's going to kill you.'

Benjamin and I just laughed.

'He will,' Anthony looked around, even more surprised. 'He's crazy.'

Benjamin laughed so hard he actually rolled off Lamar into the heap of trash. 'Crazy?' He went into hysterics. 'Lamar?'

Lamar got up and brushed the filth from his clothes. 'I'd kill you now,' he said, giggling hysterically, 'but these are my good pants.'

There was a party at Clarista Siedbetter's once. Her family had an above-ground backyard pool. Everyone was there. Even Lamar and Anthony showed up, Lamar in a pair of tight red swimming trunks and a Scooby-Doo towel wrapped around his skinny shoulders, Anthony in his dad's plaid boxer shorts and a minuscule green and white towel that had been stolen from a Holiday Inn. Lamar and Anthony climbed up on the platform and were about to get in when Clarista said, 'Oh I'm so sorry, Lamar, but the law only allows eleven kids in the pool at a time.'

'The law?' Lamar lifted an eyebrow.

'You know' – Clarista had it all worked out – 'safety regulations.'

I gave the pool a quick count.

There was me, Benjamin, Clarista, Billy Elliman, Tiffany Engleton, Todd Skrillitz, Sheri Bristol, Jonathon and Bobby Bintliff, Kelly Fritz, and Parker Townsend.

Eleven.

Sheri Bristol, who was already one of the prettiest girls in our neighbourhood, offered to get out so Lamar could swim. 'I don't mind,' Sheri said.

But Clarista gave her this look. It was like in Star Wars when Darth Vader strangled that guy without even touching him.

Sheri just shut the fuck up.

The sunlight that day was a narcotic; morphine light mixed with the heavy chlorine in my eyes and I saw a film over everything – blue, green, yellow, like I was looking through sheets of plastic. Everything seemed slo-mo, far away, disconnected. 'It's all right.' Lamar, smiling as always, wrapped his Scooby-Doo towel round his shoulders, and climbed down from the platform. Anthony remained a few steps behind. 'We have a hose in our backyard, and my dad just bought me a Slip-n-Slide.'

Benjamin laughed. 'Yeah. Go play with your Slip-n-Slide!'

It seemed like time folded in half. It seemed like I saw myself from above.

The sun heated the blue water and glanced off the tanned faces of the neighbourhood kids.

Clarista swam directly over and kissed me. I was twelve, two weeks from thirteen. She tasted like cigarettes.

At home that night I considered giving Clarista the charm bracelet I had stolen from Lamar. I took it out of the drawer and examined it. It was pretty old, I guess, with a tiger, a little train that had actual moving wheels, a saxophone, little ballet slippers, and even a monkey.

But for some reason I decided to keep it.

Fuck Clarista, I thought. And then I actually thought about fucking Clarista.

And that was weird.

Two weeks later it was just me and my sister. No other kids. No party. My mom had made a chocolate cake, and we were sitting around after a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, my favourite, picking at the bones, when we heard the doorbell. Answer the door,' Jean said.

'It's my birthday. You answer it.'

By that time my mom was already opening the door, revealing Lamar and a brightly wrapped package. 'Happy birthday!' He wore that usual sideways smile.

I got up.

The package was tied with curly red ribbons and silver bows.

'Come in, Lamar.' Mom was speaking to Lamar but looking at me. 'Isn't that nice?' she said. 'A birthday present.' Whenever there was a stranger in the house, my mother started using her June Cleever voice.

'Hi, Lamar.' I walked over to the living room, and Lamar stepped inside.

'Would you like a piece of birthday cake?' my mother asked. 'I'll bet you'd like a nice big piece of chocolate birthday cake.'

Lamar gave me that look, all sideways and smiley.

'Yeah, Lamar,' I said weakly, 'have some cake.'

'Open it,' he said, holding the package forward.

'What is it?'

My sister rolled her eyes. 'Open it, moron.'

I took the package, sat down on the living room floor, and carefully slid the ribbon off, then I tore some of the wrapping away.

'It's an ant farm.' Lamar was standing above me.

'An ant farm?'

'You better keep that thing out of my room,' Jean said. 'I don't want ants crawling all over my stuff.'

The paper torn back, I could see the box cover. In big, yellow words it said ANT FARM! The fun, scientific way to learn about the insect kingdom!

My mother looked at me. 'What do you say?'

I looked at Lamar. 'Thanks, Lamar.'

My mother was standing behind Lamar, and she was about to touch his shoulder, but for some reason she stopped herself halfway through and disappeared into the kitchen.

I remember seeing Lamar through the picture window of his house. He would stand on a chair and look out at us when we were playing. He had a way of pushing his chest forward and holding his hands up in front of him, his fingers moving slowly, like he was strumming a harp.

What a fucking freak.

The subdivision of our neighbourhood was organized around a series of alternating blocks and cul-de-sacs. There was a block, and going into the middle of each block was a street, at the end of which was a circular drive. Organized around the circle was a series of houses, each of them pretty much the same. Some had grey roofs; some had black. Some of the houses were made of red brick; some had coloured siding. Our circle, which was called Galaxy Court, was the last part of the development and butted right up against the turnpike. On the other side of the pike was the Andromeda Shopping Plaza, which included the Safeway, Dart Hardware, Hallmark, 31 Flavors, H & R Block, and 7-Eleven. Behind the Safeway was a vacant lot. There were a bunch of large, flat rocks, big enough to stand on, a couple of rusted out dumpsters, and a fascinating glacier of trash.

I can't tell you how many times we beat the crap out of Lamar back there. Or threw him into one of the dumpsters. Or covered him with garbage.

Anyway, for the past couple of weeks I hadn't seen Benjamin around much. I had seen him with Clarista Siedbetter's brother Eddie once, who was fifteen. They were getting into some other teenager's car. I had thought to call after them, to see if they were going to the mall, but I was pretty sure Benjamin had seen me. I had even seen him smoking inside the concrete tube with Clarista, and I didn't think it was just a cigarette, and he had his arm around her. So, since I had nothing to do I went over to the Safeway lot and just sort of poked through the trash.

Anyway, I was jabbing a stick at a super-gross dead rat when I heard a voice say, 'You're going to catch a disease.'

I turned around. 'Hey, Lamar.' It was a Sunday morning, I remember, and I was surprised to see him because Lamar's family was usually in church on Sunday mornings.

He came up beside me and sniffed. 'My father said you shouldn't play with dead animals, that you can get diphtheria.'

I pushed the stick under the rat and flicked it towards him. 'He's right.' It grazed his bare leg.

'Stop it.' He rubbed his hands over the piece of skin the dead rat had touched. Then he said, 'You want to play something?'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. Make-believe?'

Make-believe was a game I was trying to leave behind. I had just turned thirteen. 'You mean like Star Trek?' I said. 'Or war?'

'That would be cool.' Lamar nodded. 'Or what about religion?'

'What do you mean, religion?'

'We could have our own religion,' he said, 'and we could be gods.' He jumped up on a rock and pointed down at me. 'We could pretend this rock is a mountain, and that there's an entire civilization down there in the trash. You know, countries and cities. And sometimes we can be nice gods and give them good weather, and other times, for no reason whatsoever, we can smash everything in sight.' Lamar was smiling his maniac smile.

'And they have to worship us?' I said. 'They have to get down on their knees and pray to us, like, three times a day?' I climbed up on the rock next to him. 'Because if they don't-'

'Yeah,' Lamar said, 'if every single person doesn't worship the heck out of us three times a day' – he jumped down from the rock and started smashing imaginary cities – 'we'll kill everyone.' I was feeling like a regular Mahatma Gandhi for not punching Lamar, and was also a little surprised by the vividness of his imagination. 'Except for this little family,' he went on. He picked up an empty box of kitchen matches and placed it gently on top of the rock. 'A devout family of four, who always worships us every day. They get to live and to be the founders of a new, futuristic civilization.'

'Nah.' I stepped on the matchbox, grinding it beneath the ball of my foot. 'Fuck them.'

I looked at Lamar's face. He was biting his lip and for once his smile had disappeared.

Over the course of my childhood Benjamin and I had broken, mangled or destroyed pretty much every toy this kid ever had. We took away his baseballs, snapped the arms off his GI Joes, slipped his Tonka Toys into our pockets and told him we didn't know where they went. I had never felt bad about it. Not once. But now, for some reason, after stepping on an empty matchbox… 'I'm sorry about that, Lamar.' I reached down and reconstructed it.

Lamar released his lower lip and smiled. 'So this family that worships us can be the beginning of an entirely new civilization.' He placed the now-smashed-but-pathetically-reconstructed matchbox on a flat part of the rock, then went to the trash glacier to find other items. 'The first thing they build,' he said, 'is a temple in our honour.' He found an empty orange juice carton and placed it next to the matchbox.

'Oh, man,' I said, suddenly excited. 'Check out this temple.' I selected an empty bottle of Sprite and placed it on the rock.

'OK,' Lamar said, smiling full out, 'OK. So maybe that temple can be in your honour, and this one' – he grabbed another soda bottle, placing it at the end of our imaginary civilization – 'can be for me.'

'And they become rivals,' I said, 'and one part of the world starts to worship me and the other half starts to worship you, and they start to have wars and crap.'

'An excellent idea, Mr Watson.'

We played silently for a while, going back and forth from the trash glacier to the large flat rock and placing imaginary houses, schools and temples in a grid pattern. The cities grew, side by side, and I couldn't help but notice that Lamar's civilization was somehow more clever than mine, that the way he placed his bits and pieces of trash actually resembled a metropolis as though seen from an aeroplane. We completely covered the rock, and then I felt it was time. I flicked a white plastic bottle cap towards Lamar's city. It struck and toppled a milk carton.

'What are you doing?'

'My people have been secretly amassing weapons,' I said, 'and now they're ready for battle.'

'All right.' I saw Lamar's smile, wide and white. He grabbed an old pen and flung it towards my biggest temple. I laughed and picked up a flattened Coke can, skimming it off Lamar's city. We went back and forth a few times this way until Lamar said, 'And now the gods themselves are called upon to fight.' We started walking over our cities, smashing everything with our feet, kicking down the schools and auditoriums, the city halls and restaurants. We shattered and scattered all our work until the entire civilization was reduced to rubble. 'And now,' he said, fully absorbed in the game, 'it is time for me to send my only son to live among the people.' Lamar knelt down on the rock and placed a red twisty-tie that he had fashioned into the shape of a cross in the middle of all the rubble.

For some reason I felt my face turn hot. I said, 'That is ridiculous bullcrap.'

'What do you mean?'

'You're just repeating some crap they told you in church.' I was repeating my father, actually, who hated everything about religion and went into a tirade whenever it came up.

'OK,' he said, 'forget it.'

'I've already forgotten,' I informed Lamar, walking away.

'We could play Star Trek.' Lamar got up and came after me. 'Or war. You could be Spock.'

I turned round. 'I don't feel like playing Star Trek.'

'Do you want to watch TV?' he said. 'You could come to my house.'

I punched him. He rubbed the patch of skin I had punched and kept walking beside me. 'We could build up the civilization and smash it down again.'

'I don't think so.'

'We could-'

'You never know when to shut up, Lamar,' I said, 'do you?'

We walked back across the pedestrian overpass, crossed the turnpike, me angry for no real reason and Lamar with his head down, and continued that way until we came to our houses.

Then, right before I walked into my yard, I punched him in the arm so hard he fell on the ground.

I was in the driveway, listening to music on an old transistor radio I had found in my dad's closet, when two police cars drove up next door, one black and white, the other a plain sedan. The policemen got out, went to Lamar's house, and knocked. Lamar's mom answered. She wore a beige pant suit. I turned the radio off and went to stand by the fence to hear what was happening. I remember her saying, 'What?' I remember Lamar's sister, Estelle, coming to the door. She'd had her hair done. I turned round from the fence and saw my mother standing at the door of our house. She had a package of Kraft macaroni and cheese in her hands. I heard one of the policemen ask for Lamar. Then the two policemen in suits went inside and the other two waited for a while on the front lawn.

One of them turned his face towards the sun.

A couple of minutes later I saw Lamar come out. His mother was right behind him. They went to the police car and one of the officers opened the door to the back seat. They got in, and the plainclothes policemen got in the front. They started the car up again and drove away, leaving me standing in the yard holding the transistor radio, Estelle in the door of Lamar's house, and my mother behind me. When I turned to look at my mother's face I saw something in it, some delicate movement along the jaw.

'I want you to tell me what happened.' She sat me down at the kitchen table.

'What happened to what?'

'What did Lamar do?'

'Lamar didn't do anything.'

'Why did the police come for him?'

I remember this: I was crying. I didn't know why. I felt like an idiot. Thirteen years old, and I was crying.

'If you know something,' my mother said. 'If you know anything, you have to tell me…' Her voice was shaking. She was thin and tall, with short curly hair. It occurred to me for the first time just then that she was a person.

A local girl – it was Tiffany Engleton, I found out later – had discovered the body of a boy in the vacant lot behind the Safeway supermarket on the turnpike. The police suspected that a fight between two neighbourhood boys had gone too far, and for the time being they were calling it an accident.

It was Benjamin, I realized. Benjamin was dead.

Lamar had actually killed Benjamin, just like he said he would. I went to my room and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands in front of me. I wondered what I should do. What are you supposed to do when someone kills someone? I felt like I should pray or visit his grave or do something solemn.

Then, right around seven thirty there was a knock at the door. 'Mom,' I heard Jean say, 'it's the police.'

My mother went into the living room, and I walked in behind her.

They were the same two plainclothes detectives I had seen earlier.

'Good evening, ma'am,' the older one said. 'I'm Detective Alta, and this is Assistant Detective Claridge. We were wondering if we could have a few words with your son.'

The older detective had short grey hair and a polyester blue blazer. The younger one, I'll never forget, had hair that was completely white.

'Of course,' she said. 'Please. Come in.'

My father reclined in his vinyl easy chair in front of the television. He turned the volume down with the remote control.

The police detectives nodded to him and sat down on the couch.

'Can I get you some coffee?' my mother asked in her idiotic June Cleever voice. 'A soda perhaps?'

'Thank you for offering,' the older detective said. 'But we're just fine.'

I stood in front of the coffee table.

'And how are you?' the detective asked.

'Me?'

'Yes.'

I looked at my Adidas. 'Fine.'

'The boy who lives next door,' he said. 'Are you friends with him?'

'Lamar?'

'Yes, Lamar Duncan.'

I had breathed out, I think, but for some reason I couldn't breathe in.

The detective said, 'Is he a friend of yours?'

I looked at my mother.

'They're friends,' she said. 'Lamar gave him an ant farm.'

'An ant farm?'

'For his birthday.'

'Is Lamar a nice boy?' the detective asked me.

'He's nice,' I managed to say.

'Does he… does he pick on other kids sometimes?' The detective came forward off the couch, almost crouching on the floor.

I couldn't think of a response. My face was on fire. I kept thinking of Benjamin. I kept imagining him naked on a stretcher in a hospital somewhere. The freckled skin, the long black hair.

'Tell the truth,' my mother said.

'We pick on him.'

'What's that?' the detective asked quietly.

'We pick on Lamar. Benjamin does mostly.'

'I see.' The detective put a hand over his mouth and his eyes closed for a moment. He cleared his throat, then slapped his legs. 'All right then.' He smiled a thin smile.

'One day Lamar said he would kill Benjamin,' I blurted.

'Lamar said that?'

'Yes, sir.' I never said sir. I don't even know where I got it.

There was snot coming out of my nose. I wiped it away.

'What is Benjamin's last name?'

'Herman,' I said.

'Why don't you go to your room now?' my father said. It was the first thing my father had said to me in weeks.

I turned to look at him. I knew from one look that I was going to get it later.

I hadn't bothered to open the ant farm yet, and in my room I ran my hands over the box, tracing the words with my fingers. ANT FARM! The fun, scientific way to learn about the insect kingdom! I kept picturing Benjamin without his Judas Priest T-shirt on for once, lying naked on a steel examining table like the victims in an episode of Columbo. I opened the ant farm box and started flipping through the booklet that came with it. There were line drawings that showed all the different types of ants in the colony. There was the queen, the worker ants, or drones, the nursing ants that took care of the larvae.

My parents restricted me to my room that whole next day, only allowing me to come downstairs for a baloney sandwich at lunch and, later, a TV dinner. The entire neighbourhood was talking about Lamar, I could feel it. On the one hand I was dying to get out there, to find out exactly what had happened. On the other, I was absorbed by Lamar's ant farm booklet. There was an ad on the back for other kits from the same company; there was a chemistry set, a microscope, a junior electrician's set… the fun, scientific learning series. I kept staring at it, thinking of all the things there were to know, and of how I didn't know a fucking thing.

The following morning I saw Lamar through my bedroom window. He had his legs folded under him and was sitting near the chain-link fence that separated our yards and was tearing blades of grass into smaller and smaller pieces and then throwing them up in the air while making soft, slo-mo exploding noises. I snuck downstairs and slipped through the kitchen door.

'Hey,' I whispered.

He didn't turn around.

'Lamar,' I said a little louder.

He barely looked up.

'What happened?'

He shrugged.

'Are you in trouble?'

He started moving funny, his whole body kind of shaking. I took that as a yes.

'What did you do?'

'They didn't tell you?'

'Who?'

'The police.'

'They just asked if we were friends.'

He nodded.

'Did you kill Benjamin?'

He threw a few blades of grass into the air. 'I killed Anthony.'

I had leaned my arms over the fence and had been rocking the whole thing back and forth. Now I stopped. 'Anthony?'

'Yup.'

'Why?'

He tore a handful of grass into tiny pieces, then scattered them, his arms beating like wings. 'I don't know.'

'What do you mean, you don't know?'

'I mean, I don't know.'

'Was it an accident?'

'No.'

'Did he fall down and hit his head -'

'No.'

'- on a rock or something?'

'I pushed a piece of wire into his neck.'

I imagined it, the sharp end of an old broken wire hanger going into the soft part of Anthony's neck. 'And then what happened?' Involuntarily, I touched my own neck.

'He started to bleed.' Lamar turned to look at me. 'Really fast. It was like all the blood in his body came out at once.'

Oh, man.

'Where was it?' I said. 'I mean, exactly.'

'By the dumpsters,' he answered. 'Right between them.'

It was late afternoon, and there was an almost imperceptible coolness in the air. Autumn was weeks away, but I could feel its approach, like an aeroplane about to land.

'Are you going to go to jail?'

He thought for a minute. 'First I'm going to go stay with my grandmother, and then there's going to be court.' Lamar threw some grass into the air. 'And then they'll send me to jail, I guess.' Then he looked up at me. 'Where's Benjamin?'

I shrugged. 'I haven't been hanging out with Benjamin.'

'Why not?'

'Why Anthony?' I pictured that kid, his fat stomach, the way his eyebrows looked like two caterpillars crawling across his face. 'Why didn't you kill Benjamin?' I said, and then more softly, 'Or me?'

Lamar started shaking his head back and forth, not like he was saying no, more like he was getting ready for something, like he was about to break into a run. 'I wouldn't kill you guys,' he said. 'You and Benjamin… you guys are my best friends.'

Then autumn came just like I knew it would, and then the winter, and the next spring, and so on. There was a trial. At first there was a subpoena for me to go and tell them about what Anthony had said that day on the god-rock, about Lamar threatening to kill Benjamin, but then they said I didn't have to, after all. I never really hung out with Benjamin much after that. We kind of went in different directions. Lamar's family stayed just as they were, only Lamar wasn't there anymore. He went to live with his grandmother, and then was put into a state facility for young people who've committed dangerous crimes. I finished junior high, and then high school, and then, if you can believe it, I was accepted to college on a partial swimming scholarship. After the whole thing with Lamar, my parents tried to get me into sports, thinking it would keep me out of trouble, and swimming was the only physical activity I could stand. I spent my whole first semester of college swimming and reading. I had a talent for the butterfly, it turned out. I was no superstar, believe me, but I placed third in the 500 metres a couple of times. And sometimes when I was swimming I would start to think of Lamar and how he thought we were his friends and I would stop, and I would have to get out of the pool and tell the coach I had a cramp.

Anyway, when I came back for that first winter break my parents picked me up at the airport and drove me home. I saw him there, standing in the window. Lamar. Jesus. He was a lot older now, and taller. But he was still skinny. He was still the same old Lamar. He had his chest out and his fingers were kind of moving around in front of him, the way he had stood there when he was a kid and we were all playing in the yard, and he was watching. He had that faraway look. I couldn't tell if he saw me, because his eyes didn't move.

I went upstairs and when I was unpacking I came across that charm bracelet, the one I had stolen from him when we were just kids. It was just sitting there in the back of a drawer. I hadn't looked at it in so long, and I noticed the little charms it had: the little train engine, the tiger, the sax, ballet slippers, monkey. One of the charms was an angel, one of those angels down on its knees with its hands pressed together in prayer. For some reason I thought of Lamar sitting that way that day in the backyard, tossing handfuls of grass in the air and telling me so matter-of-fact how he had killed Anthony.

I threw the charm bracelet out the window.

I remembered the feeling of my fist hitting Lamar's arm, knuckles in his flesh, and I remembered one particular Saturday morning – we must have been around nine or ten – when Lamar just lay down.

'Go ahead,' he said. 'I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do to me.'

Benjamin stood over him with his angry black hair and his mean freckles and his hands on his hips. 'What do you mean?' he said. 'Aren't you going to dance around like a scared little John Travolta?'

'Why should I?' Lamar said smiling. 'You'll just catch me.'

Fat Anthony chuckled, his stomach jiggling.

Benjamin was confused, grabbing a handful of his own hair. 'Where do you want me to hit you?'

'It doesn't matter.' Lamar was defiant. He presented his bruised arm to Benjamin like a prize.

'I've been punching his arm,' I told Benjamin helpfully.

'Yeah,' Anthony said, 'hit his arm.'

'I don't know.' Benjamin tossed it off like he was turning down a dessert: 'I don't think I want to punch Lamar right now.'

Still on the ground, Lamar rolled his eyes. 'Just get it over with.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Punch him.'

Benjamin started to walk away, and Lamar rose to his feet, lifting himself up with that sideways smile on his face, the same smile he would wear a couple of years later when he gave me that ant farm.

'Benjamin,' I said, 'what are you-'

Suddenly Benjamin turned round. 'I'll tell you,' he said, hitting Lamar to the rhythm of his words, 'when' – punch – 'I will beat' – punch – 'the crap' – punch – 'out of you' – punch, punch. And he wailed on Lamar, fists like pistons, his face full of hate, punching his message home, and my own hate was in there with each and every punch – worse, because I was standing beside Benjamin, me and fat Anthony, standing there smiling idiotically, laughing and grinning and enjoying every second of it.

And goddamn it if Lamar – it still kills me to think of this – if Lamar wasn't smiling, too.

Man, the things we did to that kid.