Struggle On Home

Chapter One

There is yet to exist in America a phenomenon as monstrous and troubling as the white, middle-class teenage boy who hails from a sleepy little dormitory town in the midwestern states. He is cuddled and cossetted from the moment of his birth. His childhood is so peaceful and undemanding, it could be said that he does not leave the womb until he enters high school. And then he reaches the fifteen-to-eighteen stretch and goes apeshit with an assault rifle. It is almost an insult.

It was eight o'clock on a Saturday night. Abel Clark was sitting in his car in the dark with the engine off, listening to the muted clicks of crickets. It was a queasy sort of night, sodden with the sweat of the day that had gone before it, and the air lay damp and warm on the earth like something caught in a fever. Abel was waiting for his best friend, K.C. Anderson, to appear out of his house to join him.

He was waiting as a sprinter waits for the starting gun. His stomach was simmering with the strain of it. Every second had a rich, sensous quality, like well-placed notes in a slow piece of classical music. He did not know that his knuckles were white on the cracked, scaly leather of the steering wheel.

A door opened, and a short, wiry figure stood silhouetted by buttery lamplight. Then the door closed, and the figure was darker than the gloom it moved through.

The passenger door yawned open and swallowed K.C.'s skin and bones into its musty, beer-and-hotdog-smelling belly. Abel felt all the jumpiness run out of his muscles. It was replaced by that good old K.C. feeling, the big easy swell that heralded the presence of a friend.

"Hey," he greeted him, turning the key in the ignition. The car rattled into life."How've you been, K.C.?"

K.C. shrugged. "I've been okay. You got the shotgun in the boot?"

"Depends. Did you bring the booze?"

K.C. shot Abel a spiky grin and withdrew two rectangular slips from his pocket. One of those slips was a hundred-dollar bill. The other was an I.D. card with his name and face on it.

"Yeah, but that's not booze."

"It'll turn into booze, Clark. Just wait and see. You gotta stop at Liqour Barn for that to happen, though."

"Sure. Just don't spend too long in there-buy whatever'll get us drunk the fastest and get out."

K.C. fell into a thoughtful silence, pondering this. The car groaned over the gritty black tarmac. Gravel crunched and cracked underneath the worn tyres as Abel pulled into the Liqour Barn parking lot.

"You want anything in particular?" his buyer asked. He swung himself out of the car and stood there staring at Abel. The glare of a nearby streetlight glinted off his choppy blond hair.

Abel hesitated as he thought it over. "No thanks," he decided. "You just grab a whole load of cheap stuff and meet me just outside the door, okay? I'm gonna turn this thing around."

K.C. nodded and loped across to the store entrance.

He came back out ballasted by cases of watery beer, the kind college kids drink when they're lonely. Abel shook his head and opened his door for him.

"Holy shit, K.C."

"I know," K.C. glowed, his eyes dancing like sparks in his head. "We're gonna fucking die tonight."

——

They had to drive through town to get to Oak Ridge, but that was no big deal. Fertility Springs was not, for the most part, a bad town to drive through. The grey pavements had never been brightened by blood or bullet casings, and the glass in the shop windows was always intact. At least, that's how it was in Downtown. Like many unpleasant things, Uptown was another story.