Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet Page A

Amy’s immaculate work boots lying among the overflowing ashtrays and crumpled clothes that always covered the floor next to Jack’s bed while above them, his lean body moved over her compact round one and she moaned softly—
    My stomach lurched. I said, “Well, get Kevin to bring you up sometime,” knowing that he would never do it. Just then, the marching band, which had been standing idly in a rough circle a few feet away, broke into something strident and loud, and a pack of cheerleaders tumbled and handsprung their way into the clearing, and I learned that the Tigers—or maybe it was the Titans, I couldn’t quite make it out—were going to go, fight, win, killing the Lions and going all the way, that’s right, all the way. The cheerleaders barked out questions like drill sergeants. Kevin and his friends seemed to know all the correct responses.
    “Assembly-line idiot factories,” Raeburn said in my head, “producing assembly-line idiots capable of assembly-line thought. You two are better than that.”
    Someone in a tiger suit bounced into the midst of the cheerleaders, eliciting a massive burst of enthusiasm from the crowd. Around me, a sea of entranced faces eagerly watched each sharp, martial movement. Fists punched the air. Feet stomped loudly in time with the music. Kevin put his arm around me, pulling me close. I tried to smile.
    There was a commotion on the side of the clearing closest to the parking lot. The crowd parted and an old car, rusted and covered in primer, was pushed into the center of the crowd by a group of huge boys wearing football jerseys over faded jeans or sweatpants. More boys sat on top of the car, waving their arms in the air and shouting “Yeah!” and “Oh, yeah!” and occasionally “Fuck yeah!”
    “What’s going on?” I asked Kevin.
    “The car smash. They do it every year.”
    Work Boots—Amy—leaned over and said, “It’s mostly an excuse for the seniors to show off what big, tough men they are.”
    “My dad says whoever donates the car gets a tax writeoff,” T-shirt said.
    As if by magic, a sledgehammer appeared in the hands of each of the riding, shouting boys. Someone blew a whistle and they started to smash, blows raining down on the already dead car. Glass shattered. Metal buckled. It was like bumper cars on the autobahn, like a war, like someone being killed, and still there were fenders to be hammered flat and bumpers to be ripped off and held aloft like trophies. Something shiny flew through the air. It was one of the side mirrors, thrown clear of the carnage.
    I tapped Kevin on the shoulder. “Doesn’t anyone ever get hurt doing this?”
    He smirked. “A few years ago some kid got hit in the kidneys. If they’re stupid enough to do it they deserve what they get.”
    The band played and the fire roared, and somewhere out of reach of its flickering red light, my brother sat in a room with my father and they drank brandy by the light of a smaller, more private flame.
     
    The pep rally ended when the car was reduced to naked, twisted metal. The cheerleaders closed things up with a few more rounds of “Go! Fight! Win!” but the kids were already leaving by then, trickling off in ones and twos toward the parking lot. Kevin’s friends wanted to go to a coffee shop in Janesville, so we all piled into the red truck, which belonged to T-shirt—or, more likely, to his father. Kevin sat in the back and Amy and I squeezed together in the cab. Amy was sitting in the middle and she and T-shirt were laughing about something, some story about Kevin that I think was being told for my benefit.
    My face ached from smiling and I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with my arms. They seemed too long and I moved them restlessly from the open window, which was too high, to the armrest, which was too low, to my lap, which felt too timid. The air outside, which made my hair lash at my face as it blew in the open window, smelled of smoke and cold weather and carried