The Orchid Eater by Marc Laidlaw Page B

himself.
    With the
older boys, it didn’t matter. They’d fuck a gopher hole if they got horny
enough. Fine. But the younger ones were a stew of hormones, more desperate than
the older kids. All their juices were flowing, but they’d had no time to learn
control or discrimination. They were nothing but jailbait with balls. And there
were a few like that hanging around Sal’s place, taking tai chi lessons,
selling his bad paintings, even slapping them out assembly-line fashion on the
floor of Sal’s garage. Hawk wasn’t sure how much more than lessons was
involved.
    So the jury
was still out on the matter of Sal. It might never come in. But better that
than snap judgments. Better that than to make up his mind too quickly—and
incorrectly—one way or the other.
    The jeep
lurched to a stop in front of Edgar’s house. Edgar was waiting on the curb. He
hopped in back and said breathlessly, “They’re over there!”
    “What kind
of mess have you got me into, Edgar?”
    “Sal did it,
not me.”
    “All by
himself? He’s chasing you around for no reason, saying he’s gonna kick your ass
just because you showed up in one of his wet dreams?”
    Stoner
chortled and poked Dusty in the shoulder.
    “I swear to
God, Hawk, you know what kind of a dangerous faggot he is.”
    “All I got
is your word for that. I sure don’t see no army. Where do we go?”
    Edgar
pointed out one dark house among many. It was silent, unremarkable, the carport
empty. Hawk didn’t pull into it, but set the emergency brake on the hill and
left the engine idling.
    “Watch the
car,” he told the men, then followed Edgar to the door.
    “Where’s the
trouble?”
    Edgar looked
over the edge of the porch, into the dark space between the houses. “They must
have gone back to Sal’s.”
    “I noticed.
Can we go in or what? My patience is very short tonight. I had something
important going on.”
    Edgar turned
to him with a pleading look. “We needed you, Hawk. We needed you. You always say if we
get in trouble, if we really need you, we can call. You always say that, man.”
    “Yeah,
yeah.” Hawk shoved him toward the door, half fooling now. This wasn’t quite
what he’d expected. He felt like an idiot for bringing the shotgun, but what
the hell. It didn’t hurt to put on a show for the boys every once in a while.
That was the stuff legends were made of. They’d grow up talking about this
night for the rest of their lives, weaving him into their futures, telling
their children about him. And maybe they would learn something from it, pass a
useful lesson down through the years.
    He raised
his fist and pounded on the door. “Okay, assholes!” he shouted. “Open up in
there!”
    He heard
excited whispering beyond the door, then a voice he didn’t know: “They’re back,
you guys! And they have my key. They can get in without—”
    Kurtis Tyre
said, “Open the door, you fuckin’ pussy. That’s Hawk out there.”
    The door
opened and Hawk saw a cluster of boys standing around in the dark.
    “What is
this,” he said, stepping in, “a slumber party?”
    He
recognized Mad-Dog Murphy by his chattering laugh. He wasn’t sure about the
others. It was too dark.
    “We didn’t
want them to know we were in here,” Craig Frost said.
    “That’s all
over now. You can stop hiding.”
    Someone
turned on a light. Hawk saw blank walls, unfurnished rooms.
    “Jesus,
what’d you do, break into an empty house?”
    “It’s his
place,” Kurtis said, jerking his thumb toward a kid Hawk had never seen before.
A smallish boy with horn-rimmed glasses was standing next to Edgar’s new pal,
the ironical Scott Gillette.
    “They took
my key,” the kid with glasses said, as if Hawk was his big brother or his dad
or something. “It got stuck in the lock and they grabbed it.”
    “You
practically gave it to them,” Kurtis said.
    “Mike let us
hide here, Hawk,” said Edgar.
    “I’ve got to
get it back or my mom will kill me! This is a new house! I