Free Land of the Blind by Jess Walter Page B

other in the face. He stopped the fight and informed us that we were pusses and that if we didn’t fight each other, we’d have to move up in weight class and “get your pussy ass fucked up by me.” So we ventured out slowly, our gloved hands in front of us, jabbing each other in the nose or the chin or the brow. Then I caught Everson with a shot to the jaw and he got mad and nailed me in the nose, and the rest was just a mess of bleary eyes and blood in my mouth and swinging fists, until I remember looking down on Everson on the ground and Pete pulled me away, whooping and shouting that I had scored the upset.
    That night we went with Pete to steal bicycles from the other end of the neighborhood. We rode the bikes over the rabbit hills, then put them inPete’s garage, where he stayed up all night, taking them apart and putting them back together with parts from other bikes, trying to make them unrecognizable, although when kids saw Pete riding their stolen bikes they never said anything anyway.
    In the morning, Pete gave Everson and me each a stolen bike and had us sit a block apart, facing each other. He gave us each a crutch from when he’d broken his leg.
    “Now ride at each other,” he said.
    “What?”
    “You know, like them old guys used to do.” Pete struggled for the word. “What’s that called? You know, guys on horses, with them long spears?”
    “Jousting?” Everson asked, and was immediately sorry.
    We passed twice without touching, just holding our crutches out in front of us, but Pete was becoming impatient, and the third time Everson caught me in the shoulder with the rubber stopper on the bottom of his crutch. The impact spun me sideways and my front tire slammed into his back tire and we were both thrown onto our knees and elbows, instantly skinned, our bikes collapsed in a heap of spokes and gears.
    “Motherfuck,” Pete said reverentially. The next day we shoplifted cigarettes and sunflower seeds and looked at dirty magazines. On and on the summer seemed destined to go, an ever-descending spiral. We drank bottles of sweet red wine that Pete liberated from a neighbor and took pills that Pete said were speed, although, again, the only thing I remember feeling was slightly sick and edgy. We broke into a garage and stole gasoline, which we proceeded to sniff until we were dizzy and sick. We used the rest of the gas to start fires, and burned things that Pete had stolen: purses and clothes and toys. We engaged in all of this behavior with no sense of fun or purpose—other than fighting off Pete Decker’s boredom, but that was enough. We feared Pete’s boredom far more than we feared being caught stealing or drunk.
    “I’m bored,” Pete said one day, after he’d been out of juvie for about two weeks. “Let’s do something.” We sat in the draw between the rabbit hills, in the thick weeds, smoking one of Everson’s joints. He and I exchanged a worried glance, but Pete just stood up and wandered away and Everson and I sighed with relief.
    The next morning, something felt different in my house. I wanderedaround the house, scratching my head, trying to put my finger on it. My parents didn’t seem to notice it, nor did my sisters or my brother. They went about their business, Dad getting ready for work at the cement plant, pulling on his coveralls and packing his aluminum lunch pail, Mom folding clothes, my brother and sisters eating their cereal in front of the TV. Dad couldn’t find his wallet and he stormed around a little bit, but finally he just headed off for work without it, kissing my mom and ruffling my hair, like I was still a little kid. Then it hit me. I ran back into my bedroom. Something was different in my room. The top of my dresser was clean. The top of my dresser where I kept my baseball cards . I looked behind the dresser, knowing that four hundred baseball cards were not going to fall back there. I checked the drawers and under my bed, and asked Ben if he’d taken