A Midsummer Tale ~ Third Place
Christina Hoag

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Richie coasted down the hill in his Plymouth Duster and turned into the shopping center. Three cars were parked in the middle of the empty lot. Their drivers lolled against the fenders with ankles crossed, smoking and drinking from bottles in paper bags like they owned the asphalt. Richie knew them from school, who didn’t? Mark Ambriano, Lenny Wosniewski and Butch O’Brien. They’d just graduated.

Richie cranked up Lynyrd Skynyrd on the eight-track, checked the windows were rolled down and pressed on the gas. The engine rumbled. As he sped past the three guys, he glanced in the rearview mirror. They didn’t even turn their heads. Douchebags.

He spotted a parking slot under a light. He braked and spun the chrome steering wheel with the heel of his hand, so the Duster stopped within the white lines. He got out and stood for a second to admire the wax job he had spent the afternoon on. The car gleamed. He had bought it three months ago with his dad pitching in a thousand bucks for his seventeenth birthday. So it wasn’t Mark’s 357 Mach II Mustang, Butch’s black-and-gold Trans Am or Lenny’s metallic blue Challenger with a white double-stripe, but that was why he had signed up to take auto shop as his senior year elective instead of art. He’d make his ’72 Duster into something those assholes would have to look at. Deck it out with a spoiler, jack up the rear suspension, give it a cool paint job with the money from his job at the car wash.

Twirling his keys on his forefinger, he sauntered over to the blacked-out storefront of Palace Games. It was just after nine and summer’s darkness was settling into a Friday night thick with invitation. The manager was ushering the last customers out of the supermarket and locking up. The arcade and a dusty fabric store were the only other tenants in the strip mall. The rest of the windows bore “for lease” signs and whitewash curls.

Richie swung open the door to Palace Games and was greeted by a blast of cigarette smoke and the driving bass line of Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever.” He fished a couple quarters out of his pocket and jingled them in his palm as he roved. Clicks from the air hockey tables and the tinny bells of pinball filled the air. Kids crowded around the new Space Invader game machines. Keith wasn’t around. He was probably at the Dairy Queen waiting for Charlene to get off work. He’d been asking her out for two weeks and she kept turning him down. Richie had told him to give up already, but as Keith pointed out, what did Richie know? He’d never had a girlfriend.

Richie knew all the kids from school, by sight if not by name, except for two girls wearing tight Sasson jeans playing Star Trek pinball. He was good at pinball. That and welding sculptures out of scrap metal with his dad’s oxyacetylene torch. Everybody thought his stuff was weird, except for Mr. Sampson, the art teacher, who was always encouraging him to enter contests. He had won a couple. But the prizes didn’t mean much to his father, a welder at the Ford plant. His dad would stand with his hands jug-handled on his hips, head cocked, as he considered his son’s contorted shapes. “Good seams,” he’d say finally.

“But what do you think of the form, Dad, the expression?” Richie would ask. That was how Mr. Sampson talked. He’d say things like the “expression of the piece,” “the evocation of emotion,” “the resonance.”

“Well, it’s a piece of fine cutting, just like I taught you,” his dad would answer. Then he’d take Richie to the salvage yard and they’d pick out bits of metal for Richie’s next welding “practice.” At least, Richie got to keep making his sculptures, but he wished that just once his dad would see the creation, not the welding.

Neither girl looked up when Richie sidled up to the machine and shook out a Marlboro from the soft pack, plucking it out with his lips. He shot a look at them over the lighter’s flame. The one playing had wings of brown hair hanging in front of her face as she leaned over the machine in concentration. She was as tall as Richie. The other was baby-faced, shorter, with a dirty blonde Dorothy Hamill haircut.

The ball rolled into the chute. “Game over” flashed on the board.

“Agh!” the one playing threw up her hands.

“You did good. You scored a lot more than last time,” the short girl said.

“I did shitty.”

“That’s not bad,” Richie said. They noticed him for the first time. “Mind if I take a shot?” They moved aside and he slid a quarter into the slot. As he hoped, they stayed to watch. The silver ball popped into the launching chute. With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he pulled back the spring-loaded lever as far as it would go and released it with a twanging thud.

The ball zinged from pillar to pillar as bells pinged. Aware he was on show, Richie put extra effort into swiveling his slim hips to the rhythm of the flipper button he pressed and thrust his pelvis forward when he hit both at once. Points mounted to an impressive total at game’s end.

“You’re really good at this!” the short girl said.

“I’ve been playing a long time.”

“Oh, that’s why,” the slim one said.

“I haven’t seen you ’round here before. What school do you go to?”

“OLPH,” the short one said.

The local parochial school.

“How ’bout you?” the slim one asked.

“Indian Hills.” Richie jerked his thumb in the general direction of the high school.

“What grade are you in?” the slim one said.

“Senior. Going to be.”

“We’re sophomores,” the short one said.

“So, ah, what are you girls doing tonight?” Richie looked at Spock’s ears on the machine’s backboard and felt his own ears get hot. “Want to go for a ride?”

The girls looked at each other. The slim one leaned into the short one’s ear, then straightened.

“We have to be back by eleven-thirty,” the short one said.

“Sure, no problem. I’m Richie, by the way.”

“Lisa,” the slim one said.

“Vicky,” the short one said.

They walked out into the parking lot. Richie looked for the muscle-car trio, but they’d gone. Figured. Just when he had girls to show off.

“Our parents think we’re at a birthday party tonight,” Vicky said. “They’d never let us come down here by ourselves.”

“So, you’re playing hooky.” Richie got in and leaned over to pull up the passenger side lock. He was glad when Vicky slid in first on the bench seat, then Lisa.

“Can you cop us some beers?” Lisa was combing back her feathered hair.

His hand accidentally-on-purpose brushed Vicky’s knee as he put the car into drive. “Er, sure.”

Richie drove down Oakland Avenue, past the car wash where he worked, to the DQ next to the bowling alley. He hoped Keith was there. He’d know what to do. He pulled into the DQ lot. Keith’s Chevy Nova was parked three slots down from the entrance, as usual. He exhaled.

“Shit!” Lisa slid down in the seat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going by the bowling alley? My dad bowls every Friday night. Get down, Vicky. He knows I’m with you.”

She grabbed Vicky’s arm and tugged her down. “Don’t worry, Lis. He’s probably inside.”

“I’ll be right back,” Richie said.

Keith was sitting with a soda and playing drums with straws on the table. Charlene was wiping down the counter.

“Hey, man,” Keith said.

“Hey. Any luck?” Richie gestured his head toward Charlene.

“She’s coming round.”

That’s what he said every time.

Richie slid into the booth and leaned over the table. “I got two chicks in my car ready to party.”

Keith stopped drumming and looked out the window. “I don’t see anyone.”

“They’re on the floor in the front. They’re scared their old man might come out of the bowling alley and see them.”

Keith grunted and resumed drumming. Richie slapped his hand down on the straws. “They want to get some beers. What the hell do I do?”

Keith removed Richie’s hand and resumed drumming. “Go hang out at the back door of Oakland Liquors and ask someone to buy you a six-pack.”

“I never did that before.”

Keith gave him an oh-come-on look. “Man, you are such a dork.”

“Come with. Charlene’s not going with you and you know it.”

Keith looked at her bobbing ponytail as she wiped down the ice cream machine. “What do they look like?”

“Real foxes.”

“I have first dibs.”

“Done.”

Keith slipped out of the booth. “Later, Charlene.”

She looked up surprised. “Hey wait, Keith…” The door closed on her voice.

They laughed. “‘Bout time you showed her, dork,” Richie said.

*

Richie struck out twice with asking people to buy him a six-pack. It wasn’t as easy as Keith had made it out to be. One man gave him a dirty look. Another told him he should know better than to drink at his age. Richie lit a cigarette and inhaled. Smoking scratched his throat, but he liked hanging out with the cool crowd in the smoking courtyard at school, so he kept doing it.

Laughter rippled from the car. He glanced over.

“Hey, what’s taking you?” Keith yelled.

Richie shot him the middle finger.

A Harley pulled in. A guy and a girl dismounted, pulling off their helmets. Bingo.

Seven minutes later, Richie trotted back to the car with a paper bag containing two six-packs of Lowenbrau. Much to his annoyance, Keith was sitting in the backseat with Vicky. Lisa was riding shotgun.

“Party time!” Richie sang.

Keith grabbed the bag and handed the girls beers as Richie put the car in gear. “Let’s go to the rock,” Keith said.

“At night?” Richie said.

“It’s summer, man,” Keith said. “Live a little.”

“We’ve never been to the rock, have we, Lisa?”

“No, let’s go,” Vicky said.

“Don’t worry, man,” Keith said. “The trail’s easy. Here, have a Lowie. Loosen up.”

“I have a flashlight in the trunk, I think,” Richie said.

Lisa shuffled through his eight-tracks in the glove compartment and held one up. “I love this album.” She slid the tape in. The Allman Brothers’ guitar riffs twanged as they passed the “Welcome to Oakland, New Jersey” sign and wound up the mountain.

When “Ramblin’ Man” kicked in, Richie belted out the lyrics while Keith air-drummed. The girls laughed and joined in the chorus. Richie chucked his empty out the window as they rounded a bend. Keith did the same and then plucked the bottles out of the girls’ hands and tossed them.

“I didn’t finish that one yet,” Vicky protested.

“Spit and foam at the bottom. Have another one.” Keith stuck his head out the window and wolf-howled. Richie howled even louder. Keith was right. There was something about a summer night that stretched the possibility of everything, made life large.

Richie pulled into the entrance to the Ramapo Mountain Reserve, parked and got out. He was pretty sure his father had a flashlight in his emergency kit. He opened the trunk and found it. He switched it on and shone the light around the lot. The beam caught three parked cars, cars he knew.

“Let’s gooo,” Keith called.

They followed the cone of light along the path. The rock lay a mile up on the mountain ridge. It was a huge slab of stone that sloped down to a lake surrounded by pine trees. The trail narrowed as it grew steeper and stonier. The girls panted and stumbled. The boys grabbed their hands and pulled them along.

“This is really far,” Lisa said.

“It’s kind of creepy,” Vicky said.

“Almost there,” Keith puffed.

The climb finally gave way to a “Swimming Prohibited” sign. They stood at the water’s pebbled edge catching their breath. The moonlight glistened on the lake’s black surface surrounded by the dark silhouettes of trees. The air was still and summer-sticky. Richie’s spine prickled. A whoop of laughter from down the shoreline invaded the silence. Richie remembered the cars.

“Party up ahead. Let’s go.” Keith started down the narrow track along the shore. Richie and the girls fell in behind him.

A few minutes later, they climbed onto the rock. Richie looked around. No one. Then a grating rumble sounded. He shone the flashlight up the slope. Three beer bottles rolled down, then a voice called out of the darkness.

“Hey, move. You’re in the way!”

The group shifted to the side. Mark Ambriano, Lenny Wosniewski and Butch O’Brien came into sight as they raced after the speeding bottles, which hit a stone at the bottom with clinks.

“Mine won!” Mark said.

“Who’re you fooling, man, it was mine,” Lenny said.

Butch leapt down to the stone where the bottles had rolled to a rest and smashed them against the rock. Only Keith laughed.

“Butch, quit that shit!” Mark said.

Lenny walked over to them. “You guys wanna party?”

“You got the brewskis, we got the weed,” Mark said.

“It’s decent stuff,” Lenny added. “Sinse.”

Richie, Keith and the girls followed the three guys up the slope. Lenny, Butch and Mark sat next to the girls, leaving Richie and Keith sitting next to each other across from them in the circle. Keith looked at Richie, twisting his mouth as if to say, “This is bullshit.” Richie shrugged.

Lenny expertly rolled a joint from a baggie of pot. A bottle of Jack Daniels came from somewhere and was passed around. Richie felt like he was floating above the scene. These guys would never give him a second look at school. Now he was partying and bullshitting with them like they were buddies.

After a couple joints, shots and a beer, Richie’s head was fuzzing. Voices blurred. His closed his eyes and saw the star-speckled sky on his eyelids. He opened them and wondered vaguely how he was going to get back to the car. He looked around. Keith was lying on his back. Butch was rolling another joint. Mark’s arm had disappeared around Vicky’s back and she was leaning into his shoulder. Lenny and Lisa were making out. The night that had seemed in the palm of Richie’s hand had slipped from his grasp. He elbowed Keith.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah.”

They stood. Richie’s head swam. He grabbed the flashlight and lurched down to the lake. He splashed water on his face. The cold wetness broke his stupor. Keith stumbled behind him. He threw some water on his face and shook his head.

“That reefer was wicked.” Keith’s voice sounded like it was in slow motion.

They started down the trail. The moon had brightened, silvering the lake. Richie switched on the flashlight, took a few steps then heard a retching noise. He turned and shone the flashlight. Keith leaned on a tree trunk and and wiped his mouth with his T-shirt.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, now that I barfed,” Keith croaked. He walked to the lakeside and splashed more water on his face.

The flashlight was faint. “Not much battery left,” Richie said. “If we hurry, we might make it before it goes dead.”

A high-pitched scream pierced the air. Richie and Keith froze.

“Hold her!” Butch.

“Leave her alone!” Lisa.

Another scream.

“Shut the fuck up!” Lenny.

A girl’s sobs. “Leave us alone!” Lisa.

“Shut your fucking mouth! It’s your turn next.” Butch. A slap. A cry. “I told you, shut it.”

Keith and Richie looked at each other. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Keith said in a loud whisper.

“What do we do?” Richie whispered.

“Fuck!”

“We got to go back.”

“Are you shitting me?” Keith snatched the flashlight. “They’ll think we’re part of it.” He set off down the trail. Richie was paralyzed. “Richie, they’re just goofing off. Come on.”

He hesitated, then followed Keith. They skidded down the first steep stretch, then Richie paused and listened. Crickets chorused, nothing else.

Keith turned. “What the fuck are you doing? Come on, man. We don’t want those guys on our asses.”

“I don’t know.”

“Those girls were going along with them. You saw.”

Richie couldn’t move.

“Listen, if you want to be a dork, that’s your fucking problem.” Keith moved off at a fast clip.

The flashlight’s beam bobbed into the darkness. Keith was probably right. The girls were looking for trouble. He’d go back and find them all laughing. He’d look like a real douchebag. Richie jogged to catch up with Keith, but a lump formed in the pit of his stomach.

*

The rest of the weekend, Richie worked his hours at the car wash then slumped on the couch in the basement watching All in the Family reruns.

“You feeling all right, Richie?” his mom called down the stairs.

“I’m fine, Ma.”

As the laugh track played on the TV, Richie played the night over in his mind. The screams. The crying. “It’s your turn next.” Something bad happened. He should have gone back. He should have told Keith it was a lousy idea to go to the rock in the first place. Why did he ever listen to him?

Maybe it was just the pot that spooked him. Those guys would never have done anything to the girls, would they? They were just roughhousing, got carried away, like Keith said. And those girls really did ask for it. They wanted to go to the rock. They were making out with those guys. He wasn’t responsible for them. Or was he? He drove them there.

Richie felt a weight on his chest that made it hard to breathe. He’d experienced that once before, when he was ten and playing in the sea at Wildwood, letting the waves dance him around like a piece of driftwood. It was fun for a while, then the waves got rough, crashing over him and clawing him under. As soon as he got his head above surface, another wave slammed against his body, submerging him. He kept swallowing saltwater and his throat was burning. He thrashed and flailed but he couldn’t get his head above the surface. Then suddenly he was breathing air. He couldn’t remember how he got out, but he was able to swim to shallower water and walked back to his towel and collapsed.

*

Monday was a good day at the car wash. Richie made fifteen bucks in tips. Feeling lighter than he had all weekend, he strode into the kitchen after work and opened the fridge.

“Get out of there. Dinner’ll be ready soon.” His mother spoke without looking up from the newspaper she was reading at the table.

He grabbed the milk carton, poured himself a glass and gulped.

“There was a gang rape of some teenage girls up at Ramapo. They’re looking for the suspects.” His mother turned the page. “I always told you kids got up to no good up there.”

Richie spluttered on the milk.

His mother looked up in alarm. “You okay?”

He wiped his mouth with his forearm. “Went down the wrong way.”

He rushed into his bedroom and flopped on the bed, burying his face in the pillow. Gang rape.

He was responsible for two girls getting raped by three guys. Was he an accessory? An accomplice? A witness?

Richie didn’t feel like eating, but he didn’t want questions from his parents, so he shoveled down his dinner and retreated to the basement. Laverne and Shirley was starting when he heard the doorbell. A minute later, his mother opened the basement door. “Richie, some boys are here to see you. Mark, Butch and Lenny.”

His stomach clenched. “I’m not home, Ma.”

“I already told them you are. They said it’s important.”

Richie hauled himself up the stairs and out to the front porch, carefully closing the door behind him. His parents were in the living room, playing along with Jeopardy.

Mark stood on the porch. “Hey Richie, got a sec?” Mark cocked his head toward the driveway, where Butch and Lenny hovered. They walked over. Richie shoved his hands in his pockets.

“So, ah, you know the other night, well, nothing really happened, you know,” Mark said.

“You didn’t see nothing anyway, right.” The way Lenny phrased it, it wasn’t a question.

“We’re just saying because those girls were real wasted, and they might be going around saying stuff, but they were real easy, real teases, you know. Nothing happened like they might be going around saying. And you were there, and your buddy Keith, so they might have got all us guys mixed up. It was real dark, you know what I mean?” Mark arched his eyebrows.

Yeah, Richie knew. He was trapped. He wanted to knock that smart-ass look off Mark’s face with a right hook like his dad had taught him with the punching bag slung up on the tree in the backyard. He slapped at a mosquito on his arm instead.

Butch took out a hunting knife and cleaned his fingernails with the blade tip. The steel glinted. His old man was the police chief. Mark’s dad was a lawyer. And Lenny, rumor had it that his father was in prison for killing someone. Richie’s chest felt tight. He cleared his throat. “I really don’t remember much of that night. I was pretty shitfaced.”

“That’s what we kinda figured. We just wanted to make sure,” Mark said. “So now we got that all straightened out, we’re cool, man, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Richie’s skin squeezed his bones.

“Let me know if you want some help with that Duster,” Mark said. “We could do a real cool paint job on her, a racing stripe or flames on the fenders even.”

“Yeah, sure,” Richie mumbled.

Keith. He waited until they left, then he got in the Duster and cruised down to the Dairy Queen, keeping right on the speed limit although he wanted to go faster. As he walked to the door, Richie could see Keith through the window, scarfing down ice cream at a booth. Charlene was serving cones at the walk-up window.

“How’s it going?” Keith’s spoon clattered into the empty banana split dish as Richie sat across from him. Keith pulled a napkin from the dispenser and swiped it across his mouth.

Keith leaned over the table. “Charlene’s going out with me after work. Told ya I’d get her. Take it from me, girls like the chase.” He grinned. “I took a bottle of Southern Comfort from the liquor cabinet. The old lady’ll never miss it.”

“Cool.” Richie grabbed the salt shaker and spun it. “So Butch and them just came by my house.”

Keith lowered his voice. “I told them I didn’t see nothing, hear nothing, I was wasted off my ass. I don’t even remember how I got home. That’s what happened.”

“But we heard them, the girls screaming and all that.”

“Richie, we left. We didn’t hear jack. End of fucking story. You say any different, we’re going to land in a major pile of shit, capisce?”

Richie tipped the shaker and poured the salt onto the table. There was something soothing about watching it flow into a perfect white mound.

“Would you quit that? Charlene’s going to think I did it.” Keith glanced over his shoulder and brushed the salt on the floor under the table. He grabbed the shaker out of Richie’s hand and set it aside. “Besides, no one’ll ever believe us over them. One of them’s old man is the police chief.”

“It was your fucking idea to go to the rock.”

“Don’t dump this shit on me.” Keith jabbed his finger at Richie. “You were the one who begged me to go with you. Those girls were sluts. They were looking for trouble and got what they deserved.”

“Keith, I’m closing out the register. I’ll be done in five,” Charlene called. “Can you bring over your dish?”

“Sure.” Keith stood. “Think about it, Richie. You’ll see I’m right.” He grabbed the dish and walked to the counter.

Richie drove home and opened the garage door. He fished a wrench out of the toolbox and unscrewed the Duster’s rear bumper. He put on the welding mask and gloves and fired up the oxyacetylene torch. He twisted and melted the bumper into a contorted figure until his arms ached.

The next night after dinner, Richie went into the garage and dismantled the Duster’s front bumper and grill and started welding. His mother peered through the half-open door as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. Her brows knitted. A few minutes later, the door flung open. His father marched in, a rolled up newspaper in his hand.

“Son, what in God’s name are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”

Richie focused on his seam.

His dad whacked the newspaper hard on the tool bench. “Richie, you pay attention to me when I’m talking to you! Turn that torch off!”

Richie didn’t stop.

His father took two steps and yanked off the spigots on the oxygen and acetylene tanks. The torch’s flame fizzled. “Get in the house!”

Richie, still wearing his welding mask, got up and turned on the tanks.

His father’s face looked like all his blood vessels had burst.

“Richard. Get. In. The. House!” His dad’s arm shot out toward the door. Richie lifted the torch. Its 3,000-degree blue flame spit directly at his father, who reeled back and crashed into the garbage cans.

“I never should’ve given you the money for that car. You’re goddamn spoiled!” He hauled himself up and went into the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, he almost killed me with that torch! I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” His dad’s voice floated into the garage.

“It must be girl trouble,” his mother said.

The door closed. Richie kept welding.

The next night, Richie came home from the car wash, took his dinner plate into the garage and started working on the hub caps. His father entered and sat on a milk crate.

“Son, you can tell your old man. You got some girl knocked up?”

Anger rose in Richie’s throat. He wasn’t going around knocking up girls. He ignored the question.

“Jesus, Richie, this is crazy.” His father combed his hair with his fingers. Then he got up and retreated to the kitchen.

“It’s that goddamn art teacher,” he heard his dad say. “I’m going to fix this once and for all.”

The next night, Richie went into the garage and flicked on the light. There was an empty space where his welding equipment and sculpture had been. He got into the Duster and banged his forehead against the steering wheel. He slid the key into the ignition and backed out the driveway. He roamed downtown for a while, feeling his rage descend into a dark but stable mood, then decided to head to Burger King for a shake.

“Hey Richie!” Mark, Butch and Lenny were sitting at a table with trays of burgers and fries. Shit. He considered walking out, but he’d look like a wimp. He nodded at them and ordered a chocolate shake, then added a Whopper and extra-large fries that he didn’t want. Maybe they’d be gone by the time his order was ready. But they weren’t.

“Richie, over here!” Mark waved at him. He twisted toward them, pulled by the string of obligation, and sat at their table. “We’re going to borrow a swimming pool, if you want to come.” The others chuckled. “The Politanos are away so we have a little swimming party there at night. The house is set back. No one sees us.”

“Sure.” Richie heard himself say. His chest constricted again, the waves buffeted him, closing over his head. He couldn’t breathe.

“Let’s pick up Veronica on the way,” Lenny said.

“We know what that’s about,” Butch said.

“You betcha!” Lenny wiggled his eyebrows.

They all laughed.

Richie tried to smile, to go along, but he couldn’t. He knew his father would kill him for sneaking into someone’s yard. Did he really want to turn into another Mark, Butch or Lenny? Did he really want to join their club? Then memory struck him like a lightning bolt. It was his father who had plucked him out of the ocean all those years ago. Dad had deposited him in shallower water where he could safely swim to shore.

He stood up. “I just remembered. I gotta do something.” He walked off.

“Hey, you want your food?” Butch called.

“You can have it,” Richie said.

He drove home and entered the living room. His father was in his recliner, watching Wheel of Fortune, a folded newspaper on the table beside him.

“Dad, you gotta minute?”

Christina Hoag is the author of novels Girl on the Brink and Skin of Tattoos (Onward Press). Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous literary reviews including Lunch Ticket, Shooter, the Santa Barbara Literary Journal and the San Antonio Review and have won several prizes. She is a former journalist for the Miami Herald and Associated Press and Latin America foreign correspondent. Email: choag24[at]gmail.com