Page 57 of Middle of the Night

I assume that lack of detail will be evident in the news item immediately preceding it, from June of the same year. I give it a half-hearted scan, uninterested in a listing of places where local students have been assigned to do mandatory volunteer service. But then I see that theHawthorne Institute was one of them—a revelation that brings a spike of adrenaline.

I’m hit with another when I read the very familiar names of the two students sent there.

Johnny Chen and Ragesh Patel.

While I’m not surprised the two of them did volunteer work—it was required, after all—I’m shocked that a place as secretive as the Hawthorne Institute took part in the program. Only once, it seems, because a search for mentions of it in similar listings from other years comes up empty.

That strikes me as odd.

Veryodd.

A private institute doing unknown research let two teenage boys volunteer there. Then it apparently never happened again. Making it weirder is the fact that Johnny died of a drug overdose the next summer. Even though one likely has nothing to do with the other, it does make me wonder what kind of work Johnny and Ragesh did at the Hawthorne Institute—and how much Ragesh really knows about the place.

Whatever it is, it’s more than he’s let on, both now and thirty years ago.

Friday, July 15, 1994

12:33 p.m.

Ragesh sits on a log in the woods behind Johnny Chen’s house, wondering if today will be the day he finally smokes his first joint. He’s had it for more than a year, kept in an Altoids tin stuffed in a back corner of his underwear drawer. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s entered this forest, come to the same downed tree where he and Johnny used to sit together, and pulled out the joint, prepared to smoke and toke. Yet he never gets the nerve to actually do it. Johnny gave him the joint, after he switched to stronger stuff a few months before he died, and Ragesh is afraid that once it’s smoked, it’ll be official.

His best friend is gone.

And never coming back.

Ragesh knows that already. He’s not a fucking idiot. But he also knows that if he keeps the joint tucked in that Altoids tin, in some ways it’ll feel like Johnny never left.

He jabs the joint between his lips, the twist of paper now brittle from the dozen or so prior times he’s done it, and thinks about what to do next. He knows what Johnny’s answer would be.Smoke ’em if you got ’em, bro, he’d say in that exhausted way Ragesh knew camefrom being the older son of strict parents who demanded perfection. Straight A’s, star student, extracurriculars out the ass so you’d look well-rounded enough to get into Harvard or Yale. (Not Princeton, though. When you live a stone’s throw from an Ivy, attending it feels like going to your local community college.)

Ragesh doesn’t face such pressure. His older sister, Rani, took care of all that for him. Miss Perfect is currently at Oxford, enjoying the first year of her Rhodes Scholarship. Since his parents have zero expectations for him, Ragesh can spend the summer doing nothing, like he always does. It’s why he’s never felt the urge to get messed up the way Johnny did. A couple of stolen beers are all he needs to have a good time. Not Johnny, though. He always seemed lost in himself, haunted by something. For him it wasn’t just about having a good time. It was about escape.

“You’re seriously not curious what it feels like?” he once asked as the two of them sat on this very log, Ragesh sipping a lukewarm Zima and Johnny smoking weed. Before Ragesh could answer, Johnny said, “I wanna show you.”

“I’m good.”

“Please,” Johnny said. “Just a taste.”

Relenting, Ragesh waited to be passed the joint. “Open your mouth,” Johnny told him before inhaling. He did, letting out a grunt of surprise when Johnny leaned in and placed his parted lips against Ragesh’s. Once the smoke passed from one mouth to the other, Johnny remained there, kissing him.

Panic rang through Ragesh’s brain, slicing through his Zima buzz and whatever high the pot was providing. He didn’t know what to do because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Was Johnny kissing him for real? Was it a joke?

Ragesh didn’t freak out until Johnny reached up and started running a hand through his buzz cut. That’s when he knew his friend wasn’t just dicking around. He was truly, seriously kissing him.

“What the fuck, dude?” Ragesh yelped as he leapt from the log and stood a good ten paces away.

The look in Johnny’s eyes went from dazed to devastated in half a second. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “It’s the weed.”

Ragesh told him it was cool. That he shouldn’t worry about it. But things weren’t the same after that, even though both of them pretended they were. Six months later, Johnny was dead, and the only thing Ragesh has left of him is this stupid joint, which probably isn’t even any good anymore.

If Johnny were there right now, Ragesh would tell him that he hadn’t meant to freak out, that it was okay if he was into guys or whatever, that he even kind of liked the kiss, even though he’s pretty sure he’snotinto guys. Most of all, Ragesh would ask Johnny if the overdose was intentional and if it had anything to do with his reaction that day.

But Johnny isn’t there, and all Ragesh can do is whisper “Smoke ’em if you got ’em, bro” before pulling out his lighter and flicking the flame to life.

Just as he’s about to place the fire to the joint’s tip, Ragesh hears voices echoing through the trees. Three of them, from the sound of it. Ones he knows well. Sure enough, Johnny’s brother, Russ, appears in the distance, ahead of the Marsh kid and behind the older of the Barringer nerds.

Ragesh pockets the joint and the lighter. Not because he’s worried the boys will narc on him. They wouldn’t dare. But he also doesn’t want to remind Russ that his big brother was a pothead before moving on to the stuff that would soon kill him.

By the time the boys spot him, Ragesh is standing on the log, knowing how tall it makes him appear. Towering over them, he enjoys the nervous way they look when he says, “What are you losers up to?”

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