Page 13 of The Rivers Edge

He didn’t slow down, not even a little. “I am.”

“But what if it’s important? It wouldn’t just show up for no reason at all.”

“I don’t know about that. Random shit happens all the time. Houses burn down. People win the lottery. Why, just the other day, I poured myself a bowl of cereal and a petrified mouse fell out. If that’s not random, what is?”

Not random at all, considering the drug dens he hung around. “What if it holds a way out?”

Shane glanced at me. “That’s an interesting way of putting it…a wayout. And not a way home.”

Too smart for his own damn good. “Fine. No skin off my nose.” Denial was more than big enough for both of us to get our feet wet.

Shane said, “It was probably just some random old piece of junk that washed up any…how.”

We’d been walking fast, but only for five minutes or so. Nowhere near long enough to make a big loop. But there in front of us, beside a slimy black piling, sticking out from the silty gray muck of the shore, was the top of a fancy cruet.

Shane stopped so suddenly, I actually lurched ahead of him a few steps before I backpedaled to his side. His eyes were fixed on the bottle—and the look on his pale face was nothing short of haunted. Protection might be my line of business, but never because I cared one way or the other about Carmine Rossi. I’d just done what I had to do to keep my own skin intact. Shane, though—that stricken look—made me want to work someone over ’till my knuckles bled.

But with no one there to punch, the only thing for me to take out my aggression on was the cruet.

While Shane stared out blankly at the water, I reached down and yanked the bottle from the ground. The riverbank clung to it way harder than it should have, but I gave it a good, solid wrench. It broke free with a wet sucking sound, like the river had drawn a sickly breath.

The glass itself was cold. I wound up to pitch the bottle out into the fog and let the river take it—the same river that tore Surfer Boy to shreds. But Shane caught my arm and said, “Wait.”

All my muscles quivered with the anticipation of hurling that thing as far out as it would fly. But, instead, I did like Shane asked, and I waited.

“I appreciate the gesture, Gino…but don’t bother.” Shane slid his hand down my arm and gently pried the cruet from my grasp. “No matter how we try to ditch the thing, I suspect it’s just gonna turn back up again. Might as well get it over with and face the hymnal music.”

He pulled out the cut glass stopper and a curl of smoke was released. I thought it was frost, at first, what with the cold bottle…but the smell of incense was impossible to mistake for anything else. It was the smell of Ash Wednesday, of a congregation dreading their return to dust, of a hasty black cross smudged across my forehead with the thumb of a senile priest, while Ma desperately prayed I would turn out different than I actually ended up.

Shane slipped a finger into the neck of the bottle and teased out a rolled up sheet of paper. His hands were trembling. The bottle slipped from his grasp and landed on the riverbank with a muted thump. He swayed as if he might pass out, and the paper rattled just a bit too loud as he turned it around and around, searching for the edge.

“Here.” I pulled it from his unresisting grasp. “I got you.”

Shane closed his eyes and nodded.

I unrolled the paper, and I read out loud.

“Dear Lord, I pray for the immortal soul of Shane Redmond and implore you to welcome him into your loving embrace. Shane was so bright—he had so much promise—but was always such a troubled boy.”

“Father Dunn,” Shane murmured. “I’d recognize his stilted, backhanded compliments anywhere.”

And there was more. I read, “Try as I might to mentor and guide him, to give him the comfort and affection his parents withheld, his impure thoughts and promiscuous nature were always bound to get the better of him.”

What in the hell kind of prayer was that supposed to be?

“In your divine mercy, please forgive any sins he may have committed—he had so many issues—and reunite him with his sister, his grandparents, and Your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Shane wrapped his arms around himself and stared out into the mist hanging over the water. He was quiet so long, I started to wonder if he’d even heard me. But eventually, he said, “For the record, Gino, I was twelve. I’d never even so much as jerked off, let alone been turned on by someone.”

“What are you saying—this priestdidthings to you?”

“What else could I possibly mean?” He rolled his eyes. “I’d hardly be such a walking, talking cliché if I’d made it through my altar boy duties unscathed—”

“Stop it—stop it right now.” Without thinking, I made a fist and crushed the note. When I flexed my fingers, it crumbled like a brittle communion wafer and disappeared before it hit the ground. I shook off the remaining scraps as I closed the distance between Shane and me and forced him into my arms. He was all stiffness and angles, with a humorless smirk on his face. He refused to meet my eyes.

“You know where that priest is now?” I demanded.

“Actually, no. A couple of years later, he was quietly moved to another congregation. Not by any efforts on my parents’ part, mind you. I told my mother about what he’d been doing—and she decided I’d made it all up. Forattention. Claimed the internet had given me stupid ideas, and moved my desktop into the family room so I couldn’t so much as open the dictionary without someone watching me.”

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