Dave put his arm around my shoulder and rambled on about how he’d been all bummed out too when he was graduating from high school. He said that a lot of guys bawl their eyes out at this point in their lives and that I shouldn’t be afraid to love my father.

“I love him,” I said again and the more I repeated it the easier it got. “God, I love him.”

PART Eight

A mosquito dove past my ear like an ambitious fighter pilot. I listened as he looped around the darkened room and whizzed by my head again. He’d been attacking me for two hours now. Most of my fellow seniors were out celebrating their final night at Cornwall but I’d chosen to stay in. Wasn’t in much of a partying mood but I felt pretty good, almost as if I’d earned something. I thought about the dumbfounded Italian guy who had once asked me how long I’d been carrying my dog’s corpse. At the time I’d considered the question foolish and the man an idiot. Now I remembered him with a kind of respect. I’d been carrying one corpse or another ever since. But it was over, I was cleaning out the closet.

Final exams had been a breeze, but they generally are when you’re just aiming to pass. Once again the skeeter blew past my ear. I heard a door squeak open and slam shut. Got up to see what was going on. Jonathan Wheeler was kneeling on his floor painting a message on a large linen spread before him. Candle stood behind him wearing inside-out, skid-marked underwear and a U.S. Air Force T-shirt. Skid-marked is an understatement. These things looked as if an eighteen-wheeler had locked its brakes on them at a buck ten. When Candle turned around I noticed the printing on the back of his T-shirt: “Death from Above.”

It was June 6, 1975, and while the rest of the nation was commemorating the 7th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, Jonathan Wheeler was kicking off his own Sirhan Sirhan celebration.

“Dunphy,” Wheeler said, “you should see my new crack. Kneesocks, braided ponytail, only a sophomore, cute as a button. Know what I fucked her with the first night?”

“Jesus,” I said and I turned around.

My hand was on the doorknob when we heard a thump out in the hallway. Candle cut the lights and I hid in the closet.

“Why do you hate me?” Wheeler whispered.

I didn’t answer.

“You blame me for S.D. getting gang-banged?”

“No,” I said. “You’re just the one who pumped her up and then dumped her.”

“What are you talking about? Your buddy Jack was the daddy, asshole. I never even touched her.”

“No way,” I said.

“Of course. He was fucking her the first week of school while you were at home planting your dead friend.”