all the high school hangout spots like a motorized Roman triumph. McDonald’s, the mall parking lot, the recently closed electroplating factory, and finally the sandbar by the river. But as the hours wore on, the liquor and grass began culling the weaker members of the tribe. Some left to find girlfriends for late-night rendezvous, while others simply passed out in cars at various places around the city. By midnight, we were down to a core squad of six guys in two vehicles.
Adam and I were riding in Joey Burrell’s beat-up Nissan 280ZX 2+2. In the other car were Paul Matheson and his two cousins from Jackson—prize assholes and stars at Capital Prep. Like Paul, they were blond and annoyingly handsome (our cheerleaders loved them, the bastards). Having won the Quad A division of the state track meet, the Matheson cousins had driven their sparkling new IROC-Z Camaro the forty miles from Jackson to Bienville to “teach Cousin Paul how to celebrate.”
Paul Matheson didn’t need any lessons in that department. It was Paul who’d supplied the weed after we got back from Jackson, and I was pretty sure he’d been smoking it all year long, between seventh period and afternoon practices. Though only a year older than I, Paul was talented enough to outplay most of us stoned. His father, Max, had been a football legend at Bienville’s public high school in 1969, before he went to Vietnam, and the son had inherited enough of those genes to return punts and kickoffs for the varsity and to take people’s heads off as a strong safety on the starting defense. Paul had also been sixth man on the championship basketball team that defeated Capital Prep—something that drove his cousins crazy.
Despite the age difference between us, Paul and I had been friends on and off since we were young boys. Back then, his house wasn’t far from mine; we swam at the same pool, and by the time I was seven we were playing on the same sports teams. After going through Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts together, we found ourselves playing for St. Mark’s junior high. In that sense, we were comrades in arms and close to brothers. The main thing that separated us was money.
Paul’s father was rich. His uncle in Jackson was richer still. Paul’s family owned the lumber mill in town and also a wood treatment plant by the river. The uncle was a big contractor who did a lot of state jobs. My father earned a decent living publishing the Bienville Watchman, but our family cars were ten years old, and we lived in a tract house built in 1958. We had no second home on Lake Comeaux, no killer stereo or projection TV, and no kids’ phone line or swimming pool in the backyard as we hit our teenage years.
As a boy, I never noticed this wealth gap. Paul shared what he had, and money didn’t seem important. Besides, his dad had won some big medals for bravery in Vietnam, and not many people begrudge a veteran success when he survives combat. But having Max Matheson for an old man was a heavy cross to bear for Paul. The war hero was a hard-ass, despite being known to party on occasion, and he pressured his son to win every contest in which he participated.
From the way Paul’s cousins acted the night of the track meet, I figured the uncle must be an even bigger bastard than Max. They’d come to Bienville still angry about losing Overall State to us back in February. By the time they found us, they were toasted on some combination of grass and speed. Not that we were sober. Even Adam—who always imbibed in moderation—had skipped the Miller ponies in favor of Jack Daniel’s. The hours before midnight passed amicably enough, but after twelve, things started to get contentious. The Matheson cousins had been digging at us all night, and we had been paying them back with interest. But around two a.m., things drifted out of control.
We were parked at the foot of the big electrical tower near the port, close enough to the river to get hit by barge searchlights as they passed. The Matheson boys weren’t rocket scientists, but they had the animal cleverness of natural predators. Dooley was seventeen, his brother Trey a year older. Dooley had the mean streak. All night they’d been calling us faggots, losers, and cheaters—because if we hadn’t cheated, how else could Capital Prep have