people had attended to toast his years of service. He and his wife—he had a wife, a fact that shook me up more than a little—moved to Florida and were gone before the Gatlins ever came to town. His portion of my revenge, the tombstone on the desk, was the only part incorporated into Bloughton record. What had happened to Woody and Celeste had been obscured by authorities, either because the victims were minors or because the acts were simply too gruesome, and survived now only as wild and specious legend.
Woody Trask did not return to Bloughton High. If I had hoped to end his reign as the school’s alpha dog, I had succeeded. That fall, his family sent him to live with an aunt and uncle in a neighboring state and I never heard of him again. In optimistic hours I imagined his senior year as prosperous, his natural athletic abilities purchasing him instant acceptance. But in my darker moments I found that scenario unlikely. I pictured him crying himself awake at all hours of the night, wetting the bed, phobic about touching female skin. What was more, I was sure that he knew I was the guilty party, not Harnett, no matter what the authorities had assured him. There had been a certain smell in the weight room that night, and he must have recognized it as the odor he himself had rinsed from me in the locker room shower. I couldn’t expect Woody to vanish entirely. He was too strong for that, and payback was in his blood. If one day he decided to have his revenge, I would have to accept it. The Trasks could become my Gatlins, and even that threat had its comforts; it was something you could prepare for and stand guard against; it was forever, life everlasting, religion itself.
Celeste Carpenter remained in Bloughton after graduation. For a couple of years I read her name in newspaper recaps of local concerts, but over time those mentions stopped. By the fourth year I heard that she was living in another town, married and pregnant with her second kid and doing community theater. Every night for years I prayed for her forgiveness and to be worthy of it if it ever came. I did not know if she remained traumatized by what I had done to her or if she wore it as a badge, but regardless I knew she was the biggest star her new town had ever seen and that she surely captured the affections and envy of all who laid eyes on her. At night I continued to dream about touching her perfect skin, but even in dreams the sensation was weak. With three false fingers I could barely feel a thing, and no cheek that perfect should be scraped by weathered wood.
My grocery coworkers didn’t really remember Foley, but they looked into it and assured me that he was gone. For a while I imagined him suffering a fate similar to Woody’s, exiled to some strange town and left to suffer the repercussions of having known me. But then one of our butchers told me that Foley’s family had relocated to Chicago. My heart soared. I saw again his fingers splayed in devil horns, saw him swishing his hair to the nihilistic noise of Vorvolakas and insisting that he wanted oblivion when in fact he wanted everything but. The city held its own dangers, but somehow I knew Foley would make it. He’d find a Boris. Probably a boyfriend, too. I missed him but knew he was better off on his own. Unlike my parents, Foley and I had made no formal pact that I had to avoid Chicago, but I told myself I would. It was Foley’s now. He deserved it.
Ted, of course, is still Ted. When we get together over dinner he apologizes for our failure to see Faust at the Met but promises that he’ll make it happen soon—it’s an exciting prospect, as New York was never my territory. And when we run into each other at the store or on the street, he grumbles about the no-accounts filling up his band and how this will be the year that Ted’s Army officially goes down in battle. Then he’ll relent and his eyes will sparkle just a little. “There is this one girl,” he’ll say, or, “This punk walked in today, never picked up a sax, and started wailing like Impulse-era Coltrane.” He has also begun telling me