style="font-size:15px;"> Rusch stopped walking and turned to face Chuck.
Omsted said, “Don’t even think about it.”
Rusch started walking again, still facing Chuck. When Carner stopped at the corner, Rusch bumped into him.
Carner said “What?” and brushed his shoulder where Rusch had bumped him.
Omsted said, “Keep walking.”
Rusch said, “Omsted’s afraid I’m gonna spill the beans to the squirt.”
Omsted said, “You ain’t nuts” and crossed Huron Street with Carner.
Chuck tried to walk past Rusch, but Rusch caught him by the shoulder and said, “You wanna know what we’re doing tonight?”
“I don’t care what you’re doing.”
Omsted hollered across the street for Rusch to knock it off.
Rusch put his face close to Chuck’s.
Carner and Omsted came back across Huron.
Rusch said, “We’re going to Legion Park tonight. Omsted’s brother is gonna kill Putzie Van Vonderan.”
Omsted said, “Shit.”
Rusch straightened up, smiling.
Chuck said, “So?”
Rusch’s mouth fell open.
Carner hooted in a high, girlish voice.
Chuck said, “I don’t care if he kills the whole family.”
Omsted started laughing; then Carner, too. Rusch shoved Chuck backwards, called him a stupid little shit, and crossed Huron Street in front of a truck. The truck blew its horn, but Rusch gave it the finger and kept walking. Omsted sat down on a fire hydrant, laughing and holding his stomach.
After a while, Omsted said, “Squirt, you’re all right” and the three of them continued walking. They caught up with Rusch at Ontario.
Ontario Street was where Legion Park started. It stretched five blocks up the hill and ended in a picnic grove at the top. The grove was full of oak trees, their yellow leaves on the ground. On the flat part below, elms had dropped red leaves onto the street. A tennis court took up the corner by Ontario, and behind it were a swing set and a shack that gave out bean bags in the summer. There was a mound of dead leaves against the shack where kids had made a leaf fort.
Across the street, on the corner, was the house where Evelyn Schmidt lived. It was a crumbling white house with a front hallway shaped like a church steeple, crooked steps down to the sidewalk, and a bare apple tree in the front yard.
When the boys reached Rusch he was standing with his arms folded, staring at the house. Carner bumped him in the back of the knees and said, “What you looking for? Ghosts?”
Rusch said, “You think she’s still in there?”
Omsted said, “She’s dying. They took her to the hospital.”
“She ain’t going to the hospital. She wants to die at home,” Chuck said.
Rusch said, “How would you know?”
Chuck said, “My ma’s friends with her.”
Rusch and Carner and Omsted all looked at him.
“She was.”
Rusch said, “I hope she ain’t touched her lately.”
“I didn’t say she touched her. I said they were friends.”
Rusch said, “I told you he was an idiot” and started down the block past Evelyn’s house. Omsted and Carner followed, laughing. When Chuck tried to follow, Rusch turned around and shoved him. “Stay away from us, cancer boy.”
Chuck fell on the sidewalk. He got up, wiping his hands on his jacket. “I don’t have cancer.”
Omsted told Rusch to knock it off.
A door banged in the backyard of a house a few doors down. A fat kid in an old coat threw a brown bag in a garbage can and ran back inside.
Rusch pointed through the yards and said, “There’s your old house, asshole. Why don’t you go back there and give Putzie’s brother cancer?”
Then a door creaked and someone was coming out of Evelyn’s house.
Carner screamed “Shit!” and ran into the middle of the road.
Rusch ran after him, waving his arms over his head, screaming, “It’s Evelyn’s ghost!”
Carner screamed again, like he meant it this time, and took off up the hill with Rusch behind him, still waving his arms. Omsted winked at Chuck and trotted off after the other two, picking up speed the closer he got to them.
The Schmidts’ front door banged shut, and David’s sister, Connie, was standing on the porch holding a jack-o’-lantern in her arms. She grinned at Chuck over the top of the jack-o’-lantern, but Chuck turned his head as though someone in the park was calling him and took off running towards the shack.
Halfway to the shack he cut up the hill, kicking up leaves as he ran into the picnic grove. He cut back to the road and came out of the park where the other guys should have been by now, but they were still a block below him, walking backwards, staring down the hill at Evelyn’s house.
As Chuck came up behind them, Carner was saying, “He’s probably in her house eating cookies.”
Omsted said, “He ain’t nuts.”
Rusch said, “Let’s clear out before he finds us again.”
“I already found you,” Chuck said.
They all jumped. Carner yelled, “Jesus Christ!” and wheeled around.
Rusch said, “She see you?”
“I think she chased me. I cut through the park.”
Carner said, “She’s dying. How could she chase you?”
“She ain’t dead yet.”
They walked up the hill, Carner ahead of the others. When a flock of geese flew over the park Carner stopped to watch them. Rusch collared him and spun him around to face Omsted and Chuck. Carner tried to shrug him off.
“Carner almost pissed his pants. I’ve never seen him so scared.”
“I was scared because you were screaming.”
Rusch messed up Carner’s hair and let go of him. Carner yelled “goddamnit” and walked out into the road to comb his hair.
“Get a crew cut,” Rusch said.
The
