Nineteen Minutes Read online

  When Joey was seven and his best friend went over the handlebars of his bike and opened a cut over his forehead, it was Joey who passed out. When a medical show was on television, he had to leave the room. Because of this, he'd never gone hunting with his father, although Lewis had promised his boys that as soon as they turned twelve, they were old enough to come out with him and learn how to shoot.

  It seemed as if Peter had been waiting all fall for this weekend. He had been reading up on the rifle his father was going to let him use--a Winchester Model 94 lever action 30-30 that had been his father's, before the purchase of the bolt-action Remington 721 30.06 he used now to hunt deer. Now, at 4:30 in the morning, Peter could barely believe he was holding it in his hands, the safety carefully locked. He crept through the woods behind his father, his breath crystallizing in the air.

  It had snowed last night--which was why the conditions were perfect for deer hunting. They'd been out yesterday to find fresh scrapes--spots on live trees where a buck had rubbed his antlers and returned to scrape over and over, marking its territory. Now it was just a matter of finding the same spot and checking for fresh tracks, to see if the buck had come through yet.

  The world was different when there was no one in it. Peter tried to match his father's footsteps, setting his boot into the print left behind by his father. He pretended he was in the army, on a guerrilla mission. The enemy was right around the corner. At any moment now, he might be surprised into an exchange of fire.

  "Peter," his father hissed over his shoulder. "Keep your rifle pointed up!"

  They approached the ring of trees where they'd seen the rub. Today, the antler scrapes were fresh, the white flesh of the tree and the pale green strip of peeled bark chafed raw. Peter looked down at his feet. There were three sets of tracks--one much larger than the other two.

  "He's already been through here," Peter's father murmured. "He's probably following the does." Deer in rut weren't as smart as usual--they were so focused on the does they were chasing, they forgot to avoid the humans who might be hunting them.

  Peter and his father walked softly through the woods, following tracks toward the swamp. Suddenly, his father stuck out his hand--a signal to stop. Glancing up, Peter could see two does--one older, one a yearling. His father turned, mouthing, Don't move.

  When the buck stepped out from behind the tree, Peter stopped breathing. It was massive, majestic. Its thick neck supported the weight of a six-point rack. Peter's father nodded imperceptibly at the gun. Go ahead.

  Peter fumbled with the rifle, which felt thirty pounds heavier. He lifted it to his shoulder and got the deer in his sights. His pulse was pounding so hard that the gun kept shaking.

  He could hear his father's instructions as if they were being whispered aloud even now: Shoot underneath the front leg, low on the body. If you hit the heart, you'll kill it instantly. If you miss the heart, you'll get the lungs, so it will run for a hundred yards or so and then drop.

  Then the deer turned and looked at him, eyes trained on Peter's face.

  Peter squeezed the trigger, sending the shot wide.

  On purpose.

  The three deer ducked in unison, unsure of where the danger was. Just as Peter wondered whether or not his father had noticed that he wimped out--or simply assumed Peter was a lousy shot--a second shot rang from his father's rifle. The does bolted away; the buck dropped like a stone.

  Peter stood over the deer, watching blood pump from its heart. "I didn't mean to steal your shot," his father said, "but if you'd reloaded, they would have heard you and run."

  "No," Peter said. He could not tear his eyes from the deer. "It's okay." Then he vomited into the scrub brush.

  He could hear his father doing something behind him, but he wouldn't turn around. Instead Peter stared hard at a patch of snow that had already begun to melt. He felt his father approach. Peter could smell the blood on his hands, the disappointment.

  Peter's father reached out, patting his shoulder. "Next time," he sighed.

  *

  Dolores Keating had transferred to the middle school this year in January. She was one of those kids that slipped by unnoticed--not too pretty, not too smart, not a troublemaker. She sat in front of Peter in French class, her ponytail bobbing up and down as she conjugated verbs out loud.

  One day, as Peter was doing his best not to fall asleep to Madame's recitation of the verb avoir, he noticed that Dolores was sitting in the middle of an ink stain. He thought that was pretty funny, given that she was wearing white pants, and then he realized that it wasn't ink at all.

  "Dolores has her period!" he cried out loud, out of sheer shock. In a house full of males--with the exception of his mother, of course--menstruation was one of those great mysteries about women, like how do they put on mascara without poking out their eyes and how can they hook a bra behind themselves, without seeing what they're doing?

  Everyone in the class turned, and Dolores's face went as scarlet as her pants. Madame ushered her into the hall, suggesting she go to the nurse. On the seat in front of Peter was a small red puddle of blood. Madame called the custodian, but by then, the class was out of control--whispers raging like a brush fire about how much blood there was, how Dolores was now one of the girls that everyone knew had her period.

  "Keating's bleeding," Peter said to the kid sitting next to him, whose eyes lit up.

  "Keating's bleeding," the boy repeated, and the chant went around the room. Keating's bleeding. Keating's bleeding. Across the room, Peter caught Josie's eye--Josie, who'd started to wear makeup lately. She was singing along with the rest of them.

  Belonging felt like helium; Peter felt himself swell inside. He'd been the one to start this; by drawing a line around Dolores, he'd become part of the inner circle.

  At lunch that day, he was sitting with Josie when Drew Girard and Matt Royston came over with their trays. "We heard that you saw it happen," Drew said, and they sat down so that Peter could tell them the details. He began embellishing--a teaspoon of blood became a cup; the stain on her white pants grew from a modest spot to a Rorschach blot of enormous proportion. They called over their friends--some who were kids on Peter's soccer team, yet hadn't spoken to him all year. "Tell them, too, it's hilarious," Matt said, and he smiled at Peter as if Peter were one of them.

  Dolores stayed out of school. Peter knew that it wouldn't have made any difference if she was gone for a month or more--the memories of sixth graders were steel traps, and for the rest of her high school career, Dolores would always be remembered as the girl who got her period in French class and bled all over the seat.

  The morning that she came back, she stepped off the bus and was immediately flanked by Drew and Matt. "For a woman," they said, drawing out the words, "you sure don't have any boobs." She pushed away from them, and Peter didn't see her again until French class.

  Someone--he really didn't know who--had come up with a plan. Madame was always late to class; she had to come from the other end of the school. So before the bell rang, everyone would walk up to Dolores's desk and hand her a tampon they'd been given by Courtney Ignatio, who'd pilfered a box from her mother.

  Drew was first. As he set the tampon on her desk he said, "I think you might have dropped this." Six tampons later, the bell still hadn't rung, and Madame wasn't in the room yet. Peter walked up, holding the wrapped tube in his fist, ready to drop it--and noticed Dolores was crying.

  It wasn't loud, and it was barely even visible. But as Peter reached out with the tampon, he suddenly realized that this was what it looked like from the other side, when he was being put through hell.

  Peter crushed the tampon in his fist. "Stop," he said softly, and then he turned around to the next three students waiting in line to humiliate Dolores. "Just stop already."

  "What's your problem, homo?" Drew asked.

  "It's not funny anymore."

  Maybe it was never funny. It was just that it hadn't been him, and that was good enough.

  Th