The Fourth Stall - Chris Rylander [67]
Vince opened his mouth and shook his head. It looked like he was trying to say something, but he just made a small croaking noise.
“Are you happy now?” I asked.
Vince shook his head.
We looked at each other for a moment. “Now, where is it?” I threw open his dresser drawer, fighting tears. “I can’t believe you’d throw away the Cubs game just like that. Or did you ever really even like the Cubs? Are you just a phony, like all the others? You pretend to be poor and you pretend to like the Cubs, and all for what? You stab your best friend in the back while hiding behind jokes. You’re not even that funny. But you are a coward. And a good liar, I’ll give you that.”
“Get out,” Vince said. He said it quietly and calmly but in a way that I’d never heard Vince talk before. His voice was tight like a wild dog on a short leash. “Get out, right now,” he repeated.
“Not without my money,” I said.
“Get out or I’ll make you,” he said, and shoved me in the chest so hard that I crashed into his bedroom wall and made the whole trailer wobble slightly. His face was blank as if emotion had never really existed on it at all. And it probably hadn’t. No one with real feelings, with an actual heart, could do what he had done to me.
I realized that all the time I’d been there in his room that afternoon, he’d barely even made an attempt to deny any of my accusations. He really had betrayed me. I felt tears burn at my eyes, but not from my sore head where it had slammed into his wall. That barely hurt at all compared to what else I was feeling. In fact, the lump on my head felt like a day at the carnival complete with cotton candy and funnel cakes just then.
I got up and left, making sure to nudge Vince extra hard with my shoulder on my way out. His mom gave me a concerned look as I walked past her in the kitchen. I heard her start to ask me something, but it was too late. I was already out the door and on my bike before she got past the second word.
The next morning I revealed the news to Joe, Fred, and the bullies. I told them that Vince was the rat. That he had stolen the Emergency and Game Funds. Which meant I was out of money and officially closing up my business.
“I’m sorry I can’t pay you what I owe,” I said to them solemnly and sincerely. “I’ve got nothing left.”
They reacted surprisingly well. Especially Great White.
They said stuff like, “It’s okay, Mac,” and “I’m sorry it went down like this.”
“Yeah, Mac, this all really stinks. Are you going to be okay?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Now, you guys go on and do whatever you got to do. I’m going to stay here awhile and try to get some of my stuff cleaned up,” I said.
They all said good-bye and left. Except for Fred.
“Is it okay if I stay, Mac?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want,” I said.
“Thanks. Mac?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at his face.
His eyes were brimming with tears that should have been mirroring my own, but ever since yesterday I hadn’t cried a drop. I’d have thought finding out that my best friend betrayed me in the worst way imaginable would have made me cry like a girl on Valentine’s Day, but it was as if I was too broken inside to cry anymore. I just felt nothing. Even thinking of the Cubs making the World Series for the first time in almost seventy years felt meaningless, like a cracked, dead leaf lying on the pavement.
“I’m real sorry about all this. It’s all my fault.” Fred sobbed.
I assured him that it had been bound to happen sooner or later, with Staples moving in on my school. I apologized to him for failing to protect him and take down Staples like I’d said I was going to. Eventually he stopped crying. I told Fred he was welcome to hang out here for the next few days if he still wanted to. I went into my office and paged through my Books. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I was mostly just thinking about the good old days when