Page 12 of String Boys

“Kelly!” Seth was so surprised he lowered his instrument. The school had given him a better one at the beginning of the year, and he’d been persuaded to return his first instrument to his grade school, where Mrs. Sheridan could find another young man or woman who would be moved by music.

“He’s mean,” Kelly insisted. “And my stupid brother is mean when he’s done playing—I mean,hanging out—with him. And he smells like cigarettes after school. Mom and Dad got his report card and almost suspendedeverybodybecause they were so mad. And Matty said it was all your fault because you left. Who was he supposed to be friends with? And if he did his homework, Castor Durant and his stupid friends would beat him up anyway.”

Seth stared. “Matty never said….” But Matty had smelled like cigarettes—Seth remembered that. He thought it was just junior high. Seth had avoided the bathrooms that smelled like that, but sometimes you couldn’t. He didn’t realize Matty had started to act like those boys, the ones who went to the school because it was closest and not because it was special, the ones who didn’t care about their grades.

Kelly looked down. “He slugged me in the face last week. I told Mom I fell down playing.”

Seth had to put the violin down because he had trouble breathing.

“Nobody hits you,” he said, remembering those terrible days when his father had hithim.“Nobody.” Kelly frowned, and Seth saw the fading bruise now. He’d assumed a playground accident. Kelly had always been the kid who jumped off the swings when they were at their highest point, or did cherry drops off the bars when he wasn’t supposed to.

“You can’t say anything,” Kelly whispered. “Seth, he’ll—”

Seth had put the violin away. “He’ll what? Hit you again?”

He strode out of his apartment, Kelly dogging his heals. “Seth, no—”

“Nobody hurts you,” he muttered, pounding up the stairs.

“Seth, he’ll only make it worse—”

Seth stopped then, remembering how he hadn’t said a word to anybody either. Matty and Kelly had known about the bruises, but unless someone knocked on the door when the hitting was happening, nobody else had known. “That’s a lie they tell,” he said, hoping his father would forgive him. “That it will only get worse if you tell the world. Your dad told my dad it had to stop. Your dad won’t let him hurt you again.”

Seth had great faith in Kelly and Matty’s dad.

“Seth—”

But Seth was already up the stairs, bursting into the Cruz’s living room like he and Kelly often did, without warning.

It seemed he was a bit late.

Matty was standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the carpet while his mother, holding baby Agnes on her hip, and his father, gesturing with his baseball hat like it was a weapon, were telling Matty he had made some bad choices.

“These grades?” his mother snapped. “These grades are what you bring home to us? Are you high—” She stopped. “Areyou high?”

Matty stared some more holes in the carpet. “No.”

“Have you beengettinghigh?”

He bit his lip, and that was enough.

His father was front and center, dominating his son with his size until Matty backed up against the front room window. “What have you taken,” he growled.

“Just some weed….”

The sound that came out of Xavier Cruz’s mouth right then didn’t sound human, but apparently Matty spoke just fine.

“And some booze,” he muttered.

“Who?” Xavier grated. “Who are you doing this with? You don’t do this shit alone—not in the seventh grade. Who?”

Seth looked at Kelly, who had his hand clapped over his mouth, and jumped into the breach.

“Castor Durant,” he said, glaring at Matty. “He hit his little brother in the face too.”

For a moment, he was afraid Xavier would hit Matty, but Xavier was a good man, the best. Kelly had told him that he hadn’t been the kind of drunk that hit. Instead, he’d laughed and cried too much.

It was Linda who stepped in, and even though her son was almost as tall as she was in the seventh grade, he didn’t try to dodge her hand as she reached out and grabbed his ear.