Mystic River Read Free

most times.
    But as he followed Jimmy’s gaze and picked out the cars that he knew held keys, Sean felt a dull ache grow behind his eyes, and in the hard sunlight bouncing off the trunks and hoods, he could feel the weight of the street, its homes, the entire Point and its expectations for him. He was not a kid who stole cars. He was a kid who’d go to college someday, make something of himself that was bigger and better than a foreman or a truck loader. That was the plan, and Sean believed that plans worked out if you were careful, if you were cautious. It was like sitting through a movie, no matter howboring or confusing, until the end. Because at the end, sometimes things were explained or the ending itself was cool enough that you felt like sitting through all the boring stuff had been worth it.
    He almost said this to Jimmy, but Jimmy was already moving up the street, looking in car windows, Dave running alongside him.
    “How about this one?” Jimmy put his hand on Mr. Carlton’s Bel Air, and his voice was loud in the dry breeze.
    “Hey, Jimmy?” Sean walked toward him. “Maybe some other time. Right?”
    Jimmy’s face went all saggy and narrow. “What do you mean? We’ll do it. It’ll be fun. Fucking cool. Remember?”
    “Fucking cool,” Dave said.
    “We can’t even see over the dashboard.”
    “Phone books.” Jimmy smiled in the sunlight. “We’ll get ’em from your house.”
    “Phone books,” Dave said. “Yeah!”
    Sean held out his arms. “No. Come on.”
    Jimmy’s smile died. He looked at Sean’s arms as if he wanted to cut them off at the elbows. “Why won’t you just do something for fun. Huh?” He tugged on the handle of the Bel Air, but it was locked. For a second, Jimmy’s cheeks jiggled and his lower lip trembled, and then he looked in Sean’s face with a wild loneliness that Sean pitied.
    Dave looked at Jimmy and then at Sean. His arm shot out awkwardly and hit Sean’s shoulder. “Yeah, how come you don’t want to do fun things?”
    Sean couldn’t believe Dave had just hit him. Dave.
    He punched Dave in the chest, and Dave sat down.
    Jimmy pushed Sean. “What the hell you doing?”
    “He hit me,” Sean said.
    “He didn’t hit you,” Jimmy said.
    Sean’s eyes widened in disbelief and Jimmy’s mimicked them.
    “He hit me.”
    “He hit me,” Jimmy said in a girl’s voice, and pushed Sean again. “He’s my fucking friend.”
    “So am I,” Sean said.
    “So am I,” Jimmy said. “So am I, so am I, so am I.”
    Dave Boyle stood up and laughed.
    Sean said, “Cut it out.”
    “Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out.” Jimmy pushed Sean again, the heels of his hands digging into Sean’s ribs. “Make me. You wanna make me?”
    “You wanna make him?” And now Dave shoved Sean.
    Sean had no idea how this had happened. He couldn’t even remember what had made Jimmy mad anymore or why Dave had been stupid enough to hit him in the first place. One second they were standing by the car. Now they were in the middle of the street and Jimmy was pushing him, his face screwed up and stunted, his eyes black and small, Dave starting to join in.
    “Come on. Make me.”
    “I don’t—”
    Another shove. “Come on, little girl.”
    “Jimmy, can we just—?”
    “No, we can’t. You a little pussy, Sean? Huh?”
    He went to shove him again but stopped, and that wild (and tired, Sean could see that, too, suddenly) aloneness pummeled his features as he looked past Sean at something coming up the street.
    It was a dark brown car, square and long like the kind police detectives drove, a Plymouth or something, and its bumper stopped by their legs and the two cops looked out through the windshield at them, their faces watery in the reflected trees that swam across the glass.
    Sean felt a sudden lurch in the morning, a shifting in the softness of it.
    The driver got out. He looked like a cop—blond crew cut, red face, white shirt, black-and-gold nylon tie, the heft of his gut