You Can't Fight the Devil

Saturday, November 11
Andrew
Freshman, Criminal Justice
Lake City, South Carolina

I knew this was how the night was gonna end. I knew it even before she rolled her eyes and walked away, even before Mike Langone wiped the blood from his mouth as we followed the train tracks back to Bathesda. I knew it this evening, in Mike Cruz’s room, as soon as I seen that smile; as soon as I seen those eyes. Shit, even at breakfast Mike Cruz’s eyes were red. I mean, obviously they were brown, but this morning, in the Bathesda cafeteria breakfast line, I seen them spark an angry red. I seen them spark hate like I ain’t never seen before, just for a second, but I swear to God I seen it. The three of us were in line together: me and Mike Cruz and Shane, but I was the only one who seen it. I ain’t sure, but I think Allison Patrick, in her tight Chi Omega sweatshirt, was the flint, and Brian Rabb, holding hands with her in the cafeteria line, kind of in front of her but more beside her--he was the steel. Those two together? Shit, man. Might as well been fire.

I've noticed that there’s always been something about love that’s drove Mike Cruz crazy. There’s always been something about happiness that’s made him simmer.  That same look—I saw it for the first time, just for a second, on move-in day when I saw him watch The Fist—you know—his roommate, Andrew Phister? When I saw him watch Andrew Phister kiss his girlfriend goodbye. I was standing in the doorway because me and my dad had just met The Fist and his dad in the lobby and we was helping them carry boxes up, and I guess the box I had was the last box because after I put it down, The Fist looked around, shrugged, said something in her ear, something I didn’t hear, put both his hands on his girlfriend’s hips and kissed her on the cheek, and when he did she started to cry.  It—I don’t know—I thought it was—I don’t know, beautiful, and I smiled, sort of, and he hugged her tighter and she cried harder, and, I don’t know why, embarrassed, I guess, but I couldn’t look down anymore, not in their direction anyway, so at that exact moment I looked over at Cruz, and that boy, he was starin’ right at them. He sort of—his chin went to his chest and his eyeballs rolled to the top of the eyelids so he was kind of glarin, up and over, and I had seen that spark in those eyes for the first time. Boy, I’d seen it. Those eyes—I don’t know. They weren’t looking at The Fist or his girlfriend or even the both of them, but it was like they were looking at that hug, if that makes sense. Sizing it up. Challenging the emotion behind it. Daring it to come his way. Daring the emotion that caused that hug to even try to make it's way into his heart, but almost scared of it, like Dracula to God’s Holy Cross, defying it but maybe bluffing, walking towards it, shoulders back, fangs dripping, so that his enemies didn’t know it was his weakness. Those eyes—I watched them, they were all I could see but they couldn’t see me. They didn’t blink, not once, and I couldn’t look away from them.

Like maybe that kiss had just reminded Cruz of his last kiss back home, but now that I think about it, more likely, there wasn’t a last kiss. Maybe there wasn’t no one to say goodbye to.

Whatever it was, the spark caught this morning and kindled all day long: at breakfast, in Economics, as he bought Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction movie posters at the Russell House poster sale. By dinner them eyes were full-on smoldering, and by the time we got to Jim Bowen’s party the fire had spread to his smile.