I laughed, picturing Ben up on a ladder, trying to juggle a hammer, nails, and a joint, all so he could sneak out at night without falling. I’d crept into his room at a quarter to twelve and told him I wanted to sneak out to see Jason. He just grinned at me and shoved open his window, pointing at the drainpipe a few feet.
“Look down—I even put some footholds on there and painted ’em white so you can’t see them.” He sounded pleased with himself.
I glanced down, my stomach wobbling at the distance beneath me, but eventually focused on the drainpipe and saw that, sure enough, he’d nailed a piece of wood crossways between the pipe and the wall so you’d have somewhere to put your feet as you slid down. I wondered that Father had never noticed, but then realized that he never really went outside the house. He came home from work at seven every night and left at six in the morning, and went golfing most of the day Saturday and Sunday. He’d have no reason to make a circuit of the house or to examine the drainpipe for secret escape routes. My brother was hiding his egress route in plain sight, it seemed.
I slid down a bit further, touched the foothold, and then slid down some more. “Is there another foothold beneath me?” I asked.
“Yeah, I put in two. Should be another a few more feet down.” Ben watched me descend, his hair hanging loose around his face.
I shimmied down until my hands caught the foothold and lowered myself farther, until my feet found another hold. At that point, the ground was only a few feet down, so I jumped free. I happened to glance up at Ben as I did so, and he had his hand out and his mouth open as if to protest. I fell a lot farther than I’d thought I would, and hit the ground with a hard thump, my ankles jarring. I tumbled backward and hit again on my tailbone, cursing under my breath as my ankles and my butt began to throb.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked in a whisper-shout. “I was gonna say, that seems like a lot closer than it really is. You gotta keep climbing down and not let go until your hand’s on the foothold. I almost broke my ankle the first time I climbed down that way.”
I rubbed my tailbone and rotated one ankle and then the other. I’d be sore for a while, but nothing was injured. “I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks, Ben.”
“I don’t want to know where you’re going or what you’re doing. I need some kind of plausible deniability,” he said. He ducked back in his room and then reappeared with a backpack in his hands. “Catch this.”
He dropped it and I caught it in my arms, unzipped the main compartment to find a few old ratty T-shirts wrapped around a fifth of Jack Daniels. I glanced up at him, and he winked at me. “Can’t have much fun without some booze, can you? I didn’t think you and Dorsey would want pot, or I’d give you that.”
“You’re not supposed to encourage us to drink, Benjamin.”
Ben laughed too loud and clapped his hand over his mouth. “God, you are such a goody-goody, Beck. What the f**k’s the point of sneaking out at midnight if you’re not gonna do it right?” I just shook my head, re-zipped the bag and slung it over my shoulder, and had turned to make my way through the side yard when Ben stopped me with a pssst. “I want the rest of whatever you don’t drink, so bring the bag back. And…don’t drink it all. You’ll get sick.”
I rolled my eyes at him, even though he couldn’t see me. “I’m not stupid, Ben. I know better than to drink an entire fifth at once.”
Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Well, maybe some of us aren’t as smart as you. It’s one of those ‘fun at the time but a bitch later’ things.”
I just shook my head. “I’m leaving now, Ben. Bye, and thanks.”
“Plausible deniability starts now. I don’t know you.” I heard his window slide closed with a faint squeak.
I laughed as I ducked under the low-hanging branches of the huge pine trees standing between our house and our neighbors. The grass was wet with dew and the air had a bite of cold to it, making me glad I’d decided to change into jeans and put on a heavier sweater. The sky was clear of clouds and dotted with stars, a thick wedge of white-glowing half-moon rising midway through the silver-studded black. My breath puffed in faint clouds of white as I dodged along the trees and out to the road. I saw Jason’s truck idling with the headlights off, a cloud of exhaust roiling around the back of the truck. The interior light of the cab was on, bathing Jason in a pale yellow glow. I could see the top of his head bent toward his lap, the hedgehog spikes of his blond hair still held in perfect place by the gel he used, his neck thick and tanned by hours in the sun.
He glanced up as I approached the passenger side of the truck, a happy grin spreading across his features. He hopped out of the truck, and I heard the strains of country music turned down low escaping into the night. Hurrying around the front, Jason had the door open for me before I could even touch the door. I stepped up and slid in across the cloth seats, and immediately felt at home. Somehow I had a feeling I’d be spending a lot of time in this truck. I loved it already.
I thought of the first country song he’d played for me, and took inventory of the inside of his cab. The seats were gray cloth, a console in the middle with two black cup holders between my seat and his, a nearly empty bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red in the holder nearest the driver’s side. Scattered across the armrest section of the console were a thick history textbook open to the Civil War section; a notebook filled with a neat, slanted, all-caps scrawl; and a to-go bag of Cheez-Its. On the floor at my feet was a faded maroon Jansport backpack, his green-and-white varsity letter pinned to the outside pocket. Several empty bottles of Mountain Dew and Gatorade were piled up on the floor near the vent at my feet, along with empty packets of beef jerky and sunflower seeds. A zipped-closed CD case sat on the dashboard, wedged against the windshield, fat with discs and faded with age. On the floor between the seats, stuffed between the gearshift and the seat front, was a thick U of M stadium blanket, and balled up on top of that, a black Carhartt hooded sweatshirt, thick, zippered, and clearly much worn. Peeking out from between the sweatshirt and the blanket was a strap of some kind, like for a camera case or some other protective bag.
As Jason stuffed his books in his backpack, I pushed the sweatshirt aside to get a look at what was beneath it. I discovered an expensive-looking backpack-style Nikon camera bag. Jason had the truck in gear and was pulling around in a U-turn to speed onto the main road, flicking on his headlights. I tugged the camera bag free from beneath the sweatshirt and lifted it onto my lap, unzipped it, and gasped at the enormous, professional-grade camera nestled inside.