The Book of Joe

worth of the good stuff last night, and you didn’t have to wait for some moron to risk life and limb for you to get it.”
    “Which begs an interesting question,” I said. “Who went over?”
    Carly shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know.”
    Nobody did. The buzz around school was simply that someone had gone over the falls the night before, and those boys that had been present were proudly embellishing tales of the sexual harvest they’d reaped in the face of this major event. Details were not yet available as to the identity of the daredevil or the outcome of his alleged plunge into the Bush River.
    If news travels fast in small towns, it spreads at light speed in small-town high schools. We were all in our respective homerooms by the time Mouse arrived late to school, practically bursting with the news of Sammy’s suicide, but somehow the information managed to permeate the very walls of our classrooms, carried like deer ticks through a network of hall monitors, latecomers, and students returning from bathroom breaks. “It’s just a rumor,” Carly whispered to me, placing her hand on my arm as I sat trembling in my seat. But I thought of the way Sammy had stopped by to see me that night, how strangely formal his good-bye had been, and I knew better.
    Lyncroft’s voice came over the PA system, as usual too loud and brimming with spit, announcing an immediate assembly in the auditorium. Everyone grabbed their books and bags and filed into the rapidly filling hallway, speaking in hushed tones as they went. I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead and I knew that Sammy was dead. I also knew that there was no way I would be able to sit in a crowded auditorium and listen to our drunk of a principal confirm it for me. Carly had gotten a few steps ahead of me down the hall, and suddenly the effort of telling her that I was cutting out seemed too much for me, so I just took a quick left turn and walked purposefully toward the exit. I’d long since learned that teachers were far less likely to question you if you moved with authority.
    I sat in my father’s car in the parking lot, rocking back and forth and pounding on his steering wheel, screaming out a steady string of curses until my throat was raw. After a while I started the car and drove it toward Sammy’s house. It was a warm, cloudless day, and as I drove through downtown Bush Falls, the utter normalcy of the streets began to over-ride the insanity in my head, working to convince me that I was mistaken, that someone had simply spread a nasty rumor. It could very well have been that the assembly had been called over another matter altogether. With every passing block I became increasingly confident that Sammy was just cutting and that I would find him hanging out in his bedroom, probably brooding, but certainly alive. I would tell him about the crazy rumor and he’d grin and say, “They wish,” and I’d tell him that I was taking the day off and see if he wanted to do something.
    I managed to keep reality at bay in this manner for the remainder of my drive. Then I pulled onto Sammy’s block and saw the cars from the Sheriff’s Department parked outside his house, and the truth reasserted itself like a well-aimed kick in the crotch. I pulled over to the curb and sat there for about fifteen minutes until Sheriff Muser and a deputy emerged and climbed somberly into their car. Once they were gone, I got out of my car and quietly climbed the stairs to the Habers’ porch. The front door had been inadvertently left open behind the storm door, so I could see down the long hallway and into the kitchen, where Lucy sat at the table, her head in her hands, crying loudly and steadily.
    I don’t know how long I stood there just watching her, rocked by the desolation of her wails and paralyzed by my own feelings of sorrow and guilt. I had just decided to leave when she happened to look up and see me through the storm door. I thought of running, even felt my feet turning in my sneakers, but her gaze froze me in my tracks. “Joe,” she said softly, with no trace of surprise in her voice at having discovered me lurking on her porch.
    I walked into the kitchen and stood awkwardly against the wall as she looked up at me, her eyes swollen into slits and raw from crying. “My Sammy’s gone.” Her voice was high and unsteady, like a young child speaking indignantly between sobs.
    “I know,” I said.
    “He was all I had,” she said, gracelessly wiping