Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne Read Free Book Online Page B

surge of shoppers going through a revolving door at Stern’s, my shopping clock was off, and I was running late.
    Leonard was the kind of person who always stood out in a crowd; but that day he was pushing it, sporting a cherry-red beret, pink-and-purple-striped jeans, and a white patent-leather belt. I had almost forgotten how outlandish he looked in plain daylight. But when I rounded the corner of the Bagel Boutique and saw him standing there wearing those ridiculous six-inch platform sneakers, I stopped in my tracks.
    Right after Thanksgiving, Leonard made up his mind to find a pair of platform sneakers. He felt that these were about to become a major thing, the big featured item of the next fashion wave, and he shopped for them as though they might actually be out there, an undiscovered item just waiting for the right person to appreciate them publicly and thereby start the trend. When he couldn’t find a pair for sale anywhere within a fifty-mile radius, Leonard made up his mind to create his own. He bought a dozen pairs of flip-flops at Dollar Bob’s, cut off each thong part that fits between the toes and then glued the rubber slabs of flop to the bottoms of a pair of purple Converse high-tops. When he had added six inches of rainbow tread to each sneaker, he proudly modeled them for us in our living room.
    Hideous.
    I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. Wearing rainbow-colored platform sneakers, I informed him, would put him in physical jeopardy. They were a definite fashion hazard. Finally, I had to explain to him in plain English that if he intended to go out in public wearing those things on his feet, he would soon be running for his life.
    He claimed that they were entirely safe for walking and, to prove it, he pranced around the living room several times.
    *   *   *
    â€œYou’ve got to help me!” he said in a desperate voice that is usually reserved for actors when they find themselves in an action movie. “They’re after me.”
    Under normal circumstances I would have stayed out of sight until my mother showed up, but Leonard was waving and calling to me as if he were in real danger. He called out my name several times and then clomped quickly toward me.
    â€œWhat’s the matter now?”
    â€œTravis Lembeck and that Calzoni kid with the pig face. They cornered me outside Payless and took all my money. Okay, so I don’t care about the money. They can have the money. But they took my gold-plated Yves Saint Laurent money clip, the one my mother gave me, and it’s all I have left of her in this world.”
    Travis and Curtis (that Calzoni kid) came striding out of Sears, pushing the doors hard and looking very satisfied with themselves. Both of them were toting hefty shopping bags.
    Travis and Curtis were a grade ahead of me, and you could tell just by looking at them that they were trouble, the kind of boys who had too much past and no future. As a result they had a power over everyone in town. People were speechless around them. Nobody called them “poor white trash” to their faces or made fun of them for having parents who couldn’t care less. Nobody offered to tutor them in algebra. Nobody bothered them about their SAT scores, asked them what they did over spring break, or where they planned to go to college. The fact that Travis’s eyes were a little too far apart and had an evil slant to them never came up as a topic of conversation either. Curtis’s badly bowed legs, which caused him to walk with a conspicuous waddle, were also not discussed. No comments were ever made about their clothes; no one said, “Why do they wear those matching black down parkas? It’s May, for God’s sakes.” And as far as I know, nobody had ever asked them point-blank if they carried firearms.
    Something had to be done. Leonard didn’t look like he was capable of anything other than a flood of tears at that moment,