Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet: Chapters 6–9

Standing in front of the hall mirror, I admired the welts on my neck.

I could feel my father receding into the ugly floral cushions beside me as my mom pushed herself forward to perch on the edge of the sofa.

Resting her elbows firmly on her thighs, she twisted round and stared at me in this incredulous manner.

A couple scary images tumbled through my brain, but they were just loose background stuff barely resonating behind the throb of the music and the steady lick of cool air caressing my skin.

My ears filled with a vacuous roar, my eyes locked onto a square of ceiling above my bed, but still I knew Mr. Bernoffski was in the closet and Mexican Mick was leaning against the door, watching the whole scene, an amused smile plastered on his face.

A couple blocks past the boss’s place, the stately houses came to an abrupt halt at McCreary Park.

The rich people pressed enough cash into someone’s hands to keep it lush and vagrant free, and a new, all-American bandstand stood whitewashed against the greenery at the back of the property.

The rich people pressed enough cash into someone’s hands to keep it lush and vagrant free, and a new, all-American bandstand stood whitewashed against the greenery at the back of the property.

Still, I recognized her from the onslaught of media exposure her smiling face had received since her disappearance.

Most of the kids in my homeroom class had to work with this old bag from the local museum setting up a display in the school foyer, laying out the history of our great town, which was just as boring as it sounds.

The park was going to be littered with wild grasses and bulrushes and ponds for frogs and migrating ducks (since all the natural habitats within a thousand miles had been destroyed by unfettered development, as my mom pointed out that evening at dinner).

My mom rolled her eyes when she saw the shirts and called me an idiot, and once our customers started sporting their new garb at school, some of the teachers got to grumbling.

He dragged us into his office and gave us this long speech about how we’d sullied the spirit of the campaign, how we should be ashamed of our smart-ass cleverness, which wouldn’t get us far in life, whang, whang, whang.

He ran his hand over his bald head and, despite the tattoos and the protruding hardware, his facade cracked, leaving him looking all pierced and pathetic.

He shook out a laugh, recommenced with the finger tam-tams.

Tact is for people too dumb to be sarcastic, it announced in huge white letters.

I held up my hand, straight-armed his words like some nimble running back, so he’d stop and I could escape before the monster wave of guilt and grief and whatever else was rising inside me completely wiped me out.

The Chili Peppers, in Detroit, in December. Got these as a promo. The words scrawled across the page. Thought of you guys right away. Have a blast. Your buddy, Hank.

The Shack had been a stupid detour, one that had only reinvigorated my quest for Trazon and the necessity of putting as much distance between me and myself as possible.

He went and chatted up some lady loitering amongst the drugs, clipboard in hand.

I knew it wasn’t the best way to be spending my precious teen years, but hey, the premonitions, my aura of freakishness, the absence of Stan, all felt murky and distant, and that was the mission, man, that was the mission.

I was thinking about how Mr. Only-on-Tuesdays would flip if he could see the old homestead now, and about the John Deere in the garage—probably untouched since my dad and Mr. Connelly had wrestled it inside and closed the door.

She was crying now, wringing the sweatshirt in her hands, begging me to touch it, just take it, please, please, maybe I’d feel something, maybe I’d know...I turned and I ran.

You’ve gotta know there’s no one waiting at the front door to hear his tale of woe.

Lance and the anchorman got all revved up speculating how the sting must have netted a couple big local players—guys with enough power to keep the names locked down tight.

From where I was sprawled on the floor, I couldn’t see my parents on the couch behind me, but I had no problem imagining the killer look my mom was using to extinguish this particular tete-a-tete.

From where I was sprawled on the floor, I couldn’t see my parents on the couch behind me, but I had no problem imagining the killer look my mom was using to extinguish this particular tete-a-tete.

One of them turned out to be my good doctors wife, “Laura, Laura Cramp,” who was particularly pissed at the “perverse activities” that had been taking place...

I was five or six at the time, I could barely read, but regardless, my dad gave me this impromptu geography lesson in preparation for an upcoming road trip or something.

Even with the lovely librarian lurking, I kept to myself so I wouldn’t have to engage in any taxing conversation or answer any probing questions.

The ones I couldn’t nail down, the ones with no names, were harder to write off as mental backwash left behind by the Bernoffski-Miller tag team, or figments of a video-stoked imagination, or fallout from a ramped-up obsession with death.

The ones I couldn’t nail down, the ones with no names, were harder to write off as mental backwash left behind by the Bernoffski-Miller tag team, or figments of a video-stoked imagination, or fallout from a ramped-up obsession with death.

The ones I couldn’t nail down, the ones with no names, were harder to write off as mental backwash left behind by the Bernoffski-Miller tag team, or figments of a video-stoked imagination, or fallout from a ramped-up obsession with death.

Aided by a medicinally mutated mind and a knack for deceit, I’d gotten so good at pretending the premonitions and their aftershocks weren’t real, I’d almost begun to believe my own twisted version of the truth.

Aided by a medicinally mutated mind and a knack for deceit, I’d gotten so good at pretending the premonitions and their aftershocks weren’t real, I’d almost begun to believe my own twisted version of the truth.

We didn’t have a tent, we just lay under the stars, nestled inside the Millers’ fluffy sleeping bags, serenaded by frogs, the fire we’d cooked the dogs on dying out by our feet.

We didn’t have a tent, we just lay under the stars, nestled inside the Millers’ fluffy sleeping bags, serenaded by frogs, the fire we’d cooked the dogs on dying out by our feet.

He kept telling me how amazing she was, what a clear, expansive way she had of seeing the world.

Wanting to change the subject and keep Stan from guessing that my conversational repertoire didn’t normally go beyond lobbing an occasional grunt or abusive insult at my friends, I put some effort into asking him a couple of questions.

Always graceful, she tipped her foot nonchalantly and the saliva-slippery fish slid onto the sand.