“You guys never believe me,” Chris Cooper said, disappointed, as we sat in his room one Tuesday after school. “I swear guys, Joe O’Donnell told my brother Mikey all about it,” Coop stammered. “They were in high school with that chick, she was two years ahead of them. They said there’s gonna be an investigation if the old man doesn’t turn up soon!”
“Bullshit,” said Nick Peabody, the designated badass of our little gang. “That’s just Joe talkin’ about nothin’, that’s all people ‘round here ever do.”
“There’s no way anything that cool happened in Salem,” Chaz Gamble, the undisputed leader of our gang said.
“Yeah, that chick probably just ran him off with all her shopping and partying," I said,
"The old fart just couldn’t keep up with a stallion like her I bet,” Chaz chuckled, nudging both Nick and I on the arm alternately.
‘That chick’ referred to Jamie McLean, formerly Jamie Allen, who was once the prom queen of Salem High School, and the undisputed hottest girl in town. She was eye candy to every kid our age since we were old enough to pretend to care about girls. Every girl in middle school was compared on an attractiveness scale of 1 to Jamie, no joke. She had up and married a much older man shortly after she dropped out of college at the age of 19. As you may expect, this older man, Dick McLean, was very, very wealthy. I mean stinking filthy fuckin' rich, this guy was loaded to the god damn gills.
The two had moved into Loring Manor, a large old colonial house that was set back from the rest of Loring Avenue by a large hill. The house was accessible only by its gigantic stone staircase that ascended the hill. These steps had once been surrounded on either side by gorgeous green bushes that framed the elegant property perfectly. However in the past several years, these bushes had stopped being maintained, and then after one Winter, they disappeared completely. They were replaced that Spring by an overgrowth of gangly looking thorn bushes that seemed to stretch up to eye level and then out over the stone staircase, turning back anyone who would try to climb the steps to Loring Manor.
The rumor in question, which Coop was now so adamently defending despite our refusal to believe him, involved the recent absence of Mr. McLean. No one had seen him down at the yacht club, which was the one place he had previously hung out, playing tennis on days when he knees weren't acting up. When they were acting up, he mostly just drank. Jamie, on the other hand, never saw tennis and drinking to be mutually exclusive, and unlike her spouse, she had been seen down at the yacht club lately. Quite a bit, actually, and usually with a collection of other young, pretty girls, often from out on Marblehead Neck. They were the queen bee's of the dining room there at the Corinthian, and they had made many a man feel weak and many a woman feel worthless with nothing more than a well-timed stare. It was something in their eyes, Jamie's especially, that was menacing in a way that was certainly sexy but also slightly dangerous. It was that exact stare that had probably prompted the first housewife to mutter the phrase, "I bet she killed her husband. He hasn't been seen in weeks, you know."
A comment such as that is often not intentional, and is often later forgotten in moments of logic and reason. However a comment like that is also always overheard. In this case, it was likely a Marblehead High school kid bussing tables who heard it, and he surely passed it along, half jokingly, to a half dozen or so co-workers to get a reaction. They apparently must have reacted fantastically, because now every older kid from Gloucester to Saugus knew the rumor. Even us lowly middle schoolers were hearing about it now, albeit with help from our older brothers.
"Do you guys really think it's impossible?" I asked. We all had walked by the house recently, and Mr. McLean's car had been right in the spot it was in over two months ago. It seemed to be gathering quite a bit of dust next to Jamie's shiny Lincoln that she took out so often to cocktail parties and gallery openings.
"Well, of course it's possible," Nick Peabody said. "I just don't think it happened."
Coop, the one we all called a pussy so often, gulped. "I don't know, man. The windows of the house are all smudged and shit. You can't even see in if you walk right up to them, I bet. I don't know. I just don't know."
"Quit babbling about it," Chaz chimed in. "If you pussies want to know for sure that Old Dick is still alive and well, why don't we go knock on his door. Worst case, he answers the door and we all go home bored and pissed off that another cool story turned out to be bullshit."
"What's the best case?" I ask, genuinely curious.
"Jamie opens the door, says she's lonely for a man, and invites us all in for some handjobs!" Nick says, snickering with Chaz about this ridiculous possibility.
"Or he's actually dead," Coop says. "And we find the body when we go up to check it out. Probably hidden in the basement or something." This was unlike Coop. The kid was always so carefree and naïve. He wasn't himself because of this dumbass rumor, and I was damned if I was going to let this shit continue.
"Okay," I say, "Let's go then. This Friday."
"What?" Coop stammered.
"Yea," Chaz said, "Why not? There's probably so much cool shit up on that hill to check out. That chick almost always goes out on Friday's anyways so we can look around the backyard and stuff. If the old man's there, we'll just run away and say we were playin' man hunt with the older kids."
"I love it," Nick said, looking eager. "We're gonna find a fuckin' dead guy."
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe we'll just get handjobs."
We all laughed and stood up to grab our bikes and head down to the park to play some wiffle ball. Chaz grabbed Coop around the shoulder on the way out and said "Look, Coop. We're not gonna really find a dead guy. But you gotta learn sometime not to believe dumb shit, so we're going up there to check it out."
"Yea," Coop said, "I know. I just don't want to get us into trouble, that's all."
"Pussy," Peabody sneered.
Just like that, it was decided. Friday night we'd climb the stairs to Loring Manor. Then what? Would we just dick around in the backyard, looking for body parts and hoping we didn't find any? Probably. But when Nick and Chaz got together and excited about something, especially when it involved proving that Coop was a pussy, crazy shit always seemed to happen.
