Short Story

“Boys Will Be Boys”

A Short Story – Fiction

By Sara McDermott

Mack never took his fishing pole home.  He wouldn’t have gone fishing without Aaron so why take the pole home?  It was easier to pick it up at Aaron’s house and go from there.  They had been friends ever since the seventh grade when Aaron had asked him to play catch one afternoon.

The school yard was full of kids that day, but Aaron was just standing there alone.  He didn’t have many friends – he always waited for other kids to come to him.  Asking Mack to play ball was a risk for him.

That afternoon he just stood there with the sun glaring in his eyes.  Mack felt a little sorry for him as he shifted from one foot to the other waiting for the older boy to answer.

“Why don’t you join the baseball game?” Mack remembered asking him.  Aaron didn’t answer.  He seemed to hunker down a little,to kind of draw into himself. Just then a stray baseball flew over their heads and one of the boys yelled, “Hey, heads up over there. Throw it back if you can find it.”   Laughs and hoots came from the rest of the kids as Aaron awkwardly picked up the ball and tossed it in the direction of the raggedy little diamond on the school grounds.  Most kids would have reacted, or at least felt shame at being mocked, thought Mack, but not a trace of resentment had shown on Aaron’s face. He just stood there waiting as if nothing had happened.

“Come on, lets see what you got,” said Mack, and the two unlikely pals began tossing the ball back and forth.

Thinking of it now as they sat barefoot on the river bank Mack began to wonder why he was drawn to this odd little kid.  He was older, having been held back one grade.  He was 15 now to Aaron’s 13.  The day was warm for May and, naturally, because Mack had skipped school, Aaron had too.

A car cruised slowly by on the blacktop road behind the river.  Both boys eyed it warily.  Neither wanted their parents to show up.  The car continued on and the boys went back to their fishing, one thinking of nothing much and the other musing over a friendship he found it hard to explain, even to himself.   He always led and Aaron always followed.

Aaron looked up and laughed.  “There goes that car again.  The guy must be lost.  What’s he looking at anyway?”  Mack pretended not to notice.  “I guess we better get going,” he said.  “Nothing’s biting anyway, and I have to get home.”

When they reached the street the car drove off in the other direction.

As soon as he dropped Aaron off Mack started to run as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough.  The boys in the black car caught up with him and stopped the car.  The driver beckoned Mack to come to the window.  “Who’s your friend?” he asked.  “Could we use him?”  The boy in the car had a rough, worn looking face for his years.  Mack knew he was only twenty, but today he looked older.  His eyes were menacing and mean as he stared at Mack.  He held the edge of the window with one hand and pointed with the other.  “You haven’t bee around much lately.  We expected more from you.” His eyes narrowed further when Mack hesitated and he nodded to the driver to pull over.

“I haven’t had much time this week.  You know when school is out you will see more of me” Mack said.

The older boy smiled.  “We’ll count on it,” he said and added, “Maybe fishing is taking up too much of your time.”

A shiver ran up Mack’s back as he continued home.  He thought when he got the gun for them that would be the end of it.

“Where you been?”  Frank, his step-father, stood glaring at him from the top of the steps.

He hesitated.  He knew the trouble he would be in if the man he hated most found out he was involved with a gang.

“Just fishing with Aaron,” he replied.

“What Aaron sees in the likes of you is beyond me,” his step-father observed.

Mack didn’t care anymore what this stand-in parent thought of him.  He had his own friends and would soon be able to leave home.  He had learned that his battles would have to be fought alone.  He knew his mother was controlled and sometimes abused.  She had all she could do to survive herself.

Mack fought the bitterness that might have consumed him.  He endured the hatred that emanated from Hank and counted the days when he would be free of it and on his own.

Aaron often took Mack’s friendship for granted.  Mack opened up the universe for him.  The older boy spent time with him when others ignored him.  Mack ribbed him sometimes but he wasn’t mean about it.  Aaron just laughed it off.  He felt accepted and was gaining confidence.

Mack didn’t take Aaron to meet his other friends.  He kept to himself more that summer.  Aaron was usually busy with his family in the summer so an occasional fishing trip was their only contact for the three months of vacation.

He didn’t see much of the gang either.  They were ignoring him. He regretted getting involved with them.  He worried what they might be doing with the gun he had taken from Frank’s locked gun case.  He smiled to himself when he remembered how easy it had been to jiggle the lock and open the case.  One thing the gang had taught him that might be useful.

Fall came and school started and the boys took up their friendship again.

Mostly the talk around school was of several convenience stores that had been robbed over the summer.  Two men had gotten away with a few thousand dollars.  The cops couldn’t get there in time to catch anyone, and no-one knew how they managed to leave the scene so quickly.

“They just disappear into thin air,” Mack heard someone say.  “They must have help.”

Aaron laughed out loud.  “Maybe the cops are just too slow,” he said.

The kids standing around all laughed.  It was always fair game to make fun of cops.  Mack laughed too, but a chill hit him.  No-one had been hurt – yet.  Mack shivered again.

“I bet they use a gun and have a look-out,” Aaron said.  “They’re probably professionals.”

“No way,” a grade school kid piped up.  “My dad said they’re local cause they keep hitting convenience stores.  Professionals hit banks.”

Aaron laughed and looked at Mack.  “Maybe they’re practicing.”  The gathering of kids laughed and drifted away.

The two friends walked away toward the river.  Mack wanted to stop and get the poles, but Aaron put him off.  “My dad has the garage full of junk,” he said.  “We probably couldn’t find them.  Besides I’m kind of tired of fishing.”

Something didn’t seem right to Mack.  He had been to Aaron’s house a few days before and hadn’t noticed any junk in the garage.  His friend was lying he was sure.  He decided to find out what was in the garage that Aaron didn’t want him to see.

He sneaked over to the house that night.  Aaron’s dad never locked anything up so he just opened the door of the garage and walked in.  At first he didn’t see anything much, a few old boxes, some garden tools and the fishing poles right where they had left them.  But under an old blanket he saw something shiny and new looking.  Mack pulled out a new lap top computer with Styrofoam still clinging to the edges.

Just then the door opened and Aaron stood there asking him what he was doing.  Mack could just stare dumbfounded at him.  He realized immediately what must be going on.  Aaron must have gotten involved with the gang robbing convenience stores.  Where else would he get the money to buy something like this.

“Are you nuts?” he remembered yelling.  “Those guys will get you into a lot of trouble.”

“It’s none of your business,” Aaron screamed.  “I just stand guard for them and they pay me out of what they steal.   It gives me some spending money.”

“You’ll be spending time in jail if you get caught,” Mack said.

“We won’t.  You wouldn’t say anything, would you?”   Mack didn’t answer.  He wouldn’t turn Aaron in, but he worried the gang was taking advantage of him.  Once the robbery spree was over they would desert Aaron, or worse, blame him if they got caught.

“You better stay away from them,” he said finally.

Aaron became agitated and angry.  “I thought we were friends,” he yelled.  “Get out of here before I turn you in for prowling our garage.”

Mack went home.

Aaron, fearful that his old friend would blab to the police, lost no time in contacting the gang leader.

“You need to shut him up,” the boss told him. “You aren’t playing around with choir boys here.  Two of us have been to prison and we don’t intend to go back.  You shouldn’t have shot your mouth off about us.”

Aaron sank down to the floor.  Mack was right.  He was in big trouble.  He had felt so grown up and cocky.  Now he was just a fourteen-year-old boy in a mess he didn’t know how to handle.  There was no-one to ask for advice so he waited to hear from the others, blindly hoping the whole thing would blow over.

It didn’t.  The next day he saw Mack and neither spoke  Mack told himself he didn’t care – one less friend to worry about, he thought.   Sometimes he was tempted to tell someone, if only to get back at Aaron for throwing him out of the garage.  It would serve him right, he was getting too big for his britches anyway.  But he didn’t tell, and things went on as before.

The gang members were nervous and keeping tabs on Mack without him knowing. They knew where he spent his time and noticed that he was usually alone now.

Around Christmas the police were called to a small grocery store.  The 911 operator reported a robbery in progress.  Things had gone horribly wrong.  The owner had been shot and killed, and two bystanders wounded when three men in ski masks had come into the store and demanded money.  Shots were fired when the owner refused to open the cash drawer.  The robbers were gone.  A young boy had been seen standing around outside during the robbery.   A witness said he looked to be about 13 or 14 years old and had disappeared after the shooting.

The news accounts said the police were looking for the boy seen outside by witnesses.  The police were asking anyone with information to come forward.

Aaron got his orders.  Keep your mouth shut , otherwise things could get ugly.  If anyone talked it would be over for them and they knew it.  Aaron was ordered to lure Mack to their meeting place.

Aaron wasn’t dumb.  Murder charges against the shooter would result in accomplice charges for him.  He was terrified and desperate to keep Mack from talking.

The police weren’t dumb either.  They knew of gang activity in the area and were trying to find out names of the boys involved.  They cruised around the school and questioned students and teachers.

Mack showed up at the old warehouse when he learned Aaron wanted to talk to him.  He walked in slowly.  The place was deserted.  He didn’t hear the shot that killed him but he saw the flash of the bullets when Aaron raised Frank’s gun with both hands and fired.