2
"I'm
leaving," said Robert Bond.
"I'm going to go where I'm needed."
Artie refused to
even look at him. He had argued with him
for days, and finally conceded to reality.
Our group was set to dwindle once again.
His oldest and most enduring friendship, his constant companion, his
next door neighbor who had been by his side since toddlerhood, was going
away.
Of course, in the
Trap, it was not possible to truly go away (although it did seem that some had
just vanished into thin air). Robert's
area of expertise was in agriculture and he had decided to go to the farm, and assist
the other guys there with raising the animals and growing the crops.
It was surprising
to see Robert leave Artie's side. He had
always been there, ever since I could remember.
They were friends long before I came along. Robert seemed to practically worship
Artie. But he had grown discontent as
Artie's involvement with other people had increased. Artie's sudden political emergence meant he
spent more time away from us. And for
some reason, I think Artie's relationship with Ginny bothered Robert. Artie had had girlfriends before (including,
for a brief time, my sister), but none had been quite as close as his
connection with Ginny. Robert may have
felt that he had been moved from first wheel to second wheel to spare tire.
Robert was going
away. We might still see him, but it was
going to be much rarer now. Our group, our
'Artie's Gang' had changed and morphed over time. We probably actually had more people in our
clique than we had before the Trap. They
just weren't the same ones.
The core group of
guys that had bonded in Junior High was now down to Artie and me. Tom Bodell and Jim Kurrash were lost in the
tunnel explosion. Randy Sherman had once
again found a new girlfriend outside the group, and no longer came around. Now the quiet rock of our group, Robert Bond,
was leaving.
Jerry Mack had
wandered into our group sometime during our Freshman year, coming over to our
table in the mornings and listening in silence to what we had to say, laughing
at our jokes, nodding when he agreed with us (of course Spider-Man could beat
Plant Lad!). He was small and sickly, and offered input
only rarely, but he was with us, and he seemed to really worship Artie.
As sophomores, we
were joined by Ginny Estill, who was a great flaky wonderment to our
group. For almost a year, she felt like
just another one of the guys, but it did not take me long to develop a crush on
her. Just before the Trap fell, I was
getting ready to ask her to the dance, but it had been six months or more than
I had been trying to work up the nerve to approach. I was gun-shy, particularly after at the
first of the school year telling Carol Dietrich that I loved her, and wound
getting laughed at. Ginny's friendship
meant too much to me to risk losing it because I pushed things too far.
With my glacially
slow approach, it gave time for Ginny and Artie to kindle a relationship with
each other. But maybe I was kidding
myself. Maybe it didn't matter whether I
moved slow or fast. Maybe Ginny and
Artie were destined to be together anyways.
Maybe, had I started dating her, it would have just hurt all the more
when she moved to Artie.
At the beginning
of our junior year, Ginny's sister, Mary Estill, joined us. Other girls might come by once in awhile, but
no other females were regular. Two that
we occasionally saw were Sue Boschman and Lisa Carlton. And then once the Trap fell, those two became
regulars. Sue became very close to Tom
Bodell, and I became very close to Lisa.
And now, of us four, I was the only one left alive.
More recently,
Arlette Mierkey and Larry Weisman had joined our table gathering. Arlette was funny, confident and an avid
reader. She made me remember how much I
loved books, and if I could ever get things settled down, my soap under control
and a murderer revealed, I would love to get back into rediscovering books.
Larry was so bright. He was like David
Yankovich (lost in the tunnel explosion that may have been the fault of design
flaws that he would never admit to), but without the smarmy arrogance.
Except for talking
to a couple of the science teachers, Larry and I had kept what we found out
about the stars to ourselves. We weren't
quite sure what it meant, that the night skies weren't changing, and until we got
more confirmation from the science staff, we didn't see the need to panic
everybody.
Phil Irman, my
friend from the TV studio, would come by sometimes, but he wasn't a
regular. Katie Kurrash, Jim's younger
sister, was starting to hang with us. Lindsay Starn, the junior class Council
representative, had just started showing up regular in the last couple of
months. I think she was sweet on me, but
I just wasn't ready for anything like that.
I had things about that I had to resolve. I would not rest until justice was
achieved. It was hard to think of
anything else while Robert Pelley, Lisa's killer, strutted around a free man.
An interesting
group, to be sure. And there would be
other changes as time went on. As I am
sure you know, Doctor Duncan, from the group that was gathered together at the
house where the crime occurred that I have been accused of, some of these
people survive until the end of the Trap.
Most do not.
Artie broke his
silence. "You don't have to go out
there, Robert, to help with the farming.
There's an agricultural team based right here. Don't you like working with Mr. Bruchow? He's right here. He's not out there at the Barn. Why do you
want to go out there?"
"I don't want
to go out there," said Robert.
"I need to go out there. I
love you, Artie, but it's time for me to do my own thing."
They hugged. Robert didn't seem to want to let go. I didn't understand if Artie meant so much to
him, why did he have to leave? "You
stay in touch, you hear? It's not like
you're on the moon, you understand?"
"No,
Artie. It's not the moon," said
Robert, a tear tumbling down his cheek. He grabbed a duffel bag filled with his
few belongings. "Come out and visit
me and the cows and goats sometimes.
Catch you all later."
Ginny hugged him
as he was leaving, but he kind of shrugged it off, and stared at her like he
wanted to say something mean, but instead just turned and walked away.
As the Trap
progressed, I would understand Robert's feelings better. But at the time he left, I was naive. That was not a dimension I thought in much,
so I didn't have a clue.
What with the
change in administration, and with Mark Granite's increasing influence, we were
having more frequent dances. They were
not pleasant entirely, as even though they were more regulated by a student
police force, their enforcement of discipline was quite selective. Lindsay told me she wanted to go to the
dance, but that she didn't want to go by herself. Would I mind going with her and hanging out
around her? Not as a date, of course,
she assured me, but as two friends watching out for each other.
I hated to say no,
but I couldn't do it. Not just because I
wasn't ready to step out like that, but because I had something else I had to
do. Something else that I was obsessed
with, something that I couldn't ask anyone else to risk being involved with.
Robert Pelley was
going down. Whatever it took.
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