Part One: The Penny Handful

Chapter 1: The Town

It started in Fuckoff, Nowhere. Well, technically it started in Marston, Virginia, but who the fuck cares about Marston Fucking Virginia? It was one of those towns that was close enough to the freeway (and a river you didn’t go near without making sure you had your shots) to not be considered properly rural. However, it was also far enough from any kind of major hub of human civilization for some old school “Dixie pride” — a dog-whistle so loud it could kill a chihuahua — to have seeped into the walls of the local Presbyterian church and to come dribbling out of the pastor’s mouth. 

The town had a small high school by the main road, a middle school close by (if you needed a kindergarten or grade school you were fucked and had to drive an hour to the next town over), and a construction site that had been there for several years. Once a year a construction crew would show up, cover the town in dust, and then leave after a month. At this point, nobody knew what they were even building anymore. Nobody cared, either, because it was way too fucking hot to care. At the very least, the adults agreed, school wasn’t out for another month. When summer break hit, there would be a bunch of aimless teens running around, and that, it was agreed, would be hell. That’s why summer camps were invented. 

“We think it could be good for you, Mattie,” Linda Porter said. She pursed her lips with Concern, which is different from regular concern. You can be concerned that your milk goes off in the fridge, but Concern is something that is agreed on over tea with your friend Barb from next door, and is usually used to refer to the new “urban” family that has moved into the neighborhood. Matt knew how to recognize Concern, and he also knew to ignore it. Not his circus, he felt, not his monkeys. “There’s a place up near Charlottesville that I think would be good for you.”

“I’m not interested in going to Bible camp, Mom,” he said as he shoved his books into his backpack. “I promise I’ll come with to church this Sunday.” He had no such intentions, of course. Not since that one time he’d been chewed out by the pastor. 

“Listen to your mother, Matthew,” his father, Duncan, said, in that tone of voice he got when he himself hadn’t been listening to Linda, but he’d picked up on Matt giving backtalk, and backtalk wasn’t accepted. 

“It’s not Bible camp, honey,” his mother said. “It’s like… you’ll get to meet new people, do activities, and it’ll bring you closer with others your age.” Matt threw his bookbag over his shoulder. 

“I already have friends my age,” he said, lying a little bit. He had A Friend, but they were the same age, which meant that technically he was right. There it was again. The look of Concern.

“The kids there will be more… respectable, Mattie. And the camp will put your head back on straight.” She stood up and started emptying the table. Matt was trying to escape the room as quickly as he could. He knew his parents disapproved of his friendship with Will Teague, from across the street. They disapproved of Will because they found him too effeminate, and it was clear they thought he was a bad influence on their dearest, innocent Matt. 

“Sorry, Mom, I think I wanna take this summer off from camps,” he said as he grabbed one more croissant from the basket on the table. “I gotta get going!” He ran for the door.

“We’ll talk about this later!” his mom shouted after him. “And be safe!” Matt barely caught the tail end of that sentence as he slammed the door closed behind him, shoving the croissant into his mouth as fast as he could, trying not to choke but refusing to lose a fight to a piece of pastry and taking smaller bites. Will was already waiting for him. 

“What’s up, dickhead?” Will punched his shoulder as he walked past. 

“Glad to be out of there,” Matt said. “What’s up, man?” 

“I waited for like, half an hour out here,” Will complained. Matt shot him a suspicious frown. 

“I literally saw you leave your front door like two minutes ago,” he said. 

Will shrugged. “Yeah, but like, in dog minutes, that’s at least half an hour.” They laughed for a moment. They met up like this before school almost every day, to Linda’s chagrin. As far as Matt knew, Will’s mom didn’t really care, so that made it easier, at least. She didn’t care about anything Will did, which was why he got away with being the little delinquent he was. Meeting up before school, easily half an hour before class started, allowed them to fuck around for a while. That it made them look like good and eager students to Matt’s parents was just a happy little side-effect, and did much to offset their distrust of Billy Teague. 

The two of them had met in grade school, and had been almost inseparable since. Neither of them had fit in particularly well with their friend group, being both too sensitive to fit in with the cool kids, and too “cool” and out of the norm to fit in with the rest of the school. They’d both dealt with ostracization in different ways, of course. Matt had learned to keep his head down, made the target on his back as small as possible, while interacting with as few people as possible. Not that that worked very well. 

He’d gotten into a “fight” last Monday, when one of the seniors had shoved him against the lockers, and since he had been involved in several similar altercations in the past year, he was clearly the instigator. He didn’t really mind. He wasn’t exactly alone at detention. Will, for example, was also in detention. That’s because he’d launched himself at the guy who’d picked on Matt, forehead-first, smashing the guy’s nose. The shit-eating grin on William’s face had persisted all the way to the principal’s office, blood between his teeth from the beating he’d received in return. 

“Do you think your mom remembered that you’re staying late after school today?” Matt asked. 

Billy shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. She’s probably out tonight anyway. Yours?”

“She knows,” Matthew said. “Wants to send me to Bible camp or some shit.” Billy scoffed. 

“Yeah, you’ll do great there. This is because you’re hanging out with me, isn’t it?” he said. Matt looked at him a little guiltily. Billy knew exactly how he came off to people. In private, he was just as loud and abrasive, but he was also a lot more honest. With Matt, at least. With Matt, he’d admitted to being more than a little attracted to one of the guys in school. Not that he could actually do or say something about it. That was social suicide. But it was a public secret that Will was a little “different,” and Matt being friends with him implied some things. 

Not that Matt knew what those things implied. He didn’t even know a damn thing about himself yet. In a sense, he was kind of jealous of Will, for knowing what he wanted, because Matt had no fucking clue. Was he… (drum roll, car crash noise) gay? Well, that couldn’t be true, because he’d absolutely had a crush on Wendy, the quiet sophomore from the year above him. Something about her tall, intense energy made him feel small, but like, in a good way? And yeah, that felt a little gay, too, and that was a whole thing too.

 “Fuck her,” Matt said, “I hang out with whoever I want to.” Will looked at him for a moment, and then nodded, held out his fist. Bump. As they walked down the street, the dust in the air was getting a little thicker. The construction crew had left for the summer, but they’d left behind a cloud, like a cartoon character. People closed their windows at night, and seeing suburban dads hose down their car was not an uncommon sight. 

“Thanks, man,” Will said softly. “It means a lot. And, you know…” Matt looked at him. “If you tell anyone I’m sensitive, I’m throwing you in the river.”

“I’ll fucking fight you.”

“Nobody will find you, Matt. You’re tiny.” Matt giggled. It was funny. Once upon a time, the bullying about his height had really bothered him. And, like, it still bothered him if things got physical. He wasn’t very good at protecting himself. But he’d learned to accept that he wasn’t tall, and that that was okay. Now it just made him feel kind of good about himself. Self-acceptance, right?

“I’ll haunt you,” Matt said; “next time you try to look cool, I’ll make you shit yourself.”

“Fuck, you got me there,” Will said. They turned the corner onto Main. At least this part of town had sidewalks. Not particularly well-kept, and with enough cracks to have folded up someone’s mom like a piece of paper. Matt made sure to step on a couple of them. Cracks in the pavement. Not moms. “Wanna take a detour by the construction site?” he asked. 

Matt shrugged. They still had, like, fifteen minutes, and the construction site was close enough to the school. “Fuck it, sure,” he said. “Might as well, right?” They had visited the construction site two years ago, when they were thirteen, on a dare, after the crew had left. In retrospect, they could have absolutely gotten hurt pretty badly. But they’d found a bunch of stuff left behind, including several construction helmets and dust masks, which they’d chased each other around wearing. Ever since, it had become tradition to visit the place, to see if they could find anything worth keeping. 

A little ahead of them, a car pulled over, and a couple of seniors stepped out. Matt and Will crossed the road. If they slowed their pace down, the older kids probably wouldn’t see them. Not that Will was all that conflict-averse, but, like, come on, it was morning. Neither of them was looking for a fight, and neither of them was particularly keen on getting abuse hurled at them. They’d been accused of being each other’s boyfriend several times, and fond as they were of each other, they’d never gravitated that way. The thought of being Will’s boyfriend made Matt feel weird in like, six different ways, and not one of them in that fun, guilty kind of way. It wasn’t “taboo,” it was just weird and kinda wrong. So they walked slowly, keeping their head down and their eyes forward, focused on the seniors. 

A door opened a little down the street, and a kid jumped out. They must’ve been fourteen-ish. About a year younger than him, Matt figured. He’d seen them around a few times, and he still didn’t know if the kid was a boy or a girl. The kid turned the corner, toward the middle school, and Matt saw one of the seniors nod at them, and follow around the corner. 

“We can’t pretend we didn’t see that, can we?” Will said. Matt shook his head and squared his jaw. Sure, he was picked on for being small and different, but like, he wasn’t the only one. Being androgynous like that? It’s not the kind of thing these shitgibbons would ever put up with. They were raised on it. “You can go ahead if you want to, Matt.” Will looked a little angrier than usual. Looks like maybe he had been looking for a fight. “I gotta vent some rage.”

“Nah,” Matt said. “I haven’t had my teeth kicked in for a while. It’s been a whole week.” They chuckled nervously as they increased their pace. The seniors would catch up with the kid soon, and Matt didn’t want to really think about what would happen. Four years older than a kid, and four against one, they were likely to beat the queer right out of them. Something about that — other than just the imbalance of it — was deeply wrong to him. And, well, it had been a little bit since he’d taken a hit, right? Mom would understand. He’d be doing the good Samaritan thing.

They turned the corner and saw the kid cross the street. They’d noticed the seniors following them, but hadn’t started running yet. That was their mistake. It was too far to the middle school to make it at this pace. 

“Don’t do it, bro,” Will mumbled to himself as the kid walked past the boarded-up construction site. Matt knew it would be a tempting thing to do, to find two planks to squeeze between and find a place to hide. It was a terrible idea. It was isolated and abandoned. That’s how you got a proper beating, and these weren’t just a couple of bored teens, these were assholes on a mission. 

“Fuck,” Matt said, as the kid suddenly bolted sideways, through a hole in the boards, onto the construction site. Immediately, the seniors broke into a sprint, whooping as they did. The street was still mostly empty this early in the morning, but even then, most adults didn’t really pay attention to a couple of eighteen-year-olds who seemed to just be acting silly before class. 

Matt and Will both ran to catch up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone else running. Not the time to look right now. If it was another senior, then maybe they’d be able to cut them off at the entrance. If not, it wasn’t something to worry about yet. 

The two of them skidded to a halt by the hole in the fence, and the panting behind them indicated the other person was here for the same reason they were. 

“You guys saw that, right?” the girl asked. She had short-ish hair, and Matt immediately recognized her. She was from a different class, but she was absolutely the kind of person guys like the seniors would pick on. If it wasn’t the black lipstick, it was the gaudy leather jacket she wore. Will nodded but, uncharacteristically, stayed quiet, just staring at her. 

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Introductions later. C’mon.” He dove through the hole in the fence and turned his stumbling fall into the dirt into a roll as best he could. The four guys had driven the middle schooler into a corner. They held their backpack out in front of them, looking like a trapped rabbit. Matt scrambled to his feet as Will and the girl rushed in behind him. The seniors turned around. 

“Hey, Porter,” the tallest one said. “You and your boyfriend looking to get your ass beat too?” Matt looked sideways at Will and swallowed the anxiety of the incoming beating, then raised his hands in the best approximation of a boxing stance he could manage. 

“Yeah, dickhead. Let’s fucking go.”