Are You Trey Johnson?

We invited him to my birthday party. It was my fourteenth. He was fourteen already or older, a freshman in high school living in the housing division one over and across district lines. I knew his house, kicked it there a few times, played Nintendo, but knew the girl even better who said he’d raped her.

He showed up. So did others, older guys from the block—some in high school, some dropped out—who must’ve heard why we’d invited him. Most couldn’t match my name to my face. Some didn’t even have a name. They barely touched the soft drinks. I had mini sandwiches in my lunch and dip and chips afterschool for a week.

Sheila, for whose honor T.J. was invited, I only kinda knew anymore. My younger sister played with her younger sister down the street. But I knew what she’d said. Sheila didn’t go into details. I couldn’t empathize at that age or really understand what she said happened. I just knew that when a girl says no, she means no, and this guy had crossed a line.

Sheila wasn’t particularly attractive yet got a lot of play. She was attractive enough, I guess. It helped she was said to know things, the kind of things others and I wouldn’t mind knowing. I was at the awkward stage in human biology where I was ready but the logistics of how with a woman or even masturbation was written in a foreign language I could almost make out on Cable Channel 98 if I squinted real hard. I settled for feeling girls up at church camp and painful erections in the bathroom and in bed imagining girls, sometimes Sheila, as I stroked and shook to no avail.

Brent Lampton, my childhood friend and badass, was there, back from Florida with his parents, now living with his deadbeat brother Bryan who drove a primered muscle-car he never painted and pocketed the checks their parents sent to buy Brent things like toothpaste and food. Brent knew Sheila better than me and was how I knew she knew things. He was with me when I invited T.J.

We were at the ditches, smoking cigarettes and taking turns on his board when we’d spotted Trey. He stood behind me and made sure I asked. He was all good cheer like they were homies and made sure Trey said he’d come. Brent was the one who’d—after a good crowd of thugs had gathered not eating the dip, eying our jackable electronics—suggested we play a little ball on the hoop Stepdad Drew installed out front over the garage. He looked T.J. in the eye and asked, grinning, Hey, Trey, you coming?

It was odd, like a funeral or, more immediate to my experience then, a school dance. Long quiet moments. There was no pretence of getting the ball out the garage. Everyone knew that we weren’t going to play ball—everyone but him.

“Are you Trey Johnson?”

I didn’t know the kid who asked, just watched his uppercut that began well behind his back like a discus thrower as he threw his entire body into it, lifting T.J. a few inches off the ground, slamming his jaw closed with the sharp sound of teeth clashing. Trey landed flat on his back, head bouncing off the concrete driveway. And they were upon him. They did what they came to my party to do. It was immediate. Even the girlfriends wedged in for a few good kicks.

They kicked. He’d try to roll over and someone would stomp him or boot him in the face. Eventually, he just curled up. Like a pillbug. Like a fetus. Like a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old getting stomped.

I could see through their kicking legs. He’d puked frosted cake and ice cream, but there was no explosion of teeth or spurting of blood or cracking of ribs. They weren’t strong enough. This wasn’t life or death. This wasn’t vengeance. This was violence. This was sport.

No adults drove by. My sister and a few friends who didn’t want to be part of the jumping were in the kitchen keeping my mom and stepdad busy. I was on the outer ring of onlookers. Some of his friends were there, powerless. Sheila was crying. Brent from the circle looked at her, then me, then wound up for a steel-toed kick, and delivered one to the ribs. I realized then the nature of the thing. I’d set this up, yours truly, the birthday boy.

Out of all these people, it seemed I alone knew why T.J. was invited, who T.J. really was, what Sheila’d to everyone he’d done, what those on the inner circle didn’t know and later she’d not talk about. I shoved my way between the pressed, kicking bodies, clearing a path with my elbows, and saw him, the rapist. His eyes were closed and could’ve been crying. His nose was busted up pretty good. I pressed back to give myself room and then gave Trey a solid boot to the skull. It felt good, better than a fair fight ever could, and I realized, age fourteen, why everybody came.