Chapter 9: Close to the Borderline

"I shouldn't bitch, I shouldn't cry

I'd start a revolution but I don't have time

I don't know why I'm still a nice guy

But I'm getting closer to the borderline"

Friday. January 10th, 1986.

POV: Winter Reid

"How are you getting to the game babydoll?" My mom asks from her seat at the table.

I laugh and zip up my sweater. "How else?" I say, raising one eyebrow.

"I just can't believe he's still here to drive you places," my mom says, shaking her head. She picks up her spoon and fishes out a piece of cereal. "Shouldn't that boy be graduated by now?"

I move my shoulders up in a half-hearted shrug.

"He says he didn't like how the class of 84' sounded... or the class of 85'. But I think this will be his year," I say with a smile. I sincerely believe it.

My mom shakes her head. "You're too good to him. You always have been."

I pull at the sleeves of my sweater and sigh. Even though Eddie and I have disastrously similar upbringings and live in identical trailers, my mom has always been under the impression that my friendship with him weighed me down.

"Well, maybe now he'll be forced to move on," she adds. "You'll probably be sitting at a new lunch table, with the cheerleaders and the jocks... seeing them after school and on the weekends. People drift apart in high school. Childhood friends don't often stay past childhood..." Her voice trails off.

I release a loud huff, irritated by her comment.

"He looks out for me, mom, he always has."

I fix her under a firm look. She meets my eyes and crunches extra hard on the Corn Pops, then puts her hands up defensively, as if to say whatever you say dear.

I suddenly can't be in this small trailer anymore and I cast a glance at the clock by the door.

"I should go. I really can't be late!"

I grab my Hawkins Cheer duffle bag, give my mom a final smile over my shoulder, and step out into the brisk Indiana air. I pull the door shut firmly behind me and take a deep breath in through my nostrils, out through my mouth. The cool evening air fills my lungs, calming me instantly.

My mom has always been indifferent toward this place. I think part of her hated that her family had to move to a trailer park to begin with. When we got here, she treated almost everyone with a cold indifference, but back then she didn't have much energy to comment on my choice of neighborhood friends. Now, it feels like she's pushing me more away from this life, and from the people here, but I would never judge Eddie.

Eddie and I are cut from the same cloth, and even if I start sitting with the jocks at lunch, it would never alter the bond we have. Friendships forged in a trailer park are unbreakable links. We spent almost all of our time back then outside, chasing each other through the woods, falling through mud, spraying each other with rubber hoses in the summertime when we couldn't catch a ride to the public pool. We leaned on each other when our own parental figures let us down. We would take turns patching up each other's various cuts and scrapes, laying plaster over wounds that would soon turn to scars.

Now we're grown up.

Eddie has his band, the Hellfire club... and his flings. I throw myself into schoolwork, babysitting, and cleaning up after my mom. I can get so trapped in my routine that I won't even leave my trailer. I could spend all weekend moving from room to room, cleaning and straightening and fussing.

Sometimes, I'll be sitting at the small kitchen table with a Calculus textbook open in front of me. The symbols stare back out as if they are just as confused to see me as I am to see them. Suddenly, I'll hear a small tap, tap, tap on the window above the sink.

I'll see a shadow through the lace curtains, and I say out loud, "I'm busy. Try again tomorrow!" I furrow my brow and lean closer to the numbers on the page.

Not even five seconds go by before I hear more tap, tap, taps.

Ignoring it is no use, so I slam my textbook closed. I take a deep breath and push the palms of my hands into my eyes until I can see stars. I slowly slide off of the kitchen chair with great effort because it feels like I've been glued to the spot for hours. I face the window and with one unenthusiastic swish of my hand, the curtain parts and I can see a boy on the other side of the glass.

Puppy dog eyes, wild mane, his hand is turned around so his rings are touching the glass. He brings a knuckle to the window and again tap, tap, taps with his index finger.

"You rang?" I ask.

"Wellness check. Now tell me, are there any other dead bodies in the house or are you just the one?" Eddie asks with a serious, inquisitive look.

"Clearly I am not dead," I respond. "Or if I am... then you've just witnessed reanimation, so maybe go take a walk and think about the science of that."

I step backwards but his voice stops me.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to insist that you exit the trailer and let the sunshine hit your skin, or I'll have to take more drastic measures," he replies in a deeper voice. His cop voice he calls it.

"Pass," I say flatly.

This makes him huff and slap his hands against his jeans. "I haven't seen you step outside all weekend, you've forgotten what it's like out here! Any number of things could've happened without your attention!"

"Pray tell," I say now amused. I prop my elbow on the sink and lean closer to the glass.

"Oh it's dark times out here man. Real dark times. The rats -" I raise my eyebrows and he grins, excited to launch into whatever story he's cooked up. "Yeah, the rats have unionized. They've taken over Wilkins' camper, four of the little bastards figured out how to move the steering wheel while two others control the gas and brakes. I'm telling ya, as soon as they figure out how to put the keys into the ignition we're all screwed. Royally screwed."

"Hm..." I tap my chin with my index finger. "There doesn't seem to be a single thing I could possibly do about the situation."

I reach up to pull the curtain closed.

"Wait. Wait." His palms move toward the window, gesturing for me to not make any sudden movements. "I'm absolutely on the rats' side. They've had a bad rap for... like most of history. So I thought we could take this..." One hand reaches into his pocket and produces a small white joint. "And watch our rat overlords from the top of my trailer." He finishes with a grin so charming, that I have no choice but to lean my head back, let out a frustrated sigh, and snap the curtain shut.

"Hey! Hello? Where did you go? Winnie! Don't ignore me!"

More tap, tap, taps ring out as I cross the kitchen, pull my jacket from the hook by the door, and step out onto the front porch.

He is right, I often go too long without sunshine. I walk down the steps and go around to the back of my trailer. Eddie is still standing in front of my kitchen window, peering inside with his hands cupped around the glass. I stand behind him, silently, and watch with amusement.

"Okay! Please come out!" Eddie yells desperately into the window. "I am so bored and you've been doing homework or knitting or whatever it is you do in there allllll weekend. Please come outside and entertain me."

Finally, he begins to huff, pushing his breath onto the window to create a small circle of fog. His finger begins working and I take a couple steps forward until I'm directly behind his shoulder, watching him draw.

"Is that supposed to be a goat?" I ask.

"Jesus CHRIST!" Eddie whirls around. His arms have gone up defensively against his chest, not in a boxer pose, it reminds me more of T-rex arms. "Why do you walk SO quietly?" He bellows at me. "You almost gave me a heart attack, and that would not be a rock n' roll way to die."

"On the contrary... I think lots of musicians die by heart attacks," I say, folding my arms over my chest.

"Oh." He says, thinking for a minute, then turns to see his drawing on the window. "Also, no... it's not supposed to be a goat." He cocks his head. "I think it was a devil? Now I'm not sure."

He fishes into his pocket once more and produces the joint. He begins to sway with it and raises his eyebrows suggestively as if to say, shall we?

"I think you're a bad influence on me, Eddie Munson."

He cackles. "What other kind of influence is there?"

I shrug acceptingly and pluck the joint from his grasp. I turn and begin marching towards his trailer.

He runs after me, "Wait, I didn't say you could hold it! That's mine - don't drop it!"

I laugh to myself a little at the memory. I'm back, still outside my trailer standing on my porch. I look across to Eddie's trailer. I see his van parked near the front door and his uncle's car is gone. There is a Camaro parked a short distance away, closer to the entrance, but I'm not sure who that belongs to. It reminds me eerily of my father's car and I turn my gaze away from it quickly.

The sun hasn't yet dipped below the trees, but the lampposts, which stand around the edges of the trailers, are turned on.

Tonight isn't too cold for January in Indiana. It's always partly cloudy here, which creates a sense of gloom over our small town. You could be inside the video store or the arcade with its neon lights and colors, but as soon as you step back outside, you're once again in a gray bubble. The clouds hang low and tight in a formation above you, as if trying to keep us all in, or maybe trying to keep something else out.

All of these trailers are basically identical.

They sit slumped into the dirt beneath them, sagging and sinking. Alongside the neighboring trailer belonging to the Johnsons I can see a deflated kiddie pool, overstuffed garbage cans, and a small chain-link cage where their dog is kept. The Johnsons never seem to notice that he's in there, as if they brought him home to add decoration to their small space, and then forgot all about him.

Eddie always brings scraps out to the mutt. He opens the gate to its cage, daring it to break free and run away, almost begging it to. The dog never does run; maybe it's decided the cage it's in is just fine. When it refuses to move, even with the gate wide open and a handful of turkey waiting for it just beyond the threshold, a look of pained sorrow crosses Eddie's face.

"I think he's trying to communicate with me," Eddie said once, boring his dark brown eyes into the canine's. "What's your name, huh?"

He looked at the dog's neck, where a silver chain sat around its throat, but there was no tag.

"I think I'll call you Motley, okay?" The dog wagged its tail in response.

Eddie smiled. "Yeah you're Motley, aren't you?" He cocked his head, crouched down and shook a fistful of meat at it. "Come on buddy. Just a few small steps to freedom. This is deli-meat, okay, not that Oscar Meyer shit," he said, his voice growing louder.

The dog doesn't move; it never does. This really gets to Eddie; he kicked the chain link fence and flung the turkey onto the dirt inside.

"Fine, you stay in your own prison as long as you want!" He yelled.

Even though it hurts him to see this animal choose captivity, from time to time, I'll catch him trying again, maybe with a t-bone steak, pleading with Motley to just run.

Some things are comfortable in their cages. Eddie Munson isn't one of those creatures.