Toll Booth. Michael Aronovitz

clacked inside and he moved to the sound in a sarcastic rendition of the “Do-Si-Do” we learned in gym class two winters ago. His head was sort of sideways, one eye regarding me in a sly sort of observation. He was doing a circular motion with the box now like the Good & Plenty choo-choo boy on TV. He shuffled past me. He stopped. He pulled up the box top, drew out a nail, and tossed it into the middle of the dirt road that cut through the job site.

      He turned back with raised eyebrows. I was sorry to disappoint.

      “What are you doing?” I said.

      He shook his head, took out a second nail, and flipped it to the road from behind his back. He grabbed another, lifted his leg, and chucked it up from beneath. That particular one landed with its sharp point angled straight to the sky.

      I shot off the tread.

      “You can’t do that!” I looked back to the Route 79 overpass that spanned the horizon to my right. “If someone takes a wrong turn off the highway you know they’ll be trucking, shit, they’re gonna run over those nails and pop a tire!”

      Kyle looked up at the sky with his arms spread out.

      “By George, I think he’s got it!”

      The taste in my mouth was electric. Three months ago the construction men had blocked off exit 7 up on the overpass while completing the off ramp, but the job got delayed before the new extension could be finished down here. Dirt road city. The plans for pouring and paving had come to a dead halt and long since, all the road barriers up on the turnpike had been stolen or moved. It was an old joke by now, that bum steer on the overpass and everyone knew not to take the deep, unmarked turn. Everyone.

      Unless they weren’t from Westville.

      Every now and again some goober took the exit by mistake and barreled down the ramp to the dirt road. It was a major pain too, as the rough detour stretched for five miles through the woods before hitting the outskirts of Westville Central. Bumpy ride. Slow as all hell.

      Soon to be stalled out and stranded.

      I looked up at the overpass and, from behind its triple guard rail, heard the cars shooting past. They couldn’t see us and we couldn’t see them. A double blindfold.

      “Pick ’em up, Kyle,” I said. It sounded like a command backed at least by a shred of confidence, and of that I was glad. Kyle replied by flipping another nail into the road.

      “You sound like your mother.” His voice rose to falsetto. “Let’s talk about you and how you feel about yourself, James. Let’s have a big pow-wow.”

      His tone went back to normal.

      “Damn, Jimmy. Your ma just won’t leave you be, will she? The lady has you turned pussy is all, hell, why does she have to know everything anyway? She don’t even give you an allowance.”

      “What does that have to do with—”

      “Well she don’t, does she? Does she?”

      My eyes felt hot and bloodshot.

      “She gives me money.”

      He snorted.

      “Exactly! But ya got to ask for it every time. That’s how she keeps tabs on what you’re going to do with it. Don’t you see? Anytime you want to buy something fun she gets to shoot it down. She wants to keep her little baby-boy, don’t she? She won’t let you have secrets. That should be a crime or something.”

      He nodded at me meaningfully.

      “I know you’re a charity case, Jimmy. That’s why I want to help ya. That’s why I like ya.” He held up a crooked nail. “This ain’t gonna cost nothing. This here secret is gonna be a freebie.”

      My mouth opened and I shut it. Like always, Kyle had twisted my mother right into the crux, and though the correlation was clumsy, the effect was damned potent. Most of my friends were starting to get out more, like after dusk and all, but I still wasn’t allowed. I had to stay home with mother so we could talk. Talk-talk, some nights she had me at the kitchen table until eight o’clock, asking about the details of my day and hanging on the words. She was lord, judge, and jury, always cramming my head full of her interpretations. Oh, she was a regular code-cracker all right.

      So yeah, since Dad left it had become a big responsibility being the man of my family. A responsibility I was starting to resent with or without Kyle Skinner.

      He pushed the box out toward me and gave it a shake.

      “Go on, Jimmy. Do a nail, man.”

      I scooped my thumb and index finger into the box, drew out a nail, and underhanded it out to the road. My nail looked like a crooked finger, pointing.

      This was not the way I imagined I would turn out.

      I took a step forward and bent to one knee so I could grab back my nail.

      “Too late for that shit!” Kyle said from behind.

      There was a shhhuuuuckkk sound to my right followed by a flock of shadows spinning madly across the road. A shower of nails pelted down to kick up a scatter of dust.

      The lane was covered.

      I thought of picking up the nails one by one, but I stopped myself right there. I wasn’t the one who dumped the whole box. It wasn’t my idea to leave someone stranded out here with a flat.

      I decided to let him get his own Goddamned nails and pick mine up in the process. What did I owe him? A Chesterfield and a piece of gum? I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to do this. I had enough guilt dumped on me at home.

      I turned to tell him all this, but Kyle wasn’t looking my way. He was staring at something off to the side. Something absolutely mesmerizing.

      I followed the line of his gaze and saw the car coming down the ramp.

      It was coming fast, and the air suddenly tasted rusty and harsh. Kyle grabbed my arm. My stomach was a lead ball, my ears hot as branding irons.

      We scrambled behind a red dumpster and there was the gritty sound of a car bumper banging from roadway to dirt. Kyle dropped to his knees for the low view and I stayed up high.

      Sharp sun lanced off the chrome and plastered a hot glare to the windshield. It was a dull orange Honda Civic, already swerving, plumes of dirt spitting up high behind it.

      My mouth was working the word “no” silently.

      There was a series of sharp “pop” sounds. The car did a rapid back-and-forth, left to right to left to right, then shot straight toward us. Like a yanked sheet the glare on the windshield vanished, and I was eye-to-eye with the driver.

      She had straight blonde hair. I thought she was wearing one of those plastic, red, three-quarter-moon hair bands that formed her bangs into their own separate little statement, but I couldn’t be sure at the moment. Her face had a sharp sort of beauty that was almost regal, and of that I was quite sure. Then the moment was gone. She overcompensated for control and yanked the wheel the other way. Now I saw the back of the car and the huge oak tree rising up ahead of it to the left of a jobsite trailer.

      There was a hard clap. The butt end of the car actually jumped, and small fragments of bark and glass burst to both sides. The car bounced twice and settled, and the raised dirt blew off into the woods.

      The car horn sounded.

      Its steady wail fingered its way into the afternoon sky and spiraled up to an accusing, hot summer sun.

      2.

      We both spoke at once, and then took a moment to absorb what was voiced by the other.

      “Run,” I said. This was Kyle’s problem.

      “We killed her,” Kyle said.

      We.

      One of those nails was mine. We were in this together.

      But