Homecoming

A kid named Rainey is summoning demons with some dry rice and laying down some bones that make pentagrams on that weird little raised rectangle of dirt next to the 9th Street Parking Garage.

The Eagles Lodge Women’s Auxiliary was supposed to plant flowers there or something, there’s a faded plaque that says so, but apparently they weren’t into it.

The cops don’t give a stale donut about that patch of dirt unless you smoke on it, or flip cigarette butts on it.

I’m watching Rainey, Rainey is into the demon thing, so into it, he’s saying shit that sounds like Latin if Vin Diesel was speaking it after he had a stroke.

I’m thinking how the cops ignore Rainey, what was that cop meeting like “Hey, hey fellas, the Eagles Lodge Ladies don’t want any cigarette butts on that weird little rectangle they abandoned, but the Satan thing is okay as long as no one is puffing Parliament Lights.”

Rainey is standing, summoning, I guess, trying to, I guess, because I don’t believe in that shit. He’s holding a bone pentagram, and I didn’t see him glue it, but the bones are stuck in a Pentagram. Rainey’s little girlfriend with the pierced eyebrows starts howling, and another death metal kid I never seen before starts quivering, and that fat black stoner kid Rainey and his girlfriend hang out with is rubbing his hands together like he’s trying to start a fire with his own hands.

I wish I could believe in something that much, believe until I quiver, I love those kids man, I believe in their belief, if that makes sense, like the demons aren’t a thing but their belief in them is real.

There’s this noise, it’s loud and I think holy shit, Rainey did it, he summoned a demon, then Rainey’s girlfriend, I forget her name but it’s like a noise like Ouch or Whoa, she’s laying on the pavement.

There’s a piece of candy apple red something across her shoulders, and now Rainey is hugging her and cops are everywhere, and it’s chaos, like Rainey summoned it.

Kallion Nysteen, his car all painted with Class of 26 and Go Mustangs for Homecoming hit the mailbox in front of the post office and a piece of the graphite fiber from the car knocked Rainey’s girlfriend over.

Rainey is hugging her and saying “It’s okay Retch, it’s okay,” and she’s pissed, she’s yelling  “it wasn’t a demon, it was a chunk of some chopped jock’s car.”

And I can’t tell who she’s mad at, exactly.

Rainey picks up the chunk, and it’s got a 6 on it, and he thinks it’s a sign, he’s hyped, but Retch is out, cops are everywhere.

Kallion is sitting against the post office and there’s a bottle of caramel vodka on the roof of his smashed car and now Retch is walking toward me.

I blink and I spit. Retch is Gretchen Dunham.

Holy shit.

When she was about 12 my mom used to pay her to walk her dog until she lost my mom’s dog and no one ever found it.

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