NICHOLAS DE KRUYFF

BURGER'S HEAD

READING THE PAPER, IGNORING the half-finished income tax forms scattered on my
desk, idly pondering what magic hat I can find to pull my daughter's tuition
from, I come across the witch's obituary in the paper. Involuntarily, my neck
itches.

I think of Larry. We drifted apart after. Never could forgive him for leaving me
with Riverty, although he was only gone ten minutes and that was just to get
some grownups to come help. He ended up being the super at one of those
apartment buildings along Kingston Road, the ones that have rust stains
stretching from the balconies. That fits.

And then Burger. Burger. Dead three years from a heart attack, from
cheeseburgers, from sitting behind a complaints desk at Walmart, from drinking a
six of Coors before falling into a comatose sleep, from flipping past the Bally
Fitness ads to get to the football scores, from taking care of Lisa after the
car accident left her so she couldn't feed herself or go to the toilet alone. He
looked out for her as a big brother should. Always did.

I didn't go to the funeral. I'd seen him dead once already; me and Larry killed
him when we were eleven. I don't think I could have handled it again.

We tied Burger to the tracks, then waited for the train, just as the witch told
us.

The problem was how to cut off Burger's head without me or Larry actually doing
the deed. No way me or Larry would put an axe or chainsaw to our friend's
outstretched neck. And we couldn't think of any other way to cut someone's head
clean away from their body.

It was Auntie Martha who suggested the train. We knew about the tree-lined bend
in the tracks; the engineer would never see a body strapped there till it was
too late to stop. It seemed perfect.

One rail ran under Burger's neck. Yellow nylon rope held his wrists and ankles
in overlapping coils.

"Guys? I can't do this. Let me up."

Burger's eyes begged us, his thick cheeks flattened by gravity and flushed,
strands of wet honey hair stuck to his forehead, his belly leaked out his
untucked T-shirt.

"We all agreed," I said. "You want Riverty to get Lisa like he said? You want
him to rape your little sister?"

"Let me up."

"Don't worry, we won't desert you. All for one --"

"-- and one for all." Only Larry joined in. Burger's lips quivered. "Let me up
... guys, let me up..."

We didn't answer.

"Chrissakes, let me up!"

"Auntie Martha said we had to have faith."

"How is me dying going to stop Riverty?"

"We have to have faith. Right, Larry?"

Larry turned away, threw a stone that clicked off the tracks. His shoes were
undone. Always were. Like his clothes were always stained with dirt. He bragged
his mom didn't wash clothes, just let them lie around for a week airing out. I'd
never been invited to Larry's house so I didn't know if it was true or not.

"What if this is what she wants, not us." Burger said. "She is a witch." My dad
would have called her a crazy old nigger. He didn't live with me and Mom
anymore. He left.

"The magic will save you."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"It will. Has to. We paid for it."

It was real magic, Tolkien magic, where lightning would split the Earth and the
sky would turn to blood and Nazgul lurking in the playground grass would rise
and smite Chris Riverty. It was the kind of magic I'd hoped for all my life,
hoped it was real and knew it could never be. But it was real. And it had a
price.

"Guys...let me up..."

WE WENT BACK to Auntie Martha on a windy day when the sky looked like exhaust
from a bus. Clouds raced by.

Auntie Martha lived in a wartime bungalow be side Corneal Park. She had no
neighbors on either side, and her house creaked in the wind.

Everyone knew Auntie Martha, knew she was a witch. You'd see her on Sundays
walking in the park. She'd wave. Everyone waved back. They didn't dare not.

Mom said she'd lost her husband a few years before. Said she was a widow.

Widow. Like the spider.

The glass in the front door was broken, only a couple of curving shards left,
the opening covered with cardboard from a box of Louisiana Yams. We shuffled up,
Mom's rose pillowcase strung between me and Larry, bulging with bribery. Burger
knocked, tiny knuckle taps on the peeling green paint.

The door swung open. Auntie Martha stood grinning a crooked smile, one ivory
tooth hanging over a leathery lip. Her hair, steel wool brushed with shoe polish
and piled into a mound; a black Bride-of-Frankenstein.

"So you come back." A veined crooked finger pointed at the bag. "You brought me
something, nah?"

We couldn't speak. I think Larry nodded.

"Give it me."

We handed over our larceny; dime store candy we'd stolen and stockpiled for a
month, purloined under jackets from neighborhood comer stores, malls, discount
stores. We never went back to the same store twice. Not cause we were afraid.
Just cause.

Her creamy eyes danced over crumbling butter tarts and lumps of stuck-together
licorice, her mouth masticating in anticipation.

"Just you wait here while old me puts this nice bit of treats away."

We stood on cracked cement patio stones, feet shuffling, heads twisting, looking
at old tires piled in the yard, the hull of a burned-out car, dandelions
yellowing the grass, anywhere but the door. Years went by. Maybe she'd forgotten
us? Wanted us to go? The house creaked. No, not creaked, moaned. Burger and
Larry started inching towards the gate.

"Come on, let's go. We'll figure another way --"

The door flung open, locking us in place, heads snapped up and front. Frizzy
hair poked into daylight. I smelled limes.

"Right nah, which one was the little boy having problems with bullies?"

Burger's hand drifted up like a week-old balloon. A wrinkled finger beckoned
him. He slunk to her.

"Your name, child?"

"Burger, ma'am."

"Your real name."

"James L. Cearn."

"James Lionel Cearn. And the bully's name, what's that? Riverty? Chris Riverty
and his gang?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She was good at witching. We'd never mentioned Riverty by name.

"Fine. Don't move."

If it'd been me I'd have run screaming, not stopped till I was under covers at
home. Burger had guts. He stayed frozen. Her fingers did long division in the
air around him, dividing and carrying the ether. After she'd done, Burger
stepped back rubbing his eyes.

"Right nah, which of you friends is gone to carry the magic word?"

I looked at Larry and he looked at me. Neither of us wanted to have anything to
do with it, you could see that.

Larry sighed finally, walked to the witch.

"You is?"

"Lawrence Aaron Meekle."

"Listen close --"

She bent over him: vampire tableau, Larry's neck stretched out, face to sky,
eyes squinted shut; the witch, lips hovering at the fleshy shell of Larry's ear,
breathed into it. Larry shivered, his body shook. He stepped back. He looked
like she'd told him the day he was going to die.

The witch's eyes grabbed me.

"Now you."

"Neil Seer, ma'am."

"Master Seer -- come nah."

I stopped in front of the witch. Twig fingers dug in a pouch that hung from her
neck, and out she pulled a small jam jar, the Black Watch tartan on its lid. The
label soaked off. The jar was empty. The glass was clear as ice in water,
shimmering with light. Her lips bowed and her hot breath defiled my ear.

"Take it, child. You'll know what to do with it when the time come."

I took the jar, careful not to touch the witch's autumn-leaf skin.

"Come near, all, listen what you must do..."

Burger's whining ate at my stomach. Half of me wanted to loosen his ropes, get
out of here, forget all this. Larry chewed his lower lip like it was a stick of
Juicy Fruit. He looked at me. We had to stay. We were the three musketeers. We
had to kill Burger. Cut off his head.

"LET ME UP ... please ... please ... come on ... this ain't funny ... Larry? ...
Neil? ... answer me ... you're not going to let the train run over me, huh?"

Waiting for the train, it felt like I had to go to the bathroom. It felt like
that the day Dad left. He hit her and he left. He looked at me on the way out
the door. His eyes were soft, like he was sorry for what he'd done. Like he
wanted to say something to me. He left. I went over to Mom, this crumpled ball
of a person. If I were to blow on her she would have drifted away like dandelion
fuzz. She was crying like a kid. Gently I stroked her hair. She hugged me. Made
me promise I'd never go away.

You don't leave people like that.

"Train!"

Here it came, all metal and speed with a single windshield eye and two engineer
pupils and enough velocity to demolish a city block. All bearing down on
Burger's torso.

"Remember! Stretch your neck when it comes."

Burger screamed. Acid burned my throat. Burger's hands twisted in the yellow
nylon ropes. His cheeks, slick with tears, stretched to let screams out.

"Let me gooooooo!"

Larry stepped toward him. It was on his face, in the way his fingers twitched:
he was going to let Burger up. After all we'd been through, he was deserting the
plan. I grabbed Larry and pulled. We went over, falling, sliding down the
embankment, my shins and forearms scratched bloody by gravel and thistles.
Tumbling down into a patch of wild juniper at the bottom. Larry was on me. It
took a moment to realize he was punching me, his fists soft balls that exploded
on my face for an instant's pain.

"You killed him! You did! It's your fault!"

"The magic word! You got to say it! Martha said."

The thought struck him. He looked up. Couldn't see Burger or the tracks.

"I can't see him -- I can't --"

"Guess -- guess when it comes by --"

Couldn't hear Burger anymore; the train too close --

--the world was a roar and a rush and a hot wind that smelled of oil, blur of
metalsteelglassnoise, pauses between cars like flickering light at the end of a
movie. Faces -- reading papers, sipping from Styrofoam cups, daydreaming with
forehead on window -- there and gone in a flicker. My chest beat with the
turning wheels, connected through vibration with the movement, the loudness, the
racing. The train was an angry speeding god that didn't care. Then it was gone.
Doppler effect lowering pitch. The train was past.

I realized I was kneeling. I got up slowly. Larry's face was white and wide. He
just stared into the space the train had been.

"Did you say it?"

He didn't answer. I don't think he heard. I shook him.

"Did you say the magic word?"

"-- yeah. Neil, I think I was too late."

"Come on."

We climbed the slope carefully. Cresting the top we saw Burger.

It was like cherry Jell-O had fallen from the cloud-piled sky, blood and Jell-O
everywhere in spoonfuls and bowlfuls, splattered on oily gravel. Water squeezed
out Larry's eyes.

"Oh man..."

"Yeah..."

Down the track the train was slowing, brake lights bright. Up along the tracks,
a base length's distance away, was a football. Who would forget a football on
train tracks?

"Come on!"

I ran to the football: Burger's head, eyes absently on the horizon, veins like
worms squirming out the pink slash where his neck ended. Larry vomited. I wanted
to vomit too, smelling the acid of Larry's stomach.

The train disgorged men wearing pointed caps like cops. Trotting back towards
us. They had no faces at this distance.

"We gotta go!"

I picked up the head by the hair. I didn't look at it just in case it looked
back.

"Let's go."

I TOOK OFF. I didn't look back. My gym teacher said you lose speed if you look
back. So I didn't. The rhythm of running fell into me and I felt I could go on
forever. I was numb. Burger's head banged my leg with every other stride. Behind
me I could hear Larry's tortured breathing. I'd always been the fastest. I
slowed to let him keep up.

Men followed us, but we lost them.

We didn't stop till the grass field of our public school. The sun slipping down
behind one portable made the sky red and gold, the grass long and thick with
saw-tooth shadows. We ran to the shade under a portable's window, sank down on
cold asphalt. Our chests pumped air in and out. Pain burned in leg muscles.
Sweat chilled foreheads and necks. Larry muttered.

"We killed him..."

"We didn't kill him! He ain't dead. You got to have faith."

"Oh yeah? What's in your hands, Neil?"

I wanted to scream at him, punch him in the face and go home. That's what I
wanted. But I stayed.

The plywood skirt of the portable bowed against my weight. I pushed. It bent in.
The portable was supported by three-foot sections of two-by-fours, the sheets of
plywood keeping the kids from playing under the structure.

I chucked the head under the portable, let the plywood snap back into place.
Larry screeched.

"What'd you do that for?"

"I'm hiding Burger. Now shut up!"

He sagged like a forgotten puppet. I sat next to him, just our arms touching. We
sulked there as indigos chased each other across the September twilight. I could
feel the magic all around, tingling my skin, brushing my arms with goosebumps,
combing the playground grass. Couldn't Larry feel it? The magic would show us
what to do next. It was working.

The school yard was a different place at night, unfamiliar. Scary. Different
shadows, the buildings dark foreboding slabs of stone thrown up to hide ...
things. And things came here. We'd find evidence of their passing the next day
at recess; broken pieces of brown stubby bottles, rubber tubes like the
discarded skin of some short thick snake, crushed cigarette packages, ends of
cigarettes butted out in the sandbox.

Footsteps. Teenage voices swearing, talking in half sentences.

Think of the Devil and he will come.

Around the corner strolled Chris Riverty and Morris Bartlett and John Ferguson.
Bartlett nearly stepped on my toe. Ferguson let out a startled yelp. Riverty
just stopped, calmly looked down at us up against the portable. A smile slashed
Riverty's face.

"What we got here? Little shits. Little faggot shits come here to play with
themselves." Bartlett and Ferguson laughed, not like it was funny, like they
were supposed to.

Riverty was five years older than us. Cigarette-burn scars on the back of his
hand, lean frame, raven hair hanging ragged. Lived at the group home up by the
highway. Rumors said Riverty and Bartlett and Ferguson murdered a bus driver
named Stevens doing a late shift on Saturday night. Said Riverty smiled when he
slipped the knife in the man's kidneys, took his cap, that was all he wanted.
Riverty was the darkness in my closet at night.

Riverty glared at Larry. "You hang with that fat geek, don't ya? Come here."
Larry stayed still.

"Come here!"

"Don't," I said. It didn't feel like my lips moving, my voice speaking.

Riverty came at me smiling. I stood. Better stand whatever was coming.

"You telling people what they should do? You pushing people around?"

His hands struck me flat in the chest. His hands were hard as hurled rocks, as
ice balls, as my Dad's handshake. Pushed me back against the portable. The world
tilted. I saw Larry running across the field.

He ran, left me with them alone. I knew why he'd run, to get a grownup to come.
But I still hated him for leaving me.

Bartlett and Ferguson were on either side of me, each gripping an arm. I
couldn't move, I twisted but I couldn't. Larry would get somebody. Just had to
hang on.

"Hey Chris," Bartlett said in a thick slow voice. "Free punches."

"Hold his face."

Callused fingers gripped my hair and chin. My eyes stretched wide when Riverty
lit a cigarette.

"No. Don't. Come on."

"Should I?" He asked Bartlett and Ferguson.

"Don't..."

"Do it!"

"Yeah!"

His eyes flickered, something inside trying to decide which way to fall. It
fell. Cigarette's bloody glow descended burning and hissing into my cheek. It
took all my energy to scream, like I couldn't open my mouth wide enough to let
out all the pain.

"Hey kid, now you got a beauty mark."

"You're a piece of shit, Riverty!"

It was my voice. I barely felt it leave my throat.

He threw the cigarette down and grabbed my shirt in both fists and shoved me
hard against the portable. I smelled limes.

"You're going to pay for that, you little shit."

His fist plunged into my stomach. I doubled over, fell hard onto asphalt, grit
biting my knees. When I could I looked up. His smile hovered above me, pacing
back and forth, thinking of new cruelty. Something in my pocket pushed hard into
me, felt warm.

The jar.

My fingers slipped on the glass. It took me a couple of pulls to get it out.

"What you got there?"

The jar had filled with a green liquid that flowed like syrup. It glowed,
bright, underlighting their faces, a green the color of fluorescent seaweed,
like an emerald laser caught in a jar. The lime light formed a bubble around us.

"Cool." Bartlett barely breathed the word.

Riverty snatched the jar from my hand. Eyed it with avarice.

"Dare you to drink it." I said it as a challenge.

Riverty's eyes lashed me.

"Dare you to." I pushed.

"Darers go first."

"That's a baby thing to say."

It was. His lips twitched in the Caribbean forest light, like some unseen
feather was tickling them.

"It's just jam I got from my aunt. Drink it, chicken."

"Drink it, Riverty," said Ferguson. "Shut the kid up."

"You shut up!" Riverty snapped.

His eyes pinned me. They wished something real hard. His fingers curled around
the jar and worked the lid off. The scent of limes hit the air. Tipping his head
back with a jerk, Riverty drank the contents of the jar. The green glow
disappeared. I watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. The smile was back.

"See, kid? I ain't no chicken. Now let's..."

He stopped. His face looked like he'd suddenly forgotten his name. Green light
leaked out of his mouth.

It hit me in the chest. Heat pressure rushing outward, shock wave, like when Mom
poured too much fuel on the barbecue. Bartlett and Ferguson let go of me to
shield their faces. Green glow ate into Riverty's skin, covered it in a thin
shellac of light. He tried to brush it off. In the air music, like a bulimic
church organ throwing up the contents of mass, filling the space between me,
Riverty, Earth, and sky. Bartlett and Ferguson ran. Light spun off Riverty in
strands, twirled, became a whirlpool of magic that distorted his face like a fun
house mirror. He screamed finally. His body stooped, bloated. His hair lightened
from raven to honey. Face changed into Burger.

The magic whirled, stretched to the black-bellied clouds, snapped, broke into a
shower of lime sparks that fizzed off into night.

He lay in a heap. I stepped closer, the fear loosening.

"Burger?"

Burger's eyes turned and hugged me, glazed and bright with fear.

"Yeah. It's me."

In the quiet school yard, me, Burger, and Larry crouched beneath the portable
window. My fingers pried up the plywood, gave a yank and --crack! -- wood
splintered. We squeezed into the space beneath the portable, air filled with
cobwebs. A smell wrinkled my nose, rotting meat.

"Do we really need to do this?" Larry asked. "They found his jean jacket at the
tracks. The railroad employees identified Bartlett and Ferguson as the kids who
ran. They're getting what they deserve. Riverty got what he deserved. It's over.
We got away. We should just leave it alone."

Burger said nothing, just duck-walked over to the lump covered by a carpet of
buzzing flies. When he reached it the flies took wing, making a halo with their
tiny black bodies. Burger stared into his old eyes, his old face, skin on the
cheeks burst open exposing muscle and fat, skin waxy and tinted green. It didn't
look human anymore. More like the face of a vandalized department store dummy.

"Oh boy. We gotta dump this."

We walked down to the lake, tied rocks around it, dumped it in. A couple of
months later we heard on the news of some Labrador going in after a thrown
Frisbee and coming out with unidentified human remains. A head. Never heard
anything after that.

Reading the paper at my desk, ignoring the half-finished income tax forms, idly
pondering what magic hat I can find to pull my daughter's tuition from, I come
across the witch's obituary in the paper: Martha Jane Stevens, known to the
community as "Auntie." Stevens. Just like the murdered bus driver. An itch
crawls across the skin at the back of my neck.