Here’s a little bit more from my novel-in-progress, The Forest Dark. In the second part of the book, which takes place in 2009, I introduce Louie, who is the son of one of the characters we followed in the first part of the book, which takes place in 1984. Meet Louis Ronald Reagan White.

 

Well dude, Noah saves the day once more, Louie thought.

When he’d opened the box with the knife in it at his birthday party in April, it had all seemed a little dramatic.

“Don’t laugh,” Noah’d said, when Louie tried the switchblade’s spring release for the first time. “I’d be happier if you carried a gun.”

They’d all had a good chuckle at that. Maybe a gun wasn’t such a bad idea after all, though the knife seemed to work pretty well for today’s asshole in the park.

Zeke! Where are you, man? I’m hungry.

As soon as he got to the bottom of the hill, Louie’s mobile signal returned and he’d called Zeke Montero. He would pick Louie up, they would go to the Brite Spot on Sunset, like they almost always did on Tuesdays for the meatloaf.

Louie didn’t know what was in it and didn’t care much. It tasted fine and it was their breakfast.

He didn’t have to wait long for Zeke, who still drove the chill red Pontiac Grand Prix he’d fixed up in high school and tried to perfect while at Los Angeles City College. As short and thick as Louie was deceptively tall and lean, Zeke had been best friend to Louie since they were in fifth grade without interruption except for one teenage summer when the Monteros stayed with their relatives on Lake Chapala.

Louis thought he’d never see Zeke again. But there he was, first day of school, hair slicked back with Brilliantine, like no time had passed at all.

Zeke pulled up too close and scraped the dummy right front hubcap on the stone curb. Louie had his own car, a BMW which had been modified for him, and was an expert at driving it, but he and Zeke had the transfer procedure down.

Even though it would mar the otherwise honest restoration of the 1978 vehicle, a process that would probably never be totally finished anyway, Zeke had attached a chrome handle horizontally in the space on the dashboard above the glove box. Louie opened the passenger door, and Zeke pushed the chair into the closest position he could. Louis locked the chair brakes and stretched to grab the bar.

Almost without fail, he’d pull himself up onto the car seat before Zeke could get out his standard, “am I close enough, Louie?”

Louie would say, “sure you are, dude,” while lifting with his right hand whichever leg momentum didn’t move along into the car. Usually it was only the right leg, but sometimes it was both.

They never talked much when they did this. Louie thought Zeke didn’t want him to dwell on his condition or the accident, or was freaked about the closeness the procedure demanded, as depending on curb height or hills there was no getting around that Zeke would touch some of Louie’s body.

“Steph meeting us?” Zeke asked, out of breath from stashing the chair in the backseat. He closed the driver side door and put the car in gear.

“She is not,” Louie said. “She’s working all night.”

Zeke turned south onto Hillhurst, heading to Sunset. “I’m so fucking hungry,” he said.

“I pulled my blade on this asshole in the park, first time,” Louie said. “It worked, fucker ran away!”

“No shit? You gotta tell Noah.”

MORE TO COME…

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