He might’ve been a day shy of his tenth birthday, but Gage knew why Mr. Hawkins kept the old man on, why they had the apartment rent-free with the old man supposedly being the maintenance guy for the building. Mr. Hawkins felt sorry for them-and mostly sorry for Gage because he was stuck as the motherless son of a mean drunk.

Other people felt sorry for him, too, and that put Gage’s back up. Not Mr. Hawkins though. He never let the pity show. And whenever Gage did any chores for the bowling alley, Mr. Hawkins paid him in cash, on the side. And with a conspirator’s wink.

He knew, hell, everybody knew, that Bill Turner knocked his kid around from time to time. But Mr. Hawkins was the only one who’d ever sat down with Gage and asked him what he wanted. Did he want the cops, Social Services, did he want to come stay with him and his family for a while?

He hadn’t wanted the cops or the do-gooders. They only made it worse. And though he’d have given anything to live in that nice house with people who lived decent lives, he’d only asked if Mr. Hawkins would please, please, not fire his old man.

He got knocked around less whenever Mr. Hawkins kept his father busy and employed. Unless, of course, good old Bill went on a toot and decided to whale in.

If Mr. Hawkins knew how bad it could get during those times, he would call the cops.

So he didn’t tell, and he learned to be very good at hiding beatings like the one he’d taken the night before.

Gage moved carefully as he snagged three cold ones out of his father’s beer supply. The welts on his back and butt were still raw and angry and they stung like fire. He’d expected the beating. He always got one around his birthday. He always got another one around the date of his mother’s death.

Those were the big, traditional two. Other times, the whippings came as a surprise. But mostly, when the old man was working steady, the hits were just a careless cuff or shove.

He didn’t bother to be quiet when he turned toward his father’s bedroom. Nothing short of a raid by the A-Team would wake Bill Turner when he was in a drunken sleep.

The room stank of beer sweat and stale smoke, causing Gage to wrinkle his handsome face. He took the half pack of Marlboros off the dresser. The old man wouldn’t remember if he’d had any, so no problem there.

Without a qualm, he opened his father’s wallet and helped himself to three singles and a five.

He looked at his father as he stuffed the bills in his pocket. Bill sprawled on the bed, stripped down to his boxers, his mouth open as the snores pumped out.

The belt he’d used on his son the night before lay on the floor along with dirty shirts, socks, jeans.

For a moment, just a moment, it rippled through Gage with a kind of mad glee-the image of himself picking up that belt, swinging it high, laying it snapping hard over his father’s bare, sagging belly.

See how you like it.

But there on the table with its overflowing ashtray, the empty bottle, was the picture of Gage’s mother, smiling out.

People said he looked like her-the dark hair, the hazy green eyes, the strong mouth. It had embarrassed him once, being compared to a woman. But lately, since everything but that one photograph was so faded in his head, when he couldn’t hear her voice in his head or remember how she’d smelled, it steadied him.

He looked like his mother.

Sometimes he imagined the man who drank himself into a stupor most nights wasn’t his father.

His father was smart and brave and sort of reckless.

And then he’d look at the old man and know that was all bullshit.

He shot the old bastard the finger as he left the room. He had to carry his backpack. No way he could put it on with the welts riding his back.

He took the outside steps down, went around the back where he chained up his thirdhand bike.

Despite the pain, he grinned as he got on.

For the next twenty-four hours, he was free.

T HEY’D AGREED TO MEET ON THE WEST EDGE OF town where the woods crept toward the curve of the road. The middle-class boy, the hippie kid, and the drunk’s son.

They shared the same birthday, July seventh. Cal had let out his first shocked cry in the delivery room of Washington County Hospital while his mother panted and his father wept. Fox had shoved his way into the world and into his laughing father’s waiting hands in the bedroom of the odd little farmhouse while Bob Dylan sang “Lay, Lady, Lay” on the record player, and lavender-scented candles burned. And Gage had struggled out of his terrified mother in an ambulance racing up Maryland Route 65.

Now, Gage arrived first, sliding off his bike to walk it into the trees where nobody cruising the road could spot it, or him.

Then he sat on the ground and lit his first cigarette of the afternoon. They always made him a little sick to his stomach, but the defiant act of lighting up made up for the queasiness.

He sat and smoked in the shady woods, and imagined himself on a mountain path in Colorado or in a steamy South American jungle.

Anywhere but here.

He’d taken his third puff, and his first cautious inhale, when he heard the bumps of tires over dirt and rock.

Fox pushed through the trees on Lightning, his bike so named because Fox’s father had painted lightning bolts on the bars.

His dad was cool that way.

“Hey, Turner.”

“O’Dell.” Gage held out the cigarette.

They both knew Fox took it only because to do otherwise made him a dweeb. So he took a quick drag, passed it back. Gage nodded to the bag tied to Lightning’s handlebars. “What’d you get?”

“Little Debbies, Nutter Butters, some Tasty Kake pies. Apple and cherry.”

“Righteous. I got three cans of Bud for tonight.”

Fox’s eyes didn’t pop out of his head, but they were close. “No shit?”

“No shit. Old man was trashed. He’ll never know the difference. I got something else, too. Last month’s Penthouse magazine.”

“No way.”

“He keeps them buried under a bunch of crap in the bathroom.”

“Lemme see.”

“Later. With the beer.”

They both looked over as Cal dragged his bike down the rough path. “Hey, jerkwad,” Fox greeted him.

“Hey, dickheads.”

That said with the affection of brothers, they walked their bikes deeper into the trees, then off the narrow path.

Once the bikes were deemed secure, supplies were untied and divvied up.

“Jesus, Hawkins, what’d your mom put in here?”

“You won’t complain when you’re eating it.” Cal ’s arms were already protesting the weight as he scowled at Gage. “Why don’t you put your pack on, and give me a hand?”

“Because I’m carrying it.” But he flipped the top on the basket and after hooting at the Tupperware, shoved a couple of the containers into his pack. “Put something in yours, O’Dell, or it’ll take us all day just to get to Hester’s Pool.”

“Shit.” Fox pulled out a thermos, wedged it in his pack. “Light enough now, Sally?”

“Screw you. I got the basket and my pack.”

“I got the supplies from the market and my pack.” Fox pulled his prized possession from his bike. “You carry the boom box, Turner.”

Gage shrugged, took the radio. “Then I pick the tunes.”

“No rap,” Cal and Fox said together, but Gage only grinned as he walked and tuned until he found some Run-DMC.

With a lot of bitching and moaning, they started the hike.

The leaves, thick and green, cut the sun’s glare and summer heat. Through the thick poplars and towering oaks, slices and dabs of milky blue sky peeked. They aimed for the wind of the creek while the rapper and Aero-smith urged them to walk this way.

“Gage has a Penthouse,” Fox announced. “The skin magazine, numbnut,” he said at Cal ’s blank stare.

“Uh-uh.”

“Uh-huh. Come on, Turner, break it out.”

“Not until we’re camped and pop the beer.”