Chasing Tail Lights

by Patrick Jones

  "My brother Mitchell goes to Northern, maybe he knows her," I say flatly.

  "Well, she's new there, and it's a big school, so, maybe not," he says quickly.

  "Where did she used to go to school?" I ask, gathering information for an obituary that I would like to write about this girl whose capital crime is murdering years of my dreams.

  He pauses, like he's stumped for an answer; it's a position I've never seen him in during any class we've had together or any play I've seen him in, which is all of them. "What?"

  "Did she used to go here?" I ask, trying not to be difficult. It's not that I'm trying to interrogate Glen, but I'm just used to asking questions. And this information, I need to know.

  "No, she went to Grand Blanc," he says, pulling up his dark blue shirtsleeve to look at his watch. It's one of my favorites: the contrast of the dark blue of his shirt with the light blue of his lying eyes. I know the contents of his closet better than he does.

  "What's her name?" I ask to prolong the conversation and his attention. "My cousin Tommy used to go to Grand Blanc, maybe—"

  "Look, Christy, I really have to get going," Glen says. We've made eye contact once again, so Rani and the nameless probably nonexistent Northern girlfriend matter not. Liars like myself have a good sense of when someone is jerking our chain.

  "So?" I ask, confused by his deceit, and yet delighted with it at the same time. I'm happy he doesn't really have a girlfriend, but also confused about why he'd make up such a story.

  He pauses for a long time, running his thumb along his bottom lip. "What light through yonder window breaks?" he finally says, and I break out in a smile as bright as the sun. As my smile lights up my life and the darkness of the hallway, I chase my dreams like they were tail lights. I want to believe that Glen will lead me to a real human touch because Seth doesn't count.

  eighth grade, november

  "I just said that flute thing just to tease you. You know that, right?"

  I'm staring at Seth Lewis, wondering why he's so mean to me, and why I'm with him.

  "It's okay, I guess." I speak into the cracked concrete sidewalk, avoiding his creepy stare. I'm still mad at him, but we walk home from school together. It beats walking and feeling alone. I hear boys at school tease girls they like, but I can't imagine Seth likes me like that.

  'I was just trying to be funny," he says, taking a step away. We're standing in front of his house, which is a few blocks from mine. There's an old rotted red sofa in the front yard. The lawn is covered in leaves that will never be raked. The house has a few broken windows and plenty of peeling pink paint. The driveway is as pitted as the sidewalk, the steps to the wooden front porch are tilting, and the street in front is mostly potholes. There's a broken-down brown Chevy pickup in the driveway next to a ripped-open trash bag filled mostly with beer bottles.

  I blow on my hands to keep them warm and start to walk away, but stop when I see Seth looking at me with his sad puppy-dog eyes. I accept the overdue apology, then say, UIguess."

  "So, you wanna do something?" It's Friday night, which I guess is supposed to matter. I overhear my classmates talking about their big weekend plans. My guess is they're mostly telling each other lies, but the truth is there's nothing for me to do, especially if Ryan and his friends are in the house, stinking it up with smoke, swearing, and pornos. I guess that's why I'm here at Seth's house. He's a weird kid but he talks to me, even if it's mostly teasing. He doesn't talk to other girls, and I don't blame him. They all spend their time talking about boys, trying to make their breasts look bigger, putting on makeup, and fixing, spraying, gelling, and brushing their hair. Me, I don't talk about boys, I hide my body, I don't wear makeup, and I've chopped off my hair. It's a chicken and egg thing: was I always ugly or did I make myself that way? Do I believe Daddy's long-lost loving words or Ryan's hateful daily put-downs?

  "Sure, like what?" I ask.

  "I don't know," he shrugs, as clueless and lonely as I am. I guess that's why I'm talking to Seth. Just to fit in with someone, even if it's someone as rejected and unlikable as me.

  "Wanna walk over to Cody?" I ask him. Sometimes I go there alone or with Mitchell, and hang out on the swings. Twilight's a good time: the younger kids are all in for the evening, and the older ones aren't out yet. The young ones play on the swings, pretending to fly, while the ground littered with matches, burned ends of joints, and beer cans show that the older kids swing higher a different way. I want to swing, even though the bars are rusted and the seats are torn, dirty, and frayed, not so much as to get high or pretend to fly, but instead to imagine that I can go fast enough and high enough to break through time. I don't have to be twelve; I don't have to turn twenty; instead, I could be eight forever. I can't plan a future, so I'll dream of the past.

  "No, do you just wanna come inside and watch TV or something, " he says after another long pause. If he's not teasing, he can barely talk to me it seems. "My dad's not home."

  I just shake my head, and we're both kind of silent for a while. "Okay, fine."

  I walk inside his house for the first time; it's a mess, even worse than ours, which I didn't think was possible. There are dirty dishes on a dining table and a thick layer of dust on everything, including the TV screen. There's a single lightbulb in the middle of the room, but the rest of the rooms are dark. It doesn't look like a house; it looks like a cave for humans.

  "I can get us schnapps," he whispers toward my ear. His breath is like rotten apples.

  "I gotta go," I say, turning back toward the door, knowing this is all wrong. Maybe it's watching my mom finish off a six-pack of Budweiser every night, but I don't want to drink. Getting high, however, makes me feel better and connects me with Glen.

  "You're too good. "He sounds both hurt and hurtful. "Or are you abadgirl?"

  "Just leave me alone," I tell him, knowing this is a mistake, but my feet don't respond to fear by running. Instead, my ears take over as the word alone just explodes in my brain like a bomb. Alone. Lonely. The words bounce off the empty beer cans then crash back into my ears, running like acid through my blood, then dripping out of my eyes. I lean up against the hard door. The doorknob jabbing into my back feels painfully familiar.

  In this dim light, with a glint of desperate loneliness in my eyes I take a good look at Seth Lewis: he's poor, he's pudgy, he's ugly, and I don' have the heart to knock his hand away from my arm. When he puts his dry thin lips against mine, I still don't push him away. I don't know why I let him kiss me, but maybe it was the same reason that Brutus got hit by a car. If you've been chained up for so long and you get a chance at feeling free, you take it without thinking.

  "That's enough," I say, moving away from him. He answers by pushing toward me, trying to jam his rotten-apple-smelling tongue into my mouth and stuff his fat fingers under my baggy T-shirt. I wonder what he thinks he'll find there. If he would let his hand linger long enough over my heart, instead of frantically trying to get under my why-even-bother bra, he'd know everything. I pin his arm so he can't feel me, but then again, I can't feel myself. If he could stop his heavy breathing, if he could cease the loud smacking of his lips against mine, then he would know that my heart isn't beating, that my body isn't responding, because I'm not there. I'm inside my mind as he's inside my shirt. My arms try to push him away, while he presses his soft stomach against me. He's about an inch shorter than me, so he's standing on his tiptoes. I'm looking past him, down at the stained yellowish carpet. His kisses have hurt, not healed, my bruised bottom lip. The moldy carpet smell chokes off my breathing through my nose, since his tongue fills my mouth, while my ears fill with a screeching metallic noise.

  "I'mgoing home,"I tell him, then try to push him away.

  "Come on, you tease," he says pushing me back up against the wall, his hand in my belt. I realize it's his own zipper undone, not mine. He presses up against me. "Blow me."

  I don't say anything. Instead I see the terror in my face reflected in his eyes. I feel the familiar
fright crawling all over my body, like maggots eating a decaying corpse. Even though he's a boy, I'm stronger and taller than he is, so I manage to free myself. As I'm running toward the door, he's yelling at me. "You tease, you whore," he throws down, but the words don't mean anything to me because I know the truth of who I was and who I am now.

  "Don't ever talk to me again," I scream over my shoulder.

  "I won't," he shouts from across the room. "Bitch, you're on my shit list forever."

  I turn to face him, then scream, "You're such a loser."

  As soon as I get outside, I wipe my arm across my mouth, but the taste of his tongue remains. I run faster and harder than I've ever run before. I get to the bridge in record time, but instead of chasing tail lights, I watch the vomit shoot out of my mouth.

  11

  morning, november 30, senior year

  "Hey, you want some nice new Christmas clothes?"

  "No thank you, Ryan," Aunt Dee says nicely, passing by the pile of brightly colored women's clothes with price tags still attached. Bringing home clothes to Mama is another way Ryan keeps his favored position, but Aunt Dee's not taking anything that wasn't paid for.

  "But this is good shit, know what I'm saying," Ryan says, holding up a nice red blouse, only slightly rumpled from when Ryan lifted it from the rack and stuffed it under his long coat.

  Ryan never steals anything for me, and that's just fine. I try my best to ignore him and the blaring TV, while I'm waiting for Anne to come pick me up this chilly Sunday November morning for us to go cruising in the PT Cruiser. We're going clothes shopping: well, she is shopping and I am going, which is our typical arrangement.

  "Sorry, nothing for you, Cuz," Ryan says, pointing at Tommy who is standing by the front door. It's the first time I've seen Tommy since he got out of Genesee County Juvenile Hall this September. He doesn't look that different: he still looks like a person in charge with his over-six-foot frame and penetrating brown eyes. Still, he looks harder and older than his eighteen years. It's weird how just nine months can age someone, even outside the womb.

  Tommy doesn't say anything, just shoots Ryan a look that could kill, and I wish it would. Aunt Dee and Mitchell are taking Bree to church. It's a Sunday ritual that isn't adhered to by all in this household. Mama says she wants to go every Sunday, but instead she ends up with some girlfriends driving down to the Detroit casinos to worship slot machines and blackjack tables.

  "Don't be dissin' me, Cuz," Ryan says through his always present smart-ass smirk.

  "Mitchell, see if Bree is ready?" Tommy asks Mitchell, who has stepped from the bedroom wearing his brown churchgoing suit, which is much nicer than his fugly uniform. Bree is spending time at Aunt Dee's over this weekend, which fills me with dread. I've wanted to spend nights there, but since Tommy is around my same age, Aunt Dee won't allow it. She knows how screwed up our family is without two cousins hooking up, not that I've ever once thought about Tommy in that way. So Bree spends nights in a nice warm condo in Grand Blanc, while I'm trapped in the cold cell of Stone Street. I should thank the god that I don't believe in for Anne's red car and her restlessness, which allow me a few hours of escape.

  "She's almost ready. You sure you don't want to come with us, Christy?" Mitchell says as he buttons up his coat and heads outside. He asks out of habit, knowing I'll always say no.

  "What are you looking at?" Ryan suddenly shouts at Tommy. I'm standing in the corner of the room, but Ryan looks like he's having trouble standing. I never look at my watch when I smell him enter the house, but I knew he came home late last night. He's acting so irritable not because he had to get up early, but because I don't think he's been to bed yet. I smell the stench of his cologne, vodka, and dope smoke even from across the room.

  Tommy shrugs, turns on his heel, and starts walking toward Bree's room when Ryan grabs his beefy arm, spinning him around. "I'm talking to you, loser!"

  Tommy pulls his arm away, looks at Ryan, shakes his head in disgust, and then starts laughing. "I'll get Bree," Tommy says, walking away from the insult and attack. He knows too well the consequences of not walking away from trouble from his stint in juvy jail.

  "Loser, what the—" Ryan starts.

  "That's enough, young man!" Aunt Dee says with her best authoritative flight attendant voice. She always dresses nicely, wearing clothes that she bought, which are nicer than any Ryan steals. Like me, Aunt Dee's tall, but the resemblance ends there. She's got a curved, shapely body, long, dyed-blond hair, and wears more jewelry than I own. She's one of these women everybody calls striking. She's another human tail light in my life. I still dream about living with Aunt Dee rather than at my home. But I fear the nightmare of Mama's likely response if I asked to leave. She'd probably say, "Go ahead, Christy, I don't want you here anyway."

  Ryan heats things up by lighting up a small cigar, blowing the smoke in Aunt Dee's direction. "I don't take orders from nobody," Ryan says, knowing having her against him is more points for him in Mama's eyes.

  "And that's why you'll never leave here," Aunt Dee says in the most dismissive voice possible. Ryan used to try to play Aunt Dee like he plays Mama, but she's never had any of it. "Don't speak to me again until you learn how to speak correctly. Your language is disgraceful."

  "Chill, Aunt Dee, I was kidding, you know what I'm saying," Ryan says, pulling smoke into his lungs and trying to blow smoke up her ass.

  "Ryan, you'll never change," Aunt Dee says, then walks away. Ryan's smiling, not understanding Aunt Dee has dissed him. I'm smiling, realizing she has. I put on an old green cap and two pairs of gloves, since the holes don't overlap, and join Mitchell on the snow-covered sidewalk out front. Aunt Dee, as always, tells me to have a blessed day before I leave.

  "Ryan's such a disgrace," Mitchell says, pacing back and forth, trying to keep warm.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Did you see how he dresses?" Mitchell asks, adding a furious headshake underscoring his disapproval and disgust at Ryan's attire.

  There's nothing unusual about it; it's pretty standard stuff for north of Bristol Road: oversize basketball shirt, baggy pants hanging down around his thighs, a bunch of gold chains, and expensive sneaks. His wardrobe is mostly stolen, or purchased with cash from other stuff he's stolen, and then pawned. That's yet another reason I won't wear his hand-me-downs. I even hate to wash his clothes, because the smell of cologne, vodka, and smoke never washes away no matter how hard I scrub.

  I'm hearing Mitchell with one ear, listening for Anne with the other. "What do you mean?"

  "He's living proof of every negative thing folks with money think about poor people. They don't see people like me, they're too busy fearing the Ryans of the world. Every step I take forward, people like Ryan kick me to the back of the line," Mitchell says sharply and sadly.

  I nod in agreement.

  "Let's get going," I hear Aunt Dee shout from the front door. Bree looks so cute in her new blue dress, a present from Ryan's fast fingers.

  Mitchell heads toward the car, while I look down the street, waiting for Anne.

  "Christy, long time no see." I turn around to see Tommy just behind me. "I wasn't ignoring you in there, but I just don't like talking around Ryan, know what I mean?"

  I nod quickly in agreement. "How you doing?"

  "It's nice to be out, Christy," Tommy says softly. For such a big guy, his deep voice is almost always soft and warm, like a loud whisper. "I ain't going back."

  I nod in agreement. When Robert ended up in Jackson, everybody had known it was really a matter of when, not if. But no one thought Tommy would end up behind bars, especially him.

  "I know this sounds crazy, but it was the best thing ever to happen to me," he says.

  "What do you mean?" I ask.

  "It gave me a chance to slow down, to think, to plan, and to decide," he says, each word very deliberate.

  "You got your GED too, right?" I ask, remembering the pride in Aunt Dee's voice, since unlike Robert or Ryan, Tommy at le
ast graduated from high school, even if it was done behind bars.

  "Yeah, so I can go to college and learn something useful, not like in there," he says.

  "That's great, Tommy, just great."

  "I mean, I could have learned useful stuff in there, except it would all be how to become more like Ryan and Robert," Tommy says, then laughs for no reason. "If Robert could get out, he'd be made. Best thug education in the world is behind bars. It's like a college for criminals."

  "But you were never a thug," I remind him.

  "Well, maybe not, but I did a violent thing, and I got punished," Tommy says. "But I also learned I've got to stop thinking about what I want; now, I'm thinking about what I need."

  "Tommy, let's go," I hear Aunt Dee shout from the window of her car, a new dark blue Volvo, and just as she's backing up, I see Anne's car cruise in front of the house. I blink quickly, hoping I could make my family disappear, but Tommy's still standing next to me.

  "Wake up, sunshine!" I hear Anne yell, followed by the sound of her honking the horn. I wave to Anne and start toward the car. Anne's never been inside my house and never will. She doesn't need to see the leaking roof, the pillows jammed against broken windows, and the rented furniture. Mama works long, hard hours, but somehow there's never enough money to fix the house. There's just enough to make the rent.

  "So who is that? Tommy asks as he follows me down the sidewalk.

  "That's my best friend, Anne Williams," I say, proud to label her as such.

  "Hey, Christy," Anne says, a big smile appearing on her madeup face. I notice Tommy staring at Anne. She's wearing a black fake fur coat and a funky yellow ski cap: she's got a bad hat habit. I climb in, then blast up the heat. It's always too cold in my house.