by Paul Griffin
PRAISE FOR PAUL GRIFFIN AND
Ten Mile River
Nominated for the 2009
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
‘These two boys come to life on the pages…and
their conversations are often laugh-out-loud funny…’
School Library Journal
‘A striking debut.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Equal parts grit and heart. A spectacular first novel… it’s got all the right stuff to make it a major favourite.’
Richie Partington, American Library Association
‘Stunningly acute debut novel…’
VOYA Library Journal
‘Gorgeous writing…His is clearly a talent to watch.’
Booklist
‘The reader’s fervent desire to see these kids escape
their situation against all odds creates the tension…
Compelling, well-articulated reality.’
San Francisco Chronicle
While getting his stories published, Paul Griffin worked on the docks, in construction, as an emergency medical technician, and as a teacher, mostly with at-risk kids in high schools and juvenile detention centres throughout New York City, where Paul lives with his wife, a documentary filmmaker. He is finishing his second novel, The Orange Houses.
PAUL GRIFFIN
The paper used in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.
The Text Publishng Company
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Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
www.textpublishing.com.au
Copyright Paul Griffin 2008
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published by Dial Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
This edition published by The Text Publishing Company 2009
Design by Susan Miller
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
Printed and bound by Griffin Press
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Griffin, Paul, 1966–
Ten Mile River / Paul Griffin.
ISBN: 9781921520136 (pbk.)
Runaway teenagers—New York (N.Y.)—Juvenile fiction.
For secondary school age.
813.6
for Kirby Kim and Nan Mercado
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
1
Ray was bigger but José was boss. They were fourteen and fifteen, on their own and on the run.
José pulled two lead pipes from the knapsack he made Ray wear, slapped one into Ray’s hand. ‘Shut your eyes before you smash the glass.’
‘You said the same damn thing last time.’
‘And you forgot to do it last time.’ José smacked the back of Ray’s giant head.
They were hiding in the park. Ray studied the three-quarter moon spraying light they didn’t need.
‘Let’s git to work,’ José said.
They made their way through the weed trees, downhill toward their target, a line of parked cars. José peeled off his shirt, wrapped it around his arm. He was skinny, ripped. ‘Strip off that shirt, Ray-Ray.’
‘I’m a’right.’ Ray’s pipe slipped out of his sweaty hand, rang on the sidewalk. ‘Quit lookin at me like I’m a moron.’
‘You are a moron.’
‘Think I dropped it on purpose?’
‘With you, you never know.’ José hustled ahead.
Ray eyed the tenements, the air conditioners hanging lopsided from windows. He worried one would fall someday, kill some kid in a stroller.
José never seemed to worry about what rotten thing might happen next. He gripped the pipe good, closed his eyes, swung down on an Escalade. The windshield imploded.
Ray smashed the far side of the street. There were a few jacked-up SUVs but mostly rear-ended Accords, gypsy hack Tauruses, poor folk rides. ‘Goddammit,’ Ray said. He knew he was breaking more than glass.
After they popped thirty-some windshields, lights and sirens spun a half mile up the road. The boys hid in the woods. José said, ‘That Escalade goes for eighty grand. All that bling, they deserve it.’
They don’t, Ray didn’t say. Nobody does, not the poor folk, not the pimps neither. ‘Punks, every last one of ’em.’
José poked Ray’s gut. ‘A man’s gotta eat, right, kid? Yo, after we get our bread, let’s go boost us some DVDs. Gonna get me the Goodfellas deluxe.’
‘You got Goodfellas deluxe in your stack twice, still in the wrappers.’
‘Then I’m-a swipe me that other one,’ José said. ‘That Godfather dude, homeboy never got his shirt on the whole movie. “My name es Tony Montana.” That Scar-face was a first-rate thug, them model-lookin chicks hangin half-nekkid around that dope swimmin pool he got out back his mansion there.’ José leveled his window-breaking pipe Uzi style at Ray. ‘“Say hullo to my lil’ friend!”’ He purred rat-a-tat-tat as he sprayed Ray with invisible bullets.
Ray couldn’t make the rat-a-tat-tat sound, came back with a lame ka-click as he mimed lock and load, gave José the gory glory he wanted.
José danced like Tony Montana gobbling up machine gun fire at the end of Scarface, the kingpin stoked on coke as if he’d sucked dry a generator big enough to power the city. Ray played along, body slammed the J-man. José flipped and pinned his boy, never mind Ray had J by four inches and seventy pounds. If life ever boiled down to a face-off Ray could check-’n’-deck the J-man in one throw. Not that Ray knew this yet.
‘You got cut,’ José said.
‘Scratch is all.’
José grabbed Ray’s arm, checked out the cut. ‘It’s not bad.’
‘Gimme back m’ arm.’
‘I tolt you to wrap yourself, kid. How come you ain’t take off your shirt?’
Ray looked away, shrugged. ‘Was cold.’
‘Right. Idiot.’ José eyed Ray. ‘You did real good back there. Let’s get paid.’
They worked their way through the woods to Van Cort-landt Park South and Jerry’s Auto Glass, Best in The Bronx, the closest windshield fix for the thirty-some smashed cars. Jerry picked his teeth. ‘’Sup boys?’
‘You’re up early, Jerry,’ José said.
‘Thinkin I’m gonna be busy today.’ Jerry nodded at a banner strung over the garage bays: TODAY ONLY, 20% DISCOUNT.
‘Might as well’ve had us put flyers under the windshield wipers,’ José said.
‘Except there’s no more windshields to put them flyers on, right, Slick?’
José nodded. ‘Howzabout our money?’
Jerry twirled his ear hair, sniffed his waxy fingers. ‘Howzabout how many?’
‘Thirty-some,’ José said.
‘That’s good. Thirty-some shields is good.’ From a wad in his chest pocket Jerry flipped José a hundred.
‘Buck fifty, we said,’ José said.
‘See, here’s the thing.’ Jerry took out his fake teeth to get rid of a string of food. ‘I’m short right now.’
�
��You’re short all the time,’ José said.
Jerry was short. He didn’t like short jokes. ‘And you’re funny, till I stab you.’
‘You stab me in a dream you better run,’ José said.
Jerry laughed, sounded like a car that couldn’t get started. ‘You can’t be fifteen, either of yous.’
‘I’m fifteen, yo. Ray’s almost.’
‘He looks younger. Look at that head. Tweedle Dum. You a tard, Ray?’
Ray was a whiz kid, but he wasn’t quick in the way of whipping off fast comebacks. He was slow smart. ‘Just lemme show you how retarded I am.’
‘Easy, Ray. Ray’s a genius, Jerry. Ray fillets you for brains.’
‘Whatever. Frontin like you’re sons of Gotti. I’d laugh except it’s sad.’ Jerry laughed. ‘Go blow that hundred on your video games or whatever yous do, come back next week, maybe I got another gig. Yous worked, what, two minutes, scored a hundred bucks. You don’t like it, go spot drugs, see how long yous last.’
‘We said a buck fifty.’ Ray stepped to Jerry with no aim of doing anything but stepping to Jerry.
‘Chill, Ray. We see you soon, Jerry.’ José mimed a gun, popped a shot at Jerry.
‘Next time I’m gonna make it up to you,’ Jerry said. ‘Thirty-some shields, huh? Nice. My daughter can go to Catholic school now. God bless you. I’ll light a candle for yous.’ Jerry went into the shop to rinse his teeth.
‘We oughta torch that punk’s joint,’ José said.
‘Gimme a gas can and a Zippo long neck, I’ll do it.’ Ray didn’t want to torch anything. He didn’t want to pop windshields either, but a man had to eat. ‘A man’s got to eat, dammit.’
‘Like I said,’ José said.
And a man has to stand by his brother, Ray didn’t say. You survive foster care and juvie together, you stick by each other, you bet you do. Ray slugged José’s shoulder.
José pulled Ray into a headlock. ‘Let’s get us a grill and grill us some fish,’ José said.
‘I’ll grill it.’
‘You know you will.’ José laughed. He had a cool laugh, loud enough to wake the dark side of the world.
‘Hell you laughin about, punk?’ Ray laughed, had no idea why he was laughing.
José smiled a mouth full of perfect teeth. ‘He’s callin me a punk now. Think you’re tough, Ray-Ray?’
‘I know I’m tough.’
‘The double Ray. The Ray-man. Kid Ray. Yeah, you might just be tough. But not as tough as me.’
Ray didn’t say anything.
‘Ha!’ José jumped Ray’s back, made Ray carry him, played slap drums on his head. ‘Let’s git us a grill, son.’
They hopped a yard fence and stole a mini grill. On the subway south into Manhattan they flanked the grill, put on their gangster squints, dared the early-morning shift training in from The Bronx to say anything. An easy-to-make undercover cop boarded at 207th Street. ‘White boy tryin to front homeboy,’ José whispered.
The boys ditched the grill, slipped out of the train to the street. They bummed smokes from a nice old alcoholic so blind he didn’t notice the boys were too young to smoke. They hunkered behind a Dumpster until two trains later when the 1 rumbled down the elevated track. They timed their run, hopped the turnstile, mixed with the morning rush into the head car. Tenement towers shadowed the train. ‘I wonder what’s gonna happen to that grill now,’ Ray said. ‘It’s kind of sad, if you think about it.’
‘Then don’t think about it. Sad over a grill. Jesus, Ray. The cop’ll boost it.’
‘I hope so. Sad to see it go to waste. That was a nice grill, that Weber.’
‘I don’t give a damn about that grill. If the cop don’t want it, it can ride itself all the way to the airport, let the bag handlers grill on it.’ José yawned.
Ray yawned. The yawns caught fire until the train punched out of the building shadows, swung a sharp bend of track into the morning glare, squealed over the rails.
Ray wondered at José asleep on his feet, his head resting on Ray’s shoulder, a smile on the J-man’s movie star face, no matter the train’s squeal had shaken the other riders awake and ripped them from their dreams.
2
They hopped off the subway at 145th and hiked to Ten Mile River, a park in west Harlem. An elevated highway ran over the park and underneath the highway Amtrak rail. West of the tracks were ball courts and flatland to the Hudson River. East were wildwood cliffs leading up to Riverside Drive. José and Ray knew the way through the man-high weeds and pushed into the wildwood, lost to the world.
Hidden in junk trees midway up a cliff was a burnt-out stationhouse left over from the 1920s when the rails needed switchmen. Made of brick, the hut was good shelter, though the boys made it more than that. They’d used tin ripped off from gravel yard fences under the highway to patch the roof. A streetlight tap fed the air conditioner, heater, refrigerator, hot plate. Every appliance was street found except for the TV they stole from a delivery truck. A tap into the hub box of an apartment house uphill brought them premium channel cable. Listed MIA on the Children’s Services roster, they didn’t have to go to school, though they kept their school IDs for the odd hot shower they grabbed at the nearby rec center, free to students. All they needed was a little money for grub and the movies. As long as they kept a low profile they could do what they wanted, and they did.
José mostly tooled around on his trick bike and tried to be smooth with the chicks in the park. Shy Ray read. He had thousands of books and magazines, some from the garbage, most courtesy of the 82nd Street Barnes & Noble, which had a window that opened onto an alley. A kid could drop a book or five out the window into the street Dumpster. During the day Ray read how-to books and histories. At night he read spicy novels and mysteries to José, who couldn’t read much more than the Micky D dollar menu. ‘All I need to know,’ he’d say.
As the boys approached the stationhouse, stray dogs materialised in the weeds. They mauled Ray and José with licking and whipping tails. The boys liked having the dumped pit bulls around. They were timid but looked vicious, kept squatters away from the house.
‘A’right, dammit, let us in,’ José said to the dogs. ‘We saw ’em four hours ago and they’re actin like we just come home from war. Them two scroungers is new.’
‘Nah,’ Ray said, ‘they was here before.’
‘Now I remember. They’re the fair-weather friends. We run outta food, they run out with it.’
‘I like ’em,’ Ray said.
‘I’d eat ’em if you’d let me. That one right there would feed us for a winter, the fat dope.’
‘He’s funny, the fat dope one,’ Ray said. ‘I like him the most. C’mere, Fatty.’
‘Kissin the fat dope’s filthy nose. Disgustin. You’re sad, man. You’re like a damn girl sometimes.’
‘What’re you sayin now? I’ll show you how much of a damn girl—’
‘A’right, relax about it.’ José flopped onto his bunk, a half dozen dogs cuddling him. ‘Damn mutts.’ He kicked the dogs off the bed but they came back up. ‘Son, wake me when you get back from fishin and I’ll help you cook the fish.’ José rolled over and fell asleep in a breath.
‘Callin me a damn girl,’ Ray muttered. ‘Punk.’ He grabbed his reels, tackle and a book, skateboarded down to the river and set his lines. That done, he cut through the weeds, slipped through a rip in the chain link, dropped into the train tracks and wormed his way through the trackside trash to a car that had been boosted and torched. This was the boys’ safe place for the odd times the cops parked alongside the woods or the pipe heads stumbled onto the stationhouse, hunkered there to cook up their methamphetamine. Now and then the junkies swiped the TV, easily replaced with an upgrade from a delivery truck with a weak padlock.
Ray pulled up the car’s backseat. A cooler kept the bugs out of the candy bars, canned food, bottled water and whisky ends. Ray grabbed a fistful of M&Ms and headed back to the river. He lay back and read his book, the wind off the rive
r hot. The book was about mind over matter. He had a bet running with José he would bend a spoon just by looking at it before the summer was out. Neither kid could remember what the stakes were. It was just bet I can bet you can’t bet I will bet you won’t by now.
Three hours later Ray had a bunch of porgies and a butterfish. He wrapped the fish in newspaper, whistled the dogs back from their high grass romping, skateboarded to the stairs that ran under the tracks and hiked the rest of the way uphill to the house. He shook José awake. ‘Yo, let’s cook.’
‘Huh?’ José looked at Ray as if he didn’t know him.
‘You wanted to cook it with me.’
‘Cook what?’ José said.
‘The fish.’
‘Right, the fish. You cook it and wake me when it’s ready, the goddam fish.’ José rolled away for more sleep.
Ray went out back to cook the goddam fish. ‘Thank you, goddam fish,’ he said. He was sad now, but that was okay. It made him happy as hell, being sad as hell, he didn’t know why. He figured he wasn’t that sad anyway, gutted the fish and chucked the guts downhill. ‘I cook, I clean, I manage the dough,’ Ray said to the dogs. ‘I am like a damn girl.’
The dogs cocked their heads. Anything Ray said thrilled them, especially when he was cooking up a fish fry. They were quiet and out of their minds with drool as they watched Ray soak the fish in butter and stick-cook it over open fire.
‘Y’all relax.’ Ray crouched to let the dogs kiss him. ‘Buckets of bad breath slobber all over me now. Look at this mess.’ The train horn pulled Ray’s attention west, where a tug bullied a gravel barge south. He imagined himself in the tug tower, not trolling the shallows as he and José sometimes did in their boosted rowboat, but far from shore in the fast current, riding a monster storm tide downriver into the bay, the ocean.
Ray had an urge to run away, except he had no idea where he wanted to go. More than that, what the hell would he do without José?
He winked at the dogs. ‘I could never leave y’all, don’t worry. Not that y’all give a dag, whores, yessin me to death with kisses and licks and tail-waggin to get your fish.’ He chopped up a bunch of porgies, fed them to the dogs. He kicked the pig dogs off so the wimp ones could eat too. He went into the house and set the table. ‘Yo.’