“Pussy!” Hitchings keeps shouting, pointing at me. He’s got my hat on his thick head, and his hand on his thin crotch, which he keeps thrusting toward Kylee, but I’m helpless to stop this humiliation. Kylee starts to cry, while Alex stares helplessly as Bison scrapes sounds from his favorite guitar. Alex looks to me for help, but I have nothing to offer but fear and loathing.
Realizing everyone has left and there’s no audience for their asshole antics, the clatter stops after a few minutes. Sean climbs out from behind the drums and comes over toward me. He jabs one of the drumsticks into the middle of my chest, not to injure but to intimidate.
“This isn’t over, Bret,” Sean says, the smell of Jack Daniels thick on his breath. “We used to be friends. We can work this out, right?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” I say as calmly as possible.
“I don’t want any trouble, either,” he says, and then points with his drumsticks in Kylee’s direction, who remains frozen in the corner of the room. “You know what I do want?”
Before I can answer, he leans into me. The whiskey stench is strong and sickening. He pulls me so tight that he’s almost whispering in my ear. “I want Kylee back.”
“Sean, just let it go,” I respond firmly. “Let’s just forget all of this and—”
“She wants to come back to me, she told me, but she doesn’t want to hurt you again. She told me she feels sorry for you, and so do I,” Sean says, as he releases me from his clutches.
“You lie,” I say, remembering Austin’s motto of DTA: Don’t Trust Anyone.
“Let me have her back,” Sean slurs. “And we can forget about what you owe me for my ride. Be honest with yourself, Bret, you know it’ll happen sooner or later.”
“I’d rather be dead!” I protest, meaning every word: life without Kylee isn’t really living at all. I look over again at Kylee, knowing that this and a million more hurts are worth her love.
“Fine, then my pop is gonna sue your white-trash ass for what you did to my ride!”
“You have no idea the damage you caused me,” I tell Sean as calmly as possible.
He gives a slow motion shrug. “You know that I do, because she broke my heart too.”
“Look, Sean, this is over,” I say, turning to leave, my hand outstretched, beckoning Kylee to meet me at the door. Hitchings and Bison are nowhere to be seen.
“Be a tough guy!” Sean shouts after me. “My dad’s a lawyer, and we’ll take everything!”
“Sean, that’s not going to happen, because I don’t have anything,” I remind him.
“We’ll take your house.”
“Do whatever you have to do,” I say over my shoulder.
“And your mom’s crappy car,” he says, as I start up the stairs.
I don’t turn around, instead I surround Kylee’s small hand in my mine.
He’s screaming now, but there’s no need because I hear the next thing he says loud and clear: “And we’ll take your dad’s Camaro!”
“He’s lying to you, Bret,” Kylee says as I drive us away from the party.
“He said that you still want to be with him,” I say, repeating Sean’s taunt.
“He’s fooling himself,” Kylee says. “I’m with you. I love you.”
“Then, why did—”
“He’s angry. He’s used to getting his way, that’s all,” she says indifferently.
“How can you be so sure?” I ask.
“I know him,” she reassures me.
I bite my lip and ball my fist, but my internal editor lets one slip past. “Intimately.”
“What does that mean?” she says, pulling away from me.
“What do you think it means?” I ask, reaching toward her. “Sorry, let’s not fight.”
“Sean’s a good person, you know that.”
I slow the car down, hoping my racing pulse will do the same. “He used to be.”
“Sean’s just a person like you,” she says. “Not everyone can be perfect like Alex.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just forget it, I’m sorry. Like you said, let’s not fight.”
“You don’t understand how serious this is,” I reply, unwilling to back down.
“He’s just hurting, and it’s because of me,” she says. I nod, it’s always all about Kylee.
“That talk about my dad’s Camaro—it would kill him, you know that?” I say.
“For God’s sake, Bret, you’re not onstage. Don’t be so melodramatic!”
“You don’t know what that car means to him.” I concentrate on the taillight in front of me, trying to block out the image of my father standing in his grease-covered overalls, a Marlboro in his mouth, and hatred in his eyes as they take away from him the thing that matters most. It would be like taking away both his dreams of a better future and a memento of the only happy time in his hard life. “You don’t know the first thing about my father.”
“What are you saying?” Her voice is tense and tired.
“Nothing,” I reply, unsure of what I am saying, feeling, or believing.
“Just hire a lawyer, I don’t see how—”
“How? With what money?” I respond. “I don’t think one of your mother’s ACLU friends is going to defend me for nothing, and besides, we all know that I did a number on Sean’s SUV, and if that son of a bitch ever comes near you again, I’ll go back for an encore!”
“Then just give him the money,” Kylee says, sounding bored.
“With what? From where?” I bite my bottom lip again. “I quit my ushering job to spend more time with you. I’m sorry that I don’t have unlimited resources like Sean.”
“Can’t you stop whining!”
“What does that mean?” I ask the question, knowing full well the answer. She turns away and pretends to sleep. Kylee can be so mean sometimes, even if she doesn’t want to be. We drive home in silence, but then share “sorrys” along with good-night kisses.
“Cutie, as long as we love each other, none of this other stuff matters,” she says, before going inside. A small bruise is probably forming under my shirt from Hitchings’s hate tap; he might as well have punched me in the heart. I take the long way home, taking a driving tour of these days of turmoil, passing by Will’s house, where the party still goes on, then past Sean’s and a quick Hitchings house drive-by. I drive by Venus, spying the Crown Vic in the parking lot, and know Alex is there with Elizabeth. She’s no doubt consoling him about the evening, rather than confronting and confounding him like Kylee did with me. Next, I drive over to the Rock, which has been painted over many times since last fall. I think about all the hurts and humiliations I’ve been trying to paint over, like knowing that Kylee and Bret, like Radio-Free Flint, won’t be forever. Finally, I end the evening in front of the Grand Trunk tracks, looking at the words “Bret Lives” and wondering why anyone should even care.
Twenty-four
April 21–24, Junior Year
“You did what?”
Dad pulls his head from under the hood of the Camaro, while I pull my head out of my ass and tell him about the hammer, the nails, and Sean’s comeuppance. Now it’s time for mine.
“His father said he would sue us and take everything, including the Camaro.”
“Like hell!” my dad barks, wiping the grease from his hands.
I breathe a sigh of relief, as he lights up a smoke. “What are we going to do?”
“He’s not getting this car!” Dad shouts, but I’m sensing his anger isn’t directed at me.
“Well, let’s fight it then,” I offer. “We’ll get our own lawyer.”
“Lawyers!” Dad sneers, taking out his smoke so he can spit on the garage floor. “Do you know how much those bloodsuckers charge by the hour?”
“Bloodsuckers?” I repeat back, unsure if I’m asking for explanation or agreeing.
“You know the old saying, those who can’t do, teach? Well, those who can’t do or teach sue the rest of us who can. Bloodsucking scum!”
My father maybe just told a joke. It’s not that funny, but I want to applaud the effort, so I fake it and force a chuckle.
“A good lawyer will want money up front, and we just don’t have any saved,” Dad says.
I swallow hard. I’ve been hoping there was a secret college fund set aside for me, but once again my father plays magician and with one sentence makes my hope vanish.
“Even if we had the money—which we don’t—why bother? We’d only lose.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you do it?” He hands me enough rope to hang myself.
“Yes,” I say calmly, all of his don’t-lie-to-me lectures paying off.
“This is what I’ve been telling you, Bret, trying to teach you,” he says, looking me right in the eye. “It’s called consequences, accepting responsibility, being a man.”
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
He pauses and grinds the butt into the floor. “I’ll talk to this kid’s father.”
“And?” Dad’s a big guy, but he’s no Stone Cold or street fighter.
“I’m going to find out how much damage you did and then give him the money.”
“How are you going to afford to do that?” I ask, having just learned that we are more or less broke.
My father nods, and then points toward the house. “There’s a newspaper on the table. I suggest you look in the want ads for a real job, so we can work out a payment plan.”
“But I don’t have time to work.” I sigh as my subtle protest.
My father laughs, not because I’ve said something smart and hilarious. “There’s always time to work. Make it.”
“But—”
“Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.”
“But Sean seemed serious about suing us,” I remind my father.
“I’ll talk to his dad, and we’ll work something out.”
“I’m sorry I did it, but I don’t see how—”
“He only knows the card we’ve got showing. In seven card, you get four cards up, and three down,” he explains. “The other people at the table don’t know what cards you got down.”
“And what do we have down?” I’m struggling with a vocabulary as mysterious as that of manifolds, carburetors, and pistons.
“A whole lot of nothing,” he admits.
I’m lost. “So, how do—”
“His dad doesn’t know that. Bret, it may surprise you to know your old man is actually good at something. I’m a pretty good poker player. I can bluff with the best of ‘em. I can’t tell you how many times I had squat and bluffed my way into winning the pot. Contrary to what your mom thinks, poker isn’t just about smoking, swearing, and shooting the bull.”
“But isn’t bluffing just another word for lying?” I say, playfully riffing on my dad’s rock-solid ethics.
“Not really. It’s more a matter of not telling the whole truth.”
“But what if he wants the money now?”
“I’ll arrange the terms, you’ll work it off,” he says, pointing at the house. “You better get.”
“But I promised Kylee I’d spend more time with her.”
Dad shakes his head. “How old are you?”
He knows my age, probably by the number of days, but I tell him, anyway. “Almost seventeen.”
His hard face goes soft. “There’ll be other girls.”
“But I love her. I want Kylee, I want—”
My dad interrupts me. “Again I ask: who told you that you could have what you want?”
I don’t say anything. My father motions for us to sit down at his workbench.
“Bret, do you think I want to work in a car wash? Do you think this is the life I wanted when I was your age? I just wanted to own a cool car, hang with my friends, and party.”
“And you did those things,” I say, figuring two out of three still ain’t bad.
“And a lot more I didn’t count on,” he says. My dad looks tired.
“What’s that?” I ask. I’m beyond curious at my father’s simple life that suddenly now seems very complicated.
“I told you already,” he says softly. “Responsibility, discipline. It’s called being a man.”
“Still—”
“Bret, listen, when you’re seventeen, you think mostly about yourself, and that’s fine. But that’s not life at forty, or even at thirty. Hell, it wasn’t for me at twenty.”
“I know,” I say, trying to be an empathy machine like Mom.
“No, you don’t. You don’t know anything until you’ve lived it, every single day. It’s not about getting what you want, it’s about getting what you need and doing what you should.”
I pause, take a deep breath, and ask the question, in part hoping that he’ll ask me the same question one day, and that I’ll have a decent answer. “Come on, Dad, what do you want?”
“A drink,” he says without hesitation. I can see this is hard for him, but it’s the only way he knows. “Your mom doesn’t like that I let you smoke, and it may kill you in the end, but it won’t destroy your life along the way. I remember when your mother went to the hospital in labor with you, and she gave me a choice. She told me she wouldn’t be bringing you home if there was a single bottle in the house. So, while you came into this world, I said good-bye to drinking forever. I think it was a pretty good trade-off, even if it’s a struggle every damn day.”
He gets off the stool and walks a few steps to grab his wallet. He pulls out a few bills, and hands them to me. “Here’s an advance on your first paycheck to starting paying Sean. And here’s another advance so you can buy yourself some normal clothes and can get a real job.”
Even though I’m still seated, I realize we’ve just taken one step back for the two we went forward as I pat my brand-new bright white Speed Racer T-shirt. “Not like this?”
“Why the hell do you dress like that? Where do you think it’s going to get you?”
“It’s cool. Besides, it’s different from everybody else.”
“Hard way,” Dad says, shaking his head again.
“Like father, like son?” I try to make the tone light.
He shakes his head, trying to purge the grin forming on his weathered face. “Maybe.”
I bound from the stool and stand next to the Camaro. “I feel sorry for Sean’s dad.”
“Why’s that?”
“He doesn’t know the cards you’re holding,” I say, realizing I didn’t either, until now.
“Well, life’s dealt him some pretty good cards,” he says, pushing the analogy rather than pushing me away.
I let out a loud laugh, then shout. “He ain’t shit. I think it’s time.”
“For what?” Dad asks.
I hand him his cell phone. “Like they say in poker: call!”
My dad actually laughs at something I’ve said. Another step forward.
When I told Kylee about needing to get a job, it led to another in an endless string of arguments in our month back together. We’re fighting more, and not just for the make-up sex. The news I’d be working more and seeing her less led to what wrestling announcers call a slobberknocker. She threw me out of her house before I could even throw on all of my clothes. She was yelling and crying, while I fled the house, leaving behind my new Speed Racer T-shirt and my old green Chucks. I stood outside her house half naked and full-blown angry at her, my dad, and Sean. We went the whole weekend without speaking. I spent the time looking for work, hating myself, and dreading my first Monday-morning money meeting with Sean.
“There he is,” Alex says, the words distorted through an early-Monday-morning yawn.
I look up from my book, Sit-Down by Sidney Fine, and see Sean’s smirking face in the window of the library door, with Hitchings by his side.
“This is so humiliating,” I tell Alex, looking at the floor.
“Have you seen his SUV lately?” Alex asks.
“No,” I reply, proud of my discipline.
“He’s got one
of those ‘Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins’ bumper stickers,” Alex says.
I motion for Sean to come into the library and over to our table. I want to get this over with. I look at my book to avoid eye contact. I want to see as little of him as possible.
“Where’s my cash?” Sean asks, hard to understand as he and Hitchings cackle. I don’t look up. I just reach into my pocket and hand over the money Dad gave me until I land a job.
“Here you go,” I say, staring down at his feet, which sport a pair of beaten-up green high-top Chuck Taylor All Stars.
I squint up into the blinding light of a new lie. Sean stands with Hitchings attached at the hip, plunging his knife in my back, and although she isn’t there, Kylee’s helping him twist it in.
“Bret, isn’t that your—” Alex starts, but they cut him off with a shared roar of laughter.
“Shirt.” The word spits out of my mouth like a broken tooth when I realize that Sean’s wearing not just my shoes, but also my new Speed Racer T-shirt, last seen in Kylee’s bedroom.
Twenty-five
April 30, Junior Year
“Bret, what do you want to do?”
Mr. Douglas motions for me to sit down in his small office, my emotions out of control.
“It’s about Harvey,” I say, referring to the spring school play. I’ve missed a week of school and rehearsals.
“Well?” He’s going to make me say the words, but it’s hard. The leading role is perfect for me: a guy who sees something no one else sees.
“I have to drop out of Harvey,” I say quickly, hoping that like removing a Band-Aid, the sudden pain will be preferable to a slow tear. “And not just the lead, but the whole show.”
“I see.” He nods. He seems to realize that I’m onto his moves, just as I’m sure he knows mine. “Have you really thought about this?”
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