“Just open it, smartass,” my father said, leaning over the counter to watch.
I tore open the envelope and slid the card out. There was a cartoon elf on the front, so it wasn’t going to be the sappy poem kind, thank god. I took a quick sip of hot coffee and read the front of the card out loud.
“‘According to Santa, you’re on the nice list this year. And you know what that means.’” I opened the card, and a piece of notepaper fluttered out onto my lap. I finished reading. “‘It means Santa’s on the sauce again. Merry Christmas, love, Mom and Dad.’” I looked up at both of them and smiled. “Ha-ha, very funny.”
“Read that paper,” my mother said, gesturing with her cigarette.
It was single sheet from the pad by the phone, folded once in the middle. Inside it said “Reg/insurance.”
They knew? No way. I read it again, staring at the words. No frickin’ way.
“He doesn’t get it,” my mother said. “I told you to be more specific.”
“Just give him a second,” my father said. “He’ll get it.”
They couldn’t know. Could they? No, it had to mean something else. This Reg couldn’t be that Reg. The pressure on, I took a guess. “You’re gonna get me regular insurance to drive your car?”
“Not my car,” my father said, and from across the counter he tossed me a set of keys. “Your car.”
I looked at the keys—something familiar about them—then I leaned forward to look out the front window to the driveway.
My mother said, “Check the garage.”
“You kidding?”
“Go look.”
I slid my chair back, walked past the fridge, and down the step to the closed-in porch that led to the garage. I put a hand on the doorknob, then turned to look back, half expecting them to bust out laughing.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” my father said.
I opened the door. Parked in the garage, a small red bow on the windshield, was Karla’s green 1973 Ford Pinto.
“She wanted you to have it,” my mother said.
My father laughed. “Since the junkyard wouldn’t take it.”
“Oh, stop. It’s still a good car, and Nick knows it better than anybody else.”
I ran a hand through my hair.
“That paper is your Christmas present from us,” my father said. “We’ll pay for the registration and the first six months of insurance. After that, you’re on your own. The maintenance and gas, too. That’s all up to you, starting right now. And I’m warning you, I don’t want a broken-down car in the driveway. That happens, I’ll have it towed outta here.”
“And no drinking and driving, either,” my mother said. “And if you get so much as a parking ticket . . .”
There was more, but I couldn’t hear it, my other senses shutting down so I could focus on the car.
It was all rusted along the bottom of the doors, the one bumper drooped, the muffler was going, the passenger window was cracked, there were two flat tires in the trunk, and no jack. And a skipping eight-track player. I used to tell Karla that it was a piece of shit on wheels. It was still a piece of shit. But now it was mine. My cheeks were burning from grinning so hard.
Maybe Karla was right after all.
Maybe this was going to be the best year ever.
“IT MUST SUCK to have to work Christmas.”
“It’s not bad,” I said, ringing up the gallon of milk and pound of coffee the man had on the counter. “There’s not a lot to do, and I get paid time and a half.”
“Time-and-a-half of shit is still shit,” the man said. He was older, balding, thin except for the bowling-ball beer belly that made him look seven months pregnant. “What’s that work out to, like six bucks an hour?” He shook his head as he stuffed the change in his pants pocket, dropping two cents in the need-a-penny-take-a-penny dish, then heading out into the dark night.
I knew exactly how much it worked out to.
$3.97 an hour.
And I’d already figured out how much I’d make for the twenty hours I’d be putting in that weekend.
$63.52 after taxes, give or take a dime.
Not a lot, but more than I’d normally get. Enough for gas, inspection, a couple eight-tracks, and one of those air fresheners I could hang on the rearview mirror long enough to get rid of the cigarette smell. I’d only had the car for twelve hours and could already see where my money would be going.
Technically it was still Karla’s car. And technically, I shouldn’t be driving it. It was still in her name and under her insurance. If she hadn’t canceled the policy already. She was on the road with what’s-his-name and didn’t leave a number where she could be reached in Florida once she got there. Her mother might know about the insurance, but there was also a chance that she didn’t know about Karla giving the car away. Better not to ask.
I assumed my parents knew all this, but they let me drive anyway. Odds were I wouldn’t hit something or do anything that would attract the attention of the police. Not on the first day, at any rate. And if I could drive myself, there was no need for my parents to pick me up or to pretend that they felt bad about me having to walk home at midnight.
With George in the back room, I spent some of my Christmas night in front of the store’s small display of automotive products, sniffing the plastic wrappers on dangling car air fresheners.
AT QUARTER TO TWELVE, George went out and started his car. He brushed the snow off the windshield, cranked the defroster, and left the car idling, ensuring a quick and warm getaway at closing time. When midnight arrived, he turned off the store lights, locked the front door, and bolted, leaving me alone in the snowy parking lot.
It was fluffy snow, the kind that kicked up when you walked through it. I pulled the sleeve of my coat over my hand and cleared the windshield of my car with my arm before I thought to look inside for a snow brush. I was reaching for the door handle when I noticed that someone was crouched down in the back seat.
I stepped back quickly, my stomach flipping while a hot charge raced up my spine, part fear, part anger. I punched the passenger window. “Get the hell outta my car!”
The shape moved—slow, cautious—and I tensed up, balancing my weight, getting ready for a fight. I could hear the handle being pulled, and when the door cracked open, the dome light went on and I saw the blood.
“I’m sorry,” Dawn said. “I didn’t know where else to go. And I didn’t want to go in the store with that guy there. I figured this was your car, and it was unlocked, so . . .”
Her cheek looked puffy and red, and there was dried blood on her face, in her hair, on the charcoal-gray scarf she had used as a bandage. Her left eye was dark, and I couldn’t tell if it was a rising bruise or running makeup. And I didn’t know what to do.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
She managed a smile. “I’ve been worse.”
“What happened? Were you in an accident?”
“An accident?” She touched her cheek with her fingers. “I guess you could call it that.”
I looked around, but there was no one to help. “Can I get you to the hospital?”
She shook her head. “I’m cold. Can you turn on the car?”
I started the car and cranked the heat, then helped Dawn around front to the passenger side before climbing back behind the wheel.
“I can take you to the hospital—”
“No, please,” she said, sliding down low in the seat. “I’ll be okay. Promise.”
I put the car in drive and pulled closer to the front of the store, the night lights spilling into the car. I looked at her and she looked away. “Who did this to you?”
“Can you just drive? Please?”
So I drove.
Down past the school, past the park, sticking to the side roads, the ones without streetlights and traffic. I kept both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, radio off, the way Karla had liked me to drive when she was upset.
I drove below the speed limit, signali
ng all of my turns even though I was the only car on the road.
I drove because I didn’t know what else to do.
We’d been driving for close to thirty minutes when she reached over and turned down the heat.
“Thanks,” I said. “I was starting to roast.”
“It’s your car. You could’ve turned it off anytime.”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her looking at me, watching me as I drove. I wondered what she saw.
I kept driving, and she kept looking. Then she said, “You’re gonna use up all your gas.”
“Just filled it today. It hasn’t even dipped below the F yet.”
“I didn’t know what to do, Nick.”
I swallowed. “That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“He had yelled a lot before, and he, you know, shoved me and stuff. And I’d seen him slap other girls. But never me.” She tilted her head back, looked up at the roof of the car. “God, that sounds awful, doesn’t it?”
It did, but I said nothing.
“I mean, I’ve been there, right in the room, when he and Cory beat the hell out of guys. Mostly ones who owed them money. But there were others who just . . .” She closed her eyes and held her breath a long time, letting it out in short bursts. “I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
I cleared my throat, not sure of what to say, but I knew I had to say something. “It’s not too late to change.”
“Change what?”
“Everything. How you live, what you do. You can change it all. I know it.”
Eyes still closed, she smiled.
“Really,” I said, positive that I was right. “Just pick something and do it. Start with moving out of there. Can’t you move in with friends?”
She chuckled. “Supposedly, they are my friends.”
“You don’t have any others?”
Dawn rolled her head to the side and looked at me. “Well, there’s you.”
My eyes widened.
“Don’t worry,” she said, the laugh still in her voice. “I’m not going to follow you home.”
“What about family?”
Big sigh. “That’s why I’m living where I’m living.”
A pickup truck flew by in the other lane. The headlights filled the car as it went past, then the truck was gone and the night seemed darker.
“I needed money for my sister,” Dawn said. “And Reg had it. So I moved in with him.” Another sigh. “I told you about Terri. She’s got some weird health problems. A lot of ’em for a twelve-year-old. And mentally she’s . . . well, you know.”
I didn’t know—how could I?—but I tried to understand.
“I’d do anything for her.” She kept her head down and picked at a loose thread on the end of her scarf. “Whenever I think I’ve got it hard, that things aren’t going my way, I think about Terri. Puts it in perspective.”
There was more to the story about her sister, but I sensed that was all she was going to share. “You still got options,” I said. “There’s lots of shelters—”
“For homeless people? No, thanks. I got myself into this, and I’ll find a way out.” She pointed down the road. “Take a left at the stop sign. That’ll get you to the expressway.”
I looked at her, at the caked blood in her hair, on her eyebrow, her puffy cheek, her soft, red lips. “You’re going back there?”
“It’ll be all right.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “They will have left for Cleveland by now. Picking up a shipment. I’ll have the place to myself for a while.” She looked at me and smiled. “And no, you can’t come in.”
I smiled too. “I wasn’t gonna ask.”
“Well, I’m glad,” she said, turning on the radio, flicking it over to the R&B station. “For now.”
Monday, December 26
IT WAS AFTER TEN WHEN I WOKE UP.
My father had left for work hours ago, and there was a note from my mom saying she and Eileen were out post-Christmas shopping, so I had the house to myself. I put an album on the stereo—Queens of Noise—cranked up the volume, took a long, hot shower, and thought about Dawn.
She had me drop her off down the street from Reg’s house and told me not to hang around, but I stayed there until she got in the front door, waiting for yelling or a scream for help. It was quiet, though, and after ten minutes I went home.
It didn’t make sense, Dawn going back to that house, not just walking away. I couldn’t see Karla putting up with it, and Karla wasn’t nearly as tough as Dawn. But then again, Karla didn’t have a mentally retarded sister counting on her. That’s why Dawn went back. And that said a lot about her.
Dawn was smart, that was obvious, and not just street-smart, either. Something in the way she talked, the way she looked at me, her dark eyes taking everything in, seeing everything clearer, deeper.
Maybe it was because she was older.
Wait, was she?
She could be twenty-five for all I knew.
Or sixteen.
Girls with that look, they could pass for whatever age they needed to.
Still, she’d be old enough to know that it wasn’t going to get any better staying with Reg, and smart enough to know she needed a way out. But there she was, going back, not a word about moving on. None of it made sense.
Like her being out by the Stop-N-Go at midnight.
I had a lot to think about.
I SPENT A good hunk of the afternoon trying to get the car registered at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
I waited in lines, filled out forms, waited in different lines with different forms, only to be told that they couldn’t do anything without NYDMV 3237-C(a), the one form that Karla had to sign. I explained why that was impossible, they explained why they didn’t care, in the end letting me know that given the estimated value of the car—$50—and the cost of registration—$31.75—no one would be checking the signatures. But just to be safe, I used two different pens.
At three thirty, I screwed on the new license plates and headed home.
I was running on four hours of restless sleep, so when I got there, I crashed on my bed till dinner. It was just me and my mother—my father working late again—so we went with cereal like we usually did when he wasn’t around. I watched the tail end of the national news, then ancient black-and-white reruns of The Munsters and The Addams Family before falling asleep on the couch. My mother woke me again at ten. I went up to my room, put on my headphones, and listened to music, nodding off around midnight.
Then there I was, in Reg’s house.
The black guy was there too. Cory. That was his name. He was there, shuffling decks of cards. Table covered with cards. Dawn was there. Blood on her face again, but I couldn’t see a cut. She didn’t notice anyway, too busy flipping over the cards in front of her, every one of them a red queen. She looked up and smiled and said something, something that sounded important, but I couldn’t make out the words. And there was a hole in the wall, and it got bigger, so I stepped through it and I was in the living room of my house, and my father was on the couch, watching a football game on TV, only it looked more like baseball, and there was a woman on the couch with him. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was the one in the car that night at the Stop-N-Go. Then my mother came on the TV and said, “Your father has to work late tonight,” and the channel changed and it was the aisle at work, and Zod was walking toward me and there was a knife, and we were in the parking lot again and it was dark, and Zod stuck the knife clean through the guy’s arm and then in the guy’s stomach once, twice, and Dawn screamed and it was her with the knife, and I was bleeding now and, damn, there was blood everywhere, so much blood, while Karla drove away and Zod and Reg ran at me and Dawn smiled—and I sat up, soaked in sweat, my heart pounding, my breath choppy, the hisssss from the stereo at the end of the record loud in my ears.
Wednesday, December 28
DAYTIME TELEVISION SUCKED.
The major networks were all game shows and soap operas. The cable channels were no better, either showing different versions of the same things the networks had on or running old movies, interrupted every eight minutes for twenty minutes of commercials. There were stations that only showed commercials—and what was up with two stations showing school lunch menus from September?
Thirty-six channels and nothing on.
I flicked back through the cable box one last time, leaving it on Let’s Make a Deal. It was stupid, but it was something.
The week between Christmas and New Year’s used to be the best week of the year. No school—which right there made it great—and I had all this new stuff to play with, the tree was still up with the lights, there were tons of cookies left over, and I could stay in my pajamas all day, doing nothing but watching cartoons. It was pretty damn sweet.
It changed around the same time toys went from being the coolest things in the world to something I cleared out of my bedroom to make room for a stereo. The tree went next—no need to go through all that hassle for teenagers—and it was easier to buy a package of Oreos than mess up the kitchen making cookies. I couldn’t sit around in my pajamas all day, since I didn’t wear any, and when did the cartoons become so lame?
The contestants were bidding on a hot tub when the phone rang. At first I wasn’t going to answer it—no one would be calling me—but it kept going, and after a dozen more rings, I picked it up, and Zod said, “I hear you got wheels.”
I didn’t remember giving Zod the number, but then I didn’t remember much from that night. “Yeah, I got a car but—”
“Good. You remember Reg’s place, over on Genesee Street?”
“Not really,” I said, knowing exactly where it was.
“Yes, you do, shithead. By the closed gas station, down the street from that strip club all the brothers go to.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, then I heard three quick thwacks, the sound of a receiver being slammed against the side of a glass phone booth.
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