Skin (44 Chapters #1)
Page 12
“You don’t want me to end up like her,” I said, not really expecting him to respond.
But Knight nodded again. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Knight, you don’t even know me.”
He looked at me with pupils like pinpricks, and I suddenly felt nauseous. Whatever I had done to attract the undivided attention of this irrationally violent, racist motherfucker, I wanted to undo it. STAT.
We sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, staring at the topography of our working-class city. God, I needed a cigarette. I considered hopping off the tailgate to go get one, but then decided that I’d rather not break an ankle, so I turned around and crawled down the length of the truck bed and over to the open cab window instead. I had to snake the entire top half of my body through the opening so that I could reach my shoulder bag over by the passenger door.
Bag. Singular. As in one. As in I had my purse but not my backpack. Because my backpack was still in Tony’s car.
Goddamn it!
I grabbed my purse and made a mental note to call Juliet later and ask her to bring it to school (and apologize for what happened…again). But just as I was about to extract myself, I noticed Knight’s wallet sitting in the unused ashtray. Making a split-second decision, I snatched the hunk of black leather and took a quick peek inside at his driver’s license.
Ronald McKnight. No middle name. Born on September seventeenth.
His birthday was in two weeks.
“Everything OK back there?” Knight called, as I put everything back exactly the way I’d found it.
“Yeah,” I said, sliding back out the window and down to the tailgate. “I was just grabbing my bag.”
I sat back down next to him and began rooting around in my bottomless pit of a purse for a smoke. I fished out my pack of Camel Lights, popped one in my mouth, and extended the pack to Knight while I continued searching for a lighter. I was so focused on my mission that I didn’t notice his hand reach out until it had already clasped my chin.
My heart completely stopped pumping—my life literally suspended in Knight’s thick, callused hand—while he slowly lifted and turned my face toward his. I had no choice but to make eye contact, and when I did I felt something stir in my chest. It felt unwelcome and unfamiliar. Like it didn’t belong to me. It felt like…sorrow.
I searched Knight’s face and noticed the crease in his brow, the downward pull at the corners of his mouth.
This is Knight’s loneliness, I thought. It’s so big I can feel it through his hand.
Just then an orange flame appeared in the space between our faces, causing me to blink and recoil. Knight steered my face back toward the fire and said, “You should never let a beautiful woman light her own cigarette.”
I smiled in relief—which was difficult with his meaty hand wrapped around my jaw and a cigarette between my lips—and accepted his offer. Once my cigarette was lit, Knight lit his own, then shoved an old-fashioned looking Zippo back into his pocket.
“Is that another gift from your grandfather?” I asked.
Knight exhaled a puff of smoke without taking the Camel out of his mouth and said, “You’re pretty fucking smart, Punk.”
I thought he was pretty fucking smart too. In a scary way. In a cold, calculating, all-too-observant way.
A strong breeze whipped through the shady clearing, making me shiver even though the air was hot.
“Are you seriously fucking cold right now?” Right on cue, observant as hell. “Jesus. Look at your arm.”
I didn’t have to look. I knew it was covered in goosebumps.
“Punk, I’m gonna ask you again, and this time I want the truth. Where the fuck is your jacket?”
I took a drag and exhaled away from him as I lied. “I lost it. Last spring. But I’m gonna get a new one.”
“Oh yeah? When?”
“As soon as I save up some money and convince my mom to drive me to Little Five.”
Knight jumped off the tailgate and disappeared around the side of the truck. I heard his door open and shut, then he reappeared holding a black hooded sweatshirt.
“Here. Put this on.” He tossed the pullover to me and I held it up for inspection as he hopped back onto the tailgate.
“What does this mean?” I asked, staring at the letters on the front.
“It means nobody can fuck with you.”
“No, the logo. Lonsdale. What’s that?”
“It’s a British boxing company,” Knight replied. “Like Everlast.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t so bad. I had expected him to tell me it meant Long live Hitler in German or something.
Satisfied that it wasn’t the written equivalent of a swastika I set my cigarette on the edge of the tailgate and pulled the hoodie on over my head, careful not to disturb the effortlessly spiky look I had put a shit ton of effort into that morning.
The sleeves hung six inches past my hands, but the cotton was deliciously warm having been in the hot truck all afternoon. I pressed my hands to my face and inhaled. It smelled like dryer sheets and cigarette smoke and some kind of sweet, cinnamony cologne. I liked it.
Knight noticed what I was doing and said, “It smells a hell of a lot better than that giant homo’s hoodie, doesn’t it?”
I suddenly liked it a hell of a lot less.
“Would you stop saying shit like that?” I turned to face him, emboldened by my sudden need to defend my love. “Lance is not fucking gay. And even if he were gay, what would you care? Do you have to hate gay people? Is that like, one of your skinhead rules?”
Knight seemed amused by my little outburst. His mouth curled up on one side as he said, “I make my own rules, and I hate fucking everybody.”
“Yeah, well, you seem to hate him a little extra,” I snapped, crossing my hoodie-covered arms over my chest.
“Maybe that’s because he has something I want,” Knight said, tilting his head to the side.
“Oh really. What’s that? Hair?”
Knight laughed. “Yeah, Punk. I’m jealous of his puke green Mohawk.”
Eager to change the subject I glanced at my watch and saw that it was almost four o’clock and I hadn’t called my mom to tell her where to get me. She would be leaving work any minute. Knight agreed to drive me to her school, which was only a few minutes away. When I offered to give him gas money he told me to shut the fuck up.
I had him drop me off in the back of the building so that none of my mom’s coworkers would see me getting out of a skinhead-piloted monster truck. Before hopping out, I carefully pulled his hoodie off over my head.
“Thanks,” I said, handing the black sweatshirt back to him.
Knight made no move to accept it. “Keep it,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because everybody knows it’s yours.”
“So?”
So, it’s a skinhead hoodie, dumbass! I can’t wear that shit to school!
“So…it’s way too big for me.”
Knight just glared at me. He knew why I wouldn’t take it, but he still left me sitting there with my arm outstretched.
“Um, well, thanks again,” I stammered, setting the hoodie down on the seat between us. “And thanks for the ride. I guess I’ll see you on Monday? ‘Kay, bye!”
I grabbed my purse and leapt from the truck with a surprising amount of grace. I landed like a bitch who had experience jumping out of monster trucks. The thought was unsettling. I didn’t even really like Knight, yet somehow I’d managed to wind up in his truck on six out of the last seven days. How was that even possible?
As soon as I saw Juliet’s number on my caller ID that night I immediately hit the send button and launched into my rehearsed apology.
“Juliet! I’m so—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Tony.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Act concerned, BB.
“Oh my God! Tony, are you okay? I wa
s so scare—”
“Listen to me, you fuckin’ cunt.” His voice sounded like Knight may have actually crushed his windpipe. It was so strained and gravely I could barely understand him. “My boys are out looking for your little Nazi friend right now. He done fucked wit’ the wrong crew.”
It was Friday, so Knight was probably at work. They wouldn’t know to look for him there, but they’d know where to find him come Monday morning.
“Tony, I’m so, so sorry. He was just trying to protect me, I swear. He thought—”
“I don’t give a fuck what he thought!” Tony screamed into my ear, his voice almost giving out completely at the end. “You tell that peckerwood motherfucker that the East Side Kings is comin’ and they gon’ pop a cap in his white ass when they find him.”
Even though I was sitting in the middle of my bed, I felt like I was in a free fall. My mind went completely blank, and my stomach floated up into my mouth. I looked around my room, blinking and waiting for my brain to begin working again. Thoughts would have been fucking awesome. Words? Rad. Solutions? Totally welcome.
“Oh, now you got nothin’ to say?”
“Um…” I reached over and grabbed my purse off the end of the bed with trembling hands and began digging through it, looking for a cigarette to calm my nerves. I tossed my wallet onto the mattress to make more room, and it fell open, giving me an idea.
“Do you want money?” He let me pay him off before, right? It was worth a shot.
“Errybody want money, bitch. You got some?”
Well…shit.
“Um, not right now. I’m still wiped out from fixing your car, but I get paid again on the fifteenth.” I finally dug my cigarettes out and lit one with shaky fingers.
“You on that first and fifteenth, huh?”
I wondered how Tony knew my pay schedule, but then I vaguely remembered the song Juliet and Angel were dancing to earlier said something about getting paid on the first and the fifteenth, so maybe that was a common thing.
Without waiting for me to respond Tony said, “From now on, the fifteenth’s gon’ be my payday. You get paid on the first, Tony get paid on the fifteenth. You gimme a bill erry month, and I’ma make sure yo little white power friend don’t get plugged. You forget about good ol’ Tony when you cash that check, and I’ma forget we had this conversation. Ya heard?”
Fuck! A hundred bucks? Every month?! To keep somebody alive that I don’t even like?
“Tony, I…I need that money. I can give you another hundred, but every month? I’m trying to save up for a car.”
“You a cute girl, B. You ain’t gon’ have no problems findin’ a ride. Just look how long my ass been doin’ it...Erry month, or the Nazi get capped. Period.”
Tears welled up in my eyes and a silent scream built inside of my head as I realized that my lifelong dream of four-wheeled freedom was being snatched away from me as if it were nothing. As if it were candy, and I was the baby.
“When you get that check you gon’ cash that shit on the spot and leave a bill under a brick behind your work. No handoff. You got me?”
I nodded, not caring that he couldn’t hear my devastated consent.
“You say one muthafuckin’ word about this to Jules, you miss one muthafuckin’ payment, and our little arrangement gon’ go poof. Don’t test me, bitch.”
Click.
I stared at my phone, which was wet with my old tears and blurry through my new ones, and wondered how something so small could ruin my whole fucking life.
If it weren’t for that phone, my ever-optimistic inner voice chimed in, then Knight might still have a target on his back. Did you stop to think about that? You may have just saved a life, BB. You should be proud of yourself.
Oh, yeah? Fuck you, brain.
I woke up Monday morning, took a piss, and weighed myself. Ninety-nine pounds. Double digits. I fucking did it, but I was too busy being upset about the loss of a different goal to enjoy achieving this one.
Maybe I would feel less heartbroken about not being able to buy a car if the life I was saving in return had been August’s. Or Lance’s. Or my mom’s or Juliet’s. But no. It had to belong to fucking Skeletor the Skinhead—a violent, impulsive, hateful, homophobic racist with no friends and creepy zombie eyes. I wanted to stamp my feet and scream, “It’s not fair!” but it wouldn’t have done any good. I was being extorted by a gang-affiliated drug dealer and that was that.
Into my purse went my muffin. Into the still-dark morning went my mother and I. Into her Taurus station wagon went my body. And into outer space went my mind as I warred with myself about whether to be angry at Tony, angry at Knight, mournful over the loss of my future car, or stoically resigned to my fate. I was leaning toward plain old depression when my mom’s voice pulled my racing mind back into the car.
“Baby, I’ve got the heat turned all the way up and you’re still shivering. We have got to get you a new jacket. Maybe this weekend we can go to that store you like downtown. You know I’d take you tonight if it wasn’t so damn far away.”
“I know, Mom. It’s fine. I have to work tonight anyway,” I said, staring out the window at nothing in particular.
At the next red light my mom reached into the backseat and handed me an oversized green cardigan with the words PEACH STATE ELEMENTARY embroidered on the breast pocket. It was the teacheriest garment I’d ever seen, but it was warm and soft and smelled like crayons and I burrowed down inside of it as if it were an Egyptian cotton bathrobe.
When my mom pulled up in front of the school I gave her a peck on the cheek, grabbed my purse, and exited the car. My inner battle picked up right where it had left off as I mechanically made my way to my locker. I was shooting for resignation, really concentrating on it, but I kept landing somewhere between sorrow and self-pity.
When I turned onto C hall Knight was standing at the end, waiting for me like I knew he would be. Alive and breathing and shit. I told myself to be happy about that, but I couldn’t pull off happy either.
I couldn’t even muster a smile.
I mumbled a greeting at Knight as I walked up, then stopped in front of my locker. Just as I was about to open it I realized that I didn’t need to.
Because I didn’t have my backpack.
Because I’d left it in Tony’s car.
Because of the motherfucker standing next to me.
Awesome.
“Punk?” Knight’s voice was the softest I’d ever heard it. “Aren’t you gonna open it?”
I guess I could at least get my physics book out of there. And maybe some paper. And I could probably borrow somebody’s pencil.
Goddamn it.
Sighing, I grabbed the latch and kicked the corner of my door, popping it open with ease. I didn’t even remember my combination anymore. Knight’s method was so much more efficient.
And then my heart stopped.
Inside—hanging from a hook that I’d never noticed before—was a black canvas backpack covered in safety pins and punk rock buttons. My backpack.
I turned and looked at Knight in utter disbelief. “I…How did you…?”
Knight pulled up one side of his mouth in an almost-smile and said, “When I dropped you off on Friday I noticed that you didn’t have it. So, I went and got it.”
My stomach dropped. “You went and got it? What does that mean?”
“It means that old cars are easy as shit to break into,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
I wanted to hug him and hit him at the same time. Sure, it was sweet, but it was also suicidal. What made him think he could just show up on gang turf, beat the shit out of an affiliated drug dealer after carving up the hood of his car, and then break into said car hours later without any repercussions. There were fucking repercussions, and I was the one paying them.
“They want to kill you, you know.” That was all I said. What was done was done. I had my backpack and Knight had his life and yelling at him wasn’t going to change a goddamn thing.
I looked at Knight, who gave nothing away, and pulled the material out. The heap unraveled in my hands, revealing itself to be a military-style bomber jacket. It had bright orange lining and a little pocket on the sleeve. And it appeared to be just my size.
Clutching the coat, I turned to face Knight.
“Turn around,” he commanded, his liquid smoke stare rendering me temporarily unable to argue.
I did as he said and let my mom’s sweater—which I was mortified to realize I was still wearing—slide off my shoulders to the floor. I watched our reflection in the window of the exit doors as Knight slid the slick, cool nylon over my dangling hands and up my arms. With our size difference, I looked like a child being dressed for school. By a skinhead. It was a regular fucking Norman Rockwell painting of an image.
The sight was jarring, but for some reason it also made me smile. I looked beyond our reflection to the neon pinks and oranges streaking up and across the morning sky and finally felt the resignation I’d been seeking settle into my bones.
I was glad Knight wasn’t dead.
Even if it did cost me a hundred bucks a month.
Heavy hands landed on my shoulders. “I can’t believe it fucking fits. I knew you were tiny, but shit, Punk. I got this thing when I was in middle school.” Then he laughed. It was quiet and deep and didn’t sound like a cough at all.
I turned back around and didn’t recognize the young man standing before me. His teeth were straight and white and dazzling. His nose, just slightly upturned at the tip, was actually kind of cute. And his eyes—crystalline blue, rimmed in miles of feathery blond lashes and narrowed in laughter—reminded me of the stained-glass window at my grandparents’ church that depicted the archangel Gabriel.
Clearly no one had seen this boy smile before, because if they had, they’d be spending the rest of their lives trying to make him do it again.
I could feel my face beaming back, big and bright. I didn’t want it to, but I couldn’t help it.
“This is for me?” I asked.