Henry slides his hand over the dash of the car and whistles. “You do good work, man,” he tells Rat.
“Wait till you see the engine. V8, 220 horsepower.” They talk about cars in a language I don’t understand, so I tune them out. It’s nice being in a car and not walking. The tinted windows keep it cool. I take my hat off and let the a/c swirl around my head. Feels good.
We turn the corner, and the piece Koob did last night jumps out at me. It’s a sweet piece. I lean forward to point it out to Henry and then stop myself. He’s got no love for Koob. Seeing his graff writer name splashed up on a building isn’t going to impress him.
Henry twists around in his seat. “School starts today,” he says.
I shake my head. “Next week.”
“Not for you.” Rat pulls into a small parking lot on Mountain Ave. “Al’s Automotive Repair” is written in faded blue letters across the front of the building. There are a couple of beaters and some rusted-out car parts along the side of the building. “Wait here,” Rat says and goes to open the building. Henry and I stand in the lot. The ground is covered in crushed rock. I kick at it with my toe and a cloud of dust rises up, making my shoes all chalky, hiding the drips of spray paint. There’s spilled oil stains in a few spots. Big, dark splotches that look like dried blood.
Rat rolls the garage door up, sheet metal clinking on the rail. Inside, there’s a car on the hoist. Half the engine is on the garage floor. Tools and shelves filled with chemicals line the walls, and a layer of grime coats the metal chairs that Rat scrapes across the floor to us.
“This is where the magic happens.” Rat taps a smoke on the back of the package. He lets it dangle from his mouth as he cups his hand and holds the lighter up to it.
“What magic?” I ask.
Rat gives a crooked smile. A trail of smoke floats out between his lips. He looks to Henry.
“After a car gets lifted, we bring it back here to the chop shop. Rat switches out the plates.”
Rat turns his head and horks up a wad of phlegm. He spits it on the ground, but when he grins at me, a string of saliva stretches from his yellow teeth to his scruffy chin. He wipes it away on his sleeve and I almost puke in my mouth.
“Come on. You’re gonna practise.” Rat takes a putty knife and a long rod off its hook on the wall and we walk back outside to a blue car with a rusted-out body and smashed-in tail lights.
“You look like you’re gonna wuss out on me.” Henry narrows his eyes.
I shrug like I’m totally cool with it. “I’ve never boosted a car before, that’s all.”
Henry shakes his head, disappointed. “By the time I was your age, I was stealing three or four a week.”
“Till you got caught,” I mutter, too low for him to hear.
Rat jimmies the putty knife between the door and car and then slips the rod in. In five seconds, he’s pressed the unlock button and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat. “Hot wiring’s a bit trickier. Everyone’s getting these immobilizers now.” He frowns. “Older cars you can do the old-fashioned way.” I climb in the passenger side to watch. “You gotta break the steering lock to get at the switch. Once you do that, connect the wires and …” The engine sputters to life.
“You try.” Rat and I get out and he locks the car. It takes me a few tries, but I get the car open. The hot wiring is trickier. My fingers don’t know the shape of things and fumble around.
Finally, I get it running and Rat high-fives me.
“The easiest way is to just wait till someone leaves the car running. Happens all the time,” he says, like he’s some Jedi warrior of car thieves. “Bump and snag works, too.”
I laugh at the name.
“You pull up behind someone and tap their car, just give it a little bump. When they get out to check the damage, the second guy hops in and takes off in the car.”
Rat pulls some beers out of a fridge in the back. A question’s been lodged in my throat. “But no one gets hurt, right? What if there’s a kid or something in the back seat?”
Henry kind of snorts and shakes his head. “You’re not some kind of hippie, are you? Hanging out with the Polish kid made you soft. You’re not a faggot, are you?”
You were the one in jail, I want to say, but I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut around Henry.
I shake my head, careful not to get too uptight about it. If he knows I don’t like it when he talks about Koob, he’ll just do it more.
“Hey, Rat, are you gonna use all that spray paint?” I ask. Cans of it sit in rows on a workbench, some isn’t even opened.
He shrugs. “You could take a few cans. Al won’t miss it.”
Koob will be pumped when I show up with some free cannons. “We done for the day?”
Henry nods. “We can meet up tomorrow, give you some more practice. Here,” Henry says and pulls something out of his pocket. “Little present for good behaviour.”
The train yards smell like grinding metal, rust, and oil. Like dirt and gravel and black gunk that gets stuck under your fingernails. I let my pack drop to the ground and unzip it. Koob leans over to take a look. He gives a low whistle as I line up the cans of Rusto. “Where’d you get all that? That’s like $50 worth of paint!”
“Didn’t even have to steal it or nothing. One of Henry’s friends gave it to me.” I don’t say nothing else, not what I was doing with Henry or where we were. If he finds out Henry wants me to steal cars for him, he’ll lose his shit.
The street lamp turns the ground orange. Insects buzz around the bulbs. Masses of them. A lot of the train cars have tags. It’s like a train graveyard at night. Quiet. In the daytime, wheels grind on tracks and machines are so loud you have to yell to be heard.
This is where Mr. K hurt his leg. Koob told me he couldn’t hear the guys shouting at him, warning him about the load that was about to come down. Too late, he tried to run, but not all of him made it. I think that’s why Koob likes to paint the cars. A “screw you!” for hurting his dad.
I hold a small bag up, dangling it in front of Koob’s face. “Look what else I got.” Four joints, expertly rolled.
“I don’t want to be high when I paint,” Koob says, shaking his head.
I laugh. “That’s cuz we never have anything to get high on! Except fumes.”
“Henry gave those to you, too?”
I shrug, pissed that he ruined my surprise. If I got them from anyone else, he’d smoke one. It’s just cuz they’re from Henry that he’s mad.
There’s more I want to tell him. About Roxy and what it was like at the clubhouse. The stories I heard from the other Red Bloodz about almost getting stabbed or outrunning the cops. Glory stories, Henry called them. But the way Koob’s looking at me, I keep my mouth shut. He won’t want to hear any of them. “He’s looking out for me.”
“Is that what you call it?” he mumbles.
“He’s teaching me things.”
Koob’s head snaps up. “Like what?”
The secret burns in my throat. “Survival skills.” I grin.
“Henry’s a boy scout now?” he says with a smirk. “You learning how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together?”
In the distance, there’s traffic, cars fighting to get up the bridge. I snort at Koob and shake my head. “Useful stuff, like how to make money. He thinks I can bring home a grand a week if I work with him.” Just saying it made my stomach flip. How different would my life be with money in my pocket?
Gravel crunches under his feet, as Koob moves closer. “Are you dealing?”
Henry told me not to say, but it’s Koob. I have to tell him. I shake my head. “Cars, man. He’s teaching me to lift them.”
At first Koob laughs, like I’m joking, but when I don’t smile back, he shakes his head. “Shit,” he says under his breath.
“It’s not like what you think. Henry told me, when a
car gets stolen” — I drop my voice even though no one else is around — “people get their money back, from insurance or something. It’s like a win-win. We get paid and they get paid.”
“Are you shitting me right now?”
I shake my head, thinking I probably should have listened to Henry. Koob’s looking at me like I’m an idiot. “If someone’s stupid enough to leave keys in the car, they deserve it.” Henry had said that, too.
“He’s using you,” Koob says.
I back away, staring at the ground. “No, he’s not,” I mumble.
Koob takes a breath. “You can’t see it because he’s your brother, but he is. I’m serious, man. Do not get involved with this shit.”
I look at him, but I’m pissed. I go along with his plans, following him up to the tops of buildings, sneaking out in the middle of the night to train yards. That’s all illegal, but I do it.
“Henry’s looking out for me,” I say again. I can hear Koob breathing beside me and I think he’s going to walk away, too pissed to paint.
We don’t fight, me and him, ever. Maybe he’s jealous I got something else going on, that Henry wants me to hang with him. “Pretend I never said anything about Henry, okay? I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You’re gonna get burned.”
I shrug. I don’t wanna fight with him, so I let it drop. Him and Henry are like the angel and the devil, one on each shoulder.
“There’s a car down there we could end-to-end.” Koob says. His voice is stiff. He puts all the cannons back into the bag and slings it over his shoulder. I stuff the joints into the pocket of my hoodie. “Practise the piece I showed you, before we throw it up.”
We walk along the tracks, balancing on the metal rails. I keep slipping off, but Koob, even with the bag, stays steady.
Between the train cars, a big yellow moon glows. Like an eyeball, watching us.
Jakub
I crouch over my sketchbook, drawing. Sometimes, an idea pops into my head and I have to find a scrap of paper, a gum wrapper, anything, before I forget it. I see how people look at graffiti art that has meaning. They stop to take it in. They respect the artist. There are some guys with talent around the city right now. Creeping, like me, in the night and leaving behind a piece that forces people to stop and stare in the morning.
This new piece that’s taking shape isn’t about my name. It’s about this place. A human head and torso, bound and gagged with a building for legs: half-man, half-structure. Looks good in my sketchbook, but throwing it up scares me. What if people think it’s stupid and laugh at it? Or worse, a king tags it with TOYS, the ultimate insult to a graff writer. Tag Over Your Shit.
Dad comes home late that night, humming Polish folk songs. It’s when I know he’s happy, the quiet rumble in his throat making him nod his head.
“Jakub!” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “I have news,” he sings. “Great news!”
He’s been with Father Dom. They probably got into the Polish vodka people give Father Dom at baptisms and weddings. He has that loopy look on his face, his grin so big I can see gaps where he’s missing teeth.
I don’t smile back. I know what he’s going to say. The letter arrived. Sure enough, he pulls it out of his pocket and wags it in front of me. “Accepted to St. Bartholomew’s! As a bursary student. They’ll pay your way, as long as you get good grades and stay out of trouble!” I lean closer to my sketchbook, hunching over the pencil lead as it scrapes over the paper. I don’t want him to see my face. A private Catholic school in a good part of town, St. Bartholomew’s Academy is the answer to Dad’s prayers for me.
Dad grabs me and gives me a kiss on each cheek. His whiskers scratch my face. He lets out an explosive laugh of joy and punches the air with his fist. Shaking his head in disbelief, he mutters, “St. Bartholomew’s,” and raises his eyes to the ceiling and what’s beyond, to heaven. To my mom.
He’s excited enough for both of us. It takes Dad a minute to realize I’m not rejoicing with him. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
He flaps his hands at his sides, like a flightless bird, and shakes his head at me. “What, then? This is a gift.”
“More like a punishment.”
Dad swears in Polish. “This place has done this to you! We’re stuck in shit and you think it’s where you belong.”
Pushing away my sketchbook, I stand up. The West End is all I know. How would I fit in with a bunch of rich kids? “I get good grades, what does it matter where I go?”
St. Bart’s was Father Dom’s idea. He and Dad dragged me to the interview. I wore a collared shirt dug out of the donations box in the church. It stunk like mothballs. When we were at the interview, I looked at photos of the graduates. Rich kids from that part of town. I’d never fit in with them. They’d smell the poor on me. Schools like that aren’t made for kids like me, no matter how smart I am. No matter how much I deserve the chance.
Dad frowns, desolation pulling at his face as he slumps into his chair. “That’s what I thought about Poland. Your mother was the one who wanted to come here. I would have stayed, made the best of it.” He’s getting nostalgic; booze does that to him, too. I sit back down. He doesn’t talk about my mom much.
“She wanted to come for our children, to give them a chance at a better life. She was brave.” Colour flushes his face. “You think this is the life she wanted for you?” He stares at his leg, splayed off to the side, a useless appendage, like a stray dog that won’t leave him alone.
Things would have been different if he hadn’t gotten hurt at work. We’d be in a better place, not living month to month off his disability cheque or the kindness of the church. I know Dad stays in Canada for me. He could have gone back years ago to be with his family. They write him letters, telling him it’s better now, but he promised my mom we’d stay, no matter what.
He leans forward and grabs my wrist, his grip surprisingly strong. I don’t try to shake him off. I look him in the face. His eyes, blue and bulging, are wet. “I want better than this for you. You get a good education, you can go to university, get a job. A good job. You can have a good life, Jakub.”
A burner takes shape in my head as he talks. The images colliding in my head. A father and son, locked together, the eerie outline of someone angelic overhead. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. A shiver runs through me at the thought of how it will look high above the street, in a heaven spot, for everyone to see.
“I heard from St. Bart’s,” I say. Lincoln and I are sitting on the front steps of the rooming house. They were painted green once, but footsteps wore the colour off, so now a strip down the middle is bare concrete. Laureen planted some flowers in pots, but after the dry heat of the summer, they’ve turned spindly and brown. Matching the rest of the place. Paint peels off in splinters from the window frames, and all five of the mismatched mailboxes hang at different angles, like cartoon road signs.
He turns to me, frowning.
“I got in.”
“Shit,” he groans. “You’re going?”
I sigh. I don’t have a choice.
Lincoln makes a face. “You’ll look like a faggot, wearing the jacket and tie and shit.”
I give him a punch to the arm, hard enough that he has to rub the spot I hit.
Our neighbour from the third floor, Lester, opens the screen door, lights the cigarette already in his mouth, waves the match to kill the flame and flicks it into the flowerpot. He nods to us. “You boys behavin’?” he asks in his lazy drawl. Spindly like the flowers, he’s been living here longer than me and Dad. The day we moved in, he came down to help. There wasn’t much to carry; a couple of boxes of clothes and some kitchen stuff, but Dad was useless with his leg. Lester and I hauled everything up the stairs. That night, Dad invited him for dinner as a thank you. He told Dad later he’d never been asked to anyone’s for dinner before.
I roll my eyes. “He probably took an ad out in the paper telling the world. It’s like no one ever got into that school before.”
Lester gives me a long look, one side of his mouth tilted up. “No one who lives in a rooming house, that’s for damn sure.”
Lincoln stays quiet beside me, hiding under his hat.
“Any of those rich pricks give you trouble, you let me and Lincoln know. We’ll straighten ’em out, eh?” He taps Link’s shoe with his workboot.
“You?” Link glances up at him. “You couldn’t take my ninety-year-old grandma,” Link says, dodging a swipe from Lester.
“Later, boys,” Lester calls and saunters down the sidewalk, the frayed cuff of his jeans dragging behind.
“Think he’s screwing Laureen?” Lincoln whispers when he’s out of earshot. “Saw ’em talking one night,” he says, leering. “You know, like maybe there was more going on. She’s not so bad looking.”
I throw him a disgusted look.
“For an old lady,” he adds. “Just wondered,” he laughs as I pretend to barf.
A group of little girls walk past with Slurpees. Their mom trails behind with a kid in a stroller, screaming and arching his back to be let out.
“You think about what we talked about last night?” I ask. “About Henry?”
Lincoln pulls his legs toward him. “Yeah, kind of.”
“You don’t have to do what he wants just cuz he’s your brother.”
He shakes his head at me. “You don’t get it, Koob.” He sighs.
“Get what?”
“Me and you are different. I’m never gonna have a shot at things you will.”
“That’s bullshit,” I fire back. “Did Henry tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to. Now that you’re in that school, you think you’re coming back here? Working at the 7-Eleven? Or a factory?”
Blood Brothers Page 3