by Carl Deuker
The next morning, and every morning, I tried to look down at the ground or off into space. But I couldn't. The chance that a Shorelake guy might be in the next car worked on me like a magnet. I had to look.
I tried to time it so that I'd get to the stop just a minute or two early, and the bus would come, and that would be that. But when the bus was late, which was at least half the time, someone would see me. It didn't matter who it was—Greg, Cody, Reese Robertson—it was always the same. Our eyes would meet, and then we'd both look away, as if we'd never known each other.
CHAPTER 2
Whitman High is a crowded school—more than fifteen hundred kids jammed onto a campus about half the size of Shorelake's. There's no place to go off by yourself; everywhere you turn there are people. The kids in my classes had friends from earlier years. I knew no one, and no one seemed interested in knowing me.
But that was okay. You meet kids, and pretty soon they ask what your name is and where you live, and all that. My dad's name had been in the paper and on the television news for money laundering, for drug dealing, for killing himself. The more you talk, the greater the chance that somebody will figure things out. It was best not to talk to anyone. I went to school, wandered through the day, and came home.
We never discussed it, but I think Marian was doing the same thing. She'd come home from Broadview-Thompson, her new middle school, and go up to the room she shared with Mom, where she'd do her homework. At around five Mom would call us for a quick dinner. Once Mom left for work, Marian would finish her homework at the kitchen table, then watch television for an hour or so. After that, she'd take her shower and go to her room to read. By nine o'clock she had the light out. It almost seemed as if sleeping was her favorite thing.
The first couple of weeks I was glad to be left alone. But after a while I wished Marian would stay downstairs and talk. There were things I wanted to know about the day Dad had died. Had he said anything to her or to Mom before he went to his study? What happened right after the shot? Did Mom go upstairs? Did Marian?
And I guess I was lonely, too. There was nobody to talk to at school. Mom was gone all the time. Even if Marian didn't want to talk about Dad, it would have been okay by me to play Monopoly or Clue. In a way, it was a joke. Before Dad had died, Marian always wanted to hang out with me and I always brushed her aside. Now, when I wouldn't have minded doing stuff with her, she was the one with her door closed.
In October I hooked up with this skinny, pasty-faced kid named Lonnie Gibson. Maybe I should say he hooked up with me. He was at the bus stop every morning and afternoon, and he was in my music elective at the end of the day.
Lonnie was a wild man in class—singing off-key on purpose and always laughing at the music teacher, Mr. Bull. He didn't even care about Mr. Stimmel, the school principal. "What are they going to do? Throw me out?" he said.
Lonnie lived in an apartment near the AM-PM Mini Mart on 145th. I'd noticed the place because it was city housing, too. "Stop by some night," he was always saying. "We could hang out together."
"I've got to look after my little sister," I said.
He shrugged. "Well, if you change your mind, come by."
It was a Monday night, around nine-thirty. I had homework, but I didn't feel like doing it. I'd been a good student at Shorelake Academy—Dad would have killed me if I hadn't come home with high grades—but I was near the bottom at Whitman. I was downstairs watching the Bears play the Vikings on Monday Night Football. The game was late in the fourth quarter, with the Vikings leading 26–3. They had the ball and were running out the clock. A run over left tackle; a run over right tackle; an off-side penalty. I found myself thinking about Lonnie. Hanging out with him had to be better than sitting alone in a crummy, claustrophobic duplex while watching a lousy football game.
I flicked the television off, then went upstairs and stood outside Marian's door. Her light was off. I turned the knob and peeked in. She was asleep, her breathing slow and regular. She was still waking up with nightmares, but that was always later, at two or three. I closed the door, grabbed a jacket from my room, then slipped quietly down the stairs and out into the night.
Lonnie was standing in front of his housing complex next to a tall guy I didn't know. "Hey, Shane," he shouted the instant he saw me, his eyes lighting up. "Good to see you." He reached out and shook my hand high, then did the little knuckle thing, as if we were in some sort of street gang. "This is Justin," he said, nodding toward the tall guy, and then Justin shook my hand in the same way.
Justin was older than Lonnie and me, probably eighteen or nineteen. His hair was dyed black, he had a wispy goatee, and he wore a long black trench coat. He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels, shaking the pack so the tips of the cigarettes came up. Lonnie took one, so I did too.
I'd smoked a couple of times when I was a freshman but hadn't had any cigarettes since. I was afraid I'd cough like crazy and they'd laugh at me, so on the first puff I barely inhaled. The hot smoke burned, but I didn't cough. On my second puff I inhaled a little deeper.
The three of us stood under the streetlight, leaning against an old blue Chrysler, smoking and talking about girls and cars and TV shows. Justin looked at his watch. "It's after ten. Let's see if that little Vietnamese woman is working the minimart."
I looked at Lonnie.
"You'll see," he said.
The market was about a half block away. When we reached it, Lonnie went inside while Justin and I waited around the corner. A minute later Lonnie came back, a grin on his face. "It's her, and she's alone."
"You sure?" Justin asked.
"I'm sure."
"Piece of cake," Justin said. He nodded toward me. "Is this guy okay?"
"Shane'll do fine," Lonnie said and then turned to me. "Just do what I tell you, when I tell you. Okay?"
"What am I supposed to do?" I said.
"Just do what I tell you. There's nothing to it."
For the next five minutes, we hung out around the corner from the store. I wanted to ask what was what, but I bit back the words. Justin kept watching the gas pumps. Finally, when three cars pulled up simultaneously, he took off his trench coat. "Wear this," he said, handing it to me. "And do exactly what Lonnie tells you to do."
As we walked toward the store, Lonnie filled me in on the plan. "We'll go in first. Then Justin will come in and grab some candy. He'll drop a whole bunch of change on the counter. While the lady is sorting it out, you slip Mickey Stouts—the twenty-four-ounce size—inside this coat, as many as you can get. The pockets are deep."
"What if she sees me?" I asked.
He pushed the door open, and I stepped inside. "She won't," he whispered. "She'll have all that change on the counter, three cars out front to watch, and I'll be standing in front of you, screening you. There's no chance she'll see you. We do it all the time with just two guys. With three there's even less risk."
I could feel my body tighten as we stood in front of the refrigerators. It was like being on the pitcher's mound—every one of my senses was on alert. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Justin push the door open, grab a large bag of M&M's, and take it to the cash register. I heard the clatter of coins as he dropped them onto the counter. The Vietnamese woman lowered her head to sort them out. "Now!" Lonnie whispered.
I slid the glass refrigerator door open, grabbed a couple of Mickey Stouts, and slipped both into the deep inside pockets of Justin's trench coat. I reached in a second time, grabbed two more bottles, and slipped them inside the pockets. My hands went back a third time. When I looked around, the woman was still counting Justin's change, and there was still more room in the trench coat, but that was it for me. I turned, and Lonnie followed me as I walked quickly—but not too quickly—toward the door. At the door Lonnie touched me on the shoulder and pointed to the cover of some magazine. "Nice looking, isn't she?"
Once I was around the corner, I broke into a run. The six beer bottles clanked against one another ins
ide the coat. "Slow down!" Lonnie called out after me. "We're safe. Don't break them."
A minute later Justin caught up with us. "How many did you get?" he asked. "Six."
"Only six? The coat holds ten."
Lonnie stuck up for me. "Six is good and you know it. My first time I only got two."
We slipped into the alley behind Lonnie's apartment and sat next to the garbage cans. I put all six Mickeys in front of us. Lonnie and Justin each grabbed one and unscrewed the top, so I did the same.
My dad had let me have a few sips of beer a couple of times, but I'd never liked the taste. It was too bitter, and now I had forty-eight ounces of it to drink. I was glad Justin had bought the M&M's. I'd take a swig, then reach into the bag and grab some before taking my next swig.
"You ever drink before?" Justin asked me when he'd finished the first Mickey and reached for his second.
"Sure."
He laughed. "Liar."
"I'm not lying."
"Yeah, you are. But don't sweat it. It's like with girls. Everybody has a first time, and then they can't wait for a second and third."
Lonnie finished his beer and started on his second. Only my second stood untouched. "If you're not going to drink that Mickey, I'll take it," Justin said.
The M&M's and beer were getting scrambled in my stomach, and I felt as if I'd swallowed some cigarette smoke too. But I wasn't going to drink any less than they did. "I want it," I said.
I didn't exactly get drunk, but I did lose track of time. It was eleven-forty-five before I looked at my watch. Occasionally Mom got home just after midnight. "I've got to go," I said.
"See you tomorrow," Lonnie mumbled.
***
I made it back to the apartment at 12:05.1 checked on Marian ... sound asleep. I thought I'd have to pretend to be asleep when Mom came in, but as soon as I lay down, I was out. If my alarm hadn't gone off, I'd have slept until noon.
After that, I started sneaking out nearly every night. Whenever the Vietnamese woman worked the market, which was most of the time, we stole beer. We shared the risk by taking turns, but the whole thing was like stealing candy from a baby.
One day when we were drinking, I told them about my dad killing himself. I don't know why, it just came out. "Wow," Lonnie said, "that's really tough. Do you know why he did it?"
"He was involved with some drug dealers from Mexico. He did the money-laundering part. You know." They nodded as if they did. "He was headed to prison."
Justin's eyes widened. "Your dad was a big-time drug dealer?"
I felt strangely proud of him. "We used to have packages of cash coming to our front door, the size of shoeboxes, two or three times a month. We lived in a big house in Sound Ridge, and we had two Lexuses and all sorts of computers and a huge entertainment center. Anything I wanted my dad got for me."
"You're full of it," Justin said.
"It's true," I insisted. "You could look it up in the newspaper. It all happened just six months ago. Last year I went to Shorelake."
"Really?"
"Really."
For a while no one said anything. Lonnie finished one Mickey, then opened another. "My dad might as well be dead; I never see him."
Justin grinned. "Maybe that's because he's not really your dad. Maybe your mom was fooling around on the side, and he knows it. Your mom's kind of hot looking still, with those tight sweaters she always wears. She must have been something when she was younger."
"Shut up."
CHAPTER 3
It was the night before Halloween. Mom was working, Marian was asleep, and I was sprawled out in the alley drinking my third bottle of Mickey Stout with Lonnie and Justin. Justin had started telling a joke about this good-looking girl and a mirror. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall," he was saying, but before he could finish, two cop cars pulled into the alley, one from each direction, their spotlights on us.
In a flash Justin was gone, bounding over the cyclone fence and racing through somebody's backyard. But Lonnie and I didn't move quickly enough, and before I knew what was happening, the big hands of a policeman had pulled me to my feet and spun me around so that my face was against the fence. The cop patted me down, and then I felt handcuffs go on.
"Wait," I said, "you don't understand."
"Get in the back seat, kid," the cop said. "I understand perfectly. And you will too, real soon."
I thought the cop would call my mom at work and then take me home. Instead, he got on the freeway and drove toward downtown Seattle. Lonnie looked out the window as if we were just going for a pleasant drive; I felt sick to my stomach.
"Where are you taking us?" I asked.
"Youth Detention Center," the cop answered.
"Can't you just take me home?" I said. "I won't ever do it again. I promise."
He didn't answer.
The Youth Detention Center turned out to be a newer building in the Central District. Once we went through the big double doors, Lonnie was taken into one room and I was led to another. A woman—I don't know if she was a cop or not—asked me a bunch of questions. Name, address, phone number. That sort of thing. Next, a younger guy with blue eyes and an earring called me into his office. "Tell me about it," he said.
"That was the first time I've ever done anything like that. I swear it was."
He smiled. "There's a surveillance camera in that minimart, kid. The owner's been on to you for a while now. So try again."
"All right. I've done it before. But I won't ever do it again. I promise."
He nodded. "Well, that's a start. Now how about telling me about the young man who jumped the fence."
"I don't know anything about him," I muttered.
"You know his name, don't you?" His voice was sharper.
"It began with a D or a B, I think. Ask Lonnie. He knew him a lot better."
His face went rigid. "There are two ways this can come out, Shane. I can ignore all the evidence on those videotapes and pretend this is your first offense. If I do that, the judge will probably put you on probation and have you do community service. The second way is much worse. Because I could go through all those videotapes, count the times you stole beer, tell the judge that you won't cooperate, and recommend that you do a month or two in here, locked up. There are some pretty tough kids here, and you don't look that tough. So I'll ask you again. What was the other boy's name?"
My throat was so dry I could hardly speak. "Justin."
"Justin what?"
"I don't know. And that's the truth."
"I suppose you don't know where he lives either."
"I don't. I told you—he was Lonnie's friend."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He folded his hands on his desk and stared at me. "All right. But if it turns out that you're lying to me, you will regret it."
"I'm not lying. I swear to you. I'm not. I only just met him a few weeks ago."
He went to the door, opened it, and a second later my mother came in. Her eyes were moist, but she wasn't crying. Marian was hanging on to her coat, half asleep.
"You can take him now," he said. "I'll be in touch about the court date."
"Thank you," my mother said. "Thank you very much."
In the car she didn't say a word, maybe because Marian was in the back seat, sleeping. She just drove. Once we got home, she half carried, half guided Marian to her room. "You can't do this to me, Shane," she said when she came downstairs. "You just can't."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry isn't good enough. I have to be able to trust you. You left Marian alone. Not just once, but over and over. What if there was a fire, or a break-in? We don't know anything about our neighbors. What if one of them is a sex offender?"
"Oh, Mom, don't get carried away."
She slammed her fist on the table. "I'm not getting carried away. We're not in Sound Ridge anymore. Understand? Do you want to go down to the police station tomorrow and read about all the sex offenders who live in this neighborhood? Do you
? Because I did, and it's not pretty reading." The room went silent. After a long time, Mom looked up at me. "And what about you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what are your plans for yourself?"
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Are you going to be a criminal?"
"No," I said angrily. "I'm not going to be a criminal."
"Well, that's good news. So what are your grades like so far at school?"
"They're okay."
"Really. So you can go out and get drunk every night and still get okay grades in school."
"I didn't get drunk every night, Mom."
"That's not what the police say."
"Well, the police are wrong."
"So what are your grades? A's?"
"No, they're not A's."
"Are they B's?"
"No."
"C's? D's? F's?"
"I don't know what they are."
"I can guess."
I stood. "All right. You've made your point. I'll stay here with Marian. I promise. Okay? And I'll hit the books more. What more do you want from me?"
Her eyes flashed. "Don't use that tone with me, young man. And to answer your question: I don't want anything from you. It's what I want for you. And that's everything. Do you understand? I want everything for you, just like I want everything for Marian. And I will not stand by and let you throw your life away. Not without a fight. Now go to your room."
I had to return to the Youth Detention Center a week later. Standing in the front of the room in a sports coat I'd outgrown, I waited while a gray-haired judge paged through a stack of papers. He had glasses on the end of his nose, and every so often he'd look at me over their top. Finally he closed my tile, took off his glasses, and leaned forward. "I guess you've had a tough go of it recently," he said.
"I guess so," I answered, my voice quiet in that silent room.