“She underestimates us,” I tell Dallas.
“Because we’re men of purpose,” he says.
“Men of independent means.”
“Makers of our own destinies!” he says grandly, spilling some of his beer as he hoists it.
That’s when Dad sits down beside us.
We freeze. Usually you can predict what a parent is going to do in a certain situation. If Greg’s mom had just spotted us, for example, we would be marching home to the beat of a lecture on the mind-bending effects of alcohol and the cancerous toxins released in our bloodstreams.
With Dallas’s dad, there would have been a slow wink, a head tilt toward the door, and a deep, “Git your asses on outta here.”
My dad? I have no idea what he’s going to say. And I don’t think he knows either. For what seems like a long time, the three of us sit silently staring at one another. Finally, he takes a deep breath and blows it between pursed lips. Then he raises a hand to the bartender and holds up three fingers.
“Guess you’re gonna grow up sometime, eh, boys?” he says.
When the beer arrives, we clink the tops of the bottles like we’re old buddies and slurp in unison.
Since we arrived, the bar has filled with a strange, Monday night mix of after-shift loggers and committed drinkers. Despite the new beer, I’m uncomfortable.
I find myself wishing Dad had kicked us out.
Dallas, a grin on his face the size of the Rio Grande, has crossed the room to play pool with a group of loggers. The way he’s lipping them off, he’s going to get thrown out on his ass soon.
I stay on my stool, struggling to think clearly. After repeated attempts to focus, I hit on the problem. I would like to be the type of guy who handles things better than this and without the help of alcohol. Didn’t I recently tell my dad that things had to change? My negotiating power is draining like a spilled beer. Sheri’s pregnant. Lauren’s pregnant. Drinking with Dad, it’s like I’ve signed on to the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” team. And in a few hours, we’ll both stagger up to the house, where we’ll lean against the wall and scrape our keys against the door frame, searching for the lock.
There’s something not right about that.
I stand abruptly, which sends the bar spinning around me. “Be right back,” I mumble, heading in the general direction of the bathroom. Halfway there, I’m distracted by a blast of cold air from the front door. It’s like a slap in the face, in a good way.
I don’t realize how noisy the bar was until I emerge. Out here, it’s perfectly silent and still. The cloudless sky is spread with stars. It’s cold for November—deep-winter cold—but I linger, unwilling to go back inside and talk to my dad. As long as I hover here or lean against the frigid brick wall, I’m in limbo, absolved from all decision making.
The crunch of footsteps on snow echoes through the empty street. I hear women’s voices, punctuated by a peal of laughter.
When I turn my head, there’s a three-second delay in my vision. There must be a traffic jam inside my brain between the optical nerves and whatever lobe is responsible for interpreting vision.
“Cole?” Ms. Gladwell spots me against the bricks. She’s holding hands with a woman. I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining things.
“Watch,” I tell her. Then I turn my head toward her friend. “See? First my head moves. Then, a while later, my eyesh see you.” I hear the slur, and I’m about to repeat myself—to ensure I’m making this completely clear—when I’m distracted by Ms. Gladwell’s friend. It’s Tracy. Tracy’s holding hands with Ms. Gladwell.
If seeing a goth nurse in Webster is like seeing a UFO, this is like seeing a UFO actually abduct someone.
“Hey! You two are leshbians,” I tell them. “That’s cool.”
I don’t want them to be uncomfortable.
I point a finger toward Ms. Gladwell. “This explains a lot. You’ve kinda changed.”
They’re both looking at me with the same bemused expression that Tracy wore outside the hospital a couple hours ago.
“I mean that in a good way,” I clarify. I’m finding it difficult to look at them out of both eyes at once. My right eye is spontaneously closing.
I experiment. “Camera one. Camera two.”
“Cole, how ’bout we take you home?” Tracy says. “My truck’s just down the block.”
“Nah, I’ll walk,” I tell her. “Last time I got in the car with a woman, it washn’t good. Not good at all.”
“We could call your dad to come get you,” Ms. Gladwell suggests.
“He’s inside,” I say.
Their eyebrows go up in unison.
“What if I get him?” Tracy says. “Then you can both head home together?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
A sand truck approaches from the far end of the street, its yellow lights swirling. The way those lights reflect on the snow . . . hypnotizing. I should work that into a science doc somehow.
“You should really go home,” Tracy says.
“Yeah, all right, but I’ll get my dad. If you go in there, you might get beat up. It’s that whole UFO thing, you know?”
She looks baffled. I’m about to explain, but Ms. Gladwell takes my shoulders and points me toward the stairs.
“You go and get him,” she says. “We’ll wait.”
chapter 24
scenes of gratuitous violence
I swing open the wooden door and immediately duck a punch. And when I stop to congratulate myself on showing such high-level agility in my inebriated state, I get elbowed in the eyeball. Pain radiates through my skull. Immediately, my fists are swinging. With one eye open and the other watering like a garden sprinkler, it takes a few tries before I connect. There’s a satisfying crunch and a yell. I can hear my own breath as I suck air between my teeth. Adrenaline races through me and even though I know someone else just punched my cheekbone, I barely feel it. I swing again and again.
“I’ve called the police!” The bartender is screaming to be heard above the ruckus.
For a brief moment, Dallas’s face appears. He grins at me with blood in his teeth, and then we’re both back in the fray. It’s spectacular, really. Everything in rough cut. I jab right and duck a swing, elbow left for room, let another punch fly. There’s something hugely gratifying about this. Each connected throw sends triumph through me. It’s so much better than getting blindsided in the girls’ bathroom by your pregnant ex-girlfriend. I think of the recent fights that I could have had . . . that terrible dad at Burger Barn, for example. Why didn’t I go for it?
Then I get hammered in the gut. The breath whooshes from me and I fold in half. A kick to the ribs flattens me further.
I hear the bartender shouting again, but from my current doubled-over position, I can’t see her through the jumble of legs and arms. The way I picture it, she’s standing on the bar with a double-barreled shotgun, her feet firmly planted and her braid slung over one shoulder. It’s possible I’ve staggered my way into a western movie.
As a siren wails outside, I watch Dallas’s boots move closer to me. He’s still kicking and swinging.
Suddenly, there’s a shatter of glass, a shower of shards around me, and a stream of swearing above my head.
Managing to suck in some oxygen, I push my way upright.
Dallas is holding his wrist, and blood is squirting—literally squirting—from between his fingers. The swearing’s coming partly from him and partly from the loggers, who’ve all stepped back in unison. A bar fight turned square dance.
I scan the crowd for my dad, but I can’t spot him.
The door swings open. I expect the cops, but it’s Ms. Gladwell. She grabs my arm and hauls me outside.
“But Dallas—” I protest. “There’s crazy blood. . . .”
“Tracy,” she calls over her shoulder. “They’ve got room for your skills in there.”
Tracy’s already stepping around us, shoving her way inside.
Th
e cop is only a moment behind. He stops to shoot a questioning look at Ms. Gladwell. One that asks, “What am I about to find?”
“I think it’s mostly over,” she tells him. I wait for him to question me next, maybe ask for my ID. He doesn’t even glance in my direction. I guess an underage drunk is not at the top of his list at the moment.
“Okay, now we’re taking you home, Cole,” Ms. Gladwell says after the cop’s gone inside.
“My dad. And Dallas . . . ,” I protest.
Another siren pierces the night, and an ambulance barrels down the street. Looks like Dallas will be getting a ride too.
“Tracy’ll take care of Dallas. I’ll check on him after I drop you off. Unless you want that cop to throw you in the drunk tank for the night with the rest of the guys in there?”
Is there really a drunk tank? Either way, it gets my feet moving.
I make it all the way home without puking in Tracy’s truck, which I consider a major accomplishment.
“Thanks,” I tell Ms. Gladwell as she pulls up in front of the house. Then, just as I’m about to slide out the door, “I know Tracy from the hoshpital.” I hear myself slur again, and I concentrate hard to make the rest of the thought come out clearly. “From when my mom was sick.”
“I know.” She nods.
I put one hand on her shoulder and look her in the eye, as if I’m the local relationship guru. “She’s a good one. I’m happy for you.”
Once she’s gone, I spend quite a long time facedown on my mattress, with one hand gripping the headboard to make the room stop spinning. What seems like hours later, Dad sits on the side of my bed. It’s such an unusual occurrence, I manage to lift an eyelid.
“You’re not in the drunk tank,” I say.
“The drunk tank. Is there really such a thing?”
“I’ve wondered that myself.”
“I stayed out of the way,” he says. “Was worried about you, though. I couldn’t find you.”
Looking at the world out of one eye is discombobulating. I let my lid drop closed and tighten my grip on the headboard.
“You shouldn’t have been in the Prospector tonight,” Dad says.
In a stating-the-obvious contest, that one would win first prize. I grunt in agreement.
After a long break, during which I hear myself snore once or twice, Dad says, “I guess I shouldn’t have been there either.”
Interesting, that. Does he mean that he should have taken me home? Or that he shouldn’t have been in the bar on a Monday night?
I’m still considering the question when I pass out.
Hopefully, I don’t miss any more of Dad’s deep thoughts.
• • •
The blast of alarm clock music and the sunlight slicing between the curtains feel like Guantanamo Bay interrogation techniques. I curl into a fetal position and shield my head. Under direct torture, I might admit that four beers, a couple shots of tequila, and a few more beers are well past my drinking tolerance. Someone may or may not have tossed his cookies outside the back door early this morning, having gotten confused about the direction of his own bathroom.
That may or may not have been me.
What was I thinking?
When I turn my head, my vision still follows on a three-second delay. If you factor in the horrendous music blaring from my alarm, I could be inside a film shot in freeze frames.
Snap. Guy sprawled in bed. Snap. Guy pushing himself upright on side of bed. Snap. Guy making desperate grab for desk-side garbage can. Snap. Guy heaving.
Maybe I am in Guantanamo. Maybe they’re trying to break me with strobe lights.
My eyes focus on the red digits of the clock.
If I’m not in prison, I have exactly twelve minutes to get to school.
I could stay in bed. I waste one minute considering that option. Positive side: I’d be in bed. Negative sides: Ms. Gladwell might call the house—exactly the sort of thing a teacher would do to make you die of embarrassment; if Dad’s still home, I’ll have to talk to him; I would be acknowledging to myself that I’m the kind of guy who gets wasted at the bar on a Monday night.
I might make it on time if I leave immediately. I will likely be late if I change my clothes and brush my teeth.
I decide it’s worth the risk. Brushing my teeth at this moment is basically an antiterrorism measure.
I manage to dress myself and spend an extra few minutes admiring my shiner in the mirror. It’s mostly black, with a tint of purple. If I had six-pack abs and a few tattoos, I’d look like the latest mixed-martial-arts champion.
“Champion” is possibly not the best word to describe me right now.
I make it all the way to school, check in with the secretary, and start down the hallway. Then I have to make an abrupt turn into the waiting area of the counseling office to dry heave in a garbage can.
When I finish, Ms. Gladwell is standing behind me, leaning on the door frame. To my satisfaction, she looks a little rough herself.
“Cole, what are you doing here? Go home.”
“I think . . .” The end of the sentence escapes me. If she’s not going to call and check up on me, then what the heck am I doing here? Dad’s probably already at work. And what difference does one Tuesday of school make?
“Is Dallas okay?”
“Tracy said they stitched him up. He’ll be fine.”
I nod, which almost makes me heave again. “I guess I’ll go home.”
I don’t, though. Since I’m already awake and at least somewhat ambulatory, I drag my butt up the hill to the hospital. I don’t even have to ask for directions to Dallas’s room—I find him sitting on a bench outside the ER, fingers tucked into his armpits for warmth and head tilted back against the wall. If I look as if I’ve been through Guantanamo and Ms. Gladwell looks as if she’s had a one-night stand, Dallas looks approximately a billion times worse. His hair is standing entirely on end. One cheek is swollen, he has a black eye, and his arm’s in a hospital-issue, puke green sling.
“I hear they sewed you up,” I say.
“Thirty-seven stitches. I just got discharged.”
“Shouldn’t you go home to bed?”
“And waste these good drugs?” he asks, hauling his head upright and grinning. “I saw a pink elephant dancing in midair this morning, dude. Seriously.”
“Nice.” It sounds like an improvement on my morning.
“Hey, where’d you go last night, Cole? You left me at the hospital with some vampire nurse.”
“She’s all right. Her name’s Tracy.”
“Yeah, but where were you? You were my wingman, and then you disappeared like a rattlesnake in a thunderstorm.”
“Do rattlesnakes disappear in thunderstorms?”
Dallas glares at me.
“Sorry, man.”
“You don’t go to the bar and then scoot your ass out when the fight starts.”
“Are you seeing this eye? I was there!”
“Well, all I’m sayin’ is you shoulda been there afterward.”
“All right, I should have gone to the hospital. But Ms. Gladwell dragged me home.”
“What the hell was Ms. Gladwell doing in the bar?”
“She wasn’t . . . I don’t know. Anyway, sorry.”
He’s probably right—I should have followed him to the hospital. I’m just not sure I can take responsibility for any more people in this town. If my life were a screenplay, every role would be filled and casting irrevocably closed.
“Well, I’ll tell y’all one good thing,” Dallas says.
“What?”
“I got an idea.”
This should be interesting.
“All those white sheets draped everywhere got me thinking. Toga party. Ten days from now, last Saturday of the month. What do you say?”
“I think you’re the only guy I know who ends up in a hospital and spends his time planning a toga party.”
Dallas looks smug.
Eventually, I ask how he’s getting hom
e. “I can go get the truck,” I offer.
He shakes his head. “My dad’s inside doing paperwork. He’s not too happy at the moment.”
This seems like my exit cue. After promising to work on a toga, I stagger off in the direction of home, using my remaining mental abilities to keep my feet moving. If I had more brainpower left over, I might think about the words that keep rattling around my head. “You don’t go to the bar and then scoot your ass out when the fight starts,” Dallas said. There’s something to that.
If I weren’t so hung over, I could figure it out.
chapter 25
downhill on a downhill slope
I’m sweating inside my ski jacket, feeling mildly carsick and mindlessly etching the word “condoms” into the back of the leather bus seat. School buses haven’t changed since my fourth-grade field trip to Fort Trapp, where we ate lard sandwiches and panned for gold. The air still smells like a mix of gas and disinfected puke.
We’re on our way to Whitedome, in Logan. I agreed to this ski trip a month ago because Greg was in charge of organizing it for the French teacher (which explains his A in French last term). Back then, Greg was actually speaking to me. Now he’s enthroned at the back of the bus and surrounded by girls, and the trip doesn’t sound so appealing. Especially as Lex is sitting right behind me and giving me the evil eye through the seat. Or so I imagine.
Still, the fact that she’s back there, without Lauren for once, gives me an idea. When the bus is sufficiently chaotic, I turn and poke my head around.
“Where’s Lauren today?” I ask her.
“She’s not up to skiing right now,” Lex says pointedly.
“But what’s she doing?”
“Hannah’s taking her shopping.” The way she says it makes me think she’s not entirely pleased. Which might work to my benefit.
“Lex, you know Lauren better than anyone. Do you think she and I could have a conversation through you?”
“What are you, six?” she snaps. Her seatmate giggles.
“She won’t talk to me. If I stop her in the hall, she stands like a zombie until I go away.”
“Then learn to read body language,” Lex says. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
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