“Hi!” Jeremy said cheerfully. “Miss me?”
Jeremy hauled him to his feet, and he swayed, dizzy. He tried to punch Jeremy’s arm, missed, and almost fell again, but Jeremy laughed and held him up.
“You goddamn maniac!” he found himself shouting, mad, embarrassed.
“This way,” Jeremy said, leading him into the living room by the elbow.
He tried to get his arm out of his cousin’s grip, just on the principle of the thing. Jeremy squeezed hard, pain shot up Tom’s arm, and he left himself be led.
There were bags in the living room with designer names on them. God, he thought, where’s he getting the money? Jeremy’s family was rich, but not that rich.
“Ta-da!” Jeremy said, letting go. He reached down and pulled out a shirt, unfolded it in one broad flap, and held it up for inspection.
“Don’t you have enough clothes?” Tom said.
Jeremy rolled his eyes dramatically. “He has eeeyes, but he cannot see. Lord …” Jeremy slapped his palm against Tom’s forehead. “… Heal this bliiind soul, that he may finally seeee the light.”
“Fuck off,” Tom said.
Far from being offended, Jeremy looked more and more benevolent. He said slowly, “Come on, Tommy, take a good look. What size is this shirt? Hmm? Can Tommy tell me that?”
Tom looked at the shirt and saw that there was no way it would fit Jeremy. He looked at the bags around them, the realization slowly dawning that Jeremy was putting him further and further in debt.
“You can take these back,” he said sharply. “I won’t wear them. I’ve got clothes.”
“And what lovely clothes they are,” Jeremy said. “You are truly the epitome of haute couture. Where do you shop? I’m guessing thrift store or garbage can.”
Tom looked at him, mute. He turned and left the room, retreating to the bathroom, the only place in the apartment with a decent lock.
He heard the rustle of bags. Jeremy was bringing them into the bedroom. It didn’t matter. He’d never wear anything his cousin gave him. Not in a billion years. He heard the closet door squeaking open. Jeremy went into the kitchen. When he came back, Tom heard the hangers clanking. He froze, thinking, No, Jeremy wouldn’t do that.
But when he left the bathroom and poked his head into the bedroom, Jeremy was cheerfully dumping Tom’s clothes into garbage bags.
Tom charged and caught Jeremy off guard. Jeremy whooped, and they rolled together on the floor. Tom got in three punches before Jeremy pinned him down. Tom was reminded suddenly of Tigger in Winnie-the-Pooh. Jeremy wiggled his fingers.
“No!” Tom shouted.
He fought as long as he could, gritting his teeth. Jeremy simply kept tickling him until he gave in, and then he didn’t stop until Tom began to cry. Jeremy let him up and told him to sit on the bed. Tom moved automatically. When Jeremy finished dumping the clothes in garbage bags, he lugged them to the bedroom window and tossed them out.
“I saved you a few grungies,” he said. “For cleaning and stuff.”
Then Jeremy told Tom to go to the kitchen and he went. “You eat?”
“Yes,” he said calmly as he could, thinking Jeremy would get bored with the head games if he just didn’t react. “Thanks.”
“I can make an omelet,” Jeremy said.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Jeremy looked puzzled. “You okay, kid?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” He picked his French book up off the floor and opened it. “Excuse me. I have homework.”
He tried to lose himself in the exercises, but they were boring and he could feel Jeremy wandering around the kitchen watching him. Tom made himself think about scholarships, and that brought him back to what was important. Getting an education. Getting his mom out. Going somewhere.
“You’re mad at me.” Jeremy sat across from him, eating. “I can tell.”
Yeah, and you’re psychic, Tom thought. “Would you mind going someplace else?” he said. “I’m busy.”
He finished his French homework. When Jeremy pushed back his chair and left the room, Tom moved on to physics. The front door slammed. Tom sat still for a moment, surprised it had worked. He went to the bedroom window to see if his clothes were still on the patchy lawn. Three bags were okay, but the fourth one had burst, dumping his jeans near the bushes. Jeremy appeared. He began to gather the bags. He looked up and saw Tom in the window.
“Catch!” Jeremy said, as he dropped all the bags but one, which he lobbed upwards. It only went as far as the second floor. Jeremy caught it and tossed it up again. The bag still fell short.
“I’ll be right down,” Tom said.
“Here comes!”
Tom caught it, the plastic ripping in his hands as he scrambled to get the bag inside before it broke.
On the third bag, Mrs. Tupper poked her head out the window and Jeremy almost hit her. She shrieked and pulled back in.
“You stupid kids!” she shouted, shaking her fist at Jeremy. “You goddamn brats! I should call the police on you!”
Jeremy grinned up at her. “Help! Oh, help! I’ve been beaned by flying garbage!”
“You got no respect! No respect!”
Jeremy did a jig on the lawn. She disappeared back into her apartment and Tom shook his head. Jeremy was picking the jeans off the bushes when Mrs. Tupper nailed him with a wad of coffee grounds.
He looked up, eyes wide with surprise. A rain of orange peels, egg cartons, and TV-dinner trays came at him, and he dodged them, yelling, “Missed me! Missed me! Now you’ve got to kiss me!”
Infuriated, Mrs. Tupper shouted, “You hooligan!” and the rain of garbage increased with less and less accuracy as Jeremy bobbed and weaved, picking up the last of the jeans and running for cover.
Tom heard Mrs. Tupper shouting at his cousin in the stairwell and Jeremy giving his goofy, slightly deranged whoop. A few minutes later Jeremy staggered up the stairs, laughing so hard he couldn’t walk straight. Mrs. Tupper was doggedly chasing him, leaning on both her canes, a last banana peel dangling from her hand.
Jeremy made it to the top of the stairs, then turned around. Mrs. Tupper hit him in the chest with the banana peel, and he hooted as he fell down. Unimpressed, Mrs. Tupper picked up her pace and advanced on him, her left cane raised above her head. She began to smack him with it as soon as he came in range. Jeremy crawled away, gasping for air as he laughed, dropping jeans as he made a slow and unsteady escape.
“Mrs. Tupper,” Tom said. “I think that’s enough.”
“What you need,” Mrs. Tupper said, her voice crisp with indignation, “is a good wupping.” She pivoted on her canes to make a dignified retreat.
Jeremy, reduced to giggling, staggered back to pick up the jeans he’d left behind. Tom went out to help him.
“That was,” Jeremy said, giggling again. “The slowest chase in history.”
Tom took the jeans from Jeremy as his cousin collapsed again, helpless with laughter. Some of the neighbors opened their doors and peeked out.
“It’s okay,” Tom said.
Jeremy wiped his eyes. He punched Tom’s arm as they went into the apartment. “Kid, you’ve got no sense of humor.”
Tom smiled wanly.
“Come on,” Jeremy said. “Lighten up. I’ve got just the trick.”
Jeremy went to the bedroom and Tom followed, jeans draped over his arms. Jeremy pulled his suitcase from under the bed and opened it. There was a black garbage bag inside. It crackled as Jeremy opened it. He held up a bag of cocaine.
“Jeez,” Tom said, sitting down on his bed.
“It’s just coke,” Jeremy said, looking at him. “It’s not like it’s crack or anything.”
“You sell it,” Tom said, disappointed, realizing where the money was coming from as he looked at the suitcase.
“No, no, no,” Jeremy said. “This friend of mine sells it, but he cuts me some pretty good deals because I store the stuff for him. This stuff”—Jeremy lifted up a packet —“isn’t top of
the line. He gives me samples. As long as I don’t dip too deep, that is.”
Tom didn’t know what to say.
“Hey, I didn’t kill anyone for it or anything,” his cousin said. “You ever tried this stuff?”
Tom shook his head.
“Well,” Jeremy said, hitting him on the knees. “Let’s get you toasted, Clark Kent.”
It wasn’t too hard to give in, since he was curious. Mike wouldn’t touch cocaine, wouldn’t do anything anymore except pot, saying he’d rather not be that fucked up and stupid. Tom had never done anything heavy, but he hadn’t admitted that; he’d faked knowing what Mike was talking about.
What if the coke reacted with his medication? He hadn’t had a seizure in four years. He might relapse, he might have some really freaky reaction and end up in the hospital. Or nothing could happen.
Jeremy opened the bag carefully, laid down four lines, and rolled a hundred-dollar bill into a thin tube. He inhaled hard. He handed the tube to Tom, who copied him.
“Nothing’s happening,” Tom said.
Jeremy shrugged. “Try again.”
Tom made it through the second snort. He waited. He felt a bit buzzed but nothing more. So. This was living dangerously. Life in the fast lane. Yee-hah.
Jeremy handed him the tube and he snorted another half a line. “I don’t think it’s for me.”
Jeremy grunted, smiling at nothing. He got up and opened a window.
Tom felt light. He lifted his arm for no reason and found himself staring at his hand. He had no idea how long he held it up. Jeremy started laughing. He was on the bed, jumping up and down. His shadow loomed in the corner and shrank. Tom blinked slowly, his bones melting into the pillows. His lids felt heavy, his legs were sinking, the room was a vortex, and he was sucked down, slowly, Jeremy moving in the air like an excited poodle doing tricks.
“You,” Jeremy said when Tom woke up, “are possibly the most boring partier in the entire world.”
Tom rolled over, covering his head with the pillow.
“Come on,” Jeremy said, yanking the blankets off. “School time, kid.”
“God,” Tom muttered, “it can’t be morning.”
Jeremy poked him out of bed, poked him into the kitchen, fed him cereal, and laid out his clothes. Tom, tired and achy, felt like he hadn’t slept for weeks. He didn’t want to argue, just wanted to be left alone.
“Here,” his cousin said, handing him a bottle of Visine. “Make yourself presentable.”
The sharp, sweet smell of pot filled the room like a cheap air freshener. The ceiling was covered in a blue haze.
Jeremy herded him into his car and dropped him off at school. Tom planned on skipping gym. He couldn’t miss physics or band. He remembered his medication and dug around in his bag until he found it. He’d already missed too much school. The new no-tolerance rules had come into place this month, and he’d be suspended if he missed any more classes. He stepped into the hallway and felt strange, as if people were watching him. He thought it was an aura, but it didn’t feel as intense. Mike had said that happened sometimes; when you first tried pot, you got paranoid. Tom wondered if it was the same with coke.
He put his books in his locker. The black-haired girl with the multiple earrings who had the locker beside him stopped dead when she saw him, open-mouthed. He tried to convince himself that he was imagining it, but she turned to watch him leave, still looking shocked.
It’s okay, he told himself. Keep calm. Don’t look stoned.
He walked to his physics class, telling himself that conversations were not going quiet as he passed. He fixed his gaze straight ahead, determined to appear sober.
The buzzer rang, and he jumped at the loudness of it. He was late. Maybe he should just skip classes altogether. No, he decided, go ahead. He pushed the classroom door open. Mr. Calloway’s voice droned through the air, low and monotone, telling everyone to open their books to page 143. Tom took his place at the back of the class, feeling eyes on him. His neighbor snickered.
“Hey,” the guy said loudly. “It’s Mr. Armani.”
Tom sat still, not comprehending.
“Whoa, check out the duds,” someone else said, and the class turned to stare at him.
Tom looked down. Jeremy had put him in some kind of suit and he hadn’t noticed, he’d been that stoned. Hadn’t really cared what he put on, never really saw what he put on until now, when he was being gaped at like a freak.
Mr. Calloway tapped the desk to get everyone’s attention, then began to write equations on the board. Interest in Tom faded as Mr. Calloway made his way through the lesson.
In the bathroom after class, Tom checked himself in the mirror. He’d forgotten the haircut too. He looked goofy. He didn’t mind being laughed at wearing his normal clothes; he could handle it then, shrug it off. But now it was different. Everyone would think he was trying to be cool.
I am going to kill Jeremy, he thought. I am going to strangle him while he sleeps.
The buzzer rang. He didn’t want to leave the bathroom. He felt embarrassed about being embarrassed, told himself he didn’t care what anyone thought.
Fuck it. He moved down the hallway, opened the locker, manhandled his bassoon out, and made his way to band, sober and tense.
The reaction in band was more dramatic than in physics. Jaws dropped as he sat, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes. The French horn player sitting beside him burst out laughing. Tom opened the bassoon case, concentrating firmly on keeping a deadpan expression.
He knew Paulina Mazenkowski had turned around. He didn’t want to see her giggling.
“Hey, Tom,” she said.
As calmly as he could, he looked at her.
“You clean up nice,” she said, smiling right at him before she turned back and they started warm-up scales.
She smiled at him again, before she left with her friends, but he couldn’t quite manage to smile back, so he nodded, feeling like an idiot, like the biggest phony on the face of the earth.
“Holy fucking Jesus!” Mike said, when they met in the hallway. “What the fuck happened to you?”
Tom sat down, tired. “I got a haircut.”
“Shit,” Mike said. “Man, you look like a fucking retard.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. You look like a goddamn suit. What happened to you, man? Where’d your brain go?”
“It’s hair,” Tom said. “Not a face-lift.”
“You sold out,” Mike said. “You bought into it. You’re a fucking clone.”
Tom pulled out his sandwich and began to eat. He didn’t feel up to dealing with Mike. What was the big problem? He’d always been scummy and Mike had never cared. Tom looked up and Mike was gone. Just like that.
He couldn’t take it anymore and skipped the afternoon. The whole day, he decided, was just too weird.
Tom woke up on the couch. The phone rang and kept ringing, and he reached for it, bleary-eyed. “ ’Lo?”
“Tom. I want to talk to your mother. Now.”
“Who’s ‘is?” He groped for the clock, then remembered it was in the kitchen.
“You goddamn well know who it is,” the man said, and Tom realized it was Uncle Richard, sounding more pissed off than usual. “Where is she?”
“I dunno,” Tom said. “Wait. Lemme check the fridge.”
He put the phone down and stumbled into the kitchen. There was nothing where Mom usually left messages. He went back to the living room and picked up the phone, but Uncle Richard had hung up. Poor bastard, Tom thought.
He sat for a few moments, then went to his bedroom to change. He couldn’t find his real clothes, his jeans and T-shirts. He was hunting under the bed when Jeremy came in.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, kicking Tom in the butt. “About time you woke up. Where’s Aunt Chrissy?”
“Where’s my clothes?” Tom said. He pushed himself up onto his knees.
“I asked first.” Jeremy crossed his arms over his chest. “Where
is she?”
“I don’t know. I want my clothes back.” Tom felt himself getting angry and breathed deeply. A sudden suspicion made him dizzy. “You threw them out. You—”
“Relax, relax. I’m keeping them over at a friend’s place. You can have them back when you earn them.”
“Earn them?” He stood up. “Those are my clothes! I bought them! You—”
“Meep,” Jeremy said, wiggling his fingers.
There was nothing he could say to that.
“Smart boy,” Jeremy said. “You hungry?”
Jeremy disappeared into the kitchen and made some Kraft dinner. Tom could smell it cooking and came to the table as Jeremy put the pot on the table. Tom ate two helpings. He couldn’t remember macaroni and cheese tasting so good. He made himself a sandwich afterward, then scooped some ice cream.
Jeremy picked at his food. His left foot tapped against the floor. Tom watched him. A thin trickle of blood leaked out of Jeremy’s right nostril and dribbled down his face. Before it dropped onto the plate, the blood quivered on his chin. Jeremy noticed Tom staring at him and looked down as if to check his fly.
“Fuck,” Jeremy said. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his cheek.
His cousin left the kitchen. Tom heard the bathroom faucet running. He got up and scraped Jeremy’s dinner into the garbage. The TV suddenly blared to life and the lounger squealed as Jeremy plopped down in the living room.
The feeling that something was not right was getting stronger. It’s an aura, Tom thought. It’s from hitting my head the other night. He should get up and leave, he thought, sneak out, go to Mike’s place, hang out for a few days, borrow some clothes. Or he could stay and put up with the shit Jeremy was handing out. Or he could tell Mom that Jeremy was a drug pusher. She’d never stand for that, too afraid that Tom was going to become an addict and run away, disappear, then reappear dead. She’d seen it happen to her friends’ kids.
Option one, going over to Mike’s place, had the disadvantage of being unreliable. Mike might not be home, or might not be his friend anymore, after today. It bugged him that Mike could be so superficial.
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