“Son, you better get your money back,” the clerk said, tossing it back to Tooth. “I seen better fake ID’s cut out the back of cereal boxes. Tell you this, too. Some kid came in the other day with the same kind. I know where you get ’em, down in Boston, buy ’em on the corner from the crackheads. Shit, you must think I’m dense.”
“Actually, I think you’re a retard, but that’s besides the point. This ain’t no fake ID, and if you don’t believe me, call the police and they can verify my information.”
The clerk picked up the license a second time and held it up to the fluorescent lights overhead, laughing. Tooth gave me a quick glance and pointed at me. Oh shit, I knew what that meant: he wanted me to pinch the beer. Son of a bitch, how did he expect me to get a twelve pack under my shirt? Just walk out and say I was pregnant or something? On top of which, that night in jail had been a wake-up call for me, and I hadn’t done anything illegal to put me back there since. Well, aside from smoking some pot and drinking some beer. But shoplifting was another story. I could lose my student loans if I went to jail.
“Ok, I’m calling the cops because I’ve had enough of this fake ID bullshit. It’s a waste of my time.”
“Why, what else you got to do?” Tooth said smartly. “Hang out in the back and beat your meat to porno mags? I noticed some are missing from the stand. You’re all outta the faggot ones. They in the back room where you eat your lunch? Little bit of PB and J and a side of man meat?”
That poor clerk, old as he was, didn’t really know how to answer that. He just started shaking a little, really pissed, like he was going to pull out that gun you know he had under the counter and blow Tooth’s head off.
“Get out now or I will call the cops!”
“Go ahead, but I ain’t leaving till I get my beer. You stupid fuck!”
Taking the bait, the clerk mumbled something and picked up the phone behind the counter. I knew there was no way I was gonna get all the beer out the door without being seen, so I moused over to a bin full of $3.99 nips. I took six and stuffed them in my socks and pulled my pant legs over them, the whole time thinking how this would look to my college advisors should I get caught.
The boy at the door was preoccupied with the scene Tooth was making, probably wondering if this was a holdup or something, so I figured I hadn’t been seen.
I went back to the comic books and selected a cheesy looking Batman comic with Killer Croc on the cover. It looked like it had been written for six year olds. I went and put it on the counter.
You know you’ve got a remarkable relationship with someone when you can read each other’s minds. We did that a lot, Tooth and I. Like, I would ask, “Hey, you remember that movie with the guy?” and he would answer, “Yeah, Bloodfist 4.” And he was right. We just always knew what each other was thinking. And even if we didn’t know right away, it didn’t take more than one clue for either of us to catch on.
So when I put the comic on the counter, Tooth knew I had the goods and swiped his ID out of the clerk’s hand and said, “You know what, fuck this. We’re going to the packy on Deerfield. No sale for you, buddy.”
The clerk was as red as a horny monkey’s ass. “Can I buy this?” I asked him, pointing to the comic.
He leaned over and yelled, “No! Now get out!”
“C’mon,” Tooth said, giving the man his customary one-fingered salute.
The poor clerk was so upset he mangled his threat as we left. “If you ever come back I’ll fuck you good.”
“See, you are a fag,” Tooth yelled back.
On the way out I picked up a bag of chips and tossed it to the door boy. It confused the hell out of him, but it also kept his eyes off my socks, which were bulging like I had elephantiasis of the ankles.
In the car Tooth slammed his head back against the headrest a few times before turning the ignition on.
“What dumbass prick went to Boston and got an ID from the same place as me. If I find him I’ll kick his father’s ass. What did you get anyway?”
I pulled the nips out from my socks as we drove out of the parking lot. “Just these. Two cherry-flavored vodkas, two orange liqueurs, and two mint schnapps.”
“Perfect, and what did you get for yourself?”
CHAPTER 3
I suppose since you’ve followed my story this far, I should tell you why Tooth is called Tooth. It also figures into why we were headed to my house instead of his.
When Tooth was ten, his father ran him over with his car. He didn’t do it on purpose, but it wasn’t exactly an accident either. See, Tooth’s dad has a drinking problem. I guess that’s no biggie these days; who doesn’t know somebody who drinks a lot? And I guess you can make a comparison between my friend and his father, but where Tooth is what I prefer to call a functioning alcoholic-or at least he’s on his way to being-his father is a straight up drunk.
He’s not a bad man, not in any way. In fact he was once a minister, back when Tooth was a toddler; probably where he first took to drinking if you ask me. He’s quite the caring man when he’s sober, but the last time he was sober, well, let’s just say that was back when you had to get your ass up out of the recliner and turn the knob on the TV to change channels.
Tooth was in the driveway playing with some action figures, Star Wars or He-Man and whatnot, and his father got the idea he had to go to see his father-which would be Tooth’s grandfather-who’d been dead over a decade. Well, you know where this is going. Drunk to the point of seeing ghosts, his father got in the car and backed down the driveway, taking Tooth under the car with him. Tooth rolled all the way underneath, missing the wheels by some divine intervention, and popped out the front where he went rolling into the bushes. When he sat up screaming bloody murder, he was missing six of his front teeth.
His mother burst through the front door like one of those snakes popping out of a novelty can, all arms flailing and hair licking about like it was made of flames, screaming incoherently and running so fast she nearly tripped. She grabbed up her little boy and rushed him away to the end of the earth-which would be Jersey. Two weeks later, she came back and got a divorce, and Tooth got his nickname because ever since then he had to wear a bridge.
And what I never understood after that was why Tooth asked to live with his father. My guess is, his father being a drunk and all, Tooth could pretty much do whatever he wanted.
Anyway, things became sort of like an after school special. You had your usual child welfare services, and AA meetings, and Tooth’s parents trying to get back together and not succeeding, and you can figure the rest out.
Going to my house was just simpler than dealing with his dad, who was always trying to get us to go to church when he was drunk, even if it was three in the morning on a Wednesday. The man obviously regretted his decision to leave the ministry and take the blue-collar route, as if in the end he’d let God down. Maybe that accounted for a lot, maybe it didn’t.
I told Tooth to park his beat up Camaro in the driveway. My parents were gone for the weekend to Providence, visiting my grandmother who’d been complaining of back pains. She was always scared she had the latest disease she saw on CNN, even if it was only in pumpkins or something.
Unfortunately, them being out of town didn’t mean I had run of the house. Jamie was there too, and since I’d been away at college all semester, she saw fit to assume the role of homeowner. In the few days I’d been home already, she said that things had changed since I’d been away and since I didn’t know how they were doing things now, I could just leave if I preferred. The only thing that had changed as far as I saw was that she’d moved into my old room and torn down my limited edition Daredevil and Gambit posters. While part of me debated shaving her hair off while she slept for ruining perfectly good collectables, the rational side of me decided it wasn’t worth the fight, I’d be gone in another two months when the fall semester started.
When we came in, she was sitting on the living room couch with a bag of rice cakes, watching some stup
id chick flick with sappy music and some guy talking about feelings. I wasted no time picking up the remote and changing the channel.
“Put it back, asshole,” she said.
“Why don’t you go up to my room and watch TV? You know this is the only one I can watch now. Tooth and I are gonna watch a movie.”
“Well, in case you didn’t notice, Geekmaster, I was in the middle of one.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. The girl gets the guy, and somebody dies, then somebody gets married, and everybody cries and shares their feelings. It’s wonderful. Now move.”
“Wow, you’ve watched a movie that had actual adult themes and not grown men in tights rubbing their codpieces together. ‘Oh, Boy Wonder, is that your gun or are you happy to see me?’”
“Robin doesn’t carry a gun, Einstein.”
“Who the fuck is Robin?”
Tooth, who was amusing himself with our sibling rivalry, went and plopped on the couch next to her. He put his arm around her and stared at her chest. “Hey, Jamie,” he said, “ain’t seen you in a few months. You’re developing nicely.”
She hit his hand away and stood up. “Fuck off, Mervyn. Touch me again and I’ll knock out the rest of your teeth.”
Mervyn. That was Tooth’s real name, and also the reason he preferred to be called Tooth. He said “Mervyn” sounded too much like a verb. Jamie stormed out of the room and stomped up the stairs muttering, “Stupid geeks,” under her breath.
“Nice move, Tooth.”
“I figured that’d work. But I wasn’t lying either. Your sis is looking fine.”
Truth was my sister was very attractive, and it was starting to make me nervous. She had her driver’s permit now, and I couldn’t help feeling, well, almost paternal. When she took the car out to the movies the day after I got home, it was like some giant spider had dropped down from nowhere and spun me up in a web of concern. I wanted to fight it, because I couldn’t stand my sister most of the time, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling. I didn’t need to dissect it; it came from knowing what a teenage boy thinks about-Fucking. One day you’re walking down the school corridor thinking about the new Gen 13/X-Force crossover, the next you look up and see Lucy Graves’ tits. And from that moment on, everything you see, whether it’s a chalk eraser or a folding chair, it all looks like Lucy. And you want to fuck it.
I hated to admit it, but I cared about Jamie, and I didn’t want someone like Tooth-who was pretty much representative of the entire male population of our small town-getting close to her. She was all fire and spunk now, but I remember what I was like as a teenager, thinking I knew everything and nobody could teach me shit I didn’t already know. Then I got to college and, well, you grow up real quick in college, learn what it means to be alone and irresponsible. You see things you only dream about-orgies, drugs, social upheaval, rape. It makes you think. It makes you realize how dumb you were in high school, and how unaware today’s high schoolers are. Yeah, Jamie was all fired up, but only because she hadn’t seen the downpour of the real world.
“Man, I’m hungry again.” Tooth looked at me with that look that said if I didn’t do his bidding he was going to keep bugging me till I did. I hated that look. “That dude at the packy got me all worked up. Feel like I could eat the world. You got any Doritos or anything?”
I went into the kitchen and found some chips and dip and we munched for a while.
CHAPTER 4
The movie we watched that night was The Thing, John Carpenter’s classic horror film about a mutating alien that attacks an Arctic research station. With the exception of Big Trouble In Little China, I consider it the last good film Kurt Russell ever made. The original version, The Thing From Another World, directed by Christian Nyby and starring James Arness as the alien, still holds up by many standards, but does not compare to Carpenter’s generous use of effects-but I’m kind of a movie elitist so take that as you will. We’d both seen it a bunch of times, but it was still as good as the first time.
Tooth asked me the same question he always asked, at the part when one of the research team is sitting in the snow looking nice and normal, with the exception of having an alien arm, and is clearly not human. Circled around him, his friends struggle with whether or not he’s still their friend. “Would you kill me if it was me and you weren’t sure?”
“Yup.”
“Good thing, because you’d be the first one I capture. Make you toss salad in an alien prison.”
We laughed.
Jamie came down once to get something out of the refrigerator and looked at us as if she were trying to shoot liquid shit from her eyes onto our heads. She was dressed in boxer shorts and a wife-beater. Tooth must have popped a rod as she passed by because he shifted around and covered his groin with his shirt like he was embarrassed. It kind of made me uncomfortable, him looking at my sister that way. I couldn’t fault him for being human, I just hoped it wouldn’t come to something unpleasant.
When the movie ended, it was nearly midnight. Tooth got up and said, “I gotta piss. Why don’t you order some pizza or something?” And drifted into the small bathroom that ran off the kitchen. He’d finished all his liquor and let out a grunt as he released the floodgates. He pissed so long I expected to be swimming in it soon.
“Hey, Roger?” he yelled through the closed door. “Got a question for ya. If you’re an American outside the bathroom-fuck, hold on, I just pissed on myself-if you’re an American outside the bathroom, what are you inside the bathroom?”
“European,” I answered, having heard the joke months ago.
“Shit, how’d you know that? You suck.”
Never let it be said that universities are not hubs of information. . or at least disinformation.
“Are you gonna go home or do you want to crash here?” I asked.
Tooth returned and fell on the couch, lethargic from the chips and nips.
“Where’s the pizza?”
“Pizza? I thought you said anal cavity search. Hang on, I gotta call and cancel your appointment at Jim’s House of Lube.”
“Hey, have you declared a major yet?” he said, blazing a dialogue trail of his own. “You taking those art classes where you draw naked chicks?”
“Not yet. I’m mostly taking business courses.”
“Why are those models always so fat, anyway?”
“Fills up the paper.”
“Hey, don’t knock big girls. They know how to get wild in bed. Ain’t nothing like a monster booty to make your nuts do the mambo.”
“It’s called standards, look it up.”
“Why are you taking business classes? You ain’t gonna be no business man, you know it and I know it.”
“I don’t know. I told my dad I wanted to be an artist and he said I need to take business classes because art isn’t a profitable profession.”
“Obviously he hasn’t seen a life-size rendition of a large naked woman. I’d buy one. Hell, I’d buy two, call ’em Lulu and Buffy, show ’em what it means to be abstract art.”
“You get any more worked up you’re gonna spunk in your shorts.” I laughed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll use the chip bowl. Anyway, it’s not like you want to become one those snooty art dudes that hang out at Java Lava dissecting paintings that are nothing but big blue splotches, going, ‘The existential ramifications of this piece are subordinate at best. The artist refuses to acknowledge spatial dimensions and opts for subconscious palettes instead. Amazing, I love it, I’m going to go screw myself with a wine bottle.’”
That got me rolling. Sometimes Tooth was a funny guy, and the truth was the people at Java Lava sounded a lot like that, which was why we avoided it like it was a chick movie.
“No, probably comics. You know, Spawn, Gen 13, that stuff.”
“Yeah, I remember you used to draw those comics of me in school. They were pretty good, especially the ones where I’d bang the female villain after I fought her.”
“I never drew that.”
“I know. Faggot.”
“Why don’t you apply to city college or something? Get out of that hell you call a job. Then you can transfer to the university with me.
“City college my ass.”
“You did graduate, and they do take pretty much anyone.”
“Fuck, they’ll take a retarded hamster with a flatulence problem, so what’s that got to say about me. No way, school can blow me. Barely made it through high school as it was. Probably wouldn’t have even done that without you. Besides, what do you get when you graduate from college? A thirty-thousand-dollar I-O-U note that promises to get you into the most elite social clubs in the world but in fact gets you Jack, Shit, and their cousin Fuckall.”
“I guess.”
“You guess nothing; you know I’m right. Why don’t you drop out and move to California with me?”
“You still talking about that California crap?”
“Hell, yeah, California is where it’s at. Sunny all year round, beaches littered with models in bikinis, weed growing out of the cracks in the pavement. And I’m talking about the good kind of weed, not dandelions. C’mon, it’ll be great. We can rent a place on the beach, get drunk, fuck girls. You still like girls, right?”
“Hey, Tooth?”
“Yeah.”
I gave him what I hoped was a serious look, one that conveyed friendship but wasn’t to be taken as a joke either. “Not my sister, okay.”
“Whoa there, buddy. You didn’t think I meant anything by what I said about Jamie, did you? Please, she’s still that annoying pipsqueak I used to want to kick outta your room all the time. Coming in and hiding our shit and taking my keys. I screw her I might as well be screwing my own sister.”
“Which you would do if you had one.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Would there be beer involved?”
The Summer I Died Page 2