More Than Good Enough

by Crissa-Jean Chappell

  “Don’t even start,” Dad muttered.

  Was he venting at me or the pissed-off driver?

  Dad switched back to his favorite subject: no-good sons. He jerked the wheel and pulled into the next lane. Billboards whizzed past, screaming shit about legal fireworks and gator meat.

  “Watch it,” I said, twisting around to check on Pippa in the backseat. It killed me just imagining how she must feel. Her face was against the glass, her neck wet with tears.

  Dad punched the breaks and I slammed into the dashboard. I shifted my gaze to the road. All the trees beside the canal looked scorched, as if lightning had struck them one by one.

  We turned the corner for the Rez. In the dark, our neighbor’s chickee hut reminded me of a monster, the kind that scared me as a kid staying up and watching late-night horror movies on TV. Then I got a little bigger and wondered what the hell was so scary in the first place.

  As we rattled over the driveway, Dad chugged the rest of his Big Gulp. He pitched the cup out the window.

  I knew what came next. This is when Angry Dad morphed into Pathetic Dad. If I waited long enough, he’d be sobbing on the couch. Eventually, the sobs faded into snores. The next morning, the stuttery noise of the blender would drill through the house. I’d find him in the garage, pumping iron like nothing ever happened.

  Dad wasn’t crying now. He got out of the car, marched to the opposite side, and flung open the passenger door. Before I could pry him off, he dragged me onto the pavement. I skidded on my knees, tasted dirt and blood.

  “So what’s the deal?” he said, lurching toward the Jeep. “This your girlfriend?”

  I lifted my head. “Leave her alone.”

  Dad tugged the handle, but Pippa must’ve locked it. He pounded on the window. “Hey missy. It’s time you got a few things straight,” he said, trying the door again. “My son? See, he’s screwing this little cha-cha.”

  “Shut up, Dad. Nobody wants to hear it.”

  “Comes and goes whenever he likes. Sleeps all day. Leaves a mess all over the house. He’s even got the balls to steal my beer. So tell me, missy. Do I look like a fool to you?”

  “That’s enough. I said shut up. You’re drunk.”

  He spun around. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that.”

  Dad swung his fist. White heat tunneled through my ribs. I rolled face-down in the grass, tried to shield myself with my arms. Kicks came from all directions. No muscle that didn’t burn. Even the space inside was swollen.

  I squeezed my eyes open. Headlights raked the backyard. In the driveway, there was the Jeep, a hulking metal thing. Pippa watched from the front seat. Her silent face floated behind the windshield.

  Dad’s voice dissolved into static. It was true, what he said. Pippa deserved better. I was an idiot to think she’d care.

  My backpack was on the ground, just a few feet away. It must’ve fallen when he pulled me from the car. If I could reach it, the gun wouldn’t be hard to dig out.

  “You got a smart mouth,” Dad was saying, “and it’s doing you no good. You better sharpen up quick. Because you’re no different than me, boy. Your hear that? No different.”

  Me and Dad? We had nothing in common. He was an asshole who wrote bad checks and cheated on my mom, a freak who couldn’t handle a job that required a bigger mental capacity than mowing lawns, a middle-aged loser who got wasted every night just because he couldn’t face the sad reality of his non-existence.

  It was just fate and genetics that tied us together. That’s all.

  Light slid across the grass. Uncle Seth walked out of his house. He was usually in there watching game shows with his girlfriend.

  “Get up,” Dad told me. “Stand like a man.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Everything okay?” Uncle Seth called out.

  “This ain’t your business. Got that? It’s between me and him.”

  Uncle Seth flicked his gaze in my direction. “Why don’t you head inside and we’ll talk it out?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  Dad turned and I made a lunge for the backpack. I tightened my grip around the strap and hauled it closer. My hands shook as I yanked the zipper, felt the gun’s plastic handle wrapped in my sweatshirt. I didn’t plan on doing anything stupid. Like I told Pippa, it wasn’t loaded. I just wanted to scare the shit out of him.

  The .357 Mag fit in my palm like it was meant to be there. I looped my finger around the trigger—a major rule-breaker, unless you meant to blow somebody away. Got up on my feet. Stood like a man. Exactly what Dad had told me to do.

  When he saw the gun, his expression shifted. “Give me that thing. Shit. You don’t even know how to operate it.”

  “Yeah? You want proof?”

  Man, it felt good telling him off. And I wasn’t done yet. There was a lot Dad needed to hear. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance.

  He clamped onto my arm, wrenching so tight I groaned. We staggered around the yard. I shoved all my weight into him. He wobbled against me, crushing down on my shoulder.

  But he was still drunk, and I was the stronger one. I knew that now.

  An explosion of noise rocked through my fist. I was so freaked out I tossed the gun. It skittered across the driveway. The smell of metal sharpened the air. My ears were ringing and I’d forgotten how to breathe.

  I gawked at the Mag, the way it glinted on the pavement. Why the hell was it loaded? Dad was always grilling me on the Ten Commandments of Fire Arms Safety. Rule numero uno: Keep nothing in the chamber.

  Smoke draped the trees like gauze. I stood there, breathing in slow-motion, trying to decide what to do. If Dad caught me moving toward the gun, he’d see where it had landed and grab it first. I thought about Pippa, trapped in the car. No way could I ditch her. She was the one shining thing in the void I called my life.

  I had to choose.

  Stay or go.

  I was stuck on pause, unable to move or make a decision, until a siren tugged me back to consciousness. It sounded so fake—a TV sound effect. A pair of spinning halos swooped over the house, shifting back and forth, red to blue. I squinted in the brightness.

  Then I ran.

  ten

  Houses zoomed past me, one after another, all facing north. Each came with a chickee hut, a satellite dish, and at least two SUVs—the basic necessities of life. Everybody on the Rez planted little backyard gardens for the Green Corn Dance in summer. You’re supposed to plant the seed and take care of it. There’s a big celebration, lots of dancing and singing, and the boys get new names.

  It was all about letting go of mistakes and starting over again.

  This was supposed to be my home, but I didn’t have a freaking clue where to go. I hadn’t done much exploring since moving to the Rez. It was just another neighborhood, twenty miles outside Miami.

  Why was I running like a criminal? My dad was the one who’d fucked up. You could say he’d made a career out of it. Now I was dealing with his garbage on top of everything else, as if I needed an excuse to hate myself. That was the easy part.

  I ran until my lungs burned. When I couldn’t gulp another breath, I doubled over and puked in the grass. The sickness came in waves. At first I’d think it was done, then my stomach made other plans.

  As I wiped my mouth, I glanced at the concrete valley surrounding me. Somehow I’d landed in a skate park. Who knew the Rez had an awesome spot like this? Man, if I’d lived here as a kid, I’d have been skating here every damn minute, popping ollies off those sweet-looking ramps. Maybe I’d actually have mastered the art of kickflipping. I wasn’t learning any new tricks now. I was seventeen. In other words, old.

  Seventeen used to sound light-years away. What would I be doing then? Touring the world and partying with my band in true rock-star fashion? I didn’t have a band. I hardly picked up my Gibson. It was scratche
d to hell. The E string was busted and I needed a new amp. Of course, Dad had promised to get this stuff for me. Like most of his endless promises, it never happened.

  I walked up the half-pipe and crouched at the top, dangling my feet over the edge. My ribs ached. All of a sudden, I was sweating like crazy. It felt like I was suffocating. I unlaced my sneakers and peeled them off. Tossed them in a pile next to a Red Bull can that somebody had crushed on the pavement.

  The street lamp clicked on and off, as if it couldn’t decide what to do: light up the peach-colored concrete, or fold the park in a darkness so thick it almost had a taste. I sat there, feeling sorry for myself. Thinking about Pippa, telling her all kinds of embarrassing shit I’d never say out loud. Take sex, for example. I should’ve waited instead of rushing into it. At the time, it was just something to get over with. No use lying.

  Would she ever talk to me again?

  Everybody at school used to make fun of us. They called her my girlfriend back in fifth grade. Whatever. They were idiots. And it’s weird because I wouldn’t even touch her whenever we said goodbye. It became this big joke. She’d grab me and I’d back away, fake coughing like her hugs were a cloud of Black Death.

  Right now, there was nothing I wanted more.

  I needed to hold her so bad.

  In my mind, I was screaming. I couldn’t go back to the house. But I felt like a coward for leaving her there, alone with Dad and the cops. They probably arrested his drunk ass. Where was I supposed to go now? Maybe I could hunt down my grandma’s number in Fort Myers. Yeah right. The patron saint of greyhounds—I was so unworthy of her time. She sent cards every Christmas, along with 8x10 glossies of her fur babies.

  Who was I kidding? I mean, honestly. Why would Pippa want to be with me? She was this amazing girl with all kinds of stuff going on. Not to mention the cutest smile ever.

  If Pippa knew the crap I thought about, she’d bolt in the other direction, like I was a zombie or something. I’d eat her brains out. That’s what I’d do. If you stayed with me long enough, this is what happened. The world turned to ashes like in my favorite video game, Silent Hill. Even Pyramid Head, the ultimate bad guy, didn’t stand a chance against it.

  I destroyed everything I touched.

  That’s all I could think about, contemplating the evil nature of my universe from that damn half-pipe. Then a bunch of skaters showed up—little badasses, all thugged out in their gold chains and tie-dyed shirts. They were taking turns slurping a gallon-sized jug of iced tea and spitting it at each other. This skinny kid with a mouthful of metal was laughing hardcore. I couldn’t remember when I’d laughed like that.

  “Nice hat.” He saluted me.

  I returned the salute. “Thanks.”

  “You got a big cut on your face,” he said.

  I got the feeling he wasn’t judging me. Just stating the obvious, the way twelve-year-olds do. “Yeah,” I told him. “That’s what I figured.”

  “Does it hurt?” he asked.

  “Only when I smile.”

  He nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Try not to smile, then.”

  “Good advice.”

  The others stayed back. They were blabbing in that slippery language, Hitchiti, the tribe’s native tongue. Except it didn’t really belong to us. It was a mix of Creek and Choctaw. That much I’d learned from Wikipedia. My uncle only spoke Hitchiti in front of tourists.

  The skinny kid rolled off with his buddies. One of them glanced over his shoulder and said a word that made me sick all over again: “Hatki.”

  White.

  He actually thought I was white.

  This was fucked up on so many levels. I mean, yeah. My mom was from the UK. “Across the pond” was how she put it. Not that you’d ever guess by looking at my skin, the same color as maple syrup. Sometimes people would talk Spanish at me. God, that really pissed me off. They just assumed I knew what the hell they were saying. They never asked.

  While the Miccosukee kids did their thing, I wished I could zoom into another dimension. I’d tell them it doesn’t get better. All that shit about “doing your best” in school and making good grades in Geometry. What does it get you? A stupid desk job in an office.

  I’d tell them to live every second like the last. Not the most original statement. Still, it’s better than the crap you get in school. My teachers couldn’t even admit that Columbus didn’t “discover” America. It was there from the start.

  Why doesn’t somebody tell the truth? Nothing gets better unless you make it happen. There should be a special class. Call it Reality 101. You could learn about stuff that really matters. Like what to do if your dad gets wasted and decides to use you as a punching bag.

  The Miccosukee kids looked so free, gliding back and forth on the ramps. When they crashed, it was no big deal. They just got back up again. My new friend, Mr. Skinny, tried to kickflip onto a ramp. Of course, he was doing it all wrong.

  After watching him eat pavement like a million times, I finally said, “Hey newb. Let me see that board.”

  He circled around the rails, then slowed in front of me. “Why? You want to steal it?”

  “Nah. I’ve seen better boards at Kmart.”

  “Oh, so you’re an expert?” he said, stepping off it. “That’s why your face is wrecked? You tried to vert and got a concussion?”

  I shrugged. “The wack meter doesn’t lie.”

  Mr. Skinny was amped now. “Well, I’d like to see you throw down.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Prepare to be owned.”

  He shoved the board at me. “How about those rails?” he said, walking toward the opposite end of the park.

  I’d never grinded on a rail. That trick was impossible to pull off. You couldn’t even practice it. Not without multiple levels of hell. Man, what did I get myself into?

  This was going to suck.

  As I stepped onto the board, he yelled, “Dude. What happened to your shoes?”

  “Don’t need them.”

  His buds rolled to the side. They held out their cell phones, ready to snap a picture, waiting for me to fail.

  I steered toward the cement pyramid. It felt good to skate again. I’d forgotten how much it chilled my brain. All the shit that happened today.

  When I picked up enough speed, I ollied onto the rail. As I locked my back wheels against the metal edge, I stayed centered. The pain inside my muscles dripped away. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I got caught between the cement and the sky. I was right there, floating in that space outside the “now.”

  I was exactly where I needed to be.

  I slid for a couple seconds, then bailed. The kids came running up to me, yelling all kinds of nonsense. I only heard bits and pieces. Guess I was still in the nowhere zone, not functioning on a human level yet.

  “That was a high-ass ollie. Seriously, man. I can’t believe you did it barefoot. That was sick,” said Mr. Skinny, pounding my shoulder. “What clan are you?”

  “Panther,” I said.

  This was sort of a lie.

  I was clanless.

  “You know my Uncle Seth?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But I’ve never seen you before. You go to school here?”

  I kicked the board to him. “Nah, I’m at Palm Hammock.”

  He chewed the end of his gold chain. “Isn’t that, like, in Kendall or something?”

  The others stayed quiet. They were trying to size me up. That much was obvious. Did I belong here on the Rez? Or was I better off in the suburbs, like the white kids and the Cubans?

  “You’re Trent. That’s your name, right?” said another kid. He kept popping his retainer, sliding it out with his tongue. Man, I’m glad I never got braces. “Your uncle does the gator show ’cause they got rid of Manny.”

  Who the hell was Manny? It seemed like everybody knew each other o
n the Rez, like we were one big family. But I wasn’t from here. I’d come onto the scene too late. Now it felt like I’d never catch up.

  “Yeah, that’s Uncle Seth. The Alligator Man,” I said and they laughed. Sometimes it’s too easy, getting kids to laugh. They hopped on their boards and rolled off.

  I wanted to trade places with those kids. Seriously. What did they have to worry about? They grew up with Play­Stations and cable TV. But they could probably steer an airboat, one-handed, across the Glades. Soon they’d become men with new names.

  Yeah. The Miccosukee kids had it good.

  It started pouring. Cold, stabbing drops speckled the cement. I leaned back and stuck out my tongue, catching the flavorless rain. No doubt it was laced with chemicals from all the junk people chucked in our lakes. The clouds sucked it up and dumped it on us. That’s the way things worked. If you put something out there, it always swung around to you.

  The skaters were doing tricks in the rain—pulling off backside 180s and landing killer pop shove-its. Then they stopped all at once, as if somebody hit pause on a video game. Mr. Skinny and his buds huddled behind me, clutching their boards.

  “Oh shit,” he said.

  The light bounced around the park, flickering off the ramps and grind rails.

  “Which one of you is Trent?” somebody called out. He stood near the trees—a cop waving a flashlight.

  All the kids gawked at their feet. Still, they didn’t rat me out. I give them props for that.

  “Don’t waste my time,” he told us.

  “It’s me,” I blurted, hating the sound of my voice, the way it cracked.

  “Thank you,” he said, as if I’d done him a favor. “The rest of you guys need to leave.”

  They scattered. No time wasted.

  “Okay Trent.” The cop turned to me. “What’s the story?”

  “Chilling.”

  “Well, you can’t chill here. Come over and sit down a second.”

  God, this was so freaking stupid. My dad was the one in trouble. Why was I getting hassled? Sure, I’d messed up. But that didn’t make me a bad person.