Darius picked me up from the cop shop after his shift at Captain Stabby’s. It was midnight, and he was pissed.
“Dude,” Darius said, driving me in his car, “this must stop. Please! I can’t deal with this bullshit all the time. You know I made all kinds of promises about taking care of you, but I can’t handle your shit! I can’t handle my own shit! You stop or I’ll be forced to kill you, okay?”
“You haven’t told Dad about my trouble, have you?” I asked.
“He knows about your ass.”
“I know that,” I said. “What about the other stuff?”
“No, but he’s going to find out you were arrested. It’s going to be on the radio, I bet! People are going to talk, Taco!”
“But you haven’t said anything about Maggie?”
Darius shook his head. “No. I’m not going to tell him. That’s your responsibility. Hopefully he’ll pitch in some cash to help figure out this mess.”
“It’s not a mess. It’s a baby,” I said.
Darius didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He just shook his head. Then out of no place, he screamed, “You have to get your head out of your ass, Taco!”
“I’m sorry, brother,” I said.
We drove the last minute in silence, and Darius tromped off to bed without another word.
Get your head out of your ass, I thought.
Only later did I realize that I still had no idea where Maggie was.
Chapter 12
I spent the night refreshing my email, waiting for Maggie to message me, but she didn’t. Eventually I dozed off on the keyboard. As the sun came poking through the windows, I stumbled down the hall to my bed. I probably slept three hours when the phone woke me up. I leapt out of bed. “Maggie!”
No.
It wasn’t Maggie Corrigan calling to ease the suffering in my heart. It was Brad Schwartz.
“Hey. How’s it hanging?” Brad asked. “Tough night?”
“Uh. Had some trouble with big blue.”
“Cop trouble,” Brad said.
“Girl trouble too,” I said. “And this wood chicken thing.”
“Bad.”
“Yeah.”
“I heard about the cop part on the radio this morning. You’re a celebrity. Dad says you’d better keep your nose clean from now on or he won’t be able to hire you back at the pool next summer.”
“Man,” I said, “it’s already on the radio?”
“All over Facebook too. Sharma had to beg his parents to help you study. They were all like, ‘Akilesh, you will not cavort with a known criminal.’ He convinced them that you’re still reeling from all the bad luck in your life and it would be shameful to let you down now though.”
“His parents are nice,” I said. “I’m a lucky guy.”
“Can I bring over some food? My mom made a bunch of meatballs, and we have like forty sub sandwich buns. She said we have too much, so we need to get rid of some of it.”
“Oh, hell yeah!” I said. “I love meatballs!” I felt so completely fortunate to have such good friends, dingus. But then I got confused because there was so much weighing heavy in my mind. “Wait. What’s going on again?”
“Remember? We’re going to study calc?” Brad said.
“Oh, right,” I said. “When you coming by?”
“Noon,” Brad said.
I spent the next hour leaving long messages on Maggie’s phone, even though it was clearly off. I was starting to lose all hope, and then she called.
I picked up the landline to hear a very irate angel.
“You stop it, Taco!”
“Maggie? Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m in Ohio! I’m at my grandma’s. I told you I was going.”
“Oh,” I said. “That sounds familiar.”
“The cops called my dad last night.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“And now me, Mary, and Missy are getting blown up!”
“What? With bombs?” I asked. That scared me, dingus.
“On stupid Facebook. Everybody’s posting about you getting arrested for climbing the side of my house. What are you doing? You have to stop, Taco!”
“You didn’t call me after your doctor’s appointment,” I said. “I was worried and couldn’t get a hold of you. I thought something was wrong.”
Maggie took a deep breath. I could hear her all the way from Ohio. “There is something wrong,” Maggie whispered. “I’m pregnant.”
“I know. That’s not wrong. That just is.”
“Oh, is it?” Maggie asked.
“Well, sure. That’s what happens when you do it without protection, even if you’re only doing it for recreational reasons,” I said.
“Oh God,” Maggie said.
“What?”
“What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’re crazy.”
“Me?” I said. “I’m not crazy.”
“Yes, you’re completely nuts. Why do you keep climbing my house?”
“To see you!”
“God, Taco,” Maggie said quietly. There was a long pause, and then Maggie Corrigan said words I almost could not fathom. “If you don’t fly right, I’m seriously going to break up with you.”
“No,” I whispered. “Break up?”
“I’ll have no choice.”
“No, that’s not true! You have all the choice!”
“Fly right, Taco.”
Then she hung up the phone.
Even though she hadn’t broken up with me, her threat felt like a portent, like a parasite that would kill our love. I was upset, so I tried Maggie’s mom’s approach to coping and broke some plates. This woke up Darius, who flew up the stairs and screamed, “Stop wasting our resources!”
I gave him the finger.
He wrestled me to the ground.
I kicked him in the knee.
He pulled my arm behind my back and lifted me off the ground. Then he swung me around and punched me in the eye. My nose started to bleed too.
I was about to hit him with a lamp or a book when Brad and Sharma rang the doorbell.
Darius pushed past me and shouted, “I can’t deal with you anymore!” and ran out of the house in his underpants.
We watched him streak along the front of the house and turn into the backyard.
“Wow,” Brad said.
“Your current situation is highly unsustainable,” Sharma said. “I think you should speak with your father.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Dude,” Brad said. “There’s dried vomit on your carpet. Is that yours?”
“Darius,” I said.
“Really. You’d better call your dad,” he said.
“He’ll be home Wednesday for Thanksgiving,” I said. Then I remembered that Maggie would be gone all week in Ohio. “Oh shit. Oh no,” I said.
Brad and Sharma stared at me for a moment. Then Brad said, “How about we focus on some high-end mathematics?”
“Good call, brother,” Sharma said.
“Oh God,” I whimpered.
Darius came back a few minutes later. He stared at us sitting around the table with our calc books open, me with a bunch of Kleenex jammed up my bleeding nose. He shivered. “It’s cold out there.”
“It is,” Brad confirmed.
“Winter’s on its way,” Sharma said.
“Yeah,” Darius said.
“I brought some meatballs and subs,” Brad said. “I’ll heat it all up in a bit. You want some of that?”
“Yeah. Thank you,” Darius said really quietly.
Me? I didn’t say anything to that rat-bastard brother of mine. He didn’t get my eye bad enough to make it black. But I had a big bump on my forehead, and
my damn nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. Mom would be so mad at him.
She’d be so mad at me too.
Chapter 13
Nancy Miskinis. That’s a pretty interesting name. The Miskinis part anyway.
Dad showed up on Thanksgiving morning (not Wednesday like he said). He came in the door, said, “Hi, boys,” and then walked around the house, examining the state of things to make sure we weren’t doing any damage.
He wasn’t alone. He arrived with a red-haired lady named Nancy Miskinis. She wore a giant pink puffy sleeping bag for a coat. That’s what it looked like—a sleeping bag with a hole cut in the bottom. And when she pulled that off, the sweetest perfume poured off of her. I liked her right away.
“You can call me Miz, boys,” she said.
“Okay!” I said.
“That’s quite a bruise on your head, Taco,” Miz said.
I nodded. I smiled. Darius made a fugly face if ever there was one. Me, I was very happy to meet this Miz because I’m a happy guy.
You know what? I was happy. I’d had a pretty good couple of days. Everyone at school thought it was super fly that I was arrested for climbing my girlfriend’s house again. They were all like, “Awesome, man! That’s courageous. You’re a Taco Grande with special hot sauce!”
Coach Johnson called me into his office and said I had better stop acting like such a phenomenal dumb ass or I’d find myself derailed for years. I appreciated that he cared.
Actually, Mr. Edwards, Mrs. Mullen, Ms. Tindall, Mr. Lecroy, and Dr. Evans all took time to have private meetings with me and said pretty much the same thing Coach Johnson said. They were all looking out for my future. They wanted to make sure my tomorrows were as great as today, right? They’re all good people.
I totally aced my calc quiz on Monday too. Brad and Sharma had come over on Sunday to study more. If you do the work, pal, anything is possible.
The choir room was rife with kids singing Wizard of Oz songs, as auditions were the following week. Everyone was so nervous and excited about it all. I love the musical season! And Maggie was gone, so I joined right in.
Tuesday night had been the first home basketball game.
Because I was cut from freshman b-ball—a stroke of luck that allowed me to go out for a musical, which I love—I have been available to play the bass drum in the pep band during games. I’m not in band, but Ms. Carlson, the band director, says I have more pep in my step than anybody around. (That’s true.) And holding down the beat is a fine way to show my enthusiasm for the team.
This home game was out of control too. Bluffton defeated Hazel Green by two points on a last-second three-pointer scored by Ryan Bennett. Everybody was falling over in the stands as the ball swooshed through the net. (I almost rolled over the bass drum.) Then we all rushed the court, and a bunch of people lifted Ryan over their heads. Hazel Green is like a tenth the size of Bluffton and only has six players, and we probably should’ve beat them by like a hundred points. But it was a wicked party at the end! Maggie wasn’t there, seeing as she was in Ohio at her grandmother’s, but that didn’t ruin our victory. What a great day.
Wednesday, we didn’t do work—not even in calc.
And then at eleven on Thanksgiving morning, Dad and Nancy Miskinis in her giant pink puffy sleeping bag walked in.
A few minutes after they arrived, after Dad’s home inspection, Dad landed himself in the bathroom, which gave Darius an opening to start a conversation. He’d been staring at Miz like a confused caveman since they had arrived.
“Who the hell are you?” Darius asked her.
Miz smiled at him. Then she said, “Taco, help me bring in the food from the car.”
“You got it!” I said.
We carried in a whole Thanksgiving dinner, pal. Turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce in cans, soft white bread, and two pies: one apple, one pumpkin. We had a feast on our hands, which made me like Miz even more.
The Detroit Lions started playing some football on TV, so Darius and Dad sunk into the couch and did what they do best, which is veg out (even though they both hate the Lions). I’m not about vegging, so I worked with the fragrant Miz to heat the beans, potatoes, and turkey.
“You’re a little chef, aren’t you?” Miz said.
“Well, I don’t have formal training, ma’am, but I like to think I’m handy with a frying pan,” I told her.
Darius seemed to think there was a wall between the kitchen and the living room, but there wasn’t. Never was. He seemed to think me and the Miz wouldn’t hear him behave like an animal.
“So is that our new mom?” Darius asked during a commercial break.
“No,” Dad said. “You’ll only ever have one mother.”
“Are you doing her?” Darius asked.
“Darius,” Dad said. “Careful.”
“She looks like a portly pig in that coat.”
“God damn it,” Dad said. “You’d better put a cork in it.”
“Or what? You’ll have her sit on me?”
In the kitchen, like fifteen feet away from that hubbub, Miz smiled. “I think we can set the table. Is it easy enough to move your computer off there?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s no trouble at all,” I said. I’m sure my face was red because I was so embarrassed about stupid Darius, but Miz seemed totally fine.
“Is porky serving us ham for dinner?” Darius asked.
“I’m sorry about him,” I said to Miz. “Darius had a bad past life, so he’s very ornery, generally speaking.”
Miz winked at me. “I expected a little pushback. I suggested your daddy should let you both know I was coming, but he thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“It sure is a nice surprise,” I said.
“Aren’t you sweet?” she replied.
Then she leaned over and gave me a grandma-style peck on the cheek. I could smell that perfume—or maybe it was lotion?—on my face the rest of the day. Whatever, dingus. I liked it a lot because mom types are good.
During the Thanksgiving meal, Darius stewed in his own sack of mad. He ate fast and hard and sort of growled while he chewed. I, on the other hand, made a lot of fine jokes, and Miz laughed and laughed and slapped my shoulder a bunch. Dad’s eyes sparkled as he watched us make jokes. He clearly thought Miz and me were all that. I liked seeing Dad happy because he’s not a very happy guy. Not normally.
Unfortunately, the good times couldn’t last. The situation between Dad and me got tricky like two minutes after everybody ate their pie. Dad dropped his paper napkin on his plate and said, “Miz, Darius, how about you two go and finish watching the game? I need to have a conversation with Taco.”
“About how he’s gonna be a dad?” Darius hissed.
Dad’s face turned red, and he shook his head.
“You going to talk dad to dad?” Darius taunted.
“Shut up,” I told him. “You said you weren’t going to tell him.”
“How about you and me get to know each other over some football?” Miz said to Darius.
Darius kicked back his chair. “I’m going downstairs.”
“You’re welcome to stay for this discussion, ma’am,” I said. Given what was about to go down, I really wanted her there to cushion the blow.
“I’m going to get a little beauty rest on the couch, I think.” She smiled, but I could see the worry lines creasing her forehead underneath her big pile of red hair. “You boys do your talking.”
A second later Dad said very quietly and slowly, “What the hell is Darius talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “No biggie.”
“There’s shit going on, isn’t there? Got a call from Mr. Frederick. Said he’d like to talk to the two of us over at Country Kitchen tomorrow. Said you got busted climbing up the Corrigan house again. Said he figured you had a crush on this cr
azy Maggie chick that you couldn’t let go of. He laughed quite a bit about you, Taco. Laughed because he thinks you’re such a good kid—just too enthusiastic.”
“Uh-huh?” My heart was beginning to pound hard. “That’s nice.”
“Bullshit. You’re a screwup. We don’t have time or money for screwups in this family, do we?”
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to answer his question or not, so I said, “We should sit down and talk with Mr. Frederick, I guess.”
Then Dad got even quieter. “Taco,” he said. “What the hell does Darius mean dad to dad?”
My heart really took off right then, pal. It raced so fast, it made me dizzy. I heard echoes of what Mr. Frederick said when the cops pulled me off the Corrigan home, what Mr. Corrigan said when Maggie and her mom were fighting. The words reverberated in my mind. This is real. This is real. This is real.
“Um. Well. Maggie Corrigan wanted to show that she loved me, and I love her completely, so we began to do it…recreationally.”
“Do it recreationally?” Dad’s face turned purple. “Where?”
“You know…in her woman parts.”
“Yeah, no shit. Where did this ‘doing it’ take place?” Dad asked. “In her car? Out by Belmont Tower? The Big M?”
Oh balls, I didn’t want to answer where. But I couldn’t lie to Dad’s face, and I couldn’t just not talk. “Here,” I said. “In the master suite.”
Dad reached across the table and slapped my face. His thumb smacked the bruise from my fight with Darius, which made my eyes water really badly. “Why was there a girl in this house? I told you no girls.”
I blinked because I couldn’t see very well with the tears. “Because I love her and my butt hurt, so I felt like I had to bend the rules.”
Dad slapped my face again. His wedding ring—the one that made him married to mom, not Miz—stung my cheek.
“Shit. Don’t,” I said. “Please.”
“You disobeyed me,” Dad said.
“Yes,” I said.
“And she’s pregnant? Is that’s what Darius meant?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it, Taco.”
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