Stick

by Andrew Smith

  Bosten pulled his arm off me. He put out the cigarette and wiped his palms on the grease-slicked knees of his jeans. He wouldn’t look at me.

  I knew what that meant when my brother wouldn’t look at me.

  “How did you get here?”

  “I drove.”

  I drive at night.

  “I got lost, too.”

  Then I remembered. “Shit. What time is it?”

  “About midnight.”

  “Shit. The guy at the parking lot locked Dahlia’s car in.”

  “Steve said you could have the third bed in our room. There’s a kid in there named Jericho. He’s a good friend. We kind of watch out for each other. We stay together.”

  “I have school tomorrow.”

  “You go to school?”

  “I like it.”

  Bosten didn’t say anything. He put his fingers down inside the pocket on his shirt and pulled out a wrinkled pack of cigarettes. He lit one.

  I had two pieces of paper tucked into the same pocket where I carried Bosten’s wallet: the corner of Aunt Dahlia’s map of Los Angeles, and the newspaper clipping from Kingston that had a photograph of the handpop flare we launched, our UFO attack.

  I unfolded it and watched Bosten’s face. I still saw wonder in my brother’s eyes, but I could see it had been shadowed over by all the things that had happened to us since that night of the basketball game.

  Bosten smiled. “That was a long time ago.”

  He held his lit cigarette in one hand, the same way Mom did, pinched back in the curl of his palm.

  “Not really.”

  My brother just stared at that image, like it was a movie or something, like you could see it changing, burning, right there in his hand.

  “Do you know what happened to Buck?”

  “No.”

  I thought about what I should say, and I could still hear the words from Ricky Dostal and Corey Barr in the locker room as they laughed about Paul Buckley trying to kill himself with a pair of sewing scissors.

  “They put him in a hospital.”

  And Bosten said, “You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Sometime I will.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s go home, Bosten.”

  I watched him smoke. He put the newspaper clipping down on the table with the torn books. I could see him thinking about things.

  I said, “You’re all I have.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Please?”

  Bosten balanced his cigarette on the edge of the table, so the ashes hung out over the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. His undershirt was covered in filth, and there was a slashing tear right across his belly.

  “I don’t think I should go with you.”

  And Bosten turned up his left arm so I could see all the marks on it, the ones by his wrist and the others at the crook, all made by the uncareful needles that boys on the streets spent their money on and traded their bodies for.

  One of the needle marks oozed pus. It was right beside one that looked like it was just done that day.

  Bosten just stood there, watching my face while I looked at what he’d done to himself. And he had this expression like he was saying, “I told you so.”

  I thought about Paul Buckley’s arms.

  I tried to remember if there was ever a time in my life when I’d gotten mad or disappointed with Bosten.

  “Are you trying to fucking kill yourself or something?”

  Bosten shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He smiled, like it was no big deal at all.

  He slipped his arms back into the sleeves of his shirt.

  Before he could sit back down and pick up his cigarette, I launched myself from the couch and grabbed my brother around the collars of his shirt.

  Bosten was startled. “Hey—”

  I pushed him all the way across the floor, jammed him against Steve’s registration desk, so the small of his back was pinned. And I’d never fought with my brother, not one time in my life; but I didn’t know what else I could do. I was afraid he was going to kill himself.

  I imagined him ending up like Willie.

  And I knew Bosten could fight. I was being stupid if I thought that he wasn’t going to punch me in the face for what I was doing, but my brother just kind of went limp and gave up in front of me.

  “What the fuck, Bosten? You can’t do this to me. You can’t leave me like this.”

  Bosten just stood there, his arms hanging loose at his sides.

  “What are you going to do?

  Beat the shit out of me? Like Dad?”

  I let go of him and turned around.

  “Fuck you, Bosten.”

  “See?

  I always knew

  one of these days

  you’d stick up for yourself.”

  My brother walked across to the table and put his cigarette in his lips.

  “Steve would be pissed if we burned the place down.”

  “I’m going to leave.”

  I didn’t turn around. I was too disgusted to look at Bosten.

  I went to the door and opened it.

  “It’s locked, so you can’t come back in until tomorrow at noon.”

  “I’m not coming back. I’m going home.”

  It was like a dream. I couldn’t believe this was happening, but I heard the door latch shut behind me and next thing I knew, I was on the stairs, going down, smelling the reek of piss in that dark hallway.

  And the door opened behind me.

  “Hey. Wait. You forgot the UFO picture.”

  I stopped.

  Bosten said, “Let me wake up Jericho. He’s the best at breaking into places. We’re going to need to get Aunt Dahlia’s car out if you plan on taking me home.”

  * * *

  The boy named Jericho was small and rat-like, with a faint mustache of amber fuzz over his lip. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, which made him look even more like a rodent. He told me he was seventeen and that he ran away from his home in Utah to come to Los Angeles.

  And he said it would be a piece of cake getting Aunt Dahlia’s car out of the lot.

  When he said “cake,” it made me hungry.

  We walked down Broadway to Fifth Street and turned right. Jericho knew exactly the lot on Flower Street where I’d left the car.

  “The guy who runs it’s from Greece or something. He’s a dick, but sometimes, he’ll let us bum a cigarette,” Jericho said.

  Jericho’s head twitched when he walked, and he sniffled constantly and rubbed the snot from his running nose across the back of his sleeve.

  “You can come to our house,” I offered. “I mean, if you need a place to stay for a while.”

  “Shit,” he said. “Do I look like I need a place to stay?”

  Jericho wiped his nose again.

  He did look like he needed a place to stay, but I was afraid I’d make him mad.

  “Sorry.”

  “Shit. You’re all Big Brother talks about. Like you’re his hero or something.”

  Bosten said, “Shut up.”

  Jericho twitched and sniffled. “Okay. Sometimes he talks about slamming shit up in his arm, too.”

  Then he laughed and slapped at Bosten, but he only fanned the air.

  “And what do you talk about all the time?” Bosten said.

  “Getting high. And my sweet Bosten.”

  I decided I didn’t like Jericho, but told myself if he knew a way to get the Dodge out of the Greek guy’s lot, then I’d better shut up.

  There were people—big people—wrapped in blankets or anything they could bundle themselves in, lying on the benches in Pershing Square. Their pungent smell was like an incense of filth and defeat.

  One of them lifted his head when we walked by. He called after us.

  “Jericho and two of his pretty boys. You got anything for us, J? Jericho?”

  Jericho didn’t say anything. We just kept walking.

  It was warm. I
t must be easy to last out on the streets in a place like Los Angeles, I thought.

  On Flower Street, Jericho said, “When am I going to see you again? I’m going to miss you, babe.”

  Then he kissed Bosten right on the mouth.

  Bosten looked at me. I could tell he was embarrassed. But I didn’t care. I wanted to punch that rat-faced kid.

  I said, “I’ll write down our address and phone number in Oxnard, in case you’re ever out there.”

  Jericho laughed. “Baby, I’m always out there. I’m just never out. There.”

  He had his twitching arm around my brother’s waist.

  “There it is.”

  The three of us stood at the back of the lot. Aunt Dahlia’s Dodge wasn’t the only victim of the ten-pee-em lockdown, but maybe the Greek guy stored cars there, too. Jericho curled his fingers through the chain link and studied the layout like he was a general planning a surprise attack.

  “There’s too much light up front. The cops would see us. I think we’ll just take it out right here.”

  I wondered how Jericho thought we’d get a Dodge over that fence.

  He said, “You. Little Brother. Stand down there and watch for cops.”

  He pointed his snot-streaked hand at the corner of the lot.

  I didn’t mind watching for cops, even though I wasn’t really clear about what to do if I found any, because I didn’t want to see what Jericho and my brother were going to do about freeing Aunt Dahlia’s car.

  In minutes, though, it was obvious enough. Jericho carried some heavy wire cutters in his back pocket, and it wasn’t long at all before the back line of fencing had been completely separated and a gate wide enough to drive a tank through had been opened up.

  Just like that.

  I drive at night.

  I blow things up.

  I steal cars.

  We all three sat in the front seat, with Bosten in the middle.

  I was kind of hoping that Jericho would just jump out at the first stoplight, but he didn’t.

  And the frame of the Dodge scraped a little when I drove it off the sidewalk and over the curb. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic, too, because I went for an entire block in the wrong direction down a one-way street.

  Once I straightened out and got the car heading in a legal direction, Jericho declared himself the navigator, and guided us west on Sunset until we were driving along Santa Monica Boulevard, looking for a place where we could get something to eat.

  We ate breakfast at a Denny’s in Hollywood at one in the morning.

  The people who worked there were not nice to us at all. I could tell they’d had Jericho and Bosten as customers before. And while we ate, Jericho proudly announced, “This is probably going to be the first time I don’t get thrown out of here.”

  Bosten smiled, then glanced down at his pancakes and said, “Maybe.”

  * * *

  By two o’clock, we were outside an abandoned building where junkies and street kids stayed. It was where Jericho asked me to drop him off. Bosten knew the place, too, but I didn’t want to hear anything about it.

  So when Jericho pushed the door open and slid out of the car, I grabbed on to Bosten’s wrist as he started to scoot away from me.

  “Don’t go out there.”

  “I’m not going to leave you, Stick.”

  I let him go.

  I didn’t watch what they did. The only thing I cared about was getting Bosten back in the car and taking him home—going home again, like we were supposed to. I heard them talking to each other, but I didn’t want to know what they said. I guess I felt mean, bad for taking Bosten away from somebody he cared about, but I knew my brother couldn’t live the way he’d been going.

  Bosten burned too bright for that.

  He was a wild horse running at a full gallop straight for a cliff he knew was there.

  My brother got back into the car.

  I breathed again.

  He noticed.

  “Look. I told you I won’t leave you.”

  “Okay.” My voice shook.

  “I’ll try to be good.”

  “Okay.”

  I waited for him to shut the door.

  “I think you should give Jericho some money for helping us out.”

  * * *

  I knew I promised that I’d never do anything to make Aunt Dahlia suffer again, so I could hardly look at her when we finally got home to the Strand. It was almost four in the morning, and Dahlia had fallen asleep on the couch in her living room with all the lights turned on in her little house.

  She trembled when we walked through the door together.

  Then she started to cry.

  Dahlia put her hands on my shoulders and kissed my ear. She whispered, “From the first time I saw you, I always knew you were someone. I always knew you were.”

  Then she grabbed on to Bosten and kissed him all over and put her hands in his filthy hair and told him, “I am so happy you’re home. You look so good. Baby, you look so good.”

  And Bosten squeezed her back.

  I went into my room and took the clean clothes I’d been carrying for my brother out of my suitcase. I brought them into the bathroom, put them down next to the sink, and then I ran the shower for him.

  * * *

  Things change.

  Sometimes things heal.

  Bosten’s arm got better,

  but there was something in both of us that remained empty,

  and it wasn’t something anyone could give a name to,

  and we knew that,

  so, together, we kept it chained

  inside a room somewhere,

  waiting for morning.

  * * *

  It’s always foggy along the beach in California during June.

  The school year is nearly over.

  Bosten is enrolled in continuation school,

  but I don’t think he has learned how to continue very well.

  Kim and Evan are waiting outside.

  Bosten and I still sleep in the same bed at Dahlia’s house.

  * * *

  We are going into the sea.

  Other books by Andrew Smith

  The Marbury Lens

  In the Path of Falling Objects

  Ghost Medicine

  A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK

  An Imprint of Macmillan

  STICK. Copyright © 2011 by Andrew Smith. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  ISBN: 978-0-312-61341-9

  Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

  First Edition: 2011

  macteenbooks.com

  eISBN 978-1-4299-9537-5