by Claire Adams
“Fine,” I tell him. “I don’t need your fucking money. I’m out of here.”
Dad flipped off? Check.
Door slammed hard behind me? Check.
Take anything with me but the skateboard in my hand, the clothes on my back and the few random items in those clothes? Nope.
Oh well. I’m not going back in there now.
I’ll give him a call tomorrow or something and I’ll get my shit. Yeah, I’ll move out, but if he thinks I’m going to stop coming by to check on mom, he’s more out of touch with reality than I thought.
The shitty thing is that I have no idea where I’m going.
Most of my friends are just random people I know from the park. The only ones I really spend all that much time with are Rob and Nick, but Nick lives in a studio with barely enough room for him and Rob—I guess I probably don’t need much of an explanation there.
I pull the phone out of my pocket and start going through numbers, but nobody’s jumping out at me as a particularly realistic option. In my mind, there are at least a few of my friends and acquaintances who live either by themselves or with a roommate who would be okay with me crashing for a bit, but every possibility becomes impossible as soon as I read the name.
It’s really just Rob, unless I want to curl up with Nick on his futon.
The throbbing in my right cheekbone, my bottom lip and the area around my left eye are still doing a pretty good job convincing me not to head straight back to Robs right now, though.
I’m homeless. I no longer have a home.
It’s an odd situation, but it’s only fair for Rob to let me stay at his place. When it really comes down to it, my getting kicked out and cut off so close to the competition are direct results of Rob’s actions.
Maybe I’ll be able to convince Rob to let me stay with him, maybe not. Regardless, I’m going to need a job, and I’m going to need one fast.
Even if Rob does choose to have a short memory about our spat, he’s not going to let me live there very long if I’m not chipping in and, as my main source of income has just been removed, that means I’m going to have to get something together, and quick.
This really couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
I turn the corner onto Rob’s street, and as I come closer to his house, I can see him sitting on his front porch, smoking a cigarette.
Hopefully we can do this without coming to blows again, but I guess we’ll just have to see.
Things don’t start off so well, as Rob’s on his feet as soon as he sees me coming.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he shouts. “Stay away!”
“Yeah, so our little tiff got me cut off and kicked out,” I tell him, hoping the nonchalant approach will help ease tensions. “I’m staying with you.”
“Sounds shitty,” he says. “Not my problem.”
“Yeah, it kind of is,” I tell him, “as it’s pretty much your fault from start to finish.”
“You can’t blame me for your dad’s bullshit. He’s had that stick up his ass as long as I’ve known you,” Rob says.
“Longer,” I respond, “but come on, man. I’ve got nowhere else to go. Do you really think I’d be here asking to bunk with you after kicking your ass if I had other options?”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “I think you got part of your little story backwards, there, bro,” he says. “I do believe it was me who kicked your ass.”
“Look at your fucking face, dude,” I tell him.
“Look at yours,” he says.
“Okay, neither one of us is going to end up on a magazine cover for about a week, so what?” I ask. “We fought. It doesn’t even matter who won. It’s over.”
“You’ve got some balls, I’ll give you that,” he says.
“I do,” I tell him. “Two, last time I counted, but a couple more may have sprouted up on the walk over here.”
“You’re pretty fucking weird, man,” he says.
“That’ll just make things more entertaining around the house,” I tell him. “Come on, man. I really have nowhere else to go and it was your artwork on my face that put my dad over the edge.”
“I can’t afford to take on a freeloader,” Rob says. “I’m sorry about what happened with your dad and everything, but I got bills and shit, bro. Unless you’ve got some way to chip in your fair share, I can’t do it.”
“I get that,” I tell him. “Just give me a week or two to find a job, and I promise I’ll pay my portion of whatever.”
“I don’t know, man,” he says. “I’m pretty pissed at you right now.”
“I’m pretty pissed at you, too,” I tell him. “You’re kind of an asshole.”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Talk sweet to me.”
“Do you really think I’d be asking if I had anywhere else to go?” I ask.
His bottom lip comes up a bit and he’s looking up and off into the distance.
“Rob?” I ask.
“Yeah?” he returns, holding his general position.
“You all right, man? Your eyes are kind of glazing over,” I tell him.
“You’re going to have to sleep on the couch,” he says.
“Done,” I answer.
“Under no circumstances are you allowed to beat off on my couch,” he says.
“That’s not a problem.”
“If you have a chick over, you can take her to my room, but only if I’m not in there, you’re quiet, and you make sure my shit stays clean,” he says.
“Have you noticed most of your rules so far have been regarding how I’m expected to act with my penis?” I ask. “I wonder if that means something.”
“Shut the fuck up, dude,” he says. “I’m only considering taking you in ‘cause we’ve got history and shit. If I wasn’t such a nice guy, you wouldn’t even be standing there right now.”
“I appreciate it very much,” I tell him.
“All right,” he says. “Your ass gets a job, though. I know you’ve got the big comp comin’ up and all that, but I got bills and you’re another mouth to feed.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I tell him, even though I have no idea how. The animal shelter doesn’t pay me, and even if they did, they only ever call when they’re really overloaded.
“By the way,” Rob says. “I walk in my sleep, so make sure to keep the front door locked after I go to bed. I forgot a while ago and fucking woke up standing next to the train tracks.”
“It’s good to know how to kill you without ever having it come back to me,” I tell him. “I’ll keep the door locked.”
“Sometimes,” he says, “I, uh—well I’m not even sure that I do it, but my last gf, Jenn, the one with the big nose and the DSLs?”
“You really think I pay attention to the internet services of your exes?” I ask.
“Dick-sucking lips, bro,” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “Dick-sucking lips.”
“Okay, what about the girl with the DSLs?” I ask.
“Well,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “she always used to tell me that I scream in my sleep. I think she was just making it up as a guilt trip thing or whatever voodoo females do, but just in case she wasn’t, you know, don’t be like freaked out or anything.”
This is fucking rock bottom.
* * *
Last night was one of the most harrowing nights of my life.
I didn’t know this about Rob, but he’s started going to bed earlier. He says he saw something about it on the Discovery Channel, although he never mentioned exactly what “it” is.
It was going to be great. I was going to have the place to myself for a little while. I mean, not that I was going to tear shit up or anything, but I’d have some time, space and privacy to think.
For a little bit, being surrounded by empty beer cans, bottles and glasses, along with various fast food bags and other assorted detritus didn’t even seem like such a big deal. Maybe things weren’t ideal, but at least I had a nice evening in front of me.
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Yeah, it was supposed to be a really positive thing.
Jenn wasn’t lying to him, though.
It began about two hours after he went to sleep. I was able to get through a whole movie before it started. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that after the movie was over, the credits were rolling and I was walking up to the Blu-ray player to take the disc out when I heard the most desperate, hate and fear-filled scream coming from Rob’s room.
I dropped whatever I had in my hand—I think it was the remote control, but my mind wasn’t really so good with details in that moment—and ran over, around and sometimes through the stacks of clutter Rob’s always too lazy to do anything about, trying to make it in time to save my asshole friend from whatever terrible thing was happening to him.
When I opened the door to his bedroom, though, the screaming stopped. Rob was just lying there in his bed, sound asleep.
Fight or flight died down enough for me to remember that Rob had warned me of this possibility, but I still flipped on a lamp and checked the room for bodies before I left him to sleep.
I got back out to the living room and sat on the only cleared-off piece of furniture in the house, and also my bed for the foreseeable future, the couch. It took me a while to get my pulse to ease its pace from Flight of the Bumblebee to Moonlight Sonata, but eventually, my eyes started to close and I started to drift off to sleep.
My mind and body were ready to check out for the night right until I heard the shuffle of someone walking through the apartment.
“Could you just try to keep it quiet?” I asked him. “I’m trying to sleep.”
There was no answer.
Maybe he was just passing through on his way to the bathroom, or to the kitchen for a late snack. That’s what I was thinking, or at very least, hoping.
When I didn’t hear the footsteps ever make a return trip, I finally decided to open my eyes and Rob was standing over me, his eyes open, but blank somehow. It was like he was looking through me.
“You all right, man?” I asked.
He just kept staring at me.
Sleepwalking.
He’d warned me for this, too, but it didn’t dawn on me, the various and startling reality of actually having to be in an apartment with him.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a shock to my system if Rob wasn’t all banged up from our fight earlier in the day. For whatever reason, seeing him standing over me like that screamed of some sort of revenge, but he just stood there quietly.
“Rob?” I tried again.
His gaze had started to drift, but he focused on me in that moment. He opened his mouth to speak.
“Do you think this will meet the dress code down at the club?” Rob asked. “I never can tell whether these restaurants are going to require me to wear a jacket. Terribly uncomfortable things, they are.”
I think that was the most horrifying part of the whole night, hearing him talk like some blueblood with a much better command of the language than I thought Rob could even process.
Apparently, that file’s just too large to run while he’s conscious.
“Go back to bed, Rob,” I told him. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
Three more times I woke up last night to find Rob standing over me, always in a different spot.
I didn’t sleep.
Now, it’s almost noon and I’m riding down to the skate park to clear my head.
I don’t know what the hell I’d do if I didn’t skate. I’d probably lose it entirely.
The park’s animated with about a dozen skaters and about as many skate groupies. I never really got the appeal of being a groupie. Rather than simply be close to someone who you greatly admire, why not become someone that can be admired?
Probably just a personality thing.
I ollie the curb and skate right into the park. There are a few people I know around, some acquaintances and the like, but I’m not really in the mood to stop and chat.
There’s a growing chance that I might actually kill Rob.
All right, it’s still a tiny chance, but it is growing.
I drop in on a quarter pipe and plot my course, making sure to avoid all the other assholes out here with something to prove.
I’ve got decent speed as I come to a rail and a quick nollie puts me in a crooked grind I ride all the way to the end, coming off of it with a 180.
It was good of Rob to finally relent and let me stay with him, but I don’t know if I can psychologically handle staying there for very long. Right now, I think my only hope is to work my ass off and win this competition—you know what? Who am I kidding?
Even if I can get over my problem dropping in, that doesn’t mean I’m going to just scoot right into first in vert.
I’ve got to make sure I’m solid on a few different approaches for the street competition or it’s not going to matter what I do with vert.
The street course is obviously not going to be the same as the layout of the skate park here, but the basic elements are present in both.
I can fine tune the run when I get a chance to skate that course, but until then, I can get some combos put together to make sure I’m in the best possible position going into vert.
It’s funny, I never bothered looking at what the prizes for second and third place are going to be. Realistically, I’ll be pretty fortunate if I even end up in one of those positions.
If I can lay down something solid on the street run, though, that’s got to put me in the good graces of sponsors. I mean, these people know not everyone’s a vert skater any more than everyone’s a street skater. Hell, it took them years to convince Mullen to go from flatland to street. I’ve got to be able to come out of this with something.
I roll up one side of the fun box slow, just enough speed to get me almost to the top and I ollie into a backside flip and try to land in in a nose manual, but my momentum’s wrong, so I just come down.
Pumping harder now, I’m heading toward the halfpipe and just for my own self-spite, I lift the back of the board so I get that nose manual after all, and I stretch it into a 360 flip before rolling up the quarter-pipe, crooked grinding the lip and throwing in a quick shove it on the way out for good measure.
I’m starting to feel a little bit looser, a little less consumed by my dad’s bullshit and the true horror of a night at Rob’s.
I launch into a nollie flip, and I’m starting to feel like everything’s going to work itself out, maybe not immediately, but eventually for sure. Of course that’s when I spot Mia chatting it up with a couple of loose acquaintances of mine.
I forget what the fuck I was doing and the board clatters in front of me as I land on my feet.
There’s nothing particular I can think to say to her, but I know that I need to talk to Mia. She keeps getting scared off, and I’m really not that scary a guy.
I did beat the shit out of Rob, though. That was pretty cool.
As I’m no longer a teenager, I don’t bother trying to impress with any tricks as I’m rolling up to her. Even if I did go for that approach, she doesn’t notice I’m coming until I’m coming to a scraping stop a couple of feet from the group.
A couple of people say hi to me and I give a couple quick nods and single-syllable greetings before I turn to Mia.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says.
She turns back to talk to a short redhead chick I’ve seen around here a couple of times, but haven’t met, and everyone’s back in their conversations.
In this group, I know Tyler, Bret and, of course, Mia. There’s also the redhead and who I’m pretty sure is someone’s younger brother, but I don’t really have much to say to anyone but Mia.
For a minute, I just try to join in the conversation—you know, take some time to map out my approach here. It’s all bullshit skate tales where everyone’s talking about that time they saw that guy and he did that thing and it was just so fucking spectacular and I just want to talk to Mia.
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“So Bret,” Mia asks, pulling my attention away from whatever whoever was saying, “I’ve seen you around, but we’ve never really talked, have we?”
She’s toying with me, messing with me, just trying to make me jealous. I can assure you it is absolutely, without question, working.
Still, that’s not how I’m going to win back the heart of my punkish… fuck, I’m off today.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m glad we’re making that right.”
What a dumbass.
“Me, too,” she says. “You know, I’ve always liked really tall guys.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Can we talk?” I ask Mia.
She looks over at me and makes a big show of rolling her eyes.
“Just for a minute,” I tell her. “I just want to explain a couple of things to you so you don’t have the wrong idea.”
Now everyone in the group is looking at me, but I’m really not in the mood to care right now.
“Fine,” she says with an exaggerated sigh and we walk away from the group together.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m just talking to people,” she says. “Why, is that a problem?”
“You can talk to whoever you want,” I tell her. “That’s not what I want to talk to you about.”
“What then?” she asks. “I was kind of in the middle of a conversation there.”
“My dad kicked me out last night,” I tell her. “It happened after I got in a fight with Rob—long story. Anyway, I’m going to be bunking with Rob for a little bit, and—”
“Hold on,” she says, “you got into a fight with Rob yesterday and now you’re staying at his place? How’d you manage that one?”
“Sometimes the best thing two guys can do for a friendship is take a few minutes and beat the shit out of each other,” I tell her. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s a good enough explanation. “I really couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, but it’s kind of a bonding thing.”
“I’ve seen guys get in fights and still want to kill the other person,” she says.