Waiting on Justin

by Lucy H. Delaney

  He made his hands behave themselves for that first kiss. It must have been hard, but he was giving me this one thing, letting the kiss and only the kiss dominate the moment. I was sure he wasn’t innocent like I was, but he let the memory stay innocent, pure, just a kiss—the most wonderful kiss known to man. And it was only a kiss, but it was mine.

  I don't know how long we stayed there kissing and falling more in love than we already were, but by the time we were finished, my leg was dead to all feeling. He ended it as sweetly as he started it. One last little peck, soft and warm on my lips, a “Happy birthday,” and a smile.

  “Um, I can't move,” I laughed, putting my forehead on his. “My leg fell asleep.”

  “Your leg?”

  “Yeah, the whole thing.”

  “Why didn't you say anything?” he asked me.

  “I didn't want you to stop.” I shrugged, blushing.

  He kissed me again, short and quick but amorously nonetheless.

  “We can't stay all day. Wake that leg up!”

  He shuffled me back to my chair, and we waited for feeling to come back. I bellowed as the blood rushed back into it and filled my leg with pins and needles.

  “Ow!” I hollered. He laughed and flicked it to add to the discomfort. “Jerk!”

  When feeling resumed, we took off in the Accord, but we didn't go to school. He had better plans for us.

  Believe it or not, even back then I really think his greatest love in life was learning; he just didn't learn the way most people do, sitting down at a desk. He was a hands-on learner and found things out by trying and failing until he eventually succeeded—hence our teleportation machine, our ventures into the neighborhood houses, and his ability to keep the Accord running even when Clayton said it was a lost cause.

  His favorite things to learn about were science, mechanics, guitar, and flying. He never outgrew his love for science and was always trying to figure out ways to make teleportation and time travel real. But as we grew up, time and space flight gave way to an obsession with real flying. He learned about all kinds of flying things: jets, planes, space shuttle propulsion, prop engines, helicopters—you name it, he wanted to know how it worked. He was especially fascinated with zeppelins and airships for a long time—not just the tragedy of the Hindenburg but the feasibility of zeppelin flight in modern times. Elsewhere in the world, people were working on making zeppelins viable forms of transportation, and that's when he started thinking about flying for a living. At first it was all about flying the zeppelins, but reality sucked him in. Zeppelins, like teleportation, were too far out of his reach. But he decided he wanted to be a pilot even though Clayton—and pretty much everyone else—told him he wouldn't amount to anything in life except a bum on the streets.

  That's why he took me where he did for my birthday. The day was for me, but somehow we found ourselves visiting a place he always wanted to go: the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. He wouldn't tell me until we were on the road. It's funny how an hour can seem like forever in the daily monotony of life, but when you're with your first love on your first drive after your first kiss, it races by. We drove from home, around the mountains and into the cities. They weren't too far away, but we never went there. It was a whole different world. He had saved up his money for gas and the day for I don't know how long, and now it was time.

  We had to go a long way to get there, but by the end we were right where Justin and I both wanted to be: he was looking at planes, and I was looking at him in a whole new way. I wanted to kiss him every chance I could, and he gladly obliged me—after all, it was my birthday.

  There was so much more to take in at that museum. I think his decision to take me there was his attempt to be cultured and civilized. To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less about them, but he knew everything about all of them. I'd never seen him so passionate: he knew the make of all but three planes by sight and told me how they worked and what their specialties were.

  He was in his element, but he never let go of my hand, taking me into his fantasies of the future. He'd pull me along, my little hand in his, sometimes raising them both up in the air with his finger extended to show me a feature of the model he was looking at. I loved seeing his eyes twinkle and hearing him know all the right things to say.

  An old veteran came over and asked Justin if he wanted to fly, and of course Justin said yes. The man, wrinkled and wise, had a habit of tipping the bill of his WWII veteran hat when he looked at the hanging artifacts. He walked with us around two or three of the planes and competed with Justin to see who knew more about them.

  When we got to a picture of a bomber plane, the old man was teleported back in time to his fighting days. He told us about the tail gunner he knew who died and about the many soldiers he knew who were shot down or shell-shocked during the war. He was impressed with Justin's knowledge of the “birds,” told him about the schooling he needed to become a pilot, and encouraged him to join the Air Force. He also recommended that if Justin liked working on engines, he might want to consider becoming a mechanic as a back-up plan—a good field for a young man like Justin to get into on the off-chance flying didn't work out. Some people were color-blind, he said, and when their dream of flying was shot down they gave up on life.

  The old man didn't know that where we came from, Justin was considered a lost cause, a delinquent who would end up in jail instead of holding any kind of job. Sometimes distance is all you need to get away from your problems, and we were more than a million miles from ours that day.

  But all good things must come to an end, and so did our perfect day. We had to be home before Clayton got back. My mom didn't care about anything, but Clayton cared about everything, and he would want an explanation why we were gone when he got home.

  We came up with our story on the way back: I had detention, and Justin had to work late, so he picked me up. It was enough to appease the beast. Justin didn't have to remind me that we were not to let Clayton or my mom know about us and we didn't bother to remind them that it was my thirteenth birthday.

  It was hard for a long time after that to see Justin and not want to flirt with him. I knew it would get us both in trouble, but the risk made it all the more exciting. There were nights when he would come in, like he always had, to wish me sweet dreams, and if we were sure Clayton was preoccupied, we would sneak a kiss or two. It made life around the homestead a little more bearable, but oppression is hard to bear even when you're in love.

  Later that spring, not long after our first kiss, Justin got fired from the store. He didn't like being told what to do, and the boss told him what to do for the last time. Justin told him where to go, and the boss told him to not come back; then, just to bring it full circle, Clayton told Justin he always knew he was worthless and couldn't believe he had held on to the job as long as he did in the first place. Clayton used it as an excuse to blow up and go off on us, especially Justin. He raged and screamed and got right up into his face and bellowed that he wasn't allowed to drive the Accord after that unless he paid for the gas himself—which was a stupid thing to yell at him because Justin always paid for the gas himself anyway. But Clayton needed to yell, and those were the words that came to him. Not surprisingly, Justin still had money for gas. I think I know where the money came from, but Justin never told me for sure, and I didn't want to come right out and ask. It was enough for me to know we still had wheels; I didn't care how he got the money to keep them.

  Although there was no love shared between father and son, Justin tried to be cool with Clayton when he could. I think it was because he knew Clayton would beat him good if he got too out of hand—and probably also because even though Clayton was angry and demented, Justin needed to learn the man stuff from someone, so he had to stay on Clayton's good side to learn it from him.

  There were plenty of times he got on Clayton's bad side, though. He always took Clayton's rage away from me, which meant he took the beating or lecture if he could. If Clayton was pissed and Mom was o
ut of it too early, Justin would make us dinner or help me make it. But if Clayton was going to be mad no matter what, then Justin would act up or get him worked up about the president or taxes or something completely irrelevant so he wouldn't be mad at us.

  I don't think he planned it that way, but that's how it happened more times than I can count. He never got really disrespectful, but he put the attention onto his bad behavior so Clayton looked at him and not at me or Lizzie. Justin didn't like guys getting too close to us, even Clayton. When I was younger, Clayton always got right up in my face, almost nose to nose, to yell. The older Lizzie and I got, the more it bothered Justin. He said it was bad, that it was only a matter of time until he took it too far. I knew he meant either Clayton would go too far and hit us like he hit Mom every now and then or he would go too far and touch us in a different way that was just as bad, maybe worse. Even when Clayton and Justin got closer, Justin still tried to keep us from his father's wrath.

  Their relationship changed dramatically after Justin lost his job. I'm still not sure why, but it was almost as if Clayton liked Justin more as a for-real failure than as a kid trying to make something of himself. The first time I noticed the change was the day after Justin got fired, the day after Clayton reminded him that he was nothing but a loser with no future. It was hot, and Clayton came home with a case of ice cold beer and threw one to Justin like it was nothing. Justin looked up at him in shock; Lizzie and I did too.

  “What?!” Clayton smiled through his yellow and brown teeth, “It ain't like you never had one before; don't lie to me, boy.”

  Justin was stuck: he couldn't say no, and the truth was he had been hammered plenty of times before then, and we all knew it. So he cracked it open and drank it down with his Old Man, and another ... and more.

  Within an hour, he was pretty much in the bag. He sat on the couch right next to Clayton, slouched and chill. I think he felt cool, accepted by his dad in a way he never had been before.

  From then on, Justin got to drink with him and Mom, and he was invited into the bedroom from time to time and sucked on skunk weed with them too. It bonded them—the drinking and drugging and being losers together—and I was glad Justin had a dad for once. Don't get me wrong, Clayton still yelled and screamed at him, but now he also hung out with him, too.

  Meanwhile, Justin and I got closer than ever and he continued to watch out for Lizzie and me, deflecting Clayton's wrath when needed. But now he could do it in different ways. He told us what they did in the bedroom and how it felt to be drunk or high.

  That's how Lizzie and I learned the most about getting high—by then we already knew about the drinking from our own experiences, but we listened to everything he had to say about weed so we knew what to do when we tried it. When they smoked it they put it in a pipe or bong and lit it on fire and sucked it up and coughed. Justin said their lungs burned but only for a while, and then it felt good.

  I'd only seen the bad side: the smells; vacant, blood-shot eyes staring into nothingness for no apparent reason; the tripping and slurring; throwing up and blacking out. I couldn't see good in it, but he said it made him feel good, and I did like how I felt when I drank, so I took him at his word. Like Clayton, he said the weed made him calmer, but I'm pretty sure he got in just as many fights as he ever had. I also noticed that he got stuck on guitar chords more when he was high and played it less. Before he started drinking and smoking with Clayton, he would play every day. Guitar was his therapy. He would play and make Lizzie and I do homework. We would study and listen to him learn his own things.

  I missed his playing the old way, where he would find a song he liked and obsess over it until he got it right. Once he started drinking and smoking all the time with Clayton, he would quit when he got stuck on a hard spot or was too hammered for his fingers to work. He still played what he knew—and played well—but I didn't like what using did to him or Clayton, and certainly not what it did to my non-existent ghost of a mother. I swore I would never let weed or booze change me the way it changed Justin. Turns out that didn't work too well for me.

  After they started drinking together, Clayton hit Justin a lot more—and probably a lot harder, too. It was like being drinking buddies gave them the right to fight like men, even though we all knew Justin wasn't allowed to fight back—ever. Once, not too long after that first beer, Clayton came home in one of his moods, where nothing could make him happy. Justin was acting up to keep him from being mad at the rest of us. I think he was throwing a tennis ball at the wall or something annoying like that.

  “Knock that off before I knock your head off, you hear me?!”

  “Yeah, I hear you Old Man. Everyone can. All you do is yell all the time.”

  Then, BAM! Just like that Clayton flew across the room and sucker-punched Justin in the gut. I know it was hard because I heard all of the air go out of Justin's lungs. It reminded me of a kazoo, a funny-sounding noise for something that was anything but laughable. Lizzie and I stared in horror. Clayton backed away the slightest little bit and stuck his finger out, pushing hard on Justin's chest.

  “This is my house, boy! You ain't got no place here, you understand me? You keep it up and you're out of here.”

  And then the words came out, the real reason for the anger: “Don't think I don't see how you look at her.” He nodded to me.

  It was true that we were hopelessly in love, but I couldn't believe Clayton figured it out; we had tried to be so careful. I was afraid and mortified all at the same time, but I didn't know why I cared so much if Clayton knew Justin and I cared about each other like that. Justin stood there and let the truth show on his face. He took the hit like a man: he didn't fall to the floor but stood hunched a little and sucked wind, trying to catch his breath. I was afraid Clayton would kick him out, but it was another dry threat, like most of what he yelled at us. But after he lost his job, any trouble Justin got in—including at school—was a guaranteed gut hit at the hands of the Old Man, as though that would teach Justin not to fight. Clayton rubbed it in Justin's face that at least when he was in school he had passing grades. Clayton didn't see what Justin was trying to prove by staying in school. I don't think he was trying to prove anything; he was just too young to know he could choose not to go. But then again, maybe there was a reason he didn’t drop out—two reasons, in fact: me and Lizzie. Justin wanted us to be something, and he knew school was the only way.

  CHAPTER 5

  ALTHOUGH JUSTIN WANTED Lizzie and me to do well in school, it wasn't for me any more than it was for him. It was easier for me to daydream in class than to pay attention to a teacher droning on about crap I didn't care about and would never need to know. I counted the days until I could be at the high school with Justin. At least then I'd have something to look forward to.

  High school was a whole new world. We had made it to the big time; Lizzie and I said goodbye to childhood and hello to the halls of Serrano High. On the first day of school I felt like the queen of the campus. Lizzie and I rode in with Justin, who already owned the school—this was his senior year. We had shared our first kiss in the late fall of my eighth grade year, and by the first day of high school we were a known item to everyone but our parents, so I walked up the halls under the arm of the baddest troublemaker in the building, and no one would touch me.

  Lizzie was smart like Justin, but unlike him, she tried hard in school and had the grades to show for it. All through elementary school she was honors and straight As. I’m sure the teachers couldn’t understand how a girl with ambitions like her could be friends with the likes of Justin and me. When I went to middle school in sixth grade, they let Lizzie start too—not because she knew me but because she was “exceptional” and had promise, and the teachers probably figured if they could keep her interested and challenged in school, she might not turn out like her stripper mother. So we both started middle school together, only she had the “smart” classes, and I had the ones for the mediocre kids. That meant that even though she was a year yo
unger, we started ninth grade together, too.

  Lizzie was mostly a saint, and because of her personality and grades, she had a better reputation than either Justin or I ever did. She fit right in too, but in her own way. We Three Musketeers were becoming a mismatched motley crew: the teachers liked her, and she didn't get into nearly as much trouble as we did, but we managed to stay close ... at first. The dark history we shared united us in a special way that even high school drama, as crazy as it can be, couldn't easily separate.

  Lizzie was old enough to stay home by herself by then, but old habits are hard to kick, so instead of going home to her dumpy apartment she usually came home with us. Her mom stopped paying my mom, and we all heard Clayton complain about her being there, but it didn't stop her from coming with us. She was one of us.

  Lizzie was everything Justin and I weren't, and she was growing into the most beautiful kind of girl, inside and out. She was smart and nice, and even with best friends like us, she managed to be popular with the cool kids. School was made for her, or she was made for it, or something like that. She took as much pride in her straight As and perfect handwriting as she did getting the curls in her jet black hair just right. It sure wasn't going to be her mother who recognized her for her talent, so Justin and I made sure we did. We were so proud of her. She was going to make something of her life—we knew it—and we did everything we could to help her and encourage her.

  Justin showed us where all our classes were and expected Lizzie to get to each one on time. I think he and I probably skipped more classes than we attended, but there was one class I hated to miss, thanks to Mr. Reyes. His class was called JAG. It was where they taught high-risk kids how to get jobs and stay out of trouble. It was the perfect class for kids like us, and wouldn't you know it, Lizzie and I were picked for the program right away.