Waiting on Justin

by Lucy H. Delaney

  Fun over. I rolled my eyes with as much attitude as I could muster and jerked the thing out of her fingers. I wasn't going to class, but I left the office anyway. Cell phones would have been so nice to have back then. I had to wait in the alcove of a door for Justin because he wouldn't know where I was otherwise. It took forever. Neither of the parental units bothered to come and get him or sign him out or whatever parents are supposed to do when their kid gets expelled; he just walked out—pissed.

  “That's it, Haylee—I'm done. I'm screwed. It's over!”

  “What? What do you mean?” I asked catching up to him as quickly as I could.

  “She expelled me.”

  “What?! No way. Did he get expelled too?”

  “I don't know. She's sick of me ruining the reputation of her perfect school. She was waiting for a chance to nail me, and I gave it to her. She wanted me gone, and she got her wish.”

  On the way out the door Justin threw down a gray plastic trash can that was only half full. It wobbled and bounced in front of him, and he had to kick it out of his way. As it thudded against the wall, only one of those red and white paper French fry baskets from the cafeteria fell out; it was as sad as Sipe's expulsion was. If it hadn’t been too serious of a moment to laugh, I would have. He made his point better when he slammed the old wooden door open with so much force it hit the outside wall and chinked off some of the concrete wall.

  We drove. That's all we could think to do. Home would not be a welcome place to land yet. This was one of those things that could keep Clayton going for weeks. Justin was liable to really get kicked out. He was guaranteed to be clobbered good; the only thing that might save him from too bad of a beating was that they both knew Justin was almost stronger than Clayton.

  “You should talk to Mr. Reyes,” I said halfway through the day when we were almost to Chino. He was going to see his planes before life completely destroyed his dreams.

  “Why? All he's going to do is tell me to stick it out, come back next year and graduate. I'm not graduating, Haylee; there's no way.”

  I knew it was impossible but I couldn't concede that his dreams were over. “You can still graduate. You can do it, and join the Air Force and get us out of here. Don't give up.”

  “It's not giving up; it's growing up. I can't wait around for a year. Besides, people are going to piss me off just as much next year, and by then I'm going to be even further behind. I can't do it. It's not worth it. I'm not graduating.”

  “What about us?”

  “What about us?” He was too mad to understand my fears.

  “If you don't graduate, what does that mean for us? How are we going to get out of here?”

  “I can get a job again. You need to finish school. I'll save up while you're finishing; then we can take off.”

  “To where?”

  “I don't know—Egypt? What do you want me to say?”

  “You were supposed to go into the Air Force. You were supposed to fly, and I was going to follow you wherever you went.”

  “Stupid dreams, Haylee. That's all they were. You know what kind of person I am. That kind of life isn't for me. I'm not one of those guys; I'm going to be dead by 25 in a bar fight, not flying a fighter jet for the Air Force.” He slammed his hand against the steering wheel, making the car swerve.

  “Then why are we going to Chino? You're going to the museum. You're going to see the planes. It's not dreams, Justin; it's who you are.”

  “Was.”

  “Why do you have to be like that?”

  “Like what—realistic? It doesn't make sense to try to fight for something that's not going to happen anyway. Sipe hates me, and I don't even have all my sophomore credits, let alone my junior and senior ones. It ain't happening for me.”

  “Did Sipe tell you that?”

  “Pretty much. I'm done with high school. I'm done.”

  And he was. He never looked back after that. If he regretted it, he's never said so. It was just the way it was.

  We didn't make it to the museum. A few miles farther he turned the car around and went to the only place we had: a lousy home, complete with deadbeat parents at the end of a dead-end road.

  When Clayton found out, he didn't even yell. In fact, I think he was gloating: he had told us we would never amount to anything, and finally one of us was proving him right. Instead, he got Justin hammered—that was his punishment. He was puking before eleven o'clock that night. It was the first time I think I really hated my life. Justin looked enough like Clayton that I could almost picture him at Clayton's age, and our kids doing the same stuff we were doing: drinking, failing, turning into their parents, who turned into theirs.

  The older we got, the more dreams we had to let go of—and now, like the last balloon in the bunch, Justin released our last hope for a better life, and we both watched our dreams disappear into a hopeless, cloudless, starless night of pitch-black darkness.

  CHAPTER 7

  AS SOON AS I knew Clayton was cool with Justin, I went upstairs to my room. I tried to cry myself to sleep and escape into make-believe dreams, but I couldn't sleep; all I could do was cry.

  There were tears for everything about my miserable life. Knowing that our last hope was lost ripped through my shell of indifference, and all my sadness and despair came out.

  I cried for it all, but I spent most of the night crying about Gramma Diaz's pictures. I hadn't seen them in forever; I hadn't gone to have cookies with her since AWANA gave way to youth group and they expected the kids to talk about more than Bible verses. I could handle that, but I didn't want people knowing my business—especially not church people.

  That night I couldn't stop thinking about her pictures. All of the smiling faces—why were they so stinking happy? Had anyone who smiled out from the pictures grown up like I did with alcoholic parents, or did theirs make cookies for them every Wednesday? I imagined they all had their diplomas and went to the military or college on top of that. There wasn't a loser in her bunch. How come they could smile and we got shafted? Justin could have been such a great guy.

  Then I was mad. I didn't know who to be mad at, so I picked Gramma Diaz's God. I hated Him. How could that God she said loved us give us the kind of life we had and give her—an ugly old wind bag—a good life? It wasn't fair; life wasn't fair. I wanted a refund; I wanted to leave; I wanted out.

  But I was stuck. I had nowhere to go. If I left, that would mean leaving Justin. And if I did, where would I go? My whole life revolved around him. If we left, we'd never get away with it. I was 14 and he just turned 18. I couldn't get a job, and he couldn't very well sign me into school and support us both while I grew up. I couldn't kill myself and leave him that way; I was pretty sure I was all he had to live for. I was stuck in a hopeless life with no way to escape. I was going to be just like my mother, like Lizzie's mom, like Justin's washed-up, strung-out and worthless one.

  There was nothing to do but resign myself to become like them the same way Justin had earlier that morning. So I did.

  I didn't even care what Clayton or my mom thought when they saw me come down that night. I expected them to say something, but it was as if all they had been waiting for our whole lives was for Justin and me to realize we were no better than them. Now that we were giving up our dreams of a better life, now that we accepted that our fate would be the exact same as theirs, they had all the love in the world for us.

  They even smoked me out. I'd been high with Justin before, and I'm sure they knew I was smoking weed, but we never did it together until that night. They didn't shut the bedroom door and try to hide the smell; we didn't even go in the bedroom. Mom stuffed the pipe tight and passed it around and smoked me out right there in the living room.

  I guess we were having a good time, but I was still wary of Clayton. It was too good to be true. How could Justin come home and say, “Hey, Dad, guess what? I got expelled today!” and Clayton not flip out? I kept waiting for it, and then it came.

  By midnight Justin was
in-the-bag, done and about ready to pass out. I meant nothing by what I did except to help him sit down before he fell down, but Justin made the mistake of touching me. I put his arm over my shoulder and walked him to our nasty old couch Mom had since the seventies and sort of let him fall into it. As he fell he grabbed my arm with both of his and grinned. That was all—an unsteady but too familiar touch, and a grin—and that was all it took to set Clayton off.

  The yelling I was waiting for, the screaming, the beating was upon us, and there was nothing Justin or I could do to defend ourselves. Looking back, I think Clayton planned it that way. I think he knew even before Justin did that Justin was too strong for him. He knew the only way to put him in his place was to inebriate him first, so that's what he did—and his touching me was just the excuse he was waiting for.

  Justin was too far gone to stand up to him, and Clayton let him have it. He pounded on him like a rag doll right where he sat on the couch. Justin was drunk enough to forget to demur to Clayton's authority, so he bumbled back up to his feet, trying to stand up to him. He got some good hits in but they lacked strength or coordination—and to make it worse, his aim was off, so his hits didn't do anything to hurt Clayton. It was over before it started. He looked like Apollo against the Russian, and no matter how loud I screamed for Clayton to stop, Clayton kept hammering him with one blow after the other. My mom sat on the other end of the couch watching it like it was nothing more than another one of the Friday fights. She didn't flinch, even when the blood was splattering onto the velveteen floral print on the couch. I hated her for it. “Get off him, you prick! Leave him alone! Clayton, stop! Mom! Make him stop. Clayton, stop!” All she did was shrug with half-closed eyes.

  “What—you don't want me to hurt your boyfriend?” Clayton sneered to me after clocking Justin and knocking him to the floor. His head hit hard, but he was still conscious. I was afraid to go to him.

  “He's not my boyfriend, Clayton. Leave him alone!” I lied.

  “What was that that I saw then?”

  “What was what? What are you talking about, you psycho freak? You didn't see nothing!”

  “I saw the way he touched you,” he said, turning from where Justin was on the floor to face me. I was relieved to have him away from Justin, but I knew that meant I was next. But that was OK—if I couldn't go to Justin, at least I could distract Clayton from hurting him anymore. I knew I could take a hit or two, and if he knocked me out, maybe he would calm down.

  “You're smokin' crack! He didn't touch me! I was helping him to the couch. Look at him,” I gestured. We both watched Justin, bloody and unsteady, staggering up from the floor again. “He's out of it.”

  “Has he touched you?”

  “No!”

  “Don't you lie to me, you little slut!”

  “I'm not, I swear! He's never touched me. I was helping him, that's all. And you just beat his face in. I'm going to take him to his room unless you want to beat me up too.” I said it with all the fake bravado I could muster. I fully expected him to hit me; I waited for the blow to the back of my head when I turned to ask my mom to help, but it didn't come.

  “Mom ... Mom, help me!”

  “That boy made his own bed,” she said with a dismissive hand in the air, looking away, her grey eyes unsympathetic.

  “Clayton, please?” I didn't think I could take him to his room alone, and I wanted him out of there. I don't know why I asked Clayton since he was the reason Justin was bleeding in the first place, but I did. That kind of chaos made me do things that didn't make sense. And he did help—in fact, he took Justin up the stairs all by himself, the same way I had tried to lead him to the couch. I walked up behind them but went straight to my own room and slammed the door.

  Even with the door shut, I could hear what Clayton said to Justin. I don't know whether Justin was conscious enough to hear him, but I did: “You keep your hands off her, boy. You hear me?”

  The words swam in my head. Why? Why did a man who couldn't care less about me, who never had one nice thing to say about me, who screamed at me on a weekly basis, care if Justin and I had a thing between us? This wasn't the first time he got mad over it either. I didn't know where the anger came from. I especially didn't understand why that night, when he could have attacked Justin for the fight, the expulsion, or the cruise we took without permission—why that was what he chose to zero in on.

  I don't know, and I don't talk to the man—haven't talked to him in years—so maybe I'll never know. How would I ask that anyway? Excuse me Clayton, I'd like to know—did you actually care about me when I was a kid, you mean, cold jerk? Or were you jealous of your own son? Or did you think dirty thoughts about me and take your disgust at yourself out on Justin instead? I can't picture an opening in a conversation that would lead to asking him something like that.

  The next morning was pretty bad. Clayton left for work, Mom was up for a change making coffee and eating toast, and Justin and I both got up and ready like normal. The only difference was Justin had nowhere to go. Finally after half an hour of avoiding the obvious, I asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don't know.” He was bruised badly and his left eye was swollen shut. It was a deep, dark purple, almost like a make-up artist painted it. I wanted to touch it and see what it felt like. I imagined it would be hot to the touch. But I didn't dare touch him and risk my mom seeing after a night like last night.

  He looked sad and lost. It made me feel sorry for him and unsure of him for the first time in my life. He had always been the one to know what to do, and now he didn't. It troubled me to doubt him; I didn't want to, but there it was, in the pit of my stomach: doubt. For once I told him what to do.

  “Take me to school. Let me see if Mr. Reyes will come talk to you; he'll know what you should do.”

  He didn't argue or complain or come up with a better plan; he simply went along. That frightened me more than anything. Justin always knew what to do, and I followed him, and now he was taking direction from me, a stupid fourteen-year-old freshman. Why?

  When we walked out the door together, Mom finally said something: “Where do you think you're going, Punk?” It was her pet name for Justin.

  “Taking Haylee to school, then something.”

  “Something better be getting a job ’cause you ain't living here for free anymore. I'll give you the rest of this month; then you're paying me and your dad rent. Three hundred dollars every month or you're gone, you hear me?”

  They always said that: You hear me? You hear me? You hear me? Of course we did—all they did was yell and talk and go on and on about everything. Yes, we heard them loud and clear.

  In the Accord that wasn't his, he broke down and panicked.

  “Where am I going to come up with three hundred dollars in two weeks?”

  “They'll let it go; they always do.”

  “Not this time. Don't you get it, Haylee? Everything is different now. Nothing is the same.”

  “We can leave,”

  “To where? How would that work?” he asked.

  “You have to get a job, that's all—just get a job, and it'll be fine, and we can go.”

  “How am I supposed to get a job? I just got expelled from school; I'm screwed.”

  “You can stay with Lizzie and Brenda; she'll let you.”

  “But that leaves you in that house alone. You can't handle that; no one can.”

  “I'll be fine.” I tried to comfort him even though I was petrified of being alone without him or Lizzie.

  “Really? Who do you think he's going to start hitting if I'm not there? You know how many times he's come after you already; it's only a matter of time before he hits you. And trust me, you won't be able to handle a hit from him.”

  “Thanks—I'm not a wuss.”

  “I didn't say that; it's just he hits a lot harder than he slaps you.”

  There was a long quiet stretch where words wouldn't come, and both of us tried to come up with a good plan—unsuccessfully.


  “You can't stay there alone.”

  It was about twenty minutes before class started when we got to the school. I went straight to Mr. Reyes while Justin waited in the Accord by Smoker's Corner. They knew the car, and he was specifically told not to be at the school, so the curb out front wasn't an option. Mr. Reyes had heard— who hadn't?—about the fight and the expulsion. He came right out with me to see Justin.

  “What happened?” he asked when he saw Justin's face. “That can't be from the fight. I heard Drew only got in one good hit; that's not from him.”

  “Door,” Justin answered looking straight into Mr. Reyes eyes with his one good one. He didn't even try to make it sound convincing. Mr. Reyes didn't buy it for a minute; I could tell that by the look on his face. But I also saw that it didn't matter. Justin was eighteen; no one would do anything. We all three knew that.

  “What do I do now? Don't tell me school. My school days are over.”

  “How about a GED?”

  “All due respect, Mr. Reyes, I need a job. I have to pay my dad three hundred dollars for rent or they said I can't stay there anymore.” He paused, trying to figure out the way to say it right. He looked toward me, then at Mr. Reyes. “I can't leave her there alone. You know what I'm saying? I need a job.”

  Mr. Reyes sighed, lowered his head, and rubbed his eyebrow with his thumbnail like he did in class when someone was acting up.

  “I know a guy who'll give you a job ... ”

  A wave of relief flooded over Justin's face, and I felt it hit me the exact same moment. Everything would be OK, I knew it.

  “ ... but it comes with conditions.”

  “Anything, I swear,” Justin promised through his smile, putting his hands together prayer-style.

  “No more drinking; no more weed. No matter what, or you're out. He'll take you on my word, but he won't tolerate drugs or alcohol, and he'll test you.”

  “I'm done, now. Won't use again, I swear!”

  “And...”

  “Anything, Mr. Reyes; thank you so much!” Justin said.