by Lamar Giles
I only nodded as his bike growled and departed, leaving me alone with my friends. A moment I’d been kind of dreading.
“What was that?” Gavin said.
Molly tag-teamed in. “You know someone from the freaking Pack?” She got in my face like we were in a soccer huddle. “The kind of money on the table tonight can get people killed, Nikki. Have you lost your—”
“Enough!” I said. “Molly, we didn’t die. Gavin, I’ll keep your cut if you don’t want it. We’re fine, guys.”
“Really,” said my dad, stepping from the shadows with one of his John Player Special cigarettes dangling off his lips, eliciting an oaky sweet smell I recalled from childhood. “I’m not sure about that, babygirl. At all.”
Molly screamed, recovered, smoothed nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt. “I mean, it’s great to see you again, Mr. Tate.”
He chuckled, a clunky forced sound that didn’t mask his irritation. “Likewise, Molly. You were missing teeth the last time I saw you.”
We were, what, ten, playing city league soccer and still thinking ourselves like all the other kids? Molly had gone down hard in a game, took a cleat to the face. She was very proud of that “war wound” and kept the teeth in a jar on her bookshelf.
She said, “I’ve had a full set for a while now. You’ve changed, too. You were less, grrrr, Incredible Hulk–ish back then.”
Molly. She didn’t mean it disrespectfully, I knew. That was just her thing, noticing muscles. Since she said it, it made me take note of my father’s physique. I’d felt that latent strength when we’d hugged earlier, but his mis-sized suit disguised the hardness. In street clothes, lurking in a dark alley, he seemed a much different man from the one who used to lift me on his shoulders and dance while we watched the Bellagio fountain show.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” my dad replied. “Though this young man’s got me beat in the muscles department. Some growth spurt you got, Gavin.”
“Hey, Mr. Tate.” Gavin dipped his head, shy, a demeanor that seemed like a split personality when you saw him cracking skulls on the gridiron.
“The three of you,” Dad said, “still thick as thieves. Nice to see some things don’t change.” Only, the way he said it didn’t sound so nice. There was an edge.
“What are you doing out here, Dad?”
“Was gonna ask the same thing. Think I got it figured, though. Hope I’m wrong.” His cigarette dropped, a smoldering red meteorite. He snuffed it beneath his boot. “Molly, Gavin, I’ll see you two later.”
Molly nodded. “Right. Later, Mr. Tate.”
She drifted toward the side lot where she always parked for our games, motioning for Gavin to do the same. He didn’t move his feet and kept his chin nuzzled in his chest.
“Nikki, I’m sorry. I just … I need … you know.”
Chewing my bottom lip, I understood. Fishing a wad of money from my pocket, I gave Gavin what I owed, then decided to double it. He deserved it. Plus, the bump might be his severance pay if the next few minutes with Dad went sideways.
Gavin shuffled after Molly, and I slowly faced my dad.
He was stone-faced. Silent.
I broke first. “Dad—”
“You told me you had a school thing. What school do you go to again?”
“I know this looks bad.”
“What looks bad? Your back-room card game with a bunch of men who look older than me?”
“They’re cool. I vetted them beforehand, and the game went good. Like, really good.”
“Oh, I guess that makes it okay that you’re locking yourself in a basement with criminals and lowlifes.” He closed the gap between us, and the John Player cig wasn’t the only smell wafting off him. I detected the spicy sharpness of bourbon. Spend as much time around drunken gamblers as I had, you could just about name the brand and the year it was bottled. I winced away from the scent.
“You know what we called games like yours when I was young?” he said.
“No.”
“ATMs. As in easy withdrawals. All you need is a mask and a shotgun. How much cash did you have down there anyway?”
Barely a whisper. “A few grand.”
“Unbelievable. Gavin’s a moose, I’ll give you that. You gotta know all those muscles don’t mean anything if someone wants to take you. You’ll get yourself killed over this Romper Room nonsense.” He spun and clocked the Dumpster with a hard jab, the collision sounding like a warped gong.
Some of the rage in him, well, I’ve learned it’s genetic. It flashed in me, too. “You’re a real hypocrite, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
“ ‘Cash games are how soft players become steel. Can’t take a million-dollar pot if you can’t take a thousand-dollar pot.’ Sound familiar?”
He said nothing.
“It’s you, Dad. A radio interview you did back in the day at the World Series of Poker. You started getting better in games like this. You talked about it all the time.”
He looked genuinely confused. Maybe he had forgotten who he was. He said, “You see how great it all went for me.”
“Poker wasn’t your problem, Dad. Murder was.” That heat Mom said I got from him, sometimes it burned a little too hot. He looked like I’d slapped him.
Backpedaling, I said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just, I need the money, Dad. Okay?”
“For what?” Whatever dark thoughts filled his mind radiated from him with near-physical force and pushed me back a step.
How much should I say? I’d been all salty at Mom for bombarding him with hard reality on his first day back, but was this the time to tell him how Andromeda’s Palace was bleeding money? Should I say how tired I was of shouldering the responsibility of a junior executive in a failing venture because Mom didn’t have the head for turning a profit? School, homework, sports, accounting, staff management, towers of paperwork, liquor orders, one parent with the business sense of a drowsy Monopoly player and the other with a state-mandated death sentence. My last few years in a nutshell.
I wasn’t a pro-caliber athlete like Gavin and Molly, but poker was a different story. It could—would—get me out of Vegas as effectively as football and soccer for my friends. We even had a plan. They had multiple early scholarship offers, but only a single school overlapped. University of Virginia, way on the other side of the country—the other side of the world—wanted them both. I could go, too, with a big enough bankroll. That’s what I played for. Freedom.
I didn’t say all that. Only “I want to go to college. I’m doing this for school.”
Dad was no longer paying attention, though. “What is that?” he asked, pointing.
Tracing his finger’s trajectory, I turned, mistaking it for the old game where I had to name constellations. It’s hard to see real stars in the city, and he wasn’t looking that high.
“That building, with the three blue neon triangles along the front. What is it?” He mistook my slow response for a lack of understanding. I wasn’t used to people not recognizing the landmark.
“It’s the Nysos.”
Tallest building in the city. One hundred and twenty stories jammed between the MGM Grand and the Polo Towers. Yet another casino/resort blocking a chunk of the sky so out-of-towners had another few thousand options for dropping their bags and toothbrushes while they ran around like drunken idiots. The three blue triangles made up a hundred-foot mountain range logo seen for miles. It’d been open a little over a year. Of course it seemed new to Dad.
“Go inside,” he said, stepping past me. “You should be in bed.”
“What?” How was this the end of our conversation? “Where are you going?”
“To walk a while. I’m finding it hard to stay inside tonight. Been inside a long time.”
I looked to the Nysos again. “Dad …”
Maybe he sensed my concern, so he lied to comfort me. “Don’t worry, your old man ain’t looking for trouble. We’ll finish talking tomorrow.”
&n
bsp; Before I could protest further, he was gone, walking into the light.
The talk we were supposed to have the next day … didn’t happen. That father-daughter breakfast he promised me? Nope. Neither Mom nor I saw Dad the whole weekend.
When he did show up at Andromeda’s again, it was with several thousand extra dollars.
On Monday morning, Molly picked me up for school in Andromeda’s Loop. She and Gavin probably found it strange the way I paced the slowing SUV, yanked the door open with it still in motion, and leapt into the backseat, yelling, “Go, go!” Like a solider seeking extraction from enemy territory.
To her credit, Molly complied, gunning the engine as I closed the door and secured my seat belt. “Threat level’s still high at Tate Manor, I take it,” she said drily.
I groaned. Though I hadn’t seen my friends since Dad surprised us early Saturday morning, I’d been texting Molly all weekend, and I was sure she’d shared details with a suspiciously mute Gavin. So they both knew about Dad’s disappearance. His occasional short voice mails indicating he was still among the living, with no details beyond that. Mom’s huffing exclamations of “same old Nathan”—with no fondness or nostalgia in the recollection. And casino work. Never-ending casino work.
Our ride west to Vista Rojo High was usually reserved for recapping classmate drama that blew up online over the weekend or dreadful anticipation of the coming week of sucky homework, tests we had to cram for, and rough sports practices. Not that morning. My friends knew when it was quiet time. We’d all had moments that required it over the years. Like when Molly’s dads adopted another daughter, Bethany, and sort of forgot about her. Or when Gavin’s mom lost her fight with cancer. My best friends, so kind and considerate, granted me silence. Until we hit the school parking lot.
“No way!” Gavin said, his spine suddenly erect, his attention on the school’s front.
Escaping my own head, I leaned between their seats for a better view of the spray paint scrawled across the school’s clay-colored walls. There was a series of barely coherent obscenities. The vandalism maintained a theme of maternal insults, suggested physical contortions, and stuff Vista Rojo kids do with innocent farm animals. All hastily done in the same shade of green that made up half of Cardinal Graham High School’s colors.
“This already?” Molly said.
The Vista Rojo Fighting Lions and the Cardinal Graham Warrior Griffins shared an old and bitter rivalry. Every year we battled on and off the field. A mix of sports and increasingly bold/destructive “pranks” set off by one varsity gang or the other. Since no Vista Rojo team played a Cardinal Graham squad for at least three weeks, the kickoff for this year’s ritual attack felt premature.
Gavin undid his seat belt and stepped from the creeping vehicle, joining a loose group of his football teammates. All of them vibrating with agitation and testosterone. The maintenance crew worked at one end of the graffiti, scrubbing what they could and priming the rest for repainting. They couldn’t outpace all the amateur cell phone photographers who were, undoubtedly, posting images to all available feeds. The loitering spectators grew with each new arrival to the lot, and Molly grabbed the closest available parking space while there was still room to drive.
We waded into the onlookers together, absorbing the aggravated vibe of a mosh pit with no music.
“Oh, the many revenge plots that will be formed by second period,” I uttered.
“Be nice if all these Lion Pride anarchists would help fill seats at our games.” Molly’s eternal sore spot. Everybody was up in arms and “Support Our Teams” until it came to actually supporting our team. The total number of attendees at Lady Lions soccer games wouldn’t fill the concession stand during Friday night football. Anyway.
Once the warning bell rang, we could all look forward to the administrators giving us the Vandalism Response 101 lecture.
No payback, kids.
Leave it all on the field.
You’re better than that!
Anyone caught trespassing on Cardinal Graham property will be punished to the fullest extent of the Vista Rojo disciplinary policy.
Blah, blah, blah … all the things adults had to say.
What everyone could definitely count on was simmering aggression, bordering on violence aimed at anyone even slightly affiliated with Cardinal Graham. Case in point …
Gavin found us in the crowd, his brow shadowy. “Nikki, your boy.”
I had no clue what he was talking about or why he was handing me his phone. I took it, saw the picture filling the display, and had my mind blown with about fifty different thoughts/emotions/curse words at once.
First, Gavin knows enough to call him my boy? Second, god, Molly, I’m seriously considering sewing your big mouth shut.
Third, info. I needed it. “Where?”
“The equipment cage,” Gavin said.
If we hurried, I might be able to save my crush from being murdered.
Okay, so not murdered. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Beaten and maimed? A stronger possibility.
Gavin’s phone vibrated in my hand as another photo came through. Much the same as the previous pic. There he was, pressed against the wall by a half dozen beefy hands. The biggest change was the curled fist hovering an inch from the victim’s chin. A text quickly followed.
come get in on this griffin blood, yo!
That thing about violence directed at anyone affiliated with Cardinal Graham. We’d reached the part of the program at lightning speed. Because the boy in question was a transfer from CG.
Davis Carlino. Here less than a month. Likely wishing he could go back.
Gavin led us down the main corridor, through the gym, and to a detached building dedicated to all things football, ridiculously dubbed the Lion’s Den.
Weights, lockers, a trainer’s room, and an equipment cage for the pads, helmets, and, apparently, assaults.
We heard the rowdy grunts and commotion before we reached the door, guarded by one of Gavin’s fellow linemen.
The football player eyed us warily. “Bruh?”
“They’re with me,” Gavin said. “It’s fine.”
The doorman didn’t look like it was fine, but Gavin outweighed and outclassed him.
The equipment cage was a wide rectangle of racks and pegs filled with football gear. It smelled of Pine-Sol and industrial laundry detergent like we used to wash linen at Andromeda’s. In the far corner, a loose gathering of Vista Rojo’s football elite crowded around Davis, shoving him. Everybody there was taller than me, so I only caught glimpses of him between hips and letter-jacket-clad shoulders.
There was a grunt and crunch as he collided with a rolling cart filled with athletic tape, gauze, and fungal sprays. Aerosol cans clattered, but Davis didn’t make a sound.
“GRIF-FIN BLOOD!” one player crooned, setting off a chorus of the familiar battle chant. “GRIF-FIN BLOOD! GRIF-FIN BLOOD!”
“They’re going to break him,” Molly said, a bit too bemused for my liking. As if we were watching toddlers dismember action figures.
To Gavin, I said, “Stop them.”
“I’m not that big.”
There were upwards of ten football players in here now. No, he couldn’t forcibly change the state of events. Neither could Molly and I. Force wasn’t what was needed.
“Hey!” I yelled over the sounds of battery. “Who likes prime rib?”
Everything screeched to a halt.
The football players became big, mean meerkats, craning their necks in unison. Byron Richie, our quarterback, spoke first. “I love prime rib.”
“Great.” I dropped my satchel to the floor, crouched. Digging to the bottom, I excavated crumpled batches of coupons for the restaurant inside Andromeda’s Palace, the Constellation Grill. “I got free prime rib for anyone willing to let the Griffin walk out of here right now.”
Faces lit with grins. Boys. Free food. Of course.
Not all of them were so easily charmed.
“Hold up!�
� said a wide receiver. “I don’t eat red meat. And I ain’t about to let this dude off the hook after what he did to our school.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Davis said, visible now between the parted players. Someone stiff-armed him in the chest.
Our gazes locked. Much like the first time, on his first day, my heart and lungs stuttered. I willed them to resume normal function, focused on the negotiation.
“The coupons also work on our awesome grilled chicken,” I said.
The receiver’s hard jaw softened.
“What do you say, guys? Deal?”
The team’s kicker jumped in. “What’s it matter to you anyway, Nikki?”
Davis’s chin tilted up, just as curious about my motives.
I saw him every day in sixth-period chemistry but couldn’t bring myself to say two words before. Now I was swooping in like Batgirl to the rescue. How to explain it? “I don’t like when anyone gets blamed for stuff that’s not their fault.”
Recognition dawned on the faces of a few players. A familiar unease settled over me as one player attempted to relay the message about my dad to another, with no subtlety at all.
“Better do it,” he said. “Her pops will …” he trailed off, sliding his index finger from one side of his neck to the other in a throat-slicing gesture.
Molly saw, squeezed my shoulder. Gavin glared at his teammates.
“Do we have a deal or what?” My patience was thinning.
Quarterback Byron gave an all-good nod, and Davis was released. He sidled past the players, irritated but seemingly unhurt, giving each and every one of them serious side-eye before clearing the crowd. I stood as he passed, my heart a quick-handed boxer doing speed drills on my sternum.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” There, two words. “Go.” Three. You’re on a roll, Nikki.
Once he was clear, I distributed the coupons to each of the knuckleheads, as promised. They traded high fives, the defacing of the school temporarily forgotten in the anticipation of well-seasoned meats. Deal done, me and my crew backed out of the cage, heading for the main building. Homeroom would be starting soon.