Southside High

by Mankin, Michelle

  “Ditto, man,” Dizzy whispered gruffly.

  Tears threatened, stinging my eyes and tightening my throat. I wasn’t the only one who’d been lonely without Bryan in our lives.

  “Lace, see you around.” Bryan gave me a chin lift, but he didn’t touch me. An awkwardness stretched between us now, a restrained tension that hadn’t been there before.

  “Sure, see you.” I pretended that awkwardness didn’t hurt. But it did.

  “Lacey.” War reached for me. His hands heavy on my shoulders, he studied me, his eyes dark and active. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” I said, but that wasn’t very likely. Restroom incident aside, it was a big school. War was a junior, and I was an academic sophomore. Our classes were located in different halls.

  “Later,” Bryan said, and he and War moved away together, their ambling strides similar.

  “What the hell’s going on with you and War?” my brother asked, sounding more than a little alarmed.

  Busy watching Bryan and Warren hunch their wide shoulders against the cold as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, I didn’t immediately answer. They were obviously close, but so different in personality. I wondered what had happened to make them such close friends.

  “Nothing’s going on.” Refocusing on Dizzy, I tossed a lock of my hair over my shoulder.

  “Not nothing, Lace.” He frowned. “He kissed you, didn’t he?”

  “Not talking about this with you.” I turned away from him, moving toward the garage, stopping to scoop up discarded Solo cups from the ground.

  “He did. Fucking shit. Bry told me he was cool, but this is unacceptable.” Coming up alongside me, Dizzy gave me a censuring glare. “He’s too old for you, Lace.”

  “Not significantly,” I gritted out between my clenched teeth. “Not that it’s any of your business. He’s the same age as Bryan, right?”

  “Bry would be a much better choice.”

  But Bryan wasn’t a choice at all, apparently. Though maybe just for a moment, there had been something. A flare in his eyes when I’d flirted with him. But it had been there and gone so quickly, I was afraid I’d only imagined it.

  “Let’s not fight about this. It’s not a big deal.” I touched my brother’s arm. In the end, it was only Dizzy and me. “Help me clean up. Okay?”

  He glanced down at my hand on his arm, then up at me, and his gaze softened. “Okay.”

  We worked in silence together, filling several large garbage bags and tossing them in the recycling bins at the end of the driveway. When we were finished, the backyard looked the same as it had before the party, and I breathed easier.

  I was unlocking the back door of the house when I realized Dizzy wasn’t behind me.

  “I’m heading out for a bit,” he said when I turned to look at him, not quite meeting my eyes.

  “Met someone at the party?” I asked.

  “Nothing serious.”

  It was never serious with my brother and girls. I had a feeling he and War were a lot alike in that regard, and I wondered about Bryan.

  “Be careful,” I said, meaning it. “Use protection.”

  “Always.” Dizzy’s expression darkened. “I won’t be gone long.”

  I nodded, watching him walk away. Then I turned and went inside the house, ending the evening as I’d started it.

  Alone.

  War

  As soon as we turned the corner from Lace’s house, I got right into it with Bryan.

  Giving him a hard look, I asked, “You got a problem with me and Lace?”

  “Not a problem, exactly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, then dug in his jeans pocket for his cigarettes. “I just wondered why her?”

  I narrowed my gaze. “Why me and not you with her is what you really mean. Right?”

  Lighting one up, he glanced away. He inhaled a drag and puffed out smoke. I knew I was right without him answering. Lace had knocked him on his ass, same as she had me.

  “Anything happen between you and her when you were kids that I should know about?” I asked.

  “Hell no, War.” He turned to look at me, his eyes flashing gray-green fire. “She was just a kid back then. We used to be inseparable, the three of us. Only . . .”

  “Only what?” I ground my teeth together. “Spit it out, Bry.”

  He hesitated too long to answer. “Only she’s not a kid anymore. So, things are different now.”

  “She’s smoking hot. Smart, confident, and talented.”

  He nodded slowly, not looking happy that I noticed those things and pointed them out.

  “She sings almost as good as me,” I said.

  Bryan snorted. “She doesn’t have a rock-band voice.”

  “She’ll do okay as backup. We harmonize well.”

  “A voice like hers . . .” His eyes went unfocused, and he shook his head. “If the right A&R person heard her, she might become another Amy Winehouse.”

  Artist and repertoire reps are the point of contact between musicians and record labels. Scouts, basically. And Bryan was right . . . Lace could go far if she were noticed by the right people.

  “Powerful set of pipes, soulful delivery. I agree.” I nodded. “She looks like Shakira. She sings like Winehouse, and she kisses like a motivated stripper wanting to earn extra cash during a lap dance. Sucked my tongue so hard, it made my cock weep, man. No joke.”

  His brows snapped together. “Don’t want to know that shit.”

  “’Cause you want in there too?” I kept pressing him, wanting him to admit it so I could address the issue and close it down.

  “No.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I mean, sure, if that shot was open to me, I might take it. But it’s not. You called it, and I agreed. I always have your back. You know that.”

  “Just making sure you get me.”

  “I get you,” Bryan said as we stopped at the corner of Rosedale and the Ave.

  Sirens blared. Gunfire popped in the distance, a distance I was headed into, not away from like he was. His apartment complex was on Grammercy. My place was a couple of blocks farther south.

  “Lace is different,” I said, giving him a firm look. “No sharing. No touching. No looking.”

  “If you say so, War.” He flicked his cigarette aside and crushed it under his heel. “I gotta go.”

  “Me too. I’m heading to Kyle’s. You wanna come hang later?”

  “Nah. I have to help Miriam with her homework.”

  “After, then.” I wanted to pump him for more information about Lace.

  Bryan shook his head. “My mom won’t like it if I go out and leave my sisters alone on a school night when she’s working.”

  “I get it,” I said, but I didn’t. My old lady didn’t care what I did as long as it didn’t inconvenience her.

  “Later.” I leaned in and slapped him once on the back, and he clapped me hard too. Then we went our separate ways. It wasn’t wise to linger in the open anywhere in Southside.

  I pulled up the hood on my sweatshirt and crossed the street. With my face shadowed and my strides long, I passed by numerous boarded-up vacant buildings and trash-strewn alleyways, walking with purpose. I didn’t slow my steps, and I didn’t look to the right or the left until I reached the top of the hill.

  Glancing across the street, I gave the weed-infested vacant lot and the break in the chain-link fence a long look. I could shave off a lot of time by cutting through, but more than just one kind of weed grew in that lot. It was La Rasa Prima territory. Even with my rep, it would be too risky to travel through it alone.

  I cursed under my breath, pissed about the inconvenience. The vulgarity lingered as a visible puff of air in the rapidly cooling night.

  I continued to where the ground leveled off and stopped to catch my breath. After a moment, I headed for the abandoned factory on Phillips, then turned left when I reached Montclair.

  Kyle’s apartment complex was worse than the public housing high-rise where Bryan had once l
ived. An abandoned bathtub added a strange element to the patch of ground in the middle of the quadrangle of graffiti-emblazoned buildings. Two guys were perched on the porcelain rim, bleeding a watchful vibe, their beady eyes following me as soon as I appeared.

  “Kyle’s expecting you.” The guy in a Seattle Mariners ball cap jerked his head to the right, as if I didn’t know where a guy I’d known since middle school lived.

  “Got it.” I yanked back my hood from my head and acknowledged the dumb-as-fuck sentry with a chin lift.

  I untied the bandanna from my belt loop, then quickly wound it around my head instead. Avoiding the worst of the broken glass on the cracked sidewalk, I jogged up the concrete steps to Kyle’s unit.

  “Hiya, War.” Missy Rivera was at the top. Already pretty wasted, she leaned heavily against the rusted iron railing. “Wanna do a bump with me?” She blinked her red-rimmed light blue eyes at me.

  “Maybe later,” I said. She did oral for blow, and was good at it. With her, sex was a no-fuss, no-drama deal. “Lemme talk to Kyle first.”

  “’Kay.” She settled back against the railing, crossing one ankle-high studded black boot over the other.

  I turned the knob and opened the door without knocking. The door was always open.

  This unit, and the entire complex, was under the dominion of Martin Skellin, Kyle’s boss. But like a lot of things in Southside, how things appeared to be wasn’t reality. Kids were more comfortable buying drugs from a guy they went to school with, so Martin didn’t want it bandied about that his name, not Kyle’s, was on the lease.

  The interior was the wreck it always was. The air reeked of pot, body odor, urine, and jizz. The furniture was a hodgepodge of shit salvaged from street corners, and carpet that had once been burnt orange was now a dingy gray with lots of nasty black stains.

  “He’s in his office, man.” Randy, the blond dude I’d shoved into the wall at school, hooked his thumb toward the stairs.

  “Got it.” I took the stairs two at a time, avoiding the heroin junkies reclining on it with lax expressions and tourniquets either on or near their arms.

  Upstairs, the stench was stronger, but I was accustomed to it. Kyle and I had been buds a long time, longer than Bryan and me.

  “Hey, loser.” Kyle saw me in the hall and beckoned me into the bathroom. His other hand was fisted in a curvy brunette’s hair. She was giving him a blow job. “Your shit’s there.” His voice gruff, his gaze on the wallpapered wall in front of him, he inclined his head.

  I noted the usual baggie with the vial of cocaine and a couple of joints. “I wanna change our arrangement after tonight.”

  “How so?” He closed his eyes, grunted, and pulled the brunette off his dick.

  She released him, swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and snagged a goodie bag of her own from the counter. “Excuse me,” she said, scooting past me in the narrow space on her way out of the room.

  “You want cash?” Kyle asked, focusing on me but not bothering to pull up his jeans.

  “No, man. Trade only.” I didn’t want any traceable link between us.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m getting a band together,” I said, needing to set up the request properly.

  Kyle scoffed. “You’ve been getting a band together ever since I’ve known you, man.”

  “This time for real, and we need a place to perform.”

  “A club?” he asked.

  “Hell yeah. A legit one. Five-hundred capacity minimum.”

  “Hmm. That’s tricky with you and Bry under legal drinking age.”

  “We’ll be eighteen soon, and don’t BS me, man. We can wear wristbands if we have to, and if clubs aren’t comfortable with having an underage band onstage, you can convince them otherwise. I wouldn’t come to you if I thought you couldn’t pull it off. ”

  “Probably can, but if I do, you gotta come through for me too.”

  “You do your part; I’ll do mine. That’s our arrangement. Have I ever let you down before?”

  After a considering beat, Kyle nodded, but continued to look skeptical. “You’ll have to audition. Take whatever position you can get in the lineup.”

  “We deserve top billing.”

  “War, dude, you gotta start at the bottom like everyone else. And if you mess up, you probably won’t get another shot.”

  “Won’t mess up,” I bit out. “Neither will Bry, and now we have a rhythm guy and another vocalist too.”

  “Dizzy Lowell and his uppity sister?”

  “Yeah.” My brows hit my bandanna. “How’d you know that?”

  “It’s my business to know.”

  “Who told you?” I asked, not buying that Kyle had godlike powers.

  “Randy. He’s into the sister.”

  My lips flattened.

  “You didn’t know.” One of Kyle’s black brows inched up.

  “No.” But shit. Bryan. Randy. The basketball dude at the party. Lace had only been at school one day, and she already had a line. Not that it mattered . . . it was me for her now. No one else.

  “Cut her in as part of a sweetener for the deal,” Kyle said, “and I might be able to get you top billing somewhere.”

  “How?” My eyes narrowed.

  “Randy’s cousin is in a band, one that already has a big following.”

  No way in fucking hell was I going to let another guy touch Lace. She was mine. But Kyle didn’t need to know that. “All right. Sure. Consider her in.”

  “Okay. Might take me a while to set it all up, but I’m on it.”

  “Great.” I snagged my goodie bag.

  “You hanging around?”

  “Yeah.” Here was as good a place as any. I certainly had no reason to go home. I tilted my head. “The back bedroom occupied?”

  “No, man. Have at it. Stay as long as you like.”

  “’Kay.” I gave Kyle a chin lift. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to fist bump him while he still had his jeans around his ankles.

  Turning, I left the bathroom to get Missy and found her on the stairs with the junkies. “C’mon.” I waved the baggie in front of her, and her eyes brightened. It was too easy.

  In the bedroom, I laid out a line on the dresser. After I did a bump, I tapped one out for her.

  “BJ first,” I said. “Then you get the blow.”

  “Okay.” She took an elastic band off her wrist.

  I unbuckled my belt and worked on the buttons on my jeans while she secured her long hair in a ponytail. It was all very matter of fact.

  A few minutes later, her head bobbing in my lap, I closed my eyes as my heart raced from the cocaine. I wanted to get off. What guy didn’t want to get blown? But I imagined someone else while Missy went down on me. Even with coke in my system, it didn’t take long.

  Lace

  Tossing and turning that night, I couldn’t sleep.

  Thoughts of Bryan—the sweet boy he was and the handsome man he’d become—assailed me while I was lying on my right side. War laid siege to me when I flipped onto the other side. Trying to get it straight in my mind, I switched to lying on my back, but even in that position, I failed to find any clarity.

  By three a.m., I’d had enough. I grabbed my sketch pad and tiptoed downstairs, careful of the second-to-last step because I knew it creaked. My uncle was home from work, I’d heard him come in earlier, and I didn’t want to wake him.

  Dirty dishes were piled next to the kitchen sink. I smiled, pleased that Uncle Bruce had eaten the meal I’d left for him. It wasn’t much. I had a limited budget to work with for grocery shopping, and I wasn’t a great cook. But unlike Dizzy, I did my best to please our uncle.

  After washing the dishes and utensils he’d left behind, I dried and put them away in the cabinet. Then I took a seat at the small kitchen table and began to draw.

  Fluid lines on the empty page represented my thoughts of Bryan, the boy who once had listened to me and seemed to care about my dreams and valued my smiles. The jagge
d lines represented War. He pushed me, made me angry, but he also stirred my sensual desires. That kiss had been unforgettable. Factoring in the way he sang with the way he kissed, I suspected there was more to him than arrogance. But I couldn’t be sure.

  Restless, I shifted in my chair. I was attracted to War, but he was a big unknown. On the other hand, so was Bryan. My heart longed to reconnect with him, but if I tried, would I find remnants of the boy I’d known, or more cool rejection by the man?

  Catching my bottom lip between my teeth, I began to shade in the outfit with the side of my pencil. I felt like my drawings sometimes—just an outer layer. All most people cared about was that. But there was a girl inside me, one with big hopes and lofty dreams beneath the surface. But I was the only one who really knew or cared about her.

  “What are you doing up?”

  Startled by Uncle Bruce’s voice, I glanced up. “I . . . I couldn’t sleep.”

  Messy black hair overshadowed features that were too boldly drawn to be pleasing, and eyes that were a darker gold than Dizzy’s or mine.

  “It’s a school night, Lace.” His disapproval bored holes in me.

  “I know.” My stomach tied itself into knots, much like my tongue did when I was around him.

  “If you know, you should be in your room.” He pointed with his head.

  “No place to draw there.” The words escaped before I could stop them.

  He frowned. “If you want a table, you should buy one. Spend your salary on furniture rather than clothing.”

  Uncle Bruce was always going on about money and responsibility. I got it. My mom had been the ultimate example of the opposite. Everything she possessed, even her own children, had been bartered to feed her out-of-control drug addiction. But lectures about responsibility delivered by my uncle without any warmth or affection left me feeling as lonely and cold as I’d been when living with her.

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “Can I get you something?” I asked, staring down at my drawing, the lines blurring with stupid tears I refused to shed. I never cried anymore. The last time had been the night of the Metallica concert.

  If Dizzy were awake, he would chastise me. My brother didn’t understand why I let Uncle Bruce get to me, or why I was always trying to please him.