Not sure. My parents are on the warpath right now.
“I’ll tell you what, I’m having a goddamn drink when we get home,” Dad says.
“You and me both,” Mom says and for a fleeting moment the tension in the car releases. We speed along a stretch of the highway with no traffic lights and Nico sinks into his seat, away from me.
Just tell your mom you’re coming to see me. She likes me, remember.
I lean back and let the ice pack slip off my wrist. The pain is more distant in my brain, almost numb. I stare at the text.
Hahahaha yes, I say.
He remembers the kiss. What we talked about before the kiss. He wants to see me again. It’s everything.
SIX
THE SWELLING ON MY WRIST ballooned after the game but Dad took a look and said I’d be fine, in his elite medical opinion. Mom wrapped it up in bandages and Dad started drinking so I snuck out the back to Stick’s house, biking one-handed and parking at the side of the garage.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Stick’s brother David is a few years older and he doesn’t work or go to school, he just hangs out in their garage all day, smoking weed. The door is open like it always is and his flabby frame is squeezed into an overstuffed recliner on one side of the empty space, glass bong on the marble table beside him.
“Ah, I’m just fucking with you, Matt, Stick’s upstairs.”
“Thanks,” I say and make a move to move past him, but he sticks out a leg to stop me.
“You gotta pay the toll,” David says, in the protracted drawl he’s perfected, too high to speak too fast, at least every time I ever see him. A bunch of his friends are spread out on old furniture on the dusty concrete and the stench of weed is overwhelming.
“Twenty bucks,” Marcus says, closer to the stairs to inside. He’s the opposite of David physically, dark-skinned and super thin and sporting a thick afro that makes his face look younger, kinder. Stick doesn’t get along with him. You can at least reason with David, but Marcus is legit crazy. I spot a guy across the room with a bushy red beard and an elongated face, staggering back and forth on bare feet.
“We’re not joking, Matthew,” Marcus says.
“That’s not my name,” I say, defensive over my Latino heritage all of a sudden, or maybe it’s all I can think to say. Stick gets into fights with his brothers more often than he can remember—like physical fights, despite the age difference, and his father would break them up and remind them that they’re family, the “five brothers,” closest in age.
“Well whatever the fuck you want to call yourself, you gotta pay the toll,” David says.
“Come on, David, I don’t have any money. I just came to see Stick.”
My wrist hurts like shit and I’ve got it hanging at my side, shielding it from Marcus.
“Well you can’t pass until you pay,” Marcus says. “Them’s the rules.”
He’s spitting on me, not on purpose I don’t think, that’s just the way he speaks, and the bushy-bearded dude stumbles closer, laughing like he’s insane. I try to slip around Marcus to the door.
“Where you going, boy?” Marcus says, hand outstretched against my chest, and I can’t deal with this right now, I’m ten seconds from seeing Stick. And I might have a broken wrist. David laughs.
“Gotta pay the toll, got to pay the toll, he comes to the garage and now he gots to pay that toll.”
The white dude with the bushy beard starts his rap and everybody laughs, Marcus grabbing onto my shirt to keep his grip as he cackles like a maniac, still spitting, and Bushy-beard is spasming, or maybe dancing, it’s tough to tell which.
“Pay the toll, pay the toll, spin around on your face in that stupid sideways place but you got to pay the toll.”
I spot Jarrett in the opposite corner by a series of wooden shelves, all 6 foot 5 and two-hundred fifty pounds of him, slumped into a loveseat on his own. He has a football scholarship at the University of Maine so no one messes with him, and he gets along with Stick so I try to get his attention. Marcus squeezes on my shoulder and the pain shoots through to my wrist. Jarrett’s playing on his phone.
“Holy shit, Coop!” David shouts.
The bushy-bearded freak slips on his bare feet and takes a headfirst tumble to the concrete. Marcus keeps cackling.
“Marcus, get your skinny ass over here,” David says, out of the recliner with a couple random others, trying to roll the passed-out asshole back on his side. Marcus lets me go and I don’t wait—I rush up the stairs into the kitchen, away from Stick’s brothers and the wafting cloud of bad weed. No wonder he hates them.
I remember my first day at Woodbridge High, the jagged anticipation clutching at my chest as the bus looped its way around town, the chatter of the other students drifting past me, strangers staring almost baiting me it seemed, through the massive entrance to the high school, everyone dressed the same but not the same as me, more jeans and less khakis and better hair and straighter teeth. I couldn’t find Sammy, who I met in the neighborhood that summer, and I couldn’t find Stick, the boy from up the street with the deep tan and the flecks of blonde in his hair oddly iridescent, his eyes inviting and wide like gleaming puddles of sticky blue. So I wandered around the hallways searching for my class while a series of bells rang out in succession and I tried to ask a teacher for help but he was no help—he might have been a student—and I ended up in homeroom ten minutes late. Everyone spun around to gawk at the new kid with the curly brown hair and the Puerto Rican face sneak inside all quiet and shy but our homerooms are assigned by last name, which is so perfect it has to be fate because as soon as I entered I spotted Stick (Turner) and he saw me (Tirado) and there was an open seat to his right on that first day of school. He asked me how I got there, whether I biked the back way across the train tracks. He said no one takes the bus, not even on the coldest days.
“Awesome shirt,” Stick says when I enter his room. He tosses me a beer from a cooler in the corner, and I catch it one-handed.
“Thanks,” I say, pausing. “What’s this song?”
“You don’t recognize? Your T-shirt.”
He’s been drinking, must be for a while now because he’s slurring a bit and he doesn’t slur when he drinks. Not like this.
“It’s their new album!”
It is. Holy crap it is.
“No way. It leaked?”
“Yeah. I’ve been listening all day for like—I don’t know—what time is it?”
He smiles, that sweet unforced smile, like I haven’t seen since his father died. He steps across the carpet to close the door behind me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought I would surprise you,” he says, and I’m trying not to stare but I can’t help but stare, a fleeting glimpse of stubble above his chin, the tanned skin and white teeth between pink lips, like right before we kissed. We’re alone in his bedroom and I’m nervous being alone with him. I can’t help but think…
“It’s a concept album or something, all the songs blend into each other and there’s this rhythm between them, but I can’t figure out the lyrics yet, I mean I’ve only listened nineteen-and-a-half times—” I laugh, it’s so exact. “But it’s awesome.”
Stick has the album playing from the laptop on his dresser, attached to a single Bluetooth speaker. Twin beds are lined up on each side of the room, one for Stick and one for Jarrett, and I always wondered how the hell Jarrett fits on such a small mattress.
“They’re going out on tour. If they come to Jersey, we’re seeing them, right?”
“Absolutely,” I say, because we need to, definitely, and Stick seems happier tonight, which is nice—we’re alone in his bedroom and this song is amazing.
“What happened to your hand?”
Stick leans against his dresser to keep himself upright.
“Baseball,” I say. “I think I sprained it.”
“That’s a massive wrap.”
Mom took several tries to get it right but i
t’s not close to right—she’s better at teaching than nursing and we probably should have gone to the hospital. But I didn’t want to miss being with Stick.
“It doesn’t hurt too bad,” I lie. He steps closer to get a better look, but he’s afraid to touch. The bandages are stacked several inches above the surface.
“You need to drink.” He takes my can and releases the tab. I don’t like the taste of beer and it doesn’t get me high like the glue but I take a sip for Stick. I can’t resist.
“Whose beer is it?”
“Some big idiot brought it over, he left it in the kitchen.”
Three empties are stacked next to the cooler on the side. Stick stumbles to his bed to take a seat.
“I think I saw him. Big ugly beard, face like a horse.”
“Yeah that’s him. How did you know?”
Stick waves me over to sit beside him on the rumpled sheets.
“He’s passed out in the garage,” I say, slipping onto the mattress.
“Nice.”
Jarrett’s bed is framed by a long machete above his headboard, which I haven’t seen before—I mean I knew he was into martial arts, he watches all those Hong Kong action films on Netflix and I get it, I’ve spent several days at a time escaping to Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village in the Land of Fire where Naruto resides, but it’s a little weird to see the weapon unsheathed over Jarrett’s bed.
“I miss you, Matt.”
I swallow. “You do?”
“Of course.”
I left a little space between us—buffer space—and Stick reaches across to tap me on the back, an awkward bro tap, like he’s afraid to keep contact. I’ve been thinking of this moment ever since the kiss, every day it seems if not every second and I feel it between us, hanging between us, this deep perfect something or an unfathomable nothing and I just want to know what he’s thinking.
“I miss this, you know. The normal.”
He dips his head and I sink into the bed. I was hovering before because I couldn’t be sure but now, I think it’s okay.
“It just sucks now. I don’t even know how to explain it.” The World Is swells through the room, sweeping into my head, loud diving guitar into crunchy percussion. “It’s like everything is the same as the way it was before but it’s not, not really, something’s missing—he’s missing—and I don’t know how to get back to normal.”
Stick closes his eyes and the music breaks, slow guitar or maybe violin, I don’t enough about music to pick out the instruments, but it’s haunting and broken and it’s hard to watch Stick hurt like this.
“I told my mom off today,” he says. “I was like, you can’t come over here and drop off a couple bags of groceries and think we’ll be fine with everything she’s done—I mean, David and Marcus were thanking her, like seriously?” He opens his eyes with his head low and the stubble sticking to his chin. “I hate her.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. The World Is fades.
“And I’m really starting to hate them—David and Marcus. They just get high all the time. And Janice is useless, she’s never around, and no one’s here for Michaela.”
“Where is she tonight?”
“At Sherry’s.”
Stick and Michaela are the only ones underage so officially they’re the only ones in his mother’s custody, but she doesn’t live in the house and she was never around when Stick was growing up so his oldest sisters are looking into taking over joint custody.
“I asked Sherry if I could move in.”
He buries his lip in the can and the liquid dribbles onto his chin.
“I just hate living here now with only my brothers and Mom’s coming around for some reason. I just can’t, Matt. I can’t.”
He’s speaking clearer now and The World Is fills the gaps between his sentences. I take a sip from my can and my wrist starts to sting.
“What did Sherry say?”
“I don’t know. I mean, she said she didn’t know if there was room for both me and Michaela so they’d have to think about it.”
Stick throws down his beer and shakes his head, hard and immediate. I don’t think Sherry lives in Woodbridge, and I don’t know what would happen if he leaves. To us.
“I’m just glad that you came,” he says, tossing his can toward the pile near the cooler and he pulls on my shoulder, pulling me closer. I bought the T-shirt from the band’s website—it spells out a play on their name within a black-and-white sketch of an oversized cat. I’ve worn it so often that the threads are breaking.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” I say, turning away because it sounds too gay and I need to shield my eyes from staring, like I want to reach out and kiss him.
“You like the new record?” Stick says, hanging onto my shoulder and not releasing.
“It’s perfect,” I say. The World is a Beautiful Cat and I Am No Longer Meow Meow Meow. I could stay here forever.
SEVEN
“THAT WAS SAMMY,” Stick says, looking up from his phone. “He’s almost here.”
“Sammy’s coming over?”
Stick nods, grabbing another beer from the stash in the fridge and motioning to me. I haven’t been drinking—I’m still on my first—but I finish the rest with a stiff forced breath and nod. I thought we’d be alone.
“He asked if we have weed,” Stick says, sitting down on the sheets where he sleeps. Next to me.
“I don’t have any,” I say because he’s looking at me and smiling. He knows I don’t smoke, or the one time I tried I almost died, and he knows I’m not about getting high in general—except for the glue—and I was going to ask if he wanted to huff because the last time we huffed it ended with a kiss and he hasn’t mentioned it since.
The World Is swells a bit and I haven’t really been listening but I think this is the moment—before Sammy gets here—where I should bring up the kiss and what’s changed ever since because I need to know where we stand. The wrap on my wrist has nearly fallen off, the brown straps hanging down along Stick’s sheets. I reach out my hand.
Three sharp raps on the door interrupt all at once and Stick’s up off the mattress, opening. A tall girl with thick hair and faded jeans strides past him.
“Umm … hello?” Stick says.
“Yeah, hi.” She moves across to the stolen cooler and helps herself to one of the beers.
“Who are you?”
“I don’t know, who are you? Who are any of us really?” She plants herself on Jarrett’s bed. “I’m sorry, I’ve been reading a lot of Sartre lately. And I will freely assume that no one in this room knows who that is.”
“What?” Stick says.
“Exactly.”
Stick looks at me confused but I’m watching the way his shorts cling to his butt from behind, the way the skin teases the fabric as he shifts back to the bed.
“Wait, who are you?” Stick says but before she can answer Sammy steps through the door with a weird wide grin. It’s over. Stick and me. Tonight at least. I take a thick sip of my beer.
“Hey Sammy,” Stick says.
“Good, you know him,” the girl says, opening the beer and leaning back onto Jarrett’s pillow. “I knew he wasn’t ISIS.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your friend here, they thought he was ISIS.” She winces as she swallows.
“Who thought he was ISIS?”
“Marcus and David. They tried to kill me downstairs,” Sammy says.
“Are you serious—when?” Stick says.
I glance at the girl as she crosses her legs, the faded jeans super tight against her calves. She catches me looking.
“Just now. They put me in a headlock and said I had to pay a toll to come upstairs.”
“That’s what they told me too,” I say.
“I’ll kill them,” Stick says, making a move for the door.
“Whoa there, white boy. It’s taken care of,” the girl says. “I broke it up.”
She looks up at the machete, curiously.
“Wait�
��who are you?”
She laughs, a calm laugh between sips. She seems older than us.
“I’m Cara. Thanks for the beverage. I hate beer but I might have killed myself if I spent another five seconds in that garage without Rhonda.”
“You’re Rhonda’s friend?” Stick says.
“Yeah, she used to be my best friend. But then she dragged me to this party at her boyfriend’s house and she left me alone with a bunch of troglodytes smoking weed.”
I laugh, this girl is pretty funny, and she catches me looking at her again.
“Where did Jarrett go?” Stick asks.
“No clue,” Cara says. “They said they said they were just getting something from the car, but then this kid came in and I don’t know, there was way too much drama and who has time for all that.”
“Thank you,” Sammy says. “You saved my ass.”
“No problem, dear,” Cara says. “They were high.”
“They’re always high,” Stick says. “You can’t even talk to them. My brothers are fucking assholes.”
“Your brothers?” she says. “Wait—your brothers are black?”
Sammy laughs. Cara’s dark-skinned and pretty and she winces when she drinks. Stick snatches beers for the rest of us and gives her the ten-second synopsis of the family situation—everyone’s adopted, he’s not, it’s weird but it’s all he knows, and no one knows what it’s like to be one of thirteen children.
“You go to Woodbridge?” Sammy asks Cara.
“Oh god, no. St. Joe’s. And after witnessing the level of conversation in the garage, I feel at peace with my parents’ decision to push me into religious education. By the way, dear, you probably shouldn’t bank on people’s general awareness of the difference between Islam and Hinduism, at least not in this town.”
“What?” Sammy says.
“Exactly.”
Stick laughs and spills some beer and now that the door is open I can hear the party downstairs—louder than when I came up here, with music blasting from the kitchen, Rihanna I think, although I don’t know much about pop music. I mean, yeah, I went through a boy band phase when I was twelve but only because they were cute and who the hell knows anything at that age.
I Will Be Okay Page 5