The Crossroads of Logan Michaels

by James Roberts

  “Congratulations, Mr. Michaels,” he said as he handed me my passed application so that I could get my temporary license. I smiled and acted confident as my mother thanked the officer.

  “That was it?” I said. It felt as though he had barely tested me, but I had passed with flying colors. Freedom was here, and now I just needed a car.

  I felt like a new man when we pulled into the driveway. Then, I noticed it. In the driveway, there was a silver and gold Chevy pickup truck. It had tinted windows and huge tires. As we pulled in the driveway slowly, my mom and I looked in the truck’s window to see a familiar figure. As we parked, the truck door opened.

  “What’s up, dude?” My father walked over to my mother and me, and told us that this was his new truck. He had me hop in and burn rubber down the street after he congratulated me. It was like he was a teenager again; he looked happy as we raced down the street, causing the neighbors to yell. He laughed as he looked over to me and tossed me a key; I looked down at the key and saw a Dodge symbol.

  “It’s all yours,” he said.

  “No way, really?” I couldn’t help but smile. Ecstasy rushed through my body as we pulled into his apartment complex to see my new car—his old Dodge. I was the proud owner of a maroon ‘89 Dodge Caravan with over 130,000 miles on it. I mean, it was no new car like my friends had, but at least now I wouldn’t have to walk to baseball and to school; I had my freedom, finally. He told me that as long as I keep a job, it was mine.

  “Deal,” I said.

  My world suddenly felt easier; every time I felt down, I could get in my car and drive away. Of course, because I had just gotten my license, I had to follow the curfew for new drivers. I couldn’t have anyone in the car after eleven.

  I left my house and immediately drove to Rory’s, where he and Tyler were sitting in the backyard, smoking cigarettes, laughing, and having a good time.

  “Hop in, guys,” I said as I pulled up, excited.

  “No way; this thing’s awesome,” they replied. They put their cigarettes out and jumped in as we cruised the town, free as birds. After we drove around for what must have been five hours straight, taking the car to the beach and all around town, I dropped them off and had to go to work. Stop ##0038; Shop was boring me, and now that I had a car, I wanted a new job. I was sick of seeing all of my sports buddies’ parents judging me while I bagged their groceries.

  On the weekends, I started to apply for jobs at local businesses, landscaping companies, and anything that seemed better than the supermarket. Ironically, I found a job at Butcher Boy Markets, a family-owned company that served high quality meats and foods. I landed a quiet job in the Bakery Department, where I worked with five other people. The pay was a little better and my job would mainly be to serve pastries, package bread, make bread crumbs, and make sure we always had fresh pastries. It was pretty easy and I didn’t really have to work too hard; I just wanted a paycheck so that I could have spending money.

  Later that night, I arrived home excited to surprise my mother with the good news. She was working the night shift again, though. Jared said that my dad was going to pick us up to have dinner at his place. I figured that we could just drive over instead. Jared and I got to his house and found that the place was a mess. We watched TV in the living room and he cooked dinner for us, but during the hour his cell phone must have rung twenty-five times before he finally turned it off. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I could tell that he was furious.

  The next day, my mother was in her bedroom as I slowly walked in to see her crying and wiping her eyes. She was a very honest woman and never kept secrets from her sons and told me that my father had not only cheated on her, but also that the woman had been her best friend. Besides that, Dad had been with multiple other women who were mothers of kids on my brother’s hockey team. It crushed my soul to hear this, and I went into a state of panic. All I could feel was hate running through my body. Her tears grew larger as she headed off to bed; I didn’t know how to cope with this emotionally draining shocker.

  Normally, I would go over to the school and shoot hoops, but this time, the pain ran deeper as I burned out of my driveway in my van to drive to Rory’s house. He would understand, I thought. His parents went through the same thing. I couldn’t run to any of my buddies on the baseball or basketball team, because they wouldn’t get it. Rory and Tyler were there in the backyard; it seemed like they never left those Adirondack chairs. I pulled up a chair and asked for a cigarette as I sighed.

  “What’s wrong, man?” they asked.

  “Just my parents; I found out my dad had been cheating on my mom for a while now, and she was crying in bed.”

  They seemed genuinely understanding. Tyler lit up a joint, and I smelled it burning from the corner of my nose. “Let me have a hit,” I said. Screw it; could things get any worse?

  As I inhaled, my head got light and my throat burned up with smoke; I coughed for a minute straight. “Holy shit,” I said as my eyes got heavy and my body felt like it had sunk into a shell. My heart raced fast and then slowed down. I laughed for no reason.

  “Good, right?” Rory laughed, and then Tyler laughed and I laughed. All I could think about was Rory at the basketball court telling me that one day I would smoke. Did he plan this? My mind raced, almost as if I had figured out the whole world in the blink of an eye, and then POOF! I forgot what I was thinking about and continued to laugh. My eyelids got heavier as I began to forget my problems and became officially as high as a kite.

  Later, I cranked up the music and lit a cigarette as I drove home. My house was only two blocks from Rory’s, but it was the longest ride of my life. I walked into the house and found that everyone was asleep. I headed into the kitchen, aggressively rumbling through the cabinets for any food. I grabbed a package of Oreos and turned on the TV, eating nonstop. I could hear myself chewing and laughed. After eating all the Oreos, I passed out on the couch. This is a new life for me, I thought, I love being high.

  BEEP! BEEP! My alarm clock rang loudly as I woke up for school. My mother was scheduled for a double shift and had left for work already, and my brother had walked to school. I hit the snooze button and went back to bed. I didn’t want to deal with school; I was sick of wearing a fake smile for everyone. My teammates didn’t understand, and neither did my teachers; girls were annoying and too often played mind games with me. I just wanted to go back to sleep.

  Once I woke up later that day, I drove to my baseball game. I wasn’t pitching this game and was instead resting my arm on the bench. I saw Rory and Tyler sitting by the bleachers, calling my name. After the game ended, I said goodbye to everyone quickly while Tyler and Rory and I hopped in my van. Tyler pulled out a joint and I smiled, saying, “Nice, spark it up,” as I took off my baseball hat.

  Tyler lit up the joint as I drove down some back streets. It was my first “joint cruise,” he called it, as we laughed and turned up the music. I inhaled the first hit and there it was, unfolding right there in my car—the feeling of life getting easier. My mind raced with thoughts and I couldn’t stop snickering. We must have laughed for an hour straight, and I honestly had no clue why I had been laughing in the first place. We went to Rory’s house afterward, where I introduced myself to his mom, who didn’t even care that we were all stoned. We grabbed some chips and went up to his room to listen to music; I sat back on his futon and we chilled for hours.

  That night, my mother was waiting in the kitchen as I walked through the door quietly. Her look felt almost as though she was looking directly into my soul, like she knew that something was up. I quickly walked past her and went into my room, wondering if she knew. She knocked on my door and asked if I was okay.

  “Yeah, just tired from my game, I’m going to bed.”

  School the next day was a blur; I didn’t want to be there, but the year was almost ending. Though my baseball buddies started to notice, they didn’t say much about me hanging out more with Tyler and Rory. I would smoke pot with those guys almo
st every day.

  Summer was approaching and I couldn’t wait. Finally baseball would be over, school would be over, and I had my license. My brother and I continued to visit my father a couple of nights a week, and he continued to get strange calls from blocked numbers. He was constantly frustrated, and I still didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t even care anymore; I would just get high and try to ignore the situation.

  Jared and I stopped talking; he was turning thirteen soon and had no older brother supporting him. I wasn’t there to help with any advice, and never looked at life from his perspective; I could barely handle my own life. I started to sweep all my problems under the rug and avoid them.

  Chapter 6

  LOST AND NOT KNOWING

  Final exams finished up for my sophomore year. I had passed all of my courses and would be moving on to become a junior. The past month had been hard on my family, especially after finding out my father’s secret. Her name was Gloria, and she was a lot younger than he was; she must have been in her late twenties or early thirties. She was a friend of one of my father’s sisters who had set them up on a blind date. The fact that my father was seeing another woman made me sick to my stomach, and I would get high to dull the pain. Gloria was the reason behind my father’s phone ringing back to back, and the voicemails after every call. He had been intimate with her, my mother told me, and I was convinced that she was crazy.

  I know that most people would think that I was jumping to conclusions, that she was not crazy, but in fact she was literally, clinically crazy. She had been a patient in mental institutions on multiple occasions, she was unemployed, and she would stalk my father from a different car almost every week. Apparently, my father never knew that she was insane; however, his life was becoming difficult because she started to bring our family into the picture.

  Gloria had threatened my mom, saying she would kill her. My heart beat rapidly like a drum when my mother told me this. Who the hell is this lady to talk negatively about my mother? She doesn’t even know her. Great way to start the summer. I rolled my eyes. At least Rory is having a party at his house tonight, I thought.

  Rory had invited everyone that he could think of; his mother was out of town and he had the place to himself. His house wasn’t big, but his yard had plenty of space. The night was beautiful, so I threw on my summer shorts and polo shirt and jumped into my van. I drove over to Rory’s and saw a lot of familiar faces from school, including many pretty girls. What more could we ask for at sixteen? Joints were being passed around; I took hits and laughed. While I was in the middle of telling one of my stories, a girl tapped on my shoulder. I had never seen her before; she had blondish-reddish hair and a pale complexion. She wasn’t really my type, but she was friendly and poured me a shot of Goldschläger. It had gold crystals floating in it which, she said, was real gold. I played it off cool as if I drank alcohol all of the time.

  She poured the first shot as my heart raced, but I kept mellow from the marijuana. I had never even had a beer before, should I drink this? I thought of Gloria and said, “Fuck it,” as I downed the first shot. AHHH! As the blood rushed to my face, turning it red, I felt like I had jumped out of an airplane. Where had alcohol been my whole life? My inhibitions vanished as I matched her on another shot. By the time the third shot was over, this red-headed blonde girl started to become more attractive and funny. The whole party crowd huddled around me: I had just taken three shots within five minutes. My confidence grew as I downed another Goldschläger shot and lit up a cigarette.

  “What’s up now? You can’t beat me,” I said confidently. I had fallen in love with the feeling of drunkenness. I didn’t care what would happen tomorrow, I didn’t care how much my life had changed over the past few months; all that mattered was living in the moment. “Logan, Logan, Logan!”

  “No more for me,” she said, as I stood up, wobbly. Rory began to look blurry as he laughed at me; I slurred my words to him and stumbled out of the kitchen and into the backyard. He followed me out as I lit up a cigarette and fell over backwards onto his Adirondack chair.

  “Dude, you just took ten shots in one hour!”

  “Is that bad?” I replied. I told Rory not to worry as I walked over to his mom’s garden and started to piss on the flowers while smoking my cigarette. Tyler came over to help me after I fell into the garden.

  “Logan, let’s get you home,” he said, as my peers came outside to watch me humiliate myself. Mark, a sober guy at the party, took me home to my mom’s house; I cursed him out from the backseat the whole time. Once the car stopped, I immediately ran out and fell on my face. Mark carried me to my mother’s front door; she had just gotten home from work. I slightly remember that my mother was near tears as she asked Mark if I was on drugs.

  He said, “No, Mrs. Michaels—he just drank way too much.” I slammed the door shut in his face.

  The next morning I woke up alone, and in my mother’s bed. As I opened my eyes, I realized that I was still drunk. Then I realized that not only had I fallen asleep in my mother’s bed, but that I had also pissed in it. She came into the room looking very concerned.

  “I shouldn’t have drank that much, Mom,” I said when I stumbled out of bed at noon. I couldn’t bear for my mother to see me hung over, so I walked to Rory’s house; I couldn’t even drive because I felt lost. I felt like days had passed and the whole world was in slow motion. I finally arrived at Rory’s, sweating profusely from the alcohol, and I saw Tyler and Rory getting high and laughing as I walked up.

  “You’re the man, dude. How do you like drinking?”

  “It’s awesome,” I replied, “Besides today.” I took a hit of the joint, which made me feel better.

  I had summer league basketball the next day, but decided to skip it after the previous night. I also figured that I would call in sick to work because, technically, I was sick. Instead, Rory, Tyler, and I walked back to my house to get my van. My mother had gone to work and Jared was home watching TV. It was the first time that my friends met Jared, and he seemed lost and confused. He didn’t say much as I left him to go for a cruise in the van. I was so caught up in my insecurities that I let the poor kid sit there, all alone. At the time though, getting high was my priority, and it took my pain away. Before I could help to take away my family’s pain, I needed to deal with my own.

  We cruised through North Andover, “fish bowling” my car. That’s basically when you leave the windows up and smoke marijuana inside. By the time the joint was done, I had no clue where I was. Sometimes, we would get so high that we would drive for hours aimlessly and usually end up getting McDonald’s or Burger King. After every joint or bowl we smoked, I loved smoking a cigarette. I could see the chemicals burning slowly on the cigarette and dissolving the paper; it was pretty trippy. Plus, I had officially bought my first pack of Marlboro Reds. What had started off as a here-and-there habit was now an everyday routine. I needed them.

  After driving for hours, we finally got back to Rory’s house. Tyler’s older brother, Greg, walked over. He was laidback and into pills and heavier drugs. I stayed far away from that. He had a couple of older friends who would buy us alcohol, so I decided to get a twelve-pack of Budweiser.

  “I’ll stay away from the hard liquor tonight,” I said.

  We sat in the Adirondack chairs for hours drinking beers, smoking joints, and laughing all night. It felt good to just chill with the guys. I started to forget about all of my other friends; I couldn’t relate to them anymore. I became more mellowed after drinking eight beers—I guess, for someone who had just started to drink, I had a pretty high tolerance. Because I was drunk, I decided to walk home through the baseball field. Normally, I was creeped out by walking through the schoolyard; I always imagined that someone was following me, as I walked, feeling paranoid. However, the buzz from the beer made me confident enough to walk home.

  My mother would be working a double-shift until the next morning. The house seemed quiet, and I soon passed out on my bed. I woke u
p in a panic during the middle of the night; for some reason, I had a feeling that something was wrong. I could feel the wind blowing up the stairs, and the smell of summer creeping up the stairs. I thought I could hear voices, but I was too tired to move, so I lay back down.

  Morning arrived and I wasn’t sure whether last night had been a dream or reality. Every time I smoked, I would have such vivid dreams, and it was almost as it was another life was calling me and pulling me away from this life. I could never figure it out, and just when I would feel like I had the whole world solved, my mind would go blank. I guess it was the effects of marijuana.

  “It smells like paint,” I said to my mom as I woke up. She ran over to the front door to see that it was slightly open, as if it had never been fully shut. I could have sworn that I’d shut it, and so had my mom. After we both started into the kitchen, we heard a BANG! BANG! Approaching the front door cautiously, my mother saw two police officers standing there.

  “Is Jared Michaels home?” they asked.

  “Yes, officer, he should be in his room.”

  “May we come in?”

  Jared came out of his room, and his big, dark eyes looked nervous. “May we see your shoes, Jared?” the officers asked. I looked over at Jared’s shoes to see streaks of paint on them. No wonder it smelled like paint. Wait, was that a dream I was having last night—or was it Jared?

  Jared put his head down and looked at my mother and me as though he knew he was busted. Last night’s noise had not been the wind gusting, and it hadn’t been the summer breeze. My twelve-year-old brother, whom I had left alone that night, was arrested for vandalism. He had taken spray paint from our basement, and with a couple of his friends had vandalized the elementary school with large pictures of penises and swear words. The officers handcuffed him as they put him in the back of the cop car.