Bottled Up (14 page)

“I'm just not into it tonight.”

“You're turning out to be a real slouch. You don't hang out anymore. You go to all your classes. I know you haven't sold one speck of that weed I gave you. I want it back, by the way.”

“Give me your keys,” I said.

“What keys?”

“Your mother's car keys.”

“What the hell for?”

I was at the wheel for the first time. I wasn't pushing it, though. I wasn't speeding. I didn't run any lights. I was just cruising.

But I felt free. I was doing something I've been wanting to do for the longest time. My father kept promising to take me, and here I was doing it without him. Turned out I really didn't need him at all. That felt better than being high.

“Come on,” Slayer yelled from the backseat. “Floor this sucker. Let's fly.”

He was
already
flying after four beers and the two lines of coke Johnny had tried to give me.

“Yeah, Pip,” Johnny said. “Show us you're not turning into a total dork.”

I pressed just a little harder on the gas. I didn't want to smash up the car, but I wanted to have a good time. I wanted to show the guys I still knew how to party—that I was still one of them.

My foot was heavy on the pedal for only a minute. Maybe not even a minute.

“We got company,” Johnny said.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a cop car flashing its lights.

“Quick,” Johnny said. “Switch seats with me so you don't get busted.”

Johnny and I ducked down and bumped past each other in the front seat. He got behind the wheel just as the cop walked up.

“Driver's license and registration,” the cop said. “Yours too,” he said to me.

That wasn't the worse part. The worse part was that it wasn't just a cop. It was Officer Wanna-Be-Your-Pal from that night at the party—the one who'd brought me home.

Johnny handed him the registration from the glove box and took his license out of his wallet.

“Whose vehicle is this?”

“My mother's,” Johnny said.

“Where's
your
license?” the cop asked me.

“What do you need that for?”

“You were driving the car. I want to see your license.”

Johnny and I looked at each other as if the cop was crazy. We were about to say something, but he cut us off.

“Don't even waste my time, fellas. Pass the license over.”

“It's home,” I said.

“Let me see some I.D.”

“I don't—”

“Get out of the car. All of you.”

We did.

“Put your hands on the roof and wait.”

I couldn't believe it. I'd been worried about getting killed for being expelled, and now it was going to end up happening because I got arrested.

The cop went to his patrol car to talk into his radio, then he came back and patted us down. The three of us kept looking at each other. We were all sweating in our own way. This was no joke.

On Johnny, the cop found three bags of weed and an envelope with enough coke for a line or two. Slayer had two joints and a couple of ecstasy pills on him.

I was clean.

Another cop showed up, cuffed Johnny and Slayer, and put both of them in the back of his patrol car. I still had my hands on the roof of Johnny's mother's car when the guys drove off.

“I remember you,” Officer Wanna-Be-Your-Pal said. The name tag over his pocket said Ross. “I took you home—what was it, a week ago? And here you are again, getting into trouble on my beat just like I told you not to.”

He took my hands off the roof of the car and put them behind my back.

“Like the way these bracelets feel?” he asked, tugging his cuffs on me pretty tight, then pulling me over to his car.

“No,” I said. I felt as if I was going to puke.

“It's Pip, right?”

I nodded.

“Tell me something, Pip. Is this what you want to do with your life? Is this it for you—getting high, driving somebody else's car without a license, getting into fights?”

I looked away from him and stared at a Corvette speeding by.

“And look at your damn eye. Somebody got you good. Bet you had that one coming to you.” He shook his head and opened the car door.

“I'm bringing you into the station house for driving without a license. I could call your friend's mother too, to find out if she ever gave you permission to drive her car. Then I could book you for car theft. I'll have to call your parents, get them out of their nice warm bed to come pick you up. Or maybe they'll let you spend the night at the precinct.”

It had been my first almost totally clean and sober day. It was a day that had needed some spice to it, like being behind the wheel for the first time.

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what. I could tell him I was trying to get it together, but he'd smell the beer on me.

“What do you have to say for yourself? Change my mind here. Say something.”

Nothing made any sense to me anymore. I gave up.

“I got nothing to say. I did have this shiner coming to me. I figure I brought on getting busted too.”

He pushed my head down as he put me into the patrol car.

He got in the front seat, started the car, and drove off.

I wondered what it was going to be like getting fingerprinted.

The cuffs were digging into my wrists. My face was getting hot and I couldn't breathe so good.

Officer Ross drove for about five minutes, then pulled over.

“I want you to tell me something,” he said, turning around in his seat. “I want you to answer this question and just be honest. I want you to try that. Okay?”

“What?”

“I got into a lot of fights when I was a kid. I've seen a lot of adults kick each other's butts. But the only time I ever saw a shiner that bad was at a boxing match. That's the worst one I've ever seen.” He looked out the windshield for a second, then back at me again.

“Who gave it to you?”

I blinked.

“Nobody gets into trouble because of your answer. Was it your old man?”

I was wondering why I should cover for my father. Because ever since I was a kid I learned you don't tell anybody what goes on at home? Was that a good enough reason? And who was going to cover
me
? Not my old man. I knew that much.

Ross took a stick of gum out of his pocket and shoved it in his mouth. “You don't even have to say anything,” he said, while chewing. “I hear your answer just by looking at you.”

He got the car going again and drove about ten more minutes, then stopped right in front of my house.

He walked past the front of the car, opened my door, and let me out. After taking the cuffs off, he put both his hands on his hips and blew some air out of his mouth.

“I'll be watching you.”

I rubbed my wrists and stood in front of him. I wasn't going to move until he told me to.

“I'm wondering if you got that black eye from the last time I brought you home. Maybe you caught hell for that. I don't know.” He kicked at the ground. “I might get in touch with your school and check things out there. But believe me, you don't want my cuffs on you again. You're the first second chance I ever gave, and you can count on there not being a third.”

I didn't know what to say.

“No getting behind the wheel without a license—”

“I have a permit—”

“You can't get behind the wheel without a license or an adult licensed driver. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Go inside.”

I started walking up the driveway.

“Hey,” he yelled to me.

I turned around. He had a serious mean look on his face. “Try saying thank you.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

I looked up at my house. The curtain moved in Mikey's room. I wasn't sure what was worse—the Grinch catching me being brought home by a cop, or Mikey seeing me in handcuffs.

The house was dark. And quiet. My mouth was dry, and my head was pounding. I took some Tylenol out of the cabinet in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get some ice water. The light from inside the fridge lit up the kitchen. When I turned around with the pitcher of water in my hand, I saw him sitting at the table.

“Your friend Johnny's mother called—something about her son being arrested because you were driving her car.”

My father was spinning his glass on the table in slow circles, sloshing his potion almost over the rim.

“That doesn't make sense. Right?” I swallowed the pills with a gulp of water. “Why would he get arrested because of me?”

“Were you driving this woman's car or is she a liar?” He drank down what was left in his glass.

“If Johnny got busted, it wasn't because he gave me his mother's keys.”

“Why then?”

I wasn't going to tell him about the drugs.

“He was mouthing off, so the cop brought him in.”

“Were you driving the car?”

I put my glass in the sink and started heading for the living room. It was time to get as far out of his reach as I could.

“Were you?”

“For like one minute.”

He nodded his head and pushed his glass across the table.

“Get me another drink,” he said.

I didn't want to. He could get his own drink. I knew that. He knew that. The whole family knew. It was all he ever did besides act crazy. He poured his drinks and he drank them.

I took the glass off the table, went over to the fridge, and took down one of the four bottles of scotch he had lined up there. I cracked some ice from the freezer and dropped the cubes into his glass. I unscrewed the bottle and poured his drink. Then I handed him his potion.

“Sit,” he said.

I flopped into the seat across from him and watched him throw back his head four times to finish off the drink.

“Why'd you drive this woman's car?”

“Uh . . .” I wasn't sure what to say.

He slammed his fist on the table. “Answer me!” he screamed, his spit flying across the table at me.

We were still sitting in the dark, but I could see him. I could see his face getting red, veins popping up from his neck, his eyes getting smaller and nastier.

“Johnny was giving me a driving lesson.”

“Who told you you could get behind the wheel? I never said you could drive.”

“You keep saying you're going to give me a driving lesson and you keep not doing it.”

“Just like I kept telling you to clean the garage and
you
kept not doing it.”

This was going to get out of hand, and the last thing I needed was another black eye. I stood up and was about to say I was going to bed, when he jumped up out of his seat.

“Let's go,” he said.

“Go where?”

“You want a driving lesson. You're getting one now.” He grabbed his keys from off the kitchen counter and went out the door. “Let's go!” he yelled.

I wanted to slam the door behind him and lock him out like I'd locked him out of the garage. It just wasn't going to work the same way this time. He'd huff and puff and blow the house down. Then he'd beat my face in.

“So put it in reverse,” he yelled at me as soon as we got into the car.

“Let me get the key in the ignition first.”

I turned the key and got set to shift.

“What's the matter? You afraid now? Tough guy on the road with your friends and now you're a wimp?”

“What are you talking about?”