Bottled Up (15 page)

“Shut your yap and let's get on with this.”

I yanked the gearshift down as hard as I could. I floored the gas with my right foot and put my left foot down just a little on the brake. The car screeched so loud down the driveway, it probably woke up the whole block.

“Stop!” he yelled.

I slammed on the brake at the bottom of the driveway.

What would it be like, I wondered, to floor the gas and send us both flying into a tree?

“Get out,” he growled. “You don't know how to drive. You're an irresponsible, good-for-nothing wiseass.”

I put the car in park, took the keys out of the ignition, and opened my car door.

“You've got no business on the road.”

“You've got no business with a family,” I said, not caring if he heard me.

I left the door open and started walking up the driveway. He jumped out of the car and walked real fast after me.

“You think you're better than me?” he asked, turning me around and putting his face not even an inch away from mine.

I stuck my chin out and waited.

“You think all the screwing around you do is something you're going to grow out of? I got news for you—this is who you are and this is who you'll always be.”

He shoved my chest and I tripped back a step, then got right in front of him again.

“You get yourself in the house now, mister.”

I shoved the keys at him. “Thanks for the driving lesson,” I said, and walked away.

“Forget about any driving lessons until you're eighteen,” he yelled.

“Go to hell,” I said real low.

“And you're grounded for two weeks.”

That's
hell.

The door slammed downstairs. I was in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub, waiting.

I was waiting to see if he was going to go to bed or come at me to finish things off.

I wanted to light up a cigarette, but figured I'd really be pushing it if I got caught smoking in the house. My hands were shaking. I could still feel the metal from the cuffs digging into my wrists. The pictures in my head were flashing nonstop. Dad at the table, Mikey eating my pot, Darius giving me crap in group, Johnny holding the mirror under my nose.

I didn't really want a cigarette. I wanted a joint. I needed a joint.

The Grinch didn't come upstairs. I heard him and Mom yelling at each other. He was telling her what a go-nowhere loser I was. She was telling him to keep his voice down. I didn't hear him say anything about a cop bringing me home, so he either didn't see or he'd forgotten already.

They were yelling back and forth, but it sounded as if the old man was winding down. He wasn't headed for one of those really big blowouts. So I unlocked the bathroom door and went into the hall.

Mikey's bedroom door was closed. I opened it a little and looked in to see if he was asleep.

He wasn't in his bed.

I looked around the room and didn't see him. I put my hand on the mattress—it wasn't warm. The stuffed Bugs Bunny I got him a couple of Christmases ago was on his pillow.

“Mikey?” I started moving stuff around his room, checking to see if he was hiding. Then I went into my room to see if he was camped out there. He wasn't.

I went crazy calling his name, looking around my room, then back in his, under his bed, behind his desk. Then finally in his closet.

He was sitting on the floor with his chin and his knees in his chest. I thought he was asleep.

“Bugs?”

He picked up his head, and I could see he was wearing his Superman cape and holding something. That second I knew it was going to be one of those pictures in my head that wasn't ever going to go away.

He was holding a bottle—one of my father's. He had it under his arm as if it was a teddy bear.

“I couldn't do it, Pip.”

I was stuck where I was standing. I couldn't get myself to him or get my eyes off him.

“Do what?”

“I couldn't open it,” he said. “I kept trying and trying.” He put the bottle out for me to take. “Can you do it?”

I took the bottle out of his hand. I wanted to smash it, but I didn't have the guts.

It wasn't easy being home all weekend. My father gave me a hundred things to do around the house. I cleaned out two closets, organized the kitchen cabinets, and wiped down all the windows—inside and out.

It was a long weekend.

I couldn't even get out of the house to grab a slice of pizza. And there was no way I was getting down the block to sneak a joint either, but I thought about it—a hundred times.

This was the first time since I was a kid that I couldn't wait for Monday to come. I'd go anywhere to get out of that house—even school.

So by the time I got to first period on Monday, I was ready. I was ready to get through every class. I just wished that one of my classes was about how to smoke a joint and still come up with a clean urine.

Johnny would know—I just had to find him. I'd called his apartment a couple of times on the weekend, but his mother always answered, so I hung up. I didn't want her hassling me about driving her car. But I figured Johnny would know how to get around the urine thing. I just had to come up with a reason why I wanted to know, without telling him I was in counseling.

I looked all over school and I couldn't find him or Slayer.

“Hey. Heard your buddies got busted,” one of the jocks from the party said while giving me a shove on his way down the hall.

“Yeah. They got in trouble for picking up a prostitute,” I said. “How
is
your mother, anyway?”

I ducked out of the way of his swing, then he stepped off because Giraldi was coming down the hall.

“How come wherever there's trouble, you're always right in the middle of it?” he asked me.

“Why are you always following me around?” I answered.

He folded his arms across his chest. “How are you handling the news about your friends? I got a call from the youth officer about Frank and John. They're in a world of trouble, those two.”

“They're not in school?”

“They're going in front of a judge today. Possession of narcotics with the intent to sell. And your friend John already had a run-in six months ago for possession of marijuana.”

“So what are you going to do? Expel them?”

“Frank may be right behind you with the counseling, depending on what his soon-to-be probation officer suggests. John may be looking at doing time.”

The bell rang and the halls emptied out. It was just me and Giraldi.

“I'm late,” I said.

“I'll walk you to class.”

We headed down the hall.

“That could be you in front of the judge this morning, Phillip. That would make things a hell of a lot worse for you at home than being expelled.”

I thought about it. If he hadn't sent me to counseling I wouldn't have cared whether or not I had drugs in my urine. I would have been wasted out of my head when the cop pulled us over, and he would have found stash on me too.

But I wasn't feeling any kind of thank-you coming out of me.

We stopped in front of my classroom. I could see Jenna in the front watching Kirkland. She looked so fine. So right. So everything a girl who'd never bother with a punk like me would be.

“Apparently I'm not alone in keeping a close eye on you,” Giraldi said. “Officer Ross called to ask me a few questions about you this morning.”

My face got red.

“I told him you were standing at a crossroad right now, trying to decide who you wanted to be. I told him the only thing keeping you going was the fear of getting into more trouble than you can handle. He agreed with me that fear was your best friend right now.”

I wondered if they'd had tea and cookies while talking about my damn life.

He opened the classroom door and nodded to the teacher.

“Have a nice day,” he said.

I didn't turn around to look at him on the way to my seat.

“I can't take you to T-ball today,” I told Mikey when I picked him up.

“I don't care,” he said.

I was glad to hear it. The last thing I needed was to listen to him whine. It was hard enough to put up with when I was stoned. It would be even harder after almost four days without a joint.

“Hurry up,” I told him. “I got an appointment. If I'm late I'm toast.”

“Am I going to Eddie's?”

“No. Mom said since I'm grounded there's no reason to drop you off. I have to stay home with you.”

“So how come we're going somewhere?”

“Shut up.”

He ran to catch up with me and started tugging on my arm, smiling. “I got to show you something,” he said, then stopped to open his backpack.

“We have to go, Mikey.” I kept walking.

“Listen,” he said, running next to me. “I got another book I can read.”

I walked a little faster.

“Come on, Mikey. Hurry up.”

“Run, run, run. I run.” He turned the page. “Play, play, play. I run to play.”

“Let's get moving, Mikey.”

“Fall, fall, fall. I fall down.”

He turned the page again and I started walking even faster.

He ran to catch up and was reading even louder.

“Cry, cry, cry. I fall and cry.”

“Move, move, move,” I said. “I kick your ass.”

“Pip.”
He was starting to whine.

“Put your damn book away,” I told him. “I don't have time for this crap.”

He closed the book and mumbled, “You're just like Dad.” I stopped walking and turned right around to look at him. “What did you say?”

“Nothin'.”

“No. What did you say?”

He shoved his book in his backpack, zipped it up, and walked away from me.

“Answer me,” I said, turning him around.

“I thought you didn't have time for this crap.”

He pulled away from me and kept walking.

He was right. I didn't have any time.

“So that's your little brother?” Claire asked me.

“More like my son,” I said, thinking that would be the end of it. But she was all over that like green on weed.

“You take care of him a lot?”

“I walk him to school and pick him up after.”

“That's a big responsibility.”

“Somebody's got to do it.”

“Why can't one of your parents?”

“Good question.”

I looked around her office to see if there was anything new.

“Still didn't get a clock, did you?”

“Why do you think I need a clock?”

“I already told you. So I'll know how many more minutes I have to be here.”

“If you're the one who needs to know, you should be the one to get the clock.”

“You told me that already.”

She started doing that swiveling thing in her chair. Lucky for her I don't get motion sick.

“So how have you been liking the group?”

“It's stupid, but I got to do it. Right?”

“You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You have choices.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“It looks like you made the choice not to get high. Your last urine was clean, and you don't look stoned right now.”