Bottled Up (21 page)

Everybody had something to say to me. Everybody had an opinion—a vote on how I should be living my life. The noise in my head was so loud, I wanted to scream or throw something. And that noise was about to get louder.

The Grinch was standing at the door watching the cop drive away.

“So what did you do now?”

He got right behind me when I walked into the house. Maybe he left an inch of space between his face and the back of my head.

“Why did a policeman bring you home?”

I didn't answer him. I didn't know what to say.

He shoved me hard in the back and I fell into the couch.

I turned around and waited for him to come at me. I didn't jump up. I didn't get ready to fight back or brace myself for a hit. I just sat there.

“Answer me. What kind of trouble you into now?”

I kept staring at him.

He swung at me, but I didn't block it. I caught a slap right in the face. My head went back a little, but I still didn't get up. I didn't move.

“Something wrong with you, boy? Get up.”

I stood up in front of him, closer than he'd like. He grabbed my shirt and pushed me back against the wall.

“I'm talking to you!” he yelled. “And if you don't start answering me I'm going to clean your clock. Now tell me why you were brought home by the police.”

I didn't say a word. I just stared at him. I figured I didn't owe him an answer, and I was too pissed to even talk. I didn't want to tell him a damn thing about me. I didn't even want to tell him that there wasn't anything to the ride home from the cop. Somewhere in my head I figured I deserved a beating, and I was going to stand there ready to take it.

I think it was harder for him to hit me when I wasn't putting up a fight. Maybe it wasn't as much fun for him either. He didn't slug me in the face or punch me in the stomach. He just kept slamming my back against the wall over and over again.

He was yelling about what a loser I was, that I was stupid and no damn good. I didn't feel the words any more than I felt the wall behind me. Neither one hurt.

“Get up to your room.” He let go of me and walked away. “You're grounded for another week—not just for getting into trouble with the police, but for stealing my scotch off the refrigerator. Four bottles of booze gone so you and your buddies could cut school and have a party.”

I took my time getting into the kitchen. I went over to the counter, turned up the volume on the answering machine, and pressed Play.

“Mike, you need to come to the hospital,” my mother's voice said. “Mikey's hurt. There's been an accident.”

“You know about this?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Mikey hurt himself at school. He was playing around by a hole they're digging up there and . . . and . . .”

I wasn't sure how much I wanted to say. I didn't know how much trouble Mikey was going to be in, and I wasn't going to rat him out about the bottles.

“And he fell.”

“This happened after school?”

I nodded.

“So this was your fault.”

He wiped his arm across the counter, knocking everything on the floor.

“Where were you? Drinking my scotch instead of picking up your brother?”

Something in me snapped. I yelled back at him twice as loud as he yelled at me. “Where were
you
? You're never there for him. You're never there for anybody.
You're
the loser. You're the one who's supposed to take care of him, not me.” I was screaming so loud I felt the words rip out of my throat like broken glass.

“Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?” He came at me but stopped a foot away.

“I don't know. Who are
you
?” I said. “You're not anybody's father. You don't know how to be a father. All you know how to do is yell and hit and drink and drink and—”

“You'd better shut your mouth.”

“A father is somebody you talk to—somebody you look up to. I don't want to be like you.”

“Shut your mouth!” he yelled.

“But I am. I'm
just
like you. Except for one thing.”

“That's right, Pip. And that one thing is that
I
know how to take care of my responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities? You don't know the first thing about it. You think having a job and paying the bills is all you're supposed to do? You think that's being a father?” I shook my head. “You don't know shit.”

“I don't need to listen to this.” He grabbed his car keys off the floor where he'd thrown everything.

“I'll tell you the difference between you and me,” I said.

“Go to your room—”

“The difference is that my family isn't afraid of me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Too bad you're afraid of yourself, Mr. Wise Guy.”

He put his hand on the doorknob. “And you better hope for your sake that your brother's all right.”

He slammed the door on the way out.

I wasn't sure who I hated more—him or me.

There was a brown paper bag standing on the table. I knew what it was. I knew the shape—the way the paper was scrunched closed at the top. He'd brought a bottle home before he even knew his stash was gone. Always a step ahead of his drink—that's my father.

I took the bottle out, then crunched the bag into a ball and threw it at the door.

I'd already had four joints. I figured a boost on top of it wouldn't hurt. I needed something. Everything was getting crazy. My hands were still shaking from yelling at my father, and the pictures in my head were wrestling with each other.

But there weren't just pictures in my head. There was noise. And it wasn't just any noise—it was voices. I wanted them to shut up.

Me:
All you know how to do is yell and hit and drink and drink and—

Claire:
A lot of things don't make sense in an alcoholic family—

Mikey:
I wanted to be like him—

Officer Ross:
You don't want your brother feeling like you do when he's sixteen—

Mikey:
You didn't come—

Mom:
My poor baby—

Dad:
So this was your fault—

I unscrewed the cap and put the bottle to my lips. But I couldn't tip my head back. It was as if my neck was locked or something.

Kirkland:
How did this book affect you?

Tony:
Just a punk that hangs out next to garbage and with dead people—

Me:
I told you he wasn't going to the zoo with you—

Mikey:
You don't know everything—

Claire:
Bottled up—

Kirkland:
Chances are something you don't take when you're lost—

I took the bottle away from my lips and walked over to the sink with it. My heart was pounding, my head was hurting, and I needed to do something. I just didn't know what.

Maybe Mikey had the right idea, smashing those bottles. I could pour this one down the drain.

But somewhere in me I knew. I knew that wasn't going to change anything. My father would probably come home with another bottle before he even knew this one was gone.

I wasn't going to change him.

I wasn't sure if I would ever change myself either.

The phone rang. It was Claire.

“You're late,” she said.

“For what?”

“Group. There are forty-five minutes left. You'd better get your butt here.”

I put the bottle in the sink and took off. It was only a five-minute jog over to the office, but it felt as if it was a hundred miles away. With the deep hole I was digging for myself at home, the last thing I needed was Giraldi calling the house. I was lucky Claire had bothered to call me.

“Where were you?” Darius asked when I walked in.

“Something was going down at home,” I said.

“What?” Paco asked.

“Nothing,” I said, and Claire shot me a look.

“Pip,” Claire said, “we've talked about how you hold back and—”

“I know, I know.” I looked around at the guys. “My brother got hurt. He's in the hospital.”

I told them pretty much the whole story. I didn't say that I'd been at the Site getting high and forgot to pick him up. But I told them I'd been late. Told them he'd hit himself in the head with one of my father's scotch bottles. That he had stuffed them in his backpack and brought them to school

“Your father drinks, huh?” Paco asked. “Like my old man?”

I nodded.

“So where were you?” Darius wanted to know. “Why were you late getting your brother?”

“I lost track of time.”

“You were getting wasted,” Mark said. “Look at you.”

Anthony jumped in too, wanting to know how many joints I'd smoked. They were all looking at me.

“Four,” I said. “Maybe when I leave here I'll have another one.”

“This guy's not just wasted,” Darius said. “He's a waste of time.”

“Screw you. Screw all of you. I didn't ask for any of this.”

“Yes, you did,” Paco said. “You brought all this on.”

“What are you talking about? Your father drinks,” I said. “You know where I'm coming from.”

“I'm all through blaming my old man for my life, Pip. Just 'cause he's a drunk, I don't have to be one. Who I am ain't his fault. Who I'm going to be is up to me.”

“I don't need this crap,” I said. “You all sound like you're reading scripts for a self-help play.”

“So what
do
you need?” Claire asked me.

“How the hell do I know? No matter what I say, you'll tell me it's the wrong answer and that I got nothing but choices. It's a bunch of crap is what it is.”

Nobody said anything for a second.

“It's getting harder to be the old you, isn't it, Pip?” she asked.

“The old me? This is who I am. This is the only me I got. It's not like I'm Jekyll and Hyde, with Jekyll waiting inside me to burst out. This is it. This is me.” I hit my chest. “The only one I got. The only one I know how to be.”

Darius started clapping, then Anthony joined in. Everybody was clapping, even Claire.

“What the hell are you doing that for?” I asked.

“You just unscrewed the top, and out he came,” Claire said.

“Who?”

“The other you that you didn't know was in there.”

Mom and Dad got home at about eight o'clock, and they had Mikey with them.

He was okay. At least his head was.

He was tired and quiet. I stood in his doorway watching Mom tuck him into bed, and for a second it was the old Mom, the one I remembered from when I was a kid—when I was still the cute family puppy and not the annoying mutt tied out back.

She'd tuck me into bed and pull the covers real tight around me so I'd stay warm. Then she'd tell me a story, tickle me under my arms or joke about my smelly feet. If I was sick she'd have this look on her face that said if anything ever happened to me she wouldn't be able to keep living. It was a face that said she'd do anything to keep me safe. It said she loved me.

She had that look on her face while she was getting Mikey into bed. But it didn't stick around long. Neither did she.