Cheated (10 page)

“Here,” the woman said as she held out the receipt. “You gave me too much.”

“Keep the change!” I yelled at her as I snatched the receipt. I laughed loudly at Brody's five-finger discount and at my strange ex-Dad defiance: let this woman count the change, not me.

Brody and Aaron were waiting in the area behind the store. Brody had the smokes buried in his pocket just in case the security camera was actually on and somebody was really watching. With a murder a week in the Flint area, I knew nobody would care about petty crime. We exchanged high fives all around, then started to head toward WindGate. I could see the dim light of the trailer park from a distance, but Aaron—who was leading—stopped in his tracks.

“What's wrong, dude?” Brody shouted.

“Shit, I'm not sure which way to go from here,” Aaron said. “Sorry.”

I looked in front of me: there were two paths converging in the woods. “Which one?”

“I don't know,” Aaron mumbled, unused to leading. That was usually Brody's job, not his.

“Mick? You must be able to smell it from here,” Brody said, then laughed.

I scratched my forehead, then pointed down the path to the left. “This way, I think.”

We forged over fallen branches, the twigs snapping beneath us sounding like fire.

“Who is it?” A strange garbled voice yelled out, which startled us all.

“Look, it's the Scarecrow,” Brody said, then pointed at the figure in the straw hat who must have been equally as surprised. He was running, or limping quickly, away from us.

“What's he doing here?” I asked no one in particular.

“Living,” Aaron offered. I wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question.

“If you call it that,” Brody said, then motioned for us to join him off the beaten path. Behind one of the trailers was a small storage shed with the door hanging off the hinge. We looked inside: there was a damp green sleeping bag, empty beer cans, and newspapers covering the cold ground. There was a small pile of bricks forming a makeshift fireplace or stove in the corner. The place reeked of piss, shit, and beer.

“My sister's got to get to work,” Aaron said as he nudged me on my way.

“Work,” I said, then winked at Brody. Brody laughed while Aaron tried not to. Unlike the night before when he was pretty talkative, Aaron seemed sunk into himself. Brooding.

Aaron's sister was standing in front of the trailer, looking twenty shades of pissed off. She waved us in; Aaron didn't say anything as she handed him a paper bag. Aaron reached into his pocket, but Brody stopped him with a shout, barely heard over the blaring TV.

“Hey, Aaron, loan me twenty bucks,” Brody said, then slapped Aaron on his shoulder.

“What?” Aaron looked confused, while his sister's overly made-up face didn't hide her scorn.

“Sure.” Aaron took the money intended for his sister and handed it to Brody.

“I'm buying! Drinks on me!” Brody shouted, then handed the twenty to Aaron's sister.

“Real funny,” Aaron's sister, Tonya, said as she reached out her hand to take the money from Brody, but I interrupted.

“My treat,” I said. Aaron gave us the place, and Brody gave us a center, so I could pay with my unused homecoming funds. In our threesome, their roles were clear; I was still searching for mine.

“Dude, no way,” Brody said, but I ignored him and handed her the money.

“What, no receipt?” I mumbled as Tonya took the cash and I took the bag. She handed me back a five and one icy stare when I counted the change.

“You be gone by the time I get home,” she said. I wondered how she could move her mouth wearing so much frosted blue lipstick and how she could blink with the mountain of matching blue eye shadow covering her mostly dead blue eyes. She pulled out a smoke and then stuffed the twenty into her small black purse. The purse matched the long leather black jacket and short leather skirt she wore, but not the spiky red heels or scarlet fishnets.

“Need a light?” I asked.

“Thanks,” she replied. My hand shook a little when I sparked the flint to fire up her smoke. Truth was, Aaron's sister's in-your-face-skank look more scared than excited me.

“We've got to get back to school by ten,” Aaron said.

“And if you get caught, I don't know nothin' about this,” she said. “I'm dead serious.”

“Sure thing, Tonya,” Aaron mumbled.

“And don't mess up the place,” she said. I laughed first, Brody laughed loudest, and Aaron for the first time that night cracked a smile. “Assholes!”

“Sorry, Tonya,” Aaron said. Brody tossed aside a pile of clothes on the stained brown carpet to make a place for himself on the sofa. He muted the TV as he surfed channels.

“Maybe I'll tell Mom about this,” she fired back, smoke shooting out of her pierced nose. “Maybe your Friday night fun dries up. You think that's funny?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled while Brody added a concurring grunt from the other room.

“Next time, price goes up,” she said, then opened the door to leave. “How funny is that?”

Aaron didn't say anything as she slammed the door so hard the trailer seemed to shake. The booming music from her beat-up SUV started up almost immediately.

“Your sister's something!” Brody shouted as we heard the SUV pull away.

“You got something to say, Brody?” Aaron said, looking embarrassed, sounding angry.

“He's just busting you,” I said, trying to act the peacemaker. “It's all good.”

“I know, but you know how it is,” Aaron said to me, as he handed me the Coke.

“How what is?”

“You gotta protect the women in your life, right?” Aaron said, and I smiled.

“I guess.” I started toward the kitchen. As I thought about Aaron's comment, I felt a little guilty about lying to my mom, but I figured I'm really just doing what Aaron just said: protecting her from the truth of my life.

In the kitchen, I found three clean glasses that I filled with ice.

“Hurry up, Mick, thirsty men over here!” Brody shouted from the living room. It sounded like a college football game was blaring on the TV. I laughed. Now I could tell my mom a truth about what we did tonight:
just watched a football game
.

I brought the glasses back into the living room, then opened up both the Coke and the rum. I let the smell of rum linger in my nose before I filled the glasses half full with Bacardi. I put Coke in my glass and Aaron's, but Brody waved it away. With my first small sip, the rum tickled the top of my mouth, then began it's trip through my bloodstream.

I sat down next to Brody, deep in thought. This was a once-a-week thing, I told myself. I suspected Brody would get drunk every night if he could. If every day was like today, I thought, then I would second the rum-and-Coke solution. Except neither of us could afford it.

“Happy Friday!” Brody shouted, then raised his glass
into the air. Aaron just grunted. He seemed distracted and detached.

“What's happy about it?” I grumbled as I thought how I'd rather have my lips wrapped around Whitney's or Nicole's lips than a glass, which I was working on emptying.

“Mick, she ain't worth it,” Brody said, then raised his glass high again. “Here's to best friends!”

“To friends,” Aaron said as he raised his glass. I set down my glass, pulled out my lighter, flicked it, and let the friendship flame burn.

“Mick wants to tap some ass, right?” Brody said.

“I'm trying, man, I'm trying,” I said, knowing how much I've practiced if and when the day should ever come. I thought right then that I'd give ten years of my life for ten minutes with Whitney, ten more days with Nicole, or to wipe away my one encounter with Roxanne.

“Seems our man Aaron is the only one getting himself some,” Brody said as he slapped Aaron's knee. “Maybe one day we'll meet her, what do you think?”

“Maybe,” Aaron shrugged as Brody reached for the bottle. While the faraway look in his eyes remained, Aaron joined the party at last as Brody poured more rum into his glass.

The conversation stopped, stalled, and fired in a hundred directions over the next hour: Brody told stories, Aaron alternated between laughing loudly and pulling at his hair silently, while I just tried to keep up. By the half time of the TV game was over, more than half the rum-and-Coke solution to any problem had vanished. During half time, we
moved over to a table in the kitchen. Brody sent Aaron on a mission to find some cards so we could play poker.

Over the roar of the TV, I thought about this night as a science experiment: the effect of alcohol on adolescent males. Subject Aaron sunk even deeper into himself, like a black hole imploding. Subject Brody got louder, more aggressive, like a superfuckingnova exploding into the dark night sky. Subject Mick needed more testing, for his reactions are the most inconsistent; his energy was in flux like a comet without a clear path.

“I found the cards,” Aaron said, then tossed a deck on the table.

“Wanna play the bank, ATM?” Brody said, but I winced. I knew Brody was drunk since ATM was a behind-the-back, not an in-your-face nickname for a good friend.

“Right,” Aaron mumbled while I shot Brody a nasty look. I knew Aaron didn't like this nickname, but he laughed anyway.

“Dude, don't call Aaron that,” I said. Brody's face washed out, like a wave of sobriety splashed over him. Not because he felt guilty about his words, but because he was surprised I corrected him.

“Just kidding, ATM, you know that,” Brody said. Aaron nodded, and I relaxed, while Brody shuffled the cards. Another half an hour got sucked up as we smoked, drank, and played poker. I was an even worse poker player than I was a pool player, although the problem was the same: hand-eye coordination. Although in poker, it was too much hand-eye coordination, for whenever I had a good
hand, I couldn't help but smile. I've tried to put on that poker face, but I'm just not wired that way. I can lie to Mom, ex-Dad, and teachers about just about anything, but once the cards get dealt, I can't keep the hand I'm holding secret.

The poker made me feel restless, as much as Brody's shouting and Aaron's silence made me feel nervous. I told Brody to deal me out. I said I was going to take a piss, but truth was, I just needed to get away for a few minutes. The rum was buzzing my head and churning my stomach. I started to walk around the trailer to kill time and my dark thoughts.

I passed by the bathroom and stepped into the bedroom. Just inside the room was a crowded dresser. It was covered with makeup, overflowing ashtrays, and dusty framed photos. One picture was of a family: there was Aaron, his sister, and his mom. Aaron looked to be about nine or ten, so it's a picture from before Aaron moved into our neighborhood. But there were two other people in the picture: an older man who looked like Aaron—it had to be his dad—and there was another guy, maybe an older brother. A brother Aaron had never mentioned; a dad that Aaron told us died when he was five. A death the three of us drank to the evening before. A death that bonded Brody and Aaron.

“Aaron, I thought your dad died when you were five?” I said as I walked back into the living room, the picture in hand. “I mean, that's what we were remembering last night, right?”

“What?” Aaron stared at me. His eyes were blurry;
maybe because Aaron spoke the least, he drank the most. “Why are you asking me about my dad?”

“Mick, what's your problem?” Brody sounded agitated.

“Who is this?” I held up the picture, pointed to the father figure, and then put the photo in front of Aaron like a cop handling evidence. I sat back down at the table waiting for Aaron to speak.

“Look—you see—” Aaron stumbled over his words as Brody examined the picture.

“Dude, what's going on?” Brody's anger flashed. “We drank to his memory last night.”

Aaron was silent for a long time, filling the vacuum by filling up all of our glasses, then finally he said, “Well, he's gone, just not by accident, that's all.”

“What do you mean?” I followed up. I felt like some TV show detective.

“Guys, just let it alone,” Aaron said, and then shuffled the cards.

“You can't lie to your friends, Aaron,” I said, taking time to stress each word of the sentence. “If you can't tell your friends the truth, then you can't tell anyone.”

“You lied about this!” Brody shouted. Aaron and Brody's shared past losses at the hands of auto accidents bonded them, but I wondered if Aaron knew Brody's whole story.

Aaron paused, emptied his glass, and then spoke. “He's in Huntsville.”

“What's that?” Brody asked. There was no breeze whipping through the trailer, but I felt a chill. I'd heard about
Huntsville last year in current events class when we talked about the death penalty.

“Huntsville's a prison in Texas,” Aaron said with a sigh. I thought the sigh sounded a little like ex-Dad's, maybe with the same motive. Maybe Aaron was impatient with himself for lying to his best friends for the past three years.

“Huntsville,” I repeated, then motioned for the rum. The cards were on the table and all eyes were on Aaron. Aaron hated the attention, but we'd called and he had to show.

“Aaron, what the hell are you talking about?” Brody slammed his fist on the table.

“Guys, I don't want to talk about it, okay?” Aaron said, eyes downcast.

“I don't care what you want!” Brody shouted while I continued my stare. “Spill it!”

“Guys, do you know what my first real memory of my dad is?” Aaron asked, his voice cracked. “When I was like, three, he must have got some money someplace because we went in to Houston to watch
Sesame Street Live
, one of those stage shows. And I remember him buying us cotton candy, and buying himself beer after beer. He's there with his kids at a
Sesame Street
show getting drunk. He couldn't control himself, that's all you need to know.”