Cracked (7 page)

That is that.

I take a deep breath and try to inhale her kiss. I want to feel it in my lungs, kissing me from the inside. I want to, but I
can’t. Instead my lungs fill with the fried stench of the cafeteria, and I instantly feel like an asshole. Who wants to be kissed on the inside?

I have a crazy thought. A stupid, crazy thought. Maybe she’d notice if I never came back. Maybe she’d care.

I huff. “Yeah, right,” I say out loud.

The bell rings, and even the custodian sweeping the floor ignores me.

“Yeah, right,” I repeat.

I AM NOT SPENDING MORE THAN A DECADE IN JAIL.
Not even to get rid of Pop. I can’t do it. I guess that makes me a real turd. I guess I deserve the beatings coming my way. I reach down and cup my balls. Yeah, they’re still there. I’ve got balls. It’s just that my balls are only good for punching dorks in the back.

But I am not weak. I’m not.

It must be the quiet in here that’s making me get all psychological and shit, but I’m wondering . . . am I a murderer? I’ve never thought of myself as a person capable of real murder. I stare over the top of my computer, watching kids
silently walk through the library, and I almost say out loud,
So, could I really have shot Pop? As in dead. Blood-gushing, brain-splattering dead?
I could’ve always closed my eyes when I pulled the trigger. Yeah, I wouldn’t have seen the mess, but I would have known what I did. In a complete dick kind of way, my heart would’ve known.

I reach up and rub my skull with both hands. I wish I could just freaking disappear right now because my head is clogged up with dirt and muck and shit.

Two girls walk by the table, whispering about what bikini will make their boobs look better, and a thought smacks me right in the forehead: School is out in four days; summer is here. Maybe I’ll just spend the whole summer working at Salvy—bump my hours to the max—and stay the hell out of Pop’s way. I only have two more years at home and then I’m out of here. Two more years. Of beatings.

I can’t do it. I can’t take two more years of his shit. I don’t know what to do. And I have to get to work.

MY MOTHER PICKS ME UP FROM SCHOOL ON THE
second-to-last day of school. She has taken the day off from her job as the vice president of a bank so she can get ready for Europe. She says she needs my help lifting things into her SUV. What she could possibly need my help lifting is a mystery to me. I don’t ask. I just do as I’m told.

On the way out of town, we sit at the light by the Salvation Army building, and she gasps.

“Oh my God, there he is—the animal that tried to kill me.”

I look out my window. Bull Mastrick is unpacking some old guy’s trunk.

“Do you see him, Victor?”

In three seconds a whole series of thoughts fly through my head. It is the weirdest thing. One thought leads to another, then another and another, and before I know it, in, like, light speed, I have this whole new thought.

First I think of how much I have to pee, and then of peeing myself on the playground, which leads me to when Bull shoved my head against the wall at the urinal, which goes to me walking Jazzer when she has to go, which makes me think of my mom calling Bull an animal just now, which makes me wonder who named him Bull, because he
is
an animal and he tried to kill my mom, which makes me laugh, because we both got bullied by the same jerk, and I think that’s hilarious. Like I said, it’s weird.

And I laugh. At the worst possible moment.

The light is still red. We’re sitting there, with Bull no more than fifteen feet from our SUV. He doesn’t see us because he’s too busy working. But I see him, and I am laughing like I’m being tickled. Which makes me laugh even harder, because my parents have never tickled me. The only person who’s ever tickled me was my grandfather, and he died when I was six. I only remember him tickling me once before my mother made a scene and practically accused him of child abuse right there in our living room. I still remember
how it felt though, the tickling, and the laughing so hard that my sides hurt.

That’s how hard I’m laughing as my mother asks, “Do you see him, Victor?” Her mouth is open and her eyes are wide, as if someone has put a spell on her.

The car behind us honks with a friendly
beep beep
. I’m still hysterical. She’s still gaping.

Honk! Honk!
The car behind us is no longer polite.

Bull looks toward the honking, toward us. He sees me laughing. His face changes from curiosity to anger in no time at all. I know he thinks I’m laughing at him because of where he works. And that here I am, sitting in my mother’s $85,000 SUV, while he gets paid to take donations from people who have more money than he’ll ever have.

His hand shoots out with a gesture of anger, followed by his other. I’m getting double flipped off.

My mother guns it, and I stop laughing. But I’m still breathing heavy. It takes me a minute or so to calm down. In that minute my mother takes a wild right turn and parks in front of the pet store. And so begins her
moment
.

“I’m calling the doctor when your father gets home, do you hear me? I will not allow my son to be on drugs. I will not! Oh my God, what people will think! What are you taking? Dope? Pills? Let me see your arms. Are you using needles?”
She reaches over and grabs my arm. No tracks. She takes her seat belt off and reaches for my other arm. Drug-free too.

I say with as much composure as I can, “I’m not on drugs, Mother. I promise you.”

“Then what is the matter with you? Are you hearing voices? Are voices telling you to do things? I’m still calling the doctor. I won’t have you ruin this trip for your father and me with all of this craziness.”

“I’m not crazy, Mom.”

“Well, what do you call what just happened back there? That monster tried to kill me, and you laugh? How insensitive can you be, Victor? We’re talking about my life. Do you think me dying is funny? Is that it? You think it would have been funny if that animal actually
got
me?”

She’s crying now.

I don’t know what to do. My father always handles my mother, and he’s still at work. I ask myself what my father would say to calm her down, but everything sounds too lovey-dovey. So I don’t say anything.

I want to tell my mother why I was laughing. That we both had been bullied by the same kid. How Bull had gotten to both of us and he didn’t even know it. That we must have big red
X
s on our backs, or it must be in our genes, or something.

But I don’t tell her. Because she wouldn’t understand. I know she thinks she’s better than me, and it would make her so mad if I put us on the same level. It would make her yelling worse. I stare out the window as birds take flight off of the pet store sign, flying up higher and higher into the bright blue sky, and I have to close my eyes. It’s too normal, too beautiful to look at.

“Well, you just sit there and be quiet. You’ve ruined the day, Victor, you selfish, selfish boy.” With that, she pulls away from the curb and drives home. We don’t speak. I turn my head and pretend to look out the window. But I don’t want to see the world, so I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my jaw the entire ten-minute drive. I know if I ease up and release my face, the tears will come. I will not give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

I will not.

When we pull into the driveway, she tells me to get out and go up to my room, like I’m five. I get out and she drives away. Thank God.

Jazzer isn’t in the window when I get to the door.

THAT PRICK IS LUCKY I DIDN’T HAVE MY GUN WHILE
he was sitting at the light. Figures his mother is the cow that snapped her fingers at me. I swear, the next time I see him, I’m going to mess him up. Thinks he’s better than me with his golf shirts and expensive car—they make me sick.

I’m still pissed when I get home after work. I’m mumbling shit to myself as I triple-lock my bike, when I hear Pop and Uncle Sammy through our kitchen window. They’re going at it. Loud enough that I swear some of the bricks are gonna rattle themselves loose from the house. I walk around front and the dad from the apartment underneath us is out on the front
porch having a smoke. The dude doesn’t speak English—he’s from Mexico—which is fine by me, because I’m in no mood to explain what the hell is going on up there. He rolls his eyes at me—the universal language for
What the hell?
I reply with a roll of my eyes. He nods. Best conversation I’ve ever had.

With clenched fists, I climb the stairs to our apartment. Before I put my hand on the doorknob, I take a deep breath and roll my head around on my shoulders. I’m sure I look like a boxer about to enter the ring. I guess I am.

I hear Pop yell, “You’re cleaning this shit up!”

Then Uncle Sammy yells, “Just shut up! Shutupshutupshutupshutup!”

I hear a loud crash and open the door. The apartment is a disaster. It looks like one of them took every bag out of the closet and shook each of their contents all over the apartment. Crap is everywhere. And I mean
everywhere
. My pop is standing in the kitchen with a beer, and my Uncle Sammy is crawling around the floor throwing linen napkins and old shoes up in the air.

Welcome to the nuthouse.

I know what he’s looking for right away. Now it all makes sense. Why I never saw that brown bag before. Uncle Sammy must’ve tossed it in the closet sometime when I was at school. What he wants is not here. I won’t tell either of them that, but it’s not here.

My uncle looks up from the floor, sees me, and pounces like a jaguar. I’m jacked up against the wall, and he’s got the craziest look in his eyes.

“WHERE IS IT, BULL?”

I play dumb and ask, “Where’s what?”

“YOU KNOW WHAT!” he spits out, literally.

He’s got me by the shoulders, so my hands are free, and I reach up and wipe my face.

“Where did you put it, Bull?” he asks through clenched teeth.

Pop decides to chime in now. “Just tell him where it is, Bull. Sammy’s in some trouble.”

I continue playing dumb, so I say forcefully, “I don’t know what you guys are talking about! Let me—”

My uncle’s palm is on my forehead, and he smashes my head against the wall and gets nose to nose with me. His breath smells like he snacked on roadkill soaked in beer, and he sneers. “I’m. Not. Asking. You. Again.”

One good thing about people who are drunk, or on drugs—or, as in Uncle Sammy’s case, both—is their lack of judgment. He never expects my knee to fly up into his crotch, but it does. I’m instantly released from his grip. I give him and Pop the finger, then I’m back down the stairs in seconds.

I crash into my mother at the bottom, and she falls on her butt.

“What the fuck, Bull? Jesus Christ!” she yells at me.

I don’t help her up. I’m completely freaked out. I stand there, my knees shaking, looking over my shoulder at the stairs. The porch is empty; the Mexican dad is gone. My legs are frozen. I look down at her and the stupidest thought comes to me: I wish she was the kind of mom that I could talk to. The kind of mom that would protect me.

She grunts. I watch her roll over on all fours and grab her lit cigarette that landed a foot away. She sways as she stands. She’s shitfaced.

I try to walk past her, but she grabs my arm.

“Don’t you look where you’re going? Why’re you rushing around? Where are you going?” she shouts at me, then drags on her cigarette, blowing her smoke at me.

I look at her, with her smudged black eyeliner and greasy hair, and I feel my stomach twist inside.

“I feel sorry for you,” I whisper. I am immediately pissed at myself for not shouting those words in her face, that I pussied out and whispered them.

She squints and says, “What did you say, you little shit?”

There’s the courage. There it is. It surges through me and I say nice and loud, “I said, ‘I feel sorry for you.’”

My mom sways and reaches out for me to steady herself on. I take a step back. She goes down again.

I’m not sure how long this courage will last, so I look down at her and say, “You could’ve been different. You didn’t even try. You’re just like him.”

Mom pulls herself up using the railing this time, and I’m quietly amazed that her cigarette stayed in her mouth the entire time. Her hand reaches up, grabs the cigarette from her mouth, and throws it at me. It hits me in the chest.

“Don’t you tell me . . . don’t you tell me tha shit. I gave up everythin’ for you,” she slurs. Then she screams, “Everything! Everything! Everything!” She continues yelling that one annoying word as she stomps past me and up the stairs.

My body comes back alive. I jump off the porch and run around back. I unlock my bike quick, because I don’t know who might come flying out looking for me. I don’t think I’ve ever unlocked those three locks faster.

Riding my bike always clears my head. And my head is full of more shit than a stopped-up toilet right now. Sometimes my bike takes me places I never expect to go, like it just leads me. Cars and houses go by me in a blur and when I look up, I’m in front of school. I sit for a minute and try to think of where I’m going to sleep, because there’s no way I’m going back to my apartment—not tonight, anyway.

And it’s weird. You know how your brain jumps from one thing to another sometimes? Like a whole bunch of random
thoughts that connect real fast? Well, I decide that I’m ditching the last day of school. Then I realize that Dad’s postcard is in my locker. So I lock my bike and go inside to get it. And while I’m walking through the halls, I tell myself that I’m never coming back to this school, that I’m running away, which sounds girly, so I change it to:
I’m going to find my father.
I look into my locker and smirk. The postcard is the only thing in here that even matters to me. I grab it and then slam my locker shut.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get to the beach, because I can’t ride my bike that far, and then I think I could take the bus there. I look down at my postcard and I wonder if they’d let me bring my bike on the bus. I know I have enough money saved to get me to Ocean City. Which makes me think of the cemetery. So that’s where I head next.