Parts & Labor (6 page)

I
could tell they were hugging like girls do, and I heard Scarlett's sniffles.

"Are
you okay?" Mom asked her.

"Let's
talk about Max. Saying he beat up four bigger kids, Mom, that's not
good."

"His
dad is his hero," Mom said. "He's trying to be like his dad."

"Mom, pretending he's the Hulk and has superpowers? I'm worried about the little guy."

But
I wasn't pretending. I did have superpowers.

 

 

"Superpowers?"
Sunny said the next day as we walked to the cafeteria.

"Yep."

"You
hit them, and they all went flying?" Dee said.

"Yep."

"And
bent their scooters like pretzels?" Eddie said.

"Yep."

"Are
you making this up?" Sunny asked.

"Nope."

Vic
and his gang were sitting at their usual table, but they didn't trip us when we
entered the cafeteria. They turned and stared at me—but their eyes were different
today. They weren't so cocky now. But I was. I took a step toward them,
threw my fists out at them, and yelled, "Aaah!"

They
jumped back and covered their faces. When they realized nothing had happened,
they dropped their hands. But they were nervous. I pulled my fists back then
struck a Hulk muscleman pose. Okay, I was enjoying myself. I turned and walked
over to the food line.

"Wow,"
Eddie said.

"That
was interesting," Sunny said.

"Max,
what's going on?" Dee said.

"I
don't know, but I like it."

I
smiled.

You
couldn't slap the smile off my face that day.

It's
funny how having superpowers changes your view of the world. You're not afraid
of bullies, you don't feel nervous around strangers, and you don't detour
around a bunch of tattooed bikers loitering on the low stone wall out front of
Doc's Motorworks Bar & Grill. Instead, you walk with your head high and
your chest out. You don't hurry. You take your own sweet time.

I
took my own sweet time.

I didn't run home that day. I strolled. I window-shopped. I
snacked on a Butterfinger candy bar. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon, and
I was feeling pretty darn good. I was walking up the sloping sidewalk on South Congress Avenue, a five-lane road that ran north-south right through Austin and
dead-ended at the State Capitol. If you stood in the middle of Congress and
faced north, you had a perfect view of the Capitol which sat on a low hill at
the northern boundary of downtown Austin. I liked the Capitol but not downtown.
Too many people, too many cars, too many big buildings, and too dark because
the buildings blocked out the sun. But mostly because it was kind of scary,
all the homeless people wandering around like zombies. Mom said drugs stole their
lives.

I
didn't want to be a zombie, so I was never going to use drugs.

South Congress Avenue cut straight through my neighborhood, so everyone called the area "SoCo"
for short. It was just south of downtown, but it wasn't anything like downtown.
Or any other part of Austin. It was different. Mom said it was the way Austin used to be back in the sixties because everyone in SoCo wished they were still living
in the sixties—well, as long as they could have their MacBooks and iPhones and
iPods. I liked our part of town—the people, the music, and especially the
stores. Lots of funky shops lined Congress in SoCo, like Blackmail (all things
black), Stella Blue Boutique & Salon (where my mom got her hair cut), Creatures
Boutique (alternate clothes for the entire family), The Turquoise Door
(authentic Native American silver-and-turquoise jewelry), South Congress Massage
& Bodyworks (don't even ask), Austin Motel with its
Corporate Free Since
1938
sign (Mom said Julia Roberts stays there when she visits Austin, but I
don't know who she is), and Jo's Hot Coffee (Mom and Dad's favorite coffee
joint), a little walk-up place just off the sidewalk. Mom hated Starbucks
because she said they were a corporate conglom … congom … congrega … they were a really big company. I didn't really understand what corporations
were, but everyone in SoCo hated them, like Luke Skywalker hates Darth Vader
until he finds out that Darth is his father and then Darth suddenly turns into
a good guy and saves Luke's life, which didn't make a lot of sense to me why he
would do that. Sunny said it was in the script. Anyway, Mom liked Jo's because it was a local coffee joint. I liked it because they had great muffins.

"Max,
my man!"

Guillermo
Garza called out to me through the service window at Jo's. He had worked there
as long as I can remember. I waved and walked over to the tree-shaded patio
with tables where the locals were drinking coffee and staring at their laptops
like they were hypnotized. I loved checking out the crowd each day. That day's
crew featured green and orange and purple hair (on the same person), colorful tattoos
covering entire bodies, a girl wearing shorts and striped Pippi Longstocking leggings
and Army boots, others with rings in their ears, noses, lips, and places my mom
said I didn't want to know about, geeky guys riding fat-tired Schwinns, and
bikers riding big Harleys. Man, stopping at Jo's was like going to the circus.

I
heard tires screeching.

I
turned back and saw a long-haired guy on a trail bike swerve south off Nellie Street and onto Congress at a high speed and then play chicken with the traffic. He
skidded to a stop at Jo's and jumped off his bike. Andy Prescott was SoCo's
resident traffic-ticket lawyer and adrenaline junkie. He rode a Stumpjumper
trail bike, which was like tempting death with the traffic in Austin. He had
gotten a ticket dismissed for Mom a while back; she was speeding because she
was late picking Maddy up from after-school. After my dad got deployed, I tried
to hire Andy to sue the government and make them stop the war, but he said,
"Dude, haven't you heard of the military-industrial complex?" I
hadn't. "Well," he said, "you might as well sue Mother Nature
to stop the sun coming up." I wasn't sure what that meant. He now stuck
a fist out at me and said, "How're you doing, little man?"

We
fist-bumped.

"I'm
good."

"Keep
the faith, bro."

I
wasn't sure what that meant either, but I said "Okay" and continued
my stroll up South Congress past the Hotel San José, the silver Airstream camper
in the parking lot where they sold crepes (not "creeps" like Coach
Slimes, but "crepes," which are like French enchiladas), and George playing
his guitar for tips next to Güero's Taco Bar. I crossed Elizabeth Street and
walked by Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds (a costume store with a front wall of
painted faces of famous people) and my favorite store, Uncommon Objects (a
secondhand shop with a metal sculpture of a cowboy riding a jackrabbit above
the marquee). When I got to the tattoo parlor—
Body Art by Ramon
—I put
my nose against the glass and cupped my face to block out the glare so I could
see in. I always liked to watch Ramon work. He was inking in a tattoo on a
girl's leg
.
She was bleeding. I thought I might hurl the Butterfinger
bar.

"Whaddaya
say, Max?"

A
scruffy looking old guy sitting on the stoop was talking to me; he was the kind
of person your mother would grab your arm and pull you away from if he
approached you on the street. He looked crazy, but he wasn't.

"Hey,
Floyd T."

Floyd
T.—no one knew what the T stood for—was the neighborhood homeless person. He
had blue eyes, red reading glasses, and no left leg below the knee. My dad said
Floyd T. had been an Army soldier, too, a hero in a war a long time ago. So I
always saluted him, which I did now. He saluted me back.

"Pull up a piece of concrete and sit a spell with me and Rex."

Rex
was Floyd T.'s dog. I sat on the stoop and petted Rex. He was a big German shepherd,
but he never bit me. He was a good dog. But he smelled bad. Or maybe it was
Floyd T., I was never sure. But I didn't care. I liked visiting with them
because Floyd T. didn't talk down to me like I was just a kid. He talked to me
just like I was a grownup, too, which I appreciated even if I didn't understand
everything he said, like that time I asked him why he was homeless, and he
said, "Because we lost my war."

But
Floyd T. didn't seem like a loser to me. He seemed like a grandfather, only he
wasn't. (Dad said he had never been married or had children.) I never had a
grandfather. Both had died a long time ago.

"No
bullies today?" Floyd T. said.

"You
know about Vic and his gang?"

"Anyone
comes and goes on the fifteen hundred block, I know about 'em."

"They
didn't chase me today."

"Why
not?"

"They're
scared."

"Of
what?"

"Me.
I have superpowers."

"Well,
that's handy."

"Yep."

Floyd
T. grunted. "Well, I don't know about superpowers, but as long as they
stay scared, that's all that matters."

"Did
you get bullied when you were a kid?"

"Can't
remember back that far."

"My
dad said he fought his way out of South Boston."

Floyd
T. smiled. A few of his teeth were missing, and the others were yellow.

"I
bet he did. And I bet he won more fights than he lost."

"I
got my mother's size."

"And
her sweet soul."

"What's
that mean?"

"Means
you care about folks. Like old homeless soldiers."

"I
miss him. My dad."

Floyd
T. patted my back. "I know you do. I miss him, too."

My
dad and Floyd T. were good friends because they were both soldiers. Dad and I
would walk over here, and I'd go check out the used stuff in Uncommon Objects
while Dad and Floyd T. sat on the stoop and talked about their wars and other
man stuff. Dad said it was like having the man talks he had never had with his
own dad. He said underneath that beard and hair and smell, Floyd T. was
actually a handsome man, like my grandfather had been. Like my dad was. They
did a "Hunks of Austin" calendar to raise money for charity and they
asked him to pose in his fireman's gear except without his shirt, but Mom had said, "Over my dead body!"

I
felt my eyes water up. I leaned into Floyd T. and put my head on his chest
like I used to do with my dad even though Floyd T. smelled particularly bad
today. He patted me on the back until I sat up again. Then he adjusted his
fake left leg and pushed himself up. He grabbed a tool and started scraping the
wood trim around Ramon's plate-glass window.

I
wiped my face and said, "What are you doing?"

"Scraping
off the old paint. Then I'm gonna sand the wood and paint it."

"What
color?"

"Ramon's
thinking red."

"I
like red."

"Me,
too."

"Is
Ramon paying you?"

"Two hundred bucks."

"
Two hundred bucks?
Wow. What're you gonna buy, an
iPhone or a Wii?"

"Food."

"Oh.
Well, food's nice, too."

"Yep."

"Our
house needs painting, but we can't afford to hire anyone. I'm supposed to be
the man of the house, but …"

"Bit
young for the job, don't you think?"

"Tell
me. I'm still trying to figure out fractions."

After
a while, I said goodbye and headed home. I crossed Congress Avenue at the
light by Allen's Boots. I was really careful to watch for speeding cars
running the red light—texting drivers posed a constant threat to pedestrians in
Austin, Texas. But I got across safely and walked over to Drake Avenue and past Mrs. Cushing's house. She was out in her short-shorts, and a neighborhood
dad had stopped to admire her garden. In most neighborhoods, a purple house
would stand out. But not in ours. Mom said our neighborhood was
"eclectic," which was a fancy word for weird. One house was red with
bright blue trim, another lime green with yellow trim, another had a bright
orange front door, and one had a peace sign framed with Christmas lights on the
roof. There were several crazy modern houses and even a few gingerbread
houses. Only a few houses were new. Most were old, but most had been
renovated.

Except
ours.

At
least our neighborhood wasn't boring. I walked down the street and was almost
to our hedgerow when I looked over at the neighbors' house and saw the boy with
the pale face. But he wasn't up in the window. He was sitting on the porch
steps. I waved. He waved back, so I walked over to him. He stood.

"Hi,
I'm Max."

"I
am Norbert."

He
was shorter than me—in fact, he was barely taller than Maddy—and a lot skinnier.
His skin was perfect and so pale it seemed transparent. His hair was white,
and his soft eyes were almost clear. He had red lips, like when Maddy played
with Mom's make-up. He was the strangest looking boy I'd ever seen. I figured
he must be foreign. He was wearing a crisp short-sleeve blue shirt with a
collar that buttoned down, creased khakis, a brown belt, brown socks, and brown
loafers that looked brand new. In fact, Norbert looked brand new, like he had
just stepped out of the L.L. Bean catalog we get in the mail.

"I've
never known anyone named Norbert."

"It
is a family name."

He
talked like the two Bosnian refugees at school, like English was a foreign language
or something.

"Oh.
Max isn't anybody's name. At least not in my family."

Norbert
sat back down, so I sat next to him. I hunched over and rested my elbows on my
knees, but Norbert sat with his back straight. He had perfect posture. Mrs.
Broadus says I slump.

I
sniffed. Norbert even smelled new, like the Suburban when we first bought it,
before we had spilled Gatorade and ice cream and M&Ms and cheese puffs and
other assorted food items on the carpet. Mom said that if we lost the house we
could survive for a month in the Suburban just on the food we spilled under the
seats. I understood the food part but not the "lost" part; I mean, a
house is a pretty big thing to lose.