Stick (32 page)

I didn't know anything.

I decided not to ask him any more about boys on the street, because I thought he didn't know how stupid I was about things yet. And maybe I was afraid of finding out too much about Bosten.

I swallowed.

“I came to take him home.”

“To Washington?”

“We stay with my aunt now. In Oxnard.”

“Well, good luck making that      happen.”

“Does he have any stuff here?”

“Bosten? That kid never has nothing       but the clothes on his back.”

Steve took another cigarette out. “Smoke?”

He held the pack out to me.

“No.”

“Yeah. You're not      a street kid.”

“I know.”

Steve lit the cigarette. He squinted his eyes when he dragged in the smoke, like it was painful. I thought that looked cool.

I said, “Can I stay here and wait for my brother?”

Steve pointed at the rules on the wall. “You can wait      for two nights, if you                 want to.”

I didn't want to.

I sat down on the least-ripped part of the couch I could fit on, and Steve added, “And the TV       doesn't work.”

Then he put his clipboard away.

I stared at the wall, at the TV with a missing ear.

I could feel that Steve was just standing there, staring at me, but I didn't want to talk to him anymore. There was a plastic lid from one of those really big coffee cans sitting on top of the torn books and magazines on the table. It was filled with all kinds of cigarette butts. I tried counting them, identifying the brands.

I picked up a book.

The cover was torn off. I turned it and looked at the spine of the book. For just a moment, I thought, with the cover gone, it was like the book was missing an ear, too. Down the spine, it said,
The Catcher in the Rye
.

I never heard of it.

“What's your        name, anyway?”

Steve was still watching me.

I guess when all you have is a broken television set and a bunch of torn books, you might as well watch the back of an ugly kid's head.

And I almost said
Stick
, but stopped myself.

“Stark McClellan.”

“Do you want to talk to      your dad?”

“No.”

I put the book back, spun the lid of butts around, counted.

“What happened to your       ear?”

“Nothing.” I said, “I have anotia.”

“Oh.”

Steve said it like he knew what I was talking about.

He probably thought something else would fall off me if he just watched long enough.

*   *   *

I thought about

the girl in the
carnicería
.

How she might be an angel.

And I fell asleep,

sitting there on that torn couch

in Angel Street.

BOSTEN

I know

I am floating.

And I see all the people

that come and go,

and come and go,

carried by tides we can't swim against.

Sometimes we reach out

and our touch is a passing thing.

Paul Buckley, Willie, April,

Sutton,

Emily.

*   *   *

Only the sounds

and words

stay trapped in my head.

*   *   *

Here are five bullets.

Here is the saint.

*   *   *

Bosten and I could never let that sea

separate and drown us.

We were all we ever had.

Someone's arm wrapped around my shoulder. There was warm, thick breath against my neck.

“Stick?”

My eyes were shut, and I expect this will sound strange, but I smelled Bosten.

I know my brother's smell, whether he's clean or dirty, wet or dry. Before my eyes opened, I knew it was Bosten, there, next to me, and the words in my head pleaded

don't let this be a dream.

“Sticker?”

And then I saw him.

“Aren't you going to         say something?”

Bosten grabbed both of my shoulders, his eyes were just inches from mine.

I couldn't talk.

He looked different. I guess I did, too.

Because everything had changed.

*   *   *

Bosten was thin and pale, gray.
His eyes were so dark, and he looked like a man. There was a patch of golden fuzz growing out from his chin, and more down the turn of the jaw in front of his ears.

And he was wearing the same clothes he had on that day Mrs. Buckley drove him home, but they were filthy. His T-shirt had gone brown, and his flannel had holes in it.

But it was my brother.

I grabbed on to him and put my face against his neck. And I didn't talk; and I didn't let go, either. I realized Bosten was crying.

That was something my brother never did in front of me.

“I'm    sorry, Sticker. I   didn't mean to scare you or nothing.”

I put my hand in his hair and rubbed his head.

“I was so goddamned scared.”

Then I really
was
scared that maybe this was a dream, so I pushed him back and looked at him again. His eyes were wet, and I wiped at them with my thumbs.

“Goddamn it. Fuck, Bosten.”

I started crying, too.

“I like your      hair.” Bosten combed his hand over my head.

“You need some clothes. And a bath.” I pulled at the soft hair on his chin. “You need to start shaving, too.”

I looked over my shoulder. Steve was gone. There was nobody in that small lobby room except for me and my brother.

“Did you bring        any clothes for me?” Bosten sat back on the couch. He had his arm around my shoulder, so it made me lean forward with him when he reached out and grabbed the cigarette he'd been smoking.

“No. And you don't smoke.”

Bosten shrugged. His eyes smiled at me, but his face was so tired.

“Just watch me,    Sticker.”

Then he took a big drag from his cigarette, and he didn't even make any expression at all. I thought that was even cooler than how Steve smoked. Bosten exhaled a cloud through his nostrils.

“How about    money?”

“I have money. But you're coming home with me. To Dahlia's.”

Bosten pulled his arm off me. He put out the cigarette and wiped his palms on the grease-slicked knees of his jeans. He wouldn't look at me.

I knew what that meant when my brother wouldn't look at me.

“How did you     get here?”

“I drove.”

I drive at night.

“I got lost, too.”

Then I remembered. “Shit. What time is it?”

“About midnight.”

“Shit. The guy at the parking lot locked Dahlia's car in.”

“Steve said       you could have the third bed in our room. There's a kid in there named           Jericho. He's a good friend. We kind of watch out for each other.  We stay together.”

“I have school tomorrow.”

“You go to school?”

“I like it.”

Bosten didn't say anything. He put his fingers down inside the pocket on his shirt and pulled out a wrinkled pack of cigarettes. He lit one.

I had two pieces of paper tucked into the same pocket where I carried Bosten's wallet: the corner of Aunt Dahlia's map of Los Angeles, and the newspaper clipping from Kingston that had a photograph of the handpop flare we launched, our UFO attack.

I unfolded it and watched Bosten's face. I still saw wonder in my brother's eyes, but I could see it had been shadowed over by all the things that had happened to us since that night of the basketball game.

Bosten smiled. “That was        a long time ago.”

He held his lit cigarette in one hand, the same way Mom did, pinched back in the curl of his palm.

“Not really.”

My brother just stared at that image, like it was a movie or something, like you could see it changing, burning, right there in his hand.

“Do you know what happened to Buck?”

“No.”

I thought about what I should say, and I could still hear the words from Ricky Dostal and Corey Barr in the locker room as they laughed about Paul Buckley trying to kill himself with a pair of sewing scissors.

“They put him in a hospital.”

And Bosten said, “You don't need to          tell me.”

“Sometime I will.”

“Okay.”

“Let's go home, Bosten.”

I watched him smoke. He put the newspaper clipping down on the table with the torn books. I could see him thinking about things.

I said, “You're all I have.”

“That's not       true.”

“Please?”

Bosten balanced his cigarette on the edge of the table, so the ashes hung out over the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. His undershirt was covered in filth, and there was a slashing tear right across his belly.

“I don't think I should         go with you.”

And Bosten turned up his left arm so I could see all the marks on it, the ones by his wrist and the others at the crook, all made by the uncareful needles that boys on the streets spent their money on and traded their bodies for.

One of the needle marks oozed pus. It was right beside one that looked like it was just done that day.

Bosten just stood there, watching my face while I looked at what he'd done to himself. And he had this expression like he was saying, “I told you so.”

I thought about Paul Buckley's arms.

I tried to remember if there was ever a time in my life when I'd gotten mad or disappointed with Bosten.

“Are you trying to fucking kill yourself or something?”

Bosten shrugged. “I       don't know.”

He smiled, like it was no big deal at all.

He slipped his arms back into the sleeves of his shirt.

Before he could sit back down and pick up his cigarette, I launched myself from the couch and grabbed my brother around the collars of his shirt.

Bosten was startled. “Hey—”

I pushed him all the way across the floor, jammed him against Steve's registration desk, so the small of his back was pinned. And I'd never fought with my brother, not one time in my life; but I didn't know what else I could do. I was afraid he was going to kill himself.

I imagined him ending up like Willie.

And I knew Bosten could fight. I was being stupid if I thought that he wasn't going to punch me in the face for what I was doing, but my brother just kind of went limp and gave up in front of me.

“What the fuck, Bosten? You can't do this to me. You can't leave me like this.”

Bosten just stood there, his arms hanging loose at his sides.

“What are you going to  do?

Beat the shit out of me? Like Dad?”

I let go of him and turned around.

“Fuck you, Bosten.”

“See?

I always knew

one of these days

you'd stick up for yourself.”

My brother walked across to the table and put his cigarette in his lips.

“Steve would be pissed     if we burned the place down.”

“I'm going to leave.”

I didn't turn around. I was too disgusted to look at Bosten.

I went to the door and opened it.

“It's locked,            so you can't come back in until tomorrow at          noon.”

“I'm not coming back. I'm going home.”

It was like a dream. I couldn't believe this was happening, but I heard the door latch shut behind me and next thing I knew, I was on the stairs, going down, smelling the reek of piss in that dark hallway.

And the door opened behind me.

“Hey.    Wait. You forgot the          UFO picture.”

I stopped.

Bosten said, “Let me       wake up   Jericho. He's the best at breaking into places.  We're going to need to get Aunt Dahlia's car out         if you plan on taking me home.”

*   *   *

The boy named Jericho was small
and rat-like, with a faint mustache of amber fuzz over his lip. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, which made him look even more like a rodent. He told me he was seventeen and that he ran away from his home in Utah to come to Los Angeles.

And he said it would be a piece of cake getting Aunt Dahlia's car out of the lot.

When he said “cake,” it made me hungry.

We walked down Broadway to Fifth Street and turned right. Jericho knew exactly the lot on Flower Street where I'd left the car.

“The guy who        runs it's from      Greece or something. He's a      dick,                  but sometimes, he'll let us bum a cigarette,” Jericho said.

Jericho's head twitched when he walked, and he sniffled constantly and rubbed the snot from his running nose across the back of his sleeve.

“You can come to our house,” I offered. “I mean, if you need a place to stay for a while.”

“Shit,” he said. “Do I look like I need    a place to stay?”

Jericho wiped his nose again.

He did look like he needed a place to stay, but I was afraid I'd make him mad.

“Sorry.”

“Shit. You're all       Big Brother talks about.  Like you're his hero or something.”

Bosten said, “Shut    up.”

Jericho twitched and sniffled. “Okay. Sometimes he talks about    slamming shit up in his arm, too.”

Then he laughed and slapped at Bosten, but he only fanned the air.

“And what do
you
        talk about all the time?” Bosten said.

“Getting       high. And my sweet Bosten.”

I decided I didn't like Jericho, but told myself if he knew a way to get the Dodge out of the Greek guy's lot, then I'd better shut up.