The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second (24 page)

“Rob—”

“You fucking let him kill my mom!”

I tried not to cry, but it just happened. I cried so hard my ribs hurt and I gasped and gagged. Blood and snot, spit and tears were all over. Rob laughed, kicked me in the gut, called me a faggot, kicked me in the nuts. I almost puked. I didn't look up. I didn't want to see Rob staring at me like I was a sideshow freak. Like I was nothing.

He kicked the ground. I winced, trying to shield myself as gravel machine-gunned my chest and arm. Dust was everywhere—my nostrils, my face, my eyes. I coughed. Blood splattered my chin and my front teeth moved.

“Leave him alone,” someone said. My eyes were swelling shut. My body ached. I wiped the dirt and crap from my face and curled into a ball, hiding my face. More pain. “Leave 'im alone, Hunt,” the voice repeated. It was Bink. “Or I swear I'll—”

“Or you'll what?” Rob asked.

A squad car's siren blared close to Twin Ponds' entrance. I strained to open an eye. Bink and Rob stood toe-to-toe, eyes locked, daring each other to move. Red and blue lights cut across the treetops. Kids scrambled like a fire alarm had been pulled in a home for the permanently spastic. People shoved past each other to get to cars that weren't even theirs. A girl started bawling about how her mother was
sooo
going to kill her. A few guys bolted for the woods beyond the driving range. Steve Marshall, out to win the award for Best Achievement in Stating the Obvious, kept shouting “The cops! The cops!” before diving into Rob's car. Rob backed down and walked toward his car, Bink keeping a bead on each step.

Rob climbed into the BMW, shoving Marshall across the seat. Bob Collins claimed shotgun, scurrying in after them. Shannon Debold, Dana, and a pair of legs I didn't recognize crammed into Rob's backseat all asses-over-elbows. I ran to the Beamer. If I could stop him, make him understand, then maybe things could go back to normal. I grabbed for the door and Rob triggered the power lock, leaving me tugging a dead handle.

“Rob—”

I slapped the window, smearing it with blood and dirt. Marshall reached an arm across Bob and flipped me the bird. Rob peeled away, practically taking my arm off. Bink hurled a handful of rocks, shouting, “Asshole!” The rear window cracked, but Rob kept driving. Other cars screeched after him.

I stood there, numb. Maybe I blacked out. My chest wasn't moving. My body felt cut off from my brain. “Charlie, move it,” Bink said, “we gotta go, 'less you wanna get busted.”

Bink touched my shoulder and it was like I'd been jump-started with heart paddles.

A cop car pulled into the parking lot, blocking off the entrance. We weren't getting out until they were gone. Bink jerked my arm and dragged my ass, stubborn-puppy like, toward the mini-putt course. Cops' flashlights chased us past hokey mock-ups of European “culture”—a scaled-down Eiffel Tower; a Big Ben that chimed every time someone sank a putt; a matador whose red, sheet-metal cape swatted balls from the hole. We collapsed behind the Dutch windmill on the twelfth hole.

When the cops left—probably headed back to Country Donuts—Bink shouted, “Ollie ollie oxen free free free,” shoulder-checked me, and helped me off my ass. I caught a whiff of him—grass stains on musky skin and Ivory soap that'd just about given up. He smelled humid, if that's even possible. I don't think I've ever wanted him to hold me more. We trudged back to his car.

I grabbed the passenger side door handle and found that the Bug was locked with my clothes inside because…'cuz…why'd Dana have to go and lock the car? What the hell was she thinking? That the moment the Beetle was out of her sight, it'd be stripped and sold for parts by a gang of shop-class rejects? That some sophomore girl, hopped up on Dexatrim and Chloroseptic Slurpees would pry the glove box open with a crowbar, steal the Triple A road map of Lake Geneva, and sell it to score her next fix?
Stupid, stupid bitch.

Bink pulled a key from his sock and unlocked and opened the door for me. I reached across the front seat and popped the lock for him. We grabbed the clothes from our bags, dressed, and then took off. Cheek resting on the window, I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. I looked like hell—purple and black bruises, raccoon eyes, nose busted, cheeks caked with dirt and blood and sweat. Worst of all I was pouting. I sucked in my lip and stopped.

Bink dropped me off at Dad's, but I knew I couldn't stay. Call me a baby, but I wanted my mom. I grabbed some of my stuff and biked over to The Cottage to catch her.

She's been pretty cool so far. More on that later.

Sunday, October 28

So, the rest of Friday night.

When I sneaked into Dad's place, he was on the couch, dead to the world, head snapped back and snoring, fingers barely clutching the cable remote. His wristwatch rested on his stomach like he'd been waiting to bust me for breaking curfew. Some black and white movie with a bunch of bad actors from the '40s was on TV.

It felt strange watching Dad sleep. In a weird way, watching him snore made me kinda feel what parents have gotta feel when they check in at night on their kids. I wrote a quick note saying I was at Mom's. Since Dad had tried waiting up for me, I felt like I owed it to him to let him know I wasn't dying in a ditch somewhere. I headed out, leaving the boob tube on to camouflage my escape.

Why Mom decided to work at a bar like The Cottage is beyond me. The place is a joke. The only people who go there are really sad South graduates, the get-on-with-your-life-alreadyand-stop-showing-up-at-every-home-football-game-trying-to-convince-yourself-that-you-aren't-a-washed-up-loser types. There wasn't any “catching someone at a good time” at The Cottage. Friday night was no exception. The bar was packed, the usual rejects hammered, the waitresses with those pissed-off, constipated looking faces that made them seem like they could burp shit.

Looking for Mom, I pushed my way through a group of ex-JV jocks reliving the glory of getting off the bench
(And then Coach was, like, “Johnson get in there. Game's riding on you.” So I'm, like, grabbing my helmet, and the field lights, bro, they were so damn bright, and…Dude, fuckin' watch it. That's my goddamn beer, asswipe.
), past a table of flabby-thighed skanks sucking down Capri Ultra Lights and dollar pulls of Pabst Blue Ribbon (
Puh-leaze, that's
sooo
gay, Abbie! Oh my God, ten o'clock. He's sooo
hot.
Where? Which one? Christ, Abby. Ten o'clock! Way awesome bod! Not
you,
you freak
.
Yeah, freak. Damn, Bridget, didja see that kid's face? Yeah, what's up with that?
). I finally shoehorned a spot between a drunk whose lips seemed like they were melting off his face and some broad French-inhaling a thin cigar. Drunk nodded at me. I smiled, even though it hurt to move my face, and returned the nod. The broad turned away like she couldn't be bothered.

“Charlie, what are you doing—Jesus, your face. Are you okay?”

Mom was behind the bar, changing out a register, but when she caught my reflection in the mirror behind the shelves of booze, she flipped. Her face lost its color. She dropped the drawer she'd been holding and, don't ask me how, managed to grab me by the armpits and nearly heaved me over the bar's side.

“What happened? Who did this?” I didn't get a chance to answer. Mom's hands cupped my head and she tilted my face into the light, rolling it from side to side. One of her fingers pulled my lip down, checking to see if I still had teeth.

She told her boss she needed to leave and hustled me out. What surprised me was once we were out of earshot, Mom didn't yell at me like I thought she would.

“Did you bike here?” she asked.

I nodded, pointing to where I'd dumped my ten-speed. Mom tossed me the car keys and had me open the back of the Jeep. We fought to get the bike far enough inside to close the hatch.

“We're going to the emergency room,” Mom said, slipping her hand into the small of my back. I shook my head. “You sure?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I nodded and my teeth felt like the flippers in a pinball machine. “Let's go home then.”

In the car, Mom stabbed her key in the ignition and the speakers coughed to life, playing “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa.

“God, I used to love this song.” Mom turned the volume down and fished through her purse for her smokes. “Every time I hear it, it reminds me of the night your father and I—never mind. At least, Charlie, I kept you from being a cliché. Christ, your father wanted ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.' The 18-minute version. Wishful thinking, if you ask me. I made him change CDs.”

“Huh? I don't get it,” I lied. Who wants to hear about their parents bumping uglies?

“I'll tell you when you're older.”

I sighed, wondering if anybody's parents ever meant that. Like, did they keep a list somewhere?
This is where babies come from, the man from Nantucket had a dick so long he could suck it, Aunt Edna wasn't at Thanksgiving last year because she was in rehab, not
'cuz
she was “tired.”

“So,” Mom said, ignoring me as she slid the car into gear and backed out of her parking spot, “if we're not going to the emergency room, should we stop by the grocery store? Get a couple of steaks for those shiners?” I shook my head.
Tilt! Tilt!

She didn't ask what happened until after we'd gotten home, I'd soaked in the tub (she went all out, using the fancy bath beads that looked like opals and smelled like lilacs), and I was wearing one of Dad's bathrobes. The whole thing made me feel a little girly, but it was nice. Mom came into my room, warm milk—I always thought it was kinda gross—and painkillers in tow.

“Don't tell your father.” She shook a codeine-spiked Tylenol from its brown plastic bottle into my palm. “He'd probably accuse me of giving you heroin.” I popped it in my mouth and I couldn't help thinking about Mrs. Hunt. I took a swig of milk, handed the glass back to Mom, and curled up on my bed.

“It's no steak,” she said, folding a damp washcloth into a roll and resting it on my eyes, “but I suppose it'll do.”

I ended up spilling my guts. Verbal diarrhea. How I knew about Mr. Hunt's fight with the nurse, the pills, how I felt like shit for not telling anyone, the Crosstown Classic, my fight with Rob. Mom didn't say anything and I kept babbling; then I guess I zonked out.

When I woke up a few hours later, I heard Mom downstairs talking to Dad. They weren't arguing or fighting and Dad wasn't pleading with her to take him back, so it took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't dreaming the whole thing. Mom must've called Dad shortly after I passed out, 'cuz from what I could barely hear of their conversation, they weren't talking about Rob's near-perfect attempt to beat the ever-living piss out of me. They were talking about the charges that Fisk had filed against Mr. Hunt.

I dropped my aching ass to the ground and dragged myself alongside the heating vent on my bedroom floor for a little quality eavesdropping.

Dad was in the middle of some thought I couldn't quite follow. “…it may be his show, but that doesn't mean it will wind up on stage.”

“I'm not following you,” Mom said.

“I might be able to stop the case from ever going to trial. Hunt's attorney's right. Fisk is just using Hunt for publicity.”

“So if there really isn't a case, why did your office file charges?” Mom asked. I wanted to know, too. I pressed my ear against the vent's metal grate even harder, waiting for Dad's answer.

“I'm not saying Fisk doesn't have a case. He can make one. It's just not a strong one. Even if Paul Hunt turns out to be guilty, getting a conviction will be tough. His lawyers will push for a jury trial. They'll call a series of sympathetic witnesses that Fisk won't be able to get aggressive with on cross without running the risk of coming across as a monster. I can't imagine any jury that wouldn't have at least one juror who either hasn't gone through what Hunt did or at the very least can imagine being in his situation. Knowing that, Hunt's attorneys will play hardball. They will probably argue the only way that the state can get what it's after is to let Hunt plead to some minor charge with no time.”

“So, Charles, how do you fit into this?”

“I'm going to the boss tomorrow. If I can lay it all out for Ed, show him just how much of a waste of time and money this is for our office, he may pull the plug. Since he's stepping down as state's attorney, Ed doesn't have a dog in this fight, at least not politically. If he sees it my way, maybe he'll work to get the charges dropped.”

“You're not doing this because of tonight, are you? You know, Charles, if you are, you can't keep protecting Charlie.”

“It's not about Charlie,” Dad said. My stomach soured, and for a split second, I was like
Charles James Stewart the First, he's my hero—not!
“If getting the case dropped helps Charlie with his…friend…that's neither here nor there. It's about doing what's right. Look, you and I know what a loss can do to a family. I don't see any reason for my office to step in and make someone else's loss worse.”

I found myself nodding, and then decided I was too old to be listening in on the Ps' convos.

A few weeks ago—hell, at any point in my life as a teen—if someone told me I'd be proud of my dad, I would've told him he was more full of crap than a septic tank. But you know what? Little by little, it seems like he's turning out to be an almost-cool guy.

 

Mom and I just got back from church. I didn't want to go, but she insisted since it was Reformation Sunday, which is supposed to be a big deal for Lutherans when we celebrate Marty Luther pissing off a pope and getting himself some hot nun action. And what a celebration—the toneless “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” garbage, Pastor Taylor's anti-Catholic tirade about cardinals and bishops turning St. Peter's into a wall-to-wall brothel of naked Catholic boys (
that got my attention
), and then Pastor T doling out the wafers like poker chips, waving his hand abracadabra and mumbling “Body of Christ, shed for you.”