Traplines (3 page)

“Sure,” I say.

“Enough to live here?”

I’m not sure I heard him right. Maybe he’s asking a different question from the one I think he’s asking. I open my mouth. I don’t know what to say. I say nothing.

“Those are the stakes, then,” he says. “I win, you stay. You win, you stay.”

He’s joking. I laugh. He doesn’t laugh. “You serious?” I ask.

He stands up straight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more serious.”

The room is suddenly very small.

“Your turn,” he says. “Stripes.”

I scratch, missing the ball by a mile. He takes his turn.

“We don’t want to push you,” he says. He leans over the table, squints at a ball. “We just think that you’d be safer here. Hell, you practically live with us already.” I watch my sneakers. He keeps playing. “We aren’t rich. We aren’t perfect. We …” He looks at me. “We thought maybe you’d like to try it for a couple of weeks first.”

“I can’t.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “Think about it. Take a few days.”

It’s my turn again but I don’t feel like playing anymore. Mr. Smythe is waiting, though. I pick a ball. Aim, shoot, miss.

The game goes on in silence. Mr. Smythe wins easily. He smiles. “Well, I win. You stay.”

If I wanted to get out of the room, there is only one door and Mr. Smythe is blocking it. He watches me. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says.

Mrs. Smythe has shut off the TV. She stands up when we come into the living room. “Will—”

“I asked him already,” Mr. Smythe says.

Her head snaps around. “You what?”

“I asked him.”

Her hands clench at her sides. “We were supposed to do it together, Sam.” Her voice is flat. She turns to me. “You said no.”

I can’t look at her. I look at the walls, at the floor, at her slippers. I shouldn’t have come tonight. I should have waited for Eric to leave. She stands in front of me, trying to smile. Her hands are warm on my face. “Look at me,” she says. “Will? Look at me.” She is trying to smile. “Hungry?” she says.

I nod. She makes a motion with her head for Mr. Smythe to follow her into the kitchen. When they’re gone I sit down. It should be easy. It should be easy. I watch TV without seeing it. I wonder what they’re saying about me in the kitchen.

It’s now almost seven and my ribs hurt. Mostly, I can ignore it, but Eric hit me pretty hard and they’re bruised. Eric got hit pretty hard by Dad, so we’re even, I guess. I’m counting the days until Eric moves out. The rate he’s going, he’ll be busted soon anyway. Tony says the police are starting to ask questions.

It’s a strange night. We all pretend that nothing has happened and Mrs. Smythe fixes some nachos. Mr. Smythe gets out a pack of Uno cards and we play a few rounds and watch the Discovery Channel. We go to bed.

I lie awake. My room. This could be my room. I already have most of my books here. It’s hard to study with Eric around. I still have a headache. I couldn’t get away from them long enough to sneak into the kitchen for an aspirin. I pull my T-shirt up and take a look. There’s a long bruise under my ribs and five smaller ones above it. I think Eric was trying to hit my stomach but he was so wasted he kept missing.
It isn’t too bad. Tony’s dad broke three of his ribs once. Billy got a concussion a couple of weeks ago. My dad is pretty easy. It’s only Eric who really bothers me.

The Smythes keep the aspirin by the spices. I grab six, three for now and three for the morning. I’m swallowing the last one when Mr. Smythe grabs my hand. I didn’t even hear him come in. I must be sleepy.

“Where’d they hit you this time?” he says.

“I got a headache,” I say. “A bad one.”

He pries open the hand with the aspirins in it. “How many do you plan on taking?”

“These are for later.”

He sighs. I get ready for a lecture. “Go back to bed” is all he says. “It’ll be okay.” He sounds very tired.

“Sure,” I say.

I get up around five. I leave a note saying I have things to do at home. I catch a ride with some guys coming off the graveyard shift.

No one is home. Eric had a party last night. I’m glad I wasn’t around. They’ve wrecked the coffee table and the rug smells like stale beer and cigarettes. Our bedroom is even worse. Someone puked all over Eric’s bed and there are two used condoms on mine. At least none of the windows were broken this time. I start to clean my side of the room, then stop. I sit on my bed.

Mr. Smythe will be getting up soon. It’s Sunday, so there’ll be waffles or french toast. He’ll fix a plate of bacon and eat it before Mrs. Smythe comes downstairs. He thinks she doesn’t know that he does this. She’ll get up around ten or
eleven and won’t talk to anyone until she’s had about three coffees. She starts to wake up around one or two. They’ll argue about something. Whose turn to take out the garbage or do the laundry. They’ll read the paper.

I crawl into bed. The aspirin isn’t working. I try to sleep but it really reeks in here. I have a biology test tomorrow. I forgot to bring the book back from their place. I lie there awake until our truck pulls into the driveway. Mom and Dad are fighting. They sound plastered. Mom is bitching about something. Dad is not saying anything. Doors slam.

Mom comes in first and goes straight to bed. She doesn’t seem to notice the house is a mess. Dad comes in a lot slower.

“What the—Eric!” he yells. “Eric!”

I pretend to sleep. The door bangs open.

“Eric, you little bastard,” Dad says, looking around. He shakes me. “Where the fuck is Eric?”

His breath is lethal. You can tell he likes his rye straight.

“How should I know?”

He rips Eric’s amplifiers off the walls. He throws them down and gives them a good kick. He tips Eric’s bed over. Eric is smart. He won’t come home for a while. Dad will have cooled off by then and Eric can give him some money without Dad’s getting pissed off. I don’t move. I wait until he’s out of the room before I put on a sweater. I can hear him down in the basement chopping wood. It should be around eight by now. The RinkyDink will be open in an hour.

When I go into the kitchen, Mom is there. She sees me and makes a shushing motion with her hands. She pulls out a bottle from behind the stove and sits down at the kitchen table.

“You’re a good boy,” she says, giggling. “You’re a good boy. Help your old mother back to bed, hey.”

“Sure,” I say, putting an arm around her. She stands, holding onto the bottle with one hand and me with the other. “This way, my lady.”

“You making fun of me?” she says, her eyes going small. “You laughing at me?” Then she laughs and we go to their room. She flops onto the bed. She takes a long drink. “You’re fucking laughing at me, aren’t you?”

“Mom, you’re paranoid. I was making a joke.”

“Yeah, you’re really funny. A laugh a minute,” she says, giggling again. “Real comedian.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

She throws the bottle at me. I duck. She rolls over and starts to cry. I cover her with the blanket and leave. The floor is sticky. Dad’s still chopping wood. They wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t here. Maybe people would talk for a week or two, but after a while they wouldn’t notice. The only people who would miss me are Tony and Craig and Billy and maybe Eric, when he got toked up and didn’t have anything for target practice.

Billy is playing Mortal Kombat at the RinkyDink. He’s chain-smoking. As I walk up to him, he turns around quickly.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says, going back to the game.

“Hi to you too,” I say.

“You seen Elaine?” he says.

“Nope.”

He crushes out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him. He plays for a while, loses a life, then shakes another cigarette out one-handed. He sticks it in his mouth, loses another man,
then lights up. He sucks deep. “Relax,” I say. “Her majesty’s limo is probably stuck in traffic. She’ll come.”

He glares at me. “Shut up.”

I go play pool with Craig, who’s decided that he’s James Dean. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket that looks like his brother’s. His hair is blow-dried and a cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth.

“What a loser,” he says.

“Who you calling a loser?”

“Billy. What a loser.” He struts to the other side of the pool table.

“He’s okay.”

“That babe,” he says. “What’s-her-face. Ellen? Irma?”

“Elaine.”

“Yeah, her. She’s going out with him ’cause she’s got a bet.”

“What?”

“She’s got to go out with him a month, and her friend will give her some coke.”

“Billy’s already giving her coke.”

“Yeah. He’s a loser.”

I look over at Billy. He’s lighting another cigarette.

“Can you imagine a townie wanting anything to do with him?” Craig says. “She’s just doing it as a joke. She’s going to dump him in a week. She’s going to put all his stupid poems in the paper.”

I see it now. There’s a space around Billy. No one is going near him. He doesn’t notice. Same with me. I catch some guys I used to hang out with grinning at me. When they see me looking at them, they look away.

Craig wins the game. I’m losing a lot this week.

Elaine gets to the RinkyDink after lunch. She’s got some townie girlfriends with her who are tiptoeing around like they’re going to get jumped. Elaine leads them right up to Billy. Everyone’s watching. Billy gives her his latest poem. I wonder what he found to rhyme with “Elaine.”

The girls leave. Billy holds the door open for Elaine. Her friends start to giggle. The guys standing around start to howl. They’re laughing so hard they’re crying. I feel sick. I think about telling Billy but I know he won’t listen.

I leave the RinkyDink and go for a walk. I walk and walk and end up back in front of the RinkyDink. There’s nowhere else to go. I hang out with Craig, who hasn’t left the pool table.

I spend the night on his floor. Craig’s parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and preach at me before I go to bed. I sit and listen because I need a place to sleep. I’m not going home until tomorrow, when Mom and Dad are sober. Craig’s mom gets us up two hours before the bus that takes the village kids to school comes. They pray before we eat. Craig looks at me and rolls his eyes. People are always making fun of Craig because his parents stand on the corner downtown every Friday and hold up the
Watchtower
mags. When his parents start to bug him, he says he’ll take up devil worship or astrology if they don’t lay off. I think I’ll ask him if he wants to hang out with me on Christmas. His parents don’t believe in it.

Between classes I pass Mrs. Smythe in the hall. Craig nudges me. “Go on,” he says, making sucking noises. “Go get your A.”

“Fuck off,” I say, pushing him.

She’s talking to some girl and doesn’t see me. I think about skipping English but know that she’ll call home and ask where I am.

At lunch no one talks to me. I can’t find Craig or Tony or Billy. The village guys who hang out by the science wing snicker as I go past. I don’t stop until I get to the gym doors, where the headbangers have taken over. I don’t have any money and I didn’t bring a lunch, so I bum a cigarette off this girl with really tight jeans. To get my mind off my stomach I try to get her to go out with me. She looks at me like I’m crazy. When she walks away, the fringe on her leather jacket swings.

I flunk my biology test. It’s multiple choice. I stare at the paper and kick myself. I know I could have passed if I’d read the chapter. Mr. Kellerman reads out the scores from lowest to highest. My name is called out third.

“Mr. Tate,” he says. “Three out of thirty.”

“All riiight,” Craig says, slapping my back.

“Mr. Davis,” Mr. Kellerman says to Craig, “three and a half.”

Craig stands up and bows. The guys in the back clap. The kids in the front laugh. Mr. Kellerman reads out the rest of the scores. Craig turns to me. “Looks like I beat the Brain,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Pretty soon you’re going to be getting the Nobel Prize.”

The bell rings for English. I go to my locker and take out my jacket. If she calls home no one’s going to answer anyway.

I walk downtown. The snow is starting to slack off and it’s even sunning a bit. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. I wish I’d gone to English. Mrs. Smythe would have given me something to eat. She always has something left over from lunch. I hunch down into my jacket.

Downtown, I go to the Paradise Arcade. All the heads hang out there. Maybe Eric’ll give me some money. More like a belt, but it’s worth a try. I don’t see him anywhere, though. In fact, no one much is there. Just some burnouts by the pinball machines. I see Mitch and go over to him, but he’s soaring, laughing at the ball going around the machine. I walk away, head for the highway, and hitch home. Mom will have passed out by now, and Dad’ll be at work.

Sure enough, Mom is on the living room floor. I get her a blanket. The stove has gone out and it’s freezing in here. I go into the kitchen and look through the fridge. There’s one jar of pickles, some really pathetic-looking celery, and some milk that’s so old it smells like cheese. There’s no bread left over from Saturday. I find some Rice-A-Roni and cook it. Mom comes to and asks for some water. I bring her a glass and give her a little Rice-A-Roni. She makes a face but slowly eats it.

At six Dad comes home with Eric. They’ve made up. Eric has bought Dad a six-pack and they watch the hockey game together. I stay in my room. Eric has cleaned his bed by dumping his mattress outside and stealing mine. I haul my mattress back onto my bed frame. I pull out my English book. We have a grammar test this Friday. I know Mrs. Smythe will be unhappy if she has to fail me. I read the chapter
on nouns and get through most of the one on verbs before Eric comes in and kicks me off the bed.

He tries to take the mattress but I punch him in the side. Eric turns and grabs my hair. “This is my bed,” he says. “Understand?”

“Fuck you,” I say. “You had the party. Your fucked-up friends trashed the room. You sleep on the floor.”

Dad comes in and sees Eric push me against the wall and smack my face. He yells at Eric, who turns around, his fist frozen in the air. Dad rolls his sleeves up.