Under the Bridge (7 page)

Badger picked up an end of the board and studied it. “Do I know the person who did this?”

“No. Sponsored guy from the Wheelhouse,” I said.

“Corey Norton.” Mitch spoke up.

“Aaah. My competitor and the leader of their team. I rescind my previous statement and now condone violence. Only against competitors’ customers, though.” He stood from his stool. “Be right back.”

Mitch and I stood at the counter while Badger grabbed an identical deck from the rack, bringing it over. He looked at Mitch in his torn T-shirt and holes-in-the-knees Levi’s. “On the house, kid. You come by after school and stock shelves for a couple of days and we have a deal.”

I shook my head. “He has money, Badge.”

Mitch smiled. “He took it from Corey. To pay for it. You shoulda seen the sucker’s face, Badge.” Mitch made a face mimicking a horror-flick monster. “All busted up. Bam!”

Badge nodded, pondering as he looked at me. “I see. Violence and strong-arm robbery. You’re moving up the ladder.”

I shrugged.

Badger dug under the counter, bringing out a screwdriver and socket set. “We’ll get you set up, huh? Grip tape, buff the rails, a tweak here and there, and you’re set.”

Mitch smiled again and watched as Badger worked. I dug in my pocket. “How much was it?”

“Thirty-two bucks. No tax if you’ve got cash.”

I put the two twenties on the counter and he opened the till, handing me eight back. I stuffed it in my pocket. “Listen, I’ve got to split. Thanks, Badge.” I hit Mitch on the shoulder. “Stop by sometime and we’ll get you set up on those trucks, huh?”

Mitch smiled, staring at his new board. “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Tate.”

“No problem. Take it easy, and let me know if that guy looks sideways at you, okay?”

He nodded, and I went home.

Monday rolled around, and so did Indy. Under the threat of being shackled to a post in the basement for the next year, Indy went to school, but of course nothing could be so simple in my brother’s life
.

My third-period class is on the upper floor of the school, and Indy’s is seven doors down. When he did decide to go to school, we’d usually meet at our lockers and grab our stuff for lunch. As I made my way through the mass of people filling the hall, I spotted Indy at his locker. I smiled when I reached him. “Crazy.”

He stowed his backpack on the hook. “What?”

“You being here after three hours.”

He took his board out, laughing. “Yeah. Doing nothing all morning has given me time to think about things.”

I narrowed my eyes, looking at him. “I’d like to think when a person says that, it means good things.”

He turned to me. “Depends on what
good
means and who it’s good for.”

I grunted. “Shit.”

“Look at it this way. The school is going to use that Becca Law if I skip, which will make Mom and Dad go to court and cost them money, and Dad will miss his treasured work if I do, right? He might even have to drag me across the table again.”

“Yeah,” I said. If a kid skipped too much, the school could send the parents to court over it, and the parents could be fined if the kid didn’t start going to school. Indy was ripe for it.

“So, I don’t want to go to school.”

“So? You’re here.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re not getting it, bro. The only way I can not be here and not go to court is if they don’t let me be here. Everybody wins, and Dad can’t do a thing because he told me not to skip. He didn’t say crap about being suspended.”

I clenched my teeth. “Indy …”

He set his board down. “Check it,” he said, then took off, skating down the hall, bumping past people, carving a path back and forth. People hugged lockers and cheered as he threw kick-flips and ollies, the clack of his wheels echoing through the place.

Even though my stomach churned when I thought about what would happen later, I couldn’t help but envy him. He had no fear. No boundaries. Skating was about freedom and about breaking rules for a reason, and there was something inside my brother that lived for it. He did stupid things, but
he never did them for stupid reasons. Regardless of the consequences. This was for my dad, and no matter how I felt about it, I understood where he was coming from.

As he hit the end of the hall, turned around, and began skating back, a few teachers came out of their classrooms, wondering what the issue was. That included Mr. Halvorson, the baseball coach and head of the English department. He saw Indy rolling toward him and lunged, grabbing him by his shirt and yanking him up against a row of lockers. Indy’s board rolled on. I picked it up, walking toward them.

By the look on Mr. Halvorson’s face and the way the tendons in his neck stood out as he growled at Indy, I knew things were going to get out of hand. Halvorson was a big guy with a reputation for being the ultimate jock, and he looked like he was about to make Indy a part of the locker. I double-timed it, getting there just in time to hear Indy ask him where he hid the steroid needle marks. Halvorson’s grip tightened on Indy’s shirt. “This school has just about had enough of you, young man.”

Indy smiled. “You know what? We see things the same. You don’t give a shit if I exist, and I don’t give a shit if you get hit by a truck tomorrow. Even, huh?”

I broke in. “Knock it off, Indy.”

He looked at me, still pinned to the locker. “Awesome. It’s my brother. You want to join in, Tate? Maybe take turns telling me how much this school wants me around? At least this jackhole is honest about it.”

Mr. Halvorson loosened his grip on Indy, and I saw
something in his expression change. “I’ll escort you to the office.” He looked at me. “You can go on to class.”

By fifth period I knew Mom had been to the office and Indy was back at the house, and for the first time throughout all the petty and stupid arguing between my dad and my brother, I didn’t want to go home. For the first time, I suppose, I knew something had snapped for both of them. We’d always been a family, and now that wasn’t the case.

Things were going from bad to worse faster than I could count, and I didn’t know where it would end up. My dad was not a man to cross, Indy was born to cross him, and neither would stop. They were poison to each other, and I couldn’t be the remedy. Nobody could.

On the way to sixth period, I spotted Corey Norton at his locker, sporting two black eyes and a swollen nose. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he flinched when he turned and saw me. We stood there for a moment, and I studied his face. Not bad for one punch. He frowned. “You broke my nose.” It came out nasally.

I dug in my pocket, taking out the eight dollars left over from the deck. I held it out to him. I wasn’t too interested in feeling sorry for a guy who would do that to a kid. “Leave him alone.”

He looked at my outstretched hand, then took the money. “I could press charges, you know.”

I turned around and walked away. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. His entire credibility in this school as a skater would vanish if he did. He’d lick his wounds and avoid me, or he and his buddies would find me alone somewhere and beat the hell out of me, but I didn’t care either way. I’d been busted up a few times and could handle once more. Corey was a coward and a bully, and nothing would change that.

The girl I’d seen in the church parking lot, Kimberly Lawson, sat three seats ahead of me in sixth-period English. When I walked into class, she was sitting at her desk as usual, on time, on the ball, and with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. I’d never seen her late, never seen her look bored or disinterested during the hour-long monologues Mr. Cassidy gave every day, and never seen her without her hair in a ponytail.

Kimberly Lawson was every daddy’s dream come true. Pretty, smart, responsible, talented, a rule follower, and completely and utterly difficult to get close to, which I thought was funny. I’d seen half the football and baseball teams crash and burn with her since junior high, but they still kept trying. Like lemmings flocking over the cliff’s edge, they just mindlessly kept heading toward that fateful death drop.

Word was Kimberly Lawson was a lesbian, but it was a quiet word, just like Kimberly Lawson was a quiet girl. Guys could be bitter when repeated attempts to get laid didn’t work out. Being a girl in high school, I thought, would suck. If you put out, you were a slut, and if you didn’t, you were gay. She’d had two short-lived boyfriends in the past three years that I knew of, but I hadn’t known either guy. Kimberly Lawson,
besides being the best volleyball player in the school’s history, was a mystery if you wanted to know her and just another invisible student walking the halls if you didn’t. I’d never wanted to know her, even if she was pretty. Not my type.

She stared at me as I walked past her and sat down, her big brown doe eyes neither afraid nor questioning. Just there, like she was. Two moving eyeballs stuck in a face painting. Mr. Cassidy began his lecture for the day, this one beginning a section on writing essays. I stared at him, not hearing a word he said as I thought about Kimberly. She probably thought I was some kind of criminal or street thug, and for some reason, it bothered me.

Fifty minutes later, class let out and I followed Kimberly to the hall. “Hey.” She kept walking, her long legs outpacing mine. I hustled up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder. “Hey.”

She stopped, turning. Her eyes sharpened. “Yes?”

“I saw you. At the church.”

She didn’t smile, didn’t say anything, just stared at me.

I cleared my throat. “That was your family?”

She nodded, her eyes flicking away.

I took a breath. Talking to this chick was like pulling teeth. “It’s not what it looked like.” I don’t know why I said it, and I don’t know why I cared, but I did.

“You mean beating up Corey and taking his money?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. It wasn’t that.”

“You didn’t beat him up and take his money?”

I looked at her. “Yeah, I did. But not for a bad reason.”

She smirked. “I didn’t know there was a good reason for beating people up and stealing.”

I looked at her and knew it was useless. I knew what she saw when she looked at me. “I just … Never mind. You wouldn’t get it.” Then I walked away.

I contemplated skating until dinner, but something in me pointed my board home. I chuckled as I went, reminded that my mom had once told me that people are sometimes drawn to what hurts them more than what’s good for them. For all I knew, the walls would be splattered with battle blood and I’d find Indy’s head hanging on a stake in the front yard, but I had to know.

I got home at three and the house was silent. Mom’s car was gone, and when I walked inside, the blinds were pulled shut and Dad sat in his recliner, staring at the dead TV. A bad, bad sign, because it meant he was brooding. He held a bottle of beer in his hand, and three more empties made a row on the table beside him. My dad was not a heavy drinker, and certainly not in the middle of the day. He wasn’t at work, either. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hello.” He didn’t turn his head, just stared at the blank screen.