An hour later, Mr. Smith came rushing through the front door and immediately locked Sticky out in the garage with the dog. Sticky spent that night sleeping on a cold cot next to a rusty tool bench.
The next morning Mr. Smith packed up Sticky’s bag and stuck it in the back of the van. He opened the passenger door and let Sticky in. Then he took his seat at the wheel. He stared out the window for a few minutes before starting the motor. For this leg of the trip it was just him and Sticky. There would be no more big family affairs. No more upbeat conversations. No more hugging and talk of trust.
Sticky sank into the passenger seat and hung his head. He had succeeded in playing a role.
Mrs. Smith stayed inside with her kids. She watched her husband through the living room window as he turned the key, flipped the car into reverse and rolled down the driveway.
Tammie and Johnny sat at the kitchen table eating oatmeal with their heads down. Neither said a word.
Jamie watched from her bedroom window with glassy eyes as the white van made its way down their street, stopped at the stop sign and then turned out of sight.
When Mr. Smith pulled up outside the foster care pad again, not even a year after he’d come to pick Sticky up, the old Mexican director was once again standing out on the curb, waiting.
We’ve got young children,
Mr. Smith said after he shut off the engine and hopped out of the van.
I understand,
the old Mexican director said, and he crossed his arms.
You know how it is,
Mr. Smith said, and he stood there a second, slipped his hands in his pockets.
They’re impressionable
. He watched Sticky walk around the van, then pulled open the sliding side door and reached in for Sticky’s bag. Set it down on the sidewalk and shook his head.
The director picked up the bag.
I have to think about my own kids right now,
Mr. Smith said, and then he climbed back into the van and drove away.
Dave Was Snapping
his fingers to the rhythm of the reggae when Sin pulled his Impala along the curb and shut off the engine. They were about a block from Milo’s Liquor in Venice, the place they always ended up on the nights they hung together. Where the forties were cheap and nobody asked for ID.
The buzz of the big play-off win was still spinning in their heads, and the fellas were set on prolonging their night.
Sin reached underneath his seat for his beanie, pulled it on over his shaved head and checked himself in the rearview. Sticky slipped out of the backseat. He leaned back in and slipped out again.
Leaned back in and slipped out.
Leaned back in and slipped out.
Leaned back in and slipped out.
When something in the process was precise, and just before Dave and Sin turned to look, he slammed the door shut cool and joined his boys.
In all the commotion, an old white man lifted trash-can eyes from his sleeping bag. He was lying between rusted fence posts near an old abandoned shed. All the windows were busted out and the rotting plywood served as a practice canvas for up-and-coming taggers.
It was a cool spring night. The streetlamps looked like little yellow suns hanging from concrete posts.
Dave pushed Sticky in front of the homeless dude.
Hey, old-timer,
he said.
See this kid right here? Yo, he just
single-handedly beat Dominguez Hills, man. Goddamn single-
handedly
.
And dude’s girl was right there to see it all,
Sin said.
And Annie’s fine, too,
Dave said.
Especially for an
Oriental
.
Sin and Sticky laughed when Dave started popping without music. The homeless dude shifted around his sweatshirt-pillow, dropped his head and closed his eyes.
They walked along the vacant sidewalk three deep, pulled open Milo’s security-barred door and headed straight for the beer section. Sticky swung open the spidered glass door and reached in for three cold forties.
I got the beer,
Sin said, pulling out his Velcro wallet on the way up to the counter.
When Milo handed Sin his change, Dave hopped up on the counter and pumped his fist into the security camera.
Venice High, yo! Venice fucking High!
He twisted the cap with his shirt, put the bottle up to the camera and let the cold beer run down his throat.
Sin and Sticky watched Dave dance to the strange music coming out of Milo’s old transistor radio. All 6
’
6’’ of him grooving on the counter, ducking his head slightly to avoid the ceiling.
Yo, this is a jam,
Dave said, and he turned to Sticky and Sin.
You all don’t know about this
. He got his arms into it, snapped in rhythm with his empty left hand.
I could make
love to this beat
.
Milo tugged at the bottom of Dave’s pants.
Must come
down,
he said in his jacked-up English. He grinned at Sticky and Sin, pulled on Dave’s pants again and repeated himself:
Must come down
.
Dave put his forty up to the camera again and then went to get down. My bad, Milo. We just beat Dominguez Hills
tonight and I’m super up
. He hopped down to the floor with the grace of a power forward and wiped off the counter with a bare hand.
Milo smiled.
The fellas loved Milo. Not just because he sold to them, but because he was always smiling. The liquor store was all he had. No wife. No kids. No car. Whenever Sticky used the bathroom in back, he’d spy the unmade futon-bed where Milo slept. But still, he always had a smile. Even for three punks that came into his little store looking like trouble.
Dave grabbed a roll of paper towels from behind the register. He wadded up three and wiped away the giant footprints his Nikes had left.
Let’s roll,
Sin said, and he took a long swig.
Milo pulled out an open box of Tootsie Pops and pointed for the guys to take some.
Dave shook his head.
Sin politely told him:
No thanks
.
But Sticky’s eyes lit up.
Man, I dig these,
he said, unwrapping one and popping it in his mouth.
We used to get em as a
reward back at the place I used to stay
.
Sticky took a couple little hits off his lollipop and then a big hit off his forty. The candy made him remember that he was a year older today. Seventeen instead of sixteen. Almost a man. He wondered if maybe he was too old to eat candy now. Maybe it wasn’t cool anymore. He considered this for a quick sec and then reached his hand in the box for a couple backups. A blue one and an orange one. Stuck them both in his pocket, waved to Milo and followed his boys out of the store.
The fellas rolled down Broadway, buzzing, recapping the big game. Dave said his favorite play was when Sticky took two guys baseline and spun in a reverse. He made Sticky and Sin stop so he could show how the move looked from his seat.
Say this beam was the hoop,
he said, pointing to the makeshift sidewalk that had been put in front of a construction site.
Sticky came in from the side like this
. Dave ducked his shoulder and pretended to dribble low to the ground.
He
barely got by em and I was like, oh, man, big guy might swat
this. But thing is, Sticky used the rim to protect the ball
. Dave took the ball up on one side of the beam, ducked and came up on the other side.
That was a smooth-ass layin right there,
he said.
Most guys don’t know how to do it, protect the ball
with the rim.
A block later, Sin came up with his.
I know what the play
of the day was, though. Besides the game winner
. Sin set his forty down so he could involve his hands in his story.
You
know that little guard they got? Number twenty-three or whatever? The play of the day was when he came flyin through the
lane and Fat Jay straight put em to the ground
.
Oh, damn, that was a nasty foul,
Dave said, holding a fist to his mouth.
Jay had to slap em down, though,
Sticky said.
He had to let
em know whose lane it was
.
Fat Jay did just like this,
Sin said, and he put his arm out clothesline style and swung it through the air.
That’s the
kinda foul that could set the tone. Like Sticky said. After Fat Jay
did that, wasn’t no little number twenty-three flyin through
the lane no more, right?
Sin yelled out at a car speeding by:
Ain’t no free shit in
our house, boy!
They all laughed and kept walking.
The wind increased slightly, picked up loose grocery bags, scraps of paper, then set them back down. Background sound. Broadway is a sad gray face after the sun goes down, with Santa Monica Boulevard and Wilshire shining bright only a couple blocks north. Dull light from fading streetlamps, peeling billboards, tired and stained sidewalks that crumble in places under the weight of heavy feet. Lifeless homeless bodies curled up sleeping under old-school CLOSED signs. As they walked, a range of different cars sprayed music out from open windows as they zipped past. Sticky booted a rock ahead of them. It rebounded off a cement wall and Sin kicked it.
Dave stopped in front of Corona Imports and pointed inside the window.
Yo, I wish I could just roll a Ferrari around
one time,
he said. He put his hands and face up to the glass.
Look at that car, man
.
Sin stepped up to the glass too.
For real, that’s a smooth
ride right there,
he said.
I’d just wanna sit in it one time
. A black convertible Ferrari sat inside the glass sparkling like jewelry under a security light.
Yo, just one time,
Dave said.
Sticky listened to Dave and Sin go on and on about the car, how fast it goes from zero to sixty, how much rich cats are willing to pay to drive right off the showroom floor. He looked at the way his boys stood there, hands against the glass, on the outside looking in. Drooling over something completely out of their reach. He set down his forty, picked up a chunk of concrete from the broken sidewalk, shooed Sin and Dave out of the way:
Look out, look out
.
What?
Dave said.
What the hell you doin?
Sin said.
Sticky took a couple running steps and heaved the concrete through the glass. Just like that. Without thinking. Chucked it right through the window so shards of thick glass spilled onto the showroom floor on volume ten.
Go ahead!
Sticky yelled over the screaming alarm.
Go on
and sit in it!
Sin’s and Dave’s eyes bugged out of their heads. Their mouths hung open like old socks.
People in passing cars slowed and stuck heads out of rolled-down windows.
Holy shit!
Dave said.
Damn!
Sin said.
Let’s get the hell outta here!
And they took off running through an alley behind Lincoln.
It wasn’t four blocks before the first cop car spotted them running.
Dave and Sin followed Sticky as he made a sharp right behind Denny’s and Ralphs. They shoved their way through a group of hipsters smoking outside and ducked behind a boarded-up flower stand. The cop screeched around the corner and turned his lights and siren on.
The fellas raced back up to Lincoln, past the art supply shop, the Italian deli, the long string of antique shops. There was nothing but the sound of heavy air whipping past their ears, the loud siren gaining on them by the second.
Sticky led them west down Santa Monica Boulevard and then north along Seventh. He sprinted with his hands fixed sharp like Carl Lewis. Whizzed past Al’s Guitar Shop, Primavera Pizza, the building where a Nike Outlet once stood. At the 7-Eleven on the corner of Wilshire and Seventh, he shot west past Wahoos and Chevron and Houstons. The avant-garde bagel shop. Then to throw the cops completely off their trail he led them through the crowded promenade. Weaved in and out of thick packs of people.
Dave and Sin followed their point guard wherever he went. Sin directly behind. Dave a couple steps off the pace.
Sticky swung into an alley between Third and Fourth and ducked behind some trash bins. The cop car screamed by. They all huddled there for a while, laughing nervously and sucking in quick, choppy breaths.
What the hell?
Sin said, grabbing for air.
Jesus Christ,
Dave said.
You outta your mind?
Sticky shrugged, hands on knees. He brought a devil grin up to both of them.
They started sneaking back through the Promenade in silence, but just as they rounded the corner onto Third, another black-and-white spotted them.
As they took off running again, the car screeched to a stop and two cops hopped out to pursue on foot. The cops ran back the other way, down the same streets, past the same businesses. Keys rattling, clubs swinging, leather boots clopping against the pavement.
Sticky, Dave and Sin tried jumping the fence to the Boys and Girls Club back up on Lincoln, to hide behind the skate-board ramps, but one of the officers grabbed Dave by an ankle and pulled him back down.
Sticky and Sin made their way back over too, and all three put their hands up on the fence like they were told.
Both cops were sucking hard for breath as they patted the fellas down: slapped hard on the chest, hard on the hips, hard on the back of the legs, grabbed hard around the ankle. They got names and ages and one of the cops talked into his radio.
Dumb decision you gentlemen just made,
the other cop said.
Which one of you threw the rock?
the radio cop said.
Nobody moved.
Simple question, guys. Which one of you threw the rock?
Sticky put his eyes on the pavement. Drips of sweat ran down the back of his neck. Sin and Dave picked up their heads and snuck glances at him.
Another car rolled onto the scene, lights flashing without sound. It slowed to a stop and a woman cop stepped out. She stayed back and talked into her radio.
So, what’s it gonna be?
one of the cops said.
We gonna
have to do this the hard way?
Just as the cop finished his sentence, Sticky raised his hand off the fence. He turned around and looked at the cop.
That’s more like it. A little cooperation would be a good
thing right about now
. The cop moved over to Sticky and pulled his arms down one at a time, slapped on the cuffs.
Some pretty dumb shit you just pulled, kid
.
The cop with the radio came walking over with a grin on his face.
You’re not gonna believe this,
he said, tapping his partner on the shoulder with the radio antenna.
The kid who
threw it, it’s his goddamn birthday
.
Say what?
This kid here
. He pointed at Sticky with his radio.
Travis
Reichard. It’s his birthday today
.
Well, what a way to bring in a new year.
They both laughed a little and then one of them asked:
So, why’d you do it, Travis?
Sticky cringed at the sound of his real name. He didn’t look up.
The other cop put his right thumb through his belt loop and stared down at Sticky.
I don’t get it, ace. Why not just get
a piñata like normal kids
.
Both cops thought that was pretty funny, too.
The woman cop walked over and they gave her the scoop.
It’s your birthday?
Dave said while the cops were huddled together, talking.
The lights spun around the cop car without sound. A flash of bright blue light spinning around methodically. Cars slowed as they passed, stared out at the fellas as they were led from the fence toward one of the cop cars, guided into the backseat. A motorcycle cop rolled onto the scene. He shut off his engine and flipped out his kickstand. Took off his helmet and started walking toward the other cops.