Breakaway (6 page)

“Yeah,” I said, then sat up and shifted to the end of the bed where I could reach the lock to let Mario in.

“Mama sent this,” Mario said as he tossed a package wrapped in tinfoil at the end of my bed.

I knew without opening it what it was. The package was warm in my hands, heavy for its size, and smelling of cornmeal and braised pork. Mario's mom's version of the breakfast burrito, with homemade corn tortilla, beans, and pork. My mouth started to water just thinking about it.

Mario sat at the small table Mom and I used sometimes for eating, but mostly used to hold piles of crap we didn't have anywhere else to store. Since our apartment was small, most of the clutter generated by life didn't get saved and would end up in the trash eventually. Things just sat on the table until we came to terms with the idea of discarding them for good.

Since Syl died we had been unable to throw out anything that bore some relationship to her. Mail, even junk mail, that had her name on it, items from her locker at school, like the tattered paperback copy of
Lord of the Flies
she had been reading when she died, and extra copies of the church program from her funeral service, were all arranged in an uncertain heap on the round table. I couldn't look at them, but couldn't throw them in the trash either. So, instead of joining Mario at the table, I sat on the end of my bed in just my underwear and unwrapped the gift of a breakfast that would keep me going most of the day.

Mario's eyes passed over the collection of items on the table with some interest, but he just absently rolled the soccer ball under his foot as if he didn't notice the accidental shrine to Sylvia. “Jordie's going to pick up Chick and meet us at the Metro. Head down to the Mall and try to find a good pickup game.”

Mario was referring to the National Mall, the open green space between the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol where, on any given weekend, you could find twenty pickup games of soccer if you knew the right places to look. Some of the players were young guys like us, but more often aged-out athletes who were just looking to stay in shape. Sometimes we played alongside Hispanic or African guys who spoke almost no English.

When Mario and I arrived at the Metro, the subway system that could get us from our Virginia suburban neighborhood into D.C. in less than ten minutes, Chick and Jordie were already waiting for us.

We stood in the subway car even though there were seats available, the kid in us still able to enjoy the thrill of standing in the moving train. We talked loudly, joking around and oblivious of the people around us. We got off at the Smithsonian station and walked toward the Washington Monument, gravel crunching under our shoes. Jordie and I both carried our rubber cleats slung over one shoulder, but Mario only had his street shoes. Jordie mentioned it as we strolled along.

“You're going to be playing like shit in those Chuck Taylors,” Jordie said to Mario. “Where are your cleats?”

“I left them under your mama's bed last night,” Mario said.

“Fuck you,” Jordie said but with a smile in appreciation of Mario's joke.

Chick was the only one not laughing. “Why do you guys do that?” Chick asked. “Talk shit about each other's moms.”

“Because it's hilarious,” Mario said.

“You never talk shit about my mom,” Chick said almost defensively, as if he wished we would say shit to imply his mother was a whore too.

“Of course not,” Mario said. “You can't talk shit about somebody's mom if their mom is dead or really sick or something. That would be twisted.”

“What?” Chick asked. “Like you're showing some kind of respect for my mom? Just because she's dead?”

“It's an unspoken rule,” Jordie said with a nod. “A dead mom is off-limits.”

“Bro code,” Mario said in agreement.

“That's ridiculous,” Chick said, his voice rising with exasperation as he stopped in the middle of the gravel path. “None of you ever even met my mom. Shit,
I
never even met her. But you know each other's moms. See them all the time. Christ, they cook for you. How is it okay for you to talk shit about each other's moms but not someone you've never met?” When he finished this little tirade, Chick was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling quickly. Genuinely upset.

The three of us just stood watching him for a minute, unsure what he was so upset about. Mario's comment about Jordie's mom was actually pretty mild compared to some of the ringers we had used in the past. I reacted first, putting my hand on Chick's shoulder and giving him a squeeze. The muscle was tight under my hand, trembling. “Chick, man, calm down,” I said. “It's just a joke. Nobody means anything by it.”

“It's just fucked up, is what I'm saying,” Chick said as he rubbed at his eyes with irritation, as if trying to keep from crying.

“We won't do it anymore,” I said as I turned to look back over my shoulder at Jordie and Mario, asking for their agreement. “Okay?” I asked. “No more jokes about anybody's mom.”

“In front of Chick,” Mario amended.

I stepped away from Chick so I could slap Mario on the back of the head.

“Ow!” Mario said with a scowl as he rubbed at his head, then smoothed his hair.

“Or unless somebody sets it up perfectly in conversation, in which case you have to do it,'” Jordie said. “You gotta give us that. Right, Chick? If it's a perfect setup then we still get to go straight for the ‘your mama.' Okay?”

“You guys are such assholes,” I said in a growl. “Can you be serious for two minutes?”

“Yeah, sure,” Chick said with a shrug. “If it's the perfect setup, you can't just leave it hanging there. Of course.” I could tell he was trying to make light of the situation, blow it off as Mario and Jordie made jokes, but he still seemed bothered by the whole thing. It was weird, this sudden problem he had with the way we spoke to each other, had always spoken to each other.

“Come on,” I said, and put a hand at the base of Chick's neck to move him along.

“I was just thinking,” Chick said as he dragged his feet and kicked at the gravel, stirring dust up with his already filthy high-tops. “What with Sylvia dying and all. We should be more careful. About saying things you can't take back later.”

“Sure, Chick. I get it,” I said. From the angle of Mario's head I knew he was listening to our conversation, had heard what Chick said about Sylvia, but he didn't give any other indication he was listening.

We walked in awkward silence after that. Maybe afraid that anything we said might set Chick off again. Maybe thinking about Sylvia for a minute like I was. Maybe all of us unsure what to say to each other if we couldn't talk shit about each other's moms.

CHAPTER NINE

I was walking to school the next week when Jordie pulled up to the curb and honked at me. Since Jordie lived on the opposite side of town, I wondered why he had gone out of his way to pick me up. As I slid into the shotgun seat, I winced at the sound of “Bangarang” pumping out of the car speakers. Sometimes I couldn't even figure how I got to be friends with a person who had such terrible taste in music. When Jordie got his iPhone, he gave me his old iPod since he didn't need it anymore. I had to delete just about every playlist and start over, the music all so awful.

Jordie had finally mustered the balls to call Cheryl and ask her to go out with him Saturday night—told me all about it on the drive to school. Actually, he had texted her to ask her, which was kind of a chickenshit way to ask a girl out. I didn't have a cell phone. If I wanted to ask a girl out, I had to actually talk to her.

“Cheryl and I are going to go to the movies on Saturday night,” Jordie said.

“Good for you.”

“I need you to go with me,” he said.

“What do you mean, go with you? On your date?” I asked in disbelief.

“Well, she wants me to bring someone for her friend so we can all go together.…”

“Oh no. Uh-uh,” I said. “I'm not taking out her ugly friend so you can get your freak on.”

“Come on, Jaz, you know I would do it for you,” Jordan whined.

“I don't know any such thing,” I said and Jordie grinned. “Who's her friend, anyway?”

“You know that girl Raine, the one who was at the game last week?”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. I wondered if Raine knew Jordie and Cheryl's intent. It didn't seem possible that Raine would have agreed to go on a double date if she knew I was the friend Jordie was bringing.

“I think she's hot,” he said, misunderstanding my surprise. “I mean, except for her hair and her clothes, of course. Besides, you don't have to marry her. Just go to the movies with us and once I have a chance to work my charm on Cheryl, you and Raine can get lost for all I care.”

I gave him my patented look of disgust, then sighed. “Just a movie?”

“Just a movie.”

“And you're buying,” I said. Statement, not a question.

He hesitated for a beat and I thought I had him—Jordie could be a cheap son of a bitch, cheap in the way only rich people know how to be—but then he agreed. “Yeah, all right. But if I'm financing the whole thing, the least you can do is go for pizza before the movie.”

“Man, how good of a friend do you think I am?” I said with a scowl. “There's nothing in this deal for me. I'm only doing this out of the goodness of my heart, you know?”

“Yeah, you're a regular Nelson Mandela,” he said with all apparent sincerity. “Saturday night at seven, okay? And try to look presentable.”

 

 

On Saturday evening Jordie picked up the girls first since they all lived in the same neighborhood. I sat on the stoop outside of my apartment in the fading sunlight and waited for them.

I could hear the television in the apartment and the clink of glass as Mom washed dishes. Mom and I hadn't spoken in a few days. She kept the television on almost full time to fill the house with noise and stayed up watching all night while I was sleeping. It didn't bother me, since I could sleep through just about anything.

My stomach was aching again, the pain still intense, but I was getting used to it now, learning to manage it by slowing my breath as I waited for the pain to subside.

Jordie walked up to meet me, approaching from the side of the building. “You ready?” he asked.

“You're early,” I said as I dropped the twig I had been peeling.

“Yeah, well, if you're ready,” he said with a critical look at the jeans and T-shirt I wore with a flannel, arguably none of them really clean, “the girls are in the car.”

“You're not going to bring them in?” I asked.

He eyed me for a minute trying to judge if I was kidding, but said nothing and just shoved his hands into his pants pockets, a gesture that was so familiar to me, I no longer thought about the uncertainty it meant he was feeling. “Well, you know,” he said. “Your mom's been a little … well, just.… lately.”

“Yeah,” I said, cutting him some slack because I didn't want to talk about it. “Let's go then.”

 

 

Cheryl was in the shotgun seat, Raine leaned forward between the front seats of the car talking to her, but when they noticed our approach Raine scooted back in her seat and adjusted her skirt around her knees.

As I climbed into the backseat beside her she shifted her legs away from me and smoothed her short skirt over her legs again. Tonight she was dressed somewhat conservatively, for her—black miniskirt with high black boots and a Hello Kitty sweatshirt under a black biker-style jacket with an anarchy symbol painted on the sleeve in white paint. The jacket was ripped in places and I wondered if she had bought it used, or bought it new and made the rips herself.

“Hey,” I said to Cheryl, and gave Raine a nod. I took a moment to give her legs a look where they were bare above her boots and below her skirt. She caught my look and seemed a little miffed as she shifted again in her seat and stared hard out the window.

Jordie drove us to the strip mall where there were a bunch of restaurants and a multiplex. He and Cheryl kept up the conversation while Raine and I sat in silence. We got a table at the pizza place near the theater. It was packed with people at this time on a Saturday night and the waitress looked irritated to have to serve us, a group of kids.

Raine hesitated before sliding into the booth, as if she was hoping she could sit on the same bench as her friend instead of next to me.

“I can sit somewhere else if it will make you more comfortable,” I said to her.

“I'm not uncomfortable,” she said as she tossed her hair and slid into the inside seat.

“Jaz is just kidding,” Jordie said, giving me a look that told me to shut my mouth.

Raine ignored Jordie and instead of getting annoyed said, “Jaz—why do people call you that?”

“Why do people call
you
Raine?” I asked.

“My name is Lorraine,” she said as she crossed her arms on the table, “which is a horrible effing name, so I go by Raine. Why do people call you Jaz?”

“My dad was the one that called me that,” I said with a shrug. “Guess it just stuck.”

“What happened to him?” Raine asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Nothing happened to him.”

“Well, you referred to him in the past tense,” she said. “Did he pass away?”

“He's just not around,” I said, letting impatience register in my voice.

“Oh,” she said with a nod and a look of understanding that made me want to tell her to piss off. “I think I'll just call you Jason,” she said, her eyes still on me, watching for a reaction.

“Suit yourself,” I said, distracted by four guys who sat in a booth near the back by the jukebox. They were a group of heads, with greasy hair and grungy clothes, two of them in knit caps even though it wasn't that cold outside. It suddenly occurred to me that I recognized one of them, the set of Mario's shoulders as familiar to me as my own face. Mario had been spending more and more time around his stoner friends lately.