When I got home, the car was parked next to the trailer. My dad was sitting at the table inside. “What are you doing home?” I said. “The job can't be done yet. You said there was at least six more months of work.”
He ran his hand across the back of his neck as though his shoulders hurt or something. “Yeah, well, the job's done for me,” he said. “I got fired.”
“What do you mean you got fired? what for?”
“Remember I told you I was gonna sell
some stuffâyou know, a couple of saws and that cordless drillâso we could make the rent on time?”
“Yeah.”
“One of the air nailers is missing from the job site. I was using it yesterday. Then somebody saw me selling stuff out of my trunk last night...”
“You told them you didn't steal it, right?” I threw my bag on the floor by the table and opened the fridge, looking for something to drink.
Dad leaned back in the chair and stuck his feet out under the table. “'Course I did. But I can't prove it.”
I twisted the cap off a bottle of root beer and took a gulp before the brown foam spilled over the side. “And they can't prove you took anything,” I said.
“Well, it doesn't work that way. I've been working on that job for three months. The guy who saw me selling stuff out of my car has worked for the company for twelve years. Who you think they're gonna believe?”
“That sucks!”
“Yeah, I sort of pointed that out to the foreman.” He rubbed the back of his right hand, and for the first time I noticed his knuckles were bruised.
“You didn't punch him out, did you?” I said.
He half grinned at me. “Naw. I did this on the driver's door of the car.” Then his face got serious. “But I did take a swing at the fat old fart. I was pissed off and I didn't think. Lucky for me a couple of guys stopped me. It coulda been a lot worse than just me getting fired.”
I looked down at my running shoes. There was a small hole in the right one. It didn't seem likely I'd be getting new ones any time soon. “So we'll just move,” I said. “So what?”
Dad looked around the trailer. “Don't you ever get tired of moving, Kev?” he asked. “Wouldn't you like to stay in one place for more than a few months? Maybe...maybe even live in a house instead of a tin can?”
Sure I would have liked to live in a house and be in the same school at the end of the
year as I had been at the start. Like that was gonna happen.
I shrugged. “I don't care.” I finished the root beer, tipped the bottle on its side and set it spinning. “Your boss is a jerk,” I said.
Dad nodded. “Yeah, but so was I, and I'm the one without the job, not him.”
He reached across the table and his hand came down on the twirling bottle. “You're going to stay in school, and when you graduate you'll learn how to do something. Hell, maybe you'll even go to college.”
“Right, me in college,” I said. “There's a laugh.”
“I don't know how the hell I'd pay for it anyway,” Dad said. “But you're getting some kind of education. You want to go from one crap job to another the way I have my whole life? That's no life, believe me.”
He got up, opened the refrigerator and grabbed the last root beer, but instead of opening it he just stared at it for a minute and then put it back. He grabbed his jacket
off the back of the chair. “I'm goin' out for a while. Get yourself something to eat and do your homework.”
I was dead asleep when Dad came into my room and shook me awake. “Get up,” he said. “Your old man's gonna be on TV.”
I stared at him, only half awake, with drool running down from the corner of my mouth. It had to be almost midnight.
“C'mon,” Dad said. I staggered down the tiny hall to the front room of the trailer. Dad turned on the TV and used the remote to flip through the channels. “I hope we didn't miss it,” he muttered. Suddenly,
there was my father's face on the screen. I yanked the remote out of Dad's hand and upped the volume.
“There was more than three thousand dollars in the envelope,” a chirpy blond reporter was saying. “Did you ever think about keeping the money, Mr. Frasier?”
“No,” the TV Dad said. “It wasn't mine. It wouldn't be right.”
I looked at my dadâthe real one. “You found a bunch of money?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Close to four thousand dollars in the middle of the street, right outside of Greer's junkyard. I took it to the police station.”
I thought about what four thousand dollars could buyârunning shoes without a hole in them; something, anything besides Kraft dinner and hot dogs; somewhere else to live other than this tuna can on wheels. I shook my head. “Four thousand freakin' dollars just sitting in the middle of the street and you take it to the cops. Hello? You don't have a job. We can't even pay the rent this month.”
He didn't look at me. “It wasn't my money,” he said quietly.
“It was in the middle of the street,” I said. “It wasn't anybody's money. Did you at least get a reward?”
Dad slowly pulled a fifty from his pocket.
“Oh, that's sweet. That won't even buy groceries,” I said. “I'm going back to bed.”
Dad wasn't home when I got up in the morning. The Les Paul was there, but the other guitar was gone. I had the last of the cornflakesâdry because there wasn't any milkâand half the orange juice. Then I put some cheese slices in my pocketâthe kind wrapped in plasticâand went outside to sit on the steps. In a few minutes Penelope peeked around the side of the Jensens' place. As soon as she was sure the coast was clear, she bolted across the grass strip between the two trailers, scampered up the steps and hopped onto my lap. She tapped the pocket of my jeans with a front paw.
“Hang on, you little mooch,” I said. She started to purr. I pulled out a cheese slice, peeled off the plastic and fed her little bits while I stroked her black fur. She might have looked like a sleek black panther, but Penelope was about as menacing as a teddy bear. Suddenly her head came up and her ears started twitching. She bolted down the stairs and across the space between the two trailers in a flash.
George was on the way. Somehow Penelope always knew. A couple of minutes later he came strolling down the middle of the chip-sealed road like a lion crossing a dusty African plain. He climbed the steps and sat down beside me. After a moment he butted my arm with his head. I unwrapped the other two cheese slices and fed them to him while I scratched behind his one ear. Then we sat there in the sun for a while, watching the world go by.
George was Charlie Hetherington's cat. Charlie and my dad were friends. Charlie was sort of the trailer park caretaker. That meant when there was trouble, Charlie
would stop by your place and pretty soon you'd be wishing you'd kept your mouth shut, your pants zipped or your hands to yourself.
Dad claimed Charlie had won George in a poker game along with a 1972 El Camino and a case of beer with one bottle missing. Dad also said George and Charlie were a lot alike. I suppose they were, as much as a big ginger cat with one ear and a big bald dude with half a middle finger on his right hand could be.
After a while George decided he had things to do. He gave me another head butt and wandered away. I thought I'd go for a walk. I locked the trailer, cut around the back of the park and got on the trail. Charlie said that years ago there had been railroad tracks all over, but there hadn't been trains around for years. Most of the tracks had been dug up and replaced with gravel walking trailsâthe “green” solution.
I wandered up behind Sloppy Joe's Takeout. I checked the pockets of my jean
jacket. Nothing. I didn't even have enough for an order of small onion rings.
There were a few benches, a couple of garbage cans and a beat-up picnic table on the strip of grass behind Sloppy Joe's. Oliver, the twerpy grade nine kid who had started hanging out with Nick and the others, was sitting by himself on top of the table, eating a burger. I walked over to him. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Kevin,” he said with a mouth full of cheese and meat. He really was a twerp.
There was a small plate of onion rings beside him on the table, the grease already soaking into the cardboard. I took one without asking. They were just the way I liked themâhot and greasy.
“I thought you'd be getting ready,” Oliver said. “You know, for later.” He reminded me of a puppy, all eager and twitchy.
I grabbed another onion ring. “What do you mean?”
He looked all aroundânot that there
was anyone else there but us. “I know what you guys are going to do tonight,” he said, and I swear to God his tongue was hanging out just a little bit.
If my mouth hadn't been full I probably would have asked what the hell he was talking about. But I couldn't talk for a second and that was just enough time for my brain to catch up. He knew what Nick had planned, but I didn't. But how did he know? There was no way Nick had said anything. He wasn't that stupid.
“Yeah, well that's not till later,” I said. “How did you know, anyway?”
Score! His face got all red and he looked down at his feet. “Don't say anything to Nick, okay?” he whined. “You know I can sort of get around those controls they put on the library computers, so you can't play games and stuff? I was overriding the programâit's not that hard to doâand Nick was standing there talking to Zach and Brendan about that girl, Erin.” Oliver glanced up at me. “I have really good hearing. Really. I got tested and everything,
and I can hear stuff when other people can'tâ”
I cut him off. “And you heard what Nick said.”
He nodded. “I haven't told anyone. I wouldn't.”
Right. Except here he was telling me.
I glared at him. At least I hoped that's how it came across. I was bigger than he was, and I could pound him if I had to, but I didn't want to. “What did you hear?”
Luckily he was the kind of person who talked way too much. He put the last bit of his burger on the paper wrapper and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Not that much, really. I know that you're going to be waiting for her on the trail after she gets off work and take her down into the woods behind the school.” His voice was so damn whiney I thought I might have to pound him after all.
I kept on eating the onion rings, like I wasn't all that interested in what he was saying.
“And...and I heard Nick say about her
hair. How you're gonna shave it off and all.” He laughed. “She's gonna have to go to another school or get a wig or tie a scarf around her head the way people who have cancer do.”
Nick was going to shave Erin's head. How did he think he was going to get away with that?
“Go,” I said to Oliver. “Go home and keep your mouth shut. You got it?”
He nodded. Then he took off. He was afraid of me. He didn't even stop to grab the rest of his food. Yeah, I was such a tough guy. Except now what was I supposed to do? Go tell Erin? Oh yeah, that had worked so well the last time I'd tried it. Try to stop Nick? I thought about how it still hurt when I took a deep breath. No way.
What made him think it would work, anyway? Even if they could grab Erin without her seeing them, she'd know their voices. She'd know because who else would want to do something like that to her? Did he think she wouldn't go to the cops?
It wasn't going to work. She'd see them or hear them and run and scream and it wouldn't work.
I gathered up the garbage and stuffed it all in one of the cans. Then I went home.
Dad was back. He'd had a haircut and he smelled like some kind of aftershave that made my nose prickle. He was standing in front of the little closet, going through his shirts. His guitar was back in its usual place. “Where were you?” he said.
“Out,” I said, dropping into a chair. “Where were you?”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Out,” he said, mimicking my voice.
“At Rusty's,” I said. Rusty's was a bar near one of the highway off-ramps. They were always after my dad to play there. He was good, and he knew all the old country and rock stuff people wanted to hear. But it's kinda hard to be in a bar and not drink a lot, and it was better if he didn't drink too much. I don't mean that he got rough or anything. He'd just cry and miss my mom and be depressed for weeks. So it was better if he didn't go to Rusty's at all.
His back stiffened. “Yeah, I was at rusty's. We got rent due, and I like to eat.” There was silence for a moment and then he continued, “I didn't drink. Not even one.” He found the shirt he was looking for and pulled it on.
“Nice haircut,” I said, sarcastically. It was a lot shorter than Dad usually wore his hair, but it looked okay. Not that I'd tell him that.
He grinned. “I'm being interviewed for the newspaper. Not that little rinky-dink one hereâthe morning paper that goes all
over everywhere. It's one of those âdo the right thing' stories.” He shrugged. “Maybe something'll come of it.”
Do the right thing. What was the right thing when it came to Nick and Erin? “Dad, can I ask you something?” I said.
He was rooting in the closet again. “What?” he said.
How could I say it? I know this guy who's going to drag this girl into the woods and shave her head?
Dad straightened up, holding his leather jacket. “I don't have a lot of time, Kev.”
“When I was out I was talking to one of the guys from school andâ”
“Not the one who âaccidentally' hit you a dozen times playing that stupid game in your gym class?” I'd blamed all the bruises I'd gotten from Nickâeven the ones on my neckâon the dodgeball game. I hadn't been able to hide them.
“No, not him. It was one of the guys he hangs with andâ”
“How many times I gotta tell you? Stay away from those guys!”