Retribution

 

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Contents

T
ITLE
P
AGE

C
OPYRIGHT
N
OTICE

D
EDICATION

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

B
RACES

C
LEAN
A
WAY

R
OSE

I
CELAND

T
HE
T
ROUBLED
D
OG

O
UTLAWS

V
ISIONS

F
IRST
S
EX

L
IARS

S
TEALING

R
ETRIBUTION

C
OPYRIGHT

 

To my parents

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the help of many. I would like to thank my teachers and workshop at Michigan; Eric Gudas, Joshua Henkin, Paisley Rekdal, Christopher Shainan, and Ian Twiss, excellent friends and great readers; Jaunfer Merino, a true man of letters; Alicka Pistik, my agent; and most of all, Eve.

B
RACES

That afternoon I had just gotten the last of my braces on and Mom had dropped me off at home, then left again, when Dad started calling. My mouth felt heavy and cramped with metal. I kept touching the wire with my tongue, trying to get used to the sharp, spiky feel of it. Dad called about every fifteen minutes and said, “Your mom home yet?” and I had to keep telling him no. Each time he called, he'd say, “So how are you, Mikey?” as if he hadn't talked to me two or three times already. He was a little loose, I could tell. He was the only one I let call me by Mikey anymore, because he'd been gone since early December—when Mom kicked him out of the house—and didn't know that I'd decided to go by Michael now.

“You're talking sort of funny,” he said. I told him about the braces. “That's right,” he said. “How they feel?”

“They hurt,” I said. “I can't eat anything. But Mom says they're handsome. She says they do something for me.”

“Good boy,” he said. “Good boy.” His voice sounded happy with me. Then his tone changed. “She's out, isn't she? She's with another guy, right?”

“No,” I said. “She's getting her hair done or something.” That was true, though later, after the hairdresser, she had plans to see Larry or Jim, both guys she'd been sort of dating recently.

Ben, my older sister's pet rat, climbed up the couch and started nibbling on my fingers. Ben was about the size of a kitten and Sarah had bought him because other kids in our school kept rats as pets. There was something hip in a disgusting, industrial way about owning one. He kept nibbling at my fingers—his way of saying he's hungry. I walked into the kitchen, with Ben scurrying in front of me. He knew he was going to be fed. Mom had bought a new cordless phone that you could walk anywhere with. I popped a bag of popcorn in the microwave and looked through the little window as it turned around on the carousel in that radioactive yellow light. I knew what Dad was going to say next. He'd been calling for the last four days, saying the same thing.

“Listen, Mikey,” Dad said. “I don't want to put you in the middle of this, okay? But your mother needs to understand that the Mustang is mine. I owned that car before we married. I know she's hidden it. She's got it parked at one of her friends' or something. Will you please tell her I know that?”

“Sure,” I said. The popcorn began popping and I felt Ben on the kitchen floor circling my leg, growing more excited because he recognized the sound of his favorite food.

“You know where it's parked, don't ya?” he said.

“No,” I lied.

“Good boy,” he said, really happy again. “Don't let yourself get caught in the middle of this, all right?”

“I won't,” I said.

“All right,” he said.

“All right,” I said.

*   *   *

I opened the bag of popcorn and tried to eat a piece, but it hurt like hell because of the braces. So I put the bag down between my feet, where Ben could burrow into it and feed. Ben was a real pig when it came to popcorn, and he was eating so fast right now that the bag sort of spasmed between my feet.

When the phone rang next, it was Sarah. Sarah had taken off—she was a runaway, I guess—the day after Christmas with her boyfriend, Marcus. They ended up in San Francisco—a long way from Orem, Utah—living in this abandoned school building. Sarah had gone sort of crazy living at home with Mom and me. She renamed herself Nancy for no good reason, and you had to call her Nancy or she wouldn't answer you. Then she started speaking in a British accent and using British words like
bollocks
and
over the top
and
brilliant.
For her, everything was
brilliant—brilliant … brilliant … brilliant
—which was funny, because she'd never been to Britain. Mom started calling her “the foreigner.” “Tell the foreigner that she's got to do those dishes,” she'd say. The only time Sarah used her normal voice was when she spoke to Ben, which she did a lot, especially if Mom was around. Once, Mom told her to stop talking to that animal and to be herself. Sarah looked at her and said in her heavy British accent, “I'm sorry, Mummy, but I don't feel real with you.”

The morning after Christmas, I woke up and found Ben scurrying around in the kitchen, hungry and dragging his leash behind him. (Sarah had kept him on a little leather leash, the way you'd keep a small dog.) There was this paper tag on Ben's collar that said:

Dear Mikey,

Sarah ran away and left me.

Please look after me, please!

So of course I did. What had Ben done to anyone? He just ate and slept and lived. He had it all right, I guess. Besides, he was a white rat, a fluffy, irresistible white like you would expect a rabbit to be. He'd nudge at your hand for affection, nudge away until you gave him some. He needed me, and I liked that.

“Where's Mom, Mikey?” Sarah asked when I answered the phone.

I said, “Michael, not Mikey, please.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “So where's Mom?”

“She's getting her hair done or something.”

She asked why I was speaking like a dork and I told her about the braces and she said, “Ouch. That hurts.” It did—my mouth felt tight and wooden and every word I said hurt me. “At least no more buckteeth, right?” Then she said, “Ching, ching. That costs money. Where's Mom getting the money for that?”

“You still living in the school building?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “We bolted. It was too freaky sleeping in a room with all those blackboards on the walls. I mean, I was living in a school, and I always hated school so much.” Then she paused. “So where's Mom getting the money for your mouth?”

“If you're not in the school building,” I said, “where are you?”

“I got to go,” she said. “This is costing me.”

I knew she was lying. Mom had somehow sent her one of those “call home” calling cards so that Sarah could call home on Mom.

“You got a number there you could give us?”

Outside, a light snow began to fall. The flakes were fine and ashy and the sky was this polluted gray color. She said, “I got to go, okay? You tell Mom I could use a little of that money, wherever it's coming from. Later, Mikey.”

I said, “I talked to Dad just now. He called a minute ago.”

“Oh,” she said. She was going to stay on the line now. “He have much to say?”

“He was worried about his car.”

“That stupid car,” she said. “He was fucked up, wasn't he?”

“He was maybe a little loose,” I said. I hated the way she had to use the worst words for everything.

“Did he ask about me?” The line beeped then—we had call waiting—and I told her that Dad was probably on the other line and to hold on, and she said, “All right, but this is costing me.”

*   *   *

Dad said, “Your mother sold the fucking Mustang, didn't she?” He was almost shouting, his speech slushy and reckless, the way it got when he really let himself go. “I know she sold it. She sold it, didn't she, Mikey?”

I said, “No, she didn't sell it.”

“But she's going to sell it. She's going to sell it, isn't she?”

I said, “Sarah's on the other line.”

“Just tell me she's not going to sell the Mustang.”

I told him that. Then I said, “Sarah's on the other line. She wants to know if you asked about her.”

“So she's not going to sell it?”

“No,” I said.

Then he said, “Your sister's not crying wolf again, is she? She's not saying she's in some hospital, is she?”

She'd done that a few times—called up and told Mom that she'd been in an accident and was in a hospital and needed an operation, then hung up without leaving a number or the name of a hospital, so that Mom stayed up the whole night biting her nails bloody and calling around to different hospitals in the Bay Area, when Sarah wasn't in any of them.

“No,” I said. “She's not crying wolf. She'd like to talk to you. Could she call you collect?”

“You know how I feel about that, Mikey. She chose to live out there on her own. She can pay for her own phone calls. I've got to go now, kid. Tell your mom that we need to talk.”

*   *   *

“What's he say?” Sarah asked.

“He says to say hi. He says to ask what's up.”

“What else?”

“He's sort of worried about his car. He thinks Mom's going to sell it.” As soon as I said that, I knew I shouldn't have.

“She'd do that to him? She'd sell his car?” She was laughing.

“No,” I said. “No, she wouldn't.”

“Bullshit she wouldn't. That car's worth
mucho
buckage.” Then she was quiet for a second. “That's how she's going to pay for your mouth, isn't it?”

“No,” I said. “Forget about it. Dad says he wants to talk to you. He says you can call him collect at his place. All right?”

“Why don't you fuck with him a little, Mikey? Tell him Mom's already sold his car. That'll drive him crazy.”

“Shut up about that, okay? Dad says you can call him collect.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Tell Mom I want some of that car, too.”

“He really wants to talk to you.”

“Maybe,” she said. Then she said, “How's Ben Franklin anyway?”

“Ben's good.”

“You're treating him right? He's getting enough water and food?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm treating him right.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Later, Mikey.”

*   *   *

Outside it was dark and the snow had become large and feathery and fell in thick sideways sheets. Ben was down at my feet, still munching away at the popcorn. I wondered when Mom would get home and thought about the car, a 1968 red Mustang, locked safely in Winnie Howell's garage on Breywick Street, three blocks away from our house. Mom and I had already talked about her plans to sell it and how she had a dozen or so offers. She was holding on to the car, waiting for the highest bidder now. It was a collector's item, worth I didn't know how many thousands. But I did know how much that car meant to Dad and I hadn't wanted her to sell it. She'd said, “How do you think we're going to pay for your mouth, Mikey? This Mustang's going to pay for your mouth—that's how.”