She paints the cornbread with red, white, and blue cake decoration.
“Icing on cornbread, huh?” Vic says.
“Never been done before,” Mrs. V. says.
“No, it hasn’t,” Vic says.
“Mack, is your father coming?”
“He has to work, ma’am.” I hate liars, especially when they’re me. I didn’t even ask the old man. I need him getting smashed and talking trash and getting into a drag-out rumble in front of Céce?
“Mack, get that last round of pies into the oven, and then I need you to come out to the bar,” Vic says.
“I do something wrong?”
He taps his temple. “I know what I know.” He checks the pie dough to make sure I spun it okay. He nods, says “Good,” and leaves.
Vic never finished high school either. He started with a takeout-only window, and he’s in business thirty-five years. Tell you what, I like working for him better than anybody. He’s got me doing a lot more cooking now.
I check my pies and swing out to the bar. Vic has the radio and TV and computer going with three different news shows, and he’s got the paper out for the crossword. I don’t mind the Too’s radio, because with a satellite there’s no chance of static. Either you get a perfect clear signal, or you get nothing, which is the way it should be.
Vic flips his laptop to me and explains how the bank and the bills work, and how you need to pay them on time but not too early either.
I’m nodding, but looking at the screen gives me a headache. All those words and numbers and click on this word and drag that one to there and type that number. I want to ask Vic to slow it down a little, give me a chance to catch up, but when I used to do that in school, they called me retard.
“You getting this?” Vic says.
“Absolutely,” I say.
“You need to know this stuff.”
“Why?”
“This dog training thing. Tony told me about it. You need to do it.”
“I’m doing it,” I say.
“Professionally. The school. The certificate. I looked into it. Ey, look at me. I wouldn’t tell you to do it unless I was sure. I’m giving you the money. You pay me back when you can. I made calls to dog trainers on the east side. After you have the certificate, you can make between fifty and a hundred an hour.”
“I heard that.”
“You don’t look too excited,” he says. “You’re making eight dollars an hour now. What am I missing?”
“I can’t see anybody giving me fifty an hour for anything legal.”
“When does the next training class start?”
“Fall.”
“Perfect. Done.”
“Look, Mister Vic, I don’t mean to be a contraindication, but I’m too young to start a business like that, all professional. Hell, I’m but fifteen.”
“You’re fifty, not fifteen, and don’t forget it. Fun is important, but so is work. Kid, no matter how much money you make, you can never have enough. You miss a chance to work, you never get it back. You’re going to the school.”
“I’m a little confused here. Are you, like, firing me?”
“The restaurant business, people come and go. I try to help them, but usually the person can’t get it together, and they move on, and that’s okay. Once in a while, you get somebody like Carmella, and you see she has to stay. You work for me, you need to have a dream. Carmella’s is making people smile. She can get that here. Tony too. He could be CEO of a multinational corporation, but that’s not what he’s meant to do. You watch, he comes back a hero, and then he runs this place.”
“The hero part, yeah, but the restaurant business? I don’t know. I pegged him for an athlete or president or maybe a teacher-type, the cool kind.”
“Trust me,” says the guy who lost an entire restaurant in one hand of cards with a woman named Hammerhead. “Tony’s like his mother, has to see the joy face-to-face. He needs to be here.” He taps the bar top hard and twice. “But for you, this job is to help you for the next one. It’ll kill me to lose you, but by the time you turn eighteen, if you’re still working here, yeah, I’ll can you. Working here is too safe for you. You’re like me, a gambler.”
“If I’m like you, then I should stay working here.”
“Dog training. That’s what you’re made for.”
I don’t get it, what these folks see in me. “What about Céce? What’s her future?”
Vic’s eyebrows go up with a smile. “Céce has maybe the most special thing of all coming her way.”
“And what’s that?”
Vic nods and smiles with his eyebrows up and says, “I know what I know,” and I have no idea what the old man means half the time.
“The school,” I say. “If I do it, I have my own money saved.”
“Even better. Kid, just do exactly as I say, and you’ll be fine. And do yourself a favor and look up the word
contraindication
.”
“Céce used it the other day.”
“Not like that she didn’t. C’mon, let’s get the food into the car.”
Vic drives slow and whistles “God Bless America” over and over. Mrs. V. is on the phone with Céce. “Relax, sister, we’ll be there in five minutes.” She clicks the phone and turns to Vic. “Cheech says the yard’s packed already.”
“You put out the word there’s free pizza and beer, what do you expect?”
“And Independence Day cornbread,” Mrs. V. says.
“And Independence Day cornbread,” Vic says. “Mack, which building is yours?”
“I can jump out at the corner. You all go on ahead. I’ll be over there in a few.”
“Nah,” Vic says. “We’ll pick up the dog and drive over together.”
“Nah, man, I don’t want Boo stinking up your car.”
“The car already stinks,” Vic says.
“Better I walk her over for the exercise.” The car stops at a light, and I hop out. “I’ll see you all over there.” I turn the corner, and my old man is out on the stoop with his lady friend, and they’re good and twisted already, tipping rotgut forties and smoking a blunt in the broad daylight and arguing way too loud about God knows what.
Me and Boo are at the gate to the yard. If she passes this test, I’m going to start leaning hard on Céce and Mrs. V. to adopt her. When we’re strolling the park, she’s a typical pit bull, real good with folks, especially kids. Today is about seeing how she does in a packed crowd. And this is a block party all right, music blasting, folks spilling out into the street. I open the gate and go in first.
Boo’s eyes are soft, ears back easy. Her tail wags nice and slow.
This lady says, “Get that dog away from me!”
“She’s a peach,” Céce cuts in. She sets a big bowl of chips onto the picnic table to stroke Boo’s muzzle. “See?” she says to the lady.
“You’re getting more relaxed around her every day,” I say.
“Still a little freaked out when she tries to lick my face. My Boo-Boo,” she says.
“No baby talking to her now.”
She makes her voice really deep, “My Boo-Boo,” and that’s pretty funny to me. She takes my hand and introduces me to people. They’re nice. Her mom is smiling at us.
The kids go crazy over Boo. She’s gentle with them, even when this one girl pulls her tail. She’s clowning too. She grabs a paper plate and taunts the kids to chase her to get it back. She’s tearing circles around the yard.
“Wait,” I command her, but I’m not in her world right now. She’s all about having fun with the kids, and that’s when I know it for sure: She’ll be leaving me soon. I nudge Céce. “She’s ready to go.”
Céce nudges back twice as hard. “We’ll see. You gonna be sad when she leaves?” Céce’s smile is crooked and she has nine freckles on her nose. I want to kiss them, each one.
“Sad? Nah. I’ll have another beat-up Boo within the month.”
Boo jumps into Mrs. V.’s lap for a belly scratch. Mrs. V. mouths to Céce I WANT THIS
DOG
.
They have a tiny aboveground pool back here, perfect for Boo. Vic and the other old people are sitting around the edge, slow-kicking their feet in the water. They’re sipping and arguing and laughing. The sun’s high and clean, and the ripples in the water are gold bands almost too bright to look at.
I could live like this, I think. If Céce was with me. She’s got the prettiest long brown hair. Her eyes are so dark and shiny you can see your reflection in them, and you look better than you do in real life. “Why you with me?” I say. We’re filling the ice tubs with two-liter Sprites. “You’re smart and crazy pretty and cool. Sometimes I wonder if you’re with me just to see what it’s like to go slumming.”
“That’s got to be it. Let’s go inside. The basement. It’s cool down there.” She pulls me toward the back door to the kitchen.
“I better not.”
“You’re afraid to go inside my house,” she says. “Why?”
Somebody taps a plastic fork on a plastic cup, and everybody does the same, and now it’s quiet, except the music is still on loud with one of those old-school metal bands. “I’m on the highway to hell,” the singer keeps screaming.
“Just wanna toast Tony today and everybody else looking out for us,” this old man says.
Mrs. V. nods thank you. She’s smiling, but she doesn’t look the dude in the eye.
Céce tugs on my T-shirt. “Let’s get Boo and go to your place.”
“Let’s hit the park, catch the fireworks,” I say.
“Sunset’s three hours away.”
“If we get there early, we’ll get a nice patch of grass.”
“That dude you give money to,” she says. “Where’s he live?”
“Why?”
“Wanna meet him.”
“I don’t think he’d like that. Maybe in front of you he’ll be embarrassed he’s got to take money from me.”
“You swear that’s all you’re doing, giving him money?”
“What else would I be giving him?”
She studies me. “Okay. Can we stop off at the church on the way to the park?”
“I only like church when it’s empty.”
“Saturday afternoon?” she says. “It’ll be empty.”
“We’ll only start making out. I heard if you get a boner in church, they send you to hell.”
“The dreaded church boner problem.” She nods. “Well, then I guess we ought to go to Taco B instead. Frutista Freezes. Cherry Limeade Sparklers.”
“I’ll sip off yours,” I say. “Thanks for saving me.”
“Saving you?”
“From going to hell.”
Kids at the park entrance have the M-98 crackers and bottle rockets going. I hate that sound, a sharp whistle bleeding into a hiss. Boo doesn’t like it either. Her tail is curled under and flicking fast.
Céce strokes the back of my neck, and I can breathe again.
We take Boo into the hills, past the spot where we kissed that first time. “Want to take you to my most secret place,” I say. “Only thing is, it’s a little scary.”
“Obviously I like scary.”
“I warned you then.”
“As long as it’s someplace where we can lose our shirts, I’m down.” She takes my hand. “Show me.”
We’re lying in the graveyard, her, me, and Boo. The grass is tall and clean and hides us. The trees give a nice swaying cover. It’s nice: At last, I finally have a human being to share my secret place with. I kiss her breasts, but she starts breathing a little too fast, so I come right back up to kissing her mouth. I don’t want her to think I’m into her only for her prettiness. But I also don’t want her thinking I’m not into getting down with her, in case she wants to get down, and I kind of think she does because she grinds on me sometimes. Hard. That and she moans sometimes a good bit too. Or maybe that’s me, except I hope not. Only girls are supposed to moan.
I suppose I could ask her about it, what she wants me to do.
Nah.
I’m kind of afraid if we do it, she won’t like me after. But I don’t know how much longer I can drag it out. I swear, like half my blood supply is in my dick. My hands and feet are cold this crazy hot Independence Day, and I’m light-headed. You can’t survive long like this. She puts her hand on it, and now she’s got my fly down, and she’s trying to get at it, but I’m wearing those fake fly underwear, and why in God’s name do they do that? Damn dollar table gets me every time.
“Does it hurt?” she says. “Being hard for so long?”
“Psh, nah.”
“Tell the truth.”
“It kills.”
She’s mad nervous. Her hands are shaking on me. “I’m gonna take care of you,” she says.
I check to make sure Boo’s asleep. “Well, I, that’d be fine.”
“Should I . . . I mean, do you want me to, like ... Or will that make you think I’m a slut?”
I gulp, twice. I think she’s talking about a blow job, but what if she’s only talking hand job? “I, it’s like, no, I could never think you’re a slut.”