Finally I make it up the stairs and to the door of Jade's apartment. She invites me in. I remove my wet shoes in the hall even though the carpet is threadbare.
Despite the distraction of almost being pounded out, it strikes me again how little her family owns. The exception is medical equipment and they own plenty of that: breathing apparatus of different types lies scattered about and bottles of prescription medicines are lined up next to the sink. The door to the bedroom where Mrs. Scott is sleeping is slightly ajar. Jade and her sister Holly share the foldout couch.
“Are you okay, Gordie?” she asks.
I realize that I'm shivering. “Oh, yeah. I'm just wet. It's really coming down.”
“Hmm, well, sit down and let me make you some tea. And some toast. I'm sorry we don't have anything left from dinner. I've already made Holly a sandwich for lunch tomorrow with the leftover chicken.”
I do my best to smile. “Tea is fine. I'm really not hungry.” The truth is I'm not sure that I could keep anything down.
Jade is helping Holly make a piñata for a school project, running strips of newspaper through a lumpy paste, slapping them around a balloon. “It's going to be a peacock,” Holly informs me as I sit in the chair across from her. “Jade got me a rainbow feather duster for the tail. Do you want to help?”
I sit at the table, trying to focus on sounding interested. It's hard to go from having my health threatened by a couple of hoods to the calm domestic scene
in front of me without showing a little stress. I do manage to say, “I'm much better at model airplanes, but sure, I guess I can give it a try.”
Holly sings quietly while we work. Jade starts the kettle boiling, a small television set murmurs in the corner, and despite the door being almost closed, Mrs. Scott's oxygen machine hums softly in the background. It's a new sound to me, but it eventually becomes part of the comfortable busy scene in the apartment.
Holly suddenly accuses me of not tearing my strips thin enough. “It's going to be all bumpy and not round.”
I look at my work. She is absolutely right. The strips I've added are gargantuan lumps. I try to tear a thinner strip, but I'm still shaking so badly inside that I seem to have lost the ability to control my fingers. “I'll tell you what, I'm going to drink my tea and warm up before I do any more.”
Jade sets the tea on the table before me.
Once the body of the peacock is finished, they balance it on a saucer to dry. Jade tells Holly to take a bath and get ready for bed. She promises they'll finish the neck and head the following day after school. “I'm sorry,” she says when Holly is gone. “There's not much privacy around here. Maybe next time we can go out. It's just a little too soon to leave her alone.” She motions toward the bedroom.
“It's no big deal,” I tell her, glad for the moment that I don't have to go out.
And then I think of something, although I don't say it out loud. My family used to be something like this. Before the stealing and the lying, the threats and the thugs jumping me in the street, my family used to do normal things. They were interested in normal things. Things like hobbies and music lessons, not how they were going to come up with fifty thousand dollars to get one of us out of jail.
The following day, my first class isn't until ten thirty, so I drop by the hospital first thing in the morning. The redhead, Lisa, recognizes me. “Hi, Richard Cross's nephew,” she says.
“Gordie,” I remind her before I ask if there has been any change in Richard's condition.
She solemnly shakes her head. “He's still comatose. There's fluid on the brain that the doctors are trying to control. That's the biggest challenge right now.”
Again I make sure he has no other visitors before I continue down the hall and enter his room. I pull the unicorn from my backpack and place it on the bedside table beneath the drawings. Three more have been added. They are not quite as colorful as the previous two. Nothing else seems to have changed since I'd
first visited Richard Cross. He is still hooked to the machines and he does not appear to have even moved. I think of the cnn news commercial about how “nothing stays the same for a week, a day or an hour.” It doesn't appear true in Richard Cross's case. His life was put on hold the moment Chase cracked him over the head. I feel like such a freak knowing what really connects me to him.
I think of Chase going through detox, sweating and puking, and I feel no sympathy for how he must feel. If anything, his misery leaves me numb. So, he'll live through it and he'll move forward; he'll recover. Richard Cross has shown no indication which way he'll go.
There is really nothing else for me to do, so I stay only a moment before going to school.
I have just collected my books for physics when Ms. Larson, the school counselor, stops me in the hall. “Gordie, do you have a minute after school?”
“What do you want to see me about?”
I realize that I am being watched by the two biggest tools in the school: Jason Dodds who is about five foot four with a mind and body about as agile as a barbecue, and Brian Zimmerman who is never without a two-liter bottle of Coke. When he grins, his teeth are all pitted and the color of a pumpkin.
Following my glance, Ms. Larson leans a little forward and lowers her voice. “I hear your brother's got himself into trouble. I just want to talk.” Ms. Larson is young, enthusiastic and very professional. She is always dressed in suits with coordinating shoes. I try to imagine sitting across from her, telling her what it's been like living with Chase, the things he's done. I decide it wouldn't be much different than sitting down and spewing a string of obscenities in her face. “I'm sorry, I have to work,” I lie.
Ms. Larson smiles before laying a hand on my shoulder. “Okay, well, anytime you want to talk, I'm always here.”
I nod and continue down the hall. As I pass Jason Dodds, he flings open his locker and pulls out a lacrosse stick, nailing me in the gut.
“Geez, I'm sorry, Jessup,” he sneers.
I grab the end of the stick and push it toward him.
“You'd better watch it,” says Zimmerman. He's leaning against the locker next to Jason Dodds, swinging the bottle of Coke between two fingers. “I wouldn't turn my back on Jessup. He might smash you over the head.”
Jason grins. I still hold one end of the stick. I want so badly to wrench it from his hands and take out a few of his teeth. But somewhere in the back of my head I know this would be stooping to his level, exactly what he wants. I relax my grip.
At the same moment Mr. Dublenko, my physics teacher, steps out of his classroom into the hallway. “Come on, fellas, get moving. The bell for the next class has already gone.”
Chase is home. At least I think they brought home the right guy. It has been six months since I last saw him, and I barely recognize the shriveled form they tell me is my brother. He is wearing the sports shirt and khakis pants I saw Mom leave the house with, folded across her arm. The shirt hangs on him like a flag on a flagpole in a dead calm. When I say hello to him, his eyes are vacant and his face is an expressionless wasteland. I'm can't even be sure he knows who I am. But then, for the past two years Chase has used meth as regularly as the rest of us have gone to bed at night and got up in the morning, and it shows.
For two days, Chase has been lying around the house like some invalid. Mom has taken two weeks off from her job as a secretary at an old folks' home. She says it's to help him put on weight, to help him get started on the road to recovery. But despite how she coddles him, he's not a helpless infant. He does know how to warm up a can of soup. No, I think it's
more likely that she and Dad agreed she should take the time to prevent him from breaking his bail conditions. Although, when I see Chase walking down the hall without a shirt, I find it hard to believe that he'd have the strength to bend a straw let alone put a man the size of Richard Cross in the hospital.
On the third day he is home, Mom has to run some errands. When I get home from school, she tells me I am to look after Chase. “He's eaten well today,” she says, like he's four years old and has just learned to tie his shoes. “He's watching a movie right now. Maybe you can start dinner, Gordie. Peel the potatoes and make the salad? I'll be back in time to cook the rest.”
I have said little to Chase since he came home. It's hard to know what to say to him because, in a way, it's like some stranger is sharing the house. But the reality of what he's done has been sinking in, and Mom's approach that he should be pampered rather than held accountable is wearing thinner than his chest. Especially at four in the afternoon when I walk into the living room and see him sprawled on the chesterfield watching
Cape Fear
while I've been at school all day.
“Haven't you seen that?” I ask. “Like five times at least.”
He holds a hand up to stifle me. “Shh, this is the best part.”
I have told no one but Jack about Chase's dealers threatening me, and now, watching him lie there stuffing
his face with taco chips and pistachios, the memory of Ratchet swinging that pipe sends me over the edge. I snatch the cushion from under his head and slam it over his face. Chase grabs my arms and struggles to get out from under it, but he has absolutely no grip. I am amazed at how totally weak he is. I pull the cushion off but continue to pin him down. “You whacked-out spineless creep! Your screwball dealers came looking for you. They beat on me instead. I don't want anything to do with you or your psycho friends. Do you hear me?”
“Get off of me,” he splutters.
“They tell me you owe them two grand. How are you planning to pay that off? Mom's jewelry or Grandma's
TV
this time?”
Chase starts to whimper. “I don't know. But they broke Harris's hand. He owed them five hundred. They'll probably break my neck.”
I stand up. I throw the pillow at him, but he has no reflexes, and it hits him square in the face. I realize why he hasn't attempted to leave the house. He's afraid of those two goons.
“Do you know Mom and Dad have risked the house on you? They've got no savings left. You've cost them everything they have.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says without emotion. “You've got to help me.”
“Why should I? Look at you. There's a guy lying in the hospital with his head split open because of you, and you're still only thinking about yourself.”
“I know. I'm sorry,” Chase begins to snivel. “I didn't know what I was doing. Please, Gordie, if you can help me out this one time, I'll straighten out. I'll go back to school. Mom and Dad will keep the house, and it will all be okay.”
It is a pitiful display. I am not swayed by his sniveling, and he's done way too much damage for things to ever be the same. But if his debt is paid, at least Mom and Dad won't have to deal with that on top of everything else. It's been more than annoying watching her cater to Chase, but in another way, it's also been a bit of a relief. She's been positive for a change. I've seen her lose it too many times over the past two years. But I don't have two grand. I have twelve hundred dollars in my bank account. I do still have a check from my grandparents in Ontario, money they'd sent to me for my birthday. And I get paid by Ralph Barnes later in the week.
I can't believe I'm even considering it. I pick him up by the neck of his T-shirt and drop him again. “If I do this, you'd better stay straight or I'll break your neck myself.”
“I will.” Chase immediately stops sniveling. It's amazing how quickly he turns the sobs off and on. “I promise. You'll see. I'll get a job. I'll pay you back.”
I know Chase well enough to know that he is giving me his standard lines. But if I am doing this for anyone, it's for me and Mom and Dad. “All right, I'll think about it.” I am not going to give him a definite yes. I want to make him grovel for a while.
Dad is letting me take the Honda S2000 to Bobby's house for a band practice. Bobby is the drummer in our band. He lives just below Cleveland Dam.
I have mixed feelings about driving the car. I can't wait to finally drive it, but Dad is only allowing it because he's selling it to pay off some debts. He admitted he wanted to give me a chance before it's gone. Jack and I set our guitars in the backseat and start in the direction of the Upper Levels Highway, headed toward Horseshoe Bay.
I am not used to how tight the gears are after driving Mom's old Toyota. It has great pick-up as we emerge onto the highway. I accelerate quickly, and we are soon flying past the Toyota's top speed. It has rained earlier in the day, so I am a little concerned about hydroplaning with a skiff of water still on the road. I hit 110 kmh and keep it steady.
“This is so cool!” Jack exclaims.
I agree. We have the windows down, the stereo on, and the damp spring air is, for the moment, helping me forget about home. I hope Dad hangs on to the car long enough so that I can take Jade for a drive.
We have just passed the Mountain Highway turnoff when a black Passat roars past us. It changes lanes directly in front of us before the driver throws on his brakes. I immediately slam on my own brakesâI miss plowing into him by millimeters.
Jack snaps forward like a whip. “What's that twit doing?”
The Passat continues slowly in front of us, forcing us almost to a crawl. A horn blares behind me. I glance at the reflection of the face of the woman in the car following me. She is fuming. In answer I pull into the left lane and roar ahead of the Passat. He follows, but he is soon tailgating me at 120 kilometers an hour. I can't believe what is happening.
“Did you do something?” Jack asks. He twists in his seat to get a glimpse of the nutjob following us. “Why is that guy so pissed off?”
“I don't know. He just came out of nowhere.” Again I consult the rearview mirror. I switch lanes once again. He follows. I step on the accelerator, feeling the car become uneasy on the wet road. I am soon pushing 130 kmhânervously.