Riker

“Jacoury, Talin, Jonas, get your asses down here!” I was standing at the foot of the staircase with the front door open. My truck, parked at the curb in front of the house, had the passenger door smashed in. I’d come in from a project, taken a short nap before starting dinner, only to wake up and find that someone had taken the truck without permission. They’d not only taken it; they hadn’t brought it back in one piece.

The three of them were standing at the railing, looking down. I was fairly sure Jacoury was the culprit—it was his MO, but I couldn’t accuse him until I was sure. Jonas was the first to react. It was all in the body language. He took two steps away from the other two and turned to face them, leaning his elbow on the railing as he looked to them, waiting for an explanation. Talin was the less adventurous of the other two.

“Jacoury, you going to come clean on this?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“You just admitted it.”

“Damn!”

“And that just doubled your punishment. You’re off the basketball team. You won’t have time for practice because you’re going to be working with me, earning the money to fix that door.”

“You can’t do that!” Jonas and Talin had both retreated to their rooms and shut their doors.

“Come down here, I want to talk to you.” Jacoury stomped his foot but came down the staircase. I pointed to the kitchen, and he followed me inside. “Get that stool and a paring knife. You’re going to peel potatoes for dinner.”

“Yes, sir. How many potatoes?”

I liked the fact that he didn’t fight me over the punishment. He knew he’d screwed up, and maybe the punishment was even lighter than he had expected. Either way, he was in the doghouse for now. “Peel eight potatoes, quarter them and put them in a baking dish with some butter, salt and pepper. Stick them in the oven and turn it on to three seventy-five. You got that?”

“Got it,” he answered in a vanquished tone.

“So, tell me what happened.” I was trying to be matter-of-fact about it, but inside I was pretty angry. It was one thing to give these kids a second shot, but when they started smashing up my vehicle, they had to go. Jacoury had pushed himself to the edge, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to send him back or not. It all depended on the story.

“There’s this girl in school, Cyiarra is her name. She lives across town but she rides my bus. So, we’ve been hanging out at school, but I don’t get any time to see her outside of that. When I got in, you were lying down and I figured I could borrow your truck and go see her for a few minutes before you woke up and knew the difference. I hit ice at an intersection and the truck spun and hit a telephone pole. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but you remember what it’s like to be a young guy, don’t you?”

“Number one, you don’t have a driver’s license and that means that my insurance won’t cover the damage. Number two, you’re damned lucky you weren’t hurt and didn’t hurt someone else. Number three, you don’t even know how to drive a car, and you sure as hell shouldn’t be out there in this weather. Number four, you don’t ever take someone’s car without asking. In case you don’t know, that’s called grand theft auto and you can go straight to Joliet for that.

“Last of all, you got no business making it with the girl. For one thing, you’re about half a step from going back where you’ll never see her again. Can’t mess around with someone like that. You don’t have the right. What if she got pregnant? What would you do then? Just walk away? You can’t be a man if you don’t live up to your responsibilities, you got that? Now, you’re not very far off from turning eighteen, and you might think that makes you a man, but in my book, you’re a long ways off.

“Now get those potatoes taken care of, and then you get your ass up to your bedroom. Tomorrow after school you report to me and begin work. If you so much as look at me cross-eyed, you’re going back to juvie, and when you turn eighteen they’re sending you to Joliet for two years. I’d hate to think I wasted this much time and money on a loser. If you think you can’t hack it, let me know now.”

“I can hack it. I deserve this. You’re right, I was letting the wrong head do the thinking.”

“Well, we’ll see what the right head thinks about the work this is going to cost you. Now get your ass upstairs.”

I called on the other two and gave them a good chewing out for letting him get away with it. We were supposed to be living as a family, in the loosest terminology possible. We had to be accountable to one another, and while they hadn’t driven the truck, they’d let them get away with it. All three of them lost privileges for the next month. They groaned, as I knew they would, because it was going to be a cold, miserable winter with nowhere to go. I also took away television and videogame privileges. That meant one thing. Housework. Homework. My work.

It was a bad year to live so close to the lake. The temperatures dipped to minus fifty with the wind chill, and the lake came close to freezing all the way across to Milwaukee. Any cars that weren’t in garages overnight had trouble getting started. My truck seemed to stand up to it all, despite the disfiguration of the door. I wasn’t going to spend the money to fix it, and I sure wasn’t going to turn in an insurance claim or Jacoury would be headed back to the city. I wasn’t happy.

Beneath it all, I was semi-pissed at Lacy and the way she’d lectured me without listening. It was obvious she had something going on behind that beautiful face, but I couldn’t get close enough to find out what. There were no texts, no phone calls, no visits.

Melanie stopped by a couple of times a week and made it apparent that she was available for whatever I was willing to give her. I tolerated her only because she reminded me of the time when I’d been with Lacy. Not that they were anything alike, and she was definitely not happy with Lacy after being fired.

“There’s something wrong with her,” Melanie said on one of those mornings. I’d offered her a cup of coffee and she had been camped out in my kitchen for the next two hours. I knew she would’ve jumped into my bed at the wink of an eye, so I was careful not to be suggestive in any way.

“What makes you think that? You don’t even see her anymore.”

“Well, not every day, but I see her at church on Sundays, and there’s word around town.”

“What kind of word?” I wondered whether Lacy was in financial trouble. I knew she hadn’t gotten as many jobs as she’d hoped, and I knew from my own experience that this was a slow time of year. Maybe she’d overspent her budget. Not that I thought that was the reason she’d let Melanie go—God knows Melanie should have been fired long before. Nevertheless, I wondered if Lacy’s anger was a cry for help and I’d missed it.

“People are saying she’s not long for this town. She bit off more than she could chew with that business, and Mrs. Pettibone is fed up with her. She just doesn’t know what she’s doing. I can tell she’s keeping her distance from you, right?”

I said nothing, but that was pretty much an admission that she was right.

“I thought so. She just doesn’t appreciate you, Riker. She’s letting Mrs. Pettibone influence her because she’s desperate. She’s started to think you’re a bad guy. I think she’s scared of you, to tell you the truth. I mean, judge for yourself. She’s keeping her distance, isn’t she?”

I had to admit she was right in that. But I didn’t think Lacy was scared of me. At least, I hoped not. I’d been ready to unlock the door after that last night together. I knew she was ready, no matter how squirrelly she was acting. Something had happened, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. “Why don’t you cut her some slack, Melanie? Up until the day you quit going to work, she was actually pretty decent to you. When are you starting back to school?”

She shrugged. “She paid me peanuts, and I didn’t get enough put together to go back to school yet. I might have to work at Cutler’s Market through the summer and maybe even longer to get caught up. That’s okay, though. Old Man Cutler has the hots for me and I get extra breaks, if you know what I mean.” She opened her mouth then, suddenly realizing what she’d just admitted. “Not that I take him up on it,” she added hurriedly, and I nodded knowingly.

“Well, you’d better run along. I’ve got things to do.”

“You sure? I’ll be glad to stay as long as you like. I’m all yours, if it isn’t already clear.”

“I appreciate that, but I think you’d better run along.”

The familiar Melanie pout surfaced and she left, the wilted Christmas wreath on the door popping off as she closed it. I could see from the corner of my eye that she literally stomped on it before she went downstairs. It was no surprise that Lacy had gotten rid of her.

I pulled my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dove onto the couch. I had to admit that what I was about to do made me a little nervous. It could go bad suddenly, real bad.

“Hey, Lacy, it’s Riker.”

“Hello,” she said unemotionally.

Her voice sounded different somehow. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just a little under the weather is all.”

“You need a ride to the doctor? Or want me to bring you something from the pharmacy?”

“No. I’m fine,” she repeated.

“Well, if you need something, let me know. The reason I called was I wondered if maybe you’d go to dinner with me on Friday?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s just not a good time.”

“When would be a better time?”

“I don’t know, Riker. Listen, I’ve got to go now. Thank you for calling.” The line went dead and a part of me died with it.