Reality Boy

“Hey, Ger, how’s work?” he says.

“Fine,” I say.

“Great,” he says.

“Are you with clients?” I ask. He’s always with clients.

“Nope. Driving to that place with the indoor swimming pool. Our secret, okay?”

“Sure,” I say. Then I don’t say anything because I want him to talk first.

“So… that was crazy this morning, wasn’t it?” he says.

“Yeah. It was. My whole life’s been crazy, though, you know?” I say. “I mean, when it comes to—uh—Tasha.”

“Yeah,” he says uncomfortably. “She exaggerates.” Not She totally had it coming because she was trying to suffocate you. Nothing like that.

“I like girls,” I say. “So she’s wrong.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” he says. “Anyway, we’d love you no matter what.”

I feel that’s code for something else. Like he believes her. Like he believes that I swing the other way.

“So, did they call the police?” I ask.

“The what?” he says, distracted by his GPS telling him to turn. “No. Of course not. It’s all fine.”

I bit my sister in self-defense because she was trying to kill me in front of our parents. It’s fine. Clearly.

I hear his door binging when he opens it and I hear him close it and mutter to himself about some key code. “Look, we should talk about this at home. Over drinks. Tonight? After work?” he says. “When do you get off?”

“I’m not coming home,” I say. I surprise myself when I say this. I check the concrete where I’m standing to make sure it’s not made of ice cream. Nope. Still cement.

“Of course you’re coming home,” he says. “You’re sixteen. You live there. And we’ll work this out. I promise.”

A puppy. A hamster, Rollerblades, baseball cards. I promise, I promise, I promise.

I hear his shoes taking each step to the front porch and I hear him breathe more heavily as he gets to the top.

“I’m not coming home,” I say. “Not while she lives there.” I feel a rush when I say this. Panic and fear and tiger all at once.

“Look, we can talk later,” he says as he swings the front door open with a creak. “I’ll make sure this works out right, okay?”

“I’m not coming home,” I say.

I hang up and wander through the skinny smokers’ alley to the back of the PEC Center, where there’s a huge parking lot and loading bay. I hear yelling, so I walk until I can see who’s saying what. There’s this tall, round, bald guy and two skinny guys up against him. A woman sits behind them on a suitcase. The two skinny guys get right in the bald guy’s face.

“We’re f**kin’ out of here, Joe,” one guy says.

“This is such bullshit,” the other one says.

“Tomorrow we’re in Philly. You can leave after that,” (assumed) Joe says. He rubs his bald head. “I just paid you! How can you f**k me over like this?”

“Fuck Philly and f**k you,” the first guy says, and the three begin to walk away from Joe. I’m tense because, as much as this sounds crazy coming from a face-eating, neck-crushing, sister-biting table-crapper, I’m not a big fan of confrontation.

“Well, f**k you, too!” Joe says. He stands there for a minute, furious. “Good luck finding a way out of this shitty little town!”

I watch the three of them walking, and once they get across the railroad tracks, one of them pulls out a smartphone and they get their bearings and start to walk in the direction of the bus station that’s ten blocks away.

Joe, the tall, bald guy, stands outside for a minute, and I hear his last words echo in my head. Good luck finding a way out of this shitty little town.

I turn around and run right into Register #1 Girl and another cashier.

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“We heard the yelling,” she says.

“It’s over now,” I say.

It’s over now, Gerald. Good luck finding a way out of this shitty little town.

22

REGISTER #1 GIRL and her cashier friend turn around and go back toward the side door. (Have I mentioned that she has the cutest ass in the universe? I probably haven’t. The boys’ combat pants work. That’s all I’ll say.) I walk back to the edge of the parking lot and sit down on a step and watch people. It’s pretty quiet. The security guards are wandering around doing security-guard things. Maybe I can be a security guard. I’m big enough. Beats counting hot dogs.

I feel like I just f**ked up by telling Dad that I’m not coming home. At the same time, I really don’t want to go home. At the same time, I pretty much have to go home.

A kid appears at the bottom of the steps—he’s about my age. He’s tall and his hair is just long enough to fit into a ponytail. As he climbs the steps toward me, he looks over his shoulder to the loading bay, and when he gets out of sight he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a box of cigarettes, and lights one. Then he screams, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”

I admit this makes me jump. He sees me and moves his head to acknowledge that I’m sitting here. I scream back, not nearly as loud but loud enough, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”

We look at each other for a second. I have my usual Gerald-thoughts. He recognizes me. He can see the behavior chart and all the black marks. Any second now, he’s going to say, “Hey! You’re the Crapper!”

He walks up a few more steps and sits where he can talk to me—about three steps down.

“Fuck this shit, you know?” he says.

“Dude. I know. Seriously. Fuck. This. Shit.”

Then we laugh. Really laugh. He has to wipe his nose because he snots from laughing so hard. I can’t tell if my laughter is real. I think it is.

After he stops laughing he asks, “You work here?”

I nod.

“Good money?” he asks, taking a long, hard drag on the cigarette.

“Better than none at all, I guess.”

“I don’t make shit. Not until I’m older.”

“Oh,” I say. We sit in silence for a minute and I try to place his accent. He’s not from here. He’s got a Southern accent, I think. But not all the way. “How old do you have to be?” I ask.

He drags on his cigarette and says, “We work as hard as anyone else on the show, you know?”