CHAPTER THREE

 

“How much more homework do you have?”  I asked. 

My kid brother frowned and considered the question.  A wrinkle of worry deepened between his brows and he looked older for a moment.  Less like a carefree thirteen-year-old boy and more like a world-weary adult with a hundred troubling things on his mind. 

“Just a few more questions,” Brecken answered and bent down once more to examine the paper in front of him.  His pencil made a hesitant mark, which he promptly erased with a sigh. 

I watched him. “Is summer school going okay?”

“Don’t know.  It just started.” He sounded annoyed.  Brecken hated the fact that he was spending his summer mornings in a classroom but he’d fallen way behind this year and when the school recommended summer classes it seemed like a good idea.  Plus there was a community center right next door that hosted a free teen day camp so when he was finished with his class he could hang out there all afternoon and that was a load off my mind.  I sure as hell didn’t want him brooding in this crappy room alone all summer. 

“Have you made any cool new friends?” I asked, aware that I sounded like a jackass.  Brecken must have been aware of it too because he shot me a brief look of disgust before turning his attention back to his work. 

I gave up the interrogation and gathered the rest of the trash leftover from dinner.  We’d had tacos again because they were only two for a dollar at the place up the street.  Fast food wasn’t an ideal daily diet for a growing boy, but it was the best I could do at the moment.  That would change though.  That would change real soon. 

“Finish your milk,” I said and Brecken grudgingly took a sip of the tiny carton of milk I’d picked up at the corner gas station on the way home because Taco Dreams only offered soda and brightly colored sugary crap.

Brecken suddenly made a face and pushed the carton away.  A few drops sloshed out onto the tiny, deeply scarred table.  “I don’t like milk,” he grumbled. “Never have.” 

I wiped up the spill with a crumpled napkin.  “You should have at least one healthy thing a day,” I said.  “So please drink a little more.” 

My little brother was unmoved by the plea.  He gave me a stubborn look. 

“For me,” I added and he relented, nodding and gulping back a few mouthfuls before setting the carton back down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  It was a tiny victory but I’d take it.  Brecken was already small for his age and the events of the past six months had taken a toll.  He peered out from beneath a mop of sandy hair with bewildered young eyes and his shoulders always seemed to droop.  My heart hurt when I looked at him.  Almost as much as it hurt when I looked at my other brother.  Tristan.  He should have been home hours ago but there was no sign of him.

I carefully wrapped the leftover tacos in some brown napkins.  There was no fridge in here and they wouldn’t keep for long.  It probably didn’t matter anyway.  Tristan always claimed to have eaten already, although I didn’t know how a jobless teenager managed to pull that off.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.  He’d found a rough crowd to run around with in the short time we’d been here but they couldn’t be as bad as the boys he was hanging around with down in Emblem. That was one of the reasons why we left.  There were other reasons too; the little family money we had was gone overnight and I had no way to make an honest living down there. Jobs weren’t plentiful and people knew who I was. Every day Tristan grumbled that he planned to catch a ride back home but he hadn’t skipped out yet.  He’d even managed to stay inside the high school building every day when I dropped him off with two dollars for lunch and a few corny words of encouragement. He should have graduated this year but his dyslexia had been caught late and back in Emblem he’d once repeated a grade so he still had one more year to go. However, now that school was out for the summer I wasn’t too sure how Tristan was spending his days.  He insisted he was job hunting but I had my doubts.

Sometimes I suspected Tristan was sticking around more for Brecken’s sake than anything else and that scared me because sooner or later the feeling of obligation wouldn’t be enough.  Eventually the restless look in his eyes would anchor him to something bad, something that would take him away from us.  I would know.  I’d been just like him once. Sometimes I felt like taking the kid by the shoulders and shaking him until he understood the things I’d only learned after wasting years dicking around.  But for now I was reduced to keeping an uneasy eye on Tristan and hoping a few of the things I told him sunk in before he turned eighteen in a few months and realized there were no legal obstacles standing in his way. 

“Um, Curtis?” Brecken said my name in a strange voice and I saw he was staring at my hand.  There was grease running down my arm because I’d managed to crush the leftover tacos in my fist while tormented with ugly thoughts of Tristan’s future. 

“One of these days I’ll understand my own strength,” I joked and Brecken broke into a smile before bending his head back to his homework. 

I cleaned myself up and took a seat at the rickety dining table.  Besides the two beds and a raggedy armchair it was the only furniture in the room.  No one staying at Empire Motel expected luxury accommodations though.  It was just a way station with cheap rates, populated by an uneasy mix of both petty criminals and good people who were down on their luck.

“I got a job today,” I said. 

Brecken raised his eyebrows and tapped his pencil against the paper.  “But you already had a job.” 

Shoveling piles of landscaping rocks was only a temporary position.  It paid shit, offered no breaks and at the end of every shift I had to massage the feeling back into my arms. 

“I got a better one,” I told my brother. 

“Doing what?”

“I’ll be working at a famous tattoo parlor.” 

His expression was doubtful.  “You know how to draw tattoos?”   

“No.  They’re training me on piercings.  Plus I’ll be in charge of merchandising and other odd jobs as needed.” 

Brecken nodded.  “You really should be doing tattoos.”  He pointed to my heavily inked arms.  “You sure have enough of them.” 

“I’m not that artistic.  But the pay will be good and tomorrow I’ll start looking for a better place to live.” 

Brecken gazed around our threadbare setting.  “Good.”

Somewhere nearby a woman screamed ‘Cocksucker!’ The sound of breaking glass followed. 

“Where’s Tristan?” Brecken asked. 

Where’s Tristan?  Where’s Tristan? 

The question bounced around my head.  I wished I knew the answer.   

“He’ll be here soon,” I assured the kid even though I had no way of knowing whether it was true.  “Now let’s take a look at that math.” 

After an hour of struggling with Brecken’s math homework, we managed to get through most of it.  I wished I could offer him more help.  Silently I cursed myself for my own failures in school. In my sophomore year, after months of chronic ditching, I got the news that I wouldn’t pass to the next grade so I’d said fuck it and quit on the spot.  I’d been sixteen at the time, even younger than Tristan.

“Time to get ready for bed,” I said. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.” 

Brecken tossed his math book into his backpack and then gave me a rather withering look.  “I’m thirteen,” he reminded me. “I know that I have to brush my fucking teeth.” 

I scowled.  “Language, please.” 

My brother stared at me for a few heartbeats and I wondered what he was thinking, if he was remembering the way I used to be, full of bad attitude and furious words.  Even when I was at my worst I’d tried to shield my brothers from knowing too much but I had no doubt they’d managed to pick up on a few things.  I wasn’t the best role model but these days I was all they had.  And I was trying every day to do better. 

“Okay, Curtis,” Brecken said quietly and then headed for the bathroom.  The door closed and a few seconds later I heard water running. 

 As I listened to the sound of my little brother brushing his teeth I settled into the armchair and mulled over how I’d gotten here.  I’d been living in a hardscrabble town called Nedry, just on the other side of the state line in California.  I hadn’t exactly been a model citizen, reselling stolen electronics in a back room of a bar owned by a buddy of mine.  It wasn’t outstanding money but it was more than what I needed.  More importantly, it didn’t involve blood or violence and I could breathe a little easier because no longer was I beholden to a toxic group of lowlifes like the fuckers I’d gotten in too deep with in Emblem.  It was a laidback, day-to-day existence and occasionally I’d find a pretty face to hook up with for a while, the sort that partied hard and didn’t care much when I stopped calling. 

That was the way things stood when I got the call from home. 

My mother had been arrested for insurance fraud.  She and her chiropractor boss had been running all kinds of bogus claims for years.  They might have gotten away with it if they hadn’t been idiots and gotten greedy at the same time the new district attorney wanted to make an example out of someone in order to stem the tide of similar crimes.  My mother and I hadn’t been close for as long as I could remember. Even before my father caught a stray bullet in the throat at a convenience store she seemed perplexed by a son who was growing up too fast and already finding trouble way beyond his years.  But she wasn’t a terrible parent. Even though we’d exchanged some harsh words at times she was never a deadbeat or physically abusive to me or to my younger brothers.  So when I heard her voice on the phone hyperventilating about charges and prison time I could hardly believe it.  By that point I hadn’t been home to Emblem in three years.  There’d been a big crackdown and most of my old friends as well as my enemies were either in prison or dead. And yet I didn’t think twice before I packed up and drove across the state line back to Arizona, and back to Emblem. 

  I didn’t know what I expected at the time. But nothing had prepared me for the reality of soon finding myself homeless as well as the guardian of two teenage boys. 

“Is Tristan still not home?”

Brecken had crept out of the bathroom while I was brooding.  

“Nope, he’s not home yet,” I said, hating the sound of the word ‘home’ and the fact that it was connected to a crummy rented room at a seedy motel on the edge of a bad neighborhood. 

Brecken sank down on one of the sagging mattresses.  “He should be home.” 

“He will be,” I promised. 

Brecken yawned and pushed his hair out of his eyes.  I always worried that he didn’t get enough sleep here.  I knew I didn’t. 

“I’ll turn out the light,” I told him.  “I don’t mind sitting up in the dark.” 

Brecken hesitated and then crawled under the blankets.  He slept in one bed and Tristan in the other.  Both had offered to trade off so I wouldn’t be spending every night in the shitty armchair but I always laughed and lied that I really liked sleeping upright. 

The minutes ticked by with no soundtrack but my little brother’s breathing and the occasional shout from the parking lot.  Brecken was sound asleep and the hour was close to midnight when Tristan finally rolled through the door. 

He waved me off and headed straight for the bathroom. “I don’t want to fucking hear it.” 

I was standing on the other side of the door when he opened it again and I pushed him inside, closing the door behind me before he could do anything.  Tristan blinked at me in the garish light of a single hundred-watt bulb and for a second he looked apologetic.  His expression quickly tightened into a stubborn tough guy scowl when met with my angry glare. 

“You were drinking,” I said.  I didn’t need any confirmation.  The smell of cheap malt liquor was all over him.  Even more concerning was the brand new shiner under his left eye. I tried to touch his face but he recoiled. “Who raked you over?” I demanded. 

Tristan rolled his eyes and swiped the back of his hand across his cheek, as if to prove that the bruise above it didn’t hurt.  “Nobody.” 

“You walk into a wall then?”

He eyes narrowed.  He had the same eyes as Brecken with the warmth and innocence drained.  That hadn’t all happened on my watch.  He’d already been going in this direction when I saw him again after missing out on the last three years.  It was just the kind of evolution that came from being an invincible seventeen year old with a bad attitude who had no one around capable of reigning him in.

“Maybe.” 

Tristan held my gaze but I didn’t move away from the door.  Finally he sighed and crossed his arms.  “Hey Curt, I’m tired as hell and I know you’ve got to be up in five hours.  Can we talk some other time?”

I really did have to be up in five hours.  Tomorrow was my first day at Scratch but first I had to get breakfast for the boys and shuttle Brecken off to the middle school for his summer class.  There was a bus that could take him but in the early morning hours there were also a bunch of weirdoes hanging around here and I didn’t want him waiting around on a street corner.  Before this week I would also drop Tristan off at the high school but now that school was out I had to trust that he spent at least some of his time job hunting in the area. I hoped like hell he’d find something soon.  Not just because of the money but because an angry, roaming teenager was a recipe for disaster.   

“Fine.” I relented and twisted the doorknob open.  “You need to be home by dinner tomorrow.  I’ve got a new job.  I’ll pick up something to eat on the way home and I expect to find you right here.” 

Tristan smirked.  “Shit, dude, you sound like Mom.”   

The three of us had developed a habit of not discussing her.  I didn’t care to start now. 

“Would it help get my point across if I promised to kick the shit out of you?”

We both knew it was a bluff.  I’d never lay a hand on either of my brothers, no matter how much they pissed me off. 

“Nah.” He shrugged.  “Shit kickings don’t bother me.” 

I was out of ammunition.  I didn’t know how to convince Tristan to pick a better path than the one he was flirting with.  The only thing I could do was make life better so that he wasn’t tempted.  Even though I knew it might not be enough. 

“Go to bed,” I said quietly since the door was now open and I didn’t want to wake up Brecken. 

Tristan playfully elbowed me on his way out.  He was getting stronger every day.  The idea made me both proud and fearful. 

I took a leak, stripped down and brushed my own teeth before exiting the bathroom.  The main room was completely dark and Brecken murmured in his sleep.  No sound came from Tristan’s bed but I knew he was there.  There was some comfort tonight in knowing that both my brothers were safe and here with me.  I had accomplished virtually nothing in my twenty-two years to be proud of but that was all changing now.  I had a real job, a legit way of earning money that would make it possible to lease a decent apartment.  I would do anything to make sure that those boys finished school properly and didn’t become wards of the state or worse, sucked into the ugly underworld that hovered right outside this door.  With Tristan I had my work cut out for me but I was up to the challenge.  I had to be. Even if I’d be spending my nights sleeping in a chair and craving things I didn’t have the luxury of having right now. 

As I settled into the chair my mind strayed back to the cute blonde I’d snapped at earlier today.  Something about her had stuck with me even though she looked too soft for my taste, the delicate type who might deflate if you kissed her too hard. Remembering the shape of her pink lips got me hard and I had to push away all thoughts of her so I could get some sleep.  She was only on my mind because I hadn’t been fucked in months. 

That girl didn’t matter.

I’d never see her again, never even learn her name.