Ballads of Suburbia (26 page)

W
HEN
I
CALLED
A
DRIAN
IN HYSTERICS
to tell him my brother was missing, he told me, “Cass's freaking out because her cousin took off last night, too.”

“Can you please bring Cass over here?” I asked, knowing that my mother wouldn't let me out of her sight.

After what I'd said to Cass the last time I'd seen her, I half expected her to punch me. Instead, she hugged me. “They're out there with Christian, aren't they?” she whispered as we embraced.

I nodded, tears streaking my face.

“You think they'll go to California, to Wes?” Cass asked hopefully as she wiped away her own tears.

“No, I think they'll go to Florida.”

And that's what we told the cops. Cass and I faced that interrogation together. Normally, we wouldn't rat out our friends, but we were too worried.

We spent the afternoon huddled together on my front steps, chain-smoking in the cold. Despite the weather, it reminded me of last spring when I sat with Cass on Shelly's porch while she wished for Wes's return, dropping acid to numb herself. Now I was the one with the chemical escape.

I snorted only one line, just enough to stay calm without get
ting sleepy. Mostly, I resorted to my old method of anxiety relief. First, I straddled the toilet and used the razor blade to cut a line of powder on top of the tank. Then, as the drugs soothed my brain, I rolled up my sleeve and drew the blade across my forearm. The bleeding slowed my racing heart.

Cass slept over and after we turned out the light, I confided, “I can't lose my brother. I don't know how you live without Wes.”

“Well, I know he's safe and healthy where he is and at least I had Maya,” she murmured from the floor beside my bed.

“Neither of them should be out there with Christian.” I started to cry, but tried not to let it into my voice. “I should have made them understand what he's really like. If anything happens…”

I heard the swish of sleeping-bag material and Cass was in the bed beside me, teetering on the edge until I scooted back to give her more space. She said, “If anything happens, I'll never forgive myself. I saw what Christian did to you, but I let you push me away. I should have gone to Maya. I should have actually done something. Instead, I threw myself into schoolwork because I couldn't deal with your problems or with Adrian and Quentin using as much as they have been. I'm supposed to watch over you guys. I promised Wes that I would.”

I heard her sniff and took her hand. “You can't take care of everyone. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself,” I reassured her, trying to assuage my own guilt as much as I was hers.

She squeezed my palm and we fell asleep in my bed, holding hands.

A
WEEK PASSED BEFORE THE COPS FOUND
my mom's car in a beach town near Fort Lauderdale and brought Liam, Maya, and Christian back to Oak Park.

My brother arrived home in handcuffs with a big, purplish bruise across the left side of his face. He'd gotten into a scuffle on the beach, but since the police hadn't picked him up until after the fight, they couldn't charge him. My mom didn't press charges over the stolen car either because she was so relieved to see him. I listened from upstairs as she and Dad both wept and screamed at Liam before confining him to his room. I desperately wanted to see if he was okay, but Liam slammed his door without stopping at mine, so I assumed he still wasn't speaking to me.

Hurt, I pulled out the Altoids box that I stored heroin in and did a line. I zoned and woke to a knock that I recognized as Liam's. I shoved the box under my pillow as Liam shut the door behind himself and sat down at the edge of my bed opposite me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied. There was nothing for an awkward moment until he said, “I'm sorry. I was wrong about you and…” He grimaced as he spat the name. “Christian.”

I sat up from my nest of pillows and leaned toward him. “If you want to talk…”

“I don't,” he snapped.

“Sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry.” His voice softened. He studied my face for so long it made me uncomfortable. His gaze flitted from my bangs, which were stringy and greenish since I hadn't bothered to touch up the blue in three weeks, to my chapped lips to the bags under my eyes. “You are using heroin, though, aren't you?”

There was no tone of judgment in his voice, but I stiffened and didn't respond.

“Let me try some,” he pleaded, his eyes growing huge. “Pot, it's just not enough anymore…”

And I felt the same tug-of-war Adrian must have. Because you know that even though you do it and you like it and it feels good, it's a bad drug. You know that even though you say you aren't a junkie, you were hooked from the first taste. And you don't want someone you love to get into something so bad. But I knew Liam had been through something worse: Christian. Though Liam refused to talk about it, I was sure Christian was the one who'd bruised his face. I knew how badly Liam needed to feel good.

I unearthed the Altoids box and reached for the hand mirror on my nightstand. I shook brown powder out of a plastic baggie, divided it into lines, and handed my little brother a rolled dollar bill.

I only let him do one line and he was fine for about fifteen minutes. Then he curled up at the foot of my bed, moaning that he felt like he was going to throw up. I put my Strawberry Shortcake trash can on the floor next to him and he puked into it repeatedly, looking how I must have when I was eight, had the stomach flu, and vomited into that very trash can for a day straight. I'd heard that most people puked their first time on heroin and I'd given Liam such a tiny amount, I knew he wasn't OD'ing. Still, I fought off my own drug haze to keep watch over him.

“I'm never doing this shit again,” he swore, wiping bile from the corners of his lips. “This sucks.”

Heroin had never made me sick, so I couldn't agree, but I was pleased he felt that way. I didn't care enough about myself to stop using, but I cared enough about Liam not to want him to start.

That night I couldn't fall asleep until Liam did. I awoke the next morning to find him sobered up and staring at me. He said, “I wanted to repeat that I'm sorry I didn't believe you about Christian.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “Why do you believe me now?”

“I don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to apologize again.”

And with that, he smiled sadly and left the room.

April 1995

A
LL MY HEROES LET ME DOWN.

It started in third grade with Johnny Cash. He'd been my idol since I was four, so naturally when we were assigned an oral report on the person who influenced us most, I picked Johnny. I even sang “Walk the Line” a cappella in hopes of impressing Lizzie Jordan, the most beautiful girl in our class.

The room filled with snickering before I got to the chorus. Lizzie laughed loudest of all. “Now we know why he dresses like such a weirdo,” she told the girl next to her. I should've known from her New Kids on the Block lunch box that she wouldn't appreciate the Man in Black. I ran to the bathroom in tears, wishing I'd played it safe and picked Ozzie Guillen, my favorite guy on the White Sox. All the other boys had picked either baseball players or their dads.

I don't know if I ever considered my dad a hero. I can't remember worshiping him that much because he was barely around. Kara tells all these stories where he's the center of the universe, but in my mind she was the brightest star.

My first memory is literally looking up to her. I was probably about three, just waking up from a nap, and Kara hovered over my bed, waiting for me. “What do you want to do, Liam?” she asked, eyes glowing with the possibilities. Back then, we did everything together. She read to me and taught me to read. She sang to me and listened to me sing. She came up with elaborate imaginary games: we looked for gold in the Old West, flew spaceships thousands of years into the future, and had our own band in the present day.

My sister mattered more than my mother, father, and Johnny Cash combined. She also let me down worse than any of them. Part of the reason I didn't concern myself with making friends when we moved to the suburbs was that I thought she'd always be there. Then she met Stacey and ditched me. I was hesitant to trust her when we got close again two years ago. But at least she brought me into her world at Scoville Park.

We weren't as tight as I wished we could be at times, like when my parents split up. I really needed Kara then, but she was focused on Adrian. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it now—I found someone new to lean on…well, to the extent that guys lean on each other. Christian and I skateboarded, listened to music, and remarked every once in a while about how our families sucked. But I looked up to him like I had Kara. I listened to his stories about how we'd leave Oak Park one day. I believed in him. He became the brother I'd sometimes wished I could trade my sister in for.

Then he started dating Kara. A little awkward, but it was cool at first. I liked having a group of friends that felt like a family. I liked having my sister around on a regular basis. Until she screwed everything up.

Kara tried to reach out when our dad abandoned us yet again. But I just couldn't trust her. Whenever anything bad went down, it seemed like she took care of herself first and came back for me later. Christian, on the other hand, had always been there for me.

When I told him about my dad's impending move and how I just wanted to be a million miles away from my family, he said, “Let's do it.” He said he couldn't steal his dad's car because his dad loved that thing more than him, so
we took my mom's. We swung by Maya's and told her we were finally leaving for Florida and asked her if she wanted to come.

She took one look at the big house that she and her dad had just moved into and said, “Yeah, I can't stand this place. Let's go.”

Honestly, I wouldn't have left without her. I'd gotten kind of attached.

I always developed crushes on my sister's friends: apple-scented Stacey with her big blue eyes that stated up front, “I'm trouble,” and smoky Cass, whose thick dreads reminded me of Bob Marley. But Maya, she was my sister's prettiest friend by far. She smelled like the ocean, sounded like the South, and looked like Kate Moss with curves and bloodred hair. More important, Maya and I connected the first time we really talked.

It was a Saturday night at Scoville when Kara was off hanging out with Christian and his little sister. I sat at the foot of the soldier statue, smoking up when Maya walked by. I nodded hello at her and she laughed and asked, “Is that dinner?”

“I guess.”

“Can I have a bite?”

I shrugged and extended the joint, trying not to act as awkward as I felt with this gorgeous girl standing over me, gleaming beneath the shitty streetlamp that made everyone else look nicotine-stained. I stared at her knee, which peeked out from her ripped, doodle-covered jeans. She had one freckle on each side of her kneecap, perfectly symmetrical, like eyes. I pointed this out to her, immediately feeling like an idiot for making such a stupid stoner observation aloud.

But Maya grinned and exclaimed, “You noticed, too!” She plopped down beside me and bent her knee, swinging her lower leg. “I pretend my calf is an elephant's trunk.” She giggled to herself and handed me the joint, which tasted like Dr Pepper—the flavor of her ChapStick.

I relaxed, realizing that pretty as she was, you didn't have to play cool with her. She was the kind of girl you could really laugh with. We smoked a couple joints and did exactly that, examining the patterns our freckles formed, discussing other goofy theories we'd had since we were kids, and eventually exchanging stories from childhood.

We'd moved to the grass so that Maya could stretch out and she told me about her days on the beach in Florida. “I spent all my time with this little boy, Taylor Williams. When I was eight, my grandmother declared that he and I were soul mates and we'd grow up and live happily ever after. So I tried kissing him once at a bonfire, but our lips were both chapped and we pulled away at the same time, going, ‘Ewww!' Before we grew out of that cooties phase, his family moved to Sarasota.”

“Maybe you'll find each other again if you're soul mates.”

Maya shook her head. “I don't believe in that crap.”

“I don't either. My sister says the divorce has made me cynical.” I rolled my eyes.

“Your sister's a romantic. That's why I set her up with Christian. He needs someone who believes in love. And Kara needs someone she can trust, who won't hurt her like Adrian did.”

“But didn't you and Christian sort of have a thing this summer?”

Maya laughed and sat up to look at me. “Christian wanted love and trust. I just wanted to kiss. I can't handle that other crap. After all, someday I'm gonna run away back to Florida and live on the beach, where I can see stars instead of city lights. What about you?”

It would have been the perfect moment to kiss her, but Christian and Kara arrived. Maya and I did kiss a couple days later when we went for what was supposed to be a short walk at lunch and ended up two miles away at Thatcher Woods. And eventually, even though I told Maya I didn't believe in love, even though we weren't officially a couple, I fell in love with her. Not Johnny Cash-June Carter love, but when we were on someone's couch or in a booth at Denny's and she'd stretch out with her head in my lap, staring up at me as she talked, she was my favorite person in the world.

Maya got a little weird sometimes, like she had these fits of sadness and didn't want to talk to anyone, even me. But I figured it was a girl thing; my sister was like that. After Kara and Christian broke up, Maya was particularly quiet and moody, but we all were because Kara had betrayed us.

I thought things would get better in Florida. The two-day drive down there was fun, full of that sense of freedom we'd always talked about. Then we got
to Fort Lauderdale where it was unseasonably cold, not “sunny and green green green with palm trees and eighty-degree weather even at Christmas sometimes” like Maya promised. And we were broke because all our money had gone to gas, and spare-changing on the beach wasn't very profitable. Worst of all, Maya sunk into an inexplicable depression. She cried herself to sleep in the backseat of the car three nights in a row, refusing to let either of us comfort her.

Christian, who was already freaking out that we were broke and nothing was going the way it was supposed to, grew increasingly frustrated with Maya. On the fourth afternoon, he took our last ten bucks and said he was going to get us dinner. He disappeared for three hours. I waited on the beach with Maya, who wasn't even talking anymore, and worried that Christian had ditched me with no cash, a car that was out of gas, and a catatonic who I couldn't even really call my girlfriend.

Finally, he came down the beach with a bag of McDonald's and three large drinks. The sun setting at his back cast an orangish red glow around him, making him look heaven-sent, which it kind of felt like he was, at least for the moment.

He put the food down in front of us, and then he opened his coat and said to Maya, “If this doesn't cheer you up, nothing will.” He pulled out a big bottle of Jack Daniel's and a carton of Winstons. He looked to me, reached behind his ear, and withdrew a skinny joint. “I met some punk kids in town,” he explained. “Stole them some whiskey and cigarettes, too, and they gave me this in exchange.”

“Thanks, man,” I said.

“Thanks, Christian,” Maya echoed in a soft, rusty-sounding voice.

He smiled at her. “Good, you're talking. Now start drinking and get happy, okay? 'Cause tonight we have the kind of fun we always talked about having when we got to Florida.”

Maya nodded and took a shot of Jack straight from the bottle.

“That's my girl.” Christian quickly drank his pop halfway down and filled his cup back up with whiskey.

I lit the joint, but since it was thin and there were three of us smoking, it
went pretty quick. Even though I preferred pot to alcohol, I started drinking Jack and Coke, too.

Everything was fun and games for about two hours. Even Maya was telling stories, laughing, and joking like usual. Christian and I started horsing around. We ran down to the edge of the water, daring each other to go in. After about ten minutes, I realized Maya wasn't with us.

“Hey, where'd Maya go?”

“Shit,” Christian said.

We wandered up and down the beach, calling her name, but didn't see her anywhere. It had grown dark, particularly by the water's edge because the light from the streetlamps that lined the road didn't stretch that far.

I panicked. “We're never going to find her!”

Christian put his hand on my shoulder. “It's going to be okay, Liam. Just give me a second. Let me think.” He took two long swigs from the nearly-empty Jack Daniel's bottle. “You go check the car. I'll keep searching the beach. We'll meet back at the spot where we ate dinner in twenty minutes.”

I nodded and took off in the direction of the car, believing it would be okay because Christian said so, trusting him in a way I'd never even trusted my own dad.

We'd parked about three blocks from the beach. I ran as fast as I could, slowing only when I started to feel queasy. The whiskey-pot-McDonald's combination was not settling well. I felt sicker still when I got to the street where we'd left the car and saw flashing lights: a tow truck and two cop cars.

Shit. We hadn't had a chance to switch out the license plates as planned. No doubt my mom had reported the car stolen and me missing. The police would be looking for us. I fought off my nausea and sped back the way I'd come. I had to find Christian and Maya. We had to get the hell out of town.

Approaching the beach, I noticed a faint glow coming from the window of the bathroom where we washed up in the mornings. The building was closed for the season, but Christian had managed to bust the padlock off the door to the men's room. I hurried toward it, hoping Maya was inside.

She was, but Christian had found her first.

Before I reached the door, I heard Christian screaming at her, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop moping around like someone died. If you've got a problem, then talk about it!”

Maya shouted back, “Someone did fucking die, okay? My mom killed herself. That's the family secret. That's why I left Florida. And being back here is making me relive it all over again. Are you happy? Now let me go!”

“Seriously? That's all? You broke up with me because you couldn't tell me
that?”

I stormed through the bathroom door and found Maya struggling in Christian's grip. He'd hoisted her up the same way I'd seen him lift his little sister, taking hold beneath her armpits. But he'd always tossed Naomi in the air, making her giggle. Instead, he'd slammed Maya against the wall and pinned her there, her feet dangling two inches above the cement floor. Maya helplessly flailed her fists into Christian's arms. She was pink-faced and sobbing, the dark makeup she so carefully applied each morning streaking her cheeks like skid marks leading up to a bad accident.

“Let go of her!” I exclaimed, charging Christian the way football players did when trying to knock an opponent off balance. My right shoulder caught him in the ribs, forcing him to release Maya. Even though Christian was slightly bigger than me, I had rage on my side. I moved like a snow plow, shoving him across the room and pinning him against the opposite wall.

Palms firmly planted against Christian's chest, I looked over my shoulder at Maya. She'd sunk to the floor and wrapped her arms around her shins. She stared unblinking at Christian and me with her lips slightly parted, like she was about to speak. But when I asked, “Maya, are you okay?” she didn't respond.

I turned back to Christian, pressing him harder against the tile wall. “Why the fuck did you flip out on her? She was obviously upset, why'd you go and make it worse?”

Christian ignored me, speaking to Maya instead. “Why didn't you tell me about your mom? My mom died, too. I understand. If you'd just told me about it months ago, none of this would have happened. Kara never would have happened. I loved you, Maya. I always loved you.”

Christian was obviously drunk. There were telltale red splotches on his
cheeks and his eyes were bloodshot. But for him to profess his love to the girl I was with, right after he'd attacked her, no less…Before I could organize my feelings of betrayal into words, Maya started to laugh.