Blood Relations (12 page)

“I feel like I don’t know you now, Mick.”

“Good.”

“Why? Why is that good?”

“Because I’m not the same anymore. My house, my family, my rotten neighborhood, I ain’t a part of that anymore, Sul. I just can’t connect myself to it. So I guess if you want to know me again, you have to
get
to know me.”

There was a long silence while Sully worked on that.

“I don’t like it. Don’t like the sound of it, Mick. You’re really sounding kinda fulla shit lately. Like you really do think you’re better than everybody.”

“I am,” I blurted.

Sully hopped up off his bed. “You suck, man.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said, sitting up now. “That’s not what I meant exactly.”

“I’m listening,” Sully said, folding his arms and refusing to sit back down. “But not for long.”

“Well, I’m better than Terry, that’s what I mean.”

“No shit, Sherlock, who isn’t?”

“Us, you and me. We didn’t used to be any better than him. Baba ain’t no better than him. And think about this: You see what an animal Baba is? Well, we all were like,
best friends
not too long ago. Y’know, it looks like there’s a zillion miles between him and us, but really, there ain’t much at all. Here’s my problem, Sul. I can’t stop seeing that anymore. I can’t look at anyone around me without seeing Baba, and me. And Terry, and me. And Augie, and me...”

“And Sully, and you? That what you’re sayin’? Old friend?”

“No,” I said, weakly.

“Yes it is. I gotta tell ya, Mick, the superiority thing doesn’t make you sound so great.”

“I know,” I said. I was up on my knees now, talking more urgently to him. I had the feeling of a stakes now, of something I had to get done. I was losing Sully here, and I was all of a sudden convinced—desperately—that I couldn’t lose Sully.

“I know I sound like a shit, but I don’t care. I
am
better than those sons of bitches and I can say it because for the first time
ever
I feel it. I feel like I’m better than someone.”

Now a lighter expression bloomed across Sully’s face. He nodded smartly. “Ohhh, I get it. You got laid, didn’t ya?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Sully, you stupid—”

“I’m leavin’,” he said.

“Don’t,” I pleaded.

“Mick, I gotta go. All I wanna know is, where are we at, me and you? Huh? You outgrown me too?”

I opened my mouth to answer twice before anything came out. The third try, something came out.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“That’s a great answer, friend.”

“Well, I guess it depends on what you want to be. You can’t be partway ignorant, Sully, that much I know.”

“I ain’t ignorant,” he said.

“I believe that’s the truth.”

“But I won’t pretend I’m not who I am. Like you’re doing.”

“Bullsh—”

He stuck out both hands in front of him, like a traffic cop. “Maybe this is good enough for now, huh? You said a little something, I said a little something, that should hold us for a while. This naked truth shit is starting to make my brain hurt.”

“Fine, as long as you understand things are gonna be changing around here, big time.”

Sully headed back toward the stairs, shaking his head. “You know I don’t like change, man. You know that.”

“Cambio está bueno,”
I said.

“Don’t start with me,” he growled, then disappeared through the floor.

I was left there again, alone. I paced. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. Nothing. I paced my A-shaped room with nothing but that thought in my mind.

Sully poked his head back up. “You gonna come down and eat, or what? The old man says you better not go expectin’ this all the time, but. ...He really likes you, actually.”

I was happy, walking down the stairs behind Sully, though I knew Mr. Sullivan meant it.

“And one more thing,” Sully said, without turning back to face me, without slowing down, trying to sound as casual as he could. “If you ever say that thing to me again—that thing, the one you said in my room, about why I let you in—if you ever say that thing to me again, I’ll get the old man’s handgun—and it’s a goddamn cannon—and I swear I’ll put you away.”

He made me laugh, which felt awfully good. “So then it’s true,” I said.

“I’ll kill ya right now, waste ya right at the dinner table in front of my parents and everything.”

“Okay,” I said, not laughing anymore but smiling hard. “I won’t mention it again, Sul.”

S
ULLY AND I HEADED
out together in the morning, back to school, like a couple of brothers. Like when we were kids. I was even wearing his clothes, a red-and-white-striped oxford shirt, stiff dark-blue jeans, and loafers. Most of my stuff was still at... the other house.

“Y’know, Sul, I think it’s only fair to tell you, I’m probably going to be a little too popular these days, with Terry and Augie and Baba.”

“I know,” he said. He tried to look brave, tried to swagger a bit as he walked by my side. But I could see his tightened white lips. “Not a problem,” he said, staring straight ahead.

“What I’m trying to say is, I’ll understand if you don’t—”

He shook his head a million times in a second, like the beat of a hummingbird’s wings. “New subject. Something else,” he said.

I let it go, impressed with his take on bravery. And, in a short while he seemed to have forgotten about it and returned to what he was before—happy to have me back. In a few minutes, he started smiling, to himself.

“What?” I asked, forced to smile along with him.

“Baba, at least, ain’t gonna be a problem for ya. Not for a while anyway. Not for, oh, about twenty-eight days.”

“Detox? Sully, Baba’s in
detox
? You’re joking.”

He shook his head, giggling. “Nope. His old man stuck him in down at Edgehill. Seems that toward the end of May Day weekend Baba came home a little mental and killed their dog.” Sully stopped and did a shudder, a full-body wiggle. “Hear it was pretty grim, Baba chewin’ the dog up and shit.”

I burst out laughing, without feeling particularly amused.

“So,” he said, slapping my back, “it’s early summer vacation for old Baba.”

I let out a sigh at those words. Suddenly, school was a better place, without the guy who was once my protector. Sully felt it too. He bopped around a lot, joked, punched me when he talked, acting like a little kid allowed to tag along with his big brother.

“Whoa, watch out for him,” he said, clearing a path for me up the school steps. “He’s better than you are, y’know.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Hey, he’s homeless, but he’s still better than you are,” he called down the hall to the principal, who ignored him like he does all students.

It shot through me when he said that. “Stop calling me homeless, Sully.”

“That’s right, I forgot. You have a home, you just don’t live there.”

“Have I told you lately to shut up? Shut up.”

Thank god nobody listens to the guy. He just kept laughing and telling the world the great joke that I was better than them. Until we came to the group, outside Evelyn’s homeroom. Evelyn, Toy, and Ruben. Then he shut up.

Seeing us approach from a long way, the three of them stood taking us in. Evelyn smiled and nodded approvingly. Ruben frowned. Toy showed
nada
.

“Well hello, John,” Evelyn said to Sully.

At first he didn’t react, probably because he hadn’t been called John in so long he’d forgotten it was him. Then he gave her a ratty rotten fake smile.

“So, I guess that’s it for me,” he said to me, and started walking toward our homeroom. Sully was still having trouble with the change thing, still stuck with the old neighborhood crap that said a guy was either on one side or the other. He couldn’t decide if I’d sold out by hanging around with Toy and Ruben.

“Adiós,”
Ruben said, waving at Sully’s back.

I watched that back for a few seconds as he walked away.

“Sully,” I called. He waved without turning around. “Sully.” This time he didn’t even wave. It’s just going to take time, I thought. He’s slow, but he’s not ignorant.

“They was only jokin’ me, right?” Ruben crashed in. “You isn’t really
livin’
wit dat Sullivan dick, are you?”

I looked back down the hall where Sully was, then back to Ruben. “Ya, I am. For now. You know. And he ain’t a dick.”

“Leave him alone, Ruben, will you?” Evelyn asked. “I think it makes total sense.”

I looked at her, felt the stupids coming over me, looked at Toy again. Toy shrugged. “Your life, man. It’s got to be better than what you had before.”

“It is. It sure is that,” I said.

“It’s just good that you’re here. That you’re
somewhere
. That your life makes a bit of sense.” Evelyn paused. “For a change.”

“Cambio,”
Toy kicked in.

“Ya, for a change,” Ruben chimed, cackling loud and phonylike. He leaned to Toy. “What’s the change, again? He don’t look no different to me, ’cept he got some stupid-lookin’ whitey clothes on.”

I had Sully’s
clothes
on, even. Sully gave me his
clothes
.

Evelyn gave my hand a tug, but looked at her brother. “It’s an internal change, a psychic change. This is a man on the move, a brave man you’re looking at, Ruben, a free man.”

“Oh no, look out boys, they’s a poem comin’ this way. Duck!”

Toy laughed, Ruben ducked, I just stared at Evelyn with, I think, a “Huh?” look on my face. She recited.

“It’s little I care what path I take,

And where it leads it’s little I care;

But out of this house, lest my heart break,

I must go, and off somewhere.”

By the time she finished, my heart was thrumming, scared, and awed with Evelyn, with the kind of inside stuff she knew, and with the control she had over it. I thought, What a help that must be, to know the words that make everything make sense.

Ruben was gone after two lines. Toy, his hat pulled a little lower than usual, smiled.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay,” he said.

I reeled further. “How many languages do you two speak that I don’t?”

“Including English?” he laughed, slapped my cheek, and took off. “Catch you later,” he said.

When it was just the two of us left, Evelyn put a hand on my arm. “I’m glad you’re living with John,” she said. “Everyone should have someone who loves them at home.”

“Oh, I had that where I lived before,” I said. “Terry told me he loved me as he was pushing a bottle neck down my throat.”

She didn’t answer that one. She just nodded, motioned toward her classroom, and went in. I was standing in the corridor alone when the bell clanged to start classes. I reached homeroom just as Sully was leaving.

“What, are you going to have to lead a double life now, one with me, and one with them?”

“Hey, you’re the one who left,” I said.

“And you’re the one who let me.”

“Sul, you’re invited to go everywhere I go, do everything I do. I don’t make no separation here; if you do, then you’re the one who’s separating. But don’t make me chase you, ’cause I won’t.”

Then he walked away from me, again, and I let him, again. He couldn’t be pushed to do anything. But I had faith in him. If I ever believed that he really would separate from me, I wouldn’t have brought it up.

It may have been my imagination, my mood, or it may have been true, but I didn’t make contact with anybody throughout the school day. I floated into a class, sat there, heard nothing, and floated back out again. Nobody registered, nobody talked to me, nobody touched me. I had stuff taught to me, words thrown my way, but none of it rooted. I was thinking something, something else, but I didn’t know what it was. My thoughts were thinking without me.

“I gotta go home,” I blurted, a lump of tuna rolling out of my mouth because I didn’t realize it was there.

Toy sat across the cafeteria table from me, eating nothing, as usual. “Yuck, man, why would you want to go there?” he asked, remembering the putrid situation he’d rescued me from.

“I gotta get my stuff.”

“Hell, Mick, I frankly don’t think your stuff was all that great. Certainly not good enough to go back there. You look fine in what you’re wearing.”

“Because it’s
my
stuff,” I growled. “I ain’t no fuckin’ refugee, Toy. I left there ’cause I
wanted
to. That’s
my
stuff, goddamnit, I can’t not get it. I can’t let that happen to me.”

Toy said nothing. He wanted to, I knew, but he couldn’t. Because he felt the same way about things. Nobody kicked
his
ass out of anywhere.

As he sat waiting for my next move, or word, I sat not knowing what it was. Sully walked by, brown bag in hand. He looked us up and down, then walked on.

I jumped up and grabbed him by the arm. He shook me off. I hugged him and wrestled him down into the seat next to me.

“Toy, this is Sully,” I said.

“I know.”

“And Sully’s been my best friend since we were little kids and even though he’s confused and stupid sometimes and we aren’t exactly alike anymore like we used to be, he still is. And sometimes I forget, but that doesn’t change it any. My best friend. You have any problem with that?”

He sighed. “Like I said, it’s your life, Mick.”

I was still hugging Sully hard enough to pinch his shoulders together, afraid he’d bolt.

“That girl’s made you a total sap. Let go of me, wouldja?” he said, and wriggled free. He stared across the table at Toy, then looked down and started pawing at his lunch bag.

There was a long uneasy silence, then Toy said, to Sully, “He says he’s going back to his house. To get his stuff.”

Sully’s head whipped my way. He opened his mouth wide, with a mouthful of Fluffernutter. “What’re you, stupid?” he garbled. “Wear my clothes, they look great on ya. Look a whole lot better than Terry’s boots’ll look on your throat.”

That was it. I stood up. “I’m gone,” I said.

“Right now?” Toy and Sully said simultaneously.

“It can’t wait,” I said.

They stared at each other.

Slowly, incredibly, Sully stood up. He stepped away from the table, toward me.