Bottled Up (9 page)

Mr. Talk-About-It-and-Never-Do-It.

“How about right now,” I said, knowing he wasn't even going to think about it.

“It's dark,” he said with a smile. “Can't go out your first time in the dark.”

“Whatever. You let me know when.”

I was hoping Mikey was paying attention to the promise game my father likes so much. The one he always wins, while everybody else is left standing around wondering why the hell they ever bothered playing along.

“What's this?” he asked, pulling the book out of my pocket.

I grabbed it back. “Homework I got to do. I'm going up to my room to read it.”

“Good for you,” he said, and gave me an old-pal shot in the arm. “Buckle down. Get those grades up.”

I looked over at Mikey. He was setting the checkers up again.

“Come on, Dad,” he said around a mouthful of Cheez Doodles.

I couldn't get away from my father fast enough. He does this flip-flop thing all the time. One minute he wants to play a game, the next minute you
are
game.

Mikey will catch on someday.

“That's not your jacket,” Bugs said when I was walking away.

“Shut up,” I said.

I had two full bags of pot. That never happened.

These weren't just the small bags you buy from a kid at school—ones with enough pot inside to roll five to ten joints. These were bags I could turn into twenty of those smaller bags. That's either a lot of money to be made or a lot of partying to be done.

I shoved one in the back of my closet inside an old boot. The other one I opened.

I put my nose to the edge of the plastic and sniffed. If I smoked the whole thing right there I could have had a buzz that lasted a week—maybe two. That would have made for a decent vacation from my life, from my head. Sounded good to me.

The pictures in my head were going crazy. The cop bringing me home; my mother's face that morning; my father promising for the hundredth time to give me a driving lesson; Claire telling me I had nothing but choices.

Then I did something I told myself I'd never do. I lit up right there in my room.

I got a pack of rolling paper out of my dresser drawer, and rolled myself a thick, perfect number. I opened the window and put the top part of my body outside. While I lit the joint I took in the deepest inhale of my life.

Everything was quiet outside except for some crickets doing a rock and roll concert. It was like nothing was moving anywhere on the street.

I blew the smoke out into the dark and took another long hit.

I was starting to feel as still as everything else outside.

I was starting to feel like myself again.

Nobody in the house was going to know what I was doing. Nobody was looking for me.

But I'd never chanced it before. If my parents caught me getting high, my mother wouldn't want me anywhere near my brother. My father wouldn't want me around ever again. They'd run my ass to a rehab so far from home, I'd never find my way back.

But that night I didn't care. I wasn't even thinking about all the stuff I was afraid of. All I knew was that I had more pot on me than ever. I had a ton.

The bag had been calling my name, begging me to smoke it. I could have gone back to the Site or even just down the block to light up. But I couldn't wait.

I couldn't wait.

The rules didn't matter, and anyway, the only ones left for me to break were my own.

“Pip, wake up.”

Mikey was pulling on my arm. I was in bed, still in my clothes in one of the deepest sleeps of my life. That wasn't just pot Johnny gave me. That was Super Pot. That was supreme number one ultimate stuff.

“Go away,” I told Bugs, and rolled over.

“I hear them,” he whispered in my ear.

“Hear what?”

“Beasties.”

I rubbed my eyes and tried to get a look at my brother in the dark. He was wearing his red Superman cape and had his pillow under his arm.

“There's beasties. Outside. I hear them in the garage.”

“There's no such thing as beasties.”

If I had a dollar for every time I'd said that to him, I'd have enough money for a year's supply of weed.

I got up off the bed and stuck my head out the window. “There's nothing out there—”

“Listen.” The kid looked as if he'd just seen a ghost.

Then I heard it. I heard a bang, then a sound like something falling.

I stuck my head back out the window. Mikey was right. Somebody was coming out of the garage.

It was the Grinch, on his way into the house.

“Go to your room,” I told Mikey. “I'll get you in a few minutes.”

I started to pull my boots on and heard the front door slam downstairs.

“Go to your room,” I told him again.

Something was about to go down and he didn't have to be around for it.

“I don't want the beasties to get me.” His lip was shaking.

Footsteps were stomping up the stairs. Mikey was too late to make a getaway.

“It's not a beastie, Bugs. It's Dad.”

I don't think that made him feel any better.

My bedroom door slammed open into the wall behind it. Mikey jumped.

“Let's go, mister,” the Grinch yelled at me.

“I know. You want me to go out at”—I looked at the time on my alarm clock—“twelve thirty-two and clean the garage. Right?”

“I wanted you to do it when I told you to. So, yes, you have to do it now at twelve thirty-two at night.”

“Come on, Mikey.” I gave the kid a little push to get him out of the room—to get him away from the Grinch.

“You're not going anywhere,” he said, grabbing the collar of Mikey's pajama top. “You're going to read that book the teacher sent home for you to read.”

“I read it already,” Mikey said, two bowls of water filling up in his eyes.

“Are you trying to be like your brother over here—not listening to me?”

“Give him a break,” I said.

“I told you to get outside, Mr. Wise Guy.”

Mikey looked lost. He squeezed his pillow into his stomach and blinked real hard. “But Dad, I read the book to you tonight—before bed. Two times.”

“Don't argue with me. Get the book now!” Dad screamed so loud at the kid, I thought a vein was going to bust out of his neck.

“The Happy Duck,”
Mikey said. He was looking at our father as if he was crazy.

“Come on, Mikey,” I said. “Just get the book.”

I started to push him out of my room with me, but he turned around and kept talking. “Duck can run. Duck ran and ran. Duck was fun. Duck—”

“See?” My father was smirking. “You never read it. You just memorized the whole thing so it would
look
like you were reading.”

“What's your problem?” I asked the Grinch, and pushed Mikey out the door some more.

“I did so read it,” Mikey argued.

“Get another book from your room—one with some big words in it,” my father said. “Then we'll see if you really know how to read.”

I gave Mikey a hard shove into the hall and slammed my bedroom door shut behind us. He was doing to Mikey the same kind of crappy thing he did to me when I was that age. The only difference was that even back then I knew the guy was crazy.

Mikey didn't.

He was still trying to reason with the man—make him see.

“Just get the book for him,” I told Mikey. “He's never going to let up on you.”

I started to go down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have to clean the friggin' garage.” I kept walking.

I heard him following me.

“Bugs, you have to stay upstairs and get the book or he's going to kill you.”

“Kill me?”

Crap. I shouldn't have said it like that.

“I mean he's going to kick your butt if you don't do what he says.”

My bedroom door opened and the Grinch came flying out. He grabbed Mikey by the back of his pajamas and lifted him up off the floor.

“Hey,” I yelled, and watched while the fat bastard threw my brother into his room. For a second it looked as if Mikey really could fly, with his cape flapping behind him.

“Get the book!” Dad screamed. “Now.”

“You want to throw somebody,” I yelled back, “throw me!” Then I went toe-to-toe with the only person I've ever really been afraid of.

He grabbed the front of my T-shirt, and I slammed the palms of my hands into his chest.

“Stop it!” my mother yelled, coming up the stairs. Where the hell was she when this all got started? Did she know he'd been prowling around in the garage? Did she know he'd run upstairs to throw his sons around? Did she know it was after friggin' midnight? Did she have any clue how to keep her damn husband on a leash?

The punch came out of nowhere. At least it felt that way. I knew he was going to hit me. I just wasn't thinking a left hook to my right eye.

I fell back against the wall and put my hands over my face. Bugs came running out of his room still holding his pillow—still wearing his cape—and crushed his body against mine.

“Stop it!” my mother yelled again.

My father was yelling back at her about what a wiseass I am and how my brother was no better than me and probably on his way to turning out worse.

The way I saw it, I was getting crap because I'd ducked out of cleaning the garage and because I always get crap.

Mikey was getting in trouble just for being with me—just for being my brother.

I put my hand on Mikey's shoulder and moved him in front of me down the stairs.

“Michael Junior, get back here,” the Grinch yelled. “I told you to bring me that book.”

I hurried Mikey downstairs even faster, and when we got to the bottom I picked him up and carried him through the kitchen and out the door. As soon as I put him down, he ran to the garage door. I lifted it up and he ran under. I ducked in too, then let the door fall back down behind me. I turned the lock handle, pulled the light chain hanging from the ceiling, and waited.