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“Then what’s she doing at a high-school party?”

“Chill, mom. She just like crashed it, and nobody even knew she was there or we would’ve made her leave. But all she did was like sit down by the reservoir and talk to Genie, and you know what? Now they completely
like
each other, so we totally have to think about that.”

Mom looked at me and I could tell the new information was causing her some doubt, maybe even hesitation, so I ran with it, and showed her the piece of paper with Staci’s name and number on it. Mom made this face like she’d just gotten a big tax return
and
a notice of audit from the IRS at the same time, so I was having trouble reading it. She handed the paper back to me and slouched a little.

“Is this true?”

“Yeah, mom, it’s true.”

Mom sighed and looked back at Neecey. “Well, if she
really
likes him, she’ll be waiting for him when school starts in two weeks.”

Denied.

But Neecey didn’t give in. “No, mom, she like totally
won’t
and we both know it. If he doesn’t go after her tomorrow or like the next day,
she won’t even remember his
name
in two weeks, or that she ever liked him in the first place.” Mom tried to object, but Neecey kept going. “You were thirteen once, mom, and maybe because I’m younger I like remember it better or whatever, but we both totally know that in two weeks she’ll have a crush on someone else who isn’t completely grounded for life and Genie will miss his chance. But this is his chance, mom. It
is
. And she’s a sweet girl, I swear, she’s
really
nice, and you’re totally going to
love
her. Come on, mom, please,
don’t do this to him
. Please,
mom, please.”

Jesus, Neecey was making my plight seem goddamn desperate and she was laying everything on the line to break mom down. At that moment, no matter how it turned out, I knew I had my big sister back for good.

Mom raked her hands over her face and sighed heavily, almost groaning. It was obvious that she was having a conflict, a deep one, between my high crimes and loneliness, and which was more important—justice being done or the possibility of me having a friend. It was eating her up as we all stood there in the kitchen, and it showed,
every bit
of it showed. But then mom shook it off, straightened up, and wiped her eyes. “I almost don’t know what to do with you anymore, Genie, that’s how far you’ve gone. And there isn’t a single reason I can think of for me to trust you.”

No, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

“But I’m just about at the end of my rope, so maybe it’s time to try something new.” Mom paused. This was it; my whole future hung in the balance. “Maybe
you
should tell
me
what your punishment should be.”

Suddenly there was a ray of light through the darkness. I knew the answer right away, but I had to play it cool, give it some time, and make it look like a struggle or she’d think I was letting myself off easy and I’d blow it. I fidgeted around a little, wrung my hands, dropped my head, and drew circles on the floor with my foot. Both mom and Neecey were quiet, waiting. It was working.

“First,” I said, “I’m going to paint the sign tomorrow, so it’ll be fixed.”

Mom folded her arms and nodded her head in a way that meant what I’d just said was not even close to being good enough. “Okay … what else?”

“I, um, I probably shouldn’t get any allowance for like a month, maybe two, and I’ll have to do extra chores.”

Mom nodded again.

Now for my medicine. “We’ll have to call Pauline to watch me when you and Neecey are out.” Yuck. I felt sick before the words had even left my mouth. But these were desperate times, sacrifices had to be made, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn that mom was fighting off a smile, a real one. She seemed to soften up. The moment felt right. It was time to go for broke. “Well, it’s not really a punishment, but I’m going to tell both of you about some of the things in my journal, because it’s probably time you knew.”

All of a sudden I had four dark brown eyes staring at me in total disbelief, the wet and quivering eyes of my mother and sister, then their arms all around me, their lips on my forehead and cheeks, their tears mixing with mine, and I knew the worst was over. Everything wasn’t fixed and nothing was perfect, but it seemed as if a new horizon was opening before us out of the shitstorm I’d created. No, I’d never really listened to them before, but tonight I’d paid attention. And I guess I understood a bit more about what they wanted from me, how far they were willing to go to get it, and how little it’d take to meet them halfway.

Sure, I’d gotten out of the worst thing I’d ever done by making up my own punishment, comprised of things I’d
already
decided to do, or that were coming to me anyway. So you could say I got off easy. Fine. But I’d also been up against the wall and found a way to snatch this one back from the edge of dread and despair, and I was still offering something back to mom and Neecey for everything they’d done for me. Yeah, all right, I’d gotten myself off the hook. But I was home, too.

TWENTY-THREE

It was strange. I slept soundly that night but awoke
the next morning certain that the ax would fall. I mean, I couldn’t just get away with it. I couldn’t break promises to my mother and grandmother, lie, disobey, think all the scummy things I’d thought about my sister, sneak out of the house after dark, trespass, make out with the girl I was crazy about, then insult and threaten her, wallop some kid in the scrotum, have my face flattened, get caught red-handed on the back end, and then sweep it all under the rug with a “punishment” that was about as hard to take as using the “Get Out of Jail Free” card in Monopoly. No, I couldn’t
possibly
get away with all that. Nothing in life was ever that easy. There were consequences; there were
always
consequences.

Yeah, I looked like shit because my eye was all greenish-purple and puffy, but even that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, thanks, I guess, to the healing properties of cows. And I knew it’d get better in a week or so, because I’d had plenty of black eyes before. Some kids collected baseball cards, some hoarded mint-condition coins, others stamps; I collected shiners. It was a hobby of mine; I was good at it. Damn good.

I jumped out of bed, carefully rolled the stiffness out of my neck, skipped my exercises, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and then headed downstairs to have some breakfast. The phone rang as I arrived in the kitchen, and when I picked it up, the ax finally fell. Well, it didn’t actually fall; it was more like I just got it. On the line was Mr. Dunbar, assistant coach of the junior-high football team, and he told me that he and Coach Rose had talked it over, and while I’d been the fastest kid at tryouts and had good hands, the other guys were a lot bigger than I was and much stronger, too, and after seeing what’d happened to me during the punt return, they figured I’d only wind up getting hurt. So they thought it best if I sat this season out, and if I got taller and put on a few pounds by next August, I was more than welcome to try out again then.

That was it. I was cut. I’d gotten cut from the junior-high football team quicker than one of Jerry’s Kids, and I’d been cut even though everyone with cleats, shoulder pads, and a cup knew for a fact that I could play, because Coach Rose had had it in for me way before I’d ever stepped on the field. That was the
only
reason for it, and it was total bullshit. Mr. Dunbar said I shouldn’t feel too bad about it, because there was always next year, and because both he and Coach Rose were very sorry about the decision. Yeah, they were sorry all right. But not as sorry as they’d be when I rammed that goddamn whistle all the way up Coach Rose’s ass.

I hung up the phone feeling angry and disappointed. Not just because I’d been shafted and didn’t make the team, but because I realized nothing had really changed. I was still the same scorned and unwanted kid with a black mark against his name, I still had the same violent history pinned to my sleeve, and no matter what I did or did not do, people around here would never let me forget it. I’d learned more in the past few days than I’d learned in my whole stupid life, but none of that seemed to matter to anyone else. They already knew more about me than they’d ever need to know, and there was no way in hell they’d ever let me be some kind of local legend
like Darren and the others said, because you couldn’t be a legend if you were still just a loser.

Sure, I now realized I couldn’t claim to know much, but I knew just enough to be sure that the world I lived in hadn’t changed a bit: it was still a small, crappy town populated by people who were smaller and crappier. And at the top of that petty shit heap was Orlando, or whoever the hell he was now; he’d changed a lot, and everything was all his fault. He’d hit me at tryouts
on purpose
, sucker punched the shit out of me, knocked me out cold, then led me to blame it on somebody else, but he’d done it
all
on his own. Nobody had put him up to it or forced him to do it, and it didn’t have anything to do with Razor or the sign or anything else; it just happened on the same damn day, and taking Orlando at his word, believing in him, and dreaming up excuses for what he’d done was where I’d gone wrong. I guess I’d figured it out when I’d stumbled into his backyard last night, but the damned honest truth was that I didn’t want to think about it at the time, or to ask the question later, because
I didn’t want to know
. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want it to be
true
, and I must’ve supposed the best course of action was to just keep avoiding it. But I couldn’t keep avoiding it.
Orlando had done that to me;
it was a
fact
, it was
true
, and I
knew
it.

And knowing that hurt. It hurt in every possible way. Not just physically, or because for a long time Orlando had been the only friend I’d ever had, or because he’d fucked me all up on the case, or because the little show he’d put on had given Coach Rose the excuse he’d been looking for to cut me from the team. No, it hurt even more because he’d
betrayed
me; he’d
really
betrayed me, like nothing about our friendship had ever been real, like it’d never meant anything to him, as if we’d never known each other at all. And that meant there was no going back to being friends.

Fuck it. I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about Orlando or his depressive, deceitful, backstabbing, friendless, sorry-assed, book-wormy self, or if I’d ever see or talk to him again. For all I cared, he
could go fucking rot. I didn’t need him anymore. Darren and the crew had all said they liked me last night, and more than that, I now had the phone number of someone else who did.

I got Staci’s number from upstairs in my room, came back down, took a deep breath, and punched in the digits. She picked up on the first ring, which surprised me, but she said that her mother worked nights and she was sleeping now and she didn’t want the phone to wake her. I told Staci to get dressed because I was coming to pick her up in about half an hour. She said okay, and, yeah, I was already starting to like that word again.

I treated myself to a long, overdue scrubbing in the shower. Then I dried off, got dressed, gelled and spiked my hair, and left. When I pulled up in front of Staci’s apartment on the Cruiser, she was already waiting outside. She was wearing white denim cutoffs (although nowhere near as short as the ones she’d worn Monday), a red tank top, three thousand bracelets and anklets, white-and-red tube socks pushed all the way down, and black Converse low-tops. She kind of looked like a candy cane, but everyone who ever met me knew I had a sweet tooth, so that was right up my alley. She stood up from the front steps as I approached, waved, tilted her head, and smiled that gap-toothed smile, while the morning sun shone crisp and warm in the cloudless sky above. It looked, felt, and even smelled as if a beautiful day was dawning.

Staci hopped on behind me, and it hit me that, for once, I’d made a good decision without knowing it at the time. I’d always thought the Cruiser just
had
to have a banana seat for the way it would look—it seemed
right
, matched the style I’d had in mind—and there had never been
any
question of settling for something else. But now I could see my banana seat had another advantage; it was the perfect size for the three of us to sit on—me, Staci, and her precious rear cargo—and I felt thankful and proud as all hell for having trusted my vision.

I popped the kickstand and we rolled out. I asked Staci if she’d
eaten breakfast. She said no and I smiled to myself. Our first stop was McDonald’s. I ordered a sausage-and-cheese biscuit, hash browns, and orange juice, and Staci ordered the same, only with an Egg McMuffin instead, but told me she didn’t have any money before she did. I smiled again, whipped a ten out of my pocket, and told her it was on me. When we got to the window, I slapped the bill down on the counter like it was burning my hand, grabbed the bag, handed it to Staci, asked her to check the order, counted my change, and pedaled off like a pro. Just like that, I’d taken Staci out to eat, like a real date. And of course I used the drive-through.