My Name Is Not Easy (53 page)

e.

“Somebody oughta beat the crap out of that guy,” Sonny muttered, looking at the Pete boys as if daring one of them to do it.

“Don’t bother,” Amiq said, his back to Sonny. “I’m already gone.”

His voice was fl at, like he didn’t even care. Which didn’t sound at all like Amiq.
Not at all
, Luke thought. Watching his face, Luke felt a sudden feeling of helplessness reaching its icy fi ngers deep into his chest. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t fi gure it out: Amiq had been willing to take all the responsibility—he had
wanted
to take it. But why? He’d written the missing-person ad, all right—the ad that said Isaac
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had been kidnapped—but Isaac was Luke’s responsibility, and the story itself was Junior’s. And the newspaper—well, that had nothing at all to do with Amiq. Luke had sent those stories in to the Dallas newspaper. So why did Amiq want to take the whole rap himself ?

Father Mullen had said that people like Amiq didn’t belong at Sacred Heart, and right now, watching the way Amiq stood there, his back to the world, zipping up his duffl

e, ready to

run off into the dark of the night for who knows what, Luke thought maybe Father was right. Amiq was a lone ranger, and lone rangers belonged alone.

But what would happen to Amiq if he left them? Luke didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that if Amiq were to leave right now, leave before they even had a chance to get him on a plane, he wouldn’t go home. Not with his dad gone.

If Amiq left now, he wouldn’t even survive. Luke wasn’t sure how he knew this, but suddenly he knew it as sure as he knew anything. He thought about Amiq’s old man and Amiq’s vodka and all the drunks on Two Street like the one they found passed out behind a bar one time, frozen solid.

If Amiq leaves here right now, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to him
.
If Amiq leaves alone, it would be like sending him off
to disappear—or die.

Maybe Sonny was right. Maybe Amiq needed somebody

to beat some sense into him once and for all.

But when he looked from Amiq to Sonny, all he saw was a hard black web of anger, binding them both together in a stranglehold.

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It made him think of Bunna, watching out the window of Sacred Heat’s beat-up old bus that time. How mad he’d felt, watching Bunna roll away, his fi sts balled up against his side.

Mad and helpless.

“Only dogs get mad,” he muttered. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even thought it; it just came out. It’s what his
aaka
used to say.

Th

en he thought of his little brother Isaac, riding off into the dark of another night, his nose pressed up against the window of a car. How scared he’d been, that time, standing there in the dark, watching.
Scared and helpless.
Knowing it would be forever. Just like with Bunna.

What good did it do to know things if nobody listened?

What good did it do to know things when you weren’t even sure what it was you knew or what to do about it?

Th

at hard spot in his gut tightened. He imagined it like a lump of helpless fear and anger, frozen solid. Frostbite.

I’m the one who tests the weather,
Luke thought suddenly.

Th

ey have to listen.

He looked right at Amiq as hard as he could look. Without any anger, without any fear. Just knowing what he knew.

But Amiq wouldn’t look at him.

“You don’t have to do it,” Luke said. “Not by yourself.

Th

at’s how people die—going out alone.” He thought of Amiq’s dad.

“I know,” Amiq said quietly.

“If you go out there now, all alone, it’ll kill you.”

Amiq looked up, fi nally. His face grew pale and helpless
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for just a second. Th

en with a fl ick of anger, he threw his

duffl

e over his shoulder and stalked out of the room. His whole body said it:
who cares?

Luke thought of the ice age and how they’d survived it.

He imagined a white circle of frostbite on his own wrist, like a warning sign or a badge. Something you could wave in someone’s face:
See? Not safe. I’m the law.

But when he looked at his wrist, he saw nothing.

It was late when Father Flanagan stuck his head into the room to tell them lights out. Later than usual. Nobody said a thing about the fact that Amiq wasn’t there. Th

ey didn’t have to.

Father looked right at Amiq’s empty bed and nodded.

“Go to sleep,” Father said quietly. “Th

e Lord will take care

of him.”

Father sounded so certain, it was hard not to believe him.

But we’re supposed to take care of him,
Luke thought.
Amiq
is family.

Th

e thought was so loud, it startled him. He looked right at Sonny, and Sonny looked right back like maybe
he’d
heard the thought, too.

Father closed the door softly, and Luke leaned toward Sonny’s bed. “Hey, man, he’s our brother.”

Sonny didn’t answer, but he didn’t go to sleep, either. Th e

two of them just lay there, in the dark of night, watching shadows move while the others drifted off to sleep.

At last, Sonny sat up in the dark and spat out two words:

“Aw, hell.”

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Luke could hear Sonny fumbling around in the dark for his shoes, muttering, “Stupid Eskimo. Stupid doggone Eskimo.”

But there wasn’t any anger in his voice. Not a drop.

And Luke didn’t feel helpless anymore, either.

“What time is it?” Junior murmured.

“It’s the
right
time,” Luke said, smiling to himself.