Under the Bridge (2 page)

He laughs when I tell him he could do better. Life is like
balancing on a teeter-totter, he says, and the trick is to get some big-ass air before the world jumps off the other end and smacks you down. That’s the difference between us. I don’t like teeter-totters; he jumps on them every chance he gets.

As brothers, he and I share a mother. And a father. A hugely muscled metalworker of a father who has a hard time knowing who he’s yelling at after the school calls about Indy skipping class. I should get
I’M JUST HIS BROTHER
tattooed on my forehead. Dad’s anger is like a bomb going off, and anybody caught in the damage zone is toast.

The Monster sits on the far edge of the concrete skate park, stuck between two of the dozen huge concrete pillars that hold the freeway up above our heads. Under the Bridge. Located just on the edge of downtown, it was almost like home to Indy, Piper, Sid, and me.

There’s a three-foot-high concrete wall dividing the park from the street, and we meet there every day after school. As Sid and I reached it, Piper, kicking his heels against the wall as he sat, nodded to us. I unslung my pack, dropped it next to my board, and hopped up on the wall next to him, waving to Stumper the Bum, who half dozed in a drunken stupor next to his shopping cart across the street. Bums on this end of the park, drug dealers on the other. I wondered where Stumper would be when the end of the world really came, realizing that Sid had nothing on being a refugee. Stumper had been one for years. I slapped Piper five. “Seen Indy?”

“Nope. Not in class this morning, either,” Piper said. Piper and Indy had second period together. He hitched a thumb toward the school, where we could still hear the sirens. “They should just plan these things. Make it easier on my schedule.”

Sid hopped up to the ledge and shook a smoke from a crumpled pack of cigarettes, lighting up. “Only real people have schedules.”

“And you’re a real people?”

Sid hot-boxed the cigarette, his already hollow cheeks sucking in further. The bonus about thinking you’d die at any given moment was that lung cancer in fifty years didn’t enter the equation. “Sure not. Wouldn’t want to be.”

I took a piece of gum from my pocket and stuck it in my mouth. “Not in class, huh?” I unzipped my pack and unfolded my report card, a reminder that another kind of apocalypse would be waged at our house tonight. I stared at the grades. Four B’s, a C in math, and an A in fitness. I knew mine were better than Indy’s, and I sighed.

Piper spit. “Saw him this morning in the parking lot. Figured he’d be here.”

Sid glanced at my grades. “Can I have tickets?”

“To what?”

“To your dad ripping your head off and crapping down your neck.”

I tucked the paper in my pocket. “Yours are better?”

He laughed. “My dad’s passed out by the time I get home, Tate. I got no worries.”

“What about you, Pipe?”

“Two B’s, two A’s, and two C’s.”

“Wow.”

He nodded. “My mom owes me five bucks per A. We made a deal.”

Sid rolled his eyes. “Sellout.”

Piper shrugged, holding up his middle finger to Sid. “Know what this is?”

“An offensive gesture in fifty-three countries?”

Pipe shook his head, smiling. “Nope. Me not giving a shit what you think.”

Sid clutched his heart. “Mortal wound.”

I gazed around the park. “Indy didn’t say anything to you, Piper?”

“No, but he’s been hanging with Angie. And that new guy, Will. I saw them at lunch yesterday.”

I watched as a few private-school kidlets, out early for some private-school reason, piled out of a minivan with their moms, apparently unaware that Lewis and Clark had been evacuated due to a bomb threat. My thoughts went back to Indy. He’d never been voted attendance king, but lately he’d been skipping more often. “Will? Tall guy? Shaved head with a tat on his neck?”

Sid nodded. “From Texas. And that tat is killer.”

“He skates?”

Sid shook his head. “Naw. I heard he packs, though.”

I grunted. “A pistol?”

“No, a pickle.”

“Is he a gangbanger?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “Just hard-core. Nobody really knows.”

Piper spoke up, his sandy voice droll. “Like thirty percent of all Texans carry guns. I read it in
Playboy
. It’s on account of the beaners. The beaners and gringos don’t like each other because of the Alamo.”

I smiled. “Read that in
Playboy
, too?”

“No, but the Mexicans pee on our lettuce to get back at us,” Piper shot back.

Sid shrugged again. “Ozzy Osbourne pissed on the Alamo. Got arrested.”

Piper shook his head. “I’m serious. Ever seen a porta-potty in all those fields down south? Just a bunch of Mexican dudes peeing on our food because we put the
x
in Texas.”

Sid took a drag of his smoke. “Cool.”

Piper looked toward the row of buildings lining Third Avenue. “Only you would think so, Sid.”

He shrugged. “I don’t eat vegetables, and besides, I’d do it myself.”

I smiled. If Sid ever got a job, and that job had to do with a restaurant, I wouldn’t even eat the crackers.

Sid hopped from the wall, digging in his bag and bringing out some beef jerky. As he did, Michael Thorburne walked over to us. Sid nodded to him. “ ’Sup.”

Michael looked around. “You guys hitting on anything?”

Piper pointed to the other side of the park, a block away. “That side of the park, Mike.”

Michael went on. “Got some good stuff if you want. From up north. Strong.”

Sid smiled. “We quit. You know that. Everybody does.”

He furrowed his brow. “Yeah, sure. Cutter. I didn’t know if …”

I stood, staring. “Yeah. Cutter.”

Michael backed away a step. “Cutter was cool. I’m sorry.”

Piper hopped from the ledge, grabbing his board. “I’m clean. Over a year.”

Michael nodded. “Didn’t mean to mess with you.”

“No problem. Just don’t ask again,” Piper said, uncharacteristically pissed off. He looked at me. “I’m skating the bowl.” Then he walked behind the ledge and over to the Monster.

Michael watched Piper leave, then looked at me again. “I didn’t mean …”

I studied him, wondering why he’d even bring it up. “He’s still messed up about it. We all are.”

“It was a raw deal.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead. And he’s dead because of the shit you sell.”

“You know I don’t deal the hard stuff, Tate. Just 420. And you know I wasn’t involved in the stuff he got ahold of. That was all Lucius and his boys.”

Lucius ran all the hard stuff surrounding the school. Meth, crack, scripts, heroin, he did it all, but he was small-time. Two or three guys dealt for him, but he had a monopoly Under the Bridge. I’d seen him several times when he’d come
by to check things out. He pretty much kept to himself, didn’t talk much, and I liked it that way.

“I know. But don’t be stupid, Mike. Stay away from the crew.” Just then, I spotted Indy getting out of an old beater station wagon down the street. “Be back in a minute.”

Sid flipped his chin toward the vert, his mouth full of jerky. “At the Monster with Pipe. Catch us.”

I dropped my board and skated along the sidewalk, watching as Will opened the driver’s door and talked with a guy at the entrance of an old apartment building
.

Indy saw me, smiled, and flashed me the peace sign. Angie Simmons, a cross between a Goth chick, white-trash girl, and storage container for STD’s, grimaced from the backseat as I came up to them. She defined irritating, and was just barely smart enough to know she was.

Will wore a white wife-beater tank top and faded jeans, with a gold necklace around his neck and several tats running down his shoulders and forearms, including the snake on his neck that slithered down his chest. He was built like an ultimate fighter, and I had to admit the guy was imposing. He studied me, his face a rock, his eyes intense as he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and leaned against the car.

Indy slapped me five. “Hey, Tater. What’s up?”

“Get your report card?”

He grinned. “Naw.”

I groaned inside. “Dad’s going to be pissed.”

He flashed his teeth, blond hair glinting in the sun. “Dad’s always pissed.”

“Maybe if you went to class, he wouldn’t be.”

“The only way Dad wouldn’t be mad at me is if I was you, and”—he smiled, slugging my shoulder—“I’m not you.” He pointed above his head. “See? No halo here.”

I shook my head. “Don’t start, huh? You know what will happen tonight.” Our dad is the kind of guy that you have to know your boundaries with. Indy doesn’t know what a boundary is.

Angie smirked, her eyes locked on mine as she called out the window. “What’s it like having two mommies, Indy?” She laughed. “You spank him when he does bad, Tater? Wash his mouth out with soap before you put him to bed?”

The best thing to do when around trash is step over it and keep walking, so I ignored her. I turned to Indy. “We’re skating the Monster. You coming?”

Will lounged against his station wagon, his voice easy and quiet. “Tater.”

I turned to him. “It’s Tate.”

He nodded. “I heard about you.”

I smiled. “Will, right?” I held out my hand. He looked at it for a moment, then shook. I turned back to Indy. “Ready?”

Will’s face broke into a grin, his eyes dark, his voice slippery and calm. “So, you’re the fighter around here.”

The challenge in his voice was there, but I wasn’t about to get into a pissing match with a guy I didn’t know, so I ignored him. “Pipe and Sid are already there.”

Will spoke. “Guess I got the wrong Tater.”

I faced him.

He lit a cigarette, still leaning against the car, and exhaled, lifting his chin as the cloud of smoke drifted up. “Problem?”

My chest tightened the way it did before my knuckles ended up bruised. “No.”

Will chuckled.

I gritted my teeth, cursing myself for the rage building in me. Other guys could let things go, but I couldn’t. Never had, never would, and it irritated me almost as much as this tattooed redneck challenging me. Indy saw it happening, and he flipped his chin at Will. “I’m splitting. Check you later.”

Will laughed, and I wondered if the guy was born an asshole or learned it from the Asshole Club of America. “Sure, Indy. No sweat.” He looked at me, his eyes flat. “We’ll see you later, too, huh?”

Indy sighed as we walked away. “Why do you always do that?”

The tightness didn’t fade. “Do what? I just totally let him walk all over me to
not
do that.”

He looked at me. “I’m talking about Angie. She’s right, you know? You’re not Mom.”

“Yeah, I know. But you pull this crap and you know what happens. Dad’ll rain shit down on you, you’ll throw it back on
him, he’ll get pissed at everybody, and Mom will have to deal with it.”

“So? You’re not me. And Mom can take care of herself.”

“Have you ever thought that living in a war zone all the time gets old? Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

He lit a smoke. “No. Dad’s a prick. And besides that, you’re the one living in a war zone all the time, getting in fights and shit.”

I didn’t have anything to say about that. I never looked for a fight, and I’d never asked for the reputation in the first place. Some people were good at math. I was good at hitting people.

He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, Tate. Having a brother that can kick ass is cool. But, dude, you’re on edge, like,
all
the time now. Like a cork about to pop.”

I faced him. “Bullshit, Indy. He was gunning for me, not the other way around. And I backed down because you know him.”

“Yeah, and it’s killing you right now, isn’t it?”

I swallowed. “No. And I’m not on edge.”

“Whatever. I saw the look in your eyes.”

I shrugged. “The only reason I’m on edge is because Dad is going to blow tonight. You know what he said last time, right? One more time and that was it.”

“On his side now?”

“He’s our dad, Indy. And he’s not that bad. It’s like you go out of your way to piss him off.”

“He’s been pissed at me since the day I was born.”

“Well, I’m not running screen for you anymore.”

“Never asked you to.”

“Things are going to be bad tonight. That’s all I’m saying.”

He laughed again. “So?”

I clenched my teeth. “So fuck it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“You brought it up.”

“Well, I’m un-bringing it up.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

He slid me a glance, then smiled. “Dork.”

“Bigger dork.”

He punched my shoulder. “It’ll be cool, okay? Now let’s skate.”

I smiled. There was something about my brother that never let me be mad at him for longer than five minutes. “Sure.”

We reached the vert, where Sid was sitting on the edge and Piper carved the walls. We were the only crew there, and after Piper pulled a five-forty on the opposite side, he popped over the edge, slapped Indy five, and sat. “How goes it, Indy?”

“Easy like Weezie.”

He grinned. “Had an enjoyable day at school?”