Burro Hills Page 3

  “It is hot as balls, Tobe,” Max said.

  Toby sat up and spat again. A thick ball of saliva landed right by Connor’s feet. “Then why don’t you go fucking play with them?”

  Connor stood. “Thinking about it.” His hand reached out to me, beckoning towards me. “Come on, Jack.”

  The guys were sitting there like bacon in a frying pan, moaning and hawking spit, and then there was Connor, the sun hitting his olive skin. I took his hand and let him help me up. He smiled at me and I smiled back.

  Toby growled an insult and Max snapped something back at him, but I couldn’t hear them when we hit the opened fountain, the sound of rushing water that filled my ears and licked my skin clean and cold. Connor laughed with his head back, mouth wide open, catching the water on his tongue. We ran around the hydrant like little twelve-year-old fags, the boys at the tree dissolving into smoke.

  7.

  I hated Burro Hills High, with its ugly orange lockers and dirty floors and halls that smelled like a bad mix of cleaning solution, smoke, and something foul. I hated the vile graffiti written all over the stalls, endless webs connecting names to people who’d fucked, and who was fighting who, and who the rival groups were. Jess would always tell me stories about the girl’s bathroom, the peeling paint and the names of girls we’d gone to elementary school with, things like “cunt” and “dirty whore” written in magic marker next to their names. It was quietly sinister, a warning to toe the line and know your place and hang with your crowd or you’d be marked next.

  I especially hated it on days like this, when it was swarming with cops. They were everywhere, patrolling the front of the school, the courtyard, the classrooms, their walkie-talkies crackling and beeping. The pigs brought a menace with them, something we could all feel as they stepped across our hallways and peeked inside our classrooms.

  “It’s getting worse,” I said. Jess nodded. We were at lunch, standing by the water fountain near the entrance to the courtyard in the aftermath of a fight. One freshman girl and her crew had shouted insults at a senior girl, and soon fists were flying and hair was being pulled. One of the seniors, a tiny girl named Tasha, had a busted upper lip, but kept calm and collected while she was questioned by the cops. Rumor had it that she’d slammed a freshman so hard into the vending machine that two Cokes had popped out.

  They say girls fight with their words, not their fists. They’ve clearly never been to Burro Hills High. Fights were our circus sideshows, our sick distractions. Everyone would pop out their phone and film the action, pushing and shoving to get a better look.

  “I could really use a smoke right now,” I said.

  “Now? Are you joking?”

  I shrugged. “If we go by the tennis courts…come on, Jess, Andrew’s here today. He’s got our back.”

  Andrew was one of Toby’s cousins, a clean-cut cop who often patrolled the school. He and his partner, a young guy fresh out of community college, always turned a blind eye to Toby and his friends’ boozing and drugging. He was also probably the reason we never heard about any of the cousins on the nightly news.

  “Why can’t you just wait to get home to smoke?” Jess whined. “Are you that addicted to weed that you need a hit every half-hour?”

  It annoyed me so fucking much whenever she said that, like I was some hopeless addict who was constantly stoned. I wanted to tell her off, but she was grinning at me so innocently that she must have been joking. I reached over and ruffled her hair. “You don’t get it, Jess. It’s okay that you don’t get it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so I can’t possibly understand your stoner predilections?”

  I sighed. “I’m heading over there now,” I said. “You can come or you can watch this freshman mess.”

  “One of the girls is a senior.”

  “Whatever.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Part of me wanted to walk with her down those halls like we used to, talking and laughing and making fun of the mayhem at this school. But with the crowd that had gathered, still simmering with energy of the recent fight…it all made me too jumpy. I needed something to take the edge off, a quiet place to sit and think.

  “Okay,” Jess said, her back turned to me as she surveyed the continuing chaos. She twirled her hair around her fingers nervously. “Whatever. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

  Come with me, I almost said again, and I felt like such an asshole, because instead, I patted her arm and made my way down that ugly orange hallway with its peeling lockers and sharp smells of ammonia. Day in and day out we were herded through these doors, mindless cattle told to sit and pay attention and study and work hard so one day we could have a bright future in a cold office building that smelled of ammonia, where we’d pay attention and work hard day in and day out.

  Go figure.

  I had a vision of Jess and I stealing a car and driving east, just hitting the country roads, watching the expanse of sky roll over us as the world opened up, wide open space all around. Every time I got this itch to run, to drive, to leave, I had to smoke a little to keep myself from flying off the handle.

  Because I knew, even if I did steal that car and go, she would never in a million years actually come with me.

  I’d be getting really, really stoned today.

  8.

  “I admit it, I’m just a thirsty virgin,” said Max.

  The boys and I were sitting behind the gym at lunch, far enough away from security so we could smoke undetected. It was also a prime viewing spot for girls outside at gym class, girls in field hockey skirts or tiny running shorts. And for the first time, Connor was joining us.

  “I feel you, man,” Toby said, appraising a particularly busty brunette who had just scored a goal. “Except, wait, I’m not a virgin. Oops.”

  “Well I am, and it fucking sucks,” Max said.

  “Don’t worry, dude,” Connor said. “When you’re the CEO of the next pharmaceutical empire, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of tail.”

  “And we’ll fix your problem,” Toby said, putting an arm around Max. “We’ll find you someone hot, give you pointers. Am I right, Jack?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said.

  “I mean, Jack’s not a virgin. Right?” Toby asked. All of them turned to me.

  I hesitated before choosing an answer. “No, of course not.”

  Connor snorted a laugh.

  “What?” I said. “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Nothing,” Connor grinned, locking eyes with me. He flicked the ashes of his cigarette in the direction of Toby’s shoes. “It’s not the least bit amusing.”

  “Well give us some details!” Max said.

  “What is this, a fucking slumber party?” I said. “Why do you pervs want to know so much?”

  “We’re just curious, man,” Max said. “Who’ve you been with? Anyone we know?”

  Toby leaned in and hissed in Max’s ear, “I bet he’s fucked Jess.”

  “Oooh!” Max snickered.

  “Shut up!” I said. “You guys are nasty. Jess is like my sister.”

  “A sister I wouldn’t mind getting friendly with,” Toby said. “She’s sexy as hell. Come on, you must have at least thought about it.”

  I shrugged and pulled out my cigarettes, putting one between my lips and fumbling for a lighter. Connor held one out in front me, and I let him light me up, let that sweet smoke fill my lungs and calm my nerves.

  “I don’t fuck and tell,” I said.

  “Bullshit!” Toby said. “You must have. There’s no possible way. You’re with her like all the time.”

  “Yeah, you have thought about it, haven’t you?” said Max.

  “You’ve gotta be gay not to,” Toby laughed.

  “Maybe,” I said, “Maybe I have. And you’ll never know.”

  Toby cackled and batted Max’s arm. “He’s so fucked her.”

  “Definitely,” Max agreed. “What about you, Connor?”

  “Have I fucked Jess?”

  “No, man,
who’ve you been with here?”

  Connor shrugged. “I don’t fuck and tell.”

  “Whatever,” Max said. “We’ve heard all about you. You get around, bro.”

  He just smiled and stood up, stomping out his cigarette. “I’ve got shit to do. You kids have fun with your gossip. I’ll see you later.” I watched him walk away, wishing I could just get up like that and leave when the guys were pissing me off. I wondered if he really was who everyone was blowing him up to be.

  The next day, he touched my hand.

  It was momentary, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of deal. At first, I thought I’d imagined it, that light succession of taps—one, two, three—that lingered for a moment on the surface of my skin.

  I was sitting in World History, completely engrossed in the in-class essay we were writing, and I guess he was there to drop something off for our teacher because by the time I felt it and looked up, he was already on his way out the door.

  I got a kind of chill, a secret thrill that I held onto for the rest of the day. I laughed more at Toby’s dumbass jokes, at Max’s poor imitations of girls. I even kept patient while Jess complained to me about the latest crisis in the never-ending saga that was her life.

  But by the time I’d made it home to find Gunther whining for his dinner and Mom curled up on the couch in her robe, snoring, a bottle of half-empty gin on the coffee table, the magic had faded from those sacred places on my knuckles.

  As I stood watching Mom snore softly, Gunther’s cold wet nose against my legs, a strange sort of déjà vu flashed through my mind, like something buried deep in the sand. It was this weird feeling that was poking at the back of my brain, and it didn’t leave me even after I’d fed Gunther and left the house to take a walk down the street.

  Then I got the text from Toby.

  “My house tonight. Six. Be there, motherfucker.”

  I hated Toby’s house. It was crumbling and dark, all creaking floorboards and antique furniture that felt heavy and sickly.

  At least, that’s how I’d remembered it from all those years ago. Toby and I had met in fifth grade when he’d tried to steal my skateboard, and I’d shoved him in the mud so hard he’d scraped his knee up bad. When he saw the blood, his pink face had scrunched up like a fist and then he’d started cackling like it was the funniest thing in the whole world. He laughed so hard that snot came out of his nose, and that just made the whole thing even funnier. We’ve been friends ever since.

  My phone bleeped again. “Never mind,” it read. “Meet at seven. My fucking relatives are here.”

  Toby’s relatives were always dropping by unannounced, making sure his cousins who frequented the decaying home had enough to eat now that his parents were dead and gone. The relatives were always giving, smiling with their mouths but never their eyes, and if they noticed the rank stench of weed or the group of tattooed men measuring and weighing bags of cocaine and crack now and then in the kitchen, they never said a thing. Tony’s club owner uncle never really came by much. Usually he was there to collect his monthly cut of the profit.

  The rest of the relatives came by every week or so, bringing flowers that smelled like furniture wax, root beer, and little Tupperware containers of potato salad and mac and cheese, whispering in hushed voices and worried tones as they hurried out as soon as their gifts were accepted. Toby would leave the food in the fridge to rot. His oldest cousin, D’Angelo, was his official guardian, but I rarely saw him around. I preferred it that way.

  Thinking of his house made me shiver. I wrote back, “Should I invite Connor?”

  Not more than three seconds later he responded, “As long as he brings some good shit.”

  Toby’s creepy house was really only good for several things: Drugs, booze, and a loud, pounding bass.

  And the thought of Connor being there…it brought back that secret thrill from before.

  When I got to Toby’s, he, Max and his cousin Gabriel were already seated in the living room. It was always so weird seeing burly, tattooed guys like that on all that flowery, antique furniture. We used to hang out in this room as kids, watching Saturday morning cartoons and eating cereal so sugary it made my teeth hurt. Now the walls were yellowed with smoke fumes, the sandy carpet covered in beer and soda stains, and the flowery sofas and chairs afflicted with cigarette burns.

  “No, see, Ambien is not a benzodiazepine, nor is it a hallucinogen. It’s a hypnotic,” Max was explaining as I walked in, doodling chemicals in his notebook.

  “But you can get fucked up off it, right? Like hallucinate and shit?” asked Gabriel. I put my bag down and joined them on the flower couch with the cigarette burns.

  “Well no, you’d probably just fall asleep,” said Max. “See, it’s similar to a benzo in that it…Oh hey, Jack.”

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Just business,” said Toby, and as usual I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. He was seated directly across from us in a wingback chair that used to be something beautiful, but now was browning around the edges. “You bring me anything good?”

  “Nah,” I said. “Connor said he would, though.”

  “Who the fuck is Connor?” Gabriel asked.

  “A friend of ours,” I said quickly. “He’s cool. He goes to school with us.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Nah man, he may be cool but he can’t know about our business. And he can’t come in here. You didn’t tell him anything, Toby, did you?”

  “No, no way,” Toby said. “He’s straight, right, Jack?”

  “What?”

  Toby looked at me like I might be a moron. “I said he’s cool, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, yeah, he’s cool.”

  Gabriel swung his hand across the coffee table, knocking a glass to floor. It shattered instantly, shards of glass nearly puncturing Max’s arm. I heard him gasp as Gabriel got up in Toby’s face and shoved him, hard.

  “You don’t say anything to him, you got that? You keep your fucking mouth shut. That goes for you and your punk ass friends.” For the first time in a long time, I saw fear in Toby’s eyes. “You remember what D’Angelo said, yeah?”

  It was then that the doorbell rang.

  By then Gabriel was already on his way out the back, Toby trailing after him. I could hear the shouting, the cursing and the grumbling and growling that slowly picked up in volume.

  I opened the front door to let Connor in. Just the sight of him made my chest tighten.

  “Hey,” he said, glancing around the room at the broken glass and Max all backed up in the corner, spooked. “Did I miss the party?”

  “Uh, screw the party, man,” I heard myself say, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Toby and Gabriel were out of earshot. “We’re actually gonna head down to the Strip now.”

  “We are?” Max piped up. He had gotten over his brief state of shock and was now standing in the middle of the room, swaying back and forth, hands in his pockets. “I thought we were gonna chill here.”

  “Max,” I said through gritted teeth, turning to shoot him a look. “Shut up.”

  Connor just grinned and pushed past me, making his way into the house before I could stop him. “Interesting digs.” He pulled a joint from his pocket. “Got a light, Max?”

  Max turned to me for guidance, but I just shrugged and sat down on the ratty old flower couch. Clearly no one was listening to me.

  Connor sat toking away, sitting cross-legged on the floor and regaling Max with tales of his past life as a pot dealer. Was this kid for real? I could usually read people inside and out like a pamphlet, see if they were full of shit or not right away, but Connor was like some dense tomb that I couldn’t interpret.

  I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for Gabriel—or worse, D’Angelo—to pop back into the room. I kept wondering where the fuck Toby had gone, when he was coming back. If Toby was with us in the house, things were cool. But if Toby left the room…

  Ever since Toby’s parents had croaked,
things had gotten extra bonkers around here. You never knew when a pot might boil over, so to speak, and Gabriel had been on edge all morning. Even before snapping at Toby, he’d been pacing a lot, glowering at various pieces of furniture, mumbling to no one and nothing in particular.

  Something was up in the family business.

  But Connor seemed so comfortable there, so not ready for things to pop off. Inviting Connor here had been such a bad idea, and I cursed myself for not thinking ahead to a situation like this one.

  “I’m bored,” I said. “Come on, let’s go to…to the mall.” Shit. It was the first and only thing I could think of.

  Max frowned. “The mall?” he asked incredulously. Connor just laughed and took another hit on his joint, passing it to me. I felt myself grow red and put a hand up, declining. I needed to be sober when shit hit the fan.

  I needed to think of better things to say.

  “Or we could go to that new arcade on Jane Street,” I offered, feeling dumber than ever. Arcade? What were we, ten?

  “You okay, dude?” Max asked. He was getting high, his eyes glazed over and his voice light and dreamy. “Just relax. Take a hit.”

  Connor cocked his head at me, as if trying to figure out why I kept cracking my knuckles over and over like I was playing some twisted version of the accordion.

  “Oh,” was all I heard. I looked up from the couch and saw where it came from. “Oh well, okay now,” the voice said.

  D’Angelo stood in the entrance to the living room.

  Fuck.

  D’Angelo was huge, a bear of a man, pushing forty and sporting a full chest of hair, a thick beard and a shaved head. Prison tattoos ran up and down his meaty arms. He wore dark pants, a fitted black work shirt, and steel-toed boots. A silver apron hung over his clothes, covered in something dusty and white.

  They were cooking out back. I could smell it on him, that sharp, diesel scent Toby sometimes wore and badly tried to cover up with body spray.

  “What’s up, man?” Connor asked, in that lilting, boyish tone of his. “Want a hit?” Fuck, was he was serious?