Burro Hills Page 4

  “We were just leaving,” I said, forcing a shrug. “We won’t bother you.” I stood and started walking to the front door, nodding at the guys to follow me.

  But neither Max nor Connor moved. D’Angelo licked his lips and leaned against the living room doorframe, leering at them. At Connor in particular.

  “No thanks, man, I don’t partake anymore,” D’Angelo said to Connor. His voice was like the groan of a motor. “I’m just curious what you boys are up to, hanging out inside our house on a beautiful day like this. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.” He held out his hand to Connor, and that idiot stood and took it.

  “Connor Orellana,” he said. Full name. Idiot. “Nice to meet you, man. I moved here from Creek Way earlier this year.”

  “D’Angelo,” said The Monster of the Miller Residence. He smiled slowly at Connor, revealing a mouthful of silver-capped teeth. “Long-time resident. Very long.” Then he laughed, a garbled guttural noise that made me want to puke.

  “We have to go, guys,” I said. “That thing we have to go to is uh, starting soon.” Max seemed to understand by now, and had made his way to my side. He’d met D’Angelo once or twice before, and none of those meetings had ended well. But Connor seemed transfixed by the giant Miller cousin, who was squinting at him like a scientist might a new species of beetle.

  “What’s the hurry?” D’Angelo asked, still staring at Connor. He was taking in his fitted tank top, his board shorts, his taut shoulder muscles, devouring the sight of him. “I think I have a right to know who’s in my house, learn a little bit about each new guest. Especially such an interesting one. And an unexpected one.”

  “Connor,” I said. My voice had gone dark.

  D’Angelo took a long breath. My heart bounced around. He nodded at me, as if I were directly responsible for Connor being here. Which I was. “You guys stay out of here from now on, alright? This is a family business. This is not the arcade on Jane Street.” I shivered. He’d been listening to our conversation. Fucking creep. “Got it?”

  I nodded dumbly, and then he slunk off, disappearing back into the kitchen, but not before turning and leering at Connor in a way that made my blood run cold.

  “What the fuck was that about?” Connor asked when we got outside.

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “He’s kind of…well, kind of in charge in that family,” Max explained. “He’s uh…Jack?”

  I shrugged. “It’s nothing, really.”

  Connor laughed and reached into his pocket for another joint. “I think he had the hots for me or something.”

  I surprised myself by how fast and hard I grabbed his wrist and stopped him in his tracks. “Don’t go near him ever again. I’m serious.” Max stopped walking.

  “Okay man,” Connor said. He patted my elbow until I released my vice grip, the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in. “I won’t. I got it.”

  “To the Strip?” Max asked nervously.

  I nodded, turning away from them so they wouldn’t see the look on my face. “Yeah. Sure. To the Strip.”

  9.

  At night, the Strip came alive. During the day it was just another shitty part of town, a run-down street with cracks in the sidewalks and greasy corner stores like The Pharmacy, which sold Adderall, weed, and designer drugs to the neighborhood kids and junkies if you knew who to ask. Bums and heroin addicts lingered, shooting up and begging for change, shaking their coins around in their tin cups…the musical clatter of San Juan Boulevard. The guys and I only went there to get weed and booze from the shops that didn’t card. It was creepy in the daylight.

  Once we were walking around there around noon and a short little guy with a scrunched-up face stopped us, gesturing for us to see his wares. About a dozen kitchen knives were carefully laid out on a little fleece blanket. “Nice present for your abuela,” he’d said, gesturing to the knives. His left eye was bulging out of his socket and twitching profusely. Max tugged on my arm to keep walking, but I’d felt his stare follow me all the way down the street.

  There were a few tacky clothing places and coffee shops that catered to the locals on the Strip, with bizarre characters like the man who wore a python around his neck, and the woman who wandered up and down the road, cradling a plastic baby doll in her arms. She was always humming and staring straight ahead at something the rest of us couldn’t see.

  But at night, all the creeps and weirdos seemed to fall into the background. That’s when the Strip lit up in a million neon candy-colored lights, when the bars opened and the crowds filled in, high school kids and twenty-somethings, the occasional sugar daddies looking for their next fix. We hung out there a lot at night, a good place to smoke up as long as you knew where the cops were. They’d hired a lot of young asshole guys on the force around that time, big tough-boys fresh out of community college who liked to push people around and make a big scene. As long as you steered clear of them, you were usually good.

  Toby’s creepy uncle owned Bazingo, the nightclub with the flashing marquee outside that pumped out rap and dance music and drunken, sloppy fights into the streets. Connor, Max and I got in with little more than a quick glance at our fakes. Pretty girls in tight skirts and stilettos drank fruity cocktails, grinding on the stripper poles in the center of the dance floor. Men huddled around, leering at their half-naked bodies over cups of pale ale and Bud Light. The guys and I had brought Jess and her friends once, against our better judgment. When they arrived they instantly had stars in their eyes, chattering excitedly, so thrilled to be in a real-life nightclub. They let all the older men and frat stars feel them up until Toby bought them a round of shots, then another, and another. They got so drunk they spent the night puking in the Pepto Bismol pink bathroom stalls that smelled like urine and something that had died forty years ago. Toby and Max went to creep on college girls while I took turns holding Jess and Anna and Lizzie’s hair, rubbing their backs as they retched and vomited every ounce of liquor till their stomachs were raw.

  Sometimes I just couldn’t stand it, that ache that I felt deep inside my chest, that utterly hopeless feeling that crept into my head and bogged me down day after day. High school was monotony, repetitive, dull. They said the real world would be harder, more intense, less forgiving. Would I end up moving on after school, leaving this shitty town and never looking back, or would I become some drug addict, some deadbeat on the Strip peddling for loose change?

  Sometimes the only thing I wanted was neon club lights and a thumping bass, cheap liquor in my system that worked like engine fuel. Bazingo was the place to do it, the place where you could snort some lines behind the counter with the bartenders and let the hollow sound of the music swallow you whole. It was easy to see how you could escape into all of that, how you could go into that world and never come out.

  Connor loved the Strip the first time he came with us that night in April. Of course he did. He loved the lights, the girls, the action. Me, him, and Max drank warm beers wrapped in brown paper bags, watched the hookers in tight skirts waiting for tricks in the loop-de-loop, their pimps watching from the shadows. I knew for a fact that Toby had slept with at least three of them. I wondered what kind of STIs he had. Toby didn’t answer any of my texts or calls. We hadn’t heard from him since Gabriel broke that glass and D’Angelo creeped on Connor. I hoped that he was fine, just busy cooking with his cousins. Or even better, getting some sleep.

  Connor loved Bazingo, too. That night he met a redhead who was so drunk she could barely speak, and hung all over him throughout the night while I did shot after shot of Fireball to drown it all out. We all stumbled home to Max’s house, a peaceful place with nice parents who let Connor and I crash on the couch and the floor. They even brought us blankets. I fell asleep drunk and dizzy on a white shaggy rug, the living room tilting slowly, Connor’s arm just inches away from mine, the static between our skin electric.

  10.

  Toby texted me bright and early the next morning, wh
en I was sound asleep on Max’s floor.

  Meet me at Albert’s at 10. Business meeting.

  I found him there, holed up at Albert’s Diner on Jane Street, high as a kite, eyes darting around in circles like a dog chasing its tail and drinking black coffee. Bad sign.

  “You wanted to meet me?” I asked. I sat in the booth across from him. The jazz music that played from the diner’s tinny speakers and the hustle and bustle of waitresses and hungry patrons made this a good place to have this kind of a conversation.

  Toby sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was wearing the same green long-sleeve from yesterday. “Sorry I vanished yesterday, dude. Family stuff. But listen, we need to do more deals. Business is booming.” He was talking fast, slurping coffee after every other sentence.

  I nodded and signaled for a waitress, ordered him a plate of eggs and bacon. Now was as good a time as any. “Listen, Tobe, about that—”

  “My cousins are putting mad pressure on me, man. I have to sell my share by the end of the month or I’m out of the business. I cannot be out of the business.” He tapped the table with his finger so I hard I thought he might bruise it. “So I need your help. No more Max at the drop-off spots. He’s a liability. Connor could probably handle the look-out position better, anyway. D’Angelo likes him, said that he’d fit in well with—”

  “No,” I said.

  He frowned at me, slowing down for the first time in that whole conversation to take a full breath. “No, what?”

  “No, Connor,” I said. “And I’m out too. I can’t do these deals anymore, Tobe. I just can’t.”

  Toby started nodding and flexing his fingers, staring out the window. When his eggs and bacon arrived, he didn’t touch them.

  “More coffee,” he told the waitress, not even bothering to look at her.

  I put on my hand on his wrist. “You’ve had enough, dude.”

  “Don’t tell me when I’ve had enough, Jack!” he snapped. He said it loudly enough for the whole restaurant to turn around and stare at us.

  I lowered my voice. “You’re tweaking, bro. How much blow did you do last night, anyway? That shit’s not good for you. Look, we’ve had this conversation before. I know it’s your family and your business and all, but I can’t risk doing this anymore. I’m out, okay?”

  Toby stared at his eggs. “Give me a reason.”

  “I don’t need a reason, Toby. I said no.”

  “Give me a good reason. You’re not going to college. Your parents are deadbeats. You have no other job prospects when school’s over. You get free weed and discounted blow. So give me one good reason why you’re ditching me here.”

  If anyone else said this to me, I’d deck them, knock them out cold. But Toby was different. I knew where he was coming from, why he was the way he was. And he knew me pretty well, better than any friend besides Jess ever had. So I didn’t even think of getting mad.

  Until he said what he said.

  “I know why. It’s because you’re a pussy.”

  The word snapped a rubber band inside of me. “What did you say?”

  He leaned in closer across the table, sniffling loudly. “You’re a little pussy, Jack, and that’s why you’re shit scared of—”

  But before he could finish, I reached across the table and yanked him by the shirt collar, pulling him close to me. Plates and dishes clanked and rattled. I could feel the entire restaurant’s attention pinned to us. Toby’s sour coffee breath was in my face. The jazz music had stopped.

  “Don’t. Ever. Call. Me. That. Again,” I said. “I’m out. You understand, Toby?”

  He just nodded, staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time. I’d never spoken to him like that before.

  I let him go, and he fell back against the headboard. I dashed out of the restaurant, the sun hitting me full in the face, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the handlebars as I biked home. The anger pumped through my blood as I pedaled, harder and harder until my legs felt like they might give out.

  Something inside of me was stirring, awakening. I needed to smoke so bad. I needed to crawl into a hole and scream.

  It hadn’t always been like this between us. There was a time when we were younger and dumber and the world wasn’t as scary and his parents were still alive, back when his house was warm and bright and sounded like their laughter and smelled like their cooking. Real cooking, no diesel fumes and cocaine. Toby and I would stay up late into the night playing video games, making forts out of sheets in his room and going on exploratory missions in his basement, sieving through boxes and cartons and layers of Miller family secrets coated in dust.

  We were thirteen when Toby’s parents were hit by a drunk driver, slamming into them at nearly 100 mph while they were merging off the freeway. They were only a mile away from their house, and just a few more from where they both worked. They died almost instantly in the crash. The driver suffered severe head trauma, went into a coma or something.

  Toby stopped speaking for a month. Just went completely mute. Then a few of his cousins moved in, D’Angelo and Toby’s other uncle, the one who never told us his name, and they were around all the time.

  Toby only started speaking again because of me. I’d tried for weeks to get him to say something. I’d tried to lure him in by writing him funny poems or drawing cartoons of the two of us committing mild acts of mayhem. I’d tried biking to his house every morning to take the bus with him to school. He kept his face stoic and wore sunglasses a lot, even indoors. The teachers let him get away with it because he was a poor orphan boy.

  Then one evening, when the crickets were out and playing a dusk-time lullaby, Toby wrote me a note and put it in my mailbox—writing notes was the only way he’d communicate, and only with me—inviting me over to his house. It was empty for once, his cousins and uncle out doing God knows what. It was the first time I’d been over there since the funeral. The rooms inside the house were heavy, each one feeling as though rain had soaked right through them. So we went outside and sat on the sloping hill in his backyard that was overgrowing with weeds and flanked by giant pines. An ominous brown shed that had once been home to our adventures stood at the bottom of the slope, a place I had now been banned from entering by the new Miller men of the house. Sometimes it smelled like diesel fuel, but Toby wouldn’t tell me why.

  “They were killed by some reckless asshole,” Toby said. I almost jumped out of my shorts, I was so surprised to hear his voice. It sounded deeper and fuller than I’d last remembered. “Who dies just a mile away from their house?”

  Toby’s parents ran the old auto repair shop three miles up the road from where they lived, the one that they’d been so excited to take over after his grandfather left it to them. They were there night and day, always coming home smelling like diesel fumes, always talking about who to fire or hire next, how to cut costs and keep things running smoothly. How to keep the business going strong and still save up enough to send Toby to college.

  Something in Toby’s face broke, and for the first time in forever, he started crying. I had to slap my arm to remind myself that this was real.

  “Grandpa left them that place before he died, and they were so happy,” Toby sobbed. “And now they’re gone, and Grandpa’s gone, and everything here is dying.”

  I touched his shoulder. “You’re not dying, Toby.”

  He jerked away from me like my hands were made of hot coals. “Don’t touch me!” Then he spat angrily into the grass. “Maybe I should be dying! I want to die! I deserve to die. Why should they die, and I stay here? It isn’t fair!”

  He got up and ran to the house. I called after him, but he locked the door and refused to let me in, even when I banged on all the windows. I had to hop the fence to get to my bike.

  Two days later, Toby called me up like nothing had been wrong, like we’d never had this conversation and I hadn’t seen him bawling like a baby.

  He said he was part of this new family business venture, a coo
l new way to make some money. One that was easy money.

  He asked me if I wanted in.

  11.

  Toby sulked for a few days about me leaving the business, ignored a bunch of my texts and calls. But in just a few days, he was back to his normal self again, cracking jokes with me and acting like nothing had ever happened. That’s just how things were with us, even if one of us was still mad. Any residual anger or resentment kind of simmered there on the surface.

  I hoped he wouldn’t bring it up again.

  It was a Friday afternoon and we were shooting the shit, lounging around Max’s basement and soaking up the A.C., when Max suggested we do something different.

  “Screw this,” he said. “The semester’s more than halfway over, it’s hot as hell, and we’ve done the same damn thing every day after school.” And it was true, so after he and Toby bickered back and forth for a bit about whose fault that was and Connor smoked another bowl of their weed, we decided to break into the community pool.

  We picked up some liquor at the Strip and drove over in Max’s beat-up Chevy, relishing the quiet of the late afternoon. The pool was closed for renovation and wouldn’t open until summertime, but the construction guys were gone for the day and the water was crystal clear, tempting us all, untouched by dirty patrons. The air smelled like sawdust and chlorine, and I’d forever smell that when I tasted cheap bourbon.

  “Alright, fuck it, let’s do this.” Toby stomped out his cigarette in the grass and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Hold on, man, there’s like security cameras, right?” Max said.

  Toby rolled his eyes. “Can you just try for once not to be a total pussy, Max?” He made a leap for the chain link fence and struggled to haul himself over as Max scrambled to help him.

  Max needed some help himself to scale the fence and ended up cutting himself on the wires, but when it was my turn, I felt Connor’s hands on my back, lifting me up, and the ease at which he did it surprised me. Once we were up and over I was about to say thanks, and he gestured at me to come closer, opening the pockets of his board shorts inside out to reveal a bag of pills.