Breakaway (4 page)

Asshole. It's not like I asked to be born.

Mom had such terrible taste in guys. She was always going out on dates with the worst kind of losers. Sylvia and I used to talk about that, how it seemed like Mom was only attracted to guys who were assholes. The guys at school mostly left Sylvia alone because everyone knew if I got wind of a guy trying to sleep with her, he would be dead. But she never got all crazy about guys anyway, probably because of all the creeps she saw Mom hanging around.

Alex was quiet, lying beside me with her head tucked in the crook of my arm. I may have dozed for a minute but I wanted to be long gone before her dad got home from work. At the funeral, I had seen him standing behind Alex as she wept openly, his jaw set and his hands clasped tightly in front of him. Proper mourning posture, but he didn't do anything to comfort his little girl in front of a group of strangers, even though you could see it eating him up inside. He was the kind of guy who would swing a fist, ask questions later.

As I sat on the edge of the bed pulling on my shoes, Alex stood at her dresser in a fluffy pink robe brushing her hair. “Jason?” she said, as if I might not hear her from only six feet away.

“Yeah?”

“I was … you know, I thought we would go all the way.”

I wasn't sure what she wanted from me. An apology?

After a minute her voice again, this time quieter. “Jason?”

She came to sit beside me on the end of the bed and put her hand on my leg, then seemed to think better of it and put her hand in her lap.

“I—I really care about you, Jason,” she said without looking at me.

“Thanks,” I said since there didn't seem to be anything else appropriate to say.

“I was thinking,” Alex said as she nervously plucked at the ends of her hair, “with Sylvia gone, maybe we should spend more time together. You know, since we're both upset about her being gone. We could be there for each other.”

“I think I probably need some time to myself,” I said, giving her the first line that came to mind.

I didn't wait for her to show me out.

CHAPTER FIVE

On my way home from Alex's house I stopped off at Bad Habits, a sports bar and nightclub that was on the Pike, the main drag through town. During the past two summers I had worked in the kitchen at Bad Habits, washing dishes, running food, and helping out the bar-backs to keep the bars stocked when the place was busy. That afternoon when I got there it was only five o'clock, so the place was empty. It didn't usually fill up until six or seven, when people drifted in for happy hour.

I entered through the kitchen door and waved to the bar-backs who were washing dishes and setting up for the night. Bad Habits did enough evening business, they didn't even bother opening during the day, except on weekends when the games were on television. Chris, the owner, was behind the main bar reading
The City Paper
when I strolled in. The Internet jukebox mounted on the wall was playing at a subdued volume—“Drain You” by Nirvana, which I knew without asking Chris had used his own money to play. The interior of the bar was much darker than the outdoors and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the gloom.

“Well, looky who it is,” Chris said by way of greeting but didn't look up from reading the paper. He was big—well over six feet and broad through the shoulders—with dark brown hair and green eyes. He had tattoos on both arms, almost a full sleeve of artwork on his right arm. His nose looked like it had been broken at least once, but that didn't stop the women who sat at his bar from passing him their phone numbers on cocktail napkins. “How've you been, kid?” he asked as he set aside his paper. “Shouldn't you be in school?”

“It's five o'clock. School's been out for hours,” I said as I slid onto one of the vinyl stools, a split seam on the side of it held together by duct tape. I rested my elbows gingerly on the smooth polish of the bar top, expecting to find it sticky to the touch.

“Right,” Chris said with a nod. “Hard to tell the time in this place. Noon might as well be midnight. What do you want?”

“I'll take a beer, I guess.”

“Oh, a beer you guess?” Chris said, his voice a low growl from so many years of smoking and shouting at drunks while working behind the bar.

“Just one.”

He gave me a long look before pulling out a bottle and removing the top with a flick of his wrist. “Your mom would die if she knew I fed you this stuff.”

“She wouldn't care. I drink at home all the time,” I lied easily.

“Mmph.”

“What are you, my dad now?”

He chuckled, a rich throaty sound that made him seem older than his late thirties. “How's your mom?”

I shrugged and didn't look at him, traced my finger through the condensation on the beer bottle. “I don't know. Since Sylvia died we haven't really spoken much. I'm not sure she knows I'm still alive.”

He didn't say anything, just watched my face while I kept my expression neutral.

I told him about Sylvia's memorial assembly at school, about how awkward it had made me feel. Mentioned how Alexis and other girls showed so much interest in being around me since Sylvia's death, like they wanted some of the tragedy to rub off on them.

That was the thing about Chris—I could tell him things I wouldn't tell other people. It was like he had seen and done so much in his life that he was beyond judging other people.

After I had talked myself out he said, “I'm getting ready to open for happy hour. Finish up and get your skinny ass out of here before I get busted for serving a kid in my bar.”

“Whatever, man,” I said. “How about giving me some quarters and I'll shoot a game of pool?”

“Why don't you get a job?” he asked as he popped the drawer to the cash register and slapped four quarters on the bar, then grabbed my half-empty bottle of beer and tossed it into a trash bin in one fluid motion. “Matter of fact, I could use someone to help in the early evenings and on the weekends—you could come back to working part-time. Eight bucks an hour.”

“Yeah, which is exactly seventy-five cents over minimum wage,” I said. “You're a real humanitarian.”

“And you've got a smart fucking mouth that someday is going to get your ass kicked for you,” he said, but Chris was all bark and I didn't pay him any mind. “You know, that's how I started out in this business. Worked as a bar-back in a place like this right out of high school. Started bartending once I was legal and saved up to open my own place.”

I had to fight to keep my eyeballs from rolling back in my head. This story had been recited for me before.

“I was a punk, like you, when I was your age,” Chris said, his insult rolling off me without causing injury. “Of course, I didn't have any choice but to get my shit together. Maybe if you got a job after school it would keep you out of trouble.”

“I never get in trouble,” I said.

“Maybe you never get caught, but that doesn't mean you don't get into trouble,” he said, needing to have the last word, which is just his way. We could have kept it up like that for hours, but I let it go.

I took the quarters and went to the back room, where a full-sized pool table stood under a low-hanging light fixture with a green shade. Just as Chris had said, the place started to fill up within a half hour and the music was good and loud when I made my exit the way I had come in.

CHAPTER SIX

The same week of Sylvia's memorial assembly the soccer coach, Arturo, approached me to ask how I was holding up and whether I would be ready for our Friday game against crosstown rival Yorktown High School.

“Mr. Hudson thought maybe you should sit out a few games. That you needed some time,” Arturo said in his heavily accented English.

“Bullshit,” I said.

“I'm just telling you what he said to me,” Arturo said without even raising an eyebrow about my cussing.

I knew Arturo didn't want me to sit out the game against Yorktown. They almost always clobbered us at soccer. No surprise. The north-side school was in an exclusive neighborhood of broad tree-lined streets and palatial homes that sat back on large wooded lots. Their team members had all been playing since they were in kindergarten and they had the best equipment, best coaches, and moms with the leisure time to keep them playing year-round in the community leagues.

The day of the game our team stood silently as the Yorktown players filed out onto the field. They were all white, tall, broad shouldered, and carried themselves with the kind of confidence that only money can buy. In contrast, at least half the boys on the Wakefield team were brown skinned or of some mixed pedigree, and more than half of us qualified financially for the free breakfast program at school. At our school, football still ruled, soccer was for the castoffs of the high school athletic program. Our players looked scrawny and small next to the Yorktown goliaths. I was the biggest guy on our team by several inches.

Most of the time I don't care that much about soccer. It isn't like I obsess about it or watch it on television. Every once in a while Mario's dad would take Mario and me to a D.C. United game. But when I'm out there on the field and an offensive player from the other team is charging toward me, pushing the ball toward my home goal, all I can think about is how much I want to stop him, want to lay him out on the pitch and claim the ball for myself.

I drew more yellow and red cards from the refs than any other player on our team. Maybe I have a reputation for playing dirty, tripping up players but making it look like I was just trying to get my foot on the ball, throwing an elbow here and there when I'm running the block. Sometimes, if the other guy is really aggressive, I end up in a shoving match or a fight. Usually I start the fight.

Arturo mostly turned a blind eye, though he wasn't stupid. He knew as well as I did that I earned every foul that got called against me. But I like to win, and so did Arturo, so he played dumb and always started me at center midfield.

Which is why, when we were thirty minutes into play and I was still sitting on the bench, I was cussing Arturo under my breath. He hadn't even glanced in my direction since kickoff and it looked like he was planning to keep me on the bench for the whole game, maybe under Mr. Hudson's orders. Chick, who was on the team only because Mario and I would refuse to play unless Arturo kept him on, was warming the bench beside me, would maybe get ten minutes of play at the end of the game and only if we were already up by a couple of goals.

At halftime we were down by two goals. Mario and Jordie were breathing hard when they sat down on the bench beside Chick and me. They had been playing rough defense for most of the game, our forward players left with little to do since they rarely got the ball.

“They're killing us,” Jordie said as he spit on the ground between us.

Mario was silent. His brown skin glistened with sweat and his black fauxhawk had wilted in the heat.

“Why isn't Arturo putting you in, Jaz?” Jordie asked angrily.

“Ask him,” I said.

“I will,” Jordie said, and stalked off to talk to Arturo.

“That girl Cheryl's here,” Mario said dully as he rubbed at his face and neck with a threadbare towel. “That's why he's so pissed about losing. He can't stand the thought of losing in front of her.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked without much interest but glanced around the bleachers until I spotted Cheryl sitting with a couple of her girlfriends. They were perched on the bleachers, knees pressed tightly together to hide what their short skirts were designed to reveal.

“Don't ask me what he sees in that girl,” Mario said. “She's totally plastic.”

Jordie returned then and said, “He's putting you in.”

“'Bout damn time.” I skinned out of my sweat jacket and jogged out onto the field with the team.

I took the center midfield without thought, though Mario had been working that field position for the first half of the game. Mario fell back to sweep the goal, a turf that he ruled with his quiet grace.

Ten minutes after I took the field, we got our first chance. One of our midfielders took the ball and was pushing it toward the goal with such speed and determination, the entire Yorktown team was caught up in watching him. That gave Eli the chance to slip into position near the goal, pushing the line of the penalty box but careful to remain on side. He was the Ghost now, all speed and stealth.

At the last second, when it looked like the midfielder was going to take a wild shot with a hard kick, he faked out all the Yorktown defenders by slowing the momentum of his leg and sending the ball in a soft lob toward the left of the goal box. Eli was waiting, ready, and headed the ball into the goal. The goalkeeper dived, too late, and caught only air.

We were still down by a goal, so our celebration of Eli's strike was quick and quiet, everyone all business. Yorktown had the ball, and their center was moving swiftly, his imposing size scattering our defenders as he came toward me. I had one defender to contend with, who stayed on me like stink on shit. He was all arms and legs, blocking me so I had to fight the urge to just shove him out of the way and leave him behind me on the ground.

The big center player was going for it, wasn't even looking to see if his forwards were set up to take the ball home to the goal. He was the tallest member of their team, taller than me even.

Mario slipped into position and I could see the hard set of his eyes, his brow wrinkled against the low angle of the sun, as he was determined not to let them get a third goal. The center was much taller and thicker than Mario, who was lean and slender and only about five-nine. But Mario wasn't afraid of getting hurt—he would take a beating and get up to ask for more, even if he couldn't give it back. Mario rushed out from the goal, our keeper shouting something unintelligible at him, but Mario had eyes only for the ball, and as he moved up the field, he seemed to float rather than run.