Pick-me-up (15 page)

“So, I drove for them, mostly.” Tim seemed to
be choosing his details now. Katelyn wished he’d tell her
everything, but she didn’t want to interrupt and mess up the
moment. His eyes concentrated on some invisible spot near his toes.
“Then, my mom’s asshole boyfriend convinced her I had too much
freedom, so they didn’t let me take the car out at night anymore.
Shit, I showed them and started making my own money, my own scores.
I had a car within a month. A sweet 1972 Mustang I was gonna fix
up. But I got busted.” He shrugged. He looked up at her and blinked
a few times. “It was stupid.”

He seemed finished, but Katelyn was loaded
with questions. “How’d you get caught? What happened? Was there an
alarm? Did the police track you through a pawn shop, or what?”

“Ha,” his comical tone crept back in, and he
smiled knowingly. “I guess you could say there was an alarm. Some
lady scared the shit out of me. I thought everyone was outta this
house and this woman screams bloody murder coming back into her
room from the bathroom.”

Katelyn was puzzled, “But, why were you in
the house if you took things from garages?”

Tim wasn’t as quick with his answer, but the
look on his face when he gave it seemed to hold a challenge for
Katelyn. “No, Christian’s deal was garages. People keep better shit
in their house, especially in their bedroom.” He looked at her,
waiting to see her reaction. Katelyn could sense she was being
tested.

“How many houses did you . . . rob?” The word
was harsh coming out of her mouth. It was hard name the crime any
softer. Tim wasn’t scared of anything, and he was always aware of
everything around him. He was probably really good at robbing
houses. An image of him slinking through a dark house came to her
mind. She thought about him in her room that first night, sneaking
through the window. Katelyn’s eyes widened and she gasped. “How
many?”

Tim was done with his open confession.
“Enough. But the saying’s true. It only takes once to get caught. I
had better luck than some, but mine ran out, too.”

Katelyn had let go of his hand at some point
within their conversation and became aware of it as his hand took
hers again. “Look,” he said, “it was almost two years ago. No one
got hurt. Those people had insurance and probably made out better
in the end. I did my time and now I’m a good boy. Mom ditched that
loser and we moved here when I got out. It’s safer in small towns,
right?” He smiled.

She did the math and figured he did about
four months in the boys’ institution. Tim leaned in to get her
direct attention. Quietly, he said, “Hey, do you hate me now?”

Katelyn shook her head. She didn’t hate him.
She couldn’t. The boy he just told her about didn’t match up with
how she saw him now. “That’s not you anymore,” she said.

He looked at her with soft eyes. “No, it’s
not. When Christian got out, he wanted me to hit some properties
with him, but I’ve got other plans. I don’t need that game.” He
pushed himself up and into her. He kissed her softly and then held
her chin lightly as he studied her.

She believed him, but the intensity of the
information and the need screaming from his eyes was too much.
Katelyn buckled and turned into the bed, burying her head into a
pillow. She felt him slide his hands up and down her body and then
he nuzzled her neck as he pulled at her clothes. She kept her eyes
shut, but turned and let him love her. Screams and scary music
muffled any noises they might have made, but Katelyn herself had
kept quiet.

At the end of the movie, he walked her part
of the way home as usual. The dark night gave her some courage to
ask a question that had been bothering her since their talk. “So,
where does the drug charge come in?”

Tim had been holding her hand, but he let it
go and now he stood with both hands deep in his pockets. “Well,” he
paused, “that’s the thing. I had a few grams on me when they busted
me. The cops just didn’t believe I found them in that lady’s
house.” The line was humorous, but his tone was dead. She didn’t
have to see his face clearly to see the look he was giving her, the
one that told her to back off. He turned around and headed back
toward his house without another word.

“We’re going to see your dad tomorrow,”
Katelyn’s mom announced on the way to school, “so both of you need
to get your homework assignments from your teachers today.”

Katelyn looked up in surprise. “What?”

“Yes, a day out of school,” Brianna rejoiced
from the back seat.

Katelyn’s dad had come home before school
started. He had lost his job in Utah. Some of his crew were
arrested for possession. Brian was arrested on the same charge, but
the cops didn’t end up proving anything other than use. The
construction company fired him, and he came home.

The problem was that he skipped his court
date in Utah, and he never reported the charge to his parole
officer in Iowa. It would mean her dad’s third strike and some
serious jail this time.

It took about three weeks for the law to
catch up to him. The cops stopped him for speeding. Her dad also
happened to be high on a local batch of crystal at the time. His
stay at the Story County Jail was brief because they shipped him
off to a high security treatment facility about 100 miles away.

“But I’m supposed to work tomorrow night,”
Katelyn frowned. Her dad had fought with her nonstop when he came
back from Utah. He didn’t like Tim, nor did he like the idea of
Katelyn having a boyfriend. When he was arrested, Katelyn didn’t
know whether to feel glad that he would be out of her hair or sad
because he was messed up again. Mostly, she was mad.

“We should be back by 3 p.m. The counselor
wants a family session at 10 a.m.” Her mom’s voice didn’t reveal
any emotion. It stayed hard like it had been for weeks.

Katelyn really thought it might be the end
this time, that her mom wouldn’t let her dad back in the house this
time. But, he was at the treatment center. He’d never gone to one
of those before. He hadn’t even been allowed to call home the first
week, and when he did finally, Katelyn caught her mom crying in
relief.

Since then, Katelyn had her own phone
conversations with him. They were brief, for the most part, about
school, the kids, her job, Tim, or whatever he’d share about his
daily schedule. Katelyn didn’t know how she felt about visiting
him.

The next day, after dropping Kayla and Jacob
at Katelyn’s grandma’s house, she, Brianna, and her mom made the
trip north. The treatment center was its own wing in a county
hospital. Before being allowed into the center, they had to empty
their pockets, and a guard searched Katelyn’s bag. “You can pick
this up on your way out,” he said.

Katelyn scoffed at the bottle of Midol the
guard took from her bag. “For real?” she said. She signed a form
and waited in silence with her mom and Brianna in the stark waiting
area.

“Mrs. Wells?” An unusually tall man looked up
from a clipboard at her mom. “I’m Brian’s rehabilitation therapist.
Come with me, please.” He led them to a slightly nicer room with
cushioned chairs and shelves holding paperback books and games.

The therapist talked to them alone first.
“Meth addiction doesn’t just affect the user,” the therapist said
in calm confidence. “Family members suffer just as much.”

No shit, Einstein, Katelyn thought. There’s
no money for food, crazy ass fights, lies, and, oh, no dad in the
picture at random intervals of my life. But, she stayed silent and
heard what he had to say about “this vicious poison” and how often
so many people relapsed. Her ideas about choice and control were
being asked to redefine themselves.

Maybe I’m too hard on my dad, she thought.
It’s easy to be mad at people, but maybe she was really mad at this
drug.

The scariest part was the medical stuff the
therapist told them. He gave them a pamphlet with some statistics
laid out on glossy colored paper. Color photographs of gross teeth,
skin sores, and messed up brain scans made her stomach curl.
Katelyn tried to ignore the warning about increased risk for
HIV/AIDS transmission, but her mom’s jaw clenched when the
therapist mentioned sexual behavior issues.

Katelyn followed the addict symptom chart in
the pamphlet. She couldn’t help but mentally circle some of the
symptoms: sunken eyes, loss of appetite, sleeplessness,
irritability, paranoia. But, the line that really scared her was
that her dad was just asking for heart failure. All of this just
for a high.

Once, she had caught Tim and Christian using
when she stopped over at his house. A few burnt pieces of foil and
a lighter were on the basement coffee table in front of them. She
knew it wasn’t pot. The smell was like a chemical burning instead
of the sour grass smell of weed. When Katelyn asked him about it,
Tim became really upset and shoved her off the couch. She was sure
it was Meth. Tim didn’t act mean when he smoked pot.

Katelyn folded up the brochure and put it in
her pocket. Tim had to know about this. She would give the pamphlet
to him. Maybe she could help him.

The therapist left. When her dad was ushered
into the room with the family, he was quiet. His shoulders were
more relaxed than normal. It was the closest she had ever seen her
dad to being at peace.

And then he shocked them all. He apologized.
He uncomfortably worked his way up to it, and then he said, “I’m
sorry I’m hurting you.” And nothing else. He didn’t keep going. He
didn’t ramble on with excuses.

Seconds or weight couldn’t measure the
silence in the room. Katelyn looked around at her dad, her mom, and
Brianna. Eventually, her mom reached out her hand and placed it on
her dad’s. Katelyn moved in a little closer and put hers on top of
her mom’s. Katelyn turned to Brianna and saw her sister’s face
streaked with tears. She reluctantly lifted her hand and then
finished the stack to connect the family.

“I’m one month sober, Karen.” He looked from
her mom to Katelyn and Brianna, tears welling in his eyes. “Girls,
I’m not going to make you promises.” He looked down but disappeared
into himself. “This time I’m making myself a promise.”

Chapter 16:
Anniversaries

Katelyn turned her head away from the heavy metal band on the
stage.  She tried to look beyond crowd jamming to the blaring
music.  She tried to see to the back of the lounge to the
table and bar area, but she couldn’t find Tim.  All she could
see was more people in different states of drunkenness.

The elbow of a college girl beside Katelyn
rammed into Katelyn’s shoulder.  Katelyn turned back to face
the band and glared over at the girl beside her.  The girl
ignored her and turned to yell something to her friend.
 Katelyn couldn’t hear it over the beating bass of the
speakers on either side of her.  The beat was so strong she
could feel it pulse through her skin.  The girls were probably
talking about her, trying to intimidate her into moving out of her
prime spot in front of the band, only a few rows back.  

The band was good, supposedly up and coming,
according to Tim.  Katelyn had been into the jam, even dancing
in the jumping style of everyone around her.  But that was
when Tim was by her jumping like crazy.  He was bouncing so
violently that others had moved away.  He and Katelyn claimed
the space. The beating sounds pounding into her ears and her chest
had felt powerful, like a huge magnetic force pulsing through her
body.  Now, she was getting crowded out and didn’t know how
long she’d be able to keep their spot.  

Tim had left over 10 minutes ago to get
something to drink.  She checked her phone.  She texted
him for the second time.  “Hurry up”

This wasn’t the first time he’d left her
alone, and Katelyn feared this time would turn out like so many of
the others.  She feared she’d be alone for much longer than
10, 20 or even 40 minutes.  In his worst disappearing act,
she’d been left alone in Ames at a party where she didn’t know
anyone.  She didn’t want that to happen tonight, especially
since they were in Des Moines at some bar named People’s.  The
bar had a whole separate section for concerts, so minors were able
to come in.  Still, there were a lot of drunks, both minors
and legal drinkers.  Some people in the crowd looked downright
scary--more than just trying to look tough, they were tough.
 Katelyn saw tattoos and piercings on just about every body
around her.  

Some kids in Northrup had pierced lips,
noses, and tongues, and some guys had barbwire tattoos, mostly
upperclassmen.  But, these people had the look to match
painful puncturing.  They returned Katelyn’s look, if she was
caught, without blinking until Katelyn looked away timidly.
 Something about them reminded her of her mom.  They
looked like there was nothing left in life that could scare
them.

Growing more uncomfortable every minute,
Katelyn bit her nails until she caught herself.  Then she ran
her hand through her hair and pulled it over to one side of her
shoulders.  She looked down to the black ends and was
momentarily surprised.  Her hair was now two-toned, like
Angel’s.  

Angel was girlfriend to Tim’s friend
Christian.  Angel was way into black and was rarely sober or
clean.  But, she was fun and nice.  It was Angel’s
suggestion for Katelyn to die her hair.  “It will totally
rock.  I love the concept,” Angel had squealed. “Light and
dark.  Man, so badass.”

So, Katelyn’s long blonde hair went from
virgin blonde to jet black from her neck down.  The change
drew the familiar disapproving glare from her mother.  Her mom
almost launched into a speech, but tiredly settled for a shake of
her head.  “You’re the one who has to look like that.”

Another elbow jab hit her, this time in the
side of the head.  

“Ow!  Do you mind?”  Katelyn shot
at her dance floor neighbor.  The girl barely gave her any
attention, but shrugged her off with a slight toss of her head.