Riding Invisible (14 page)

“Mr. Garza's son is failing, so I have to take this call,” Dad told Will as he hurried away. “We'll dispose of the you-know-what as soon as I'm finished.”

The second Dad disappeared, Will kicked the side of my foot. “You're gonna pay for this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Mr. Perfect, it looks like I'll be forced to poison your horse.”

“WHAT?”

“I'm gonna put rat poison in his hay, you asshole.”

My heartbeat went crazy, but I told myself to stay calm, act reasonable.

“Dude,” I said, trying to come up with logic Will might understand. “When those plants mature, for sure our garage will reek of marijuana. And if somehow Mom and Dad were to miss that odor, which I doubt, if you sell it, the police might find out. Dad could get in trouble.”

“Trouble? Ha! This is how I deal with trouble.”

Will spun around and lifted his long, light brown hair. On his neck, against the white skin, bold gang-style lettering:

Permanent. The letters all in black, and it must mean something, but I didn't get it. Will straightened himself, stood tall, smoothed his hair, smiled big like a genuine nice guy.

I took a few steps toward my room. “Interesting tat, bro, but how come you want your neck to advertise death?”

“Because death rocks. It's written in the words.”

“What words?”

“The lyrics, stupid. Like that song ‘
MANGLED AND DYING
.' You know the part I mean? When they sing about the world exploding, they go, ‘Leave it in your head and the blood is theirs instead…Oh, death rocks, my friend, yeah, death rocks.' I write the lines down, and I read them about a thousand times, and I analyze what they mean. And I live my life that way. That's what makes me tick, Mr. Perfect. It's exactly how I am.”

“I wish I could figure you out. Did they change your meds or something?”

“Noooooo, of course they didn't. Changed 'em myself.”

“Yeah? Well, leave Shy out of it. You poison my horse, and I'll poison you!”

Will laughed again, a weird sound that gave me chills. By this time, Dad was off the phone, and he pulled my brother into the den so they could tell my mom about the latest fiasco.

That's when I left, running to the stables, pounding on Frank's back door. After I told him everything that went down, he scratched his bald head and told me not to worry.

“Yancy, I'll be on my toes. I won't let Will near this place.”

I was thinkin',
YEAH, RIGHT, LIKE HOW ARE YOU GONNA ACCOMPLISH THAT?

“You do realize horses weigh a thousand pounds,” Frank said, studying my expression. “Compare it to a rat. Can your brother afford enough rat poison to hurt Shy? I doubt it.”

So, feeling a little better, I hurried home and locked my bedroom door and called Christi to ask her about a concert that's happening in the school auditorium in a few weeks.

“You sound sorta strange,” she said.

“I do?”

“Yeah, like you're upset.”

“Not really.”

“Yancy, I can always tell when someone's world is crashing.”

“How?”

“From personal experience.”

I waited.

“My personal experience is something I never talk about, but I'm gonna tell you. It happened when I was little and my dad used to beat up my mom. The last time he got violent, I was twelve, and it was
HORRIBLE
and she went to the hospital. My world pretty much ended.”

“I wish we were talking face-to-face so I could hold you,” I said, concentrating to make my voice come out normal. “So where's your dad now?”

“He moved to Canada when he got out of jail.”

“At least he's gone.”

“Yeah.” Her voice, a whisper.

Before I could stop myself, there I was explaining my family issues, telling her the Will Stuff. When I described my brother, she got all quiet. I could feel her attention, especially when I talked about The Threat of the Day.

“God, Yancy,” Christi said. “No wonder you ran away.” Then she suggested I'd better get a plan to deal with Will's shit.

After we hung up, I wondered about our conversation, and how telling Christi about Will had made me feel kind of relieved. Not so invisible.

Sunday—9:45 p.m.—in my room

Phase
I
in getting a plan needed to start with The Parents. First I checked on Will, who was playing video games in his bedroom, and then I made my way to the kitchen. The air near the garbage disposal smelled like a fresh marijuana pie had just been digested. In the den, I peeked through the sliding glass door; Mom and Dad were sitting on a wooden bench, warming their hands by our fire pit. A cozy twosome. Safe. So not afraid.

I hurried outside.

Mom glanced up. “Sweetie. We were just talking about you.”

“You were? I bet you were saying how I'm such a great kid. How I'm a perfect student, well behaved and all that.”

My voice had a sarcastic tone behind the words, and it made Mom frown. “No. We were saying how everything is way out of control around here. If you decide to run away again, I'm going with you.”

That made me laugh, but my parents weren't smiling.

“We didn't realize how scary things have been until you ran away,” Mom said.

“How could you not realize? Will's a monster. I grew up with a monster in the house. I mean, have you seen the new tattoo?”

“Tattoo?” Mom's eyes widened.

“Take a peek at the back of his neck. But worse than that…Will just threatened to poison my horse.”

“Jeez,” Dad said, his face gone pale, glancing at Mom. “That was part of what we were talking about.” He cleared his throat. “Don't take this the wrong way, son, but would you consider moving in with Aunt Toni for a while?”

I could barely answer. “
RECENTLY DIVORCED
Aunt Toni? With the crazed ex-husband and her pack of toddlers? Also in desperate need of a free babysitter? And what would happen to Shy if I moved to downtown L.A.?”

“You could board him at the L.A. Equestrian Center. It's got to be expensive, but our peace of mind would be worth it,” Dad said.

“The Equestrian Center is in Burbank. It's not even close to Aunt Toni's! Plus I'd have to change schools. Leave my friends.”

Mom's suggestion was almost as lame. “How about your grandparents? You could move in with them.”

“No! Sepulveda's closer than L.A., but it's not nearby, and I'd still have to transfer schools. And they're not zoned for horses, either. My vote is to make
WILL
move someplace. Send
HIM
to Aunt Toni's. Let
HIM
live in Sepulveda with Grandma and Gramps. Or cart
HIM
off to
ABUELITA'S
house in Arizona. The farther away the better.”

Mom and Dad shook their heads in unison.

“No one wants Will,” Mom said. She started to cry.

“Yancy, you think we want you living away from home?” Dad said. “It's an impossible situation. Try to understand.”

My mind was spinning, reeling back to the last story Tavo had told me, the story about the immigrant couple with two kids. They had to choose, and one kid got left behind. It was obvious my parents had reached that point, and the winner was NOT going to be me.

I rushed inside the house before they could say anything else.

DUDE, YOU HAVE TO GET OUT…YOU HAVE TO GET AWAY FROM THIS CHAOS…BUT NOT TOO FAR AWAY…NOT TOO FAR FROM CHRISTI, SWEET CHRISTI, WHO UNDERSTANDS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN SOMEONE'S WORLD IS CRASHING.

Monday—12:00 p.m.—school cafeteria

During English, Period 2, our Word for the Day all scrawled on the board by Mrs. Bentley, who is NOT
young and definitely NOT cool, but she wrote a special
word for me, like she's got ESP or something:
A N G S T.
We had to copy the definition, mainly a list of synonyms: fear, dread, worry, apprehension, distress, anxiety. And while I wrote the info in my Composition
Notebook, all filled with doodles in the margins and the strange drawings in the middle of my notes,
something rang true. Maybe this was MY tattoo. MY
word.

If my brother is DEATH Tat Boy, then maybe I should become an alternate hero. Defend the guys who get picked on, right? Protect the fearful, stressed-out, apprehensive dudes of the world. Like myself. My first mission? Conquer Death Tat Boy. Grind 'im into pulp!

I pulled out my compass and touched the sharp point. A lot of kids carve stuff on themselves; that's the kind of shit Will might do. So I thought again and dug for my markers, the permanent ones. My choices:

red—like blood when it hits the air

blue—in the veins, flowing and honest

maroon—internal organs—livers!!

black—vampires and bats and Grass Arnold

yellow/orange—Christi and hairweed

It marched across my left forearm, and it was very fascinating, not boring like whatever Mrs. Bentley was going off about, and I was staring at it and realizing how VERY cool it looked on me.

Gomez, from the desk behind, draped himself over my chair so he could whisper in a hissing sound that scattered a little spit: “Arm Art—sweet.”

And now, when I stare at the wandering, slick, colorful creation, it's exhilarating, but it still does not erase Will's threat of rat poison or the creepy discovery of his DEATH tattoo, or my parents sending
ME
away instead of him, and it's all a reaction, like dread. Exactly like the definition says.

And now at lunchtime I wear that word and it's my badge.

Tuesday—5 p.m.—Frank's porch

Today I rode Shy down some side streets in a residential area to reach the trails, and passed a
house with a sign ROOM FOR RENT taped to a yardstick
and stuck in the dirt. Perfect! So I tied Shy to the fence and peeked over the gate. Huge—almost half an acre. Room for a horse back there, plus no fancy landscaping to get ruined. Shy could wander around and not get hurt, even though chain link isn't the safest thing for horses, but he would be okay.

I knocked on the front door, and a hairy guy wearing a wife beater opened it while some vicious-sounding dogs went off behind him.

“Shaddup!” he yelled, and these two pit bulls lurched forward, bashing into the screen. But I smiled anyway and prayed the screen door was strong.

“Hi. I saw your sign out front.”

“Sure. Let me put the beasties in their yard, and I'll show ya the setup.”

“Oh. You keep the dogs in the back?”

“Usually. Their doghouse is on the porch out there, so these two pretty much rule the property.” One of the dogs nipped at the screen, leaving some slimy drool on the surface. “Shaddup!” The man pushed against the dog's neck with his knee.

“They look like nice pets, but, um, I guess I've changed my mind. Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem!” He grabbed the animals by their collars and dragged them backward so he could slam the door. They were still barking when Shy was three houses away, with me remembering Frank's horror story about a pit bull killing a miniature horse a few years ago.