The Cake is a Lie (18 page)

“
You go to Einstein,
Mike?”

“
Uh what?” He tilted one eye
towards me, “Aw ya, I went to this bitch. I used to run shit. I
used to run game on some tricks. You should of seen it...” His eyes
didn’t have pupils, they were just pure red. His fro was buzzed
off. I still didn’t know how old he was, my best guess was three
years older. Kace was asleep in the passenger seat, his crisp, flat
billed baseball hat was pulled down over his face, an unlit
cigarette in his fingers.

From Mike’s sound system one of my
favorite new rap songs echoed through the night. “Da-da-diamonds on
my neck, da-da-diamonds on my necklace, tokin’ pounds of green,
tokin’ pounds of green.”

“
..I got your shit hol’ up.”
Still lying back, Mike felt around his seat for the recline switch,
clearly fighting through some temporary coordination challenges.
When that failed, he just reached over to his central console where
some nugs were lying in the cup holder. Blindly, he grabbed a few
in a handful and then brought his hand slowly and delicately
towards me, like he was playing a claw machine. On the way, one
fell into his lap and then rolled down into a crevasse.

“
Oh no you didn’t you lil
mo’fucker” He grimaced at the runaway. Wide-eyed I took the
generous portion of weed as if the cashier had forgot to ring
something up.

“
Where you guys coming
from?” I asked.

“
We went to a party down
south, it got all fucked up. Them city boys think the burbs is
soft, just no respect. They started punk’in Kace, but loco Choppy
started swinging on their whole crew.” My intestines coiled at the
mention of south Seattle, where kids thought Mike and Kace were
soft. Shoreline separated from Seattle when I was seven because my
parents didn’t want their kids bussed into the city for school,
part of the school integration program. I looked over to Brandon to
see if Mike had the desired effect yet, he looked tiny and
self-conscious. I remembered the way I felt when I first saw
Mike.

“
Sheeaaat, whatta they say?
Just do it, right?” In one motion, Mike rolled over his dead body
weight out of the car onto his feet. From there he reached into the
air for a big stretch. His body unraveled into a terrorizing
size.

“
So what up, we gon smoke
some bowls or what?”

“
Nah man we gotta get home,”
I’d been around the block and knew a bad situation when I saw
one.

“
No way lil’ homie, I didn’t
drive all the way out here, and hook you up phat, to not smoke some
bowls.”

I looked over to Brandon, “He did hook
it up phat.” I say persuasively, as if we had a choice. Brandon
nodded.

“
You got a pipe,
Mike?”

“
Choppy does, look at
fucking Choppy, straight curbed.” He took out his lighter and threw
it into Kace’s lap.

Kace popped up alertly, “You
mo’fucka.”

“
No,
you
mo’fucka, we need your
pipe’ola.”

Kace picked up the lighter and lit his
cigarette, he took a moment and then scanned around until he saw
Brandon and me.

“
Is that Ledoux?” Kace got
out of the car and grabbing his belt to keep his pants up he hopped
over to greet Brandon warmly.

While they talked Mike started throwing
shadow punches at me, stopping just barely before making
contact.

“
Damn I’m quick. You can’t
stop that.” I stood very still and tried not to encourage him,
hoping he’d go away, like how you’re supposed to react to a
bear.

“
Fight me,” Mike
said.

I looked Mike right in the eye, “No,
I’m not fighting you,” I said irritably like “duh,” hoping a frank
response with a hint of sassiness would surprise and fluster
him.

“
Fight Kace.” He responded
instantly. There was no flustering Mike.

At the mention of his name Kace looked
over like “just give me the chance and I will fucking kill
you.”

“
No.”

“
Man you pussy. Fight your
homie then.”

“
Brando would woop that
ass.” Kace remarked. Brandon didn’t say anything, in front of
alphas he was a different person.

“
I’m not fighting anyone.”
My cheeks were turning red in the night.

“
Aight, how bout you fight
each other or your shit’s my shit homie. That’s
wass’up.”

I felt as helpless as a convict. It
wasn’t the threat that upset me the most, it was how cool he was
able to say it. I flashed back to the night Mike and Seth made me
beer bong a pop and I threw up the rest of the night. And my 16th
birthday when Mike and 15 of his homies gave me my birthday
“bumps.” My arm was black and blue for a month.

I thought through a few counter
arguments in my head, “I thought we were tight Mike? You’re gonna
do me like this?” None of them would work on him, it wasn’t even
worth trying.

I protested by not responding while I
slowly turned my back and began walking towards the light of one of
the street lamps hanging over the bus turn around. My parents
messed up, I thought, I can barely hurt someone’s feelings without
getting upset.

I stoically unzipped my jacket and let
it fall to the pavement. Brandon came to meet me. His notorious
hyper-competitive switch was fully engaged.

I can be hard, I don’t give a f.
Brandon thinks he’s so tough. I’m going to wail on him, no mercy.
It doesn’t matter if he’s bigger than me, I’m going to win through
sheer will, fueled by an endless supply of pent up
anger.

I lifted my hands. He came in and we
clash in a violent fury. I ducked my head down and threw my hands
blindly over my head as fast I could.

“
Look at this foo with his
head down, keep yo head up.” I heard Mike shout. “Oh shit he’s
wailing on em.”

The sides of my head went numb. “THWAP
THAMP” I lost my breathe so fast, I got so tired. Eventually I’d
rather get hit than keep having to hold my hands up. I plopped down
onto my rear and covered my head.

The Church’s sanctuary was packed.
Sitting behind the alter, I was preparing my psyche for the
inevitability that I was about to embarrass myself in front of all
these people. Take your time, I reminded myself. Worst case
scenario just look down and read the speech word by word.
Nervously, I rolled and unrolled the copy of my speech.

The summer before junior year I’d gone
on a humanitarian trip to Mexico. It had been passed time I’d got
some real revolutionary street cred to back up all my in-your-face
wisecracks about billionaires and sweatshops.

So it came to be that I’d climbed in a
truck bed and bumpily rode twelve hours into the Mexican rainforest
to visit a town built out of tied together pieces of wood and
straw. I’d seen the small, Indian looking wrinkly people with awful
teeth that lived in the dirt. I’d played with their children
dressed in torn, dirty Mickey Mouse shirts. I’d slurped up the
lumpish acrid soup made from the local river water, and the girl’s
sitting next to me, in order to not offend our hosts. It had
supposed to be this life altering, consciousness expanding
experience, but it wasn’t. I’d spent the majority of my time
thinking about how I was going to sneak off to smoke a cigarette
and conceal the smell afterwards. Constantly stressed about my acne
breaking out. I’d spent the rest of the time fantasizing about the
one cute girl in our group.

I couldn’t speak Spanish, let alone the
indigenous language. I’d kept snootily illustrating how clean and
amazing Seattle was to the community translators that were our age,
not super intentionally, I mean, they’d kept asking. The richest
man in the town had owned something that resembled an itty bitty
convenience store he ran out of his house. He’d also owned the only
T.V. Disillusioned, I’d watched a hundred people pack outside his
hut every night to watch Mexican soap operas. The kids had lied
flat on the floor, crammed in rows of ten, to watch a light-skinned
woman with fake breasts run around holding TWO glistening desert
eagles.

After we’d got home my last obligation
to the group was to give a speech to the church’s congregation
about my experience. The perfect Lakeside twins had even took the
initiative and wrote a huge speech that they divided up for
everyone. “The Lakeside twins” were tall, white fro’d twins from
our group that went to Lakeside, the country’s best high school.
They lived in “The Highlands,” Shoreline’s ultra-wealthy gated
community–we’re talking pastoral woods spruced with modern
castles.

I couldn’t talk shit about the twins,
they were great guys. Maybe a little snooty to a public school kid,
but they couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t help that I wanted to
nail the speech and blow them out of the water after all the
snobbish condescending looks they’d given me. Them and the rest of
the super-wealthy, private school kids that made up our group. I’d
even had my mom help me practice for a whole two days. Memorizing
the lines, looking smoothly side from to side, pausing in the right
places, pacing myself.

I squeezed the copy of my speech
tighter and tighter. A girl, Angela, was up at the podium speaking.
She was a teenager affiliated with another project loosely
organized through the church. She was reporting back to the parish
on their group’s effort to remodel a local homeless shelter, and
she was killing it.

“
By expanding the women’s
wing we’re going to double the cot capacity by December.” She was
fluid, and clear, a great speaker. Her dirty blond hair was tightly
pulled back into a cascading ponytail.

“
And we couldn’t have done
it without your support,” She finished to a standing ovation. Feet
rumbled thunderously in the balcony above me.

Angela went to an all-girls Catholic
school. Her rich parents had managed to preserve her purity. Every
time I looked at her it irked me. She thought she was so smart and
perfect. What did she know about blowing blunts? I’d aced finals
straight toasted black before.

Angela stepped down from the pew and I
reached out to give her a high five as she sat down.

“
You killed it.”

I could corrupt her, I reassured
myself.

The first Lakeside twin stepped up to
the alter to lead our group off. It was show time. His face was
colorless. Uh oh, I thought, Mr. Lakeside looks shaky.

He didn’t make it a sentence before his
first slip up, “Each speaker will tell you about a different aspect
of our…um, um, uh…journey together.” I cringed and looked away. I
felt his embarrassment. It was a train wreck but he bumbled his way
to the end. It wasn’t just the pauses and the “ums,” he just
sounded terrified. A rush of relief ran over me. I couldn’t look
worse than that. He’d done much better at the morning service. I’d
been the one to pause and bumble in front of the ten
elderly–probably partially deaf–early risers scattered amongst the
empty pews.

The Lakeside twin stepped off the alter
with a bummed out look on his face, he smiled disappointedly to us
and lowered his head in shame.

His brother stepped up to bat. And he
blew it too. At this point my smugness was starting to kick in, I’d
been to the twins mansion, I’d seen their castle, literally it
looked like a castle. The twins were supposed to be better, they’d
been raised to be better. I gave the second twin a mean smirk as he
finished.

It was my turn, I stood up, in my head
I was still rehearsing some of my lines. “After all the community’s
selfless hospitality, it was a special moment watching Friar Pepe
fight back his tears when we gave him the congregation’s donation
for their new parish.” Time sped up as I climbed up to the podium,
I looked out onto the sea of flowery dresses and sweaters. These
people don’t care, I remind myself, they’re just here to support
us. I took a deep breath and began.

“
Unfortunately, we couldn’t
stay long with Friar Pepe, eating up
all
of his Tamales,” I paused for the
laughter, “But we had one more gift for him before we
left...”

I nailed the start and the momentum
carried me into a zone. I scanned the crowd, smoothly speaking from
memory. I even got a little cocky with it. I let words linger, drew
out pauses more, added extra kindheartedness in my voice. I
finished to a standing ovation. Still shaking a little bit I
stepped down from the podium with my head held high. The next girl
from our group stood up.

“
Great job,” Angela said as
I walked past her, the twins sulkily congratulated me too. I felt
like I’d just kissed ten girls.

Afterward my dad kept looking at me
speechless, like I had some special secret gift he’d just
discovered. It was priceless. I was quickly moving on though. It
was already three and I had to get home to get ready before heading
to Ian’s. We were rolling that night.

Through the glass I watched the city
pass by in the night. I had the window cracked so I could whif the
street vendors, dumpsters and restaurants. “This is it, this is
it.” Ian alerted Katie and she swerved her Corolla to the side of
the road.