The Summer I Died

CHAPTER 5

I woke to the sound of sparring insults, pots clanging, and something sizzling in a pan downstairs in the kitchen. The smell of coffee was like an uppercut to my brain, thick as mud even with the covers over my head. There was some laughter, then an angry harrumph, then what sounded like a plastic cup bouncing on the tiled floor.

“Don’t you have a home?” I heard Jamie say.

“Yeah, but I ran away because I didn’t want to be king anymore,” came Tooth’s reply. “Too many responsibilities. I beg of you, poor farmer, let me live with you and understand the people.”

“Roger! Come get your loser friend away from me!”

Ah shit, didn’t she ever shut up? Throwing back the covers, I forced myself out of bed and looked out the window, attempting to stretch but not finding the strength. The windowpane was warm already, promising another humid day.

Throwing on a robe, I shuffled down the stairs as if none of the bones inside me were actually connected to anything, and slumped into one of the chairs at the table. My vertebrae cracked like someone walking on dry twigs. Tooth was eating some eggs with little pieces of something purple in it and I didn’t want to know what it was. Actually, yes, I did.

“What the hell is that?” I poked at it with my fingers.

“Fruit Roll Up. I found it in the pantry.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope, I can’t eat eggs unless they have something in them. It’s like eating a hamburger without any ketchup, which you don’t have any of by the way.”

“I found him down here rooting through our food like a shit-covered rat.” Jamie scowled as she sat down with her bacon and eggs. “There’s fucking Fruit Roll Up goo all over the pan and I am not cleaning it.”

“I take back what I said about you developing.” Tooth sneered with purple teeth. “You’re still as annoying as ever.”

Jamie flung a piece of egg at him. “Shut up, scavenger.”

I left them to bicker and trade more insults, which was plainly enjoyable for both of them. Scraping some purple goo out of the pan, I cracked a couple eggs open and poured myself a glass of milk while they cooked. There was a small basket on the counter near the refrigerator, filled with little bits of this and that, the kind of stuff that should go in the junk drawer but somehow managed to make a deal with the warden for better accommodations. I rummaged around in it while the eggs sizzled in the purple bacon grease, which spat and popped onto the burners. A key from some unknown lock, a pin from St. Patrick’s Day, a couple nails, some paperclips, rubber bands, a Formula 409 magnet that had come with a free sample in the mail. I decided on a pair of dice my folks had bought on their trip to Vegas last year. They were red with white dots and said Snake Eyes Casino on them over the ones.

They had gone on that vacation alone, the first time without Jamie and me. Jamie had relished it because she was in that stage where parents are worse than homework. But me, I sort of missed the family vacations we’d had. The fighting, Dad’s manic need to make good time, Jamie and me dividing the backseat with an imaginary line. Instead, I’d had to stay home and watch Jamie, who’d spent the week at her friend’s house, no doubt fawning over magazines with some Hollywood pretty boys on them.

I tossed the dice up against where the counter met the wall and wagered on how long I could stand these two squabbling before I lost my temper. Finally, Jamie stood up and dropped her dishes in the sink, noisily.

“Mom said I can have the other car while they’re gone so you’re shit out of luck.”

“Fine with me,” I said, happy to be getting rid of her. “But I thought you had to have an adult in the car when you go driving.”

“I will. Tracey’s cousin is twenty-three and he’s coming with us to the mall.”

“What mall? Only mall near here is down in Manchester and that’s over an hour away.”

“Yeah, and if you tell Mom, I’ll tell her about the time I caught you and Mervyn trying on her underwear.”

I smiled. She was trying to play hardball but she wasn’t very good at it. Fact was, despite my run-in with the law, my parents trusted me more than they trusted her. Stealing lawn ornaments was one thing, but getting caught smoking dope in the attic with your friend was another. And she was, naturally, the offender of the second.

“That never happened,” I replied, juggling the dice now, “and even if you make up some stupid shit to get me in trouble, it’ll never work. Mom doesn’t trust you anymore.”

“Oh, yeah-”

“Why don’t you go pop that huge zit on your nose?” I knew that would piss her off. She had perfect skin, but her crazy teenage vanity turned every tiny bump into Mount Olympus.

“Fuck you,” she screamed, and with that, stormed out.

I sat at the table with my eggs and rolled the dice as I ate. Outside, the sun was high and the air coming through the window smelled of cut grass and pine needles and baking dirt. A murder of crows flew from a tree in the woods out back and sat on the power lines over the driveway.

“I want to go shoot my 9mm today,” Tooth said.

“Dude, how many guns do you have?”

“Just two. I would have got them long ago if it wasn’t for you always worrying what your mom would say. But you looked pretty happy shooting that.44. Gave you a hard on, didn’t it? I told you it would.”

I didn’t want to let on how much firing the gun had affected me, but it had certainly turned my nuts into giant Epcot Centers of steel. The sense of power was unfathomable; suddenly I was the mightiest thing in existence, all men bowing before me. With the squeeze of a finger I could undo all of God’s creations. Truthfully, I couldn’t wait to try the 9mm.

I rolled the dice; they came up seven, a lucky number if ever there was one.

“Okay,” I said. “But let’s go somewhere different. I didn’t like being so close to the road at that other spot. And besides, you and I still go there so maybe other people do too and I don’t want to shoot some fucking dude traipsing through the woods on his way to down some suds.”

“Fair enough.”

Just then the phone rang. Tooth leapt up and grabbed it, said, “Starlet Productions, you swallow the cream, we give you the green. Oh, hi, Mrs. Huntington. Yeah, Roger’s right here.”

I took the phone from Tooth, and waved him away. “Hi, Mom.”

“How much green we talking here?” she laughed

My mom was pretty cool, all things considered. “Only thing Tooth has that’s green are the skid marks in his panties. How’s Grandma?”

“Oh, great. She thinks she has Psittacosis.”

“Sounds bad.”

“It is, if you’re an owl. I don’t know where she gets this stuff from.”

“She’s not an owl, is she?”

“An old bird, yes, but there’s nothing wise in that addled brain.”

“Be nice. She gives me money for Christmas.”

“I’m glad I taught you not to be superficial.”

“I’m just kidding. I love the old bird.”

“Hey, you can’t call her that until you’ve lived with her for eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years with an owl?”

“Well, she can’t get her head all the way around yet but I doubt it’s for lack of trying. You and Jamie haven’t killed each other yet, have you?”

“Why, would that be bad?”

“It would if you got blood stains on my rug. Blood doesn’t come out without professional cleaning equipment.”

“I’ll lay down some tarp.”

“Good. But try to do it outside, if you could.”

“Agreed.”

“Is she up yet? I want to talk to her.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “I’ll get her.”

“And, Roger?”

“What, Mom?”

“I love you. Sorry we had to take off so quickly after you got back.”

“No sweat. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

I didn’t realize I didn’t say I love you back, and I don’t think she thought too hard on it-she knew I did-but I regret it now.

I put the phone down and hollered for Jamie to pick it up upstairs, then went to take a shower.