Sidecar Page 8

  “What did you want to forget so bad, Casey?” Joe asked, and Casey couldn’t look at him.

  “It’s your fault, you know,” he said, meaning it and seriously pissed off because it was true.

  “What is?”

  “You said you were mad at me because you gave a shit and I scared you. And I thought….” Casey squished his eyes shut so hard he saw stars. “I thought that meant they were worried about me.”

  Joe grunted, but Casey still couldn’t open his eyes.

  “So I called them up, right?” God. His hands had been shaking so hard on Joe’s rotary dial phone. He’d had to try three times, and he’d been so surprised he remembered the number, even though they’d lived in that house his whole life.

  “What’d they say?” Joe’s voice was so soft, it was almost a whisper.

  “It was Mom, right? And she… she sounded glad to hear from me at first, you know? Like she was so excited and almost in tears. And… I didn’t know Dad would be home, which is stupid, because it was after six, you know? He’s always home after six.”

  “So that’s good, right?” Except Joe had a sound in his voice, like he knew what came next, and Casey snapped at him in irritation.

  “Would I have gotten this high if it was good?”

  “No.”

  “It was great! For a minute, I thought I could… I love it here, Joe, I do, but you keep telling me to be a kid, and I thought, you know, maybe—” He couldn’t finish because it sounded so lame and so ungrateful. He’d been living a good life here, and the thought that he would leave it, willingly, just—

  “You wanted to go home and be a kid again,” Joe said softly. “It’s okay, kid. I get it. You don’t have to feel ashamed.”

  Casey nodded and wiped his face with the back of his hand, feeling worse now than he had at the beginning, when he’d gone through three rolling papers to make his first joint. “What the fuck ever,” he mumbled. “I just thought it would be nice if they knew where I was, and for a minute, it was great. Mom wanted to know if I was okay and if I had a place to stay and if I was getting enough to eat, and I told her yeah, I was in school, and I had a job, and she’d be real proud of me, and she… she sounded like she used to. I’d come home with a good report card and she’d be happy for me, you know, before I hit high school and suddenly Dad had to just be there to fuck with everyone and make sure they all knew I was fucking perfect and everything.”

  There was a silence, and he looked up at Joe, only to find those fine, wide, brown eyes looking back at him with what seemed to be immeasurable patience. Casey knew it was only partly true. Joe could lose his nut like everyone else on the planet, but right here, right now, he was simply there, waiting, without judgment or hurry. Casey wiped his cheek again, with the flat of his hand this time.

  “My dad started shouting,” he said, hearing the sharpness, the anger, in the background all over again. “He told her to ask me if I was still a fag.” Casey swallowed and looked at Joe helplessly. “I mean, I turned down a date with Dev to make this phone call, right? He’s… he’s getting damned good at the hand job… thought we might progress from there… and she’s asking me if I’m still ‘one of them’ and I’m thinking, ‘One of what? A boy? A high school student? What the hell am I one of?’ and I say, ‘I still like boys, Mom,’ and suddenly Dad’s got the phone and he’s shouting at me that I didn’t get to come home, ever, if I was still a sissy little—”

  Joe didn’t let him finish the sentence. Suddenly Joe wasn’t on the big stuffed chair, he was on his knees in front of Casey and holding him so tight as Casey sobbed in his arms.

  He cried hard, the pot and the beer loosening that thing in him that would have let him stop, and before he was done, he was all but sitting in Joe’s lap and whimpering on his shoulder. Finally, finally he was down to whimpers and chin quivers and deep, shuddering heaves of breath, and that was when Joe finally said something.

  “My sister,” he said quietly, “she was something really special. She… she would make me these no-bake cookies, with oatmeal and cocoa powder, or frosting and graham crackers—every day, after she got home from school.”

  Casey nodded like he understood, content to let Joe’s resonant voice wash over him and tell him a story.

  “And she loved me. She was… she told me stories and sang to me. My older brother was maybe a little too old when he was born, but he’s also sort of ornery—doesn’t ever relax, I guess—but she and Peter never really got along. Paul and David were only about thirteen months apart; they played like twins, and Cheryl—well, she was jealous of me because she thought she should have been the baby. But Jeannie loved me. I was her favorite, and I thought the sun rose and set in her hair.”

  “She sounds wonderful,” Casey said, thinking his mother hadn’t loved him that much—even when he’d believed she loved him, she hadn’t loved him that much.

  “She was wonderful,” Joe whispered. “She died when I was six.”

  Casey gasped and looked sideways and up at Joe and thought maybe the pot had done something to him too, because his eyes were really red and watery, just like Casey’s felt.

  “How?”

  “She… she went out with a boy, and he talked sweet to her, and then, after the Valentine’s dance, he didn’t talk to her at all. He spread all these rumors, which were true, right, and he should know, because he was there too. And then she went to a drunk butcher with a fold-out table to try to take the baby out of her belly because she was so afraid… so afraid of letting us down.”

  Casey found he was patting Joe’s shoulder and crying again, this time without the earth-shattering sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “The thing is,” Joe said, talking straight over Casey’s shoulder like he was talking to air, “the thing is, she was so afraid of what we would say, that she… she literally got killed trying to hide who she was. And my folks—they would have been disappointed, sure. But they wouldn’t have yelled at her, and they wouldn’t have hurt her or kicked her out. I know that, sure as the sun would rise. But the thing is, she never asked. See, kid, as fucked up as your folks are, at least you had the courage to ask. You have the courage to ask, you have the courage to live your life, you see? So you got slapped down, and I’m sorry, but I’m so proud of you. God, kid. You’ve got so much heart.”

  Joe sounded wobbly, and for a wild minute, Casey hoped. Casey hoped that Joe would break down and sob too, so Casey wouldn’t feel like such a pussy. But Joe really was older than he was, and instead, he pushed at Casey until Casey stood up and then turned and gave Joe a hand up.

  “You go to bed, kid,” Joe said fondly, his voice almost steady. “I’ll clean up the ice cream.”

  “What are you gonna do with the pot?” Casey asked, looking fearfully at the last few joints, like someone was going to make him smoke them for punishment.

  “Flush it down the garbage disposal with some baking soda.”

  Casey turned a shining smile at him. “God, Joe. You’re the best man on the entire face of the planet. We really gotta get you a VCR.”

  Joe squinted at him. “That again? Why?”

  “Because next time I feel like getting high, maybe I’ll just watch a movie instead.”

  With that, Casey wandered off to bed. He woke up headachy and queasy the next morning, with a mouth that tasted like recycled pig shit, and a solid knowledge that getting high was really not his thing.

  He got out of bed and showered first thing, because although he didn’t have to work until later that evening and he wasn’t scheduled to be in school that day, his BO could have knocked a shit bug into a dead coma. He padded out of the bathroom wearing scrubs because they were cheap, comfy, and Joe brought home plenty, and was surprised to see Joe sitting cross-legged in the front room with a rather hefty piece of metal and plastic on his lap. He was reading a set of directions with the patience of a hound dog waiting for spring by a winter’s fire.

  “What are you doing up?” Casey asked.
Joe usually slept in after a run of twelves. “And what the hell is that?”

  Joe squinted up at him, bleary-eyed. “I never went to bed,” he confessed. “I cleaned the house, went upstairs and sanded the drywall some, and then went out to town first thing this morning.” He looked down at the object in his lap. “I bought tapes for it,” he said, almost disconsolate in his befuddlement, “but I can’t figure out how to set it up.”

  Casey, who had still been a little tired after he got out of the shower, was now completely awake. “You bought a VCR?” The thought made him dizzy.

  Joe looked back down at the mess of cables in his hand. “Don’t get excited, junior. It’s not like it’s working yet.”

  God, Joe was exhausted. Casey had a sudden thought that Joe might seem like a grown-up, but coming home to find your sixteen-year-old ward high as a kite and breaking his heart must have been a new experience, even for Joe.

  “Here,” Casey said, keeping his voice soothing. “Tell you what. You go sleep for a couple of hours, and when you wake up, I’ll have breakfast made and the damned thing set up, okay?”

  Joe’s relief almost had smell. “Really? Can I take a shower?” Or maybe that was Joe himself.

  “Yeah, big guy. Go take a shower, put on some scrubs, be dead to the world, okay?”

  Joe nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll… I’ll….” He wobbled for a moment, even as he sat. “I’ll do something when I get up.”

  “You plan on that.” He’d been awake for nearly thirty hours, by Casey’s estimation. Casey wondered if he could get someone to sub for him at work, just so he could make sure Joe would be okay that night, and then shook off that thought. He’d go rent The Breakfast Club and see if maybe Joe could catch up on his pop culture education.

  But first, he bent down and lifted the VCR off Joe’s lap and put it on the couch, because it was frickin’ heavy, and then gave Joe a hand up. Joe smiled beatifically, and Casey slung an arm over his shoulder to steer him down the hallway. He probably would have killed that same shit bug Casey had worried about when he’d woken up, but Casey didn’t mind. There was a simple trust in him that Casey enjoyed. Joe was good people. It was okay.

  And after he heard the water running, indicating a shower and (probably) a better sleep when Joe was out, Casey sat to figure out the VCR—which was not nearly as hard to him as it had been to a befuddled Joe—and managed to get it hooked up to the television. There was a bag full of used VHS tapes that came with it, and Casey’s eyes watered just looking at them. Splash, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Footloose—Joe might not know about it or even understand it, but he certainly got Casey, and if Casey wasn’t so embarrassed from his cry the night before, he might have sat down and had another one.

  As it was, he set up a roast and some potatoes and broth in the Crock-Pot and then sat down and watched Footloose, thinking both that Kevin Bacon was really hot and that Joe, in his quiet, patient way, had been right. Casey had had the courage to ask—and even if he’d been turned down, he at least knew, for certain and in his heart, that right here, on Joe’s old couch, eating cold cereal in hospital scrubs, was exactly where Casey belonged.

  A MONTH later, Casey lay on the couch in the dark, waiting to see if Joe would prove him right or make their entire time together a colossal lie.

  He was on the couch because his room was being used, and his room was being used by a pretty girl named Stacia with a nice rack and hard eyes.

  Stacia had offered Casey a blowjob when Casey had gotten off work, if only he’d give her some leftover food. She’d been wearing jeans—thin in the seat and the knees—and a sweater that was almost too warm for March weather. Her dirty blonde hair was ragged at the ends, like it had been cut to layer and perm but all the styling had come out.

  Casey had told her that they’d compacted all the leftover food for the night, and then asked her if she wanted to come home with him to Joe’s.

  The invitation had been issued without thinking. Joe had taken Casey in, so Joe would probably take in other people. But as Casey had tried to explain Joe to her, her eyes had narrowed and her look had turned speculative.

  “Just lets people stay in his house? Sounds like a sucker. Why haven’t you taken him?”

  Casey glared at her. “Because he’s a nice guy. And if you try to take him, I’ll kick your ass!”

  Stacia rolled her eyes. “Don’t get all snippy. It would just be nice not to have to turn tricks for food, right?”

  Casey revised his hasty plan to kick her out as soon as he reached Foresthill proper, and tried to think like Joe. “How long have you been on the road?”

  The sigh she gave was shuddery. “What is it, March?”

  “Yeah. Almost April.”

  “I ran away with my boyfriend in September. Shit… shit didn’t go well, you know?”

  Casey sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” God. Since September? He’d been on the streets for two months, and he’d been ready to die.

  She looked at him speculatively. “Well, you seem to be doing okay. Your guy a pervert? He keeping you around like a toy?”

  Casey shook his head, taking a deep breath as they crossed the Foresthill bridge. It always freaked him out, no matter how many times he drove the old pickup over it. The damned thing felt vast around him anyway, and the wheel felt like it was wider than his shoulders. Putting it between the lane lines and pressing the accelerator was always an act of faith that the ancient land yacht really wasn’t as huge as it seemed.

  “No,” he said shortly, clenching his hands on the wheel. “He’s a good guy. I’m not taking you with me if you keep bad-mouthing him. He doesn’t deserve that. And if you hurt him or try to take from him, I’ll kick your fucking ass.” Maybe it was the stress of crossing the bridge that put something hard in his voice, but she seemed to take the threat seriously.

  “Okay, okay! I’m just wondering. I got into a car with a strange man, geez!”

  Casey looked at her sideways and shook his head. He knew this was a bad idea.

  Joe apparently knew it was a bad idea too. Casey had given her some sandwiches and the Kwell and the speech about a bath, and a spare set of scrubs, and he’d put her clothes in the washer while she’d been soaking in the tub—but he’d also taken all his valuables and stashed them in Joe’s room, and then made sure the bathroom door was locked from Joe’s side too. Joe kept a stash of cash literally in the ceramic cookie jar shaped like a curled-up cat, and Casey debated whether or not to move that too. Finally he just left it and figured if Stacia was going to steal the cash, maybe she’d leave all the other stuff, like the VCR, which Casey was just enjoying the holy hell out of.

  But when Joe got home and saw Stacia sitting at the table, on her third bowl of soup, the look he shot Casey was hesitant. Casey shrugged. “This is Stacia. She offered to blow me for food.”

  Joe gave a helpless, troubled laugh. “That is desperate. Yeah. Okay. So, Stacia?”

  The girl looked up from her soup, and Casey tried to look at her face through Joe’s eyes. She had wide, peasant cheekbones and unremarkable hazel eyes—once she got older, she would no longer be pretty, and if she didn’t do something to ease the bitter lines around her mouth, she’d be pretty unappealing on a lot of levels. “Yeah?” she asked suspiciously.

  “We can feed you and get you some clothes. How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” she said, her voice sort of desperate, and Joe rolled his eyes.

  “In how many years?”

  She deflated. “Three.”

  “Good God. Okay. We can get you to social services in the morning, okay?”

  Her mouth thinned and flattened. “I’m not going back home.”

  Joe nodded. “Well, okay. They might not make you go back, but the fact is, you can’t stay here, okay?”

  The girl looked sideways at Casey. “He does,” she said suggestively, and Joe shook his head and walked to the cupboard where he kept the Tylenol.

  “Yeah, but he’s a special case,” Joe
muttered. “Special head case is more like it. Kid, I’m gonna feed the outside cats. Can we talk for a second?”

  Casey looked sideways at Stacia and wondered if she’d figured out the thing about the cookie jar yet, but he followed Joe because that seemed prudent.

  “I’m sorry.” He winced when they got out to the garage. Joe gave a scoop of cat food to the feral cat and turned to him, leaning on the still cycling washer.

  “Kid….” He shook his head again. “It’s not like your heart wasn’t in the right place, I get that. But… but….”

  “It’s what you did for me!” Casey said defensively, and Joe grimaced.

  “You were different,” Joe said flatly.

  “How?”

  “For one thing, you wouldn’t have slit my throat to make a buck!”

  Casey had to concede that was true. “But how did you know that? For all you knew I was some sort of baby serial killer!”

  The old white washer was unbalanced, and it gave a thump behind Joe that made him turn around and glare. “Look, did I mention the heart? Being in the right place? Wasn’t shitting about that. But Casey—you were special, and not just because you helped me after I got hurt, okay? She can’t stay.”

  Casey nodded emphatically. “Oh thank God. I keep worrying about the cash in the kitchen, and I’m not going to sleep well tonight!”

  Joe laughed. “The cash she can have. But next time you feel like bringing home strays, maybe stick with a dog?”

  Casey brightened. “Can we get one? I’d really love a dog!” He’d been throwing sticks for Rufus over the fence. Now that the dog wasn’t hurting Joe, he seemed pretty decent. Casey was a fan.

  Joe patted the old washer, which continued to thump away. “Yeah, we’ll see. Maybe if we live through the night, we’ll celebrate by getting a dog.”

  They both grunted and straightened their shoulders. Yeah. But first they’d have to survive the night.

  They ate and Joe went up to work on the upstairs some more. Normally Casey would have gone up to help him. The master bedroom needed everything from new carpet to drywall to new plumbing fixtures, and it had been their ongoing project since pretty much after Christmas. They’d put the drywall up in February, and Joe had been sanding drywall for a month to try to get the whole room to look seamless. Casey quite frankly wouldn’t have given a shit about seams from the drywall, but it seemed to be something Joe took pride in, so sand they did. Casey’s job lately had been pulling carpet staples out of the hardwood, and the two of them had been debating whether to replace the hardwood or just recarpet all over it, which seemed a shame, since the floor was original. (And didn’t match the first floor wood at all. Casey had spent long hours wondering at the mental deformities of the complete assholes who had built this house.)