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w back part one part two part three part four part five // henry by Mark Spencer & Shawn Chuisano _______________________________________________________________________________________ w w w That
night Josh and I were riding our bikes along the streets of our crappy
town, our paintball guns hanging from our belts. I was tempted to
shoot all the losers we drove past. Some guy changing the oil in
his junker and pouring it down the sewer grate. A fat guy with no
shirt on and guzzling beer in a lawn chair. A skinny dude sitting
on his stoop, dragging on a cigarette like he thought he was cool
because he was such a total loser. Some old whore standing in her
doorway with her stringy gray hair in her face, leering at me and Josh,
like that witch in the Hansel and Gretel cartoon movie I used to
watch when I was little. In
the yellow street lights the losers all had shadows hanging from their
faces. They looked like zombies. Josh peddled hard to keep up with me.
“So what are you going say to him?” he asked me as he came along
side.
“I’m not going to talk to him. He’s not going to see us.”
“We’re going across town to see him, but you’re not going to talk
to him?”
“Yeah. I’ve done it before.”
“Why?”
“Hold on.” I motioned for Josh to stop. “That’s it.
We’ll dump our bikes here.” We walked our bikes over to some
bushes and left them. Then we snuck up to a little house where my
dad lived with his new wife. We got close enough to see through
the living-room picture window. Then we hid behind a tree.
“Do you see him?” Josh asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, what’s he doing?”
“Just sitting there. Watching the TV.”
“Is he watching Cinemax? My dad loves those soft-core porns on
Cinemax.”
“No. It looks like a show about birds. That’s all he
ever does. Just watches shows about animals.” Josh stepped out from behind the tree so that he could see, too.
Dad
had civilian clothes on. On the TV, birds were feeding worms to
their chicks. “Hey, hide, dude,” I said. Josh got back behind the tree. Josh was a pretty small guy, like me.
“Brandon’s got a dvd about animals eating each other and
their own babies. . . . Does your dad watch cop shows?
“He says he hates cop shows. If you ask me, he’s not much of a
cop. He’s never even shot anybody.”
“He looks tired.”
“You think so? You think he looks tired?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he look sad?”
Just
then Jenny, his new wife, walked into the living room. She was
real young. At least Mom always made the point that Dad had robbed
the cradle. Jenny looked like she was about to bust with that new
kid of hers and dad’s. She could hardly get around on her stork
legs. Her stomach was like the medicine ball we had to toss around
in gym class. She leaned over Dad and slobbered on him.
Josh
was out in the open again next to the tree. “That your step-mom?
She knocked up or got some tumor or what?”
“Jenny the Ninny, my mom calls her. He didn’t waste any time
finding himself somebody new.”
“Your mom didn’t either.”
Jenny
stopped slobbering on Dad and sat down next to him, and they just sat
there, watching the bird show together.
“Mom was lonely.”
“You know, dude, this isn’t real interesting. How long we
going to stay here?”
“Okay, I guess we can go.” We started walking back to our
bikes. I looked back at the house once.
“What did you want to see?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I wanted to see if he
was sad. My mom’s always sad. I want to know he’s sad,
too.”
“Your mom always seems pretty happy to me.”
“She’s not. She’s not happy at all.”
“Was she happy before your dad left?”
“No.”
“What you got against your dad?” “Well, like right now, my mom needs money, and he won’t give her any. And that thing about the park.”
“Did he
really get you banned?”
“Pretty much. He wouldn’t stand up to Krebs.”
Josh and I got on our bikes. “Yeah, Henry, your dad should have
shot him for complaining about you attacking him.”
“Speaking of Krebs, come on. We’re going to go pay him a
visit.” *
* * After twenty minutes of hard pumping, mostly uphill, Josh and I were
lurking in the shadows, holding our paintball guns, doing recon in the
parking lot outside Taco Yummy. There weren’t many people
interested in spending the night puking their guts out, so the place
wasn’t very busy--only a family of losers (mom, dad, two snotty-faced
kids) who must have actually liked the food or, to be fair, I guess I
should say that maybe they were from out of town and didn’t know
better.
Josh
and I could see Brandi and Krebs through the big windows. Krebs
had her backed up against the soda machine and kept touching her arm
with his greasy fingertips and grinning and nodding, and Brandi was
fidgeting a little and most of the time was looking out into the dark
parking lot, but when she did look him in the eye she tried like hell to
smile like Paris Hilton.
A gawky, pimply kid named Edward was working the counter. Edward
was Geek Boy Galore.
They all looked completely stupid in their Taco Yummy uniforms,
especially the caps, which were made to look like crispy tacos.
“Look at that pervert,” I said.
“Yeah, Edward’s a fag.”
“Not Edward. Krebs.”
“Your sister doesn’t seem to mind.”
“She’s too stupid to mind. She can’t take care of herself.
She’s like retarded.”
“She’s not in Special Ed, is she?”
“She makes good grades. She just doesn’t have any common
sense. Well, dude, there’s Krebs’ car.” I pointed at Krebs’ late-model Cadillac parked way off by itself so
that nobody would park near it. “Caddy. Tacky, man. If he had any taste, he’d have a Jaguar. If he had a Jaguar, we couldn’t be doing this.”
“Come on.
Payback
time.”
We marched toward that Cadillac like we were both Arnold in Terminator,
bent on destruction. We raised our guns, and the paintballs
started popping against the shiny paint, the shiny chrome, the shiny
windows.
I moved all around the car to get complete coverage.
“Hey, look!” Josh said.
The noise of the paintball guns had gotten Krebs’ attention, and he
came out of Taco Yummy, roaring like King Kong.
“Hey!
What’s going on?”
“Hasta la vista, baby!” I said, and we jumped on our bikes
and hit light speed. We waved our guns in the air and shouted a
few obscenities to show how good we felt. The ride was all down
hill, so we just coasted, feeling good.
In front of my house, Josh and I grinned at each other.
“You think he recognized us?”
“Who cares? Besides, it was pretty dark out where we were.”
“Okay,
dude.” Josh was nodding. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See ya.”
As
he started to ride away, he said, “Looks like Dog’s here.” He pointed at Dog’s Harley in the driveway.
“Yeah, great,” I said.
“Bow wow, dude.”
I waved.
Inside, Mom was on the sofa with Dog, who was dressed the only way I’d
ever seen him--jeans and a leather vest that let him show off his
tattoos. They were both drinking beer and watching a video tape
called Animal Attacks!
Dog looked at me and saluted with his beer can.
Mom waved her cigarette and said, “Come here. Give me sugar,
Henry. My little boy.” She was plastered.
I went to her, and she hugged me with a beer in one hand and a cigarette
in the other, smelling all beery, and then she accidentally burned my
cheek with her cigarette.
“Jesus, Mom!”
Dog laughed. “She does it to me all the time, kid. And
just for fun. Look.” Dog held up his forearm for me to
see. It had several cigarette burns on it.
“I wasn’t doing it for fun.”
“Then for what, woman?” “I was doing it because you won’t give me any money.”
“I don’t have no money.
Hell, I’m hiding out here from the
repo man so I don’t lose my Harley.”
“What good are you, Dog?”
“You know what I’m good for.” Dog gave her a nasty look, and I
wanted to puke.
“What you need the money for, Mom?”
“Something I need real bad.”
“What?”
“It’s like an operation.”
“You need an operation?”
“I need . . . ah . . . .”
Dog said, “You might say, kid, she’s got a condition.”
“I’ll give you a condition, Dog.” Mom slapped him but was
only playing. She seemed to actually like this guy, but only
because she didn’t know better.
“Really,
Mom, what is it?” I said. I was getting worried and kind of
pissed off that she wouldn’t tell me what was going on.
But Mom was busy wrestling Dog and didn’t hear me.
“Is it something serious? Mom?”
“What?”
“Hey, kid, isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Yeah. Go to bed, Henry.”
I looked at them for a minute. “Okay. I’m going to bed.
But I think you’re both jerks.”
I started to walk toward my bedroom.
“Say your prayers,” Mom said.
“Huh?”
“Pray for money! For your old mom!” She started laughing
like a hyena.
Dog squeezed her to him, her face against his scratchy cheek. “You’re crazy, woman.”
I
went to my room, left the door open, and flopped on my bed. I
could still hear them giggling in the living room. Then they were
quiet for a while. I was starting to fall asleep when I heard them
talking again.
“Damn,
woman. Your belly? And that big? You know how long
that’s gonna take to heal up? You’re gonna be hurtin’ a month of
Sundays.”
“I gotta do it, and I’m sick of waiting. I’m sick of waiting
for everything. Go steal that money for me, Dog.”
I heard Brandi come in. “Hey, Mona. Hey, Dog.”
She
passed my bedroom door, the crispy taco cap still on her head. She
didn’t even look at me, but she said, “Hi, dork.”
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