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Aurnia
Some kids get backyard treehouses with tire swings and a string of fairy lights. Some kids get a plastic playset out front. Other kids get the gutted trunk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass from the ’80s in a junkyard along the freeway.
I’ll give you three guesses which kind of kid I was and the first two don’t count.
Cars whizzed by just past the rusted chain-link fence, nothing more than noisy blurs in my periphery. You could only see a little bit of the freeway, but that was only because the rest of it was blocked by large stacks of crushed cars. Old, battered-up parts littered the muddy ground around our hangout.
Jack sat on an engine, groping around the back of his mouth for something or other stuck in his teeth. Lee was across the way stacking back up the empty beer bottles along the top of what used to be the back seat of a car.
Had little kids sat on that back seat when it had been a working car? Had they been scolded by a mother for being too loud? Had they dripped ice cream on it during a Sunday ride?
The smack of Mia’s bubblegum beside me snapped me out of my thoughts. She was in the trunk beside me, long legs draped over the bumper as she tossed a stone up into the air. A devilish grin curled up her full lips just before she hurled her stone at Lee. It hit him right in the back as he was putting up the final bottle and he howled in pain.
“Feck orff, Mia,” he shouted, swatting at the bottles in retaliation. “You can put dem up now. How about dat?” He leapt out the back and stormed toward us.
Mia responded by throwing another stone at Lee. He tried to avoid it, but it still glanced off his shoulder. He picked up an old sawed-off pipe from the ground and hurled it without hesitation at her.
I shielded my face with my arms. Mia just laughed as it clanged noisily on the trunk beside her and fell harmlessly into a large puddle by the long dead tire.
“Yeh couldn’t hit your Momma’s arse if it was wigglin’ right there in front te ye,” she taunted Lee, her dangerous eyes fixed on him. “But ye don’t have to worry about that, do ye?”
Lee shoved Mia over and flopped with an irritated sigh into the trunk as well.
“Right,” he grumbled, “like yer mam is on her way with orange slices and wet wipes as we speak, gobshite.”
Mia stuck her tongue out at Lee, who flipped her off.
On the engine, Jack flicked a piece of stringy meat from the tip of his dirty finger and rolled his eyes. “Would you two just get a room already?”
Mia sent her sharp eyes toward Jack. “Sure t’ing,” she said, “you payin’, Daddy?”
I wriggled myself farther away on the trunk. Things just felt…off. I don’t know if Dublin Ink had changed me or being on parole or he-who-would-not-be-fucking-named, but I was no longer at home in the junkyard where I’d practically grown up with Jack and Lee and Mia.
I felt the dampness of the old carpet in the trunk, smelled its mould. The exposed bolts jabbed at me when they hadn’t before. I was more cautious than ever before of cutting myself on the sharp, jagged edges and needing a shot. I felt like a stranger in a place I used to know like the back of my hand. I felt like a stranger amongst people who I thought I knew better than anyone.
I had to change that. I just needed to warm back up to them. This was, after all, who I was. Where I belonged. This was, after all, my “family”.
“What about the money from the jewellery store?” I asked, glancing between them.
“You really have been gone a long time, ain’t ye?” Mia said with a snort. “Nick took it all.”
“What?” I asked.
“Every last fockin’ cent,” Jack grumbled. His hands were back in his mouth so it must not have been just that one stuck piece of meat.
Lee, ever restless, pushed himself from the trunk and began to pace in the mud in front of the Cutlass. “Said it was his ‘territory’.” Lee kicked at a rusted piece of metal. “Said that it just wasn’t how things ‘worked’. Just going out and taking ‘whatever we wanted’.”
The last time I saw the three of them they were eager to be accepted into Nick’s gang. That’s practically the whole reason why they (and me along for the ride) decided to rob the jewellery store. For Nick’s approval. For Nick’s praise. For Nick’s acceptance. The attitude had certainly shifted.
“You know,” I said, careful over every word, “we could just, you know, do something different for once?”
Lee stopped pacing. The fingers fell from Jack’s chapped lips. Mia turned her head and assessed me with a sharp look.
“What d’ye mean?” she asked.
I shrugged, trying to act casual. Why did it feel so difficult? So forced? These were my friends, weren’t they? I shouldn’t have to be cautious about what I said, how I said it. Should feel I was amongst family and not like I was in enemy territory negotiating some sort of tenuous peace.
“I don’t know,” I said, “I just mean that it seems things are only going to get worse with Nick. With the whole…” I waved vaguely, “scene.”
