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Dirtbag comes straggling into the room looking like he’s just tumbled through a spin cycle.
“No breakfast?” he complains by way of a greeting.
“I’ll get you something,” my mother says, bustling around in search of something to feed Dirtbag. He helps himself to a seat at the table and I’m in danger of dry heaving when I see him make a grab for my mom’s rear end.
However, she seems pleased, turning around with a smile and then briefly running her fingers through his greasy hair. I’ll never get over my disbelief about seeing my beautiful, intelligent mother go from being treated like a queen by my father to hunting crumbs of affection from losers like Darren.
“Get me some coffee too,” Dirtbag orders my mother and then notices that I also live here. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Shouldn’t you have a job?”
“Watch your mouth, junior.”
“Eat shit, asshole.”
He pouts and addresses my mother. “Michele, your kid’s got a hell of an attitude. You know I work plenty. I deserve some time off.”
My mother is uneasy, looking from one of us to the other. “I really wish you would both make an effort to get along.”
No, I won’t be making an effort do a damn thing except extend my middle finger. Apparently Dirtbag feels the same way because he waits until my mother’s back is turned and then he gives a hard kick to my right kneecap. It’s more annoying than painful and I throw him a look that’s supposed to say ‘Are you fucking serious?’ but he doesn’t get the message because he just grins like a cartoon cat.
This clown really ought to think twice about challenging me. He’s twice my age, his gut looks as soft as a pillow and I know how to pack a punch. Bennet Drexler was a third degree black belt and Ben Beltran got to keep those skills, which came in handy after arriving in rough and tumble Devil Valley. I must have been in ten fights within my first month here and only after I squashed both the McGill brothers in one battle did everyone else decide that I was worth some respect. The McGills never gave me any trouble after that but I’m sure the memory sticks with them. Which is why they backed right the fuck off the day I made it known that Camden Galway is off limits.
I get a pain when I think about it now, the way she’d dashed into the store with her eyes wide, looking over her shoulder because the dreaded McGills were hunting her. The brothers live just down the street in a corner house where the front yard always looks like a landfill. They prey on anyone they believe is an easy target and I would have gone out of my way to keep any girl out of their trashy claws. But the fact that they were coming after Camden made me feel especially primal even then, even before it truly dawned on me that she was really special. I would have gladly suffered a few bruises to keep her safe. And maybe I should have told her that straight up, instead of being a dick and playing hot and cold games for weeks.
Anyway, after spending the night thinking about a thousand and one ways I could have better handled the situation with Camden I’m in no mood to deal with Dirtbag’s antics.
Taking note that my mother’s back is still turned, I jump to my feet and before Dirtbag can so much as flinch I seize a fistful of his stringy hair and slam his ugly face into the hardwood kitchen table. He howls and there’s blood and my mother screams but I didn’t use nearly as much force as I could have. Dirtbag might have a broken nose and he’ll need some tissues to mop up the blood but he’ll be fine. Or at least he’ll be no more hideous than he usually is. I’m not worried he’ll call the cops because he’s already got a long history of being on their bad side.
“BENNET!” my mother shouts. It’s not often that she slips and uses my real name. I ignore her, grab the car keys from where they hang on a nail next to the door and make an exit before things can get worse.
I’m driving down the street when I realize that while I had the presence of mind to grab my jacket, this time I’ve left my phone behind. Being without a phone sucks but I’m not returning to that scene of fresh hell in order to get it.
I don’t have a destination in mind. Somewhere outside of Devil Valley but not Black Mountain. My mind has lost track of the time and I don’t even realize that the bus is due to show up any minute.
Then I turn the corner and I see Camden.
She’s standing in exactly the spot where she was standing the day she caught me looking at her the instant a cold gust of wind blew her skirt up. She’s not writing in her notebook now. She’s not looking at her phone or chatting with Mrs. Copella. She just stands still and stares straight ahead as if she’s thinking. Or waiting.
She’s facing in this direction, the direction where she expects to see me appear and I’d give a lot to know if she’s hoping for or dreading my arrival. She doesn’t notice the beat up red car that pulls up to the curb along Cardinal Street and she doesn’t notice that she’s being watched by the driver.
We were so fucking awful to each other yesterday.
I wish I knew how to not be awful. I wish I had all the right words on the tip of my tongue and that I could give them to her. I wish she was sitting in the seat beside me right now. I would tell her that I’m sorry. I would tell her about this morning’s debacle with Dirtbag and how there’s an unseen war raging inside me and that sometimes I just want to stand in the wilderness where no one can hear me and scream. I would tell her that I miss my father. And I would tell her that whoever I am and whatever name I’m attached to wants to be with her. Because she’s beautiful. Because she drives me nuts in the best way. And because there’s not another girl anywhere who can compare to her.
The bus appears and the moment of opportunity passes. Camden glances down the street one last time and her shoulders sag with disappointment before she trudges up the steps of the bus.
I stay put until the bus is gone and then I yank the car out of park. Halfway between Devil Valley and Black Mountain there’s a turnoff that leads to Angel Peak State Park. I don’t expect there will be many people hiking around in the woods on a weekday with snow on the ground and sure enough, aside from a guy who’s got an expensive camera setup pointed at the designated lookout point, there’s no one around.
My fingers become stiff after five minutes on the trail but I’m wearing my boots so at least I don’t slip and slide all over the ground. There’s nothing special enough about this area to be a huge tourist spot, not like the more well known landmarks looming over the town of Black Mountain. There’s a picnic gazebo a few hundred yards up ahead and it’s deserted, the canopy covered with snow, cobwebs in the charcoal grill. But beneath the canopy is a long table, the kind that my Devil Valley neighbors keep in their backyard for summer cookouts where seventeen extended family members show up and everyone eats hot dogs and laughs about someone accidentally setting fire to the living room couch twenty years ago.
The Drexlers were never that kind of family. My grandparents were dead by the time I was three and my mother had already lost her family when she married, so my memories only include the families of Uncle Gannon and Uncle Layton. The adults would drink from expensive bottles and the men would bicker in low voices while my mother and aunts had passive aggressive conversations about handbags and marble floors. My oldest cousins were rarely around and I wished they’d take the twins from hell with them but Angus and Grey were present a lot more than I cared to see them. During a pool game Angus once held my head underwater until I started to black out. Another time he and Grey asked me if I wanted to see something cool and ushered me over to a backyard corner where they unearthed a mass grave of decaying seagulls they’d killed with pellet guns.
And then there was the time my mother’s cat – a soft, trusting calico named Betsy – disappeared. The following Christmas, while the adults were preoccupied with their liquor, Angus cornered me and bragged that he’d smothered the cat and dismembered her body.
Deep in my left pocket my fingers connect with a wrapper and I pull out a Milky Way bar that I’d stowed in there last week and forgotten about. It’s a nice surprise because I’m hungry and as I tear the wrapper off I can’t help but think of my dad. This was his favorite candy and he kept a glass jar filled with the miniature versions on the cherry wood desk in his office. He let me know I could sneak in there and take some anytime I wanted even if my mother was shouting that dinner would be served in five minutes. He always wanted to see what new tricks I’d learned in karate or hear about my baseball games and he paid attention to my report cards.
He was a good father.
