Ride Steady

by Kristen Ashley

  And he drew a picture of the goatee guy with his son working on the car.

  Only when it was done—and he was sure his dad had either passed out or was in a decent mood because he got off—did he go home.

  * * *

  “A minute, Carson,” Mr. Robinson called as everyone filed out of his classroom.

  It was the last period. He was good to go home. He didn’t want to go home but it was better than being at school. He hated school. Bells telling him where he was supposed to go next. Teachers telling him what (they thought) he was going to do when he got home. Rules about what you could wear, what you could say, where you could be, how you could act.

  Totally hated it.

  Still, Mr. Robinson was the shit. He made class fun. He dug teaching and didn’t give a crap that everyone knew it.

  Half the girls had a crush on him.

  Half the boys wanted to be history teachers when they grew up.

  Because he liked the guy, Carson walked to his desk.

  “Yeah?”

  As Carson was walking to the desk, Mr. Robinson got up and rounded it. That was another way he was cool. He didn’t sit behind his desk like a dick with some authority and lord over you that way. He also didn’t stand behind it like he had to have the desk between so you wouldn’t infect him with high school loser-ness.

  He got close. Man to man.

  Respect.

  Yeah, Carson liked him.

  “You good?” Mr. Robinson asked when he stopped close but not too close. Friendly. Natural.

  “Yeah,” Carson replied, not asking why he’d asked because he had a bruise on his cheek and one on his temple so he knew why Mr. Robinson asked.

  Carson didn’t hide it. He never hid it. Everyone saw it. They always did.

  He didn’t really care. It was his life for now.

  Then he’d be gone.

  But only Mr. Robinson would call it out. School had started over a month ago, the first time he had Mr. Robinson’s class, and the man had been giving him looks for a while.

  Carson knew right then the teacher was done with just looks.

  Mr. Robinson leaned a hip against the desk and put a fist to his other one. He then tipped his chin to Carson’s face and dipped his voice quiet.

  “Looks like something got rough for you recently.”

  “It’s all good,” Carson lied.

  Mr. Robinson gave him a long look before he sighed.

  Then he said, “Talked with some of your teachers.”

  Carson said nothing.

  “Your grades are good, Carson, very good. Especially for a kid who only half the time turns in homework.”

  Carson had no reply to that either.

  “You turned it in more often, you’d be on the honor roll,” Mr. Robinson shared.

  Carson had no interest in the honor roll.

  He had an interest in saving for a car, then saving every dime he could make, and the second he turned eighteen, getting the fuck out of Dodge.

  Something moved over Mr. Robinson’s face when Carson didn’t reply. It was something Carson had never seen. He hadn’t seen it so he couldn’t get a lock on it. It could be pity. It could be sadness. It could be frustration. Whatever it was, it made Carson feel warm and cold at the same time.

  “You’re exceptionally bright,” Mr. Robinson said quietly.

  “Thanks,” Carson replied lamely.

  “I’ve been teaching seven years and not once have I come across a student with your capabilities.”

  What?

  He didn’t ask but Mr. Robinson told him.

  “You think with both sides of your brain. You excel in shop. You excel in art. You excel in chemistry. You excel in trigonometry. And you excel in history. You do this simply by paying attention in class and making a half-assed attempt at studying when you’re home.”

  Carson was a little shocked the man used the word half-assed but it only upped his cool factor.

  “You have no test anxiety,” Mr. Robinson went on. “Your teachers have noted you pay close attention and take copious notes in class. When you’re there, you’re there. We have you. Totally. I wonder, if you applied yourself, what that could mean.”

  “Not much, and it doesn’t have to, seein’ as alls I’m gonna be is a mechanic,” Carson shared.

  “I take issue with ‘all you’re gonna be,’ Carson. A mechanic is a worthy profession,” Mr. Robinson replied instantly. “Though, not an easy one. You have to study to be a mechanic.”

  “Know that,” Carson muttered.

  “I figure you do. And if you want it, you’ll be a good one. But it would be a shame if you were a mechanic when you had it in your head to design cars, engineer them. Make them maneuver better. Safer. Or use different forms of fuel.”

  “Hardly got that in me, Mr. Robinson,” Carson told him the truth.

  “How would you know?” Mr. Robinson shot back.

  Carson felt his body still.

  “Usually, by your age, teachers can see where students are leaning,” Mr. Robinson continued. “Where they have aptitude. Languages. Arts. Science. Math. Computers. Manual skills that are no less admirable than any of the rest. Some can show partiality to several of these. I’ve never met a student who shows gifts with all of them.”

  Carson shook his head, not getting why the guy was on about this crap. “Nothin’ special about me, Mr. Robinson. Just a kid who likes history.”

  “No, you would think that, seeing as whoever puts bruises on your face or makes you take your seat at your desk slowly because your ribs hurt would make you believe nothing about you was special, Carson. But the truth of it is, they are very wrong, and so are you.”

  He wanted that to feel good.

  But he wasn’t the one who was wrong.

  Mr. Robinson was.

  He liked the guy. Respected him.

  But they were not talking about this.

  “We done here?” Carson asked and watched the teacher’s head jerk.

  “Carson—”

  “I dig you give a shit, but none of your business.”

  “Car—”

  “So, we done?”

  Mr. Robinson shut his mouth.

  It took a couple beats before he opened it again to say, “If you ever need to speak with someone, I’m here.”

  “No offense, your class rocks, you’re the best teacher in the school, everyone thinks so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  “That’s a shame, Carson, because I can help.”

  Okay, enough was enough.

  “Yeah?” he asked sharply. “Can you give me a ma who gave a shit enough to hang around to see me start crawlin’?” Carson asked.

  Mr. Robinson’s lips thinned, “I—”

  “Or give me a dad who wasn’t okay with leavin’ me at eight to go out and get laid so the neighbor lady had to bring over food so I’d eat?”

  Mr. Robinson’s face turned to stone. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Sixteen, almost seventeen, less than two years I gotta wait, Mr. Robinson. Been waitin’ a long time to be free, now you wanna fuck that up for me?”

  “If we spoke with the principal—”

  “What? And get me in foster care? Make my dad pissed at me for more than just breathin’?” He shook his head again. “That shit gets out, it’ll make all the kids pity me or say jack to me, which would not go down too good so other shit would go down and I’d get suspended or expelled. Dude, when it’s over and I’m gone, I won’t have much, but I stick with my plan, at least I’ll have my degree.”

  “I see you’ve thought this through,” the man remarked.

  “Only thing on my mind since I was eight.”

  That and Carissa Teodoro. But she hadn’t entered his mind until he was thirteen.

  Mr. Robinson closed his eyes.

  He felt that. He didn’t like that.

  Carson couldn’t help him.

  He had to focus on helping himself.

  “
I’ll get through,” Carson declared and the teacher opened his eyes. “Got neighbors who look out for me, so it isn’t as bad as you think. Means a lot, you give a shit, but I got it under control.”

  “Then if you take nothing from this, take from it that you have a teacher who cares and will look out for you, too. More than just me, we all believe in you, Carson. So if you take nothing from this but that, it won’t make me happy, but it’ll be something.”

  “That means a lot too,” Carson returned, his voice weird, like thick and gruff, a sound that echoed what he felt in his gut.

  While Carson was feeling that and, not getting it, before he got a lock on it, Mr. Robinson swooped in for the kill.

  “One day, Carson Steele, you’re going to be a magnificent man. I don’t know how that will be. You could be president. You could eradicate disease. Or you could be a master mechanic who builds amazing cars. But whatever it is, it will happen. I believe it. And one day, you’ll see past what you’ve been taught and you’ll believe it too.”

  Carson didn’t share that he probably shouldn’t hold his breath about that either.

  Then again he couldn’t. The thick in his gut was growing, filling him up like he ate way too much, but not in a way that made him need to hurl. In a way that made him want to take a load off, sit back, and just feel the goodness.

  Since it was all he had in him, he just again muttered, “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” Mr. Robinson muttered back.

  Carson moved to the door.

  “Carson?” Mr. Robinson called when he was almost out of the room.

  Taking in a deep breath, he turned back.

  “Don’t forget this conversation,” the teacher ordered. “Any of it.”

  Like he ever would.

  “Got it,” he confirmed.

  Then, fast as he could, he took off.

  * * *

  Carson stood with his back to the pole at the bottom of the bleachers at the high school football field. He did this listening to the posse of girls sitting above him.

  They had no clue he was there.

  Freshman football game. One of Carissa’s stupid, bitch, up-her-own-ass girlfriends had a brother who played.

  But they weren’t there to watch the brother play. They were there to say mean crap about the freshman cheerleaders.

  All but Carissa. She didn’t talk much. She smiled a lot. She cheered and kicked and flipped around better than any of the others. But she wasn’t a talker.

  But now, her friends had stopped saying bitchy things about the cheerleaders.

  Now they were talking about him.

  “I’m so gonna go there. Jenessa said he rocked her world,” Brittney spouted.

  “I would go there just ’cause he’s hot,” Theresa declared. “God, he wears jeans better than any guy in school.”

  “You guys are gross. He’s a total loser,” Marley stated. “He barely says anything. Just wanders around school, brooding. Doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t even hang with the stoners or hoods. And he totally knows how hot he is and uses it to get into girls’ pants. It’s lame.”

  “I’m not gonna date him, just get laid by him,” Brittney replied. “My dad would have a conniption if I brought someone like Carson Steele home. He’d get me, like… a chastity belt or something.”

  Peels of giggles.

  Carson tipped back his head and looked up through the bleachers.

  The girls were all turned to each other, not paying a lick of attention to the game, but Carissa was leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes to the field, mouth shut.

  She wasn’t even smiling. Definitely not giggling. And the graceful line of her jaw was kind of hard.

  Fuck, but she was pretty.

  “Jenessa said he,” Theresa’s voice lowered, but not by much, “went down on her. Like, put his mouth right between her legs and everything!”

  “Totally gross,” Marley murmured.

  “Hard… lee,” Brittney returned. “God, I’d pay him to go down on me.”

  “He’d take your money, seeing as he could probably use it,” Marley told her. “Can the guy wear anything other than jeans and T-shirts?”

  “I’ll give him money if he gives it and gives it good and then goes on his way,” Brittney shot back.

  “I think I already weighed in on the jeans, but Marl, seriously, it would be a crime to put anything on that hot bod but one of his skintight tees. Lush.” The last word out of Theresa’s mouth was like a breath.

  “You do know, he’s a person,” Carissa put in.

  “What?” Theresa asked.

  “Carson Steele. He’s a person,” Carissa announced.

  “Yeah. A person of the male persuasion that Jenessa says has a really big dick,” Brittney replied on a giggle that was met with Theresa’s giggles.

  “I’m sure,” Carissa said coldly. “He’s also really smart. He’s always getting picked for the Beat the Brains Team when Mr. Robinson does games in his class. He knows everything about history, so no one ever beats him. And he might not have a lot, but he’s also got a job so he doesn’t get given everything, which isn’t a bad thing. At least that’s what my dad says. And Theo and his jerk friends were being mean to that kid with all that awful acne and Carson just walked over to them, crossed his arms on his chest, and they scattered. Didn’t say a word and they took off. That was cool, and it was a cool thing to do. And Theo and his friends don’t do that kind of thing anymore, not if Carson is around.”

  “Does Aaron know you have the hots for Carson Steele?” Brittney asked bitchily.

  “I don’t have the hots for him,” Carissa returned sharply, and Carson felt his gut lurch. “I just think he’s a nice guy. And he doesn’t deserve some girl pretending she’s into him just to get in his pants. He’s a person. He has feelings. And if you did that, Britt, that wouldn’t be cool.”

  “Goody-two-shoes,” Brittney muttered.

  “Maybe, but I’d rather be that than be mean,” Carissa fired back immediately.

  “All right, calm down, I won’t play with Carson Steele,” Brittney replied.

  Carissa didn’t say anything. She looked back to the field.

  “I need a Coke,” Theresa decreed into the tense silence. “Does anyone else need a Coke?”

  “Coke? Are you crazy? There are more calories in a Coke than there are in a piece of chocolate cake,” Marley stated.

  “That’s not true,” Theresa returned.

  “I’ll go. Get a diet. Anyone?” Brittney asked, rising from the bleacher.

  “I could get a diet,” Marley said.

  They all rose, except Carissa.

  “Riss? You wanna come?” Theresa asked.

  “I’ll stay here, save our seats.”

  Carson looked to the rest of the bleachers. They weren’t even half full, and there was no one anywhere near the bitch girl crew.

  “Okay,” Theresa said quietly.

  “Whatever,” Marley muttered.

  They took off.

  Carissa remained.

  He watched her lean further forward and put her jaw in her hand, her eyes to the field.

  He wondered if she was thinking about him.

  He figured she wasn’t. She was cool, she’d had his back, but he would be the last thing on her mind.

  He studied her, wishing he knew what she was thinking.

  And as he studied her, knowing she had her eyes to the field but her thoughts somewhere else and they didn’t look happy, suddenly he remembered about her sister.

  Everyone knew about Carissa Teodoro’s sister. It was a long time ago, but what happened was so ugly, no one forgot.

  Freak accident. Tragic. Even his dad flipped out about it.

  She’d been a little girl, riding around on her tricycle in the driveway. Folks were over at her parents’ house. Not a big party but enough people a little girl got lost. A couple left, no one knew she was behind the car. They couldn’t see her in their rearview, ran right over her.
Crushed her to death. Right in her own driveway.

  If that hadn’t happened, the sister would be a freshman. If she followed in Carissa’s footsteps, she’d be a freshman cheerleader.

  He remembered his dad going on about it. Remembered it even if he’d only been about six at the time.

  It wasn’t something you forgot.

  Looking at her from below, her face soft, her thoughts somewhere else, he figured she hadn’t forgotten either, and he wondered if she sat at a freshman football game thinking her sister should be cheerleading. He wondered if it crushed her to think those things.

  And he hoped she didn’t because he didn’t like the idea of her feeling crushed.

  His eyes never leaving her, Carson wanted to call to her.

  No, he wanted to go sit with her. Put his arm around her shoulders. Tell her how he felt that she took his back with the bitches who were so bitchy he didn’t get why she called them friends.

  He didn’t do that.

  He heard gravel shifting and looked from Carissa.

  Julie Baum was headed his way under the bleachers, a smile on her face.

  They were meeting there. A date.

  Or the kind of dates Carson Steele got.

  She wasn’t going to introduce him to her parents either. Her folks thought she was at the game with her girls. Carson would buy her a burger, find someplace to fuck her, return her to her friends, and they’d take her home.

  He’d get off.

  She’d get off too.

  Then she probably wouldn’t think about him, except when she could arrange another meet where she could use him to get off and still do what she could to catch that football player’s eye. The one with no neck that had a dad who was a surgeon.

  Which was okay with him.

  It was because, not including the no-neck football player, he would do the same.

  * * *

  Carson’s boot connected with his dad’s face and the man didn’t even groan when his head snapped around.

  Out cold.

  Carson stared down at him, lifting a hand to wipe the blood pouring out of his nose from his mouth.

  Then he spat on him.

  He was two months away from eighteen. More than that from graduating.

  But fuck it.

  It was time to leave.

  He’d never laid a hand on his father, but tonight was bad. The man had been in a rage. A frigging rage about a new oil stain on the floor of the garage.