When I Grow Up (Tales from Foster High)

by John Goode

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t care. I ran at Billy, ready to kill him if I could. I was not in any way intimidating, evidenced by the way he almost casually backhanded me to the ground. It hurt, but it was nothing, I’m sure, to the right hook Tyler slammed into his chin. The sound was like a fleshy gunshot and Billy’s feet literally left the floor. For a second he floated there. Then gravity hit and he fell down like a bag of potatoes.

  I got up and was ready to kick him until he bled, but as soon as I got to my feet and took a step, I was tackled from behind. Troy hit me hard, and once again I ate linoleum.

  “Get the fuck off my dad!” he roared as he began to hammer a fist into my head.

  I curled up into a ball and tried not to die.

  “Get the fuck off him,” a voice bellowed through the ICU. I must have been hit harder than I thought, because it sounded just like Brad.

  There was one more blow and then nothing. I lay there with my eyes closed.

  I cracked one eye open finally. Sure enough, Brad stood there with his hand wrapped around Troy’s throat.

  “Listen up, G.I. Joe. The last guy who tried that with me around walks with a limp, and he was a Marine. Touch him again and there won’t be enough of you for dental identification.”

  Troy was petrified.

  “I’m going to let you go. Even look at him wrong and we’re going to have a different kind of conversation. Got it?”

  Troy nodded.

  Brad released him, and he inhaled frantically as he stumbled back.

  “You okay?” Brad asked, holding out a hand to me.

  “I have never been more okay in my life,” I said in complete awe as I stood up.

  “Need your boyfriend to fight for you?” Troy spat at him.

  “I ain’t his boyfriend. Keep talking and you’ll find out what my fist tastes like up close,” Brad fired back.

  “You’re not?” I asked Brad, completely not caring about what was going on around me.

  “Not now,” he said back to me, refusing to make eye contact.

  “Stop this at once!” Childs exclaimed.

  “I wanna press charges.” Billy said around the blood coming out of his mouth.

  Robbie fired back at him, “Try it, crackhead. Want to bet not one person in this room saw a damn thing?”

  “I saw it,” Troy protested.

  “Shut up, boy,” Billy snapped automatically, and Troy scowled. “Call the cops; I’m pressing charges against both of them.”

  Before anyone could answer, Tyler said in a low voice, “Yeah, Billy, call the cops. I’m sure the pistol in your hoodie is registered all legal-like, right?” Billy paled and looked over at him. “And you can’t be on probation, so just carrying it can’t be a violation, right?”

  Billy visibly deflated in front of us.

  “What did that mean?” I asked Brad.

  He gave me a side glance and said, “You know exactly what it means. This was your idea.”

  Childs started talking before I could respond. “I want everyone out of here now. No one is to be in that room unless it is visiting hours, and even then one person at a time will be allowed in for no longer than thirty minutes. If you want to call the police, you may, but not from in here. As of now, the ICU is off limits.”

  No one moved until Nurse Redmon came rushing toward us. “You heard the man. You two,” she snapped at Billy and Troy. “Collect your stuff out of that room and get.” She looked at Brad, Tyler, and me. “That goes for the three of you too. Door’s that way.”

  We all started shuffling away in our respective directions when Sebastian came barging in. “What did I miss?” he asked, looking around. “Oh, man, did I miss it?”

  “Out!” the nurse barked, and we all picked up our paces.

  Brad still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Can we talk?” I asked him as soon as we were out of the ICU.

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “You know I hate violence,” Robbie said to Tyler.

  “Coming from the guy who racked me on our first date,” Sebastian muttered.

  Robbie shot him a death glare and then went back to Tyler. “It is never the answer and you know where I stand.” Tyler nodded. “That being said, you should have hit the bastard again.”

  Matt and Jennifer walked in, looking confused. “Why is everyone out here?”

  “Come on,” I said to Brad, motioning to the exit.

  As Tyler filled them in, we walked out and found a bench in the hall to sit down on.

  “How are you even here?” I asked once I had my thoughts settled.

  “Robbie thought you needed me here.” His voice wasn’t cold; it was apathetic.

  “I do. Thank you for coming.” I was too scared to even touch him.

  “You needed help. Of course I came.”

  “I’m sorry about what I said in California.”

  He looked over at me. “Let’s not do this now. Your mom is still in there, and you need to be worrying about that. We can talk when this is all over.”

  He didn’t sound like the Brad I knew at all.

  “Promise?” I asked as everyone else was coming out of the ICU.

  He looked at me, and I could see the hurt in his eyes. “I’ve never broken a promise to you, Kyle. I don’t plan on starting now.”

  His words hurt more than any physical blow could have.

  “So now what?” Tyler asked me like I knew what I was doing.

  “I don’t know. That was my last plan,” I admitted.

  The doors slammed open and Troy came rushing out with Billy hot on his heels. “I was trying to help you!” he screamed at his father.

  “I need you to do what I say!” Billy screamed back and then saw he had an audience. Discretion being the better part of being a fucking coward, he looked at the crowd of people scowling at him and just turned and left. They both exited toward the elevator.

  I needed to finish this.

  “Billy, wait,” I said, standing up, garnering a whole slew of shocked looks from everyone else. He turned around and looked at me expectantly. “Can we talk for a second?”

  “You ready to end this?” he asked.

  I walked over to both of them. “I am. You win. Sign the papers and let my mom get the surgery.”

  “Get me my money first.”

  “It’s Sunday, but I can go to the ATM and grab some money out.”

  “I don’t need no four hundred bucks. I need fifty grand, and I want it now.”

  “Well, unless you want to rob a bank, I can’t get it, and she needs that operation.”

  “Then you better hope she can hold out until tomorrow” was all he had to say.

  “Can you please just try to be a human being,” I pleaded.

  “I am a human being,” he answered. “A human being that needs fifty thousand dollars.” The elevator opened and he and Troy walked in. “Be here tomorrow morning if you want to do business.”

  Troy jabbed a button and the doors closed on me.

  I was officially out of ideas.

  Brad

  I HAD never seen Kyle look so low in my life.

  He came back from the elevator looking like he had just been shot. It was pretty obvious his dad was every bit the asshole Matt had made him out to be. “He won’t do anything until he has the money in his hands,” he told us.

  “You’re going to pay him?” Robbie asked, sounding shocked.

  “You want me to wait until my mom is a vegetable?” he almost screamed.

  I walked to him and put an arm around him. “He’s just asking,” I said quietly.

  He shrugged my arm off. “And stop trying to handle me. I’m not a crazy person.”

  “You’re acting like one,” I replied, taking a step back. He gave me a hurt look and I added, “I’m sorry, but you are. Everyone here, we’re on your side. Yelling at us isn’t going to help.”

  He looked like he was ready to fight; then he sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”


  Every part of me wanted to pull him into a hug, but I knew that was the wrong move, so I looked at everyone else. “So, food?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Sebastian said, his voice booming. When everyone stared at him, he smiled, obviously embarrassed. “Sorry, my inside voice is broken.”

  I smiled and looked at Kyle, who just shuffled into the elevator like he was a cow being led to a slaughterhouse. No one talked during the elevator ride down; the next thirty seconds were the longest of my life.

  “Who’s going with who?” Tyler asked once we hit the main floor.

  “Who are you going with?” Kyle asked me.

  The question shocked the hell out of me. “I guess Tyler.”

  He turned and looked at Robbie. “I’ll go with you.”

  So that was how it was going to be.

  Matt and I climbed into Tyler’s jeep. Once we were buckled in, Matt turned around and said, “Give him some time. This has to be the worst possible of situations.”

  “Time isn’t going to change much,” I answered, feeling the ache in my chest. “Once Kyle has made up his mind about something, nothing short of a nuclear war will change it.”

  “Well then, you’re in luck,” Tyler said as we pulled onto First Street.

  “Why?”

  “Because Robbie is a one-man walking, talking, rainbow-colored nuclear bomb. Once he starts talking to Kyle, he’ll agree to marrying you as long as Robbie gets off his back.”

  Matt glanced over at him. “Speaking from experience?”

  Tyler gave him a shy grin. “Remind me to tell you about Hollywood Squares: Get Tyler a Man edition. Robbie almost had me dating a fifty-year-old ranch hand just to get some release.”

  “Oh, we’re coming back to that subject,” Matt said knowingly.

  We pulled up in front of Nancy’s Diner and waited for Robbie and everyone else to join us. Kyle just walked by me without a glance. Robbie patted me on the back and advised, “Ignore everything he says today.”

  They ended up putting three two-person tables together to seat us all. I sat at one end near Tyler while Kyle was at the other near Robbie. Matt, Sebastian, and Jennifer sat between us. It felt like it was a meeting of two warlords coming together to work out a peace treaty. Everyone sat next to their liege and waited for the inevitable fight to begin.

  Man, I gotta stop watching so much Game of Thrones.

  Everyone made small talk, mostly with the person next to them, which left me with Tyler.

  “So how did you like California?” he asked after the waiter had gone to put our order in.

  “It was….” I began and then paused as the kaleidoscope of feelings that made up my time in California swirled around in my mind. The first weeks with just Kyle and me in the apartment, the days of endless sex and goofing around online, finding a new place to eat every night… my eyes got misty just remembering how happy we were. Then there was getting the job at the gym and the feeling of pride I had knowing I could do something besides play baseball. Meeting Colt, then Kyle going to school, and the distance and the coldness, spiraling out of control while I tried anything to keep us together.

  And then the numbness when Kyle told me to get out.

  “Different” was all I said to Tyler.

  It looked like he wanted to say more, but instead he shook his head and asked, “So, you see who the Rangers are looking at?”

  Thank God for sports, or men would have to actually talk with each other about shit like their feelings.

  Kyle

  SO DANTE, the one who wrote that bullshit book about Hell, that one? Dante was a liar and a little bitch. Wanna know why? Sitting at a table with someone you fucked it up with and not being able to scream at the top of your lungs is Hell. Knowing that you had the best guy in the world completely devoted to you and throwing it all away? That’s Hell. If someone walked in and threw gasoline on me and set me ablaze, it would hurt less than looking down the tables and seeing Brad talk to Tyler.

  “You’re staring,” Robbie whispered to me.

  “Oh God, it’s that obvious?” I asked him, mortified.

  “It is if you speak Kyle,” he said, handing me a menu. “If you’re going to stare, at least put some effort into looking like you’re hiding it.”

  I picked up the menu and hid my face.

  “What are you going to do?” Robbie asked.

  “About what? Brad or Billy?”

  “Either.”

  Good question.

  I didn’t have any answers.

  We ordered food, and I watched Tyler and Brad make small talk about something. How could he just sit there? Did he hate me? I know I hated me. Nothing in life had made sense since I graduated high school, and let me tell you, life didn’t make sense then either. Matt joined in and then Sebastian. It took me a few seconds to realize they were talking about sports.

  “Ugh,” I muttered to Robbie. “Really?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask me.”

  And yet another level of Hell. Being stuck at a table with a guy you fucked it up with while guys talk about sports. At least they weren’t going on about cars….

  When the food arrived, at least they couldn’t talk and eat, so that helped, but I wasn’t hungry at all. All I could think about was my mom lying in her hospital bed. I pushed my plate away.

  “You should try to eat something,” Robbie urged.

  “Not hungry,” I sighed.

  “Well, you need to keep your strength up, and… God damn, I sound like my mother!” he announced, pounding the table with his hand.

  “I wasn’t gonna say it,” Sebastian said between bites.

  They gave each other a look as Troy walked into the diner.

  He saw us all at our tables and paused. We made eye contact before he went to the counter to pick up a to-go order.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, getting up.

  Brad asked with his eyes if I wanted backup. I shook my head and sat down next to Troy at the counter. “So I tried it his way.”

  Troy kept looking forward. “Yeah. Nice try.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt.

  Troy turned and looked at me. “You do know that even when you find a judge tomorrow, my dad will drag this out as long as he needs to, right? You’re going to need a judge to make a court order. Even then my dad will find some way to fuck things up. If he can’t get the money from you, he’ll sue that big guy for hitting him or whatever. He’s dangerous, Kyle. Are you getting that?”

  I’d figured that out a while ago.

  “So what do I do?”

  He thought about it for a few seconds and then said the last thing I expected from him.

  “Don’t give him the money. Just don’t do it. He’s going to make all these excuses like it’s for me or for something I did, but it’s not and we both know it. I’m not going to see a dime of that money. You want advice? Don’t give it to him. He needs it more than your mom needs an operation. The worst that can happen to her is that the swelling gets bad enough that they’ll operate to save her life.”

  “But she could have brain damage!” I protested.

  “Yeah. My dad is going to get worse if he doesn’t get that money. He deserves to get worse.” I looked at him, shocked, but he kept talking. I think he was talking more to himself than to me. “I’m tired of covering for him, of putting up with his lies. I just want out.”

  And that’s when it hit me.

  “He trusts you, right?” I asked Troy as my mind raced.

  He nodded slowly. “I suppose.”

  “I mean, if you told him something, he would believe it, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Look, tell your dad I’ll get him the money in the morning. Tell him to go to the hospital, and the second I give you the money and you call him, he has to tell them to operate. That’s the only way this is going down.”

  Troy looked confused. “So you’re going to give him
the money?”

  I smiled at him. “Just tell him that. Then you meet me here tomorrow morning at a quarter to eight.”

  He shrugged just as his food showed up. “Okay, man, your money. But this is a bad idea.”

  “Just tell him that’s the only way I’m going to do this. He’s at the hospital; the second you have the money, he signs away his right to decide about her care. I don’t even want to wait for the time it takes to drive back to the hospital. And Tyler will be there to make sure he signs. If not, he won’t get a dime.”

  “Don’t give him the money, Kyle,” Troy warned me. “You pay him once, he’ll never go away.”

  “Quarter to eight,” I repeated, getting up. I looked over at Ricky, the guy working the counter. “Put his food on our tab,” I said, gesturing toward our table. “We got it.”

  Troy picked up the food and sighed. “Okay, I tried.”

  I watched him walk out and then rushed over to the table and tapped Brad on the back. “Can I talk to you over here?”

  He made a face but got up from the table and followed me to a corner booth. He sat across from me, and all it did was remind me of how much things had changed.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I’m going to give them some money,” I told him.

  “Um, okay.”

  “Well, I want to make sure you’re okay with it.”

  He cocked his head. “Why?”

  “Because it’s part your money too.”

  “No it’s not,” he countered instantly.

  “Robbie gave it to both of us.”

  “He gave it to you so that we could be together. We’re not together, so the money stays with you. I don’t want any of it.”

  “We can still be together,” I said, sounding panicked.

  He just stared at me for a series of agonizingly long seconds. “Was that it? It’s your money; do what you want with it.”

  “Brad, please.”

  He got up. “Not now. Not here.”

  “Then when?” I asked.

  “When this is done.” And he walked back to the table.

  This was going to be done tomorrow morning. Count on it.

  Tyler