Carter's Unfocused, One-Track Mind

by Brent Crawford

  I clarify. “He went to jail because he knocked out EJ, not because I hit him!”

  “I wasn’t knocked out!” EJ barks.

  “Duuude, we were all there,” J-Low says.

  “You were twitching and gurgling like a baby!” Doc adds.

  Even Cheryl goes, “True that.”

  “He looked like a dog running in his sleep,” Levi says.

  Nutt says, “Remember how swollen his lips were? Like Angelina Jolie on ’roids!”

  We all laugh at EJ until Nick asks Bag, “Does this window open?”

  “Yeah, it really stinks in here!” EJ says.

  “Carter, did you crap your pants?” Bag asks.

  “No, that chick was takin’ a dump. And Nick is thinking of how to get out of here, not—”

  Cheryl gasps. “I was NOT taking a dump, you little—”

  “Sorry, I forgot you were still here. She did not poop, she just farted really loud.”

  My sister whacks me on the back of the head, and my boys crack up as Cheryl pushes her way out of the crowded room, muttering, “You’re a jerk!”

  My boys mock her in high voices: “Carter, you are a jerk!”

  Bag pries the window open and climbs through it, landing in the backyard.

  Nutt snaps his fingers and yells, “You should pay him off! Even psychos like cash.”

  EJ agrees, “Yeah, Richie Rich, give him some of that movie money!”

  “That’s ridiculous, and I don’t have any—”

  Doc says, “I thought you got paid a buttload to be in that movie.”

  “I did, but it was like, too much. My parents put it all in a savings account, and I can only access a little bit at a time.”

  “Don’t make out like you’re poor, though,” Lynn says. “You have that debit card, and they give you two hundred bucks a month.”

  “Shut up,” I scold.

  My boys gasp. “You do?!”

  Great, I’ll be buying everyone’s snacks and movie tickets until graduation.

  “Well, I spent all of my money for this month and next, so I really don’t have any, and I don’t think Terry—”

  Bag sticks his head back through the window and asks, “What did you spend it on, Carter?”

  “On stuff I needed!” I grumble.

  EJ pipes up. “He accidentally joined a whole group of porn sites.”

  “What?” Lynn barks.

  My boys laugh…the kind of laughter that you only get if you’ve been in the exact situation.

  “You hit the ‘watch full video’ button, didn’t you?” Bag asks. “You greedy bastard!”

  “You’re sick!” Lynn says. “Don’t ever touch my laptop again.”

  “Always delete your history,” J-Low adds, like he’s making a public service announcement. “Just make a habit of it.”

  Doc starts to do an impression of my mom looking at the Road Runner bill, but I cut him off by yelling, “Yo, we gotta get outta here!”

  Doc worms out next and falls into the yard. It feels pretty crappy to have your tail between your legs, but it’s always nice to have your boys with you. Of course they make fun of the way I climb out the window. “Stop dry-humping my house, Carter,” Bag says.

  “Don’t ever become a burglar,” EJ adds.

  “You guys are dicks,” I say, tumbling into the backyard.

  A few people are smoking and laughing at us as the rest of my crew jumps into the grass. The smokers probably don’t know that Scary Terry is here and think we’re up to some run-of-the-mill tomfoolery, not running for our lives. We creep around the house, and I look in all the windows as we go. My sister and Nick are talking to Kammie in the kitchen, and we’re pretty sure somebody is having sex in Bag’s bed. He’s so mad, but we won’t allow him to yell at them. There is no sign of Terry Moss. My heart is pounding with fear, but shame and guilt are also in the mix, so my stomach hurts. I probably shouldn’t have eaten that whole bag of Doritos and sleeve of Chips Ahoy or drunk that two liters of Mountain Dew. I start wondering again if it was wrong to hit Terry with a textbook…even if he is crazy…especially if he’s crazy? Was I defending myself or beating up a handicapped guy?

  As we peek around the side of the house, I whisper to EJ, “Hey, you know that girl in the bathroom?”

  “The hammered one with the black boy-cut panties?” he asks.

  “Yeah, she was there, at our fight with Terry, and she actually thought that we were picking on him.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Shhh!” I say. “That’s what she said! What if we just go up to him and apologize?”

  EJ retorts, “Yeah, but he’s crazy…like the Joker in the Batman movies. He just wants chaos.”

  “Maybe they changed him in juvie?”

  He whispers, “I don’t think that’s what they do. They just try to teach them how to be plumbers and not kill each other. I bet he’s gotten worse.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “I’m just keepin’ it real,” he says. “But if you want to walk up to him, I’ve got your back.”

  We’re all attempting to hide behind a tree that wouldn’t even cover one guy, so we start laughing. Bag and Nutt are doing ninja somersaults and Doc starts climbing the little tree. No one is taking this retreat seriously except me. I pick up my bike and glance around nervously. EJ swats at my bangs and whispers, “If you don’t get your hair cut soon, I’m gonna have to start calling you Floppio. I’m not kidding.”

  Before I can throw a leg over my seat post, the screen door on Bag’s house crashes open and Nick Brock tumbles out. His huge arms are wrapped completely around a squirming Terry Moss as he yells, “Calm down, bro! It’s not gonna happen! Carter, get outta here!”

  Terry starts dragging the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker. He scans the yard with wild eyes and finds my boys and me frozen like deer in headlights.

  He screeches, “CARTER?!”

  Against my better judgment, I drop my bike into the grass and try to take a deep breath. My dad always says, An apology never hurts anyone and usually helps everyone.

  But Nick seems to have the better insight for this situation. He yells, “RUN!”

  I’m walking in reverse when I say, “Terry, I believe I owe you an—”

  “Come here, boy!!!” Terry yells.

  I feel my fight-or-flight instincts kick in. I’m so proud that my hands instinctively draw up to protect my head. I’m a fighter, after all. But I’ve really got the urge to flap my elbows like a chicken and attempt a takeoff!

  Kids are pouring out of the house to watch the ruckus. Terry doesn’t disappoint. He wriggles free of Nick’s grasp and spins around to punch him in the mouth. It’s a hollow, smacking noise and sounds nothing like the Mortal Kombat game.

  I’ve almost backed myself into the street, so I’ve got a great view. From the ground, Nick grabs Terry’s shirt. Terry jumps like a scared cat before he viciously punts his friend in the ribs. The thud of the contact and the groan Nick makes are awful. A girl screams, and it’s like a starter pistol in my head.

  I take off running, leaving my boys for dead. Terry starts to chase me. I glance over my shoulder just as my sister flies out of nowhere and jumps onto Terry’s back like an angry monkey. She fishhooks the side of his mouth and takes the screaming boy all the way down to the grass. How am I such a pussy if that is my sister? How can I leave my friends like this? I don’t know, but I’m sure doing it, and fast!

  I’m usually kind of slow, but with my life on the line I’m pretty speedy! I’m imagining how bad I’ll feel if Terry hurts my sister or one of my friends, but I keep running like a coward. The thought of Terry mowing me down with his old Cutlass keeps my feet churning, but I don’t hear anything except the sound of my heart pounding out of my chest. I’ve probably run about a mile when I finally allow myself to slow down. I try to catch my breath, but it won’t be caught. I’ve run sprints a million times, but I’ve never actually run for my life before—this is some cardio, dude!r />
  A wave of frustrated emotion washes over me, and I double over to start sobbing when Abby’s voice floats out of the darkness. “Carter?”

  “Nuuuaaahhh!!!” I gasp, and leap into the air. “Hi there! S’up? S’up?!”

  Dang it! I appear to be standing right in front of Amber Lee’s house. They must’ve just arrived, because Abby, Nicky, and Amber are standing on the steps of the front porch. It seems as if I’ve chased them down to say something important, but I can only gasp, “Running! Running is hard!”

  Abby replies, “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “H-h-hell yeah. I uh…uh…” I don’t really want to get into how I just ran away from a fight, so I stutter, “I uh, I w-w-was coming over here to bring you some diet…to apologize…to Amber, for the way we acted, or uh, re-reacted in the basement. We’re just not cool enough to deal with the…baby situation, I think. We’re just like, really focused on sex, you know? Like all the time…That’s, that’s what we’re doing when you came down the stairs. We weren’t having sex, that sounded weird. But all of your legs were out and it was more about Nicky’s skirt than…and yoouu…and your, uh, bump are, you know, they’re really throwing a wrench into our sex machines.”

  Abby has a hopeful look on her face, as if she’s sure I’m about to get to something good, but Nicky and Amber seem skeptical as I clear my throat and continue. “You see, uh, pregnancy is like a consequence of the action we want to be doing all the time, and we’re not ready to handle that yet. I mean we’re ready physically, like our sperm can probably do it, but our brains are like, AHHHHHHH!!! You know?”

  The girls are looking at me with disgust. Amber Lee asks, “You think I’m ready to handle this?”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  She laughs. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Carter.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been running. But I’m sure you’ll figure it out, and I, uh, wasn’t trying to compare my boys and I’s issues with what you and Rusty are dealing with. I-I-I was just attempting to make an excuse for being rude and I wanted to apologize for it. The rudeness.”

  The girls are backlit and staring down at me like hot assassins. All the sudden I see Abby’s teeth, as if she’s smiling. Maybe I said something good.

  Amber tosses her hair and says, “Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I’ve never known what it felt like to be an outcast.”

  “Well, I’m an expert, so…”

  Abby defends me. “No you’re not.”

  I wipe some sweat off my face, and Nicky asks, “You ran all the way over here just to say that?”

  “Yep…Nope…I was gonna walk over and bring you some Diet Cokes and say something like that, but then Scary Terry showed up at the party and I fumbled the Cokes and there was a brawl, and Nick Brock told me to run, and what am I gonna do, disobey him?”

  I tell them about the fight until a police siren starts wailing in the distance. We all know where they’re headed, so Amber says, “Let’s get you inside.”

  I’ve never been inside Amber’s or any other pregnant girl’s house. I bet there’s some weird baby stuff already set up, and a funny smell. I know her dad has guns and probably hates boys more than ever, but I accept the invitation just to get off the street.

  I step in and gasp. “Wow, your house is really nice.”

  It smells like flowers and has high ceilings and dark wood floors and cool lights.

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” Amber asks. “My dad made a lot of this stuff.” She guides us into the kitchen and we sit down on old red lunch counter stools.

  Abby says, “Haven’t you been here before?”

  “I’ve never made it past the porch. Amber’s dad doesn’t just make cool furniture, he also intimidates people.”

  Amber and Abby smile. Nicky is not in the mood. She snottily says, “So where are the other dwarfs?”

  “I thought they were right behind me, but…”

  She continues, “So you just ditched them? You left them to deal with a psycho who was looking for you?”

  I don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Abby says, “Nicky, you don’t need to be a bitch all the time. Nick Brock told him to run.”

  “Nicky’s right, though, I shouldn’t have just taken off,” I say.

  Abby argues, “Carter, you did the smart thing. You were the catalyst of the situation. The fight probably stopped when you left.”

  She really shouldn’t call me smart, because I can’t remember what catalyst means, but I don’t say anything.

  Nicky scoffs. “If the fight stopped, what do you think those sirens are about, Abby?”

  “Carter doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone!” Abby snaps.

  I nod in agreement, but I feel like even more of a wuss being defended like this. I also know that if I hadn’t bumped into these girls, I’d be crying in the street right now.

  It’s quiet for a second when Amber asks, “Do you want a Diet Coke?”

  “I’d better not. I already had a two-liter of Mountain Dew.”

  “Why were you gonna bring us Diet Cokes, then?” Amber asks.

  “I don’t know…Oh, hey, how are you feeling, Amber? My sister wanted me to ask…because I want to know…how you’re holding up…physically and all that.”

  She laughs and then tells me a bunch of gross stuff that I don’t want to know. She describes an “abnormality” in her “fallopian tubes,” and I try really hard not to puke or make a face. Then she shows me a sonogram picture of the baby. It looks like she’s pregnant with a sea horse, but I don’t say that. It’s kind of sci-fi cool, actually. The four of us eventually start gabbing like old friends. We talk about how “swollen and sore” Amber’s boobs are, and I am only slightly aroused!

  The conversation intensifies when we start to discuss baby names. Amber is all excited when she explains, “Well, Rusty and I are thinking Thor or Cadillac if it’s a boy! And Dandy-Lion or Lilo if it’s a girl!”

  I think those are all fantastic choices and absolutely hilarious, but Abby can’t handle it. “What?! You can’t do that!”

  “When you have a baby, you can name it something boring!” Amber yells. “But we want our child to reflect our values and aspirations!”

  “Values?” Abby gasps. “How does Dandy-Lion—”

  “It’s nontraditional and artistic!” Amber replies.

  Abby is forced to drop the subject because the baby-daddy enters the house looking like a defeated mud wrestler. Rusty’s covered in grease from working at Lee Auto Body. He dropped out of high school so that he could work full-time and save up enough money to move Amber out of this very nice house and into some crappy apartment off Merrian Lane. I thought the Merrian Gardens required each tenant to have at least two illegitimate children and one nonworking car, but maybe they’ll make an exception because Amber and Rusty are so young.

  Rusty stomps up the stairs when Amber’s dad waddles in the front door. I’d love to ask him, “What’s up, Doc?” because he looks exactly like Yosemite Sam, but I just stand and say, “Hello, Mr. Lee.”

  He puffs his thick red mustache at me and scowls…Nope, that’s a smile! He’s chuckling. “Hey there, movie star! How the hell are ya?”

  I don’t get the chance to answer because Amber asks, “Daddy, did you make Rusty clean the grease traps again?”

  “That good-for-nothin’ says he wants to learn my business, and them traps don’t clean themselves, darlin’,” he replies. “Auto-body ain’t glamorous work, and the only thing ol’ Rusty’s qualified to do is change oil and clean.”

  She grumbles, “I can’t believe you made him clean those nasty bathrooms yesterday.”

  I believe he’s about to call his daughter a varmint, but he stops himself and turns to ask me, “Why aren’t you at that party? Rusty was pitchin’ a bitch all day, how he can’t go to this thing, and y’all already home?”

  Amber and her dad are a lot closer than I thought, because she starts telling him all about the party. What
music was playing, who was wearing what, and how my boys stopped talking when she came down the basement stairs. He puffs his mustache at me again, but this time it’s more aggressive. Amber also tells him that I ran away from Scary Terry.

  He can tell I’m embarrassed about it, because he says, “Ain’t no shame in walkin’ away from a dumb fight, son.”

  “Thank you!” Abby says.

  But he continues, “If I’d pussed out a little more—”

  “‘Compromised’ might be a better word,” she adds.

  “Yeah, that is better.” He laughs. “If I’d ‘compromised’ more in my life, things might be a whole lot different.”

  He’s not looking at his daughter, but I imagine the biggest regret he’s dealing with lately is a harsh stance with boys that led Amber to have sneaky unprotected sex in the back of an old Ford and resulted in his becoming a grandparent without a gray hair.

  Then he adds, “But sometimes you gotta fight…even if you lose, you gotta go down swingin’ for something you believe in.”

  Abby argues, “But this isn’t one of those times. Terry’s just an a-hole who’s jealous and wants to hurt him.”

  “He’s probably jealous of that Flock of Seagulls hairdo!” Mr. Lee cackles.

  I laugh at the joke that I don’t really get, and reply, “Sorry I’m not cool enough to grow a smooth mustache yet.”

  He snaps his thick fingers at me like I’ve crossed a line. I’m about to explain that I wasn’t kidding, but Rusty comes stomping back down the stairs before I get the chance.

  Amber asks him, “Where are you going?”

  “Out,” he replies. “I was supposed to meet you at the party. I can’t just be in this friggin’ house all—”

  Amber’s dad gets in Rusty’s face and displays his aforementioned inability to compromise. “You too good for this house?! This ‘friggin’ house’ where you don’t pay rent and eat all the food and play video games all night long?”

  It seems like I’m about to watch my second brawl of the evening, but Rusty just walks out.

  The LTD’s engine fires up and the cat tears off into the night. Amber displays her obviously inherited inability to compromise by stomping her foot and yelling, “Daddy! You can’t treat him like an employee when you’re not at the shop. All of this is very hard for him, and you are not—”