by Keri Lake
I think Eli took it harder, since he was a little older when his dad left. Sometimes, he could be a jerk because of it, particularly on the days when his dad should’ve been there, like all the ball games he’d missed, and of course, Eli’s birthdays, when the guy didn’t so much as send him a letter. All that time doing nothing in prison, one’d think a happy birthday was some great effort on his part.
Dad pulled the Ford alongside the curb of Palmer Street, coming to a stop in front of JoAnne’s home. If our neighborhood was bad, hers was downright shitty. Her two-story bungalow sat smack in the middle of a boarded-up crack-house, as Eli referred to it, on one side, and a fire-gutted hellhole on the other. In spite of the weeds growing around her, JoAnne kept her yard trimmed and brimming with flowers, like it existed in some kind of bubble that didn’t belong. Her way of normalizing the dysfunction around her—something I always thought made her a decent mom.
I popped the last of the burger into my mouth and tossed the crumpled paper into the bag. The door of the pickup creaked as I pushed it open, nabbing my duffle and skateboard from the seat beside me.
“Hey, don’t get into any trouble with Eli,” Dad said, gripping my shoulder. “Stick around the house. No wandering off.”
“Okay. I’ll see ya.”
“Jamie … I’m serious.
My full name was Jameson, named after my dad’s favorite brand of Irish whiskey, so I eventually learned. Most called me James for short. My mom had always called me Jamie, and when she left, I guess he felt it was a comfort to pick up the nickname. In truth, though, it never brought me any comfort.
“I love you, kid. Be good,” he added.
“Love you, too.”
On rare occasions, my dad told me he loved me. For the most part, he didn’t do a whole lot of mushy crap, but as an ironworker, he had a thing about making sure he always left for work each day on a good note with me. Probably hanging out on those high beams all day. Two weeks back, one of the guys on the jobsite, a laborer, was down in the trenches, when it caved in on him. His buddy tried digging him out with an excavator and ultimately popped his head clean off. Young guy with a baby at home. The story messed my dad up for a while, making him tear up when he talked about the kid growing up without his dad.
“See you tonight!”
“Yep!” I slammed the door shut behind me and waved him off, waiting until he turned the corner before turning away.
The truth was, I had no intentions of sticking around the house. Just up Palmer, at the corner of Concord, sat the largest abandoned factory in the world—the Packard Plant—a playground of shit to get into for Eli and me. Last time my dad got called in for second shift, the two of us had cut along the railroad tracks and broken in through the back alley that’d long been closed off. We’d spent all afternoon climbing, jumping, and had built a makeshift skate ramp and grind rail out of wood, concrete slabs, and metal scraps we’d found.
We’d been itching to go back ever since.
The unkempt lawn and graffiti sprayed over the particleboard on the house next door caught my attention, as I made my way toward JoAnne’s. It wasn’t unusual to see abandoned homes in my neighborhood, either, but most had a ‘For Sale’ sign out front, and didn’t have friendly phrases, like fuck off, painted across the front of them.
The screen door creaked on his rusted hinges as I threw it back and knocked on the wooden panel.
In seconds, the door flew open to show JoAnne, wearing a pair of jeans, a black tank, and large hoop earrings. Frizzy, auburn hair framed her pale, freckled face and crooked teeth. Not the most attractive woman, definitely not as beautiful as my mom was, but her personality certainly made up for what she lacked in looks.
“C’mon in, babe. Your dad leave already?” Setting her hand on my shoulder, she guided me inside, and I caught a glimpse over my shoulder of her scanning the street.
I hated that he ignored her, but Jo could be overwhelming sometimes.
“D’you eat, sweetheart?” Her house always smelled like old, worn down wood and whatever she happened to be cooking. Spaghetti, just by the tomato-y wafts.
“Yeah,” I lifted the empty bag of fast food, which she swiped out of my hands with a frown and tossed into the trash.
“You and your daddy need a home-cooked meal. A good one. Tell him to come over this Friday, and I’ll make both of you some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn.”
Damn that sounded good.
Beneath the notes of food and decay was the light clean scent of soap. Jo always kept her place clean, which made sense, because what little income she did manage to scrape together came from working as a maid for the rich assholes in the suburbs. A few times a week, she’d take the bus to Bloomfield, and spend the day cleaning a mansion for some lazy fuck with too much money. In the summer, Eli would go with her, just so he could ogle the rich guy’s hot daughter. I’d never personally seen her, but she seemed to consume Eli’s thoughts lately.
“Eli’s upstairs,” Jo said, and as I turned to head up, she grabbed my arm. “Before you go up there … has he …” Her brows pinched together in a troubling way. “He seem different to you lately?”
I shrugged, but in truth, he had. I’d been blowing it off as him just missing his dad, since he talked about him a lot more than usual. “Maybe. Why?”
Lips downturned, her brows flickered the way they did sometimes when she’d talk about my dad and try not to cry. “He just …” The double-blinking and shaking of her head was a poor attempt to stave off the tears welling in her eyes. “Earlier today, he was up playing a video game. I asked him three times to pick up his room because you were coming over. You know Eli’s a good boy. He always does as he’s told, but … it just seems lately, he’s ignoring me.” She rubbed her forehead and reached for the pack of smokes on the table beside her. With a slight tremble, she lit the cigarette, her cheeks caving with a deep inhale, and she blew the smoke off to the side. “So I told him a fourth time to clean up, and he just … blew up.” Her bunched shoulders emphasized the bafflement in her eyes. “Told me to get the fuck out of his room.” The trembling of her lips set me on edge—I hated watching her cry. “He never talked to me like that before,” she croaked, on the verge of sobbing.
Eli had a temper, for sure, but never toward his own ma. He damn near worshipped the woman, commiserating with my sense of helplessness when it came to our parents and their financial problems.
“You …. You would tell me if something was bothering him, right, James? I mean, if it’s a kid at school, or something?”
That would make sense, if we didn’t happen to be on summer break. “Yeah, sure.” I nodded. Eli didn’t tell me shit, though. “If he says anything, I’ll let you know.”
She palmed my cheek, letting the tear streak down her face. In the next breath, her features morphed into something more stern. “And if it’s one of the bastards in this neighborhood, I will kill them,” she gritted. “So you let me know.”
“I will.”
After another stroke of her thumb across my skin, she lowered her hand and gave a slight nod, sucking in another lungful of smoke.
I slid my duffle higher onto my shoulder and hiked up the staircase toward Eli’s room. I couldn’t imagine anyone from the neighborhood messing with him—they all seemed to do their own thing. Even the gang members didn’t really pay attention to the gangly little white boy.
I pushed through Eli’s bedroom door without bothering to knock, and found him just as Jo had described—sprawled out in his dirty ass room, playing the Wii his mom had won in a church raffle two years back. Letting the duffle fall to the floor, I slumped onto the folding chair beside him. “You ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He tossed his game aside, and pushed off the bed. Maybe it’d just been so long since we last hung out, or that I was more in tune to something being wrong because of his mom’s comments, but Eli looked older, for some reason. Tired. An itchy-looking redness flared over h
is eyelids, with deep circles beneath that confessed he hadn’t slept much. He reminded me of my dad on his third shift nights. “My mom’s been busting my ass all day long.”
“No offense.” I lifted my arm to cover my nose. “But something smells dead in here. You better find it, or I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.”
Tugging on his ratted out Nikes, Eli chuckled. “Shit my pants before you walked in, didn’t I?”
Slamming my fist into his shoulder, I lifted my shirt to my face. “Asshole.”
* * *
The sun had begun to set off to the west, giving some relief from the sweat drenching heat of midday, as I sat on the rusted fender of an old car and stole a cigarette from the pack of smokes that Eli had swiped from his mom.
“Saw her in a bikini last week.” Eli balanced on a charred stump of wood, arms outstretched as he walked across with his cigarette dangling from his lips, while he went on about the rich guy’s daughter again. “She’s got a tight little body.”
“Better than Mrs. Dawson’s?”
Mrs. Dawson taught Algebra and was every high school kid’s wet dream, with her tight pencil skirts and button-down tops.
“Don’t be stupid, she’s only eleven.” He jumped off the stump and hopped onto the hood of the car beside me. “But she’s so damn beautiful. And someday, she’s gonna be mine.”
“Doubt that. Unless your mom plans to move in and make cleaning their mansion a permanent thing.”
“Man, fuck that. If not for his hot daughter, I’d put a bullet between that motherfucker’s eyes.” He held his thumb and index finger in the shape of a gun and pretended to do just that.
I frowned and looked back at Eli. “Your mom’s boss?”
“He ain’t her boss. He’s a little bitch who needs to be slapped for the way he talks to my mom.”
Yeah, well, I heard you haven’t been Mister Charming yourself. “Like what?”
“She might clean their fucking house, but he isn’t better than us. Piece of shit acts like he’s some god we all have to worship.” He sucked in another drag and flicked the cigarette off to the side. “Wish I could come into some money, so she’d never have to listen to that prick bark out orders again.”
“You wouldn’t see his daughter if she did. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know.”
“Nah, she ain’t like her old man.” His cheeks bubbled with a smile. “She’s smart. Funny. Talks to me like I’m a somebody, you know? Like I matter.”
“Probably feels sorry for you.”
Toying with the lighter, he pulled his knees in and shook his head. “No. She’s something special.”
“Hey, y-y-you g-g-guys wanna see s-s-s-something?”
At the disembodied voice, I swung my attention toward a kid in a stained white T-shirt and dirty jeans walking toward us. He looked to be sixteen, though it was hard to tell, with the dirt on his face.
Eli and I slid down off the car, backing ourselves away.
“Fuck off, man.” Eli reached toward the pocketknife I knew he always carried in his back pocket. His mom had given it to him for Christmas the year before, after realizing she couldn’t keep Eli from venturing off into the abandoned buildings.
“Th-th-there’s a d-d-dead d-d-dog ‘cross the way. All decayed an’ sh-sh-shit.” The kid stuffed his hands in his pockets and jerked his head toward the opposite entrance. “It’s s-s-s-sick.”
“No thanks.” Eli’s shoulders slouched in a more relaxed state, and he didn’t bother to take out his knife, just hopped back onto the car and lit up another cigarette. “Buzz off.”
I didn’t relax so easily, my muscles still poised in defense.
“C-c-can I have one of your s-s-s-smokes?”
“Man, I said buzz off.”
The shift of the kid’s eyes caught my attention, telling me something wasn’t right about him.
“I-I-I can t-t-take you to my h-h-house and sh-sh-show you something. If y-y-you want.”
“Are you fucking retarded? Get the hell out of here!” The irritation bled through Eli’s voice, and he lifted a stone, hurling it toward the kid’s feet. “Go!”
“Y-y-you ever t-t-try smokin’ w-w-w-weed?”
Reaching for another rock, Eli paused, tipping his head.
“Go on,” I said, attempting to stifle the intrigue on Eli’s face. “He said get out. We’re not interested.”
“Where is it?” Ignoring me, Eli got to his feet. “You got some on you?”
I kicked my head to the side a little. “Forget it. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Hell, no,” Eli muttered. “You know how much that shit’s worth on the streets?” He leaned in, lowering his voice even more. “We can take this kid. Easily.”
“M-m-my daddy, he has a b-b-b-box. A whole b-b-box of it at home. Better than s-s-s-s-smokes.”
“Your daddy?” Eli nudged my arm and snorted. “He home?”
The kid shook his head at the same time I shook mine.
“Fuck that. I’m not going back to this guy’s house. We don’t even know him.”
“D’you hear him?” Eli whispered, while I kept my eyes on the shady kid. “He’s got a whole box of it. I could sell that shit. My mom got a shut-off notice last week for the electricity. She’s been crying about it. An ounce could put an end to her stress.”
“What are you, a drug dealer now? And where do you tell your mom you got the money?”
“I’ll tell her I pawned some scrap metal, or something.”
I shook my head again. “No. I’m going back. It’ll be dark soon, anyway.”
“How far is your house?” Eli asked the kid.
It started to piss me off the way he kept ignoring me, entertaining the kid’s offer.
“N-n-n-not far. Just up C-C-C-Concord.”
Eli reached down, grabbing his skateboard from where we’d stashed them beside the car, and tapped my arm to huddle. “We’ll be back before dark,” he said low, and I stole a glimpse of the kid shifting on his feet, as though he couldn’t physically stay still. “I promise. Let’s just check it out. If it’s bullshit, we’ll jet. Not like this asshole can take both of us.” Eli glanced back at the kid and snorted. “Look at him. Doesn’t look like he eats much.” He huffed, tucking the board under his arm. “C’mon, man. I’m doing this for my mom. Don’t make me go myself.”
Everything in my gut told me to walk away. But that was the thing about gut feelings, they didn’t always win over the mind.
I hated that mine was intent to win. Teeth clenched, I wanted to slap Eli for laying a guilt trip on me. “Back before dark.”
6
Ty
Present day …
I tugged my hood down and tapped the welding rod against steel, lighting it up like a sparkler on the fourth of July. The spark hit the metal, laying a bead of alloy along the joint, with a sizzle that sounded like frying bacon. I never minded the welding side of ironworking—the peace and quiet, sometimes a few hundred feet in the air, where the world didn’t seem so ugly.
My dad had always said Detroit looked like a different city from where he sat most of the day.
Up there, I felt at peace, teetering along the beams so high up, it made the vehicles down below look like the Matchbox cars I’d played with as a kid. That was how I got into roof-topping. I particularly liked climbing tower cranes set atop buildings—the higher the better. Because, somehow, dangling from a jib over three hundred feet in the air put life into perspective.
Once upon a time, I used to film the shit, but I’d since gotten beyond that, realizing it wasn’t to impress anyone. Nah, I did it for the rush. For the sheer thrill of doing something most people wouldn’t have the balls to do, since most people hadn’t lived through hell and survived like I had.
But mostly, I did it because I could. Because there wasn’t a soul left on earth who gave a shit if I fell to my death, and that thought gave me the freedom to do whatever the fuck I wanted.
Around me,
the walls of the abandoned building where I worked closed in, creating the perfect tomb. A place my conscience could go to die. It had to. How else could an otherwise decent human being pull off the shit I had planned the next few weeks?
As I fused the metal together, my mind drifted to the night before, and that golden-toned skin that’d smelled edible enough to eat. Sera, in something as simple as a pair of jeans and a tank, couldn’t have been more tempting than a slab of prime rib set before a starving man. A feast for the senses.
Everything about the encounter had somehow derailed me, frustrated the shit out of me, the way my body had moved in sync with hers. The way her sweet coconut smell had taunted me to bite down into that sugary flesh and pin her to the wall. And those wicked honey-brown eyes, like liquid amber, that could fuck a man up if he drank them in too long. Her scar gave her some humility, but not even that could take away from the fact she was so goddamn beautiful, it literally hurt to look at her. It pissed me off that she had any effect on me, and that I’d had to drown it all in a bottle of liquor when I’d left the club, because I’d refused to blow all that pent up tension on another nameless face, like so many nights before.
I hated having to uphold my charm, when all I wanted to do was throw her down and use her. But perhaps the worst was seeing some limp-dick trying to make a move on her, completely oblivious to the shit-storm he could’ve stirred.
A white hot flash of pain hit my arm, above an iron cross inked with my father’s date of death, and I froze, letting the small bit of slag fizzle out as it burned my skin. “Fuck!” My arm shook, as the blistering fragment of molten metal cooled against my flesh. Teeth clenched, I screwed my eyes tight to jagged light behind my lids, opening them again to the rod still holding its spark and the shit pool of metal I’d need to go over a second time. Even so, I kept on with the welding, grinding my teeth as the pain and the anger consumed me.
