Scum

by James Dekker

  Chapter Ten

  I am angry all the way to school. I am angry at my locker. I am angry when Caitlin asks me if I want to go to the mall with her and Shannon. Right. Like I care about the mall. I slam my locker and walk away from her. I hear her behind me saying, “What did I do? What did I say?” But I don’t turn around because I am so angry.

  I am angry because of what Titch did when I went to the bar.

  I am angry because he called me.

  I am angry because of the look on his face the first time I saw him.

  I am angry because of the look on his face yesterday.

  I am angry at everything he’s said to me and at everything he hasn’t said.

  But mostly I am angry about what the bartender said when he pushed me out of the bar. He told my father that Titch wasn’t at the bar when Danny was shot. But that’s not what he told me. He told me, “He didn’t see what happened. He didn’t see anything.”

  He didn’t see anything.

  So at lunchtime, I ditch the rest of my classes and head downtown. I don’t go directly to the bar. Instead I think about the direction Titch had been coming from when I came down here alone the first time. I remember what he said about the bartender making sure he did his schoolwork. I decide that Titch must have been coming to the bar from school. So I wait a couple of blocks from the bar in a little park that’s wedged between a couple of tall buildings. I wait and I wait, and finally I see Titch. He’s got a backpack over one shoulder, and he’s striding along with a serious expression on his face. I step out in front of him and enjoy the look of surprise on his face. Then I am confused, because his face isn’t hard now and his voice isn’t cold.

  “Megan,” he says. “I kept calling you last night, but all I got was voice mail.”

  “I left the phone off the hook,” I say.

  “I guess you’re mad at me, huh?” he says.

  “The first time you called me, you were nice,” I say. “I thought you were okay.”

  His face reminds me of a puppy’s that’s hoping for a treat but is also maybe afraid you’ll find out it peed on your mom’s new carpet or chewed her favorite shoes. I look him right in the eyes, and I say, “You were there that night, weren’t you? You were in the bar the night Danny was shot.”

  His eyes skip away from mine. His cheeks start to turn pink. He turns his head away, and he says, “No.”

  “Yes, you were,” I say. “That’s why you can’t look at me now. You’re a nice guy and you know this is important to me. That’s why you called me—because you know how I feel. Because even if you don’t have a brother, you can imagine what it’s like to lose somebody you care about. You’re a nice guy, and you’re ashamed because you were in the bar and you saw something. You saw something or you know something, but you haven’t told the police. I think you’re protecting whoever killed my brother.”

  He looks at me. He’s shaking his head, but I know I’m right.

  “I know you’re not the only person who saw something,” I tell him. “I’ve been in there. Twice. I know you can’t have fifty people in there and not a single one of them sees anything when someone gets shot. I’m not stupid, Titch. I know it’s impossible.”

  He’s still shaking his head, but slowly. He holds his head up and looks right at me. He says, “I’m not protecting anybody. I didn’t see anything.”

  My heart feels like it’s going to shatter into hundreds of jagged little pieces, and each piece is going to cut into me. Titch is lying. He’s standing right in front of me and he’s lying to me.

  But that isn’t what makes my heart feel like it’s going to explode. No. The thing that does that is that I know I am right about him. He’s lying, and he’s ashamed of himself for doing it. So I try again.

  I say, “He was my brother. He was part of my life since the day I was born. I loved him. My parents loved him. It’s bad enough he died, but someone murdered him. It’s killing my parents that whoever did this is still walking around free. It’s not right, Titch. You have to tell me what you know. You have to tell the police.”

  He looks away from me again. He’s chewing the inside of his lip, which tells me that he’s thinking.

  “Please, Titch.”

  Cars have been passing us on the street the whole time we’ve been talking. A car passes us now. It slows down. The driver turns his head to look at us. I recognize him. It’s the bouncer from the bar. He looks directly at Titch. Then he looks at me.

  “I have to go,” Titch says. “I’m gonna be late. Dave gets mad when I’m late.” He starts to walk away from me, but I grab his arm and pull him back.

  “I know you know something,” I say. “I know you saw something. I can go to the police. I can tell them you’re hiding something.”

  His face turns red. He gets mad. He says, “Go to the police if you want. Tell them whatever you want. I don’t care. It’s not going to change anything. I’m not going to say anything to them.”

  I stare at him. I don’t want to be right, but I know I am because now he isn’t saying that he didn’t see anything. No, now he is saying that he isn’t going to say anything.

  I hear a car door slam. The bouncer has parked across the street. He’s getting out of his car, and he’s looking at Titch and me.

  “Please,” I say to Titch. I’m still holding on to his arm so he won’t walk away from me.

  He shakes me off. His face is up close to mine when he says, “You tell the police whatever you want. I don’t care. They don’t even care. Your brother was dealing drugs. Everyone knew it. The cops knew it. It’s why they don’t care. It’s why no one cares. It’s just one less drug dealer on the street.”

  He walks away from me, and this time I let him go. I watch the bouncer go after him. I stand there for a few moments, tears stinging my eyes. I don’t know who I hate more: Titch or Danny.

  Chapter Eleven

  I can tell something is wrong the minute I walk through the door. My mother’s voice reaches me from the family room. She says, “No.” Her voice is loud and sharp.

  Then I hear my father’s voice, softer than hers. He’s trying to convince her of something.

  “It might work,” he says. “I talked to that detective. He said it might work.”

  What might work? I wonder.

  “No,” my mother says again.

  “But I already set it up,” my father says. “They’re going to hold a press conference. They’re going to announce it.”

  “Tell them you changed your mind,” my mother says.

  “No,” my father says. For the first time since Danny died, his voice sounds as sharp as my mother’s. “I’m going to do it. If there’s even the smallest chance that this could help the police catch whoever killed Danny, I’m going to do it.”

  While I listen to him, I walk through to the family room.

  “Do what?” I say.

  My mother whirls around to face me. “Your father and I are having a private conversation,” she says. “Go to your room.”

  I ignore her.

  “Do what?” I say to my father.

  “Offer a reward,” he says. “For information leading to the arrest of whoever killed Danny. That detective says that it might work.” He glances at my mother. “They’re going to announce it tonight.”

  “Either you call them and tell them that you’ve changed your mind or I will,” my mother says.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” my father says. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want them to catch the guy?”

  My mother turns to me. “Go to your room,” she says.

  I don’t move. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “Dad’s right,” I say. “If it will help the police find out who did it, then it’s the right thing to do.”

  My mother goes into the kitchen. She grabs Detective Rossetti’s business card, which is attached to the fridge with a magnet. Then she picks up the phone and starts punching in a phone number— Detective Rossetti’s phone
number.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  My father crosses the family room in a flash. He grabs the phone out of her hand.

  “Give that back to me,” my mother says. She tries to snatch the phone from him, but he holds it out of her reach.

  “Fine,” she says. She marches into the front hall. Her purse is on the floor next to her briefcase. She picks it up and fishes out her cell phone. She flips it open and starts punching in Detective Rossetti’s phone number again.

  I glance at my father. His face is red. He lunges at my mother and tries to pry the cell phone from her hand. I have never seen my father do anything like that. My mother yells at him. My father makes another grab for her cell phone. She slaps him across the face.

  For a moment nobody moves. My father looks as stunned as I am. Then he slaps her back. My mother’s cell phone clatters to the floor. It is a moment before she stoops down to pick it up. But before her hand reaches it, my father kicks it out of the way.

  “You are not calling that detective,” he says in a hard voice. “Maybe you don’t care that Danny’s killer is walking around out there, but I do. I’m going to do whatever it takes to find that person and make sure he gets what he deserves.”

  My mother is very still. She doesn’t try to pick up her phone. She says, “Arthur came into my office today.” Arthur is my mother’s boss. “Do you know what he asked me?”

  My father doesn’t say anything.

  “He asked me if the police were any closer to finding out who killed Danny.”

  My father still doesn’t say anything.

  “And then he told me that he’d read an article in the paper right after Danny died. He said that it said in the article that Danny was known to the police. He stood right there in my office and he asked me, what does that mean, Maria? What does it mean, he was known to the police?”

  I can tell that my father is holding his breath now. He glances at me. He wants me to keep my mouth shut. Even now, after the way my mother has treated him, he wants to protect her.

  “Maria...” he begins.

  I look down at the floor. I was the first one to know about Danny. I found out because one time when he came over he asked me if my friends and I ever partied. He was in a good mood that day. He asked me to tell my friends, if they ever needed anything to put them in a party mood, he could hook them up. I laughed. I thought he was kidding.

  He wasn’t.

  I told him it was stupid. I told him he could get busted. He told me I was the stupid one.

  “Everyone does it,” he said. “And the money?” He grinned at me. “The money’s good, Meggie.”

  My father found out because the hospital called him. Danny had been beaten up. He didn’t want to say what happened or who did it, but he was hurt badly and he didn’t know what else to do, so he got them to call my father, and my father and I went to the hospital to see him. The police were there, but Danny didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t want to tell them anything. My father didn’t understand. He talked to one of the cops, who told him what they suspected.

  When my father confronted Danny, Danny just laughed. He laughed even though he was all beat up. He said, “They got nothing on me.”

  My father waited until the doctor was finished with Danny. Then we drove Danny home. When we got to Danny’s place, my father and Danny had a big argument. Danny wouldn’t listen. He said it was his life. He said he knew what he was doing. He said, “Everybody does it. If there was no market, I’d be out of business like that. But there is a market. It’s just a product. I’m just a businessman. I’m a smart one too.”

  My father looked at all the cuts and bruises on Danny. He looked at how he could hardly breathe because it hurt so much. He said, “Yeah, I can see that.”Then he told Danny to stay away from the house until he was better. He said, “If your mother saw you like this, it would break her heart.” On the way home, he said to me, “Don’t breathe a word of this to your mother. It would kill her.”

  And now here we are.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Maria,” my father says. “There’s something—”

  “No,” my mother says. She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want you to call that police detective. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. I want you to tell him there’s no reward. Please, Paul? Please, just do it, and I swear I won’t ask you for another thing, ever.”

  “He was my son,” my father says.

  “He’s gone,” my mother says. “No matter what the police do, that’s never going to change.”

  “But—”

  “Say you announce a reward,” my mother says slowly. “And say that because of that, because someone thinks he can make money from it, someone tells the police something. Say someone tells the police exactly who did it. What do you think will happen then?”

  “The police will arrest the guy,” my father says. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “And then what?” my mother says. “You think this person is going to admit that he did it?” She shakes her head. “Of course not,” she says. “He’ll get a lawyer and there will be a trial. And what do you think his lawyer is going to do?” She looks at my father. “What do you think he’s going to say about Danny? He’s going to say that Danny was known to the police. He might even get some police officers to testify and to say what they knew about Danny. They’ll explain what it means when someone is known to the police. It will be in the papers, Paul. It will be on the news. Right now, people are whispering. I know they are. But that’s all it is—just whispers. Right now, nobody knows for sure what it means. But if there’s a trial—I don’t think I could stand it, Paul. I don’t think I could stand it if all our friends and neighbors, if the people I work with, if the people who work for me, if they all knew. I couldn’t stand it. I just couldn’t.”

  My father is staring at her. So am I.

  “Please, Paul,” she says. “He’s gone. Nothing is going to change that. Please.”

  It’s quiet in the house. My mother is in her room. The door is closed. My father has gone out. He didn’t say where he was going. He’s been gone for hours. But before he left, I heard him make a phone call. I heard him say, “Detective, about that reward...”

  I am lying on the couch in the family room. I wonder how long my mother has known about Danny. I wonder who told her. It wasn’t my father and it wasn’t me. Did Danny tell her? Did he get in trouble again and call her for help? Or did she find out by accident?

  Sometimes she would go to Danny’s place to drop off food for him—home-cooked meals. Sometimes when she was there, she tidied up the place for him. Did she find something or see something? Did she keep it to herself or did she talk to him about it? Did she make him promise not to tell my father, just like my father made him promise not to tell my mother? If that’s what happened, was Danny proud of himself? Was he proud of how much my parents loved him and how little he had to do to earn their love?

  I think, if he were here now, I’d tell him how much I hate him. I’d tell him how stupid he is. And if he laughed at me the way he always did, I’d hit him. I’d hit him and hit him and hit him...Because there I was, telling Titch that whatever else he was, he was my brother and he was a good person. There I was, mad at Titch because he was lying to me. There I was, being a hypocrite.

  After a while, I roll off the couch and hunt in the cupboard under the tv for the phone book. I look up the phone number for the bar where Titch works. I call and a man answers. It sounds like the bartender. I make my voice deeper so he won’t know it’s me. I ask for Titch. The bartender hangs up without saying another word. I call back. The phone rings into voice mail. I don’t leave any message. I don’t want to get Titch in trouble with the bartender. I try a few more times, hoping that Titch will answer. But every time I end up in voice mail.

  When I come downstairs the next morning, my mother is dressed in the clothes she usually wears to work.

  “I’m going to the of
fice,” she tells me.

  “But it’s Saturday.” Sometimes my mother goes to the office on Saturday. Most of the time, she doesn’t.

  “I’m behind,” she says. “I need to catch up.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He went out.”

  “Where?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Did he say when he’ll be back?”

  She shakes her head. I have the feeling she didn’t bother to ask him. I get a sick feeling in my stomach. After last night, I wonder what is going to happen with my parents. My father can’t stay in the spare room forever. I wonder if he will move back into the bedroom soon. If he doesn’t, I wonder where he will go.

  My mother leaves for the office. I go into the kitchen to get something to eat. I make tea and toast for myself, and I sit down at the table to eat. I flip through the tv listings. I flip through the fashion section. When I get up to put my dishes in the dishwasher, some of the newspaper falls onto the floor. I pick it up, and that’s when I see it.

  It isn’t big.

  It’s one of those really short stories that they run along the side of the page. It’s two short paragraphs. It says that someone was shot dead downtown last night. A kid. Anthony Pastorelli, known to his friends as Titch.

  I stare at those two short paragraphs until the tears blind me.

  Then I sink down onto the floor, and I sit there for what seems like forever. Titch is dead. Someone shot him.

  I reach for the phone. I think of calling my mother. But she doesn’t know Titch and she doesn’t want to talk about what happened to Danny anymore. I think of calling my father instead. I start to punch in his cell phone number, but I don’t finish. Instead I get up and pull Detective Rossetti’s phone number off the fridge.While I am dialing, it occurs to me that maybe he won’t answer. It’s the weekend. Cops have days off, don’t they?