“Can I go now?”
Mr. Marsh opened a green file folder on his desk. “That’s it, Matt? ‘Can I go now?’ That’s the best you got? I know there’s more in there than Mr. Sixty Percent.”
“Can I go now?”
Mr. Marsh exhaled slowly and scooped up Matt’s report cards. “Sure. Why not?”
Matt pushed himself out of the chair and reached for the doorknob.
“One last thing,” Mr. Marsh said, taking another piece of paper out of Matt’s file. “Is there someone at your place I can talk to? It says here you live with your grandmother. Maybe I’ll give her a call.”
Matt shook his head. “No need.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll be there. Tomorrow.”
Matt awoke to crashing and cursing from the dark hallway. He pushed away the unzipped sleeping bag and tumbled off the couch. The clock on the TV read 2:17. He flicked on the hallway light.
Jack lay sprawled face-first on the carpet, halfway between the bedroom and the bathroom. Without the bathrobe, it looked like his shoulder blades could slice right through the skin on his back. A brown stain covered the seat of his boxers and spread down his legs.
Jack struggled to stand up, wisps of his thinning hair sticking up in all directions. He slipped and fell again. Matt rushed to him, grabbing him under the armpits and hauling him up. “Lemme go,” Jack mumbled. “Myself. Do it myself.” He climbed up on shaky legs, his half-opened eyes cloudy. He tottered and nearly fell over backward but reached out to clutch at the wall for support.
“Have to clean you up,” Matt said. Jack was now facing the wrong way, toward the bedroom. Matt reached to take him by the elbow and lead him into the bathroom.
“Goddammit, I do it myself,” Jack said, louder now, and he wheeled around and threw a feeble forearm punch that grazed Matt’s shoulder.
The smell of Jack’s mess hit Matt then, triggering his gag reflex. He lunged for the bathroom to vomit in the toilet but wasn’t entirely successful with his aim. He rinsed his mouth out in the sink, threw a towel over the puke that had hit the floor, then turned on the hot water in the bathtub.
Jack stood in the doorway, his eyes a little more alert. “I’m all wet. What the hell’s going on?” He reached behind himself and his hand came away covered in excrement. That woke him up some more. “Ah, hell…shit, this is wrong…this is all wrong.” He leaned against the doorjamb and shook his head. He held his hand as far away from himself as he could, a foreign artifact he didn’t know how to get rid of. “Hell, I don’t…I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t touch anything. Get in the tub.” Jack fumbled with his boxers for a long time with his left hand before he was able to shuffle them off. Matt grabbed a corner of the boxers between thumb and index finger and dropped them in the trash. “Next time, you’re using that goddamn port-a-potty.”
“I thought I could—”
“Just get in the tub.”
Matt helped Jack climb into the puddle of warm water. Jack quickly slumped against the side of the tub and started snoring, his mouth stretched wide open.
—
By the time Matt got Jack back into bed and cleaned up the bathroom and the mess in the hall it was past three-thirty. He didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
Mr. Gill was waiting outside room 212, arms folded across his chest, when Matt approached after school. The vice principal grunted and looked at his watch. “So you decided to show up.”
Matt waited for Gill to step aside but the man continued to block the door. Matt stood there, staring at the lockers lining the halls.
“You’re really going through with this?” Mr. Gill said. “You know you have to be at every single meeting? On time. And you have to actually work on something, not just sit there like you do in class. One screw-up and you’re out, understand? Out of my school.”
Mr. Gill’s high forehead reddened. “Hel-lo? Are you even listening? Look at me. I said look at me.” Matt shifted his gaze from the lockers to Mr. Gill’s chest. His eyes were bleary from sleep deprivation. “Good lord. You been smoking that stuff already today? No wonder your grades are in the toilet.”
Mr. Gill turned and propped open the door. Matt watched him enter but stayed in the hallway.
The desks in room 212 had been rearranged to form clusters of three or four students each. The room was noisy, each group of teenagers discussing individual projects. Ms. Edwards, the club’s advisor, sat at her desk at the front, working on her computer. She stood when Mr. Gill entered. “May I help you?”
“I have a new member for your club.” Mr. Gill motioned to Matt, who took one step closer to the doorframe but remained in the hall. “Let’s go,” Mr. Gill barked. “If you’re going to do this then get in here.” Matt took another half-step forward, pausing in the doorway. The clamor of many conversations died down.
“Oh,” Ms. Edwards said. “I see. I’m…I’m afraid our committees are rather full at the moment.” She cleared her throat. “Are you sure Helping Hands…is the best…opportunity?”
Matt looked up from the floor for one second to scan the classroom. He had sold party bags to over half of the students in here.
“He’s your new member,” Mr. Gill said. “I’ll check in next week. Gotta run. Big meeting with District.” He left the room.
“Well,” Ms. Edwards said. She smoothed her skirt. “Well. I suppose we’ll need to find you a committee, then.” The other students averted their eyes, restarted their discussions at half volume, pushed their circled desks slightly closer together. Ms. Edwards opened her mouth, then closed it. She picked a piece of paper off her desk and managed to find her smile again. “Okay, Matt, so this is a list of all the committees and a description of their projects. This will give you some idea of what Helping Hands is all about.” She handed the paper to him and waited a few moments before he took it from her. “You could always start your own project?” She looked hopefully at Matt, who said nothing. “Or…maybe you could pick one of these and we’ll see if there’s room?”
Matt gripped the paper, his eyes flying over the words without reading them. He could feel the heat of stolen glances all over his body, like the red pinpricks of light from laser gunsights he had seen in countless action movies on late-night basic cable. It took more willpower than he knew he possessed to stay standing in front of that room.
He was close to bolting, damn the consequences, when a girl in the back raised her hand. Hers was the only single desk in the room, alone in the corner. “Ms. Edwards? Matt can join my committee.”
Ms. Edwards stopped fiddling with her skirt. She took the paper out of Matt’s hands. “That’s an excellent idea. Why don’t you join Amanda?”
Matt shuffled over and sat at a desk, scrunching himself below the gaze of two dozen pairs of eyes, and felt like he could breathe again.
“I guess it’s not technically a committee if I’m the only member, though, huh?” the girl said, casting a quick glance at the people surrounding them. “So it’s a good thing you showed up.”
Matt looked at the clock.
“Oh, my apologies. I should introduce myself. I’m Amanda,” the girl said. “We’ve had a couple of classes together but never officially met.”
Matt didn’t recognize the girl. Her body was fat in a way that defied polite euphemisms. Matt had no idea that you could buy a pink sweatshirt with Disney characters on it in that large of a size. It seemed like it belonged on a much smaller person, a little kid, which made the look even worse.
Her face was covered by a smile that crinkled up her eyes. She extended her hand. It took Matt a few moments to figure out he was supposed to shake it.
Amanda scooched her desk over to be closer to Matt’s. She gestured to some papers and a calendar on her desktop. “I’m in the middle of organizing a children’s book drive for the hospital,” she said. “A special collection for the kids who have to stay overnight. The stuff in the waiting room always gets so torn up.”
“I got the idea from my mom,” Amanda said. “She works nights at the hospital and sometimes has a shift in the children’s wing. Some of those little guys could really use some cheering up.”
Matt traced a name that had been carved into his desk.
“I remember in third grade, I had to have my appendix taken out,” Amanda said. “Boy, I was so nervous in that hospital bed I couldn’t sleep all night. Hopefully we’ll be able to help kids just like that.”
Amanda waited politely during the times when it would have been Matt’s turn to speak, just like they were having a real conversation.
“The planning stage is pretty much over,” she said. “I’ve done the publicity and contacted donors in the neighborhood. Now the books just need to be picked up and taken to the hospital.”
Matt could feel the stares again, people looking in his direction from every corner of the room. Someone from the nearest group half-whispered, “Perfect match. One sells the weed and the other gets the munchies.” Laughter was poorly concealed behind hands or disguised as coughs.
“Assholes,” Matt muttered to himself. He glanced at Amanda. Her smile had slipped a bit. She studied her hands, folded on top of the desk. “Those people are assholes,” Matt told her.
Amanda lifted her head. “Usually the people here are really nice,” she whispered. “Especially in a club like this. Most of them really want to help other people.”
“Most of them are resume whores.”
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”
Matt shrugged. Amanda bent her head and filled out paperwork.
After a while Matt said, “So no one else is on this committee?”
“No, it’s just me. I prefer to work alone,” Amanda said. “But I don’t mind if you join,” she quickly added. “I’m at the stage where I could use a little help, actually. There are a lot of boxes of books to be picked up.”
Matt shook his head. “I don’t have much time. Gill said it was just Tuesday afternoons. Meetings.”
“Ms. Edwards lets us sign in here during meeting times and then leave campus to do the legwork,” Amanda said. “Does that work for you?”
“Guess it’ll have to.”
The rest of the week was surprisingly smooth. Matt added a new in-house stash behind some loose paneling in the locker room and adjusted his money drop-off sites with some regulars. Business was good.
It remained embarrassingly easy to get by in his classes. Matt had learned long ago that if he showed up and sat at a desk, turned in the thinnest of half-assed attempts when assignments were due, kept his mouth shut and avoided discipline problems, no teacher in the school would fail him.
And Jack. Jack hadn’t had a screaming pain fit in over a week. Matt thought he had finally figured out the right medicine cocktail to keep Jack at least semicomfortable: the morphine he got from Big Ed for the pain, a triple shot of Benadryl to help him sleep and a little bit of Matt’s weed twice a day to get his appetite up. Although the only things he would agree to eat were rocky road ice cream and frozen fish sticks dipped in barbecue sauce. Matt couldn’t believe how little Jack ate some days.
Jack was better in the evenings. More clearheaded, more energy. They were able to play cards, sometimes for almost two hours at a stretch. Cribbage, five bucks a point. They kept a running tally of the totals. So far Matt owed Jack $32,795.
And Matt was able to worry a little less when he had to leave the trailer. He had rigged up a timer system, a stopwatch that he set to beep every four hours. That way Jack would remember to take his medicine when Matt was at school or out on business. It had been eight gloriously peaceful days since Jack had forgotten.
For the first time in months Matt felt like he was almost able to keep up with things. Like he wasn’t buried in it the second he woke up in the morning.
It lasted until Friday. His burner cell phone vibrated in his pocket in the middle of fourth period. He checked the number underneath his desk. It was Janice, the trailer park manager. Not good.
Matt grabbed a bathroom pass and slipped out the classroom door. He heard some wiseass whisper, “Oh, I wonder where he’s going,” to some other wiseass.
Matt ducked into the stairwell and returned the call.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Matt. You called?”
“Yeah. About Jack. I really don’t have time for his shit right now.” The smacking of Janice’s gum was louder than her words.
“What’d he do?”
“Shit, kid, what didn’t he do? You need a get down here and corral him, right away.”
Matt looked at his watch and swore. Gill was just waiting for the chance to nail him, build up enough offenses in his file to run him out. “Can’t you just tell him to sit in the trailer and wait until I get home?”
“We’re way past that point. Yer not here in ten minutes and I’m callin’ the cops. You don’t want that, right?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
—
Matt was panting heavily from running all the way to the trailer park.
“Hot damn, kid, he’s in fine form today,” one of the picnic table regulars called to Matt as he rushed by.
“What you feedin’ him for breakfast, anyway?” shouted another.
Matt saw Jack down at the end of a row of trailers. He was beating on the rusted siding of trailer #11 with a big stick. Matt had no idea where he had gotten that much energy.
Matt could hear Jack ranting as he got closer, barking and wheezing to the park at large. “Who took it?” Jack said, emphasizing the words with a bang of the stick on the trailer. “Which one a you bastards took it?” Bang. Bang. “I ain’t goin’ away till I find ya.” Bang. “I’m gettin’ it back, then I’m gettin’ the hell outta here.” Bang.
Jack set his feet shoulder width apart and wrapped both hands around the base of the stick, baseball batter style, to take a bigger cut at the trailer. He uncorked a hefty swing and missed, stumbling to an awkward rest on one knee. He pushed himself up, using the stick for support. The stick was being shakily raised to shoulder level for another home run swing when Matt reached him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Matt ripped the stick from Jack’s hands and tossed it aside.
“Huh?” Jack turned and his knees buckled. Matt caught him around the chest and shoulders before he crumpled to the ground.
A woman’s face appeared above them in the tiny bathroom window of trailer #11. “About time!” came the shrill voice through the dirty screen. “He hit my trailer again and I would’ve come out there myself. He’s been terrorizing the whole neighborhood.”
Matt waved at the window and pulled Jack toward trailer #6. Jack’s shoulders felt bird-thin, breakable. Matt had sat atop those shoulders as a boy, even when he was way too old for it, getting rides to the Quik-N-EZ Mart for a Freezy Drink. It had seemed like miles but Jack always hauled him there the whole way. And back. Even when Matt dribbled grape Freezy on his head. It was hard to believe those were the same shoulders.
“Lemme go,” Jack mumbled. His energy was gone, feet barely dragging through the gravel as Matt lugged him home.
“What in the hell were you doing?” Matt spoke in hushed tones, intensely aware of the hidden eyes watching them from the surrounding trailers.
“Someone stole my car,” Jack said. He found enough steam to raise his voice and jab his finger at the row of trailers. “One a these low-rent bastards stole my car and one of us hadda be man enough to get it back.” He paid for his half-shout with a coughing jag.
“Jesus,” Matt muttered. He shook his head.
Jack spat out a brown glob. “What’s yer problem?”
“We sold that car. Six months ago.”
“Why in hell’d we do that?”
“To pay the fucking doctor bills. And get started on a supply of morphine. Don’t tell me you don’t remember that. You wanna go back to the way it was before the morphine?”
>
Jack shoved himself away from Matt’s arms. Matt fully expected him to fall in a heap, but Jack found a shaky balance and plodded the last few feet to the trailer, where he wrestled unsuccessfully with the door.
Janice approached from her manager’s office a few trailers down. “Everything under some kind a control?” She flicked the ash from her cigarette into a puddle.
Matt nodded. He struggled for a moment to find the right words. “Look, I’m glad you called me instead of the cops,” he said.
“Whatever. Just make sure he stays under wraps.” She turned and walked back to her office.
Matt pushed Jack aside and forced the trailer door open, then stepped away and gestured for him to enter.
“You shouldn’t a sold that car,” Jack said, and pulled himself through the door.
Jack collapsed on the couch while Matt stalked down the narrow hallway to the bathroom. He flicked on the light. “Oh, great,” he muttered. “This is exactly what I need right now.”
The grimy countertop was covered in pills, tubes and overturned canisters. Matt was horrified to see much of their dwindling supply of morphine—those precious peace-bringing blue tablets—scattered in the sink. A few of them were half-dissolved in stray drops of water; others clung in a little circle around the drain. Some of them had obviously fallen through. Matt carefully scooped up as many as he could and dropped them into the proper canister.
There were other medicines mixed in the mess, aspirin capsules and cold remedy gelcaps and dull pink dots of Pepto-Bismol. It looked like Jack had ripped apart the entire medicine cabinet.
Then Matt saw the NeverSleep wrapper on the warped linoleum floor. Extra Energy! it promised. For Those On the Go All Nite! He had bought those recently to help out on the school days that followed a tough night with Jack. He picked up the packet and looked in. There were many more pills missing than he had taken. He shook his head, staring at the packet in his hand.
Mr. 60% Page 2
