I can’t lose this place that’s ours, not even for a month or two; I’ll go crazy. It’s the only place I have. I look to Jeff, try to send him some kind of telepathic message. You realize this means we’ll never be alone?
But I can’t catch Jeff’s eye. “You want a beer?” he asks Dirtrat. Jeff’s dad keeps cases in the basement fridge. He knows I don’t want any.
“Sure,” Dirtrat says, and I decide I kind of hate him.
They chug through two six-packs before Jeff breaks out the flask, filling it from his dad’s whiskey stash in the cabinet. Jeff doesn’t drink much, usually, at least not around me. He knows I don’t like it. Dirtrat rummages through Jeff’s CDs. “Man! Resist and Exist! This is, like, a rarity. I saw these dudes at Gilman Street in like, ’95.” I don’t know what Gilman Street is, but I’ve learned with punk kids it’s better not to ask: not knowing means you’re one of them, that you’re part of the “machine.” Jeff overlooks my lack of hard-core credentials since I’m his girlfriend and all, but I have a feeling Dirtrat wouldn’t.
“Well, put it on, dude.” Jeff takes the CD and presses Play on the crappy boom box. He turns the volume up to 10 and grins at me; I’m glad to have his eyes again. Jeff reaches out his hand, faking he’s a gentleman, and pulls me up into an impromptu mosh pit. Jeff shouts along with the lyrics: Who does control of your life belong to? Does it belong to them or you? We pick up clothes from the pile and toss them at each other, thrash to the music, our own little punk show. It’s stupid but it feels good. I laugh into his eyes, wild and noisy.
Then Dirtrat gets up and joins in. For a second the three of us become a crowd, a little vortex; for a second I’m one of them. Then Dirtrat edges me out with his elbows. They thrash around and around, orbiting each other, faster and stronger than I can go, their circle too tight for me to find a way in; a blur of sinewy boy muscle, testosterone, and revolt. They speed up as the music does, and I slow down, watching. The pile of clothes gets smaller and then Dirtrat starts throwing objects: beer cans, plastic plates, pots and pans. He throws his frame pack across the room, hard: it slams against the laundry sink, knocking over the hot plate and breaking a bottle.
Then he kicks over the La-Z-Boy and starts jumping up and down on it. One of the wooden beams on the bottom of the chair breaks under his boot. It’s loud. My heart beats in my ears. “Fuck!” Dirtrat yells. “That was fuckin’ awesome!”
“Yeah!” Jeff hollers. Then a flurry of footsteps sounds on the ceiling above us and Jeff’s face goes pale. “Shit,” he says. “My dad.”
He heads over to the chair and stands it up, but it doesn’t look right: Dirtrat mangled it. The arm is broken too, dangling off the chair’s body like a dislocated elbow. “Fuck,” Jeff says, trying to put it back together, panicking. “Alison, could you help me here?”
I start to get up, but I guess not fast enough, because suddenly he yells—“Alison!”—like an asshole dad chewing out a little kid, a quarterback shoving a geek against a locker. He’s never yelled at me before.
“Alison, get over here and help me out! Jesus!” he shouts again. My face gets hot, and a throb rises in my chest: I want to tell him, You guys broke it; fix it yourself. But footsteps thunder above us, and Jeff’s eyes flash with fear beneath the anger, and I know I have to help.
I hustle over to the chair. It’s hopelessly broken. Dirtrat picks up pieces of glass off the floor with his bare fingers. Footsteps clomp closer, and then we hear the door open.
“Dude,” Jeff says to Dirtrat, and points at the bathroom, like Go. Dirtrat darts his eyes toward it, but it’s too late. Jeff’s dad is already lumbering down the stairs.
“Jeff?” Mr. Davey hollers down. He can’t see us yet.
I scurry over to the boom box, switch off Resist and Exist.
“I’m fine, Dad,” Jeff yells, drunk.
His dad appears at the base of the stairs. Mr. Davey is beady-eyed and fat in that doughy, indoor American way: too much car and television, too much office chair and couch. His “Huskies” T-shirt stretches across his gut.
He surveys the wreckage. His gaze lands on me—“Hello, Alison,” he says cautiously—and then on Dirtrat. I see Dirtrat through Mr. Davey’s eyes: the grime, the dreads, the face tattoo. I see Dirtrat see himself through Mr. Davey’s eyes: worthless, lazy, throwaway. Dirtrat juts his chin out, brave or faking it, like me with the jock guys at school.
“Take a picture,” Dirtrat mutters.
I make myself invisible.
“So, um, this is my friend from Olympia, Dad,” Jeff says feebly. He looks half the size he did a second ago.
Mr. Davey leafs through debris, assessing the damage. Then he turns to Dirtrat. “Well, you’re headed back there tonight.”
“C’mon, man, Dirtrat’s my friend,” Jeff says. “I can’t ditch him.”
Mr. Davey’s eyebrows lift. “Wait, who is your friend?”
Jeff backs up a little, realizing what he now has to repeat: “Dirtrat.”
Mr. Davey looks at Dirtrat. “That’s your name?”
Dirtrat nods almost imperceptibly.
“Uh-huh. Okay. It’s time for you to go.”
Jeff again, desperation creeping in: “He doesn’t have a place to—”
Mr. Davey cuts him off, his voice full of hulking authority. “Not my problem.”
This is the other thing me and Jeff have in common: we both have parents who don’t give a shit about us. It’s this weird backward thing, when the person who’s supposed to take care of you is the one who hurts you most; it makes the whole world upside down so there’s no one you can really trust, and most people have absolutely no idea how it feels. Sometimes the subject comes up and I can tell from Jeff’s eyes he understands; we understand each other. There’s a recognition there: shit is hard. Like we’re each in this bubble that we can’t break through, but we’re together in the loneliness.
But he’s a guy. The times I’ve tried to really talk about it, he mostly blows it off, makes a joke, looks out the window. So I leave it there: we both silently know how it is for each other, and knowing is just enough to make us feel a little less alone.
Mr. Davey turns to Dirtrat. “You heard me. Out.”
But Jeff makes a decision. He covers the hurt, stands up straight, and says, “Fuck that, man. That’s an abuse of power.” He checks in with Dirtrat like, You’ve got my back, right? Dirtrat looks at the floor. I think he’s thinking more about where he’s gonna sleep than about sticking it to the Man.
Mr. Davey doesn’t fold. “This is my house,” he booms. “Which means I decide who’s on my property.”
“Who fuckin’ says, man?” Jeff says, still full of bravado.
“Do you even understand the concept of property ownership?” Mr. Davey squints at him. It comes out condescending, like Jeff’s a kid who doesn’t know anything. I see hurt flicker behind Jeff’s eyes, and I want to say something, but it feels impossible.
“I understand it’s bullshit, man,” Jeff says, fake-brave. I know him well enough to tell that underneath he wants to hide. But he puffs out his skinny chest. “Property is theft.”
“You know what?” Mr. Davey suddenly decides. “You’re so loyal? Pack your bag and go with him. Both of you get out.”
Both of you. I guess my attempts at invisibility succeeded.
Panic flashes across Jeff’s face. I think he realizes he took it too far. “You can’t do that! You can’t kick me out—I have rights!”
“Do you pay rent?”
“No, but—”
“Great, that means you don’t have rights. Welcome to adulthood.”
Jeff’s eyes well up, but he stares at his dad, hard. I know that feeling; I have that with the jock guys. You know what they’re doing is wrong, but they’re bigger than you, so there’s nothing you can say. “Fuck you,” Jeff finally says.
Mr. Davey
gets up in Jeff’s face, his shoulders twice as wide, his eyes twice as mean. His cheeks are red. “Get out.” He raises his fist. He’s about three times Jeff’s size. My heart starts thudding in my chest.
Jeff takes a step backward. The bravado drains away; his chest sinks in and he looks like a scared kid. “But all my stuff’s here.” His voice is desperate. “I can’t just . . .”
Mr. Davey holds his ground.
There’s a long beat. Dirtrat lurks in the corner, his eyes on the floor. He doesn’t say anything. I want to do something, help Jeff, but I don’t know what I could do that wouldn’t make it worse.
Finally Jeff starts packing up his clothes.
Mr. Davey turns to me; his face relaxes, and out of nowhere he suddenly looks like a dad instead of like a crazy person. “Jeff’ll give you a ride home, okay?” he says. His voice is sticky-sweet, condescending, like I know this isn’t your fault. It reminds me of the jocks at school, how they act friendly when what’s behind it is ugly; it reminds me of my mom, how she fakes “concern about my future” when she’s just trying to get me to make her feel like she’s not broken. It’s a lie, a painting of Mount Rainier covering a shattered wall, fake gloss covering the rot underneath. Heat rises in my stomach, churning like a mosh pit.
But I don’t say anything. I just swallow it. Jeff zips his frame pack and slings it over his shoulder. “This is bullshit,” he mutters as he stomps up the stairs. Dirtrat follows silently behind him, and I head up in their wake.
We cross the street to Grandpa, Jeff hunched over, a scowl darkening his face. Dirtrat slinks a few paces behind. “Keys,” I tell Jeff when we get to the car. They’ve had six beers each and a bunch of whiskey. I’m not screwing around.
Jeff doesn’t budge. “I said keys!” I snap, heat still roiling in my rib cage.
Dirtrat looks up at me, surprised. My nails dig moons into my palms. I don’t want to yell at Jeff. But I’m not letting him fucking drive.
“Jeff!”
He tosses me the keys and slouches into the passenger seat, glaring back at his house through the windshield. Underneath the mad, he looks like he might cry.
Dirtrat hauls their packs into the backseat, and I get in the driver’s side and turn the key.
“Thanks for having my back in there, guys,” Jeff says, sarcastic. “Way to stick up to my dad.”
I look at him, surprised. He’s mad at me? What was I supposed to do? I grip the wheel, my knuckles white. Jeff’s never been pissed off at me before. Suddenly I feel really, really alone.
Dirtrat just says, “Chill, man.”
Jeff flinches.
“This is bullshit,” Jeff finally says. “Where the hell am I supposed to stay?” He pounds the dashboard with his fist. “Shit.” He lights a cigarette, then leans around to Dirtrat. “You know anyone in Tacoma?”
“I mean, not that we could crash with . . .”
“No one?” he says into the rearview mirror.
“Nah, man, Tacoma sucks. Hardly anybody lives here. But, you know . . .” Dirtrat says, thinking a minute. He peers toward the dash. “How much gas do you have?”
Jeff leans toward me to read the gauge. “Three-quarters,” he says.
“Hmm,” Dirtrat says, like he’s got an idea. “What time is it?”
I look at my phone. “Almost ten.”
“Too late to drive up now,” Dirtrat says. “But in the morning . . .”
“Drive up where?” Jeff asks.
“Well, there’s this thing I heard about. Near Mount Rainier? On BLM land. Cascade Lumber signed some deal to cut a bunch of old-growth, and there’s a Free State starting up.”
“What’s a Free State?” I ask Dirtrat, suspicious. I don’t quite trust him as a source for housing referrals.
“Basically when the timber companies want to cut, and people don’t want to let them,” Dirtrat says. “If it’s illegal, or just wrong, or whatever. People set up, like, autonomous areas on the logging roads to protest.”
Autonomous. That means no authority figures to boss you around. I suspect it might also mean things like puking on your roommate’s computer.
Jeff stops pulling on his cigarette; his shoulders relax. “That’s a good idea, man.” I look at him, surprised. His eyes are still on Dirtrat. We’re driving around in circles now, biding time, rain sprinkling the windshield.
“You don’t have to pay or know someone or something?” I ask, skeptical. “You can just go?”
“Sure,” Dirtrat says. “If you’re down for the cause or whatever. They need all the bodies they can get.” He leans forward toward Jeff. “We could crash there for a while; there’s food and stuff. You’ve got a sleeping bag, right, man?”
“Not with me,” Jeff says. He shoots a look back toward his dad’s house.
“It’s cool,” Dirtrat says. “I bet there are spares up there. Or we could hit Goodwill on the way and pick up some blankets or something.” Goodwill blankets: eww. “It’s a good scene. We’d be taken care of.”
“Yeah?” Jeff says. He stubs his cigarette out, rubs his forehead, thinking. Hope elbows the hurt out of his eyes, and then he nods. “Okay. I’m down.”
My mind races and my heart starts beating fast. Did Jeff just say he’s moving to the woods? He’s supposed to be here, with me, stuck with his dad while I’m stuck with my mom. Am I supposed to do this without him?
“Awesome,” Dirtrat says. “We gotta wait till morning, though; mountain roads are gnarly at night.”
Jeff turns to me, hopeful. “We can crash at your place tonight, right?”
The whole point of Jeff is that he takes me away. I get to be someone else with him, forget everything outside of us. If I bring them home with me, my mom will wake up; she’ll come out of her room, and she’ll do the things she does. And then she won’t be an abstraction anymore, something to joke about or sympathize with silently; she’ll be part of how he sees me. Which means all of it will. And what I am with him will get swallowed up by the black hole of the rest of my life.
“I mean, Jeff, my mom’s there. I’ll get in endless shit if we get caught.”
He thinks a minute, then says, “You know what? Fuck that,” like he’s realizing something. “Who cares if you get in trouble? Just come with us tomorrow. Skip school and come up for the day. She’ll cool off; I’ll drive you back at night.” I’ll drive you back. He’s not leaving. I exhale; my shoulders drop.
And then he leans in to me, close enough so Dirtrat can’t hear. “Al, I can’t go home tonight. I need a place to stay. After that we can figure it out. Okay?” He looks at me like he really needs it. Needs me. “Have my back?”
I look at his flinty blue eyes. I would want him to say yes, if it were me. “Okay,” I say. “But keep him quiet. I don’t want him waking up my fucking mom.”
CHAPTER 3
I wake up in the predawn, half-light streaming through the blinds. We made it through the night without getting caught. Shadows stripe Jeff’s sleeping face beside me, Dirtrat’s huddled body on the floor. I watch Jeff for a minute, breathing, peaceful; then I slip out of bed, careful not to jostle him. Dirtrat snores as I tiptoe past, out the front door.
This is my favorite time: when the sun’s emerging but the world isn’t awake yet. When I was little and my mom would work the early shift on Saturdays, she’d wake us up, bring us to the diner, and sit plates of poached eggs in front of us while she poured coffee for the dockworkers. We’d watch the sun rise through the windows, Andy and I, smog turning the sky pink above the Sound. I remember what the roads looked like without cars, buildings without lights, no one up besides us and the early shift, the world a secret, quiet place, still and small enough to understand.
I stand in the driveway, listening. A truck hauls logs on a far-off highway; a bird flits around her nest; an engine starts up down the street. It rattles like Scott’s old van
did, and suddenly I remember Andy at the wheel, his beer-blurred eyes, backing down the driveway, rain splattering on the hood. I remember standing there, silent, cowardly, letting him go. I hate myself. I squeeze my eyes tight to shut it out and swallow hard. Down the block a door slams closed.
* * *
• • •
When I go back inside, Dirtrat’s awake, scanning my room, taking stock: spiral notebooks, cheap fake-silver jewelry, shoes. Scarves draped on milk-crate bookshelves, candle-wax-dripped wine bottles. Like he’s looking for things he could take. I’m glad I came in when I did.
Jeff stirs when I close the door behind me.
“Wake up,” I whisper. “She’ll be up soon. We gotta go.”
Jeff rubs his eyes with balled fists. Dirtrat sits down to lace his boots. His eyes land on my tattered Pearl Jam poster.
“Dude, you like that band?” Dirtrat asks.
The embarrassment of mainstream music wakes Jeff up fast. He jumps in: “No, she just—”
I cut Jeff off, hard. “It’s my brother’s.”
“Oh.” Pause. “You have a brother?”
“Had.” I shut him down.
* * *
• • •
I remember that notice in the mailbox, further unexcused absences in this lab could affect her ability to graduate. I hear Andy’s voice in my head: A means to an end, Al. The good stuff’s all after, but you gotta do this to get to it. I can ditch the day this one time, but I can’t skip first-period chem. I ask Jeff to wait in the lot till first period’s over, and then we’ll go. Dirtrat acts like I’m pulling his teeth out with pliers, but I lean in to Jeff. “Have my back?” I ask him, and he does.
I manage to get in, get counted, sit through lab, and make it back with no jocks, no Team Naomi, no teachers catching me. When I walk out into the parking lot, it doesn’t take long to spot the peeling paint and “Fuck Civilization” bumper sticker amidst the rows of shiny cars with stickers that say “Wilson Basketball” and “Go Huskies!” I duck past the rent-a-cops and head for Grandpa, avoiding anything that might slow my escape.
Legacy Page 4
