Mercy Rule

by Tom Leveen

  There are places set out at the kitchen table. There’s no room for a dining area like that at our place. On the counter are the makings of a Mexican feast: black beans, homemade pico de gallo, grated cheese, warm tortillas, shredded meat, sliced jalapeño peppers, and a sautéed mix of bell peppers and onions. At the end of the line is a red quesadilla maker, like a big two-sided grill.

  “Load ’em up,” Chuck says, walking into the kitchen from another doorway that looks like it leads to a small bedroom or office. “Go ahead, Dan.”

  It’s all I can do to not correct him. I loathe the name Dan.

  But I follow his orders, because he sounds like he’s used to people doing just that. I get a plate and start piling cheese onto a tortilla. Cadence falls in behind me while Audry puts bottles of water on the table and a glass pitcher of something red.

  “Cadence said you worked on a submarine,” I say, sprinkling beans on top of a bed of cheese.

  “That’s right,” Chuck says.

  “That’s pretty cool. What, um … what’d you do on it?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He might be messing with me, Daddy polishing the shotgun and all that. But I can’t tell, and I’m not taking any chances. So I focus on dinner.

  After all our quesadillas are finished cooking, Audry brings a dish of the pico to the table. I spoon some onto my plate and dip a tortilla chip into it. The chips and salsa are homemade.

  The salsa is freaking awesome. We always have bottled stuff like Tostitos or Herdez at home. I could eat a bowl full of this like soup.

  “Wow,” I say, feeling like a dork but unable to stop. “This is great. What’s in it?”

  “Nail clippings,” Audry says.

  It actually takes a second for me to see if they’re joking. When all three of them laugh, I choose to believe it’s because she was kidding. And even if not, I don’t care—I’ll take the clippings because this stuff is incredible.

  That’s when the pain hits.

  DONTE

  “How’s the rice?” Mom asks.

  I can’t help laughing. We have rice almost every night. Sometimes noodles. But always one or the other.

  “Mmm!” I say, exaggerating. “So good, Mom, so good.”

  Mom laughs right back at me. But then Ramon, being the seven-year-old that he is, says, “I’m sick of rice!”

  “Hey,” I say quietly. “Don’t worry about it, boss.”

  “I am, I am, I am!” Ramon shouts, throwing his black plastic fork down. He jumps up from the table and picks up one of his plastic guns with the orange tip and fires it at the table.

  “I don’t like those things,” Mom reminds him. “Put it down and come back to the table, Ramon.”

  He does, crossing his arms and sits there being pissy in that way only seven-year-olds can be.

  Mom closes her eyes. She’s sick of rice, too. We all are. We’re sick of kung pao chicken, and orange chicken, and Mongolian beef, and everything else that Pei Wei has to offer. There are only so many combinations. A couple of weeks ago, Amy suggested we have Pei Wei when she and Brianna and Brady and me and some other friends were all out for lunch together. I almost threw up in the new-old car at the suggestion. We went to In-N-Out instead. I bought for everyone.

  I take Ramon’s black plastic dish and hold it up over mine. “All right. I’ll just eat all yours then …”

  “No, no, no!” Ramon screams, reaching for the dish.

  “All right,” I say again, putting the bowl back down. “But you gotta eat it, okay? You want mine instead?”

  “It’s all the same shit,” Ramon says.

  Mom’s eyes flip open. Before she can do anything, though, I sit up tall in my chair and bark, “Hey!”

  Ramon freezes in place.

  “We don’t talk like that,” I say, aiming for firm but not angry. I know I can scare the kid when I want to. Right now, I don’t want to. “Right? We don’t talk like that?”

  Ramon pouts, doesn’t answer.

  “Ramon? Let’s go, boss. We don’t talk like that, right?”

  “Okay,” Ramon says.

  “Tell Mom.”

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  Mom rubs Ramon’s arm. She still does that to me, too, sometimes. “Thank you, baby.”

  Then she glances over at me and says Thank you with her eyes.

  I shrug it off, like it’s no big thing. Sometimes, I hate that between me and my little brother we’ve got two dads running around somewhere. Then other times, I sincerely do not care about those bastards. Why would I want to know anything about my dad? Asshole took off, he can stay gone. Same with Ramon’s dad. I’ve met him a few times. Useless piece of shit is all he is. Ramon’s better off without him, but he still comes crawling around, demanding his rights to see the kid. I think he uses Ramon to get sympathy and scam younger women who don’t know any better.

  I scoop up yet another forkful of rice. This—this is a man’s game, never mind football. Man’s game is taking care of your kid, taking care of your family.

  I watch Ramon eating pieces of white rice one at a time.

  “You’re a good man,” I tell Ramon. “I like that. I want to be like you someday.”

  Ramon sits up a little straighter and actually eats a piece of broccoli. Me and Mom exchange looks. It’s a good dinner after all.

  DREA

  Mom is having one of her meltdowns. When I walk into the kitchen, I see two bowls shattered into ceramic jigsaws on the floor. Mom must have thrown them while I was in the shower, because I didn’t hear them break, and usually I do. Usually I do.

  Even as I’m assessing the damage, Dad steps past her and walks around the shards in his bare feet to open the fridge.

  “Why won’t you look at me?” Mom cries in a throaty, snot-clogged voice.

  Dad peers into the fridge like a doctor studying an x-ray. “Because I’m looking for a Coke.”

  Mom makes a choking, gargling moan. I think, God, don’t ever let me be like this. I don’t know who I hate more. My mother, for making such a melodramatic ass of herself, or my dad for not giving a crap and not at least pretending—acting!—like he cares enough to do something about it, you know?

  “I just …” Mom starts to say, and I know where it’s going:

  “I just can’t do this anymore!”

  She says this approximately once a month. Sometimes more. She has been saying it since as far back as I can remember.

  Dad sighs. “Pull yourself together, and we can talk.”

  Mom makes an effort to stop crying.

  “After I finish the set design for the show,” Dad adds.

  And smirks. So pleased with himself.

  Mom’s emotions jump past crying and straight to damn near psycho. “Do you know what? Do you want to know something?”

  Dad shrugs.

  “I screwed Dustin!” Mom howls, triumphant. “How about that? Huh? Whaddya say to that?!”

  Her face is red, puffy. I think she’s attempting to appear—what’s the word?—exultant.

  Instead, she looks stupid. Dustin is the stage manager over at the theater. I’m 98 percent sure he’s gay.

  Dad appears bemused. “Okay.”

  He always says that. Just that way. Like it doesn’t mean a thing, like it does not and never will bother him, no matter if it’s true or not.

  My father’s response brings immediate retaliation. “I hate you!” Mom screams. “I hate your guts! You incomparable prick!”

  She rages on, creating combinations of profanities I could never have dreamed of. Dad watches her for a few moments, taking sips of his soda. I hate him for that. He’s just letting her go, not making any move to calm her down. He might even be enjoying it. I want to try to help, to say something to her, but what?

  Mom collapses against the kitchen table, heaving, clawing weakly at the tabletop as if shot. Tears run out of her eyes as she moans and weeps. Dad takes a sip. Walks past her and into their room. Shuts the door.

&nbs
p; My parents, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s hear it for them.

  I walk back to my room, too, experiencing one of those moments when you wonder why you were even born. This is not, I am sure, some self-pitying, selfish-teenager thing. I really want to know why these two obviously useless assholes had decided to conceive anything.

  Maybe they didn’t mean to. That would explain a lot.

  I call Kelly. She arrives right away, ready to defend me against all invaders, foreign or domestic. She’s decked out in black cutoff boys’ dress pants and a tank top tie-dyed into a rainbow. Her colorless hair is pulled back, except it’s cranky and doesn’t appreciate the hair tie, so most of it spills around her round cheeks, anyway. The first thing out of Kelly’s mouth is, “What happened?”

  I’m not sure where to even start. I’ve been asking myself that question for fifteen years.

  BRADY

  “Come on in here,” Coach says after dinner. Amy and Monica clear the plates. They don’t look at me. I get a bad feeling. Maybe it’s all the pasta. There’s a pie on the kitchen counter from a restaurant. I wanted it all to myself. Now I don’t know.

  Follow Coach into his office. It’s nice. Big leather chair behind a desk. Autographed football sitting on a stand that’s on top of a bookcase.

  Coach sits behind his desk. “Sit down, son.”

  I sit.

  “You wanna play in the NFL? Be a starting quarterback?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No you don’t.”

  I get mad.

  “Not like that, you don’t,” Coach says. “You don’t have the fire. You say ‘yeah’ because you think I want to hear you say ‘yeah.’”

  I’m not mad anymore. He’s right. I know it.

  “But I don’t want to hear that. That’s not what I want. You know what I want, son?”

  “No.” Looking at my shoes while he talks. Can’t look up.

  “I want whatever’s gonna be best for you. And if you don’t mind my saying, what’s best for you is getting the hell out of this town.”

  Now I do look up. Into his eyes.

  “There it is.” Coach kinda grins and leans back in his chair. “There’s that fire I was talking about. You don’t care about playing for the NFL, you care about getting out of here.”

  “… Yes.” Comes out like a growl.

  “All right, then. Now we’re being honest. So I’m gonna tell you what you’re gonna do. You want me to do that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What we need to do is leverage your resources. You know what that means? It means you’re gonna take what you got and put it to work. So, first, we’re gonna get you fed. We’re gonna get you bulked up. I’m sick of you not getting enough to eat.”

  I clamp my teeth together. I’m sick of it, too.

  “And you’re gonna study. You’re gonna get As and Bs in every single class.”

  “But I—”

  “What’re buts for?”

  “Sissies.”

  Coach grins. Nobody else says “sissy.” Coach says he’s trying to bring it back. Says it’s a great word to describe some people. Maybe he’s right.

  “So you’re gonna study, and you’re gonna get the grades. Then you’re gonna be at practice, and I’m gonna bust your ass into shape. You and me are gonna take this team to State.”

  “We’re oh and three right now, Coach.”

  “We had tough games. Tough schools. That changes tomorrow night. You need one win, B. One win, and the rest of the season will fall into place. But we’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “So we’re gonna find you a scholarship to some school. It won’t matter which one. Any school that’ll pay for you. There’ll be plenty, trust me. It might not be Notre Dame, or Ohio, USC, any of those. But it’ll be free. You’re gonna go and keep your dick where it belongs and get a degree, and when that happens, you’ll be all set. How does that sound?”

  Don’t answer. Might start crying. Fuck that.

  “So you keep your shit together this year,” Coach goes on. Must be pretending not to see what’s happening on my face. “Keep your grades up. No drugs, no alcohol, no girl drama. There’s not a single one of them worth risking the next four years. You hear me?”

  I nod. Jaw’s starting to cramp.

  “Good. Now when you get to that school, wherever it is, you’re gonna do the same thing there. No frat parties, no drinking and driving, none of that crap. You’re gonna play. You’re gonna play hard. You’re gonna work hard. Maybe you play pro ball, maybe you don’t. It won’t matter, because you’ll have the things you need to get out of here. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “I think so, Coach.”

  “It’s up to you, Brady. I just gave you the five-year plan to get everything you want. I wish I could promise you the NFL, but I can’t. I will promise that if you do everything I just said, you can get out of that house, get out of this town, and you’ll be set for life.”

  I nod again.

  “All right,” Coach says. “Hey. Maybe after the season, we can take the team out camping. Fishing, hunting, all that. Just varsity, just the A-team. Whaddya think?”

  “That’d be cool, yeah.”

  “You ready for dessert?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good man.”

  We get up. He slaps my shoulder and we head into the kitchen.

  I’d take a bullet for this man.

  DANNY

  The pain dims, but it doesn’t go away. But it gets so I can ignore it. It’s not for real, anyway; not physical. I don’t think. No—this is something else.

  A burst of music from the garage makes me glance up from my last bite of quesadilla. Cadence and her family don’t seem to notice, or mind.

  “What’s that?” I ask her.

  “My brother Johnny. He’s making videos.”

  Another burst of music. It goes off, comes back on. Goes off.

  “What kind?” I ask.

  “You’d have to come see it,” Cadence says. “Want to? Come on!”

  “She gets distracted easily,” Chuck says, and Audry laughs and says, “Squirrel!” Must be a family joke.

  Cadence leads me out the front door to the small detached garage. Music is playing again, but not quite as loudly as before. She peeks in a side door, half of which is taken up by a two-paned window, then opens it as she knocks with her other hand.

  “Hey, dorks!” she calls, and we walk in.

  The garage is set up like a concert held at a trailer park. Five or six guys wander around, adjusting white sheets hanging from the ceiling as backdrops or checking a snake pit of extension cords piled on the floor. Suspended about a foot away from the sheets, attached to a ceiling beam, is a row of aluminum scoop floodlights, which currently wash the sheets with blue. Stools and milk crates are scattered around, and one of the guys is adjusting a black microphone in what looks like a stand made from PVC pipe. Against the opposite wall, there’s one real guitar—and three wooden ones. Totally fake. I also spot a chipped violin and an acoustic guitar with no strings.

  By the garage door, which flips up as a solid unit rather than rolls like ours, another guy from the group is filming everything with a tiny HD cam. He turns the lens toward us as soon as we walk in. If one of these guys is her brother, I can’t tell which. They all look alike.

  A big stereo in one corner plays Slipknot. One of the guys, with long hair draped across his shoulders, picks up one of the wooden guitars and mimes playing it.

  What the green hell is this?

  “Hey, Cadence,” the camera guy says. “You want to do one?”

  “Maybe. What you got?”

  “Check out Brandon’s phone,” the camera guy says. To me, he says, “Hey.”

  I nod, but keep my mouth shut. I cannot figure out what’s happening here.

  I shrink back against one unfinished wooden wall, while Cadence goes over to the stereo and hunkers down. She scrolls through someone’s ph
one, then gives a shout. The music changes to something slow and acoustic that I don’t recognize.

  “Hey!” one of the guys shouts. “I had first!”

  “Oh, shut up,” the camera guy says. I decide he must be Johnny. “It’s just Cadence. It doesn’t count. We’ll use it as a warm-up.”

  The guy who shouted lets it go with a shrug. Cadence grabs one of the stools and puts it … well, I guess “center stage,” for lack of a better term.

  “Anyone know this one?” she says. “I need a guitarist.”

  “I’ll do it,” someone says. He must be Brandon, because he adds, “It’s my phone.”

  “Sweet!” Cadence turns to me, shading her eyes against the floodlights shining down on her. “Danny? You want to play something?”

  Not knowing what to do, I shake my head.

  “Who do you want to film and do lights?” Johnny asks her.

  “You can shoot,” Cadence says. “But I want Joel on lights.”

  One of the guys gives a thumbs-up and walks over to a black rectangular box with cords jutting out of it. A second later, the lights change. It must be a control board.

  “Shouldn’t you be doing the Ramones?” Brandon asks as he pulls the stringless acoustic guitar over his shoulder.

  “Later,” Cadence says. “I feel mellow.”

  “Whoa,” Brandon says. “There’s a first!”

  She kicks at him without leaving the stool.

  “You ready?” Johnny says.

  Cadence nods. I still don’t know what to do, so I sink down and kneel on the floor with my arms crossed, afraid to touch anything. There’s an awful lot of electricity in this room.

  One of the other guys resets the song to the beginning. Joel mixes red and blue lights from the floods near the sheets to create a purple backdrop, while all-blue lights wash across Cadence and Brandon, who stands a foot or so behind her and to one side, his hands positioned like he’s actually going to play the fake guitar.

  “Cue in five,” Johnny says. “Four, three.”

  The music starts. Cadence closes her eyes and sways on the stool, her arms straight as she clutches the edge of the stool between her knees like a bird.

  When the singing begins, Cadence starts lip-synching the lyrics. She’s spot on, near as I can tell, and the song is pretty cool; very slow, very melodic. Sort of haunting. Johnny carefully films her “singing,” while Brandon pretends to be playing the guitar. The view screen is flipped open on the camera, and as Johnny sidesteps in my direction, I can see the performance through the camera’s eye. It actually does look like a real music video.