“We’ve got to get back to school by ten,” Aaron said.
“And if you get caught, I don’t know nothin’ about this,” she said. “I’m dead serious.”
“Sure thing, Tonya,” Aaron mumbled.
“And don’t mess up the place,” she said. I laughed first, Brody laughed loudest, and Aaron for the first time that night cracked a smile. “Assholes!”
“Sorry, Tonya,” Aaron said. Brody tossed aside a pile of clothes on the stained brown carpet to make a place for himself on the sofa. He muted the TV as he surfed channels.
“Maybe I’ll tell Mom about this,” she fired back, smoke shooting out of her pierced nose. “Maybe your Friday night fun dries up. You think that’s funny?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled while Brody added a concurring grunt from the other room.
“Next time, price goes up,” she said, then opened the door to leave. “How funny is that?”
Aaron didn’t say anything as she slammed the door so hard the trailer seemed to shake. The booming music from her beat-up SUV started up almost immediately.
“Your sister’s something!” Brody shouted as we heard the SUV pull away.
“You got something to say, Brody?” Aaron said, looking embarrassed, sounding angry.
“He’s just busting you,” I said, trying to act the peacemaker. “It’s all good.”
“I know, but you know how it is,” Aaron said to me, as he handed me the Coke.
“How what is?”
“You gotta protect the women in your life, right?” Aaron said, and I smiled.
“I guess.” I started toward the kitchen. As I thought about Aaron’s comment, I felt a little guilty about lying to my mom, but I figured I’m really just doing what Aaron just said: protecting her from the truth of my life.
In the kitchen, I found three clean glasses that I filled with ice.
“Hurry up, Mick, thirsty men over here!” Brody shouted from the living room. It sounded like a college football game was blaring on the TV. I laughed. Now I could tell my mom a truth about what we did tonight: just watched a football game.
I brought the glasses back into the living room, then opened up both the Coke and the rum. I let the smell of rum linger in my nose before I filled the glasses half full with Bacardi. I put Coke in my glass and Aaron’s, but Brody waved it away. With my first small sip, the rum tickled the top of my mouth, then began it’s trip through my bloodstream.
I sat down next to Brody, deep in thought. This was a once-a-week thing, I told myself. I suspected Brody would get drunk every night if he could. If every day was like today, I thought, then I would second the rum-and-Coke solution. Except neither of us could afford it.
“Happy Friday!” Brody shouted, then raised his glass into the air. Aaron just grunted. He seemed distracted and detached.
“What’s happy about it?” I grumbled as I thought how I’d rather have my lips wrapped around Whitney’s or Nicole’s lips than a glass, which I was working on emptying.
“Mick, she ain’t worth it,” Brody said, then raised his glass high again. “Here’s to best friends!”
“To friends,” Aaron said as he raised his glass. I set down my glass, pulled out my lighter, flicked it, and let the friendship flame burn.
“Mick wants to tap some ass, right?” Brody said.
“I’m trying, man, I’m trying,” I said, knowing how much I’ve practiced if and when the day should ever come. I thought right then that I’d give ten years of my life for ten minutes with Whitney, ten more days with Nicole, or to wipe away my one encounter with Roxanne.
“Seems our man Aaron is the only one getting himself some,” Brody said as he slapped Aaron’s knee. “Maybe one day we’ll meet her, what do you think?”
“Maybe,” Aaron shrugged as Brody reached for the bottle. While the faraway look in his eyes remained, Aaron joined the party at last as Brody poured more rum into his glass.
The conversation stopped, stalled, and fired in a hundred directions over the next hour: Brody told stories, Aaron alternated between laughing loudly and pulling at his hair silently, while I just tried to keep up. By the half time of the TV game was over, more than half the rum-and-Coke solution to any problem had vanished. During half time, we moved over to a table in the kitchen. Brody sent Aaron on a mission to find some cards so we could play poker.
Over the roar of the TV, I thought about this night as a science experiment: the effect of alcohol on adolescent males. Subject Aaron sunk even deeper into himself, like a black hole imploding. Subject Brody got louder, more aggressive, like a superfuckingnova exploding into the dark night sky. Subject Mick needed more testing, for his reactions are the most inconsistent; his energy was in flux like a comet without a clear path.
“I found the cards,” Aaron said, then tossed a deck on the table.
“Wanna play the bank, ATM?” Brody said, but I winced. I knew Brody was drunk since ATM was a behind-the-back, not an in-your-face nickname for a good friend.
“Right,” Aaron mumbled while I shot Brody a nasty look. I knew Aaron didn’t like this nickname, but he laughed anyway.
“Dude, don’t call Aaron that,” I said. Brody’s face washed out, like a wave of sobriety splashed over him. Not because he felt guilty about his words, but because he was surprised I corrected him.
“Just kidding, ATM, you know that,” Brody said. Aaron nodded, and I relaxed, while Brody shuffled the cards. Another half an hour got sucked up as we smoked, drank, and played poker. I was an even worse poker player than I was a pool player, although the problem was the same: hand-eye coordination. Although in poker, it was too much hand-eye coordination, for whenever I had a good hand, I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve tried to put on that poker face, but I’m just not wired that way. I can lie to Mom, ex-Dad, and teachers about just about anything, but once the cards get dealt, I can’t keep the hand I’m holding secret.
The poker made me feel restless, as much as Brody’s shouting and Aaron’s silence made me feel nervous. I told Brody to deal me out. I said I was going to take a piss, but truth was, I just needed to get away for a few minutes. The rum was buzzing my head and churning my stomach. I started to walk around the trailer to kill time and my dark thoughts.
I passed by the bathroom and stepped into the bedroom. Just inside the room was a crowded dresser. It was covered with makeup, overflowing ashtrays, and dusty framed photos. One picture was of a family: there was Aaron, his sister, and his mom. Aaron looked to be about nine or ten, so it’s a picture from before Aaron moved into our neighborhood. But there were two other people in the picture: an older man who looked like Aaron—it had to be his dad—and there was another guy, maybe an older brother. A brother Aaron had never mentioned; a dad that Aaron told us died when he was five. A death the three of us drank to the evening before. A death that bonded Brody and Aaron.
“Aaron, I thought your dad died when you were five?” I said as I walked back into the living room, the picture in hand. “I mean, that’s what we were remembering last night, right?”
“What?” Aaron stared at me. His eyes were blurry; maybe because Aaron spoke the least, he drank the most. “Why are you asking me about my dad?”
“Mick, what’s your problem?” Brody sounded agitated.
“Who is this?” I held up the picture, pointed to the father figure, and then put the photo in front of Aaron like a cop handling evidence. I sat back down at the table waiting for Aaron to speak.
“Look—you see—” Aaron stumbled over his words as Brody examined the picture.
“Dude, what’s going on?” Brody’s anger flashed. “We drank to his memory last night.”
Aaron was silent for a long time, filling the vacuum by filling up all of our glasses, then finally he said, “Well, he’s gone, just not by accident, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” I followed up. I felt like some TV show detective.
“Guys, just let it alone,” Aaron said, and then shuffled the cards.
“You can’t lie to your friends, Aaron,” I said, taking time to stress each word of the sentence. “If you can’t tell your friends the truth, then you can’t tell anyone.”
“You lied about this!” Brody shouted. Aaron and Brody’s shared past losses at the hands of auto accidents bonded them, but I wondered if Aaron knew Brody’s whole story.
Aaron paused, emptied his glass, and then spoke. “He’s in Huntsville.”
“What’s that?” Brody asked. There was no breeze whipping through the trailer, but I felt a chill. I’d heard about Huntsville last year in current events class when we talked about the death penalty.
“Huntsville’s a prison in Texas,” Aaron said with a sigh. I thought the sigh sounded a little like ex-Dad’s, maybe with the same motive. Maybe Aaron was impatient with himself for lying to his best friends for the past three years.
“Huntsville,” I repeated, then motioned for the rum. The cards were on the table and all eyes were on Aaron. Aaron hated the attention, but we’d called and he had to show.
“Aaron, what the hell are you talking about?” Brody slammed his fist on the table.
“Guys, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Aaron said, eyes downcast.
“I don’t care what you want!” Brody shouted while I continued my stare. “Spill it!”
“Guys, do you know what my first real memory of my dad is?” Aaron asked, his voice cracked. “When I was like, three, he must have got some money someplace because we went in to Houston to watch Sesame Street Live, one of those stage shows. And I remember him buying us cotton candy, and buying himself beer after beer. He’s there with his kids at a Sesame Street show getting drunk. He couldn’t control himself, that’s all you need to know.”
“You lied to us,” I said. Brody nodded in approval.
Aaron took a drink, then a deep breath. He was wildly twisting his hair with his fingers. “One night, he came home stinking drunk. It must have been when he was out of work, which was most of the time. Whatever was wrong was our fault. He had this belt, this big cowboy belt.”
“Cowboy belt?” I asked.
“I was born in Texas, a place called League City, just outside of Houston,” Aaron continued. “My parents moved there from Michigan after my dad got laid off from GM. I guess he found work there for a while. Something must have happened to his job, because I remember when I was real young sleeping in the car. Then he’d get work, things would be okay for a while, then it would all fall apart again. It was like living in a house of straw.”
“Man, that’s messed up,” I muttered.
“So, when I was about eight, he’d been laid off again and just came home stinking drunk. He took that belt, with that big cowboy belt buckle, and he started on my mom. Called her a whore and a bunch of other stuff. Just beat the shit out of her, not the first time, but worse than usual. I started yelling loud.”
“Why did he do that?” I asked.
“Why do you think? He was drunk, angry, and out of control.”
“What happened?” I asked between drinks. Brody still wasn’t talking. He bounced the deck of cards forcefully in his hand, making the table shake like an earthquake.
“Well, then my older brother, Stan—he was ten—tells my dad to knock it off. Well, that just sets my dad off even more.”
“Aaron, you have an older brother?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence before Aaron replied in a whisper, “I don’t anymore.”
“Dude, I’m sorry,” I said, even though I knew nothing I could say would really matter.
“Stan told him to stop, screamed at him, and then my dad said—and I’ll never forget the words or how he said them—he slurred, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ and then laughed. Stan was a little guy, but he did something. He tried to grab the belt out of my dad’s hand.”
Aaron took a drink. I noticed his hand was shaking as much as his voice and the table.
“It didn’t take much. He hit him once hard across the face with the belt. It was like his face exploded. I couldn’t do anything. Stan started crying and my dad is screaming for him to stop, but he can’t because he’s so scared and so hurt. My dad takes the belt and wraps it around his throat. He went limp within a minute.”
“Aaron, I’m so sorry.” I felt useless, and thirsty as I reached for the half-empty fifth.
“Stan wasn’t a big kid; so that first shot knocked him down. Then the little shit cried, rather than just taking it. He’d beat us all before but not like this. If you cried, it made him madder, so I learned not to cry. I think the tears just reminded him what he was doing, which made him feel worse, which made him hit more. Anyway, that’s what one of the counselors told us one time.”
“He didn’t come back after you?” I asked.
“He didn’t get a chance,” Aaron said. “My mom was like in shock, just kind of not moving. After he choked Stan, then he started toward my sister. She was in the corner of the room, crying, shaking, totally trapped. He was waving the belt over his head. He must have lost sight of me for a second because I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone off the wall.”
Brody continued to bounce the cards, while I pushed Aaron to continue. “The phone?”
“I wish now I would have grabbed a knife and rammed it into his heart. I wish I would have grabbed a pan or something and crashed it into his skull, but I was too little, too scared.”
“So you called the police?” I asked.
“I got as far as dialing 9, then 1, and then he caught me. He stared me down. Told me to put the phone down or else. He had blood all over his face, but I knew it wasn’t his blood.”
“No way,” Brody slurred. His mouth rejoined the conversation. His eyes had never left.
“He grabbed my arm, ripped it out of the socket, but I’d already pushed the last 1.” Aaron started to cry. “I heard the voice say, ‘What is your emergency?’ but not much more. My sister had jumped on my dad’s back and was trying to choke him, and then I dove at his legs. It was pretty loud, so I think the 911 people knew something was wrong. Really, really wrong.”
“Did the police come?” I asked.
“It was too late. Stan was dead and Dad was gone,” Aaron said. I noticed his fingers had pulled more twisted hair from his head. “We didn’t need police. We needed a body bag.”
“They caught him, right?” Brody chimed in.
“Yeah, and that bastard fought to the end. He wouldn’t confess to what he did. He wouldn’t admit to anything, so there was this trial, and I had to testify against my dad.”
“Were you scared?” I asked, as I flashed back on my own fear of truth telling.
“Dude, I was shitless. I remember I was wearing these gray pants and my grandmother helped me put on a tie, a red tie.” Aaron spoke clearly as if he were describing a scene before him, not behind him. “And the one lawyer, the prosecutor, asked me what happened. And I told them everything, but it was hard. A lot harder than this because my dad was like twenty feet away, sitting there staring at me, just like he did in the kitchen the night he killed my brother. I had to sit there and say the words that sent my dad to prison. I’ve never ever forgotten that.”
“And so you guys moved here?” I asked.
“After it was over, Mom moved us up here because we couldn’t live in Texas anymore. She grew up in Flint and her sister lives here. She found a job, and then met my stepdad.”
“You ever see your dad again?” Brody asked, then motioned for the rum.
“No, not once, although I hope to one day,” Aaron said. His eyes were wet with tears and terror. “But it won’t be soon because he’s on death row and his number’s coming up.”
“Then when?” Brody said, then took another rum-only drink.
“Not in this life, but in another,” Aaron said. “I’ll find his sorry ass in the fiery furnaces of hell, and then I’ll get my revenge. This time I won’t be eight. This time I won’t back away.”
We were all sile
nt as we passed the bottle of rum around, the liter of Coke mostly untouched. The table was littered with Aaron’s hair, tears, and truth.
“Your mom should have left him,” I said, breaking the silence. “None of this would have happened, if she’d just left him.”
“And do what? A high school dropout with no job, no money, and three kids to feed. Where was she going to go?” Aaron asked.
“What about calling the police?” I asked.
“She’d done that. Nothing happened. Maybe my dad would spend the night in jail, but that was it.”
“But still.” I couldn’t find the right words, so I tipped the bottle again.
“This isn’t a spanking for spilling a glass of milk, dudes, this was a massacre. The counselor said my father by that time so hated his life that he felt trapped and needed to strike out against everything in it.” Aaron’s words were loud and clear even if his voice had started to slur.
“The bastard should have just killed himself!” Brody shouted.
“But he couldn’t,” Aaron replied.
“Why?” I asked, then took a drink straight from the bottle.
“Because he was weak, because he was a piece of shit. People who are weak get the shit that’s coming to them if you ask me,” Aaron said, then stood up. He slowly looked around the room, then tipped over the table. The cards and our glasses flew all over the floor.
“Aaron, man, relax,” Brody said. I had to hold in a laugh at the idea of Brody as the voice of calm. Brody was an F-five tornado, but Aaron’s winds were whipping up wildly. When I stood up quickly I realized that during Aaron’s story we’d all been drinking a lot. I took one more quick swig, and then set the Bacardi bottle on the floor. I started to pick up the cards, but when I bent over, the the liquid making its way down my throat didn’t have enough force to stop the heaving energy of the contents of my stomach from making its way up. I bolted from the living room, slid into the bathroom, and had perfect aim as I threw up into the toilet.
“I just heard his lung come up!” Brody shouted from the other room. It was funny, but I didn’t laugh. I was too busy trying to catch my breath and clear the remnants of vomit from around my mouth. Even as the salty spit collected in my throat, I pledged this would be my last Friday night drinking with Brody and Aaron. This wasn’t a road I wanted to stagger down again.
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