“My stubborn, stubborn bean,” she said. “Fine. Fry your life away.”
Later in the evening, he checked his phone and discovered Sarah had texted him.
Sucka, she’d texted. Momz playin’ u, hates ur guts. Not telling u where I am, dude. U can’t keep a secret 2 save ur life.
Well, she’s alive, Jared thought. If u need anything, txt me.
A few minutes later, she texted back: U ready 2 fly the friendly skies? Get high and use magic, she meant. Trip with each other. Travel to worlds where ape men and fireflies ruled.
U no the answer, Jared wrote.
We’re on different paths, Nickelback. Tired of every1 telling me what I shud think. Found a witch who’s willing to teach me.
He wanted to tell her to be careful, but he figured she’d take it the wrong way. @ 1640 Graveley, 202. Drop by if u feel like.
C u around.
19
Crashpad changed his Facebook relationship status to “It’s complicated.” His new profile pic included the blond girl from his home-school study group, who was giggling, giving the camera a nostril shot. Crashpad gave the peace sign, smiling so hard his eyes were slits. They’d only known each other for a week, but Jared couldn’t really judge because he’d fallen into the sack with Sarah the night they met.
Barbie wants U @ her Dance Group, Pat messaged him. 5-7 2nite, amenities room downstairs. B there or b noogied.
Ignore, Jared thought.
An unknown number had sent him pictures of himself walking from Mave’s apartment to the Donut Hole. No messages. No captions. Just grainy night shots of Jared strolling along with his hoodie up and his earbuds in.
Get a life, Jared texted.
He considered posting the pics to Facebook. But his mom was finally getting out of Dodge and he didn’t want to stir up the whole stalking thing. Mave would probably insist on getting a bodyguard, which would turn out to be Hank. He’d be more alert on his way to work. David was trying to mess with his head. Jared could get all bent out of shape or he could get his shit together. He realized he hadn’t gone to a meeting since school started. Seven days without a meeting had made him weak. Well, six, he thought, counting back, but the slogan still held.
Kota answered when Jared knocked on Hank’s apartment door. Kota seemed pretty hung: shirt buttons done up wrong, hair in crazy spikes and eye-watering fumes about him. Jared hesitated before asking if his cousin wanted to come to a meeting with him. After a long, long pause, Kota shrugged, rummaged around for his jacket in the hallway closet and stuck a cigarette in his mouth while he patted down his clothes for a lighter. As they left the apartment building, Kota lit up.
“Had a lil break from the grind,” Kota admitted as they walked. “Fucking one more white chip. Day fucking one, one more goddamn motherfucking time.”
“Easy does it,” Jared said.
Kota said, “I really want to punch you right now.”
“People keep saying that. Maybe I’m not the annoying one. Maybe everyone else is cranky.”
“Nah,” Kota said. “I’m pretty sure it’s you.”
After the meeting, Kota stacked chairs and a blond woman with purple-tipped ends helped Jared tidy up the refreshment table. She wore a loose plaid shirt and ripped leggings that disappeared into a pair of battered, black Doc Martens. Her name was Lex and this was her third Day One this year. Her poison was anything she could get her hands on. She’d gotten up to Day Sixty, but her friends kept calling, and being sober was boring. They all sounded like they were having a blast and so she went with them and in her mind she was going to just have sober fun but she felt left out and what the hell, you know?
“There’s a couple of youth meetings around,” Jared said. “Maybe you need sober friends who do stuff.”
She smirked. “Like hiking and shit? Pfft. Fuck that.”
“There’s—”
“Jared!” Kota shouted. He pointed to his wrist even though he didn’t have a watch.
“Is he hammered?” Lex asked.
“Yeah,” Jared said. “But he’s aiming for Day One.”
“Are you his sponsor or boyfriend?”
“Cousin.”
“Ah. Messed-up-family shit.”
Jared laughed. “Yup. Later.”
“Later.”
Kota said he needed a break from Hank yelling at him, so they walked to Café Calabria. Kota ordered a double shot of espresso and Jared ordered a coffee. Then he remembered that he had cash in his pocket and asked for a white chocolate chip cookie with macadamia nuts. Kota opened his wallet and sheepishly asked Jared if he could front him. Jared paid for both their orders.
“No worries. Next round’s on you,” Jared said, putting some change in the tip jar.
“Deal,” Kota said.
They sat on the patio so Kota could smoke. He lit up the second they sat down, his leg jiggling impatiently. The sun flickered between the clouds, giving a watery light. Traffic hadn’t slowed down on Sunday. A guy bolted across the street and irritated drivers honked at him as he ran.
“That was embarrassing,” Kota said. “Sorry.”
“S’okay.”
“No. No, it’s not. I used to make twenty grand every four months. Twenty-one days in Fort Mac, ten days of partying hard here.”
“Yeah?”
“I couldn’t make a recovery stick, and eventually people stop giving you chances. Now I’m taking handouts from annoying dipshits who make it to their first year on their first try. Are you even a boozehound? Or are you just doing AA to hit on crazy chicks?”
Jared sipped his coffee. He ate his cookie and watched the people, watched the traffic.
“Sorry,” Kota said. “That’s the hangover talking.”
“I don’t have another recovery in me.”
“Don’t slogan me.”
“No slogan. Last year my skull cracked open and my brains fell out. I was seeing shit no one else saw. It took a long time to crawl back. If I go there again, I think I’m done.”
“What were you on?”
“Booze, mostly. I think it was ’shrooms too. I can’t really remember.”
“Sanity’s overrated,” Kota said.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Jared said. “You’ve never lost it.”
“We’re all crazy, fuckface. It’s not a competition.”
“To crazy,” Jared said, lifting his takeout cup.
Kota clinked his paper cup with Jared’s and then concentrated on lighting another cigarette, his hands shaking.
“Why am I such a loser?” he said.
“I love you and your higher power loves you and there’s nothing you can do about that.”
Kota squinted, giving Jared the stink eye. “Now I want to punch you again.”
“Some of us are sicker than others.”
“You’re irritating as fuck.”
“We all have our gifts.”
Kota leaned over and started to slowly bang his head against the table. Jared finished his cookie. His cousin suddenly got up and ran a few feet and then hurled into the gutter. Jared wasn’t sure if he should watch him or not. Kota wiped the back of his mouth and, without looking around, headed down the street towards their apartment building. Jared left his cup on the table and followed him.
They walked without speaking. Kota lit another cigarette. He dry-heaved for a few minutes but kept smoking.
“I can’t deal with Hank right now,” Kota said.
“My couch is your couch,” Jared said.
Once they were inside, Kota ran straight for the bathroom. Mave’s bedroom door was open and she wasn’t there. Jared walked to the kitchen, took the middle rack out of the oven and then greased two small roasting pans. He found a bag of squishy lemons at the back of the fridge and chopped them up. They were full of seeds. He scrubbed some of the tiny, hard sweet potatoes and some wilted carrots as he listened to Kota hurl and hurl, pause and then hurl some more. He took the turkeys out of the fridge, pulled them out of thei
r pots and stuffed them with lemons.
Kota emerged from the bathroom and asked to borrow a T-shirt.
“Help yourself,” Jared said. “They’re in the backpack on the desk.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you expecting company?” Kota said, as Jared put the turkeys in the oven.
“Bored,” Jared said.
“Mind if I take a shower?” Kota asked.
“I’m going to insist,” Jared said.
“Yeah, fuck you,” Kota said with no heat.
Jared scrubbed out the pots. He turned them over on some tea towels. He heard the shower start. When Jared went to get his textbooks, he discovered Kota had dumped his clean shirts on the desk and thrown his own vomit-stained shirt on the floor. Jared lifted the stinky shirt carefully and rinsed it out in the kitchen sink. He went back to his desk and flipped open his biology textbook. Have faith, he told himself, but the practical side of him was wondering how much of his tuition he could get back if he dropped out now.
“Upgrading, are we?” The ghost in the bathrobe hovered over the desk. “I gather we spent a little too much time enjoying ourselves at the expense of our education. Colour me shocked.”
Jared thumped his book shut, picked up the pile of textbooks and walked out, slamming his bedroom door. The ghost walked through it, following him.
“I spent most of high school hiding,” Bathrobe said. “Stuffed in lockers. Duct-taped to walls. Tripped. Punched. Magic-Markered.”
Jared went into the kitchen and got some sage.
Bathrobe hovered near the dining table where Jared had left his textbooks. “My, my. How could you possibly flunk high school biology? How drunk were you?”
“I didn’t flunk.”
“So you’re upgrading for the fun of it, are you?”
Don’t engage, don’t engage, don’t engage, he reminded himself as he lit the sage and let it smoulder in the abalone shell. The ghost blinked out of existence as Kota emerged from the bathroom wearing one of his T-shirts.
“Is that all the clothes you have?”
“Yeah.”
“I have some shirts if you want them.”
“That’s okay. My motto is keep things portable,” Jared said. “You never know when people are going to get sick of your shit.”
“You could murder hoboes in her bedroom and Aunt Mave wouldn’t kick you out.”
“There’s the things people say and then there’s the things people do.” Jared lit the sage and then blew on it. “Boob tube?”
“Do you have any Gravol?”
“Front pocket of my backpack.”
Kota went back into the bedroom. Jared turned on the TV. He flipped up and down the channels but wasn’t interested in watching anything. Kota walked past him and went into the kitchen. Jared heard the cupboards open and close, the tap running. Jared held up the remote when Kota came back, but his cousin put a cigarette in his mouth.
“Need company?” Jared said, shutting the TV off.
Kota shrugged.
They sat together on the balcony watching the street. Their silence was comfortable. Kota closed his eyes and sighed. Jared remembered his first sober days, the open-sore rawness of everything, the head-pounding, throat-aching, stomach-churning need. Listening to his mom’s party raging on all around him, he’d curled up in bed like he was adrift in a lifeboat, dying of thirst surrounded by an ocean.
* * *
—
Jared frowned at his laptop, his feet up on the balcony railing. Kota asked to borrow a twenty to get some cigarettes.
“Just cigarettes, right?” Jared said, pulling a twenty out of his wallet.
“Bye, Mom,” Kota said, getting off the patio chair.
“Dude.”
“Later.”
Jared felt like an idiot, but he couldn’t exactly run after Kota and stop him from doing anything. He could hear Sophia calling him the Great Enabler. But it was hard to say no, especially to his dad. Kota he could say no to. You know, next time.
Mave buzzed past the apartment on the Vespa. She’d added a wicker basket to the front and filled it with flowers. She was wearing the blue helmet that matched the colour of the Vespa and a red rain jacket. When she honked and waved, the scooter wobbled. Jared watched her turn onto Commercial Drive without signalling. A few minutes later she buzzed back, waving and honking again before she pulled up to the curb.
“Come for a ride!” she yelled up at him.
“I told you,” Jared called down to her. “No bitch-seats.”
“Stick-in-the-mud,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re missing!” With that, she took off down the street again.
Jared got up and went inside. He basted the turkeys. Finished off his biology homework. He was thinking of taking a nap when Kota came back, holding up two packs of cigarettes and waving them around. His cousin stomped to the balcony and shut the door behind him hard enough to make the blinds rattle.
Jared sighed. He stared at his physics textbook and was waffling between watching YouTube or channel surfing when Hank burst through the door. Jared jumped up and blocked him from tearing to the balcony.
“Woah,” Jared said. “Dude. Chill, okay?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You can’t stop someone from drinking by yelling at them.”
Hank shoved Jared’s books off the table. They landed in a cascade of thuds. Jared looked up at Hank. He recognized the anger and the frustration and the worry, but he didn’t want to be the one Hank took all that out on, so he stayed very still.
Someone pounded on the front door.
“Jared!” Pat shouted. “Come on, Barbie’s waiting for you!”
Hank punched the wall.
“What’s up, Daddy-o?” Sponge said as Hank opened the door and pushed past the brothers.
They all watched Hank slam his own apartment door open and shut. Kota opened the balcony door and peered in at them.
“We’ve been annoying Hank since we were in diapers,” Pat said to Jared. “But we bow to the master.”
“We’re not worthy,” Sponge said, literally bowing.
“I don’t think that was all me.”
“So modest,” Pat said. “I’ve never seen anyone get under his skin the way you do.”
“You’re like eczema,” Sponge said.
“Persistent, oozing, steroid-resistant eczema.”
“Come on,” Sponge said. “Barbie’s thrilled you’re joining her Urban Heiltsuk Dance Group.”
“Hank annoys me, too,” Jared said. “No one seems to care about that.”
“Let the Wookiee win,” Sponge said.
“I have turkeys in the oven,” Jared said. “I have to study. I don’t have time to go to Barbie’s thing.”
“You really don’t want to cross Barbie,” Pat said.
“Yeah,” Sponge said. “She comes off all sweet, but if Hank’s a Wookiee, she’s Darth Maul in pigtails.”
“What about Kota?” Jared grumbled.
“He sings like a crow,” Pat said.
“Dances like one too,” Sponge added.
“Ah, fuck you both,” Kota said. “I’ll watch the stupid turkeys.”
Sponge led them down the first-floor hallway. A group of twenty or so people were gathered in the amenities room. The dancers were going through a set of steps in one corner while some drummers were hammering out the beat in another. Shu danced around tooting her recorder, still wearing her zombie costume. Barbie was conducting some kids in a welcome song. Eliza waved furiously when she saw Jared. Barbie looked up and then broke into a smile.
“Oh, I love this squishy face.” Once more Barbie squished his cheeks together while Sponge and Pat hooted.
“Ow,” Jared said.
Eliza ran up to him. “Hi, Jared!”
“Hi.”
“Can I come watch TV at your place after?” Eliza said.
“You’ll have to ask Mave,” Jared said. “It’s her place.”
“See you, Jared!”
Eliza ran off, with Shu behind her.
“Get one of the spare drums, Jelly Bean!” Barbie said. “Have fun!”
“Come on, Squishy,” Pat said.
He felt like a phony, following along, not knowing any of the music, but he stood and drummed. Eliza and Shu came and danced in front of him.
When they were done, Jared put the drum back in its bag, said goodbye to Barbie and slunk back to the apartment. Kota had moved to the recliner, and was staring blankly at the TV screen. Jared sat on the couch, vibrating. When the timer went off, he got up and took the turkeys out of the oven. They were resting on the counter when Mave came home.
“Jared,” she called from the kitchen. “We still have a giant pot of chili in the fridge. How are we going to eat two turkeys!”
“Sorry,” Jared said. “I should’ve asked. But we can cut them up and freeze them.”
“No, no, it’s not that,” Mave said. “You have to stop trying to feed an army. Okay?”
She came into the living room, still wearing the Vespa helmet, and saw Kota.
“Hi, Aunt Mave.”
She peeled off her helmet and put it on the table. “Can we talk?”
Kota pulled the recliner handle so he was sitting. “About what? Hank?”
“He’s upset.”
“You would take his side,” Kota said. “See you later, Jared.”
“Kota,” Mave said. “Wait!”
He grabbed his jacket and was gone out the door.
“Jelly Bean,” she said. “Let them sort out their issues, okay? It’s between them.”
She didn’t seem to see the irony of what she was saying, so he nodded, biting his tongue so he wouldn’t bite the hand that housed him. Mave stomped down the hallway and out the door, and he could hear her loudly saying, “Hello,” as she entered Hank’s apartment and then Mave, Hank and Kota in furious conversation through the wall. Jared sat on the couch. Feelings churned inside him. Or feeeeeeelings as his mom would say. He had work in a few hours and he didn’t want to think about maybe encountering David on the walk there, so he carved the turkeys. He’d meant to save the carcasses for soup, but before he knew it he’d already chucked them, tied the garbage bag and taken it to the dumpster.
Trickster Drift Page 15
