Waiting on Justin

by Lucy H. Delaney

  Our excuse to do it was to see if she had any more cookies left over from the Wednesday before, but it was as much to have fun as anything. Justin, ever the creator of our fantasies, said we needed to teleport there and had us stalk into the bushes before the driveway. I think he was really holding us back while Michael and Kim disappeared down their own driveway. He was like a cat burglar, only a good one. He used one of those fake credit cards they send in the mail, he had tons of them in his wallet, to pick the lock. We used to play with those too, pretending we were rich and were buying anything we wanted, but that day it was a key to a secret world.

  The Diaz house had an anteroom that Gramma Diaz called the mudroom. It was never locked; Mr. Diaz used it as a holding place for his muddy shoes and plastic grocery bags. The floor was worn and wooden, but Gramma Diaz kept the mat that lay in front of the locked kitchen door fresh and clean. When she invited us over for cookies she would have us wipe our feet on the hard bristly rug outside the mudroom then come into the room and take our shoes off while sitting on her old wooden bench. She told us her granddad had made it with his bare hands and she didn't have the heart to get rid of it.

  She was fair and gave all five of us, we Three Musketeers and the two rich brats, a chance to be first in the kitchen. After our shoes were off, our feet weren't to touch the dirty floor, no, no, no! Instead she insisted we stand up in a line on the bench like little ducklings, and hop, hop, hop, one after the other, from the top of the bench right smack onto the clean floor mat in front of the kitchen.

  “That's the way,” she would say to each of us respectively. Her house always had Jesus songs playing. When we were little they were fun little kid ones, but as the years stretched they were more like what we heard in church when we went with her, which we did every now and again.

  When we snuck into her house, we obeyed the same rules. They fit perfectly into our teleportation fantasy anyway. Justin was first with his wizard key/cards. He made a fantastic whooshing sound effect as he opened the door and transported himself inside. Next was Lizzie, then me. He didn't have to tell Lizzie and me to keep it secret. Even though Gramma Diaz let us in when she was home, we knew better than to go in when she and the old man were away.

  Once we were in, Lizzie and Justin scoped out the kitchen, looking for the cookies, but I inevitably found my way into the hall. I wanted to fill up on smiley-faced pictures more than cookies.

  “C'mon, Haylee, it's time to go,” Justin said that first time, coming around the corner with a cookie in his hand for me. I didn't want to leave; I wanted to stay right there with the happy people forever, but I knew it would be bad to get caught.

  We left the way we came and pretended to teleport from their mudroom straight out into the woods. Really all we did was run like the wind (in the ruts of the driveway) from the slamming mudroom door to the tree line, but in our child's minds we were floating on scientific waves of greatness.

  We never took anything but food, I swear, at least not from Gramma Diaz. It was just fun to go in and pretend we had normal lives. For two or three winters we broke into their empty house when it was cold, but we never got caught—not even when we started to get brave enough to stay longer. We liked watching their TV. Justin would kick his feet up in Mr. Diaz's chair, and Lizzie and I would snuggle together in Mrs. Diaz's. We loved staying warm and feeling safe at their place. We were careful to put things back the way we found them and only take food that wouldn't be missed. Justin must have known their schedules and when to expect their return because there was only once we had to rush out a back door to avoid being found out. Justin said they were predictable; I didn't know what that meant for a long time, but now he uses the same word to describe me.

  One day we went into the mudroom and found an unbreakable deadbolt on the kitchen door. As hard as he tried, Justin couldn't unlock it like the regular door lock. Still, it wasn't a complete loss; Gramma Diaz had some cookies on a plate on the bench, and there was a heater keeping the whole space warm. That next Wednesday she told us she was leaving the leftover cookies and food in the mudroom for the hungry raccoons that were getting into her trash cans. Back then we believed her, though now it’s obvious there was no way she would have had three leftover sandwiches almost every day for raccoons that could somehow get into a shut mudroom.

  I know now that they had to have found us out. I wonder how long they had known we were hungry and cold and were sneaking into their comfort for reprieve and why they never said anything. Did they know that was all it was, or did they suspect us of something more sinister? And why, if they knew, didn't they stop us? After that we still crept to their door step but were forced to stay in the mudroom, which we did for long spans of time. We almost always ate the sandwiches but nibbled them the way we imagined raccoons would do and left bits of the sandwich bags torn up to trick them. We only took one or two cookies to split between us and hoped they wouldn't realize it was something bigger than raccoons eating their food. We really thought we were getting away with it. We were so young and naive.

  After the deadbolt went on, Justin started watching the other neighbors. He said they were all unpredictable, but that didn’t stop us from visiting some of their homes too, doing much of the same things; snooping, interloping into lives we wished we had but could only dream of. The alcohol in people's homes is what surprised me most, I think. That's when it started to dawn on me that we were different from everyone else. Our house practically contained a liquor store: vodka, whiskey, scotch, wine, beer, rum, mixers, we had it all, or had empty bottles or cans of it overflowing the trash.

  None of the neighbors had as much as we did. The Diazes and the Volvo couple never had any. Most of the neighbors had beer or a bottle of wine or two loafing somewhere—on a shelf, in a fridge, or in the man cave—but never like our stash.

  The house next to Michael and Kim's had an impressive collection of wine bottles high up on a rack, and that made me feel like we were a little more normal until I realized that they were dusty bottles that never seemed to be moved, few were ever missing, and only occasionally would a new one appear. The same bottles sat on the shelf, unopened, visit after visit while at our house that many bottles were consumed and replenished weekly. I didn't understand what it meant, but that's when I knew our house was definitely different.

  I don't know what I would have done if Justin hadn't been there for me. He was special, and our love was unique, the kind that can only grow under the rarest of circumstances. It was real, and like so many other things between us, it was clearly understood but unspoken. We knew we weren't brother and sister. Mom and Clayton never called us that, and when people asked if we were, we never even pretended to be. We lived in the same house, our parents slept together, and I called Clayton my dad, but Justin never called my mom his mother, and we certainly never identified ourselves as siblings. We were always together though, sharing the same experiences, hearing the same fights, feeling the same hopelessness, avoiding the same sad reality of our existence by pretending we were anything but two kids with lousy parents.

  We were together so much we were friends by default and did everything young friends did. I don't remember ever fighting with him the way siblings fight with each other; that's why I don't think I ever thought of him as a brother. Once Lizzie was old enough to tag along, they fought, and Lizzie and I fought, but Justin and I never did. It was like even then we were so much a part of each other that to fight with him would have been akin to arguing with myself.

  And then came the fateful night everything changed and my friend became my hero and the love of my life. If there had ever been a time for the transporter to be real, it would have been that night. If I could have closed my eyes or switched a button to end up anywhere but where I was, I would have—but then again, if I hadn’t been there, I may never have fallen in love.

  Our parents were having a raging party, the kind I talked about before: loud music, drunken idiots, towels under doors, the kind of fun all kids dre
amed of having happen in their house. There were a few other kids there too, so we were being sociable at first.

  Justin snagged some whiskey from the bar and drank it with two other boys. They got almost as stupid as the grown-ups. I was disappointed but curious all the same while I watched them put the liquid in their bodies. They wouldn't let Lizzie or me try it; they said we were too little. I cried, and Justin promised that when I was ten they would let me. He said it would mess with my body too much until then.

  The boys were running around with light sabers having some kind of Jedi fight, and Clayton caught them. He sent Justin up to his room without so much as an angry look. “Boy, don't let me see you down here again, ya hear?” was all he had said. I didn't know why he was so nice about it. Was he being cool because everyone was there? Was he saving his wrath for later? Or was it something else, like maybe he didn't care if Justin was drinking? It wasn’t like Clayton to be cool like that, but maybe the audience kept him in check.The other boys were sent off to their parents' cars, and the adults laughed the whole thing off and had a few more rounds before saying their good-byes hours later. It was late when the boys got busted, but the party was just getting started. We knew there would be strangers in our house who would be up until dawn before finally crashing, or rather passing out.

  There was this funny glass mirror with white powder residue on it that would show up on the bathroom counter on big party nights and disappear the next day. We didn't know what that was all about for the longest time—and then one night we did. That night the bedroom was used so frequently the towel didn't even get stuffed against the crack, and a low-lying, pungent, blue-grey smoke hung in the air, swirling in dazzling circles when someone would walk past.

  The music played on and on, and we Three Musketeers found ourselves hovering together away from the chaos after Justin's fun ended for the night. Lizzie and I went to his room to stay with him. It somehow felt better to be together than alone. Since Lizzie's mom was there, high as all get out, we knew she was staying the night. Justin told us it was time for bed at some point and ushered us into my room. He tucked Lizzie into bed next to me and read us both a bedtime story, talking louder than normal to be heard over the music playing under our feet. I noticed that his words were slightly slurred and knew it had something to with the stolen whiskey. I fell asleep before the first chapter was over.

  I don't know how much time had gone by, but I woke up to man standing over me. I watched him, silhouetted in darkness, waiting for what was next, not knowing what it would be but feeling like it might not be good. Stevie Ray Vaughn was singing “Pride and Joy,” and I imagined my mom downstairs dancing, letting her straight, stringy hippy hair, that was a little darker brown than mine was, fly this way and that to the beat, swishing and swirling the smoke as she swayed. The song still takes me back to that night, to that man. I hate it.

  He wanted something, but I didn't know what. I knew who he was: his name was Brad, and he hung out with Clayton every now and then. I think they may have worked together. When he came over, he would look at me funny and pay more attention to me than most of Clayton's friends ever did, but he was a grown-up so he didn't exist much in my world.

  In the darkness of that night I barely saw him put his finger to his lip to silence me and nod toward Lizzie, who was still asleep beside me. He leaned down and whispered in my ear that if I did what he told me to do, he wouldn't tell Clayton that Justin was in my room. His sour liquor breath spilled out of his mouth invading my senses, before he stood again and pointed to the floor. I followed his finger and in the dim night light I saw Justin asleep beside my bed, using my stuffed elephant for his pillow. Clayton would have been mad that he was sleeping in my room, and Brad and I both knew it. Justin was already in enough trouble with everyone all the time; I didn't want him to get busted for anything else. So when Brad told me to get out of bed and go with him, I did.

  He led me down the hall, shuffling to the music, and motioned for me to shuffle too, so I did. He walked into the upstairs bathroom and held the door open for me. I walked in, and he smoothed his hand over my hair as I passed him.

  “Mmmm,” he growled, low and deep. It sent a burning shiver up and down my spine. He shut the door and locked it, muffling the music, but he kept dancing. He took out a baggie and cut a line on the bare counter, and at last the mystery of the white powder was solved. The music blared downstairs and I heard people hooting and hollering while he snorted it with a rolled dollar bill. Then he looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, still unsure of my role or what he wanted from me. In the fluorescent light his glassy eyes yearned for something, but I was too young to understand it was me that he wanted.

  He stood, pinching his nose between his thumb and index finger, then reached down and unbuckled his belt. My heart started fluttering. It sounds silly now, but all I could think was that he must be getting ready to use the bathroom and was so wasted that he forgot I was there, or forgot to care that I was there. I was embarrassed for him and turned quickly to give him privacy,

  “Oh, no you don't. Look at me,” he said, the hunger in his eyes reflecting in his voice too.

  I turned back to look at him, bewildered that he wanted me to watch him go to the bathroom. I had never seen a man's parts before. Baby boys’, yes, and Justin's once or twice when he peed outside and I came around a corner too quickly, but never a full-grown man's. Fear spread through my body. He didn't turn to the toilet when he unbuttoned his pants; instead, he came toward me, reaching inside to withdraw himself. I knew something that wasn't supposed to happen was about to happen; his eyes told me so, even though he tried to keep the smile on his face. I didn't smile back this time, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. I didn't think I was in trouble with him—whatever we were doing was keeping Justin from getting in trouble, so I didn't think he was going to hurt me—but why would he need his pants off? I was confused and afraid and wanted to be rescued from what was about to happen.

  For some reason the person I wanted most in the world at that moment was Clayton, and just as I wished for him, someone knocked on the door.

  “Hey...!” It wasn't Clayton, though. It was Justin.

  “Busy, bro,” Brad answered, but was quickly putting himself away and fixing his pants. Hunger was gone, his eyes suddenly wide and worried. I don't know if he knew it was Justin or not.

  “Is Haylee in there?”

  No answer. Brad shook his head at me, telling me with his eyes to be silent.

  “Haylee, are you in there?”

  I couldn't stay quiet. Something bad was going to happen, and I knew it; I could tell by how quickly Brad startled at the knock. This was my chance to escape. Since Justin wasn't in my room anymore we could lie about his being in there, so I no longer felt obligated to do what Brad said. I was rescued, just like I wished. I answered Justin loudly enough to be heard through the door and over the music, “Yes! I'm here.”

  “Let her out, you sick prick, or I'll tell Clayton you're in there with her. You hear me?”

  It was enough to scare Brad into listening to a boy. I guess even adults were afraid of Clayton's yelling. He finished buttoning his pants and buckled his belt. I didn't know what else to do, so I stood still and watched. I saw that there was something bulging in his pants, but I didn't know then what it was. I was so young and everything was happening so fast. When his belt was fixed, he grabbed the baggie off the counter and opened the door.

  Justin was inside in a second. He had saved me from a bad thing I couldn't comprehend.

  Justin was more than a foot shorter than Brad. And while he was no match in size or strength, he stood up to him, chest out, fists clenched, ready to fight like a man, to the death—for me. I didn't know what it was all about, but I could tell by his anger, his posture and his defiance to Brad's authority that Justin did, and he knew Brad would have to submit to him. Justin stared him down while looking up into his face. He called him names I'd never heard and threate
ned to kill him if he ever touched me or Lizzie. Justin understood full well what Brad was about to do and that being caught once wasn't enough to stop a man like that. Like always, Justin faced trouble to keep us safe. All I knew at that moment was I loved him. He was my hero. He had saved me.

  And that's how fast it happened. I was his for my whole life after that, even though there would be times I tried to deny the truth of it.

  Brad was pissed. Those glassy eyes of his shot darts at Justin, but he was the loser; he stormed out of the bathroom and down the stairs. I told Justin I wanted to use the teleporter to get away from the house. He said he did too. That's when I noticed he was shaking all over the way Mom did in the mornings. I thought it was from the alcohol, not knowing what a rush of adrenaline could do to a human body.

  “Yeah, OK, that's a good idea. Let's get Lizzie and some blankets and go to the teleporter.”

  We woke Lizzie, and we Three Musketeers chucked blankets out the upstairs window and crept out the back door of the house and into the safety of the BTTF24. Justin made a fire inside the fort, in our fire pit. In one of his books he had read about Native Americans and teepees and knew we needed a smoke hole, so long ago the BTTF24 had been equipped with a hole in the top. We had fires in there often, mostly on the weekends when we played outside all day long. We kept an impressive stash of wood that we scrounged from the forest regularly.

  We camped out all that night, the three of us, alone, together. It was the most wonderful night of my life up to that point. Justin slept up against the fort wall with a comforter around his shoulders, legs out to the fire. I laid my head on one thigh, Lizzie on his other, with our blankets wrapped around us. Every time he stoked the fire we all shuffled and woke, but we didn't mind.