nine

Me and Pippa sat on this decrepit bench near the ranger station, waiting for a human to show up. I wanted to kiss her again, but she wouldn’t even look at me. One minute, she’s all into it. The next minute, she’s acting like it never happened. I had no clue what was in her brain.

“Maybe we should call your dad,” she said.

I tried messing with my cell. No signal. Anyway, I didn’t plan on talking to Dad. He was the last person I wanted to deal with.

The shack was locked. I squinted through the window. On the desk, somebody had left a mug full of pencils, a Sudoku Magic puzzle, and a cigar smushed in a skull-shaped ashtray.

“Don’t stress,” I told Pippa. “He’s coming back. Trust me.”

We waited. I could only hope it was a ranger who’d dragged the bike off.

He finally materialized a half hour later. He was a little dude, sweat stains circling his arms, and he looked pissed.

“You guys have some explaining to do,” he said. It sounded like ’splaining.

I slid off the bench. “Why?”

“Because there’s been a theft on the property and we have reason to believe you’re involved.”

“Right. Somebody stole my bike.”

The ranger craned his neck, glaring up at me. “You’re Trent Osceola?”

“Aye, captain.”

“Your father called Flamingo,” he said, meaning the park’s main entrance. “Figured you’d be out here. Told us to keep an eye peeled.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Give me the bike and we’ll go.”

“He’s at the front office.”

“He is?”

Dad wasn’t supposed to drive. Did he take the Yeti? Of course he did. No doubt he was drunk off his ass. That’s for sure. I glanced over at Pippa. She was scraping at her thumbnail, stripping off flakes of glittery black polish.

“You better come with me,” the ranger said.

I didn’t argue.

He drove us to the office in his stupid SUV, the bumper plastered with Go Green! bumper stickers. So much for Mother Earth. When he spotted Pippa’s camera tucked between her feet, he went ballistic.

“Did you guys take movies inside the park?”

Pippa tried to nudge the camera deeper under the seat. “We only shot one roll.”

“No filming without a permit,” he said in this dead monotone, like he was hypnotized. He thumped the dashboard. “Don’t you know it’s against the law?”

“We didn’t know.”

“Well, that doesn’t make it okay. Does it?”

He actually waited for an answer.

“Does it?”

“No,” Pippa said in a small voice.

I wanted to smash the guy’s teeth out. All thirty-two of them.

My dad was waiting for us, hunched in a metal chair, the kind that wreak havoc on your joints no matter which way you sit. Just looking at his face, I could tell he was wasted.

“This is how you treat your old man?” he said. “You go and pull a fucked-up stunt like this?”

I got a whiff of beer as he stumbled out of the chair. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“You’re not running the show around here, boy. We’ll talk when I damn well please.” I’d seen him out of control, but never like this.

We had to sit there, listening to this garbage, while the rangers filled out their stupid papers. When they finally let us go, Dad marched to the Jeep at full speed. There was no stopping him.

“Come on, Dad,” I said. “Pass the keys. I’m driving.”

“The hell you are.”

“Seriously. Let me have the keys.”

He opened the door. “You,” he said. “Get in.”

Pippa scrambled into the back. I couldn’t guess what she was thinking.

Actually, I could.

On the ride home, she didn’t say one word. Dad was blabbing so much, nobody had a chance. He’d hitched the Kawasaki to the rack, hopped into the driver’s seat, and gunned it down the road.

We swerved onto the highway, cutting off a minivan. When the guy behind us honked, Dad rolled down the window and flipped him off. I half-expected bullets to start flying. Road rage or whatever. The guy blasted his horn again: a thin, watery note that lost an octave the farther we raced ahead.

“Don’t even start,” Dad muttered.

Was he venting at me or the pissed-off driver?

Dad switched back to his favorite subject: no-good sons. He jerked the wheel and pulled into the next lane. Billboards whizzed past, screaming shit about legal fireworks and gator meat.

“Watch it,” I said, twisting around to check on Pippa in the backseat. It killed me just imagining how she must feel. Her face was against the glass, her neck wet with tears.

Dad punched the breaks and I slammed into the dashboard. I shifted my gaze to the road. All the trees beside the canal looked scorched, as if lightning had struck them one by one.

We turned the corner for the Rez. In the dark, our neighbor’s chickee hut reminded me of a monster, the kind that scared me as a kid staying up and watching late-night horror movies on TV. Then I got a little bigger and wondered what the hell was so scary in the first place.

As we rattled over the driveway, Dad chugged the rest of his Big Gulp. He pitched the cup out the window.

I knew what came next. This is when Angry Dad morphed into Pathetic Dad. If I waited long enough, he’d be sobbing on the couch. Eventually, the sobs faded into snores. The next morning, the stuttery noise of the blender would drill through the house. I’d find him in the garage, pumping iron like nothing ever happened.

Dad wasn’t crying now. He got out of the car, marched to the opposite side, and flung open the passenger door. Before I could pry him off, he dragged me onto the pavement. I skidded on my knees, tasted dirt and blood.

“So what’s the deal?” he said, lurching toward the Jeep. “This your girlfriend?”

I lifted my head. “Leave her alone.”

Dad tugged the handle, but Pippa must’ve locked it. He pounded on the window. “Hey missy. It’s time you got a few things straight,” he said, trying the door again. “My son? See, he’s screwing this little cha-cha.”

“Shut up, Dad. Nobody wants to hear it.”

“Comes and goes whenever he likes. Sleeps all day. Leaves a mess all over the house. He’s even got the balls to steal my beer. So tell me, missy. Do I look like a fool to you?”

“That’s enough. I said shut up. You’re drunk.”

He spun around. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that.”

Dad swung his fist. White heat tunneled through my ribs. I rolled face-down in the grass, tried to shield myself with my arms. Kicks came from all directions. No muscle that didn’t burn. Even the space inside was swollen.

I squeezed my eyes open. Headlights raked the backyard. In the driveway, there was the Jeep, a hulking metal thing. Pippa watched from the front seat. Her silent face floated behind the windshield.

Dad’s voice dissolved into static. It was true, what he said. Pippa deserved better. I was an idiot to think she’d care.

My backpack was on the ground, just a few feet away. It must’ve fallen when he pulled me from the car. If I could reach it, the gun wouldn’t be hard to dig out.

“You got a smart mouth,” Dad was saying, “and it’s doing you no good. You better sharpen up quick. Because you’re no different than me, boy. Your hear that? No different.”

Me and Dad? We had nothing in common. He was an asshole who wrote bad checks and cheated on my mom, a freak who couldn’t handle a job that required a bigger mental capacity than mowing lawns, a middle-aged loser who got wasted every night just because he couldn’t face the sad reality of his non-existence.

It was just fate and genetics that tied us together. That’s all.

Light slid across the grass. Uncle Seth walked out of his house. He was usually in there watching game shows with his girlfriend.

“Get up,” Dad told me. “Stand like a man.”

I didn’t move.

“Everything okay?” Uncle Seth called out.

“This ain’t your business. Got that? It’s between me and him.”

Uncle Seth flicked his gaze in my direction. “Why don’t you head inside and we’ll talk it out?”

“You heard what I said.”

Dad turned and I made a lunge for the backpack. I tightened my grip around the strap and hauled it closer. My hands shook as I yanked the zipper, felt the gun’s plastic handle wrapped in my sweatshirt. I didn’t plan on doing anything stupid. Like I told Pippa, it wasn’t loaded. I just wanted to scare the shit out of him.

The .357 Mag fit in my palm like it was meant to be there. I looped my finger around the trigger—a major rule-breaker, unless you meant to blow somebody away. Got up on my feet. Stood like a man. Exactly what Dad had told me to do.

When he saw the gun, his expression shifted. “Give me that thing. Shit. You don’t even know how to operate it.”

“Yeah? You want proof?”

Man, it felt good telling him off. And I wasn’t done yet. There was a lot Dad needed to hear. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance.

He clamped onto my arm, wrenching so tight I groaned. We staggered around the yard. I shoved all my weight into him. He wobbled against me, crushing down on my shoulder.
But he was still drunk, and I was the stronger one. I knew that now.

An explosion of noise rocked through my fist. I was so freaked out I tossed the gun. It skittered across the driveway. The smell of metal sharpened the air. My ears were ringing and I’d forgotten how to breathe.

I gawked at the Mag, the way it glinted on the pavement. Why the hell was it loaded? Dad was always grilling me on the Ten Commandments of Fire Arms Safety. Rule numero uno: Keep nothing in the chamber.

Smoke draped the trees like gauze. I stood there, breathing in slow-motion, trying to decide what to do. If Dad caught me moving toward the gun, he’d see where it had landed and grab it first. I thought about Pippa, trapped in the car. No way could I ditch her. She was the one shining thing in the void I called my life.

I had to choose.

Stay or go.

I was stuck on pause, unable to move or make a decision, until a siren tugged me back to consciousness. It sounded so fake—a TV sound effect. A pair of spinning halos swooped over the house, shifting back and forth, red to blue. I squinted in the brightness.

Then I ran.