I wake up in the hospital. Grams has gone to work already. I run my tongue over my vampire teeth and I decide. I’m going to strike first. I’m through waiting around.
They release me three days later. I have to wear a flack jacket thing that’ll absorb punishment since my ribs are busted up. My teeth don’t hurt now that they’ve plugged the holes up. My face looks like shit, though, like Frankenstein, all swollen and black and blue with stitches near my eyes and lips. I look like I’m coming apart at the seams and I can’t hardly talk at all. I have to watch the way I walk. I got kicked hard in the back of my calf and when I go up stairs or even when I’m just walking, my leg goes limp with no warning. It’s like a damn trick knee. With all that, I have a legit pass on school. But it doesn’t matter. McNutt called and told Grams that I was out. So is Leo. Nacho isn’t because he’s not marked up, and Leo didn’t say anything and neither am I.
My plan is simple. I’m going to call my old man and ask him if he’ll let me go with him to L.A. They’re recording there and I’m going to tell him that my moms wants me to show up and all I need is a ride. He won’t check up on my story. He never talks to anybody over there. He wouldn’t want to risk talking to Aunt Naomi.
When I get home, I count my money. All the dough I’ve made from the molino, from selling some of the Dexys we got from Nacho’s old man, some odds and ends. I’ve done whatever it takes to get ready cash. I’ve got just over eleven hundred bucks. I’ve still got about thirty pills and I aim to get a job as soon as I get there. I can wait tables, bus dishes, whatever. I’m not going back to school anyway. I’ll get a goddamn GED later. See, I’m going to lay the cash out for my moms, right in front of her, and I’m going to let her know that I’m not going to be any trouble. I’ve got that shit out of my system.
Both matters have to be handled delicately. Convincing my old man will be tough. He’s probably ready for some wild times on the road and I’m likely to fuck that up for him. He’s always trying to play the grown-up around me. So I have to catch him at the right time. Convincing my moms, that’ll be harder because I’ve got to work on my other grandmother and my Aunt Naomi as well. It’s a package deal, but I’m not going to let Antony forget all about me. It’s been almost two years and little kids forget things quick. He cried like hell when I left. It seemed like everybody but him was glad to be getting rid of me. Well, maybe not glad, but relieved. But not Antony.
* * *
Diana comes to visit me, but Grams sends her away because I’m asleep. I’m taking Demerol so I can rest at night. I’m going to be leaving and it’s better that I don’t see her. I need to cut ties. She was cool, but I never felt straight with her.
After a couple of days, I get it together enough to dial up my old man. The phone rings about four times and I’m getting ready to leave a message when a woman’s voice answers. I know it’s not The Bitch’s. That’s been over a long time now. “Hullo,” she says. I don’t say anything for a second thinking that maybe I’ve got the wrong number. But I know I don’t. “Hi,” I say. “Yeah, hullo,” she says again. She sounds kind of stupid and whorey, just like my pops likes them. “Hi,” I say again like an idiot. “I’m trying to get hold of my father,” I say.
“You must have the wrong number, kid,” she says.
“I’m looking for Robert Lomos, Sr. This is his son Robert, Jr.”
“Oh,” she says. She says it like she still doesn’t really believe it, but as if she’s running over past conversations and events in her head really fast. “Hmmm,” she says. She’s remembered something. “Are you thin, black hair, cute?”
“Might be me,” I say. It’s getting aggravating. “But I’m sure that the guy who lives there is my father.”
“Hmmm,” she says again. She’s really quick. “He told me you were his youngest brother. What a fucking liar. Is he married, too? Why do I always believe the fucking liars?”
“Is he there?” I ask again.
“No,” she says. “He’s gone. He’s in El Paso and then he’s heading for Los Angeles.”
“He’s not coming back through here before then?” Shit’s falling apart.
“No. I don’t know what the hell he’s going to do, junior.” She’s feeling bad for herself. She hangs up. Just like that my plan is fucked up. But I’m not going to let it end there. I’ve got dough. I’m going to get there without my pops. He’s never gotten me anywhere before, so why should he start now? The way I see it, after I think about it for a while, is that the journey will be all the more important this way. It’ll have more meaning. My moms will understand then. She’ll see that I took the hard way down, that I’m serious. That I can handle shit.
I decide I’m not going to wait one more second. It’s nine in the morning. Grams is at work and won’t be back until six or so. By then I can be halfway to El Paso. I’m not taking any fucking plane. Too much money. The bus will do. I’ll stop in a couple of places.
I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My face is a real freak show. I’ve got to do something to make it less gruesome. With Grams’s cuticle scissors I clip off the stitches that are still in my face. It doesn’t hurt. Most of them have come out, anyway. They’re the temporary kind that deteriorate right in your skin as your shit heals up. Some of them have already come loose and all I have to do is tug on them. After a while, my face is free of the thread. The scars don’t look too bad. I’m all stubbly because I haven’t shaved, but I figure it’s best not to. If I’m going to be on the road on my own, anything I can do to make myself look tougher—scars, stubble, fucked-up teeth—the better. I make The Face, the new and improved face with authentic vampire teeth. It’s enough to make anyone think twice before fucking with me. Cool, determined, untouchable. Crazy.
I go to my bedroom and pull out the duffel bag I use when I go on basketball trips. I’m going to travel light. I pack two pairs of jeans, six T-shirts, and six underwear. Three pairs of tube socks, my tennies, a belt, and I roll up a sweatshirt. I take the one that says Sunnydale as a laugh. I put on another pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and the brown leather jacket Grams gave me for Christmas. My heavy brown hiking boots are steel toed and I figure that they might come in handy. I put those on, too, but walking in them is not going to be easy with my trick calf. I put my pills and my Demerol in my tennies. Last, I go to Grams’s closet and dig out my gramps’s service revolver. After I load it, I wrap it up in a towel and pack it.
Now I gotta write Grams a note and that’s the hardest part because she’s the only thing I’m going to miss in this whole goddamned town.