We’re going out again 2night. Wanna come?
Lance frowned down at April’s text. He typed back, Who is we?
Tyson & me. He’s fun 2 hang out with.
Lance groaned. “Unbelievable,” he said aloud.
Emily sat sideways on Kent’s couch, where she’d sat since getting home from jail tonight, her foot encased in an ice pack and propped on a pillow. “What’s wrong?”
“April,” Lance said. “She’s getting too friendly with this dude named Tyson. He’s bad news.”
“I thought you had a thing for April.”
“I do,” he admitted. “I just haven’t told her yet. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“Well, you’d better make your move.”
Lance knew she was right. April had been evasive about her time with Tyson. “She wants me to hang out with them tonight. I feel like a third wheel, but I don’t trust him with her.”
“She wouldn’t have invited you if she wanted to be alone with him,” Emily said. “That’s a good sign.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. You should go.”
Emily looked so pale and fragile that Lance didn’t want to leave her. “But you just got home.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just glad to be here. Go and protect your territory. It’s been a rough couple of days for you, too.”
His mother heard from the kitchen. “She’s right. Go ahead and go.”
They wouldn’t feel that way if Lance told them Tyson was a doper who probably sold drugs, and that Lance felt the compulsion to protect April from him. But that was something he’d rather they didn’t know. “All right,” he said. “Guess I will.”
“Where are you guys going?” his mom called.
He shrugged. “Not sure yet. Just hanging out, I guess. Maybe at April’s. I’ll get them to pick me up.”
“Okay, just be home by ten. It’s a school night.”
Nothing more was said about it, but Lance had a sinking feeling as he showered and got ready. What did April see in Tyson? Was it the bad-boy image that she liked? Was Lance too predictable? Was he best-friend material, but not boyfriend material?
He knew it was lame going along like this, but he didn’t give a flip what Tyson thought. He was going to protect April. That was all that mattered.
He texted Kent’s address to April, and told her to have Tyson pick him up there. A little after eight, Tyson’s car rumbled up to the curb, and Lance loped out. April was already there, riding shotgun. Lance got into the backseat. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem, dude.” Tyson’s hair was greasy and stringy, his face unshaven. He had the stubble of a middle-aged man rather than a high-schooler, and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
“Why are you here? Whose house is this?” April asked.
“My mom’s boyfriend. We were just over here having supper.” He didn’t want to mention their fear of staying in their own home.
“Everything okay?” she asked him over the seat.
He nodded quietly.
Tyson cranked the music up, a rap song with a vibrating bass line. Lance wanted to tell him to turn it down, but the idiot probably couldn’t hear him. The car smelled terrible — some combination of urine, body odor, and smoke. The cushions were split and foam rubber stuffing pebbled out.
Tyson flew way too fast, tapping his hand to the beat. “Where are we going?” Lance finally yelled over the music.
“A special place,” Tyson yelled. “I’m taking you to the stars tonight.”
“What stars?” April asked, her eyes glistening.
Tyson grinned. “You’ll see. Hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
Her amusement faded. “I am, actually. What is it? The top of a building or something?”
He laughed and ramped the music up higher. “You’ll see.”
They were on Howard Avenue, almost to the MARTA station. Lance tried to anticipate where they were going.
Tyson suddenly turned the music down. “Ready to learn how to have a good time?” he asked, laughing.
That didn’t sound good. Lance braced himself.
Tyson slowed as he reached the train station, got into the right lane, and turned onto Paden, just past the Decatur water tower. He braked suddenly, then cut a hard right, bouncing over the curb and onto the grass just outside the fence surrounding the tower.
“What are you doing?” April asked, clutching the dashboard.
Tyson grinned and shifted into park. He leaned forward, gazing through the windshield through the darkness to the top of the tower. “You should see things from up there. It’s like ten stories up. You go up that little ladder, and you can walk around that catwalk up on the tank. You’ll love it.”
April looked back at Lance, alarm in her eyes. “No way. I’m not going up there.”
“Come on, baby. I want you to see it.”
“She’s not your baby,” Lance clipped. April shot him a surprised look. “We’re not going up there,” he said. “End of discussion.”
Tyson hit the steering wheel and threw up his hands. “Hey, man, you are really tense. You’re wound up as tight as a church lady.”
Lance thought of walking home. Who did this guy think he was?
“You need a little something to calm your nerves.” Tyson reached under his seat, pulled out a cigarette. He got his lighter and clicked on a flame, let it linger on the tip as he put it to his lips and inhaled. As the smoke filled the car, Lance realized it was a joint. “Here, baby,” Tyson told April. “Smoke some of this, you’ll be so mellow you won’t even think about your fear of heights.”
“I don’t want to do that,” April said in a low voice.
“Why not? We did it last night.”
Lance’s mouth fell open. “April? You smoked dope with this guy?”
April didn’t answer, but Tyson flashed a victorious grin. “Hey, man, what’s the big deal? It’s practically legal in California.”
“This isn’t California,” Lance said. “And I don’t do drugs, because I’m not an idiot.”
“Man, you of all people need something to chill you out. April told me how messed up things in your family are.”
Lance caught his breath and stared at his friend. “April? I told you not to tell anybody!”
Guilt reddened her face. “I’m sorry. I was just worried about you.”
“Then you should have done what I said and kept it to yourself.” Furious, he got out of the car, slammed the door. He hoped Tyson would just drive away. Lance could call his mom, or he could take the MARTA train back to the stop near Kent’s house.
But Tyson got out of the car and followed him. “Hey, calm down, man. She didn’t tell me much.”
Lance didn’t want to talk to him. “What are you doing with her? She’s not like the people you hang out with. You trying to turn her into one of your customers?”
Tyson threw his head back and laughed. “Man, you’ve been watching too much TV.”
Lance turned toward him, hands out. “I don’t get why you’re with her.”
“You’re jealous!” Tyson said, amused. “Is that it? You want her?”
Lance wanted to deck the guy. “I want to protect her from you, even if she does have a big mouth.”
Tyson leaned against his car. “Hey, I get what you’re going through. Your sister is . . . what? A heroin addict?”
It was none of this guy’s business. “I don’t want to talk about my sister.”
“I’m just sayin’, she’s all tangled up in some murder, and it must freak you out. They don’t arrest people for murder unless they can make a case.”
“They did this time.”
“Okay,” Tyson said, as if trying to calm an angry bear. “I don’t blame you for being touchy. And you don’t have to worry, man. I think it’s really you April digs, not me. Lance this, Lance that. She doesn’t even want to go anywhere without you. I think she’s just using me for my wheels. That or my weed.”
That was enough. Lance turned and headed for the road.
“Come on, dude, climb the tower with me,” Tyson said.
“No!”
“All right. Then let’s just get back in the car. We’re all friends, right? Look at her. She’s crying.”
Lance turned and looked through the windshield. He didn’t want April to cry. His anger faded, and he thought of all that could happen if he left her alone with Tyson. What was next? Cocaine? Would he get her up on that tower?
Anger pulsed through him. Her parents’ impending divorce had made her vulnerable, but he thought she had more sense than to get high with a guy like Tyson. It didn’t matter how upset she was. Drugs would only make things worse.
She rolled down her window. “Lance, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have told anybody.”
“Got that right,” he said. “Maybe if you weren’t high you would have kept the secret.”
“Can you forgive me for telling him?”
Did she really think he was only mad about that? “April, you really smoked weed with him?”
Shame twisted her face. “I was depressed. I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”
“After all I’ve told you about Emily?”
She got out of the car. “It’s not like it’s hard drugs.”
He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. “You want to wind up like this guy? A high-school junior at nineteen? Every addict started with something! They never think it’s a big deal.”
“Hey, hey,” Tyson said, ambling back to his car. “Let’s not get personal.”
“Personal?” Lance cried. “You don’t think it’s personal that you’re trying to turn her into a dope-head? I’m going home. Come with me, April. We’ll take the MARTA.”
She glanced at Tyson, then whispered to Lance, “I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
Lance couldn’t believe her. And to think he’d considered dating her. He glanced back at Tyson. He was in the car now, hunched over. What was he doing?
Tyson came out then, his eyes wilder. “Hey, you morons want to know the story about this place?”
April didn’t look at him. “Sure.”
“This is the place my dad fell from.”
Lance stared at him in the darkness. “What? He fell from this tower?”
“Yep.”
Lance realized he knew nothing about Tyson’s background. Grudgingly, he asked, “Did he survive?”
“Barely. He’s a quadriplegic.”
“What’s that?” April asked. “Paralyzed?”
“From his neck down.”
Suddenly interested, Lance looked up at the massive structure. “What happened? Why was he up there?”
Tyson seemed to enjoy the fact that he had gotten their attention. He leaned into the car, turned on his headlights, illuminating the tower. “He was on the crew putting the thing together,” he said. “Had all these cranes moving it up there in pieces. He was a welder. He was the one at the top, and when they’d get a section on it, he’d weld the seam to hold it together.”
“Sounds dangerous,” April said.
“It was. When they got to the part with the catwalk on it, he was standing on that, and when they put the heavy top piece down, it swung . . . just a little. Just enough to knock him off.”
Lance’s mouth fell open, and he stared at Tyson, stricken. Tyson was smiling, staring admiringly up at the round tank at the top, as if it were some beautiful memory.
April stepped toward him. “Tyson, how long ago was that?”
“Few years. He’s still trapped in a wheelchair.” Tyson went to the chain-link fence, climbed over it.
“My mother loved it,” he said as he hit the ground on the other side. “She always wanted to lord it over him, and this gave her the chance. He’s been at her mercy ever since.”
“So . . . why do you come here?” April asked, walking toward the fence. “It must be a horrible memory.”
Tyson’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared up at the tank. “It’s the monster that defeated my old man,” he said. “So I like conquering it. It means I’m stronger than it is. I climb it every chance I get.” He let out a loud whoop. “I’m going up!”
“Your father fell!” April cried. “I don’t know how a person could survive that. You’d be crazy to go up there.”
“People go up there all the time to service it. I just do it for fun.” He pulled a plastic bag of white powder out of his pocket. “And this makes it even more fun.”
Cocaine. He was going to snort coke on top of the tower. Tyson laughed at their reaction and stuffed the bag back in his pocket. As they watched him jog to the tower, Lance joined April at the fence. “He’s doing coke. Why are you hanging out with this guy?”
“He makes me feel better!” she cried. “My parents are splitting up and I can’t handle it. My mom’s crying all the time, my dad cusses her out.”
“That’s no excuse. Just because they’re falling apart doesn’t mean you have to. What is wrong with you? Why do you want to be like him?”
She brought her hands to her face as Tyson found the ladder attached to one of the columns supporting the tank and pulled himself up like Spiderman scaling a building.
“He’s doing it!” she said. “He’s gonna fall!”
“Of course he is. He’s a lunatic.”
Tyson almost faded from sight as he moved farther up, out of the circle of bright illumination. When he reached the top and threw his leg over to the catwalk, Lance brought his hands to his head.
“I can’t watch!” April closed her eyes and turned away.
Lance heard Tyson’s loud whoop drifting down on the wind, saw him leaning against the rails, arms raised, as if he would launch into flight. Lance went back to the car and turned the headlights on bright, hoping Tyson could see his way down. “I’m calling the police.” Lance got his phone out of his pocket and punched in 911.
“Wait! He’s coming down.” Lance watched through the windshield as Tyson came back to the ladder and backed down it. Lance didn’t finish the call.
The tar-like smell of the reefer smoldering in the ash tray was making him sick.
Tyson got to the ground and leaped like a hurdler over the four-foot fence. “Did you see it, babe?” he said to April in a frenzy. “I could fly up there. What a rush!”
“You were giving me a nervous breakdown,” she said.
“I have stuff to help with that.”
Lance shook his head. “No, she doesn’t want it. She just wants to go home. We’re taking the train. Come on, April.”
She got her purse out of the car. “Sorry, Tyson,” Lance heard her say.
Tyson only laughed as they walked away. He cranked the music back up, let it blare over the speakers. They could still hear it as they crossed the lanes of traffic to the train station.