Savage Lane (10 page)

Now memories of Melanie, how shitty and helpless she’d made him feel when she wanted to break up, were rushing back. Why was Deb acting this way? What did he do
wrong
?

He looked for her in the hallway and near the bathroom and then checked outside. Once in a while she smoked cigarettes, so she could have gone out to smoke, but more likely she’d gone to have a drink. She’d been drinking a lot lately, getting tanked at the club, and sometimes when they met in the backseat of his car in the back of the John Jay High parking lot, her breath smelled like alcohol. He’d ask her if she was drinking and she was like, “No,” but that was bullshit. She was probably an alcoholic, just like his stupid asshole stepdad.

He headed toward her car in the lot—in the back of his mind, thinking, maybe if she was there she’d give him a quick BJ. He needed to know that everything was cool, that she wasn’t angry with him, and that she hadn’t actually changed the way Melanie had.

But she wasn’t in her car. He was going to head back into the school when he decided to go behind the building, to the area where kids sometimes hung out, and sure enough Deb was there. He tried to act natural, get things back to normal, but then she got all paranoid about them being seen together and told him to get back inside.

So he went back into the school to wait for Kyle to finish practice, figuring he’d deal with the Deb situation the next time he saw her, when they were alone. But then he started panicking all over again, thinking,
What if there isn’t a next time
? What if she didn’t want to see him again and told him what Melanie had told him:
I need a clean break.
Now Owen was sweating; how had everything gone to hell so fast? Something must’ve happened with Mark. After all, Deb had had freak-outs about Mark before. A bunch of times over the past two years she’d told Owen that what they were doing was wrong, that they had to stop—shit like that. It had never seemed like any big deal, though, because she never wanted to stop fucking hooking up.

But this time felt different. She’d never seemed so distant; something had definitely changed. He didn’t get why she’d want to stay with Mark, though. She was so unhappy with that guy, and she said they’d been living like roommates for years, and that they didn’t even really like each other anymore. There was no way she could possibly pick Mark over him. Besides, everybody knew that Mark was screwing Karen Daily. Well, maybe everybody except Deb.

After swim practice he was hoping he’d see Deb down by the lockers, but she wasn’t there and had probably already left. A few minutes later, driving home, Owen looked in the rearview and noticed that Kyle’s eyes were red and glassy. At first he thought he had gotten chlorine in his eyes, then realized he was crying.

“What’s wrong?” Owen asked.

Kyle wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and turned away.

“Hey, look at me.” Owen was concerned. “I said look at me.”

Kyle turned back, tears gushing.

“What happened?” Owen asked. “Come on, tell me.”

“The coach…”

“The coach? What happened with the coach?”

“He said… He said I’m too fat.”

“He
said
that?”

“He said that’s why I got tired in the race last week. He said I have to stop going to McDonald’s.”

“How does he know you go to McDonald’s?”

“He said he saw us there last week.”

“Yeah? Well, if he saw us there, then what was
he
doing there?”

Kyle almost smiled.

“Seriously,” Owen said, “that shit’s totally inappropriate. First of all, you’re a good weight, a healthy weight. You’ve got muscle, more muscle than me. Second of all, if the coach has a problem with something, he should talk to me about it. He shouldn’t be telling a little kid what to eat, especially when he’s wolfing down a double cheeseburger himself.”

Now Kyle laughed.

“I’m gonna talk to the coach, don’t worry about it,” Owen said. “But, listen to me, from now on, I want you to be strong, hear me? I don’t care who the person is. I don’t care if he’s the coach or your teacher or the President of the United States—don’t let anybody treat you like shit. If somebody hurts you, you stand up for yourself. That’s what this country’s all about—fighting back. You’re an American, Kyle. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said.

“Good,” Owen said.

Owen hoped he’d gotten through to his little brother. Somebody had to teach him values, how to act like a man in the world, and if Owen didn’t do it, who would?

At home, Kyle went up to his room to play, and Owen went to the kitchen and started making a ham and Swiss sandwich for lunch when he heard, “Save that ham for your mother.”

Owen glanced toward the entrance to the kitchen at Raymond, who was standing there shirtless, his big hairy beer gut hanging over his boxers.

“There’s only a couple slices left,” Owen said.

“Yeah, and that’s why you’re gonna save it for your mother,” Raymond said.

Owen knew that Raymond had probably eaten most of the ham himself and now just wanted to eat the rest of it. For fuck’s sake, Owen’s mom didn’t even eat ham. But Owen also knew that starting arguments with Raymond was usually a bad idea as any little thing could set him off. So, without saying anything, Owen removed the two slices of ham from the sandwich and put them back in the package. He was hoping that would be it but, of course, it wasn’t.

“And you better clean your room before your mother gets home,” Raymond said.

Owen had no idea what the hell he was talking about. He’d just cleaned his room yesterday, and it wasn’t messy at all.

“Whatever,” Owen muttered.

“What’s that?” Raymond asked.

“I said okay,” Owen said.

He finished making a sandwich with just cheese, aware of Raymond standing there watching him, but not looking at him at all. Then, finally, he heard Raymond leaving the kitchen.

“Prick,” Owen said.

Raymond had no purpose in life except to make Owen and his whole family miserable. He didn’t work, mooching off his mother, and Owen didn’t even understand why his mother was with him except that she was afraid to be alone. Owen’s dad was killed in a car crash when his mom was pregnant with Kyle—and then Raymond came along and they got married. She claimed she loved him, but was that an excuse to stay with a guy who treated her like shit and hurt her kids? It was still hard for Owen to believe that this prick was actually his stepfather. Owen didn’t think of him as his stepfather, that was for damn sure. He was just some asshole they all had to put up with. Owen used to beg his mother to leave him, just kick him out of the house and call the cops and get one of those restraining orders if she was afraid of him, but she never listened. Then Owen started hating her too because what kind of mother would pick some guy over her kids, over her
family
? Sometimes Owen wished they were both dead, that they took a drive one day, and the car hit a tree and they both went through the windshield and died instantly, the way his father had died, because he knew he could raise Kyle on his own and that they’d both be a lot happier not living with a stepfather who beat the shit out of them whenever he felt like it and a mother who didn’t give a shit.

Owen went up to his room with his cheese sandwich, shut his door, and locked it. He was chomping on the sandwich, still pissed off about Raymond’s bullshit, when his phone chimed. Excited, thinking it was Deb, he checked the phone, disappointed when he saw it was from Elana Daily:
Hey!!!

Owen knew Elana was into him. He’d kind of known it for years but he really knew it last month on that Friday night when he’d had nothing better to do—Deb was busy doing some family shit—so he went to a party at Jake Stefano’s house and Elana was there and was all over him when they were on the couch and, then, when he was coming out of the upstairs bathroom, she was waiting there, like he knew she would be, and practically dragged him into Jake’s parents’ bedroom where she locked the door and pinned him down to the bed. She was on top, and he got her shirt off and he couldn’t really get it up. Finally she went down on him and that worked—he came fast. He knew she wanted him to go down on her after, but he wasn’t into it, so after a while they just put their clothes back on and went down to the party.

Now he texted back:
Hey, sexy!!!
Then he added:
Whats goin on???

She told him about some party tonight at Dylan Ross’ house and how great it would be if he would come. He texted back,
sounds awesome
, figuring at least he’d get another BJ. She wrote back,
awesome can’t wait to c u!!
!
and he wrote
can’t wait to c u 2!!!
Then she was texting him about the time for the party and gave him the address too because he had no idea where the dude lived.

Then another text came in, but it wasn’t from Elana; it was from Deb:
Can we talk at the club this aft?

Owen felt the same rush he’d felt when he was in the classroom before. This was a great sign—it meant he really had been panicking for no reason and she was still as into him, that nothing had changed. She probably wanted to go into the woods for a quickie, or maybe make a plan to hook up somewhere later.

He responded:
Yeah!!! Sounds awesome!!!

Then he texted her again to set up a meeting time and while he was waiting for her to answer back, he noticed, but didn’t really care, that a few more texts had come in from Elana. It wasn’t just because he wasn’t that into her; it was because he wasn’t really into
any
girls around his age. It didn’t matter, though, because Deb would always be his number one, and other girls would always just be practice.

When he finished texting with Deb, making a plan to meet at the club at one-thirty, he checked the texts from Elana, she wanted to know what time he was going to get to the party. He texted:
Um can I text u later jus realized my mom might need to borrow my car
.

He was hoping she’d write back that this was cool, but she was like,
Me and Riley gettin lift from Sabrina we can get u!!
and he thought,
Shit
, and then sent:
K let u know later.

It was all cool. This way he could see how it went with Deb. If she wanted to hook up tonight he’d come up with some other excuse to blow off Elana, but if Deb flaked Elana would be a good plan B.

A little later, as Owen was getting ready for work, he was thinking how it was funny that his number one was Mark Berman’s wife and his number two was Mark’s girlfriend’s daughter.

But somehow he knew Mark wouldn’t think it was so funny.

B
EFORE
O
WEN
went downstairs he listened to make sure Raymond wasn’t around. When it seemed safe he went down but it was almost like Raymond was hiding there, waiting for him—and maybe he was—because at the bottom of the stairs he practically leaped out of the kitchen and said, “Hey, you clean your room?”

Owen didn’t bother answering, just went by him on his way toward the front door. But Raymond grabbed his left arm hard, gripping almost his entire bicep.

“You deaf or something?” Raymond said.

Owen cocked his right fist, wanting to deck Raymond in his stupid, worthless face.

“Try it, you know what’s good for you,” Raymond said. “Go ’head, try it.”

Owen had hit Raymond before and, though it felt great for a second or two, it always made things worse because, yeah, maybe he’d get a couple of good shots in, but he was no match for Raymond who was probably fifty pounds heavier and six inches taller, and if he got Raymond angrier it just gave him more of an excuse to be an abusive piece of shit.

So Owen didn’t hit Raymond but he should’ve known it wasn’t going to save him a beating. Raymond slapped him in the face hard, one of his fingers or his thumb hitting Owen’s right eye. As Owen screeched, Raymond grabbed him under the shoulders and lifted him up against the wall so they were at eye level.

“Shoulda hit me when you had the chance.” Raymond’s breath smelled like ham. “You’re gonna clean your room now, right?”

“Put me the fuck down,” Owen said.

“Keep talking back to me, I’ll keep you up here all day,” Raymond said. “I’ll nail you to the fucking wall.”

“It’s clean, it’s fuckin’ clean, man.”

Owen’s knees were almost at the level of Raymond’s balls. He wanted to do it; knee the prick in the balls, or lean forward and spit into the fat fuck’s face or, better yet, bite off a chunk of it. Yeah, he actually
saw
himself biting off a chunk of Raymond’s pudgy cheek and spitting it right back at him.

Back to reality, Raymond was saying, “It
better
be clean and you better not talk back to me again when I tell you somethin’ to do, or you and Jesus’ll have somethin’ in common.”

What Owen got was another whiff of ham, and then Raymond released his grip. Owen fell onto his knees, then saw Kyle, standing near the staircase. Owen hoped Kyle hadn’t seen him acting so weak and defenseless.