Trigger (15 page)

Couldn’t blame her.

I was Big Larry + 2x = 12 to her. Big Larry with his fly unzipped and his underwear hanging out and pee on his jeans. Big Larry with Todd’s fist in his face. I got a sixty-five on a Civics quiz and a forty-eight on the Earth Science test we got back.

“X.” I sighed. “Big Larry.”

Dumbass
, said J.B.

“Dumbass. X. Big Larry.” I didn’t want to be talking to him, but it was Friday night and Leza was out on a date. Mama Rush was out on a date. My parents were watching a pro football game on tape, so I came upstairs a while ago. I didn’t like football games anymore. Watching them made me sad.

Saturday, I was supposed to tell Mama Rush if I did
something awful and felt guilty. Tomorrow. I was pretty sure I did bad stuff, but I didn’t know what.

J.B. laughed.
You probably did lots of awful stuff
.

“Not me. You. Big Larry.”

You should feel guilty. I bet you broke Elana Arroyo’s heart
.

“Did not. Don’t even know if I went out with her much, or how long.” I looked back at my math paper. 2x + 6 = 12. X = 8. Eight didn’t look right. Dumbass.

You probably went out with her a long time. Maybe you made her do bad stuff. Maybe you stole her from Todd and got her pregnant and that’s why Todd
—

“Shut up.”

You made her cry. You make everybody cry. Eight’s right. Leave eight
.

“Eight.”

The sound of raised voices made me look at the door. Was it the television?

No.

Mom and Dad, arguing again.

“Big Larry.” I closed my Algebra book. Did I do homework on the weekends before I got my stupid-marks? Probably not.

J.B. laughed again.
Definitely not. You weren’t home on the weekends. You had hearts to break
.

“X! I didn’t break any hearts.” I shoved the Algebra book off the bed. It landed on the football rug next to Earth Science and English and my hand and foot braces and my memory book.
Hatch, Jersey
, on the floor. “Dumbass.”

My parents—or one of them, Dad—was stomping up
the steps, still yelling a lot. I couldn’t tell what the words were, but they were mad words. Mom was still yelling, too, but she was downstairs, so she didn’t sound so loud.

“Football games. Too many tackles.”

They hate each other now. That’s why Mom stays gone most of the time. It’s your fault. They liked each other before you pulled the trigger
.

Couldn’t help looking toward the sound of J.B.’s not-yet voice. “You pulled the trigger.”

He didn’t answer.

He wasn’t there. J.B. wasn’t ever there, not when I really looked. X, y. Dumbass multiplied. I squinted at the darkest corner, down into the shadows. Maybe he’d be there if I looked harder.

The bedroom door opened.

I jumped. “Dumbass! Oh, jeez. Sorry, Dad.”

“Um, right.” Dad shrugged. He looked all white and sad in the double light of my room and the hallway. “I just—sorry about all the noise.” He rubbed his hands together. “Don’t let it bother you, okay? We’ll work it out.”

Weird. He was looking at J.B.’s dark corner, too.

Don’t say dumbass again.

“Sure,” I said. Dumbass. Frog farts. Hoochie-mamas. If I’d called Mom a dumbass, she would have killed me. Or slapped me. Something.

Dad’s eyes slid from J.B.’s hiding place to the books on my floor. “You’re studying on a Friday night?”

“Yeah. I need to keep up. Focus. Try harder, you know?”

This made him look a little happier. Then the back door slammed, a car started, and he looked sad all over again.

“Sorry!” Dumbass. “I mean, the fight. You fighting. It’s my fault. I’m such a Big Larry. Sorry.”

Dad rubbed his hands together again, but this time, he didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, son. Your mother and I disagree over a lot of things. Tonight, it was the television. It wasn’t you.”

It was hard to make my mouth work. Harder to swallow. I wanted him to leave so I could talk to J.B. because J.B. was way easier to talk to than Dad. 2x + 6 = J.B. Besides, Dad was lying.

“It’s always me. I did something awful.”

“Are you still on that? Honest to God, Jersey. You need to leave the past alone.” Rub, rub, rub went his hands. “You used to get so stuck on things, so obsessed with doing them your way. Don’t be like that now. Don’t be like—you know. Before.”

“Before I pulled the trigger?” Dumbass! Dumbass!

Dad’s hands froze.

My brain didn’t.

I pulled the trigger. I shot myself. Shot myself with his gun.

What was wrong with me?

Pragmatics.

His gun.

A weird taste in my mouth—oil and dust. I could feel cold gunmetal on my lips, then again, at the stupid-mark on the side of my head. Digging. Digging in. I clenched my teeth hard. Frog farts, frog farts, frog farts, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven … his gun, his gun. Not fair. Not his fault. Big Larry. Selfish. Be quiet. Focus. Try harder. Be quiet.

Dad looked at the football rug instead of me. “Yeah. Before you pulled the trigger. You probably made some people mad, got stressed out—but I don’t think you ever did anything awful. Let it be. And the fight tonight wasn’t your fault.”

He sniffed and shut the door before I could say anything else. The floor creaked as he walked away toward his bedroom.

For a long time I just sat there. My hands made fists. My brain made me open my fingers. Fist, fingers. Fist, fingers. J.B wasn’t talking. Dumbass. He only talked when I didn’t want to hear him. X, x, x, y. Fist, fingers. Had I been selfish with Dad, asking him my question? Making him talk to me? I had probably been selfish. Frog farts.

One fist, two fists. 2x + 6 = fists.

“Should apologize for being stupid.”

My words sounded flat in the room.

J.B. Still didn’t answer.

“Just go down the hall and say, ‘I’m sorry for being weird.’ I’m good at sorry.” Fist, fingers. Frog farts.

After a minute or two of breathing, I got up. Tripped on my books and braces. Sat back down.

Graceful
. J.B. sounded mean … and a little sad.

“Now you start talking.” I kicked my Algebra book on top of my Earth Science book. Dumbass. This time when I stood up, I stayed up. “Graceful.”

This is a bad idea. You should leave him alone. He doesn’t want to talk to you
.

“I’m going to say sorry. Then I’ll leave him alone.”

Just put your braces on and go to bed
. J.B. sounded even sadder. It creeped me out.

“In a second. Graceful. X and y.” I headed for my bedroom door before he could talk me out of it. He didn’t call after me as I stumbled into the hall and made the floor creak.

Then the house sounded so quiet I stopped moving. Like I shouldn’t make any more noise or something. Like I’d bother Mom, but Mom was on her way to work or wherever Mom went when she got mad. Graceful. I wasn’t bothering anybody. Not yet. X, y, 2x.

I started walking again, toward Mom and Dad’s room. When I got closer, I heard crunching and clunking and rustling, kind of like a mouse. A big mouse. Dad-mouse, maybe. When I got to his door, it was open. The bedside lamp was on, and in the bathroom, a little light. I figured Dad was in the big walk-in closet Mom called “the storage shed.” Except it wasn’t really a shed. It had lots of Mom clothes and Dad clothes and lots of shoes and bags and suitcases and boxes. Around the top, it had more shelves with more boxes. Tax boxes, picture boxes, keepsake boxes. Something Mom called “what-not boxes.” Some had labels. Lots didn’t. 2x + boxes = junk. Graceful.

Dad was in the storage shed, in the junk. X. Y.

When I walked up, he had a shoebox open, looking at something. I couldn’t see it. Whatever was in that brown box, he was touching it over and over, like it was a kitten or something alive.

“Um, Dad?”

He slammed down the box lid.

“Sorry.” I rubbed my hands together like he’d been doing in my room. My bad hand felt numb and cold and clumsy. “I mean—about scaring you, yes, but, sorry for before.”

As I got closer. Dad moved the shoebox away from me. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I told you, the fight wasn’t your fault.”

That again.

Did he think I was stupid? Graceful. Dumbass. I quit rubbing and made fists by accident. Let them go. Fist, fingers, breathe. One, two, three … fist, fingers, breathe.

Coughing and blinking, Dad stuffed the brown box back on a shelf over his head. When he turned around again, I was ready.

“I’m sorry about my questions,” I said really fast before I could get stuck on Algebra problems or call him a name. “I’m … sorry … for getting stuck. On questions. And stupid stuff.”

“You can’t help that. I understand.” Dad rubbed the top of his legs like he was drying off his palms. Then he patted my arm.

“No.” Fist, fingers, breathe. Fist, fingers, breathe. “I could … do better. I can do better … when I’m slow. I mean, when I slow down. When I focus.” Fist, fingers … “And pay attention like I learned at Carter.”

“Fair enough.” He stepped forward and steered me out of the junk box storage shed closet.

“So, I’m sorry.” Fist, fingers, breathe. I was doing it! Focusing. Trying harder. Making sense when it mattered. Why wasn’t Mom here for this? She might get un-mad, at least a little. “Okay?”

Dad stopped, put his hands on my shoulders, and turned me to face him. His eyes were red. “Yes and no. I don’t want you to have to worry about how you act around here. I want you to be able to relax at home. Do you understand?”

“I—uh, yeah?” I blinked. I didn’t understand. Not really, but sort of. Kind of.

Dad squeezed my shoulders. “Talk however it comes out. Just—talk to me more. Tell me what’s going on. This is where you live. It should be a supportive place. A peaceful, no-stress place.”

Here?

I almost laughed, but fist-fingers-breathed and thought about hoochie-mamas and frog farts and 2x + 6 = 12 = 8, but 8 still didn’t look right, even in my head.

Here with J.B. and Mom and the wrong-color bedspread and the football rug I had folded up and all the downstairs pictures of ghosts, here, me, relax? Fist, fingers. 2x, 2x, 2x.

“Relax” popped out of my mouth.

Dad smiled. “Yeah. So don’t worry so much. Say what you want. Ask what you want.”

“But Mom doesn’t. Relax.” I bit my lip, took a breath, slowed down. “I mean, she doesn’t like it when I ask. When I stupid-talk. Big Larry.”

“She’ll come around. Just give her a little more time, Jersey.”

Another squeeze to my shoulders. Another smile. Dad looked like he really believed that.

I couldn’t get mad at him when he really believed it, could I? Mama Rush would have gotten mad at me. Graceful. But, I wasn’t Mama Rush. No robes. No cigarettes. So I didn’t get mad.

“A guy peed on me at school. Dumbass.” I bit my lip again. Stopped the next five or six stupid words. “I have to eat peanuts with cheerleaders and I don’t want a babysitter anymore. No funeral Wench. Please.”

Dad let go of my shoulders. Looked like he was trying to sew up a rip in his brain. A couple of times, he opened his mouth, but shut it again and scratched his head where he would have gotten a stupid-mark if he’d shot himself like I did. But Dad wouldn’t shoot himself. He’d never pull the trigger. Graceful dumbass.

All of a sudden, his face got all shiny. “Wenchel. Wenchel in the black dresses. You don’t want her to escort you anymore?”

“No!” I let out a great big breath. “I mean, yes. No Wench. No more.”

“Even though some guy peed on you?” He got hold of my shoulder again, but only one hand this time.

“Yes. Even with pee. No Wench.” I smiled. Half my mouth, anyway. Good enough.

Dad smiled back. “I’ll call the school and see what I can do. Now I’m hungry all over again. Come on downstairs and let’s heat up a pizza.”

I nodded. “Pizza Wench.” My stomach actually growled, never mind pot roast only a couple of hours ago.

With a wider grin, Dad put his arm around my shoulders. As we half-walked, half-lurched down the hall together, he said, “So you’re eating lunch with Leza Rush and the cheerleaders? I’d eat peanuts, too. Can’t dribble those on your shirt.”

chapter 13

I have this dream where both legs work and both arms work and I don’t have any scars on the outside. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in dress blues holding a pistol in one hand and a brown box in the other. Sunlight brightens the dust and ashes in my room and darkens all the places where I’ve nicked the walls and doors. The football rug, the one Mama Rush gave me when I made the team my freshman year, is folded neatly on my dresser so it won’t get messy. I give it one last look before I turn back to what I’m doing. My fingers tingle as I touch the box. Inside, there’s proof. Inside, there’s a reason. Everyone will understand when they see what’s in the box. I lift the gun to my mouth. It tastes oily and dusty all at once as I close my lips on cold gunmetal
—
but I can’t. Not in the mouth. I’m shaking, but I lift the barrel to the side of my head. The tip digs into my skin. I’m thinking about what’s inside the box, and all the dust and ashes in places I didn’t even know. Then I’m squeezing the trigger and looking at the box and
the dust and ashes and feeling my hand shake and there’s noise and fire and pain and I’m falling, falling, my broken head smashing into my pillow …
.

The box. The box in Dad’s closet.

I wrote about it in my memory book. I fell asleep thinking about it. I woke up thumping my stupid-mark with my hand brace and thinking about it, and I got dressed thinking about it.

You need to check out that box
, J.B. whispered while I pulled on my tennis shoes. The green laces were still springy.

“Box, fox, rocks. It’s Dad’s box. Dad’s got problems right now. Later, maybe.” When I pulled the laces, they snapped back in place. “Rocks. Knocks.”

What if there’s something important in the box?

“I’m not looking in the box. Knock, knock.”

I know there’s something important in that box. You need to find out
.