Trigger (19 page)

I thought about ponds, and walking out on bad ice, and how if it cracks, you fall in and drown before anybody can save you.

The ice statue was starting to break.

And the cracking was loud, loud, like gunshots.

First her fingers, then her hands, then her arms. She grabbed her hair and tore out big handfuls. Blond hair falling everywhere. Her mouth started to move. She said, “No! No! No!” Her eyes got huge like a cartoon. Her face went red. Tears. Spit on her mouth.

“Put it down!” she yelled. “No! Put it down!”

What? Put what down? Her hair. Oh, God. She was ripping it to bits. I tried to say something, coughed, choked a little. My teeth bounced together. My hands shook. The box and the socks and the gun shook. And then I knew. The gun. Put the box with the socks and the gun down.

Mom thought—she thought—

“No,” I managed to get through my chatter-teeth. “I’m not—I just—I—”

She jumped toward me and knocked the box out of my hands. I covered my head with my good arm as the socks and the gun fell on the football rug.

The gun didn’t shoot. It might not have bullets, but I couldn’t think about bullets because my mom had me by the shirt and she shook me, shook me, until my teeth bounced together harder and the room moved. I tried to grab her hands, but I couldn’t.

“Why?” she was screaming now. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you! Why? Why?”

“Just—looking!” I shouted back.

She let go of my shirt and slapped me hard. My jaw popped. Fire on my face, racing from my chin to my stupid-mark. Water spilled out of my eye. The eye closed. Mom slapped me again, and I fell over on my pillow, holding
my face, crying. It hurt. God, it burned. My whole face throbbed. My scars felt like they were ripping open. Broken ice. Drowning before anybody could save me.

“I’ll kill you!” Mom was screaming and sobbing and trying to hit me again. “I’ll do it right. I won’t mess it up. I’m not going through this again!” She grabbed at my arm, my shirt. Dug her nails in, trying to drag me back up to hit me better. Drowning. Drowning in broken ice. My scars would tear in half and I’d start bleeding and bleed to death, and she’d just keep hitting me, but she wasn’t hitting me anymore, and she wasn’t yelling.

“Stop,” Dad said. “Sonya! Be still. I’ve got you. Jesus!”

I heard slaps and ripping sounds. Mom trying to kill Dad, too.

“Where did it come from?” she yelled. “How did he get it? You tell me that. Tell me, damn you!”

She was really hitting him.

He didn’t answer her. He was trying to get his arms around her. Trying to hold her.

My face hurt. I rolled off my bed on the other side and pushed up on my good knee. My bad eye was all closed up. My good eye kept blinking. Tears splattered on my cheek and the green bedspread.

Dad wrestled with Mom until he got her sitting down on the floor. She beat on his arms and cried, but she didn’t yell anything else. More like whispering between crying, “Why? How? Tell me.” When she saw me hiding behind the bed, she said, “I’m not doing this again. I can’t keep getting my hopes up for nothing. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You don’t have to.” Dad’s voice was hoarse. He rocked her back and forth.

I looked from the socks to the box to the gun to my mom and the way she was looking at me. Flat. Tears. Dead eyes. Dead face.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

My dream played in my head, from the folded rug to the gun to the noise and fire and pain and falling, falling, smashing into my pillow. And Mom coming home from work early and opening my door and breaking like bad ice on a frozen pond. Blood and screaming and tearing out her hair. Mom in all the blood, touching me, grabbing me, dead eyes, dead face. Mom, dying.

I pulled the trigger and I didn’t die, but Mom did.

Head pounding, I let go of the green bedspread and fell backward against the wall. Then I turned my head to the side and fought not to throw up. No mess. Not another mess. I made messes. I was a Big Larry. A ruiner who ruined everything. All my strength went away. I felt like I’d just opened my eyes in the hospital, and I still didn’t remember, only this time, I knew. I knew about breaking Mom. I broke her just like that stack of clay on Mama Rush’s dresser, the presents she didn’t know how to glue back together.

Mom kept crying and crying, and Dad kept talking to her. After a while, I heard rustling and scraping, then Dad picked up the box and the gun and said, “Wait right there, son. I’ll be back.”

Outside in the dark, it rained and rained. Inside by the little light on my bedside table, I cried and held an ice bag on my cheek and eye. Mom was on medicine from the
doctor and asleep. Her hair was still on my floor, and some socks, some photographs, and the lid from the box.

My stomach growled.

No eating. Don’t think about food.

It took forever to clean up Mom’s hair off my floor, but I managed so Dad didn’t have to. I was a ruiner, but I could also be a clean-upper. Like it mattered.

When Dad came back in, he didn’t notice I cleaned up. He just sat on my bed with his head down. I shifted the cold ice on my swollen face and kept staring at him.

“It won’t shoot,” he said again without looking up. “The gun, I mean. The police never gave back the bullets.”

Pragmatics. Lots of pragmatics was just being quiet, and I had that much, so I stayed quiet with my big swollen face and my ice bag. I didn’t feel like I should talk to Dad, anyway, or Mom, not after shooting myself, being a Big Larry, and messing in the boxes and upsetting Mom so bad with the gun. People like me shouldn’t talk. Pragmatics.

Dad sighed. “They offered to destroy the gun, but I—it’s strange, but I—couldn’t let them do it. I should have, but at the time, I couldn’t. We’ll do that, okay? We’ll take it in and let them melt it down.”

No talking. Listen, don’t talk. I bit my lip and pushed the ice bag harder into my cheek. Dad wouldn’t look at me. He didn’t want to see me. I didn’t blame him. If I had a Big Larry for a son who did such awful things, I wouldn’t want to look at him, either.

“I know it doesn’t make much sense.” Dad shrugged, then let out a shaky breath. He finally did lift his head so I could see his eyes. They were wide and watery and sad. His
lips worked as he tried to make his next words, but he couldn’t.

Was I supposed to say something? It would probably be better if I never talked again.

“The gun… .” Dad rubbed his hand against his leg. “I should never have gotten it in the first place. My Dad always kept one for just in case, but …”

Never talk again. Never talk again. Jersey the Big Larry will now be quiet.

“If I hadn’t had the gun, you couldn’t have used it, son. But at least—at least it was a good gun.” Dad looked straight at me.

I kept my teeth in my lip to make my mouth stay shut. The ice bag froze my face. Was I freezing like Mom?

It was a good gun. A good gun? Because it shot me? What the hell? Don’t ask. Don’t talk. Leave it alone. Leave him alone, and your Mom, and everyone else.

“The—ah—gun—” Dad’s voice broke as he started crying hard. “It didn’t kill you. You shot yourself, but …” He stopped looking at me and rubbed his leg. His hand was shaking. “It was a good gun. And with no bullets—well, if you ever tried again, it would be a good gun, and it wouldn’t kill you again, see?”

A good gun that didn’t kill me.

The gun was Dad’s good luck charm against me dying.

I bit my lip harder and put down the bag of ice. My face was too cold. Ice like Mom. Outside, it kept raining.

Inside, I knew I had broken Dad, too.

My head, Mom, my dad, everybody, and everything. Trigger. Boom.

Shattered.

chapter 16

“You looked in that box, didn’t you?” Leza walked beside me going up the school steps. She climbed really fast. Talked too fast, too. “I
told
you not to look in that box. You deserve that black eye.”

“Sorry.” I didn’t want to tell her what was in the box. Not, not, not. Not telling.

She glared straight ahead as we got to the top. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. You
promised
me you wouldn’t do that.”

“Sorry. I mean, not sorry. I mean—”

“Shut up, Jersey.” She snatched open one of the glass doors and waited for me to walk inside.

I shut up and walked inside.

She let the door hit me in the butt. I almost fell. She didn’t try to catch me and I had to sort of run to catch her.

“Did you call Mama Rush and tell her you snooped in your dad’s stuff, Jersey?”

“No!” Just the thought made me want to cover my head.

People got out of Leza’s way as she marched toward my classroom. “I’m calling her, then.”

“Don’t. No calls. Please.” I caught up to her.

She punched me in the arm. “Was there a note in the box?”

“No.” Don’t tell. Don’t say gun. Especially don’t say gun inside the school.

“Well? What was it?”

“Nothing.” Don’t say gun. Don’t say gun.

“Which one of them slapped you?” She punched me in the arm again as we stopped outside my Algebra class. “I hope your dad, since it was his stuff you bothered.”

“No. Sorry. It was Mom.”

Leza’s face twisted up. She didn’t hit me again. Her hand dropped to her stomach like it might hurt.

“Are you—,” I started to ask, but she cut me off.

“Shut up, Jersey. Your mom. God. Just shut up.”

I shut up.

Leza’s face looked like she’d gotten hit instead of me. “I can’t believe you upset your mom again. You need to just leave her alone!”

Before I was stupid enough to open my mouth, Leza stormed off.

She was pretty, even when she yelled and hit me and stuff. I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore. Mad and pretty. Maybe she hit me because she likes me. She might like me. It wasn’t impossible or anything. My shoulder hurt. She liked me enough to hit me. Maybe I should tell her I like her. After she isn’t mad and wanting to hit me, I mean.

I went into class, sat down, and wrote in my memory book.

1. Get earplugs before Mama Rush calls
.

2. Get shoulder pad
.

3. Don’t break promises to Leza without shoulder pad for when she hits you
.

4. Don’t break promises to Leza at all
.

5. Tell Leza I like her
.

6. Don’t look in boxes
.

7. Don’t say gun
.

8. Don’t talk about taking the gun to the police station
.

9. Don’t even write about guns
.

10. Wait until Leza isn’t mad to tell her I like her
.

The bell rang.

I kept writing for a minute, then stopped when the teacher talked. And talked. And he talked some more.

After a while, my brain started to melt. I thought about the gun. I wondered when we would go get the gun melted like my brain. And I thought about Dad, and Mom, and Leza. Would Mama Rush yell at me? She might hit me, too. Maybe Mom would feel better if she hit me again. My cheek hurt.

The teacher kept talking. He wrote numbers on the chalkboard and pointed at me.

I stared.

He pointed to the numbers, then back to me.

“Mr. Hatch,” said Mr. Sabon. Hot and stinky already. The room, not the teacher. Resource room, little round tables, nine of us, all guys. And lots of sweat and Algebra
books at the biggest round table and Mr. Sabon at the board, scratch-scratching with chalk. Did Mom wake up after I left for school?

I didn’t want to be in Algebra, but Dad made me go to school. He had the gun back, the good gun that didn’t have bullets and made Mom tear out her hair. He said we’d take it to the police station so they could melt it really soon. I wished I was at the police station melting the gun. Or at home checking on Mom. Anywhere but school and especially anywhere but Algebra.

“Mr. Hatch?” Mr. Sabon was losing his patience.

Math shouldn’t be allowed on Mondays, especially Algebra, even if it was Resource Algebra. I didn’t know the answer to 3x −3 = 3. All those threes made me say, “Three.”

Mr. Sabon looked a lot like Santa Claus with a shorter beard. He sighed. “Try again, Mr. Hatch. Keep your mind on the variable.”

Santa. Santa beard. Three. Mom. The answer should be a three. All those threes. She had to wake up some time, even with medicine from the doctor. At least I didn’t have the Wench anymore. Dad called before the whole gun thing. No Wench. Mom asleep. Three. Dad said he’d stay home with her all day. They’d be two instead of three. “Three,” I said. “Two. Santa.”

Mr. Sabon shot a look at the empty chair beside me, where the Wench would be if Dad hadn’t de-Wenched me. I think Mr. Sabon missed her. Maybe he liked her and her funeral clothes. Or maybe he just missed the freak-tamer who could tell him if I meant three or two or Santa Claus.

“Two,” I said, because it wasn’t three, and it might be right.

Some of the other guys snickered.

“Two,” Mr. Sabon echoed. Then he scratch-scratched it onto the board and showed how the problem worked out. 3(2) −3 = 3. 6 −3 = 3.

I got it right? Sort of. By accident. I always figured the first number I’d get right would be six-six-six, mark of the devil, if the movies and preachers were right about that. “Devil. Santa Claus. Two.”

Nobody snickered or said anything. Mr. Sabon went back to scratch-scratching, but this time he asked somebody else for the answer. Mom was probably so mad at me she never wanted to talk to me again. I’d be that mad if my son broke me, then broke me all over again before I could even get glued back together.

“Devil. Six, six, six. Santa.” I tapped my pencil against my paper, which was on top of my memory book.

Mr. Sabon raised his big white eyebrows. “Do you—ah—need to go to the office, Mr. Hatch?”

Office? I raised my little black eyebrows back at him. “No office. I’m fine. Devil.”

“Could you stop talking about the devil and Santa Claus, then?”