“Fill up the tank while you’re at it.”
11:21 PM
You open your eyes.
“Mom?”
A woman in a blue flannel robe, her head wrapped tightly in a rose-colored scarf, is standing over you.
“Sam,” the woman says over her shoulder. “He’s awake.” Then she turns back to you and smiles. “You must be Matt,” she says.
You blink back at her, trying to understand, when Sam appears. “Matt?”
As you attempt to sit up, something cold and wet rolls across your face and tumbles into your lap. You reach for it and find yourself holding up a half-thawed bag of mixed vegetables, peas, carrots, and corn, according to the picture on the outside.
“Here,” Sam’s mother uncrosses her arms to take it from you. “I’ll put that back in the kitchen.”
As soon as her mother is gone, Sam moves closer to sit on the heavy brown coffee table directly across from you. She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants, which seems strange and yet somehow familiar. “How do you feel?”
The only light in the room is coming from a reading lamp on the end table next to you. A slightly younger Sam, this one with bangs, smiles back at you from a framed photo beneath the lamp. “What happened?”
“You hit your head, and then you just, like, passed out.”
“My head?”
“Yeah, on the top of your car.”
You reach up to find a lump high on your forehead just below your hair line. The skin beneath your fingertips is cold and numb.
Sam gathers something from the tabletop next to her. “Here,” she says, handing you your wallet and keys.
The moment you touch them, you begin to remember. Sitting in the Volkswagen and talking with Sam, the cop appearing at your window, the cop-who-is-actually-her-dad pulling you out and pushing you up against the car. You quickly slip the wallet into the back pocket of your jeans and the keys into the front. You don’t want to think about where the condom ended up. “Am I free to go?”
Sam frowns. “You say that like you’re in jail or something.”
“Sorry, no…” You shrug off a half-memory of being handcuffed to a steel table. “It’s just that, well, for a minute there I thought I would be.”
“For a minute there, so did I.”
“Your dad is pretty scary.”
“Yeah, well, that’s his job, right? I mean, besides the cop thing.”
There is a sound, a door maybe. You look past Sam toward the darkened hallway.
“Don’t worry,” she says, leaning into your line of sight. “He’s not here. He got a call.”
“A call?”
“You know, work, the radio, something pretty urgent, I guess.”
“Then, how did I get here?”
“My dad,” she says, lowering her eyes. “He carried you.”
The image of Sam’s father scooping your limp body off the asphalt and cradling you in his arms is almost too much to bear. “Shit.”
She looks up, her lips suppressing a smile.
“It’s not funny,” you say.
“No, it wasn’t.” She places her hand on your knee. “But still, kind of sweet, don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
She leans toward you and your lips are about to touch when her mother emerges from the hallway, “Feeling better?” she asks.
“Uh, yeah.” You quickly stand up. “I think so.” Sam does too, remaining awkwardly close to you despite her mother’s presence. “Sorry for, uh, for being so much trouble, Mrs.—” You realize, too late, that you don’t know Sam’s last name.
She gives her daughter a look you can’t read, then turns back to you. “Paloma,” she says, “Mrs. Paloma.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Paloma.” This time you see it, the resemblance to her daughter, something about her eyes and the corners of her smile.
“You sure you’re up to driving, Matt?” she asks. “You were out cold just a few minutes ago.”
“No, really, I feel fine.”
“Promise me you’ll go straight home, then, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am, I will.”
Sam takes you by the hand and leads you to the front door.
“Sam,” her mother says.
“I’ll just be a minute, mom.” When you step outside, she follows, quickly closing the door behind her.
The front patio is bordered by several large pots filled with purple and pink flowers, and just below the front window is a round, wrought-iron table with matching chairs. There are smaller pots of various sizes and shapes on the table and tucked here and there about the patio, containing other green growing things like spiky aloe or fuzzy cacti. In the far corner hangs an oversized ceramic parrot. “Nice,” you say with genuine appreciation. Just keeping the grass green in your front yard is hard enough.
“Oh, uh, thanks,” she says and tugs you with her across the driveway to the front gate where she stops to turn and face you.
“How much trouble are you in?” you ask.
She looks toward the house and then back to you. “Hard to say. At least you made a good impression on my mom.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
She pulls the hair from her face, draping first one side and then the other behind each ear. A gesture with which you’ve become quite familiar. Then she takes both of your hands in hers. “Matt,” she starts to say, but suddenly she seems nervous and won’t look you in the eyes. “I—”
Is this the part, you wonder, where she tells you that she really, really likes you but her parents will never allow you to be together, not even as friends, so the best thing to do is just say goodbye now and get it over with?
“My dad,” she says, finally looking up. “He told me about your brother.”
You don’t understand. “He what?”
“Tonight, right before he had to leave. He said he recognized your last name, said he was … there.”
“There?” You feel your hands go slack, but she tightens her grip and doesn’t let go.
“You know, on duty, the night it happened, the night your brother…” She pulls you to her, tenderly at first, but when you don’t respond, she lets go of your hands and wraps both of her arms around you anyway.
“Sam…” You can’t move. This girl is soft and warm against you and still your arms hang like empty sleeves at your sides. “I don’t, I can’t—”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to anything.”
You know you could cry, hard, right here in her arms, hiccup, sob, shake, all of it, and she would let you. And maybe you should, but you won’t. Maybe just knowing this is enough, and you bend to her, returning her tight embrace.
You stay that way until the front door opens and forces you both to pull apart. “Sam,” says her mother. “Enough.”
“I’ll see you in school,” says Sam, swinging the gate open for you. “You know, after first period. Just look up, you’ll see me.”
“Promise,” you say, and you lean in for one last kiss before you are out the gate, on the sidewalk, and heading for your car.
You drive home with the window down and the October night air on your face as you sip on the watery remains of your strawberry shake. Despite your promise to go straight there, you know your brother would want you to get the trash out of the car before getting home. “The only thing worse than fried food to stink up the inside of a car, is milk,” you hear him say. “And fill up the tank while you’re at it,” he would add. You remember that old man Foster Freeze kept the change from your ten, but you might have a few dollars left in your wallet.
The lights are still on at the gas station minimart on the corner of your street, so you pull up to one of the pumps, stuff the greasy wrappers, used napkins, and empty milkshake cups into the large brown grocery bag they came in, shove that into the already full trash can outside, and then head in to pay.
“Matthew,” the man behind the counter says. “You’re out late.”
“Hey, Mr. V.” It’s a small store with hardly any space between the crowded shelves, but from his register in the front corner of the building, the owner, Old Man Valdovinos, can keep one eye on the aisles and the other on the gas pumps out front without ever leaving his stool. “Don’t worry,” you say. “I’m on my way home, just need some gas.”
“Gas?” He looks toward the Volkswagen out front. “Oh, I see.”
“And the bathroom,” you say, before he starts asking questions.
His hand disappears beneath the counter and returns with a key dangling from the end of a sawed-off section of broom handle. “How’s that sister of yours?”
“Which one?”
He gives a disappointed sigh, keeping the key just out of reach. “Angie, Matthew. Your sister, Angie. The one that runs around with Terry and John’s girl … what’s her name?”’
“Carmen?”
“Yes, sweet little Carmen,” he says, and you wonder what recent trouble she’s caused.
“Fine, I guess.”
“You guess?” Again, the heavy sigh. “Remember Matthew, you’re the oldest now. That comes with responsibilities.”
“Yes, Mr. V.”
Finally, he nods and passes you the key.
You pee, wash your hands, and lean up close to the mirror to get a better look at your forehead. There’s definitely a reddish lump, but no real bruising yet. As you leave the restroom, a young man in a bright red, almost pink, polo shirt with a case of Budweiser under one arm is approaching the counter. You recognize him from school. In fact, you saw him earlier this evening in Foster Freeze hanging out with his brother and some older, shady looking dude. He’s a bigmouth and a bully, one of many such individuals you’ve learned to avoid. When he sees you, he hesitates, but instead of some smartass remark or threatening gesture, he gives you a polite nod and motions with his chin for you to go first.
“That all you need?” asks Mr. Valdovinos, eyeing the two dollars you’ve placed on the counter.
“That’s all I got.”
He takes your money and punches something in on the keyboard next to his register. “Four dollars on pump one it is, then,” he says with a wink. “And remember what I said, Matthew. Responsibilities.”
“Yes, sir. Responsibilities.”
You turn for the exit and are about to push open the door when you hear Mr. Valdovinos say, “I’ll need to see some I.D. for that.”
“Oh,” Pink Polo says, “I must’a left it in the car.”
You hesitate. You don’t know why, you just do, your hand moving instead toward the chips on the rack near the door.
“Sorry,” Mr. Valdovinos says, and you know he must do this a hundred times a Friday night. “No I.D., no beer.”
“Look man,” but Pink Polo doesn’t get it. “I got money.”
“No I.D., no beer.”
“What’s your fucking problem, old man?” Any moment now, you think, he’s going to grab the beer and run. He’s just working himself up to it. “Your boss is never even gonna fucking know.”
“Well, since I am the boss,” says Mr. Valdovinos. “I will fucking know.”
Maybe that’s why you’re still standing there blocking the exit like the idiot you are, pretending to choose between regular Lays or sour cream and onion.
“Fuck you, then!”
“Fuck you then. Get out of my—!” There is a dull clap followed by silence and you spin around in time to see Pink Polo punch Mr. Valdovinos a second time in the face. The old man grunts, toppling backward out of sight.
You rush forward and wrap Pink Polo in a bear hug from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him off his feet. This is easy enough considering you are several inches taller than him, but with his feet in the air, he kicks against the counter, shoving you into the chip rack. You twist, totter, and lose your balance, hitting the floor with Pink Polo on top of you.
He rolls away and is on his feet a second before you when, with a deafening pop, a section of the storefront window shatters, showering the both of you in diamond-sized bits of glass.
Behind the counter, Mr. Valdovinos, his face covered in blood from a gash on his forehead, is up and holding a black pistol in his shaking, outstretched hand. “Fucking punk!” the old man shouts, eyes blinking rapidly as he attempts to aim the weapon. Except his attacker is already halfway to the exit, and this time when he pulls the trigger…
The gun is pointing at you.
At first there is nothing, not even pain, only the throaty roar of a car engine fading into the distance, but it is a nothing so absolute that your knees give out and you crumple to the floor. Mr. Valdovinos appears above you, mouth moving but making no sound. Then, he too, is gone.
End of Exam
This story is a work in progress — I’m writing it as fast as I can! More episodes in this thread coming soon. While you are waiting, feel free to return to the beginning: if you make different choices you will get a different story.
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THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.