“Watch the night go up in smoke!”
11:10PM
“Dude, what the fuck?” Eric is leaning over you. “Were you asleep?”
You rise up on your elbows, look around. “Yeah, I—” Jai is gone. “Where’s Rudy?”
Your question is answered by knocking on the passenger side window. Gus and Rudy are waiting for you to let them in. Rudy’s arm is in some kind of sling. You raise your seatback and unlock the door.
“Your girlfriend finally take off?” asks Eric, climbing in on his side. “Let’s just hope she didn’t leave you anything.”
“Leave me anything?”
“Yeah, like crabs or syphilis, or what’s that new one—AIDS? Girls can get it too you know.”
“Dude,” says Gus, opening your door. “Give baby here the front seat.”
“Hey, fuck you,” says Rudy. “I’m in a lot of pain.”
You climb out.
“It’s just a sprain,” says Gus, slipping into the back seat.
“Well, it still hurts,” complains Rudy.
“A sprain,” you say, “That’s good, right?”
Eric starts the car. “A good waste of time.”
You turn to follow Gus, but Rudy stops you with his free hand. “Hey,” he says, lowering his voice. “Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” You look past him out into the parking lot. “Just, gone.”
“Ladies,” says Eric, and you can hear him shuffling through his cassettes. “Catch up later.”
“Yeah,” adds Gus. “Let’s jam already.”
“Where did you go?” you ask Rudy.
“What?”
“You know, when you took it, that pill, when you … left.”
His eyes meet yours and his frown softens. “Home.”
“That’s it?”
“My mom was there.”
“Your mom? But I thought your parents—”
“I know, but there she was, in the kitchen, like nothing.”
“It wasn’t real,” you lie, trying to hold his gaze. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his injured arm. “Of course not.”
Eric decides on Def Leppard, and the dragracer riffs and high pitch harmonies of “Foolin’” begin to rattle the car. But the song is already ending. By the time you are seated and the car is moving the next one begins with a voice reciting, “Gunter, glieben, glauten, globen,” just before the cowbell and drums come in.
“What is that?” asks Gus. “Like, one, two, three, four, in German?”
You lean your head against the window. “How the fuck should I know?”
“Well, no,” he stammers. “I thought—”
“Leave it, dude,” says Eric, raising the volume. “Just enjoy the song.”
“Burn it up!” sings Joe Elliott. Yeah, that sounds about right, you think, “Watch the night go up in smoke.”
You close your eyes and drift into darkness.
“Dude, we’re here.”
You open them to find the Datsun parked behind your parents’ station wagon. Def Leppard might still be playing, but the volume is turned down so low you can barely hear it. Gus is asleep next to you, his head back and mouth half open.
“You sure you want to call it a night?” Eric asks. “It’s still early.”
“Thanks, man, but no, I’m done.” This is not entirely true. You just need to be alone.
Rudy leans forward in his seat to let you out. “Later, dude.”
You walk to the front door and pretend to fumble with the lock until Eric has backed out of the driveway and is heading down the street. As soon as his taillights are out of sight, you make your way back to the sidewalk.
You stop to consider the Volkswagen parked along the curb in front of your house, exactly where your brother left it. Its tan exterior yellow beneath the street light. That’s when you notice there is music coming from Carmen’s house across the street two lots over. There are several cars in the driveway. Her parent’s green paneled Bronco is not one of them.
Good thing your sister came home earlier. Not you. The last place you want to be right now is trapped inside your house.
Although, you wouldn’t put it past Angie to sneak out and try to go back over there.
You hear voices, a girl’s laugh, high-pitched and silly.
Fuck it. You don’t care. You just want to be gone.
You make your way toward the highway, the blinding lights of oncoming traffic washing over you like waves on a beach—pulling you forward even as they leave you behind. You walk without thinking, a ghost on the highway: bleached, transparent.
Something feels different inside—missing, misplaced. Something you didn’t know you had to lose. Or maybe, you think, as the blue-and-white Foster Freeze sign appears like a lighthouse in the distance… you’re just really hungry.
The restaurant is unusually full, even for a Friday night, but the owner, the round little man taking your order, will usually stay open as long as there are enough paying customers. You get your usual: cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, strawberry because they are out of chocolate, take your number, and search for a place to sit.
Some of the people crowded around the middle tables are wearing your school’s colors: green and gold. Maybe there was an away game. Maybe they just got back. You wonder if anyone from the dance is here.
You spot an empty booth along the windows on the far side of the restaurant and make your way there, placing your number-tent at the table’s edge as you slide in. You discover, too late, that the booth in front of you is occupied by just the type of people you’ve learned to avoid. You don’t remember their names, but even with their backs to you, you recognize them. They are brothers or cousins at least, with the same compact builds and short curly hair, wearing the same polo shirts with the collars turned up, like uniforms. Only one is sporting blue while the other is in a dark pink. The man sitting across from them, an older, scary looking dude, appears an unlikely companion with his shaved head and white t-shirt, but he seems to have all of their attention with the story he is telling about someone named Bambi and the brothers have yet to notice you.
A girl you don’t recognize, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, delivers your food and leaves with your number without saying a word. All the better, you think, unwrapping your still hot cheeseburger and shoving as much of it as possible into your mouth. Something leaks past your lip, runs down your chin, and lands on the front of your blue plaid shirt. Yanking a napkin from the table dispenser, you wipe at the splotch of mayo and ketchup on your chest.
That’s when you feel it, beneath the napkin: something in your pocket.
You pull out a small plastic. Inside, there are five luminous blue pills. You remove them from their bag one at a time and set them next to each other along the table’s edge.
Jai must have put them there while you were asleep. Just before she … left you.
But why?
You raise your head. Look around. Make sure no one is watching.
Where would five blues take you?
More people are entering the restaurant. A thin man in a brown leather jacket walks past the front counter without ordering. Is he heading your way?
Don’t be ridiculous, you tell yourself. You’re just being paranoid.
Another, this one with a cowboy hat, is moving in the opposite direction. Could he be circling the center tables, coming at you from behind?
Fuck it.
You don’t care.
You just want to be gone.
You scoop the pills into the palm of one hand and shovel them into your mouth. Then, you remove the lid from your milkshake and swallow them all in a single, cold strawberry gulp.
In the next booth, the man with the shaved head is suddenly staring right at you—no, not you, something behind you. His mouth drops open and his eyes go wide.
The brothers begin to twist around in their seats, tracing the terror in their friend’s eyes.
None of them see the man in the leather jacket raise his gun.
Except the first shot comes from behind you, the man in the cowboy hat, no doubt. The bullet, on its way to the bald man’s chest, slices through the side of your left arm like a surgeon’s scalpel.
There is a second shot, and a third, and probably more. Their echoes follow you into the dark.
Everything else stays behind.
***
Someone slides into your booth, nearly sitting on your lap. “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” the man says, scrambling to his feet. “I thought you said this one was empty.”
The woman with him seems just as surprised. “Well, I thought it was.”
“Sorry man,” he says again, then does a doubletake, looking from your shoulder to his own and then yours again.
“Oh my God,” the woman says, stepping back. “Is that…?”
There is blood on his arm where he bumped up against you. Your blood.
You reach for the napkin dispenser, pull out several at once, and press them to the rip in your sleeve as the couple hurry away.
You lower your head and sink down into your seat, trying to ignore the burning in your arm.
What happened? You are in exactly the same spot.
Sure, the sun is shining outside and a family of four has temporarily replaced the preppy boxers and their doomed friend, but when are you? And why here?
There is laughter from the booth behind.
“Chancla?” someone asks, “That’s what they call you?”
“Yeah, Chancla,” a girl answers. “Why? It’s not bad, is it?”
“It’s Spanish,” someone else says, a voice deep and nasally at the same time.
“No duh,” says the girl. “But what does it mean?”
“Sandal,” answers a third voice, deep like the other, but older somehow.
“Sandal?” she asks, sounding disappointed. “Like on your foot? That’s stupid.”
More laughing.
“Why would they…?” she starts to ask. “Oh, well, yeah, I get it. Very funny. Haha.”
“You got to admit, Angie.”
—Angie?
“And you?” asks Angie. “What do they call you?”
“Boot.”
—Robert?
“Well, at least that’s our name, or most of it. What do they call you, Matt?”
“Matt,” says the other Matt.
Robert clears his throat. “They call him Little Boot, or at least some of my friends do.”
“Really? So, what will they call me when I’m in high school?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Robert. “Little Miss Boot, maybe?”
“Humm,” she seems to consider the idea. “Better than Chancla.”
You remember this. All of this. That day seven months ago when Robert got his car. Your mother let him take you and Angie to Foster Freeze, just the three of you. Later, when you are leaving, Angie will ask for a chocolate ice-cream cone, and of course Robert will get it for her. In the car she will spill it on his front seat, then cry all the way home, unable to forgive herself.
Everything in you wants to turn around and see your brother one more time, to tell him you are sorry, that you never meant what you said.
But you can’t.
You can’t afford to be noticed. It would change everything, for them at least.
Not for you.
Freshman Matt is talking. You close your eyes and slide even lower in your seat.
“My math teacher said you are going to be valedictorian next year.”
“Mr. Brodi?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe,” says Robert.
“What’s a ballet-victorian?” asks Angie.
“Valedictorian,” you hear yourself say.
“Yeah, whatever, that.”
“The person with the best grades,” says Robert.
“That’s it, straight A’s? Even Matt can do that.”
“Yeah,” you say, “but all four years.”
“Is there ever like, a tie?” she asks.
“That’s the Salutatorian,” says Robert.
“Huh?”
“That’s second place,” you say.
“There could be a tie, I guess,” says Robert. “But harder classes are worth more.”
“And you take all the hard classes?”
“Try to.”
“And what do you get for it,” asks Angie. “A prize?”
“No, but sort of.”
“It makes him more competitive,” you explain.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can get into better colleges, maybe get scholarships.”
“Scholarships?”
“College isn’t free, Angie,” says your freshman self.
“And since when do you know so much about this?”
“Mr. Brodi wouldn’t stop talking about it. He says I should already be in algebra, that I need to take harder classes. He says I should take biology next year.”
“You should,” says Robert.
“Why,” asks Angie. “Is that hard?”
“Not for Matt.”
“What about me?”
“You too. It’s mostly pictures and memorizing things. You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “High school seems scary. I mean, how do you have time to pay attention when you’re always watching your back?”
“Watching your back?”
“Yeah, Carmen says people are always fighting, especially girls. That they jump you in the bathrooms or when you’re walking home from the bus stop after school.”
Robert chuckles. “It’s not that bad, Angie. Besides, I’ll drive you home.”
“But you won’t be there.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Then Matt will.”
“He won’t have a car.”
“How do you know I won’t have a car?” you say. “I’ll be a junior by then, same as Robert now.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know, what if you don’t?”
“Then he’ll walk you home,” says Robert. “Stop worrying so much. High school will be fun.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then why isn’t Matt saying anything?”
Robert laughs. “Cause he’s barely a freshman,” he says. “It gets better, Angie. I promise, it gets better.”
You open your eyes to find a little curly-haired boy staring at you from over the back of the next booth. He’s holding a fry in one tiny, ketchup covered fist, and there’s even more ketchup smeared around his mouth and nose. He smiles at you. You smile back, the tears running freely down your cheeks. Then the world blinks and he is gone.
***
The man with the shaved skull is slumped in the booth across from you with his chin on his chest and his tattooed arms resting at his sides, hands open and empty. There is a hole in the center of his forehead and two more over his heart, his once white t-shirt nearly black with blood.
One of the brothers lies face down on the table, the other is sprawled on the floor nearby, blood pooling around his head, eyes staring blanky into the florescent lights above.
The hitmen are nowhere to be seen.
There are bullet holes in the cushion back across from you and when you turn you find that the back of your own seat has just as many. Someone is screaming. Someone else is yelling for help. People are picking themselves up from the floor.
No one is paying attention to you.
You slide out of your booth, get to your feet, and head for the front door. As soon as you are outside you start to run.
Headlights overtake you from behind as you stumble along the highway. Your shadow on the sidewalk stretching ahead then rushing back to meet you with each passing car. Finally, sirens wailing in the distance, you pass the gas station on your corner and keep running until you get to Carmen’s.
You stop, bent over, hands on your knees, trying to catch your breath. Only one car, a dark blue sedan, remains in the driveway, a Cutlass Supreme according to the raised chrome letters on its back corner. Your sister is sitting on the curb next to it with her bare legs drawn up and her forehead resting on her knees.
“Angie?”
She lifts her head, narrows her eyes at you. “Where were you, Mathew?”
“Angie, what are you doing out here?” Instead of the jeans and pink blouse you saw her in earlier, she’s wearing short shorts and her black Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt. There is nothing on her feet.
“I waited for you,” she says, and then lowers her head again. “Where have you been all night?”
She reeks of beer and cigarettes. “Have you been drinking?”
“Have you been drinking?” she repeats in a whiney, nasal voice, not bothering to raise her head. “Shut up, Matthew. Nobody cares.”
You step closer and put your hand on her shoulder. She jerks away from your touch, nearly falling over sideways with the effort and has to unwrap her arms from her knees to steady herself.
“Hey, Angie, come on.”
“Leave me alone.” She puts a hand to her mouth, waves you away with the other. “I don’t feel good.”
“Where are your shoes?”
She considers the sidewalk on each side of her. “I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looks at you, eyes wide. “Matthew, I can’t find my shoes.”
“I know, Angie. We’ll find them later.”
“I wanna go home now.”
“Okay. I’ll help you.”
She stares for a moment at your outstretched hand, then turns to look at the house behind her. “I can’t,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees again and lowering her head. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not, Angie, come on, let’s go.”
“No, Matthew,” she says, burying her face in her knees. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, I got you.” You take her by the wrist. She tries to pull away but you hold on. “Angie—”
“I can’t go home.”
Now you have both of her arms. “I’ll carry you.”
“Please don’t,” she squeaks, her body dead weight in your grip. “Don’t. I can’t!” Now she’s flopping side to side, the back of her head nearly hitting the ground. “Please don’t!”
“Goddammit, Angie!” you hiss, just as she abruptly curls forward and vomits into the gutter between her legs, splashing Hamburger Helper and beer over your shoes and the ankles of your jeans. “Shit.”
You set her arms down and then hunch over to scoop her up, one arm behind her back, the other beneath her knees.
“I threw up” she says.
“Yeah, I know.” Cradling her in your arms, you carry her home.
You stand her up on the front lawn, then hurry to the side of the house to turn on the water. When you return with the hose, she is bent over with her hands on her knees vomiting some more.
“All done?” you ask, when her body seems to have settled.
“Un-huh,” she starts to say, then immediately hunches her shoulders and heaves a final bit of drool onto the grass.
“Here.” You hand her the hose. “Wash your face.”
She lets the water flow over her nose and mouth, then takes a long drink and spits it out.
There are bits of tomato and green peppers clinging to the ankles of your jeans and the tops of your shoes. You brush most of it away with the tips of your fingers, then hold out your hands so Angie can rinse them off.
“Okay, your turn” you say, taking the hose. “Stand up straight.” With your thumb half covering the nozzle, you spray down her legs and feet. You return the hose to the side of the house and shut off the water. When you get back, she is standing pigeon-toed and knee-knocked, hugging her skinny arms to her chest. “Cold,” is all she says.
You reach out to push back a lock of hair matted to the side of her face. She doesn’t flinch or even look at you. “It gets better, Angie,” you say. “I promise, it gets better.”
She turns to you then, as if in surprise. “You sound like Robert.”
You shrug. “Ready to go inside?”
“What time is it?”
You check your wrist. “Almost midnight.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“Want me to go first, make sure the coast is clear?”
“Okay.”
As quietly as possible, you slip the key in the lock, twist back the deadbolt, and slowly open the door. Just inside to the left, your mother appears to be asleep in her rocking chair. At least her eyes are closed. There is no baby in her arms, so your brother must already be in his crib. The only light on is the reading lamp in the far corner of the room next to your dad’s empty recliner.
You motion for Angie to follow and as you step inside, she slips in behind you and disappears down the hall. A moment later, the bathroom door clicks shut.
“Mathew?” your mother asks. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, closing the door. “It’s me, mom. I’m home.”
THE END
CONGRATULATIONS! You made it home alive—and before midnight (bonus points)!
Wait! You still have some choices:
A) Return to the beginning of this thread to make the alternate choice, then see where that leads.
C) Send me a quick email (I’d love to know what you think)!
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.