Spoiler
Two months. It scares the shit out of me to even think about it. Only two little months. Two months ago, I was the same dumbass kid I've always been. But two months from now, I'm gonna be driving down to Oregon on my own to live there and all. That's scary as hell. It's like five hundred miles away from home.
Five hundred miles. It's like that old Hedy West song. I can remember when I lived with my friend Lauren for a summer back in elementary school on account of my own mama having a baby and saying there wasn't enough room for me in the trailer anymore. I swear Lauren's mom played the same CD all summer long. The sound of it danced out into the back yard, where we played all day long. The only song that I can really remember now in particular is that Hedy West song. I don't really know what it's about, to be honest. I just remember the lady singing it, basically moaning about how she was "five hundred miles, five hundred miles, five hundred miles away from home" all over the place. I can still imagine her face, looking out the window of some broken down, gray, house trying to find her real home in quiet desperation.
That's probably how I'm going to look, though, staring out the window of some farm house down in Oregon. Maybe when I'm eighteen I'll go back to the Valley, where I live now, since it's my real home, I think, and get an apartment with a couple buds. Just kick it there until I graduate.
That was a joke. I sure as hell ain't ready to even move out of my mama's house and down to the good ole family farm. I won't be able to afford it, that's for sure, even though I ain't going to be living on my own, anyway. I'm going to be living with a couple cousins, so it's not like they'll make me pay them rent or anything. I hope they don't think I look goofy or anything.
It's almost worse when your cousin doesn't think you look goofy, though. My grandpa has this big ole picnic every summer. We call it the Pig Roast on account of the fact that he and his brother roast the biggest pig you've ever seen in this big barbecue deal. It's supposed to be a family reunion, but a whole lot of the people who show up are just family friends, people my grandpa met while working for the Tacoma police department back in the day. So when some guy my age starting talking to me sweet, asking me to play horse shoes and all, I didn't think too much of it. That is until my big brother Zack started laughing all over the place, telling us that we's cousins. Turns out we even had the same last name. It was pretty creepy.
I kind of miss those family reunion Pig Roast deals, though. That was the first one I'd been to since I was in kindergarten or something. My mama isn't too keen on letting me go to them. She isn't too keen on that whole side of the family, actually. I don't see my dad or my big brothers, Zack and Justin, at all really. Sometimes I think about trying to move in with the three of them over in Kent, but I know it's not a good idea. My dad ain't really good at raising kids, especially girls. It'd just be trouble.
And I already get in trouble an awful lot as it is. Too much trouble. My mama and Jim - that's her new husband - almost sent me to Sundown Ranch or Ollala a few months ago. No bueno.
It wasn't because they were actually worried about me. They just knew the neighbors'd started talking. Mr. Anderson, the cop who lived next door, parked some random patrol car on the street in front of his house to sketch out all the tweakers who came up to my place. I ain't really supposed to have friends over anymore, not since I got in trouble and all. And I live with another pair of brothers, little ones named Erik and Gunnar, and it's not like I want to expose them to all the bullshit I put myself through.
I feel bad whenever I see little kids, to be honest. Like a couple days ago, my buddy George and I drove up to the Lake, just to kick it outside. I like spending time out in the sticks like that. Reminds me of the periodic hunting trips with my dad. Anyway, George and I weren't doing anything wrong at all. We were just sitting on his tailgate, breathing in the last bits of that beautiful day's sweet air. And then this little girl and her daddy come walking down the old hiking tail. When they saw us, they just sort of stop talking and all. Pretty awkward. The daddy gave us a disparaging look, like he thought a Mexican teenage boy and some skinny little white girl were inherently bad influences on his little kid or something. He didn't need to do that, though, 'cause I already felt bad enough. I feel like the soap scum on the world's bath tub.
Now that I really think about it, maybe I should be mad at that guy, since it wasn't like we were doing anything wrong. If he really knew me or George, he'd know we aren't bad kids at all. Sure, we've probably made a couple mistakes. But that doesn't make either of us a bad person. Everyone does stuff wrong sometimes. I don't think there are really bad people. I mean, someone can't be all good or all bad. Things just don't really work that way.
But that's not the only reason I don't spend much time with my little brothers. They just hate me. I don't know why. Jim says it's 'cause I was mean to them when they were younger. It might be true. I mean, you can't blame me. My own mama made me go live with my friend so there'd be enough room for her and Jim to have their new little family in the trailer. Obviously I'm gonna have a little animosity towards the whole situation.
And those kids... They're just Jim's kids. There ain't a better way to explain it. I ain't Jim's kid. And you can tell. I don't really look like them, for one. All four of them together are this perfect little blond family. I have dark eyes and hair and pretty pale skin. I almost feel like throwing up whenever I see a photo of all of us, since I'm just like this big ole coffee stain in the middle of their fancy lace tablecloth.
Five hundred miles. It's like that old Hedy West song. I can remember when I lived with my friend Lauren for a summer back in elementary school on account of my own mama having a baby and saying there wasn't enough room for me in the trailer anymore. I swear Lauren's mom played the same CD all summer long. The sound of it danced out into the back yard, where we played all day long. The only song that I can really remember now in particular is that Hedy West song. I don't really know what it's about, to be honest. I just remember the lady singing it, basically moaning about how she was "five hundred miles, five hundred miles, five hundred miles away from home" all over the place. I can still imagine her face, looking out the window of some broken down, gray, house trying to find her real home in quiet desperation.
That's probably how I'm going to look, though, staring out the window of some farm house down in Oregon. Maybe when I'm eighteen I'll go back to the Valley, where I live now, since it's my real home, I think, and get an apartment with a couple buds. Just kick it there until I graduate.
That was a joke. I sure as hell ain't ready to even move out of my mama's house and down to the good ole family farm. I won't be able to afford it, that's for sure, even though I ain't going to be living on my own, anyway. I'm going to be living with a couple cousins, so it's not like they'll make me pay them rent or anything. I hope they don't think I look goofy or anything.
It's almost worse when your cousin doesn't think you look goofy, though. My grandpa has this big ole picnic every summer. We call it the Pig Roast on account of the fact that he and his brother roast the biggest pig you've ever seen in this big barbecue deal. It's supposed to be a family reunion, but a whole lot of the people who show up are just family friends, people my grandpa met while working for the Tacoma police department back in the day. So when some guy my age starting talking to me sweet, asking me to play horse shoes and all, I didn't think too much of it. That is until my big brother Zack started laughing all over the place, telling us that we's cousins. Turns out we even had the same last name. It was pretty creepy.
I kind of miss those family reunion Pig Roast deals, though. That was the first one I'd been to since I was in kindergarten or something. My mama isn't too keen on letting me go to them. She isn't too keen on that whole side of the family, actually. I don't see my dad or my big brothers, Zack and Justin, at all really. Sometimes I think about trying to move in with the three of them over in Kent, but I know it's not a good idea. My dad ain't really good at raising kids, especially girls. It'd just be trouble.
And I already get in trouble an awful lot as it is. Too much trouble. My mama and Jim - that's her new husband - almost sent me to Sundown Ranch or Ollala a few months ago. No bueno.
It wasn't because they were actually worried about me. They just knew the neighbors'd started talking. Mr. Anderson, the cop who lived next door, parked some random patrol car on the street in front of his house to sketch out all the tweakers who came up to my place. I ain't really supposed to have friends over anymore, not since I got in trouble and all. And I live with another pair of brothers, little ones named Erik and Gunnar, and it's not like I want to expose them to all the bullshit I put myself through.
I feel bad whenever I see little kids, to be honest. Like a couple days ago, my buddy George and I drove up to the Lake, just to kick it outside. I like spending time out in the sticks like that. Reminds me of the periodic hunting trips with my dad. Anyway, George and I weren't doing anything wrong at all. We were just sitting on his tailgate, breathing in the last bits of that beautiful day's sweet air. And then this little girl and her daddy come walking down the old hiking tail. When they saw us, they just sort of stop talking and all. Pretty awkward. The daddy gave us a disparaging look, like he thought a Mexican teenage boy and some skinny little white girl were inherently bad influences on his little kid or something. He didn't need to do that, though, 'cause I already felt bad enough. I feel like the soap scum on the world's bath tub.
Now that I really think about it, maybe I should be mad at that guy, since it wasn't like we were doing anything wrong. If he really knew me or George, he'd know we aren't bad kids at all. Sure, we've probably made a couple mistakes. But that doesn't make either of us a bad person. Everyone does stuff wrong sometimes. I don't think there are really bad people. I mean, someone can't be all good or all bad. Things just don't really work that way.
But that's not the only reason I don't spend much time with my little brothers. They just hate me. I don't know why. Jim says it's 'cause I was mean to them when they were younger. It might be true. I mean, you can't blame me. My own mama made me go live with my friend so there'd be enough room for her and Jim to have their new little family in the trailer. Obviously I'm gonna have a little animosity towards the whole situation.
And those kids... They're just Jim's kids. There ain't a better way to explain it. I ain't Jim's kid. And you can tell. I don't really look like them, for one. All four of them together are this perfect little blond family. I have dark eyes and hair and pretty pale skin. I almost feel like throwing up whenever I see a photo of all of us, since I'm just like this big ole coffee stain in the middle of their fancy lace tablecloth.
Here's the second part. This includes slightly less telling and more showing. However, the style is supposed to have a lot of telling, so whatever.
They’re the type of family that can afford that stuff, too. All the fancy professional pictures, I mean. They get them done once a year. Of course I tag along, but there’s always a family picture minus Lena. The one with me goes up in the living room, though, so I guess I’m grateful for that bit of it. They don’t really order my school pictures though, since those are always sent to Jim’s parents. And it’s not like they want some dorky picture of me sent to ‘em.
I should probably try a bit harder to fit in with all of them, though. But it’s not like I dress in all black, with big ole black made-up raccoon eyes and a face that says “I hate my life.” I used to though, back in the day. I used to wear this black Led Zeppelin t-shirt every day with a pair of torn up jeans and converse sneakers. I parted my hair so that it fell in front of my face and my makeup pretty much made me look like some Marilyn Manson wannabe. And, boy, did I drive my mama and Jim mad. My mama’d buy me cheap girly clothes straight outa Walmart – pink t-shirts with little hearts all over, stuff like that. But I was too much of a hard ass for that.
Damn, it’s embarrassing to even think of those days.
I try to look as nice as I can. It’s hard, though, since I never really have enough money for all the nice clothes. I can’t afford the one hundred and eighteen dollar jeans or the one hundred and twenty seven dollar boots all the rich chicks at my school wear. My jeans were twenty bucks and I found my favorite pair of shoes by rustling through the lost and found at the Junior High.
I’ve always been good with my money, even though I never have any. That’s one of the nice things my mom’s had to say about me. Right after I turned sixteen, I bought this fancy little Toyota Celica with straight cash I’d been saving up since I was five or something. I don’t know any other kid who could ever save like that.
But it’s getting harder and harder to make any money. A year ago I could turn twenty bucks into a hundred and eighty in less than five hours. I was good at selling things – electronics, contraband, anything you could think of. But it ain’t really like that anymore. I have to make an honest sort of living. I’ve always worked at some little kiddie farm in my home town, but that wasn’t even paying enough, so I started looking for a job somewhere else. It was pretty funny when I got a job at the Gap. Who would’ve thought, a chick like me working at the Gap. I hate having the work indoors, but I ain’t complaining about a couple hundred dollars a week.
You think it’d keep my mama off my back about stuff, since I make my own money and don’t ask her for anything, but that’s just not the way it goes. Like today. She made me go and pick up Erik from his little Elementary school. I don’t know why she couldn’t do it herself. Too lazy, I guess. He had some running club deal after school, so he was there until, like, four and couldn’t take the bus home like he usually did. But it’s nice how he likes to run. It reminds me of myself, back in the day.
Sitting in the school parking lot is the worst. Even though my car windows are tinted, I feel like all those rich, uppity mothers can see me sitting inside my car. I feel like they can smell the cigarette smoke that’s ground its way into the seats. I even turn down my music a little so Mr. Shakur doesn’t pollute their beautiful kids’ ears.
Erik’s a bitch to me the whole way home. He doesn’t really talk to me at all, except to ask me to turn up the AC. I guess I should be used to that by now. And when I get home, my mama’s standing in the middle of the driveway, waiting for me, or something. She waves one of her big, beefy arms at me. I roll down my window.
“What?”
“I need a ride to Issy.”
I sigh. How lazy is the woman? She has her own goddamned car. And Issaquah’s fifteen minutes away, in the opposite direction of where I’m planning on going for the night. But my mama hops in the passenger seat before I can really object or anything. She doesn’t care if she makes me late for whatever plans I have for the Friday night.
The worst part was that, by the time I got to my boyfriend’s house that night, after dropping her off in Issaquah, my mama was already calling me and asking for a ride back home.
I just turned off my phone.
My boyfriend, he’s a nice guy. Probably the nicest guy I’ve ever run around with. My mama likes him too, which is strange because she usually hates every guy I bring home. She always makes up little names for them, like Goat Beard or The Thirty Year Old Janitor. Her only complaint about Derrick, though, was on account of him being Catholic and being Mexican. The first thing she said after meeting him was: “why not white, Lena? Why not white?”
But I think she realizes that he’s a good guy in overall, despite being a Catholic Mexican. He’s a big guy, more than six foot three, and is a pretty well known fighter down at the Indian Casino. He’s already been through some college, too. His dad works for some high-end company out in Seattle. The whole family lives in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the whole Valley. Even my mama has some respect for all of that.
When I get there, him and I just sit out on the back porch for a while, watching the sun set over the Cascades.
“How late you gonna be stayin’ tonight?” he asks as he’s packing a bowl into a little metal pipe. I hate those metal pipes. I always end up burning myself one way or another.
“Not too late. There’s another one of them concerts down in FC. Thought I’d make an appearance.”
He doesn’t say anything, just starts lighting the bowl.
“You should come, too. Vargas said he’d be there.” Vargas’ a guy he used to run with a bit back in the day. They don’t really kick it anymore, though, and I get the feeling that there’s a bit of a story behind the whole thing.
He coughs for a second after inhaling and hands the pipe over to me. “Nah, I ain’t paying five bucks to watch some little white tweaker rap. And all of them high school kids’ll be askin’ me to buy ‘em beer the whole time. I’ll prolly jus’ head over to the casino tonight.”
“Whatever you wanna do.” I hand the pipe back over to him. I don’t really smoke a whole lot anymore. I’ve been trying to quit, so my tolerance has been down quite a bit. The whole back yard’s all dizzy and I get lost, swimming around in my thoughts. But I know that whatever thoughts I was thinking were real beautiful. They always are. That’s what I hate about being high. You don’t remember any of the cool shit you thought of. I wish I had some sort of a tape recorder, one that recorded thoughts or something.
“I’m hungry,” I say suddenly, standing up real quick.
“Settle down,” he says, chuckling. “I’ll cook us up a couple of steaks in a minute. I bought some of them filet mignon’s earlier.”
And I just love watching that guy cook. He’s good at it, too. Makes the best steaks you’ve ever tasted. They just melt right in your mouth. He says that, one day, he’s gonna teach me to cook as good as he does. Even then, it’s not like he’s gonna send me to the kitchen to make him a “goddamn sandwhich” or nothing. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t mind doing the laundry or vacuuming. It’s the perfect reversal of gender roles, you know?
He was there when my mom called me up, telling me that I was for sure going to have to move down to Oregon. I’d just gotten off work, and I picked him up before coming home. My mom and Jim were across the state, visiting my grandparents, and I didn’t really want to spend the night at home alone. I don’t know why my mom decided in that particular weekend that she wanted me to go there. There wasn’t any real logic in it.
She basically just called me up, asked me how work was, and then told me I that it’d be best if I went to stay down there for a while. I straight-up just said: “What the hell?” and she hung up the phone on me. She always does that. I can’t really remember a phone conversation where she didn’t hang up on me.
Derrick was just all like: “what was that about?”
It was pretty difficult to tell him. I’m not really a relationship person in general. I get annoyed with people pretty easily and I don’t stay close to people easily.
He was just silent for a couple minutes. He pulled a beer out of a brown paper bag that he’d brought from his house, cracked it open, and took a sip. “I’m joinin’ the Marines then. Once I get my right to bear arms back, I’m joinin’.”
“When’s that gonna be?”
“October.”
Four months after I’m leaving.
Thank you.
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