Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [81]
“I warned her again. She knows I’ll be close by.”
“She’s gonna take it out on me.”
“Take what out on you? She doesn’t care if I stay or go.”
“Wanna bet?”
They headed back to find Peter was right.
“Why would you wanna stay with a bunch of Mexicans when you’ve got your own place right here?” she said.
“You said you were going to charge me.”
“Well, yeah! There’s no free lunch in this life, you know. Now what kind of a dive is that?”
“It’s nice. None of the guys smoke, at least inside, and one of ’em cooks dinner every night.” Brady amazed himself with his own imagination. “It’s a big place, two guys to a room, and there’s four bathrooms.”
“Don’t think you can be coming around here and mooching off me, raiding the fridge and all that.”
“What, you don’t have any mold I can have? I’ll be around to see Petey; that’s all. And I’ll be checking up on him.”
“Checking up on me, you mean.”
“’Course.”
Brady couldn’t wait to go. He started packing that very night, but he soon realized he had way too much stuff. There would be nowhere to stash it at the shack. He began giving things to Petey, including clothes that wouldn’t fit the kid for years. Even some sports equipment.
Finally he rummaged around atop a closet and dug out the sawed-off shotgun his father had left him. It likely hadn’t been shot in ten years, but a box of ammo lay near it.
“Where do you think you’re going with that?” his mother said.
“It’s mine.”
“You’re not even old enough to use it.”
“It’s still mine. Dad left it to me.”
“I think he thought you’d be here with it to protect us.”
“From what? There’s nothing in here worth stealing.”
“You never know. I feel better knowing we got us a weapon anyway.”
“Then get your own, Ma. You might have to defend yourself against me someday.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t have the guts.”
“Just give me a reason.”
Brady threw the big cardboard box containing all his worldly goods onto his shoulder and kicked the door shut on his way out. He couldn’t bring himself to look one last time at Petey. He kept telling himself he’d come by often. It wasn’t like they were going to become strangers.
He set the box down next to the stoop and wriggled beneath the trailer to retrieve the carton of his mother’s cigarettes he had stashed near the back axle. On his way out, he brushed the underside of the trailer, which brought his mother stomping to the door.
“What’re you doing under there?”
“Never mind, I just dropped something.”
“Stay out from under my house. You don’t live here anymore.”
“Thank goodness!”
Brady waited until she had closed the door again before he slipped the carton into the big box. By the time he got to the shack, his whole body ached. None of the Mexicans gave him so much as a second glance as he hauled his stuff upstairs and hung some clothes on the wall and stuffed most everything else, including the shotgun, under the bed.
He wandered back down and sat behind everyone else to watch the fights, only to realize that they had the Spanish translation on. Well, that made sense. But was this all they ever watched? No, he found out they also watched an all-Spanish station and lots of soccer. He was more than a guest, but he was also the single minority. Freedom was all this place had to offer, but he would take what he could get.
When no one seemed to be going to bed by midnight, Brady, bored and exhausted, went upstairs. He couldn’t sleep. The place was drafty, and he wasn’t used to the cheap bunk yet. And when the others did finally begin drifting up between one and two in the morning, they were noisy. Drunk and high, they seemed to fall asleep quickly, but several also snored.
Wonderful.
In the morning, Brady walked the main drag a couple of miles until he got to the fast-food joints. Unfortunately, they were all busy with the breakfast rush and told him to come back midmorning with his résumé.
“Don’t have one,” he said.
“That’s all right. Fill out this form and bring it back.”
Talk about a creative imagination. By the time he got through