Sudden Impact - Lesley Choyce [10]
“No it isn’t,” Jason insisted, breathing boozy breath all over me again.
“It’s none of your business. Take your helmet and go ride your tricycle off a cliff, okay?” I shoved the helmet at him, but he wouldn’t take it.
Instead he pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and dropped it in the helmet.
“Read it,” he said. “And tell me if I’m the one you’re looking for. I charge twenty dollars a pint. But you have to promise not to leave teeth marks.”
Kurt started to walk away with that cocky dance that he did. “Take your helmet,” I said, walking after him.
“No way. It messes with my freedom and interferes with my style.”
I wasn’t about to chase after him. I opened my locker and had to squeeze the stupid helmet in with all my books and gym stuff. I wasn’t even going to look at the note or play along with his stupid game but as I was slamming the locker shut, the paper fell to the floor. I picked it up and unfolded it.
There was a big goofy drawing of a female vampire that I guessed was supposed to be me. And underneath it was simply: “B negative.”
chapter ten
I walked out the front door of the school and saw Jason, on his stupid motorcycle, take the corner where the buses were loading. He was going so fast his tires sprayed stones as he went onto the shoulder. I was going to have to talk to him. He was old enough to consent to giving blood. The decision would be his. Maybe I could use his big-shot-nothing-scares-me attitude to con him into it. I had that working for me.
On the other hand, the guy had a very thick skull. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to make him understand.
I could have taken the bus, but I decided to walk home instead. I tried to keep my mind focussed on Kurt, but I was already trying to figure out how to convince Jason to give blood, maybe even on a regular basis if Kurt needed it.
As I walked I thought about how things had already started to change between Kurt and me. It was only recently that soccer seemed to get in the way of our friendship. And that was probably because of Jason. Kurt was always trying to prove something to Jason. Kurt wanted desperately to be Jason’s friend, but Jason only made his life difficult. Kurt tried to explain to me that Jason had something to teach him. About soccer. About going beyond what you think you’re capable of. About going for broke.
I remembered something else too. I remembered how Kurt and I had become friends. I had come home from school one day a couple of years earlier. My parents were inside screaming at each other. The doors were locked and I wanted to go in but was afraid to.
Kurt walked by and saw me sitting on my porch with my head on my knees. When he walked up to me he heard my parents inside.
“What’s going on?” he’d asked.
“Listen. World War Three,” I’d said.
“You want to come over to my house? Maybe watch a video or something?”
“What do you have?”
“I have all the old Star Wars movies. Do you like Star Wars?”
I didn’t really like science fiction at all, but it didn’t matter. I walked to Kurt’s house and we watched the first Star Wars movie. He talked through the whole thing, explaining who all the characters were and what he knew about each planet. I didn’t like the movie much, but I really liked Kurt trying to explain it all to me. He even put his hand over his mouth, started breathing funny and did an imitation of Darth Vader.
Kurt’s mother was nice to me the first day except she felt obliged to tell me about the rules at her house. Shoes off when you come in, so you don’t wreck the white carpet. No drinks or junk food in the living room. No interfering with homework time. Yikes, she was pushy. I was surprised Kurt was so casual about it.
After I had shown up unnanounced a couple of times, afraid to go home, she wasn’t so friendly. She’d heard stories from the neighbors about my parents’ fights. The arguments were legendary in our neighborhood. She didn’t want her son spending too much time with a kid from a messed up family.
But that day of the first visit, Kurt even walked me home. We stood at my back