But the closer I get to the boardwalk, the more a new weight hits me. The guys are all there—leaning against a wall and whistling at the girls as they walk past. At least I managed to get them to stop doing that fucking cat-calling thing after we caught some asshole doing it to my thirteen-year old sister and I broke my hand on his face.
“Hey man, sorry about your dad.” Adam says. He slaps me on the back, and for an uncomfortable moment, I think he’s gonna hug me. He doesn’t,thank fuck.
“Forget about it,” I say. “He’s been dying for ages.” I force a hint of nonchalance into my voice that I hope they'll believe. “You wanna score or what?”
Their relief is so visible, I almost laugh. They’re so grateful to me for letting them off the hook, for giving them what they want, they follow me like I’m their leader.
We go and score some weed from the guy I know. I’ve been avoiding him these past few days, knowing he’ll want me to move some shit for him. I know the guys’ll help me. But they’ll want to smoke some, too.
I need the money, but I haven’t been able to face the prospect of dealing since those final days of Dad’s illness. Well, now I have a fucking funeral to pay for. When someone knows they’re dying, they do their best to make arrangements. But in the years since my dad started putting money away for us, the cost of everything has shot up and that money didn’t even cover the cost of his treatment. I was lucky the funeral home even let us have apayment plan after all the loans we had to take out when we couldn’t pay for years of cancer treatment and at-home hospice care. And those payments are on top of regular utility bills, grocery bills—everything. Mom’s salary from the grocery store and my warehouse money just don’t cut it.
As I’m leaving, the weed guy calls me back.
“If your ma needs anything, you let me know.”
I nod. He’s the last person I’d ever ask for help. Nothing comes for free with guys like that. I hide the weed he wants me to sell in the back of my pants before going back to join the guys.
We gethigh in the woods and then go down to the boardwalk when it gets dark. That’s when groups of girls come out in short shorts and tank tops, drinking vodka from Coke bottles and smelling of cherry lip-gloss and candy-scented perfume.
The music from the carousel still sounds like someone’s winding up a jack-in-the-box too slowly as we weave through groups of tourists and candy-cotton-eating kids. A little boy tugs on his dad’s hand and points at the monster trucks and I think about the last time I was on them with my dad. Before I got too cool to hang out with my dad and started coming here with Nate. And now these guys.
For a while, all the guys wanted to do was get laid. We’d take girls behind the fun house, two at a time, so close I could hear Adam’s breath right next to me. His cock pumping in and out of whatever girl he was with. His skin slapping against hers and his grunts as he started to get close to coming. I’d try not to think about how much easier it was to stay hard when I tuned into another guy’s voice.Another guy’s breath. Back when I was still pretending, even to myself.
They’ve been more into getting as high as possible these days to make girls a priority. And now we can sneak into clubs, we don’t need to get our asses cold doing it outside.
The guys get talking to a group of girls dangling their bare legs over the boardwalk when one of the girl’s sandals falls in the water. Adam wades in to get it for her. There’s three of them, four of us. If I really wanted, I could beat Paddy to one of them. He’s scrawny and awkward as fuck with girls. But I make it easy for them and pretend my ma called and wants me to do something for her. Adam looks like he’s going to argue, but then maybe he remembers my dad just died and he lets me go.
I walk back along the boardwalk in the dark with the water a big black mass of nothing beside me and wonder for a second what it would be like to just fall into it. Would it matter? I imagine the water swallowing me up and taking all my thoughts away. Is that what it was like for my dad?
Fuck. No.
I take the long way home. When I get there, my bubbe’s holding my ma’s hand over the kitchen table. The bed’s gone from the living room.
Somehow, the empty space in the middle of the room is worse than the empty bed.
Ma gets up from her seat at the table, wiping her face before she clears away the empty coffee cups and plates full of uneaten food.
Bubbe hugs me. She squeezes me and starts crying. I break free as soon as I can and tell her I’m going upstairs. She looks at me like she can smell the weed, but she isn’t gonna say anything while my ma’s alreadyupset.
In my room, I put my stash in the old PS2 game case forGTA:Vice City.For the first time in ages, I pause at the sight of that game. It’s meant nothing to me for a long time—just a place to hide my stash. But now, with everything happening, I look at it like it’s the first time I’m seeing it, and memories start rushing over me. Rifling through the dollar bins atDiscount Alleywith Nate. Finding games that were at least ten years old and rediscovering them on my ancient PS2. Getting obsessed with the wholeGTAseries, but this one especially because Nate liked the cheesy 80s music. Driving around, knocking people over. Nate’s stupid laugh when that old lady made a weird noise when I hit her with my car. My dad coming home and sitting on the couch in his work clothes and watching us play.
I shake my head to knock out the memory and stuff the case in the back of the bookcase.
Bubbe’s heating up one of the casseroles the neighbors brought over when I come downstairs for dinner. She looks me up and down in my work clothes. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Because I gotta dress like this for work.”
Ma’s head snaps up from the dishes in the sink. “You’re going to work? Evan, call your boss and explain, they’re not gonna make you go in tonight.”
“I don’t wanna call in sick, Ma. I wanna go to work.”
They both start talking at the same time until Stacie comes in and tells them to be quiet. Everyone turns and looks at the little girl in her pajamas, eyes ringed red.
“If Evan wants to go to work, you should let him.”
Ma sets her jaw and Bubbe looks like she’s about to argue again.
“We need the money,” I say.
