SAM
SEVEN YEARS OLD
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO
My stomach is numb with hunger. The stale cereal I ate for breakfast yesterday morning was the last of the food. Mama doesn’t usually leave me alone for this long without coming home. I’m worried about her. I wish she wouldn’t stay away for so long.
I’ve gotten used to being alone. It’s become a part of who I am. I practice with my rope that Mama got me at the garage sale last year, and I shoot squirrels with my slingshot. I’ve gotten really good at it. I made the slingshot myself, but Devin from my second-grade class doesn’t believe me.
I haven’t been to school in a while. Every time, Mama forgets that I need to be added to the bus route when she moves the RV. Once I go back, they ask me lots of questions about my absence. I keep making things up about being sick and having dead grandparents, but I could see in the teacher’s eyes last time that they didn’t believe me anymore.
I miss school. School is great because I get to eat breakfast and lunch for free. And I get to see other people and talk to kids.I feel normal for a few hours there. It gives me ideas of how to pretend I have a whole family. My pretend family always has Mama, but there’s a dad, too, and a little brother, who I keep safe. I’d give anything to have a brother.
Mama is still my favorite person—when she’s here and she doesn’t bring any friends over. Her friends are always scary or just annoying. Their grown-up time is gross to listen to, but once they’re done, they always give Mama the drugs that make her forget who she is. That’s when I miss her the most.
A rat starts crawling up the side of the brown sofa, across from where I’m playing with Legos on the floor. I slowly slide my slingshot out of my pocket, along with a pebble. I lift it up, pulling back the rubber bands. I take aim, closing one eye before I let it loose.
Bam.
The rat flies off the sofa, its body splattering against the dingy carpet. I’m not hungry enough for that yet.
PRESENT DAY
Sterling parks the truck in the dark field a few blocks away from our destination. I climb out, stretching my arms overhead to loosen the muscles. Duke hops out of the passenger seat, smacking me on the back.
“It’s been a while. How you feeling?” He’s grinning as he grabs the medic bag from the bed of the truck. He started bringing it along at Rosie’s insistence that if we at leastdisinfected and bandaged the worst of the cuts, it would make her job easier.
She’s not technically a nurse, but she was in nursing school before dropping out to have the twins, and she’s got more experience with patching up ranch injuries and fighting wounds than most emergency rooms, considering the family she married into.
Sterling walks around the side of the truck. His injury that resulted in him being sent home from the Marines to recover isn’t visible, but Duke told me it was a gunshot wound he sustained during combat. The scar running through one of his dark eyebrows and down the side of his eye has been there since we were kids, when Duke hit him with a shovel. He’s the scariest-looking of all the brothers.
“I’m good. I need this.” I’m wrapping my knuckles with gauze to protect my joints.
“We had fight night every Saturday night when we were deployed. It helped keep us from beating the shit out of each other when we actually had a disagreement,” Sterling says.
I nod. That’s exactly why I do it. The pent-up rage inside me has to go somewhere. When I was in foster care, one of the families had a corner where they would keep stacks of old books and magazines. When one of the other kids or I got angry, we were allowed to tear up as much of it as we wanted as long as we picked up after ourselves.
I know it’s not the healthiest way of coping with emotions, but it’s what works for me now. It’s like playing a sport. A really violent, unsupervised sport.
“How was your ride last weekend?” I ask him.
All the Redford brothers compete in The Riders. It started when they were teenagers to earn extra cash. Now it’s something they do for fun and to relieve stress. I’ve done it a couple oftimes, but I prefer the hands-on feel of using my fist on another person’s face. They got to grow up fighting each other.
“I probably should’ve waited. I tore open my stitches, and Rosie yelled at me.” Sterling chuckles.
“Shit, man. Yeah, maybe you should have given it a few more weeks.”
He shrugs. “I needed it. Being back is weird when I should be on the other side of the world. She and my sister keep trying to set me up on a date.” He shakes his head, like the prospect of a casual date is worse than combat.
I get it.
“Who’s the lucky lady?”
Duke interrupts us. “It’s that hot single mom I told you about. I’m pissed, man. I tried to talk to her at Old Harry’s, and she turned me down. Instead of them convincing her to give me a shot, Rosie and Dolly turned on me and set her up with him.” He shakes his head.
We’re making our way toward the old gymnasium where the fights are held. We don’t park there to avoid attention from the police.
“It’s fucked up. I called dibs.”
