Page 26 of Intrepid

Every nerve ending on my body flared with nervous electricity while I waited. Edgy. My sweaty palms slid across my skateboard, as I glanced around what looked like some kind of country road that didn’t belong in the slums of Detroit. A rusted bike sat turned upside down alongside the cracked wooden railing of the crumbling cement blocks and makeshift stairs to the front porch. A pile of black garbage bags had been stacked beside the door where the screen curled back, torn from the frame.

The sun beat down on my neck, and I wiped the sweat from my nape, onto my long shorts. Dry air tugged at my throat for a sip of water, and I swallowed what little saliva I managed to produce.

Ten minutes must’ve passed, but maybe only five. I set down my skateboard and plopped down onto deck, kicked at the dry dirt. Something shiny caught my eye, half buried into the earth, and I scratched at the hard dirt around it, digging it free. I lifted out the silver, square object, turning it over in my palm to see dirty white controls on the face of it. An iPod shuffle. Two years back, I’d begged my dad to get me one for my birthday, unaware that he’d already shelled out the cash for an Xbox. I pressed the power button, not surprised to find it didn’t bother to light up. Somehow the stuttering kid didn’t strike me as the type to own even slightly outdated tech toys.

“James! James!” The sound of my name from inside the house slammed into my stomach and knotted my guts.

Without much thought, I sprung forward toward the porch, my heart ready to beat right the hell out of my chest. Pushing through the battered front door brought me standing in the middle of a room without furniture. Garbage littered the grease-stained brown carpet beneath, and the sewer stench on the air reminded me of the Metropark bathrooms during fourth of July weekend.

“James!”

Eli’s cry guided my feet toward the staircase, and I took three steps at a time, shooting to the top, and rounded the bannister to the hallway. In the room to my right, a burst of laughter tightened my jaw, as Eli stood hunched over himself beside the stuttering kid.

“Damn, I thought you’d have taken off, for sure! Look at you, all heroic, and shit.” Another laugh grated my spine, and I knocked him in the arm, kicking him back a step. “Ouch. Fuck, dude. It was a joke.” He raised his arm, gesturing toward the kid, who stood holding a brown box with a menacing black skull on the front. “Check it out. Homeboy’s got about two ounces easily.”

I didn’t like the scheming tone of Eli’s voice telling me, one way or another, we were leaving with whatever goods lived inside of it.

A Ziploc baggie held dried clumps of green, and when he lifted it from the box, a small blade sat below it.

“That stash box is sick. Got any papers? Big ones. I wanna canon, man.” Eli chuckled, knocking me in the arm for the second time. “This pansy needs his cherry popped. He’s never tried herb before in his life.”

I clenched my jaw, wanting nothing more than to pop Eli in the face.

The kid’s eyes seemed to slide to the side and back, subtle, but I caught it. “I-I-I-I got p-p-p-papers.”

“Then g-g-g-go get em, chump.”

The kid frowned at Eli, and hobbled toward the door, carrying the box with him.

With a shake of his head, Eli hiked a thumb over his shoulder after him. “You believe this asshole?” He laughed, dropping to his knees, and shoved his arm beneath the bed, patting around.

I wasn’t laughing. My nerves were wired. Primed to jump out the window if I had to, and the cues Eli seemed to miss had begun to trip my internal alarms. “Eli, you said two minutes. Time to go.”

“What’s the hurry? Your dad’s not gonna be around until midnight. When Retardo comes back, I’ll knock him on his ass, and you grab the weed.”

It wouldn’t be the first time we’d stolen shit, but the kid was kind of pathetic. Weak. Didn’t feel right taking from him that way. “What the hell are you doing?”

“This is where they stashed the weed. Bet they got some cash, or some other shit under here.” Satisfaction lit his face, his brows winging up. “Oh, yeah, baby. Jackpot.” He slid out an old shoebox, half eaten by mold, and a flicker of a frown danced across his face as he stared down at the contents inside. “What the hell is this shit?”

I reached down into the box and lifted a small Polaroid picture from inside. Wasn’t one of the big ones, like something out of the eighties, but the kind our neighbor-lady used when she scrapbooked with her friends. In the picture, a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, lay sprawled across the very bed we stood beside, his dick completely exposed.

“This is some weird shit.” Eli handed me two pictures in which another kid, a redhead covered in splotches of dirt or maybe bruises, kneeled inside a cage—the kind a dog would sleep in. In the second photo, his cheek rested against the bed of the cage, and I could just make out his hands tied behind his back.

“You sh-sh-sh-shouldn’a got into that.”

Both Eli and I twisted around.

The kid stood in the doorway, holding a box labeled RAW and the bag of weed. “Put ‘em back.”

“The fuck is this? Your private stash?” Eli taunted, tossing another pic into the box. “You gay, Stuttering Stan?”

“N-n-n-no. They aren’t m-m-m-mine!” The rage in the kid’s voice flipped my nerves to high alert. “S-s-s-stop calling me that!”

“Where’s the papers, Fagboy?” Eli mocked, tightening my muscles.

He’d become a bona fide asshole the last few months, and particularly harsh to gays, for some reason. The week before, we’d gathered at the end of the block where he lived, playing dice, and Robert, the known homosexual of our group, made a snarky comment about his dick. Next thing I knew, Eli’d had the poor kid flattened on his back, punching him in the face. It’d taken three of us to pull him off.

“I’m n-n-n-not a fucking f-f-f-fag, you cunt!”