Clutch (Custom Culture)

  I shrugged.

  “That asshole still owes me for the dent he put in my Ford.”

  I grinned at him. “I’ve got his number. Why don’t you call him and ask for it? I’m sure he’d send a check right off.”

  His mouth tightened, and amazingly, his nostrils grew even larger. “That’s right. I just remembered that you had a smart mouth to go along with those trampy—” He went to touch my bottom lip with his grease stained thumb but I smacked his arm away. There was anger in his laugh.

  Adam had been oblivious to the scene behind him until he spun around with our hot dogs in hand. His face dropped when he saw the two rather menacing guys hovering over me. He walked several steps and stopped about ten feet away. He didn’t seem eager to come any closer. “Let’s go, Taylor. We’ve got to get back,” Adam called with a layer of fear that even the traffic on La Brea Avenue could not have drowned out.

  The guy with the dented Mustang caught hold of my arm before I walked away. Obviously still mad about me slapping his arm, his fingers gripped me angrily. “Why don’t you ditch Peter Pan and hang with us, Sweetheart.”

  Adam took one step but then stopped. I didn’t know whether to be majorly disappointed or relieved. The two guys were big and mean enough to hurt him, and I’d been the one to talk Adam into ditching school for hot dogs. The worst part of all was watching Adam’s face. His expression of helplessness was being overshadowed by a profound look of shame.

  I winced as the guy squeezed my arm tighter, and Adam took a cautious step. The driver laughed, showcasing teeth that were brown and mottled from drugs. “Why, Max, I think the school boy with the hot dogs is getting angry. Maybe we should relieve him of those hot dogs too. I’m hungry.” He took a step toward Adam.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me text my friends that I won’t be back for lunch.

  Max laughed. “Looks like she’s coming with us, kid.”

  I lifted my phone and quickly ran my fingers over the keypad. The heartbreak on Adam’s face sent a pang of guilt through me, but while I wasn’t great in chemistry or English literature, I was fairly skilled at devising clever plans. I motioned the driver closer, and he leered at me as he leaned down.

  I lowered my voice so that Adam had no idea what I was saying. “I’m not going anywhere with you two losers,” I whispered, “ but I did just send a picture of your car to Clutch, and I let him know you were bothering me.” It was a lie, of course, but I knew bringing up his name would scare the shit out of them. And I was right. Max quickly released my arm.

  “Stupid brat. You’re not even worth the bother.” The driver motioned for his slimy friend to get in the car, and they drove off as if the devil himself had driven them off, a giant, blond devil.

  Relief washed over Adam, but it was obvious that his male ego had taken a hit. I decided to act like the whole thing hadn’t happened. Adam was one of the most popular guys on campus. He’d recover quickly.

  I grabbed my hot dog and snapped a picture to send Jason. “My brother is addicted to these things, but his bitchy girlfriend doesn’t like him to eat them.” Adam didn’t respond. We walked to his car in silence.

  “What did you tell them that had them so scared?” he finally asked.

  So much for ignoring the whole thing. “I told them you had nearly killed a guy in a fist fight because he’d snaked your parking spot.”

  Adam stared down at me as I took a big bite of my hot dog. “Shit, they forgot the onions.”

  “Did you really tell them that?” he asked.

  “Yep.” I wiped the chili off my lip with my thumb. “Hey, next time, let me order the hot dogs.”

  Chapter 4

  Clutch

  A few nights before, I’d won a drag race final and everything had been going great. An hour later, everything had turned to shit, and it only seemed to be getting deeper. I was beat and I was glad to get back home even if I had more crap waiting for me there. I could hear the television as I walked up the driveway. I decided that was a good thing. The first few nights, Rett could not have sat still long enough to watch T.V.

  The top of his blond head stuck out over the layers of blankets he had wrapped around him as he sat on the couch staring at the screen. “You’re back already?” His voice was muffled by the covers.

  I stepped in and looked at the television. “I see you found my stash of porn.”

  “The only thing on was cooking and morning talk shows.”

  “So, you’re feeling better?”

  The mass of blankets moved in what I sensed was a noncommittal shrug. “It comes in waves. I still wouldn’t turn down a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded pistol.”

  “I might join in that game. At the moment, those odds sound pretty damn good.” Halfway home my head had started to pound from lack of food, and even though Jason’s ugly little revelation had turned my stomach against me, I needed to eat. I walked into the kitchen. An open pizza box sat on the table and two slices were missing. I picked up a slice. Even three days old it looked good. “I see you were able to get some food down,” I called to the living room.

  “Yeah,” Rett answered, “for about twenty minutes. I’m never going to be able to look at a pineapple again without gagging.”

  I stared down at the slice of cold pizza with the shriveled pieces of pineapple and then dropped it back into the box. I grabbed the milk out of the fridge and finished off the half gallon milk container before returning to the living room.

  Rett’s head popped up like a gopher emerging from a burrow of cotton blankets. I sat down next to him and realized the television was on mute.

  “No sound?”

  “The dialogue didn’t seem all that important.”

  I grabbed the remote and turned it off. “So, what happened, Rett? You know I’m going to have to call Dad and give him some kind of story before his friend calls him.”

  He scrunched down farther into his cocoon. “I don’t know. It started out all right. The work was hard, especially because I was seasick through most of my shifts.” He laughed quietly. “Although ‘shift’ was not really the word to use. Sometimes we were out on deck for thirty-six hours with just enough break time to eat and piss. I would get so tired my body would just start moving on its own, like my brain was no longer telling it what to do.”

  “Like cruise-control?”

  “Yeah, but even dead tired you had to be ready to react or you risked losing a hand or being swept overboard by a wave.” His voice sounded weary, almost as if he was reliving one of those endless nights of fishing in his head. “But I didn’t mind, and the captain said I was one of the toughest greenhorns he’d had on board in a couple of years.” He grew quiet, and for a moment, it seemed he’d dozed off. “It was hard though, Jimmy. Really hard. I’d fall into my bunk so tired and sore that there were times when I would hope for a disaster so the boat would sink. That way I would never have to leave the bunk again. I’d formed a bond with Gus, the captain’s son. One day he offered me a couple of pills to keep me awake and make me feel better. They helped . . . a lot. Then we’d get to port and our pockets would be full and we’d spend five days on dry land partying like they were our last days on Earth. And sometimes, it really felt like it. Every day out on the water felt as if it could easily be my last. The drugs just made it easier to bear.”

  “So you got caught?”

  “Sort of. The captain found a stash, but it wasn’t mine. It belonged to Gus, but I took the fall for it.”

  “Christ, Rett, you’re always taking the fall. Just like in high school. You were the only one to get expelled, and your three buddies finished senior year without ever thinking about it again.”

  “I know. I’ve got to stop being such a sucker. Anyhow, no other captain would take me, so I hopped on a plane and headed home. I landed in Frisco and stopped at an old high school buddy’s house. He’d moved
up north after graduation. He’s the guy who I’d sold the bike to. He still had it, so I bought it back for the ride south. By then I was starting to feel pretty strung out. The ride home was tough. I didn’t think I was going to make it.” His voice trailed off, and seconds later, a light snoring sound floated up from the blankets.

  I snatched a pillow from the couch, dropped it on the floor, and stretched out. I stared up at the ceiling thinking how much I wanted to throttle the kid, and at the same time I wanted to protect him with my life. Within seconds, fatigue cleared my mind and pushed me into a much needed sleep.

  ***

  The sound of a trash can being dragged down the driveway next door woke me. I sat up feeling only slightly more rested than I had in the morning. Rett was standing in front of the window in just his jeans. He looked painfully thin, and there was a recently healed gash across his shoulders.

  “Did the chills finally stop?” I scrubbed my hair with my fingers as I sat up and cracked my back and neck. I pushed to my feet and walked over to the window.

  “For now,” he answered without pulling his gaze from the outside.

  “What happened to your back? They aren’t still tying sailors to the moorings for lashings, are they?”

  “That would have been less painful. One of the pots came loose and swung into me. Knocked me off my feet and nearly overboard.” He watched as my neighbor, Aimee, dressed in her white pharmacy technician dress, dragged a large trash can down to the street. “That can is too heavy for her.” Then he looked over at me. “Afterward the captain told me a chilling story about how he’d seen a guy get decapitated by a loose pot. ‘Took his head right off and into the sea.’ Strangely enough, he seemed to think the story would make me feel better. It didn’t. I figured if I’d been just a few inches shorter, my head would’ve been swimming with the fishes too.” Barrett turned back to the window. Aimee climbed into her junk-pile of a car. It backfired twice before rolling down the short driveway.

  “She’s cute.” He shuffled back to the couch and propped his bare feet up on my coffee table. He’d showered, and with his long hair clean and brushed, he looked much closer to the Barrett I remembered. “I thought you lived next to an elderly couple.”

  “I did but the husband died last year and the wife went into a retirement home. The kids rented the place out to Aimee and Dustin.”

  “Dustin?”

  “Yeah, biggest asshole on the planet. He treats her like shit.” I walked into the kitchen, pulled out a pizza box and returned to the living room.

  Rett’s face went pale at the sight of it.

  “Too bad. I’m going to pass out if I don’t eat something. Just look the other way and stop thinking about pineapples.”

  “Why is this guy such an asshole?” He lifted his head off the back of the couch. “Wait, you have a thing for her, don’t you?” Then he pressed his hand against his forehead and dropped his head back as if it was filled with sand. “Fuck, I think this headache is going to be permanent.”

  “Good. It’ll remind you not to do anything so stupid again. And, no, I don’t have a thing for her. She’s very sweet, and I feel bad for her.” I plucked the pieces of sausage off the pizza and dropped them back into the box. “These taste like shit cold. Why are you so interested in her?”

  “No reason. She just looked kind of sexy struggling with that big trash can.”

  I laughed and nearly choked on my food. “You’ve been watching porn all morning. A picture of Aunt Margaret would probably give you a hard on.”

  “Fuck off.” He threw a pillow at me, and I lifted the pizza slice out of its path. “So you don’t think she’s cute?”

  “Yeah, she’s cute. But let’s face it, Rett, she’s not exactly your type.”

  He didn’t have much strength to protest, but he rolled his face my way without lifting his head from the couch. “I like nice girls, especially when they’re wearing sexy little uniform dresses.”

  “Oh, so this is about the uniform.” I picked up another slice of cold pizza. “You’ve been having one of those nurse fantasies.”

  His middle finger wavered slightly as he lifted it in the air. “You act like it’s impossible for me to be attracted to a nice girl. I have dated nice girls, occasionally.”

  “Like hell you have.”

  “Well, now that I’ve faced my own death more than once, I’m planning to change my ways.”

  I laughed. “Anyway, I know Aimee’s husband is an asshole of humongous proportions. One day there was a knock on the door and I opened it. Aimee was standing there with a bloody kitchen towel wrapped around her hand. She looked close to passing out. Dustin had been in the middle of some video game tournament and he’d told her to drive herself to the emergency room. She’d cut it making his dinner. She told me she didn’t think she could drive, so I took her. While we were in the waiting room, she told me the whole story about how she’d gotten pregnant in high school and Dustin had married her. Then she lost the baby, but by then, her parents had disowned her and she was on her own. She works two jobs and he sits at home and plays video games. We sat in the emergency room for three hours and the dick never called her once to see if she was all right. I took her home that night, and it took all my will not to walk over to the guy and pinch his ugly fat head right off his neck.”

  “What an asshole.” Rett picked the blankets back up off the floor and draped them over his bare chest. “One minute it feels like I’m in the middle of the Sahara, and the next, I’m back in Alaska. Is there anymore of that funny tasting orange stuff? It seems to help with my body temperature.”

  “You sound just like Mom when she was going through menopause.” I went to the fridge to get the electrolyte drink.

  “So how’s Taylor?” Rett called from the living room.

  His question threw me, and by the time I reached the refrigerator I’d forgotten what I’d come in for. I stared at the mostly empty shelves until the orange fluid caught my eye. I returned to the living room and handed him the container. “How the hell should I know?”

  He threw his head back and chugged the stuff like it was a cold beer and then dragged the back of his wrist across his mouth. “Oh come on, that chick followed you around everywhere. She was crazy about you. Do you mean to tell me she finally gave up on you?”

  The Taylor topic produced a hard knot in my stomach. “I guess so.” I turned the porn back on to put a quick end to the conversation.

  Barrett stared at the side of my face. “Man, I just hit a sore spot.”

  “Those drugs have fried the few brain cells you had. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned up the volume and fake moans and grunts of pleasure filled the air.

  “Right,” Rett said and then wisely shut up.

  Chapter 5

  Clutch

  Barrett and I had spent the rest of the day just hanging out. He’d felt well enough in the evening to eat, and by that time I was ready to eat a damn brontosaurus. The day off had been so good for me, I’d called into the shop to let Scotlyn know that I’d be working from home for another day. I needed some time to absorb everything, and, besides, I’d been working my ass off for months.

  No longer hungry, and feeling much better, Barrett had slept through the morning. I’d spent the first half of the day online searching for parts, and my stomach was beginning to protest from lack of attention. I hadn’t been to Freefall in ages, and I decided to head over there and pick up Nix for lunch.

  I left Barrett a note. It looked as if he was going to sleep most of the day. It was the best thing for him. He’d be up and back to normal soon and then I would have to worry about keeping him out of trouble.

  Cassie was standing at the counter working on the receipt book when I walked in. I could hear the buzz of Nix’s guns coming from his back room. Cassie glanced up and pushed her glasses up higher on her nose. “Hey, C
lutch,” she said without much enthusiasm.

  I reached the counter. “What’s with the frosty greeting? You mad about something?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Sorry about that. I’m just a little pissed at Dray. That’s all.” Right then Dray’s loud laugh rocked the back room and she sighed. Her big dark eyes were magnified by the thick lenses. “The idiot is getting my name tattooed across his shoulder.”

  “And this has you pissed because . . .”

  She shut the receipt book. “A tattoo is so permanent. I guess I’m just superstitious, but I think it’s tempting fate. What if something happens between us? Then he’s stuck with my name on his skin. I just think it’s a bad idea.”

  “I get it.” I pointed to the obnoxiously arrogant tattoo of a blank billboard with your name here written on it. Nix had warned me against getting it, but I’d insisted, and now full regret had set in. “But, I think even though you two are definitely an odd couple, it was meant to be.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said sounding not the slightest bit convinced by my argument. Then her face brightened. “Hey, I got a paying gig from a skater magazine. They sent me out to shoot at a skate competition and they liked my stuff.”

  “That’s amazing, Cass. I’m happy for you. I noticed you had your glasses on again.”

  “I still have the contacts. I just don’t like wearing them.” She smiled up at me. “I’ve been wearing thick glasses since I was three.”

  “Three? Damn, that’s young.”

  She laughed softly. “I was sitting a foot from the television trying hard to watch my favorite cartoon. My mom walked through the room and said, ‘Cassie, don’t sit so close or it will hurt your eyes’. I was three. I just figured that everyone else was seeing the same blurry mess that I was seeing. Like a good little girl, I scooted back a few inches. But when she walked back through, I had inched forward again. My mom walked up behind me and started crying.” Cassie’s tone softened as she seemed to be remembering back to the day. She shook the past from her head. “Anyhow, every time I passed a mirror with the contacts I didn’t recognize myself. It was creepy. Like a stranger’s reflection was staring back at me. Besides, they are a pain to take care of, and I think my pictures are better when I have my glasses on.”