Defender

  AFTER I HAND Stick over to the emergency room staff, I text Mom that it’s over and we’re all okay. Meaning everybody’s still breathing—I’ll let Dad fill in the details. Then I make the call to Miss Diaz to let her know about Stick. She doesn’t panic, just cuts right to it—how bad is the damage, where is he, and she’s on the way.

  While I’m waiting to hear about his condition, I give them his name and info, with his cover story—how he got jumped, mugged and beaten. I’m standing by the ER desk, holding a clipboard with a medical history form I’m supposed to be filling out for Stick, losing track of time and staring off in the direction they took him, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  It’s Vega, looking pissed. She gives me her laser stare.

  “Where is he?”

  “Down that hall.”

  Miss Diaz is right behind her. She goes up to the desk and knocks on it to get the attention of the nurse.

  “You’ve got my boy here. Skinny Latino. Name’s Ricky. Big girl brought him in. I want to see him. Now.”

  You don’t say no to Miss D. You can try, but she’s going to get her way. They take her and Vega back, with me trailing.

  When the nurse pulls back the curtain we see Stick with an IV in his arm, oxygen tubes in his nose and wires hooked up to a heart monitor. If it wasn’t for his spiky curls he’d be unrecognizable. His features are all distorted and bruised. My legs get shaky, but Miss Diaz doesn’t even pause. She takes his hand, feels his pulse, leans in close to hear him breathe, then whispers in his ear.

  “Sleep easy, Ricky. Mama D’s here.”

  I watch his heart on the monitor like I’m watching my own, matching his beat for beat, echoing him.

  Later, they take him to another room. The X-rays show a fracture of the left orbital bone, at the eye socket, but his nose isn’t broken. They stitch up some head cuts and pull a knocked-out tooth from under his tongue, but the rest of him is intact.

  “Looks worse than it is,” the doc tells us. Easy for him to say.

  I’m not ready when the police come. All I’ve told Miss D is the basic bull Stick came up with. But with the two cops in the room questioning me, all I can say is we got jumped and fought back. I can’t tell why I’m not hurt, why the blood on me isn’t mine.

  “Where did this happen?” one cop asks.

  “Not sure. We were out walking.”

  “What did the attackers look like?”

  “Don’t know, it was so dark. There were two big guys.”

  It’s not going good, and I’m starting to stumble over my words. But then Vega saves me.

  “That’s all we got to say,” she tells them.

  “We’re going to need more,” one cop insists. “We have to file a report.”

  “You do what you gotta do. But she’s done talking.”

  “That’s not going to work. She’s—”

  “She’s a minor,” Miss D breaks in. “Seventeen. So you can’t question her without a parent present.”

  She knows the drill.

  The cops take my contact info, say they’ll be in touch.

  When they’re gone, Miss D starts to set up house in Stick’s room, making it clear she’s not leaving till he does. From her big, bottomless bag, she takes out a comforter and spreads it over the thin hospital blanket to keep Stick warm. On the little bedside table she lays out a thermos, a box of tissues, her cheese Goldfish crackers, the pocket-sized Bible she always carries with her, and a fat romance novel, along with her tablet and earplugs. She must have an emergency kit ready to go. Who knows how many times, for how many kids, she’s done this. But still, I think Stick’s special to her. Maybe because she’s had him so long. Or just ’cause he’s Stick. She settles in to a chair beside the bed.

  Vega nudges me. “Walk with me, Stretch.”

  I follow her out to the parking lot, where we lean against her car. The night’s freeze wakes me from the daze I’ve been in.

  “Give it up,” she says. “Let’s hear it.”

  I don’t know what to tell her.

  “No lies,” Vega warns me. “Feed me crap and I’ll know it.”

  I take a deep breath. “Long story.”

  “I don’t need all the details. Just give me the bullet.”

  So I do. How we got here has a lot of twists, but I don’t hold back, knowing I can trust her.

  Vega doesn’t interrupt, shows no reaction.

  By the end I’m breathless and drained.

  She stands silent, arms crossed, staring at me long and hard. There’s an electric shiver in the air between us—a vibe of violence, not aimed at me but I can feel it. Vega, the human razor blade.

  “So,” I say. “What are you gonna do?”

  Her eyes are so cold they burn. “Me? I look like a cop to you?”

  Then she pushes off from the car and heads back into the hospital. We find Miss Diaz sitting with her earplugs in, reading her romance. Stick’s sleeping deep.

  “Go home, Stretch. Come back in the morning.”

  I start to shake my head.

  “Go. I’ll be watching him. We’re here. He’s got family.”

  She’s right. I’m no use right now, ready to collapse. I lean in close to kiss Stick’s ear, maybe the only part of him that’s not hurting, and whisper, “Love you.”

  Then I leave, texting Mom that I’m coming home.

  Pick you up? she asks.

  No. Be there soon.

  I need to be alone awhile. So I catch the subway. When I grab a seat, I notice two other passengers move away from me. Probably because of the blood on the front of my hoodie, with dirt and dust from the yard.

  Stick’s blood, and maybe some from Dad’s ragged knuckles mixed with Jake’s. I can still hear him. Shouting, It’s in our blood.

  Bad blood. Jake’s a monster. But what is Dad? A liar, an accessory, a conspirator, or a victim himself? Maybe all those things.

  All I know is I’m not ready to face him.

  Mom’s waiting in front of the Zoo. She looks up at me with a fierce scowl of love and worry, then puts her arm around my waist so I can lean on her, and takes me inside.

  In the apartment, I pass by Dad. I don’t meet his eye, just see his hands bandaged around the knuckles—Mom’s work. She leads me straight to the bathroom.

  “Sit.” She pats the edge of the tub.

  I do, and she pulls the hoodie off over my head. Like when I was a kid coming home muddy, she takes care of me now. I sit while she runs hot water in the sink, washing the blood and dirt from my hands. Back then, she’d scrub my small hands clean, but now hers look like a kid’s soaping mine.

  After toweling my hands dry, she takes a damp cloth to my face. It comes away filthy with dirt and blood. She searches for cuts or scrapes, but I’m all right.

  “Bed,” she says.

  I nod, with her warm palms on my cheeks. We stay like that for a long moment as she stares deep in my eyes, searching for injuries hidden and invisible. Knowing where it hurts.

  “Honey, your dad’s a good man. Who did some wrong things.” She sighs. “I can live with that. Can you?”

  AFTER SUCH A wild, violent night I expected more of an explosion to follow. Sirens, cops at the door, screaming arguments around the house, thunder and lightning.

  But there’s only the calm after the storm. I wake to quiet.

  Break’s over and it’s the first day back to school, but there’s no way I’m going.

  Before I head to the hospital, Mom makes me eat some eggs and toast. Then she takes Squirrel to school, while Dad’s off doing odd jobs around the building.

  Just another day, like last night never happened.

  At the hospital I’m thrilled to find Stick awake and drinking a chocolate milk shake that Vega smuggled in. He won’t be eating solids for a while.

  He’s propped up in bed with Miss Diaz holding the straw for him. The swelling has gone down a bit, but the bruising is even darker. The doctor’s final verdict was no major broken bones or
cracked ribs, some stitches here and there, and a little blood in his urine from a bruised kidney, but that’s already clearing up.

  I tell Miss Diaz I’ll be staying for a while if she wants to take a break. She reluctantly agrees, heading home for a change of clothes, a bite and maybe a nap.

  When she’s gone I pull the chair in close.

  “What I miss?” Stick mumbles. “How did it end?”

  His eyes are slitted, but he’s alert. So I fill him in on everything, from Squirrel spotting him being taken to when I got the picture Jake sent, Dad giving me the truth behind Lucy’s death and his fight with Jake.

  When I’m done, Stick drinks some water and slowly gives me his side of what went down after Jake grabbed him at gunpoint. Stick tried lying, telling him he had no idea what he was talking about. But Jake already knew. Dad had told him about finding the body and moving it, and when I asked him about a girl named Lucy he knew something was up. By the time Jake got Stick to the salvage yard, he was drunk and talkative, telling him how he’d poked around online, finding Stick’s Facebook page and the tracing of the brand he’d posted asking for help with deciphering it. Stick tried to hold out, but Jake beat it all out of him, everything. Even how we talked to Lucy’s foster sister, Rosie. Jake said some stuff that made Stick think Rosie might have been another one of his mules, which is why she was so scared when we showed up asking questions.

  “He even told me he loved Lucy,” Stick says.

  I remember when Lucy’s old school friend shared her suspicions with us that the guy Lucy had fallen for back then was abusing her, leaving her bruised and battered.

  “Jake never loved anybody but himself. Never touched anything he didn’t hurt.”

  Even after Stick had given up everything he knew, Jake kept beating on him till he was sure there was no more.

  “Thought he was gonna kill me,” Stick says. “He took my picture. Said, ‘Smile for Tiny.’ ”

  I shake my head. All those times growing up that I stood towering beside Stick as his unofficial bodyguard, scaring off the bullies who had him in their sights, but when he needed me most, I wasn’t there.

  “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this mess,” I tell him. “Almost got you dead. And for what?”

  “It’s not like the movies. When it’s for real, sometimes the bad guy wins.”

  I start to cry. Can’t help it. He reaches for my face but doesn’t have the strength to lift his arm. I take his hand, cool to the touch, and press it between my palms to warm him up.

  “Don’t worry, Ty. I’ll live. You know how it is, some sticks break and some just bend. Like me.”

  I sniffle. He’s a wreck, and he’s trying to make me feel better. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Nah. But how about you play naughty nurse? Give me a sponge bath, with a happy ending.” His mouth twitches with a small smile.

  I laugh. “Don’t think you’re up to it.”

  “I’m always up for it,” he says sleepily.

  But his eyes are sliding shut, and soon he’s snoring softly. I cover him with his comforter and listen to him breathe. It’s a good sound.

  Maybe the bad guy won. But all that matters is I’ve got him. My bent Stick.

  I DON’T KNOW how to talk to Dad anymore, how to be with him. Now it isn’t lies keeping us apart, it’s the truth of what he did, and why. Even though I get his reasons for cleaning up his brother’s mess and hiding from his own guilt afterward. And all these years later with Lucy’s body turning up, how he had to protect the life he’d made for himself. And guard his family.

  I don’t really feel like he’s a stranger. I know who he is. I just don’t know who we are, together.

  So I keep my distance. Not hard with him working overtime on the Zoo’s cracked foundation. That’s what Dad was fighting about with Slimy the day he came here. Slimy wanted to do some cheap patchwork to hide the damage, but Dad said it was too dangerous to cover up.

  I used to wonder why Dad never escaped the Zoo. With his wrecked ankle killing any college basketball dreams, and so beaten down by his father, I guess he couldn’t see a way out. When Mad Dog died he took over as super to take care of his mother, and he just got stuck here.

  Anyway, my focus now is on two things—Stick getting better, and my game. I’m only home to eat and sleep; the rest of the time I’m in school, at the gym or hanging with Stick at his place. No more slacking with my workouts. I do endless laps in the pool to get my lungs and endurance back, practice with the team to regain my rhythm. Because this is it! My senior year, my final season and my last chance to show the college scouts what Big Meat can do.

  Two girls at Queen’s Cross are already signed and committed to schools. I need to hustle. It’s now or never.

  After a week on a liquid diet—mostly milk shakes, pudding and ice cream—Stick can chew again. The only permanent damage is a missing molar. The swelling goes down and the bruises fade, so he’s my Stick again. Only different. It’s like he gets lost in his head sometimes, where I’ll be talking to him and he’ll be just gone. He’s slower to smile, and scares easy. Jumpy as hell. A door slams and to him it’s like a gunshot. I catch him looking behind him, on constant guard, watching his back. Can’t blame him. I try telling him he’s safe now. Jake’s a psycho and a drunk, but he’s not stupid. Too many of us know the truth for him to try anything. And he got what he wanted—the evidence of his crime—so there’s nothing to connect him to some disappeared dead girl the world’s already forgotten. It’s over.

  But not for Stick. He’s haunted by nightmares, and all I can do is be there for him through the panic attacks. I talk him down, calming and distracting him. Getting him to breathe.

  He doesn’t blame Dad, the way I do. Dad’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a father. Stick’s been talking to him a lot more than I have these past weeks.

  When the cops try to follow up on the assault report, they have to deal with Mom. She speaks for me, telling them nothing. In basketball it’s called “setting a screen,” where your teammate keeps your opponent from getting to you. With Stick not talking to them either and nobody pushing to file a report, they drop it.

  On the hard court, back in the game, I’m on a mission. Blocking and rebounding, fighting for the ball. A defense machine. Protecting my girls.

  Stick cheers me on from the stands, and Mom brings Squirrel to the games when she’s not working the night shift. What’s missing is Dad. He’s been to every game I ever played. But now he stays away. Mom says it’s because he thinks I don’t want him there. He doesn’t want to distract.

  Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. All I do know is that even when the stands are full, there’s an empty place.

  My knee still hurts, but the doc tells me it’s healing fine. I lost some muscle when I was sidelined, and now that I’m back in beast workout mode, I have to eat like one.

  Right now, it’s dinner and I’m making bottomless bowls of spaghetti and meatballs disappear.

  We all still eat together, Mom makes sure of that. Even with me and Dad not talking, like we’re invisible to each other across the kitchen table. Squirrel saves us from our silence with his nonstop commentary, everything that pops into his head.

  “You’re gonna explode,” he says, watching me feast with shock and awe.

  “Nah. I could eat a mountain of meatballs.”

  “I saw a guy eat sixty-eight hot dogs in ten minutes on TV. And he won, like, the eating Olympics. Bet you could beat his record.”

  “I could eat a hundred hot dogs, and still have room for a squirrel.”

  I lunge like I’m going to take a bite out of him. He ducks me, squealing with laughter.

  Mom shakes her head. “My kid the cannibal. Where did I go wrong?”

  The phone rings.

  Dad gets up to answer it. The super’s always on duty.

  “Hello. What? Wait. Slow down. What’s wrong?” He listens for a while, leaning on the counter, head down. “My God, you sure? Ho
w did…”

  It sounds like a major disaster. Me and Mom exchange a look.

  “Okay. I’m coming. I’m on my way.” After hanging up, Dad just stands there, staring at the phone.

  “What is it?” Mom asks.

  He looks stunned. Takes him a moment to answer. “It’s Jake.”

  “What does he want?” she says.

  “I mean, that was about Jake. He’s…he’s dead.”

  KIDS DON’T GET death.

  After all those nature shows Squirrel’s seen, with the hunting and killing, blood and gore, you’d think he’d understand what it means. But I guess for him that’s all TV stuff.

  At the funeral, he kept asking me,

  “Uncle Jake’s in the box?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He holding his breath?”

  “No.”

  “Sleeping?”

  “No.”

  “He coming back?”

  I shook my head, putting my arm around him.

  A good-sized crowd showed up for the funeral, mostly people connected with Jake’s business.

  Why was I there? Why even go? It’s cold to say, but I came to see him gone. In the ground. It’s like how Gran keeps Mad Dog’s ashes—to be sure it’s all over, that he’s not coming back. So I can tell Stick he doesn’t have to feel scared and hunted anymore. Maybe it won’t end his nightmares, but he can rest easier.

  They’re calling Jake’s death a freak accident. It happened on Highway 401 outside Toronto. He was driving to work in the city during the morning rush hour. Witnesses say the scene was horrific.

  Smoke started pouring out from under the hood of his Mustang. Jake pulled off onto the shoulder. Before he could even stop, flames burst from the engine. And he couldn’t get out. People saw him struggling to get the door open, but it must have jammed. Whatever went wrong, it went bad fast. The fire spread from the engine to the interior. The windows were sealed tight and bystanders said he was frantically trying to kick out the windshield as the car filled with black smoke and flames.

  I saw the TV news report showing the incinerated frame of the Mustang, the tires melted to lumps of black rubber. A trucker who witnessed it all looked shaken.