Ever.
“Hey, man. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“Just don’t screw it up, okay?”
Back on the road, I thought about Chance’s worn clothing, his single pair of blown-out sneakers. He acted as if dressing that way was a choice. He’d been doing it so well and for so long that I’d forgotten it was an act. Chance brought his lunch in a brown bag. At school, he didn’t even buy milk. “You want to come over?” I asked.
“With your mom around? No thanks.”
The comment could be taken two ways. My father earned a cop’s salary, but my mother came from money, and it showed. The nice house. The fine clothes. We decorated for Christmas, and did it in style. Chance combed the local woods for a tree that was green and the right shape. I usually helped him drag it home and set it up. “You want to do something else? Pinball, maybe? They have a new machine at the Gulf station on Innes.”
“Nah. Take me home.”
It was one of those days now. Talk of poverty had invited in everything else that was real, and that included graduation, the future, Vietnam. Twelve days from graduation, and the draft was out there, and waiting. As if to reinforce the thought, we passed a billboard five miles down:
HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE SELECTIVE SERVICE?
IT’S THE LAW!
They wanted our names, addresses, the best way to fill the ranks. And it wasn’t my brothers alone who’d made it real. We both had friends who’d gone and died. “How did it feel to sign those papers?”
I asked it to make conversation, but Chance averted his eyes. “I haven’t done it yet.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Once a man turned eighteen, the law allowed thirty days to sign up. I still had time, but Chance’s birthday was three months before mine. “Are you serious?” I asked.
“It’s a bullshit law.”
“But still a law.”
“It’s a bullshit war.”
It occurred to me then that we’d not spoken of Vietnam in months, and I realized now that the reticence had come from Chance. If I raised the subject, he laughed it off. If I pushed, he deflected in some other way. I’d been so caught up in my own frustrations, I’d not thought twice about it. But my best friend had just revealed more in two short sentences than he had in three long months.
A bullshit law …
A bullshit war …
I wanted to push, but knew at a look he wouldn’t have it. The silence continued until I stopped at his house: a dingy cube with a blue tarp on the roof, where it leaked around the chimney. “You want me to come in?” I asked.
“I told Mom I’d clean the kitchen.”
“I can help if you want.”
“Nah, I’m good.” Chance climbed out and closed the door. “Don’t forget what I said about Becky Collins. You might not see the chip on her shoulder, but it’s there and it’s big.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“See you at school.”
I watched him into the house, but stayed on the street for another moment. Was it possible my best friend was afraid to register for the draft? I couldn’t see it. Some kind of conscientious objector? Protests against the war were on the streets and in the news, but those were hippies and cowards and people in big cities.
What happened when someone like Chance broke the law?
Would they come looking for my friend?
Like Chance, I had little desire to go home. Instead, I pointed the car at the city line. I couldn’t remember the exact house where I’d collected Jason the other day, but I remembered the intersection: Water Street and Tenth. When I got there, a couple guys were in the front yard throwing a football back and forth. They were older with long hair, lit cigarettes, and T-shirts with the sleeves cut away. I parked the car, followed a cracked sidewalk, and waited until one looked at me. “Hey. I’m looking for my brother.”
“Who’s that?”
“Jason.”
“In the back.”
I said thanks, and ducked my head so the football wouldn’t take it off. Inside, I followed the sound of clanking metal to another open door and a small porch on the back of the house. Jason was there, shirtless in faded jeans. He was doing curls with a heavy bar and thick plates. When he saw me, he lifted his chin.
“What’s up, little brother? You need something?”
“Hey, it’s cool. Finish your set.”
He worked through the rest of his set, and veins popped in his arms, no fat anywhere. What I saw most clearly was the bruising. It ran on the left side of his face, and on his ribs, too, seven or eight places, each the size of a fist. He lowered the bar, then whipped a shirt off the rail and shrugged it on, speaking as he did. “What are you doing here?”
I pointed at his ribs. “I heard about the fight.”
“What, this?”
“Bikers, I heard.”
“A few, maybe. Who told you?” Jason flipped the lid on a Styrofoam cooler and dug around for a Budweiser. “Chance, right? I saw his cousin there. Weasel-looking little sucker.”
“He said it was pretty hard-core.”
“Is that right?”
He handed me a beer. I opened it. “What was it about?”
“The fight?” He shrugged. “Tyra, I guess.”
“How so?”
“She’s a shameless flirt. And she gets ideas.” There was a lie in there somewhere, or at least some evasion. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m done with her, anyway. You seen Sara?”
A sudden flush embarrassed me. Sara was a fantasy, a schoolboy’s dream. “Not since the day.”
“You should follow up on that. She’s a good girl, and not like Tyra.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“So, why are you here?”
He leaned on the rail, and it was strange to see cop eyes in a convict’s face. I tried to find the best answer: that I didn’t want to go home, that maybe it was about Sara. Deep down, though, it was about being brothers. “Bored, I guess.”
“You should try prison sometime.”
He drained the can and crumpled it; and I tried to understand why things felt so different from the last time. He was aloof, impatient. He scratched at an arm, and I thought, Shit, is he using?
“So, uh. You want me to … you know?” I hooked a thumb at the hall leading through the house.
“Yeah, man. It’s not really the best day. Maybe this weekend.”
“We could catch a movie. Maybe shoot some hoop.”
“Let’s talk about it later, yeah?”
He came off the railing, and I looked again at the bruises, the torn skin. There was more to say, but I never found the time to say it. We heard a racing engine, then the squeal of rubber as something fast and loose took the corner five houses down. The engine screamed louder, and metal scraped metal. Voices from the front yard: The fuck, man? Watch it! Watch it! The crash that followed was louder and close, and extreme for the silence that followed. Seconds later, a voice carried the length of the hall.
“Jason, yo! You better get out here!” I followed my brother through the house. A man with the same voice said, “Yo, it’s your girl.”