I shrugged. “Sure, if you’re an asshole or an idiot. Andrew is neither—his shine is on par with some of the best in the country. It’s a real operation, with real equipment…it just ain’t legal, as he don’t have a proper permit. Point being, his hooch is powerful.”
“How much did you drink?”
I shrugged. “Lost track after about an hour. I wasn’t trying to chug it, as I ain’t interested in dying. All I remember is Andrew would refill my cup whenever it emptied. I know I saw him uncork a new bottle more than once, but they was all drinkin’ too. When I came to, there was three empty bottles, and Andrew, Fox, and Royal stayed passed out for a whole day. We were all sick as hell for three days. Wonder of it was that none of us were the worse for wear, but I know after that, Andrew never bugged me about drinking again. Said what he saw me do that night, in terms of the amount I drank, was just purely terrifying to behold.” I shook my head. “Don’t remember much, but when I woke up, my whole body hurt worse than the time I got hit by a truck. None of my buddies would tell me what I done, but there was a whole hell of a lotta broken shit at the camp, so I figure…well, I figure it wasn’t pretty.”
Cassie frowned up at me. “That’s crazy. Charlie and I did a moonshine tasting during a vacation to Tennessee, and it only took us a little bit to get crazy drunk.”
“Who’s Charlie?” I asked.
“My older sister,” Cassie said. “Real name is Charlotte but, like me not wanting to be called Cassandra, you just don’t do it. I don’t think even Mom has called Charlie Charlotte except maybe once or twice in the last…shoot, ten years? I think the last time Mom called her Charlotte was when she was sixteen and I was fourteen. We were out with some of Charlie’s friends, one of whom had a license and a car.”
“Oh boy, that spells trouble,” I said.
She laughed, nodding. “No kidding. So I talked Charlie into letting me tag along with her and her friends. Six of us, I think? Wasn’t even supposed to be more than one person in the car with the driver in the first place, but there we were, all six of us. Eleven at night, all of us out past our curfews. And our one friend says ‘hey, I know where my dad keeps his liquor. Wanna try some?’”
I chuckled. “Ohhh dear.”
“Oh dear is right. None of us had a clue about alcohol. All we knew was it was forbidden and illegal, and therefore exciting. So we snuck into Katie’s house, into her basement, and we started taking swigs right from the bottle.”
I eyed her. “Swigs of what?”
“We didn’t know. An old dusty bottle is all we knew. Figured, if it was old and dusty, it must mean her dad didn’t like it, so he wouldn’t notice any missing.”
I palmed my forehead. “Oh shit. It was something rare, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Rare, meaning a bottle of hundred-year-old scotch worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars, handed down to him by his grandfather.”
“Oh no. Oh man, you must’ve gotten in so much trouble.”
“You don’t even know. He found us, so drunk off a few sips each, that we were cackling in the basement, on the floor, at two in the morning. He drove each of us home, chewed out our parents and us, then pressed theft charges…”
“He did not.”
“He did. Theft.” She shrugged, sighing. “He only pushed it enough to scare us all stupid. We didn’t get any lasting records out of it, but we did get community service hours, on top of having to do yardwork for Mr. McClellan every Saturday morning for six months.”
“And your parents?”
“Mom was fucking apoplectic. Like, so mad she couldn’t even shout. She was just white and silent with absolute rage. Didn’t speak to either of us for three days. Called us each by our full names every time she spoke to us for a week after that, which was to assign us all the chores in the entire house for a month, and then send us to our rooms as soon as we were done. Charlie got it the worst, though, because as the older sister, she was responsible for me and should’ve known better.”
“Wow.” I eyed her. “How many sisters do you have?”
“Four. I’m second oldest, Charlie is the oldest. After me is Lexie, then Torie, and Poppy is the baby.”
“Charlie, Cassie, Lexie, Torie, and Poppy.”
She nodded. “Charlotte, Cassandra, Alexandra, Victoria, and…Poppy. The only one whose name isn’t short for anything.” Cassie swirled her beer, swigged. “You? Any brothers or sisters?”
I shook my head. “Nah. Just me. I got a shitload of cousins, though. Mostly second cousins or first cousins once removed.”
“I’ve never understood how that works.”
I laughed. “I’m an expert. My mom’s sister’s child is my cousin, Juneau. My Mom’s sister—my aunt, has grandchildren—those grandchildren, my mother’s sister’s children’s children, are my first cousins once removed. My mom is the baby of her family of four brothers and three sisters, and her next oldest sister—Juneau’s mom—is way older than her and has six kids, of whom June-bug is the youngest by several years.”
She blinked at me. “Wow, so…you have a big family.”
“A big, complicated family. Most of whom live far away from here, far from anything you might understand as civilization. Most of ’em live, for all intents and purposes, the way our family has lived for hundreds of years. We got electricity and plumbing, cell phones and satellite TV and laptops, but that’s all just…gravy. Day to day life is all pretty much the same as it’s been for…well, generations.”
She gazed at me for a moment. “Wow. That’s…it’s really cool, actually.”
“Not when you’re a teenage kid who just wants to feel normal, it ain’t.” I took a sip. “I feel different about it now, but only because I sorta walked away from it all and did my own thing.”
“Which is what?”
I tapped my forearm. “This.”
“Tattoos?”
I nodded. “Yep. I own a tattoo shop. I’ve been doing tattoos for years. Taught myself, and then apprenticed to the best tattoo artist in Ketchikan, worked for him from the time I was fifteen doing tattoos the traditional way out of his trailer until I was old enough to get a license and do modern tattoos using a special gun, you know? Did that for a few more years, saved every penny I made, and bought my shop.”
“Did your family not approve?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I mean…it’s complicated. It was obvious from the time I could hold on to things with my hands that I’m the type of person who’s meant to do one thing, know what I mean? Like some people are just…created by whatever you want to believe in, for one specific person. Like God or the universe or nature just looked at unformed me and went, ‘This kid, he’s a tattoo artist. That’s his thing, his only thing. But he’s gonna be the best at it.’”
She was silent, staring into the bubbling tan liquid in her glass. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I know all about that.”
I stared at her, letting the silence open up. Clearly, a sore subject. Something to do with her anger, her limp, and her stated desire to get blackout drunk today. But I knew enough not to pry, not to push. If I just held my counsel and my tongue, chances were, she’d start talking eventually.