At ten, Holden and I met Miller at the arcade. He got off his shift and we walked the Boardwalk, stopping for slices of pizza and to play a few carnival games. After, I walked home.
I walked everywhere. Luckily, the school, the Shack, Shiloh’s place, and my apartment were all close enough to each other that I didn’t need a car. But it would’ve fucking helped.
I climbed the exterior cement steps up to my corner place, reaching for my keys. But the door swung open at the slightest touch, revealing a wedge of black that was deep and dark.
“Nelson?” I asked, my hand creeping toward my jacket pocket for the Taser I’d swiped from Frankie. “You here?”
I reached to my right, feeling along the wall to flip on the light when I sensed it. Him. Someone waiting…
The dark came to life, breathing and moving. I lunged blindly and something heavy whacked my wrist. The Taser went skittering across the linoleum in the kitchen. Big hands gripped me by the neck and shoulders, and a cannonball of pain exploded as a knee drove up into my gut. Another blow from out of the dark split my lip, and then I was shoved to the ground.
I was still trying to get my wind when the light flipped on.
A huge guy loomed over me, his back to my busted door. He looked to be middle aged, wearing track pants, a T-shirt that stretched over his bulk, and a blue windbreaker. His reddish hair was thinning on top and he had pale blue eyes stuffed in a ruddy face.
I scrambled to my feet, rage burning up the pain and shock.
“You want to try that shit again?” I snarled. “With the lights on?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the guy said when I took a step toward him. He moved his blue windbreaker aside to reveal a holstered pistol at his waist. His smile sent shivers down my spine. It was the same kind of sick smile my dad wore when he announced that my mother was “in trouble.”
“Ronan Wentz, right?” the guy said. “My name is Mitch. But you can call me Officer Dowd.”
Mitch Dowd. He looked and sounded deadly casual, but I could feel the readiness tensing in him, waiting for me to make a move.
“I could have you arrested for breaking my son’s nose, but I prefer to handle things personally.”
“Fuck you.” I spat a wad of red onto my carpet at his feet. “And fuck him too.”
Mitch chuckled, though his gaze grew flatter. “I read your file, Wentz. You’re a criminal. A degenerate, just like your father.” His eyes went to the Taser lying a few feet away. “A thief, too, who steals police property. I believe that belongs to me, son.”
Christ, he sounded like my dad.
“I want you to go over there and hand it to me. Slowly. Slowly.”
He rested one hand on the butt of his pistol, one hand outstretched, waiting. I retrieved the Taser from the kitchen and crossed the small space to him, our eyes locked. Every muscle in my body was coiled tight, ready to spring. But something besides adrenaline zipped along my nerves like an electric current.
Fear.
He looked nothing like my dad and yet the resemblance was uncanny, catapulting me to another time. My breath came short. Mouth dry. I put the Taser in his left hand. It touched skin, and the blue of his jacket blurred as his fist slammed into my eye in a blow I should’ve seen coming.
My head rang, but I took the hit with a grunt and answered by throwing a right hook that connected with his mouth. It would’ve knocked another guy flat, but Mitch hardly flinched. I took a shot to the kidney, another to the gut, and then he was hurling me across the room. I crashed, shoulder first, into the cheap wooden coffee table that splintered under me like kindling.
With a satisfied smile, Mitch ran his thumb under his lip, wiping a trickle of blood.
“This was a warning, Wentz,” he said, heading for the door. “You only get one.”
He went out and I lay for a minute in the wreckage of the table, feeling drunk on pain and bloody memories.
Slowly, my head cleared, and I hauled myself to my feet just as Maryann Greer from downstairs poked her head inside.
“Ronan…? Oh my God…”
I waved her off, but it was too late. She rushed in and put gentle, steadying hands on me as she guided me to the kitchen table.
“What in the hell happened? I heard a crash and saw a man leaving. Big one.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, slouching into the chair, keeping a hand over my eye that was already swelling shut. “You should go.”
If he comes back…
“Go?” Maryann stood over me, her blue eyes studying me. She wore jeans, an old sweatshirt, her dark blond hair in a messy ponytail. “Fat chance. I’m calling the police.”
“He was the police.”
Gently, she moved my hand from my eye. “Sweet Jesus, what happened? And don’t say nothing.”
“It’s over. He came to settle a score. That’s it.”
“You have scores with cops?” Maryann rummaged in my freezer, found it empty and checked out the fridge. “You have no ice. Hardly any food, either.”
“I’m fine.”
“My ass. Stay right there,” she said going to the door. “Don’t move.”
“Maryann…”
But she was already gone.
A flare of anger in me wanted more fight—a fair fight—but shame washed it away. A single fluorescent bulb lit my dim apartment. My coffee table was a heap of busted wood. A splotch of blood stained the carpet.
Sorry, Mom. I’m trying.
Maryann came back with a bag of frozen peas. Instead of handing it to me, she stood over me and pressed the bag to my eye, her other hand gently holding the back of my neck. For long moments, I just sat there with Maryann and her peas, her worry and concern wafting over me in warm, motherly waves. She smelled like lemon dish soap.
I closed my eyes and let myself have that for a minute, then stiffened to push her away.
“I got it, thanks.” I took the bag and held it to my eye. “You can go.”
Maryann pursed her lips, then sat in the chair across from me and rested her arms on the card table in a way that said I’m not going anywhere.
“You’re young, aren’t you?” she asked. “You go to the high school?”
“When I can get there.”
“Who takes care of you? Not your uncle,” she said darkly. “He doesn’t take care of sh—” Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes anxious. “I mean no disrespect.”
“It’s okay. He’s an ass.”
“What can I do?” she asked. “Because this”—she gestured at the smashed table— “is not okay.”
I knew Maryann Greer worked her ass off at an accounting company and took online classes to get a degree. To get a better job and make a better life for her girls. Weariness was written in every line of her face that made her look older than she was.
“I don’t need anything.”
I’m not taking anything from you.
“I disagree. Ronan, I—”
“Mommy?”
Lillian and Camille, her six-year-old twins, were peeking their heads inside, sleepy and curious.
“I told you both to stay in bed,” Maryann said.
“We couldn’t sleep,” said one.
“Yeah, it was loud up here,” said the other.