He bursts into laughter and claps his hands together, then runs his hand through his ratty hair.
He turns and looks at me. “Hey, Mac.”
“You good?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says with a smile.
His eyes are like tiny little beads.
He’s high as a cloud.
Jakey comes running Winston’s way, whistling and clapping his hands.
“That was fucking ace!” Jakey yelled.
“Man, that was bold as fuck,” Winston says.
I shake my head and keep walking.
I go to the railing and lean against it.
Down at the shore I see some of Van’s guys.
They’re standing and pointing to the waves.
Behind me the sound of the wheels on the halfpipes are like their own music or something. Like the waves hitting the shore, you know? The skateboarders, the bladers, the bikers… they all have their own noise.
I turn my head and see someone new at the bikers.
You ever see those things they call fanny packs?
Yeah, well, this new guy has one with the pack bouncing off his ass as he walks.
He grabs a bike and starts to ride.
This guy takes the halfpipe and does a full backflip on his first ride.
I nod and look forward again.
I light a cigarette and wait for Les and Taz to show up.
We have to figure things out as a crew, but right now, I just need Les and Taz.
Aric, Raf, and Ado are handling the campus business for me.
I told Aric and Raf to make sure all the pretty girls are feeling good. And I told Ado to handle the rough shit and I’ll throw him a little extra cash at the end of the day.
So everyone fucking wins.
I hear Taz’s booming voice behind me.
I turn and lean into the corner of the railing.
I fist bump Les first, then Taz.
“We’ve got a new guy over there,” I say to them as I nod to the bikers. “I’ll have to ask Peg Leg Mikey about it. Not sure where he is right now.”
“That’s not why we’re here, is it?” Les asks.
“No,” I say. “I wanted you guys alone to talk about something.”
Taz nods. “Can we guess?”
“It’s not a fucking game, bro,” I say.
“I know it’s not,” Taz says. “I almost died.”
“So did I,” I say.
“I almost fucked up,” Les says.
“I know, bro. I’m sorry for how that went down. How I reacted to it all. I’m still putting this together in my head. I have to tell you something.”
“Go for it,” Les says.
“Jolie brought it up earlier. Shit she saw happening.”
“With Mama?” Taz asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Little things. She forgot to turn the burner on when cooking. Then the night Jolie helped us, she found Mama on the floor in the house. Just sitting on the kitchen floor.”
“Holy shit,” Taz says. “Was she okay?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t know. I mean, she wasn’t hurt. I got pissed at Jolie for even bringing it up. I got really pissed at her actually. But she was right. You know this is really fucked up to deal with.”
Les rubs his jaw. “This isn’t good, bro.”
“How do we even handle this?” Taz asks. “Mama isn’t the type to listen.”
“We can’t say anything to her,” I say.
Les looks at me. “You sure about that?”
“Look at what we’re in the middle of, bro,” I say. “We have to finish this thing with Jolie’s old man. We have to figure out who he really is. We can’t have anything else go wrong.”
“How’s that possible if Mama isn’t right in the head?” Taz asks.
“Fuck, don’t say it like that,” I snap.
“Then what is it, Mac?” Les yells at me. “Huh? What is it?”
I turn and look to the ocean.
“I don’t know what I want to call it yet,” I say. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Taz says. He leans against the railing next to me and looks at the ocean too.
Les is on the other side of me.
I look at him.
He’s not happy.
Why would he be?
This is messed up.
It’s sad too.
But it’s also scary.
Anymore slip ups… or even just any slip up… it can hurt everyone.
It can hurt Jolie.
That’s my main worry.
Hurting Jolie.
There’s a piece of my heart and mind that wonder if the right thing is to find the truth about her father and then tell her to get out of this life.
And I mean it.
Every inch and aspect of this life… get the fuck out, sweetie.
“What’s the plan, Mac?” Les asks.
“The plan is…” I swallow hard. “I’ll be involved more. No more taking messages from Mama. When she says something, we nod or whatever, but then we have to find out for ourselves what’s happening. We just have to keep going here. There’s no choice. But we have to keep an eye on her. See if anything else happens.”
“That sounds risky,” Taz says.
“What’s the other side of it?” I ask. “We tell her we know something’s wrong? Then what?”
“Fuck,” Les says. He pushes from the railing. “Fuck this.”
He grabs the railing and jumps it.
He takes a handful of steps and stops.
Taz starts to move over the railing and I punch his shoulder.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say.
I jump the railing and walk up to Les.
“What the fuck is going on here, bro?” Les asks.
“I don’t know, Les,” I say. “This might be the biggest thing we’ve ever had to deal with. And it just keeps piling up right now.”
“No shit, Mac.”
“We can’t lose our edge here, Les. We just have to be careful. She’s only forgetting little things.”
“For now,” Les say.
I sigh. “I know that, bro. That’s why I said we’ll get the info ourselves. This thing with Jolie’s old man is going to end quick. We just have to know who he really is in all of this shit. Then it’s done. Then we can talk to Mama. Try to find a way to do it quietly. Calmly. Fuck, man, maybe it’s just age. Time and age, right? Maybe she needs some vitamins or a pill…”
Les looks at me. “Vitamins or a pill?”
I shrug my shoulders. “What do you want me to say? That she’s sick? Like sick-sick? That she’s losing her mind? That she’s going to keep slipping and get worse? That one day she won’t remember who we are? That she’s going to have to live somewhere else and die alone? Is that what you want?”
“I didn’t say that, Mac. Fuck, bro, why do you-”
I hear a whistle behind me.
I turn my head and Taz is standing with his arms folded.
Nodding toward the bikers.
I look and see an old piece of shit that shouldn’t be there.
Stimmy.
And he’s talking to the new guy with the fanny pack.
“That doesn’t seem like a good thing,” Les says to me.
“No, it doesn’t,” I say.