Dunk (2 page)

I laughed out loud at the image.

But school was done, and Ms. Hargrove was nothing more than an unpleasant memory. I'd never be in her class again. I'd never be a tenth grader again, trapped in a room with any of those other teachers who thought I was a loser. I had the whole summer ahead of me. And I was in the perfect place for enjoying myself. Between the beach and the boardwalk, this was heaven on earth. And right now I was headed for a tasty part of that heaven.

Halfway to Salvatore's, I heard another amazing sound. Actually, it was three sounds:
ploop
. . . . . . .
BAWAP!
. . .
humph
. . . . . . .
ploop
. . . . . .
BAWAP!
. . . .
humph
. . .

I went to the beach side of the boardwalk and leaned over the railing. Sure enough, there was my buddy Jason, working out by himself at a volleyball court. He backed away from the net and hit the ball,
ploop
, sending it up about fifteen feet. As it fell, he moved into position, then leaped up for a monster spike.
BAWAP!
Microseconds later, the ball plowed into the sand with the force of a rocket.
Humph
.

In one smooth motion Jason slipped under the net, chased after the ball, and scooped it up. He reminded me of a surfer or a cartoon Tarzan sliding through the jungle. That's the funny thing about Jason. If you took a quick glance at him, you'd think
California beach bum
, since he's big and strong with bright blond hair that looks like it's been baking in the sun all his life. No way. He's a city kid. He moved here from New York three years ago.

“Hey,” I called. “Want to get a slice?”

“Later,” Jason called back. He held up the ball. “Want to play?”

“No, thanks.” There'd be plenty of time for volleyball. Besides, it wasn't exactly my best sport. I'd been on the wrong end of Jason's spikes too often. Even when he took it easy, the ball shot at me with enough force to do damage. Once, just for fun, he played me with his right hand behind his back. He still kicked my butt. It was like playing against a cannon.

Three girls in halter tops and shorts walked near the railing and glanced down at the beach. They actually stopped and whispered to each other for a moment when they caught sight of Jason. I thought about saying hi, but they didn't notice me.

“Fan club,” I said after they'd moved on.

Jason shrugged. He never seemed to let it go to his head.

“See you tonight?” I asked.

“Sure. Around seven?” He jogged to the pole on the far side of the net and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Yeah. Meet me at my place.”

Jason nodded, then took a big gulp from the bottle. Too big. He coughed, spraying water across the sand.

“Hey, better lay off the cigarettes,” I told him. That was a joke, since Jason was a total health nut. I think he had about minus seven percent body fat.

He was still coughing, but not as violently. “You okay?” I asked.

He nodded, so I headed off. I went to Salvatore's and bought two slices to go, eating them as I walked back to my place. My pleasure lasted until I got inside. The moment I saw Mom's face, I knew she was excited about something. Unfortunately, her idea of good news was usually a world apart from mine.

“G
UESS WHAT
? I
FOUND A NEW TENANT
,” M
OM SAID BEFORE
I even had a chance to close the door.

“Wonderful.” I tried to say it without groaning too much. We owned the whole house, but Mom rented out the second floor. Our living room and kitchen were pretty much one open space, with just a counter in between. Aside from that, we had a bathroom and a tiny bedroom. Mom got the bedroom. I slept on the foldout couch. I'm not complaining. I've seen too many people sleeping on the streets to ever bitch about any bed that had a roof over it. I'm just saying the place was about as small as a home could be and still be eligible for an address. When Mom—actually, Mom and Dad—had bought the place, they'd figured they'd live here for a while and then rent the house out. Work hard, buy more houses. The whole deal. Things hadn't turned out that way.

The apartment upstairs had the same layout, with a separate entrance. That was good, because I'd hate having a stranger walking through the house all the time. It's bad enough that someone would be living overhead. As I thought about the inevitable footsteps, I glanced up at the ceiling.

“He's not here right now. He's moving in later today,” Mom said.

“I'm more interested in when he's moving out.” The old tenant had left over a month ago, and I'd really hoped the place would stay empty for the summer.

“He's a very nice man,” Mom said. “He came here last night while you were out. He's going to be teaching at the community college this fall.”

Fall was a long way off. “Did you get a deposit?” I asked. Mom was so busy with work and her classes that she sometimes forgot stuff like that.

“He just started a summer job. He told me he'd have the money in a couple days.”

“Oh, that's great. Listen, if he doesn't pay up by the end of the week, he's out of here.” I couldn't believe she'd trust a stranger.

“That's not your decision,” Mom said. She opened the fridge and grabbed a takeout bag from the diner.

“How'd he hear about it?” I asked. We hadn't put a sign in the window. That was an invitation for trouble. Mom spread the word to folks she knew.

“Doc over at the arcade gave him my name. If Doc says he's okay, I'm sure he'll be fine.” She pulled a sandwich from the bag. “Tuna. Want half?”

“No, thanks.” I gave up. There was no point in arguing. She'd already rented the place. Obviously, I wasn't going to win that battle. But a more important battle was waiting.

“We can use the extra money,” Mom said as she sat down at the table.

No news flash there. We always needed money. The problem was, we couldn't even get that good a rental rate. We were three and a half blocks from the beach. The places right next to the boardwalk could charge a lot more. And you made the most money renting by the day or the week. But Mom wanted a long-term tenant. She'd had enough change in her life. So had I.

“Things are pretty tight right now,” Mom added.

Talk about a perfect chance. “I saw a sign at the bookstore. They have a job opening. Full-time for the whole summer. Mr. Salazar over at the taco stand needs someone, too. He said he'd train me. There are openings all over the place.” My fists clenched as I waited for an answer.

Mom shook her head. “You know how I feel about that.”

Yeah, I knew how she felt about that. I fought the urge to kick the couch. “I've heard it a million times. You grew up so poor you couldn't even afford a dirt floor. You started working at the age of three. Or was it two? I forget.” Why did she think her childhood had anything to do with my life? That was ancient history.

“Thirteen,” Mom said. “It's nothing to joke about.”

“But everyone has a job. Jason, Mike, Ellie.” Jason worked almost every day after school, then knocked off in the summer so he could play volleyball. Mike worked summers for a guy who owned five game booths near the center of the boardwalk. And Ellie, who'd just graduated, had a summer job as a lifeguard.

“You'll be working your whole life once you get out of school,” Mom said. “I want you to enjoy yourself while you can. Maybe next summer you can get a job.”

“But—”

Mom took a step closer. “Look at me, Chad. I'm thirty-two, and I could probably pass for forty. That's what hard work will do to you.”

And having a kid when you're seventeen
, I thought. The guilt wrapped around the anger tight enough to smother it. I felt I'd drown if I didn't break the tension. “Hey, looking older wouldn't be so bad,” I said. “If I could pass for twenty-one, I could buy beer.”

Mom shook her head and smiled. I felt both of us relax. Then she had to say it. “You're so clever. You got your dad's way of talking.”

“I've got
nothing
of him in me,” I said, smacking the table hard enough to make my flesh sting. Why the hell did she have to mention that loser?

Mom balled up the remains of her sandwich in the bag and tossed it into the kitchen garbage, then started cleaning the counter, even though it was already clean.

I turned on the television and watched some idiot explain how easy it was to get rich if you followed his simple formula. Beyond the noise and chatter of the infomercial, a silence hung in the room. I wished she had a clue how I felt. I wasn't asking to spend sixteen hours a day in a factory. I was asking for permission to have a lousy summer job. Something to help keep me busy. Something to help keep me from screwing up.

W
HEN THE INFOMERCIAL ENDED
, I
GLANCED OVER AT
M
OM
, who was standing by the table watching me. She shifted her eyes toward the floor. “Things will be better soon. . . .”

“Yeah, it'll be okay,” I told her. Though I knew things would be a lot better if she'd just let me help. Right now, Mom had a job as a waitress at the Leaping Dolphin Restaurant, which, despite the name, was really just a huge diner. She was taking classes at night to learn how to be a legal secretary, so she was only able to work the breakfast and lunch shifts.

Dad was two or three years behind on his support checks, and about as likely to catch up as I was to grow a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Not that we needed his help. The last time we'd heard from him, right before Christmas, he'd actually tried to borrow money from Mom.

So, as my friend Corey would say, we had a cash-flow problem. That's why we rented half of our house to strangers.

I guess it didn't matter about the apartment. I wasn't planning to spend much time indoors. Maybe the new tenant would be okay, if Doc had sent him. Doc owned the best arcade on the boardwalk. He looked like the world's largest gnome. He yelled a lot, but when he was in a good mood he let me play games for free. He paid me to run errands, too.

Since Mom wouldn't allow me to get a regular job, I picked up money running errands, like if a guy needed something and couldn't leave his shop, I'd go get it for him. They'd send me to the post office or ask me to pick up parts from the hardware store. I guess I owed the whole thing to Doc. One day a couple years ago, he'd asked me to grab a sandwich for him. When I got back, he'd told me to keep the change. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were plenty of other people willing to pay for five or ten minutes of my time.

It was okay with Mom if I ran odd jobs. I suppose she figured that wouldn't destroy my childhood. She acted like it wasn't real work, which was fine with me. When she mentioned it at all, she called it
doing favors
. There was just one problem—it wasn't steady. I might run my tail off one day and do nothing the next. I'd rather have a real job.

But it didn't matter what I wanted. Mom had said no. She pretty much let me do anything else I wanted, but she was flat-out unmovable when it came to this. I was paying for
her
bad experiences. It looked like I'd have to stick with the odd jobs for another year. There was no way I could stand being this close to the boardwalk all summer without any money. I'd go crazy. The whole place—food, games, rides, and all—was designed to make you spend. But I was careful where I spent my money. I knew enough to avoid the skill games. Most of them were a lot harder to win than they looked.

Take the basketball games. A real hoop is almost wide enough to fit two balls at once. It looks small because it's high up. The hoops at the boardwalk were just big enough for one ball to squeeze through. And the balls had so much air in them that they bounced like a five-year-old on a chocolate overdose. You had to be pretty lucky to score.

Of course, some of the games were easy to win. That was on purpose, too. Nothing happened by chance around here—especially not at the games of chance. The trick was that an easy game meant a small prize. If you looked up “small prize” in the dictionary, I'd bet the definition would be “worthless crap.” To get anything better, you had to trade up. It's amazing how quickly people lose their basic math skills when they've got their eyes locked on a giant stuffed Scooby-Doo.

Nope—I didn't drop much money playing the skill games. But I loved the rides. Especially the roller coasters. The more extreme, the better. They had a bargain session during the morning—maybe because it was hard to convince people to go upside down right after breakfast.

I also liked the video games. And I was hooked big-time on the soft ice cream. Especially chocolate peanut-butter twist. It was wonderful. I could feel my arteries clog up with each bite. Jason told me I'd need a new heart by the time I was twenty. I told him I'd borrow his.

But I didn't blow much money. I was saving up for after graduation. Jason had big plans to head for California. He was always talking about it, and I'd sort of played along, though I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. All I knew was, whatever I did, it would help to have some cash.

I checked the clock. It was a little after three. I decided to hang out until Mom left for her classes. I didn't really do stuff with her. We each did our own thing. But between the restaurant and her school, I hardly saw her, so I liked to hang out when she was home, even if we ended up arguing sometimes.

At four thirty Mom headed out. And I headed into trouble.

I
F YOU LAY OUT A COUPLE MILES OF GREAT FOOD AND FREE
entertainment along a beautiful stretch of beach, you're going to attract more than just horseflies, sea gulls, and friendly tourists. Some dangerous lowlife can haunt the boardwalk. Mixed in with the vacation crowd was a scattering of thugs, muggers, dealers, and drunks. I knew enough to stay out of their way.