Running on Empty (8 page)

Ethan thought again about Boots, thought about the irony of two guys starting out with nothing and ending up so differently, then froze momentarily on the sidewalk, looking at his reflection in a convenience store window.
Christ
, he thought, shaking his head,
the old man’s got
me
doing the life-lesson thing now
.

Grinning at his own foolishness, he glanced at his watch and saw he still had ten minutes before the next bus arrived, so he turned and headed into the store. He had a physics test the next day and knew he’d need a boost later that evening when he finally got around to studying, so he headed toward the cooler at the back and pulled out a couple cans of Red Bull. Opening his wallet to pay for them, he found the lottery ticket stuffed between two fives.

Impossible odds, yeah, but
somebody
wins those jackpots, right?

As he handed the clerk his money, he thought again about
how different the lives of his old man and Boots now were.
He worked hard all his life paintin’ houses until his back gave out on him
, Lil had said. Which pretty much proved that his father’s line about “honest hard work” was so much happy horseshit. Maybe what Boots had really needed all along was to catch a break, a chance that would really make a difference. A single run of good luck. Ethan looked again at the ticket in his wallet, then glanced around and saw the lottery scanner to his left. Because he was seventeen (and a half), he knew he couldn’t cash a winning ticket, but there were other people lined up behind him so he was pretty sure the clerk wouldn’t care who used the scanner. He took the change she offered him, then stepped aside to make room for a pimply-faced kid with a fistful of chocolate bars.

He walked over to the scanner, turned to see if anyone was interested in what he was doing, and was satisfied the roof would have to cave in to get this group’s attention. He held the ticket’s bar code under the red light but nothing happened. Then he realized the bar code was facing the wrong way, and he turned the ticket around. Holding his breath, he slid it carefully into the beam and saw a message appear in the scanner’s display.

Not a winning ticket
.

Big surprise. One in nineteen million. He shook his head in disgust, crumpled the paper in his hands, and tossed it into the garbage can beside the scanner, a can he now saw was nearly filled with other crumpled tickets. He was glad no one had seen him make a fool of himself.

On his way out the door, though, he suddenly had the feeling he’d been wrong about that. He sensed eyes staring at him, tracking him, but when he looked back the only person turned in his direction was the pimply-faced kid, and he was busy cramming a Butterfingers into his mouth.

Weird.

Stretched out on his bed, his physics textbook open on his lap, Ethan took a final swallow of Red Bull then deftly tossed the can across the room into the wastebasket where the other one already lay empty. He turned again to the material in front of him, scanned it, and flipped the page. His pencil drumming against the book, he read aloud: “The maximum possible friction force between two surfaces before sliding begins is the product of the coefficient of static friction and the normal force. Assume that a curve with a radius of 60 metres is properly banked for a vehicle weighing 1338 kilograms travelling 100 kilometres per hour on dry pavement. Using 0.8 as the coefficient of static friction of a rubber tire on wet pavement, calculate the speed at which a car travelling that same curve on a rainy day will—”

Ethan halted the drumming, scanned ahead, frowned, then closed the book with a
thump
. What a frigging waste of time. It all made about as much sense as that crazy
Find-out-what’s-important
assignment that Moore-or-Less had given him that afternoon. Well, one thing for damned sure that
wasn’t
important was
this
crap. He pictured himself explaining to a cop how the coefficient of static friction of rubber on asphalt helped him determine the appropriate acceleration of his car, taking into account both the horizontal and vertical forces acting on the vehicle. It wasn’t the math that bothered him. It was the fact that all of it was such complete and utter bullshit.

If Allie were here, he’d buckle down and slog through it.

He always worked better when she was with him. There was something about her that kept him grounded, focused, made him want to do better.

But Allie wasn’t here. He lifted the textbook to eye level, estimated the required force and angle of entry, then sent the book sailing across the room toward the wastebasket. It might actually have made it had it not opened halfway through its arc. The heavy cover bounced off the rim, and the book banged against the wall and landed in a heap under his poster of a fire-red Cobra SVT.

A moment later, his bedroom door opened and Raye stuck her head inside. “Construction or demolition?” she asked.

“People’s choice,” he replied.

“I’ll get back to you with the survey results.” She entered the room, noting the physics textbook on the floor. “Test tomorrow?”

He grunted.

She moved toward his desk, saw the ads displayed on his laptop’s Web browser, and sighed. “Car porn. You’re pathetic.”

He grinned at her, but then his smile faded. “The one I told you about? Sold already.”

She shrugged sympathetically. Bending down, she scrolled through the site. “Lots more here.”

“No other Cobras, though.”

She kept scrolling, then stopped when a midnight blue Mustang GT appeared. She bent over the laptop, then whistled when she saw the price. “People really charge that much for old cars?”

Ethan swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “The owner’s done a ton of work on her. Check out the specs.”

Raye leaned closer to the screen and, as she read, Ethan saw her squinch her eyes.

He sighed. “You gotta tell him, Raye.”

She ignored him, continuing to scan the specifications the car’s owner had posted.

Ethan recognized a stalling strategy when he saw it. He knew she didn’t understand half of what she was reading. “If
you
don’t—”

She whirled to face him. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”

“Only because you said you’d do it yourself,” said Ethan.

“And I will.”

“Any time this decade?”

She turned back to the screen.

“What’s the big deal anyway?” he asked.

She scrolled through the site at hyper-speed, not even pretending to read now. “There’s this guy in my class,” she said finally.

Even from the side, Ethan could see his sister’s neck—unadorned by Jazz’s artwork this evening—begin to redden. “What guy?” he asked, trying not to grin.

“Brad Clahane.”

“What about him?”

“I think he likes me.”

Ethan felt a familiar surge of protectiveness move through him. “So do you like
him?
”

Raye turned toward him, and Ethan could see the colour in her neck now blooming in her cheeks. She picked at a thread on her Canadiens jersey, which reminded Ethan of their father—she seemed to be considering her next words. Then, “He was going out with Celia Johnston until last week and—”

“Isn’t she the one you said gave—”

“Blow jobs to half the junior boys’ soccer team? Yeah, that was the rumour.”

“And?”

“Turns out it wasn’t a rumour.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Brad find out?”

She nodded. “Brad’s on the team. The
other
half.”

“Ouch,” said Ethan.

“Yeah. Ouch.”

“So what’s this got to do with you not telling the old man about your eyes?”

Raye glanced at the laptop, its screensaver now sending random images of Mustangs hurtling across the display. “Jazz heard Brad tell Colin McAvoy he was thinking of asking me out.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “I hope he’s not expecting—”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Brad’s a nice guy,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I’m a nice guy, too, but—”

Raye stuck her fingers in her ears. “I can’t HEAR you,” she said, humming loudly until Ethan waved his surrender. Lowering her hands, she said, “Give me a break, okay? There’s only so much my impressionable young brain can handle.”

Ethan grinned. “You still haven’t told me why—”

“Brad Clahane isn’t gonna ask out a girl who wears glasses.”

Ethan looked at his blue-haired, tongue-studded, frequently fake-tattooed sister and couldn’t believe this was the same kid who, years ago, used to follow him around like a puppy, her short legs pumping madly to keep up. A lot of older brothers would have minded, but Ethan hadn’t. He
said
he did, of course, but most of the time it was just an act for his buddies. He actually liked having Raye around. Some of it, he now knew, had to do with their mother dying; they had filled a void for each other at the time. But the rest of it had to do with Raye. Even as a little kid, she’d been her own person, never the annoying cling-on that so many of his friends’ younger siblings were, probably because she intuitively knew how far she could push a moment, could always read people better than most adults he knew. Certainly
better than their father could read Ethan, anyway.

Ethan wanted to reach out and put his arm around her now, wanted to tell her that if this Brad Clahane was the nice guy she said he was, he wouldn’t care about the glasses. But he didn’t. They were, after all, Palmers. Hands off. “There’s always contacts, you know,” he offered.

“Yeah, but they like to start you with glasses first.” She nodded toward the Mustangs racing across the laptop’s screen. “I still have that money if you need it,” she said, changing the subject.

“Thanks,” he said, “but your brother got himself a job. One that pays tips.” He told her a little about The Chow Down and how Lil had offered him weekend shifts and at least one during the week, depending on the other part-timer’s schedule.

“Sounds great,” she said. “Dad know?”

“He didn’t ask.” And why would he? Jack Palmer was the centre of his own universe.

“What about school?” she asked, pointing at the physics textbook on the floor.

“Got it all under control,” he said, getting up and retrieving the book. He laid it on his bed and then turned to her. “It might be better, though, if, you know …”

“If I don’t say anything about it?”

“I don’t need the extra grief right now,” he said, thinking of what his father had said:
You’ll have to start applying yourself in school
. It was a sure bet his old man wouldn’t react well to news of his son working even more hours than he did at the pool.

She smiled slyly. “And you won’t say anything about me needing glasses?”

Ethan’s eyes widened. “Sounds a lot like blackmail to me, Rayelene Palmer.”

As he knew it would, his use of her full first name drew an elaborate eye-roll from his sister. Rayelene had been their grandmother’s middle name, and more than once Raye had
complained to Ethan that it sounded like it belonged to some Arkansas housewife with big hair and ten kids. “We got a deal?” she asked.

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “As long as you tell him yourself. You need to get those eyes checked out.”

“Got it all under control,” she echoed.

“Okay.” Just as she was turning to leave, he added, “When do I get to meet this Brad guy?”

“We’ll see,” she replied, then left.

A moment later, Ethan could hear “Smoke on the Water” floating across the hall, but this time it had an oddly upbeat tempo. He sat on his bed, leaned back against the headboard, and flipped his physics textbook to the page where he’d left off, but it wasn’t long before his attention wandered to his screensaver. He reached for the laptop and tapped the space bar. The Mustangs vanished, revealing the specs for the car that Raye had been looking at. Ethan skimmed them, then clicked his browser’s Home key. In a moment, he was scrolling through mustangcobra.com. Although he knew the features of the 1996 Cobra SVT by heart, he scanned through them anyway, imagining himself inside the vehicle they described. He was no longer in his bedroom on Seminary Lane. He could smell the leather, could hear the pavement whine beneath his tires, could feel the powerful engine pulling him forward. Just as he was ready to really open her up, the textbook lying on his lap slid sideways and fell to the floor. Sighing, he picked it up and tried once more to care about the physics behind friction coefficients.

After a moment he snapped the book shut.

Got it all under control, he thought
.

“So how’d you find it?” asked Allie as they left the physics lab. Already the hallway was filling with people heading toward the exits.

Ethan shrugged. “Okay,” he said, but the nonchalance in his voice sounded false even to him. Though he’d tried every question on the test, nearly half of them made him wonder whether he’d looked at the right chapter in the textbook the night before. He’d guessed his way through the whole last section.

“Sweet mother of God,” muttered Pete behind them. “Was that stuff even
physics?
”

Ethan turned, grinning. Given Pete’s problems with math, everyone had been surprised when he’d signed up for Beaker’s course that semester. In Pete’s favour, he was great at the hands-on stuff, which made the labs easier for him than for some of the other students in their section, but tests and quizzes threw him—which effectively made Beaker his nemesis.

“You figure the guy lies awake all night dreaming up those questions?” asked Pete. “That vector crap, for instance. What the hell—”

“Hi, Mr. Becker,” said Allie loudly.

Pete and Ethan turned to see the physics teacher leaving the lab with a stack of papers under his arm. “Hi, people,” he said. “Can’t wait to mark these tonight.” He pointed at his armload.

“Knock yourself out,” said Pete, and Ethan could hear the literal undercurrent in his friend’s voice.

Apparently, so could the teacher. “I’m especially looking forward to
yours
, Pete,” Mr. Becker said. “Your approaches to the problems are always so—” He paused. “—creative.” He flashed Pete a big smile before continuing down the hallway.

Pete looked as though he wanted to flash the teacher something in return, and Ethan snorted.

“Come on, guys,” said Allie, “let’s go. I’m starving.”

Earlier that morning, they’d agreed to a post-test lunch celebration at Perk Up Your Day, a coffee shop a couple blocks from the school. Not only did it serve slab-sized brownies, they were curious to see how much damage had been done there the day before. A video had gone viral overnight, and Ethan had watched it again and again, amazed by what a customer’s cellphone had captured: a deer crashing through the coffee shop’s plate glass window and stumbling around inside, disoriented, before leaping back out. No one knew how the deer had gotten so far downtown, but fear had clearly sent it scrambling for shelter and, seeing its reflection in the glass, the creature probably thought it was running toward another deer. Fortunately, its wounds turned out to be mostly superficial. Halifax police tranquilized it and released it far from the city.

A few minutes later, Ethan and his friends found themselves standing in a long line of other customers who’d come to check out the mess. There wasn’t much to see. A new window had already been installed, and a guy was painting the coffee shop’s name and logo on its centre. The only evidence of the deer was some deep gouges on the shop’s tiled floor, probably made by its sharp hoofs.

After the trio had gotten their orders and grabbed a table near the window, Ethan nodded toward the buxom redhead working behind the counter. “Anyone notice her tips?” he asked.

“Ethan!” said Allie, feigning a punch to his arm.

“
Tips!
I said
tips!
” laughed Ethan. He pointed toward the glass jar on the counter by the cash register. “She’s doing an okay job filling the orders, but you wouldn’t know it from the money in her jar.”

“You tipped her, right?” asked Allie.

He nodded. “I never thought much about it before, but now it’s a whole other story.”

“
Your
tips getting any better?” Pete asked.

Allie, who’d heard all this before, left to use the washroom while Ethan told Pete some of his latest experiences. “They’re getting a little better,” he said. “There are still assholes who don’t leave anything, though.”

“That’s harsh,” his buddy commiserated. “How long do you think you’ll stay there?”

Ethan shrugged. “Not sure. I’m hoping to use the experience to get a job somewhere more upscale.”

Pete looked at him, his expression unreadable.

“What?” asked Ethan.

“I never pegged you for someone who’d be waiting tables. I’m seeing a whole new side of you.”

Ethan suddenly felt defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hey, man, that wasn’t a criticism—” Pete began, but then Allie returned to the table.

“Did you tell him about Boots?” she asked Ethan.

“Boots?” said Pete.

“A guy who comes into the diner every once in a while,” said Ethan. He told Pete what Lil had said about the little man, finishing with the part about the lottery tickets. “Crazy, huh?”

Pete shrugged. “I think the old guy sounds kinda cool.”

“That’s what
I
said,” agreed Allie.

“He leave you a ticket?” Pete asked.

Ethan nodded. “One. Didn’t win anything.”

“Like that’s a shock,” Pete commented dryly. He drained the last of his coffee and set his cup on the table. “My old man’s been playing the same 6/49 numbers since before I was born and never won more than a few bucks and some free plays. Even somebody as bad at math as me knows a losing game when he sees one.”

Ethan laughed, but Allie was strangely silent, and their conversation moved on to other things.

“You finished with these?”

The three turned to look up at the redhead standing beside them and pointing toward their empty cups and plates. From this angle, her ample breasts were even more spectacular.

“Yeah, we’re done,” said Pete. “Thanks.”

The redhead leaned over the table collecting their dishes, her upper body inches from his buddy’s face, and Ethan looked forward to the comment Allie would no doubt make later about their friend ogling those impressive boobs. But Pete seemed to look right through her as if she wasn’t even there before turning to Allie and chatting about the physics test again.

Ethan’s eyes widened.
Son of a bitch!
Before this moment, he’d never suspected a thing. He probably should have, he supposed, since Pete hadn’t dated a girl for months, and never longer than a couple weeks.
Should I tell him that I know?
he wondered as the three got up to leave.
Or do I just wait for him to tell me himself?
The idea of a Palmer asking someone to open up about his personal feelings almost made him laugh, but Ethan wondered if Pete would ever bring it up on his own. After all, they’d known each other for years. If you couldn’t tell your best friend you were gay, who
could
you tell?

Beyond his immediate surprise, Ethan really didn’t know what to make of his discovery. He felt detached from it somehow, like his brain hadn’t processed it yet. He couldn’t picture Pete with another guy. Not that he
wanted
to. Christ!

But why hadn’t Pete
told
him? They’d always shared everything, hadn’t they? Even the stupid stuff, like all the shit with Ethan’s dad. He couldn’t imagine not having his buddy to talk to each time his old man pissed him off. Didn’t
want
to imagine it. Pete could always cheer him up, could make him laugh no matter how bad he felt.

And suddenly Ethan thought about someone else who could make him laugh—Seth, with his jokes about faggots. And hadn’t Ethan told a few of those over the years? More than a few. He couldn’t remember Pete ever telling fag jokes, but then Pete never made fun of anyone, queer
or
straight. Were those jokes the reason he’d never told Ethan he was gay? Was he afraid their friendship would be over? That was something else Ethan couldn’t imagine. As hard as it might be to accept that his buddy was a homo, it’d be a hell of a lot harder to lose his best friend.

As he followed Allie and Pete toward the exit, his thoughts turned to Ike. The cook had obviously gone through his own coming-out process—a guy didn’t tattoo a man’s name in a heart on his neck without making it obvious to everyone—so wouldn’t he have some advice to offer a teenager who was still in the closet? By the time they reached the street and were heading toward their afternoon classes, Ethan had almost convinced himself that the next time he worked at The Chow Down, he should just come right out and ask Ike how he got the courage to tell people he played for the other team.

But then common sense returned, along with his memory of Ike’s face as he’d snarled, “Wha’choo lookin’ at, dipshit?”

Yeah, he’d wait for Pete to bring it up on his own.