Sidecar (6 page)

Casey looked away. “After all the shit I’ve done?”

Joe grunted. “Casey, from the looks of it, a lot of it wasn’t what you’d done but what was done to you. And either way, that shit is yours to keep. You start school, however you do that, and you start over. You be a kid. You don’t tell anyone.”

Casey sucked in his breath, captivated by the thought. He’d been a jock, because his dad had thrown a ball at him since he was little, but suddenly, he didn’t have to do that anymore. He’d been a cutup, a pain in the ass, a kid who’d rather play the fool than work at his grades. That was how he’d gotten attention. That was why Dillon had wanted to come home with him. That was how he’d gotten his dad to talk at the dinner table. That had been Casey.

But now? He didn’t have to do that anymore. It was… it was like walking out of that semi and across the great canyon over the clean space had been walking out of the old Casey. He could do anything.

As long as he didn’t have to go home.

“I don’t want you to call social services,” he said, and he must have been in his head for quite some time, because Joe grunted like he’d fallen asleep.

“Well,” Joe conceded, his voice groggy, “it’s not going to happen today.”

There was a whooshing sound, and the doctor came to dress Joe’s wound some more, and Casey took what he could get.

J
OE
took an injected painkiller instead of an oral one because he still had to drive home, and Casey thought that maybe a driver’s license was something he’d want to get started on. He was sixteen, right? Excellent. He’d put it on his list of things for Joe to help him get. Not once did he think Joe wouldn’t help him out. He’d wonder at that later—how arrogant the young were, and how easily they reaped the rewards of a faith they took for granted. Joe had fed him, clothed him, cleaned him, and spoken to him like he wasn’t stupid or subhuman. Joe would take care of him.

Casey just had to be very, very good.

They stopped at a bank with a vacuum tube drive-through, and Joe pulled out some cash, then drove to a Ross department store not far from old-town Auburn. By now, Joe’s pain meds had about worn off, and he was not looking so good.

He made a terrible whining sound when he pulled up on the chrome handle of the pickup, and Casey looked at him worriedly.

“Tell you what,” he said, thinking that he really needed clothes. “How ’bout I go inside and get some clothes, and you rest in here.”

Joe closed his eyes. “Not gonna find you on the side of the road again, am I?”

“Not if you promise not to call social services when you’re better.”

Joe grunted a little in pain. “Oh God, kid. Shit. Can I just promise not to do it without talking it over with you first?”

Yippee!

“I’ll let that stand for now,” Casey said, feeling generous.

Joe reached with an effort into his wallet and pulled out five twenties. Casey grimaced. One of the things he had liked about his past life had been the clothes. Mom had dropped him off at the mall anytime he asked, and given him a credit card. Sure, it wasn’t his money, but that didn’t mean he didn’t see the amount.

A hundred dollars wasn’t it.

“Keep it simple today,” Joe said, his breath coming hard through the pain. “Two pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and underwear, a couple of basic sweatshirts. If you can wear scrubs to bed, you can get yourself some cheap tennis shoes and some socks. Will that do?”

Yeah, this guy just gave a kid who wasn’t his a hundred dollars to buy clothes to live in. Casey decided that for the moment, he was over being a fashion plate. He also decided he really wanted a job of his own, but now was not the time.

“You want to take those pain pills?” he asked instead. He grabbed the pharmacy bag and pulled them out, then grabbed Joe’s soda from McDonald’s, because there was still half a cup left.

“Don’t want to pass out on you, kid.”

Casey didn’t want to see him in pain. “Here. I’ll wake you up when I’m done. It’ll be an hour at least, right?”

Joe grunted, and he must really have been feeling it, because he took the pills and slumped back against the window. There was a gap between the seat and the back of the truck, and Casey searched it for a blanket, pleased to see that there was an old Army surplus wool thing back there, like he’d suspected. Joe seemed the type to come prepared. He covered Joe up and jogged across the parking lot to try to become a real boy.

It took him nearly exactly an hour, but part of that was because he was followed so closely by the security guy that it was a wonder the jerk-off didn’t get an image of Glen “Big Daddy” going up Casey’s tailpipe. It didn’t matter. Casey kept the little basket in plain sight, and security guy had to concede that he bought everything he put there. When Casey was done, he walked up to the guy who was glaring at him in his hospital scrub bottoms and flip-flops, and gave him the sort of expression that adults usually saved for their own kids
when
they
were screwing around.

“Did I pass inspection, chief?” he asked, and the guy scowled.

“I didn’t see you steal nothin’.”

“Bitchin’! Now that I got the tags and a receipt, are you going to give me shit if I go into the bathroom over there by customer service so I can change?”

The guy grunted again. “Why you want to change here?”

“Because it’s fucking cold out there, and the scrubs are thin.”

“What, those the only clothes you got?” The guy was squat, midfifties, with a crew cut. Casey hated him sort of on sight.

“Yeah. Yeah, they are. I ran away to my uncle’s with the clothes on my back. Those about rotted off, and these are the only fucking clothes I got. Do you know enough about my life now? Can I go get dressed?” He glared at the guy, who held up his hands and backed down, and Casey went into the bathroom, rather amazed at his own chutzpah.

Who knew that being the guy with nothing to lose made it so much easier to win?

And God, didn’t he feel human now that he was dressed. He’d spent that hundred dollars about down to the last two bucks, and was proud of that too. He even managed some baseball T-shirts with bands on them, even though one of the bands was Journey, and he thought that was probably more Joe’s speed than his. Besides, hadn’t they broken up? But he was warmer and cleaner and happier when he got back to the car to find Joe shivering under the blanket and trying hard to wake up.

Casey’s new chutzpah hadn’t all faded. He looked at the truck, saw that it was an automatic transmission, and tried to remember how to get to Joe’s place. He realized that it wasn’t that hard, really. Back to the freeway, off at that really big intersection called the Foresthill Exit, and hang a really big right.

He could do this.

“Here, Joe,” he said, getting in on the driver’s side after dumping all his bags on the passenger side. “Move over.”

“What in the fuck?” Joe shivered hard on the word “fuck,” and Casey patted his shoulder sympathetically, and then jerked back when Joe did. Shit. He’d hit the sore arm. God, he was a moron.

“Move over. I’m driving.”

“You’re
what
?” Joe sat up straight and glared at him, and Casey shrugged.

“How hard can it be? Every moron in California has a driver’s license. Now scoot over and I’ll take you home.”

“Do you even know how to get there?”

“Yeah. Get to the freeway. Turn right at that big intersection exit with the McDonald’s. After that it’s sort of deep in the woods. I’ll wake you up for that part.”

Joe grunted. “It’s twenty miles after the exit,” he said, and Casey nodded. It had seemed shorter both times he’d been driven on it. Once he got in with Joe, everything was aces.

“C’mon, Joe. Scoot. Turn the ignition, put it into drive, gas on the right, brake on the left. I can do it. Move.”

And Joe did, grumbling, “I may still have to call social services” in warning, and Casey nodded.

“I appreciate you being straight with me and all, but you need to get home to do that, and I don’t see that happening right now. Now move your ass, old man!”

“’M twenty-seven.”

Wow. Not thirty? Casey smiled and looked at him again. He’d seen the guy without a shirt, and he was pretty buff. He had a little tummy, yeah, but you could tell he spent his time working on his house or his property or running around saving strays—he was definitely not a sit-on-the-couch-with-a-beer guy, unless he was ready for bed, if his muscles had anything to say about it.

“Awesome. Maybe we
can
do that!”

“Oh
Christ
, no!”

Oh. That was disappointing. “Don’t like guys?”

“Don’t like
children
. The key’s in the ignition, young’un. Now start the truck and prove to me we’re not gonna die at your hands!”

Casey did, and he spent a few minutes in the almost-empty parking lot in front of Ross, driving slowly back and forth and getting the hang of things like brake time and acceleration. He decided that driving was okay—but a little overrated. As he eased the truck back onto the road and toward the freeway, he hardly had to step on the accelerator at all to get the car up to speed.

“God, this thing’s faster than it looks,” he muttered, but they were going up a pretty steep incline, so maybe that power was a good thing.

He hadn’t counted on the pulse-pounding fear of driving a car on the single lane of the double bridge. There was a wall on either side, yes, but he’d walked on the pedestrian part of the bridge and looked down—he
knew
what was in store for them if he lost his mind and just drove the truck through the rail and off the side. What had seemed so appealing when he’d been lost and cold and starving didn’t seem like so much fun now that he had a full belly and someplace to sleep without fear.

“Easy, kid,” Joe said from the other side of the truck, and some of the tension cramping Casey’s hands eased up. “Everyone hates this part.”

“Yeah?”

“When all is said and done, we’ve really only got a narrow path to tread.”

It sounded like crazy hippy shit, so Casey was relieved when Joe closed his eyes and started humming “Only the Young Can Say” under his breath. Casey liked that one. They’d determined on the way to town that the radio had no reception, and Joe didn’t have tapes in the car, so Casey sang with him, and together they made it over the bridge.

J
OE
got home and slept until five o’clock. Casey slept too, but he woke up before Joe and raided the refrigerator and the cabinets, settling on some canned soup—he made enough for two, and Joe had some when he emerged from the bedroom to down some pain pills and sit on the couch and veg.

“Shit,” Joe muttered, digging into the soup. “I was going to do so much today. I gotta get that carport done in the next week, before it starts to snow up here. Can’t have the bike out in the elements, man, that just won’t do.”

Casey got up and went to the kitchen and pulled bread and butter out of the fridge. (He couldn’t figure out why Joe kept the bread in the refrigerator. Joe told him later it was to keep it from going bad.) He buttered a slice and walked it to Joe, because he liked that in his soup, and Joe took it with an appreciative thanks.

“I could start clearing the debris out,” Casey said after flopping back down on the couch.

“Kid—”

“Look, do you not want me here?”

Sigh. It shook the couch. “You’ve been damned useful so far.”

“Then let me be useful. Maybe I can get a job in Foresthill, right? Pay rent—”

“You’re a kid. No paying rent.”

“Well, I can work for my keep—”

“Dammit, kid! The way you get to be a kid is to go to school while someone worries about rent for you! Jesus—you still need raising, Casey. You’re still not grown. Don’t you want to go back home and—”

“No.” Casey tried to keep the break out of his voice and failed. “I don’t want to go home. They didn’t want me.”

“Have you thought that maybe they’ve changed their minds now that you’ve been gone for two months?”

Casey thought about it and felt his throat swell. “No,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me go back and find out.”

“Kid, no one’s going to let you stay with a single man. They just—”

“But who’s they? I’ve been on the streets for two months. Just take me to school, let me fill out the paperwork. I’ll tell a few lies. You’ll be a friend of the family, and I’ll get my transcripts from my old school and—look, Joe, please?”

Joe slumped back against the couch, and Casey could tell he was about done, period. Odds were, his pain meds had kicked in. He’d been tired the night before and he’d already had one hell of a morning. It was obvious that he just didn’t have the energy for this. “Kid, if I say we don’t have to decide right now, will that be enough?”

Casey stood up and collected the dishes. Hell yes. It had gotten him from Auburn back to Joe’s house, and his confidence wasn’t shaken. They could do this. He was sure of it.

B
ETWEEN
the two of them, they managed to clear the carport of refuse and get the frame set before the work party. Casey had wondered, at first, why not use the garage for the vehicles, and then he’d actually
seen
the garage and realized that Joe had sunk a lot of the spare money from the home loan into home improvement stuff, and although he’d seen some of it waiting to be used in the carport, the bulk of it was in the garage. Lumber, drywall, siding, paint—Joe had himself about four years of home improvement to do, which was awesome, because Casey had at least two years of growing up to do, and he figured he’d be along for the ride.

He and Joe worked well together. Joe gave concise instructions, and Casey found that when he wasn’t trying to piss off the grown-up he was working with, he was actually pretty good at following orders. He tried to be considerate—he warned Joe when something was about to fall, and asked for help with stuff he didn’t understand. For his part, Joe tried to keep a rein on his unexpected temper.

The temper was a surprise, but sort of a welcome one. Casey had started to think of Joe as someone all wise and all patient, and a little part of himself was all set to walk over the guy, because Joe would let him do anything, right?