Tweaked (11 page)

Suddenly I turn and tear down the stairs to my own bedroom, my heart beating hard in my chest. My blood freezes and my stomach flips. A hole has been punched through my closet door, and what is left of it hangs from one hinge. My Fender Precision bass is gone. I feel like I've been punched in the stomach and my insides pulled out. I smash the door so that it falls right off, and I sink onto my bed.

Dad arrives home fifteen minutes later. To my surprise, he immediately calls the police. When two cops show up less than ten minutes later, Dad is heartsick but matter-of-fact. He tells them he suspects it was his son. He then writes down what he believes is missing.

I wonder how long my guitar will keep Chase high. How wrecked can he get on the money he gets for it and for how long—maybe a day. Certainly not anywhere near as long as it took me to earn the money to buy it.

Mom does not return home until nearly midnight. Her face is bloodless and her voice trembles; no doubt a combination of stress and the things she's seen.
I think how she is beginning to resemble the broken-down people she's spending her time with.

“Thank God,” she whispers, when Dad tells her about the break-in. “He's still alive.”

Two days after the break-in, Ryan Linscott calls me from rehab. “I read about Chase in the paper,” he tells me. “If you're still looking for him, I can give you the names of some places he might be hanging out.”

“All right,” I say, although I am sure that most of them are already known to the police. But aside from the drug houses, he mentions a number of public places and a couple of abandoned lots. I write them all down and ask him how he is making out.

“It's rough,” he says. “All day I try to think of other things, but at night I still dream about getting high. And then I want it so bad. Or I get a whiff of something that reminds me of the smell and I crave it like nothing else. I've got three weeks left. I'm hoping these feelings are gone by the time I leave this place.”

I tell him that I hope they are too. I don't tell him that they never went away with Chase.

“What keeps me going right now is thinking about how it destroyed Harris and Chase.”

“Yeah, and everybody they came in contact with.”

We say good-bye. I have just hung up when the phone rings again. It stops after one ring. Mom must have grabbed it upstairs just as I reached it. I don't recognize the number on the call display. Ten minutes later, it rings again. This time it's Jack who's phoning to let me know we have a practice.

“And what am I going to play?”

“Oh, man,” he moans, “I forgot that lunatic walked off with your P-bass.” He's silent a moment before it hits him. “How are you going to play in the battle of the bands?”

I've been struggling with this for two days. I have no money to buy even a crummy secondhand bass, forget anything classic like what I'd had. And although I've begged Dad, he refuses to tell his insurance company about the break-in. If they find out it was his own son who ransacked the house—a drug addict wanted for murder—he's afraid they'll drop all his policies, never mind simply raising his rates.

“I guess I'm not.”

“Come on, Gordie. You can't let this stop you.”

“What do you suggest I do? I have no money.”

“What do you mean you have no money? You've got a job.”

“Do I have to remind you what happened to my money so you can tell me again how stupid I was?”

Jack moans again. “We can't do it without you. Okay, look, we'll figure something out.”

I've just hung up when Mom suddenly announces that she has to go out.

“But I have to work in an hour. Dad doesn't want the house left empty.”

“I'll be home in twenty minutes.” She seems almost nervous as she grapples for her keys, so I don't say anything more when she grabs her purse and leaves the house.

She
is
home in less than twenty minutes. She isn't carrying any bags or packages when she comes through the door, which makes me wonder where she'd gone. But I'm already pressed for time, so I don't ask. I leave for work.

The routine of stocking shelves and checking out hardware is a relief from the chaos of home. The loss of my guitar continues to be a raw spot in my stomach, but it isn't until six hours later when I'm walking home from the bus stop and spot the For Sale sign on our front lawn that it takes its next direct punch.

At least Dad had warned me before he'd sold his sports car, but he'd said nothing about selling the house.

“I have no choice,” he tells me once I'm in the house.

“But the house, Dad? Where are we going to live?”

“I haven't thought that far ahead.” Dad runs his hand through his hair, which is uncharacteristically long.
“But with Chase skipping bail,” he continues, “and the cost of lawyers fees, we've already cashed in everything else.”

My loathing for Chase and all he's done seethes so close to the surface I think I might have a seizure. Where is that bloodsucking jerk? No doubt he's lying in some flea-infested meth house, spaced-out, tracing his fingers on the floor. My mother doesn't need to worry about the criminals in prison getting hold of him. Not if I get to him first.

I skip school on Monday. I spend the day going to pawnshops and secondhand stores trying to track down my guitar. I start downtown, at the East End pawnshop where Dad and I had found his watches. There are dozens of guitars, some well-worn, some nearly new, but no sign of my P-bass. There are also hundreds of gold chains, bracelets and wedding rings, abandoned for a few hits.

I approach the clerk sitting behind the display case. Perhaps he can tell me if he's recently bought and sold a bass. “It's sunburst,” I say. “Only six months old, in perfect shape. It would have been brought in by a skinny guy with gray eyes and brown hair. Oh, and sores all over his face.”

The clerk is polishing a silver bracelet. An old man, he glances up at me with faded eyes. “Do you know how
many guys like that I see in a day? I don't remember your guitar.”

I take one last look around and head to the next shop. From one dismal barred window to the next, I search for my P-bass. I ignore the panhandlers, the rubbies with their hands out. At one time I would have laid a dollar in their hands, but my attitude has changed toward all of them.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

It's a man's voice, close enough that I turn. Surely it couldn't have been meant for me. A guy with the jaundiced complexion and shrunken form of a junkie, maybe thirty, speaks again. “Want a date?”

He has no teeth, and the odor coming from him makes my stomach churn. I glance behind me, but with no one close by, it appears that he really is talking to me. I ask him if he is.

“Twenty bucks,” he says.

I glare at him. The idea is more revolting than anything I've ever heard. My first thought is to swing at him, to pound him out, but even one blow would probably kill him. He interprets my hesitation as a chance to barter.

“Okay, I'll make it fifteen. It'll be worth every cent, guaranteed.” His nose drips, and with no teeth, his grin is creepily cartoonish. I am living a nightmare. He takes a step closer.

The smell overwhelms me. “One more step and I'll grind you into this sidewalk.”

Instantly his hands shoot up. “Okay, okay,” he says, taking a few steps back. Standing with his back against a boarded-up building, his eyes dart in the opposite direction down the street. He is not surprised by my reaction, and if he had expected it, it hadn't stopped him from trying. Maybe that's how he'd lost at least some of his teeth.

I am thoroughly creeped out. Is that how Chase makes his money when he can't find anything to steal? The thought is so repulsive I have to stop and steady myself to keep from throwing up. I don't stop long at any of the remaining pawnshops, just long enough to see that my bass isn't around.

On the off chance that Chase hasn't taken my guitar downtown, I decide to look in the secondhand stores on the North Shore. I spot my bass in the window of the first store I check out. As a new acquisition, it must have rated a bit of marketing. I stare at it. It's mine, there is no doubt; I recognize the wearing of the frets. A bell jingles as I open the door to the store. I ask the clerk the price.

“Fifteen hundred,” he grunts. His long gray hair is twisted into a braid that extends halfway down his back, but his face is clean shaven. He's working on a crossword puzzle. I don't know why it strikes me as an odd
thing for a guy who runs a secondhand shop to do.

I don't argue, but I do ask if he remembers the guy who sold it to him.

He doesn't take much time to remember. “Not a clue.”

“You must have the ticket,” I persist.

Turning toward the bass propped in the window, he changes his mind. “On second thought, I do remember. It was a woman. A woman brought that in, a tall redhead. She said it was her boyfriend's and they were through. She'd kicked him out and kept it for the rent he owed her. She's not going to want it back. You want to try it out? Fourteen hundred for you.”

I shake my head. “Not right now. But would you hold it for me? I should have the money in a month.”

Frowning, he takes in the contents of the room with one sweep of his tattooed arm. “Look around you. Does this look like Wal-Mart? I don't put anything on hold. I also don't do exchanges or refunds if things don't fit. You buy it, it's yours. You don't buy it, it goes to the first person that does. Does that make sense?”

I nod. I can't look at my bass when I step onto the street, although I want to smash that window and take back what's rightfully mine.

I kick the For Sale sign on my way across our front yard. It doesn't budge, but it does leave me with a throbbing toe.

Jade has called while I was out. I call her back. Just hearing her voice lifts some of the layers of my dark mood. She offers to help me study that night, so I ask Mom if I can borrow her car. She agrees. I am just about to leave when the phone rings again. Thinking it might be Jade with a change of plans, I race back and pick it up.

It is a familiar voice. I suck in my breath. “Mom, I need forty bucks. Can you meet me?”

My brother. I want to blast him. But I don't say anything, because Mom has picked up another phone and she begins to speak. Her voice is a nervous whisper.

“When, Chase?”

“In five minutes. At the shopping mall.”

“But I can't get there that fast. I've just given Gordie the car. I'll have to walk. It will take me at least twenty minutes.”

“Get him to drop you off. You can walk back. Please, I'm starving. I need something to eat. I haven't eaten all day.”

“I can bring you some sandwiches. I can bring some cheese and fruit and some canned food to tide you over for a few days.”

Chase is quick to say, “No.” But it takes him a little longer to think up some lame reason why this wouldn't be a good idea. “It's better if you just give me the money. I have no place to store food.”

“Chase, I told you not to call me after five. What if your Dad answers?”

“I know, but I'm hungry.”

“You said you'd come with me to the police station. Will you come this time?”

“No, I told you I'll go when I'm ready.”

“When?”

“I don't know. When I'm ready.”

Mom sighs. “You're only making it harder for yourself. If you turn yourself in, it would be in your favor.”

“I'm working toward it. I don't feel very good. It will be soon, I promise. When I feel better. So, will you bring me the money?”

“You're not going to feel better living like this.” There is a pause before Mom continues. “Will you at least tell me where you're staying?” Her voice sounds so frail that I am all at once sorry for her, despite how pathetic the call is, and how she just can't say no to Chase. “I only want to know so I can know you're safe.”

“I'm not staying in one place. I'll see you in five minutes. I'll be in the usual place.”

Chase hangs up. I check previous calls. The same phone number—five, six times the day before, four times the day before that. Mom has been meeting Chase and giving him money.

I don't know what I will say, but I have to find out what Mom is going to do. Dad is not home yet, or she would take his car to meet Chase. I walk upstairs. I find her in the kitchen just hanging up the phone.

“I'm leaving. Is there anything you need before I go?” I glance at the phone book on the table in front of her—the yellow pages are open to the list of taxicabs. “Do you need to go somewhere?” I jangle the keys in my pocket. I am nervous and angry. I need to know if she will tell me the truth.

She shakes her head and then turns her back to me, waving me away with her free hand. There are tears in her eyes, and I know then I can't confront her. The whole thing of Chase calling and the secret she's forced to keep is killing her too.

The drive to Jade's apartment gives me time to think about everything that's going on. I think I might go crazy. Not only is my brother a murderer, but I have just learned that my mother is an accessory to his crime. Even if she doesn't know where he is most of the time, she does know where he can be found in those few minutes that she meets him at the mall. The detective who drops by every day has warned us about doing exactly what she's doing—withholding information that would make us liable.

I then begin wondering where she's getting the money. Forty dollars, three or four times a day for the
past week adds up to a fair bit. My parents are already so broke they are selling the house, so where is she getting the cash?

I arrive at Jade's. Sitting at the kitchen table, she quizzes me from the chapter summaries in my history textbook. With all the stuff that's already whirring around inside my head, and now, searching for answers, I feel like my brain is in a blender. I do abysmally.