Wrong Thing (6 page)

His mother opened it.

“Hi,” he said.

She just looked at him.

“I wrote to tell you I was getting out today,” he said. “Did you get the letter?”

“Yeah.”

The Kid stepped forward, making to go inside. But his mother didn't move away from the door. “You can't come in now,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Your dad said. You'll have to wait till he gets home from work.”

“Can I come in and wait?”

“No. He said no.”

They stood there and looked at each other.

“Okay,” the Kid said. “I'll come back later.”

His mother didn't say anything. She stood there and watched him walk away. Then she closed the door.

The Kid went back to walking. He walked out of the barrio, over to Guadalupe, walked along Guadalupe to Aztec Street and went into the Aztec Cafe. It was the scummiest coffeehouse in town, and the Kid had missed going there. He always looked strange there because he didn't have any tattoos or piercings.

The place hadn't changed. It was in two sections, one for smoking and the other not. The smoking section was larger, and was always busy. The Kid got a hot cider and sat in the nonsmoking section. He wished he had something to read. He'd expected to sit in the cafe and feel amazed that he was free again, but he didn't feel that way at all. Already it felt like his incarceration had happened a long time ago, or else had only lasted for a short time, a few days maybe, and now it was over and things were back to normal. He knew that wasn't how it was, but what he knew wasn't the same as what he felt.

He also knew that he should be thinking about what to do next, thinking about what would happen when he spoke to his father. But he didn't feel able to think about anything like that. So he sat there in the cafe and drank his cider, and then he left and walked all the way back to his parents' house.

It was just after six o'clock when he got there. He knocked on the door. He heard his mother and father talking, then footsteps, then the door opened and his father was standing there looking at him. At first neither of them spoke. Then his father said, “What do you want?”

“I got out today.”

“I can see that. So what do you want?”

“I came home. I want to come home.”

“This ain't your home”

“Yes it is.”

“No it ain't. Not no more.”

“But I ain't got nowhere else.”

“That's your problem. I told you, you better never bring the cops to my door, and you did. You ain't welcome here.”

They were silent for a moment, just looking at each other. The Kid could see that his father wasn't going to change his mind. But, for some reason, he said, “Nobody came to see me.”

“Nobody wanted to come see you. You weren't missed.”

“Where's my car?” the Kid asked him.

“Parked around the back. Take it.”

“Has anybody been using it?”

“No.”

The Kid didn't believe him.

“What about my stuff?”

“It's all in your room. Nobody's touched it. Come in and get it.”

The Kid followed him into the house. As he walked through the hall he tried to look in the living room door, but his father shoved him from behind, not hard, but firm enough to propel him towards his room. Or the room that had been his.

He pushed the door open, turned on the light, and went in. The room had no dust in it, so his mother must have been cleaning it, but everything seemed to be as he had left it. The bed was made, his clothes hung in the closet, his books were on their shelves, his boom box sat in a corner.

“You got fifteen minutes,” said his father. “Pack up and leave. And don't come back.”

“I need to get some boxes to put my books in.”

“You should have thought of that before. You got fifteen minutes.”

“How could I have thought of it before? I didn't know you were gonna kick me out.”

“I'm not arguing with you. Fifteen minutes, then you leave or I call the cops. You want to spend your fifteen minutes arguing with me?”

“No. I don't want to argue.”

“Then start packing.”

The Kid pulled a couple of bags out from under the bed and went through his closet fast, grabbing the clothes he wanted. He knew he wouldn't have time to pack everything, so he only took what he really liked and would definitely wear, shoving each item into the bag as hard as he could, trying to fit in as much as the space would take. He'd filled both bags within ten minutes. His father stood there and watched him. The Kid scanned the bookshelf, which contained about fifty books. He grabbed three or four of them, including his favorites, Howard Zinn's
A People's History of the United States
and James Beard's
American Cookery.
He stuffed them into one of the bags. Then he looked at his father.

“I can go get some boxes right now and take the books.”

“No. You got four minutes left”‘

“Please.”

“No. You going to spend your four minutes arguing with me?”

“I just want my books. What're you gonna do with them?”

“Everything you leave will be thrown out or sold tomorrow, Kid. I've had it with you.”

The Kid had an impulse to tear the books up one by one, make sure his father couldn't sell them. But he knew there wasn't enough time to do that. And he knew he couldn't have done it anyway.

He opened a drawer and found a set of keys to his car. “Okay,” he said to his father. “That's it.”

He picked up the bags. He thought about taking the boom box, but it would be hard to carry and he didn't care that much about it anyway. His father followed him outside and they walked to the back of the house, where his car was parked. It was dirty, and the rain had rusted it, but otherwise it looked all right. He put the bags in the trunk. Then he opened the door and got in, got behind the wheel.

The gas gauge said the tank was half-full. The Kid had a feeling that the car wouldn't start. But he stuck the key in and turned it, and it came to life with a quiet rumble. He sat there, letting it warm up.

His father knocked on the window. The Kid rolled it down.

“You don't listen good, so I'm gonna tell you again, just in case. Don't ever come back here, for anything. You hear me?”

The Kid nodded. Then he rolled up the window. He put the car in drive and hit the gas and didn't look in his rearview as he left.

He went a few blocks until he saw a vacant lot. He pulled into it and parked. Then he thought about his books and put his face in his hands and cried.

The guy's name was Miguel. He was a dealer, like the Kid, but he wasn't into muscle, so the Kid had done a few things for him in the past. He was about five years older than the Kid. He lived in town, just off Guadalupe. The Kid pulled up outside the house, went and knocked on the door. No answer. He was walking back to his car when he saw Miguel walking along the street.

“Jesus motherfuckin' Christ! Hey, man!” Miguel said when he saw the Kid. They shook hands, and Miguel pounded the Kid on the back. “When the fuck did you get out, bro?”

“Today.”

“Yeah? For real? Jesus Christ. What you doing?”

“I came to see you. I'm lucky you showed up. I was just about to leave.”

“Yeah, I just took a walk. Hey, you hungry?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Okay, I'm buying. Where you wanna go?”

They went to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, a bar and restaurant on Guadalupe. It was less than a mile from Miguel's house, so they walked. It was dark and chilly now, but they walked fast and the Kid got a sweat on. They went into the restaurant and sat at a table. The Kid ordered a chicken fried steak and a soda. Miguel got tortilla soup and a beer.

“So what you gonna do now you're a free man?” Miguel said.

“Same as I was doing before, I guess. I got to figure how to get back into it, get something going.”

Miguel shook his head. “Things ain't the same, Kid. It's amazing how much can happen in a year, you know? Even I don't sell no more, except for some pot, and that's just to people I know. And a little ecstasy to the rave kids, but that ain't much.”

“How come?”

“The bikers have got the market, bro. Especially crystal, which is where the money is.”

“What else do they sell?”

“You name it. Mainly crystal, but everything else too. Including pot, but that ain't a big deal to them, so they leave me alone. It don't matter to them if the people do a little selling themselves.”

“How did it happen?” the Kid said.

“What?”

“How did they get the market?”

Miguel spread his arms. “I ain't no fucking economist, you know? It's hard to figure, ‘cause there ain't been nothing about it in the business section of the
New Mexican.
But from what I can figure, they just moved in on the people. There was a kind of negative advertising war going on for a while. The bikers make their own shit, so they were saying they could sell it cheaper than the product we get from Mexico. The people were saying, yeah, but you get what you pay for, and the quality of the bikers' shit ain't as good. The bikers are big on violence too, and that's what settled it.”

“Jesus. It sounds like McDonald's or something. You gonna tell me the narcos are taking that laying down?”

“They don't care, bro. This is Santa Fe. Long as the bikers ain't got ‘Burque, nobody gives a rat's ass. When I want shit for my own personal use, I go to ‘Burque and get it, just as a protest.”

They both laughed. Then the Kid ate in silence for a moment. “You like your steak?” Miguel said.

“Yeah. You should've tasted the shit I had to eat in jail.”

“I plan to avoid that experience entirely.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“By staying out of the fucking business.”

“So what you doing these days?”

Miguel grinned. “You ain't gonna believe me.”

“No shit. What's up?”

“I'm working for the paper. The newspaper”

“You're a reporter?”

“Hell, no. I sell advertising.”

“You are messing with me.”

“Uh-uh.”

They sat there and smiled at each other, agape at the craziness of it. Then the Kid said, “How did you get into that?”

“Well, you know I did okay in high school, and I ain't got no record. My Tia Isabella already works there, so she got me in . . . ”

“What do you have to do?”

“I call people up and try to talk them into buying advertising space for their business in the paper.”

“The way you talk?”

“No, man. Check this out—Hello, Mr. Martin? Hi, my name is Miguel Solano. I'm on the sales team at the
New Mexican.
Has it ever occurred to you to advertise your business to customers who're as intelligent and well informed as you are? I'm talking about the readers of our newspaper, Mr. Martin . . . Fucking rad, huh?”

The Kid couldn't answer. He was laughing too hard.

“Hey,” said Miguel. “Now that you're at large, maybe I should call them up and go, All right, motherfucker, buy some advertising or I'll send the Kid to pay you a visit . . . ”

It was dark outside when they left the place. “You coming back to the house?” Miguel said.

“Sure,” said the Kid. He felt relieved. He had hoped Miguel would invite him, but he wouldn't have been able to ask.

“You staying with your folks?”

“No. They kicked me out.”

“Yeah? So where you gonna stay?”

“Don't know yet. I ain't had time to find someplace.”

“You got any money?”

“No. But I'll get some.”

“How?”

“Don't know yet.”

“You want to crash at my house tonight?”

“Is that okay?”

“Hell, yeah. It's your house, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Miguel had a roommate, but he wasn't home. The Kid and Miguel sat in the living room. “I wish I could lend you some money,” Miguel said. “I can lend you a little bit, but I ain't got much . . . ”

“It's okay,” said the Kid.

“The hell it's okay. You need money. You gonna get a job?”

“Maybe. Don't know what I'd do. Who'd hire me?” The Kid shook his head. “I told you. I'm gonna get back in the life.”