How I Got Screwed Over

It's just about midnight by the time I get home. I creep into the apartment as quietly as I can. Dad's a pretty sound sleeper, but he'll be up in a couple of hours and I don't want to wake him.

As usual, Flip provided all kinds of sprays and lozenges and stuff to take the smell of beer and smoke and pot out of my clothes and my breath. He's always prepared like that. Just to be safe, though, I take off all of my clothes and stuff them deep into the laundry hamper. I'll do laundry tomorrow and Dad will never know.

I lie there on the sofa bed for a while, thinking of the broken camera under me, thinking of the tapes, thinking back to Flip's whole deal with fractals and how the end of a situation totally depends on its beginning. And I wonder: Is it all Mom's fault? Does it go back that far? I mean, if Mom had been here, I never would have bought the camera. I never would have accidentally filmed Leah. I never would have...

Been there.

Leah dies. But am I innocent? Am I guilt-free? Does it all come down to Mom?

When she left for California, I was thirteen, almost fourteen. So they let me decide where I would live and which parent I would be with. And you know what? That's total bull. Because it's so not cool to sit down a kid and say, basically, "Who do you love more?"

Especially when you do it the way my parents did it. They sat me down and Mom did all the talking. I already knew they were getting divorced and that Mom was moving to California. I guess I thought Dad would move there, too. I don't know-maybe that's stupid. Maybe it's wishful thinking. I look back on it now and I think I was just in shock from everything. I wasn't thinking straight. I was thinking really, really crooked back then.

So Mom said to me, "Kevin, your father and I think you're old enough to make this decision. You know I'm going to California. We want to let you decide if you want to go with me to California or stay here in Brookdale with Dad."

I was thirteen, remember. The idea of picking up and moving across the country was scary. I would have a new school. I would have to make new friends, and-tell the truth-I wasn't very good at that. And who knew what it would be like in California?

Plus, I liked the townhouse we lived in. It was in a nice part of Brookdale. I could ride my bike all over the place.

"We might have to move," Dad said, popping that particular balloon. "I don't know yet. But we would stay in Brookdale and you would still go to South Brook."

That sounded good.

Mom chewed her bottom lip. "Honey, you don't have to decide right now if you don't want to."

I suddenly realized that my little brother was nowhere to be found. "Where's Jesse?"

"He's at Gramma's house for the day."

That was another reason to stay, I guess. Gramma Ross lived in Baltimore.

"What did he decide?"

A look pa.s.sed between my parents just then. To this day, I don't know what the h.e.l.l it meant. It looked like guilt and accusation and anger and resignation all mixed up and mashed into one big dripping wad of emotion.

"Jesse's too young to make this decision. He's only seven. He's..." Mom hesitated for a second. "We've decided ... your father and I, that is. We've decided he's going to come to California with me."

That pretty much decided it for me right there. My little brother could be a big pain in the b.u.t.t a lot of times, but he was still my brother. We were a set. A pair. We were like peanut b.u.t.ter and chocolate, like Batman and Robin, like spaghetti and garlic bread. I took care of him. And he...?

He made me feel good that I was taking care of him.

I would just have to get used to California.

I could see Dad over Mom's shoulder, standing there, his shoulders slumped. He nodded, his face sad. It was like I'd said something already. It was like he could read my decision off of my face.

"If you go with me, you'll be with me and with Jesse," Mom said, her voice even. And then-because Mom was always fair above all else-she went on: "If you stay here, you'll be in the same school, have the same friends. And your dad will be there to help you when you're becoming a man."

I barely heard her. I mean, the words went into my ears and into my brain and I understood it all, but it's like it didn't matter. I couldn't stop looking at Dad. I felt so sorry for him. All I could think was If I go to California, he'll be all alone.

"I'll stay here with Dad," I heard myself say, and when Dad smiled, I knew I'd done the right thing.

After Mom and Jesse left, we moved into Mrs. Mac's bas.e.m.e.nt apartment and things just ... sucked.

I started hanging out with the Council more and more, and our pranks really took off. It helped a little bit. It kept me distracted. Sometimes.

Always only sometimes.

I realized pretty quickly that I'd made a mistake. Without Mom around to keep him even and read his mind, Dad started having more and more problems communicating. With the hours his job demanded, we saw each other less and less.

For the first time, I noticed how many pills my dad took each day. I had gotten used to him popping a few before he went to bed, but now that we were sharing the same tiny bathroom, I couldn't avoid the fact that our medicine cabinet had a lot of medicine in it! He's on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, which ... You'd think they would just cancel each other out, but I guess not, because the doctors at the VA keep prescribing them and he keeps taking them.

One time Mom called when Dad was out and I got to talk to her without him lurking around and overhearing. I came right out and asked her: "What's wrong with Dad?"

"The divorce has been tough on him, too," she said diplomatically.

"Mom, come on." I wanted to say, Is it about the army? but I knew better. Dad's time in the army was taboo. or, better yet, proscribed. (That's not like getting your medicine at the pharmacy. It's a different word. It's this cool word that Father McKane uses. It means things you can't do. Forbidden. Like how adultery is proscribed by the Ten Commandments and all that.) But Mom wouldn't spill. Some old, lingering loyalty to her ex-husband? Guilt? I don't know. But in the end, no matter how much I begged, all she would say was "There are a lot of things wrong with your father. The world didn't turn out the way he thought it should. He didn't turn out the way he ... Look, Kevin. Just don't bother him when he's like this, OK?"

He has good days and bad days, she told me. He's always been like that, she told me. You know that.

I thought a bunch of times about telling him I'd changed my mind. But Mom's place in California was small. How could I force her to make room for me? I had made the decision, right? She'd left it up to me, and that was that. I couldn't go back on it now.

I also had this weird inkling, this feeling that I couldn't get rid of. It was the idea that maybe this was what Mom and Dad had wanted, what they'd agreed to. I knew other kids whose parents had huge custody battles when they got divorced. I think Mom and Dad figured they'd just split up the kids. Make it easy. No fighting that way. And I knew something that my parents didn't know I knew-I knew that they had had Jesse to try to save their marriage. I overheard them one night. (It wasn't tough-they were yelling.) I mean, he's six years younger than I am. They were desperate.

I couldn't decide if that made Jesse more important than me or less important. I mean, on the one hand, he was this Golden Child, born to save the marriage.

On the other hand, it didn't work.

I still felt like he was some kind of prize, though. Mom pretty much talked me into staying with Dad, didn't she? It was never really my decision. But she made d.a.m.n sure she took Jesse, no matter what.

Maybe it didn't matter, though. As miserable as I was, Dad was even worse. If I left, Dad would be all alone. I couldn't do that to him.

Even though I really, really wanted to.

The only thing that helped the misery ... was Leah. When I stumbled over those stolen moments of her, it's like my life changed. For a little while. I didn't feel as lonely. And that was good.

Right?

I don't know. I roll over and feel for my keys on the coffee table I use as a nightstand. The key to Brookdale is on the ring. I hold it in a tight fist.

I wish it opened something.

In my dream, I know it's the Surgeon. It's not just some creepy guy in an alleyway threatening Leah-it's Michael Alan Naylor and I know that from the get-go.

I throw down my backpack, just like in real life.

But in my dream, I do more than just tackle him, do more than just hold him while Leah calls the cops on her cell. In my dream, I knock him to the ground, land on top of him, thrashing him over and over, beating his face into a ma.s.s of red pulp. He tries to beg, to plead, but he can't even talk for the shattered teeth and the mucus and blood and c.r.a.p clogging up his throat and my fists pounding his face over and over. Because in the dream I knew it was him, see? And I threw myself at him anyway, with reckless abandon, not caring about my own safety, not worried that he's raped and murdered four girls already, that he's bigger and stronger than I am. All I know is that I've followed him here, stalked the stalker, and now I'm beating him, maybe to death.

In my dream.

In my dream, I'm a hero.

I wake up, and my fingers are moving on their own. I'm crossing myself, like I used to do back when I prayed. When we stopped going to Ma.s.s, I sort of lost the habit of praying-it seemed weird without Ma.s.s to back it up.

So now here I am, like I'm back at Ma.s.s, my hands folded together, the key pressed between them, eyes aimed at the ceiling, ready to talk to G.o.d.

But I don't know what to say.

SELF-LOATHING #2.

Dad's gone in the morning, of course. Off heaving other people's garbage, probably solving world hunger in the back of his mind while he's at it. Mom used to say that Dad had two compartments in his brain and that they didn't connect. There was the part that kept him showered and fed and shaved-that was the smaller part. Then there was the part that wanted to save the world. That's the bigger part. Problem is, without the one regulating the other, the big part just sort of runs amok sometimes. He can't stop it; he can't direct it.

What happens is that sometimes his mouth can't keep up with his brain. So he starts talking, like, ten words ahead and then he realizes he's out of sync and he tries to catch up, but his brain's still running a mile a minute, so he just gets even more jumbled up. And in his brain it all makes sense, so then he gets frustrated that you don't understand what he's thinking and that just makes him even worse. He's like a kid who needs Ritalin, which my dad might need, actually, now that I think of it, so we can just add that to the list of drugs he's already taking.

Anyway, since I'm alone, I do what I do on most mornings-I rummage around for a videotape and watch it for a little while. It's that first tape I made at the Burger Joint, way back when. It's cued up to the part with Leah. I watch it a little bit.

Then I switch it out for another tape. The picture is jerky and moves too much-even with the motion stabilizer turned on.

I swallow with a dry throat. on eBay, I've seen people sell cameras that can see through clothing. or special lens attachments that shoot at ninety-degree angles, so that you can aim at one thing but record something in a different direction, without anyone knowing.

G.o.d, I hate myself.

I hate myself, but I can't stop myself. If the camera wasn't broken, I could bring it to the party at Leah's. To the pool party.

An X-ray lens. Filming right through a wet bathing suit ...

G.o.d. Stop it, Kross! Stop it!

I watch the tape and I hate myself over and over again.

At times like this, I wish I could pray. For strength. Strength to stop. But I can't do either.

Chapter 12.

Villain-Type

I don't know much about cars. The one the mayor has picked out for me is brown.

After school, Dad takes me to the lot and literally kicks the tires-don't ask me why. He pokes around under the hood, grunts and clucks his tongue a couple of times, and then, as if he can't believe he's doing it, nods and gives me the OK to buy the thing.

There are reporters here for the Big Event-two local guys with their photographers and a kid from the school paper with his little digital camera. It cracks me up that there needs to be five people here to record me getting a car.

Poor mayor, though. He's getting his free publicity, but he's a little depressed to find that I don't actually have the reward money yet. The producers of Justice! have to fill out all kinds of legal paperwork and stuff. But there are press people right here, and I guess he doesn't want word to get out that he denied the Hero of Brookdale his pre-owned wheels.

"You come back in a couple of hours and I'll have some paperwork figured out."

So that's how it goes, only Dad has to get to bed early for work, so I call Flip later that day to take me there.

It's like nothing's changed-the press people are still here, and I amuse myself for maybe half a second by imagining that they've been waiting this whole time for me. But they all look sort of cranky and p.i.s.sed off, so I imagine the truth instead: The mayor got all up in their faces and made them come back to see the actual Hand-off of the Car.

Flip checks out the car and p.r.o.nounces it worthy (like I care) and then goes off while the mayor puts the papers together for me. I sign everything and we're good to go. He hands me the keys and puts an arm around my shoulders, with a look on his face that says, I'm so glad there's a camera here to catch this!

"Enjoy the car, Kevin. G.o.d knows you earned it and more." He probably wishes there were a TV crew, too. He can probably envision the headlines: Mayor Advises Local Hero.

And then, just as I'm about to hop into the car, the mayor suddenly snaps his fingers. "Wait a minute, Kevin!" He rushes into the office and comes back with two magnetic ribbons that he slaps on the back of the car-the one on the left is yellow and says support our troops. The one on the right is red, white, and blue and says united we stand.

"Can't let you drive out of here without those, can I?" He winks at me.

The two newspaper reporters and their camera slaves leave, but the school reporter hangs around. "Mind if I follow you for a bit?" he asks.

"Uh, why?"

He shrugs. "My editor thought it might be a cool idea to show you with the car in your driveway or something like that."

It's official. This whole town has gone Kevin Krazy. "Fine. Whatever."

And then I'm driving home. Wow!

It's weird, driving by myself. It's like I'm super-aware of all the other cars. When you're a pa.s.senger, you don't have to pay attention to them, but now that I'm behind the wheel it's like they're all up in my face. And I guess the mayor was right that you can't drive without those ribbons, because every single car I see on the way home has at least one and usually two of them. There are so many people from here serving in the military-Brookdale's always been a patriotic place.

I park the car right up against the house on the side that faces the main road. There's a parking pad there with room for two cars-Mrs. Mac always parks in the back, so there's always been this empty s.p.a.ce, and now it's mine. G.o.d, it's so cool! I stand there for a few minutes, looking at my car, in my driveway. The school reporter takes a couple of pictures of me standing there with my hand on the car and I'm so happy that I can't help it-I smile for the camera.

Inside, I get a surprise-Dad's still up, yawning and grumbling, but still awake. This happens sometimes, when he just can't sleep. I try not to annoy him as I start to throw together something for dinner. Man, this reward money has totally changed my life ... and I don't even have it yet!