“Boosting smokes. Why take the chance? Maybe Camels are a little steep but couldn’t you smoke Mistys or something? Buck ten, something like that, aren’t they?”
“Ain’t got a buck ten,” she says through a mouthful of donut.
“So get a job.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. It’s stained with the jelly. There’s a dot of it on the tip of her nose too.
“Up yours. I got one. Clean house for a couple old bags on Saturday. That’s all I can swing and play basketball and go to school. Nobody’s hiring skinheads to flip burgers.”
“That’s your choice, how you look. If you don’t make enough money to burn, that’s another good reason not to smoke.”
She crumples the bag and tosses it at him. He catches it and drops it to the seat.
“How ‘bout I’m hooked on the frigging things? I’m also hooked on eating, at least a couple times a day. What d’ya think, I should cut the designer rags and my masseuse outa my budget?”
The Mutant’s mother is a clerk in a convenience store, which can’t pay much, but she shacks with a factory worker, so there’s another income. The Mutant can’t really be feeding herself. She did go at the donuts like a junkyard dog at a bag of garbage but she must burn a lot of energy playing ball. How much could she smoke in one day, if she maybe snuck a couple at school and she could really only do it at home? Even at minimum wage, she has to earn more than the price of a carton of butts a week. He doesn’t buy it; it’s self-serving bullshit.
“Maybe you ought to cut the doobage outa your budget.”
“You don’t know shit, do you? I never paid cash money for rope in my life.”
Sam tightens like a slipknot. Crushing his empty cup, he lets it fall to the floor. “Right. What I admire is your ambition, Gauthier. You’re not going to let anyone stop you from petty thievery or doping or sleazing. That’s the kind of class you showed in the semifinals, getting your ass kicked out—”
The Mutant throws the last of her cocoa at him. “Who the fuck gave you a license to preach? Just take me home, asshole.”
“My pleasure,” he mutters, biting back you bitch. He won’t lower himself to her level. He won’t make himself a dog—that’s what Pearl says calling a woman that word makes a man. It’s one of the few words on which his stepmother holds strong views.
Wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket, he throws the truck angrily into gear. Depot Street is only a few minutes away. She stops him a good two blocks from the end of the street where she lives.
“This is far enough.”
“I’ll take you to the door.”
“No!”
“It’s no big deal.”
“No!” She is growing frantic. “My mother’s boyfriend gives me crap when a guy brings me home. I don’t need it tonight.”
Wrestling clumsily with her gear, she’s out the door.
“You’re welcome,” Sam calls sarcastically after her as he stretches to close the door she has left open.
She flips him a bird and stumbles down the broken sidewalk toward home.
6
In a sweet haze of cigarette smoke, Tony’s watching tube. Judy isn’t home yet.
The Mutant pauses by the couch. Takes a deep breath that makes the craving worse. “Bum a smoke?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “What’ll you gimme for it?”
She flings away from him, furious. No way will she fuck Tony for a drag. Dumping her junk in her room, she slips upstairs in hopes of kiting a pack from the carton Judy leaves on the top of her dresser but wouldn’t-ya-know the shitting thing is empty.
Tony cranes back over his shoulder as she slouches down the stairs. She stares at him. He grins at her.
Bolting into her room, she throws her books around and slams herself onto her cot. She could puke, she is so angry at Samgod. There’s no hope of Judy letting her have any of hers when she gets home. Once Judy’s taken the edge off her day with a mug of J.D., though, maybe she can lift some from her bag. Goddamn Samgod. For about three seconds, she actually considers blowing Tony for a pack of butts. Attempts to bargain with him always bring more grief than profit. She could never trust him not to go back on it.
To celebrate her departure, Sam palms a dub into the truck’s tape player. The first cut is Shinehead’s reggae cover of “One Meat Ball.” He cranks the volume. It’s offbeat enough to restore his sense of humor a little. What a bitch she is. There are at least two guys on his own team he loathes but he makes himself leave that personal shit behind when they’re on the court. He can do it with her too. The girls had better not count on her, though. Next practice, he’ll take a closer look at their backup quarterback, Billie Figueroa. If he can help Billie, he will, and the Mutant be damned.
Reuben’s restored ‘63 Eldorado hulks like a sleek, beautiful beached whale outside the Chinese restaurant. Sam’s suddenly hungry enough to eat the Eldorado. It ticks at him in passing. He walks his fingertips affectionately over the still-warm hood. It only gets out for special. There’s no reason to baby it; it’s a tank with a monster mill under the hood. On a few occasions he has driven it himself, each time with rediscovered wonder that his father doesn’t drive it every day. He would, if it were his. He would drive it all day, do nothing but drive it. Possibly that was why his father used it sparingly, so he could have time to make a living, rebuild the farmhouse, shit like that.
Next morning as the radio weatherman warns of snow, Sam checks the contents of his duffel. He fingers the caps of his high-tops where the rubber has begun to shingle and split. Already more Shoe
