“What’s your hurry?” Mo wanted to know.
Before Clay could answer, someone shouted from a back bedroom.
“Cállate,” Clay repeated. “Does that mean shut up?”
“Not exactly. My abuelita just wants us to keep it down. Come on, hang out, bro. Don’t you want to be around when Savannah gets back? Spoil the goodnight kiss?”
Again that grin, mischievous as hell, but not without its sympathy. It was an expression that said, Whoever she’s out there with can fuck off. Let’s ruin his night! And Clay pondered the long drive home, the empty night of staring at his bedroom ceiling, alone with Boyle’s secret, wondering where Savy was, why she’d lied, and he decided that yes, he did indeed want to create a French-kiss interruptus between her and her mystery man.
Mo’s night had been spent in a heated game of solitaire, but he quickly reshuffled the deck for nickel poker. Despite his father owning a card table, Clay knew little about cards, and before long Savy’s brother had proven as much, accruing the vast majority of the nickels and quarters and dollars from Clay’s wallet. “Good thing it’s not strip poker,” Mo laughed. “Your sausage and eggs would be dangling by now.”
Clay did his best to keep his voice low for the sleeping grandmother, even if Mo didn’t know the meaning of volume control. But she finally emerged from the bedroom, a blinking old woman hardly taller than a child, favoring a limp in her left leg. Her face was rutted with wrinkles, but her eyes were razor-sharp appraising Clay. By the time she was all the way to the kitchen/living room, she seemed to conclude that he was not one of Mo’s junkie friends. She said something quickly in Spanish and Mo translated: “She wants to know if you like carne asada.”
Clay didn’t want the woman to cook for him, especially when he spied how little there was in the fridge, but Mo shook his head—wrong answer—and Clay told her, “That sounds terrific, thanks so much.”
“Yes, be extra nice to this one, abuela,” Mo told her. “He’s going to make us rich.”
They went on playing cards as the smells of seasoned beef and green chilis wafted through the room. Mickey’s nostrils flared and he stirred and rose off the floor and automatically began setting the table like some sort of robot child. “I don’t know if Savy told you,” Mo was telling him, “but I’m getting myself clean.”
“That’s great,” Clay replied, hoping he sounded convinced.
“I’ve tried a few times before, right, abuela? But this time’s real.”
The grandmother responded with something like You better! Which Mo pretended not to hear. When the woman delivered a plate of quesadillas, she stepped back and watched Clay take his first bite. “Mmmm, amazing,” he said, and meant it.
“You are the new singer in Savannah’s band?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“She has great hope in you. You know this, yes?”
“She’s the best guitarist I’ve ever played with. I think we have hope in each other.”
To this point, the grandmother had addressed him with the warmest of smiles, but all at once it was gone, swallowed up in a scowl that accentuated every wrinkle in her face. “Hope is not always so good.” She kissed Mickey on the side of the head and swatted Mo on the side of his, then returned to bed without taking a single bite herself.
“She’s very protective,” Mickey whispered.
“Our mother married the wrong man,” Mo said, watching his cards. “He convinced her to dump Savy and me with our grandparents and run off. The bitch came back a few years later with an even bigger scumbag and dropped Mickey off with barely an introduction. I heard she has another kid somewhere now. We’ll meet them sooner or later.” He took up a pack of Camels and began fiddling with the cigarettes inside. “My abuelita lives her life frightened that Savy is going to marry an evil prick and I’m going to OD under some overpass and Mickey here is going to end up peddling for the local crews.”
“She has a right to be afraid,” Mickey shot back. “All three will probably happen.”
Clay chewed his quesadilla to prolong his silence. To hear such cynicism from a ten-year-old was depressing—Mickey was wise beyond his years for all the wrong reasons—but to see how casual the brothers were about their eventual downfall was worse.
“I’m getting clean,” Mo repeated. He threw his cards down and slouched deeper in his seat. “It’s rough, though. Like a boot camp for everything in your body. You can’t imagine ’less you go through it.”
Clay nodded, understanding that Mo was fishing for a kindred spirit. But like Boyle, Clay thought some secrets should be kept. Even if Savy somehow accepted his past, he didn’t want her viewing him in the same light as Mo. He wanted to be someone she respected. He wanted, specifically, to best whoever she was out with tonight.
After their meal, Mo stood to wash the dishes, and Mickey took his brother’s place as poker dealer and was soon destroying Clay too. The three of them played cards and watched Adult Swim through the night. At dawn, when Clay finally left, Savy was still not home.
11
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
“Johnny Ace,” Fiasco told them. “Died playing Russian roulette.”
“Cliff Burton,” Spider replied from the shotgun seat. “Bus accident in Sweden.”
“Buddy Holly,” Savy said behind him. “Fell out of the sky.”
“Ritchie Valens,” Mo countered. “Fell out of the sky at the same time.”
“Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Clay added. “Fell out of the sky at a different time.”
“John Denver, Otis Redding,” Spider replied. “Ditto.”
“Stiv Bators,” Fiasco reminded them, “run down by a taxi in Paris.”
“The Exploding Hearts,” Savy said reverently. “The entire band, lost in a van accident.” This halted the conversation briefly, while everyone contemplated the fact that Fiasco was racing them along in a van with bad brakes and no side mirrors.
“John Lennon,” Clay said. “Accident with an obsessed fan in New York.”
“Kurt Cobain,”
